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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 154 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Campfire with the ElkBros
Step into the hunting camp with this special crossover featuring the Elk Bros team sharing their most memorable, hilarious, and sometimes harrowing hunting adventures around a virtual campfire.
This unique episode brings together experienced elk hunters Gilbert, Joe, Luis, RC, and Leroy with Hunting Stories host Michael to capture the authentic storytelling that happens when hunting companions gather. The atmosphere crackles with the energy of lifelong friendships forged in remote wilderness pursuits.
You'll feel like you're sitting fireside as these veteran hunters trade tales of axis deer hunts in Hawaii, equipment failures at critical moments, and close encounters with bears. Michael shares his recent bow hunting successes while the Elk Bros recount their adventures tracking bulls through blowdown-covered mountainsides and improvising solutions to seemingly impossible situations.
The storytelling shines in Luis's account of taking a black bear moments after tracking a wounded elk, RC's tale of facing a bear while following a blood trail, and Joe's remarkable feat of harvesting four different animals with the same arrow in a single season. Throughout it all runs the thread of genuine camaraderie – complete with good-natured ribbing about hearing loss, arrow mishaps, and navigation blunders.
What makes this episode special isn't just the hunting knowledge shared (though there's plenty), but how it captures the full experience of hunting camp: the laughter, the mutual respect, and the shared passion that connects these outdoorsmen. Whether you're a seasoned hunter or simply enjoy authentic stories of adventure, this episode delivers unforgettable moments from decades in wild places.
Want to hear more hunting camp gatherings like this one? Let me know by messaging on Instagram or leaving a review. If your hunting group would like to share stories on a future episode, reach out directly to be featured!
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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, we actually are doing something a little bit new. Today we are re-releasing an episode that's actually already published. So if you're a fan of the elk bros, great, wonderful. But I'm sorry, you may have already heard this episode because they released it about a week ago, have already heard this episode because they released it about a week ago.
Speaker 1:But what I'm trying to do here, guys, is I'm going to actually go on a road tour and I am going to get on other podcasts and get their hunting groups together and have them tell stories together, where they're giving each other shit, having fun, telling their favorite memories, and I hope you guys enjoy this. I had a great time recording with Joe and the team and, like I said, they're one of my favorite podcasts. If you haven't listened to them, please do. Please check them out. I'm going to put links to their podcast in the show notes. But enjoy, guys, it's a little bit different format. You're going to hear what the Elk Bros do. It's different for them as well, so their normal stuff is a lot more education related, but still, they're fun every time.
Speaker 1:So thank you, guys, for tuning in. Please let me know how you feel about this. Give me some feedback on Instagram, or I think you can even do it through whatever you're listening to right now. Leave some comments, let us know what you think of this. I got two or three more of these scheduled and I want to know if it's worth my time to keep doing them and if you guys appreciate them. So that's it, guys. Thank you so much. Now let's go ahead and kick this thing off. Thank you.
Speaker 3:We're back. That's right y'all. Joe was crying in his milk. Wah wah wah. I'm so lonely. Wah wah wah. It's not the same without you guys. And we get it Looking at his own mug for an hour. That would make anyone cry. Oh, okay, joe, we got you. Bro On today's show, old Michael Scrogan from the Hunting Stories podcast has been after us to get together with him and share some stories. Elk bro style, that discussion, our listener shout outs and questions from our awesome elk bros mailbox. So my friends, pull that discussion, our listener shout outs and questions from our awesome Oak Bros mailbox.
Speaker 2:So, my friends, pull up a chair, adjust your volumes. Just right, and welcome to Blue Collar Elk Hunting. This is my life country, born and raised. When that whistle blows, I'm on the trail, pounding in my head there's a will, there's a way, there's a way, there's a way.
Speaker 4:Welcome to Blue Collar Elk Hunting, brought to you by elkgrowscom, with your host, Gilbert Ornelas, and elk hunting coach Joe Gillian. You want to hunt elk and they live to hunt elk. Their goal is to share with you what they have learned grinding it out for over 35 seasons doing what they love. So come on into camp and set a spell. Welcome to Blue Collar Elk Hunters.
Speaker 3:Hello there everyone. If it's your first time with us, glad to have you. Hope you enjoy the show and, as always, for those Blue Collar Hunters following our show and grinding out with us every week, welcome back to elk camp. I'm gilbert ornelas, coming to you from an undisclosed area in in west texas and uh, actually sitting in in the uh bed in the not the bed but the cab of my truck. So I apologize that any of this uh audio is a little bit funky. But joining us today is we got the leader of the Venezuelan mafia, mr Luis Gonzalez, in the house. We got the legend RC Knox, currently in San Antonio, texas, and Mr Leroy Chavez, the ninja in Cimarron, new Mexico, and WWJGD's in the house, and our amigo from the Hunting Stories podcast, mr Michael Scrogan, is in the house. What's going on, fellas?
Speaker 5:Michael, mike Dude, we get to switch the, we get to turn the tables on you today, man. I guess, I guess I hope you guys are telling stories and it's not just me, because uh, you guys got a lot more experience hunting than I do, but I'm excited to be here, yeah, but we lie speak for yourself, joe there are storytellers and there are storytellers, and Mr Ornelas over there can tell the same story five times and you'd swear it was five different stories. I mean, he is amazing when he tells a story.
Speaker 3:They call that mofessionalism, joe. In my neck of the woods, mo Mo. That's more than pro, more professional.
Speaker 5:Oh my God. So earlier Mike was showing us that he had killed an antelope this year, this past season. Right, you had a heck of a season, didn't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Last year I shot two axis deer in Hawaii. I shot a cow, moose and an antelope all with my bow. So freezer is full.
Speaker 7:It was a very good year, wow, congratulations.
Speaker 5:So when you say like all with the bow, I mean why did you have to include that? Like my wife, she hunts with our car, right I?
Speaker 1:just wonder what you were using. That's a good point. So I've actually never shot anything with a rifle. So I've, that's a good point. So I've actually never shot anything with a rifle. So I've been out a bunch but I've never had success. And this year all of a sudden bow hunting clicked for me. So I'm just I guess I'm just proud of it. I would have to say, is why I mentioned why with a bow I've also never killed anything with my car, so your wife's got me there yeah she.
Speaker 5:She tells me I don't know why it's so hard, man, I go drive down the road, boom dinner she's ruined more vehicles. Man hitting deer around Cimarron. We have a great story with that, though. When my daughter was, I guess she was like two years old Brittany's in the back, she's in her car seat, rhett's coming down the road, I don't know 50, 55. Deer comes out. She swerves to miss the deer and spins like that. The vehicle comes to a stop and Britt's like don't do that again. And you know, as a little toddler, she says don't do that again, like that. And then, as they're pulling through Lambert Hills and she sees the deer, she goes mama, mama, deer, kill it. My wife was so pissed at me. It looks like we lost Gilligan Gilligan.
Speaker 6:Gilligan, gilligan, gilligan.
Speaker 8:Oh, it's Gilligan. So, Michael, so you said Axis Deer in Hawaii.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I somehow got invited on a trip with some pretty amazing gentlemen. Rick Trimmer he's just like a self-made millionaire and he puts this trip together. Went with him Ryan Mickler, if you guys know, shed Crazy just a bunch of great guys and went out there to molokai. I don't think you've ever been out there, but there are no tourists. So you, you see anyone out there and every one of us is like six, four, I'm six, four, rick six, six, shed crazy, six, five. It's like a bunch of giant white guys and all these natives were like what are you? How he's doing out here? And we're like, oh, we're hunting. They're like Kill them all Because they're a nuisance out there in Hawaii. I don't know if you guys have hunted them yeah.
Speaker 1:So they eat all of the plants up to as high as they can reach. And when it rains, that volcanic ash in the soil is flowing into the ocean and killing the coral reefs. So they want them gone. They are a huge pest, like wild hogs down in texas, huge pest and so they were like kill them all. We're like how we're trying, it's hard. And they're like what's hard about it? You just point your gun and shoot. We're like oh, we're shooting with bows. They're like why would you do that? Just take a gun, and it's very true, with a gun you could, you could shoot them all day, but with a bow they are, they are wily critters, they are jumpy and they got it's too cool.
Speaker 3:Like you wouldn't believe, man, they're really smart yeah, yeah, it's crazy they're.
Speaker 1:They're from india natively, if you guys don't know, and their only native uh, predator or like natural predator, is the bengal tiger. So I've seen a fawn spook, a doe, like his own mom, and they were just opposite direction sprinting. Never saw him again. Who knows if they ever ended up together again, but that they'll jump at anything those animals they're actually.
Speaker 3:We have a better population in texas here of an axis deer than they do in india wow I didn't know that. Yeah, because of how well we've taken care of them here, they get along really well, um, with the grasslands here in texas all over right, even in the in the west west texas market where it's really arid and stuff. They still, you know, they make it in some pretty rough country. They just can't deal real well with the cold on molokai.
Speaker 1:I think there's like 3 000 people on the island and there's like 30 000 deer, so you're going to get lots of opportunities. I almost ran out of arrows and most of them just snapped into the ground, but yeah, delicious you throw 10 white in a ditch to eat one axis yeah, they are.
Speaker 5:They are one beautiful animal, I hear the meat is unbelievable yes yeah, and their hides.
Speaker 1:If you can see over my shoulder, here this is the hide from the buckeye shot.
Speaker 3:Oh gorgeous animals elk, nil guy, axis I mean, if you never killed a nil guy and ate a nil guy phenomenal. And oryx yeah, oryx is really good too, absolutely nox. Got to see the south texas landscape last weekend and I'm telling you, boys, they got another three inches down there yesterday.
Speaker 9:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 6:It's going to be unbelievable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you need to come down there and hunt now. Buddy, you got grass over your head.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so when you're hunting the pigs now, you never get to see them. You just see the grass moving, right, right, exactly, yeah, yeah, that's a lot of fun, man, but I remember, I remember that time on the river it was like that too, gill, I could see that just the grass moving, couldn't see the hogs, you know joe got nose to nose with a couple of our South Texas pigs because that grass was so thick.
Speaker 5:I did, yep, yeah, and let me just tell you guys, man, I am so happy to see you guys. Yes, you too, luis, I'm so happy to see you guys. I mean, I've been missing y'all, man, this stuff of doing that solo man.
Speaker 4:Let me tell you, you know, just seeing me on the other side and nobody, and and I could swear I don't know how often I wouldn't where I was going with something end up going someplace else.
Speaker 8:It's just like poor people so, yeah, no, we get you, man, we wouldn't want to see you on the other side.
Speaker 5:Well, we're getting closer. Do you know, guys? We're like 90 days out from season.
Speaker 8:That makes me so nervous. I feel so unprepared this year, physically, like training-wise. I need to get back to it, man, that's all right, luis, I'll take care of you.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 5:That's the only thing that makes me feel better let's uh, let's rock this thing, because I want to hear some stories. Man, I want to hear michael's story. Chab has never told the story, you know? Uh, michael, I think you've had rc on your show, right?
Speaker 1:no, I haven't had rc, but I've had Luis and Manano. Gilbert was actually episode one and Joe, I've had you on as well, but RC and Chavez, we've got to get them on, so we'll get an episode of them just their stories sometime soon.
Speaker 8:Here I'm sure, michael, did we really get to? Because I thought we didn't get a chance to actually finalize it and do it.
Speaker 1:Oh no, we recorded. It was basically you and Manano arguing for an hour or so talking about capybaras. However, I will say this you did officially say that I am above Manano in the Venezuelan mafia.
Speaker 8:Yeah, absolutely you are. I mean, yeah, I mean, that was well-known internationally.
Speaker 1:What's funny about the episodes of my podcast you guys have been on. Every one of you takes credit for the Venezuelan mafia, so I'm going to leave that there. You guys can figure that out, but every one of you says you're the founder, the leader, or whatever, it's just a bunch of wannabes man, that's all it is.
Speaker 5:All.
Speaker 8:I know, dude is when we're walking in the woods. They follow me.
Speaker 5:No, we try to avoid that as much as possible because there's never a good result out of that, fall into close, get into elk, that's right. There you go. Absolutely, man, yeah. So, michael, before we move on, tell everybody about you and your show, dude, because I think you, what you guys do and the people you've had on and the stories is just unbelievable. I love the format, I love the people on there and it's so funny. I've really enjoyed watching you grow in that role as well and your comfort zone and things you do. I really enjoyed when you had Ted Nugent on.
Speaker 1:That had to be an experience right, that was, yeah, that was wrangling him, being like I don't want to talk politics. Ted, hunting stories, give me some hunting stories. And he was politics, politics. He didn't have one beautiful story about an estranged child. He gave away when he was 18 that he reconnected with it, like when the child was 40, so like 40 year gap, um, and the kid was a like crazy liberal chef in new york is the way ted put it. They ended up rekindling and now they have an annual hunt together and like this, this chef just loves it and he's like he's really into the food aspect of it, and so it was a cool story.
Speaker 1:But most of the episode was me just being like Ted, stop talking politics. Actually, it's one of my favorite family things. I told him a joke that my father-in-law told me about Sandhill Crane and he did not laugh. But my whole family loves that. I told my father-in-law his past, so it's really great Cause my father-in-law would tell this joke all the time. I'll tell it. It's not a good joke, but I'll tell it real quick. He says he has a recipe for sandhill crane. He says you heat up a fire, get a big fire going, throw a bunch of stones in, get the stones really nice and piping hot, and you take the breast of a sandhill crane salt and pepper, you throw that in and you bury it in the stones. When it's done cooking, you take it out and you eat the rock. And that was my father-in-law's joke about sandhill crane and I never got it. I've actually never eaten sandhill crane, but I told that to ted nugent and he's like no, it's uh. What do they call it?
Speaker 5:the uh like yeah the rebuy of the sky.
Speaker 1:So he was, he was just talking about how good it was, how good it was, and he's telling me about all this sandhill crane and I tell him that joke and he just he just moved on, didn't even laugh.
Speaker 8:Yeah no, but I mean, look, I've had it, and uh, and I agree, I mean it's the rib eye of the sky, man it's so good, it's really good. I mean, I don't know if they just cooked us in a special way, but I've had it in south te and it's. You just can't believe it that that, that it's coming from a bird, yeah, I've heard nothing but good things.
Speaker 1:I just haven't tried it, and it's just a joke that my father-in-law told the same jokes over and over.
Speaker 5:I'm that I'm that way about ducks, man. I mean, I love shooting the shotgun and hunting ducks. I just I don't do it, because unless I have people that are going to eat the ducks, um, I just don't like the taste of duck. And every time I do that like I had people that invited me to their special places to hunt ducks and I'm like I don't know, man, I just don't like the flavor. And you hear the same thing every time oh, you just don't know how to make it right. And then they commence to tell me about how they take it and they soak it in milk and they roll it in this and then they hold it in that, and then they do all this. And you know, by the time they do all these concoctions and all this stuff, man, I imagine you can make. You know, boot leather tastes good, you, you know, I just, oh man, I'm just not a fan of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've been to jerky man. It's really good.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I guess I haven't had any duck jerky, so I'll try anything once. Man, yeah, try anything once. So why don't we do this? Man and I had Guy's name in here, oh, I copy-pasted this stuff here we're going to take you guys to the Elk Bros mailbox. Man, that's what we're going to do here. And Chav, why don't you read the first one? I think that's Kurt Tillman.
Speaker 7:Kurt Tillman from Orlando, florida. I listened to Joe talk about putting on a scenario, but he never went back to show how often he calls while doing a scenario. Could you fill in the gaps for me? Thanks, and thank you all for what you guys do. I think I read that Well. First of all, about Joe not talking about how often he calls it depends on the situation. Sometimes you call a lot, sometimes you don't. That's my answer, because it depends on the scenario you're putting on. Unless you talked about something, specific.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think I was actually like talking about I think I was doing a love straighted bull or something like that. And I was talking about how I, you know, do the calls and I know everybody's asking like, well, what calls do you use, how often, and stuff like that. And you know you, you'll hear us talk all the time about doing a call and then letting it marinate. And so when I'll give you an example when I killed that bull that I called in in 22 over there in that unit 53, beautiful bull, and we realized that the bull was actually down, looking at the watch we saw the tracks of the group had actually dropped off into a into a north face basically, type of ridge down there and knew that they were bedded down in there, just because it was 10 o'clock at the time, so we knew we were there. So I just dropped off the edge, got a good raking stick, went about 20 yards down off of from the top of the ridge so that I'm not skylined and so I can see anything and, it's more believable, those elk, because that's where elk will be, you know, off on the side, like that.
Speaker 5:So I started out just with a cow call and basically it was like when I did my cow calls, it was something like something like that, threw it out in the air and just waited. Now how long do I wait At that point? And it seems like an eternity man. Three to five minutes, right. I think. I waited three minutes and then I started raking the tree and then when I'm raking I'm always adding sounds, I layer my sounds. So when I'm doing that like that, I'm throwing a cow call out, all right, a small mew, because even bulls sometimes when they rake, we'll put out a little mew when they do it almost sounds like a cow.
Speaker 8:Can you do those two sounds at the same time? I am not. I mean just kind of. Let's make it realistic.
Speaker 5:So at the Western Hunt Fest I told the people I was like I'm not able to do the sound at the same time. So I told everybody all right, when I go down, you go. So I went like that, and the whole crowd like that. I came up, you go. So I actually started doing the motion. They started doing the sound. It was killer man. It was so much fun. You were videoing that too, weren't you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you did it in Denver, it was good man, yeah, did it at Denver right. Yeah, they kind of when they're raking too, man, they'll make some really the real low growl like you hear them, you know, as they're raking and they'll, they'll kind of moan and pant a little bit too. So I've seen them do that in the wild and, you know, try to mimic that when I'm raking as well yeah, and so and then when I do that I just let it sit.
Speaker 5:How long, you know? Three to five minutes, because I'm listening to see if anything is responding. And what's funny was on this particular day I wasn't five minutes into the routine when I caught movement and then saw it coming in. So generally that gap in time is just you just feel it, just put it out in the air, listen a little bit, because elk aren't constantly making those noises all the time They'll come out and what you've got to realize is what's happening on the other side. So when you're thinking about what's happening on the other side, when a bull hears that, that bull comes up with those ears and those radars and he's listening just like you would if you heard an elk call out there. You're going to stop and you're going to listen and you're hoping to hear it again so you can pinpoint it and move in on it. Elk do the same thing that we do. They're hunting other elk the same way we are, because when they hear those sounds they're going to go to those sounds, but they're going to go to them in their time. So you know, sometimes I will make some cow sounds and then maybe a minute later I just throw one out and then I'm going to let it go for maybe three to five minutes before I start my next one. I just want to make sure that I have some gaps in time, try to keep it natural and try to let it flow like that and for how long? And try to let it flow like that and for how long. If I am doing a static setup where I am set up someplace doing a scenario and trying to pull an animal in there, it's 30 to 45 minutes when I'm doing it. If I'm doing any kind of rut fest, I'm doing that. If I'm doing any type of situation where I try to sound like elk moving on a ridge and do a cow pickle or something like that, I'm going to do that for a length of time.
Speaker 5:In fact, the time that Bill, that Gil, shot his bull, I was ready to give up on it. 30 minutes in and Gil's like whoa bro, I think I heard something down there and we're like, really, you know well, let's see what happens. And sure enough, you know we had a bull that he came from, man I don't know, three-quarters of a mile away, jumps a fence, comes up the hill, comes right into us, comes over the stop and scan spot he's about 38 out when he first sticks his head over comes into about 30, stands in front of Gil and he is just searching us out into about 30. Stands in front of Gil and he is just searching us out. He he even did some chuckling and bugling to try to get a response from us. And, man, it was just a perfect situation and Gil handled it like a pro and ended up putting that bull. When he shot that bull, that bull was dead in 10 seconds. So pretty cool. I hope that helps you, man so pretty cool.
Speaker 3:I hope that helps you, man. Yeah, that was a phenomenal. We had to really exercise some patience too, joe. I mean, like you said, you're ready to bail. And I heard a log down there get kicked, you know, I was like, oh, and I thought I heard him growl, was like, and I'm like, joe, do one more lost cow call. And then he blew up. And that was when you were like, oh well, maybe we'll stay here another minute or so. It got closer and closer and closer and then you just got to, you know, you got to check their temperature and then, like it would have been easy for us to turn around and leave. You know, had we had done that, we would have never got that opportunity.
Speaker 5:Bro, I just got to tell you, man, it's really. You look like you're out of one of them horror flicks, because when you come in it's like we see this dark thing and then we start to see some shadows from the face. Sounds like a ghost. That's hilarious.
Speaker 3:I don't know why it's doing that, but it does.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'll take number two, taylor Jackson from Kansas City, missouri. Hey guys love your show. I'm planning a scouting trip here in July. For my hunt in Colorado. Is July too early? Will there be any benefit and what should I be looking for? Michael, have you gone scouting in July?
Speaker 1:I have. I've put up cameras. I'll tell you my experience and I'll also put a little asterisk on that being that I am a novice hunter as far as I'm concerned, gotten lucky a few times, but I'd rather be lucky than good. But when I put out cameras and I go out, I see elk and every day there's elk on those cameras. And then I go out and the season starts and there aren't elk where I'm hunting. So that's my experience with going out then and why I've stopped putting out cameras, because I get so excited and then I it's a big crash for me personally, um, so the elk are doing something different than they would be in september. Is is my experience, um, and I'll let the experts the other girls.
Speaker 5:Let me ask you though, bro, what? What elk were you seeing on camera? Cows, cows, bulls, what were you seeing?
Speaker 1:Everything, everything. We put up cameras. We saw and these cameras were at 10,000 feet in the mountains. We saw antelope, we saw bear, we saw turkey, we saw fox, we saw mule, deer, does bucks, we saw elk Literally everything you could imagine. We were like this is going to be the greatest hunting season we've ever had. Like we had photos every day with herds walking through. When putting up the cameras, a herd of 40 bulls split us and just ran around us. We're like this is amazing, this is the coolest. Like how can we not kill something here, dave? I think the week before season started, every single camera went dead and we didn't see anything the entire season long and that was the same season.
Speaker 8:I also fell and hurt my back. My dad is not out of battery, it's yeah, no activity, absolutely no activity at all.
Speaker 1:Four cameras, nothing. So it was a huge surprise. So that's, that's my experience, but I'll tell you I'm I'm still learning, so what? I'd love to hear what you guys think well, I don't even own a.
Speaker 5:I've never even used a camera myself, ever. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:They're fun, but they're misleading.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I you know the whole July thing. It depends on what type of elk you're scouting. I mean, if you're scouting elk that migrate, you know, because of conditions and stuff like that you have large migration areas, then that's a whole lot different than some of the areas that we hunt in New Mexico, where you have a lot of resident elk in a lot of those areas and you know so generally, you know you can locate feed areas, you can locate bedding areas, you can locate, you know travel routes that they like to use in those areas and in doing that you're already giving yourself a heads up. Like you know, we have.
Speaker 5:We've been hunting unit 53 for the last few years and they had a horrible wind event that came through there and it looked like, honestly, like a nuclear explosion. Just laid trees down. It was unbelievable To get through. That was unbelievable. But as the years have gone the elk have discovered what routes they use and what's so cool about an event like that. It's kind of like rock slides, man. So if you had a big side of a mountain, my voice sounds like I'm going through puberty or something here. This is funny. If you have a big side of a big side of a mountain.
Speaker 5:If you have the big side of a mountain and it's all rock slid on there, you're not going to be looking for elk in that rock slide, right? You know that's someplace. That isn't going to happen there. And when you have areas that are just super blown down, where elk are not, you know it's going to be extremely difficult for them to get through. You know you don't have to worry about looking in those areas, right? So where are you looking? Well, you're trying to find those areas where they can get through those types of wind event areas or blowdowns. You're looking for how they get around them to get to the feed that they want the areas. Now, they might bed down next to some of those areas without going inside them. We even found some places where you know you might have extreme blowdown. You have some areas where it's not so bad and that became their alleyway in some of that. So when you can discover things like that, you start to be able to piece things together.
Speaker 5:Now, when I scout Michael for me, I really want to know the road and trail system, right? That is huge to me, because if I know that I you know I have so much more knowledge on how I can get to a place. You know I can actually check those as I get in because when I get to season, my first day, two days is pretty much hunt scouting. It's pretty quick, it's pretty aggressive. I'm covering a lot of country. I'm looking on roads, looking for track that's going through places, I'm looking for trails that are getting hit. I'm looking for those types of things and doing that so that I can start to piece together where the animals and what they're using and then we can start going inside, you know, on those places. And okay, if we have elk trails, you know you can take a look and man, you know, on X has just changed the game right Because you can look and you can tell.
Speaker 5:All right, so where are they coming from? The probable bedding, where's the probable feed that's happening in there? So that starts to happen. So when the guy says it's july, too early if you haven't hunted an area man, it's a perfect chance to get in there and to actually just get yourself acquainted with the area. Where are the roads, where are the water? Where are the trails? And when? I'm saying trails, yes, human trails as well, but I'm actually looking for areas that are elk features, that are maybe saddles, that are pinch points, that are areas from one place to another where elk it want to conserve as much energy as possible, so they want to use the passive lease resistance just like we do. Again, they are so much like us. So these are things to remember. And if you're seeing bulls on cams because you're putting them out in July, I wouldn't get excited about that because that's not where they're going to be in September.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's exactly right, joe. I'll say looking for animals July, not what I would recommend, but what I can say is going out and just learning the landscape has done a lot for me, in fact. I went out this last season, went out with a buddy and we were seven hours of hiking and you have this perfect line plotted on the topo and the satellite. It looks so great and then you find out that's a seven hour hike to go, four miles because it's blowdown right.
Speaker 1:That happened to us last year. We got in there and we're like this is the worst experience we've ever had. But we heard a chainsaw and we we follow the chainsaw. It turns out it was an old timer who built the secret path and so now we can get back there in half an hour, when previously it took us seven hours. Now that's a perfect scenario where you find somebody who's like making a trail for you, right, but you learn the, you learn the land and you will be more effective in the hunting season, regardless of whether or not you're finding animals, because they may or may not be the ones that'll be there in september you know, joe, we hunted our first time in Colorado and we didn't know that right.
Speaker 3:You and RC made some scouting trips and stuff like that, but just to the general areas where they camp, right, we didn't necessarily go into areas that we hunted. And I stayed up probably two of those nights most all night trying to figure out a way for me and RC to get to an area that we knew the elk were in and it wasn't so hard to hike into, because some of it was pretty hard, right, and I ended up killing a bull in a place that took us half a day to get into. But if we wouldn't have gotten to know where we were at, it took me all day to get into it, right. So we spent a lot of time, you know, analyzing the on-ex data and ended up finding a way, easier route, to get up there, to those two wallows where we were at, and we can hunt there every day, not a problem, but it took a lot of time to do that.
Speaker 5:So I think this and I can tell you, luis and manana, when they went, you know, early on, they were actually just trying to identify at what elevation they were finding the elk 10 600 feet very specific, exactly 642 feet, to be exact.
Speaker 3:We went back there three years later same place, same place, same place, same outfit.
Speaker 8:A quick side note on that, joe is like sometimes you'll get caught inside of them blowouts. One way or another they will suck you in, in and then you'll find yourself trying to navigate through it and and taking hours to get out of it for some reason. But uh, it was amazing to see there. Sometimes there was elk sign within those blowdowns and you're like how in the world are they capable of getting through this? You know and they can.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, they live there. They find the routes right. They're amazing.
Speaker 7:Yeah, they're not in a hurry.
Speaker 8:Good question.
Speaker 5:Yeah, real good question.
Speaker 3:Well, guys, you know what time it is.
Speaker 6:Shout out, shout out time. Shout out question.
Speaker 3:Well, guys you know what time?
Speaker 5:it is just a few cities with the most listeners topping our charts this week joe yeah, but look, man, um gill I know, dude and I apologize to people out there I know we usually find those cities we haven't talked about. Um, that's kind of how we do the shout outs, man. You wouldn't believe the list of cities that we've already given shout outs in the last four years. It is. It's amazing. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5:I just looked at the heat map just from this last month of the different cities and the listeners. First of all, all you guys out there that listen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's amazing. When I look at where all those dots are filling up all the way across the United States, it just makes me shake my head. But and we are going to definitely get back to you guys next time, but today, what I want to do today is I want to thank our top five listening cities because, man, you guys are always rocking it and it's time to give y'all a nod, man. So these are the top five since this last time and, man, these guys are always up in the top all the time and I and it was really cool to see our own, our own 505, in the top five. In fact, fifth on the list, the 505 Albuquerque, new Mexico so proud of our Hentai man. Thank you for listening. Fourth, and I don't know, gil man, I don't know, you know, texas Just huge.
Speaker 3:Hey man, Big D's showing out.
Speaker 5:Big D, dallas, texas. In the fourth position, third position, up there in Utah, Salt Lake City, man, man, they're always always up there in the tops, yep. And second, the second of the big ones that listen, the other big d, denver, colorado. And and I'll tell you this, man, hey, dallas, I'm Dallas, I'm throwing the gauntlet down. Denver always is above Dallas in the listenies. Man, too cool. Huh, that's too cool. Yeah, I want to see some. And this week's number one drumroll please. And this is amazing. I couldn't believe this man and great place to fish, great community Did not expect this and the amount of listenings that are coming from here, salida, colorado, you guys.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 8:Joe, please, what Don't ever say Salida again.
Speaker 5:Why, bro? That's how we say it here, man.
Speaker 8:It's wrong. Salida, it's wrong. Salida means exit.
Speaker 5:But in Colorado.
Speaker 8:No, no, please don't. It's a Spanish word. Don't say Salida, it sounds like saliva man.
Speaker 1:That's not how Colorado towns work, Luis. We say them however we want.
Speaker 8:You guys, that's wrong.
Speaker 7:You're not wrong, that's yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8:This is a point.
Speaker 5:And you know I'm sorry we offended the Latin. You know Culture Right.
Speaker 8:Yeah.
Speaker 5:But Salida, Salida.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In Colorado it is Salida. I'll tell you that. Absolutely.
Speaker 5:Well, amarillo, come on y'all.
Speaker 8:Yeah, hey, joe, do you mind if I interject real quick on shout outs man? Yeah, real quick on on shout outs man. Um, you know I I often get emails about people asking for for you know, having questions about arrows and stuff like that man and, uh, I want to give a shout out to uh mr jess nail. Um, he said hey, louise, just want to say love the l bros podcast and also the base camp. I learned something every time I listen and just enjoy the conversation. You guys have so much good information for a novice and experienced elk hunter. So thank you for that man, jess. I appreciate it. Jess, it writes to us from and I'm going to butcher this one. So see how quickly karma works.
Speaker 3:You don't want to become novice. Yeah, yeah, definitely to become novice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely not a novice.
Speaker 8:Tonganoxie.
Speaker 7:Tonganoxie.
Speaker 8:Kansas.
Speaker 7:Never heard of it.
Speaker 8:It's spelled T-O-N-G-A-N-O-X-I-E.
Speaker 7:Gilbert, have you ever been there?
Speaker 3:No, I don't believe I've been to Tonganoxie.
Speaker 8:What yeah?
Speaker 7:Tonganoxie.
Speaker 8:So, yeah, thank you, jess, man, I'll be getting back to you here shortly. Man, I appreciate your feedback and you know, reaching out man asking for questions Always welcome. I encourage everybody to do that.
Speaker 5:All right, man. So let's get started. It is Elk Camp story time with the bros and Michael. We're going to just kind of guys, we're just going to kind of do this roundtable style. We're going to jump in, just like we're at Elk Camp, right around the campfire. In fact, I don't know if you noticed, but I think Michael actually has a campfire in his house there.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's cool. A little LED light there, yeah.
Speaker 8:Don't try that at home, kids.
Speaker 5:Either that or he's got cops outside the window. One or the other.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll kick off the storytelling, if you guys don't mind, and I'll start one with maybe just a quick story about kind of where I started with my podcast.
Speaker 5:And then we'll go to RC after you man.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, bro, perfect, perfect, and then I'll tell you, and you guys can choose whether I tell you a funny turkey story or the first elk I killed story. You guys can pick. But as the first elk I killed story, you guys can pick. But, um, as far as my podcast, I uh, I'm a newer hunter. I think, joe, you know that I've only been doing this for about a decade now. No one in my family does it. I just picked it up and I fell in love with it.
Speaker 1:Um, and one day I was driving from Texas to Colorado and I was tired of hearing podcasts. I mean, no offense, but I was tired of hearing podcasts like how to right and, and everyone loves that stuff. I've probably listened to thousands of hours of that, but I just wanted to hear a fun story, and every podcast has a little bit of that, and I loved the banter of what you guys have, kind of that elk camp thing, and so I want to thank you guys for kind of inspiring me. Elk Shape also inspired me, if you guys know that, and then Chris Rowe, if you know him. I was very specifically listening to 10 Hours of White Turkey's Gobble by Chris Rowe. That I was like I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1:But I started the podcast and the idea was basically like I just want to hear great stories. I want to hear them every day, and that's what my podcast is is a new hunter every week telling their favorite stories, whether it's because they were full draw on a bowl and their bowels released themselves, or because their father passed away and it was a very sentimental story. So the last time they ever hunted with their father or their grandfather or whatever it is, I've had lots of grown men in tears just telling the thing that's the most important to them. So it's been really fun. I've been at it for three years. I encourage everyone to check it out. But, that being said, do you boys want to hear a pretty funny texas turkey story? Or the first time I ever killed an elk, which was actually last year?
Speaker 8:this, I would say start with a funny story man well, I'm only gonna give you one.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna give you one, but, but just because I don't want to take all night, we want both, all right? Well, we'll start with the turkey story. So I'm hunting in New Braunfels, texas I know several of you are probably familiar with that and I have a buddy and actually he on Facebook he was just a Facebook group. Hey, does I don't hunt, does anyone want to teach me? And I'm like yeah, I'll teach you.
Speaker 1:I take this guy out hog hunting one time and we hit it off. We decided we're going to be friends. He works in construction industry. He's like hey, we got a job site that's right on this river. There are turkeys everywhere. Do you want to go hunt this? Can you show me how to hunt turkeys? I'm like absolutely, man, let's go hunt turkeys. He's like like there are so many turkeys, you'll love it. And I'm like give me the address, I'll show up here with your work site and let's go down and do it. So he gives me the address and I go there and I'm sitting there at the gate the morning of that. We're gonna go hunt some turkeys. And I get a call from him and he's like where are you? And I'm like I'm sitting at the address you gave me. He's like I'm lost and I'm like what do you mean? You're lost, this is your job. Like I'm, I'm at your place of work, which kind of sets the tone for the whole story, right, so I'm sitting there and I'm locked out. I can't get in until he gets there. But he eventually shows up.
Speaker 1:We pull into the construction site and there are, I mean, more turkeys than I've ever heard in my life. Every direction gobbles going off. It's all private land in Texas, so like no one has access to anywhere near here. And so there are just, it feels, like, thousands of turkeys. It's like the most impressive I've ever been. Just opening my car door, just turkeys going off.
Speaker 1:But that being said, it's a little late to be getting started if they're already gobbling like crazy. Right, either way, jump out of the car, grab my decoys, grab my little blind, which is just like one of those blinds. That's uh, I don't know two feet tall, about eight feet long piece of cloth, kind of something you just kind of sit behind, right, yeah, so there's a deer feeder. So we run over the deer feeder, knowing the turkeys probably will come to that at some point I set up my decoys and we set up the little blind. Nothing Got my little slate call. Nothing Got my slate call. Nothing, like literally nothing.
Speaker 1:We're sitting there. The sun comes up, birds get quiet and I'm like, well, that was the most anticlimactic thing I've ever experienced in my life. Like I cannot believe I've got my bow, he's got a shotgun. We're like what just happened? Like how is that possible? So we get up. It's so late that we're like the birds are probably all somewhere else. Let's just walk around the property, check out what we see and then get out of here. So we walk around, nothing happens.
Speaker 1:We walk back to our trucks and another truck comes in. Mind you, this is basically a big rectangle On the top left end of the rectangle. You come in, you drive down the side of the property. About halfway you cut into the middle and we're on the right side of the property where we're parking. So we're sitting there at the cars eating lunch and this truck rolls up with like five, five workers, four Mexican guys and like the the boss, I would guess. I'm not really sure, but they go. Hey, there's a bunch of turkeys over there, you guys turkey hunting. We're like, yeah, we're turkey hunting, but those are just our decoys, like no, there's. There's turkeys over there.
Speaker 1:We're like wait, you stop. Like no way We've been sitting there all morning. There's no way there are turkeys sitting in our decoys. We turn the corner, walk around the big silo and, by God, there's three toms right in the middle of our decoys. And we've been sitting there for probably four hours and we're like that's absolutely insane. And I'm like, okay, they drove 15 feet.
Speaker 1:So I'm like here's the plan to my buddy. I'm like here's the plan, I'm going to sit on the back of the truck with my bow. You drive. They didn't booger when they drove by, so they won't booger when we drive by, right. So I'm like just pull up right next to him, stop, and I'll shoot one. It'll be great. Like perfect plan. The truck was behind, right. So, right, right.
Speaker 1:So we start driving and he goes and I'm like, all right, here we come. I can see the birds arrow knocked, got my release on, ready to go, I shoot lefty. So it's like the perfect. It's perfect for me. It's like it couldn't be a better shot. I'm just waiting for him to stop and he just keeps going and he drives right by and I'm like what is going on? Where are we going? Like, and I just watched these three turkeys just get farther and farther away. He pulls behind a berm and goes okay, let's go get them. And I'm like we just talked about our plan, like I could have killed all of those turkeys If you had just stopped. All you do is stop the truck. He's like, oh, so obviously I'm setting the stage for like who? My friend is Not the brightest crayon in the box.
Speaker 5:Either way, but he wasn't in the back of the truck. I just want to say you know, that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. I mean, we were going two miles an hour. So when that happens, the other guys, the turkey, slowly crosses the street, the dirt road that's on this property, over into this thick oak brush, and that other truck drives in 100 miles an hour parks, and all five of these guys get out of the truck and run after the turkeys and I'm like, what are they doing? Like just five guys into the woods chasing these turkeys. I'm like none of them, none of them have a shotgun, none of them a weapon. I'm like, well, I, I guess we're gonna go follow these guys. Like I don't know what else we're gonna do.
Speaker 1:So I go, we go into the woods following these guys. Mind you, we never see any of them again. They, they just left like we vanished, completely vanished. So we're in there with a slate call calling we're hearing turkeys, we're not hearing these guys. I don't know what happened, but all right, let's go back, I'm gonna pick up my stuff and we're gonna get out of here. I was like I, I gotta go, the wife wants me, and, and so we basically go back to where the blind is and the decoys and, uh, I'm like you know what? I always do this right before it's actually worked out for me. Several times I I take my little slate, call out and a gobble rips off right where we were parked originally this is the most insane thing I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1:So we, we dive behind the the little blind and I'm like, okay, here's the deal. I've never shot my bow at an animal before. So, like, if I miss, I'm like, have your shotgun ready. And I'm like, but I need you to call it in. So I call it halfway and then I hand the slate, call over and I've taught him how.
Speaker 1:So he's calling and that bird comes in on a line, probably probably 300 yards right to the decoys. He gets his head behind like the small little arm of the feeder. I pull back, my arrow, falls off the knock. So I've just got a dangling arrow on my wrist and I'm like, oh my God. And so the bird is over there and I look at my buddy and he's just zoned in on this bird and I'm just like trying to get his attention because I can't draw again because the bird's head is out. So eventually he realizes what's going on and he lays down belly, crawls like the six feet over to me, because it's it's covid, it's 2020. We didn't know. We're like, oh, sit six feet away, that's what we're supposed to do. So he crawls over to me, grabs my arrow, puts it back right on my string and I'm like sweet he doesn't take his hand off.
Speaker 1:And I'm like get your hand off of my arrow man and I'm like psst, psst.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to get his attention to be like come on man, like let go of my arrow because I will break your fingers. He finally realizes what's going on. Let's go. That bird's still sitting there at about 15 yards and I let her rip. Um, I won't say it was a good shot, but it hit it right in the neck, basically took the head off, was not a like. That was not the intended shot. I was aiming body, but the bird went down immediately and there we go I've got my first archery kill ever. Um, so that's one of my favorite stories, because it's just like everything that could have gone wrong possibly did, uh, but somehow it still worked out for me.
Speaker 5:So that's one of my favorite. He's had that issue with a knock before um actually that's a strand.
Speaker 7:Tell so oh, is it? You want me to go next?
Speaker 5:yeah, that's a good segue, man because I'm perfect, okay.
Speaker 7:So you know, uh, first of all, I uh, when joe and I were hunting, after a couple of days, if we didn't really get see a lot of sign, we'd split up and go different ways. So on this particular morning I got up and waited till about sunrise because I was ready to go out in the dark and I thought I might get lost on the roads. So I took the four-wheeler out for a half-hour drive. My destination was a pond in a plateau area that's surrounded by trees. So you know, I drove to an area where I was going to park and walk to it. So the first thing I do is kick my leg over, you know, getting off the four-wheeler, and I immediately get a cramp. So I fall to the ground and I'm kind of riding in pain there for a few minutes till my muscles relax.
Speaker 7:So I didn't know at that time that was going to foreshadow the day I was going to have, but anyway, drinks the night before, I think so, anyway, I start walking down this hill and it's a pretty good arroyo like this and when I get to the bottom of it I see some tracks going down this game trail. So I said, well, I can maybe make it a shortcut, go that way, and then cut up and go up on top of the plateau and find that lake and maybe catch the elk going to their beds. So I follow that trail for a while. Then it opens up into a U-shaped canyon and it kind of reminded me of a of a story on one of louis lamore's books. It's a beautiful little uh box canyon that just goes on for a while. Uh, the grass is about up to my knees. There's a little creek I don't know if you call it a creek or stream, it's only about that wide but it goes right down the middle of it. The grass is almost up to my knees, but on the sides it goes straight up. So there's no way to to climb it. And it rivals 53, because if you want to climb one of the sides where I was at when I first started, I'd have to go on my hands and knees and that wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 7:So I just walked down a little bit further and I got to a point where I could see up ahead that the sides of the canyon were coming out at a gentler slope and I said, oh, there's my opportunity to get up on top and check things out. So I got to an area where I could see some where the dirt had been kicked up and stuff. So I figured well, that's the place right there, that's the trail. That's the trail the elk are going up and down. Because when I was walking down I saw several beds on the grass, I saw some track, I saw some dropping, so I knew it was a place that the elk frequent and, like Joe said previously, you know they take the path of least resistance, so I knew it was going to be an easy trail, possibly. Previously, you know they take the path of least resistance, so I knew it was going to be an easy trail, possibly.
Speaker 7:So when I got to the bottom of the trail I could see it was really worn. The cattle probably used it too, and it was an incline that was pretty gentle. It started going this way for about 20 yards, then it switched back and went this way for about 20 yards, then switched back. So it kept going like this to the top and I said, oh perfect, I'm not even going to sweat getting to the top and then getting to my destination. So I took two steps and I saw some movement and I looked up and here comes a bull on that trail. So I'm like, oh wow, and I was going to count the horns, but I learned a long time ago never count, just look at the kill zone. So I got off the trail and I knocked an arrow and when he made his first switchback he was only going to be about 35. So I drew back, put my 30 pin a little high and I heard a little clink.
Speaker 5:Oh no, a little high and I heard a little clink and I looked down and my arrow has come off the rest and I go what?
Speaker 7:and you know how hard it is to to go back. So I go back and I pick up the arrow and I want to put it. And I go, it doesn't have a knock. And I look at the string and the knock. The knock is on the string. So I got to take the knock off the string. I put the arrow down gently, I get another arrow out, I knock it and by this time he's hit the switch back and he's coming the other way. And the reason I'm able to draw is because the way it was set up it was just perfect. It was like one of those ducks, uh, shooting, uh little things they have at the circus and carnivals and stuff like that. And there's trees for he has to go behind so I can draw back without ever being seen. So I draw back again and now he's at. He's at 30. So I'm looking at 30 and I hear clink and the same thing. So I pull out the third arrow drawback and I look, I said, oh no. And it clicked and dropped again.
Speaker 7:So I put the arrow there, and now he's going to come back.
Speaker 8:Wait how many times?
Speaker 7:is that already, Jeff? Three times that was the third time.
Speaker 7:Yeah, and he switches back again and I pull the last arrow, because I always told myself all you need is one arrow. But anyway, I pull the last arrow and just got a blunt at the end oh my God, and I just put it down like that. And that elk was going to walk right there and I went boo and he took off. So that was my very similar to what you experienced. I had just bought those arrows there were double x75s and I had just put the nocks on and I really hadn't tested them. I said I'll save my good arrows for that, for the hunt, and just shoot my old arrows for practice. So you know, live and learn so so that was an adventure for sure.
Speaker 1:The best lessons are self-taught. I can't believe you got four arrows out with that bull not spooking.
Speaker 5:That's a great story.
Speaker 7:I mean, it was like the perfect situation and I knew the yardage. You know it wasn't. You know, crazy, crazy times.
Speaker 5:So I just want everybody to know that we accomplished a world record today.
Speaker 8:Yes, I know what that record is.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I was actually thinking that at the beginning I was like this is already my favorite episode of the Outbros ever, Absolutely. Because, Leroy has talked more than he's ever talked before.
Speaker 9:Yes, I wanted to talk about Mr Chavez, the ninja there to go with what he just said. So I watched it happen in front of me. Same kind of scenario, man, I mean, and he had just watched me kill the biggest bull I killed. And, uh, we had I think we called in seven bulls that morning and I killed a really big bull and we didn't even know he was dead yet. I knew he fell over and we could hear him gurgling.
Speaker 9:And about that time I call in another really big, six by six for chav and, like I don't know, 25, 28 yards. He dropped us and he had dropped on a cow and let down on it because we had the bull coming in. He dropped on a cow and let down on it. And what we didn't look at is when he let down, his knock pinched forward on the string. So when he drew back the next time on the bull, the block was not on the arrow, right, it was, it just barely slipped off.
Speaker 9:So when he, when he, the bull standing there, 25 yards, like give it to me right, I mean broadside, it shoots nothing, it sounds like a 22 going on, it sounds like a 22 going on and the arrow just goes right underneath, right in front of the bull and he looks down at the arrow and he looks over there at us and he looks back down at the arrow and he looks back at Chab and I look at Chab in the string, everything's blowing up on the bull. I'm like, oh, my gosh man. And to make matters worse, worse, we called him back like three times. You know, um, and I just we just kept messing with him. I'm thinking, well, maybe we get, maybe we'll get his bow put back together and we got the string back on, but we didn't have the cable guide and that cable cable guy broke off the cable guy broke off.
Speaker 9:So when he drops back the next time to shoot the same bull, now, when he drops back the next time, he goes out of the arrow when he sends it because there's no cable. So, yeah, man, I watched that unfold. It was just horrible. But man, what a day we had calling in bulls. Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 7:That's a long time, but man what a day we had calling in bulls yeah it was fun.
Speaker 5:That's a good story Well, chavez had. We're riding on the four-wheeler and somehow the branch of an oak brush and he's carrying his bow with him and the branch goes in, catches right between the axle and the string as it pulls and next thing, you know, wham it just. You know it just rolls that cable right off the axle and just blows it up. So you know, we're up at the top of the mountains, we're on a hunt, we don't have anything. And you're like well, you know, I've seen how bow presses work. So we just got us in inside of an oak brush grove where they're, you know, there's a bunch of them growing in the way our oak brush.
Speaker 5:You know the taller oak brush that goes up about eight, 10 feet. That's real close together. You know, all the trunks are about that big around and stuff. So we just took a come along and put it on one and got his bow and put it between a couple of them that were there and just started cranking on the handle and actually made a bow press out of the oak brush grove and got his bow fixed so he could on again. You know, always chav man Stories like that is too much. Rc, knox, knox, I want to hear RC have a five-minute record. Man, you got to unmute yourself.
Speaker 1:While we're waiting for an unmute, gil tells us a story on my podcast, episode one, where RC first off. He does a great RC impression and a great Carl Gamich impression. Thank you, Gil, for that. You tell the story about when the bull gets to two yards from you and RC yells what are you going to do? Let it bleep us, let it go.
Speaker 5:You're going to let him do something. You're going to let him do something.
Speaker 9:You're going to let him do something. He says do something.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. I think he says do something. Oh my God. That is, I think, about that story all the time. So, uh, I'm, I'm excited to hear what your story RC, because uh, obviously you've got some, some character here.
Speaker 6:Oh well, I could keep you entertained all night, I could, you know. But I think I think I'll tell the one on Sean and the spike. But we're in 48 and we're hunting up there and I do a little bit of cow calling and we're kind of up on a little ridge and if you look down there's a little opening and it's oak brush and it's real actually guiding. So it's just Sean and so I do a little calc on and here comes a spike, comes walking through this little opening down below us and I'm going, yeah, looky there, you know. And he's like, yeah, okay, so anyway he takes and he drills him at probably 25, 30 yards.
Speaker 6:It's a good shot, but it's so thick that I'm going to have to fight the oak brush just to try to get down to where the animal was.
Speaker 6:And so I told him, I said you stay right here. And so I told him, I said you stay right here, I'm going to go down and see if I can find the arrow or blood or something, to where we know we got a good shot or what's going to go on Right. So I get down there, finally get down there, and I look back up and he's he's there and he's, he's pointing to me to the left, you know, and so I go a little bit to the left, you know, and I'm kind of going looking and you know, and sure enough I find blood man. I'm all pumped so I tell him, come on down, come on down, you know. So I wait for him and he's coming down. So I'm in dog hound mode, I'm looking for blood man and I've got my nose on the ground and I'm just going like this and he's right behind me, you know, and he goes bear.
Speaker 6:And I said yeah, we've got lots of blood. We've got lots of blood. He goes, no bear. And I look up and there's this great big bear and he's on the blood trail standing straight up looking at us. And it was so funny because we both hit each other at the same time and ran the opposite direction of this bear just took, you know, and we're running side by side, and I went, oh wait, a minute, don't you have a bear license? And he goes, yeah, so we. And it was so funny because it was like this bear standing there, like you know, and we turned around like huh, we got a bear license, you know, and this bear goes, oh shit. Boom, I'm like huh, we got a bear license, you know, and this bear goes, oh shit.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Lots of different adventures with him shooting out of a blind. You know that story. How far did you run the opposite direction before you realized you had a bear tag to turn around and actually shoot that thing?
Speaker 6:Probably five steps, ten, I don't know, five or ten steps. I mean, you know we were trying to outrun each other because, you know, the deer couldn't eat one of us. Like all of a sudden I went, oh wait a minute, Don't you have a bear list? All of a sudden I went, oh wait a minute, Don't you have a bear list? Like, yeah, and what was the funniest part was when we stopped and turned around, that bear was like, oh no, you know, because he didn't have any fear when we were close to him. But when we got right, you know, when we stopped, he took off.
Speaker 1:He's like, no, I don't want no part of these guys, I assume because you said you were just on the blood trail, I assume you guys found that spike packed it out.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we went back in ready for the bear. I don't know that the bear might have actually been right there on it, because it wasn't probably 10, 15 yards from where that bear was and that spike was on the ground.
Speaker 5:Michael Gilbert likes bears. He really likes them. He likes to find them in the woods.
Speaker 9:Negative.
Speaker 1:Brown bears, teddy bears, all, all the bears negative, bro.
Speaker 9:Um, me and bears got a kind of a pact. Me and chav got real nose to nose with a giant one on one of my kills. I I thought I left my hat at the kill site and I think he ate it because he was pissed off. Um and the, the hat was not there but the bear was. And when chab and I got there, we kind of walked around this little corner and I don't think he and I even thought about there being a bear there. But I promise you from now on I'm checking from half a mile away, uh, when I walk up to one, because when we walked through there, this big giant boar bear, uh was walking in at the same time and I don't know, chav, how far do you think he was from us when we discovered him?
Speaker 7:Oh gosh, I'd say easily within 75,. You know, 50 yards Pretty close.
Speaker 9:Yeah, and he just kept coming, and I mean coming, and I'm like, oh my. And then he got angry and bumped his jaws at us and closed the distance really fast and bluff charged us. Well, you know, I know better not to run. And I got angry. I didn't have anything but a grunt tube with me and a pocket knife. You know bitch style for sure, if he's eating me he's gonna eat all of me. And uh, I got kind of angry. And chav, I looked over to chav and chav, don't cuss, man. I'm telling you him, say one cuss word in my life. And he starts going. He looks over at me, he goes, god damn it. He starts walking around and I'm like he just cussed. You know, this is a bad deal. That better got up on the floors. And I'm I'm like this is it, this is the moment of truth, man. And he just he turned. But he turned away from us and took off running. And I turned and look, chad was going in and I'm like I'm going to run, man. I got like four-wheel drive to do, but I promise you my horse was running.
Speaker 9:Then after that bear ran the other direction and I told Chad. I said you know what? That old bear. Maybe he was full of that old elk meat and guts and stuff like that. But I said I don't know if that's my spirit animal or what, dude, but here's the deal. He gave me a pass here in New Mexico. So all New Mexican bears and really US bears get a pass from Big O. I'm not killing one Now. If I go to Canada, canadian bears might be on the hit list, but American bears get a pass. They gave me a pass. So, yeah, I try to stay clear of them, man, but I've had some really close encounters with them, elk hunting, and generally they've given me a pass and they didn't have to. That one for sure didn't, because he was pissed that we were there by his kill site. You know, um, but not I'll never forget the sound of those jawless pumping together and everything. You're in the presence of something that can and will eat you. It is an humbling experience, you know.
Speaker 9:Yeah, um, I've never hunted in africa, but being around an african lion or a pride of life, you know, I said I've never been in africa. I have been in africa but I haven't hunted there. We actually safari, just photo safari, and you know they fed the lions when we went in there and I missed the guy driving the the jeep, I said hey, man, y'all gotta y'all got any kind of weapons in here. Oh no, we don't allow weapons inside the concession. I looked at him and I went we ain't got no weapon in here. He goes. Oh no, he goes, they won't go crazy. We just fed them, said I ain't worried about them going crazy, I I'm worried about them going lying. That's what they do.
Speaker 9:They eat big old, big target, you know.
Speaker 9:And I'm with another guy named Mike Albertson, a real close friend of mine. He's 6'9" Big old boy man. We're like we love eating steaks, you know. So I said, man, I'm not worried about them going crazy, I'm worried about him going lying and he goes. No, we fed him really good. When you're in the presence of something that can eat you, it's awfully humbling. You know how do you guys hunt these brown bears and stuff like that and get up close and personal with them and shoot them with a bow? Man, it takes a special individual to want to be that close to death. You know, because they do it for a living.
Speaker 1:yeah, yes, I've had. I've had a few on my podcast a few brown bear stories. Every single one of them hair on the back of my neck is straight up. They're always terrifying. One gentleman, his dad and him, got jumped in alaska, like a hundred miles from anything, and while shooting the bear as they were defending themselves, he shot himself in the leg. It was just a crazy story yeah just absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:I think they shot the bear 20 times before it fell on top of him and his dad had to get the bear off and one of the rounds went through his own legs. Yeah, see, I'm out man, I'm out his own legs yeah see, I'm out, man, I'm out yeah.
Speaker 9:I'm going to test my look. I'm. You know, I've faced death and you know five fights and all this other stuff, brother, tempting fate. When you stand in front of a freight train, the train's going to win sooner or later, right? So I'm going to stand in line for some brown bear that I've eaten. Dude, that's just part of what they do. You can't fault them. You know that's what they do. I'm not getting in line for that. So all good on them. Bear hunters, congratulations.
Speaker 5:Too much dude, Y'all. Just see them around a snake too, man, it's hilarious.
Speaker 9:Yeah, I'm good with all snakes that are not poisonous. I don't know what to do with it. Man, if it's poisonous, it's going to meet its maker.
Speaker 5:Luis man, what you got bro?
Speaker 8:I don't know what story y'all want me to tell man. Anyone that come to mind.
Speaker 5:They're your stories. How can they come to your mind?
Speaker 1:Isn't that a funny question. I get that every single time on my podcast. I'm like, all right, well, what do you got? And they're like, well, what do you want to hear? And I'm like I don't know you.
Speaker 9:Tell them the story of your first bow kill, brother, here's one.
Speaker 1:You've told this on my podcast, luis, which is when you and Manano first met and you were introduced to each other and the first time I think he had never killed anything, is that right? And you were the professional hunter according to our friends in common.
Speaker 8:Yes, to the friends in common. You were the professional hunter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a great story. I don't know if you guys have heard that story, but it I listened to that actually like yesterday, just to make sure I was caught up and it's a. It cracks me up and it's probably not as good without manano like giving his two cents, but uh, right here just one-sided no, yeah, it was.
Speaker 8:It was. You know, he never actually killed anything. And and that weekend, you know, I showed up and and just as we were leaving, I had never killed anything with my bow either and and you know, some hops hogs happened to come across and he shot one and I found it. So you know, all his friends that knew that he had been hunting for a long time they were like, yeah, we all know that louise killed it and he's just letting you take credit for it you know so um, that was, uh, yeah, that was a cool, uh cool experience there.
Speaker 8:Uh, but, yeah, man, um, I actually I I think there's one that we haven't told here in a while, but, um, but man, you know, as we were talking about bear, you know we were walking, we were it was, it was Joe Manano and I. We were walking through what we call the squeaky forest.
Speaker 5:You know, in the squeaky forest and I just want to know, out of the three, who was leading the way.
Speaker 8:You know, unfortunately you were.
Speaker 5:Okay, just keep moving on. I just want to know who the leader was at the time.
Speaker 8:Well, you know, we were just kind of letting you gain experience. We coach people, we sometimes let them take lead for a little bit, and the wind was not favorable because we had the wind in our faces. So we were very at your discretion, really. But the reason why we call it the squeaky forest is because, man, as the wind blows, you know, those trees kind of move around and as they rub, man, they just make it just sounds right. And every time that happened I would just like wait, did you hear that? Did you hear that we, we could have sworn those were, um, you know, cow calls, yeah. And so we're like, no man, it's, it's just the, it's just the trees, right, eventually we finally got it.
Speaker 8:But, yeah, I kept hearing it for like half hour and I remember that day, joe, man, these are the perfect conditions, you know, we have the wind in our face and we have the sun on our backs, you know, and I, I, this, this is a good, a good situation, right? So I'll never forget that that was actually, uh, one of those memories that kind of stay in your head, right. And so we're walking through the forest and, um and uh, joe is in front and I'm behind joe, and then manana's behind and and manana's like there's an elk, there's an elk. And uh, I turn around and I look at manana and then I looked, I looked up and I'm like, holy crap, yeah, there's an elk, I'm a joe, joe and joe can't hear worth of crap, man, and he's like he just kind of stumbling through the woods. You know, I'm trying to throw something at him, I don't care.
Speaker 9:I don't care.
Speaker 8:Yeah, he was just kind of going. I think I had to throw something at him and he stopped. I was like what? I was like there's an elk over there, so so he turns and then he looks and he sees the elk and he turns around and he goes oh yeah, you know, and he gives that face Right and we're like, and so he, he goes to, he turns around and he sees the elk is kind of just coming Right and Joe had been calling and stuff like that as we were walking through the woods.
Speaker 8:The trees were calling. So, yeah, the trees were calling, and and then, and then the elk is just kind of just calm, walk right and kind of diagonally towards us, and then joe is like he guesses the situation and he goes, and then all I see is his hand behind his back just kind of telling me to stop. You know, like, just hold off. And then he, you know, I, I wait, and then the elk keeps coming and joe goes and turns his hat around right before now he was shooting his, his uh, instinctive, recurve, semi-recurve bow that he used to have, you know and he just turns the hat around.
Speaker 8:I'm like, oh boy, something's going to die, you know. So he turns the hat around, he gets that assassin look man. And then the elk keeps coming, he just draws, boom and he shoots right, all hell breaks loose, you, you know. The elk just turns around, like the elk was slightly quartering towards, if I remember correctly, and I think, uh, joe was kind of concerned about the shot placement and I'm like man, I just I saw blood, you know, and um, and he's like man, I don't know, and I was like, so we kind of regrouped and we talked about it. I was like, okay, what was only?
Speaker 5:like a 12 yard and we talked about it. I was like, okay, what are we going to do? It was only like a 12-yard shot or something.
Speaker 8:Yeah, it was pretty close, he was pretty close, and we're like, well, you know.
Speaker 8:So we decided it was like you know what, man, let's just give it time, let's just sit down here and wait and give. So we kind of went where the arrow was. I think we found part of your arrow and there was, there was decent blood. So we're like, you know, let's just, let's just, you know, sit here, let's have something to eat, and just like, give it some time, right? So we, as as we found a good spot where we were going to sit down, I vividly remember this moment as if it was yesterday, because I was taking my backpack off and I had my bow in my left hand and I was taking my backpack off and I'm putting my backpack on the floor, my backpack on the floor, and when I, as I'm putting my backpack on the floor and look up, I see this just big black ball coming through the woods, like just slowly pacing, kind of the same way that elk was just, you know, walking along, man, and I'm like bear bear and the and Joe's like what?
Speaker 8:Obviously he didn't hear me. And then and then I know and then I was there and I'm like bear and Joe is, joe is a bear. It's like yeah, and he's like where?
Speaker 5:Everything was right, Bear bear.
Speaker 8:It's so funny, man, You're always busting on me, Bear bear where there and and Joe is like dude, dude, at that time I remember I had like just laid that backpack on the floor and I was ready like drawing and a full draw, because he was coming close and I'm like I couldn't. I didn't even have a time to range him, but I knew that if he just walked over a log, that log was within 20 yards. So I was like and he's like, get ready. And I'm already am. So Joe turns around and he sees me at full draw, standing up and he just kind of gets on his knees and he takes the range finder and uh, and as soon as it goes over the log, man, I remember like just I heard I think you said 19 or 17, and you didn't even finish saying the yardage number, oof, I shot right and he was also slightly quartering towards man. And I remember when I was actually, when I saw the bear and I was putting the backpack on the floor, like you know, joe was also telling Manano to get ready, and I saw the bear and I was putting the backpack on the floor, like you know, joe was also telling Manano to get ready and Manano had the bow strapped to his backpack. And so he's turning around and trying to get the backpack off, to try to get the bow out, and stuff like that.
Speaker 8:So after the shot, the bear just turns around and starts running. Right, joe starts cow calling after the bear runs and I'm like what are you doing? It's like cow calling the bear, right. And so he starts cow calling, the bear runs and he kind of slows down and then he kind of stops and looks our way and starts walking our way and I'm like what the heck? So the bear just starts coming our way, straight frontal, just walking, and then manano is now at full draw and then manano takes the shot and, uh, you know, the bear takes the shot the second shot, turns around and kind of runs away and we're like they, they x'd him, just like, yeah, we, we x'd him. And we're like what the heck just happened. We're like, oh, my god, this is unbelievable. We just shot an elk and a bear within 10-15 minutes, okay.
Speaker 5:and so if that, bro, I mean it, it. We were just barely waiting on the elk and I'm telling you that that bear came in because of the cow calls. That bear was hunting that, that cow call.
Speaker 8:Yeah, and, and so we, you know, we're like, oh my, when we had bear tags, manano and I, so we're like what the heck? So we just kind of decided I was like just to sit down and let it sink in and try to, oh, manano's, like when you shot the bear. And when the bear went running that way, I saw something kind of running from the left hand side to the right hand side. He jumped my elk and I think that's the elk, you know, and none of us saw it. You know, he has a keen ability to see things in the woods, right. So we're like, holy crap, well, I guess we'll just go check here. Wait for a little bit.
Speaker 8:As we were waiting, a couple more spikes came in, right, joe, and they were just kind of curious looking at us. It was just unbelievable. We were surrounded by animals all of a sudden and, uh, we just messed with him for a little bit and eventually, you know, joe kind of went towards Monano, set the elk head gun and Joe found the elk over there and then, you know, we went back and started looking for the bear. But that bear man, he went a long ways being next like that.
Speaker 8:Oh yeah, he was. So my shot kind of went like close to the front shoulder and came out around the guts and monanos kind of scratched his eye on the left hand side and went through through, uh, between the shoulder blade and the neck and and it came out like further out and so I mean, and that bear probably went over 200 yards, um, uh, with that in there. And then there was a spot where we found and this is a great part of the story, right. So we're all like kind of scattered, look, and it took us a while to find him. I found a spot to where you could see that the there was kind of blood, but the uh, there was a log that was being bitten and stuff like that, almost as if the bear was kind of like a being bitten and stuff like that Almost. As if the bear was kind of like a raccoon, like it's fighting to kind of get the arrows out or something you know, and it was just tore up. So when I find that I look up and I see this black mass underneath a little pine tree and I'm like, oh crap, there's the bears, right, I've never been that close to a bear before, so I'm a little scared.
Speaker 8:I was like I go back and tell the guys I was like the bear's right there, man, it's underneath that pine tree man. I was like oh, okay, well, and Joe was like all right, guys, let's plan this out. I was like I'm like okay. So, luis, you and I, we're going to go over there, have an arrow knocked and ready. So him and I, we both have an arrow, knock, manana, you stay by here. You know, just like, kind of look at it and see what happens. You know, if he goes running, take another shot at it. Whatever, we're just trying to figure out how we're going to get close right.
Speaker 5:So Joe and I are just like A wounded bear dude. Yes, right, I'm like oh no man, we and you just don't walk. You know, elk, you're gonna walk up, tap it on the.
Speaker 8:you know, yeah, that freaking wounded bear can turn on you like in that situation yeah, yes, so we're like just kind of going slow and he's like, and, and joe is looking at the bear and he looks back at me just to see if I'm behind him. You know, and we're just kind of going slow and he's like, and, and Joe is looking at the bear and he looks back at me just to see if I'm behind him, you know, and we're just kind of all but we're both scared man and we're like what the heck?
Speaker 8:So I'm taking the lead.
Speaker 5:I'm taking the team here, right, yeah, then he.
Speaker 8:Then he grabs a little rock right and he throws. He's like I'm just going to throw this rock to see what happens, get ready. So he grabs the rock and he throws it. I, michael, are you right-handed or left-handed? I am right-handed shoot lefty you're right. Have you tried throwing a rock with your left hand before? I'm sure yeah yeah, it doesn't look very pretty right.
Speaker 8:It's just not very elegant. It just comes out very feminine, like you know. And this is like that's how that throw look. And the rock didn't even make it to the bear. We weren't out, but 20 yards from it. It just kind of. It was comical man, that big mass was here and that rock landed in front, it's like. And then he was like I'm like joe, come on, man, what's, what's up with this? So I grab another rock, I throw at it and he's just like it hits him and he turns around, it's like he's dead. And so so we get close to it. You know, we tap, we tap again. I mean, it was, he was definitely dead. And man, we're just freaking celebrating.
Speaker 8:Now we had a, we had a situation right. We had two big dead animals and it was just the three of us scratching our heads and saying what are we going to do, right? So that was, we didn't have Onyx at that time. No, no, you found that road right below where that bear was. With what did you have? You had like a little GPS. It was like a.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was one of the old, like garments or something yeah, so we found that road.
Speaker 8:Luckily that road wasn't far from where the camp was, man, and so joe went over there to um, to, you know, get the calvary, and in the meantime manano and I were um butchering, I mean.
Speaker 5:So here's the other thing right, these guys when they show up to elk camp, these guys, they're pig hunters, right? And they were trying to help. Honestly, they were trying to help. They found my elk while I was trying to work everything out. So you know we had found my elk and then was trying to work everything out. So you know we had found my elk, and then I left to go get the vehicle so we could get everything gathered up. Well, these guys carry these big friggin steel knives. They're there. I've never seen anything like it. Looked like it should be going on the shaft of a stick to be used as a spear or something like that.
Speaker 1:Crocodile Dundee, it's like you call that a knife.
Speaker 5:It's like one piece of steel where the handle is like curled out of that steel to be the handle, you know, like a bayonet style, and I mean it starts at their hip and it comes down to their frigging knee Right, and they pull out these things, man, a machete man, and they start, uh and, and they said, well, we'll take care of your elk while you get there. And oh, my god man, I mean they tried, honestly they tried, but I got back in that freaking thing had been hacked and whacked and I mean nothing but fajita meat, so un unthankful man by the time he got back.
Speaker 8:he was so slow going to camp. By the time they got back the bear was already gutted.
Speaker 7:And the elk we had already removed half of it.
Speaker 8:It was already quarter. We had to make hamburger meat, bro.
Speaker 5:We had to make hamburger meat. Half the body was quartered. Yeah, half of it was already quartered. We had to make hamburger meat. Bro, we had to make hamburger meat.
Speaker 8:It was pathetic. Next time I'm going to go get the boys you stay behind and take care of all that. But yeah, man, we finally got back to camp and then I had to skin the whole bear and we got to work on that elk. But the end of that day we were out but happy as hippos. Man. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 5:Very, very amazing. Yeah, it was quite the story, man.
Speaker 8:Yeah, I don't think that's something that's difficult to replicate's difficult to replicate, you know what I mean, just like a day like that you can go back.
Speaker 5:You can go to our, um, our elk bro store, the gear. You know, if you go to just uh, our shopify store and uh and it has about us on there and you'll see that photo that was taken, all of us with the with their bear, and I mean I couldn't have been prouder of those guys. You know I was, you know the elk. I'm used to killing elk man but to see the, the pure joy and and and and these guys after taking that bear it was bear, it was so cool, all of us were so pumped and it really made for a great moment, you know.
Speaker 9:We didn't even have an elk tag. We decided we were coming to elk camp. I had a turkey tag and the boys had a bear tag and we ended up killing a turkey. My first, miriam killed a turkey, killed a bear and we killed an elk. That trip so it was cool.
Speaker 5:Yeah, gil ended up taking a turkey killed a bear and we killed an elk that trip. So it was cool. Yeah, gil ended up taking a turkey man. Uh, it's so funny because gil says well, if I get a turkey tag, you think I can get me a turkey out. And sure enough, one just walked out there, you know, and he put the coop degracy on it. So it was over with. That was a great hunt.
Speaker 8:I mean, that's one of our first hunts together and it was pretty special it was pretty cool yeah, so now that, yeah, I think that's such a great story a good story to share.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. I can't help but think like if you mess with the, you get X'd.
Speaker 7:How it is.
Speaker 5:Yeah, oh, man, and you know those guys, man. So after I shoot mine, right, they're like arguing about the angle of the elk and what it was when it was standing, and I mean, and it's escalating, bro. I mean it's like you know no, bro, and it's like escalating loud.
Speaker 1:I'm like it was only escalating, joe, because they wanted to make sure you could hear, so you could make sure that running somewhere.
Speaker 9:So look, we make, we make a lot of fun of Joee not being able to hear, but you don't need to we don't have to, man, it's straight up the real thing.
Speaker 9:You know, I I can remember hunting with him long ago and you know I've been so blessed to have these guys in my corner the last 15 years, uh, elk hunting. But it was, I don't know, maybe year six or seven. It was just after crawl gamage passed and joe and I were hunting together and we had a morning like no other. It was a beautiful morning, uh, we had quite a bit of moonlight that night and it was like the opening day, I believe september one. And um, we, uh, we decided we'd check out on this East, the West side of uh, where we were hunting, and we got turned the bike off and we start walking and if Joe's in front of me, it's real hard for me to get his attention. Number one, he's probably like 40 yards in front of me, cause when that dude's in high gear he got to get his legs when his lungs warmed up, right, so, uh, but I was trying to do my level best to stay with him and we're easing through the dark timber and it's, and it's, uh what we call that gray light, but it's really a little bit darker than gray light, and we're going along, man, and I look out in front of us and I see these images moving. And it's not aliens, man, I know it's not. There's something up ahead that's moving, you know. And I'm like joe, stop, joe, joe. And then he's not stopping, he's just marching right to him. And I'm like joe, joe, joe.
Speaker 9:Finally, man, I pick up, there's a stick right in front of me. I pick this stick up and I throw it right in the back with it, and and he stops, and he turns around and looks I'm like Joe, like bro, I'm like, oh, I think I see some elk in front of us. He goes, he motions to his back. I get a lot of abuse, you know these guys throw rocks at
Speaker 7:me, they throw pine cones sticks.
Speaker 5:You know, I'm not taking it anymore, man, I'm not taking it.
Speaker 9:He you know, I I'm not taking it anymore, man, I'm not taking it like motions to his back pocket in his backpack. He said give me my binoculars, bro. So I unzip and hand him his binoculars and maybe looks like this and he goes yeah, that's it, that's it. He goes close to I'm like, yeah, dude, like right there, I mean we walked, literally walked into a hell of a pelt that we're feeding on the side of this, this black timber man on the side of this ridge. And he's like okay, bro, just he goes, I'm gonna call that lead bull in for you and you're gonna shoot him. I'm like, no, man, we're hunting together.
Speaker 9:I said so we're having a full argument in the middle of this hunter elk, right, I said, it goes to the left, I'm shooting. If the elk goes to the right, you shoot him. And he's he's like no, no, no, bro, you know we're here, I'm guiding you. I said, oh, bro, look, we're both going to be calling. The bull goes to the right, you kill him. The bull goes left, kill him, he goes. Okay, fine, then he goes right into kill mode and, dude, that bull looks his head up man, it's a rag horn. He looks his head up, dude. And here he comes and there's a bigger bull behind him, like going up. He opens up Tyrannosaurus rex, right. And all of the cows now are looking in our direction. We are literally standing in the middle of a break road. We have no cover around us at all. Right, and they got us pinned. I mean we can't do anything. They got us pinned.
Speaker 9:As soon as Joe opened up with the cow call, they had us pinned. And here comes this bull, like Gomer Pyle, walking into the store. He's, this bull's fixing to die man. This is his lucky day. We're fixing to rid himself of being cold and hungry ever again, right. And this bull decides well, he's going to turn left. So he turns left. I said, take him, joe. Joe draws, bull, stops at about 40 yards, nothing but net, right. Joe's like call the big bull in for you, get ready. So he starts calling and then he drops off the ridge in front of me and this bull gets to within what Joe like 70, 80 yards and he just hangs up in there with those cows and I just cannot thread the he's very confident out to 75 to 80.
Speaker 5:His cows were walking away, so he was going with it 75 days. His cows were walking away, so he was going.
Speaker 9:Yeah, his cows were walking away. We called joe, called him, we just couldn't get him going. And when joe dropped off he actually saw some other elk. So he, he comes and gets me after about 10 minutes of playing patty cake with that bull and, uh, the bull just wasn't going to play ball. So he just comes to me, goes, come on, come on. I said, well, your bull's up, he goes, don't worry. 10 minutes of playing patty cake with that bull, and the bull just wasn't going to play ball. So he just comes to me and goes, come on, come on. I said, well, your bull's up here, he goes. Don't worry about that bull, he ain't going nowhere, we'll get him. So we bail off. And when we bail off, he goes right down there and there's some elk standing in this timber down there and we set up in the thick. We had the wind perfect, man, it was so cool, we had the wind perfect.
Speaker 9:Anyway, to make a long story short, he hits the cow call a couple of times. This rag horn comes running. It might have been a spike. Huh, joe, it's either a spike or a rag horn. He comes running in there like he's gang. That's gone and he's got a buddy with him, right. So we're like, hmm, I'm like, joe, you sure you hit that bull? Oh yeah, we got that bull.
Speaker 9:So that bull turns. He turns both sides, kind of quartering to me at 44 yards, and Joe says shoot him for 40, man. And I'm like, definitely, I send it, man. And it hits like money Bull stumbles about 35 yards and his buddy's looking at him like hey man, what happened to you? And the bull just falls over with feet up. You know, I'm telling you right now, dude, I've played a lot of football. I don't know that I've ever been hit that hard in my life. Dude, joe hits me like dog, piles me, and he's like it's going to cool me, shut up, he goes. I watched the air go right into him, man, it was great jubilation and two minutes, two balls down. Man, it was crazy, dude, how it all jumped off.
Speaker 9:But, um, phenomenal story, phenomenal, uh. But it's true, joe can't hear shit. So it's not. We're not thinking about it, man. A couple of me can't hear jack shit. So we really. The dude's a crazy elk killer when he came here. He just gets him so close if they damn near run him over, you know. So, uh, just a testament to what a freaking factor jack elk caller this dude is. And I'm telling you I don't know my brothers, but if I ever get a chance to go hunting with my brother, joe man, something's gonna die this dude. Just he calls him in like nobody else. You know he's the very best I've ever seen. You know, um, we're all pretty decent callers now, but there's, I promise you, if you line them up in camp and you get your pick, you're gonna go with joe julia. So phenomenal elk caller, thank you.
Speaker 8:You can't hear for shit, you'll have to use you need a, you need to put a shock collar on him, you know, and that figure. That's probably the best way to like get his attention, you know, because he's going so fast too, stumbling through and just like. He's like plowing through the woods making all kinds of noise, right, and you're like an attendant cabinet bro.
Speaker 8:Yeah, and it's hard to catch up. He's going so fast that you're like Joe, joe, and you want to stop because obviously you're seeing something, and so you need to do completely the opposite. You got to sprint to get to Joe to make him to stop, you know. So it's counterproductive. Productive, bro, counterproductive.
Speaker 5:I knew you were going to correct me.
Speaker 8:It's Salida, not Salida bro.
Speaker 1:What a novice mistake. Novice mistake.
Speaker 9:Yes, out front of his english. So fast, man. I'm proud of you, louise. Thank you, man I appreciate it.
Speaker 5:Oh, no, no, no, no, don't be giving him that man.
Speaker 1:He saw so much crap when you helped him out I like how this this has turned from hunting stories to the roast of Joe Giglio.
Speaker 5:Oh my, God, you know, but that's all, good man, it's all good, I like this man.
Speaker 9:We're dogging on one another the whole time. We love one another.
Speaker 8:no doubt Like love one another, but at the end of the day, man if we see a track we're getting after it, man, yeah, and it jumps, man, it just go from one to the other, and you know, and you know you just gotta take it.
Speaker 5:They keep me in stitches. But you know, and, and then you know what, like what year was it, man? Oh, it was that same year we did a, an elk hunt with the elk bros and uh, and I took manano, took Manano and Luis, I said I know this and we're in this unit 53, all this blow down. I was like I know, man, I know that there's going to be elk in the spot. The way I look at it and where all this stuff is are going to be here.
Speaker 5:So we had to go into this little small Canyon and we had to go up you know, a little ways on the other side to get into this area. You know, and I mean, it's like friggin trying to drag rocks to get them up there, man, these guys. And so we get all the way into this area and, sure enough, we call this the call. This bull in man and luis is in perfect position. I get up back behind. This bull is just coming up and coming up to Luis and I don't know how far was that shot, luis, 30, 35? Are you talking about the spike? No, no, the rag horn that came up over there under Van Deest, over there After we hiked all the way through the beaver up onto the other side.
Speaker 9:The divine intervention shot.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was just a small rag.
Speaker 8:Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah it was. It was about 40 yards yeah.
Speaker 5:So this bull comes up and stops broadside in front of luis. He's, you know, in a perfect position to shoot. When he shoots, the bull spins to turn away and that doggone arrow just goes right in front of his chest like that. So we get the opportunity, we get over there, we get the opportunity to see the elk, we get the shot. Thank God he did not hit that. I mean, it was just like you know, it's like God helped us out and just turned that elk before he got there because we didn't know the route out. You know that we were going to actually use if we killed that bull we should have. You know, in hindsight we would have gone out the way we came in. But the way we ended up going out of there got very, very dangerous right. But you know it wasn't that bad of a hike right to get in there. And we get back to camp and these guys are like you know, I wanted to go back the next day and they're like no way, we ain't freaking going back there.
Speaker 9:It's obvious you hate us, joe. It's obvious you hate us Cause when you you you know they would do something like that to somebody, to take somebody in some shit like that man, they were so mad. They were like, okay, we're going with you, I know you're not going to go into some shit.
Speaker 8:Listen that that that day is when we've realized the true worth of the um bow hitch.
Speaker 5:Oh absolutely. So so Armando he is so so he's not giving it justice to how dangerous and it's your first time using it right.
Speaker 9:Yes, yeah, my first time using it.
Speaker 8:Yes, he's not giving it justice to how dangerous it actually was. This could have, like if we were to have like any additional weight other than our packs and our bows already, like if we would have had elk and elk, elk meat or you know, the the antlers or anything like that. It would have been a life or death situation, man, I'm telling you, it was that steep and that dangerous to get out of that place.
Speaker 5:And it was getting dark.
Speaker 8:And it was getting dark, and so, matter of fact, when we got to the boogie, it was already nighttime.
Speaker 6:Buggy.
Speaker 5:When we got to the what bro.
Speaker 8:The boogie.
Speaker 5:The boogie monster.
Speaker 8:The Salida, the boogie, the Salida, the boogie monster, the Salida, salida, the boogie.
Speaker 1:You need a tissue.
Speaker 6:Yes, yes, the Salida, salida.
Speaker 8:He's got a boogie. Hey, Michael, what's up, man? Are you on my side? What's?
Speaker 9:the deal. I'm on everybody's side. I see how it is, man. I'm on everybody's side.
Speaker 2:Dang it Such a rough crowd.
Speaker 5:Everybody said, dang it, such a rough crowd. So I'm going to give a little ode to somebody that is part of the Elk Bros, has been part of the Elk Bros, been part of our podcast. If you listen to our podcast, the introduction is done by a man, mr Hederman, mr Bob Hederman. Bob has passed since Bob died of cancer some years back but he's still with us. He introduces us every time. We're not going to change that because it keeps Bob with us. But the first time I ever met Bob he was my neighbor. He moved in next door to me and after he moved in he saw me shooting one day out there. You know you can hear the thump, thump, thump. I shoot a lot of arrows because I'm an instinctive shooter, so I shoot a lot. And he comes out and he starts asking me about it and everything like that and gets really interested in wanting to do something with the hunting. And Bob kind of fashioned himself as an all-about type guy. He was in the music industry and he could videotape and I had his daughter in my video class and stuff and he's like well, why don't I go with you on your hunt? And this is early man. Again, this is pre-everything. And you know, we had the actual tapes, you know the mini DVs that were inside the video cameras at that time, and Bob's like I can go along and I can videotape the hunt and everything like this. And I was like, oh, that'd be cool, man, if you're wanting to do that, I think that'd be cool, you know. So I went in and I got one of my truth series, you know, uh, one of those from Primo's and stuff, some of the DVDs, and I handed it to him and I gave it to him so he could go watch it and see some really wanted him to see camera angles and stuff like that. And so he watched it and he comes over I'm shooting arrows the next day and he goes. I think I'd like to do that with y'all man. He said it, it, it don't seem too bad. So we go out, we find a meadow, I set up the camera, you call and the animal comes in and you kill it. And you know, seems pretty easy to me. I mean, that's how Bob was going to go, you know. Well, I said, bob, it don't happen like that, bud, I mean, you know, only in the movies, you know. So he ended up wanting to hunt as well, and he was going to videotape some and and then the next year he wanted to hunt with us. So he was going to go out that first year and he's going to videotape some, and, and then the next year he wanted to hunt with us. So he was going to go out that first year and he's going to go out with another name that you'll hear with us sometime um, larry gill. Uh, we were, larry gill was hunting with me.
Speaker 5:Bob came with us to film and and what's so cool about that particular year is, you know, the guys say I'm a little bit kind of tight about things, you know, but I had, I had killed an antelope with my bow earlier in August that year. And then we're going into September and and Bob says, yeah, this is, it's that easy. And Bob, trust me, it is not that easy. This stuff is hard, it's a grind. You got to hunt, you know you're going to be putting lots of hours just for a second of an opportunity, right? And he's like OK, all right, you know.
Speaker 5:And so we go out, bob's with me, and and we've got a bull that responds, and I go out and I start calling. Bull comes in. Bob is right behind me to videotape the whole thing, dude. So bull comes in 15 yards, I drill him, he dies in I don't know seconds and dies off that. So I'm gosh, I'm fairly young at this time. This is early. I think Larry Gill at that time might've been, you know, 80. No, larry was probably I don't know Chad, what would you say, in his early sixties or late fifties or something like that. You know, probably early sixties, yeah, early sixties. So what's so cool is I've got the animal there and I'm I'm talking about the hunt doing all of this stuff you know on the animal, explaining what I did, and there's Bob, he's got all of it.
Speaker 5:And so we go back to camp and Bob's like I thought you said this stuff was hard, right. So I was like dude, trust me, it doesn't that. It hardly ever goes like that, right? Well, the arrow I used on that elk was the same arrow I killed my antelope with. So now I got two animals with the same arrow. I always mark my arrows, I have my favorite arrows and after I shot it, I spin it. It's good, you know, sharpen my broadhead. Everything's good. After I shot it, I spin it. It's good, you know, sharpen my broadhead, everything's good. And so we go on and we're actually I'm trying to get Larry and Bob, I'm trying to get Larry to get an elk. So we're driving through this one area. I have all my tags. I got bear, deer, elk.
Speaker 5:And we're driving to this one area and I'm driving and Larry's behind me and he and he hits me on the shoulder. I could hear real good at that time. But he just hit me on the shoulder and uh, and he goes. You just passed a deer and I said so did he stay bedded when I passed him? He goes, yeah, he just. He just stayed right there.
Speaker 5:And I said how far in the trees? He said about 20 yards. I said good, so we were just over the hill. I said okay, let's switch Larry. So we switch up, I get behind. And what I told Larry? I said as we get close, I want you to slow down. I'm going to get off on the opposite side of the four-wheeler. You keep going. We do just like that. Larry comes through, I get off on the side, he keeps going. The buck is watching Larry drive off at 20 yards inside the trees. I shoot him Next thing.
Speaker 5:You know, we're packing a deer out. Now we make a makeshift with a stick to carry the deer out and get him onto the bug and then back to camp and get him onto the buggy and then back to camp. And I used the same arrow that I killed the antelope with and that I killed the elk with. And I've killed a deer. And Bob is like I thought you said this stuff was hard, that was the whole thing about that. Well, I still needed to get Larry. I wanted him to get a bull. So I knew of a great wallow that these elk were hitting. So I take Larry into this wallow.
Speaker 5:We get in before daylight. We get. It's perfect, man, because you got the wallow down below. You're up on a little bit of a ledge with a big boulder in front that just kind of breaks you up, and plenty of trees behind a good tree for you to lay on, put the hat down and go to sleep and wait for things to happen. So we get in position well before daylight. I've got my hat down and Larry's there and it's just getting ready to going to be gray light, right, it's getting them ready to be prime time. And Larry goes Joe, I'm like what Larry he's like I got to go to the bathroom, man. I go now. Dude, it's getting ready to happen, man, this is getting ready to be.
Speaker 5:So Larry commences and I'm like, dude, I want you going 200 yards down the cage, you know. So the scent's all carrying down. So he takes off and he goes down there. I sit back and I put my hat down and as I'm sitting there, all of a sudden I hear rocks rolling and I'm like you've got to be kidding me, man. I'm like watch this bull. I bet he's a seven by seven. Larry's down there doing the business and he's not here. I'm like, oh, you got to be kidding me. So I heard the sound and I just stayed there for a little bit, because it's just, the gray light is happening really good right now, and it's starting to get towards a little bit towards shooting light. And I hear the noise again and this time I look up, I tilt my hat up and and I look up there and I can see something moving up in there.
Speaker 8:How long ago was this Joe. What's that? How long?
Speaker 5:ago was this, oh man 1930,. I think You're probably talking 30 years, 20 okay, yeah, no, that makes sense.
Speaker 8:Okay, because, because you were hearing, I used to hear.
Speaker 5:I used to hear excellent. So for all you people that, um. So I grew up a redneck, um shot a lot of guns and we never knew about hearing protection as a kid. Yeah, I started losing it in my late 40s.
Speaker 8:And you're losing your voice today too. What's up with you, man? I'm sick man and I'm still here. So you look up and you see.
Speaker 5:I see a bear. I can see the silhouette of a bear against the skyline as he's coming on the side. I'm like, oh man, and I've got my bear tag, no, larry Right. And I'm like I ain't going to shoot that bear, man, unless that bears a big bear. Now it's getting more and more light.
Speaker 5:The bear keeps coming down to drink from the wallow and dude. His belly is like dragging the ground. His ears look like this big right here, it's tiny man, I mean. So I'm like, oh, he's huge. I mean this bear is huge. So I'm like, well, I ain't going to shoot him, you know, unless he gives me a good shot.
Speaker 5:So the bear comes down to the wallow, turns broadside and goes shoot me, shoot me, shoot me right here. So I draw back, I pop him. He takes up up that same hill that he just came down. I mean he is just ripping it a new one. And he only gets about halfway up the hill and I hear and I'm like he's dead. So I put my bow down, I get back, I put my hat back down over my eyes and I go back to sleep and all of a sudden I hear a little bit of a noise and I look over to the side and I can see a broadhead coming through the brush. And here's Larry. He's sneaking into me and he goes Joe, I think I heard something growl. I'm like, yeah, larry, I just killed a bear man. And he's like no, seriously, I just heard a growl. Yeah, I'm telling you, dude, I just killed a bear. So Larry couldn't believe it. And the bear is actually behind me. It looks like a mini grizz and this was the bear.
Speaker 8:That's amazing, that's a Pope and Young man.
Speaker 5:He's a toad. You know, at that age I'm in my 30s, I'm in my prime and I went to go try to roll that bear when I got to him prime. And I went to go try to roll that bear when I got to him and I literally had to lay over his body and do an arm lock to try to pull him around. Um, he was massive and that bear was killed with the same arrow the antelope they killed wow, they killed a deer and then killed that bear. All in the same season, same arrow. So and uh, the the cool part of the story bob hederman that videoed all that great footage. Bob actually turned the camera off when he thought he was turning it on and turned it on when he thought he was turning it off, and we got a lot of great footage of the ground and my tennis, shoes and stuff like that. Zero, zero, zero commentary, nothing like that man. So that was Bob Hederman's first first time man.
Speaker 8:so and was bob there like he actually attempted to film the shot?
Speaker 5:he was behind you when you shot, yeah oh wow, my goodness now we had stopped in the woods and we had done a few commentations and stuff like that, as we were on the hunt and everything. And I don't know if, when that bull bugle and started coming in, I don't know if he got nervous and pushed or what, but he got everything in reverse and we never got anything on it. So that was, that's the story that's a great story, yeah.
Speaker 1:So here's a question did larry get an elk Cause? That's what you were there for.
Speaker 5:Um, actually Larry did get an elk, yes, okay, yeah. Uh, larry, um, one time with us got a last day bull, um that he had given up on getting anything. And we actually killed a bull in the last day, last hour of the hunt man, and didn't have anything with him, none of his knives, nothing. I'm like what are you? You're hunting without all of your kill kit stuff? He said honestly, joe, I came and yeah, you were saying we were going to do something good and blah blah, but I didn't believe it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so there we go, guys. Man, man, what a cool night of stories. That was fun. Yeah, I think my favorite part was how you guys beat up on each other, like that's what. That's what hunting camp is about. Um with, with my podcast, I do a lot of like me hearing stories from one person, but it's really fun to get an actual hunting camp together and you guys tell your stories and then I mean, call bullshit on each other or make fun of each other when it's due. I love that.
Speaker 9:This was a lot of fun I appreciate you giving us the opportunity to do it. Man, we love, we love camp, we love bagging on one another, but at the end of the day, man, we truly enjoy what we're doing.
Speaker 5:Yes sir, hey Gil, yes sir, what to do, man? It's that time.
Speaker 9:Absolutely, guys, if you like what we're doing, please subscribe, rate and review us. You have to go to Apple Podcasts or iTunes to review and be sure to include your name and where you're from to get in or spend a winter wheel drawing, and you can check out more elk hunting content at elkbullscom. And you know, guys, we still have some tags available for unit 53. We uh actually, um joe and I've been uh pushing those the last couple of months and we still have a few tags available Only firearm.
Speaker 5:that's it, no, everything else is sold.
Speaker 9:That's correct, only rifle tags. So if you need something, we do have our few hunts available left on apartment land as well. So if you guys are looking for something to come and hunt with us on the Chase or the Martinez man, we'd love to have y'all. And just a reminder if any of our listeners would like their questions answered on our show, just send your questions to joe at elkbroscom. And like we say down here in the Lone Star State husbands kiss your wives, wives kiss your husbands, hug your babies, keep your butt and head sharp and your powder dry and we'll see you next week right here on Blue Collar Elk Hunting.
Speaker 5:Yes, sir man, see you next week right here on blue collar elk hunting. Yes, sir man, peace everybody.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mike that was fun, gentlemen. Thank you guys where others.
Speaker 2:Fear is home to me. No boundaries for my soul, the pounding, the primal blood, driving hunger like no other Running through my veins. No man versus nature, only me versus me. A centuries-old challenge Raging deep inside my soul. No anger, malice or evil, only a hunter and his prey. This is my life. Country, born and raised.
Speaker 2:When that whistle blows, I'm on the trail, pounding in my head there's a will, there's a way, there's a way, there's a way. This is my life. Thank you, destiny, my way. Like a ghost, unseen, tasting every scent, knowing with every breeze, the trail before me, the fire burning inside me. This is what we live for. Honor, passion and pain this is my life, blind and born and raised. When that whistle blows, this is my life, this is my life. I know it's my day, my life. Don't think you know me my life. No odds will hold me my destiny, my way. This is my life Run to, born and raise. When that whistle blows, I'm on the trail, pounding in my head there's a will, there's a way, there's a way, there's a way. This is my life. I know it's my day, my life. Don't think you know me, my life. No arms will hold me, my destiny, my way, all right, guys.
Speaker 1:That's it. Another couple stories in the books. I just took his unedited episode or actually edited, but his full episode and reposted. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you guys check out the Oak Bros.
Speaker 1:Like I said, one of my favorite podcasts, probably one of the like four podcasts I listen to every week. And, man, I couldn't. I couldn't speak higher of Joe and his entire squad. They all are happy to help anyone. All you got to do is reach out. So, thank you Joe, Thank you Gilbert, Thank you Louise, Thank you RC, Thank you Chav, Everybody that was there, the team that wasn't there.
Speaker 1:I think we'll go back and doing that again. Guys, what'd you think? Leave me some notes, Let me Let me know if you liked that format. It's definitely different, but I think it's a lot of fun. At least I have a lot of fun recording them. And beyond that, guys, if you want to get your hunting camp together, let me know. I'd love to get your group of guys together. I think that when people are razzing each other, it adds to the kind of total experience and that's kind of what I'm going for. Beyond that, if you could please like share, review the podcast, I would appreciate it, and if you have a story you want to tell, reach out to me. But that's it, guys. Thank you so much. Get out there and make some stories of your own.
