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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 146 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Brendan Bramford
The line between determination and recklessness blurs in this captivating episode featuring Brendan Bramford, a hunter whose life story spans continents and carries the weight of generations of hunting tradition. Born in Zimbabwe where his father worked as a professional hunter, Brendan's earliest memories include riding in Land Cruisers on safari before his family fled political violence that claimed their home.
Brendan's storytelling prowess shines as he recounts his first black bear harvest in Washington—a tale that begins with him answering nature's call behind camp and spotting what he thought was a burnt stump until it started moving. With his pants literally down, he managed to make the shot of a lifetime, creating a hunting memory equal parts successful and embarrassing.
The heart of the episode centers on Brendan's remarkable elk hunt where stubborn determination overcame physical limitations. Just three days before a planned five-day backcountry archery hunt, Brendan severely sliced his forearm open, requiring extensive stitches. Against medical advice and common sense, he proceeded with the hunt, hiking eight miles into the wilderness with an 82-pound pack and his arm freshly bandaged. When the moment came to draw on his first bull elk, the searing pain nearly derailed the opportunity—but Brendan persevered through multiple shots and tracking to harvest his first archery elk.
The episode closes with sobering stories of Brendan's family history hunting dangerous game in Africa, including his father being run over by a Cape buffalo and a family friend's recent horrific mauling by a leopard. These tales serve as powerful reminders of nature's raw power and the risks some hunters accept in pursuit of their passion.
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Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we got another great episode for you today. Today, what are the odds? We have another listener who reached out saying hey man, I would love to connect and tell your listeners some of my stories. So today I want to introduce you to Brendan Bramford. Brendan has some awesome stories for us today.
Speaker 2:I don't want to steal too much of his thunder, so I'll just say this real quick If you guys are listening to this right now, go ahead and give us a like, give us a subscribe and follow whatever it is on, whatever platform you're on, please. It helps us out and helps more people find us. Beyond that, guys share us with one person, and now let's let Brendan go ahead and tell you some of his stories. Thank you, person. And now let's let Brendan go ahead and tell you some of his stories, thank you. All right, brendan.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Brother, how are you Good? How are you? I am great man. I'm glad to have you here. You, sir, are, I believe, a listener and you reached out saying I have some stories, and then you sent me a shit ton of photos and I was like, holy shit, I have to talk to this guy. So I'm excited to hear what those photos are for, because I don't like to hear the stories. So you sent that. We just left it at that. We scheduled some time and I think we're going to have a good one today, man, so I'm excited to talk with you. That being said, why don't you and to the folks, so they know who they're hearing some stories from today?
Speaker 3:Well, my name is Brendan Bramford. I was born in Zimbabwe, africa, and currently live in Twin Falls, idaho. I've been hunting since about six months old. My dad was a professional hunter in Zimbabwe oh cool. So as soon as I could ride with him and my mom in the Land Cruiser, I was hunting with them and going on their hunt. So pretty much from there I've been a hunter ever since that's awesome man.
Speaker 2:So what age did you move away from Zimbabwe? I was about four years old, four years old. Okay, what was the catalyst man? What made your dad and mom go? Okay, let's leave Africa, and I've assumed Idaho knows where they went next. But what happened?
Speaker 3:So they had a big change in their government where they were reconfiscating land from white farmers, and so they burnt down our house and our farm that we had there in Zimbabwe.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And my grandparents actually lived in Washington, so we moved out there with them for a few years and I moved from there to Colorado and then my wife actually was from Twin Falls, so we moved back here after a couple of years and this is where we've been ever since.
Speaker 2:Awesome, man, awesome. That's crazy that they just burned your shit down. I've heard of stuff like that. I've never met anyone that was actually affected by it and I also have a buddy that is in South Africa and I asked him about that a while ago and he's like it's not as bad as you would think, and so I'm always curious to hear about that because it's kind of like an inverse of the rest of the world. That's not why we're here. We're not for geopolitical conversations, screw that man.
Speaker 2:We're here to hear some hunting stories. So, brendan, I know you came with a few prepared. Why don't you set the stage for the first one man?
Speaker 3:Well, I had heard in some of your recent podcasts or I guess it was probably ones from earlier on that you wanted the story of getting caught with your pants down and harvesting an animal.
Speaker 3:I had one. That was pretty good. It was actually my first black bear in Washington, oh really. So, yep, so this was in 2014. I think I was either a sophomore or a junior in high school and I was hunting with my dad, a buddy of mine from high school, and his stepdad, and it was, I think, opening weekend of deer hunting, which black bear season coincides with that. So we always had, you know, a bear tag and a mountain lion tag, just in case you saw something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but we had left that morning or I guess I should start with driving in the night before coming into camp.
Speaker 3:We had seen some deer in camp, so we were getting pretty excited about you know, having some early morning action and woke up the next morning and, of course, you know washington, it's always pouring rain, so all morning long it was pouring down cats and dogs. So about 11 o'clock we decided to head back to camp, take a break, dry off and go up a different side of the mountain. On our way back to camp, it was raining so hard that we had to stop because we were just getting absolutely drenched. So we stopped under a tree, had a fire, ate some lunch and the weather cleared up just a little bit. So we were only 400 yards down the road from camp. So we hustled back into camp, took off our packs, set them down by the truck and my buddy sat in his chair, took a breather from hiking all morning and I needed to go use the restroom to call the wild. So I started walking off behind the tent and thought to myself well, we saw some deer that night before, so I should probably grab my rifle.
Speaker 3:So I grabbed my rifle and walked about 10 yards behind the tent and relieving myself and I looked up and there was this log that had fallen over a few years before and we had been at this campsite for a number of years. And I looked up and I noticed the stump at the base was really black and I don't I was like man. I don't remember that stump ever being burnt. I wonder if someone lit a fire on there or, you know, got struck by lightning. Well, now the stump started to move down the hill and midstream. I yell over at my buddy. Well, not yell quietly, kind of say hey.
Speaker 2:Connor get over here.
Speaker 3:There's a black bear and he's like no, there's not, You're just messing with me. Because we're sitting in camp. This bear is only 30 yards from our camp. 40 yards no way I wish I was ever that lucky Just walking down the hill.
Speaker 3:So he starts getting up real slow and grabs his rifle and is walking over I was ever that lucky Just walking down the hill. So he starts getting up real slow and grabs his rifle and is walking over. Well, I wasn't going to wait for him forever. So I pick up my rifle Still using the restroom because I was more worried about shooting the bear at this point Loaded around in, took a shot and hit her right behind the shoulder and she dropped to the ground, did a big 360, and jumped up. Well, at this point he starts to realize that I'm not joking, as previously thought. So he runs over there and by this time she's made it about five yards up the hill when he gets there and so he starts shooting with me.
Speaker 3:I missed the second shot and hit a tree because there's a lot of little saplings out there, yeah, and I split one of the saplings. I think he shot over it because he didn't have his first round hit. Okay, we both reload, my third round, his second round. We both hit right behind the shoulder again and she dropped right there and turned towards us. I mean, she's only 40 yards so you can see her pretty clear and with all the morning rain and stuff, she let out her death roar and you could see the mist come out of her mouth and that's crazy. It was a pretty cool experience. Yeah, of course we're excited and we go for a high five. And he said hey, man, before the high five you need to, you need to put some little Jimmy away and finish up.
Speaker 2:That's too good man, that's too funny. Oh yeah, I just assume someday I'll have my pants down and an animal will walk up. It's happened when I don't have my weapon. I just need to make sure I always have my weapon on me. But that's a a funny story and I'm glad your friend had you put it away. I, I. This is not a hunting story, but it reminds me of another story. Um, and I'll tell it because I think it's absolutely hilarious. Um, all right.
Speaker 2:So the story I'm going to tell, obviously, your dick being out and trying to high five your buddy reminds me of this story, which means it's not going anywhere. Good, right, so this is in college I had a buddy. He was a complete stoner, just out of his mind, stoner all the time, and we're sitting in the basement having beers, you know, hanging out, playing video games, whatever college kids do, and we're like hey, order some pizza. And so he's again high out of his mind and he orders there's three of us. He orders so much food and we're like so the pizza arrives. We don't know what he orders, but he comes downstairs with the pizza and again the three of us. He has five pizzas, like chicken wings, cheesy bread like four liters of soda.
Speaker 2:We're like, what the hell, man, there's only three of us. What are you doing? He's like I was hungry and of us, what are you doing? He's like I was hungry and so we're sitting there like did you, did you answer the door? Like that. And he's like, yeah, why? And like his pecker was just hanging out, so like he ordered all this. He ordered like five times the amount of food that we needed and then he went and got the pizza with his pecker hanging out, and I'm sure the guy didn't appreciate it. My buddy is a a big, not he, I mean, he's an ogre of a gentleman like he. He's not the kind of person you want to.
Speaker 2:Even if you're into that thing, you don't want to see that guy's pecker out. But it was out and he brought it down and we're like, put that away and we'll take one of the pizzas.
Speaker 3:That was the farthest away from your Jimmy, so yeah, that's not the kind of tip you want to get as a delivery driver.
Speaker 2:No, no, not at all, man, man, but your story reminded me of it and I, whatever. I see that guy. We make fun of him all the time. He doesn't think it's very funny. We still do.
Speaker 1:Uh, but that's not a hunting story, so okay, back to you, man, what?
Speaker 3:else? What else do you? Got for us? Um another good one. Uh was actually my first elk that I shot last year, yeah, so I was hunting elk in.
Speaker 2:Washington for about 14 years, 13 years. It's a tough state.
Speaker 3:Especially rifle hunting.
Speaker 3:So, never shot an elk there. And then in Colorado, I wasn't there long enough to get my license. I had gone out hunting with a couple buddies for, I think, one season and I got them on three different elk and they never capitalized on it. And I got them on three different elk and they never capitalized on it. But when I moved out to Idaho I was destined and hoping to get my first elk with a bow. Yeah. So last year I went out with some coworkers of mine One of them he's been hunting for pretty much most of his life and then one of the new hires wanted to come out with us and it was his first hunting trip.
Speaker 3:So me and my more experienced buddy had, you know, all the gear pretty much all set aside. We were ready to go and we had been helping this other guy get all set up and get all his gear organized. So he came over to my house, uh, three days before we were supposed to leave for our trip and I was getting some wax for his boots to help waterproof him, yeah. And so I come into my shed here and I grab a block of paraffin wax and go to cutting on it. Well, for whatever reason, I changed the direction that I was cutting because I didn't want to cut my finger. And I changed the direction that I was cutting because I didn't want to cut my finger. Well, when the wax broke and my knife inevitably went for flesh instead of wax, I stuck it down the length of my forearm.
Speaker 2:Whoo, like you say, down the length of your forearm.
Speaker 3:Are you saying the whole damn thing? You can kind of probably see it in there.
Speaker 2:Okay, I can it looks like what three, four, five-inch scar, About four inches.
Speaker 3:Yeah, jeez, ow, it went about two inches deep into my forearm.
Speaker 2:The forearm's only like four inches deep. In the first place, man, did you hit bone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I skated off the bone a little bit, so I grabbed my arm and I head out of my shed and he's getting his bow set up for a little target practice. And I told him, hey, we're going to have to probably schedule this for another day. And he's like why Is everything okay? And I was like, well, we can't shoot bows, but I can give you a lesson on blood trailing real quick. Don't find me.
Speaker 3:So I head to the front find me. So I head to the front porch. I left the huge blood puddle in my shop a trail to the front porch, and I said, hey, can you go inside and grab my wife and have her come out and help me real quick, because he's not very good with, like, seeing people's blood. Yeah, so he's getting woozy and he's, you know, freaking out a little like I don't know what to do. What do you need me to do?
Speaker 2:I was like well, isn't that the funniest like thing that humans do? That like a good portion of people see blood and just like completely lose the ability to like be a reasonable person it doesn't. It's like fight or flight. It doesn't fit into that. It's like just not be helpful in any way whatsoever, it doesn doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's weird. I was laughing, Cause I was like in three days I'm going to be stuck eight miles in the back country with you. I need you to toughen up a little bit, Cause if this happened back there, I need you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're like uh, it's going to bleed, are you? You know that? Yeah, do you know that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, is it just human blood?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just human blood. Okay, Okay, still, that's funny man. Okay, sorry, I interrupted.
Speaker 3:So my wife comes out and I said, hey, I cut myself pretty bad. I'm going to need you to grab stuff to kind of bandage me up. She's like how bad I was. Like get our son and put him in the car. I think we need to go to the hospital too. Yeah. So she grabs uh, we had these uh absorbent pads for cleaning and stuff. She sticks that on my arm, which she gets there. She has a belt of mine for a tourniquet, yeah, Not knowing how bad it was.
Speaker 3:But I opened up my forearm and it burst open. You could see down through the muscle, the my forearm and it burst open.
Speaker 2:You could see down through the muscle, the fat layers yeah, and needless to say, she was sitting there going nice job, so she's pulling on the knife that hard, or was the knife that sharp or both?
Speaker 3:it was very sharp. That was actually one that I made for my son when he gets older. So okay, I had it. Razor sharp, it'll shave hair off your arm, yeah, it'll shave arm off your arm, jesus okay.
Speaker 3:So we get that bandaged up, tourniqueted. I didn't have any more bleeding at that point so I knew I was probably going to live and be fine. But we went to go get it stiffed up and the doctor had me back there looking at at my arm and of course they were asking me all kinds of questions like are you sure you didn't do this to yourself on purpose? And I'm like, no, I have an elk time going on in three days. And then I want to make it there. And he said, oh, are you doing rifle or archery? I said archery. He's like I don't think you're going to be able to draw a bow.
Speaker 3:I was like I'm gonna be able said throw a couple extra stitches in there, I'll be able to draw a bow in three days. So he stitches up my arm and I asked him I was like what's the danger level of me getting an infection with this? He's like well, we have some really good stuff to bandage you up with and we'll send you home with some. He said, as long as you're not getting into lakes and creeks and bathing and getting it wet, you should be fine. And he said try and keep as much blood and other dirt and grime out of it as you can. So in three days I grabbed my pack, my buddies, we hit the mountain. How'd? Your wife feel about that.
Speaker 3:She was pretty nervous but the doctor told her he's like he's fine to go as long as he's paying attention and keeps it clean. She's like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to stop him. He's pretty dedicated because this is my first like five-day backpack trip that I had the time off planned, so this is going to be my longest time actually chasing elk at one time.
Speaker 2:So that was something I wasn't going to miss. That's crazy, and so I assume you went and shot your bow in the next day or two before you went out into the woods, like seeing where that scar is what did it? Am I jumping ahead in the story here? Because I just feel like that would be a place like every time you put your bow out to shoot. Well, I guess it. Which hand is it? Which way do you shoot, I guess?
Speaker 3:but is it somewhere it's?
Speaker 2:like go ahead it's my uh left hand that I hold my bow with okay, yeah that would be a problem because you're like you turn your wrist up to shoot and it would stress that exact spot you sliced. Was there issues with that?
Speaker 3:So I didn't find that out because I didn't want to figure it out until it came to the moment you didn't want to find it out until you were eight miles back is what you're telling me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 3:And on that opening day it was Wednesday for when we were going to be up there, but opening day didn't open till Friday. Okay.
Speaker 3:So I had we were doing some preseason scouting while we were up there, so I had a few days to heal, I think five days in total, before I actually had to draw my bow. So so we went up our packs. I think range from 98 pounds was my buddy's pack, my pack was 82 pounds and then our other friend's was 72 pounds or 74. So we all had pretty heavy packs going up there, yeah, which when you have a heavy pack resting on your shoulders it pushes a lot or keeps a lot of that blood in your arms.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I believe that't doesn't return well. So on the opening day of elk hunting I changed out my bandage that morning. Well, I had my arm was all purple and tiger striped and had yellow in it from all the bruising I was like oh man, that's, and I mean, and I mean it hurt. I had medication in that to help with the pain, but I didn't take them until that day, cause I didn't want to have any issues. I wanted it to work well on that day when I needed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I could see all sorts of reasons why this was a bad idea you go up in altitude, your blood, your blood gets thinner, right A little bit, and you're hiking Like I hike all the time and you know your fingers swell, so there's obviously more fluid and blood down in your hands and like oh my goodness, okay, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Making me nervous. Good thing you're sitting in front of me.
Speaker 2:Otherwise I'd be a lot more nervous. But okay, keep going.
Speaker 3:So we had scouted around and looked and we hadn't seen much. We were up at around 10,000 feet, I think is where our camp was, and there was a lot of cattle up there, which I was quite surprised. So I think the cattle had kind of pushed some of the elk lower down. Okay, because as we were hiking in we heard one bugle on the other side of the canyon. So opening morning we hunted all around where we would set up our camp and was doing our glassing and wasn't seeing much fresh sign, wasn't hearing anything. So we decided that night that we were going to quickly pack up camp around two and head down the mountain where we heard that bugle. So we loaded up our camp, we had hiked in eight miles and we hiked five miles back out to where we heard that bugle.
Speaker 2:Okay, At least that's a good direction, yeah.
Speaker 3:Had a pretty good workout those first few days, and so we got down into the lower canyon and we set up our camp next to a river and we had about probably half hour, 45 minutes until sunset, so probably between an hour and an hour and 20 of light left to actually shoot. Okay, while we were setting up camp, our less experienced buddy was walking around because it was kind of marshy in that area and he sunk down to his knees in his hunting boots and his pants and got soaking wet. So all right, he said he was sitting there. He's like I think I'll just hunt around camp down here where I don't have to hike, and I'll just hike in my sandals and hunt around camp for deer and elk and see what I can't find. So he told me that that was cool and we were going to head up the other side and see what we couldn't find. And so we start hiking up and we had probably only been gone about 15 minutes. I would say Okay.
Speaker 3:We were probably five or 600 yards from our tent that we had set up and walking real slow through this little trail and it was really heavy timber you can it's probably only about 80 to a hundred yards of good visibility. Okay, and my buddy let out a location bugle and there's a lot of squirrels in there. So there's a lot of like popping and tw. So there's a lot of like popping and twig snapping sounds. So it's kind of hard. You sit there for a long time thinking it's just a squirrel. So I was looking back at him. I was like you think that's a squirrel and he's like I'm not sure yet. And I had walked about two steps up further so that I could just get a different view and see, and right as I took those two steps, he said get down, there's a bull coming. I said okay.
Speaker 3:So I knock an arrow and I'm getting ready and I'm looking at my arm real quick and I've got this big bulky bandage on there and the first thing that came to mind was string slapping my arm with that bow.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:I never even thought about that Good God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, string slapping my arm with that bow, oh my god I never even thought about that.
Speaker 3:Good, god, yeah, okay, and I'm thinking of this and I said, if I think about doing that, I'm inevitably gonna do it. So I just gotta shoot like I've always shot. I don't think I've ever string slapped myself since I was a little kid shooting a recurve, yeah. So I just put it out on my mind and said I got to shoot this elk. If it string slaps me, so be it. And we got a sewing kit in the bag at camp. We'll bandage it back up if need be. And we've let out one location bugle on this whole hike.
Speaker 3:And this bull came from about 100 yards and made a beeline and we were sitting on two little finger ridges that were probably 150 yards apart from each other.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I start ranging some of the little areas that I think he might come in and I start to see this bull and he is hauling butt down the mountain, yeah, crossing down the hill in front of us. He's in in the drainage just below us, which is only about 50 feet to the bottom. So I knew he was going to be on top of us pretty quick and, judging by where he came down, there was one trail that I thought he would come up in about 20 yards. So I arranged it. I got ready and he came up over that ridge and stopped behind a little patch of trees and looked around for a minute and, right as he started walking again, I drew my bow. And man, the stinging pain to draw that bow was not very fun, but I eventually, after adjusting my wrist a little, I found a spot that it didn't strain it as much got the full draw and he steps out at 20 yards, perfectly broadside, and he stands right behind this only pine bough in that whole shooting lane.
Speaker 3:that's covering up his vitals, of course. So I'm sitting there looking at him and my first instinct was, oh, he's covered up by brush, I shouldn't shoot. Well, I had shot through a lot of pine boughs, practicing to see how they affected an expandable broadhead and how they affected my fixed blades, and in that moment I was like I've shot through way thicker pine boughs and had no issues. I mean, it was just the tips that were really in that spot I was aiming. So I'm like I'm going to send my arrow. I feel confident. Yeah Well, and he's been standing there for I'd probably say about five to ten seconds, but it feels like five minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially that pain in your arm. Yeah, you're right, I gotta put this down.
Speaker 3:So I'm sitting there, I settle in my pin as soon as I release on my bow and that arrow starts moving. That bull whirled back down the mountain and from my view it looked like I hit him, perfect quartering away. Yeah, and I look at my buddy and I said I had some pine boughs in my way. Where did that arrow actually hit? It looked like I hit him far back, but he was quartering hard so I should have hit lungs.
Speaker 3:And he said no, no, you didn't not even a, so just yeah just a straight no, oh man, I was like. I know I hit that, so I run up to where he was standing. As he was working his way up the other ridge I noticed my fletchings hanging out the back and they're bright pink, so I could easily tell Hanging out the back of the elk or the back of what?
Speaker 3:Out of the back of the elk, okay, okay, so as he's running kind of quartering away up the hill, I can see my fletchings just behind his tail. Okay, so at first I'm thinking that I hit him quartering away and they buried pretty deep. I was like, well, maybe I got good penetration. But I was like I'll get a second shot into him just to make sure. So he goes to about 72 yards and I practice at about 80 yards is my max. But seeing as I've hit the bull, I wanted to make sure I can get another arrow. And he's standing perfectly broadside and there's a ton of tree canopy in between me and him. But judging by where those branches were placed, I figured my arrow would clear over him and drop right in. So I ranged him at 72 yards, drew back, sent another arrow and hit him perfectly behind the shoulder and that'll come to a different conclusion later but buried the fletchings pretty deep right behind his shoulder. Okay, and I was like, perfect.
Speaker 3:So I walked back to my buddy and said, hey, where did that arrow hit? He said, man, if you're not bullseye on his asshole, you're real close. So at this moment I felt horrible because I'm like I know I saw those fletchings back there, but I didn't know how far back I had hit them. He said no, you release that arrow. And he said as soon as I heard your bow go off, I watched him almost completely whirled away. He said I saw fletchings buried right up into the cheeks. Good God, that's too funny.
Speaker 3:He's like how was your second shot? And I was like man, I put it right behind his shoulder. So we waited about 20 minutes. It was starting to get dark so we figured we'd track blood a little ways and see kind of what kind of blood we had. Yeah, and we got up to where he was standing and there was a big pile of bubbles and blood. So I knew I had made a pretty good shot. And the whole way, from where I initially hit him in the rear, he was bleeding really heavy, okay, and that blood continued for about 80 yards. And right about that 80 yard mark, uh, we looked up and he had actually stood up out of his bed and he was limping real hard and you could see blood around his nose. So we decided just to back out and come in the morning.
Speaker 3:So we start heading back down the trail to catch up with our buddy. Yeah, well, by this time it was was pitch black out and there was enough moonlight that you could kind of see and walk without headlamps. So we crossed the creek and I said, hey, I'm gonna mess with jackson. Jackson's the less experienced hunter that we were with and wyatt was the more experienced hunter, so I'm gonna mess with jackson a little bit and sound like a mountain lion, so didn't think that one through very well. So I come up on about 10 or 15 yards from the tent which this tent we had struggled with getting the door to close. The zipper was pretty rotted out, yeah. So I make a mountain lion growl like 10 yards from him and I see him fly up off the log that he was sitting on about five feet, jumped through the door of the tent and before he hit the mattress, I swear he had that tent fully zipped up in one fell swoosh before he hit the ground.
Speaker 3:And at this point I'm laughing. But I didn't remember that we had given him the 45 that we had for protection. Oh shit, okay, but why? It's like? That's not smart. He has the gun. I said oh crap, hey, jackson, it's us, I'm messing with you. He's like man, that's not funny. He's like you're lucky. I didn't know how to load this thing, or else I'd want to try to shoot you.
Speaker 2:That's funny, that he just dove into the tent. I mean I guess the gun was there. But it's funny how tents somehow feel safer to have a tiny piece of nylon between you and whatever creatures out there. That's too funny.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So we were chatting with him and I set my bow down and he's like you guys see anything? I was like check out my bow. He's looking at my bow and he's like what? And I was like, do you notice anything missing? He's like, oh, you're missing some arrows. I said, yeah, I shot a bull. He's like hell, yeah, he's like, of course, the time I can't go up there I miss it. And he was being our camera guy for that weekend, so sadly we didn't get that portion on video and so we had dinner that night and woke up early the next morning.
Speaker 3:So it was wyatt's turn to go up hunting. So we started working our way up to where that bull was and we got into another group out, which probably was the same group of cows that that bull was in, and they were just about 100 yards away from us and wouldn't work in. And we had some mule deer that were real close to us, like 20, 30 yards. That kind of kept keeping the elk away. So once they all kind of moved off to the side, we decided to go up there and try and find my bull. Um, so we got up and started following blood, which at this point it was kind of a harder blood trail, but it was still consistent. We were getting, you know, three inch little drips and speckles everywhere, but still bleeding pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so you went to the spot that you've unbedded him where he stood up, and then you were following it from there. Got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just want to make sure. At that point where he had bedded, it was probably about 100 yards from where I last hit him on my second shot. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:So we followed for about another 80 yards, so he's gone probably about a total of 200 yards at this point. Okay, 250. And my buddy Wyatt was about 10 yards ahead of me At this point we had kind of lost blood but it was just real speckly and it looked like he had kind of walked around that area, so it was kind of all over the place. So he went down a little lower on the ridge to follow so he could see down into the bottom. And we were walking the crest of the ridge into the bottom.
Speaker 3:And we were walking the crest of the ridge and I happened to look up and the bull is bedded at like 15 yards from us, just looking at us. He was still alive. Wow, okay, that's amazing. I mean we were 15 yards from him. I said, hey, stop, he's right there. He said where I'm like he's 15 yards in front of me. So I knock another arrow and and my buddy Wyatt knocked an arrow and I said try and get a couple in them. Let's, you know, finish it off and get the job done.
Speaker 3:My first arrow clips a log and sails off into the forest because he was bedded right behind the downed log, right behind the downed log and a perfect shot would have been, you know, pretty much right at the edge of that log and one of my blades caught it and skipped the arrow off. My buddy Wyatt hit it right in the shoulder, but he was using a good fixed blade so that penetrated in and buried up to the fletchings. And then I shot a second arrow into him just behind the shoulder and sat and waited for him to expire.
Speaker 3:And the whole time Jackson.
Speaker 2:Four arrows in him at that point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, four arrows Okay, and three of them pretty good placement, yeah, and our buddy Jackson's behind us filming and he's trying to find where this bull is while he's sitting in the sunlight, so it looks like a big sun patch in the woods and he's like what are you guys shooting at? And then, finally, when the bull turned his horns, you could see him and he's like, whoa, he's a lot closer than I thought and I was like, yeah, so the bull finally expires and we get up there and I start trying to figure out where I hit this bull on my first two shots. Well, that first shot was about two inches off a bullseye for a Texas heart shot, but had buried up probably about a foot and a half, two feet of penetration.
Speaker 2:Okay, but probably all meat at that point, right Cause probably just the haunch the, the hind quarter, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it had just slipped behind, um kind of behind the femur and under the ball joint of the pelvis, and had just cut the liver a little bit, okay. So he was slowly bleeding out, but not very quickly, obviously, with a liver shot. And then my second arrow had clipped about a quarter inch of his front shoulder and, because of the angle he was at, it skated it off into that ridge in that front scapula and buried it right into the ridge of that front scapula. When I think about it, I'll send you some pictures of it, because I actually had the broadhead stuck in that front little groove. Oh, no way, that's cool. Was that second shot?
Speaker 2:a kill shot, because I know you said there was some foamy blood, so did it hit some good stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was a Grim Reaper, expandable, I think it's the 2, 3⁄ the three inch cut diameter. Okay, well, that inside blade had broken through the shoulder blade and nicked the lung, but again only like a one inch gas. So he still had one lung. So he probably would have expired later that day, but, you know, not as quickly as we had wanted for sure.
Speaker 2:If you hit him in the liver, that will kill him in a week but it will kill him. Hit him in the lung, that will kill him. So like those are both kill shots, even shooting him right in the ass, you somehow managed to get a kill shot on that first arrow. Yeah. But yeah, no, you definitely got to keep following up and then put him out as quick as you can. So glad you, Glad you guys did that.
Speaker 3:All right, I don't know if I'm interrupting. Is there more to the story? There seems to be a bunch more. So we had got them all cleaned up and packed out. We had about two miles to the truck at that point and I had cleaned out my bandage again, which luckily I had kept it pretty clean. So no issues. There Didn't get an infection from anything and it was pretty swollen and irritated but I didn't rip any stitches, didn't have any dirt or grime on it or blood.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but got the bull taken care of and packed out and this whole time it's about 92 degrees, so it was insanely hot. Yeah, geez, okay. So it was rough pack out and we decided to leave a day early because it was so hot and miserable and the bulls weren't really fired up yet. We were surprised that bull came in the way he did. I mean it made no sense for anything elk hunting-wise. I mean we made one location bugle and he was just coming all an ass down the mountain for us. So but I'd rather be lucky than good any day hell yeah, I say the same thing all the time, man.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Was he a decent bull, or a raghorn, or yes?
Speaker 3:so he was a five by five and he's got one little kicker that could almost make him a six point, but I didn't count it. It was still too short, but a decent five point bull. He was a little younger but for my first archery elk I was more than happy with him. I would have shot a cow if she would have stood there long enough for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, what is it like, the success? They say it's like 10. But if you get rid of, like you know, rifles and guides and all this like archery elk, it's like 10%. But if you get rid of rifles and guides and all this like archery elk, it's like a 3% success rate. So like hell, yeah, man, awesome work, that's impressive and it's a great story, even the part where you're just scaring your friend and he's pointing guns at you.
Speaker 3:I was very happy that we didn't show him how to load that handgun very well, so his lack of experience could have saved us another hospital trip for me.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, All right, so and how long did it take to heal that?
Speaker 3:arm wound.
Speaker 2:I can't believe you did that I went out there with that.
Speaker 3:So I'd say I was on. After that elk hunting trip. I was on light duty at work for about another week and then I think another week after that, they pulled my stitches. I was pretty much back to normal. The hard part was breaking up all the scar tissue once it formed, because that was painful. Trying to lift things at work and do stuff. It was quite hard to lift certain amounts of weight in certain ways. So it took about a month before I was able to kind of get back to somewhat normal and about two to three months before it stopped hurting and having the searing pain from lifting and all that scar tissue is broken up so you, when you cut yourself, you didn't hit any like veins or arteries, it was just like mostly meat, nothing, no vitals.
Speaker 3:No, he said if I would have started an eighth inch towards the bottom of my arm I guess on the underside here, he said, I would have hit a vein that would have been a little harder to stop the bleeding and probably more serious in the long run. So I was about an eighth of an inch off from there. But he said other than that. He said you couldn't have cut it any more. Perfect to not have serious damage. No nerve damage, fingers all still worked fine. So I missed all the good stuff.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's a great elk story from start to finish. Most people would have hung it up before they even got out there because of that cut.
Speaker 2:But I'm impressed that you did. It Were all the other. I also actually wanted to say this earlier. But when you actually pull back and you remember the searing pain of the first time you pulled it back, I bet it hurt way more than you even know. But you had the adrenaline of that bull coming in and you were like, oh yeah, it hurts, oh yeah. But if you had just been at home doing it, like I asked if you did, that would have been so bad, so much worse.
Speaker 3:That's why I didn't even try, because I told myself, in five days is when I have to pull that bow back and I'll be fine, I can do it. I said by the time that adrenaline's flowing because as he's coming up that ridge you could hear him panting and puffing and, man, that was getting my heart bound and I was pretty ready to go.
Speaker 3:But I definitely remember that searing pain about half draw and I was like I got to push through it because he's going to be here in half a second. I better be ready or he's going to catch me drawing and booger out of there and we're going to have to chase him down again.
Speaker 2:That's awesome man, that's great. So remind me of I don't know if you listen to jim huntsman's episode, but he, he like did something where he like messed up a testicle in the military and he had to have surgery and then his doctor was like, don't go and get it wet, you know same thing. But he went out hunting anyways and then he ended up like killing a deer in a swamp and then didn't realize what he was doing until he was waist deep in swamp water with like a open yeah, testicles oh my god, jim so, but okay well thanks for sharing that one man.
Speaker 3:That was a great story, um, and I'm glad you put a a note down so your buddies didn't harvest anything, just you no, they had gone up up a week after that and I think they went out for just a couple days on a weekend and didn't have much luck. And then they were busy with work. We all work at the same job. So we all kind of got busy with work and they were going to do the muzzleloader tag, because our archery tag turns into a rifle tag within one mile of private in a certain unit, because we have three units that we can hunt and then it turns into a muzzleloader tag for all three of those units, again for a cow. So they were going to borrow some of my muzzleloaders and go up there but they ended up not having the time and we didn't have as much snow to push the elk down, so they just kind of wrote it off and we're focusing on deer hunting at that point.
Speaker 2:Got it. Got it. Cool man. Well, what else? I'm pretty sure you sent me a photo of what looks like an even worse injury than the one you just told me about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's uh are we ready?
Speaker 2:are we ready for that story? You got any more you want to tell before then that maybe set that one up I've got two more. We can go to that one, though, if you'd like whichever one you want why don't we do the other one first and then we'll wrap it with that, with that final one? How's that sound that?
Speaker 3:sounds good, perfect, all right. So the other one is my wife's first hunting trip. So she had gotten her hunting license about two years ago and she had gone out duck hunting with me a few times and drove around while we were deer hunting but had never actually got a tag and went hunting herself. So she wanted to do an archery pronghorn hunt. So me and her both.
Speaker 2:That's a good starting point right.
Speaker 3:It never amazes me that she'll pick the hardest ones. She would like duck hunting, which I just found to be a suffer fest for a few feathered critters. Yeah, and then she said I really want to shoot a pronghorn with my bow. I was like okay yeah so god yeah I did that I don't go with a, with a rifle, pronghorn hunting.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if I'll do it with my bow again, because it was that tough so but go ahead.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to hear where this goes so I wasn't going to take her out and try and do spot and stock, because I knew that was just going to be not as fun yet, her being a new hunter.
Speaker 3:So we have an unlimited archery pronghorn here in Idaho that you can draw and you can find areas to hunt over waterholes.
Speaker 3:So I went out and bought a blind and we had gone out the weekend before opener and set up a blind and she had been practicing and getting pretty dialed in on her bow to about 30 yards, which we were going to sit 20 yards off of the water, so she would have been more than ample to shoot something at 20, yeah, and so got everything set up. My parents had come into town to watch our son so that we could go out there and hunt just the two of us and everyone and their dog last year decided to go hunt the same area and there wasn't as much water as there usually was. So the only water hole that we could find that didn't have blinds on it was this giant pond which can be kind of problematic because if they don't like something on one side of the pond, they'll just walk to the other side, yeah, and it's about 150 yards across this pond so you're not able to get a shot, but luckily there was another hunter's blind on the other side of the pond.
Speaker 3:So we were hoping, um, him being over there would help push some pronghorn towards the other side that we were at. Yeah, so we had found this, yeah, we had found this little seep that was coming out from the pond where it overflows and there was a lot of pronghorn sign in there. So we set up our blind and opening morning about eight o'clock or 7 30, we had a group of about six does and a pretty nice buck show up and they sat and slowly worked their way in. They were walking the fence line right next to us at about 40 yards coming into the little seat that we were sitting over, and they got to about 10 to 20 yards from the seat, which was about 40 yards for her. It was a little far to shoot and we're both new to hunting out of a blind and hunting pronghorn. So we had our back window open, oh, okay, the window in between us and the pronghorn, so that pronghorn could see through our blind pretty well. So he caught some kind of movement and turned around and went to the pond and drank off the other side of the pond. So we kind of just wrote that off of. Well, if there's one, there's going to be some more. And about 20 minutes later we had another small buck come over the ridge in front of us. So we zipped up both the sides and just had a little crack in the front window and I said when he comes in and starts drinking I'll lower the window because we have the windows that slide so they're real quiet. Okay. So he starts coming in and he just didn't want to hit the seat, he just stayed about 60 yards out and went around to the pond. So no shot opportunity there. So we were kind of sitting.
Speaker 3:It was about, I'd say, 11 o'clock or noon and you know, being my wife's first time, I didn't want to push her any longer than she wanted to hunt. I didn't want to make it, you know, a miserable time being in a hot blind all day. Yeah, so we were kind of talking. I said whenever you want to head out, we can go back home and maybe come out this afternoon. You know we have the next three days to hunt. So I said there'll be other opportunities and she said, yeah, let's sit for another hour and see if we're still getting action. Let's sit here all day, but if we're not getting much, we'll head out. So I said, okay, so I sit down and, um, about 10 minutes after we had that conversation maybe five she goes. Fuck.
Speaker 3:I said where she's like right out front, coming straight in, and this really nice pronghornhorn I'd say he's probably about I'm not very good at judging pronghorn, but from what I've read and seen he is probably between 60 and 70 inches. Okay, so a pretty good public land pronghorn for a bow. And he's making a straight beeline into that water. And so I get my camera ready, I have it on him as he's coming in and he was a beautiful buck, really nice hooks, really nice curls, pretty heavy. And she's like, is that a good buck? Well, I'm sitting there shaking, my heart's pounding, because I'm like, yeah, that's a, that's a really nice buck. But I wanted to. I was like, yeah, he's, he pretty good, he'd be a good buck to take.
Speaker 3:She's like, okay, so she gets ready, she has her bow all in position, she's kneeling down and he comes and starts drinking out of the water. I dropped the window on the front of the blind and he doesn't hear it, see it, flinch, anything. He's just focused on drinking, drinking. So I get back on my camera. She draws her bow back. I said take your time, settle your pin in and make a good shot. I'm sitting there looking through the camera so I can't. I'm not watching the pronghorn other than this little three inch little window, so I don't get to see as much detail. So I hear her bow go off and it hits the dirt behind it and it sounds like a pretty good shot.
Speaker 3:Like she hit it, just the way it hit the dirt. It sounded like a good like a pass through okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I'm like nice, where'd you hit him? She's like I just shot over his back and I said, oh, I'm like really, she's like yeah, and so we watch him go off and I'm like I'm thinking I was like how do you did you see like your arrow go over? She's like I just saw the dirt kick up behind him. So I'm like you might have got a good pass through. So we're watching this buck run off and by the time he hits about 100 yards and I don't see any blood on the white of him. I was like, okay, you probably shot over him. And he kind of hung out for about a half hour just kind of prancing around, and then he ran off and I looked back through the video and I put a pen that's going to be my next question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm looking through the video and I put my pen. I I'm looking through the video and I put my pen. I was like where were you aiming? She's like right here. I put the pen there and her bow goes off in the video and I hold my pen there and he ducks and there's about a millisecond of time where his back drops below that pen and you see her arrow just right over his back and so she was aiming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so she was aiming right where you'd want to hit them. Yeah, which is what I have told her throughout the time. But I forgot to tell her about how pronghorn stuck the string and I didn't tell her to aim low. So learned a good lesson there. But I mean, it was still a great experience for us to be out there and actually get a shot off on this pronghorn, for sure, man. So I was super proud of her and she was a little bummed out, but I said, hey, that's part of hunting. You're gonna miss and the good news is is you made a clean miss and you didn't wound them or anything like. That is like if you would have wounded them, that would have been even worse than just missing him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, be a long day, long day, chasing him down yeah.
Speaker 3:So she felt a little better and we sat for about another hour and a big storm had kind of rolled in. So it was a lot cooler and I think by this time it was about 2 or 3 o'clock and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees. So we decided to head out and come back the next morning. Well, the next morning we came out. I was thinking you know, hey, I'm going to set you up in this blind and I'm going to go over to that corner where all these other pronghorn had been watering and I'm going to sit there for, you know, the first half of the morning. So if anything, if they come to your blind, you can have a shot, and if they go over to there, I can have a shot and hopefully double our chances.
Speaker 3:So I'm sitting there in this little brush blind that I had made. It was just I went to the center of a bush and carved it out and made a little shoot window at like 15 yards and about 730, that smaller buck from the day before with his six does. He was by himself and he watered on the other side of the pond. That he did the day before. So he's about 80 yards from me, which I wasn't going to shoot that far at a pronghorn. There's a very slim chance that my arrow would ever get there before he found out. Yeah, so I just enjoyed watching him water and I noticed that there was two does that had come in towards my wife's blind and this isn't either sex tag. So I was kind of waiting for her to hopefully get a shot off. Well, they're about 40 to 60 yards from the water that she was sitting over and this buck had started working his way around and he stopped at the fence line and looked towards her blind and saw those two does. So I'm like, perfect, either he's gonna run over there and give her a shot or he's gonna run in front of me and give me a shot. Well, that quickly went out of the water because he made a beeline sprint for her blind. He was only 20 yards in front of me but he wasn't stopping for anything. Yeah, so I watched him run down the fence line and cut around the corner right into her in front of her blind. So I was sitting there waiting, waiting.
Speaker 3:About a minute goes by and I hear babe. So I get all excited and I start walking over there and I'm like, yeah, she probably made a great shot on that buck because he was going to be dumb and just hanging out with those does and I can see the top of her blind by this time. And I look out in front of it and there's the two does and that buck standing at 20 yards in front of her blind and I sat and was like why were you yelling at me? What's going on? And at this point the pronghorn started to catch on after they saw me and they started walking off and I see her get out of the blind.
Speaker 3:I said is everything okay? And she says my bow. I was like oh no. So she had seen that buck come in and when she drew her bow her jacket had fallen into her lower cam, just a little bit, yeah. And when she tried to lower her bow to get it, um, her jacket, out of that lower cam, she had kind of cycled a little bit and that jacket derailed her string off of her bow.
Speaker 3:Oh no and I felt so bad because she started crying and she's, you know, upset because she's like I totally made the dumbest mistake and I said, babe, it happens to all of us. And so I said, it's okay, I'll get your bow fixed. So I sat there and restrung her bow with the, the tent stake and the string for it so I was able to make a makeshift bow press and actually get the string back on her bow. And I ended up sitting and hunting with her that afternoon and you know she felt horrible. But you know, just, I was telling her this is all the stuff that we haven't done. I've never bow hunted, pronghorn, I've never hunted out of a blind. So I said, said it happens. And so we had one more day to hunt. We didn't see anything else the rest of that afternoon.
Speaker 3:It started to get really cold that week so it dropped down into like the 60s, which usually when you hunt pronghorn it's like 80, 90 degrees, so they're really dependent on water. Well, with it being so cold, they were watering every other day. When you hunt pronghorn, it's like 80 90 degrees, so they're really dependent on water. Well, with it being so cold, they were watering every other day. Yeah, so we weren't seeing the numbers like we had hoped. So we come out the next day. We get out to that blind.
Speaker 3:It was our last day that we had to hunt and that blind that was on the other side of the pond from another hunter. He had come out to hunt it that day because I think it was the that friday, so it was kind of the start of some people's weekends. We had taken off time during the week, okay, and he actually had parked his buggy right behind our blind on the dike, like 10 feet from our blind. So I was like, well, well, I got to go talk to this guy. So I went over there and said you know, hey, how's it going? He said, oh, hey. I said, mind, if I ask you a favor, would you mind moving your buggy? You kind of parked it right up on behind our blind and this thing's like a bright white buggy. Okay, yeah. So he's like, oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't see your blind. So I was telling him if he moved it down onto the corner where these pronghorn had been kind of skipping our blinds to water. I said that probably will help us because it will push them to either your side or mine. He said, yeah, so he was a nice guy and moved his buggy and we get set up and so we're sitting in the blind it's probably about 10 o'clock, it was still really cold, not seeing a lot of action going on and I hear a bow go off behind us that from that hunter and I hear a nice solid shot and I'm like, oh, that guy, I think, just shot one.
Speaker 3:So I start looking out of our blind. Well, I see this pronghorn run around the corner and he kind of looked like he was walking a bit funny. But I didn't see any blood on him so I didn't know if maybe he had hit him poorly. But that buck didn't get a chance to water. So he started coming into our seat. So I told my wife to get ready. I think he's gonna come and hit our water.
Speaker 3:So this buck comes in and he starts getting closer and he came to about 30 yards, maybe 35, because we had some rocks ranged out and he was kind of in between our 20 and 40. Okay, and I said, do you think you can shoot that far and feel comfortable? And she's like I don't think. So you know she wasn't comfortable with it. He was a little quartering too. I said okay, so we can pass on him. She's like I want you to try and shoot him though, because I want to try and at least get something to take home. So it's too far for me, but I know you can shoot that. So I said all right. So I put the camera down and I grabbed my bow.
Speaker 3:Well, at this moment that other hunter had watched his pronghorn go down and he started walking the dike behind our blind to go grab his buggy. So I get my bow drawn and I noticed this pronghorn keeps looking up and looking over his shoulder and he would take about five steps and try to water again. And I'm trying to get him to stop by grunting and whistling and he just didn't want to have anything to do with it. So he finally stopped at about 45 yards and gave me just enough time to get a shot off. So I released my bow and I'm watching and about halfway to him I see the arrow go completely broadside and smack the pronghorn broadside. What? And yeah, so I'm sitting there confused, like what just happened with my bow.
Speaker 3:Nope, all the fletching's on there. So on the window of our blind, I had hit about a quarter inch of our blind with my broadhead blind. I had hit about a quarter inch of our blind with my broadhead and that sent it completely broadside and slapped, I mean perfectly exactly where I was aiming. Just, instead of it being straight, it hit broadside. Wow, this thing runs off. And I'm sitting there hanging my head and I was like I'll see, even after 20 years of hunting, I I still hit, make mistakes. We were both kind of bummed and laughing about it.
Speaker 3:And this guy, I mean, 10 seconds later he comes up behind our blind and he said hey. And I said, hey, did you get one? He's like yeah, I actually shot one over here. And he's like I totally didn't see that other pronghorn come into your water hole. I'm sorry, I probably messed it up, for you was like no, I did that pretty fine on my own.
Speaker 3:I clipped my blind and, you know, didn't pay attention enough to where my rest was compared to my sight. Yeah, so that's my bad too. It's no worries, it's public land that happens sometimes. But I offered to go help him drag his buck out. He said, no, no worries, I'm just gonna go grab him with the buggy real quick and get out of here so that you guys can hunt. I said, awesome, well, congratulations, and you have a good one. And so he was successful, which was cool, you know. But sadly me and my wife were, oh and three on pronghorn, yeah, and that afternoon we had a couple more come in, but either they wanted to sit out at 60 yards and I had actually seen a buck work to the other side of the pond where that guy was hunting and there was enough brush that I could get within about 40 yards. But as soon as I got into position and drew my bow, he caught my draw cycle and busted out of there and didn't give me a shot. So we ended up going.
Speaker 3:We ended up eating tag soup on that one. So yeah, that's a great story man that's a great story.
Speaker 2:You got lots of lessons to be learned, right? The best lessons are self-taught you each learned a couple um, hopefully somebody heard this and goes hunting in the future and, you know, puts their coat behind their back or watches out for their blind windows, or whatever. It may be, man, because that's just the nature of it we all have that story where we did something more. You know, the opportunity passes, we're like well, that was dumb, that was on me simple mistakes like that make the difference between capitalizing on a good shot and watching arrows slap a pronghorn at 40 yards it's a very related.
Speaker 2:I mean not hitting an animal sideways with an arrow, but the making mistakes very relatable, oh yeah, I'm sure every hunter out there has a story, just like that one. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. Well cool. Thanks for sharing that. Did your wife go back out? Was that a couple years ago?
Speaker 3:so that was last year, okay. So this year she wants to go out again and she didn't want to do a rifle deer last year because she hadn't had a lot of experience on a rifle yet. And all my rifles are I have a 300 wind mag and a .30-06 and a .375 H&H Magnum, so they're all kind of big rifles. So I got her a .243 to shoot and she's gotten really comfortable with that. So she wants to do deer and pronghorn this year. But she's currently pregnant and we have our daughter arriving September 17th, which is two days after opening day of pronghorn.
Speaker 3:So she said she's going to give it a try, but we'll see, depending on how that goes.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations, man, on the daughter coming. That's coming up quick brother, but that's exciting, man, that's exciting.
Speaker 3:Cool, but that's exciting man, that's exciting. Cool, that'll be interesting. Or trying to shoot a pronghorn while nine months pregnant, almost so yeah I mean dude I'd love to hear how it goes.
Speaker 2:Maybe we'll have her back on the podcast cool man. Well, let's uh let's, let's move on to the next one. Man, I'm I'm still curious. I don't know what happened in those photos you sent. So I got to find out what do we got?
Speaker 3:So the picture I sent you was of our family friend who was a Ph in Africa, in Zimbabwe. Okay, and it was. You know, in the picture you could see he had gotten scalped. Yes, he did. Yeah, torn up on his biceps and his thighs. He had gotten mauled by a leopard. Whew.
Speaker 3:So our family has a pretty big history of getting mauled, trampled and maimed by animals. I mean, when your job is to hunt things in Africa, you know, at work here we get paper cuts and crushed by things and cut or whatever, but their job over there you get mauled and crushed by things. So my dad got ran over by a black Cape Buffalo Good.
Speaker 2:God Okay.
Speaker 3:And so his lower back's fused, his neck's fused, and so his lower back's fused, his neck's fused, and he deals with chronic migraines now from that. His friend got mauled by a lion and actually tore his ear off. Okay, so he's missing an ear and same kind of scalp issue that our other friend had. And that guy that got his ear tore off his wife. I can't remember if it was a hippo or an elephant that crushed her, but she got crushed by one of the two and still alive, Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say like what kind of alive got pretty messed up from that I'm scared of hippos, hippos are here Vicious bastards, so uh.
Speaker 3:I don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, thanks. Let me ask you about the leopard, though. So I think of like mountain lions here in Colorado, because that's all I really can compare it to, and they're not really aggressive. They're around, they see you. You don't see them, but you really don't have to worry about them. It's like maybe one attack every five years or something you might hear about, at least in Colorado, and it's usually like a young one that's starving or something. But leopards, are they like aggressive or are they more like a mountain lion where they're there and they kind of avoid people?
Speaker 3:most of the time they avoid people. They're pretty nocturnal animals. They don't come out a lot. In zimbabwe they actually have a tendency of daylighting okay. So it's one of the few places that you can daylight hunt leopards. But most of the time that people get attacked by him they've either had some kind of injury or they were being hunted and got wounded. So that's usually when you run into problems with them. But most of the time they don't mess a whole lot with people. Uh, in mozambique they have a lot of man-eaters. I'm not sure what it is about there. I don't know if it's the people in local villages, but they tend to have a lot of lions and leopards that turn into man-eaters and hyenas that start attacking humans quite a lot. Geez man, no, thank you. So the story on that leopard another PH and his client had shot it and wounded it. They called in my dad's friend. His name is Guy Whittle, he used to actually be a professional cricket player for.
Speaker 3:I think South Africa. He went back to be a PH to help his dad on his hunting ranch there in Zimbabwe. It's called Hermani.
Speaker 2:They still have it, or? Did theirs get burned down too.
Speaker 3:No, they still have theirs. Okay, and so he was working out there and they called him to help them locate this leopard because he had a poacher dog that was really good at tracking. It was bred and trained to hunt down poachers and help with that issue there. So he went out tracking this leopard and his dog was indicating that the leopard was really close in the brush in front of him. So he had turned around to the uh ph and the other guys behind him to let him know that the leopard had gone that way. And he said when he turned back around that that leopard was coming out of the brush and on top of him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so he fired a shot and I think he shot in the front shoulder and then out the back of the shoulder but didn't hit any vitals, got it, and so then it started attacking and mauling him and it cut pretty much most of the top of his skull, down towards the brow of his eye, and then it tore up his inner thighs, because with the leopards they grab onto your head and they use their back feet to try and eviscerate you and tear out your stomach. So, okay, just like a house cat when you play with a house cat.
Speaker 3:We're like screws up your forearm yeah yep okay yeah, that sounds awful like an awful awful way to go okay yeah, big cats do the same thing.
Speaker 3:Liars, leopards, they all grab on and use their back legs to tear you up. So he said the only reason he made it through and didn't die from that is his dog was grabbing the back of the leopard and pulling on his tail, and whenever he would do that, the leopard would turn around to scare the dog off and then go back on to him. So I think that happened two or three times where the dog would drag it off of them and finally, on the third time he shot it again and one of the other ph's came and shot it and killed it.
Speaker 2:What the hell were the other guys doing three?
Speaker 3:three times got off of him and they didn't do anything about it so I think I don't know the whole story because I haven't gotten a chance to talk with him yet, just from our uncle letting us know what he was okay, but they were like 100 yards behind them, kind of fanning out through the bush to try and track it down, because they don't leave, you know, a whole lot of tracks. They leave real lights for and in the sand, so you're following just the light pads that they leave behind. So they were still coming to them when this all happened and you know, being that far, you don't want to try and take a shot and shoot the person being that they leave behind. So they were still coming to them when this all happened and you know, being that far, you don't want to try and take a shot and shoot the person being mauled.
Speaker 2:So they wanted to make sure they were close? Yeah, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:So when the dog finally pulled them off of him they could get a clear shot at it and dispatched him and then he started getting medical attention and cleaning out the wounds, because most of the time you don't die from the leopard mauling you. You die from the infection afterwards because their claws are full of tons of nasty bacteria. He healed up well. They were changing his bandages three times a day for, I think, three weeks in the hospital. He's doing good now. How old was this like? Three weeks in the hospital, jeez, but he's doing good now and healed up.
Speaker 2:How long ago was this?
Speaker 3:That was last, I think, August Jeez man, but that happened not too long ago.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that is terrifying. Big cats like man. If you I think I've heard this, it's probably just an urban legend but, like, if you die in your house, like your dog won't eat you, your cat will start eating you within like 12 hours, and I believe it. Man, cats are evil.
Speaker 3:I have no doubt. Yeah, they're like. Well, if you're not going to feed me, I'm going to eat you.
Speaker 2:Yep, right God, I can't even imagine I guy on the story a long time ago tell like a secondhand story of a gentleman in like Peru or somewhere down there, and like a panther ate him, just ripped him apart and like his buddies were like where'd he go? And he's like I thought he was fishing and they just found body parts.
Speaker 2:So just cats are insane, so cool man well, you should connect me with that guy because I'm sure outside of being attacked by a leopard he's probably got a bunch of great stories. But thank you so? Much for coming on, man. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you telling your stories. They were a lot of fun, absolutely. I really do like a good story with lots of details, even if it doesn't have success, and you are a very good storyteller and you hit all the bullet points that I really like in a good story. So thank you, man. I appreciate it Awesome.
Speaker 3:Anytime, I have plenty more, if there's ever a time you need some more and you're running low hit me up again and I'll share some more.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, man, absolutely. Well, I want to hear your wife's pregnant antelope story next, before any more of yours. But once we get that out of the way, you're of course welcome back.
Speaker 3:But let's do this, man.
Speaker 2:Let's share any socials or whatever you want to, and then we'll send this thing off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I run the Reason Outdoors. It's a outdoors hunting page. I try and share people's stories and their hunting and just kind of show a better light of hunting and not necessarily what you see everywhere else, and try and show people that even in africa when they're hunting it's not just shooting things for a trophy. All the food goes to good places and feeds local villagers and things like that. And here in the states when we hunt and kill things, we share them with our family and friends. So that's the reason underscore outdoors. I'm on Instagram and TikTok they're both the same and then those posts usually go on to my Facebook as well, which is just my first and last name, brendan Bramford, but a lot of my posts just get sent to there as well, so that's where you can find me.
Speaker 2:Cool, cool man, I'll put links to everything you got here in the show notes so people can find you nice and easy Go ahead. You were saying you had one other one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a YouTube channel as well.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:There's not a whole lot of videos on there. I've been working on that slowly, but there's a few duck hunting videos from back in the day, so I've been working on getting that updated and a couple of my fishing trips and hunting trips in Africa. The last time I went back there Cool.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. Well, like I said, guys, I will put links to everything in the show notes. Give Brendan a follow. If you got questions for him, throw them at him. I'm sure he would love to hear from you guys. I've actually just found out, like this week, that there's like a bunch of guys that have been messaging my guests. So expect something, brendan, we'll see Awesome.
Speaker 3:But cool guys. I'm happy to hear from them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, all right. Well, thank you again, man. I really do appreciate it. We'll have you and the wife back on soon, sounds good, thanks, brother.
Speaker 3:Cheers.
Speaker 2:All right, guys. That's it. Another couple stories in the books. Again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, brendan. I really do appreciate you reaching out. If you guys have a story, please go to the website, to the Instagram, wherever there's a little form you can fill out. I'd love to have you on, connect with you and hear some of your hunting stories. Beyond that, whatever you're listening on, like, share, subscribe, all that stuff Help us with whatever algorithms they have so more people are hearing us and we hear more crazy stories. But that's it, guys. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate you all for tuning in. Brendan, thank you again. Man Couldn't have done it without you and it was a pleasure hearing your stories. But, guys, you know what time it is. Get out there now and make some stories of your own. Thank you.
