The Hunting Stories Podcast
Elk. Bear. Hog. Turkey. Deer and More. Hunting Stories that will make you laugh or maybe cry; real life chronicles from the field.
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 075 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Stevie Balderaz & Phil Wise
Ever thought about what it takes to hunt a perfect ram in the wild mountains? Welcome back to another gripping installment of the Hunting Stories podcast, where we're reuniting with our dear friend and recurring guest, Phil Wise, and his hunting partner Stevie Balderaz. Both are seasoned hunters with a treasure trove of stories to share, from their first meeting, their thrilling adventures across rugged terrains, to the adrenaline-filled pursuit of a ram in the mountains.
Hunting stories are a fascinating blend of danger, excitement, challenge and camaraderie. Today's episode is no exception, as Phil and Stevie delve into their experiences hunting sheep in the mountains. Picture the grueling journey to retrieve water, the post-hunt butchering under challenging conditions, and the sheer effort it takes to haul their bounty down the mountain. They share the peculiarities of hunting the Barbary sheep and the unique taste and texture of its meat. They also recount their encounters with Audad and other amusing incidents from their expeditions, painting a vivid picture of the wild and unpredictable world of hunting.
We're wrapping up this episode with a collection of their hunting misadventures and hilarious mishaps. From surprise visits from the Marlboro Man, a hilarious laughing incident in a hospital, to an impromptu backyard party in a Southwest Texas border town. Each story is a testament to the bond they share, the joy of finding the perfect ram and the priceless memories they've created along the way. Whether you're a seasoned hunter yourself, or someone who simply enjoys a riveting adventure tale, there's something in it for you. So, strap in and get ready for a wild ride with Phil Wise and Stevie Balderaz.
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Howdy folks and welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and as usual we got another good one for you today. Today we actually have another repeat offender. We got Phil Wise on the podcast, but today Phil didn't come alone, he actually brought a buddy with him. He brought Stevie Balderes with him and they just went on a pretty crazy, odd ed hunt and they wanted to share the story with you guys. So I hope you guys enjoy. I want to say thank you again to Phil. He's been a good friend of mine since he jumped on the podcast and, if you didn't know this already, he was the first listener to actually call in and say, hey, I got some stories I want to tell. So thank you again to both Phil and Stevie. I don't want stealing into their thunder, so let's just go ahead and kick this thing off and let you tell you or let them tell you their story. Alright, fellas, welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. How you both doing.
Speaker 2:Doing good.
Speaker 1:Good, good, yeah, this is. You know, we don't often have multiple people on the podcast, but we got a special one today for a couple reasons. One we have a new guest, stevie. I'll let you introduce yourself real quick. Why don't we kick that off?
Speaker 3:I'm Stevie Balderes from Hurford, texas. Been hunting for a while. Been excited to do this. I know we got asked I think the day after we or, I'm sorry, the day we left, and I've been excited ever since. Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Good man, good Well, nice to meet you, stevie. I'm excited to hear your part of the story. We also have Phil Wise on the podcast again. Phil, you're kind of special because you are actually the first listener to be brave enough to say, hey, I got a story, and you were the first one of my listeners to come on to the podcast, so that's awesome. Secondly, since then I feel like we've been pretty good friends, so I appreciate that. Man. We've kept each other honest throughout the offseason, making sure that we're staying in shape for elk hunting. I should have had you doing more like breathing exercises. That here's where it sounds like, but yeah, man so.
Speaker 1:I want to say thank you for again reaching out. So, stevie, I don't know if you know, but Phil was like man. I had a crazy story and he started breaking into it and I was like, whoa, I don't hear any stories over Instagram, let's get you back on the podcast. And here we are, man. So Phil for those who maybe haven't listened to your episode why don't you introduce yourself for what I haven't already done?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, philip Wise. I am originally from Colorado but live in Lubbock, texas. Now I've been hunting since I was oh gosh, I think I was 10 or 11 when I went on my first deer hunt and all that's in my episode the first one. I think it's episode like 2021 somewhere and in that in that ballpark. But yeah, I'll look it up here. Been hunting for a while, done a bunch of different stuff, started chasing elk and mule, deer and whitetail and we'll get into some other stuff in this story. But yeah, been been chasing critters, started bow hunting a little bit more recently and and super excited about that, but got a rifle in my hand again this season, so I'll talk about that too.
Speaker 1:Nice man, nice yeah, and your episode is 21, so good memory I've done so many of these. It's hard for me to keep them straight, but you have an amazing mule deer story. If you guys want to hear it, make sure you check out Phil's first episode. Quick question for you, fellas. How do you guys, how do you guys know each other? Let's start with that.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, phil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we met through a mutual friend of ours, uh, that named Kyle Marl that owns a CrossFit gym now in Herford, but he used to do CrossFit with me in Canyon, um, and when he moved to Herford and opened his gym I was going over there gym a little bit, you know, hanging out and working out with them, and met Stevie through that.
Speaker 2:And actually Stevie doesn't I don't know if he knows this or not, but Stevie is the guy that took me quote unquote took me on my first bow hunt, uh, so the first time I ever had a bow in my hand with live animals was on Stevie's deer release. Um, a little short side story. I shot a deer, I tipped a wire, that little fence around their, around their feeders, to keep the cows off of. I tipped a wire and I shot this deer right in the right in the butt, cheek and I had a strobing red and blue lumenok in the arrow and it was getting dark and it's in the wide open and it looks like there's a cop car driving across this field because that lumenok is still just flashing, it's getting dark and I saw this text in Stevie when I was in the blind.
Speaker 2:I was like, hey, dude, it looks like a police car is coming over there, you should shoot it. That's a deer that I wounded, so hopefully you can get this. I don't think they ever did find that deer, but so, yeah, ben hunted with Stevie a little bit before this, this story, and that's kind of how we know each other yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:I remember that day well, and, and I remember Philip was excited as hell to shoot. Uh he, I think he was just getting into the bow.
Speaker 2:I literally had been shooting a bow for for less than six months at that hunt like probably less than three months at that point so I was thrilled.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, my first bow experience was not great wounded deer never, found it but a pretty great visual like a police car deer flying through an open field yeah, it was hilarious that's feel.
Speaker 3:We'll blame it on the on the wind yeah, the wind, the, the wind, the wire on the feeder or on the fence, whatever.
Speaker 2:It's probably just that I got buck fever and just sucked at shooting.
Speaker 1:But a little bit of column, a little bit of column b, right, yeah, cool. Well, you guys had a pretty epic hunt this season. So, um, I don't know if you want to go into your elk season at all. That was less than epic, I think. But then you hit me up for a barbarie sheep also known as an odd ad hunt. So I'll let you guys kind of take it off. Let's, let's dive into this thing, kind of set the stage for us Phil or or Stevie yeah, I'll, I'll start because the the rodeo of this hunt started before even Stevie got involved.
Speaker 2:I'll give you the quick recap of elk season. Uh, one bull in a wallow altitude sickness, altitude sickness. One bull and oak rush, so that couldn't see, went home. There we go, altitude sickness is real man.
Speaker 1:You, you hunted it. What? 12 000 feet.
Speaker 2:I hunted everything from like 12 000 to 8500, and it didn't matter where I was at. It seems like once I got over about six, I was just getting smoked that, sucks man that sucks that's a tough way to lose a season.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of hunters have gone that way. I think um guide de planche from western contours, even at a season where he is anything over 10. He was just gone like couldn't do it and he just had a. You can lose a whole season quick yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, and in light of all that, after that season's over, um, I'm kind of like, you know, I've got a mule. They're not coming up still, but I really haven't got to go on like a cool adventure because I've been sick the whole time. Um, and my cousin calls me and says, hey, I've got this Barbie sheep hunt. Uh, he gives me like six days notice, so it's like he calls me on a Friday and the hunt starts the next Friday. Um, he's like you know, if you can find some guys to go with you, you know kind of here's what it costs and I'm like, well, I can't swing it by myself. But boy, if I can get a couple guys to go with me, like this is gonna be a sweet deal. And he's, you know, he's sending me all these pictures of sheep and he's like this hunt is awesome.
Speaker 1:So I sent me all of those pictures, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I got done everyone in my phone like who do I know that hunts that I can maybe talk in a do on on this, on on short notice, and I'm sending message after message after message and it's like no, I can't. One guy was he was like I'd love to, but I'm going moose hunt. Another guy was like I'd love to, but I've got a mule. They're tagged and that's just like all these and I'm like man and so, um, that's through my like you know, my love it group of friends, that hunt man, who else do I know? And I was like I'll call Stevie and I kind of second guess. It was like man, I hadn't talked to Stevie in a while, like since I moved to Lubbock, hadn't been back to the gym at Herford for a long time. I was like I haven't talked to him in a minute, like I hope he doesn't think I'm, you know, a creeper of it.
Speaker 4:You know I haven't hosted me for three years yeah, go sit in for three years like.
Speaker 2:I follow him on social media but I'm the worst at, you know, the worst friend ever. I've ever reached out to anybody. I'm just like, oh, I see, you're still alive. You know we're gonna go. So I called Stevie telling the deal and he's like bro, I'm in, like, sign me up. And so I had. We had one other guy that was supposed to go with this and some stuff came up with him and so he didn't wind up going. So it was just me and Stevie and we got this, we got this hunt, and so we take off. In the meantime, in between all this, my cousin as called me and said hey, here's where you're going like, here's where camp is at, here's where all the gates are that you need to go through get in there like here's some plus.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and he's given me all these pins on on x right and so this hunt. I will say disclaimer at the beginning I made a bunch of rookie dumb mistakes that I don't know why I made, and number one, that's what makes this hunt awesome yeah, that's, that's what makes it awesome.
Speaker 2:So the first mistake I made is, as I'm talking to him, he's like hey, when you get to camp and when you get down there you'll have service. So like call out and do whatever if you get lost or something you need help. Like cool, no big deal. So I don't download my maps on on x, which is I do that all the time, like it doesn't matter where I'm going. I always download my maps offline just in case something happens, like you have them and you can see actually where you are. So me and Stevie bomb down, we're hunting, just you know, kind of around the Marfa area. We get down there, we get to the ranch, or not to the ranch. We get to where we're supposed to turn in, to go to this place, get to the first gate. I'm like all right, the combo unlock is this Stevie jumps out to get the gate and he comes back and he takes a little bit and comes back and he's like dude, there's not a combo lock on this gate.
Speaker 3:I said, I said maybe, maybe he meant a key. There was three, there was three locks with with that would take a key. And he kept telling me, yeah, josh is saying you know, you know it's, it'll take a, this is the code or whatever. And I'm like man, this, this isn't gonna work yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking like man, maybe the guys that own this place forgot to put, maybe they put the combo lock out just for the hunters and, like you know, we got there early and haven't got to put out or something, I don't know. But we are on the x of this waypoint that my, my cousin, sent me, like I, we could not be more on the spot, there's not another gator down like, this is the spot. So we turn around, we drive back up the hill to get service out of the you know, out of where we're at, get service, and call him. It's actually saying on we had drove a little further down the road and we got to a cattle garden that had a sign on it that named this ranch and I'm not gonna name the place, but it was not what it says in on x. So the sign and what I know what it said on us, because I couldn't pronounce it definitely wasn't what was on that sign.
Speaker 2:And so I'm like I don't, I want to cross this cattle garden like we trespassing, turning on, drive back up town. Called Josh was like no, you need to go across the cattle guard, that's the right place, whatever. And so we drive and we get on the roughest road I think either one of us have ever. I don't know, I can't speak for Steve, but it's a roughest road I've ever drove on. I mean it like to beat my truck to death, I felt bad for that F 250 yeah, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1:road itself, or was there brush going over the road?
Speaker 3:just everything rocks, everything inside, coming from the side. They had such a dragon, jagged rocks. I mean it was taking chunks out of rubber. I mean it was, oh my god, it had to be.
Speaker 2:They had washouts that were extreme yeah that's why I always have my friends drive when I'm hunting. I did three days. I was on my pick up actually when I got home because there was literally like golf ball sized hunks at tread getting hacked out of my house oh yeah, okay yeah, so this road's gnarly.
Speaker 2:We get in um the you know, as we're going in and and my cousin says, hey, once you cross you know this gate, basically like you're on the place, start hunting. You hunt your way into camp. The first night we glass some sheep up. I don't know anything about barbie sheep, I don't know how spooky they are, like I don't know what you can get away with. And so we've got some sheep from probably like a thousand yards away and we're driving really slow and we're trying to get up there and see if we can find a ram and it just kind of didn't work out the first night. That again, we were going probably way too cautious, but I didn't know what the other was. Yeah, rolling to camp, camp is just a big metal building that's got like cots in a, you know a propane cook stove and a big water tank that they have plumbed through his PVC pipe into a sink. So it's not a house but it's definitely not a pan.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, keep you alive, keep you out of the rain if it I don't know that it ever rains there, but if it did, and so, stevie, I'll let you tell this part but we start unloading all of our stuff and getting into the shed and so the the building like half of it is on, just like the foundation is just on the ground, and then it kind of runs downhill. So the other half had to build up a little bit so that you know to keep the floor level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one was like a dirt floor. You could tell it was once dirt, had bricked those paver bricks making a new floor. You walk into the next room and it's a wooden floor. You know you can where it was built up. Yeah, I mean we got it loaded.
Speaker 3:We're putting our bags on the bed. We were kind of going to be caddy corner from each other and I find the furthest bed to the corner clip, next to the windows. You know pretty nice Big, thick mattress on this sucker and I set my bag down and I heard this rattle and I was like, well, no, freaking way, day we get here, there's a rattlesnake underneath the bed. You know, when I'm looking around the bed, I mean through the wall, I mean there's. You know there's six beds in there. So we're just searching around. I set my gun down and I'm like you got to be shitting me. You know there's a snake here and so I do remember this. We both we couldn't. You could tell it was underneath the floor, the wooden floor. So we went around the back and I grabbed the first thing I see, and I grabbed the damn broom, feel like.
Speaker 3:Superman fucking finds a damn shovel somewhere and we go searching for the snake. But long story short, we never found the snake and I damn sure didn't sleep in that bed.
Speaker 2:And the whole the whole evening, so that whole night as we're walking. When you'd get back into that corner it's, he'd start off against, like he'd quit rattling at one point. Yeah, yeah, far enough on the floor he'd start and I was like I wasn't worried about him crawling up there into the room anymore, but I was like man, I got to get any sleep. If this snake is buzzing, all right, and I'm not really going to dig underneath this house and see if I can find him.
Speaker 4:So yeah, we had the snake I'm sleeping in my truck.
Speaker 3:Hey, that's where I was headed. That's exactly where I was headed.
Speaker 2:So we get up. I think it a creature in the house too. I forgot about this guy. We get up the next morning and every morning that we were there this happened. But we had this little mouse. I started calling the door, just joking around, but he would run. This mouse would come out and he ran literally almost the same tracks every morning. He'd come out from behind the main door, he'd run across the kitchen floor towards the bedroom and then he'd run up the bed Like there's like a sliding barn door that keeps the kitchen and the sleeping area separate. He'd run up the barn door, come back down the barn door, he'd run behind the workbench and he'd come back out and he'd sit at the end of that workbench and look at us while we drank coffee and had breakfast. And he did it all three mornings that we were there. It was hilarious.
Speaker 1:I wonder if maybe somebody had been there often enough and fed him, so that he's like, hey, if I sit here, they'll see me, they'll feed me.
Speaker 2:I have no clue, but he was just a tiny, I mean a little bitty mouse. So the first morning rolls around, we start kind of get our stuff put together and the way that this place is like you can hunt right, Like the house is in the middle of the country that you can hunt, so there's really no point in like getting up super early and going anywhere. You can start hunting as soon as it's daylight.
Speaker 3:We were kind of like in a valley, so you had you're going to have 60 degrees to hunt. I mean you could have hunted, we could have sat there and hunted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, if we wanted to. And so kind of a little more for the listeners to get just how this country runs. The road that comes in runs east and west and then it turns and runs north and south and it turns around this one lone peak and we'll call that Missy's Peak. And then Missy's Peak is connected by a saddle to this big cliff band that kind of runs almost the same direction of the road, parallel to a road, so it runs east and west in front of camp and then it turns and goes north and south, kind of as you drive around it, and there's a saddle that connects that one lone peak to that other side and the other side's got three big rockout croppings on the side of it. I don't remember what they had a name for it. I think it like brother or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So as you're driving you can get around and at one point you can see basically a third, a half of that Missy's Peak and a good portion of that face of the brother. You can glass all of it from one spot. And so I said, hey, the first morning I'm like let's go. I've got a spot marked Like we can drive up there. We can crawl up a little hill if we need to, or we can just glass out of the pickup and we can see a lot of country and see if we can find sheep.
Speaker 2:And the other thing before we started glossing, josh is like hey, have you ever hunted sheep before? I'm like no, I have no clue. I don't know anything about him, I don't know nothing. He's like man, you guys are going to suck. He's like they're so hard to see, they're hard to glass, hard to find, you guys are going to look over so many sheep. And it's like this thing that. I'm like man, it's a surefire deal, we're going to go get some sheep killed. Now he's like no, you guys are going to suck, you're going to get to miss so many sheep.
Speaker 3:He didn't give us a chance at all no. So I got to talk to him about that.
Speaker 2:So we get up the first morning and start glassing and as soon as daylight breaks on, that not low and peak, that misses peak on the face that we can see there's a group of Stevie. Tell me if I'm lying 50. 40?, 50.
Speaker 3:There's just sheep everywhere. It looked like the side of the mountain was just moving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was everywhere. And another thing the way this country runs is like you can walk pretty easily up about halfway up those peaks, but once you get past half it gets real steep, real shaley, and then it cliffs out a lot. I mean you could get all the way to the top if you had to, but it gets nasty Past about halfway up it. So it's kind of like Mesa looking country almost, and the sheep are feeding from the top of that peak. They have fed down and they're headed towards the bottom and then they're also kind of heading away from us. So they're heading towards that saddle and we're glassing and I'm like we got really good wind right there. I'd listened to as many podcasts I could find about hunting sheep and they said their thing is try to get the sun behind you when you're stalking them so they can't see you as well. And the sun is coming up behind us. I'm like Stevie, this is perfect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a perfect storm, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's just go. We're going to side hill, we're going to get on that brother's side but they're feeding over like we're just going to go straight at them and we'll probably cut them off and we can then have a chance to glass over this giant group of sheep, and I'm sure we can find a good ram in that group to shoot. And so, ricky, mistake number two that I make Another one coming. But I decided, hey, I had my phone plugged in. I had to plug in all night. I was like I'm just going to leave it charging, so I've got full battery for the day. Leave my phone in the truck, which I literally never do. We take off after these sheep.
Speaker 3:Well, we also didn't think we were going to go as far. I mean, they seemed like they were right there. Let's go 300 yards and we'll be right on top of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're like 800 yards away and I'm like man, we ain't got to get, but you know, 300 or 400 yards, in the way they're feeding, we'll be within a couple of 100 yards of them. So we take off after the sheep. As we're going, we start kicking up Javalina. And how about you? We jumped, I don't know, 8, 10 Javalina and they're like running right at the sheep.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, like no, we're done, like these Javalina are going to screw our deal up and I keep waiting to, like you know, hear those sheep run off. You could see them if they were running off you, I mean, they couldn't have hid from you. Never see them, never see them. In the middle of the bumping, these Javalinas. Above us, on that brother side to the right, we hear rocks start falling and I'm like well, that's weird. So we stopped and glass up there. Well, there's sheep up there, probably another 20, 30, a bunch of groups. There's sheep everywhere.
Speaker 2:And my first thought is like there's no way that this giant group of 40 sheep in front of us beat us across. I mean, we're going slow, but we ain't going that slow Beat us across the draw and got all the way up to the top of that other peak and we didn't see it. Like it could, it couldn't happen. But I can't find them. Now at this point They've fed all the way down to the bottom and they I can't like, I can't find them, I can't see them. And so I dropped my pack with Stevie and I'm like, hey, you look up at the group of sheep at the top, see if there's a ram up there. We want to shoot. I'm going to keep sneaking forward and see if I can find this big group and see where they went. And as I'm doing that, I bust another Javalina up. And as I'm walking I hear Stevie. I'm going, I'm like what I mean that bastard.
Speaker 3:That bastard almost bulldozed me as soon as he came out from underneath, phil. I mean, he ran right to me and apparently they're not very good, that's you know, with sight. But God, I mean that came right to my feet, I jumped and I was over there shooting away Sh sh, sh sh and that thing went right around me.
Speaker 2:And so I can't figure out what he's doing.
Speaker 3:I'm like is he trying to?
Speaker 2:get my attention Like what are you doing? Why are you making this noise? And he's like Javalina was like I could have kicked him in the face. He was so close. So I get together, I'm like OK, well, like back to hunting. I keep sneaking and I never do see these sheep. But I get close if I can hear them and they sound just like sheep. I mean, just like you're, you know a farm sheep. So I'm like dude, I can't see him. He's looked up at those sheep on the top. He's like I don't see anything up there that I really want to you know go after and they are way up there and it's really steep.
Speaker 2:So he's like I'm like, all right, well, I think these sheep are just right over this little rise. I can hear them. They're they got to be close. Stevie, drop your pack with mine, we'll take our guns, we'll sneak really, really slow and you know, sneak and glass, almost like still hunting. We'll sneak and glass and we'll see if we can get on these sheep and fine. So we take off again. And this is where that mistake of leaving my phone in the truck comes into play. If I ever leave my pack, I always drop a pin on on X just to be like that's where my packs at. Because again, I'm thinking we're going to go like 50 yards over this little rise and they're going to be right there 50 yards over the rise. No sheet, I can still hear him. We keep sneaking, we keep sneaking. How far do you think we got from our packs before we got?
Speaker 3:got set up. I'd say 400 yards At least yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we get a ways from our packs, see some sheep. We see like six or eight head of sheep just kind of cruising. And so now again, so you people kind of understand we are looking at, there's like a little cut in this face that goes up to the on the brother side. These six or eight sheep are on the north facing side of that. So we're looking, they're on the south facing side of that, we're looking to the north, we can see these eight or six, eight sheep, whatever it is. We're on the north facing side. We are just barely crossing up over at high enough for we can see that other face. But again, there's only eight sheep and there was 40, 50, 60 of them Earlier. And I'm still like where in a there?
Speaker 1:What's their approximate distance like across this this draw, 200?
Speaker 2:300 okay.
Speaker 1:So I assume no shooters in this eight, or are you just like so cut up with seeing all of them You're not worried about?
Speaker 3:yeah, we're so cut up on seeing all of them. We wanted to see that best when we wanted. We wanted to see something that we yeah, you know it.
Speaker 1:So make sure it was the best of the 40, not the best.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're glassing this, we're glassing these eight and we don't know at this point. Yet I got. We don't know where the big groups out, we just know where the slow group is we're looking at. I'm like one ram in there.
Speaker 2:But like I don't know, steve, if you like him you can shoot him, but I don't. I don't know how to judge him, I don't know. He makes you happy, go for it. And we had. I don't know what happened. I had turned maybe to glass up the hill on those other sheep and see if a ram had came out up there and all of a sudden the side of the hill that we can't see so the side we're on Gets up and all those you, plus some more she.
Speaker 2:Stand up and they're not really running off like we have bumped them, but they're not like freaked out leaving the country, they're just. They all get up and they start milling around, they all get on the face that we can see. And so now there's like right 60 had a sheep over there and I'm frantically trying to glass and Steve's probably doing the same thing. I'm like, oh, we got to find a big one, like let's find a shooter in this group. There got to be one or so many of them. And I see her, I see a ram, but I think it's pretty good. And he's at the like top right corner, if you. You know, imagine a rectangle of you know Sheep across his face isn't the top right corner, and Stevie's on his gun. Look in and I can tell he's like we're getting close to ready to shoot. So I start putting earplugs in because I don't want to be standing behind him you know shooting a 300 win with the muzzle brake on it and I'm behind him and kind of to the side. I don't want to get my ear drum blown out, and so I'm trying to walk him in.
Speaker 2:I'm like, hey, stevie, this sheep is top right corner. He's got like eight used below him in a straight line. He's just standing there in a wide open broadside. I think he's a good one, shoot him. And he's saying something back to me but I can't hear him because I got one ear plug in and I'm like waiting and shooting. No, waiting and he's not shooting. And I'm like dude, he's like right there he's standing like he's gonna move and Stevie says he's behind a rock. And right as he said that, I pulled my binos down to be like what rock? There's not a rock within a hundred yards. The sheep I'm looking at. And as soon as I pull my binos down, steve's the one Steve is looking at steps out and he shoots, boom and the whole hillside just blows up, sheep going and I don't have a clue as the spotter like I have zero idea what she peed, your shot or shot.
Speaker 2:No horrible communication. It is probably my fault. Does a spotter not, you know, not like walking in instead of instead of me trying to walk him into my she trying to figure out what she feels looking at Sheep go everywhere. They all kind of group back up, they run across the saddle and they go up that that missies peak. So they've gone back to the other side now and I'm glassing. All these sheeps are running up Like looking for one that's got blood on under. You know that's limping or something. I got nothing. Every sheep that goes up there looks just fine. And so the other thing is on the way down, stevie.
Speaker 2:We were talking about his gun and I'm a, I'm a bag of you, little Stevie, sorry you got. You were back Like I haven't shot this gun in three years but my brother-in-law killed the sheep with it, like last year, but I haven't shot since then and I'm like all right, cool, like I have no idea if your guns on, but I'm gonna trust you and we're gonna say that it is. Yeah, but I also know if he didn't bring his gun in a case, it was just, you know, tied to his pack when you threw my truck in that road we went down. I'm like I could definitely see it knocking the scope off somehow. Like I mean it rough yeah. So he shoots and I hear the bullet hit, but I can't tell like did he hit a critter? Or like one of these big boulders? It's just, you know, it's just boulders, kind of scattered. Ever I'm gonna get a bigger off. I got I don't know. I heard the bang and I heard a for sure whap right nothing as far as where he's at, so he shoots.
Speaker 2:He's like no, I think I smoked him, shot felt great, everything's good. Okay. Well, let's go back and get our packs, because we don't have any knives or anything with us, and that'll give us enough time to like let that sheep lane and all will be good, and so we head back in the direction of our backs, and so, mind you and that that was a shit show. Yeah, that was a shit show and this is all taken probably what was it? Three hours from the time we spotted those sheep.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. It was at least three hours out from. From the time we left the truck to the time we shot. It was three hours every bit of.
Speaker 2:So we've been. We've been doing all this back and forth. We haven't had a pack for most of it, which is where I keep my water, and we'll talk about that in a minute. We start heading, we start heading back and I'm like we're, our packs are just right there, and we keep going. He's like no dude, we're further away. I'm like no man, they should be like right here Now. So we walk, we walk, we walk. It probably takes us another 40 minutes to an hour. We do get our packs found, but it takes us forever to find them because I don't have a phone, I don't have a pin, I have no clue where we are.
Speaker 3:I mean every rock looked the same the side. You know that each washout that we passed, I mean it was like yeah, this is it? No, it's not.
Speaker 2:Yep, 100%. So if I like it packs on, I put my pack on. It's like Probably 80 degrees at this point. So you know 10 o'clock, 9 o'clock in the morning, 10 o'clock something like that, and I pull my little drink hose up that I run out of my bladder and Zero water in there. I had not refilled my bladder from elk season again, I always refill my water before I leave. I just don't know why I didn't Got no agua and Steve doesn't have any his back either. And we're like far enough from the truck that we don't really want to walk back to the truck. We're like, yeah, it's fine, like we'll just walk up there and find him and We'll be no, but Head back Towards where the sheep is right. This is dumb decision. Oh no, head back towards. Michael knows where this is going.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've heard enough stories to know that these decisions were made in haste.
Speaker 2:So but yeah yeah, this is dumb. We get back to where he shot. I'm like, all right, walk me into, like when he was on the mountain side from here. You tell me where he was, that, where he was standing. We've glossed over there. I don't see a sheet, but that doesn't mean anything. I mean if they lay down behind all these rocks you'd lose it, that you couldn't see him. So he's like it's this big square rock. He was coming out just from behind it, moving from like right to left. Like cool, we can like it's a really prominent big boulder. We can walk right over to it. Look. So we walk across the canyon, get over there, start looking no sheep, no blood, no big white spot on a rock where his bullet missed and hit. Like we got nothing, zero. He's like man. I think this she's like I think he went uphill. Dude, if you hit him he wouldn't have gone uphill. Yeah, he did go down.
Speaker 1:What made you think he was uphill like?
Speaker 3:well.
Speaker 1:Pop in your mind.
Speaker 3:Absolutely nothing. What, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 3:I was telling, feel like like once we are walking from where I shot To where I thought I shot him, like I kept thinking, man, I mean Something's telling me he's gone up something, just something told me. You know, I don't think he went with the rest of the sheet. You know, they went down into the, into that saddle, through the washout and then back up, you know, sister. So I was like man, I don't, I don't, I didn't see him. I mean, when I shot, I threw another shell in, I scanned throughout the herd, I didn't see him. And so I'm like man, something's just telling me he's either right here he might have been a little bit further behind the rock when I shot him, but he's either he's either behind it or he's gone up, and so go ahead, phil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's like man, I think he went up and I'm like, dude, there's no way you went up, he went downhill. So we're scouring, and scouring, and scouring and I'm like at this point, you know, I'm thinking he had shot his gun in three years, like he probably missed, because he should be right here. From what he's telling me, from what he's looking at the scope, you like he should be right here and we're not seeing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're doing the math at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I'm like, all right, before we get too crazy, like let's just see if your guns on, so shoot back across. Let's just find a rock, shoot back across to where we were starting to shoot at and let's just see if your guns way off, so we can save our. You know, if it's up, you know four feet off, like we'll just save ourselves the time and agony of hiking around here and we'll go set your gun in the river. My ask you get me, doubted me. I did doubt him. I was like he missed.
Speaker 1:This exact conversation with the bud.
Speaker 3:I could. I could see after, after, like the first 45 minutes to an hour, but I could see in his face here the doubt.
Speaker 2:I had no confidence left in Stevie. So he lines up on this rock on the other side. He's like I'm gonna shoot it right in this, you know, right the middle of this rock, and I'm glassing and he shoots and I mean it is, you couldn't hit it more dead center, like it is Perfect. And I'm like, damn it, he hit the sheet. Now I can't.
Speaker 2:Now I'm really upset because like I'm thinking, at least if you missed, like we don't have a wounded sheep not around. But now we've got a sheep it, and I'm pretty positive We've got him. It we're not gonna find. So I'm like, alright, dude, this is the only thing I can think to do is I'm gonna send you back across the canyon to where you shot from. I'm gonna stay over here. You go back to where you shot from getting your gun and Like, walk me into where you think he was standing when you shot, so that because I think you know, maybe he was further away than we think I didn't have a range on that sheep. Like I had a range on the hillside, so we were within you know, 40, 50 yards or where the actual sheep was, but I didn't know exactly how far his sheep was.
Speaker 2:Yeah so sending him back over. He's cruising around back and forth and he can't find the spot where he shot at. I'm still grid searching up there and I'm not finding anything Like I can't. I've been there tracks, that's the only thing I can find. But there was just 60 sheep up there, so of course there's tracks. I Got nothing, man, and so we. I go back across the canyon to him. He can't, can't quite find the spot where he shot from and I just, dumb luck, walk across there and I look down and I find his piece of brass and I'm like, oh bro, you were shooting from right here, okay get back on your gun.
Speaker 2:Look back over there and tell me where he's at. He's like. I'm telling you he is by this big square rock that we've been walking around. Yeah, never did it change.
Speaker 3:I mean it was, I mean he was damn sure there. Yeah, so again we're both out of water.
Speaker 2:It's now probably noon. We haven't had water in five hours. Or yeah, or more camp.
Speaker 2:Since we left camp, right, we've had, like you know, I had like two swallows of water out of analogy, near my truck and it's hot, like it's getting close to 90 and I'm like man Whatever, like I know this sheeps hit, because I've seen you shoot and if you tell me the shots, good, like I still believe now, now I believe you that you shot him. So I say, let's, steve, you grab a knife. Well, let's leave our packs work, because we can see him on this hill, like let's leave our packs there so we can rain and hit our packs, so that we know exactly the line that we're looking at, because it's like we kind of think we know wherever we can see this pack, we can see like this is exactly where you shot from, here's the way you shot. From here we can see like this is exactly where you shot from, here's the line, here's where you should be. So we go back across the canyon to where he shoots the sheep at for the third time.
Speaker 2:Close to a mile worth of walking, literally just back and forth the you know 250 or 300 yards of the shot. Yeah, you know back up there and I finally find blood like to like Sort of size like, yeah, maybe total if you put both of the droplets together, a quarter size. Yeah, that's it. And I'm like I'm telling you the sheep went downhill. Like if you hit him, good, this looks like lung blood, like he didn't go up. Nothing goes up when you shoot him, good, like they go down.
Speaker 2:It's like, well, I don't know, I think he went up, I don't think he did. And so we go great, searching again from where the blood is downhill. We search, and we search and we look and no more blood. I can't, we can't find anything.
Speaker 3:And it was kind of like a spongebub is like three hours later you know what I mean Like it's ever.
Speaker 2:And I'm finally like, I'm done, and I'm about to tell him like it's hot, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty.
Speaker 2:We're both sunburn, we're tired, we're like it's getting to the point where I'm like, dude, we need to go back and get food and water, like I'm not, doing, so hot right now. And so meanwhile all this stuff's happening Well up above is still those sheep that were up there are still up there. They're still farting around and kicking rocks and you know they're making noise like they're still there. And so I walk over and I sit down on this rock and I'm like I'm just gonna glass up this hill and just look at these sheep and see if there's something up here. You know that's crazy big and I sit on this rock and there's okatiyo.
Speaker 2:If the listeners don't know what okatiyo are, they're like big cactuses but they just grow one stock and then grow really tall, 10, 11 feet and that kind of looks like upside down octopus legs just sticking up out of the desert floor.
Speaker 2:I sit down and this okatiyo makes a V right and you know up the hill but like in front of me and I pull my binos up and I'm just kind of scanning up the hill and I look through the in right in the middle of that V, I'm like man, that is a weird-looking rock, like it's real smooth Round.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's kind of interesting kind of round and I pull my binos up and focus them and I'm like holy shit, his sheep is laying right there dead. I'm like I'm gonna get walled 20 yards from this sheep I can't tell you how many times and sure enough he went uphill from where from where Stevie shot him, and so I found him. Like he's right there I can now I pull my binos next to him with my naked eye and so we take off. We're like cool, we got him crawl up there, get to him, take a couple pictures Not many, because we're you know we're done or like all right, let's get him caped out and let's, let's get out of here. I also say that everybody talks about how bad these sheep stink, and like they do stink, they smell like burning tire.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Scripts burnt rubber for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not much about barbie sheep other than they like. What do they like to eat For those little fruit on cactus, little red, the red things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'll eat those in yuckas. We watch me.
Speaker 3:Yeah oh they have the shit. I use some yuckas. Yeah, they got some tough mouths that they're just chewing on cactus, but you know, you know, once we, once we got to to my sheep, the thing that kind of blew my mind, which I don't know if anybody knows this, which I I dam sure didn't their feet, their feet, their hooves are soft. Yeah, bottoms of theirs their hooves are soft. I mean, it just blew my mind that that they were, they were so smooth and soft.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's almost like they're like a, like Moccasins. I guess just from them crawling, that be the need out to grip on those rocks would be my yeah. My opinion, and they have a big like underneath their kind of their brisket bone, if you would. They have a big callus right there, yeah, and I think it's losing them climbing up and down those rocks like it's just the big man's, probably six inches long.
Speaker 1:Is that like underneath cuz all dad or barbie sheep have that, that like long beard kind of like?
Speaker 3:oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It just comes out of their chest. They got all that hair, so is it underneath that hair? Is that cows?
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, it's right underneath the hair and that hair doesn't grow all the way down like so. It looks like it would grow all the way between their legs, but it kind of makes like a Y shape almost, so it doesn't go all the way down their neck, you know dip between their legs, and so I got that callous and so and and I'll also disclaimer, like we talked to the guides, that are not the guys, but the guys that own the ranch and some people in town, and I got real mixed reviews on whether barbie sheep mean is good to eat and it was probably 70, 30 to the. You know, the one guy said you should cook barbie sheep like this you put it in a crock pot with a bigger rock and then, once it's done, you throw the barbie sheep out, eat the rock.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna know a funny thing about that joke. So I made that exact same joke when I had Ted Nugent on the podcast about Sandhill Crane. I don't, I don't think he was very receptive to my joke.
Speaker 3:Come on.
Speaker 1:No, I love Sandhill Crane and I told him the joke about my father, my father-in-law's joke, either way. So I've had. I've had Audad. I've been Audad hunting once, had no luck. But the gentleman who brought me brought Audad and it was phenomenal. He made euros. So Remy Warren is a euro recipe and.
Speaker 1:What he says is that Audad is often very much like, say, pronghorn antelope. You, you hunt them in hot weather, right, and if you don't take care of them quickly, the meat will spoil quickly. And so I believe you know sounds to me like you guys hustled around for a while that that Audad didn't make it very far. He was probably dead. Yeah, I'm not sure you're gonna be delicious or not.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, I'll tell you what. The one time I had it I've been like craving it since at least. That recipe was because it was delicious euros that I had with that guy.
Speaker 2:So well, we'll have to go again next year and bring some meat back. We didn't, we didn't pack meat On this deal. So we get up there and we're like let's get him caked out, let's get, you know, get him hauled off the mountain. I get back and Stevie starts trying to I don't say trying to cut this sheep up, because I don't. I could have chewed through this Cape faster than his knife was doing it. We're hacking away I don't have any knives.
Speaker 2:We've both left our packs. He's got this only knife we got between us. I don't have anything and we're trying to get this sheep caked out. I'm like my gosh, dude, have you ever sharpen this knife? He said, bro, I bought it brand new on the way down here, like I bought it just on the way to come to your house.
Speaker 1:He gave me four days to do this and you rolled in with a plastic butter knife.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah With it, with the consumable.
Speaker 2:So we, we finally get this sheep caked out. And now we got to find the joint to you know, because his head off. Well, I heard somewhere and again probably a little bit my fault that for a taxidermist to you know, the shoulder mound, they want to have like six or eight inches of neck to get the form size right. So I'm like all right, we're not gonna cut him off. You're supposed to cut him like right at the base of the skull. I'm like man, we cut it wherever we can just find a bird brain Cut through it. And my gosh, I bet you, it took us as long to get that cut made and get his head taken completely off as it did the whole rest of the capin project.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Finally get him caked out. And now we are both like so we were both cooked before we found him. Now we're like Super well done, right. Like please take me out to the fire.
Speaker 1:I'm with a mile to the truck right oh.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, all right, what's we got him? Let's go back, get our packs. We can load him on the on the pack. Stevie all carry my gun and your gun and my pack and you can carry your sheep and your pack out and Stevie owns the heaviest 300 win mag I think that's ever been made. I don't know how much that gun went out of. Rather it was so heavy. It's so we take off that.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's the, the Mach 5. I don't know, but that thing is heavy, as it has to be 20 pounds.
Speaker 2:It's so heavy. So we're slipping this thing off the hill and we keep we'll. Either we'll make it a couple hundred yards and stop and we're like hands on our knees, puffin and puffin. I would say we're sweating, but at this point neither one of us are sweating anymore. Like you know, can't spit like we're Dehydrated. We're kind of getting messed up and we're just getting cooked. It's 92 degrees and it's now like two o'clock in the afternoon just getting baked. So we finally get to the truck. Both of us are about dead.
Speaker 2:I have a half analogy in the water that is ripping hot and I'd chug it as fast as I can. Chug it, turn the truck on, crank the air conditioner. I'm like dude, we gotta get back. We're not that far from the camp. We're like we gotta get back. So we get back to camp to have like an overhang, you know like an awning kind of deal, and we pull the truck underneath that, got the air conditioner ripping and we're just sitting there. I bet we just sat there and the air conditioner not talking Nothing, just sitting there for we just lean the seats back and relax.
Speaker 3:I mean oh we were chugged the water. No, it was, it was, it was bad.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question Did you guys drink the night before at all? Not at all I was. If you did, I bet you wouldn't have been able to do what you did that day, because you'd be too dehydrated.
Speaker 3:I bet you're right.
Speaker 1:Lucky that that snake scared the whiskey right out of you. That's what I would say.
Speaker 2:No, yeah you're drinking that night, the night before and like we are cooked. And I'm like, dude, we, we finally kind of get around. The two guys that own the place came down and you know they're like, oh yeah, we heard you guys shoot. They're out working on some time. Well, they're doing. But yeah, yeah, we heard you guys shoot. You know, yeah, check that sheet. I go cool, you guys got it.
Speaker 2:You know, got a pretty good one, but we're just like kind of walking ghost still. We're just like so jacked up from how hot it was. I'm like man, all I want to do right now is eat. I was like we need to go to town and get some ice to get your cape ice down. So we run town, get the ice, come back and don't. I'm like we're not gonna, like I'm so tired we're not gonna do anything. So we glass that even. I see a great big ram in a saddle. Just, he does the most majestic sheep stuff. He walks into the saddle, skylines himself, sunset and the winds blowing his mane and I'm like he's so big that I am absolutely not gonna get off this chair right now and go chase him like I don't care, I'm about to.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm cooked still so finally get Get to bed that night and wake up the morning we definitely feel a lot better than we did the night before. But you know Steve's got a sheep down, so now it's now it's my turn and we just run the same play the next day. We're like we're gonna go to the same spot and you know we'll glass the same area with glass, see if they're sheep there. And on the way up there my cousin had said I talked to him that that night before he's like hey, there's this bowl that we always see sheep in and it's the bowl that that big ram walked into. He's like man, you guys should go check it out in the morning. Yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll do that, maybe after we go to the first spot and as we're driving up to the, to the first glass and spot, we kind of are going past the road that goes into that blow. I'm like, you know, let's just go in there really quick, let's just drive in there and see, we can see. And so we thought the first road was rough. I think the second road that goes into that bull was worse than the first road.
Speaker 3:I mean on that road you'd have to have a utv atv, I mean there'd be got you no trailer, no, nothing nothing.
Speaker 2:Val got the truck stuck a couple different times in there, not because of like sand, like because the rocks are so big and they would be spaced apart just right that like my whole tire would sit down in this little rock Previce, if you will. I'm like we're stuck, couldn't go anywhere. So when we make it back into that bowl and I'm like surely the goodness, as hard as it was to get back here, we're gonna find something. And there is not a sheep anywhere, no, I'm not seeing anything.
Speaker 2:This stinks, so we drive we're getting a little discouraged.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, like they were so easy and it was so easy. And another thing you know my cousin had said this in the back of my mind. He's like you know, from the road, don't go beating around and hiking a bunch because like you'll bump those sheep out, you know, kind of out of the country If you get way up in the top of the cliffs where they want to hang out, like you might kind of bump them off the place. So he's like just stay down low and once you get one kill, like go get them and get out as quick as you can. So you're not in there, you know messing around where they shoot, right. And so I'm like man, we spent so much time over there yesterday looking for Stevie sheep, like we probably ruined the whole thing. Oh, my gosh, I'm. You know, get discouraged. The highs in the lows, right, get back to the first class of knob, don't see anything. Start driving around that low and peak and we see a couple sheep, like just two or three, nothing in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll keep driving around a little more.
Speaker 2:Couple more, not really much, and we see another little group of sheep of we jokingly we called them no, no sheep. They were at the very, very top of that peak, super cliffy nasty. There was a couple kids, little you know baby sheep, jumping around and farting around, look like little mountain goats up there just cruising around on all these big rock faces and I'm like, oh, that's cool. And and we see, as we keep driving around, we finally get into like a group of sheep and there's two Big rams. And I will say I feel a little bit bad for Stevie because when you know, I don't know how to judge these sheep right as I'm talking, my cousin how you?
Speaker 2:can tell after he's killed. He, she's like how do you know, like if it's a big one, versus you know, I can't tell the difference between a 27 inch frame and a 30 inch frame. Like I got no idea. And he said if you see a shooter like a big one, you'll just know. Okay, whatever, whatever you say, and we pop around the corner and glass that group of sheep up and I was like, yeah, you just know what that is a big sheep.
Speaker 3:I mean we're probably, what would you say, phil price 600, 800 yards from when we were on the road. Yeah we're.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were probably 800 yards from that group of sheep when we first glass them up on the road, more like oh yeah, I mean, being that far, we could absolutely tell and so let's go stock this group of sheep.
Speaker 2:And so I'm looking and I'm like, all right, well, there's this big rock outcropping kind of like a bluff or a big, just like a giant Boulder that sits out.
Speaker 2:I'm like we can basically walk Straight at these sheep, but we're gonna be behind that boulder. The sheep way up at the top will be able to see us, but as long as they don't bug her, like, we'll be fine. And I had new turn the day before. Like we had sheep above us the whole time. They didn't really care, and so we just take off and we hiked pretty fast. I mean like we were kind of not quite running but we were boogie in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the way those should that group of sheep is working. Like as we came to that bluff we were gonna cut around behind it and you know, kind of come around the other side of it and they should be feeding in right to where we were at. And so get up there, pop up and I'm like glass and get to where I think these sheep are gonna be on, glass and glass. And I'm like I don't see them and everyone's you know before this hunt, like hey, you need to be able to shoot far like you know, they killed the sheep at a thousand yards, couple hunts before that, 700 and, like I'm thinking, like Katie, sheep will have you know, will. They'll be five, six hundred yards away Last and I don't see him. I don't see him and then all of a sudden I look up and they're like 200 yards.
Speaker 1:We're like about, so you didn't bring your bow, phil is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 2:I did not bring my bow. No, I I don't know. I mean, I guess you could bow hunt these things. I'm sure people, I know people do. But some of where these sheep are out of my I have no clue how you go on them. I don't know how you get to where they are without blowing about the country, but I've flopped down on the ground like Stevie, get down there, right there. And I flopped down the ground, get my gun out, and they're kind of same kind of deal like they're. You know, I think they've maybe have seen us there. They're not really leaving yet, but you can kind of tell they're getting a little restless. Yeah, and get on my sheep.
Speaker 2:All right they're, you know, giving clear shoot, and I actually, you know we both are on the right sheep this time. So this is a little easier. We don't have to worry about the rodeo we had today before we shoot and we both watch him go down on my sheep. We've got a second sheep. Yeah, that's Stevie, that's how you do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Because he had a good spotter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you hear that that's a good point. Stevie did it. I did the exact same thing.
Speaker 2:Stevie did. I wasn't even talking to him. I was like it's big and I got my gun on him. But I hope you're looking because I don't care. I'm about to shoot him. Like he's right there and we're fixing to get him and shoot this she and I'm like cool, you know, we take off to go up there and and get him and I have like my sheep I was better this time and I marked like this is where we shot from should be right there and we're going and I'm like I got this big white dead yucca that he should be. I can see him. He's laying right next to it, all right, cool, and we and it's he's in a lot steeper, like Stevie's sheep was in a pretty rocky spot but like not quite as steep. I don't feel like it's yeah, I agree, yeah, as a reminder that like to get to mine. It's not very far, it's probably only 80 vertical feet, but it is like Up to you know, up the cliff bank kind of, but I think it's a little bit more than that.
Speaker 3:I feel like I kind of feel, before, before you finish, I kind of feel like you want to go on a little hike. You know what I mean? I think I think you were, you weren't, you didn't want to catch up to the day before, but you damn sure want to go on a hike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to make a second work a little bit. You know, it wasn't like that's just white tail hunt over a feeder, not that.
Speaker 3:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:You want to work for it? For sure I'll take off and I'm in front and we're both like picking our way through these boulders. We're not really walking with each other, we're kind of you know, spread out and I'm cruising, I'm, I don't know 20, 30 yard from Stevie. He stops and he goes dude, where are you going? I'm like I'm going to my sheepy is right there, and he's like no, you're not, he's right here, I'm standing right next to him, he's in front of him. So it was kind of funny. We, I found his sheep, he found my sheep and get mine taken care of. I brought knives that were actually sharp, so Not in your bag to help Stevie?
Speaker 1:like did you make?
Speaker 2:my.
Speaker 3:Remember his knives were in the package. He didn't have his back.
Speaker 2:So we could see where we shot from. And so I actually had my and I have a little, a little backpack and saw that everyone talks smack to me about carrying it's the handiest. It's just like a little wire saw with two nylon. It was cool as hell and I was like I'm not jacking around with how long it took us to cut this sheep's head off like Steve's did. But I pulled my little saw out and Take it off, get the cape pulled off, loading in my pack, and my sheep had one last, you know, dig at me the whole way, the way I put it in my pack.
Speaker 2:I, you know we're kind of on a cliff face and so I didn't really take a ton of time like load my pack, perfect. And and one of his horns was sticking me right in the you know like in the love handle the whole way down. I had a little bruise on my like on my side, where he was just digging. I like kept moving it, like maybe he kind of moving I'm, you know I'm not a little dude, yeah, you know that, you know that but me with you guys on that and so like I barely fit in between this sheep's horn. I do fit but like it's tight squeezing. So he's got one form that's sticking me all the way down and we hacked back down the. The downhill part was pretty gnarly he was, it wasn't that far, but like to get down into the bottom where we could actually catch one of the river washes and, you know, walk normal. That was a kind of sketchy hike. It was two trekking poles and go real slow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's funny, you see that man, when I shot my elk, I Asked your main hodge and I was like, hey, should I put these in there's up or down to get out of here? It's like, yeah, you're big enough like they're not gonna drag on the ground. Go ahead and put them down. I put them down and then we proceeded to walk through like 800 yards of barebrush, so I was just catching every bush. It's just like a mile and it was awful.
Speaker 1:And then he tied up the the hide it with paracord and then it just sort of slowly slid out to the left so I was dragging and then the hide was just smacking me in the ass, the entire Miserable. I've never had a worse worst back out, which means I just haven't killed very many bowls. But continue, man, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I wouldn't say it was a miserable pack out, like it was this the right. I told him we got there. I'm like that was the right amount of suffering, like that was hard. I'm tired, I'm a little sweaty, but like.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you Gun this hunt because he he just picks one, shoots it we, we clean it, we freaking Cape it. He throws it on his pack, we get, we're in, we're at the truck in about 30 minutes On. On mine we're on a seven and a half hour.
Speaker 2:Huh, yeah, yeah, we learned our lesson and we both had well, actually, we almost did learn a lesson. I did forget about this. So we spot the sheet that I shoot and we jump out and I'm like, hey, you know, steve's not carrying his guns, and even more. And I'm like, hey, do you want to? But he has a really high powered scope I might. Do you want to take your scope and use it at the spotter, or do you just want to take my? Have 15 power binoculars and then my tens I run in my chest rig, is that? Yeah, I know you all just take your tens or your 15s. I mean, so, my cat cool. I stuff them in the vinyl harness, they come in and give them to him and I throw my pack on with my water in it and Stevie just hates off from the truck.
Speaker 3:And I just take off with the binos. I'm like what are you?
Speaker 2:doing and he's like I'm gonna get the sheep. I'm like put your pack on, like I watched you put water in early, like we just did this yesterday. So he grabs his pack that we take off. But yeah, like nobody, you know, no dehydration, none of that. And so we got a second sheep killed. Really nice. I mean really nice. I don't know, I don't remember what they said. They taped out with 29, 30, she's like 27, 28, so both really good, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Get then taken care of. So now we're, this is Saturday and like we don't have anything to do, we're done, we get all the stuff taken care of and it's like final rattlesnake.
Speaker 3:Well, it's just late enough in the day.
Speaker 2:It's like we could leave. We could leave and go home. But we're like man, if it would be fine to get to my house, but then Steve's got another couple hours past Me to get his house. I'm like, dude, you're gonna get home at like midnight. And so we decided like now we'll just stay in camp one more night, sleep in, get up early, cook a big breakfast, like we'll just hang out. And we talked to the guys that own the place and there's another guy in the little town that my cousin had been like hey, you know, there's a bar, the bar the city bar.
Speaker 2:It's like a village. There's like eight houses there. Yeah, he's like, yeah, like you can just go hang out at the bar. I'm like, oh, there's not a bar here.
Speaker 3:Well, we have met the guy. We drove those houses at least eight times going back and forth to get ice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I saw that Haka-Magi, like we could not keep enough of it. Yeah, then ten one, you know that far away, so it was like it was that big a deal to run in town and get ice. But yeah, so we we. Now we finally figure out where the place is and we stop in there and we hang out with the guy that owns that house, and you know, we drink a beer or two and we're hanging out, and so is it a bar.
Speaker 1:Is it like a house that the guy has?
Speaker 3:It's a house that has a backyard bar. Yeah, it had to be it had to be the coolest shit ever, little man cave. Yeah, it was. It had a foosball. I mean the full kitchen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was excellent. It's all outside. So I mean I like it's got a covering, like it's out, like it's open air, I guess if you would call it like there's no wall, that's dirt floor, like it's just a typical, like the prototypical Southwest Texas on the border, kind of like this is what you drop in a movie, is what.
Speaker 1:I look like. So we're hanging out. This guy doesn't have a liquor license is what you're telling me. We're not buying it.
Speaker 2:We're not buying booed from this guy, we're just. He just has a fridge in there that's got beer and we're hanging out at the beer. I.
Speaker 2:Okay all right, gotcha, so I'll rewind a little bit back in the camp. They're in the, in the room where you sleep, and there's this big it's like a banner almost, and this is picture of this guy with this big handlebar mustache riding a horse. There's like a couple different pictures, kind of in a collage, but yeah, we're trying to grab a horse, I mean he, he looks pretty majestic himself, yeah, and we're like who is this guy?
Speaker 2:So we've met the guys that own it and we're like, is it this guy? Or is it this guy? And we're like you know, because the picture is kind of old like who is this? And so we're at that guy's house drinking beer and this four Dooley pulls up and I'm telling you what like the Marlboro man of the border gets out of this pickup and we both look each other and we're like that's the guy, like he's got the stash, he's got the cowboy head, he's got it pulled down super low over I can barely see his eyeballs and he's got what?
Speaker 2:was there like six people in that pickup with him?
Speaker 3:I at least.
Speaker 2:Just people. Yeah, and I don't want to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can say 20 Mexicans come out of this and we're like I mean, as as all get out, they come. I mean they were so polite, this guy's ordering these kids around like hey go get these guys a beer, hey. Go get fill a beer, hey. You know, it's just like what the hell is going on here.
Speaker 2:It's like he's got his little troop, like it's like his little army, and he's ordering people around and we're sitting there drinking, hanging out. We were gonna go the guy that owned that house. He was like, hey, do you guys want to go? And into this other town? And you know, we'll go to an actual bar and watch a football game and, you know, get dinner or whatever. Like, yeah, sure. And so in between we were gonna leave and go do that.
Speaker 2:This other crew rolls in and so he's like, hey, we need to cook something. And then all these guys have probably been drinking for a while right, like no one's super sober, okay, we had to cook something. And he's like ordering his guys around, like you go get the walk and you go get the meat. And so I'm just sitting in a lawn chair drinking a beer, watching these, you know these 20 guys running around and they get this great big walk like a plow disc, walk out and they light a fire and they've got these two big bags of frozen meat that I don't have a clue what are. I have no idea. That's not cow and I'm pretty sure it's not pig. And they start cooking the stuff up and I swear they've walked over there. I watched them the whole time. They had two bags of meat and one onion, that's all I saw them take out of anything and they're cooking and cooking and doing the stuff and whatever. And then they're like alright, food ready.
Speaker 2:Walk over and this walk is full of this cooked meat and some kind of like gravy sort of sauce With like chili peppers and onions and garlic, and I'm like where'd all this come from? And a stack of homemade tortillas. Like yeah, it is magic. And I'm pretty sure it was goat, which I don't again, I don't care, it was delicious. And so, yeah, we've got that night. He's got like all of his. There's, you know, like 17 Virgin Mary's in the backyard. It's a very Catholic area and so we're.
Speaker 2:Very, we're sitting around with, you know, all these different statues and stuff. He's got rope lights in his trees and like it is this again like the perfect border town Saturday night party, like we're just hanging out with all the local people around there and yeah. Eat cook go.
Speaker 3:All eight people that were from that town were there.
Speaker 2:I promise you the whole yeah, the whole town was there and they're like kids, what we do every Saturday night, like we come to this guy's house and hang out like no invite needed, like even if he's not here, we just show up and cook outside or anything.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I've been down to like Turlingua. I don't know if you've been down there. I know it's not too far from Marfa and I can imagine what you're what you're saying. I imagine like Turlingua is also a Booming metropolis compared to what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's not a business. In the little I can, I say town. Like I can't recall town. It's more of a village, I guess, but there's not a business there. There's a Catholic church that has Mass. What was it Stevie like every third Sunday?
Speaker 3:or clock in the afternoon, like one Thursday a month or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this, this old church. So, buddy, that was cool. It was a great end of the to the hunt and hang out. I say it was a great end that night. Some kind of bug gotta hold the meaning. Steve, I don't know if I told you that, like the rest of this, I got ate up by something and and we're driving back the next day and I'm like man, my legs are itchy, like Kind of bad. So I stopped at the gas station and get some lotion. I'm like maybe they're just dry, I don't know that man. I tell you what by the time I got home I had like 50 or 60 bug bites all around my ankles. I'm like kind of up the back of my calves. I don't know if it was chiggers. I don't a kid, they've been chiggers. There's no water there.
Speaker 3:I have no idea what kind of buggy. I thought it was a chubacca. I thought you ate the night before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought I was having a reaction. They were it's they. It's so bad. For like three nights after we got home it would wake me up in the middle of the night and I'd have to go put ice packs on my legs to get them numb enough I could go back to sleep and I'm rubbing like can't take you out of there and Chigger X cream and like a quarter zone, like I mean I about bought a pharmacy out of their Bug bite, stuff it was.
Speaker 2:I couldn't put pants on, I couldn't wear socks, like oh, it was miserable, I mean I wore, I wore shorts, but like I wasn't you know Wedding or wear a suit or anything that I've been, I would have been in trouble. Yeah we, we got back and Got the sheep all taken care of and yeah it was. It was a rodeo. Getting to the hunt and the actual hunting part went perfect. Like both of our stocks were perfect. When was all right sun was perfect, like we did, the hunting part great, it was just. Literally everything else Went to hell in a hand basket.
Speaker 3:It seemed like every time we turned around Two of the best stocks that I've ever been part of. But I mean new hunting buddy. I mean shit, I would. I would have never thought that feel would be so into hunting the way he was. I mean talking, we had such a good conversations throughout the nights that we were together. But this guy is is big time you'll. You'll like the rest of these guys. Hopefully he gets one this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm hoping that hopefully this meal there I come up goes good. But yeah, it was. I mean it was awesome, same with with Stevie and I could hear some history. So, stevie, all all that you end our conversation. You got to tell the story about the place you went hunting in. You might also have to talk to talk about your other odd ad hunt. That didn't ever happen because that story was hilarious.
Speaker 3:But you give the quick and dirty all that hunt was something wild, I mean. So. I'm a, I'm a drive engineer, I build conveyor all day, every day. I had some vendors that actually Invited me to go to Del Rio for a deer hunt there. And Awesome hunt shots, shot some really cool stuff, definitely a different terrain than what we're used to down south where we hunted. But I had a. We all shot deer. There were six of us they're all different vendors, different customers Shot very, very nice deer, even some odd stuff. The last night we were there, the there was only two of us left and the guy said hey, you know, man, I've seen you clean it, clean your deer. You know, can you, can you teach me how to clean one? You know quarter it, got it, clean it. And I said absolutely. I said I'll tell you what I'll. I'll clean this half the deer, you clean this other half and we're caping and we're. You know we're, we're pulling the cape and everything. And he had this little what were we talking about?
Speaker 3:feels like a, like a Doctor's scalpel or something like a like a havalon, like they're replaceable, but I like the havalons, yeah, and so so I'm cutting, I mean I'm just with a, with the J hook, and when I said you do what I do, so we're cutting, cutting, and this guy, I mean literally Mike, just Sticks that knife right through the palm of his hand.
Speaker 3:Oh and at this point at this point I'm excited because I'm like let's get these, these deer clean. And we got an all-dad hunt in the middle in In the morning, like the owner of the of the place was like, hey, we got extra tags, since y'all two are there, you all go on this hunt. And so, yeah, we we're so excited. I maybe he was too excited and just missed his cut and I mean he stuck that scalpel right through his palm of his hand.
Speaker 1:Are you telling me in the front, out the back?
Speaker 3:in the front and completely out the back. What if you can stick it through the palm? Yeah, it was wildest thing. So so let me tell you this Uh, when I got an animal, my mouth waters. I mean I'm, I'm excited, I I mean I I'll take a bite of it right there. This deal, I don't. I don't like people's blood on me. And so this guy's just bleeding everywhere. He drops a knife. I mean we're cleaning them. We have nothing but liquor. So you know what we cleaned with and.
Speaker 3:And so we wrap them up with a tea, yeah, we wrap them up with a t-shirt and I've got my f2.50 loaded up like we got to go where I'm taking them to Del Rio. I've never. This is the first time I've ever been to this ranch, yeah. So I'm like dude, you got it, you got to get me out of here. You know there's bump gates and you know combination locks and stuff like that, and this guy is probably, I would say, in his 60s, okay, and he's just in and out, he keeps passing out, in and out, oh, I mean completely out and it's just you and him in in your, in your truck, like Absolutely came along.
Speaker 1:Yes, and none of the guides.
Speaker 3:No, buddy, there is nobody with us. I mean, we're headed back. He gets me through a couple of gates, he keeps, he passes out and All I've gotten the bit of my pickup is beer and I'm over here like, hey, man, you got, you got to stay up, you got to get me out of here. You know, I got to get you the hospital and so I have them start chugging beers and he's not a drinker by any means and he's drinking. Anyway, we get to, we finally get out of the ranch. He was 17 miles longest 17 miles I've ever even encountered, but anyway. And then we got a 45 minute drive to the real and so so.
Speaker 3:So we get to the hospital and this guy, like they, they have them on the table with his handout, they've got these long q-tips sticking them inside that wound, in and out, kind of trying to get it cleaned up. And and I'm lap, I get the giggles for whatever reason. And I mean this, this doctor's about to kick me out of the hospital because I cannot stop laughing. I mean he is just, he's just so in and he'd be answering questions and laughing and stuff, and then he would just drop. I mean, like a bag of potatoes just fall to the ground and, oh my gosh, man, I think. I Think I laughed so hard. That was probably one that I mean. What? This hunt with Phil is probably my second favorite, just second to this one, because he, even though I didn't get to all that, get my all that hunt. I mean, dude, that was the funniest shit I've ever seen in my life. And, little to say, we we did not make it back to camp that night, we actually got her so the guy made it right.
Speaker 1:It wasn't anything. He didn't lose too much blood or anything like that right.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I don't know if he lost too much blood. I never saw him after that. No, I'm just kidding. His name was Jeff man. I hope I'll be, he listens to this and he'll remember that story, but I've got lots of pictures of that man.
Speaker 1:I can't believe. I wonder how he managed to cut a hole through his entire hand.
Speaker 2:He, I can.
Speaker 1:I can imagine lots of gnarly wounds, but not a straight-up stab wound through your palm.
Speaker 3:I had never been part of that. My wife's an RN and luckily she she bugged me enough to stick a stick, a Small first aid kit in my bag. Yeah, and that was the only thing you have, man, that and liquor.
Speaker 2:Well, I see, I think you got it. I think you got to finish this with the the other, the deal with that house. I don't know where that was at, but the house they left unlocked.
Speaker 3:That was in Benavita, texas.
Speaker 3:I went on a on a whitetail hunt there, just next to the King Ranch okay and man we had just I want to say, was the Santa Fe, santa Fe Ranch, if anybody's ever heard of that. But we got there, we open. You know they gave us a coat of the gay. We want drive in and we drive up to this beautiful I mean it was a beautiful camp. They had like a gazebo with the chiminea and brills and I mean it was awesome, man. And we got there and you know, you walk up to the, to the camp door and doors unlocked, I mean you go to the, to the, to the barn, doors unlocked, I mean all this stuff just unlocked, I mean everything. I mean the wines were unlocked, the restrooms were unlocked, I mean everything was kind of blew my mind, you know. And we went on a hunt shop, big stuff and a couple of big, big white tails I'd have to tell you all about.
Speaker 3:But Anyway, the night, the next night, which is the sex second night, where there the owners came in and had kind of a little violet, a little dance and party for us, and I asked one of the owners I said hey, just a quick question. I said you know, why is all this stuff open? You know why are all these houses and stuff open and and they said, because the the immigrants coming across the border, you know they're coming across to get to our country and Instead of them breaking in To our, to our camp or to our, to our houses, we just leave them open to where, if we're not here, they just looking for a, for a pillow to lay on, a bed to sleep on. You know they're not trying to hurt anything, and so that just blew my mind.
Speaker 3:Like they, they live like that. Like they leave their houses open there, their barns are unlocked, I mean their cars. If they want to sleep for the night, that's all they're gonna do is sleep, maybe grab a bottle of water and be on their way. But absolutely could. I blew my mind that that these people live like that. They just that's normal to them.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. I never expected that yeah.
Speaker 2:It was. It was a wild story. We were talking, you know, kind of circling back to our hunt. You know the wives were like you know, are you guys sure you're gonna be cool? It's like right on the border, it's not gonna be any like crazy stuff. And I was like I don't know, I don't think so. Like I doubt my cousin would send me down to someplace. That's you know, that's sketchy, like that. I mean, we got down there and I was. We've steved at both of each other. We're like, if this is where you picked across the border, like if this is the spot you wanted to come over at, like, come on, but stop and we'll give you a pair of tracks shoes and some shorts and send you to the Olympic Training Center because, like you are an in shape Mother in this country. Like it was rough and steep. I was laughing, you know, laughing at that.
Speaker 2:And the the border patrol. There's a check. You have to drive when you're going back north from the ranch, you have to go past a border patrol check, and I feel like our checks got, you know, a little bit less strict the first time. It was like, you know, here, you guys, citizens, how many guys are in your vehicle, like yeah, we are just two of us. All right, cool, go ahead. The second guy was like just, are you guys citizens? Yep, go ahead. Third time we go through it. That we just rolled the window down, the guy looks at us, doesn't say a word and just points, is like go right ahead. It cracked me a little, mike man, that's all you got to do is just answer yes, like you just say yes, I'm, I'm from here, and they're like go on, you know.
Speaker 1:That's pretty crazy, man. I've been through some of those checkpoints but I might have all been like, pull over and they just talk to you real quick. Nothing, nothing, quite quite like a, just a point through you know it was, I don't know.
Speaker 2:They may have seen our truck a couple times because we'd gone back and forth a couple different times, but it was a different guy every time. So yeah, it was funny. He just didn't it didn't say where, it just said, just gave us the the point and said you all go ahead but Well, man, those are.
Speaker 1:Those are crazy. So that's a fun man, I feel I wish I was at that odd-eyed hump with you. I know you invited me. That being said, if I had, you know wouldn't ended the way that it did and you wouldn't have this amazing story to tell. So I'm glad Stevie was able to make it out there with you. I'm glad that you had some fun. Question I have real quick is your your cousin? How is he know these guys? Is he a guide for them or like what is the relation and how he hooked up with his hunt?
Speaker 2:I would love to answer that question, except I don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 2:He's been down there, he's been down there 15 years and and just got to know, like my cousin I was joking, be like I don't ever know what he's doing and I never know what he's driving yeah, he runs a company and in the eastern new Mexico and swaps vehicles and he hunts a ton. He does guide for, I think, an outfitter. Still I don't know how many hunts he takes, like I don't know, but he'll be the guy that'll just you know. You'll call him and be like, hey, let's get together. And he's like, oh, do that. I'm in Mexico today and then you might call him a week later. And he's like, oh man, I'd love to, but I'm in south Dakota. I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Like where are?
Speaker 2:you going. So I don't know, I have no clue. And and they were just like I don't know he just they're like he's just been here for forever. We don't really even remember how we, how we got hooked up with us, but that's funny man.
Speaker 1:Well, if he gets another odd, I'd hunt, let me know I am. Uh, when you asked me, I was like Five days back from spending two weeks gone elk hunting and I was like I need to put a little bit more family time in before I can get out again. But yeah, I was like it sounds like a fun time, although I don't. You might have lost me at that rattlesnake and I might have just gotten in the car and gone home.
Speaker 2:I don't well you wouldn't have gotten home that night to taking you three hours to get back to the actual road ticket.
Speaker 1:Cool, all right guys. Well, this is a lot of fun. I don't know if you have any other stories you want to tell Phil. I know I've heard plenty from you. Stevie, any other stories you want to say? Otherwise we can wrap this thing up.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you having us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it was a lot of fun, um, cool. Well then, why don't we tell the people where they can find you, if you even care, or you can walk off into the sunset if you want to share your Instagram, facebook, if you got you know aspirations as a youtube star, that stuff. Whatever you guys tell me.
Speaker 2:Stevie, I'll let you go first. I don't even know my instagram. You can find.
Speaker 3:Stevie. You can find Stevie at uh Stevie stacks industrial. Uh balded us farms on instagram and Uh Stevie stacks cattle. I actually breed wagyu cattle. Anybody out there looking for wagyu meat? Uh, give me a shout.
Speaker 1:Sweet, all right. Awesome, stevie Phil, you want to share uh wise filler or anything, or no?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you can. You can go right there. Uh, wise, philip, it's wise, and then philip with two l's. That's the ig handle. If you, if I get one follower, you have increased my following by you know, like 15 percent. So let's get those numbers into double digits. People, I'm sick and tired of just being my mom that follows my instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but she loves what you post. So all right guys. Well, thanks again, man. I appreciate you both. This was a ton of fun and it's a great story. I've been waiting to hear it for a while now. Um, but thank you guys, I really do appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Michael is impressive man. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and um, keep making stories, fellas. Let's get you back on again. We'll just keep phil. You'll be a recurring guest. Stevie, now you're, you're right there with him, man, you're his. Uh, maybe, maybe phils, your, maybe, phil. Is your robin to who you being batman? Oh, oh, that's what I'm talking about All right guys have a good one.
Speaker 3:Have a good night, guys.
Speaker 1:All right, folks, that's it. Another couple stories in the books. On a thing, phil, of course, for being a good friend, uh, good list, I mean not a good listener, a long time listener. And stevie, of course, for for coming along and sharing his stories above and beyond just the On a dead story. I had a lot of fun talking with these fellas. Hope you enjoyed hearing their stories. Um, go ahead and check them out. I got all their links that you would need in the show notes. Give phil a follow so that his mom's not the only one there. Um, be on that, guys. Thank you very much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. As always, make sure you give us a rate Rating us three stars, four stars, five stars, whatever, I don't care. Um, whatever uh platform you're currently listening to us on, uh, be on that. That's it, fellas, get out there and make some stories here on.
