Have you ever wondered what it's like to grow up in the true north, wild and free? Our guest Spencer Rempel doesn't need to imagine; he's lived it, and he brings his incredible stories to our latest podcast episode. From the history-soaked northern Canadian wilderness to the adrenaline rush of hunting cougars with dogs, Spencer's narratives are as varied as they are enthralling. He paints a vivid picture of a life where nature dictates the rhythm, and where silver mining and paddle wheelers are part of the everyday lexicon.
https://themoosewhisperer.com/
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The Moose Whisperer
Hunting Stories
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The Moose Whisperer
Hunting Stories
Have you ever wondered what it's like to grow up in the true north, wild and free? Our guest Spencer Rempel doesn't need to imagine; he's lived it, and he brings his incredible stories to our latest podcast episode. From the history-soaked northern Canadian wilderness to the adrenaline rush of hunting cougars with dogs, Spencer's narratives are as varied as they are enthralling. He paints a vivid picture of a life where nature dictates the rhythm, and where silver mining and paddle wheelers are part of the everyday lexicon.
https://themoosewhisperer.com/
Instagram
The Moose Whisperer
Hunting Stories
Youtube
The Moose Whisperer
Hunting Stories
Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we got another good one for you today. Today, we're actually connecting with Spencer Rempel. Spencer, I found him randomly on the internet and I immediately knew that this was a guy that could tell some fun stories, and he did not disappoint. So, spencer, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Couldn't have done it without you, and it was a pleasure meeting you, and I can't wait to have you back on because I know we will To you listeners.
Speaker 1:Thank you, guys for tuning in and make sure you check out Spencer's stuff. He's out there just telling hunting stories as well, so if you like what we're doing, you'll definitely like what he's doing. So that's it, guys. Again, check out the Hunting Stories podcast. How are you Hi? Hey, michael, I'm doing great. Just happy to be here. Oh man, I'm excited to talk to you. Spencer, I mentioned when we were chatting before we hit record here, you were on social media and you tagged hashtag hunting stories and I was like this guy is interesting, I need to get him on the podcast. Why don't we just kick this thing off? I don't want to give too much away. I'll let you go ahead and do it. Who are the people going to hear some stories from today, spencer?
Speaker 2:right on. Well, thanks, michael. Like I said, I'm just so happy to be here. I've listened to your podcast lots before, so familiar, familiar, familiar voice, nice to see your face as we're talking here online and and I'm just happy to be a part of this. You know, I think we have the same kind of vision in. What we want to do here is I was just hoping to put together a community of hunters that can tell their stories, and you know, I'm 55 years old, so I'm, I'm, you know, I guess I could say I'm just starting to get up there into that old timer status.
Speaker 1:Just getting experience is what you mean. You're just getting the experience that you need.
Speaker 2:That's right. You know, in a lot of my stories I was told by my dad and my grandpa and folks. You know, people of that age, of that generation that are really old now or even passed away Myself and my generation getting older now as well and I just started to see. You know what we're losing some of these stories and things aren't the same today as they were in the past.
Speaker 2:You know hunting's not the same life's not the same, things aren't the same, and, and you know, we need to get these stories out there.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:All right, you know it's.
Speaker 1:It's funny that you say that, spencer Um, part of the reason I started this podcast was beyond just wanting to hear hunting stories. But my, my father-in-law, he has all sorts of crazy stories and he'd tell them to me, and he, he was diagnosed with cancer. So I was like Larry, I want to get you on, I want to hear your stories, understand the concept of a podcast. And so he was like I don't know if I want to do that and I'm like all you got to do is talk to me like you do every day. I mean, he liked to talk. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1:That being said, he did pass away in March, but what I'm going to do is like an homage to him, episode 100, actually, which we're sneaking up on I think you're're gonna be 95 or something like that. We're gonna do a huge giveaway. I already have a bunch of things lined up for that, but I'm getting on his son, so my brother-in-law and our other hunting buddy, and it's just gonna be us telling stories about my father-in-law larry in the woods and him just being a goof, just craziness, and so hopefully we're gonna capture some of what he was, because he was an inspiration, um, and exactly what you're talking about is like capturing those, those old-timer stories, was an inspiration for this entire podcast, so good job, michael good job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll see, we'll see, I'm glad you, I'm glad you're gonna do that, that's capturing those guys is like herding cats, so we'll see.
Speaker 1:I've been trying I've been trying for a couple weeks to get them to record something with me and like they just. It's just been more difficult than than I would think, but we'll, we'll get there.
Speaker 2:I still have a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you jump into it, spencer.
Speaker 2:Sorry. I'll tell you a little bit about my history here, which will kind of give you an idea. You know the area that I hunted in and the way things are. So I'm, like I said, 55 years old. So growing up I was a kid in the 70s and a teenager in the 80s, and it's just basically a northern Canadian hillbilly living out in the middle of nowhere, so just above the border in British Columbia, so just above Washington, and Idaho is actually where we were, and it was a really neat area actually, because it was a very undiscovered area, a very unpopulated area that I grew up in, that I lived in.
Speaker 2:It was around the turn of the century, like the 1900s. There was a silver mining boom that went on in the area and so there was these little towns all over and all connected through through paddle wheelers and and trains wherever they could Extremely steep mountainous country that this is. So that's why they use these paddle wheelers there's. Oftentimes the mountains would come straight down right to the, to the lake, and there'd be no flat land around anywhere. So they'd use paddle wheelers when they can. In between lakes they'd do a rail and be able to use a little bit of rail, so wherever there was any kind of a little bit of a Delta where the Creek had washed out into the lake, there'd be kind of a community clung to that little bit of area. Now, where I live was just North of that and it was between two lakes, so we were in a kind of a rare place of having some nice flat land there.
Speaker 2:Okay, this was in the 1960s. What brought my parents there? So my my mom and my dad and my two sisters and myself just a gleam in my dad's eye at that time when they moved there uh, there was a dam being built, a hydroelectric was going on through the Columbia River and it was a joint project through the United States and Canada actually. And so in this area there was a small lake with a long river in a steep valley and they got the idea they wanted to dam this valley up, make that lake a big lake as a reservoir. Now, basically it would just it wouldn't provide electricity, but it would be a reservoir for the, for all of the lakes down below, downstream of it, and help keep the levels proper for them. So that's what actually brought work into this area.
Speaker 2:So this place was nothing but a bunch of little ghost towns literal ghost towns from the early 1900s and then quite a few people moving in in the 60s were this big work project. Once people got in there, there got to be a lot of logging as well too, because of forestry. The timber in that was just incredible in this area. So that's what my parents moved there for and forestry and they were still in fact homesteading in the 60s and homesteads were still being allotted out.
Speaker 1:Where were they? Where did they move from? I gotta ask.
Speaker 2:From from the west coast from Vancouver.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so they actually got a homestead license there, so my dad had a for that area. It was a pretty large piece of property, being that there wasn't a lot of flatland around, but it was just a hunk of bush and it was completely surrounded by water on all sides a creek in the front, a big river in the back channels on on each side, on all sides a creek in the front, a big river in the back channels, on each side, pretty much of an island of about 110 acres of just straight bush that I tell you nobody had ever really been on. I mean somebody walked through there maybe someday, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So the reason I say that is that when we started hacking out that land, I was, you know, I was just born at the time that my parents moved on to that property. But when he hacked out that land, I was just born at the time that my parents moved onto that property. But when he hacked out that land, we were living there in the middle of the forest, so we had game everywhere. You'd wake up in the morning, there'd be herds of elk out in the fields, There'd be bears, there'd be deer all over, and we spent most of our time as I grew up on that land just really hunting that land.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and they're like grizzlies and wolves.
Speaker 2:At that time, I assume there were yeah, no wolves in the area actually, okay, um, yeah, yeah, lots of grizzlies. They love that mountainous country and, uh, let me see so. So that's how. That's how I grew up there and and and I and I loved hunting, uh, because my dad was so into it, of course, and I'll get into a couple of little stories of when I first started but loving hunting so much, and I was a big talker even as a kid and as a young person, always telling everybody my hunting stories and everybody else's hunting stories.
Speaker 1:Everyone said man, you got to write a book.
Speaker 2:I don't know I don. You got to write a book. I don't know I don't want to write a book. So, finally, you know, that brings me to where I am here today, being the storyteller. And YouTube came along and I'm able to start the Moose Whisperer and I'm able to tell the stories of my hunting stories, as well as other people's, and so it's just a perfect platform for me. I never had to sit down and actually write a book. I can just talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I'll be completely honest, I started diving into it and then I was like he might tell me some of these stories and I hate to hear the stories before I hear them from my guests when I actually have them on the podcast. So I stopped myself from diving too deep Because I was like I want him to tell me the stories. I don't want to watch them all on YouTube and then I'll go back and watch there, but you're a lot of fun. You do cool backgrounds and you have a lot of energy when you tell your stories. Yeah, good, everyone, make sure you check Spencer out. There will be links to everything in the show notes, your Instagram, your YouTube. Again, it's the Moose Whisperer.
Speaker 2:Yes, right on, Thank you. So I'll tell you about my very first hunt would have been only three years old for black bear and I'll tell you I got the black bear myself, or in my mind I did anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah you did the heavy lifting, spencer.
Speaker 2:I can tell right now, but keep going but black bear is the perfect first hunt for a three year old but black bear is the perfect first hunt for a three-year-old. Yes, yeah, bear, exactly. So, my, my dad, we come home from, uh, we come home from church it was one afternoon and we look out in the back 40 in our field and there's this big black bear just kind of grazing on some on fresh growing grass and uh, but it's, it's way back. There would be about seven, eight hundred yards, yeah and uh. So my dad he's like, well, there's, we should maybe go out there and get that bear. Most of this, most of the story, michael, I'm relating to you from my dad's point of view because I was so young.
Speaker 1:I just don't remember any of this. But okay, good, I'm glad you clarified, because that was my question I was holding on to so we figured, okay, well, we'll sneak up on that there.
Speaker 2:And you know why my dad figured it'd be an okay idea to bring along his three-year-old son with him. I'm not sure, except that I probably just demanded, because wherever my dad was, that's where I was. I was just the mini him all the way. Whatever he was doing, I wanted to be doing, and we got to spend lots of time together because he worked right there on the property. So in any case he figures, yeah for sure, I guess I'll bring my little kid along with me. So I go out and I grab my little pop gun I have one of those you ever remember those from your kid and you'd actually work the lever and then you'd pull the trigger and it would go pop. A little cork would come out the end from a little bit of air and make a pop down.
Speaker 1:When you cock at the string pulls the cork in. Yeah, I do know those.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I run to my room and I grab my gun Perfect, and me and dad go out there and we start stalking this bear and we're just moving slow, there's stumps and there's things here and there. So while he's eating we're just he keeps his head down, then we things here and there. So while he's eating we just keeps his head down. Then we move forward, looks up, we stay still, we're having no problems. We get to about a little over a hundred yards away, where dad knows he's gonna have a good shot, and so he tells me just stay right here, just wait, I'm gonna shoot. And he stands up and he's just about to pull the trigger and he hears a and he looks at me, pauses and looks beside him and there's me with a bead right on that bear and I've let it have it. So then he shoots boom nails that bear.
Speaker 2:One shot, no problem, we're good range and everything that's funny we go over, skin it nary, get back to house, tell mom about it and yeah, I tell mom that I shot the bear.
Speaker 1:You shot first, that's for sure. I got the first shot in. That is such a great story man. It actually reminded me of someone else. I don't know if you've listened to Zachary Hansen's episode, but he, after shooting his first bear, takes out his like infant child. So he, the bear, shows up and he's in bed. But they have french doors, so he opens the door.
Speaker 1:He's in his underpants with a bow and he drops, he drops with a bow and so shooting from, basically, bed in his underpants with his wife and his newborn baby right next to him. He drops this bear and then they have to go find it. So his wife straps the baby to to his or to her chest and then they go off wondering, looking for this bear and I'm like, was the bear dead? They're like we didn't know at the time and I'm like, okay, I guess you're in the moment it worked out, but you're braver than me. So it just reminded me of that story. Check out his episode If, uh, if, you want to. He's got some amazing stories. He's a big trapper too, but I can just hear the like I can. Yeah, I don't know if I would just laugh or how frustrated I would be if my son did that. That's a great story, spencer. That's a good one to start with.
Speaker 2:Well, my dad was plenty happy to have a son, I said he had two daughters older than me, and so you know like probably my second hunt then would have been a whitetail deer with him, although it wasn't really supposed to be a hunt. My mom had Sundays was always family day, like I said, we'd be at church and then we'd be coming home and doing a picnic or going out or doing something. And this Sunday found us going out into the bush to have a picnic. Well for sure, dad's just got to bring along his rifle, of course, of course. So we're all down having this nice picnic when all of a sudden a big whitetail buck walks out Like a nice one and not far away. Like this is we're kind of opportunity hunters, you know that. And not far away Like this is we're kind of opportunity hunters, you know that's why he has his rifle on him all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, got to feed the family.
Speaker 2:I don't care if this is a family picnic. It just turned into a hunting trip. So dad blam, he shoots that deer and it's just up on top of a hill and he climbs up that hill to get to it. And so mom and both my sisters are in the car crying. That's how they felt about hunting. That's the support dad got from them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds like my wife.
Speaker 2:So they're in the car crying and I'm with them there, but dad's up there skinning up the top of the hill. And I guess he said one of the proudest moments is when he heard something behind him. And he looked around and little four year old me had climbed all the way up that hill all by myself and climbed up there and had a little stick in my hand that resembled a knife and was coming to help skin.
Speaker 1:These are great. I would assume your, is your father still with us, or is he passed? He's passed now, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would love to hear your father still with us, or is he passed? He's passed now.
Speaker 1:yeah, I would love to hear him tell these stories. It sounds like a good time. So I need to get my son out into the woods more.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, exactly, and even at a young age, because you know, that was it that really cemented that in my mind and you know and I, I, I say those stories along with you know many more to come that that made me, uh, love hunting, uh the hump that you know as much as I do. Yeah, that's amazing. Also, I grew up in this place where there was, where there was, just that was. The only thing to do was hunting, fishing, trapping, motorbike riding. There was nothing else to do. It was so remote that, um, um, that's actually another strange thing. So I've never, I've never even played hockey before. So you may not understand, but in canada, yeah, people look at me like I'm the strangest weirdo they ever met.
Speaker 1:they can't figure 99.9 of canadian men play hockey yeah, I was to say that 99% of the Canadian women play hockey.
Speaker 2:They're going to take your.
Speaker 1:Canadian card man yeah.
Speaker 2:But we lived so far out in the bush. There was no rink, there was no hockey, there was no nothing. So, you know, it was outdoor sports, outdoors, outdoorsman life was, was the life, and if you didn't love it, well then you would have died of boredom because there's nothing else to do yeah, no, I imagine.
Speaker 1:So I gotta ask um, let's see, this was like the early 70s. Were there much for regulations in canada at the time? I, I have no idea, or was it just like you guys were out there far enough that your dad didn't care and he wanted to feed his family?
Speaker 2:no, they had, uh they still. They had regulations in place in that time. Uh, pretty much the I mean the populations and game populations were excellent though so it was, it was open tags for everything. Okay, got it. Yeah, so, right from right from cougar to uh grizzly bear, we had uh elk, uh mule deer, uh white tail deer, uh all of it. It was a real mountain goat and in the beginning they were all open tags. Eventually, some of the predator ones, like the grizzly bear, became a limited entry.
Speaker 2:It's still available to this day.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you can see this sheep behind me there.
Speaker 2:Oh, you've got a sheep back there.
Speaker 1:That's my father-in-law's. That's a Canadian bighorn right there.
Speaker 2:Oh nice, yep, when you've got a sheep back there. That's my father-in-law's, that's a canadian bighorn right there, oh nice, yep.
Speaker 1:When he passed, everyone was like I don't like taxidermy, I don't like the eyes they spook me out and I'm like do not throw that away I don't take that nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what he's on my rag about.
Speaker 1:You never brag about the canadian tags and how easy it was to get and all that stuff all the time. So, but I interrupt you, spencer, you go ahead yeah, no, no problem, uh.
Speaker 2:So goat is what I got to hunt there. We didn't actually have sheep just over in the rockies, um, so not too far away was was, um, was, mountain sheep. But just over in the mountains range that I was in it was all mountain goat and that was my dad's passion. He just loved mountain goat and uh and grizzly bear. So we spent a lot of time out. If he wasn't working I'd be out in the bush with him, way in the back of some logging road somewhere's, uh, staring at some slide looking for grizzlies and goats. All right, that was a lot of fun. Yeah, all right. Now, where was I here? I was gonna to tell you a story, or what was it going to do?
Speaker 1:oh, we just talked about your right. We just, uh, you just told us the story about your deer, uh, and then, uh, your, your mom and your sister's crying in the car and you have the stick butchering it, uh, so I don't know what the what? Your next story?
Speaker 2:is yeah, well, that's really what I had planned to tell you about, kind of give you you an idea of the history of things in the area and kind of give the listeners a bit of a visual picture on the type of area and place that it was. So it was just bountiful wildlife everywhere, wonderful place to grow up as a child, you know, I had a motorbike, I had a horse, I had a 22, I had a hunting dog and I was a busy kid Sounds like all you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Do you still live in that region or have you moved on?
Speaker 2:I moved on. I lived there until I was about 40, though.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Where are?
Speaker 1:you located now, if you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2:Now I'm over in the neighboring province of Alberta. Okay, perfect, really good whitetail elk hunting country here.
Speaker 1:That's what I hear. Yeah, my father-in-law. He grew up in Saskatchewan. He was a farmer out there.
Speaker 2:So northern Saskatchewan, he knows all about big whitetails.
Speaker 1:Yes, he does, and elk and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:But yeah, Spencer what else you got?
Speaker 1:I know you got a list of other stories. Let's, let's keep going. I don't want to take up too much of your time to hear today.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, right on. You know what I think? I'll jump ahead in time here, then to the years 1994.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I would have been about 25 years old and was living there in in this place in Meadow Creek In fact it was called and working in a sawmill me and my dad sawmilling together, and this story is a pretty proud story for me. This is how I got into the Boone and Crockett. Oh very cool yeah, in the Boone and Crockett in the BC record books for one of the largest cougars or mountain lion as many people say.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I'm excited to hear this.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, right on. I love telling this story and it's such a fun, great story. But it almost takes away from bragging rights, though, because there's so much good luck in this story that happens. I'd like to say it was all me. Oh, it was the superior skill and knowledge that made this happen. That's not true. In this instance, it was nothing but sheer good luck that's awesome, I.
Speaker 1:There's two types of hunters. There's lucky hunters and unlucky hunters I am unlucky. But then there's I've had people on here where they're like yeah, I killed this and I sort of walked up and boom, and I walked over over there and then boom, and then you know like some people just have the luck with them and that's not me. So I love hearing lucky stories because it gives me something to hope and dream for.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I have to tell you that it can happen. Yeah, so here in this Meadow Creek area, I had a friend named Thomas Schreiber and Schreiber, you can imagine, is a German name and this was a.
Speaker 1:German fellow.
Speaker 2:He actually moved from Germany with his parents when he was a teenager, so he still had a real good German accent. Okay, and you know, when I talk, when he's talking, I'll probably say it in a German accent. I just can't help but do it. I'm not trying to make fun of anybody. I respect this guy and the way he talks and everything, but I just love his accent actually.
Speaker 1:You know what's funny, spencer? My dad was a linguist. He learned all sorts of different languages and I've absorbed that I don't know that many languages, but when talking to someone who has an accent, I often will give them that back.
Speaker 1:I was in Rome at an English speaking pub crawl of all things, and there was a bunch of Irish guys I was hanging out with. By the end of the night I couldn't stop my Irish accent. I was like I can't turn it off. I'm talking to my girlfriend at the time and I'm like I don't know what to tell you. I'm just doing it now. So I'm with you on that one but go ahead, I'm excited to hear the accent.
Speaker 2:So, um, this. And so thomas was a hunter, uh, just a hunter all the way, like I think of myself as a dedicated hunter. No, this guy was even more so. He was a very focused, uh focused hunter, and and, and he really wanted to make the record books. For he had two things he wanted. He loved hunting. He would have a head over to the Rockies and hunt a mountain sheep all the time, and then over in the Kootenays where we lived, he would hunt cougar, okay, and one of those two he was going to get in the record books for one of those two. Those are just what he loved, and so he was really set up nicely for it. He had, he had, uh, you know, a kennel in the back of his truck where his dogs went in, and he had four dogs, okay, and um, there was a german short-haired pointer and I think, um, I'm not sure what the other ones were, they were similar but a little more darker in color, couldn't turn red bone, I think, anyways, and well-trained dogs.
Speaker 2:This guy knew what he was, knew what he was doing, hey, and and so he made it. He kind of made a deal with everyone like you're only allowed to shoot one cougar, um, in a year. And so if you only shoot one cougar, you know that's going to take a long time till you ever find the big one or get the big one. So he made a deal with all of us guys around there that he would take us cougar hunting so he would have a tag. We would have a tag Once we got the cougar up the tree. There's no shooting yet.
Speaker 1:He would look and he would judge and he would say you know what that looks like.
Speaker 2:A really big cougar, I'm going to shoot it. And if it's just an average cougar or a small cougar, you can shoot it you can shoot it.
Speaker 1:So I said, sure, no problem. I've never even been on a cougar hunt before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't care right on, I'm just excited to be here. So he says, okay, great, I'll pick you up in the morning. So he arrives in the morning and, just about as it's getting light, um, there is restrictions. You can't head out any any time sooner. Actually we're even looking for tracks. It's not supposed to be until first light, it's just about at first light. When he pulls up to my place and he's excited already, he says Spencer, I can't believe it. Three miles down the road there's cougar tracks right across the highway.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, this is going to be a fun one.
Speaker 2:I can tell Okay, we're starting out good luck already. Like you know, usually you'd go out and you'd drive around and you'd walk around and you'd look all day and you'd just hope to find some cougar tracks. So we got fresh cougar tracks because it had snowed the night before, so we could tell that by how much snow was in him that they were darn fresh from that morning in the past three, four hours, more than likely perfect. So I can't believe we're having this good of luck already. So, no problem, I jump in the truck and we go. We go flying down there, sure enough, and a nice big track too, heading right across the road. So we get the dogs all out.
Speaker 2:And how that works is you keep your dogs on on the leashes at first for our listeners that maybe don't know how a cougar hunt works you have all your dogs on on leashes and you get them on the on the track and then you start following the track and the dogs really communicate through their, their bays, through the sounds that they make. They make actually about nine different sounds that communicate different things. That's awesome. So, as you get them on the track just by watching the dogs and by listening to the bays that they make, you can tell how close you are to the cougar. So we walked just a little ways into the bush and these dogs are going nuts. They're just like baying, really close together, and that's basically how you tell Super close together bays.
Speaker 2:The dog's excited, he knows he's saying that it's really close by, and so it's thick bush here. We got about a foot of snow, maybe a little less, and thick, thick bush Heading out across some flat land for a ways and then eventually just hitting the mountainside. Perfect cougar country. They love mountains. So so we've he thomas figures. We should kick these dogs free already. What happens next is when you do get really close, you'll take the dogs off the leash and you'll let them take off and try and catch up to the cougar.
Speaker 2:You don't want to be too far behind okay you have a good three or four dogs, they'll scare that cougar. You don't want to be too far behind? Okay, you have a good three or four dogs. They'll scare that cougar. They'll chase it. It'll run. Eventually, if they're close enough, it'll treat. Okay, right. So, but that treeing process can can take. It can take a long time. You know, if the cougar hears those dogs coming from a long ways away, he won't tree right away, he'll just run, run, run, run, run run and you can end up spending your entire day, the next six to eight hours, just running, for all you're worth, through the stinking bush.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the snow, that's probably not pretty deep yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, like it's not running on a trail, like just fighting it through through that country. So, but we're prepped for this. This is that's what cougar hunting is about. So that's the way it's going to be no problem. So he kicks the dogs off the leash, they're just go nuts. They get a little bit into the bush, just out of sight, and they go even more nuts and he's like he's staring at me, he can't believe it. So they must. The cougar must be right there for them to make that kind of sound. So we can. We ran through the bush as fast as we could and the they had. Finally they had caught up to the cougar. So, unbeknownst to us, there was a, there was. This cougar had made a kill just maybe two days before, and so that's why he was hanging out in this area and he was eaten on that kill and eaten, and eaten, and eaten and had this great big fat full belly. Probably didn't feel like running number two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that cougar did not want to run. Yeah, it's way too full to run. He went straight for the tree first three, he came to retreat.
Speaker 2:So that's good luck number two we're 20 minutes into the into the running through the bush and we've got our cougar tree already. And now here comes another stroke of good luck On the mountainside. The mountainside went up quite steep and then there was a big cedar tree coming up out of the mountainside, but through time it had bent over so it didn't have much of a slope to the trunk of it at all. So the cougar went up the mountainside and then ran up that tree and there was a nice big clump of branches bush at the end of that tree that it was hiding in. More good luck. We couldn't really see the cougar.
Speaker 1:You'll understand how this is all good luck okay, typically I like to see what I'm hunting, but okay we'll get yeah, I just want more german impressions. So as long as the story keeps going.
Speaker 2:They're coming, yeah, so, so this. So the cougar hiding in that tree, in this tree not having much of a slope on its trunk. The dogs came and one of the dogs went up. That ran up bank, got onto the tree and it was so not steep that the dog ran up the tree just as we arrived, and it's his favorite dog.
Speaker 2:The dog goes running up into the tree and Thomas' eyes are just wide like saucers. We can't believe this. That dog, no kidding, went right up to where the bushes were, where that cougar was, and all of a sudden there was a. That dog, no kidding, went right up to where the bushes were, where that cougar was, and all of a sudden there was a scream from that cougar Like you wouldn't believe Because we were 20 yards away from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you wouldn't believe. And that whole tree shook and that dog turned around and started walking back down. But then it got to the bottom of the tree and it got its nerve back and decided it's going to start maybe run back up there yet again. So Thomas is observing all of this. His favorite dog's going to go back in there. It's either going to fall from the tree, it's going to get clawed, it's going to get killed. He hasn't even had a look at the cougar yet. I'm standing there with my rifle. He doesn't have a rifle on him because he was just going to use mine. Yeah, makes sense If it was a big cougar. And he wanted it. Right. So he didn't have to carry it, that's right. So he sees his dog starting to head back up there. He doesn't know what to do, so he just yells at me spencer, shoot the cougar, don't shoot my dog. So we're right below the cougar because the tree's out at a at an angle like that had not laid eyes on it at this point at all.
Speaker 1:Right, he's just looking to save his dog. You were just chasing it, you just got there and it's hiding enough that you can kind of see it but not really see. Okay, now I understand why it was lucky that it was hiding.
Speaker 2:Looking through, I can see its head, you know and you can see an outline of where it's kind of its body is and that. But no, real good, look at it, whatsoever. Real good, look at it, whatsoever. Okay, and thomas isn't even taking the time, he's just so worried about his dog makes sense, it's just screaming shoot the cougar, shoot the cougar. So we're, it's right. Exactly above us I have an old 30, 30 winchester, actually model 94. It's at.
Speaker 2:That turns out to be that that's the perfect gun to take when you're cougar hunting, because you need something that's light. You don't need a scope and you need something that's really tough. You know it's gonna. Lever actions are good for hold, for working your shells. You're just going to take one shot. It's going to be close range, yeah, so you know. Any kind of old rifle you're not looking in any kind of range at all any kind of old rifle like that, okay, works just fine. Put a little bit of uh tape over the tip of the barrel though it was a little hint that we always do so it doesn't jam full of snow. You can actually get an explosion of blowback if it's jammed enough.
Speaker 1:Yep, I've done similar stuff in Washington, hunting with a muzzle loader. I don't think it's legal, but I never actually fired the rifle. So it's not illegal to walk around with a rifle with tape on top of it, but I've seen lots of people do that because the air shoots it off, so it doesn't impact the bullet at all, but just the air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's cool, you can do that. Yeah, that's right. So, anyways, I'm up with the gun and just plant the sight square on his chest and let him have it straight in the chest. Is what you do. Easiest shot, boom I on his chest and let him have it straight in the chest is what to do. Easiest shot, boom, I blast that cougar. He just comes flying out of that tree, lands right in front of us, just thud lays right there, the dogs all jump on him, start going crazy, and you finally peel the dogs off and we're just standing there looking at this cougar and he's gray in the face because he's an older one, yeah, and he's just, he's huge. My, my friend, is standing there looking at that cougar and he's got a pretty sad, sad look, kind of a pouty look on his face. Hey, oh, yeah, all he does is spencer.
Speaker 2:That is one big cougar, so I couldn't believe it. We drug it back to his truck, which wasn't very far at all. That's convenient. Yeah, that was really nice as well, and I'll send you a couple pictures of that. We did have a camera then, and so we got a couple pictures of that. We took it back to his place and str strung it up at his place and that's where we did our skinning and our butchering through the rest of their day, just taking our time and, uh, of course, phoning every friend and every relative in the whole valley to come on over and look at this.
Speaker 2:So we took our time all day for the bragging rights and, uh, showed every everybody all around and I was, so I was really happy to say that that that cougar scored um, they do just by skull size. Hey you, probably that's what I was gonna ask?
Speaker 1:I didn't. I didn't actually know what it was. It was pounds or or claws, or skull, or teeth or what. So it's that's interesting. I didn't know. It was just the skull size yeah, just like black bear.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's amazing, but somehow you know that skull will always, always resemble the. You know the size of their body. Okay, so they can take it just from the skull measurement. Huh, it's pretty neat so. So what was the measurement? I gotta ask it was uh 15 and 5 16ths 15 and 5, so you it's.
Speaker 2:You skin the whole thing out, the head out, you boil it down, get all the meat and brains and everything out of there and then you have it, let it dry. You have to let it sit for a month no one is allowed to. So you have your tag date shows when you got it and then you bring it into an official scorer. For me there was one for the British Columbia record books close by, so that's where I had it scored. So after a month so it's had time to do a little bit of shrinkage or whatever it will do as well he measured it and I got 15 and five sixteenths into the British Columbia record books. Now I told you that I was also in the Boone and Crockett, so I didn't actually really even know about the Boone and Crockett because, being a Canadian and that it's, I know that's North American but it's really really really popular in the United States.
Speaker 1:But in.
Speaker 2:Canada, we, I don't we, just we didn't really know about it.
Speaker 1:Daniel Boone, David Crockett who are those guys?
Speaker 2:Sorry to say, I don't know why. Yeah, who are those guys? Roosevelt? Yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 1:Let yeah, who are those guys, roosevelt?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's going on? Let's watch some hockey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's fine. So what was the requirement to enter the book? I guess?
Speaker 2:is my question oh well, and when I got then I so I didn't enter it into the Boone and Crockett didn't hear about that till years later, where I had some American friends and they started telling me oh man, I wonder if that thing would make the Boone and Crockett. Boone and Crockett, that's all they talked about and I said, well, I guess I better do that If I really want to impress my American friends. I got to be in the Boone and Crockett. British Columbia record books doesn't mean nothing to them, so that's what I did.
Speaker 2:I finally found a guy, but now this is 30 years later. Oh, wow, I have that, my cougar skull, and and and I finally I find a guy that's a registered scorer for the boone and crockett and I take it to him. He measures it all up. Yes, it makes a boone and crockett, but you wouldn't believe it. In that 30, 30 years, that skull shrank two-sixteenths down. Did you have the?
Speaker 1:paperwork from when you first measured it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. They said we don't care. That's British Columbia.
Speaker 1:That's funny math. This is America.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:That's too funny If you had to guess, so you. You were what? 15, you said at the time when you did this oh for this cougar hunt.
Speaker 2:I would have been about 25, 25. Okay.
Speaker 1:Um, do you have any ideas like how much it weighed, Like did you guys weigh it the whole cougar?
Speaker 2:No, we actually didn't. But I do have that estimation from my friend Thomas, who had shot a lot of cougars, and he figured it was about a 200-pound. Oh, that's amazing. Let me ask you are you a big guy?
Speaker 1:The reason I'm asking is I don't know if you're familiar with Derek Wolf. He is an American football player and he shot a 200-pound cougar, I want to say about a year ago, a year and a half ago, and everyone went crazy. They're like, oh, football players killing kitty cat. But he's 6'6", 300 pounds, and he's holding this 200-pound cat and he looks small and so I'm like how big are you, spencer? Because I'm wondering like how massive did this cat look against you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, big, big, big. You know, because when you, especially when you string it up and you got all that length of their, of their back legs and their tail and everything, you know you're talking 13 feet of of cougar hanging there Right. You know tail legs, everything.
Speaker 1:It's long. That's crazy. Yeah, I've never been on a cougar hunt. It's on my list. I have a couple of folks that like have friends that have dogs and I'm hoping to just like eventually someday get that invite and I'll shoot the smallest cougar on the mountain, I don't care.
Speaker 2:That of course, if they don't ban it.
Speaker 1:Here in Colorado, where I am, it's a ballot initiative. They're trying to make it a ballot initiative to eliminate bobcat hunting, cougar hunting, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, stuff, so yeah we'll see, hopefully, hopefully they can nip that in the butt, but um, they're trying to make the cougars we had around there. It was just nothing but good management. Yeah, really it was. It was just so many cougars around and you know what they're good eating too. We ate that cougar we butchered that whole thing up. That night we we were eating its um little steaks off its back straps I've heard it's delicious, just you gotta cook it, cook it all the way right, yeah, because of a.
Speaker 1:What is it? Is it trichinosis? Is that the, uh, the predator? Thing that you gotta watch out for I want to show you a photo of this, uh, this mountain lion, if I can pull it up the the listeners can't see it, but they just go to my instagram but like oh my god yeah, and that guy is six foot six, so he's a big man and that is a giant cougar. So I'm just imagining yours was just like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're imagining about, right, yeah. That is a beautiful picture, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:And to your credit, you know he played in the American Football League, the NFL, and he said that going after that cougar was the hardest thing he's ever done in his life, harder than any practice, any game he ever played, because it was hours of just climbing those mountains that they love to be in when the snow and sliding. You know two steps forward, five steps back, sliding, you know all that kind of stuff. So cougar hunting is, it's tough. I think it's necessary to maintain their population, but yeah, it's very cool. That was a great story, spencer. Right on, right on. I'm'm glad you enjoyed it and I want another story with more germans in it, if you have any, and if not, that's fine, we can just go on to your next story we used to always tease thomas because with his german accent we'd always do impression.
Speaker 2:We'd do impressions of him. Yeah, of course it's in the 80s. We loved teasing each other. That's all we ever did as guys, yep.
Speaker 1:And we'd always say Thick skin that today's generation's missing right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. We'd always say to Thomas, we'd do impressions of him, we'd say I was shooting 300 yards, I shoot, I miss clean, I shoot again. Hit exact same spot that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Do you still stay in contact with him?
Speaker 2:oh man, I wish I could. He actually in an accident passed away just two years ago. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1:That's too bad. Was it a hunting accident or automobile Hunting accident? Yeah, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:He was a woodsman all the way, all the time and, yeah, one of those times that caught up to him bad and he ended up drowning, I suppose. Oh geez, yeah, yeah. That was a sad story and poor Thomas never did make it into the record books.
Speaker 1:I felt so bad Second hand Second hand.
Speaker 2:He told him I have a name beside mine. We'll call you the guide. He's like no, forget it, I'll get mine on.
Speaker 1:That's fun, that's fun. Well, I'm sure he was proud of yours regardless and probably happy that you helped his dog survive that whole situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah there is the good news. Yeah, man, another again. It's hard for me not to tell other people's stories. I won't go too into it. But if people like cougar stories Cliff Gray he was on my podcast. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but his cougar went into a cave, so like the opposite of your low tree, and the dog went in there and like he crawled into the cave to go get the dog. It's an absolutely bonkers story. One episode is just that whole story. So if you like cougar stories like Spencer's, check out Cliff Gray's episode. I don't know the number, but you can find it.
Speaker 1:Right on, I'll be looking for it All right, spencer.
Speaker 2:what else you got man? Well, you want to hear another story? If I'm into predators, let's tell a coyote hunting story.
Speaker 1:How about that? Sounds good to me. I don't know if anyone's actually told any coyote stories but wolves, cougars, everything else, but I don't know if we've gotten a coyote one before.
Speaker 2:Hey, all right, okay, that makes me feel special, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, In the record books you could say yeah, suppose not a lot of people hunt coyote, but you know, coyotes there's a ton of them around and, you know, considered more of a pest than anything and everyone's farming and has everything from chickens to cats to dogs and all the stuff that coyotes love to kill. Yeah, so nobody ever had a problem with hunting coyotes and it really extended our hunting season then because you could, basically you could hunt coyotes anytime and we were always looking for something we could hunt in between seasons and such right. Yeah, but uh, so any cases is, one time I'm uh on the on the homestead and I was about, let's see, about around 20, 21 years old, I guess, so this would have been the early 90s and I'm sitting on my place and sitting on the porch in the middle of the day and all of a sudden hear this coyote howling. You know the way they do and it's absolutely impossible to impersonate.
Speaker 2:But they make that crazy squirrely cry that they do, yep.
Speaker 2:And I could hear this one all by himself, over on the mountainside. I was in the flatland between the two mountains and over on that mountainside I could hear he was just low on the mountain making all these calls here in the middle of the day. I'm like I know what that stinking coyote is up to. So there was us there and I have dogs. And then there was another home about a mile away and they had a couple of dogs. But that coyote is up there on that hill making those cries. He wants to bait the dogs out If he can get them to the bush line. Down he comes, attacks them, kills people's pet dogs. So my jig is up, buddy, I'm. So. My jig is up, buddy, I'm on to you, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come, yeah, put an end to your plans here. So I take my little dog. I had a, um, a fox terrier, smooth-haired fox terrier. So that's a dog. That's about 15 pounds, pretty small, yeah, small little dog behalf.
Speaker 1:I actually got a dog last week. Uh, it's an alaskan malamute and he's eight weeks old and uh 15 pounds, eight weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll ask him now. I think he's going to be 100 pounds probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, his dad's about 105 right now. So, yep, he's going to be a big boy, but I know exactly what a 15-pound dog looks like right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, right. Well, probably not the dog. You know it definitely wasn't designed for coyote hunting. Yeah, but being a little hunting dog, being a little terrier, that's all it wants to do is hunt. It just loves killing things.
Speaker 1:That's. All it wants to do is kill stuff, no matter what it is.
Speaker 2:So I figure, well, I'll go out there with my dog, have her on a leash and we'll go out there, and that way, when he yips, maybe my dog will yip back and maybe I'll turn the tides on him and get him to come out into the open.
Speaker 2:He'll fall for my trap instead of a dog falling for his trap. So we get out. We get out there it's not too far away and we get up against the mountainside or just a little ways away, about a hundred yards away from the mountainside and a place where we can have, like an old road went through there, actually an old skid trail, and so I could see quite good for a whole 100 yards in front of me, with the mountainside on there. Oh, this is perfect, this is where he'll come out. He's just got to see my dog, or hear my dog, and he'll come out. So, sure enough, he yips a little bit, my dog does yip a little bit, but he's not moving, he just stays right there. So I'm like man, I got to get them to come out. You know, maybe if I let my dog off the leash and she goes out and, you know, runs around a little bit, he'll see her and then he won't be able to resist.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're playing a risky game, spencer, but okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I let the dog this little dog's name is shiva I let her off the leash and I say shiva, go, get, get, go up there. And she walks out maybe about 20 yards and just kind of stands there and then comes walking back to me almost like she knew what I was asking her to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, perfect, but no coyote. No coyote yet. But I could hear him walking around in the bush, a little bit higher, like he was, like he had seen her and he was coming around. And I knew as soon as he seen her he was, he would not be looking for me, he would be really focused on her. So I knew that he was up in there somewhere quite close by, but he would not poke out into the open and he yips some more, trying to get her to come out.
Speaker 2:So I tell her go, go, go, get up, get up. So she runs down that road about 40, 50 yards away and turns around, comes back still no coyote, like, oh man, I really want to get this coyote now. So so I said, okay, I'm gonna try one more time. I know that this is kind of dangerous, but if he makes makes a run for her, I'm sure I can shoot before he gets to her. So I try one more time. I tell her go out, get Sheba go. So she goes out and she keeps on going and this time she goes out about 70 yards away and at that point the road actually came uphill and then started going downhill. So the hill crested and she walked over the crest of the hill and just out of my eyesight.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll be damned if that coyote didn't actually know exactly where I was and where she was in the whole situation. The second she got over that where I couldn't see anymore man, did I hear kai? And he came flying out of the bush and attacked her full force no way and could that little dog k when a coyote's trying to kill her?
Speaker 2:let me tell you. So I jump up with my gun and I just run for all I'm worth for the top of that hill. I get to the top of the hill and here's at the bottom of this hill, so maybe 10 yards away, 15 yards away, really close is that coyote and he's bearing down on my little dog and he's he'd get a real good bite on her back and then he'd lift her up and try to run for it and then she'd squirm and squiggle and fight so hard that he'd have to set her down and then try to bite some more to get a better hold on her and lift her up again. So I bring my gun up and I've got a big scope on my, on my rifle, and so I look and all you can see is fur.
Speaker 1:Yep, I've been in that situation Way too close.
Speaker 2:Way too close. All I can see is coyote dog, coyote dog, coyote dog. I can tell the difference between the two because she was white colored, jumping between the scope and he picks her up and his time. I knew he's going to make it away with her. So I either shoot now and I just have to shoot. There's no, I just got to take the shot. Whatever happens happens. So in my mind's eye I don't know how I did it it shot boom at exactly the right time. So with my dog in its mouth I know kidding, not a word of a lie shot that coyote dead straight through the head and didn't hit my dog. Wow gosh, that coyote dropped like a stack of hammers, dead instantly, and when she hit the ground all feet were running and she was gone yeah, yeah, you never saw your dog again.
Speaker 1:She's like I am over hanging out with spencer gosh. I told you you're playing a risky game. I knew where that story was going, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he guessed it, oh man it was pretty bad for her she was.
Speaker 2:She was actually pretty like chomped up, really bad. I had. I knew, um, there was, um I had a friend that was an ex vet, an old retired guy. So I brought him, brought her down to him and he sewed on her for a long time, sewing up all of those holes, and then he put her in his kennel and he said to me and he says not looking very good, don't have your hopes up, but call me in the morning, I'll let you know if she's still alive. I called him in the morning. He says damn, you wouldn't believe it. I walked in there, that little dog standing there tail, just a wagon.
Speaker 1:Come and get her. There you go.
Speaker 2:I just added some character to her right and that was the beginning of her coyote hunting career. I must have got 15 coyotes with that dog using that same method oh yeah yeah, did they get her every time. Oh, no, no, they never got her again okay, okay, that's good she knew not to go out of sight she would get closer. She would wait for the shot. She would never like attack until she heard the boom. She knew when God's got the thunder stick and makes the boom, yeah, then you can go attack, okay.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, man. Coyotes are so smart. I knew when you said, there was a hill.
Speaker 1:I was like, well, it's about to happen. I have a friend who uses thermal scopes in Texas and he says that he's put out mechanical calling devices out there and he'll spot a coyote and then the coyote will circle everything to try and catch wind of whatever is there to make sure that it's real and they're just super smart animals. So in the middle of the night you can just watch what this critter is doing and it sounds like the one you were dealing with was just as smart almost got away with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nowadays they got all those great calls, a little electronic ones where the tail whips out there and it goes. We didn't, we didn't know about any of that back then, so maybe that existed, but I I didn't know about it. All I knew was I used my own dog as big, doesn't have enough holes in her yet we'll just keep sending her out.
Speaker 1:existed, but I didn't know about it. All I knew was I used my own dog as bait. Yeah, she doesn't have enough holes in her yet. We'll just keep sending her out. All right, spencer man, this was fun. I know I only booked an hour of your time and we're running out of it. In fact, we're over a little bit here. So if you want to keep telling stories, I'll keep listening. Otherwise, we can wrap this up. I'd love to have you on again another time.
Speaker 2:I have a feeling you have a lot more stories to tell, but up to you. Yeah, that's right, michael, I do have more to tell. Maybe we will just call it a time here. Those are two of my favorite and earliest hunting stories. Of course I got a lot more on my channel and I've got more that I do want to share with you sometime. But I think if I get into another you won't be able to get a word in edgewise for about 30 minutes more I would love to save it for another time.
Speaker 2:My friend, it's been really enjoyable sharing these stories and I find, you know, with getting these stories out there, people get excited about it. Other hunters. They're like you know what I got to get out with my son. I got to get back with you know my uncle, who I hunted with, and it's bringing people together and it's reminding them of those special memories that they have together, like when you're hunting with someone, you know what it's like and you and you harvest something together. There's a there's a bond that forms a real bond and it doesn't leave. You can call your hunting buddy up from 20 years ago and say, remember that time we got that elk and you guys are back to best friends, just like that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely 100%. You'd be surprised how many people have messaged me saying thank you for just having people tell stories. I was in a slump. I wasn't hunting anymore, hadn't hunted in 10 years but I listened to your podcast and I went back out and shot the biggest buck I've ever shot in my life and things like that Like it's. It's really rewarding just to have people go. You know what this is fun. Thank you for doing it and, spencer, I think you get that, which is great, and so we will definitely have you back. Why don't we do this real quick, before we do sign off? Why don't you tell the people where they can find you? I know YouTube and Instagram, whatever else you got. Let the people know.
Speaker 2:You bet. Well, you know, probably the easiest way to find me is just go on themoosewhisperercom so I actually have my own website and Moosewhisperercom, so I actually have my own website and then on that website it will direct you to whoever you want to get these stories through YouTube or through Instagram or Facebook. All of those links and everything are all on there. Any way that you like to consume your media, you'll be able to find it through my website, themoosewhisperercom.
Speaker 1:Perfect. I will put that link specifically in the show notes and check out Spencer's stuff. It's a lot of fun. He's got just as much energy on all of his posts as he does when he's making fun of his German friend.
Speaker 2:So Spencer thank you.
Speaker 1:I really do appreciate you listeners. Thank you guys for tuning in. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Michael. We'll talk to you again.
Speaker 1:Perfect. All right, guys. That's it. Another couple stories in the books. I want to thank Spencer, of course, for coming on the podcast Could not have done it without him. It's always a pleasure to meet new people and Spencer had a ton of great energy and some great impressions, so I hope you guys enjoyed that episode as much as I did. Now make sure you go into the show notes, follow Spencer. I got links to everything in there. Also, we are going to be having a big 100th episode giveaway, which is coming out here in five or six weeks, so make sure you're following along. Follow us on Instagram and you'll learn more about how to get entered in that. But that's it, guys. Thank you very much for tuning in. Now get out there and