Episode 93 of The Hunting Stories Podcast is live with the one and only Tony Gilbertson, an ace in the art of elk calls and a treasured contributor to the hunting community. In our latest episode, we unpack Tony's evolution from a rifle hunter taught by his father to a masterful archer, as he weaves a colorful narrative of his escapades in the Pacific Northwest's untamed forests. We're talking full-bodied laughter, misadventures with backpack casualties, and even a spirited debate on plant-based meat—all with my good friend and Phelps game call sponsored athlete.
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Episode 93 of The Hunting Stories Podcast is live with the one and only Tony Gilbertson, an ace in the art of elk calls and a treasured contributor to the hunting community. In our latest episode, we unpack Tony's evolution from a rifle hunter taught by his father to a masterful archer, as he weaves a colorful narrative of his escapades in the Pacific Northwest's untamed forests. We're talking full-bodied laughter, misadventures with backpack casualties, and even a spirited debate on plant-based meat—all with my good friend and Phelps game call sponsored athlete.
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Tony
Hunting Stories
Youtube
Howdy folks, and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we got another great one for you today. Today, we actually connect with Tony Gilberton. Tony is a world elk calling champion, he's a Phelps game called sponsored athlete and he's just an all around fun guy. I want to thank Tony, of course, for coming on the podcast. It was a pleasure speaking with him and hearing his stories and it was really fun making fun of a friend of ours.
Speaker 1:That being said, guys, thank you for tuning in. I do want to apologize real quick. I recorded about three episodes with bad equipment and this is the last of those, so my audio is mediocre. Tony's is just fine. Starting next week, we will get back to quality audio, so sorry about that. But thank you for tuning in. Make sure you follow Tony on Instagram, give us a follow, follow us on YouTube. I did just set up a YouTube account and soon enough I will eventually be posting videos of all of these podcasts. We'll get there. But thank you, guys, now let's go ahead and let Tony tell you some of his stories. Alright, tony, welcome to the hunting stories podcast. Brother, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good, michael. How are you doing tonight?
Speaker 1:I am doing real well. I'm really excited to talk with you. I know we've been trying to get this thing to happen for a while. I think it was before. I mean, it had to be like August or something when we first started discussing maybe having you on the podcast. I'm glad we were finally able to make it work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too, life gets in the way, for sure. I think we had hunting season come up and with, as busy as I was, back in August, and I mean August, september and the first part of October, and we had some things to deal with as far as family goes. But yeah, I'm excited to jump on here and talk a little bit about hunting stories.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man. I'm excited to have you here. Why don't we kick this thing off right? Let's just let you introduce yourself, be as detailed or as vague as you want, tony, but why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners today?
Speaker 2:Alright, well, my name is Tony Gilbertson. I live in a little town called Vernonia, oregon. It's in the foothills of the coast range up in the northwest corner of the state. Been out here for about oh shoot 34 years now and I love it here. I can get off of work and be out in the woods hunting in 15 minutes For you. I love living in a small town and can't stand big cities and it's like being close to nature. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, been out here for 34.
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, continue, continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 34 years Married my junior high school sweetheart, been married for 35 years and have one son. And I guess I started my hunting you know, probably like a lot of kids when I was 12 years old. My dad was a rifle hunter, not an archery hunter, and I fell in love with archery hunting. So I've been an archery hunter for quite some time now. Started off a little bit rough because nobody really taught me how to do anything, so it was a lot of trial and error and, honestly, it still is at times, I think. Yep, so if anybody says they've got it all dialed in and have nothing else to learn, or they're either confused or lying to you, that's the truth, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I taught myself archery too, except I did it in the era of YouTube. I don't even know how you manage to get all that stuff done, tony. I've only been hunting for, I would say, eight, nine years at this point, an archery maybe six. So it's a hard thing to pick up, even when you have unlimited videos of everything you need to know. So credit to you for making that jump and getting into archery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had YouTube back when I started hunting.
Speaker 1:Archery, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:I did a lot of solo hunting, especially around here, which makes it even tougher, you know, and especially when you're trying to call bulls in in this jungle that I live in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I have a specific. I think it's the first time someone's ever said I have to ask you a specific question. First question, specifically for my guest, from one of your friends. He was with you a couple weeks ago. You may know him. His name is Jason Phelps and I spoke with him earlier today.
Speaker 2:He said that I had to ask you. I know where you're going with this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might have the details wrong. I'm not entirely sure, but you told me that I'm supposed to ask you about your love for impossible birds.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that you know that guy. In fact I just. It's funny because I don't know if he's on a trip or headed somewhere, but you know how they post ask me a question or something like that on our Instagram page. Well, he did that tonight and I asked him a question. I said would you ever intentionally watch somebody eat? Fake me? And I haven't seen his response yet.
Speaker 2:but I'm curious to see that, but yeah, I, you know, I, I I feel very fortunate. Jason has become a really good friend of mine. I'm on Phelps pro team with with Jermaine and a few other guys and you know being being Jermaine's been on here. But I told Jason I said I was, you know, looking really forward to working the Portland, the Northwest, the Civic Northwest Sportsman show. Yeah, and so I stayed with with Jason at this Airbnb and we'd stop at Starbucks every morning on the way and I don't usually hit Starbucks just because I'm not a big fan.
Speaker 2:And you know I I mentioned I live in a small town. We don't have Starbucks, we don't have fake meat, we don't have any of that stuff. So we go to Starbucks and you know we're getting something off the little breakfast menu there and I see things that look like like an egg McMuffin. I thought I don't want one of those. And then there was this Travada roll and I thought why don't I like that stuff? You know I'll get one of those. And it said it was. It was an impossible sandwich, but look like it had sausage and cheese and egg on it, you know. So I ordered one of those and a coffee and we go sit down and now they start to eat this thing and Jason's looking at the receipt and he says who ordered the impossible sandwich?
Speaker 2:I said, well, I think I did. He says you know what you're eating. I said well, I guess I'm just eating a sausage sandwich or something you know. He says you're eating fake meat. And I said what I said are you kidding me right now? And no, he started. Everybody started laughing at me. I thought it was a big joke, but I still.
Speaker 2:I really think that they heard me order it and they were just waiting for him to get back to the table to take a bite of that sandwich before they said anything. So I even asked. I had no idea what impossible meant. I mean yeah. So I went up to the lady at the counter and I said hey. I says is that, is that sandwich really a fake meat in it? It's impossible really mean fake meat. And she looked at me and started laughing and she's like yeah, it does. I said you guys need to put a disclaimer on your menu from now on. I said I can't. This is the first time in my life I've eaten fake meat and it's the last time, now, that I know what impossible means. And there's another word, there's another term for fake meat Gosh, dang it Now. I forgot this. See, I'm going to have to remember that one.
Speaker 1:Beyond, beyond, beyond, that's it, beyond. I've heard that I think that might be a brand or something. I'm not really sure.
Speaker 2:Man, I can't believe it. I'm still. I told Jason here a couple weeks ago. I've still seen a counselor read out.
Speaker 1:That's what he said. That's what he said. He was like, yep, he took it by accident, had no idea what he was doing, and he's still torn up about it. So I am he wanted to make sure that, I make sure that the the fresh right.
Speaker 2:Rip that scab right back off of there.
Speaker 1:That's too good. Jason was excited to hear that I was going to talk to you, but we're not here to talk about fake meat, no matter how much you want to talk about it, tony. We're here to hear some of your favorite hunting stories, man. So why don't we, why don't we dive into it? You can, you can tell maybe the backstory, maybe the setting for the story, and then just jump into it, and I'll try and not screw you up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'll start out, I guess, by telling a bit about the recent, the most recent hunt that I did up here in Idaho with B&G mentioned Jermaine earlier. So Jermaine myself, eric Berglin and a few camera guys went up into North Idaho for a hunt and we were supposed to go up there and film this hunt for to get some footage of us calling and hopefully notching the tag to launch these new diaphragm elk calls that Phelps came out with for us, these signature diaphragm calls. So, anyway, so that was, that was how we ended up there together. So we we get up into camp and we all arrived separately and I was like I don't know nine hours for me and Jermaine. I think it was 20, 24 hours, 23 hours something like that anyway, and then he probably told you.
Speaker 1:But he blew out his like transmission like. So he killed a bull with me and then he was hunting with Pat Littrell for another couple days right and he blew his truck up and so like he ran back to town his truck fix, just so he could get back up with you boys. I don't know if you knew that.
Speaker 2:I did not know that, but I'll tell you. Speaking of his truck, so he drives, you know, 20 some odd hours straight through to get to camp and it's dark by the time he gets there and and I think they they got in there the day before I did, and I roll into camp and I see his truck there and and I had never seen his truck other than pictures, but I noticed there was a fair amount of body damage on both right rear corners is like both tail lights were were smashed out and and the bed of the truck was buckled on both sides. And so, jermaine, he was so tired that he got, he got, and it was dark when he got there.
Speaker 2:He got lost and and so the story goes that he, he, he's, he's lost, he's pulling this trailer like a little utility trailer and he goes to back thing up this, back this trailer up and he jackknives it and he jacked, nice it so hard that I think it was the side of the trailer, went around and hit his, hit his tail light on one side and buckled the bed on on that, on which side he did first. Anyway, he's driving around up in the woods is dark, he gets turned around again, so he tries to turn on the other way, jackknife set the other way and does the exact same thing on the other side. So he's got matching Broken tail lights and the pickup beds all smashed in on both sides.
Speaker 1:So you didn't share any of that with me. Oh yeah, you'll ask him about that Anyway.
Speaker 2:So that was, that was kind of a fun way to start that that trip off. So we'd never not neither of us or any of us had really hunted together before. We've just, you know, we've become friends through Competing at the Rockman L foundation real dot-colon contest, yeah. So you know, it was a good way to, you know, kind of start off the hunt there, just kind of get a laugh. But Anyway, so I had my, my cargo trailer, I backed it into, eric had his there, and then Jermaine had a big tent set up with a stove in it, you know, and and it was a pretty good little set up, they had a canopy with a tent or a canopy with our kitchen and you know, we're out in the middle of nowhere and didn't have any wife or anything, but one of the camera guys brought Starlink up there. So we were, we were kind of sitting good up there, we had the internet and there you go Wi-Fi it was, it was good but anyway.
Speaker 2:So I think the first morning we hunted close to camp and we, you know, just like I said, none of us really hunted that area. So we were out road bugling trying to find elk and we found a couple Not too far from camp, but nothing really panned out with those. They kind of they kind of shut down, didn't didn't say a lot, it was. It was cold, it rained up there a fair amount, so it was wet and kind of nasty and my experience with with those bulls, when it, when it gets wet, most of time they just shuts them down, they go to hunker down and they wait till the storm subsides before they start, you know, getting vocal again. But yeah, anyway, so that was, that was the first day, but I'll get in kind of the the.
Speaker 2:The most memorable, memorable part of this hunt for me was we one morning loaded up all the quads and we drive several miles from camp and we get back in, we park the car or the truck and unload the quads and and we yeah, I Might be getting part of the story screwed up, but I'm I'm like myself and Pat the trail were like away from from Eric's truck and Eric Eric got, got back to his truck and was gonna move it. Well, pat put his, leaned his pack, this brand-new kafaru pack, right up next to to Eric's truck. Yeah, here it kind of pulls forward and it goes to back up and backs up over the top. That that's, that's brand-new pack. That's going oh no, I mean just standard kind of kind of calm, actually not, you know, he's just oh oh, my pack, oh oh no, he's gonna run on my pack.
Speaker 2:Oh, he just ran over my pack and then impression of Pat.
Speaker 2:He didn't quite make it right so he kind of he pulled forward, cut it around again and and I'll be darned if he didn't back over his pack Twice and Pat's going. Oh man, like he. Just he just ran over my pack again. I can't believe he did this. Anyway, that was kind of that was one thing to happen on that hunt and then.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, we got the quads loaded up there, unloaded, and we had to ride this old road back behind this lot gate for I don't know a few miles, and we get back there, turn the quads off, get our packs on and and we start hiking back up in there. And there's several, it's, it's a, it's a roadless area. Once you get back in there, there's a main trail that goes back up in there and this is, this is Big country, it's steep, it's probably I'm not not probably it is the steepest country I've ever hunted and it's and it's fairly thick. I'm used to hunting really thick country here on the coast, but it's, it's, it's a different kind of thick. We got a lot more underbrush. It is definitely thicker here, but it was still for For what I'm used to hunting out of state, it was really thick.
Speaker 2:Anyway, we're hiking back on the main trail and there's, we come. We come to this, this creek crossing, and the creek's probably I don't know, I'm a guess and 30 feet across, something like that, and it's maybe a couple feet deep at the deepest part. So we're trying to get across these, trying to figure out how to get across without getting wet right, slipping down and getting our boots wet or whatever. And so we're trying to hop from rock to rock to get across, and and one of the camera guys Goes across the creek, gets just about the other side, steps on one of those rocks and yeah, it was slimy, and yeah it was slimy, wet, and Down he goes and and he landed on his hip and bunged his hip up again a little bit and in his shin and and, of course, the camera went underwater and oh and uh, so that that kind of that kind of fell, that that camera and the backup camera was in Pat's backpack, which got run over three times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, fortunately we had, we had more camera guys there, so so, anyway, we we kind of shook the dust off or the water in this case, and all of us got across and and we sat there and ate a snack and and thought, well, we'll just you know, poor camera guy ringies ringy socks out and you know it's, it's bad enough you know, walk around on that country and in Sweaty socks with, you know, in your boots, but when they're all wet, I mean I my feet would have been torn up.
Speaker 1:Yep, I've made it to trip to town. One time we our boots got soaked and I went down just to buy a boot dryer because we were near ski town. So I was like, oh, they'll have boot dryer somewhere.
Speaker 2:So I went to the.
Speaker 1:Walmart found one for you know, eight bucks, and Now it's a permanent thing for my hunting camp. It's definitely something worth having around you. Just plug it into the generator. Dries a boot in five minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't have dry boots, that you can have a miserable hunt.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll have to remember that, anyway. So we we get our stuff together and we start hiking back in. We come to this big draw and Jermaine says, well, why don't you rip off a bugle here and we'll see what happens? So I let our bugle out and the first thing to respond was a pack of wolves. And I'm thinking, well, this isn't good, you know, but I, I mean, I was surprised by this, but it wasn't. Maybe I don't know 30 seconds, maybe a minute later, and a bull piped off on the other side of the drainage. Oh, wow, but he, he shut up, didn't say much after that. So we just figured probably wasn't worth going up and after him if, if, there was wolves there. So we kept on going.
Speaker 2:I got another bull to respond and so we took off up the mountain after that bull and I was the shooter that day, and so Eric and and Jermaine stayed back and they do some calling and it took quite some time to get that bull worked up to where he acted like maybe he was a little bit interested and start to come in and so, but he still, he would hang up. So I started working my way down. He was. He was on the other side of the drainage from me and there's just kind of this rock shoot. And so I was up on on On this side of the drainage and he was on the other side and pretty soon, you know, you could tell he was getting closer, he was bugling, you could tell he was getting closer, but he still. He was hanging up down on the very bottom and wouldn't come across that rock shoot. So Jermaine and and Eric start following me down the hill and they're calling and pretty soon I hear something down Down the drainage, further from where the bull was run across Through that rock drainage and up the other side towards me, but the bulls still down there bugling.
Speaker 2:I thought, well, that's got to be some of these cows, right? So, yeah, anytime I've had that situation where or I've been able to call cows Away from a bull or I've worked my way in and got between the bull and his cows. Man, if I rip off a bugle, that bulls coming on a string, right. I mean, he's like he knows you've got his cows now and he's gonna come and take him back from you. So I Don't know. Jermaine and Eric are probably, I'm guessing, 60, 80 yards above me. So I'm, and I can see the bull. He's walking back and forth through the trees there. He's a good bull, but there was no shot. He was probably 70, maybe 80 yards from me at that point.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so, knowing that those cows Assuming what were cows came on the other side, I I decided to take my tube off and throw a challenge bugle at him. So I just rip off this high-pitched challenge challenge bugle at him, thinking that's all it's gonna take, and he decided that he didn't like that. So Well, you know, it's weird, because I, you know, I didn't really I've had friends of mine tell me to pass it. You know I sounded too big, but I've called a lot of bulls in. It sounded like a big bull. You know, those bulls when they get, when they get mad and they get fired up, they're gonna sound big, they're gonna sound mean and they're gonna sound tough and they're gonna challenge you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but anyway, he took off up the ridge on the other side, and which kind of surprised me. But then I heard I heard some brush, you know cratch, cracking off to the left of me, and so I started working down the ridge towards where I could hear the noise and, sure enough, here come two cows, I think in a calf, and they were, I don't know, 10 yards for me probably, but so it was. It was the cows that that came across, but that bull talk off anyway. So we all kind of gather back up again and and try to make a game plan and Walk down across that shoot, got up on either side and there's a nice little clearing in there, and we sat there and ate some lunch and, and Pretty soon we could hear a bugle, quite a ways away from us.
Speaker 2:So we got our stuff packed up and we start working up the hill and you know I don't know what it was those bulls over there just weren't really all that fired up. We. We would hear a few bugles, but most of the bulls that we called in over there came in silent. You know, if you got into a herd You'd hear the herd bull, but he'd be quite a ways from us and he'd have his cows down there, and then you'd have all these satellites come in around you and we'd have two or three satellites come in and we'd have the wind in our favor and everything was going fine. But and those bulls were inch within shooting distance for sure. I mean, yeah, at some point some of these bulls were within 20, 30 yards the most, and you just couldn't see him. It's just that fit Wow.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. I'm never done anything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's nasty stuff. And then they've got this stuff called bear grass. I think it's called. I Don't know if you've ever had a country got bear grass in it, but that stuff's like stepping on ice.
Speaker 1:I Don't know if I have a bear grass. I mean, when I was having with Pat and Jermaine, they kept calling a bunch of stuff, you know bear brush and stuff like that. I'm not sure if that's the same stuff. All I remember about this bear brush is when I, when I did kill my bull, I was like you know I'm a novice.
Speaker 1:I'm like but the end is up or the antlers down. They're like oh, you're tall enough, go ahead and put them down, it'll be easier to get out. And so I put them down and now I'm just dragging these antlers through this bear brush for a mile. It was exhausting. It was like you guys are. I don't know if you do it on purpose, if you just mess it with me or not but like it was awful.
Speaker 2:I was like I just want to get into the trees and away from this brush. There's still laughing about that, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah no, this there's bear grass is just this clumpy grass, and it doesn't matter whether it's wet or not. You step on it and and you're gonna slide and but when it's wet it's even worse. I don't know what it is, but it's it's slippery stuff. But anyway, I'll get to a little bit more about that, that bear grass here in a little bit. But we start going up after this bull. We, we got to this area that had been all rotor tilled up, like I was talking about, and we could hear this bull Bugling and sound like he was getting closer, and pretty soon we could hear this branch break and so we knew he was getting closer and he was within a distance where you think you'd be able to get a shot at, and but again it was. It was thick enough where he just couldn't, and and then the wind swapped and that bull busted off out of there and that was into him. But so anyway, we kind of from that point we started working our way kind of down the ridge and we'd found a trail. You know, looking on on X we found this trail. So we started hiking this trail up and trail kind of started to Peter a little bit and then we picked it up again and and there was it. We heard a couple bulls bugling across again across this deep drainage, and there was a trail heading down that direction. So we started walking down that trail and by this time it's probably, I'm guessing, maybe five, five o'clock or something like that in the evening, and and it's it's a long ways down to the bottom. And then those bulls were up the other side, quite a ways to, and so I told your man, I said you know, I don't, I don't think we're gonna get over to those bulls in time, and even if we do, you know, with our, with our luck, the way it's been today, you know you get over close enough to them and they either shut up or the wind changes or something screws up anyway. So we decided to just keep. You know, we'd go down down this ridge and go across the creek and then go up the other side to where the main trail was that we walked in on, and so we start going down, down, down, and it's getting steeper, and I mentioned that bare grass earlier, yeah, and, and it didn't. It wasn't like it was a wet day, but, like I said, that stuff is so slippery I'd step on this. I mean, you're, you're literally grabbing on the branches, kind of lowering yourself down off this, off this ridge, to get down, hopefully, to the creek, so to get across either side, and you'd step on that bare grass and you'd slide, you know, probably 10 or 15 feet until you could grab something and and and stop yourself. So we did that for a ways until we got to this, to this big rock bluff, and and now we're clipped out and we're like, okay, now what are we gonna do? Because we're not prepared to stay the night up there. We don't have, we don't have the gear for that.
Speaker 2:So Anyway, eric went one direction to me, one another, and we finally found a way around this, this cliff again it was steep and and got down to the creek and it was. It was, you know, again you're having a walk on these slimy, slippy rocks to get the other side, and we found a little bit of a log, you know, kind of an old, dead log. You get across part of it and anyway, we got across the creek, got through some really thick, nasty stuff and Going up that other side. It was kind of one of those those deals where you, you, you, you kick the toe of your boots into the hillside and you strap your bow on your pack and you pull yourself up, grabbing to, grabbing on to whatever you can to get up to your side, yeah, and so we did that All the way up that mountain and finally got the trail right about dark and and and got out of there.
Speaker 2:And you know it was, it was, it was a, it was a fun day in a way. I mean we were chasing bugles, which which got us into trouble in the end, you know, but it was again. It was just, it was the steepest and nastiest country I think I've I've ever hounded up in there. But and and I didn't mention here's, I forgot to tell you about this, so as, as we're going through this, this is before we started going down that steep ridge. We're, we're trying to, you know, find our way over to where we thought we heard his bull and Jermaine's kind of leading the way at that at that point, and he's, I don't know, 10 yards in front of us or something. And and all of a sudden that guy turned around and Was on a dead run right back at us. And I did I mean his eyes, you know how. You know how his eyes get when he's telling the story.
Speaker 2:He's really into it, you know yeah well, imagine his eyes being twice that size and and he's like, he's like running, I mean he's. He's like busting out of there. He's like get, get, get, get out of here, get out of here. There's, there's bees over here, there's bees. He'd kicked, he had kicked, he had kicked the nest in the ground and they, they started swarming. Nobody got stung, but man, if you just seem to look on his face.
Speaker 1:Oh, my god, oh, it was so funny, that guy.
Speaker 2:Wait, wait. He took off out of there. I thought maybe there was a bear in the brush up ahead him or something.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I got. I got a story for you, tony. That reminds me so my early years hunting is muzzleloader in Washington and we we drew bull tags. You know it's easy to spike tag in Washington, bull tags. So we were we're giving a little extra time, but I had to go home for a couple days.
Speaker 1:In the middle of the season, just to you know, put in time with family work etc. And while I was gone, my, my brother-in-law and my friend Steven, right, they, they were gonna go put up, move some cameras around, try and catch some movement, see if the elk are even there. And While I was gone, they put up a camera and they my brother-in-law is about my height, 6, 4 he's reaching up and he's putting a camera nice and high on this Causeway of just like all sorts of different tracks coming through, and while he's on this log putting the camera up, the log Collapses underneath him and there's a bee hive inside of that log.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, so he doesn't think much of it. When it kind of cracks under him he's like, oh, it's an old log, but next thing he knows he is sworn. My father-in-law is there as well and I wish we had this video because it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. But it's basically him on a decent slope Playing with this thing and then all of a sudden he disappears running downhill and all you hear is screaming, just screaming, screaming, screaming. And so the story gets better because he loses his glasses, he gets stung. It was 30 plus times like his face was swollen.
Speaker 1:Arms and legs were swollen like he got. He got Bit up enough that he was like I'm done, like I'll come hunting with you guys, but I'm not going to like I'm not gonna leave camp.
Speaker 2:I was like I'll cook, but he's like.
Speaker 1:I'm over it. That was the worst experience of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he also was like go get my camera Again. My brother-in-law, he's six four, I'm also six four. My buddy, stephen, is maybe five, seven. So now me, who wasn't even there, is now officially delegated to return this camera to camp.
Speaker 1:So we come up with a couple different strategies. The first one we do is he goes, he gets a metal detector for one because he's trying to find his glasses. But we get like a piece of Tupperware and a bug bomb, and so we're, we come back a day later. We tape the bug bomb into the Tupperware so that the bug bomb kind of like stays in that one spot and Stephen walks in, pops the bug bomb, drops a thing on top of it, hoping he can clear the hot of the you know, the all the bees out, right? So we come back the next day and we're like, okay, let's see if that bug bomb worked. And we're sitting there about 25 yards, maybe 30, with our binos just trying to catch movement, nothing.
Speaker 1:So we got a BB gun with us because we're like, okay, we're not gonna go test this, we're gonna shoot that Tupperware with BBs until we kick something up. Or we decided, safe enough, yeah, and so we're shooting the Tupperware. Bees start swarming again, like, oh god, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? And so we're like, alright, so we go back to camp, like we'll go back to that tomorrow. They were, they were calm for a while, so we think we have the opportunity. They didn't put the lock on the camera, so all I did, all I had to contend with, was like the kind of like a backpack strap right, yeah, yeah hug it to the tree.
Speaker 1:But again we're talking. This thing's eight feet, eight and a half feet up in the air, something something crazy. And so we we're like all right, let's just put on all of our clothes, everything that we have. We're gonna duct tape our arms, you know, to our gloves. We're gonna duct tape our boots to our pants.
Speaker 1:We're gonna duct tape our waists, yeah, and then we're like, what do we do at our face? So we put our hoodies on and we try and cinch. You know, cinch the hoodies tight. I'm like no, that's not gonna work, that will still get us. So my brother-in-law is also a little bit of a hippie, so he had like kale chips and these like Tupperware bins man, that's as bad as fake meat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right. So so we dump the kale chips on the ground, like what are, we don't need those. And so then we put it. We put that in in the gap, like in the gap of our hoodie, right? So that since that around, and it just immediately fogs up. So now we can't see anything and we're like we're stumbling around. Okay, this thing gonna work either. So we're trying to puncture holes in it. We're just trying to think of a way to like protect our faces, and we're doing that with like recycled, you know, grocery store trash. So so, either way, we get there and my buddy's, like my buddy Steven's, like well, it's on you, man, just go in there and do it. And I'm like, how, this is the dumbest and I'm the new guy in camp. So I feel kind of obligated because I'm like, well, they invited me, I'm just happy to be here, sure, I'll go do it. And so, literally three or four days of us game planning how we're gonna do this, including getting Taco seasoned kale chips on our face Either way.
Speaker 1:I walk in there and, like I made up a little thing at camp where I could, I could with my gloves on practice undoing those little, those little things, and I just walk in there, pull it, strip it and walk right through and Not no worse for the wear, not sting, not one, not one buzz, but it was. I mean, we wasted so much time that we could have been hunting just like trying to outsmart this beehive. So it's funny that germane at that experience, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I've got my own beehive in the woods. Experience it's, it's not fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my brother-in-law, yeah nightmares.
Speaker 1:He had nightmares for like a year or two Just thinking about all those bees stinging him and get into the woods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, getting stung 30 times is no joke, that's no, that's not at all.
Speaker 1:That's not good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we encountered, I don't know, probably four or five different ground nests Over there and and we had to find ways around them and or you know, take off running like Jermaine did. He's about run us over. It was, it was pretty funny. But yeah, that that was. It was a fun trip. I call Next time you see, next time you see Jermaine. I won't go into too many details here, but there was a, there was a movie. I can't remember the name of the movie, but there was this. There was this little chihuahua dog that that always, always, humped one of them stuffed animals. I can't, I can't remember, I can't remember which.
Speaker 2:I'm not, like I said, I'm not gonna go into detail. I will tell you that they're germane. I'll just say that he loves it when I bugle he, he loves it when I'm just gonna leave it right there and and picture the little Chihuahua Humping the stuffed animal. I'm not that's. I can't go into detail. I I'm swerve to secrecy and and I have nicknamed him Rico Swade, by the way here we go. There we go, Okay well.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I want to ask him about that. I might leave that one, like as a mystery, I think. I think that's wrong. Leave that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nothing, nothing happened. You know nothing happened, but but anyway, yeah, so. So so that's that's kind of. I mean, we hunted around her for a while, went down a little bit further south In the unit germane, end up killing a bull. You know it was. It wasn't quite as steep and deep down there where we were. You ended up killing his bull, but that was, that was a. It was a. It was a great trip, I you know. I think I've become closer to all those guys as friends. Like I said, we hadn't had it together before and it was just good to spend some time with them.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but I develop a solid relationship with, with. I've never actually been in hunting camp with a woman, so I'll say with them, with, with another fella, yeah, go, go hunt with him, get in the woods, spend some time running from bees, whatever it takes. You know, playing whatever Chihuahua game you guys are playing. It's just a great. It's just a great way to, like you know, develop a really just solid friendship, and I assume it would also work with females. I just can't speak to that, but yeah, there's nothing like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was speaking hot with females, I, I. So another, another quick story I got for you here I, I learned actually a lot about archery hunting from a good friend of mine, his name Jean. His name is Jean all wine, and Years ago we I was, I was used to hunting around home here for the first few weeks and then For last week of the season. I usually take off and go over eastern Oregon and hunt with those guys and there was a and his wife would usually tag along, and so Not that I got much to tell about his wife being there, but that just reminded me about this other hunting story we would.
Speaker 2:There was this one area that we hunted over in the east in Oregon that Every morning we'd get up, probably no, I don't know like Three o'clock in the morning, we'd go out and we'd road bugle, and we always had this area we went to where we knew the elk would come down off the top of the mountain At night and it go down and feed in these meadows and then in the morning they take off and go back up to the top of the mountain and hit their, their bedding areas, and so we were out road bugle and then we'd stop I know every like half mile or something like that, and We'd turn the truck off and and and just let things kind of settle down a bit. And then we'd bugle and Back, probably 15 years ago we'd do that and we'd get you know four or five different bulls on this this one road that we'd go back in way in on and and we just find that what we thought was the hottest bull and we we'd just go back to it and park the truck and wait till I got daylight. Most of time We'd wait till it was daylight. But I got a little bit. I got a little bit Over zealous one morning and there was this bull that we named Jurassic Park because he sounded like. He sounded like a, you know a big Toronto, toronto, soros Rex, you know dinosaur, yeah, he had the the just the biggest, nasty, as deepest bugle you could ever imagine, and it was fun to listen to a bugle.
Speaker 2:And so we got out, we located this bull and we thought, well, we don't need to go any further. This is the guy that's that we want to go after. We could just tell by this, by his bugle. So we'd stay there and we just we'd set out there in the dark along this road and we get our packs and our bows and we just kind of sit there and just kind of wait for daylight to come, and but every once in a while I bugle just kind of see where he was. And you know, I've been told this, of course, I know it from experience now, but you know, these bulls have got an uncanny sense to like pinpoint where you're at within I Swear, like you know, 20 or 30 yards, yeah, and so, like I said, he would, he would quiet down, he only bugle when I bugle, and so he, he would, he would shut up and then I'd lose track of him. So I'd want to bugle again just to kind of relocate him because he was moving. And so, anyway, we I bugle every you know 20 minutes or something like this, try to figure out where he was. And the last time I bugled it said definitely sounded like he was getting closer, but again, he would, he wouldn't bugle on this idea.
Speaker 2:So it was, it was still dark, it was just starting to crack daylight, but you still it was. You know there was in dark timber, so you couldn't really see much. And I let out one more bugle to try to figure out where he was. And that bull, I mean I Couldn't see my buddy. He must have been, I Swear, 10 yards from us when he bugled and and I'm I mean both my buddy and I just I like like we hit the dirt, like like Somebody was shooting at us or something because it scared us. We weren't expecting that and and if you can imagine a bull that you know like I'm trying to describe to you, that's just got this great, big, nasty, guttural bugle. We're like, oh my gosh, this guy's gonna eat us. Anyway, we hit the dirt. We heard him take off running. I don't know that he really saw much, but I suspect he probably heard us more than anything else.
Speaker 2:And so we just we got ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and and waited till daylight and and we started working away and on this bull and we'd get close to him and he was trailing the herd, being like every time we'd get we'd bump into him. He was, he was the last, he was the last elk in that herd that the cows were ahead of him. The last time I saw that bull he was. He was across this little drainage from him. He was looking back at us and the rest of herd was ahead of him.
Speaker 2:We played cat and mouse with that bull for Like five or six days. So and the same, the same exact scenario. He was the last elk in the herd every time we catch up to him. So one day, in fact, it happened to be on my birthday and and we locate this, this bull, again, and he's, he's probably a hundred fifty yards from us and I call this, I called this calf away from the herd, and If you've ever called a calf away from a herd, I mean they come in, just this, you know, like a little baby crying, just me.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, yeah, just like one after another, and and she come up to us and and so I just, you know, we sat there real still and quiet, and I didn't want to scare her so that she took off. So finally she didn't see anything and she starts mowsing away and we, we followed the calf and, instead of saying anything at all, and any more elk sounds after that, we just followed that calf and and she cried all the way back to the herd. So I'm tracking, I can see the tracks from the calf, I could hear her, we're following her. We get up into this kind of this little knoll in the middle of this, this pocket of timber, and I look up, just kind of crest, the, the peak of this little knoll, and I see, I see ears, and I take a few more steps and I look up and then and there's, there's. All I could see was about four or five cows and they're not. They have no idea we're there.
Speaker 2:The calf is caught up with the rest of the herd and we start to take another couple steps and the whole woods take off, like down below us. The rest of the herd was probably 50 yards from us and they were standing there watching us. We had no idea because again it was, it was thick timber and and so they take off. The cows that were in front of us take off, kind of run in the same direction. Well, I had no idea. But remember what I said earlier, that whole week we were chasing that herd. That bull was in the back of that herd every time. So I'm thinking, well, there must be cows that took off to the left of us. I'm going to take off kind of at an angle and start running. My buddy took off at another angle and I like intercept the herd and by the time I get up to them they're just kind of trotting, they see me and they take off and I mean it's just a cloud of dust at that point because we kind of got into this little open area and I'm thinking, okay, there's a cow, there's a cow, there's a cow, there's I don't know, there must have had 30 cows with him and I don't see the bull. But I just remember he was the last elk and herd the whole week we were following them.
Speaker 2:So I get an arrow knocked. It was a brand new bow. I put this new rest on there. It was an old hoit but it was fast. I had one of those first trophy taker fallaway rest and it was wide enough to where the fletching on my arrows were hitting that rest every time I'd shoot and it was causing some weird flight patterns in my arrow. So I actually trimmed the rest on each side just a little bit so I could clear my fletching would clear.
Speaker 2:I got my arrow knocked, got it on that rest and pretty soon I see the bull coming and I go to draw my bow back and he's probably at that point probably 70 yards and he's just kind of walking and I go to draw my bow back and my arrow falls off my rest. I'm like, oh, you got to be kidding me. Here's my one. It was a nice bull, he was a 300 inch bull. I let my bow down. I'm like I can't believe this just happened. I wouldn't even look up, I just put my arrow back on my rest. I put my finger over the arrow, I went to draw back and just as I got the full draw, that bull's 40 yards from me, out in front of me and I always have a diaphragm in my mouth and I cow called. That bull stopped and I released the arrow and that bull spun 180 degrees and took off running right back the way he came from, wow. And so I'm thinking, man, did I hit him? You know, he just I couldn't really see my arrow after I let it go. And so I'm standing there by that time my buddy catches up with me and he says did you shoot? And I said yeah, I shot. I said I think I hit him, but I don't know. You know, we need to go up there and see if I can find my arrow or find some blood or whatever. So he stayed where I was standing, where I shot. I went up to where he was standing and I'm looking around and I don't see anything but tracks. I don't see my arrow, I don't see any blood, nothing. So anyway, we start kind of. We start kind of following the tracks.
Speaker 2:And there was another guy that was hunting with us that year. That was a friend of another buddy that was with us and he kind of had, he kind of looked like an old hippie and wore like old army fatigues and his great big, like big old Bowie knife strapped to his hip, you know, and anyway he's kind of off in the distance. He finally comes up to us and he says, man, I saw the whole thing. He says you were running through the woods, had your arrow knocked and I saw you, said. He says you shot at that bull and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I said I'm trying to find. You know, see if we can find blood or anything. And my buddy and I were just my hunt partner. We're like just nose to the ground looking for blood. And finally I see this stick that's got, it's like I don't know, just a, maybe an eight inch long stick and about a half inch in diameter, had a, had a drop of blood on it that was maybe the size of a dime. So at least at that point I knew I'd hit him.
Speaker 2:And this, this guy that caught up to us. He comes up to us and my buddy and I are, just, like you know, almost on our hands and knees looking for more blood. And he says what are you guys doing? I said, well, I said you just said you saw me shoot this bull and we're looking for more blood. He says well, he's laying right there, right in front of you, like 75 yards in front of you, just laying there dead. And I said, I looked up I said, sure enough, there's my bull. And so I mean I, I don't know, I I guess at that point it was. It was a long week. I went up there and I saw that bull and you know I'd hit him high and hit him in the lungs, but he just bled internally. Just wasn't much blood that came out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I'm standing and looking at my, at the bull I just killed and it was the biggest bull I've ever killed, and just the experience all week with a good friend of mine, and and the work and just the effort that that took and the persistence that that finally paid off, it was, it was overwhelming. I, you know, my eyes kind of wailed up a bit and and, and I'm standing there and he says, well, he says you're going to, you're going to, you know, like shoulder mounted or you're going to do a euro or what. And I said no, I, you know, not not many opportunities to shoot a bull like this, I'm going to do shoulder mount. And so, anyway, we, we got down there and started skinning this bull out. And this guy, that was that we just met for the first time. He was with, you know, a buddy of a buddies that was there. Yeah, takes that big. He says, well, I've never got a milk before. You mind if I, you know, give it a whirl. I said that, sure, go ahead, you know, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So he takes that, that big old bowing knife off his hip and just about pokes the gut. I stopped him from doing that.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was ready. Just like straight into the torso, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:I mean it was. It was just about like that was what was going to happen. So he gets, he gets that point. I said I stopped him. I said, no, you got to kind of, you got to kind of start this way, and he's okay. Well, instead of starting like I told him to, he just takes that knife and he goes right up the brisket and he takes it and just slices it right down towards the belly, cuts it up way further than what you should. If you're going to do a shoulder mount, yeah, and I'm standing there looking at this. What he just did like speechless in my my buddy was with me. He's all pissed off and he says what are you doing? You can't do that. And he had had some taxidermy experience. So he's like no, you're done, put your knife back in the sheet, you're done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, it was a, it was a. It was a. It was a great hunt. We had a good time. It was a. It was a really good bull for the area that we were hunting. It was all public land stuff and I've got that bull. It was a perfect, probably the most symmetrical bull I've ever seen. Six by six great big whale tails on him and he's hanging up on my wall in my in my living room there.
Speaker 1:So did the taxidermist do a pretty decent job on the on fixing the bowie knife wound.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he did. But you know that that bull he was such a I mean he was just a warrior. He had both of his ears were split, one of them probably four inches. He had a big. He had a big pus pocket under one shoulder. That you know. You tell where he'd been gored by another bull. He had scars on both shoulders. That I mean it was just you know the character of that bull, that you know on his, on his high, the kind of total story of his life and and the battles that he'd been in. I mean it was, it's, it's not like it, it's not something you'd walk up a lot of guys ago Well, you know that didn't really know any better would look at it. So that's not a very good, that's not very good taxidermy work, whatever. You know, it doesn't look like it's a very good looking and it's not a great looking cape on him, but but I don't.
Speaker 2:I didn't want a good cape. You know, I wanted that cape because it told the story that bull's life and what he had just gone through during that rut. Yeah and yeah, he was a. He was just a warrior, he was just awesome.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's a great story, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I, you know, it reminded me my first white tail. I killed, actually killed, with a double-op buck shotgun no and.
Speaker 1:I won't tell that whole story, but with the part that you reminded me of is, I was sitting there being like there's no blood, I couldn't find anything, and my buddy comes up, stands next to me and he's like what do you mean? And like why don't I think he's gone. Man, there's nothing, not a drop of blood, and I didn't know at the time. Double-op buck is not known for blood trails. It's not an animal down right and my buddies earlier.
Speaker 1:He was like maybe you missed it. I was like no, I saw pull its leg in when it ran off. It was running on three legs. I like I hit it. But when I'm sitting there looking for blood, he's like what are you doing? And he's looking for blood, what do you think? And he's like, well, it's right there, and it was. It was 20 yards in front of me. Yeah, just just laying there Through a bunch of you know whatever, it was just Right there. You just get a different set of eyes sometimes, so that's right.
Speaker 1:It reminded my story. No, it's funny that you know the random hippie guy came up and was like what are you doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, when you, when you're tracking blood you get, you get so engrossed in and Especially if they're not bleeding, very good.
Speaker 2:I mean you got to really take your time and pick that ground apart so you don't miss anything. And and blood trails, you know, depending on where you hit them, they're all different, you know. I mean I, I shot a shot in elk One year and it deflected off a tree branch right before the elk and Instead of going, instead of hitting that elk behind the shoulders, it deflected and went and it just it cut the artery in the neck and it, just after I shot it, it it ran around in circles like two full revolutions, right where it was and finally took off. And I'm like man, that's kind of weird, you know, I didn't know what happened there. And we'll walk up there and I'm looking for, I'm looking for, like, spots of blood.
Speaker 2:And my buddy again, which is what are you looking for? And I said, well, I'm looking, I'm looking to see I find some blood. He says, well, it's, it's all over, it's just it had rained that morning, but it was like this. It was like this spray that was about two feet wide is just this mist of blood. It was a strangest thing, yeah, but anyway, it ran off 20 yards down over this embankment and died to blood out so quick. But yeah, you gotta, you gotta be careful when you're tracking and want to pay attention, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yep, every kills different. My, my bullets here with your main full pass through. Couple of thing on video. We didn't see a drop of blood, not one drop of blood, until we found that animal about 150 yards away. Really, yeah, just a complete pass through. Maybe the blades too sharp. I'll say what. When we opened him up?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah out of him it poured out, but we, even when we found him upside down I mean he ran 150 yards, reared up and then fell over backwards dead- so, he was alive less than a minute, but oh yeah, so he was upside down, and when we flipped them over, when Jermaine and I flipped them over, there was maybe a one foot by a Two foot little pool of blood. Nothing, nothing really impressive. Yeah, even even Laying there for two hours because we gave him two hours he's still barely blood.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's interesting. What kind of broadheads were you shooting?
Speaker 1:iron Well no yeah, the single or not the single, bevel the the solids.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Yeah, huh, yeah, yeah, you know, I I Don't know. I think broadheads do play a role in in blood trails for sure, and and I've shot Some single bevel broadheads Just two blades before and and hit some animals and they didn't bleed all that great. And I I've had guys Tell me before that you know, the more blades the better, right, so heard that too. They'll shoot you know three or four blades, nothing but three or four blades. But you know, I mean, everybody's got their own experience and I know that there's a lot of guys that kill plenty of those, those two blades, single bevels or double bevels, and you know the. So I think it's just a matter of your preference and worry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right through, put them down real quick. It's just, we just didn't find any blood. So yeah, but you know some day that maybe I won't be as lucky and finding him. It will spend hours looking and then I'll be like, okay, time to switch. But for now, yeah you got the job done.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yes, yes, it did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a beautiful bull man.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, I'm pretty proud of it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I thought it out to be like 312 or something but, it's, it's got it's Left whale tail. It's like daggers.
Speaker 1:It's not the typical like point that you would see, it's more it's almost like a serrated knife on both the edge there, like he had some damage a couple years ago or something. It's super cool bull and hell of a bull for my first one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that'll ruin a guy killing the bull like that for the first time.
Speaker 1:Right, right, never mind hunting with Pat and Jermaine. So now I got to go back to doing it by myself.
Speaker 2:I'm I don't know what I'm gonna do, so, tony, it's got any other stories for us.
Speaker 1:I tell everybody, I'll listen all night if you're willing to talk, but if that's what you prepare for the day, then we can. We can wrap it up, man up to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's. That's all I had really off the top of my head and kind of somewhat prepared to talk about tonight, but it was fun and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it was a ton of fun and I'm sure you I would say one out of every two Podcasts guests messages me within half an hour of us wrapping up. Oh, I thought some new ones you got to get me back on. Yeah, tony, I have a feeling we'll have you back on someday here in the future. Thank you again for putting up with me and and how long it took us to schedule this, but it was it's worth the wait. Those are some some fun stories.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to make fun of Jermaine to his face, so oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, let me the message me, let me know how that goes, he'll know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:We'll do. We'll do. Do you want to do? You want to tell the people where they can find you? You're, you know, instagram, any social stuff, or you just want to? Yeah, the only thing I got on Instagram.
Speaker 2:I've the bearded out. The bearded out whispers is Is what I go by on Instagram there and I'm gonna try to Try to. I got a bunch of calls actually just before you got here. Maybe try to do some more demos on some calls and post those on there. I know I've got a lot of questions at the sportsman show about various calls that that I, that I use and then and how to use them and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, be posting some videos here ahead of hunting season this year.
Speaker 1:All right, man, and then I'll mention it. But you, you had your own custom call put out by Phelps recently and it's coming in like a three pack Right with you and Jermaine right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jermaine and I and Eric Bergle, and it's called the all-american Signature series and all red, white and blue. We've all got a little bit different specs on our latex and the stretch. I have a tendency to to to use a lot of air pressure and volume. I blow pretty hard on my calls and and as a result, I've blown a lot of them out fairly quickly. So it was really fun to work with Jason and and Come up with a call that he's going to kind of live in that, in that spectrum between the, the maverick and the white amp, if people are kind of familiar with those and you know, I I need something that that's going to stand up to my style of calling and everybody's a little bit different. But but so yeah, be myself, jermaine Hodg and Eric Bergle and that's a three pack and and we should be Should be able to purchase those online and hopefully in some some retail stores Around the first part of July.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Perfect on it. Well, man, thank you so much. I do appreciate your. You know your time and hopefully we have you back soon.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, but it was fun. Thank you so much for the invite.
Speaker 1:All right, guys. That's it. Another couple stories in the books. Again, I want to thank 20 for coming on the podcast. It was a ton of fun to connect with him. Hopefully we have him back on the podcast here again soon. Beyond that, guys, like I said at the intro, please make sure you get out there and follow Tony. Follow us on Instagram. Links to everything in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Also, I'm putting a link to our YouTube page. I'm trying to get some subscribers there. We will eventually be posting videos of all of these storytelling sessions Once I get the right equipment set up, so make sure you follow us there. And the podcast is also published on YouTube as well. But that's it, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. Share the podcast with one friend. Reach out to me if you have any stories. Now you know what to do. Get out there and make some Stories, hero. Thank you, you.