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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 142 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Caleb Stillians
Guide Caleb Stillians takes us deep into the Alaskan wilderness where survival demands quick thinking, steely nerves, and sometimes a bit of luck. Having spent five to seven months each year guiding in Alaska's remote backcountry, Caleb has accumulated more hunting experience than most will gather in a lifetime.
Through vivid storytelling, Caleb recounts several heart-stopping encounters with brown bears – the coastal giants that can reach 10 feet in length and outweigh their inland grizzly cousins by hundreds of pounds. We're transported to Kodiak Island, where Caleb and his team battled both COVID and a mother bear with cubs in subzero temperatures, forcing them to make life-or-death decisions while physically miserable.
What makes these stories particularly compelling is Caleb's matter-of-fact delivery about situations most would find utterly terrifying. From a bear charging at full speed just yards away to waking up to find a bear three feet from his face while making morning coffee, his experiences reveal both the majestic beauty and unforgiving reality of Alaska's wilderness.
Beyond the bear encounters, Caleb shares equally terrifying moments at sea during violent storms and navigating through fog-bound mountain passes in small aircraft – situations where he admits feeling truly helpless. His surprising revelation that these scenarios frighten him more than bear encounters offers a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of someone who has repeatedly faced nature's most formidable challenges.
Whether you're a hunter seeking adventure or simply appreciate raw wilderness stories, Caleb's experiences showcase what happens when modern humans venture into truly wild places where nature still reigns supreme. Leave a review if you enjoyed these stories and share this episode with someone who appreciates tales of survival against extraordinary odds.
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Christensen Arms
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Howdy folks, and welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we have another great episode for you today. Today, we actually have someone that I was connected to years ago and we just couldn't make it work. We got online one time and the audio was just so bad I didn't know what I was doing. We just kicked it down the road, and here we are, two years later, finally connecting with Caleb Stillions.
Speaker 1:Caleb is a guide in Alaska, he's an entrepreneur, he's just an overall badass, and so I want to thank Caleb for coming on the podcast. It was a lot of fun to hear his stories. In fact, he's got a lot of brown bear stories, some pretty crazy stuff and so I think you all will very much enjoy this episode. So again, thank you to Caleb for you guys. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. Beyond that, if you could go ahead and leave us a review on whatever you're listening to, I'd really appreciate that. Share the podcast with one person, and that's about it, guys. Thank you so much. Now let's let Caleb tell you some of his stories. Thank you, all right, caleb. All right, caleb. Welcome to the Hunting Stories Podcast. Man, how are you?
Speaker 2:Doing good, doing good. Thank you for having me. It's good to be here and I'm excited to see what hunting stories we come up with. I'd like to hear a little bit about some hunting stories you might have, and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I'll tell you a story because we have a mutual connection. I'll tell you one at some point. Don't let me forget about our friend Bergendahl man, because I've told this story several times and it's always very funny to me. But, caleb man, I told you this already, but I'll tell the listeners today. We connected two years ago to try and do this and our Wi-Fi wasn't working and we decided we'll try and record later, schedule something else. And then I think you ran to Alaska and all over the world. Man, you are a hard guy to nail down, but I'm glad I finally got it done. You've been on my list of guys that I really wanted to talk to, so I'm super excited to have you here, man.
Speaker 2:No, I appreciate you following up with me because, yeah, sometimes I just get to run in, Whether it's Alaska, Africa or somewhere in between. I just hammer down, it's fun, but sometimes it makes it tough to schedule people.
Speaker 1:Dude, I totally understand. Well, let's take a small step back, caleb. Why don't you introduce yourself so the people know who we're hearing some stories from today and give yourself a little love, man, don't be modest, because you do some cool shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, for sure I'll give the 10,000-foot view. Caleb Stillians started guiding in Alaska. I started packing because you got to have a process right. So you start off and basically you the outfitter's lack of better term bitch Like whatever, cutting out log jams, whatever it is you just go and do it.
Speaker 2:So I started out pretty much right out of high school, got going with that and then one thing led to another and I was able to get my guide's license up in Alaska. And I've been guiding up in Alaska about between five to seven months out of the year since then five to seven months out of the year since then. So I've been been blessed to do a lot of hunts, uh kill a lot of moose, bears, goats, uh sheep, uh caribou, all that stuff. So stay pretty busy doing that. It's a ton of fun. And uh, yeah, it's kind of fun because you get going and you don't realize it at the time, but then you kind of look back and you start to realize, like, I just hunted for more or less five to seven months straight. So it's like you get to compile, you know, lifetimes of hunting experience in a couple years. So instead of yeah, so that's what's fun, it's, it's kind of turned me into an old man a little bit.
Speaker 1:I feel like sometimes I don't know if I go that far walk around.
Speaker 2:Look at those young bucks over there yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, so we have a mutual connection. Uh, a friend of mine that I met in texas and again I'll tell you the story in a minute here but jordan bergendahl, he, he came up and and like videoed, uh, or was a videographer. What did he do for you up on, like kodiak island, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, no for sure. So I was running some, uh doing some hunts for a guy guiding him and, uh, the camera guy I uh had like a family emergency thing and he needed to go back and and do that. So I needed to find a videographer. And Jordan reached out to me on Instagram and we were talking back and forth and I was like, well, here's your opportunity, I need a camera guy like ASAP. Uh, so flew up, we went out to so it's Kodiak Archipelago, so you have Kodiak Island and then you have Raspberry Island not Henshinbrook, fogneck and then the next one up, so we were on Raspberry. So Jordan spent I think it was about 30 days with me blacktail hunting on Raspberry Island.
Speaker 2:So, it was a ton of fun. We had a few bears coming to camp, so that was. It's kind of funny because I remember jordan right, so he's he's new to alaska right, so he's not used to bears.
Speaker 2:So we're sleeping and, like you know, getting a good night's sleep, and you know jordan's waking me up because you know he was a stick fall because we're camping in these big, sick of spruce trees that are like 100 foot tall, um, and every now and then a branch, like you know, dies, is dead and falls off and hits the ground. So you hear it. So he kept waking me up. Uh, I was like it's nothing, go back to bed. And then did that and then like probably about eight days into it uh, because now jordan kind of used to that stuff falling and hitting about eight days into it I'm sleep, sitting there, sleeping and I and I hear something. I wake up.
Speaker 2:When you spend enough time out in the woods camping, it's weird your brain subconsciously knows the difference between a tree hitting. It just sounds different than when a bear is coming in the camp, because it makes slightly different noises. So I hear this faint noise and I wake up like damn it, it's a bear, um. So I hear this faint noise and I wake up like damn it, that's a bear, um. So you know I don't do anything right away because, because usually they don't know what, what's going on, right. So they circle in here. They're trying to figure out what they want to do, and it's getting later in the season so I hear it again. I'm like damn it.
Speaker 2:So I wake jordan up. I'm jordan, jordan. He's like what? Like there's a bear coming in the camp. He's like, oh shit. So I brought up, I have a 12-gauge shotgun that I let the camera guys carry if they want to, and Jordan was awesome, so he grabbed the shotgun. I got out with my rifle, the headlamp, and we ended up having to chase the bear off in the middle of the night. So that was fun. We built a little fire, chase the bear off, and yeah, it just kind of kept circling for about a while. It was about an hour because it was getting late on the season. So all the salmon have spawned out, so that bears like thinking about hibernation, right? Yeah, well, he wants to come in there. We have our food stashed in the tree, but it wants to come into camp and take whatever we have camp and take whatever we have.
Speaker 1:But we didn't let that happen, so that was a little more calories before it's hibernating.
Speaker 2:That's funny man I could.
Speaker 1:I could see jordan doing that. I'll tell you my jordan story real quick and then we'll actually get into the meat and potatoes of this and let you tell some actual exciting stories. Um, but this is, I want to say, is a second hunt I did with jordan. The first one, we were hunting riverbeds in texas for hogs. He he basically hit we day, didn't see nothing. We're walking out and right as we're about to leave the riverbed, a bunch of hogs and he empties his shotgun with double op, buckshot into a hog. When it fell I was like well, we can't eat any of that, but you can take some cool photos because you just blew him up.
Speaker 1:But the story I want to tell and I've told this before, but it's a turkey hunt so he had access to a pretty sweet little property for his job. It's basically like a work site right on the river and he's like a lot of guys hunt it for deer. No one hunts it for turkey. And he's like there's turkeys everywhere. He's like do you know anything about turkey hunting? I was like, sure, yeah, I know a slate call, let's do it. So we go out. He gives me the pin and then the address and I get there and I'm sitting there first thing in the morning, still pitch black, and this is telling you how the story is going to go, because Jordan calls me and he's like dude, I'm lost. And I'm like what do you mean? You're lost, we're going to your workplace. You go here Monday through Friday, five days a week. How can you not find this place? He's like I don't know, the pin was off and I'm like yeah, I noticed that, but I got the address. So I was like I managed, and I'd never been here before. Get your ass over here. Either way. We're like half an hour late, maybe 45 minutes late, because he just couldn't find his place of work. Sound like Jordan. Yet Either way, we, um, either way we get there, we park this turkey's goblin everywhere, just literally every direction, obviously not hunted, obviously a safe place for them, and they're feeling super comfortable.
Speaker 1:But the sun's starting to come up so I'm like, oh crap, we're running late, so we just dive in. I have like one of those blinds that's basically just like a two foot tall, eight foot long cloth. You put a couple spikes in kind of covers you from one direction. So there's a little feeder out there. So I'm like let's put the decoys by the feeder and let's set up that little thing with a berm behind us. We're pretty secluded here and we sit there for hours. Nothing happens, birds. As soon as the sun's up, birds shut up, not responding to any calls, just nothing. So all right, well, we're getting frustrated. So a couple of trucks come in and there's only one road. That road goes right by where we have the decoys. Like let's go talk to those fellas. And so we're going over there and while we're talking to those guys grabbing our lunch, another truck shows up and he's like oh, you guys shooting turkeys. And we're like yeah, we're trying, we've got some decoys up. They're like well, some turkeys just down road.
Speaker 2:And we're like what.
Speaker 1:So we kind of go around the bend, look back down the road and you're right, like we'd been there for four hours. And as soon as we stepped away, just a really nice Tom just walked in. So I'm like, all right, jordan, here's the plan. I was like they drove by them. The turkeys didn't go anywhere, so like let's drive by them. I was like I'll sit on your tailgate with my bow and you just drive, drive right up next to it and then stop, and then I'll just pull my bow back and end the game, like that's it. And so we start driving.
Speaker 1:He takes us like the hundred yards of this back to where we were and he just drives right past the bird and right past our blind to the other side of the berm. And I'm like what were you doing? Like our plan was for you to stop right in front of it. I would have shot that bird. And he's like, oh my bad, either way, as soon as we go past it, the other gentleman it's actually a truck full of, like mexican workers. I don't know they're gonna be more polite about it, but that's what it was. They come in and basically chase the, chase the turkey off, so the turkey crosses the road into this brush and they drive up four of them, jump out of that truck and then run into the woods after the turkey. And I'm like what are they going to do? They don't have guns, they don't have arrows, they don't have anything. They're just chasing a turkey through the woods.
Speaker 1:And I was like, all right, jordan, well, let's go in there and see what we can do. So we walk in there behind this army of Mexicans and I'm pulling my slate, call out and I'm making noise the turkey's goblin. But we're not seeing anything because it's really thick brush. That's South Texas deep brush. Run into a white tail or two in there. But eventually we're like well, this is dumb, let's go back and sit. I was like I got another hour or two, let's just go sit. And so we go back to sit in the little blind that we made. And next thing we know I'm calling every 15 minutes or so a turkey's all the way back where we parked, like just right, where we came from earlier, and it's walking down the road and I'm like sweet sweet okay, I was like here's the deal.
Speaker 1:I taught him how to call because I only had a slate call and I don't know. I at the time couldn't mouth call for turkeys. So I was like, here, I'm gonna do this until he gets close, then I'm gonna set this down and I want you to keep the calling, because I have my bow and I can't call with it. So the turkey's coming right in, the turkey's coming right in and, mind you, this is 2020, early COVID. We don't really know how close we should be to each other. So we sit in six feet away because, whatever that's what we're supposed to do, the turkey comes in and it goes right behind the feeder. So I pull back and my arrow falls off the knock. So I'm at full draw with my arrow dangling and Jordan's looking at me and I'm like get over here, man get over here and, like you know, turkeys don't care too much about noise, they just can't see you moving.
Speaker 1:But I got into full draw and I was like and he realizes what's going on. So he comes over, reaches over and I'm lefty, so he's behind me, reaches over and takes my arrow, pulls it up and knocks it back on my string while I'm still at full draw. I'm like sweet, but he doesn't let go. He's just holding onto the arrow and I'm like Jordan, I was like I'm going to snap your finger off, let go of my bow. And he's just holding there and he's like looking at the Turkey. He's just so excited. He just forgets that he he knocked it, but he just kept his hand there and I was like come on, just let go. Uh, he eventually lets go, like realizes that I can't shoot, and eventually the turkey puts its head down, pops his head up, I fire and I take its head off with my arrow and end of the story.
Speaker 1:But uh, it's just, it's just one of those stories that cracks me up, man, because jordan, just like it was a a day of follies, right, he couldn't find his own place of work, and then we had an army of mexicans chasing turkeys off through the woods and then he wouldn't let go. My arrow falls off, and then of course, he won't let go. It's just a ridiculous story. Um, funny thing is I then was like about to leave anyways. So he's like, hey, I have to go to work now. You mind, if I keep this stuff and hunt the evening and I'm like, no, go ahead, just hold on to it. And so he actually, um in te, he did like four tags. He killed, I think, three birds in two shots that evening.
Speaker 2:What? Yeah, yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker 1:It was like two Jakes and a Tom, but they came in exactly like they did for me in the morning, and he just fires one round, two of them drop and the other one's just still standing there. So he's like all right, well, here we go and he fires another round, and so he almost filled all of his Texas tags in like a 10 second period that same day. It was crazy, that is awesome, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it goes. It's like when you first start hunting, like your nerves. It's like I remember those days I started hunting when I was about 12 and, like you know, just get so excited, right, and it's kind of funny. Like you, you see new hunters like that and like, uh, sometimes as guides like you gotta like realize that. So you get a hunter right and he's on a barrel and he's like losing his shit and it's easy to like that you lose your patience with that person because, like you've been there and you've done that 20, 25 times now You're like, oh, like, oh, this is another notch on my gun, right, just another day. To that guy, this is like holy cow. I'm face-to-face with a 10-foot brown bear. He's losing his crap. And to you it's like just shoot the flag already, quit shaking Something that guys do when they get excited. They turn the scopes all the way up. The bear might be 80 yards in front of them and they're turning the riflecope.
Speaker 1:That 18 power it's like dude, you're not shooting 400 yards like, yeah, all they see is brown fur, no daylight exactly so.
Speaker 2:it's funny because like, yeah, guys, even if it's a new hunt, they get those knows, and they just got to quit thinking and it's easy to do that. So, it's fun when you take new people out and see that happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the truth. That's the truth. But yeah, jordan was a brand new hunter, never been out until I took him, and I'd only been hunting for like a year and a half at that point, so I didn't really have that much to teach him. But there we, there we go. We each have our Jordan story. I'll have to make sure he listens to this episode so we can all have a good laugh. But let's get into it. Caleb man, what stories you got for us?
Speaker 2:100%. So I didn't come prepared to this. But let me tell a let's do a bear story. So we're on Kodiak Island this time and it's me, me, my buddy. This is going into. I think it's actually it's the same year jordan came up and worked for me. It's just later in the season. Okay, uh, so this is 2021, I think it was 2021 and, uh, jordan just left. I went and did another hunt, uh, and we killed a bunch of deer, seen some cool bears, and then we were doing like, okay, we're going to go do one more hunt. So we go over to Kodiak Granted, it's like six below and the people that we just had out text us after they left Because towards the end of the trip, they're like we don't feel too good. Towards the end of the trip, they text us and they left because towards the end of the trip, they're like we don't feel too good towards the end of the trip they text us and say, hey, by the way, we just tested positive for covid on our in reaches, right.
Speaker 2:So like we just got out and we're like, oh boy, this is not gonna be good because we spent a week with them. So they obviously got it, uh, and started feeling sick when they were with us. So at six below zero, uh, we were having to go get our water about a mile from camp and having to chip through like six to eight inches of ice to the creek to get our water.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of miserable super cold camping in a tent, but there's deer out, like when it gets cold, like that, the deer get to rutting hard. Long story short, at the end of day one we all start feeling bad. So there's Cody, which was the cameraman, myself and Tyler and we are feeling like absolute crap, like probably one of the worst headaches I've ever had. And at six below we're in this small four-man tent just piled up, as sick as can be. Night two I'm sleeping, tyler's kind of by the door and then Cody's over here, kind of by my feet at an angle, and I just hear what sounds like two bouncy balls coming through campus making all kinds of noise. I was the first one to wake up and, granted, we have Cody.
Speaker 2:Bouncy balls you mean like a four-square ball or like a rubber kids, like hard rubber ball, like they're like the rubber balls uh so it's just like you know, making a bunch of noise, something's bouncing around, like just you know, not exactly like what a bounce ball would sound like, but that's what like if you had two bouncy balls and you threw them down the hallway. That's's kind of like just random noises all over the place. So I wake up, I wake Tyler and Cody up. Tyler's by the door. He has his 10 millimeter so he go ahead. I think he had a rack one. It was all loaded, I can't remember. And then I grabbed my 375 Ruger and I was right behind him and one thing that was niceler was a guide as well, so we were communicating very well. So he's at the front of the door, I have my gun. We both feel like shit. He on dips the tent, shines his flashlight. He's like I see two. I see two sets of eyes looking back at me. He's like I think they foxes. It looks a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Oh fuck, those are cubs and then, as soon as he sees that, we hear mama bear behind this right.
Speaker 2:So no, you're between right here yep, so we're like, oh shit, so like we need to exit the tent, right. So tyler shoots two rounds into the tree right by the cubs and they run probably about 20 yards, uh, kind of back and to the right, if you're looking that way. Uh, so then we exit the tent and he's I got my gun, he's got his handgun, uh, and like we can see mama's eyes, she's sitting there humping and, you know, stomping her jaws we're gonna have to and the cubs are little.
Speaker 2:So we really didn't have to worry about the cubs because like, uh, you have, you have what? One year old cubs, two year old cubs, three year old cubs, and then the mom kicks the the cubs off. So the the one year old cubs, they're not really concerned and that's what these ones were, because you know they can't attack you. Two year old cubs can start attacking you three year old cubs. It's really stressful when you get into a situation like this, because they all can eat your ass, right, because the three year old-0 Cup's a big bear at that point, like, not a huge bear, but big enough to you know, light you up. So anyways, we both focused on Mama Bear and we're like, hey, get the hell out of here. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, she starts to come. So I'm like you know I fingered right on the trigger. I'm like, oh, please, please, don't do this, because I'm gonna dump your ass.
Speaker 2:And it's kind of funny when these things happen. It's, uh, they happen really fast, but your brain almost slows it down a little bit because you have all these thoughts running through your mind. Uh, so she's running at us about before she gets right behind our tent, so about 10 yards from where we were standing. At 15 yards, she bears off and it does the bluff charge and runs to her cubs. Um, so she, she was almost dumped. If she would have took two more steps, like during, like where our tent was at, past it, because she veered off right before she got to it, I was gonna have to dump her ass and tyler would have stopped putting rounds with his 10 millimeter into her. But uh, she veered off, went to her cubs, uh, and then, and then they eventually moved on.
Speaker 2:But I just remember being so miserable because here we are, we have covid, right, we have this awful headache yeah and it's six below zero and we wake up that next morning and do it because you got to sleep with your water bottles right, um, to keep them from freezing, yep well, done that we, we dealt, we dealt with that barrel and I remember I can't remember what the other guys did but I remember going back in my sleeping bag and just feeling like shit, so I fell back to sleep.
Speaker 2:Uh well, when I got out of my sleeping bag I accidentally knocked my water bottle out and then I didn't put it back in when I, when I went back to bed. So I wake up the next morning and I have no water. I just remember, remember like I was like screw my life right now no water. Covid had to be up to chase off bears, all this other shit. I was like this is stupid. Why did we even come out on this planet?
Speaker 1:You're right, that's funny, man. It's funny. There's nothing about that story that is good. It is all miserable things. And here you are laughing about it. And that's what I love about hunting stories, because it's just like it's just the most suck you've ever experienced and it's just a great memory that you have. Man, that's all. That's a great story, oh so I was.
Speaker 2:This is probably the worst story I I have, like I've like things going wrong. So later later that week and I actually I don't think I've told this story so we shoot a deer and the deer runs off and it wasn't me that shot. We had a Tyler had some friends of his come out, so it was like it was a kid. He shot it, I hit it, but it didn't make a good shot. So I the kid stays with Cody, which was the cameraman I go and find that deal and then, instead of just shooting it again because I have custom loads in my gun, so like I don't know, like eight dollars a shot, uh, so they're expensive, uh, and I was like, instead of instead of shooting it again, I'm just gonna stab it.
Speaker 2:Well, again, it's like it's in the negatives, right, I take my knife and I stab it the first time, stab it the second time and then the third time I stab it. My hands are bloody but my hands are so cold I can't really feel much. That knife hits that rib and my index finger slides over the blade and cuts it as deep as can be. I remember doing that. I was like, oh fuck, and I look, and I can just see everything in my finger right good, that's the week after get the bear yeah, so this is the same week, this is all in the same hunt with that bear charge.
Speaker 2:So this is like. This is like a cartoon war. There's like literally the worst. That week just had to be jigs or something, because I've never had so much stuff go wrong inside of a week. So that happens. So I'm looking at it like oh crap. So I carry electrical tape on my gun and then I ended up cutting part of my jacket off and taking the insulation Because it was really deep, the skull was huge, put it on there, wrap it as tight as I can with electrical tape and then finish dealing with the deer and then go back to camp and dealing with you mean like you process the whole deer or you just finished expelling the deer uh, no, like I didn't process the deer, but I cut it up.
Speaker 2:I could put it in my backpack and okay, and take it back. Um, so you know, you just call it on and out. Um, uh, pretty much according the ribs. I don't know if you just call it on and out pretty much according to the ribs. I don't know if you've seen that it's like where you take all the meat off the ribs without pulling the did all that, got back and then so my buddy is a houndsman and he's just across the the ocean. It's called Wells Pass, so he's six miles. He's just got to hop in his boat and come. Well, houndsmen, if you know any of them, they have to patch up their dogs all the time, stuff like that. And I'm looking at this cut and I'm like this thing is deep, it needs to be stitched or stapled. So I text Aaron on my inReach and I'm like, hey, I was a retard, like I totally just like almost cut my finger off yeah if it would.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like I need you to come stitch this thing up. Um, so he upset his boat, drives over there this is the like dark, right. So it's like I think this is like 10 o'clock at night. Now he comes over, uh, he's got a really cool landing craft, he beaches it, and so I hop on the boat and Cody's there and he breaks. He's enjoying himself, right? His nickname for me was Hollywood, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:So we're like we're going to see how tough you are, Hollywood.
Speaker 2:Like oh boy. So he breaks out like it was either peroxide or alcohol or something like that.
Speaker 1:Something that stung like hell yeah.
Speaker 2:So he's just sitting there and he has this big scrubby brush right and he just starts dumping this peroxide and scrubbing deep into the cut while he's doing it. So instead I was like I ain't going to scream and I ain't going to cut. So I just started singing Amarillo by morning because I was like, so yeah, he does that, scrubs it up, and then uh, and then he staples it. Right. I think it was like seven or eight staples, staples, staples, staples, staple, uh. So my finger's uh fixed right, so then I I wrap it up fixed is a relative term for that caleb, but okay, sure it's fixed yeah, well, yeah, it's stapled up so now hopefully you're.
Speaker 2:So I wrap it funny enough with toilet paper to give it some cushion and then I tape it back up with electrical tape because we still got like five more days of hunting. Um, so I finished the five days of hunting with my finger like this, and the story gets better Is that on your shooting hand or your offhand? Shooting hand so it was my right hand.
Speaker 1:And it's your trigger finger.
Speaker 2:You might be able to see the skull there, yeah. So I was like if I got a shoot, I'll have to shoot with my middle finger, which you know you can do it, yeah. So that was a pain. So then that hunt's done, it was good, we got some foxes, got some deer. So then I was like, well, I need to get these stake boats pulled out.
Speaker 2:So I'm back in Anchorage and this guy is an awesome guy. I appreciate him giving the time to try to help me. But I messaged one of the doctors there in town that does. I think he was like a pretty attrition, like he was a kid's doctor. Okay, so he didn't have a ton of experience with, like you know, taking staples out and stuff, but I'm like he's a doctor, he probably has his stuff, so he makes some time. I go there and he has the staple pulls right and he goes to take the first staple out, but he had it upside down. So when you do it upside down, it actually fish hooks the staple back into your finger and then back out. So instead of like open it up, like that right, it shuts it, like this. So he fish hooks and I'm like holy cow. And then he's like well, that was weird, let me try that again. He does it again.
Speaker 1:Fish hooks into my hand again.
Speaker 2:I'm like something that right. He's like, oh, I'm gonna try to pull this out. So then he grabs a pair of like doctor pliers and he's grabbing the staple and he's trying to pull it out. Why it's fish hooked in my hand. I can just see this cut, reopening again and I'm like, oh, and I, I, you, I was. Finally. I'm like, hey, I got this. I'm like, doc, I got this. I'm like I need a pair of snips because I like, so I give them a list of the stuff that I need. Uh, so they end up finding a big toenail clipper. So I took the toenail clipper and snipped the the two fish hook staples that are now in my hand into a few different pieces so I could pull them out piece by piece.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh. And then I took the staples. I was like Doc, I got this man. So then I took the staple pulls and did it the correct way up and then pulled the remaining staples out, and then my finger was good, but that was a rodeo.
Speaker 1:Dude gosh. That guy is probably like, yeah, I'm going to stick Indian staples out and then my finger was good, but that was, that was a rodeo. Dude gosh. That guy is probably like, yeah, I'm gonna stick to kids, I'm gonna stick to being a pediatrician. That's gosh. That's. That's a crazy story, man. So, um, and you were guiding that whole time, is that why you're out there? Or at that point, were you just hunting with friends? Because, it said, you had a couple friends?
Speaker 2:that was just hunting with friends. Okay, yeah, I was all all finished up with guiding. At that point we're like, oh, let's do this hunt. At the end of it and it was kind of funny because, like, you know, guiding, uh, everything you know, pretty much the whole season went perfect, uh.
Speaker 2:And then the hunt that we decided we're gonna we're gonna stay one more week and go hunt deer and help these kids get their deer, and I didn't. I was originally going to hunt for myself, but then we ended up Tyler had his friends come out that had these kids. So we ended up kind of funny. I was like at the end of it I was like why in the hell did I agree to this? Because instead of hunting for myself, I ended up practically helping these kids get their deer. The kids were like, so so thankful, like not really thankful, yeah, um. So I at the end of it, I'm like I helped these brass get and then I almost cut my finger off. And then I'm like why did I do this? And I didn't get paid for it. I'm like why did I do?
Speaker 1:this? That's crazy, man. And how long? How long did you have like the, the COVID headache and all that? Was it just a day or two, or was that like a tough week of just like struggling through all that?
Speaker 2:It was about three days and then we were back. Yeah, it was early on. I don't know if it was what strand it would have been, but it was about a day and a half where it was a terrible, like probably one of the worst headaches I've had in my life, but after that it was good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when the bear came in, you said you were in a four-person tent. Was there just the two of you in there, or were there guys in the tent while the two of you went outside?
Speaker 2:No, so there was only three guys total. So there was Tyler, myself and then Cody. Cody came in after Jordan left to take photos and stuff. So yeah, cody was overhand to the left hand side of the tent If you're facing the door. I was on the back hand side of the tent and Tyler was sleeping by the door. Um, so then we all got out. Okay, cody was, you know, he was just kind of over there and then to me and Tyler dealt with the dealt with the bear. So luckily that's worst case scenario. That's worst case scenario. I'm so glad that sal like veered off, because that would have been, that would have been miserable if we would have had to the dumple, because then the cubs were small, they probably had to put the cubs down and all that stuff. So I'm glad she, yeah, didn't fully commit, because that would have sucked. That would have made that that week even more of a clusterfrophob.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That did go right there.
Speaker 1:Right, I was going to think like if the tent was between you she would have destroyed your tent and all the gear inside, maybe even land on top of it. When you guys shot her right and like then it's negative six degrees and what do you do? I don't know. I don't know what you do in that situation, but that the closest call. No, give me another one, because I'd love to hear another grizzly story. Those things terrify me for sure.
Speaker 2:So we were up uh on the alaska peninsula barrel hunting and I just tagged uh a barrel hunter out the week before with a really nice big brown barrel uh. And then. So brown barrel. For people that don't know, you have uh brown bear grizzly bear.
Speaker 2:They're same subspecies but brown bears live by the coast, so they like about two feet bigger and about 400 pounds bigger for the large ones, huh, and then you have, uh, the grizzly bear, which uh lives inland, and a really big grizzly bear was like 10 foot. Uh, excuse me, really big grizzly bear was like eight foot. Really big brown bear was like 10 foot and you me, really big grizzly bear was like eight foot. Really big brown bear was like 10 foot and you can get something like it a little bit bigger than that, but that's, on average, what a what a big species, just different habitat and diet, basically exactly yeah, okay, that's cool.
Speaker 1:I did not know that however many thousand years.
Speaker 2:Yep, so. So we're brown bear, so they're bigger bears hunting them, so get a really big brown bear. And then I uh taking this next guy out hunting. We had like four days. He was with another guy, something didn't gel there or whatever, so I was tagged out, I was done. So the outfitter just had me go with this guy. So then whatever conflict was going on could be done. Guy's a friend with me right now, a good guy.
Speaker 2:But we h hike this mountain. Uh, well, a, we get, leave camp, we cross this river. Uh, get up, hike this mountain. And we're up on the top of the mountain where we can see a good ways, and I'm like this should be a good, good little cruise way for bears. Uh, so he said sound a second. I was like I'm gonna go walk this 150 yards over here just to peek off that side. So we know if we want to go that way or if we want to go this way. So I go off there and as I'm coming around, you know when you get in the mountains how you can see like 30 yards in front of you and then you can see like 400 yards in front of you. But that little dip that happens is all like. You don't know what's over there, till you get over that ledge yeah yeah, uh.
Speaker 2:So I'm walking and then next thing I know I hear a rock tumble right. So I'm like, well, something's coming. So I jack at the around end uh, and it's uh, two big caribou, one little caribou, and they are hauling ass and they run like 10 yards from me, uh, and there's boom, boom, boom past me and they're looking at me like you're about to get fucked up and they do not slow down at all like they did not care about me. So I'm like, oh boy, uh it's. You know, you know a barrel of wolfs are coming, um, so I, I had time, it's probably like a five to seven second um in between. So I, I take steps backwards and give myself a little bit more of a cushion. I I enough.
Speaker 2:I pull my phone out, right, and I have this whole part of this on video. I can send it to you after this, perfect. So I pull my phone out and I'm like videoing, right, because I'm, like you know, most of the time a bear, like 98% of the time, bears run off when you yell at them, right, but this bear was in cure mode, so I yell at him. Right, but this bear was in cure mode, so I yell at him, the uh. Actually I creep down because I'm hoping the bear just keeps chasing the caribou and just go past me, um, but as soon as he comes around, I kind of crouch down. He stops and looks straight at me. He, uh. So he's looking at me. So I stand up and start yelling. I'm like, hey bear, hey bear, uh.
Speaker 2:And then I'm you know, I have it on video, so I'm videoing the bear because the bear's, just, you know, probably gonna turn around and run off. Um, and then you see him do this and he shifts his weight. I dropped the phone because when he shifted that was actually him, like coming running straight at me. So the phone lands, uh, straight up, filming the bear's running, and I remember, like pulling this gun up and the bear's 10 yards away from me, coming full out. I have my crosshairs right on his head, uh.
Speaker 2:And last second, I'm like maybe, maybe I can, because he's running up here. I'm like I'm gonna send this round and that rock in front of his face. So then all that rock and frag would come up and hit his face. So then he would, you know, he's either gonna die or he's gonna spin around and run off. But if I shoot him in the face. He's for sure dead. And we're in a federal area. So if that would have happened, that would have ruined that guy's hunt, because then the feds would have had to come in. You know, they would have done a little like a little investigation.
Speaker 2:We would have been 100 of the rights, but it still would have been a video yeah, yeah, it took up the rest of his hunt though, though, so I'm like I'm going to send this. Looking back, I'll finish the story and then I'll circle back. So I pull the crosshairs right down at that rock, squeeze it around the rock. It hits the rock, frags. You see, the bear literally does like a little somersault deal and then takes off running because I was let bullet hit that rock and and debris and stuff splashed into his face. So Bear turns around and runs.
Speaker 2:I picked the phone up and you can see it running around. But that was close, because, looking back, I should have just dumped his ass, because it wasn't a bluff charge, he was coming, and if that didn't have that effect he would have ran through me. And then at that point you're gonna hold onto your rifle, because usually what they do is they run through you and come back to maria. So the next shot would have been, you know, point blank range of him circling back to you on your ass.
Speaker 2:Come get me or yeah yeah, yeah, but uh, fun times, yeah, yeah, I remember how to because like during it I was super calm, uh, dealt with it.
Speaker 2:But it was kind of funny, like and I still was calm afterwards, like it's funny enough because the guy tried to hire me after this happened, because he's seen it all happen from like 150 yards up here on the hill, but because you top your gun off right.
Speaker 2:This is a mistake that I see a lot of hunters make. Actually, they'll shoot and then they'll go, like you know, go try to track the animal, but they didn't top their gun off. So, like, the first thing you want to do after you shoot, before you go track or do anything, is take that empty casing off and put another round in it, because you know, a bolt-action rifle only carries three underneath if it's a magnum cartridge, three underneath and one on the tube. So you want to have your gun topped off. So I remember, uh, pulling that round off and topping it off and it was, uh, it was a drop plate so you have to feed it in from the bottom. And I remember I said to myself I was like you fucking fingers walk because there's enough of adrenaline down my spine.
Speaker 2:Dexterity was like get in there, you, son of a I remember being pissed at myself because that general jump made my fingers just slightly network and I I you know I hopped up, ran up the hill. I was like well, that was wild mark. And mark was like holy fuck, I thought you were dead. And then I was like dude. I was like yeah, you know what happens. He's like you want a job. I'm like, uh, I was like why, he's like your ability to handle stress is through the roof, because I was like cracking jokes about it. I don't care.
Speaker 1:Uh, what kind of job did he offer you? Is he a guide as well? Or was he offering you like a receptionist job? Like what was he?
Speaker 2:offering you. So he had at the time had one of the largest snow plowing operations in New York City.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So he was like doing something up there, like performing or something, and I was like I don't want to be in New York City, yeah, but yeah, it was fun times. Yeah, because like when those situations happen, you're like drill and dump is just awesome, it's a ton of fun.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know if we have the same definition of fun, caleb, but all right, man, that's a great, that's a crazy story.
Speaker 2:I've had a couple folks that have dealt with.
Speaker 1:Brie Grizzly Bears on the podcast. One guy actually got attacked and the only reason he survived. He hit a high frame on his back and, uh, the bear swiped at him, at his head, and it hit the frame. So instead of the bear claw hitting his head and basically taking it off it you know it's tied to his torso it basically knocked him down was?
Speaker 1:it was his name ben no, no no, he shot himself in the leg later in this story, so I don't know if you heard about that so different, no, no, so different guy.
Speaker 2:This was a kid, I think. He was from Wyoming and he was a packer and this was like 2019. And he was packing out a moose and I was guiding for the outfitter and he was packing out a moose and similar story. He had a big Barney's frame and then he had a moose and similar story. He had a big barney's frame and then he had a moose cord on the back of it and the bear uh bear came up and we thought he was lying because he was a little bit lazy. So, like, why is he not responding and why is he not like getting back? So we thought it was just, you know, ben was being lazy, um, well, well, anyways, it turned out that, uh, and we, even after hearing it, he, he's like dude, I got attacked by a bear and this is all like in reach messages, right. And we're like yeah, whatever, ben, you full of shit. Uh and sure, like it showed off his backpack, the top flap of the backpack they were.
Speaker 2:You could see where a bear came up behind him in this flap and there's this claw marks it cut his backpack and he fell forward and he had and he had his 10 millimeter, he started shooting behind him, um, so we don't know if he hit the barrel or not, uh. But you're like well then you won't lie, because we that we know you're not that creative to make that backpack look that good like a male, uh. So yeah, it was kind of wild. So I was wondering if it was the same guy.
Speaker 1:This guy was in alaska. Him and his dad were out there, tall grass and, like you know, when they realized they were next to the mama bear, it's like 10 yards, something like that and it came after his dad. He pulled his rifle or his pistol out, shot, pivoted to him, knocked him on his ass. His dad was like a former police officer, so like like wildlife police officer, so his dad had like the perfect training to be the guy there with him. Dad unloads his clip, he's unloading his clip as the bears on top of him. He ends up putting a round in his own leg, um, and just a crazy story. Crazy story, um. But other than his own self-inflicted wound, he got got out of there pretty good. The bear, however, did not Like 20 plus rounds in the bear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a pretty wild story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah, I saw him on Instagram or something. I was like I got to talk to this guy. But dude, your stories are phenomenal, caleb. I don't know Any other come to mind, as you've been telling us the horrors of Alaska Any other that have come to mind as you've been telling us the horrors of Alaska.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's always times where, like bears come into camp. So here's another one. I'm making coffee, right, so it's 4 o'clock in the morning, making coffee in my tent. I just got up and went out and grabbed the water that I had hung up on the deal. So I grabbed the water brought in the coffee in the tent, cause it's kind of like chilly, windy morning and I start hearing noise over there, kind of like where the water was so I think it's his name is Michael. Michael, is the hunter a good guy? So I was like, hey, michael, if you're looking for the water, I brought it into my tent. And then next I hear, hear what? And the what's coming from inside of his tent. Yeah, over here. And I still hear the noise like right here, like where the water was hanging out. So like, oh boy.
Speaker 2:So I got my rifle jack would end and unzip my force to unzip the rain fly and I poked my head out with my rifle and the barrel is uh, trying to drag some of our stuff off and he's like three feet. So like he's three feet from my face and my face is three feet from him and I look at him, he looks at me like you asshole. And then he, you know, drags the stuff. So I get out of the tent and I'm like, uh, I walk over to to Michael's tent and I got my gun. I was like, hey, michael, you wanna? Uh. One thing you don't do is like you know you don't want someone to panic. And I got my gun. I was like, hey, michael, you want to? Uh, one thing you don't do is like you know you don't want someone to panic.
Speaker 2:And I didn't know Michael at the time. Just, you know, just very first time I've done with him. Uh, I'm like, hey, michael, you want to grab your gun and come out here. And he's like voice, because you don't want to panic someone. Um. So he on, zips his tent and like I can see the, the bear. The bear is like 15 yards over here. And I got videos of all this too, like my iphone, I don't know how you have like mental ability to go.
Speaker 1:I should record this in these situations because all I could do is like maybe get my gun and shit myself like that's what I'd be able to do well, you get used to it after a while.
Speaker 2:But this is the funny thing, right? Michael's a big guy. He's like six foot four Big guy, maybe even taller than that. Onsip comes out and stands up right, scratches out. He's like what? And he doesn't have his gun and all I do is Holy shit. I'm like yeah, yeah, grab your gun.
Speaker 2:Oh, man so he's gotta go back in his tit, grab his gun and then come out like, uh, so, yeah, so he gets his gun, he's got a full 16 rig bi my 375. Uh, long story short, the bear wasn't running away, so I ended up having to get a stick and like chuck it and hit him with it. Um, and then the bear finally like gives up and looks at me like you asshole, and then slowly walks off another brown.
Speaker 2:Okay, but still brown, right, yeah, okay yeah, brown bear, so yeah, so he ends up. That guy ends up shooting a really big bear, like three days later. But the bear that came in in the camp was like a juvenile eight footer, um, so still really big bear, like would screw you up in a in a fight, uh. But uh wasn't one that we wanted to shoot if we could avoid it. Yeah, because it wasn't. You know, it's not like that big old bear that we were looking for so what was in the stuff he was trying to steal?
Speaker 1:what was in there that was like enticing? Was there like deodorant or something that had some aroma that had him interested in that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so on Alaska Peninsula it's very windswept so you don't have any trees, right, so everything you have is in bear-proof boxes. So he was trying to drag off one of the bear-proof boxes and get into it. So it's not like some spots on kodiak and other places in alaska. You have those big trees where you can climb up and put your food in the tree, but the alaska peninsula there's. There's nothing like that. You have 10 foot autos and that's that's it okay, okay, that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1:all right, I was wondering what was in that bag, or like, what mistake was made, what granola bar was accidentally left in somebody's pocket, or something like that. So, man, three feet, I don't even know what I would do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like right there. I was like, yeah, it's kind of funny because you judge bears. Bears are a lot like people. There's only a few of the crazy crackheads that might stab you. Right Like there's only a few bears.
Speaker 1:More recently than in previous years.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I get like there's only a few bears, more recently than in previous you know years, but yeah, I get what you're saying. So you're trying not turning the crackhead bears, exactly, yeah, you got to watch out for the ones that like tweaking that might stab you, but the majority of them fall into like either curious or scared bears, right. So like, uh, just kind of like with with people. Right, you have some people that are like seeing anything they don't like they're gonna run away, you away. You have the curious bear, which this bear was a curious bear.
Speaker 2:He wasn't acting. I mean, he could have turned aggressive, but he wasn't acting aggressive, he just wanted all stuff. And then you have the bears that you know might kill you, like that one that was running up and charging, like he was. He was in kill mode, he didn't care what he eat, was gonna eat, he was hungry, uh. So like that's kind of what you gotta classify bears and you gotta judge that really quickly because you know last thing you want to do as a hunter, especially in the lower 48, is just go around shooting bears that don't need to be shot.
Speaker 2:Yeah and you know self-defense. You hear, I hear stories all the time of guys telling bear attack stories and he's like, yeah, the bear was standing up and coming at me. As soon as I say that, you know they fall to shit, because a bear doesn't attack you by standing up. Right when a bear stands up on its hind legs, it's smelling, trying to figure out what's going on. It's not attacking you. If the bear was head down, it was pinned back running at you. That's a bear that's attacking. Um, so that's you know. As, as people go out and get into the back country and go to the bear country, uh, understanding like the characteristics of what the bear is doing is is really important because yeah, uh, yeah, we don't want to shoot bears that don't need to be shot for sure I'm all for shooting bears.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in due time, right, but okay. So I've seen some videos of bears running. It's terrifying For how big they are. They move so damn fast. But the question I want to ask you is, like, how often are they not curious and scared? Like you know, one out of 10, you got to worry about. One out of 50, you got to worry about one out of 50, you got to worry about? Or like, how often when you run to a bear and it's aware of you, is there going to be an issue?
Speaker 2:and just anecdotal, you know from your personal experience evidence yeah for sure, Probably, probably two out of 10, maybe like. But mainly that is like is there cubs with them? If the bear is a solo bear with no cubs, typically they would just take off, and that's probably. If it's a solo bear, no cubs, it's probably like two out of 50. If there's a mama bear with cubs, then you know that changes the dynamic where it's like probably, yeah, two out of ten. If it's a mama bear with cubs, you've got to just deal with it differently. If there's a mama bear with cubs and you know there's a mama bear with cubs, just don't even go in there, right? Just do like a huge, wide berth, Don't even chance it, because best case scenario, last thing you want to do is dlp a mama with uh, with cups.
Speaker 1:yeah okay, that makes sense, man. Okay, well, I don't know what other stories you got. Let me ask this do you have any that are like different species or or sketchy, but without a bear being involved? I'd love to hear something like that, if you have anything. If not, if then something else just pops your mind, just throw a story at it, doesn't matter yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:So there's one time I was working for this guy that was, honestly, he's kind of a retard, um kind of, but but somehow.
Speaker 1:Somehow he had a lot of money yeah he's got this big was he a client or was he the the? Um, okay, got it yeah, he's the outfitter.
Speaker 2:This was back a while back ago. So we're taking a boat from Kodiak around Forest Pass and up to King Salmon for fishing. It's a big 70-something foot tender and there was no one was going out right, because there was a storm coming in and we shouldn't have gone out, but the guy again was a retard. So we're out and the Kupanoff Strait is where Kodiak and the Alaska Peninsula is. It's known to be a very dangerous stretch of ground to go through, so that's where we find ourselves in that area when a storm's coming through. So I remember being in this huge boat like 70 some boats, not a little boat and being in these swells. Will that you go down into? The next swell is coming and you're looking up at it like you can no longer see the horizons. The swell is way taller than that and every now and then you'd have two swells that was kind of stacked together and you'd come down and you'd hit the next one and the bow would like the, the splash would go up and over the crow's nest and I'll send you a photo of how big this boat is to give you perspective. But just insane, uh, swallows, uh. So we're going through and like we're fighting through the swallows and you know we probably should have a few times gone down, because sometimes, like we, you know, you're trying to walk the boat through these swells, right, because you don't want to be at an angle, and then sometimes, like you're hitting them in, like the boats rocking like this right, like, yeah, the boat rocks, and you're looking down that's should be a flat floor. You're looking down at at your buddy over there and he's like way underneath you, because that's how much of an angle you're at from that boat rocking. Uh, so luckily, uh, luckily, we didn't die. Um, we, we make it through, uh, through that storm, uh, but I just remember it was just like it was a wild ride, uh, getting through that.
Speaker 2:And then that next day, because he, after the storm went off, uh, the guy I won't say his name, but the guy plotted the, the autopilot course, right, because you can, you can do that on a boat. And uh, um, that that evening, um, there's a few guys and you switch off a rear watch, right, well, that evening I, uh, I, I wake up because it's my turn to take, uh, take levi's spot, and I think levi fell asleep, um, so I woke him up. I was like, hey, I got you and, anyways, what wouldn't? As soon as I take over, because I took over ollie, because I got up ollie, because I was kind of like worried about, like, what was going on, especially about that night before I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 2:Um, so I got the wheel watch and I'm looking and look through my binos and I'm like, is that a freaking? You know, is that a freaking rock? Like a few hundred yards up ahead, uh, like you know, something that was looking like it was popping up, and I was like what the hell? So I zoomed into the map and he, uh, the guy, plotted the course straight into this rock cropping that if, if, if I didn't catch it with the binos and zoom into the map, cause then I was like, oh shit, so I, you know, cause, instead of like having a big wheel, right it's, actually you could steal the boat with like this little knob of like a CD player, um, so I fuck, so I dial it, we go, fuck, so I dial it, we go, you know, go around. It literally plotted it right through that rock cropping.
Speaker 2:So if, uh, if I wouldn't caught that or someone else didn't catch it, we were, we all would have died right, because it's like 40 degree water yeah so if you hit that, that raft, uh, that rock boat sinks, uh, if we don't have time, we probably wouldn't have had time to get the life raft out and stuff in time we go into that water. The soul line's a mile, that way we ain't swimming a mile in 40-degree water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no way.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that was another time where you get through things. I was young at the time. I think I was probably 20, 20, 21, something like that. I was younger at the time, think I was probably 20, 20, 21, some, something like that. I was younger at the time and you just live in your lawn, right, uh, and you start learning.
Speaker 2:If someone's a retard, say something like in a way, like, don't let them be in charge of things yeah, that might be yeah yeah, yeah for sure, like, and even if the guy that you are working for is a retard and it's in a dangerous environment, you got to figure out how to manage that. But you can't just trust that guy just because you're working for him. Yeah, because you know you can die quick. You know we're not that tough as a species. Pretty easy for us to get sent on to the next life.
Speaker 1:So we don't want that to happen if we can avoid it, Even in hunting camp, like here in Colorado, much lower stakes than anything you're doing right.
Speaker 1:But, I don't let stupid people come to camp because I'm like, hey, you could do something dumb and get us all killed. And it's lower stakes than a 70-foot boat off the coast of Alaska or camping out on Kodiak Island or whatever it is. You got to surround yourself by people that are, at a minimum, competent, so that's a good story. I don't. I can't even imagine that storm you were telling me about in that big boat. That's like one of my biggest nightmares. Like I, I I'm comfortable on boats. I've been on lots of boats in the ocean in, you know the the Puget sound all over the all over the country. But dude, you know the Puget Sound all over the country.
Speaker 2:But, dude, big rolling waves freak me out. Big swells, Because you're hopeless, right? You're just sitting there, can't sleep, can't do nothing. You're just getting rocked to death. Yeah, and you're trying to do your best to keep the storm pointed in the right direction, but it's just you know he's got to wait it out it sucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was wild. I'll send you a photo of the boat. That was one time I didn't really get any videos of the storm because I was like, oh boy, I think I might have one somewhere, but I for sure have a photo of the boat. That was a wild ride.
Speaker 1:I'm just glad to hear that something rattled you, caleb, because I was starting to think you weren't a human being anymore, like ah, but good bear or brown bear, three feet from my face. So finally, something made you go, oh, this is fucked. So that's. I appreciate that you can feel the just the intensity of some of these situations that you've shared with us today. Man, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's like the funny thing is like, when people ask me like what? Because then people will be like Like. When people ask me like what? Because then people will be like, well, what's the scariest thing? And everyone thinks it's bears and I'm like, well, I mean, if a bear comes at you when you're in your tent, that is like really scary to me. But if I'm up and I have my gun, I'm betting on me. I shoot a lot, like I'm pretty good with my gun. I'm betting on me than the bear.
Speaker 2:But if you're in a boat in a really big storm, or if you're in a plane and fog or something rolls in, uh, it's, it's scary, like it's, it's really scary. I got there's been a few times I've been in a, in a plane, and like clouds just closed up around us and you just, you know, like thinking, oh, this is gonna be hard on my mom, you know. I mean because you're like we're flying in the mountains, like we think you know, that's the gap, but there could be a mountain there. We can't see anything. Uh, that that will make you like it doesn't really make you, it doesn't make me panic, but it just makes me like huh yeah not how I expected to die, but here we go and you gotta trust that guy.
Speaker 1:I assume you're not the pilot, or were you piloting? No yeah, so now you're taking your entire life. I mean like this is the sketchiest shit I can think of and that guy holds my hand or my life in his hands. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a weird feeling. You're like dang, see what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. Well, we're about up on time, Caleb. I can go longer if you want to, if you have another story that's come to mind and you want to share it. Otherwise we can wrap things up, man, your call.
Speaker 2:Let's wrap them up, and then maybe we can do it again at some point in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd love to. Tell us some more Perfect man. Well then, let's do this. Why don't you share where the people can find you if you want them to?
Speaker 2:I don't know if you want to share your social. They type in my name, it'll pop up the I I do. I make hunting film sometimes. So if you just type in caleb, uh, with the c, and then stillians is spelled s-t-i-l-l-i-a-n-s, it should pull up everything that I, everything that I got going on on the old googles and instagram and that stuff. So, uh, perfect, yeah, perfect yeah. You guys want to check out some of those videos and hunts and all that stuff. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I'll make sure to put links to everything in the show notes. Make it really easy for everybody to find you. But, kayla man, this was fun. It was two years in the making. But, uh, great stories, brother. I really appreciate it. You've got got me rattled. I'm not going to bed anytime soon, I'll tell you that?
Speaker 2:I hope not. It's in the middle of the day, that's also true. That's also true All right, man.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks again. I appreciate you coming on. Thank you, man. All right guys. Thanks again for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. I've got a couple of new stories in the books. I really do appreciate Caleb for coming on. The podcast Couldn't have done it without him. Sorry, it took so long to get those stories from him, guys, but we'll definitely have him back on. I feel like he's got a whole bunch of stories that we didn't even get to. He kind of just stayed basically in the brown bear realm for this episode. So, caleb, thank you again. Please, guys, check him out. I got links to everything in the show notes. Everything you need is right there. Um, then, once again, whatever you're listening to us on, please give us a review. Helps us out a lot. Also, share us with one person, and thank you, guys. Now get out there and make some stories of your own.
