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The Hunting Stories Podcast
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 112 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Lucas Todd
Lucas shares an array of personal hunting stories, including an unexpected sighting of a massive buck after a rock roll, his first big game hunt in Colorado, and the meticulous preparation he underwent for an antelope bow hunt. His tales of adrenaline-pumping chases and the satisfaction of a successful shot offer a vivid glimpse into the challenges and rewards of big game hunting. Whether it's misjudging a deer's size or the unique difficulties of scoring antelope, Lucas's experiences paint a rich picture of the hunting world.
In the final segments, we laugh along with Lucas as he recounts close encounters with speedy antelopes and the chaotic yet rewarding elk hunts he's experienced. From understanding the importance of wind to the comedic misadventures with his cousins, these stories capture the essence of hunting's unpredictability. Join us in celebrating Lucas's bravery and passion, and don't forget to follow and subscribe on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts to stay connected with more extraordinary hunting tales.
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howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we got another good one for you today. Uh, today we actually connect with lucas time. Lucas is a 17 year old hunter out of wyoming. He might be young, but man, he's been hunting basically since he uh put down the bottle, so and that's baby bottle, that is is so. That being said, he's got some amazing stories and he's also one of our listeners, listen to every episode, reach out to me and say, hey, I'd love to come on and tell some podcasts.
Speaker 1:I want to say, lucas, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really do appreciate it, sharing your stories and being brave. It's a tough thing to do, especially for a 17-year-. But yeah, guys, take a hint from the kid. Reach out to me if you have any stories you want to tell. I even have a link you can click it at the bottom of the show notes and it's just a quick survey. Fill it out and I'll reach out to you. But that's it, guys. Let's go ahead and kick this thing off and let Luke tell you some of his stories. Thank you, all right, lucas. Welcome to the Hunting Stories Podcast. Brother, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well, man. Thank you so much for scheduling with me today and coming on to tell some stories. I say this every time, but my favorite type of story comes basically from the listener, and you reached out to me saying hey, man, I got some stories for you, so thank you man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course I mean. I like listening to it too. I've listened to all your episodes and they just make me laugh and I love it. Good when I'm at work, make it easier.
Speaker 1:Perfect.
Speaker 2:Well, let's do this. Man. Why don't we let you introduce yourself, so the folks know who they're going to hear some stories from today? Well, I'm Lucas Todd, I'm 17. Basically been hunting since I was born. My mom shot, like when my littlest brother was an infant, like he was like six months old. Me and my brother were like I think I was like five, my brother was seven, something like that. We were little. I don't think you do even that, actually, but she said when it went down, my papa said it was dead. We ran up that hill faster than anybody and, yeah, I've been basically hunting since I was little.
Speaker 1:I mean, I haven't been doing the killing till, of course, 12, because that's what it is in wyoming, but yeah, yeah so got it.
Speaker 2:So you've been in wyoming your whole life. Oh yeah, I was born here, lived here my whole life. I mean, I've traveled outside of wyoming for wrestling stuff and all that, do a lot of I do a lot of wrestling, but yeah, so that kind of yeah, well, nice to meet you, lucas.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to hear some stories. Um, I know you said you have a couple in mind for us. You even kind of people whenever a guest and this is to the listeners if you have a story you want to tell me, don't just type it all out, I don't want to read it. I I you know everyone tries to tell me their stories in an instagram message, um, which I read after the fact always, but, uh, I do love to just ignore those so that I can get them firsthand directly from you guys. So, lucas, I know you have a couple of stories in mind. Why don't you set the stage? Man? Let's just kick this thing off.
Speaker 2:Alrighty, so we're going to probably just go back before. I could actually hunt, but like I could do the killing, but I always like to tag along and tag along as much as I can. So let's see, let's go about. I don't know, let's go about a couple days before the actual part of the cool part of the story. But so we're up hunting here and my uncle butch, he's, he's like he's an older guy I haven't, I haven't seen him very much, but like he's family. So he finally got a deer tag, uh, mule deer tag, up in wyoming where we go hunting, and uh. So he came up and we were trying to uh get him a deer. He didn't necessarily care he hasn't killed a deer and I think it was like 75 years like a mule deer and like it was a long, long time 75 years.
Speaker 1:Dude, I think you might be over guessing on that one but okay, maybe less.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 2:They're old guys, they like to tell, so I can't remember and I was little or so, but uh shit, he's old. I mean I haven't seen. I've talked to him in a while, but we brought him up to get a deer and he didn't care about size. So it's through the week, it was like five days, that the rifle was open. So every day we we were going trying to find deer. He missed a couple of deer and everything and couldn't get them down. Found one really nice one, and everybody got excited and missed him.
Speaker 2:But that final morning I went up to him. We were in the camper sitting around and I was like dude, when are you going to hit a deer? And he goes I don't know, maybe today's the day, and they're all laughing, laughing. So we get up, get ready to start driving up the road when it gets just light enough for us to see and we drove for about I want to say five, ten minutes and right down the center of the road is a nice little three-point and we look at it. We're like, wow, that's the first time we've seen a buck in this mountain. He jumps out, shoots it goes right down. It was facing towards us, so it goes right down the center and I was everything and the.
Speaker 1:Thing that.
Speaker 2:It amazed me. It ran up a hill for like another. I don't want to. I don't like five minutes, I might be a little longer, but something like that. But yeah, he runs up the hill and you're just like, how are you, maybe you miss, and shoots, shoots it again, lays down and dies. We get up there, take care of it. It was awesome. But later that day I was pushing my pop. I'm like, hey, we got to go back out there, we got to get another one, because today's the last day. And he's like, all right, all right, we took my great-grandpa out with us too and we go up how old were you? And we go up. And so basically you think at the time, uh, me or no? No, no, your great-grandpa. Uh, shoot, I don't even know how old he is?
Speaker 1:now, I don't think either. You said your uncle's old, so how old is great-grandpa geez?
Speaker 2:well, my great-grandpa and uncle are about the same age. Okay, I think maybe uncle's a little older. We just call him uncle because I don't know, I don't know all the stuff to be gotcha, so he's not an actual uncle. I was like no, he just he's great Grandpa was having kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just we just call him uncle Butch. I don't, I don't know, I don't know. We haven't talked to him too much really that I remember, but they're just, they're older, I'm not sure. I think they're either closer to like 75, 80. I want to say, don't quote me on that, but I think we're close to that.
Speaker 2:But we take him up and this one spot that we like to go is it had a, had a high-ish vantage point and it's basically a half bowl, so like a u, so it's filled with like little cedars and the tops are flat of it and let me think of the mistake so like it's a half U basically, and so the points of the U, as you're driving up the road, are facing away from you and the road goes off on the right and there's a little knob there and you sit there and you can glass. So one tactic we learned from we got this really nice deer tag a couple years earlier but a tactic we learned is we'll walk along them and roll rocks down and that'll spook the deer up and we're like, oh, that's what we have.
Speaker 1:And so we're walking along.
Speaker 2:I look at my papa. I'm like, hey, should I roll a rock down? He's like, go for it. I find this big boulder and I kick it over and it goes busting down through it's like the perfect.
Speaker 1:All men become little boys when it becomes like time to throw a rock down.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like, yes, let's throw this thing down there. Yeah, I think there's a couple of.
Speaker 1:Instagram pages that are just like guys knocking trees over and rolling rocks down hills or throwing them off cliffs.
Speaker 2:It's just taking out some trees. Yeah, it feels awesome just to hear that story. So keep going Sorry you just got to go in there. Or you see the ones where they throw the rocks into the ice. You just want to eat the ice, or something like that, after you do it.
Speaker 1:All that stuff is amazing, man. All that, okay, oh, keep going. Sorry, we took a side note there you're good, you're good.
Speaker 2:But so, yeah, we, uh, we roll that rock down and nothing happens. We're sitting there. I'm like, well, dang it, apparently there's nothing in here. And my papa, he pulls up his binos and he's like lucas, stop. I'm like what, what? He's like there's a monster buck right there and me, being a kid, I'm excited. I heard bucks, like plural. Yeah, so there was three bucks there. But I heard plural, so, and he's like three big bucks.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh my gosh, you shoot a big buck. I'm I'm excited and uh, so he gets all set up and everything I take, take these binos out. I don't even remember, I think they're old Leopold ones, but I pull them up and I'm looking at them and I see, I see the buck, and I'm like, oh sweet, I can't see its head very well Cause it's behind a cedar. But when my Papa saw it he said it was big. So I'm like, sweet, let's shoot this. He gets set up and he's like, is that the buck? I'm like, yeah, it's the buck, there's three big ones. Shoot one of them.
Speaker 2:And so he shoots it and absolutely nails it and we see it roll down behind this cedar and it's just, we know it's stoned dead. And we're sitting there like all right, let's give it a second. And then all of a sudden the big buck just comes out running and we're like like my papa's, like I thought I hit him and I go you, you stoned him, he's dead. And he's like no, he's right there. And I'm like what? And we look at it and I'm looking at this thing and you gosh, thinking about it makes me sick now. But like no, the best way to describe this deer. Have you ever seen a mule deer or a deer and look at it and think, oh, that's a, that's a kind of a small elk. And then it stands up and it or a deer and look at it and think, oh, that's kind of a small elk.
Speaker 2:And then it stands up and it's a deer and you're like, holy crap, that is the size of the body of that deer. And the deer was just tall and he was heavy and I counted like six on each side and stopped counting and realized that we screwed up. He was such a big deer, like I want to say, he was well over 210, maybe 240 tops. He was an enormous that's awesome. He's the biggest deer I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just so real quick. You asked me have I ever seen a deer and be like? Is that an elk? Like? My very first hunt in colorado was november rifle hunt and I'm looking across these finger ridges and I just and and my, my brother-in-law's, up on top of the ridge and he's like oh, there's one right across from me and I'm looking at it and I'm like I have an elk tag and I'm like yeah there's an elk and so I get a little bit closer, get a little.
Speaker 1:I have no cover and it's years of doing this thing and I'm like something's funny about it. I was like the color's not right, the antlers look a little funny, but that is a big old body. And then I eventually realized, like looking through my binoculars, I was like, oh, holy shit, that's just a deer that is built like like the rock man he was just a thick boy. He didn't have huge antlers, but he was a thick boy. Um yeah, fortunately I didn't shoot him because I could have.
Speaker 2:Uh, I just yeah but I didn't have a tag for mule deer.
Speaker 1:I just had no idea what I was doing yeah, so yeah, I've seen those old beat up mule deer.
Speaker 2:They just look like monsters and they're just looking mean and they're so cool. I love me out there.
Speaker 1:They're my favorite yeah, so I've actually never been on a mule deer hunt formally, so I need to get that box checked To me it's better than any other hunting.
Speaker 2:I've shot an antelope, like you can see in the background. I shot that guy with my bow, and I'll tell you about that later.
Speaker 1:Sweet, I can't wait to hear it. I go antelope hunting in three days. Yeah, I heard that on that new episode.
Speaker 2:It feeling to shoot something like, especially an animal, with your bow. It's so cool yeah, I've killed deer. I've killed an elk. He's not the best elk he's like, I think he's just shy of 300 and the area that I shot him. That's not bad. Well, the area I shot him at is a really, really great area and I saw in an enormous bowl that I had my sight I set on and we thought this bowl was bigger. I'll tell you probably about that too, but yeah back to this deer.
Speaker 2:So we see him going away and I'm like, wow, why, how is he not dead? And he's just huge and hush, it's just. It's just, he's an amazing deer. He's like what you see in the fables is my thought, yeah, he's. And so we look at each other. We're like, well, maybe, shit, maybe he missed it. And so we're like all right, and we walk down there. We get to where we thought we saw him die and there it is a. Okay, let me step back, there's three. I can tell you, there's three bucks, right yeah there's one three point.
Speaker 2:That's, like I want to say, about 25, 26 inches tall, just big, big, long times big three point. He's a little little narrower, but he's a nice big three point. And then there's a little tiny three point. All right, not not very special. He's probably, I would say, two, maybe, maybe three years old, tops, probably not even that. He's a young deer, okay. So we get down there at the cedar tree and there's a three beard, three deer, the big big buck, the nice big three point, that little three point. And we look at him and there's a three beard, three deer, the big big buck, the nice big three point, that little three point. And we look at him and it's the little three point, sprawled out dead. We're like you gotta be kidding me. I look at him, we, he looks at me. We're like gosh, damn, how how do you chew that up? And yeah, so fastest gut we've ever had.
Speaker 2:We called my dad and he knows that my papa, he does not shoot animals unless they're big. So he goes, all hype, he comes over. I think we had a little utility side by side then. But he drives from camp up and he's sitting there. He's like how, how big is it? And we go, he was big. He's just over the ridge. He's like, well, would you shoot one? Yeah, we're like, yeah, we point at him. He's just over the ridge. He's like, well, would you shoot one? Yeah, we're like, yeah, we point at him and it's just a dinky three and he's like, oh no, what'd you do?
Speaker 1:We're like oh my gosh, I don't know, that's too funny.
Speaker 2:Every time we go to that spot I want to sit there for hours and just watch for that deer. I know he's probably dead now. I think that was like three or four years ago but yeah, man, that's too bad.
Speaker 1:That reminds me. I don't remember who said it on my podcast, but somebody said they shot a deer and when their friends and family came over, they're like who shot the Labrador? You know, it's just like this tiny little deer. I always think of that when someone shows up in these stories and they're like where's your deer? That's it. Who shot the dog. So that's funny man. But, that's hunting right. You get caught up in the moment. I bet that deer tastes delicious regardless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was great. He gave us a lot of meat.
Speaker 1:It was good? Yeah, absolutely. And I'll also say those are the kind of hunts that make some of the best stories that are told for years and years and years. Hey, remember that time you shot that dinker, you know it's just a crap about it all the time. Yeah, Hitler's a great gnoll but you guys got a lot from that hunt, so that's awesome, man.
Speaker 2:And a big thing that my dad always tells me is this like, especially if you want a shoulder mountain animal, he's like you know what big is nice, but if you shoot something big and it's just like, oh, I saw it, boom dead, that's not the coolest thing. Like, yeah, you got the shoulder mountain, yeah, I have this big trophy buck, but what's the story? And like, yep, my dad, he doesn't. He has two really nice, really nice mule deer, but they're not like I wouldn't say they're like world-class big ones, but they're really nice. And he got them shoulder mounted because we were with him on that. It was, and to me that makes more sense to. To have a shoulder mount of something is when you, you got a good story behind it 100, in fact, such a good point.
Speaker 1:Um, I shoulder mounted my, my elk from last year and it's a little bit over 300. I don't, I don't remember exactly. I can't remember if it's like 305 or like 313, but it's in that range. It doesn't matter and I'd never really was going to get a shoulder mount. I don't have any shoulder mounts, I've always done Euro. And then I was like wait a minute, this is epic. Like I went out with a world out calling champ at eight days of slugging it around here and then we end up spot and stocking in on on a bull and I put down this bull it's my first archery kill like, yeah, I want it to be this giant animal in my house and uh which I almost regretted because he was really hard to get hung up but got him up and now people walk in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, people walk in and they're like holy crap, what's that? And I'm like well, let me tell you this and this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me tell you about that.
Speaker 1:I get to tell my favorite stories. So yeah, having the story is as important as the antlers. They're actually probably more important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's probably more important, but the antlers are still cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are no-transcript to a story, but they always leave the upsets, though that's true.
Speaker 2:Yep, maybe it's true, all right lucas, what else we got, man? Let's keep the stories going, we're're rambling about animals, that's never a good time. Tell you about that guy right there, that nice little man back there.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Let's do it, believe it or not, he's my first big game kill, awesome.
Speaker 1:And he was archery too. Huh yeah archery.
Speaker 2:I did it with a freaking bow. It was awesome.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to think we got this tag and I was just excited because I'm like well shoot. So yeah, cause let me tell you this my birthday is December 29th, so it's the worst ever when you really want to hunt your whole life and you turn 12 and hunting season's over.
Speaker 1:That's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we tried to get me a late, late season elk and they were all on the uh fridge, the, not the refuge, by the time. I could hunt them and I just it was a hit and a miss, but we tried. But so the first year I could actually hunt is when I turned 13. So we uh like, yeah, so we got that tag. And I was like hell, yeah, let's go. Oh wait, no, I'm wrong, that was I was already 13, because that year that I could actually hunt we didn't get one. I missed. Yeah, no, I didn't get one. Okay. So when I was 13, I'm like so, yeah, when I was 13, we got this antelope tag. I'm like, yes, I'm gonna finally kill something.
Speaker 2:Antelope are a lot easier because we've only really hunted them with rifle. My dad shot one with a bow and it stood there 45 yards off the road, let us stop. Like it was looking at us. We saw it. Stop the truck. He gets out, takes his bow out of his case, puts on his release, knocks it, ranges it and shoots it. And me and my papa with another truck, were down the road and I think my cousin was with me. We're down the road with a decoy and he was too fascinated with the decoy to understand.
Speaker 1:Really, yeah, no, way, okay, well, that's good to know antelope are dumb animals and they can be doesn't mean they are yeah well, I've heard you know they they're good at what they do which is good at running and run, so gosh, yeah all right.
Speaker 2:So we, I get this. I'm like, yes, I'm gonna finally kill an antelope. And my dad's like, hey, start shooting your bow. You gotta shoot a thousand arrows before you can go hunting. If you want to shoot with your bow, michael, hell, yeah, I'd love to shoot an animal with my bow. So, put in all the time, I'd shoot a whole bunch. I good up to up to 30 yards and I was drawing, I think, 55 pounds, something like that. I'm a little guy. I think I was maybe 4'6" if that, so 55 pounds is pretty good for a little man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a little guy, so I get it all set up, we're good and we start opening day. Spotting stock and well, yeah, spotting stock is antelope is probably one of the hardest things I could. You could, in my mind, could do uh hunting, but I haven't. I've only done antelope, deer and elk, so I don't really know the broad spectrum, but to me that is the hardest thing to do.
Speaker 1:And so I agree, I think I think antelope, just because of the terrain they live and what they used to survive with their eyes and their speed. Um, I've hunted axis deer recently. Yeah, talk about a spooky deer. Like those things, if you shoot over 60, over 40 yards, they're just gonna run away. Like you don't have time, so like there's tons of different critters and they're they're hard to hunt for different reasons, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, are they kind of like white tail, like I've heard that you kind of want to aim under a white tail because they'll drop, or do they just take off?
Speaker 1:They just take off. I mean I'm sure they do drop because they got a load Right, but they're I don't know if you're familiar because they're from India is Bengal tigers. I was sitting there watching some deer and a mom got spooked by her own fawn. A doe got spooked by the fawn. I was like everything and anything spooks them and then they're just gone. They're just a crazy spooky critter. I would be, too, if I thought there's a tiger around me all the time.
Speaker 2:If I take out the trash at night sometime, sometimes then I feel like something's off, I'll just run so yeah, I mean I understand that yeah, all right, we got off track again.
Speaker 1:All right, lucas, let's go back to the antelope, all right, yeah so play it back to their eyes.
Speaker 2:I think they have like seven power eyes, don't they? I think?
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly, but they're good but yeah, so we get and spot and stalk we. I think we spent two, three, four, maybe I would say five days within two weeks trying to get him with a bow and I had a couple times where I was kind of close. And then my mom took a video I don't think she took a video of me, but she's sitting in the truck trying to watch me and she's just laughing because antelope would just steadily walk away while I was trying to get at him.
Speaker 2:It was just funny because we didn't really know that if you stop when they're looking at you, they're gonna go. They don't, you're not, you have no chance. Because I've heard, I've heard, especially on this podcast, like you're saying that if you see an antelope, don't stop, keep driving, because you're screwed if you stopped and I can, really we didn't really know that. We just we've always hunted them with guns you're like, oh, they're right there, boom so you're like archery is big, big difference.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we get it. I think I got, I think within 40 on one one occasion. He wasn't really the biggest buck, but we get in close ish. But I can't shoot 40 yards, so he gets away, and so I was. I was discouraged because little 13 year old boy hasn't killed a big game animal, it's just dying to kill one especially, I love hunting, starting with the hardest time, oh yeah, but yeah, and so I was just like I was feeling discouraged.
Speaker 2:And we uh, drive over this hill and there's this big old water hole and there's a herd of antelope on it and they take off and we're like, oh crap, I didn't realize there's water here. And so, my, we sit down there for a minute. I sit there for like 10-15 minutes, nothing comes in. So we get, we're like all right, it's. I want to say it's like two, I don't know the time, it's later in the day, but okay, we, uh, we head home. I'm beat. I'm like, I'm discouraged. I'm like I don't, don't know if I'm going to shoot one with my bow. Dad, he's like I have an idea. We went and bought a blind, we went and set it up and let it sit there for a couple days. I was still like Dad, I don't know. He's like get your butt, we're going in this blind. I'm like, okay, we're going in this blind. We get in the blind the first day, first morning park the truck a little ways away, walk in and sitting in there, and I don't know how long.
Speaker 1:I downloaded All Hail King Julian on Netflix and I was just watching that on my phone with earbuds in while we were sitting in there, and that's what I was doing while we were waiting. Yeah, just listening to it watch netflix.
Speaker 2:And so we're doing that and this buck comes in and, uh, but I was like that's a nice buck, lucas, get ready. And they come walking in. He's like okay, draw, I get ready to draw. And he's like, wait, stop. So I'm like okay. And then they, they get down at the water. He's like okay, right now. And then I go to draw and they just bolt and we're like shoot, this is going to be a lot harder than it kind of looks on TV when they just draw back and shoot. And so a little bit later I want to say about midday-ish, another buck comes. Actually, we didn't even see him coming. We look up and he's right there just drinking on the water, and we go, oh, that's, that's a night, that's a, that's an elbow. Let's, let's go.
Speaker 2:So I draw back, I settle in like, okay, this is, this is all right, I shoot arrow, flight is perfect and everything. But by the time I got there, he was facing at us and his head was in the line of the arrow.
Speaker 2:And I strike him right below the nose, like right on the side, and I just, you just hear a whack. I look at it on my I just feel sick instantly. I look at my dad and he goes did you hit him? I'm like not good, not good at all. And he goes and he looks over it and it's kind of a little bit dazed, but he's not like hurt at all, he's just like whoa, what the hell? And you see this arrow sticking out of his face. We're like crap. So we let him go over the hill. We go over there and we see him still and he's perfectly fine, the arrow's gone. So like it, barely it. I bet you, if you found the animal you wouldn't even see a nick on like he was not hurt at the least, and so we follow him all day, keep trying.
Speaker 2:He just won't. Let us get near him, like I think the closest we got was maybe 500 yards. He was just not having it, and so I don't think we saw him again after that day. I think he was gone. We tried for him and I just told my dad again I'm like Dad, I wounded him, I'm done with bows and he's like you can try one more time. I know that sucks, buddy, but sometimes it happens. I hate this, I hate that feeling.
Speaker 1:I bet I'm frightened of the face.
Speaker 2:Dude, I've never felt like so sick of myself than hitting it.
Speaker 2:I was just, oh, it sucked. But we come back the next day. Same thing park away, walk in, get in the blind. I'm sitting there and I don't even think I got my phone out yet to watch anything. We're just sitting there kind of soaking in the morning feeling. You know that nice morning feeling. We were just soaking it in and here comes in this tiny little guy I want to say. He was like five inches tall and I was sitting there and my dad's like do you really want to shoot him? I'm like I just want to shoot him with my bow. So I grab it, I pull back and I'm like, well, crap, I'm going to shoot him walking Cause last time he was at the water he turned into it and I don't want to do that again, so too much and sailed it right in front of him and he takes off and I just I'm like, wow, I'm two for two and I'm doing terrible. But yeah, oh for two, yeah, oh for two, yeah, oh for two.
Speaker 2:and I can't I can't get it done, dude, what the heck? And so I'm I'm like, well, let me go get there. My dad's like no, you can get it when we're done sitting. I'm like, okay. And so I think an hour goes by. I'm sitting there and I remember this very distinctively. I'm sitting there drawing in the dirt, watching all hail King Julian messing around, being a 13 year old boy, and my dad's like big buck. And I look up and I don't see it. He's like Lucas, trust me, get your bow ready, get ready. He's right here. And I'm like, okay, I grab it. I drop back and I just see horns, this buck. And he's just walking. I'm like, oh, my dad's like don't worry about it, 30, 30 yard pin, put him on him. I don't care, shoot, I go. Okay, I put it on him. And he's like make sure he gets to the poof. He's gonna say make sure he gets to the water. But I shoot and I have a tendency you were following his.
Speaker 1:No, his first directions were like just put the 30 pin on him and shoot. That was the first instructions. Yeah, and you did pretty good there. Oh yeah, I tend to do that.
Speaker 2:And they're like whenever you're at boom okay. I'm ready, but uh, so yeah, he's. I see that line at the white patch on their back, right behind the shoulder.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That little L. So I hit him. The arrow's like at a it's at a little downhill slope. So I hit him right there, goes through and I start freaking out like a little kid. And my papa took a video of it and I had the video and I just go, I smoked him, I smoked him, I smoked him and I said that for about 10 minutes straight. I was sitting there.
Speaker 1:You still have that video.
Speaker 2:Oh, I still do. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:I'll send it to you, please, please, yes, please do. Oh yeah, you see me going.
Speaker 2:I smoked him, I smoked him, I smoked him and my papa goes oh yeah, he did. And then it was just it's a short little video, but it's funny. I smoked him, I know he's dead, I know he's going to be dead. He's like well, calm down, we got to give him some time. And I go nope, I opened the blind and I go to where I shot him and he's like Lucas, come back. So I kind of get calmed down a little bit and he's like you know what? It's hot outside, cause it's in August, that's when our true season is for antelope.
Speaker 1:So and so we were like well find him, so it doesn't get spoiled.
Speaker 2:We walked there's no blood I we didn't see blood till we found him basically interesting, and so what kind of uh broadhead were you using?
Speaker 2:I think they were the g5 montex, the three bladed ones that 85 grains. Yeah, dude, it destroyed him and I. It didn't go through him and so basically what happened was it came through, broke through the other side ribs, but it stopped on the hide, so like it kind of slingshotted back into him, which benefited me, because when we gutted him the insides were just destroyed, like heart was cut in, like six or seven places lungs, you, couldn't you couldn't distinguish what was what.
Speaker 2:Sometimes yeah it was, it was, it was brutal, what that, what it did to him. But yeah, so we get up there, we're walking along, we find my arrow, so I pick up my arrow, I put it back in my quiver and my dad's like hey, lucas, look up, I look up, he didn't make it 50 yards no, really awesome, don't I?
Speaker 2:oh, it was awesome. I get up to him and I'm I'm so excited like I also have a vme walking up to him. I am like sounded like I'm about to cry, like I was about to cry. I was like I can't believe I did this. There's no way I just shot an antelope with my bow. There's no way I shot anything with my bow. I thought this was just a hit or miss. I wasn't going to do it, but the fact that I shot this nice of an antelope with a bow was just. It was like I was on cloud nine. I was so excited.
Speaker 1:I bet man, I bet that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's so cool.
Speaker 1:I don't know really anything about scoring antelope, but he looks like a decent antelope.
Speaker 2:How big, I mean maybe you do, but what is an average antelope and how big is that bad boy? I would say an average antelope if you're doing on the, all I know is Boone and Crockett I think is 75 inches and I think a good size antelope is around that like 50, 60, maybe 70 range. I don't know. They're really hard to feel, judge like really hard. So it's. It's, I don't know like the best to say inch wise, but I scored him myself. I don't know if it's like fully legal. I scored him like three times and like the average I think I got, they were all within like a quarter inch of boone and crockett. He was like seven, seventy four and a half, seventy four and three quarters and I think I got seventy four and three quarters. So I'm like this guy is like very close to a boone and crockett yeah, I'm looking right now it might actually be a boone and crockett, I don't know, just I googled it.
Speaker 1:The minimum score for boon and crockett entries is 70 but it takes. Maybe I should get this yeah, maybe it's over 80 to make a four-year report I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2:I don't know all-time records being 82 and bigger, so um I also don't even know where those 70 inches come from, so I I guess it's like around the length I have to remember. So I think you girth and then you do the length from the base to the tip, like the wrap, to where the hooks end, and then I think you do from the base where the flag starts to the tip of the flag or something like that, and I think that's your inches. I'm not 100% sure. That was a couple years ago when I did it, but yeah, he's beautiful. I'm not a hundred percent sure that was. That was a couple of years ago when I did it, but yeah, he's, he's beautiful.
Speaker 1:I love him. His hooks are just killer.
Speaker 2:And then I got my arrow and I made a platform. 27 yards is where I shot him at. It was so cool.
Speaker 1:It's been a Antelope's been really high on my list to shoot with my bow for a couple of years now of research on them. Like, did you know their closest genetic relative is the giraffe.
Speaker 2:I did not, but I mean I guess, if you look at it you could kind of see it. Yeah, and they have horns and they don't have antlers.
Speaker 1:The difference between horns and antlers are antlers fall off annually, horns don't. The thing is antelope horns are the only horns that do.
Speaker 2:So like they're just the coolest critter and they're not technically an antelope, they're a goat like there's all sorts of interesting things.
Speaker 1:I have a story for you all.
Speaker 1:Right, lucas I don't know if I've told this one if you've listened to a bunch of my episodes maybe you have but, um, my very first antelope stalk ever, uh, hunting down southeast colorado, over the counter, I mean spot and stalk. We see we see a herd and everything we've come up to at this point just runs away. So we're like, well, what do we do? And so my buddy and I are like, okay, next one. We see I'm going to jump out of the car, basically while it's moving, with my bow, and my buddy's going to try and drive ahead of them and then pull over and stop to try and drive them back to me. So we see a little herd of antelope and I'm like, okay, cool, and they're a little bit ahead. So I get out and I see one bush, like that's it. I'm like I'll go there, stand behind that and see what happens.
Speaker 1:So I'm on my way walking to this single bush and I'm kind of fiddling with my arrow, getting it knocked, just sort of getting situated, and I just hear my truck, because my buddy's driving my truck. It's just honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk. And I'm like what the hell is going on, man? And so I look up and apparently what happened is my buddy went forward, the antelope beat him to where he wanted to go so he just hit the gas, split the herd, so half went to the side that we can't go to, which is private. The other half went back that way.
Speaker 1:So, and then, um, half of that half, one part of him went north but he had one buck turned back the direction towards me and so he flipped around real quick and then started driving. But it was trying to meet the herd back on the other side of the road. So he's flooring it down this dirt road and honking to try and basically cattle drive this antelope towards me instead of, instead of going back to the rest of the herd. So he's going, he says, 45, 50 miles an hour down this dirt road, honking his horn, and this antelope is hauling. I mean we're talking full speed. So you said you know he was walking, so you put a little bit in front of him, yeah.
Speaker 2:You've seen an antelope go full speed. There's no reason to try, yeah, at that point. Seen an?
Speaker 1:antelope go full speed like there's no reason to try. Yeah right, 45, 55, 50 miles an hour, however fast they can run. That's how fast my buddy was driving, yeah, and so it just shoots by me like it's. It's by me like as soon as I turn around it's gone. I see my buddy in the truck in the antelope, and it's gone and I'm like what the? Hell was that? And the coolest thing was is antelope don't go over fences.
Speaker 1:They go under, they go under, and so there was a fence maybe 50 yards behind me and I mean I'm not kidding when I say this. He went through that fence like the liquid Terminator. I didn't see him duck, I didn't see him jump. He just all of a sudden was on the other side of it. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're amazing, they're so cool uh, and then my buddy, you know, at that point slams the brakes, skids huge pile of dirt.
Speaker 1:Antelope gone it's, it's on private land. Yeah, um, he comes back. He's like where did you shoot? And I'm like that antelope was going 100 miles an hour yeah I was like you were blasting your horn like that antelope had no idea I was there. But what did you expect me to do?
Speaker 1:like I think I think it was going faster than my arrows go, but it was, it was cool to see because he ran by me, the the antelope at like 10 yards, like really really close, going that fast. So it was a cool experience, uh, a learning experience. Uh, we hunted for a few more days and and didn't even release an arrow, but man, man it's a fun thing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Better just jump on it at that point and hope you can wrestle it down. There's no way you're getting an arrow to them.
Speaker 1:Dude, you'd get out of the way of an antelope at full speed. No thanks.
Speaker 2:Well, their natural predator was a cheetah. Yeah like the.
Speaker 1:American lion or whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, those are classified as a cheetah, like the American lion or whatever. Well, those are classified as a cheetah.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:They've been extinct, so there's really no natural predator other than coyotes.
Speaker 1:Probably best for all of us that those things are extinct. Yeah Well, if for a reason why. What else you got, luke? You got any other stories?
Speaker 2:Well, I got a couple, so let's go. You like I know you like the funny buddy stories.
Speaker 1:I do. I do, especially if it's your dad. I love it when people make fun of people that are close to them.
Speaker 2:That's my cousin, okay.
Speaker 1:That'll do.
Speaker 2:He lives with us, so he's basically my brother and he doesn't hunt much. He's just hunted when we take him. Basically, okay, this really is a very, very good elk's draw tag. It's a very nice specialty and a lot of people like it. Like, when you get it here where I live and you, they just say screw you like screw off, I don't like you anymore.
Speaker 2:It's that, okay, there's that, and there's one other place, and those, if you get either, or people are mad at you, but uh, so we get that tag and it's archeryery season and we're out looking at this little draw and in this draw there's a game trail that's probably three feet wide and it's just an enormous game trail. You could ride a bicycle on it and it'd be like riding on pavement. It was just that compact, that wide. It's used a lot and we've seen like 40 bulls in that place. At one time when we were oh, wow, okay but they're just not big bulls.
Speaker 2:They were just nice little rag horns, maybe a decent five point sometime. But up there we wanted to shoot a big bull and so one night we were sitting up there and I'm just sitting there messing with the calls and and we're just listening and we see the usual five or six okay bulls. Like you know what I might think about shooting that. And it's archery season, so they're coming out and they're feeding down from these bogs and all of a sudden there was these guys up on top there from Idaho and they ruined a hunt for me. Earlier I found this three-horned elk and it was cool as all get out.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's cool, we go to get ahead of them and they drive. They watch us and we don't know where the elk went, so we kind of back down and they drove down past us and we're in there all day and they were in there for a couple of days.
Speaker 2:But what what I'm thinking was is we're sitting down there and they're in that, basically the bull works is that little like drawer bull I don't even know what you call that it's, I think it's a draw. But so that's where that draw works is. There's a at the very top. It's just thick timber for a while and then it comes open like sagebrush on both sides and then there's a aspen patch. There's like two different aspen patches and then it goes down and then there's a road at the bottom of it.
Speaker 2:So the we were sitting down at the base of the first, uh, aspen patch, I think, okay, the second and third, those two aspen patches are not that far from each other, but we're sitting down there and it's probably like 300 yards from the top. It's not a very long draw, but we're sitting down there and we're just looking to see what comes out, see if we even want to try for any of these bulls. And, uh, all of a sudden I look over and this dark horn, big gray bull just comes out, just trotting out. We're like, well, this guy spooked him out and I no, I'm telling you he could touch his butt with his back, with his whale tail.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I look at that and I'm like I have to shoot him. And I asked my papa. I'm like, hey, let me go down there, because the way he's coming down is he's feeding down through the center of the draw and he's just following this band of bulls and I think I needed to get maybe 100 yards to where I wanted to sit. He would come around. He's probably 40 yards and at that time I was good at 50 yards. I could hit it at 50 yards pretty good. I was pretty confident. And so I'm like, hey, I can get there, I bet you I can get him. And he goes nope, nope, you won't get there, you won't get there in time, there's not enough cover. And I go, really he's like, yeah, you're better. Well, better, just leave him be tonight. We'll watch until dark and try to get him in the morning. So I'm like, oh, okay, I'll, let's. I, I trust you, you're older than me, you know better. I got.
Speaker 1:I got this, I got you Okay.
Speaker 2:So we watch until dark, we pull out, we come back the next morning and I want to be up there like two hours before dark and sit up in the middle, the edge of those trees, the thick timber, and I want to sit there and wait for him.
Speaker 2:But we get up there and we get up normal time, as we were, of course it was like five and we get up and we get outside, we get ready to get the truck and we look up and just see this big white flash going through the sky and we're sitting there thinking what the hell is that? That's like a supernova or something like that. What the hell is that? A comet just flying through the air and we're looking it up and we couldn't tell it was. It was actually a starlink.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I've had that. I've had that exact same thing. What the hell is that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've been in that exact situation yeah, that kind of delayed us a bit and we get up there and we see them, and they're at.
Speaker 2:they're about 100 yards from the edge of the tree. So we're like crap, they are way too high for us to go after at the moment. So my papa says, hey, wait for them to get to the timber, get in the timber. And I'm sitting there thinking, no, they're gonna lose them. I'm not confident in calling enough to find them and they were not bugling and it was like September 15th.
Speaker 2:Like not bugled yet so it was really warm. It was really warm september. So they really weren't very ready like until closer to october. I think the last week of september they kind of started bugling.
Speaker 2:But okay so I was not confident that we could get them in bugling. And so they get close to the timber and me, my cousin and his older brother were like screw it, let's just go Grab packs, grab the bows and go down there. And we get down about I want to say about 50 yards under the trees and my cousin, he just disappears and we're like where the hell did he go? And we're like, well, it's crap, I guess We'll just keep going. We go in a little more and I'm cow calling as I'm walking through, cause I saw in a YouTube video that when you're going through thick timber you kind of want to cow call, cause you cannot physically be quiet. So every once in a while blow out a cow call. And then my, uh, my older cousin, uh, my other cousin's bigger brother, he says stop, right there. And I'm like what did? Uh, do you see the elk, or something? And he's like right there. And I was excited. So I really didn't listen. They were the elk, were 50 yards from me. I couldn't see him, cause again, I'm short and he's not, and he could see him and I couldn't see him. So I was just and he's like like, do you see Christian? He's like, okay, let's keep moving. I cow call again, I move one more, I cow call one more time and they bust out, and so I'm like crap. And then my cousin comes by and he's like you just screwed me. I go, what how? And he goes.
Speaker 2:They were 15 yards from me and I'm like, well, did you not get a shot, did you? Well, did you? Did you? Did you not get a shot? Did you not shoot him or anything? What's going on? Did you shoot? Is that what happened? He's like no, no, no, I didn't get a shot off, but I got a video. And I look at, I look at him and me and his older brother looking at me, like you got a video. And he's like, yeah, check it out. He shows me a video of that elk and I'm looking at him. I'm like what he? You said he's 15 yards, right he's. And he's like, yeah, he's 15 yards, I could have smoked him. And I'm like why didn't you?
Speaker 1:Why didn't you shoot him? Why did you bring out?
Speaker 2:your camera and not your bow. And he's like why? I'm like why did you shoot me? He goes oh, I didn't think you guys would believe me. And I look at him. We would have believed you. I would have believed you regardless. They were right there. Yeah, I got a little antsy and moved when I probably shouldn't have.
Speaker 1:How does he blame it on you? So you're calling. He thinks spooked him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he thinks that I would guess more likely he got winded because, being that close, yeah, at the time we knew nothing about wind, so he doesn't know anything about wind, I'm just barely learning all that stuff now, because I can kind of go on my own now that I'm like 17, so starting to learn better. But yeah, we didn't know anything, we didn't really care about when we were just going after him, and he's like yeah, I didn't think you'd believe me, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So what he thinks happened is they're sitting there and they looked up and then a cow called and they took off and he's like it's your fault. I'm like, all right, my bad, my bad. So we get out, we walk down. There's another story added onto this funny story and so we get down a little bit more to that last aspen and my papa I don't know why, but he yells. He's like there's a herd in that patch of trees. They just went in there not too long ago. There's a nice bowl in it. And he yells this because we're like 200 yards from him and we go, okay, yell back at him, not thinking at all.
Speaker 2:They all were there at this point. So we go walking. We go like shoot, okay, christian, you go a little wider. I'll say on this side, we'll kind of just like walk through there, try to see if we can see the whole, uh, little grove of aspens, because it's not that big of a, not that big of a gasping grove. So we go, I'm walking down there, I look, I look over and I see it's a really nice five point, like you know what, screw it. I'm shooting.
Speaker 2:I look at Christian, I say stop, I get it. I had a arrow knocked. I get ready, I pull back, I get settled and I see the elk's head just turn and look at him and I'm like that's the direction of christian. Oh no, and he bolts, they all take off. And I look over and he's just walking down the trees looking at the ground and I'm like gosh, dang it, there's no way. This is karma for me, oh no. And I walk over and I'm like hey, why don't you stop? And he's like, oh, I didn't think you were serious, I thought you were just messing with me. I'm like what, why would I mess about that? I was serious, dude, get up there and take off. Oh my gosh, that was, that was funny.
Speaker 2:You can't you can't make those things up, it's.
Speaker 1:It's always the best you can only be angry for so long before you just think about how stupid some situations are and just laugh at them.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I wasn't that mad because it wasn't that big bull.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's funny, man. That's a good story. It reminded me of a couple times in my life where I'm like what'd you do that for to a hunting buddy? And you, just, what are you gonna do? Hopefully they learn from those mistakes and, if not, time to get a new hunting buddy, I'll always take him, he's, he's basically my brother so good man
Speaker 1:good yeah well, that's awesome, lucas. Well, I know I only have you for so much time and we're actually a little bit over that. Um, do you have any more stories you want to tell or you want to wrap it up here I?
Speaker 2:I can explain why I wasn't happy with the. Well, I'm happy now realizing it's just such a good unit, but I can explain the frustration with this bull, if you want.
Speaker 1:Up to you, man. I don't know the story, so you tell me.
Speaker 2:We'll do it. So basically I told you, I saw that big bull and we saw another big heavy seven point, but I actually had it 80 yards. But there's a cedar and I could not see them, because you can't see elk and cedars.
Speaker 2:Save your life yeah, they're just hidden and it's hard to find them. So I, yeah, I had that one at 80 yards and the satellite bull kind of tried to take his cow, so we took off back to him. But so I had two. We had two big bulls that I was like I want to get either one of them, so we're sitting up. We weren't in that same little area where we saw that first big bull, we're over, we're down, we're down a ways from him.
Speaker 2:And we're sitting there and we're just glassing these barren sagebrush hills because they elk like to lay there in this area. And so we're going over there and I, I have a feeling. I'm like you know what, let me just rip a bugle. So I just rip a bugle and I look over and there's a herd of elk right there. They were just laying down. They stood up and looked at us, sweet.
Speaker 1:I found some elk.
Speaker 2:And I was like, yeah, they were there before you bugled. I'm like, oh, oh well, I thought I did something cool. But and and so they were like 800 yards from us. And we're looking over and we see my bull turn its head and we're like, oh, that might be eight points. And my dad's like, I think you got, I think that's an eight point, at least on one side, because the one side of him is really he's really cool, look, but he just didn't have the long. He just doesn't have the long points or the mass, but like if he had the longer points of mass he would be a freaking stud. But so we're like, all right, we range.
Speaker 2:There's a road that goes in between these two little like big big draws and it just goes there and they were like 400 yards. Because we range it, it was like 400, and range it 800, so we're like, well, it's gonna be within 400. So at the time I'm shooting a 300 Remington short action ultra mag so I can make a 400-yard shot. I put it on and shoot. And then brother has a 7 mag, my dad has a 300 Winchester short mag, and so us three we get in the truck, we go down, we get there, and right as we get down to the spot where we see them, they stand up, and so we all jump out and it's like I don't care who shoots it, somebody shoot it, and so I see it.
Speaker 1:I, that's good advice.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, just wait till it's right. Yeah, yeah, just get it in your sights and kill this bull.
Speaker 2:This is a big bull, all right yeah I get up I see Whack, you just hear that bullet hitting me and he was smoked. And then because the thing that I do when hunting is, you know that bug fever I don't get it till after I shoot, and then I can't breathe, like I am shaking, I can't. I shoot him once, I nail him, and then I sail bullets off into the dirt, basically. So he goes over over his herd, comes down the hill and I'm just shaking, I can't like, I can't focus, I'm like, okay, I had to shoot him again and I tried. I thought I had a couple, I thought I had a couple shots that I hit him, but I didn't. It was just that. Oh yeah, I hit him, hit him, no, you didn't type thing.
Speaker 2:But uh, his herd goes down, runs off and we're like I don't see him in that herd, and so we're like, okay, okay, so we go around, we, we kind of just make a road to him, but we, it wasn't really that far off. But we get over there, we walk down and on the back side of the hill where I shot him, and it's just, uh, baron sage hill, and it's weird how easy these things blend into the sagebrush, like it is laying down. I didn't see him. We get like 100 yards from it, stands up and it starts running down this thing, like when I said there were big ravines. You're sitting there at probably like a 65 degree angle to come up that hill like half a mile.
Speaker 2:It was horrible to take an elk up that. So I look at it, I'm like connor, he's my older brother. I'm like shoot this thing. We got to get it down. I am not packing this thing up, I pull it up, shoot one. I think I shot another one in the shoulder and I put one in its neck and I think my brother put it a little farther back.
Speaker 2:But we get it down, it folds and we're all yelling yeah, yeah, we get over there and I grab him. I'm like he's not the size that I thought he was.
Speaker 1:He's a great bull.
Speaker 2:I'm happy I got him, but he's not. My dad walks up and he's like I'm sorry, lucas, that is not what we thought it was. I'm like you know what? We killed an elk. This is the first time we've done it in 10 years.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty stoked Time to eat. Time to eat elk.
Speaker 2:I forgot what elk tastes like, but yeah, he's still a nice bull though, looking back, I'm very, very thankful I got him and he did have eight points on one side. No, he's six points, he just had this one side on him. That I don't. I think it was the way he was sitting Because you know, when you get those elk, I don't know what you call it, but they got like that one part of the top of their on the by the whale tail and it just has a couple points just sticking up through them. I don't even know what you call that. It's not like the palm palm, something palmated or something like that.
Speaker 2:I think it's something like that. But what happened was the way his head was turned. You you could see his four, five, six on the other side. They were just weaved in between is what? Happened I think and we're just like holy crap, but he's still, he's a nicer bull. A bull is a bull man. It's not easy.
Speaker 1:I've been in too many years without killing one to have any like. He's not a big bull conversation with you. Congratulations, man, that's awesome, it's a big bull conversation with you. Congratulations, man, that's awesome, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2:It was just the area that we're in and my dad is. He will go five or six years without shooting something to make sure it's big. So I'm like you know, if that's what my dad does, I'm going to do it too, because I'm going to be like my dad type thing. I get that.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm teaching my son to shoot anything, because I suck at hunting, yeah, and hopefully he'll eat well the rest of his life just shooting anything, honestly game eats better than any other thing, but just populations in Wyoming right now are really dwindled because of wolves and our harsh winters.
Speaker 2:I think a couple years ago we had a winter that took out I 70 of our mule deer fawns like the new ones. I think it just destroyed our populations. I think it took out 80 or 90 percent of the uh last year's fawns for the antelope, like it. Just you would dry I remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm down here in colorado, just below you, and it was two years ago. We I mean particularly the northwest corner of Colorado got destroyed. But Wyoming, you guys got beat up. You guys have tough winters.
Speaker 2:To begin with, let's talk about having a bad winter in Wyoming.
Speaker 1:They're tough, long and dark Yep, and windy, Very windy.
Speaker 2:If you like wind, come to Wyoming, but please don't come to Wyoming. We have enough people. We have enough people, yeah, no. So our populations are just not. They're really low. And as hunters, as conservationists, I don't want to shoot just a deer because I want our population to be as it is. All the things and hunting my papa would tell me about when he was little, you would see a 200-inch deer, every other deer, and I'm like I don't believe you, but I understand the population.
Speaker 1:I don't know if we'll ever get back there, but I understand your point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's valid.
Speaker 1:You want to make sure that you're doing what you can to manage the herd. Yeah, you hope that you know Coral Parks and Wildlife by biological or biology-based science, but you know, I don't think we'll ever be back to how it was.
Speaker 2:20 years ago, unfortunately. I mean, we can try is the best thing we can do.
Speaker 1:The first thing we can do is try to limit, uh, the population of wolves and grizzly bears, and that's a whole discussion, if you want to go down there, but well, yeah, you know so obviously you know that wolves were introduced into Colorado and the funniest thing is people in Denver just getting all angry because hunters are sitting on the other side of the Wyoming border doing predator calls to try and get those wolves to come north.
Speaker 2:they're brutal and my dad had this guy that he'd go to Jackson every year to look at the elk because he likes elk, and he watched a pack of wolves, not all at once, but a couple elk at a time just run them off a cliff and I think they took out a whole herd of like 800 elk and left Like they like hunting.
Speaker 1:They kill for fun.
Speaker 2:Yes, they do, and it's really sad because you hunters, they don't have a voice enough to get that from not happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:That is true.
Speaker 1:And I mean you're not old enough to vote Lucas. But when you can make sure you do Almost man.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I listened to those episodes where those guys were talking about the stats of not voting, and my brother's one of those people who's like I don't understand. Why should I vote? It doesn't matter. Like connor, you gotta vote please. I don't want to lose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man and that's a good point. We'll bring it up again. Uh, what they said in that episode, if you haven't listened to it, is it's not just about you voting, but find one person who didn't vote last time and then hopefully their values align with yours. But but find someone, buy them lunch, take them to go vote and make sure you get one additional person voting this year, and I think that'll solve a chunk of our problems not all of them. We're off topic, luke.
Speaker 2:We're not here for that. That was a couple episodes ago.
Speaker 1:Man, I want to say thank you. I know we're running out of time here, so we'll wrap this thing up. Do you want to give anyone any social medias or you just want to ride off into the. Wyoming sunset.
Speaker 2:They're beautiful here, by the way, but I I have an Instagram. It's not really. I don't really post anything. The only thing I have on there was my state finals pictures from last year when I won. That's basically it.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Congratulations on winning state man.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, thank you. I got my second title last year but, like, my username is just LilOunce5.4, and that's because that's what my friends nicknamed me 5'4", so it's funny because I'm a little guy you are, you're still growing, you're only 17.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I don't know if you'll quite hit six foot, but keep trying. We'll check in in a couple years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went to doctors and they said the highest tallest I should be is maybe 5'6", maybe 5'7". So I'll just get bulky, I'll get muscles. That's my thing is, I'll just get bigger. There you go, man, get bigger.
Speaker 1:That's right. Do with what you got, so, Lucas. Thank you again, man. I'll put a link to your Instagram in the show notes if anybody wants to check you out. But thank you, brother, I appreciate it. Those are some fun stories and it's always cool to hear of like just really young guys that have just have a ton of hunting experience. So I'm hoping for my son. He's five.
Speaker 2:If you can get out hunting, Just try.
Speaker 1:Even if you don't see something, just try. Yep, I agree, I agree, I agree well, thank you again, brother.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much alright, guys, that's it.
Speaker 1:Another couple stories in the books. Again, I want to thank Lucas for being brave. I know at 17 I wouldn't have done anything like this, let alone do all the hunting adventures that he's had as well no-transcript. I appreciate you for reaching out and I appreciate you for coming on and telling the stories again to listeners. Thank you, guys, for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed Lucas's stories as much as I did and if you are brave, reach out to me. I'd love to hear your stories as well. And beyond that, guys, make sure you follow us and subscribe on Instagram or whatever. You're listening to this podcast right now, whether that be YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts. So the more people that do that and the more people that rate us, the more people will find us, the more great stories we'll hear. But that's it, guys. Thank you so much. Now get out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.
