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The Hunting Stories Podcast
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 109 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Brandon Park
Brandon Park takes us on a captivating journey through his lifelong hunting adventures, deeply influenced by childhood memories with his grandfather. From the scenic wilderness of Colorado to the rugged terrains of Washington, Brandon shares thrilling tales of close encounters with Roosevelt elk and turkey, offering a vivid glimpse into the evolving landscapes and hunting cultures of states like Montana and Arizona. Tune in for a mix of adrenaline-pumping hunts and heartfelt stories, such as his wife's first whitetail hunt in a Washington snowstorm and a hair-raising bear hunting experience on the Idaho-Washington border.
Ever wondered what it's like to hunt and feast on king cobras in the Thai countryside? Brandon recounts his extraordinary experience of harvesting and eating these formidable snakes alongside local villagers and Thai military personnel. This chapter not only explores the unique culinary practices of the Thais but also delves into their pragmatic approach to wildlife and hunting. From trapping field rats to understanding the ecosystem's balance, Brandon's stories shed light on the cultural exchange and survival skills that mark his adventures in Thailand.
Brandon's storytelling doesn't stop at thrilling hunts; he also reflects on the emotional and transformative aspects of hunting with his wife, Paige. From navigating challenging terrains and dealing with unexpected setbacks to celebrating significant milestones like Paige's first successful hunt, this episode emphasizes the blend of teamwork, resilience, and joy that defines their hunting experiences. Be sure to check out Brandon's Instagram handle "portraits of hunting" for more of their adventures and get inspired to create and share your own hunting stories.
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Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we've got another good one for you today.
Speaker 1:Today we actually connect with Brandon Park. Brandon is a listener that reached out and said I have some crazy stories for you and I'd love to tell him. And he didn't disappoint, as usual, guys. In fact, this is the first time I've got a story of someone hunting cobras, which is pretty gnarly. So I want to thank Brandon, of course, for coming on the podcast, and to you listeners for tuning in. Let's go ahead and kick this thing off right and let Brandon tell you some of his stories. Thank you All right, brandon. Welcome to the Hunting Stories Podcast, brother. How are you Doing?
Speaker 2:well, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm doing great, man. I'm glad we made this work. We had a little weird technical calendar difficulty right at the last minute, but we made it work. Man, I'm happy to have you here, cool.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to be here and I'm glad that we got it all figured out and it seems like we're recording. So good to go.
Speaker 1:We're getting it started. So let's do this. Man, let's kick this thing off. Why don't you just introduce yourself? What I know about you, basically, is that you're a listener that reached out to me and I always say that's my favorite. So I appreciate you, thank you for doing that, but why don't you tell the listeners who you are, how long you've been hunting, and then we'll dive into some stories. Man, we'll just get right to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my name's Brandon Park. I have been hunting literally my entire life. All of my memories go back to hunting. Like I can go back to being like a kid that's literally being drug out of the woods by my grandpa, like he's got my backpack and he's just dragging me. I'm like three years old, don't have any energy to be walking and he's too tired to carry me, so I'm just getting drugged. I really just stuck drugged, uh. I really just stuck with hunting and fishing Um.
Speaker 1:I grew up in Colorado originally uh, the.
Speaker 2:Glimmer Springs area Beautiful area. Yeah, she's not who she used to be, but she's still a beautiful area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm uh, I'm kind of in the Boulder County area and I've been here my entire life. I mean, I've been all over the country for a few years here and there, but yeah, definitely not what it used to be 25 years ago or whatever, so I'm with you on that, but still it's a gorgeous place. I love Glenwood Springs. There's all those like. I mean, the non-locals don't know about it, but there's some hot springs you can sneak to off the highway and, yeah, I'd always go to those things rather than going to the the big resorts with the hot springs. I'd always be sitting there right on the colorado river in a swirl of ice, cold water and steaming hot water. I love it, man. I love that place. So, yeah, totally grew up there yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:It was like ultra privileged, like I talked to friends and things and I'll be just sharing stories about fishing or hunting and they're just like how did you this or how did you that? It's like time and location, man. It's like I had the Colorado, the Roin Fork, the frying pan, all that wilderness area. It was just like a paradise for a kid who had parents who were outdoorsy and like really, involved in that.
Speaker 1:Um and where are you now? So you, and when did you leave Colorado?
Speaker 2:Um, I left Colorado. I joined the military out of high school. Um left Colorado, uh was stationed in California, uh got deployed around a little bit and then my wife and I have lived in Montana, arizona, and now we're up here in Washington state. Okay, very cool, I lived in.
Speaker 1:Washington for about five years. That's actually where I started hunting Um tough, tough hunting there, but beautiful, beautiful country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard some of your stories about muzzleloader hunting over on the coast and that's actually like one of the things that we're just absolutely fascinated with currently is Roosevelt elkvelt elk hunting. Uh, it's just such a challenge, like hunting in colorado in that area. You can see you're in the aspens, like rocky mountains have a different temperament. So, yeah, you get over on the coast and you're just getting pelted with rain, like my wife's only five, four. So like when you're in the ferns I'm like do you see that? She's like I see your back and I see some ferns. I don't see anything. But yeah, we've had some really amazing like close calls with Rocky Mountains. We haven't got one killed yet, but we we've been in their living room, yeah that's awesome, man, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So yeah, we're up here, we're north of spokane, about an hour um. So we're an hour north of spokane, about an hour south of the canadian border, um, so we've got a lot of really great, uh, whitetail hunting. Uh, there's a little bit of elk floating around us, but they're pretty pocketed up and sparse, but currently the turkey hunting is absolutely incredible in this area. I never turkey hunted up there.
Speaker 1:I wish I had, because, now that I think about it, like they were everywhere. But I wasn't a hunter for most of the time in Washington. It was just like the last couple of years. And then I didn't transition to turkey until after I moved back to Colorado. That's when I fell in love with hunting and I was like, okay, it's not elk season, what else can I do?
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh well, let's try turkey hunting, give me another chance in the woods and I'll tell you there are birds here in Colorado but they're tough to find. They are. When they did the first release in our area of turkeys and opened it up for hunting, they gave out a few tags and it was on on a quota system and like I don't exactly remember the details, this was like 2002 time frame. But uh, my buddy and I ended up with a couple turkey tags and we'd like watched all the primos videos like bought the dvds from like sportsman's warehouse.
Speaker 2:Like tried to learn everything we could about hunting turkeys hunted the whole season. It's like second to last day, ish. And we're just like screw these turkeys. Like we're never going to kill a turkey there's only like a hundred of them in our whole unit. Like this is never going to happen. And literally a freaking jake jumps up on a branch jakes were legal and my buddy shoots it with a 22 and I was just like, oh my goodness, like we were just grouse hunting and turkey hunting. But to have him just have him just kill one of the few quota birds in a jump, not trying to call, not playing the game when we had spent lots of time just setting up and doing it and trying to no success.
Speaker 1:That's turkey hunting man. It's such a dumb bird that you feel even stupider that you can't get them. You know, like you yell, they'll yell back and somehow you can't figure that out and kill that animal. It's just. I feel so stupid sometimes. But yeah, I've killed multiple birds where I'm like I can't figure it out, nothing's going on, and then one just shows up and you're like oh, yeah there you go yeah.
Speaker 2:I wish it was that easy all the time.
Speaker 1:But cool man. Well, I know you got some stories for us today Probably didn't involve that 22 turkey story but what do you got for us? Why don't you set the stage, man?
Speaker 2:So back to growing up in Colorado, where I did, and just having the ability to have the privilege of all the hunting that I had, one of the things that really sticks out and is one of my favorite stories that's away from there. So, like my first hunting experience after I joined the military was I got deployed to Thailand. So we're in Thailand, we're doing a humanitarian action and the villagers in the like area we were in were basically like working at getting all the cobras out of the rice fields, getting ready for the harvest. So we're like they're like, hey, we need some warm bodies to go and beat the fields. Through. Translation, I'm like breaking it down. You know, like do you want to come do this? And we're like, yeah, absolutely, I want to check this out.
Speaker 2:And so they basically like, uh, this guy gives me like the equivalent of a nine iron, basically Gives my other buddy a real stout bamboo stick, and they have amalgamations of machetes, freaking bamboo sticks, broom handles, straight brooms, and it's like 25 people and we're spread out pretty evenly like pushing across the rice patty and all of a sudden like out in front, like I see the rice move, just like a just light in the grass, and one of the guys runs over. His name was Boy and he runs. He's like there's one, there's one, there's one, and he runs over and he starts just beating the grass and that cobra just sticks its head up out of the grass.
Speaker 2:And he freaking takes its head off, like just whacks it right in the head, knocks it down, grabs it by the tail I'm saying grass, but rice is grass and he gets a hold of that snake and he whips it around and he's beating it, just beating that thing down, killing it.
Speaker 1:It goes from like okay, okay, what are we looking for? To just complete chaos, where the boy is just swinging a cobra around jesus. Okay, full-on a cobra like hooded cobra.
Speaker 2:So that's the first. That's like we're 10 minutes into this thing and I like I had no idea what to expect when this all started and it went from zero to a hundred and then all of a sudden back to zero and he's just like got this thing in a bag and everyone's just keeping moving and I'm like no way. Yeah, so in my head I'm like how, how many of these snakes are in here like first off, like it's like it's gonna be an issue. So we keep moving and like what I realize is they've like kind of positioned us in the middle and they're kind of out ahead of us. So it's like everything's kind of getting funneled to the middle and get the flying v kind of yeah situation.
Speaker 2:So we go about 150 yards and I see the grass moving again and I'm like, well, this is what we're doing, and I go and I hit the grass the same way. I'm like, well, this is what we're doing, and I go and I hit the grass the same way that boy had done and he's running from like two people down, probably like 25 yards away, and that snake puts its head up and it looks at me and I full-on, take my golf club and bam, and I hit it like like 15 inches below the head and it didn't do shit. That thing was just like like it knocked it down in the grass, but it was like it had aggression still. So it's like really loud hissing, something I never would have expected. And then the next thing I know boy's in there just whacking it, getting its head, getting it all pulled back and done Like punching a guy in the chest.
Speaker 1:It's like, ah, that sucks, but it didn't do anything. It didn't do anything.
Speaker 2:After the first one came up, I literally am thinking like I'm going to be killed by a snake, like I'm going to get bit by a snake in this tiny village in Thailand and I'm going to die by snake bite and then to like, make a really poor execution with the club. I'm like this is for real, like I'm premonition what's going to happen here. And then he came in and whacked it and killed it and got it killed and it was not a big deal. Over the next few hours I didn't have any more contacts with snakes, which, plus and minus, you know, but we ended up killing six that night. Plus and minus, you know, but we ended up killing six that night.
Speaker 2:Uh, took them back, uh, guttered them out, uh, like, skinned them I actually have my mom has one of the skins still I salted it all, like scratched all the meat off, rolled it up in salt, put it in a bag and mailed it to her, like from thailand back to the us, and when she opened it up it smelled so bad she almost threw it away. But I managed to just get her to put it in the freezer and so she kept it in the freezer and I was able to like over time, get it where it was, like something you could use, but that dried out skin still 12 feet long what yeah?
Speaker 1:I didn't know, cobras got that long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, huge, huge snakes. Like nothing they I mean the biggest one was probably four inches around, so not like a tremendously huge snake, but like very large snake.
Speaker 1:It's still huge for a cobra. I don't think of anything like that. When I think of cobras, like you're telling me anaconda and like what is the other big giant snake, like boa constrictors and stuff like that, but I didn't know cobras got that big.
Speaker 2:Do you know what species of cobra it was? Or were there multiple?
Speaker 1:I don't write off, hey, I don't remember offhand, but I know that when I had got home I had I looked um, it might actually just be a king cobra okay yeah, I hear those aren't that bad for people but are nasty for the snakes, and that's why they're king yeah, and that was uh, they just we were just playing along, you know playing along with the villagers and doing what they were doing um uh, did they tell you like is okay, so you, you got six. Is that, is that a good harvest? Is that a below harvest or no idea?
Speaker 2:no, idea, like it was. Just they needed bodies and they were doing this like right before the harvest and we just got roped into it because they were. We were like with some Thai military guys, so there was, the language barrier was broken, basically, okay, yeah, they could speak a little English, so there was like we were able to do that. Um, but yeah, not a lot of, not a lot to it.
Speaker 2:Aside from that, like no rundown on what we were supposed to do nothing, but we ended up skinning them and then ate all the meat, which was pretty cool. They cooked up all the meat.
Speaker 1:What did it taste like? Like alligator or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like bullfrog, maybe Just real generic, plain, plain meat interesting yeah, here's another question for you.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, yeah um, yeah, like how the thais prepare a lot of their food, they'll like take a chicken and like chop the whole chicken up bones and everything you know. So that's how they did with the snake. They literally just cut it into like three inch pieces and stewed it and uh, so you're. So you're like got all the rib bones and all the spine and like everything. You're like eating it off the bones. It was. It was quite the experience.
Speaker 1:That's amazing man. Okay, so I don't know if you listened to the episode with John Lusk Um and he's a. He was a pastor and he was preaching in, I want to say, the Philippines. And he's there and he's telling all his favorite hunting stories and after like a week or two of doing this, his translator goes John um, it's not a good thing to share that people really revere the animals and kind of like that Southeast Asia area.
Speaker 1:Right, so they were they were all kind of offended that he was telling them their hunting stories. But it sounds to me like in Thailand. Maybe they don't have that same values. I think it was maybe Buddhist values. Um, do they? Is there any other hunting in the area that you know about? Or is it just that maybe they do have those values but they take a back seat to harvesting the rice because that's their economy?
Speaker 2:um, you know, we trapped like rats. The military guys we were with would trap like their big size field rats and then just burn all the hair off them in the fire and eat those. Um, uh, so that was the only real experience. We fished, we caught fish. Um, and ate the fish that we caught. So I I'm not sure that they're the guys that I was with didn't have any animosity or anything against it. They were like we can kill and eat this like we're doing it yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Were there any bigger critters that you saw while you were out there, like any deer or anything?
Speaker 2:I don't know anything about the yeah, no, um, not that, not that we were, not that I like can think about. You know, like that I, from memory it was really just like the snakes, the rats, uh, killed the military guys we were with killed a few monitor lizards, um, and we ate the monitor lizards, um, they were like literally killing them out of the trash, like the trash pits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that can't be good, but I guess meets meat right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess, if you've got 12 foot Cobras.
Speaker 1:There's probably not much other wildlife there. That's probably probably wins out in most cases.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, it was quite the thing.
Speaker 2:It was a really neat experience I was in.
Speaker 2:It really opened my eyes to like the people in the regions know what food stuffs are around and like what kind of different things you can get after, and it just like leads to experiences like the Bahamas, like, uh, I met some guys when I was in the Bahamas and they were uh, uh, digging like curbs off the shell, off the rocks.
Speaker 2:It's like a little shell, it's like a China hat looking little shell and it has a little muscle that just holds onto the rock and those guys were hunting around for those. Like just getting those little shellfish, you know, and like being able to be like comfortable and just going up and being like, hey, what are you guys doing, you know, and they're like, oh, we're getting these shellfish because, like, we can make a shellfish salad at our restaurant and we don't have to like kill as many conch and we, these are like very there's lots of these little shellfish and we can do these over and over. So, like going and like learning that and just the experiences you can get when you just like hang out with the locals a little bit you know, like get into their world.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool, man. That reminds me I don't. Do you ever watch a show alone? I don't. I don't know if you've ever seen that show? Have you seen this season where they season where there were two people per team right so partners. And the guy with all the gear was 10 miles from camp and had to hike his way to camp and the guy with no gear was at camp. Remember that season?
Speaker 2:No, that sounds like an awesome season, though, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, of course, a couple people get hurt right away and everyone leaves. But the team that won did exactly that. They were, everyone leaves, and. But the team that won did exactly that. They were like these muscles and they just survived by basically eating these little sea slug muscles off of rocks like no one else could find any food. And these guys were just doing exactly that. Man, it was a great, great season, um but, not, not what we're here to talk about but yeah, your story just reminded me of that man.
Speaker 1:Um, so, okay, cool. Well, officially, we have a cobra story on the podcast. I don't think I would have ever have guessed that someone would have hunted cobra, but there we are uh, what else you got for us, man?
Speaker 2:um, so, oh, let's see what. What else is top shelf for me? Um, one of my favorite ones, um, is actually my wife's first whitetail. It was after we moved to washington and we're here, um, it was we had a huge snowstorm that night and it was she was a little hesitant to want to like get out of bed and get going for it, and then we had a power outage like this. It snowed enough it started knocking tree limbs down. When it started to warm up a little bit, we had a power outage and we had to like get all our stuff figured out with the house and we had a bunch of farm animals at the time, and so we spent a few hours doing that and it's like 10 in the morning and I'm just like hey, the power's still out. We don't got nothing going on. Like let's go drive to our spot and see if we can find a deer moving around and uh, why not we?
Speaker 2:so we drive out there it's like a foot and a half of fresh, like heavy wet snow and it just and there it had snowed a little bit before that and it had made it had snowed about three inches and crusted up. It had been warm after it had snowed and it made a real like icy crust underneath that new foot and a half of wet snow that was there. So the roads were just pretty treacherous, especially once you got off anything paved. So we're going to our spot, we get stuck right away and I'm just like fuck man, like I convinced her to get out of bed and get all of her gear on and do all the stuff and like here we are, like stuck at the bottom of the road, and so I like jimmy around for a while and I like we had just got a new pickup as well. It's a Ford F--150, and when the truck's running and you shut the door it honks the horn, so like if yeah it's like some safety feature that it has.
Speaker 2:I've like, I've been to ford, I'm like you guys got to take this off and it's. It's a safety feature of the newer f-150s, like if the vehicle's running, you close the door the key's, not in the vehicle.
Speaker 2:Oh, running you close the door, the key's not in the vehicle. Oh okay, so you have to remember to put the fob in the vehicle and then it makes it. So it doesn't do it. But we're stuck trying to get unstuck. I'm not thinking about it. I get out to like look around, shut the door, the horn goes off on the car.
Speaker 2:I'm just like this couldn't get better, like this just couldn't get better. So I dig out, get us from being high centered, get us dug out, get back in the vehicle, and I'm just like we got to make this one straight shoot, like let's just give her hell and get up there. And so we just punch it up the hill. We're making it come to the corner and I feel it's getting bogged down. So I just jam it up into the bank. It's like I'd rather go up and get stuck in the uphill bank ditch than go off the side of the hill. So I just jam it in the bank and I'm like a little upset. It's like the first time you're like stuck, you're 10% upset. The next time you get stuck, you're 20% upset, like it just doesn't wash off of you, you know, yeah, those are generous percentages.
Speaker 1:I'm a little bit more than that, yeah, well, as many times as I get stuck in this situation.
Speaker 2:I got to give myself some room, okay. So we get it wiggled out, get out of there. The whole time I've neglected to take the key fob out of my pocket, so we're just blowing the horn, both of us getting in and out, shoveling, doing the thing in this wet snow, and we get unstuck and I get the truck turned around, basically, and we're basically going to leave and we just get high-centered again in all the snow that we had like pushed, getting the stuck, the truck initially unstuck. So I'm like looking at it and I'm like you know what? We're here, we're at the trailhead. It's a half a mile up the road. Let's just go walk up there. The truck's hot, it'll melt the snow, it's warming up, the snow is starting to melt, it's warming up, the snow's starting to melt. Like let's just, let's go try and get something done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we literally get our packs together. She gets the gun, we're get the truck all shut up and we're walking. And we get to the trailhead and literally we're like standing at the sign and I look up and there's a doe and she's like twitching her tail and it's like that tail twitch. That's like hey, baby, and it's just like I'm like, holy shit, that doe just is like kind of like getting the like the, the moves, you know, she's like twitching the tail and she's like looking behind her and I'm like, oh, like like we could have a buck here, like we could be game on.
Speaker 2:And uh, paige is like all right, cool, cool, and I like range the doe and we're like 450 yards and I'm like, ooh, way too far for a first deer. Uh, so we start crawling up and it's uh, it had been. Uh, dnr is like cleared it. Uh, so it's like they had thinned all the trees out. So you've got like a few big trees, like the seed trees that they left. And then there's like some five foot tall tamaracks that are all turning yellow. So they're like real, there's cover, but it's sparse. Yeah, it's more like concealment. Um, so we're like I'm like we got, yeah, like risky spots as you're jumping from tree to tree.
Speaker 1:I've yeah, totally before it's you feel pretty exposed and then you're like who came behind a tree?
Speaker 2:I can stand up and relax for a minute. Yeah, that's, that's exhausting. So we're like I'm like we got to sneak up. We got to get up to where we're closer. We got to just try and get as close as we can, and so this doe is just kind of cruising around and we haven't seen the buck yet we're closer. We got to just try and get as close as we can, and so this doe is just kind of cruising around and we haven't seen the buck yet. We're starting to ease in.
Speaker 2:But it's just all her whole attitude is just saying I got a buck here, there's a buck right here, and so we're sneaking. We haven't seen him. So we're like looking for him and trying to like make sure that we don't blow him out, basically. And uh, finally I throw up my glass and he comes into the like, walks out into the thing and I'm just like holy shit, that's a big buck. And my wife looks at me and she's like really, and I'm like, yeah, that's like, that's the biggest buck I've seen here. Like we've been hunting and hunting in washington for probably three years at this point, not seen any. Like real nice deer. I'm like that's a hell of a deer, that's a big deer and I'm like getting super excited and she looks over at me and she goes do you want me to kill this deer? You got to shut the fuck up. And I'm just like cool, I got you Roger like I got it.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma yes ma'am.
Speaker 2:And so we sneak about another, like oh, 50 yards, and we get to like 276. So I'm like cool, we're in the zone, there's a log laying, it's covered in snow, but I get it wiped off, get my backpack thrown up on it. She lays down and the deer is like through a gap in the trees. It's like 20 yards wide, just this beautiful gap that goes from where we are to about 400 yards, and then it's just the spotted trees and the short trees. So he'll get out of that gap and get into those five-foot-tall tamaracks. And you just can't see him Like he's just oh, here's a little piece, there's a little piece.
Speaker 2:And he's chasing the doe hard now he lip curling, he's like on her and they're just running back and forth. So they're doing like a like a 40 to 60 yard kind of figure, eight in this area. And he's just chasing and my wife's just like, do I? Do I shoot him and I'm like, no, just wait. Like they're here, they're not going anywhere.
Speaker 2:And then he runs and I, literally, as we get, I say that he runs off to the right and, like the doe runs off, and he runs off chasing her and they like disappear. We're not catching glimpses. We're not anything. And I'm like, oh man, did I just jinx this? Did I literally just tell her they're here, live here, this is their house? Like I just convinced her to like be patient, you know. And uh, they're like gone and then a couple minutes later we're sitting there. It's like the longest two minutes of our lives. And this doe shows back up in the gap, like in our 20 yard gap that we've got, and I'm like, oh, there she is, get on, get on her, get on her. And the next thing, I know that buck walks out and I'm like, girl boom, like she just drills him, like I'm like trying to like be supportive, you know, like, oh, you got a good, clear shot.
Speaker 2:And she's like I know I got a clear shot, like I am. And she just hammers him, he double mule kicks, and I like look over at her and she's like got the tears starting to well and I'm just like you did so good, like I am so proud of you, and she's like did I kill him? And I'm like, well, I don't know yet you know, like that's not a guarantee I'm willing to give you, like I saw him kick, but like I hope you made that face when you're answering here, oh man like I don't know, we'll find out but uh so
Speaker 2:we've been. We've been getting the snow, getting the truck all unstuck, and we've been in that wet snow. And then we've been. We've been getting the snow, getting the truck all unstuck, and we've been in that wet snow and then we've been laying there waiting for them while they had been running around and like super privileged experience and we got to watch this buck wreck this doe for like 25 to 30 minutes and so it was just like watching them do their thing at a couple hundred yards just super rad, super, super cool experience. But in that time we got really chilled out. We were just wet, got cold.
Speaker 2:I was like we need to walk the half mile back to the truck and just change out some clothes, get our gear figured out and we'll give him plenty of time to do his thing and expire because he just they were right out of sight. You know, and I felt real good about the shot that there wasn't. She didn't need to have a follow-up. Like I did feel good about it, but like I wasn't like, well, guaranteed, you killed him. Yeah, he didn't just tip over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he didn't just tip over. But, um, walk back to the truck, do the thing, get all cleaned up, come and walk right to where she shot him. It's like very evident from where she shot him and where his tracks come out. And like 10 yards behind him you just see like a big spray on the snow, like where, like what the bullet carried with it, like laid onto the snow. And I'm like, well, that's a good sign. And so we start following and we follow him into like the thicker trees and we've gone about 25, 30 yards and he goes into some thicker trees and some brambles and there's like it's hard to tell because the snow is really wet and it's a foot and a half of snow so you can see the blood, but it's just really like thin, like watered down blood.
Speaker 2:Basically but I like I'm like which makes it look like there's a lot more too right, like totally makes it looks like it's everywhere yeah, and I'm looking down and I'm just like focused on this, each step, each blood drop, each blood drop, and I look up and it's just like you can see through the trees, through that brush where, like, all the snow's knocked off of it for like four feet wide, and I'm like, huh, I would bet that that deer ran through that only spot where there's no snow on the brush for like another 40 yards. And uh, so we're looking, she gets out in front and she's got her gun and we're going and uh, we just see we end up just walking up on him there, like he's about he he had run about 50 to 60 yards and just piled up, just full on, did like the nosedive. But getting to walk up to that deer, seeing my wife just like legitimately, like lay her rifle down and put her hands on him Like she had she'd been with me killing deer and elk and like has seen it, she's butchered. She's like that's actually like her favorite part is anatomy, like the anatomy of the animals, and like what cuts she's gonna get out of this and that, and so to get her to like lay her hands on her first animal and just like, like she we've been on a lot of hunting trips up to this point, but like I didn't have a hunting partner yet, basically, yeah, and like when she put those hands on there and she turns back and looks at me like the pride in herself and the level of accomplishment and just everything, and just like the adrenaline dump, everything that was happening, like I knew I had her, like I've got you for life, like there will be no questions, like if I'm like, hey, I want to go hunt this, I want to go do this, like I know that you're going to be there and you're going to be like on the team, because this experience right here, it was what it was going to take and it was.
Speaker 2:It was awesome. Just like knowing that I had, like, my lifelong hunting partner. It's like she's my wife, she's my best friend, she's all these things. That doesn't always equate to your hunting partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's, that's my like my wife. We were friends for years. I say this it's funny, my, our 10-year anniversary of being married is tomorrow. Um, but yeah, so we've been married for 10 years, but we dated for five years before that. Before that, we were friends for 10 years, like we've been around each other for 25 years best friends, absolutely. She will never go hunting with me, so it is something special, man, that you that you have there and it's cool that you were able to experience that like moment where you're like that's it.
Speaker 1:She crossed the threshold, like she is, she's on board. That's super cool. I'm jealous because I know that ain't. That ain't happening for me. I'm just waiting for my kids to get big enough to have that moment with them yeah, no, totally it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, it was that year we she did that and it's like I knew she was hooked. The next year we went out and hunted Roosevelt elk. She, archery, hunted Roosevelt elk. We hunted the entire season, walked over 100 miles, like 40 something thousand feet of elevation, gain and loss, and we didn't end up getting anything. She she had the chance to draw her bow on a giant roosevelt bull, um, and then a smaller bull that were together, um. But it was just like she's a new bow hunter. It's like a 50 yard shot and it's like she's gonna have to put it through a tiny hole and I'm like, if you feel comfortable, do it. And then she's just like standing there, she puts her bow down and she's like just watching them and I'm just like cool, we're good, you know.
Speaker 2:Like nothing we don't need to wound an elk in here, like we had been on them all day, whatever, but it whatever. What I'm getting at with that is like we hunt that whole season hundreds of miles, 40,000 plus feet of elevation, don't get a shot. We get in the truck, we're driving home and she literally looks over at me and she's like are we going to try anything different for next year or are we just going to keep going at it like this?
Speaker 2:And it's just like excellent like this is the best thing that could ever happen in this world for me. You know like I'm infatuated with hunting, and now it's like to have her just be like we're beat down, our feet are bloody, we're full-on exhausted, and for her to be like okay, we got to do something different next year. Yeah, we got to go do this again. So super fun, super great that's awesome, man.
Speaker 1:Good for you. Um, I gotta ask. I know size doesn't matter right, especially when we're talking about our wives, but um, how big was that deer?
Speaker 2:um, never taped it, but in the like 140 range that's a good deer for, yeah, for where we are in washington state, that's a good deer yeah, that's awesome man.
Speaker 1:That's a great story. I love it. I love it. She's like you're gonna have to calm down if you want me to shoot this thing, yeah and she was so serious, like just so deliberate and serious, like you need it right now okay, right to that. That's great man, that's great man, that's great. And um, what? What hunts do you guys have planned for this coming season?
Speaker 2:Um, what we got this year. Um, we are going to try and hunt the Washington high buck, um, for deer. Um, we're going to hunt fall bear, uh, fall bears. So it's a good, that's a fun time going pick berries, anding in the sun and glass for bears, you know. But then we're lucky enough, we're going to travel to Italy for October, which is kind of a hindrance for a little bit of the hunting that we've got had normally planned in the fall.
Speaker 1:Still, an awesome trip. Still an awesome trip Hunt some spaghetti and pizza man I know I'm excited it's.
Speaker 2:It's a worthwhile, worthwhile trip to take, I think. So I'll give up a couple hunting seasons to go and experience that yeah, I'm, uh, I'm not able to hunt in october.
Speaker 1:Uh, partly. My wife and I decided for our 10 year that we're gonna go to the northeast and do fall in the northeast. So I'm like, all right, lobster and red, red leaves, sign me up, let's go sometimes you just gotta put in the time right um, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, for sure. Uh, congratulations on the 10 years and also congratulations on the moose oh yeah.
Speaker 1:well, don't congratulate me yet yet We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the experience. It's going to be so awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it will be awesome, especially if it like last year. I mean, I hunted eight days in that same unit and we saw moose almost every day, and actually one moose in particular blew two stocks that I was on, so I'm hoping that those moose are still there. We'll see. Um, yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 2:Don't, yeah, don't congratulate me yet, man, don't do jinx me, I just but cool, Brandon.
Speaker 1:what other, what other stories you got for us so far? You've given us two amazing ones.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, Uh, let's see here I think, um, I think it's like when you move, so like in recent time here we moved from originally growing up hunting in Colorado and then we had hunted a little bit in Arizona and didn't have a lot of success down there. We just didn't have a lot of time with work and what we had going on. But coming up here to Washington, I guess like a fun story is like figuring out hunting, I guess like figuring out a new area and learning it and like having some success. So in Colorado there's not like a whole lot of state land. We have a lot of access to BLM and national forest, so you're not like looking for those state land parcels as much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and those states have all sorts of crazy rules, right. Like you can't get on them during these months and that months, like I've got a spot I want to antelope hunt, but I can't hunt there during antelope season, which is crazy. But yeah, sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so coming to Washington, the state lands are a little bit more forgiving than they were in Colorado. So we're like exploring state lands and figuring out and had some really beautiful days like in the falls, like grouse hunting, and like just going and finding like a 500 acre piece here or there or whatever and going and exploring it and just like trying to get it all figured out. And in doing that it's like I had never hunted whitetails before, I'd never really been around them and like start seeing stuff in the woods like scrape lines and different things that whitetail do. And basically the first year we were here I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get into whitetail hunting, I'm gonna get this figured out, I'm gonna figure out these, how whitetail bucks work, and I'm gonna get this done. And I chose this one piece of state land that was really hard to get to. I mean no trespassing signs all up and down the roads like yeah, but you can, it's legally accessible and everything. So I'm like, all right, this is going to keep people out. I'm going to get this hunt this deer. I don't care how big he is, it doesn't matter. Get some cameras, get them figured out, and I'm going to do this. Well, I put cameras in and I don't see any bucks at all in the area. I see some does, and but when I go walk around in that area I see buck tracks. And I'm like, okay, I'm just not putting my cameras in the right places, so I start moving them around and then I just start getting pictures of nothing. So I'm like, damn it, like I know there's this buck in here, because for this whole piece of state land there's only one real water source. It's a little creek that runs right, splits it right down the middle, and so you got like feed on one side, good bedding on the other and a creek running down the middle of it. And it's just like I know there's deer in here. I know, if I put in the time, I'm gonna find this dude and basically I spend the next two months looking for him, seeing tracks. I'm talking to a neighbor of ours that also kind of hunts this area and he's like, yeah, there's a couple good bucks in there, I've seen them over the years, da-da-da-da-da. And so I just time and energy, times 1,000 into putting it on this deer and I still have not seen him yet.
Speaker 2:Got tracks, got scrapes, got everything going on fresh scrapes, going on, cameras on them, does coming and checking them? No bucks making these scrapes. I'm like can't get it figured out. I'm like is there a guy in here making these scrapes? Like are these? Like like what is going on? And like I'm literally at my wits end. There's no buck in here.
Speaker 2:But I got to give it the go on the first day. I've spent the time, I put the energy into it. I get my dad to drive me and drop me off because the wind is weird from where you can drive in on the road. So I get him to drive me all the way around. Like it takes two and a half hours it's 30 minutes from our house or two and a half hours to drive all the way to the far side. And the way the wind was, I get him to drive me to the far side. He drops me off.
Speaker 2:I'm working up the hill and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go get where I can see the scrape line. It's before light. I'm gonna freaking be able to get in there. It's gonna be great. So I'm sneaking up the hill and I hear like glunking, basically, and I'm like what is there elk in here? Like is there an elk glunking. And then I hear like really heavy footsteps and I'm like, oh, it's coming towards me. Like I just just chill, just stop. And I like stand next to this tree and I'm like real close to this tree and I'm like I'm gonna get to see an elk really close.
Speaker 2:And then the next, like out of the darkness, basically this moose appears oh man a bull moose and he's he's not big, he's like young moose, but he's got antlers. He's like bullwinkle size, you know, like he's just a little guy, but he's literally 10 yards from me. He just cruises right in and just like he hurt he must have heard me coming up the hill, you know and he's just glunking and coming in and he just walks on by and I'm just like, holy, that is one good omen. Like there's, yeah, I haven't messed it up, like it's, this is gonna be great. So I like, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna move a little more forward and I'm gonna see if I can get to where I can see where this deer is gonna move, and I go about 20. That moose must have heard me because he swings back around and he just comes glunking and he walks like 10 yards behind me and I'm like I don't want to get trampled by this moose.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, yeah, our gourd, I'm not trying to not just scare him, Cause I don't want him to like blow him out, Cause I'm on like I'm in a 500-acre piece of state land and there's only so much of this land that's like where the deer are going to be. So I'm like just trying to be real nonchalant about the whole thing and just keep it real cool. Well, that moose works back past by me and I'm like all right, cool, I'm going to move up and hopefully I'm going to see this deer. And I move up and I hear a shot ring out and I'm just like, oh fuck, like that was really close to me, like I need to like once again get close to a tree, and so I get moved over behind this tree and like 15 seconds later I get a text message from my dad and he's like they killed your deer.
Speaker 2:And I'm like who killed my deer? And he's like the guys that drove up the road that takes 50 or 30 minutes from the house. Some guys drove up the road. He's like when I was driving around, I saw him turn down the road and so he just followed him up the road and as I had moved in there and was trying to be slow with the moose they had driven up from the other side and seen that deer out on the hillside I was working to and these guys shot like what was a pretty nice buck, like probably 120 inch buck, but my damn moose man, they got me several times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they got me several times last season and now they're getting you bud yeah I'm gonna try and redeem us this season. We'll see.
Speaker 2:Yeah I hope so, but yeah, so that was my first. Uh, my first like real attempt and push at killing a whitetail buck was putting two months of time and energy and scouting and effort and trying to get a new species and a new area figured out. To have some yokels from town come out and shoot him. I mean, I was super happy for him. You know it was like a father and son and they were like so stoked.
Speaker 1:But yeah, those guys were going out there and like popping your camera, SD cards and deleting the deer pictures or something like that man.
Speaker 1:Cameras are one of those things that like they're great, I love them, but also like they're so misleading sometimes. Um, one season we went out and I went out with some friends and we're hanging up cameras and while hanging the cameras, a herd of like 30 elk, literally just like, run over us. We have elk in every direction. They don't like one of them, spooks, none of them know what's going on. They're all just running in every direction and we're like oh man, this is awesome. We ended up hanging, I think, four cameras that year and we went up multiple times, went up the week before season. There was elk, deer bear, turkey. There was an antelope on one of the cameras at 10,000 feet, like just animals on animals, on animals.
Speaker 1:Every day we got pictures of something and we're like this is so cool, it's gonna be such a good season. This is our first full season that we're investing into this area and we get up there opening morning. Nothing's going on. We do see one elk, but we can't, we can't get to them. Um, and then we go check all the cameras and from when we pulled the cameras a week before to the start of season, not one picture was taken. There was just like every single critter went away one week before season. Uh, just absolutely crazy. So like I've never been more excited for a season in my life, just because of the sheer volume of animals, and they just completely disappeared. So you never know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 1:um but then I also have a friend who has like a property in north carolina and like he used cameras to figure out where his deer are. And it's worked out great for him because you know he's only got this small space to hunt so you can put cameras all over that small space. But out in the west man, there man, there's just so much land it's hard to put them in the right spot. Maybe some people are better than me, but it's tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really is. And I have a friend. She's just getting into hunting now as an adult and she's been putting out cameras, like over on the West side of Washington here, and it's her first camera, it's her first year putting out cameras and she's looking for a trying to find a blacktail spot and she's got a incredibly nice five by five rosy. She's got a cougar, two different bears and some doe blacktail but not a buck yet and like this is her first go. She's never. She's like literally like called me and was like hey, like how is this possible? You know, yeah, Right yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm like some people just have a knack for it my buddy Jermaine Hodge. He went out and put up some cameras recently, um, and he posted, like him, a picture of himself setting the camera up and then an hour and a half later, just like a beautiful six by six bull, like right standing where he was, and I'm like that. How do you do that?
Speaker 2:but how do you do that?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, that's great, all right yeah, well, brandon, you got more stories for us, or? Uh, are we gonna wrap it up here? You tell me I'll listen, all listen, all day.
Speaker 2:Um, let's see, here I, I, I would like to tell um, I've got another, uh, another story that's doesn't end with me taking the animal, but it ends with me being an incredibly close proximity to the animal that's being taken. Um, yeah, so two years ago my wife and I were spring bear hunting in Idaho and, like happens a lot of times, when she takes a nap I seem to glass something up. So I glass up she's napping and I glass up this bear, and he's about 1250 yards away from us across this big Valley and I'm like'm like, oh he's, he's killable, you know he's out eating.
Speaker 2:He's gonna go in bed. He's it's uh like 10 in the morning. He's gonna go bed on this hillside. The wind's gonna be gonna change.
Speaker 2:I had hunted in this valley lots of times. Like he was in a very killable spot, like he was actually in a spot where we could run down the ridge and get on a logging road and cruise all underneath him on a logging road and just be real quiet. Yeah, um. So we get our bags all packed up and we're cruising down the ridge and basically I'm trying to just get down to this next logging road, about 500 yards down the hill from us, still on our side of the valley, and once I get there I'm gonna just get eyes on him because he's like it's in that time of day where they're going to bed, so we're just like basically trying to play leapfrog and keep eyes on him as we're getting over there.
Speaker 2:And so I take off down and I look back and I see Paige and I take off and I like glass him and I see him. I look back and I see Paige and I go another 50 yards down and I glass him and I look back and I see Paige and I and then I like don't see him and I'm like, oh, I got to get out of these trees. So I just run down the hill to the road like 300 yards. I just like the trees were just too thick and I just blasted 300 yards down a page see a page.
Speaker 2:Well, what ends up happening is she. We were right on a like a very knife ridge and I dropped off to the like side of the ridge. That would be more noise dampening away from the bear and she, and it was no issue to be on the top of the ridge or on the like side of the ridge that the bear was on, because it's just thick timber, so it's not not a big deal anyways, but just like instinct led me off the left side of the ridge. Basically, well, her instinct left her off the right side of the ridge.
Speaker 2:Well, literally for the past four days before that, we had been doing like a dance around the grizzly bears in the area, so like, we've got like tracks where, like we had parked the car, walked up a gated road, like 150 yards of a gated road, to a lookout, and it walked back and had grizzly tracks in our tracks. So, like they're in the area, they're there, we, we're dancing, we're playing the game, and so that's not in my mind at all. My mind is like I'm going to kill this big old bear and in her mind she's like where the hell did my partner just go? There's bears all around, he's the only one with a rifle. Like we need to get this figured out. So I get down to the road and I I'm glassing and I get the bear and he's just like feeding in this little wet spot up on the hillside and he's not going anywhere, he's just hanging out. And then I'm like standing there and I'm like I should eat a granola bar and have some water while I'm waiting for Paige to come down. Like, just use this time constructively. Basically, I get through my granola bar, I get my water she hasn't showed up yet on the road and it's like there's nowhere to get lost. There's a logging road above us and there's a logging road below us and it just full on cuts across the whole hillside, the whole valleys between these two roads and basically what had happened is when she went down the ridge she got onto that road, but she just got.
Speaker 2:When she came onto the road she was just enough around the corner that I didn't see her, and so she thought that I had like just gone after the bear not that we were like going to meet at the road. So she starts going to look for the bear, basically, and I'm like starting to get nervous like shit, I need to start looking for her. Like fuck this bear, my wife's gone, you know. And so I'm like I don't care about this bear anymore at this point. So I just yell, I'm like Paige, paige, and I yell three times and I don't hear anything. And like I have hearing loss from being in the military and we're down in the creek bottom, so there's like the creek noise, yeah, hearing loss, like great, you know, perfect situation.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna take my bag off and I'm gonna run back up the hill and try and see where we got separated and see what's going on here, basically, and so like I cruise back up this knife ridge and I'm just yelling for her like page, page, like running up the hill and, uh, I get back to where I had seen her last, because there was a big stump there. It was like where it went from being logged to being into the timber again and I knew she was past there. And when I get there I start to get a little freaked out, like I'm like, oh shit, did she run down like we were hauling ass? Did we startle a grizzly? Did I jump grizzly over the ridge that ran into her and did she this? There's something going on. So I start getting pretty freaked out, like just in general, and I'm like, oh man, like I, this is bad, basically, you know.
Speaker 2:And so I start working down the ridge and I'm yelling and I'm like, getting down to the road and I'm like I got like 10 more steps in me and my pistol's coming out to start shooting, like one, two, three, one, two, three.
Speaker 2:Like I'm freaking worried, you know. And she also has a pistol which I would have expected to have gone off if she was having a bear, but we're we're believers of bear mace first, and then the Like they both come out at the same time. You know, like what are you going to hit the bear with? More likely the mace or the pistol. Like I'm going to hit him with the mace first because you've got a lot bigger area. So you know, I'm like, oh fuck, did she try and mace him and then got ran over, whatever? I'm ten steps away, like I'm 10 steps away, like I'm literally pulling it out of my holster Cause. If I hit the road and I don't see her, I'm going to shoot and like try and get some attention going. And I hit the road and I see her like standing on the side of the road and she has got this look on her face Like I can't believe you left me.
Speaker 2:And I am like freaking out because like, and I am like freaking out because, like, where did you go? I'm afraid that you were eaten by a bear. She's afraid that I left her, you know, like, so we're having this miscommunication in the woods and it basically ends up I'm like, instead of being like, I'm so sorry that I got ahead of you, I'm like where the fuck did you go?
Speaker 2:Which her being scared and like everything that might be the wrong angle to take on that argument a hundred percent the wrong angle and, I would definitely say, my biggest failing as a hunting mentor and hunting partner to date. So not my proudest moment, but it's something that I'll tell everybody so that if they have the chance to hunt with their significant other to like, take your own emotions and just try and keep them in check. Like you can be scared, you can be whatever, but don't forget that you've got this person that's incredibly important to you and just be kind.
Speaker 1:What's funny is I've had one other gentleman on the podcast who did something similar. I don't think he left his wife, but his wife wasn't moving fast enough. Um, you win in this fact because his wife was pregnant and he turns around and and he goes. What are you fucking doing? Like?
Speaker 1:screaming in her face and then he's like wait a minute. I just screamed at my pregnant wife Hold on, I need to just back off this situation. Um, so you're still only number two in the uh, in the spousal, oops uh list here for the hunting stories podcast. Yeah, keep going, man.
Speaker 2:We haven't, we haven't gotten to the critter yet, so keep going, so, um I uh do a major faux pas there and we get that all sorted out, get some water drank and get some tears wiped off the old cheeks of both of us and uh, I'm like, well, we're gonna try and kill this bear, or what. And she's like, yeah, let's go kill this bear.
Speaker 2:There you go reset button reset button so we get going and we bust across the creek and she's not mad at so. She's mad at me, but not so mad at me that she won't let me like carrier across the creek, cause it's like knee deep on me and she's much shorter and like she's just going to be soaked. It's like I'm willing to do that, like that's just, it's part of the deal. Anyways, piggybacker across the creek, we're cruising up the hill and it's like it is like what looks like the bottom before, where it's like clear cut, where this road is and this where this bears at, just looks like real thick, dark timber. As we start getting into it we realize it's like cliffs and dark timber. So it's like very, very steep. It's like the walk or the idaho washington type, uh, like basalt rock with the moss on it. So it's just like incredibly slippery.
Speaker 2:We fight our way like the 600 vertical feet up to where the edge of the clear cut is. We get to the edge of the clear cut. We literally come up over the hill to where this bear's bed is. It's all dug out. There's probably 25 or 30 piles of fresh shit that he's been hanging out here just eating grass. Coming back laying in this bed, my mind literally goes we're in his bed, he is going to do nothing. But come back to us. How perfect could this be? And we're there, we're checking the wind, everything is perfect. And I'm looking for the bear and we know that he's just like just up around the corner from us, like is where the wet spot is that he's feeding. So we're like, okay, we're just, we got good wind, we're just going to kind of work up this edge and we're going to be able to see him up on right underneath the lip of the road. And so, as we're working up the edge, I'm like ranging where I think he's going to be, where I'm thinking he's going to be, and it's like 100 yards, 60 yards, 50 yards, and then we kind of get where we can just edge around the corner and we can see his back. How you just see that like sliver of back, like up above you, and I'm like, oh, he's right there, we're gonna get a great, like it's gonna be great.
Speaker 2:I'm like getting the gun situated, getting everything, it's absolutely perfect. My wife's there, we're, it's working out perfect, and we and I'm like that's like a weird owl noise. And then we hear whoo-hoo, boom. And we look up on the hill and literally like 450 yards above us on the hill, which would be about 350 yards from where the bear was it's like six people sitting on this hillside and they all got like binos on tripods. It literally looks like you're looking at a fricking hunting show up on the hill Like Jesus, just fricking people like crazy.
Speaker 2:And I like put my hands up like did you kill him? Like tell me what's going on. I like walk out in space, you know, cause I can't find the bear anywhere and it's like a clear cut and I'm like, oh, like I can't see them and they don't shoot and they like slowly start packing up their stuff and walk up the road. But like, so like we kind of walk around a little bit in that area and don't see the bear and I'm like, well, I don't want to mess up anything these folks got going on and I also don't want to like get involved with a wounded bear. So we basically just drop back down into the timber, drop down the edge, go back down, go to our vehicle and like call it a day, basically, like just because to get to where those people were it's probably like an hour and a half drive.
Speaker 2:It's like the way that the logging roads work. Yeah, it's like they don't. They don't hook up. It's basically like it'll the road will go up one valley. They log out that whole valley and it's just like the one road goes up the valley and then you drive back out to the next valley and it's drive up that valley and it's got its own road basically. And so they had went up a completely different drainage than we were up to get to that same situation. So we basically just bailed out.
Speaker 2:Well, Paige and I are BHA members and so we did like there was a Washington State BHA rendezvous type thing that they did where it was just like a bunch of the BHA members all got together and kind of did like a Christmas party. We're there and I'm telling a story about bear hunting and this guy goes did that bear have black legs and a red back? And I said, yes, he did. He was one of the most beautiful bears I'd ever seen. And he goes I was in the group that killed that bear. We saw you down there. So they, full on, killed that bear. I got to meet the guy that was in the group. It was like two years later, get to meet him.
Speaker 1:How far were you from that bear?
Speaker 2:Probably a hundred yards.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And like so shoot over you.
Speaker 1:You were kind of off to the side right.
Speaker 2:If you were to make like a obtuse triangle, we were like opposite each other, so they were like 350 from the bear, we were like 100 yards from the bear and we were about 300 yards from them. I would say Okay. Got it so, like the bear was further from we, were closer to them than the bear, but off at an angle, yeah, away, I'm not sure, like who takes that shot.
Speaker 1:Like you know, if I'm sitting there glassing and I see a bear at 400 yards or 300 yards and I see people stocking up on it, I think I'm letting the people finish like yeah, I don't know if I'm throwing a hail, mary you know, triple the distance to. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just don't. I, for the benefit of the doubt, and the guy that I got to meet that was in that party wasn't the shooter and wasn't, like, uh, the decision maker in the group, basically like he was just kind of hanging with his friends, hunting with his friends, type situation. So I don't know all the details of it, but, um, we had stuck to the timber and I want to believe that we were just down over the edge. You don't have to wear orange in that season either. So we're like in full camo, trying to be as like still, and I don't pass any fault.
Speaker 1:Maybe didn't see you, or I thought it was them like warning you, or what do you think that was?
Speaker 2:I think that was them stopping the bear.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, okay, okay, yeah. I, I want to be. I want to be a little like those assholes shot my bear, but at the same time I don't think that's the case at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're just, you're just happy to get out of there with your wife, not ripping your head off. So you know, a win's a win, right A. A win's a win, right A win's a win.
Speaker 2:It's like she was still willing to go after the bear with me. She's still gone after that. We alleviated my misgivings there. That's too funny man.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a cool story. It makes me a little like hmm at the end, but it's still a cool story, especially that you actually got to meet one of the hunters that did I mean I'm glad to hear the beer the bear was down right. They didn't just like fire a shot and the bear ran off. Who?
Speaker 2:knows? Yeah, no, totally me as well. Um, it was a beautiful bears, so I'm I'm super excited that someone got that bear and I actually like every year go back and check that same area because I'm praying that those genetics are there so that we can get that color phase back. He was just so beautiful.
Speaker 1:That's cool man. Yeah, there's some beautiful black bears out there that are all sorts of different fun colors. Um yeah, in Washington man, and there's some big ones, although I've never shot one, but I've, I've. It's like number one on my list right now as far as like things that I actually will get to do sometime soon.
Speaker 2:Hopefully next year I get to go to Idaho and do some bear hunting, so we'll see. Yeah, man, this was fun, do you have? Do you have more stories? For us or do we want to wrap it up? Uh, we should probably wrap it up. I've, I could go on endlessly, but uh, we don't need to tell everybody about my rag bowls and my dinks, you know.
Speaker 1:Perfect, Perfect man.
Speaker 2:Well, uh, in that case, do you want to share any social medias or anything people can follow you on, or do you just want to walk off into the sunset? Um, I've been slowly. Um, I don't have a lot of presence on social media. Um, I've got my instagram handle is, uh, portraits of hunting. Um, basically, it's just trying to show hunting in a very normal light.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah you know, just trying to uh the adventures that my wife and I go on and then like with our friends, um, just either killing invasive species, uh, gathering berries or mushrooms, just kind of doing life, um in a more wild and natural way and slowly building that. So if anyone wants to follow, that would be cool. Don't expect a whole lot of content.
Speaker 1:Cool man. Well, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But, brandon, first off, thanks for reaching out, man, and saying, hey, I got some stories. And then, secondly, man, thanks for telling some amazing stories today. I'm going to remember your Cobra story. I'm going to remember all your stories, but definitely the the Cobra one for sure, cause that was not something I expected to hear today. So, thank you, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Um, I really appreciate it and like keep up the good work, because you're just filling the airwaves with stories and that's great.
Speaker 1:I'm just having fun with it, man. All right, have a good one. Thank you, just having fun with it, man. All right, have a good one.
Speaker 1:Thank you. All right, guys. That's it. Another couple stories in the books. I want to thank Brandon, of course, for reaching out in the first place and then having the bravery to come on here and actually tell his stories. If you're a listener and you think you have some good stories, reach out to me. I guarantee your stories are better than you think and I guarantee you're a better storyteller than you think you are as well. So please do reach out. Or if you know someone else who has a great story, connect me with them. But, brandon, thank you again for your time and your amazing stories. Now, guys, get out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.
