The Hunting Stories Podcast
Elk. Bear. Hog. Turkey. Deer and More. Hunting Stories that will make you laugh or maybe cry; real life chronicles from the field.
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 0132 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Kevin Gibbens
Kevin Gibbons takes us on a captivating journey through his life of hunting, from childhood escapades in southern Arizona to his adventures today. Join us as Kevin, a friend of past guest Eric Christensen, shares how a family tradition of hunting and a cherished Winchester Model 94 shaped his youthful experiences and forged a deep connection to the wilderness. Expect thrilling tales of rabbit pursuits, close calls with mountain lions, and the joys of involving his daughter in these outdoor adventures.
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Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and again we got another good one for you today. Today we're actually connecting with Kevin Gibbons. Kevin actually is a newer listener. He's listened to maybe 10-12 episodes. But he is a friend of someone who's been on the podcast, eric Christensen. He's one of the founders of Capture Gear and, man, he had some great stories for us today. I had a lot of fun just chatting with him about his childhood hunting rabbits. Just dude's great.
Speaker 1:So, kevin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and, of course, for reaching out saying you have some fun stories to share. I really do appreciate that. You listeners make sure you give Capture Gear a follow and then, beyond that, you know, whatever you're listening to on right now, give us a five-star review and a follow there so that we can, you know, be a little bit higher in the search results. Tell a friend about us, get some more people reaching out saying I got some fun stories to tell. But that's it, guys. Let's go ahead and kick this thing off. Thank you again. Now let's let Kevin tell you some of his stories.
Speaker 1:All right, kevin, welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Brother, how are you Great, great. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, man, I'm excited that you're here. It's a small world, right? We had one of your colleagues or business partners on the podcast not too long ago and I think because of that you started listening and and you were like man, I got some stories I want to tell and you reached out, man. So thank you so much for doing that. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm stoked. I think what you got going on is cool and I'm not just trying to stoke your ego here. That's too late, but it's you know cause everybody's got stories. You don't have to.
Speaker 2:I mean you've had some amazing guests on that have, like you know, very credible dudes that that that have some awesome stories. And I've and like like you said, I hadn't heard of you before Eric came on, but I've been listening to a bunch of your episodes. I just took a trip to to Idaho and back to drop our daughter off to college and my wife and I were listening to you mostly the whole way, so so it was, it's been fun, but I love that it's an approachable podcast for anybody like anybody.
Speaker 1:Everybody's got hunting stories, so whether whether you're really well known.
Speaker 2:You know if you're cameron haynes or ted doogen or not. You, you know you probably got some cool stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree in fact, I think some of the craziest stories I've heard have been from you know, the average joe, rather than the big social media guys that are out there. I mean, they have some crazy stories too, like Dan, for example, when he came across that like marijuana grow in the middle of the mountains. Like you gotta be kidding. Um, but man, I appreciate it and what I'll say is like you know, I don't really vet the stories before I hear them, which is kind of funny because I don't want to. I want to. Of my episodes are absolutely amazing. Some of them they're less amazing and I encourage everyone to go find them by listening to every single one of them. Um, yeah, and let's, let's kick this thing off Right, let's. Kevin, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit of your hunting background and uh, and we'll start from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I um so um grew up here in South and in Arizona. I've been born and raised here my whole life. My family actually has really deep roots in southern Arizona. I'm really proud of that. I actually have some cool stories that I'm going to kind of share from my ancestry and the time here in southern Arizona.
Speaker 2:I did the engineering program at ASU with my older brother, david, and I'll be sharing a lot of stories with me and David. We've been kind of partners in crime ever since we were kids, so he's a big part of my life. We've pretty much worked together the whole you know, almost our whole career. We did the engineering program. Our first internship was at a company that did body armor a startup company that made body armor, and then I went to a little bit bigger body armor company and then we both ended up working together at boeing.
Speaker 2:Um, and then and then, while we were working at bone is when we started gibbs arms with my uncle and uh. So as a firearm company we had an idea for a side charging AR and some gun stuff. So we had some innovations there that we kind of centered our business on, had a lot of fun with that and through our time with Gibbs Arms. So once we kind of after college, we had a little bit of a break from hunting because just so busy and building up the business. College we we had a little bit of a break from hunting because just so busy and building up the business, so we finally got to a point where we could start hunting. More is is uh, you know, it was when we got kind of got into big game hunting and uh, that's what led to meeting eric, who was on your podcast, and uh, let me ask you a quick question.
Speaker 1:Sorry to interrupt, but um, you said you took a break money, get that busy college and building a business. Um, and then you got into big game hunting after. But you got back into hunting. So what? Where did you start your hunting? What was like the? First stuff that you did, were you upland? Yeah we know uh water, so I could say that I've that.
Speaker 2:We've kind of hunted our whole life but we've kind of have like three distinct phases of hunting, like when I was a kid we did. We grew up out in the middle of nowhere and I'll kind of come back to some of how we got there, but we grew up like pretty much off grade yeah, anything that kind of hunting. And yeah, we, yeah, dave and I running around the desert loose with 22s and just killing a ton of stuff. So it was super fun yeah so.
Speaker 2:So I kind of had like this small game childhood hunting. That was super fun and. And then in college we kind of got into it. We wanted to get into big game hunting and we drew a couple of tags. Didn't have a ton of success, but we found that bird hunting is what we had time for. So I had a good buddy that had a bird dog and he hooked me up with getting a dog and I trained this dog on my own, just it. And I just say that because it was super fun to to train this dog.
Speaker 2:And then so we, we, while we were in college, um, it was nice because, like you know, you could just get away for a couple of hours and there's good quail hunting all over southern arizona, so we would just, uh, zip out for a few hours with the dogs, go hunt a little bit, get back to get back to doing whatever we had to do. And then um, and then we got um, and then you know, a couple of jobs after college kept bird hunting and then when we started gibbs arms, obviously that was pretty intense and because we were still having to I was still working full-time at boeing while we were, while we were getting gibbs arms off the ground and running, so it was super busy, so I didn't really have time to do a lot of hunting. And then when, um, and then, like I said, we we once things kind of got to a good pace and we had hired help, and then then we're able to kind of get back into hunting. And so I say that back into hunting, but really like our first like real foray into like big game hunting so why did you guys pull that trigger right?
Speaker 1:like you know, pun intended, but like, why did you go from what you were doing with the birds and all that to being like, yeah, big game time, yeah, yeah yeah, maybe this is a good segue to kind of kick it back to my ancestry that I kind of perfect talked about.
Speaker 2:Let's do it because they were the pole. All the stories that I grew up from my, my grandpa and and everything and everything is what, like, we have a pretty rich heritage of dudes growing up in arizona and hunting, and so that that was the pull. It was like, man, I've always wanted a big game hunt, get you know kind of uh, growing up on all these stories of my grandpa, so that's what's kind of like oh, man, we got to do big game, okay, so, just, yeah, so, um, so kind of how that story goes is my, my, when arizona was still a territory I think it was in like 1899, my great-great, yeah, my great-great-grandpa, brought his whole family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, he brought his family. They had like 16 kids. They were born in Texas, like raised their family in Texas but his wife was having some health issues. So for a lot of the reasons you hear about, like tuberculosis and whatever like, people are now yeah.
Speaker 2:So that that was my great great grandparents and their and their family. So they came out to Arizona settled in, like Cochise County, you know, is that Southeast corner of of Arizona. So there's you got the cherokees, which is kind of tail end of the rockies at the, you know, getting down to the mexican border and the so and tombstones really close to there. So it's and it was very much still kind of like wild, wild west. Yeah, like like uh, so, um, so they have uh, so they get, they get down there and then so and it's funny because, like I grew up on a lot of stories from my family like and just so you know I've, I've had to.
Speaker 2:It's been interesting because I've gone back and fact checked a bunch of stuff that I've heard to make sure that what I'm sharing is accurate. Because I was like dude, these are stories that I've been telling and hearing as a family and I tell my kids and whatever. But I was like dude, if I'm going to go on a podcast, I better make sure that this is legit. I'm not like throwing a bunch of BS out there. And one of them was that I had to correct was I had heard not from my grandpa, but from other family members that his, that his dad, my great grandpa, was a sheriff or a deputy for wider into into, oh that's cool and uh, so, which is which is cool.
Speaker 2:But but I actually I learned that you know, wider was pretty much done in arizona at around like 1885 and my family didn't. They come down to like 1900. So I was like, well, okay, well, that's not true, but I did verify that my great grandpa was a deputy in a deputy sheriff in tombstone, but just not, not you know it was after just without that overlap.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, okay, yeah, I'm sure there were plenty of badass of individuals outside of oh, didn't make a name for themselves and I've got a little evidence here.
Speaker 2:This is what. Something I've been excited to show you is that this is my first. For those listening, this is my first rifle. This is the first gun that I technically ever owned. I grew up shooting. My dad loves shooting, so like like, incidentally, my my dad loved shooting but he wasn't much of a hunter, but my grandpa, my mom's dad, was just big time hunter so anyways. So this is um so so whenever we would visit my grandpa. So because my grandpa we lived in tucson, he ended up again. He grew up southeast arizona, he got to a point with his business where he could kind of pseudo retire and he was super stoked to get back to southern arizona where he grew up hunting and all that. And then as kids we would go and visit grandpa all the time. He had had a 40-acre spread. He had this massive, I think his garden was a full acre. That's awesome. He had horses out in the middle of nowhere, completely off-grid.
Speaker 1:Basically Mexico and Arizona.
Speaker 2:We'd go visit that all the time. Then eventually I remember every time that we'd go visit grandpa, the time and then, and then eventually my um, um and I remember every time that we'd go visit grandpa he had all these rifles and guns underneath his bed and my brother and I would be like grandpa, can we see your guns? And so every visit he'd like have to pull the guns out and tell stories and blah, blah all over again. We just like, totally loved it. Yeah, um, so we moved.
Speaker 2:So it sucks for my dad because he ended up getting laid off from a pretty good job, but they decided, well, the 40-acre plot next to my grandpa's 40-acre plot out there became available. So my parents moved us out there to that plot. Which kind of sucks for my dad in hindsight. We didn't know at the time, but it was such an awesome experience for us kids because, like, we grew up out there. So that's kind of where my hunting starts. So I'm going to come back to this rifle.
Speaker 2:So my dad, my grandpa again, this is one of the guns that we'd always nerd out on whenever we'd go visit, nerd out on whenever we go visit, and uh, and so when I was 10, um, uh, oh, and I should probably say that there was this, this awesome um um, mauser action, um that my grandpa's brother, who was a gunsmith, his oldest brother um, uh, rebarreled in 30-06 and carved like this custom wood stock, like, like you know, he had my grandpa put it up and carve it away for cheek and everything. Uh, rebarreled and 30 odd six and carved like this custom wood stock, like, like you know, he had my grandpa put it up and carve it away for cheek and everything. So he gave that gun to my brother and then he gave this little model 94, 30, 30 to me and it was so it's amazing, so anyways, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you a little bit about this gun.
Speaker 2:My first gun.
Speaker 1:So it's a, it's a, it's a 94. It's a model 94 Winchester Beautiful.
Speaker 2:That's like one of my dream guns right there, man, that's amazing, yeah, so, so, and again, I'm going to make sure I don't propagate any false you know stories here, cause I remember being told by other family members that that this gun came across texas with the family and was with my great-great-grandpa. But anyways, looking up the serial number on this, it was made in 1912, so which would have been after they came over. But so this would have been my great-grandpa's gun, um, that he would have bought when he was probably like 30, 30, 31, okay, anyways, um now. So I remember as a kid, when we're nerding out over this gun, um, we'd look at it. I'm going to show you if I could get it in the camera here, do you? Do you see all these little, all these little file notches?
Speaker 2:I do okay. So when I was a kid I remember asking my grandpa, and that one's not showing up real well, but so if you could kind of see, there's like a whole array of notches there, a bunch of bigger notches there and then a few notches here. So I remember as a kid I was asking my, my grandpa. I was like grandpa, what are all these notches in there? He's like well, the little notches are are deer, and I counted them for you. There's 34 little notches in this for deer. And he's like and the bigger notches are elk, and there's 13 of them. And I was like, oh, sick. And then there's these two, there's these two off angle notches. Yeah, that, if you could kind of see them, see them there. So I was like well dad, well grandpa, what about those angle notches? And that's when he's like well, my dad was a deputy for for deputy sheriff from tombstone.
Speaker 2:He's like so so those are bad guys. No way, dude, that that's sick. So so that's uh. So that's the notches on the gun, but a couple cool things like, like my um, you can see a normal 94 has the magazine tube that comes all the way out to the end of the barrel, um. But so the story goes that my great uncle, earl the gunsmith, he was hunting with this gun and um was hiking around and ended up tripping and stuffing the end of the barrel into a rock and the gun goes off. So it blew out the, the barrel and it kind of damaged the magazine tube. But you know, good thing, he's a gunsmith, so he just trims the barrel a little bit, cuts, damaged the magazine too. But you know, good thing, he's a gunsmith, so he just trims the barrel a little bit, cuts back the, the magazine tube, so it's like you could. You know it holds one round less, but he fixed it, everything like that. So you can see, like this little notch, where the barrel clamp should have been. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, happens to anybody else. That gun's gone, but your grandpa was able to turn it into a one-of-a-kind family area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my grandpa always filed the sights down on his gun. He filed like that blade, so I didn't point a gun at the camera. I feel safe enough yeah so he files the blade way down to kind of make it real fine, because my grandpa was like a crazy shot, Like no joke. I've seen my grandpa shoot birds out of the air with a .22.
Speaker 1:No shit, While I'm flying, first of all, extremely unsafe, grandpa, come on man yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, no doubt, no doubt, I would not recommend that to my kids. You know, maybe some discretion if you're letting your kids listen to this, don't let your kids. We did live like way out in the middle of nowhere, so obviously not a lot of risk there, but you're right impressive, don't, don't?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, so, um, so, yeah, so, anyway. So when we move out there, um, they uh my grant. So, like I said, my grandpa had, like this fort knox garden, like like acre big, you know, seven foot fence to keep the deer out. He would, we, we trenched it 18 inches with cement to keep the gophers out and, and that was my grandpa's thing, like he's you know his pseudo retirement, he just, you know, just worked that garden, just freaking loved it. So, um, so grandpa would uh, so kind of getting into, like david and I are my brother are hunting, his grandpa would would post us up at corners of his of his, uh, of his garden and uh, kill time. We would just shoot, shoot birds and whatever it was trying to get, whatever trying to get in his garden. So we uh started like loving that and you know again the freedom of all that land we start roaming around.
Speaker 2:Oh, and by this time, um, my dad had given my brother and I both a couple of ruger 1022s. So, um, so we start, so we kind of got into it. So I know this is like kind of, you know, not as like glamorous as as big game hunting, but we had such a ball like killing rabbits and all the small game stuff. It's such a fun like kind of defining thing in my childhood, like because we, we would just like. So what we started doing is like we, we start running around all the land out there and, um, and I mean we start, you know, chasing rabbits, killing.
Speaker 2:So we kind of created you know, looking back it's funny because we kind of created our own like method of, of, of of how to hunt a rabbit, which really doesn't make any sense to a lot of people now. But is we would like we'd sneak around the bushes and then the rabbit would take off. And you know, probably you know now a lot of normal people would be like, well, if you ain't got a dog or whatever, you know that rabbit's gone, you know you ain't going after dog or whatever, you know that rabbit's gone, you know you ain't going after it. So my brother and I and our youth and all this energy, we would just chase rabbits. We'd just start hauling ass after all these rabbits and we'd kind of span out and kind of corral, try to corral the rabbit and it's darting between bushes and trying to trying to find cover and whatever, and we just keep it moving. And then you know we. So we started kind of getting pretty good at at hunting rabbits and that was like our thing.
Speaker 2:We'd go to school and then any chance we got we would just go out and just shoot we'll shoot on the desert so it's like a deer drive, except rabbit drives yeah, dude, it's funny because we'd have our cousins, um, so that I mean, so we'd have our cousins come over and, uh, you know, once we would, we would talk about like, oh dude, we love hunting, killing rabbits and blah blah. So they would come out and they'd, and they'd bring shotgun and dave, and I remember our reaction was like, well, I mean, I guess you could use a shotgun, you know, I guess that makes sense, you know, but, um, but then it almost was.
Speaker 2:Like you know, this is probably like kind of akin to, like the, the rifle, arch archery debate, like you know, like you know, cause, like them, you know we'd run out and they, they blast a rabbit with shotgun and we're like, well, that was too easy, bro. Like you know, come on. So, so, um, so, I'll, I'll, I'll just through a couple of these funny. So, anyways, that's all the context. We just love freaking, chasing rabbits and, as kids, just a couple dumb, energetic kids running around. Luckily, again they're, I mean we're running full tilt, loaded guns and luckily nothing ever happened, you know, safety wise, so, yeah, so, okay, so, uh, I got three just kind of quick funny stories for for our little rabbit hunting glory days.
Speaker 2:Um, we got um, so there's so kind of early on, my um, you know, we, our mo is like, and my dad was awesome, because anytime that we wanted 22 shells, like dad would come home with with a brick 22 shells. I mean, we didn't have a ton of money, but if we ever told dad we were out of shells and he, you know, he'd bring home a brick of shells. So, uh, so we were well supplied on ammo, and then our mo was we, we would just grab a handful of 22 shells, throw them in our pocket and then, you know, once we were done, once we had shot all that up, then we go home. So, um, so, kind of early on in our, you know, rabbit hunting days, we, uh, we had, you know, we, one day we're out. I had blown through all my ammo and david, um, you know, we hooked back up and he's like yeah, I'm out too, let's go back home. He's like dude, I just got one round in my gun and that's it. So he got one round in his gun.
Speaker 2:We're walking back, not hunting, and this little cottontail just bolts between David and I and starts running directly behind us and David just swings his gun, shoots from the hip, thinking like I've got one round, I'm not really trying to kill this rabbit, but I'll throw a shot at it. So, boom, hits this rabbit in the frigging throat, which is funny because everybody knows that rabbits scream and all that. And, and in all of you know, in our time of hunting, you know, killed a good number of rabbits there. I'd never heard a rabbit scream. We knew it did, cause we go call him with my grandpa, but uh, and hear him call, but uh, but I never heard the rest. So so, sure enough, the first time rabbit that had that david just freaking, blew out his voice box. So this rabbit is doing the most like, like, like he's trying to scream in the voice crack blood garble like just goodness it was totally like a horror movie.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was terrible. And dave and I was like, oh, we are terrible people, so we. So we're like well, freak now. We gotta like, well freak, now, we've got to kill this rabbit, we've got to get this rabbit out of his misery. But we're like a couple of skinny kids and not way much. So we first go over and try stepping on this rabbit's head, like try to crush the skull and like, dude, this thing is not going to die. Like I feel the vibration of his scream like through my boot, and it's just like, oh my gosh, oh, this is terrible.
Speaker 2:So we end up, long story short, trying a bunch, I end up having to get a rock. We threw it up this thing's head. It's still screaming underneath the rock. I have to like jump on the rock and I feel its little skull crush and I was just like, oh my gosh, like that's terrible. So so we decided that day I'm like, dude, okay, no matter what, we have to keep a reserve of five rounds in the pocket. Once we get to five rounds, we're done hunting, because if something like that ever happens again, we need to be able to dispatch something. Yeah, that happens there. So anyways, that was kind of fun.
Speaker 2:That was that's a little horror story right there, man yeah, it's a little gnarly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for, uh, I've found some animals. I wasn't even hunting, but I to. I had to put them down by stepping on their skulls. It's not fun, but it's it's not cool. Yeah, one time it is obviously hit by a car or fell out of a tree, but it's back legs weren't working and it was trying to crawl and I was like sorry, I'm in a little man. I was like goodbye.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, one of those stories that maybe you don't tell some of the the more left-leaning people.
Speaker 1:I don't know how many of those people listen, so we'll just keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um. So another funny one is um, you know, I and I remember this was kind of early on too I, uh, there's this rabbit, this bigger Jack rabbit, was running away and, um, I pull up, pull up, go shoot him while he's running and boom, right ear pops off. Just the whole ear just popped right off. So I was like holy, freak dude. He's just that. I was like halfway surprised that it would do that, but it was just like man this whole. So I was.
Speaker 2:So I remember I got home and I'd be telling my grandpa and my dad and we're like, dude, I just shot this ear off, you know this rabbit. And they're like, oh well, I mean that kind of sucks the rabbit because he ain't gonna survive, because they use those ears for cooling and you know sound and all that. And I was just like, oh, so I'm like feeling bad. I was like, oh, dang man, you know, um, but it's just kind of funny because like this is like two years later I'm on the bus and the bus is, you know, bouncing around through the woods and I'm just like staring out the window of the bus, just just kind of you know, off in thought and out of the middle of like underneath the bus, runs this one-eared jackrabbit and it's like. Two years later I was like holy shit, it's a rabbit. I shocked that guy so I'm like freaking out and all the kids on the bus are like what, what? I'm like, did you see that rabbit?
Speaker 1:And then I was like, do I just end the story here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, anyways, that was kind of fun, okay. So, last like rabbit story here and then we'll move on to, you know, maybe other stuff. Yeah, so, so what? So we got we, we were there from when the time I was like 10 till I was about 16 and uh, so I remember after. So for the first few years, we, we, we, we, we.
Speaker 2:There was this one rabbit out there. We called him trophy rabbit because he was just this massive jackrabbit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so he and and we had always run into him and and do this thing as fast because, like I said, we could kind of keep up and corral. You know a lot of other rabbits, but this guy. If we saw this guy, it's like we knew it instantly. He's like there's freaking trophy rabbit, because he was just huge and he would just take off. Yeah, he had no chance of catching him. So we're like so, so again, you know, the few years that we're there, we're like, dude, freaking trophy rabbits, gonna get it someday, we gotta get this guy.
Speaker 2:So so, finally, after a few years, we, um, we sneak around this bush and trophy rabbit takes off from from this bush, and we're kind of close now.
Speaker 2:So we're like all right, dude. So we're hauling ass, just just full sprint trying to keep up with this rabbit. And we, you know, and we're coming to this little hill off the side of my grandpa's house and, um, we're just trying to keep up with him and we get to the top of this, this hill, and we look down and rabbit is just way down there, you know, at the bottom of the hill, when we're just like freak dude, yeah, yeah, you got us, yeah, so, um, so, so my brother pulls up and my brother just decides we're standing there a little defeated watching this rabbit, you know, run down through the bushes away from us, and then he stops in this clearing. It seems like way down there. I've told the story before like like, oh, he's like 200 yards away. We pulled up onyx to check, fact check, and it was probably about 100 yards so pretty good, still pretty good distance yeah, open sight 22 while you've been huffing and trying to, you know.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, trophy rabbit stops in this little clearing, david goes to pull up his gun and I'm sitting there, no way, bro, you're not going to hit that thing. Boom cracks a shot, hits this rabbit and then instantly we're just jacked Like holy freak. He just hit this rabbit, so we start like running down this hill. It's a fairly steep little hill. I remember like like just literally jumping over bushes, like we're just so jacked like running and jump over. So we get down there. This rabbit's all thrashing around, we shoot him and we and uh and um, you know, getting killed, and then we're just stoked. I mean I'm probably like 13 years old and I'm holding the rabbit by the, the base of his ears and I got my arm at about a 90 and his feet are dragging on the ground.
Speaker 1:So was he just just a freak or was he a different species? They're like snow massive, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so jack rabbits, there's that whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, there you know it's a hair, not a not a rabbit whatever, but so yeah, but there's plenty of little contests around and there's jack jack rabbits all around, so we'd see them both. But this rabbit, well, again, from from the first time that we ever saw, him, years before, like dude, this rabbit is freaking huge, yeah, so, so, anyways, so you know, so we, we drag them by. So I, yeah again, I'm, I'm six, three, I wasn't that tall back then, obviously but uh, but uh, I'm like, I'm like dragging this rabbit, like you know. And so we triumphantly walk up to granny and grandpa's house and do we got trophy rabbit and tell parents and everybody, so anyways, that was just super fun. So sorry, sorry to thanks for indulging me on a couple of you know man there's, I don't know.
Speaker 1:We've had like one rabbit story and like 130 episodes, so it's fun to get a couple more more. Yeah, and I think the one that we had was this gentleman. He's like his dad used to shoot rabbits and he'd throw him in the back of the truck and then like apparently he didn't kill them, so he went to the bar, came back at his truck like rabbits that were running around how do you do that?
Speaker 2:I mean rabbits, I guess. Yeah, rabbits, if they get scared they'll kind of go into shock and like kind of faint, yeah, and then, uh, a lot of times it'll, it'll kill them, but but uh, but anyways they'll kind of faint.
Speaker 1:So I guess that's believable yeah, yeah, just because I'm interested in rabbit hunting as an adult and I'm always here. You gotta wait till the first freeze, were you just doing this year round? Didn't matter if it was cold, not cold, unregulated. Yeah, I figured okay, it's what it is. It is a little kid in the middle of nowhere. It is what it is.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, no we, we got, no, no, coaching, we, we would eat a lot of them for sure. Um, we, we ended up, uh, you know, our, maybe it's our, our reputation spread a bit so that, like chili, farmers would would pay us to go shoot, shoot rabbits off of their, off of their farm, yeah, um, so, so we would give them the rabbits we shot and they'd pay us, like a quarter rabbit. You know not that he needed to pay us, we would have done it anyways. But, um, but, uh, but anyways, he, uh, so we, we would eat a lot. Now, it's fair to say, we, we killed way more than we ate yeah, you ever, ever see any like gross parasites?
Speaker 1:because I've heard that say it's like they've got bugs on them and parasites and all sorts of crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's it's like berry, you know you'd have to cook it real well and clean it and cook it real well and all that.
Speaker 2:But um, but yeah, so okay, cool all right, well, let's keep going, man, these are great yeah so I got two more fun stories from when um and these are the ones I kind of ran value before that are not necessarily hunting stories, but again, this is when we still lived out there way out the middle of nowhere, um. So, like I said, we had a 40 acre plot next to our grandpa's 40-acre plot and then no neighbors really that lived. I think my closest buddy lived like five miles away but there was guys that leased land for cattle and all that. So every once in a while we'd have some dude's cattle that would bust down our fence and get onto our spread, and it always seemed to happen like when we're at school or whatever. And so then they've, we get home from school, we got to go salad up the horses and push them out and all that. So it was.
Speaker 2:You know, it was kind of a pain in the butt. So I remember one morning I'm getting ready for school and where our house was at we're up on this hill and we and if you looked like a couple of miles down the road we could see the school bus turn off the main road and go. So that was kind of like my last minute alarm clock. I'd procrastinate and then I'd be like, oh freak, there's the, there's a school bus. So every one of these mornings I I'm checking for the bus, I see the bus, but then I look down and on the other corner of of our, of our plot, some cattle had just busted into into our, into our, busted down the fence, and we're sitting. There's, like you know, maybe about 30, 40 head of cattle on the on, like right down the fence, and we're sitting there. It was, like you know, maybe about 30, 40 head of cattle on the on, like right inside the fence. And then so I'm sitting there like freak, the bus is coming, obviously got no time to do anything about these cattle and by the time we get home we're going to have to, like you know, spend a couple hours trying to, you know, get them pushed out.
Speaker 2:So in my like 12, 13 year old brain I come up with this idea. I was like, well, okay, so here's the fence and here's this group of cattle that are right off the fence and there's this one other cow that's kind of just off the main group and it's facing the, the group of cattle, fate. And then then then the defense. So my, my brain, I was like you know what, if I got my 22? And I said, and I, how? Then maybe he'll freak out, spook and push and bump all the cattle and get them off of our, our land. So you know, and save us some, some, some headache when I get home. So I'm, you know, I'm thinking like, oh, this is a great plan. So I, I run into the house and I grab my .22. And by the time I actually get my hands on my .22 in the house and I'm coming back out, I'm like dude, you're retarded, this is like.
Speaker 1:This is a dumb idea. This is a really dumb idea. Second-guessing, brilliant idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, well, you know what, I've already got the gun. I might as well throw a shot. So so I, I brace off the side of the house. Now again, when I fact check myself, I would always tell the people, like all these cattle about a quarter mile away again on x, I I zoomed it and it's about, but so legit, it was 330 yards, so that's, that's the actual number.
Speaker 2:So, um, so I sit there and I brace off the side of the house and I line up on that one cow. Then I'm thinking, okay, my plan is to hit that cow, and if it works, then you know we're set. So I, I aim at this cow bracing off the side of the house and I give it a ton of elevation. I'm like, okay, all right, cool, I'm lined up on it, I, I, I walk it way up and I send a shot. And I'm like, and I and I drop my rifle.
Speaker 2:I'm looking, and about enough time has passed for me to be like, of course, dude, you're not gonna hit that cow. Then, boom, that cow just starts, hind legs, rear up, freaks out, holy freak at this guy. So not only did my plan what? Not only did I hit the freaking cow. But my plan actually worked. He freaks out, spooks the cattle, they run off the fence, he follows them and we get home and there's no cattle on our spread so I was like minus the abscess from the wound because in my mind I'm like dude, it's not, it's not gonna kill.
Speaker 2:Obviously I'm not gonna kill it. You know, and I'm in my head I was like you know, thick hide, it probably won't even break his height, so hopefully that didn't happen. Yeah, we'll see. But yeah, maybe in the hereafter we'll review that one and see what happened to that cow.
Speaker 1:Now you're going to start checking that. Okay, that's funny, man. I mean as a 12-year-old. It's pretty innovative, right? Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. For you parents listening out there, maybe you know, teach your kids to have better discretion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't be like.
Speaker 2:Kevin, don't be like Kevin. Okay, so my last kind of fun story from that era of my life was we. So we had this. So on our 40 acre spread, we had this, this creek running through, and had all these ash and maple trees growing on this creek, and so we had fun. We, uh, we started a tree house in in this, in this big maple, this big maple tree, um, and, uh, I think it's an ash tree, but who cares? Um, so it. So we had, we had, just during the summer, we had just got to where we built the, the platform on the, where the tree branched out. So we had built this platform, and then we and we had just made this kind of like this little rope ladder thing to to kind of get on it. And then by the end of the summer, you know, once it started getting cold down there, cause this is, this is like Southeast Arizona, like 4,500 high desert, so it gets, it gets a little cold. Are you still in Colorado?
Speaker 1:I went down to Texas and then back up to Colorado.
Speaker 2:Oh, got it. Got it Sweet, so yeah. So I'm not trying to complain about the cold to you guys in Colorado.
Speaker 1:No, as long as it's sunny here it's not cold. You just got to have some sunshine. Yeah, probably there too, right With the elevation, and just that sun warm up real quick.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's great. Yeah, we even moved up to a little bit colder area of Arizona, but yeah, down there it was not too bad, but it got cold enough where we just kind of weren't super motivated to go work on the treehouse all winter. So spring rolls around and we're like, oh, let's go work on the treehouse. So we get a handful of wood, nails and whatever, and so we start hiking down and we get close and my brother and my little sister are with us hiking down and, um, we get close to my brother and my little sister with us and, um, and me being the more competitive younger brother, we get close to the treehouse and I've got to be the first one to get to get into the treehouse.
Speaker 2:So I, I run down and I, uh, so I start, I start shuffling up this, this little rope ladder, and I hear this growl and I, I look up and there was a there. It was a mountain lion that was sleeping in our tree house. So, and I could tell he was sleeping because when I looked up, when I looked up from, you know, on this ladder, like there's the platform of the tree house, and his head literally rolled off of the edge to the edge of this tree house. It wasn't like he was standing on the platform, literally like his head rolls off. And then he's like looking at me and I'm like I mean, no joke. I'm close to have where I literally could have reached up and slapped this thing in the face. If I want to do it.
Speaker 2:But I am. So I am just froze on this ladder like staring at this mountain lion looking at me and I'm just like what the freak am I going to do? So I'm sitting there just frozen and I'm like I'm trying to process, like what do I do? Like you know, I'm scared of my mind and so luckily David was coming down the wash and he looks up and he sees me all like all freaked out, just frozen, and he so he yells, he's like Kevin, what's wrong? Luckily that spooked the line.
Speaker 1:He didn't see the line.
Speaker 2:He just saw you just like no, he just saw me frozen on this road, looking up and like staring and not moving. So he just yells at Kevin, what's wrong? And and and my little sister was was, terry was right behind him. So they're coming down the wash and they see me. He yells what's wrong? Luckily that spooks the lion.
Speaker 2:But they got a little bit of a freak show too, because the lion jumps out of the treehouse, however high up it was, and it lands like 10 feet in front of David. So they see this lion sailing out of the treehouse. So they're all of a sudden like how high is the platform and how high are you? So we're actually. So the tree was um, so there's this wash, like there's a creek, and a little wash that fed into it. So they're walking down the back, the bed of the wash. So from the wash to the, to the, the edge of the like, where you know where the tree was growing, was probably a good three, four feet, and then the platform was probably a good 10 feet up in the up, up in the tree. Okay, got it.
Speaker 2:So, so, so yeah, there's a good like you know, you know 10, 15 feet that that thing sails out of the air, lands in the wash right in front of my brother and my sister, Over you, yeah, Well. Well, it was like, like, like they're looking like, like the tree is closer to them and I'm just past the like, I'm off to the side of the tree, Okay, so. So they're looking at the tree. They could see me to the left and the and the rat and the lion.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it kind of away from you when it heard them and ended up going towards them. All right. Still, I was just waiting to hear that you said your sister sees the cat and goes oh, this is, this is tom.
Speaker 2:He's my friend, you know, I feed him every day jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So it sells off tears out into the grass, and and then you know they, you know they were obviously a little freaked out too. So we're all just standing there just like wide-eyed, like, oh my gosh, what just happened. So so, anyways, that was a fun close encounter. I've never run out line.
Speaker 1:Never run into a mountain lion. We've got plenty of them here, but I've never had the pleasure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I've seen three. So obviously that was my first encounter with a mountain lion. Obviously that was the closest. I remember one time walking back from my grandparents' house. It was kind of right at dusk and you know how that could kind of play with sound and a little bit weird. So I remember walking the road from back to my house and I hear this and I'm like, oh man, something's running. So I stop and I'm just trying to figure out what's going on and then I see this big jackrabbit pop out from a bush and is running for his life and in my brain at first I'm like that's kind of loud for a jackrabbit and then right after that, this line is just full tilt, just go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I still you know muscles rippling and it was super cool looking, but then that was maybe about like 20 yards in front of me, so that's cool, saw that I've had some amazing uh, some amazing mountain lion stories on the podcast.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've you or the listeners if you guys want some good mountain lion ones. Eric boone's episode I don't know what number it is, but he has one where he pulls a gun on a cougar and five inches from the end of his barrel to that cougar's face and I won't tell you why or how that all went down, but it's a gnarly story. And then, if you're familiar with Cliff Gray, I had him on the podcast and he told one story and it was a crazy story and a whole bunch of things and I'm like, why would you do that, cliff? It's an awesome storyline story. It's those two cliff gray, eric boone stand out for sure. Um, and I've had, I've had a couple hound guys on and I've even got a standing um offer to go actually with them, not not hunting, but just like go out, see the dogs work, see the uh, get a mountain lion treat, which I really want to do, because, man, I would love to see one of those critters.
Speaker 2:They just, uh, house cats scare me, so I'll give a mountain lion, right, whoo that, that because that was the thing, like after you know the, the treehouse, I don't know. It was like once, you know, once it's done, like in the cats running off, and you know you can't hear me anymore and you know your heart, you know you could kind of come down from the high, that then it was like this image of this cat and having that close of a look, and I still see the eyes and the. You know the detail in the eyes and you know, because they're kind of expressionless, you know, you know so. So just that I remember laying in bed that night still being just like that was like the coolest thing I've ever seen. You know, totally freaked out at the time.
Speaker 2:Glad I'm alive. Oh yeah, so cool, so yeah.
Speaker 1:That was a great one, man, all of these kids' stories. Do you have any adult stories or you just have the kid ones?
Speaker 2:Okay, First off, he's phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Even just the herding the cattle was great you're like the ones that you know.
Speaker 2:When I told my kids I was going to be on the podcast, you're like, well, you're going to tell that, you're going to tell those ones like you know the fun ones I tell. So I was like, yeah, they're fun, yeah, uh. So, yeah, I'm going to kind of skip the bird hunting phase because, um, you know, I absolutely loved like, yeah, again, this is now college, uh, training a dog, and had so many memorable, super fun things like I still tell people like like I would love, and like when I get old and slow down, I'd love to have like a kennel and train dogs and go back to bird hunting, um, so I would totally be about that. But, um, but I, but I just I was wracking my brain, I I was like I don't have like good, like classic stories from that, so so we'll, we'll skip that.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, then, so, yeah, so, uh, once we kind of you know business, you know, with Gibbs arms slows down enough where you know we could kind of get back into hunting, um, and and. So we had a couple of definitely into hunting um, and and so we had a couple of definitely had the benefit of of having a lot of friends that were really experienced really great big him on there. So it had had a lot of good coaching and just had a lot of fun. So we kind of dived into it pretty hard um and, uh, you know, did pretty well for you know, considering that we hadn't done it as as much all growing up. But uh, I got into archery. I, you know I I kind of tease people I own, you know, you know, you know I own a gun company. But I'm kind of more excited to go shoot my bow. I really, I really I've hit the archery bug pretty hard.
Speaker 1:You either have no interest or you get you go pretty deep and then you just hope you don't go too deep into the tinkering, cause there's unlimited options. I started down a tinkering path and I was like, no, I'm gonna get myself in trouble, I'm gonna run out of money, I'm just going to set up a bow set up and I'm going to enjoy the process and not not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean coming from the gun world. It's like you know, I thought there was a lot of black magic, voodoo and guns, but, dude, blown away when I, when it got into you know, started getting into archery. Now, unfortunately, my wife is super patient. I, you know, I I'm that guy where I'm like I'm going to flesh my own arrows, I'm going to build, you know, I get a bow press and I do my own tuning and blah blah, so like I've gone kind of nuts on it that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I thought about it. They're on my amazon wish list in case someone wanted to.
Speaker 2:But yeah, yeah yeah, no, I mean that's you know, that's great, you know, you know really good, you know you can depend on good dudes at bow shop and they'll set you up and you don't have to do all that. But but it's just fun, uh, just that I don't tinker engineering me unless to kind of dive into all the the weeds of it. So yeah, super fun. Um, so I kind of wanted to, I guess how are we doing on time?
Speaker 1:we're good, I mean I have, I got about. I would say 45 minutes before I got to jump. But I'll listen as long as you'll tell me, man.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, I think, I think we should be good, you know, might use all that, all right we'll see If you're cool with that.
Speaker 2:So my, so I kind of want to skip ahead to my, you know, because being older and already having kids and you know I, I felt like you know, I wasn't that dad for a while that felt comfortable, like you know, being able to actually show my kids what to do. So, you know, I had like this learning process of my own. So so now, now that you know, we, you know, hunted with a lot of great dudes and again, eric is is the best hunter that I know. He's amazing, um, and super, super you, he's a really good guy, just an amazing hunter. Um, and and and I kind of connected with some kids, some buddies I had in college that also were really good and so had a lot of fun, and so now we're kind of getting into where like okay, well, now I can get the kids out, like let's, let's, let's get my kids kids hunting.
Speaker 2:And, um, my oldest daughter, um, hallie, she, she absolutely loves honey. She's that kid that really loves it and wants it. So bad hasn't had the greatest amount of success she's, she's killed a turkey. We had a really fun turkey hunt but, um, she missed on a buck on her first uh on her first deer tag, and right now she's 20. Okay, yeah, she's 20. She's playing volleyball uh for college down and down at mesa, but she loves it, she, she, she's nerds out at it too. So, um so, my next two girls um two years ago drew, drew uh a youth, um uh mule deer tags in in uh alpine area of arizona. It's close to where we live now. So so it's uh not in a.
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of my big game honey's been in that area of arizona so um, so, anyways, we, they, they drew it, they, so they, they draw tags together and uh, so we get them out. And then, uh, first night of first night of our hunt, we, uh, we get in and find in and find a find a pretty good, and actually Eric came, came down and helped him down from Utah and helped us out with this hunt. So it's me and Eric and my two girls and, uh, so we find this, um, this group of bucks, uh, you know bucks, and a few does. This is this is, I think, a late November hunt. Um, so we find this kind of group of bucks that had and deer had come up from this, this cut, major elevation drop. They come up to this cut and we kind of find them in there. And so we get, we get my old, my second daughter, marilee, lined up on this buck and again, her first buck.
Speaker 2:We had taken her out shooting plenty of times and you know, first buck and I think it's only like 150 yards. And I'm trying to, you know, and I'm not, I don't have the most experience with like, like, coaching the kid and all that. You know, I I've killed a few of my own, but it's not like I'm super experienced. So so I, uh, I I'm trying to kind of coach and like keep her calm, me, say calm, help, try her, keep calm. And and uh, she's struggling to find it a little bit. And then she finds it, ends up, ends up shooting and and misses this buck. And interesting thing it was like it was a nice like wide three, still in velvet, and so we end up she ends up missing that buck. We end up kind of following the group a little bit, ends up not making anything else happen that day. So she's like you know, a little bit shaky and like we're like, no, it's cool, you're good, you. So she's like you know, a little bit shaky and like, oh, we're like, no, it's cool, you're good, you know everybody, you know almost everybody misses their first buck, you're good. So, um, so we go back and we hunt for a couple. So it turns out two days later we come back and we had checked other areas, but we would always come back and check this draw and um, end up seeing the same group of deer and we could tell it's the same because, like you know, there's two unique bucks there was this wide three it's still in velvet and then there was a really fairly tall, narrow four in that group with a couple other smaller bucks and some does. So we end up getting on this group. So we move in.
Speaker 2:We're set up at about 300 yards, not really feeling good about the shot, and Marilee couldn't quite get into a position she felt good. So we end up having to follow them as they followed up over to this other cut. We crest this hill, it is starting to rain and so, you know, eric and my other daughter, sarah, are following us. Me and Marilee are kind of leading the way, cresting this, and then we see across the way, in about 300 yards, there's this group of deer and then, so luckily, there was a lot of deadfall that made it easy to kind of prop that rifle down and sit down, and so we got eyes on these deer and but with enough rain, and you know she's like dad, this goes fogging up a little bit, so we kind of wipe it, and then I'm we're, we're, you know, struggling enough to get her on where I'm starting to kind of wonder like, ah, dude, is this going to happen? Like so luckily, then she finally was like hey, hey, dad, I got it, you feel good, you know. So boom, she shoots. You hear the impact, it's kind of getting dark. You know, hear the impact and we're like, okay, you dropped them.
Speaker 2:Like we saw the deer eric, we saw that deer go down, awesome, other deer, uh, and then that the deer kind of bounced over a little bit but end up kind of not, you know, not moving too far. So we actually lined sarah up on, uh, the same setup and and again it kind of threw it on her. So she's not, you know, merely just shot. So she's kind of like, not really like you know, and thinking that she's, but I'm like sarah, get over here. Like you know, there's that wide, there's that tall four, you know, shoot that guy. So she lines up and and gets um, so she gets set up and she's on it and again, you know, same a little bit of a struggle, you find it in the scope with the rain and everything, and so she, she ends up shooting and and misses that box. And so you know, now I got one really bummed child, the one really super so you're trying to understand both their emotions, work with both of them.
Speaker 2:Place to be right in the middle, so yeah, and not that you know, sarah was still like stoked for merrily, so it wasn't too bad, but it was just like okay, so now. So we make our way over there. We ended up not, um, he ran it, um, he ended up getting up and scooting a little bit further away than what, than we thought. So we ended up not finding them that night, came back the next morning early and, and you know, came into that draw, there's a bunch of crows making noise. We're like, okay, obviously that deer's down there. So we go down, find that deer take care of it. It's awesome. So then, so now we're shifting mode back to try to get Sarah tagged out, and so again, we work a couple of different areas and kind of keep coming back to check this area area that you know, see, it was was good. So, anyways, we go back like, and then, um, so the day after merrily shot her buck, we're, we're in this, uh, different area and we find this other group, but this other group of deer, and there's there's a smaller like like I think he was probably only two, those smaller buckbees with this group, and so we kind of sneak in and get to where you know, where we saw them move in a certain direction. So we kind of worked in a way to kind of get in front of them posted up. They ended up kind of slipping and going around us and then we caught them, you know, going to go them the other way. So then we kind of shift, shift spots, go back, um, and again it's going to kind of getting toward the end of light and, uh, kind of cold, I mean it started getting a little snow and um, so we set up on this other direction and we see that, you know, a couple hundred yards off there in this tree line and this whole group of deer. So we're, so we're getting Sarah set up.
Speaker 2:And this is just kind of like like a good moment for Sarah, cause she's trying to be calm, she, you know, she's already missed and she's, you know, does a pretty good job of getting that out of her head and trying to be in the moment. But so she's lined up and then, man, this, this buck, like just I mean we were probably looking at this buck for 30, 30 minutes and and you know we'd be like, oh, hey, Sarah, okay, he's, he's, he's starting to move, he's going to step out behind that doe probably give you a shot. Boom, doe follows up something. Then all of a sudden, like you know, might get a little bit of a window and Sarah's like, okay, I'm kind of getting lined up. She's barely getting comfortable where she can feel good about a shot. Deer moves, gets behind a tree. So it was literally 30 minutes of this buck, just kind of ducking in behind cover, giving tiny little windows, windows not enough time to shoot, and um, and so light runs out and um.
Speaker 2:So then sarah just starts crying. She's just like dad, like, should I have shot that? You know I had a couple windows. Like no, no, you did the right thing. Like you, you know you got to feel good about a shot, you know so, so. So she was a little sad. Did I mess up? Should I have done something better? Was I too slow? And so just kind of reassuring her like no, no, you did the right thing. No, this, this is how it goes. So, um. So I felt like it was a good experience for her to kind of, you know, work through that.
Speaker 2:But then, um, the next day, eric and eric and the two of us and you know go out and we kind of like well, we're always seeing deer in this one cut, let's go back and check.
Speaker 2:So we go back in and we start working this road on kind of the spine of the ridge that we've been seeing them working. And then we start working and then Eric looks off to our right and he's like, oh dude, those deer are right there. I think we had actually saw them a little bit that morning. They moved up and that's why we kind of went down that ridge and so we kind of knew they could have been up there and then worked one ridge didn't quite you know see anything came back, worked this other ridge and boom, that's when Eric sees these deer. So we're getting her set up. So we're getting her set up. And it was just cool because, like you know, marilee, her older sister, just all of a sudden stepped in and was like Coach, like hey, sarah, you got this, like just you know, just lock in, and so you know, sarah's set up on this tripod. And, by the way, it's the same four.
Speaker 2:It's the same tall narrow four, quad. And, by the way, it's the same four, it's the same tall narrow four. Okay, um, so, um. So you know, right, when I'm going about to go into kind of like coach mode, try to calm her down, and again, last night she's a little bit like you know, you know, thinking that maybe she screwed stuff up so merrily, steps in there and she just starts calling her down and talking like no, sir, you got it. Like, you know, you got where you're gonna aim, you got it okay, cool, you stable, you good, your heart rate, good, you know you're breathing, and you know she's just like, and sarah's like, yeah, I got it, yeah, and then boom, dumps his deer. So we, uh, so we run over there and and, uh, just, you know, super excited, like just just loving it.
Speaker 2:But it's interesting because I, when I tell the story, I say it's like dude, it's crazy that both of them missed on the same deer that they ended up killing two days later. It was, like you know, merely missed. Two days later shot that y3 that night sarah missed. Two days later sarah shot the same deer that that she missed on. That's crazy. So it's kind of a cool little little thing there, but just super fun, I mean. So they're, they're totally hooked on it. They can't wait to go back.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Do you think that the crying and the emotion was a like in the moment oh, did I screw up? Or do you think it was more of a like dad's here and I didn't do this and dad wants me to do this? Or where do you think their head was at?
Speaker 2:You know, luckily, I think most of it was just like did I like Sarah? She was like cause, that was the first thing she said. It's like dad, did I do something wrong? And I was like no, sarah, you're, you're good.
Speaker 2:You made I, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I, I, I, I. I'm not like I again because I'm kind of like I've had I've just ridden the back of of having a lot of, you know, fun and some success from good people mentoring me. So I feel like I, I, I could honestly say it wasn't like I was really pressuring the girls. Oh, you gotta kill that like you know nothing. So we, we're having a great time. Eric's, eric's a really patient dude. Eric is actually really good at like, even though he's got all this experience guiding like, not like guiding us like again, just really good advice and everything. So anyway, so I feel like the environment there was pretty good, where it wasn't like a lot of pressure, but she, so she was just like oh, that's awesome, did I mess up? Did I do something wrong?
Speaker 1:and we're like no, you're good, yeah, eric does have patience, you, I mean. You know his story where the guy pulls the gun up and over him and it fires it. Oh my gosh, yeah, I lose, I lose it, right, yeah, like that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can tell you for sure that you probably want to get Eric back on Cause I've I've heard a lot more stories that are awesome.
Speaker 1:You write down the stories that you want him to tell and send it back my way. I'd love to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sounds good, sounds good.
Speaker 2:Um, I know I love that guy, um, so okay, so I wanted to kind of share a little bit of just my last elk hunt this last season.
Speaker 2:I drew an early archery bull tag in that same unit near Alpine and I had killed a bull there. I drew that same tag about five years earlier so I was pretty stoked to draw that tag again. So, man, you know, and again for that area, for that area I kind of had decided, like a lot of the areas that I knew were a lot of what I kind of knew a lot of other people knew, so that I've always had a fair amount of pressure in there when I've been in there and helped other buddies in there. So I've, I was kind of this hunt I decided like, dude, I want to get lost a little bit, I want to kind of get out into a wilderness area and just kind of back, you know, hike in and, yeah, try to try to. You know, so I, I, uh, so I I share. So I invite one, a good buddy of mine that's an exceptional hunter, um, and he was the one that he was one of the guys that kind of helped me kill my first bull in that in that unit, um, a few years earlier. So he came, so he, he was cool, he came out and um, so he was, he was helping me. And actually eric came down again. He, he came with his son to, to, to most you know film content for capture, but and he brought his boy and they were doing some scouting for me and trying to get some some video and everything. He didn't have a whole lot of time right then he, he would have been able to come back and help me at the tail end of my hunt if I, if I, hadn't out.
Speaker 2:But so this, so for the first couple days was just me and my buddy, jared and uh. So we go out at first morning, you know a ton of action, we get into it here and a bunch of screaming bulls. We, we pretty quick, we get into this. Uh, this, this herd. That had, um, a nice, a really nice bull broken forth, but yes, he was a really good bull. I had like 20, 30 cows with him, so, um, kind of chased that bull around, couldn't quite make anything happen that morning. Um, the next morning we ended up getting in on the, me and Jared ended up getting in on the same same group, um and uh, and again got got a couple of really close calls. You know, with this group it was always like, you know, you think they're slowing down, you think you've got enough cover, you think the cows are behind cover or something like that, and you make a move and cows keep making you and you, you know, screw it up. So a bunch of that, and so a couple of days of that.
Speaker 2:Then my buddy, jared, ended up having to leave and Eric wouldn't have been able to come back with me for for about another almost another week. So I was kind of debating like, well, do I, you know, get another buddy going? And? Or I was like, but then I was like, dude, I think I want to just go in by myself, like I hadn't really done a lot of that big game on it again. Again, I'm still kind of new and you experience.
Speaker 2:Now I also am sitting there thinking like I've been doing this for a little while. I think I'm decent at this point, confident enough. Yeah, yeah, I've ridden the wave of like you think you know something, you get humbled, and then you kind of learn something and you're humbled, and so I've ridden that wave a few times. So I'm just thinking, I'm like I could maybe put it together that weight a few times. So I'm just thinking I'm like I, you know, I could maybe put it together. So I decided to go out by myself and, um, I knew I was gonna have like three, four days by myself before eric could come back and help. So I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm just gonna rock it by myself. So I, um, and that's when all like, but it was, it was awesome, but it was, it was like humbling, like I I spoiler alert, I didn't, I didn't iagging out, which I was super stoked about. But the days leading up to that, dude, I was just like you suck bro.
Speaker 2:I had like three days, no, two days, of making a lot of really good decisions and putting myself in front of elk and creating a lot of really good decisions and putting myself in in, in, you know, in front of elk, and creating a lot of opportunity, and I feel like that, you know, okay, I had learned enough to kind of, you know, figure out where they're going to be, you know. Um, anyways, long story short, I I had created a lot of opportunity, but I, there was probably in those, in those two, two and a half days, there was probably three times that I would get either drawn back or almost drawn back and just totally screw it. Yeah, so I'm sitting here thinking like, dude, I'm creating a lot of opportunity, but like sealing the deal, I suck at sealing the deal so I'm like, okay, so, um, so then, um, so then this, this, uh, the, the day before I ended up killing a bull, I go back out and I was like, okay, and luckily, this wilderness area. You know, it's kind of funny because, like, work in this wilderness area, because I love glassing, a lot of the guys that you know kind of I've been, you know, hunted under, you know, eric included, it's like, you know big on glassing and so I do love glassing. So it was a bit funny for me to like get into this wilderness area where it really wasn't glassable. It's a lot of rolly kind of thicker cover but it was like dude, like the elk are in there. So I was just like, so I wasn't doing a lot of glassing, but so it's just a different kind of hunting for me, but it's super fun because just in elk all the time. So I'm um.
Speaker 2:So the day before I killed the bull, I I ended up uh coming and also spending some time in this wilderness area. I was also realizing I just kind of started observing that there's a lot of elk, a lot of animals were just trying to kind of funnel into this one bull that's right in the middle of this wilderness area. They kept funneling in this bull, so this bull. So I was like all right, well, you know, obviously it's a good place to prioritize this bowl. So I was like all right, well, you know, obviously it's a good place to prioritize. So I start working my way in there, this, this um, like you know, uh, day before I kill the bull and, um, I, I'm starting to get close to this bull and I throw because actually, just just for context, the first two days the the elk were real vocal, yeah, and then, and then they just kind of got really quiet after that. So I was just doing real tentative little locator bugles just to kind of see what was going on.
Speaker 2:So I get close to this bowl and I this bowl sorry and I uh throw a little locator bugle and then in the bowl I could. I got a really weak response. I was like, okay, I'm gonna work my way up in there. So I kind of work up in there on the good side of the wind, drop in, I don't see anything in this bowl. And then, um, so I kind of even sit down and I had a little bit of advantage, I glass a little bit, and then I um, and then I uh pull out a snack and whatever. And then I so I'm chilling a little bit. And then uh, and then I was like, well, before I leave, I'll just throw another located bugle and that.
Speaker 2:And so I, I call, and a group must have just moved in on the other side of the bowl, because I got a really loud, very aggressive call and I was like, oh, freak dude. So I kind of work in as far as I had cover down in the kind of the middle of this bowl, and I see a bunch of cows bedded up on the rim and it's that same bowl that we saw the first, the first day and, um, so he, and once I get in close enough to the cover that I had, I throw, I threw him another bugle, and he gets real aggressive and then and then comes, comes down, but he holds, so he comes into the middle of the bowl. He's about 120 yards from me so and you could just tell it was, it was open enough where he's expecting to see something. So I didn't really want to risk like doing another call. And his cows were up there bedded.
Speaker 2:So I was thinking, dude, he ain't going nowhere, I'll just see what we can make happen. So he stood there for a long time, kind of like you know, trying to figure out what was going on. Finally he just kind of worked his way back up to his cows and sat there with his cows. So, um, so I decided I was like, well, dude, they ain't going anywhere, I'm just gonna chill. So I got behind a tree and I sat down on my pack and just pulled out my snacks and I'm just, you know, I'm probably about, I'm probably about 250 yards away at this point that's closer.
Speaker 2:I thought, okay, cool yeah, yeah, I know it was cool, it was a good look. So I was just sitting there leaning against my pack, poking out behind the tree and just kind of keeping an eye on what was going on with my binos. And it was kind of funny because while I was sitting there chilling, some does popped into the bowl and cut right in front of me and once they got on my downwind side, this doe kind of looks up at me and says what's going on? I'm not moving, and she's just kind of concerned. And then I hear some crackling to my right and uh, but I don't dare move because I'm, you know this doe's looking at me, so I'm not moving. And uh, and also, by this time, you know you hear crackling in the trees and you know you first get in the woods and you think it's like every noise is an elk and then you realize no, there's like 100 squirrels in here dropping stuff telling you to get out of their area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, make, make, um, so then. So so I I hear this crack to my, to my right, and I don't, so I assume it's a squirrel or something like that. So, but then the deer takes notice of whatever made that sound, they bump out of there and, uh, and at that point I, once they clear out, I I kind of look over. I don't see anything. So I'm just sitting there chilling. So I'm there about like 30, 40 minutes just just chilling and keeping an eye on these deer, and then I hear a noise in my right. Again I look and there's two spike bulls that were bedded up like 30 yards from me behind, but it was behind some deadfall, that. So when, when they bedded up, I didn't see them when I looked back over there. So yeah, I'm chilling there for like 30, 40 minutes with these, not knowing that there's two spike bulls right to the right, and so I look up and so I look over as they stand up and they just kind of meander off. Now again, I'm not really a trophy hunter, but at this point in my head I really wasn't excited to shoot spike. So I, I, I didn't, I wasn't gonna try to shoot one of them. So they, um, so they, so they, they wander off. And I was like, well, that's cool, you know, good close, look to. So these, these, these, these elk, um kind of get up, bull nudges all those cows up, they roll off the edge of the bull. And so I kind of track up there and just I was like, well, I'm just going to it's midday, I'm just going to try to keep up with them. They end up dropping in this cut and then cutting way up this jaw and you know, they're moving at a good pace, while I was like you know what? I don't think, I don't think they're good, I'm not probably going to be able to keep up with them, and I'm kind of betting, you know, they're probably going to come back to this area later on. So I'm just going to kind of camp out here. So I hiked around, found a couple of new cool hold, read a book, eat a snack. I'm not out here, I'm just a dude loving it out in the woods, just living the dream. Yeah, so fun.
Speaker 2:So then, once it starts getting light enough, I was like, well, dude, okay, I'm going to go try to work back kind of toward that area and kind of see if we can find something. So I'm a cutaway where it drops down, there's some water, and then there's that bowl. That you know I, you know I'm thinking, good chance if something's going to be up. So I, uh, so I work, I start working and I'm trying to kind of glass across to see if I can see anything in there. And then I'm working around and, you know, lateral to it, kind of keeping it on there, and I'm, you know, being dumb because I'm looking more toward the bowl than where I'm going.
Speaker 2:And and then I bump, I bump a. I see one bowl, just bump and just tail off kind of across the cut toward that bowl. And he was a really good bowl and I was like, damn it, so freaking bowl. You know, I was like a bump that guy. But also when I bumped him, I saw a buck walking away from me, kind of casually walking away. So I'm thinking, okay, well, you know, let's go see what that was. So I kind of tail it for a while, and once and I tail it for a while and I get thinking like, okay, you know, maybe maybe he's outpaced me and I'm keeping up.
Speaker 2:So I try to cross the the cut back, to get back to that area and then, parallel to me at the same time I did it, this bull, maybe 200 yards away, does the same thing, crosses over and I'm like, oh freak, that was a bull. And um, and it was another really good-looking bull. So I get in there and I'm like you know, at that point I just kind of had this thought. I was like you know, it's getting kind of late. I'm guessing those bulls, that group is probably coming back. I just bumped another good bull, saw that other good bull.
Speaker 2:I was like, dude, you know, that group, that that bull you know I've been following, has a bunch of hot cows and there's all these other bulls that. I'm like, dude, this is where it's going to be at in the morning, like this is going to be hopping, no-transcript. Then boom, and right when I'm getting close to this bowl, I'm here and just just going nuts bulls just sounding off going nuts, and I'm just getting jacked Dude's super excited. So I'm just like, oh yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:So I kind of get into this bowl where all the action was, and then I'm hearing, and I'm hearing a couple of bowls that seem kind of close. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to crest over the lip of this and get down to where I kind of see, because at this point my thought is I gotta go, I'm gonna try to get between two bulls that are making noise and see if they come at each other. Yeah, so I, I get over into the um behind, I crest over, I get behind this tree and and I and I've got, you know, located, you know where I'm hearing two good bulls and um, and then I see the one, the the. You know where I'm hearing a bull, my left, I see this bull coming up out of this draw and he's a nice bull. I'm not the best field judge, but I feel comfortable saying that he was a good 340, 350-plus bull, that's a good bull.
Speaker 2:And this unit has the potential for really good bulls. So it's a great unit. And it's funny because going into that hunt I kind of had told myself, hey, I'm the first 75 of my hunt, I'm going to be trophy hunter, I want to, I want to shoot a good bull. And then the last 24, I said I'm just I'll, I want me in the freezer. So that was kind of my mentality going into it.
Speaker 2:Um, so here I am, sitting there and nice bull coming up out of this jaw, like really hot to get after you know whatever. He's hearing back to my right. So I'm like sitting here getting all excited and I, so I, I and I got good cover behind some you know a line of trees. I got my bow, um, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm gonna what? I have that spot hog, double pin, adjustable sight. So that's what I shoot. So this bull is coming up out of the draw. And then the other bull that I hear, I can tell he's directly opposite of me, he's a little off to the right. So I'm sitting here kind of thinking, okay, at some point he's going to start angling over more directly to that bull. So he's coming up out of the draw he starts to angle like I'm hoping, and uh, and I pop up. I arranged them 65 yards. So I'm like sick. So I, I, I looked down and I set my side at 65 and at that moment I'm thinking this bull is so dead. And uh, so I got my bow set at 65 and I look back up and I'm like, oh freak, he's coming right back at me and so, like he had started angling over and then he shifted and he's like coming right at me again. So in my mind I get all flustered. I'm like, well, what the freak? Like I just ranged 65. Do I rearrange him? Do I readjust my bow? And I'm like, oh. So I'm getting all flustered Like what's the right call? Before you know it he's 30 yards from me and he's popped out behind a couple of brush, but behind a couple of trees. I'm not drawn back and he notices me and he's staring at me and he's all amped up. So he gives me a pretty good long look and the whole time I'm just like you idiot. Like in hindsight, I'm like draw your damn bow back and just hold a little low and you would have been fine. And I'm sitting there and I figured this out about the time that he's staring at me and I'm not drawn back. I'm just like you idiot.
Speaker 2:And again this whole hunt. I've been making all these good decisions and just screw in the pooch when it comes to actually seal the deal and kill something. So I'm sitting here just like I can't believe this happened again. I, I go ahead and I try to pull the bow bow back, and then he bumps and and I try to call and get him to stop. Doesn't happen. So here he is again. You know, you go from like thinking this bull's so dead, yeah, to like you just grew up another one, bro, you suck at this. So I'm just like dude, so I'm so frustrated at myself and, uh, so I end up.
Speaker 2:But luckily there's a lot of other calling going on. I was like, well, I gotta go get on some other stuff, and so I end up, you know, actually calling in another spike and again I I could have shot that spike, but I was just, you know, not excited to kill spike. So I and I found it and I get on another group again I make another good call where I I try to bust, bust down this, this old forest access road to get in front of this group. I made the right call. I got in front of this group, but I but so much time I'm crossing back into them and but so much time has gone by I start to think I screwed it up again. I didn't get there in time. And right about the time I give up on on thinking that I got in front of these elk and I'm I start to think, and the plant boom, here they, here, they come out. Let's just like, oh, freaking idiot.
Speaker 2:So so then, uh, so then by that time it's about midday enough, where I'm like, okay, things are gonna slow down. I tried tasting a couple of groups that were calling, but it was bad wind and bad elevation. So I was just like, okay, so, okay. So I ended up just deciding like, well, again I'm like super frustrated. I'm like you know, eric could come back out with me in a couple of days. Do I call it in? Do I know? Just, you know.
Speaker 2:So I ended up kind of slowly working my way all the way back up around. I was a couple of miles away at this point, so I took from where that bowl was. So I was like, well, everything's been happening in this one spot I'm going to go back. So I work my way back kind of all day and then I end up kind of camping out there for the last, you know, it's a couple hours before daylight or before end of light. So I end up going back there and kind of camping out again. I finished the book I was reading and everything.
Speaker 2:And then I look over and then I see and I hear something in some smaller timber there's a raghorn raking his land there and he's about 120 yards away. So I try to get up, get ready, work my way in. He's working away from me. I give him a little call. He kind of ignored it, didn't really see it, so he just kind of worked off of me. So then I'm sitting'm sitting here thinking like, well, if I got about an hour of light left, um, well, and I realized that that bull um had probably worked up an old forest access road that had been, you know, grown over and cut the access off a long time ago. But I was like, dude, they're probably working that road so and it's gonna funnel right in there. So I was like, well, if anything else comes in, there's a good chance it's going to come up that road.
Speaker 2:So I decide, well, that little thicket of a brush where he's at, I'm just going to go camp out there and see if anything ends up funneling up to me. So I get there and I'm like, and I'm like, okay, dude, I'm going to get set up, like I've got all these like small short brush, I'm. I'm thinking I'm going to be in good cover. I kick the needles all around, I throw my off, I'm like making sure I could take any step I want to without making any noise. And I'm like, all right, dude, all right, I'm set.
Speaker 2:And like, if something comes up, I've got cover behind me. I'll probably. You know, I'm probably good, like I'm, I'm thinking I'm full on ninja mode here. So, um, so, sure enough. Like like half an hour before, and a light, two bulls start. I see start coming up this, coming up this road, you know this old road. And I'm like, oh sick dude, this might happen. And I'm sitting there thinking and I'm in like, and I even look and I was like, well, the back bull is a little bit bigger than the, than the front one, so I'll shoot the back one. So you know so.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 2:I know, I know I know I'm like, oh, yeah, in hindsight I'm like, but I'm sitting there thinking, well, he's definitely so, I'll try.
Speaker 2:So the first bull gets, starts getting in and he gets toward like the, the first gap that I think I'd probably shoot at.
Speaker 2:So I'm so I arranged that bull at 65. He, he, and so I'm sitting there thinking, okay, as they move forward, then then when that second bull hits that gap, I'll have a good chance, I'm already ranged, hits that gap, I'll have a good chance, I'm already ranged, hits that gap, I'll shoot him. So right about the time that that, um, that, and they're kind of paced with each other, and for some reason that first bull decides to kind of hot foot it up a little bit quicker. And as that second bull is kind of coming in and so he's coming in a little bit quick, so I'm like, oh, shoot, so he gets in. And so now he's now that first ball, right about the time that the second ball hits that gap, where that I've got range and I want to shoot him at the, the first ball comes in and and is getting kind of close and he's like, you know, 40 yards from you, but I'm thinking like dude, I'm so covered up like dude that ball looks right at and it's just locked me.
Speaker 2:How was your win? Did you have a good win? No, I had a good win. I had a great win because the sun was setting right behind this bull, so the prevailing wind was great, the wind was good. So I'm like how the freak does this bull see me? And that second bull stopped in that gap Once he noticed the first bull stopped. So I'm like like, okay, all right, so I I'm sitting there, but but again, I'm not, I'm not quite drawn back yet, because I was like just about to draw on that the ball in that gap when this other ball kind of came up close and I didn't want to spook it. So I kind of, I'm kind of ready, but but um, that full first ball looks at me and he doesn't give me hardly a look at all and he just books, it takes books, it takes off, so so.
Speaker 2:But during that time I hurried up and drew back and and I got on that bull and that was in that gap and which I knew was about 65, and luckily that first that second bull just bounces and takes, you know, does a little bit of a u-turn and just bounces back and let, and, and the way that my bull is with that, my bow, that two pin, it's like the. The one I adjust is 65 and the next one gives me another 10 yards. Okay, so I was about set. So I'm thinking, okay, well, you know, it just seemed like okay, I got drawn back, he did a little 180. And then I was like dude, you probably bumped back about 10 yards. So I just kind of held it on that second pin and sent it.
Speaker 2:And then I heard that impact on the lawns. It was a great shot, just double lung, just over the top of the heart. It didn't hit the heart, but double lung, so anyway. So I'm like, oh, freak dude. So he runs about 100 yards. I see him go down and I'm just like what the freak just happened?
Speaker 2:And then all this emotion.
Speaker 2:I'm just like dude, I've been creating all these opportunities, opportunities, and then I just get freaking schooled when it comes actually time to kill, kill something.
Speaker 2:And then, and then that morning I mean because again, all day I'm fighting like dude, you just screwed up a chance on a really nice bowl and just like, ah, so, so for it to finally come together. And then, um, you know, and again you know, you know, half an hour before lights and I've got a lot of work and I'm out there by myself and I'm, I'm, I'm a ways back into this, this wilderness area, so but it was just, it was just awesome. So get up. He ended up being a little smaller, six, not, not not a great bull by you know, by trophy standards, but that was the other thing too. It kind of made me realize that, you know, again, here I am a big bull for the first two-thirds of the are, you know bit of this haunt. So it kind of made me realize, like dude, like how jacked I was, because this is probably like barely over 300 inch six, six by um bull, that's a real good.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean you said the unit is better potential, but yeah, absolutely a 300 inch bowl yeah, and I realized, like you know, I'm not experienced enough to have the right to be disappointed, like, like I like well, even just my raw emotion at the time I was so jacked. But it kind of made me realize, like dude, for how excited I am that I just dumped this bowl, like why? So it kind of made me just reevaluate like you know, expectations, like I still feel like I want to, I freaking love it. I, you know everybody wants to chase, that you know some of those better bulls and all that and I'll do that, you know, as long as I can. But it still made me realize, like what an amazing experience this was, doing it kind of the first real big game hunt on my own and the ups and downs and everything is just so fun.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, man. It's a. It's a cool story and it shows the perseverance which is something that I need when I'm in the woods. It's like, man, I show up every hunting season like I'm the best, I'm gonna kill it, I'm gonna kill bull opening day. It's like three hours in opening day. I'm like this is hard and even though you're telling yourself you're screwed up, just sticking with it and you, you got it done. It's an awesome story yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, it's awesome, it was super fun. So, if you got time, I got I have. I have a. I have one more story. Okay, it's a, it's a poop story I've noticed that's been a? Uh. That's been a? Uh a recurring theme on your podcast hey, the last little bit.
Speaker 1:we've had a few, we've had a handful. That's a gross way to analyze poop stories. We've had a couple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Throw that in there.
Speaker 2:All right, this will be the last one. So one day at Gibbs Arms we've got our crew of dudes and we're just out having lunch and, for whatever reason, the conversation starts turning into funny poop stories, not necessarily haunting, just like a bunch of. We start talking. So I kind of saved this one story about my brother-in-law that I don't feel like I could share right now. But I tell that story to the dudes and then maybe I'll tell you later. But uh, but um, so I tell that story thinking it's a pretty good one and my and our accountant he's a really good buddy of ours that we've done some hunting with and he's a solid dude. So he's like dude. I'm totally not that guy to like one-up people, but I've got an amazing poop story and I was like all right, let's hear it. So he's like so it was his good friend growing up, it was his dad that did. You know, classic Alaska bush plane fly you in Amazing experience. So he's like dude.
Speaker 2:My buddy's dad just got back from this hunt and, yeah, he had a doozy. So they fly him in. He has a great hunt. He's got two dudes, so it's three dudes out hunting. Pilot picks him up and he's got two dudes in the back, this guy's buddy and my yeah. So the dad is in the front seat.
Speaker 2:Apparently they've got you know three, four hour, whatever, long flight it was back to wherever they're going. And this guy it's just like dude. I've got the squirts so bad, like I, like, what do we do? What do we do? And the pilot is like dude, well, we can't stop, like we can. So apparently everybody in the plane starts to look for what. So they find a plastic bag, find some sort of plastic bag. So this guy in the plane on the front seat somehow positions himself enough to get to do his business in a plastic bag, okay, ties it up, which I got to imagine at that point already is like okay, that's going to stink the plane up. Pretty bad. But hey, you know, we'll vent it out, it'll be all right.
Speaker 1:I just had like a daydream of like them, be like throw out the window and the wind just sprang it everywhere inside. Uh, this is an awful scenario, but I might be getting ahead of us.
Speaker 2:Okay, you go ahead no, you're a mind reader, you're, you're you. So that's exactly what happened. They're like get that out of the plane. He opens the window and, instead of like placing it out or holding it or you know, securing the bag until it's free and clear, he decides to throw it. Try to throw it out the window and, exactly like he said, wind catches, it hits the frame of the window, bag explodes. All over everybody in the plane, oh God. And then you've got dudes just throwing up. Yeah, throwing up. That's the reason You've got diarrhea. You've got throwing up and just oh, yeah. So then he tells the story. He's like dude.
Speaker 2:At that point the pilot is just opening his windows, you know, trying to, everyone's just trying to survive and they've got a couple more hours of this flight. So they're all just like just sitting in misery during this flight. It ended up just apologizing to the pilot and everything. And they're just like, oh my gosh, this is horrible. So they, they land, all of them, just empty their pockets of whatever money they had and give it to the pilot and we, like, we are so sorry, like you know, all over his plane. So they give this, they give, they give all their money, you know whatever they can to this this, this pilot, and then, um, and then apparently they go to a. They go to a car wash and just hose each other off, strip down, throw away their clothes, dig in their hunting packs and get whatever they were flying out.
Speaker 1:They were flying out. That's so convenient. I was worried. Okay, keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they were flying out Bush plane lands.
Speaker 2:They're out wherever they're going to hit their next plane to get, you know, their next bigger plane. So that's some little bit of an airport or whatever. So they, they, yeah. So they carwash themselves, spray them off, throw away their clothes, dig some, some smelly hunting clothes out of their pack. They've got a couple of hours to to to their next flight. So at this point enough time has gone by where they're like kind of like, oh my gosh, that was horrible. They go and chill in some restaurant, you know, get some food and you know they're fine. At the point where they can kind of laugh about it. They're like, oh my gosh, that's horrible, I can't believe, you know whatever. And then apparently one of the dudes looks over to I think it was the dad, looks over to one of the dudes. He's like, wait, hold on a second, reaches over and plucks a piece of corn out of the dude's hair.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:That's so gross. That is such an awesome experience. Oh, it's so disgusting, so disgusting. My yeah so my accountant calls it the corn story. So whenever I camp you know hunting camp we're like like dude, you got to tell the corn story so what gave him the, the squirts, right like did he drink some water and not get it? Or I didn't say that would be good intel to have. Yeah, for future reference. But no, I didn't get off task.
Speaker 1:You're out there eating nothing but peak refuel that gives me the toots. It doesn't necessarily give you the squirts, but like I don't want to go into that situation, no matter what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, dude, horrible, horrible.
Speaker 1:Man, Kevin, thank you. Thank you for all of the stories, but the last one. I really appreciate you coming on, man.
Speaker 2:Don't let it deter. Yeah, I won't let it. It won't deter this from any future Alaska trips. Let's do this, man.
Speaker 1:Why don't you tell the people what you're up to? And we'll talk a little bit about capture, talk a little bit of and, if you want to follow, want them to follow you or capture or whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, share that stuff. Yeah, we'll get out of here, man, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, yeah. So, um, yeah, capture again. We're having a lot of fun. It's. It's been a long road.
Speaker 2:We um I think eric kind of mentioned it. It's like you know, we, we were all excited when we first met and it kind of, you know, came up and conceived some improvements to the design, had a couple waves of testing, testing and took in some really great feedback from some really legit dudes that hunt all the time and took that feedback in and kind of made it a lot better. So, luckily, with this last, the final wave of testing that we did, we've just had such great feedback from a lot of these really legit dudes that have been involved testing with it the whole time. So we're super to get it finally, finally out. Um, we're, we're coming out with the, the, the two iphone 16 cases, some of the samsung cases, or so it's busy right now, just kind of expanding the lineup.
Speaker 2:We, we make the, you know, part of our. The unique, uh, you know, feature of our program is that we integrate with the eyepiece and use that space inside of the rubber eye cup, um, that gap between the lens and that, so so it's um a little more work to to to create a replacement eyepiece, but it just really cleans up and makes the system so user-friendly. And so, yeah, you know such streamlined, you know awesome, you know it doesn't interrupt your viewing experience at all and you don't have to do anything to optic to throw your phone on and start getting video so that's awesome so anyways.
Speaker 2:So we're real busy right now just um designing new eye cups for to. You know we've got the whole swirl lineup pretty much. We've got a couple of koa, we got a couple mavens, we've got some zeiss and some loopholes and and and you know we're um, there's other companies that were that we're working with. So so right now the game is just trying to to get a lot of uh, um, you know, start really getting wide into the whole family of optics that are out there.
Speaker 2:So that's what we're busy doing so. Yeah, if, uh, um, if. If you guys want to follow us, it's just uh capture with the k K capture, gearcom and uh um same social handles. Eric has a really good uh um, uh Instagram going on with the kill slot central, so he promotes it on there too and you could feel free to reach out to Eric on that. Um. So yeah, I mean me personally. You know we're we're owners, but Dave and I just kind of serve the engineer role and Eric does more of the customer service kind of stuff. Just reach out to him if you're interested in the capture stuff.
Speaker 1:Sweet man, you got any personal socials you want to share Nah?
Speaker 2:Nah, dude, I'm one of the most least active dudes on social ever.
Speaker 1:Totally fine, I would be non-active, except it's pretty important for the podcast sake. But otherwise I feel like one picture a year maybe on my personal Instagram with the podcast on them. I get you know, gotta be active. So well, kevin man this is fun.
Speaker 1:Thanks for reaching out. I really do appreciate you. And yeah, guys, if you haven't listened to Eric's episode, he's got some great stories about guiding. Kevin, thank you for your stories. If any listeners out there have more poop stories, please reach out to me. I'd love to connect with you and hear them, kevin, thank you, man, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Yep, I really appreciate it, man, have a good one.
Speaker 1:All right, guys. That's it. Another couple stories in the books. Again, kevin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really enjoyed hearing all those stories about the rabbits and the mountain lions and all that crazy stuff, as well as your amazing elk stories. So thank you, sir, I appreciate you To you listeners. Thank you, guys for tuning in Again. Please go follow Capture Gear and beyond that. Guys, give us a follow, Give us a five-star review, send it to a friend. Help us grow. Other than that, get out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.
