00:00:01
Speaker 1: We’ve been traveling for two days. We’re 154 kilometers from Thompson, Canada, where we’re going to stay the night. In the morning, I’m going to catch a float plane out with Craig McCarthy with North Mountain Adventures, and we’re going to see if we can’t get a moose hemmed up here in northern Manitoba. It’s a very remote place. It is as wild as wild gets in North America. It’s hard to believe that this is really taking place. And I don’t know if I’ll fully realize it.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Until we get in camp. But I’m a long ways from home.
00:00:46
Speaker 1: What you just saw was a clip from Hunting Bull Moose in Manitoba, my 12 and 26 films sponsored by Moultrie and Onyx. And what we’re doing now is the companion podcast that’s going to answer some questions and maybe show some things that didn’t wind up in the final cut. And I’m joined by my good friend, Josh Landbridge Spillmaker.
00:01:09
Speaker 3: Well, I’m excited to be here, Brent. I really love the film.
00:01:13
Speaker 4: It did a great job capturing not just the hunt, but all the surrounding things to go with it. The scenery, the camaraderie, everything about it.
00:01:23
Speaker 1: It was just, it was a information overload for a little while.
00:01:27
Speaker 4: I’ll say, I’ll say, but we’re, uh, we’re really excited to, uh, to do this podcast because we’ve got some great questions from some of the viewers and, uh, we’re going to give you an opportunity just to, you know, it’s hard to catch a, how long was the hunt total?
00:01:41
Speaker 2: Oh man. We were there for like, I think the whole trip was like nine days.
00:01:44
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:01:45
Speaker 4: So we, It’s hard to capture all that in 42 minutes.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:01:49
Speaker 4: And so, uh, we’re going to give you an opportunity just to tell us more than we could see in the film, but, um, it’s a pretty different kind of adventure for you growing up here in Arkansas.
00:01:58
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker 4: Um, early on in your career, you spent a lot of time documenting other people’s hunts and you kind of go into that in the film, but, uh, this time you’re the, the guy carrying the rifle. So, um, before we, uh, we’re going to, I’ve got a couple of questions for you before we we kind of dive into it.
00:02:17
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:02:18
Speaker 3: How did this.
00:02:20
Speaker 4: Kind of come about? How did you get, uh, how did you like, Hey, I want to go to Manitoba and hunt.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: Man.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: Uh, it all started like in February a year ago.
00:02:30
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:02:31
Speaker 1: And Garrett long, my boss calls me and he says, we need to come up with an idea for a project. Some, some, some film projects that we’re going to film throughout the year. And I need, what’s your dream hunt. And I’m like, I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Oh, I got it. I mean, it was just that, that was how, that’s how it went. I said, I want to go shoot a moose and, and, uh, Northern Manitoba with Craig McCarthy.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: And now the.
00:02:59
Speaker 1: Response I was waiting to hear was like, uh, how about we do something in Missouri, you know, a little closer to home. But Garrett’s response was okay. Get ahold of Craig and let’s start working out the details. And I’m like, so that again, and if, and if from that, it just went from, initial meetings with Craig and producer, and we just started getting the ball rolling and making a plan and it came to fruition.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: That’s incredible.
00:03:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker 4: What was kind of different about you? I know you filmed quite a bit in Canada, not necessarily in Northern Manitoba, but you’ve filmed a lot in Canada. How was it different preparing for this knowing that you were gonna be the shooter?
00:03:44
Speaker 1: Well, to me, being a cinematographer, which I don’t claim to be, I was a cameraman and I think, I think there’s a difference, you know, but prepping myself to go film a hunt like that. I just had to get the mindset that, that I’m always working.
00:04:02
Speaker 5: Right.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: That, you know, the hunt is not when you leave, walk out the camp door or the tent or whatever with a gun in your hand, when you’re there to document the whole hunt, that’s all of it. So, you know, you’ve got to be on the ready. You got to, You’re the first guy up in the morning. You’re the last guy to go to bed at night. You’re the last, most of your meals are going to be cold because you’re filming everybody else doing all that kind of stuff. So it is a totally different situation that, that you had to prepare for us. You just got to get your mind right. That if it don’t happen on camera, then it didn’t happen.
00:04:36
Speaker 5: Right.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: You know, that’s the way you got to look at it. And, I want to think, I can’t remember exactly, Josh, but I think Dave Gardner shot like 26. Dave Gardner was your cameraman. He was my cameraman on this. It was me, Dave Gardner, and Craig McCarthy in this.
00:04:50
Speaker 3: Excuse me, videographer.
00:04:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, cinematographer. Cinematographer. Shout out to Dave Gardner.
00:04:55
Speaker 5: Extraordinary.
00:04:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, for real.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: But I think it’s like 26 hours of video or film that he shot. And they condensed that down to 42 minutes. I mean, it’s incredible, incredible.
00:05:13
Speaker 3: Well, that’s awesome.
00:05:14
Speaker 4: Well, let’s go ahead and dive into another clip here.
00:05:18
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:05:29
Speaker 1: Man, the amount of stuff it takes to do this is monumental, especially if we’re trying to document a film like this. It’s already going to be a good trip regardless. So a lot of folks ready to go, me included.
00:05:45
Speaker 3: You’re Arkansas?
00:05:48
Speaker 2: It’s been a.
00:05:49
Speaker 6: Long time, no see.
00:05:50
Speaker 5: Hey, brother.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: Good to see you.
00:05:52
Speaker 1: You too.
00:06:05
Speaker 4: Great that’s a great clip uh one of the things that i noticed right away was how remote yeah this place was yeah i’m flying in and out um no roads road systems i mean you you fly in live out of camp um and your boat becomes your primary way of getting around um and then the whole process that goes into loading these planes and getting everything off and um What, what were the logistical, what was the logistics of putting together a hunt like this?
00:06:36
Speaker 1: I mean, you think about, there’s always been in this business and I learned it very early that you’re either hunting or you’re filming a hunt. And that is two totally different things. If you’re just hunting, you’re just going to, you capture what you capture. If you’re trying to tell a story, then you’ve got to film everything. So there’s going to be equipment and batteries and camera batteries and stuff that are going to take the place maybe of clothes, of other things that you wanted to bring. I want to bring, you know, X, Y, Z, but you don’t have room for it. And you got to make a choice between clean underwear and batteries.
00:07:18
Speaker 3: Batteries are going to win every time.
00:07:20
Speaker 1: And you’re just taking a, you’re taking a bath in the Creek, you know, and washing your clothes in the lake. And that’s that, that kind of stuff goes into it. And it goes into the, whole thought process of okay maybe i can wear.
00:07:32
Speaker 2: A pair of britches for three days right you know and.
00:07:36
Speaker 1: And i actually did a podcast about it about when i came back about the things that i would have done different and i i took way too many clothes and i would take i would cut that back and just you know washing the wash in the in the lake rinse off dry let it air dry and then go that route but You really prioritize the things that you need to document because if you run out of lens wipes or if you run out of batteries or if you run out of, you know, your B camera, you got more than one camera there. If you run out of things to document that, I mean, it’s not, you don’t, you don’t call up FedEx and have them ship you another one in. Run down to Best Buy. Yeah. Cause you know, from where we took off there in Thompson, we were in that float plane for another two hours before.
00:08:21
Speaker 5: Oh, wow. Oh yeah.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: It was out there, you know? Not in a straight line.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: We went to several other camps and dropped some stuff off, but it was, you don’t just, if you don’t bring it, if you don’t have it.
00:08:30
Speaker 2: With you, you don’t have it.
00:08:31
Speaker 1: Right.
00:08:32
Speaker 7: Right.
00:08:32
Speaker 1: So, and usually one is none and two is one. So you, you usually you’re doubling up.
00:08:38
Speaker 2: Right. So you can be sure.
00:08:39
Speaker 5: That you have.
00:08:39
Speaker 2: On the necessities. To have, yeah.
00:08:41
Speaker 4: So one of the things that I know and love about you, Brent, is that you are, you really value relationships. Tell us how you met Craig.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: Oh, man, I went up on a bear hunt with Craig and his wife, Mel, and their place.
00:08:55
Speaker 2: I remember that.
00:08:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, North Mountain Adventures there. And I guess it’s kind of in the bottom third of Manitoba there. And their family, Craig, Melanie, Hayden, and Kirsten, they’re just, man, they are just an ideal outdoor family.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: They’re wonderful.
00:09:17
Speaker 1: The hosting that they have there and the places they have to hunt is just beyond anything. And they’re just good down to earth people. So we hit it off, you know, right from, from the get go. The only, our only difference is, you know, we talk different and they have an accent and I don’t, but we just became good friends. And then when this opportunity came up to be able to go on a moose hunt, there was one guy that I wanted to do it with.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that, that’s how it happened.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: That’s really cool. That’s really cool.
00:09:45
Speaker 3: Um, So when you’re this remote, you said you were out there for nine days. What does a typical.
00:09:51
Speaker 4: Day look like when you’re out there hunting?
00:09:54
Speaker 1: Well, hunting moose, man, you you you get up pretty early uh i mean it’s not like a duck hunt where you’re two hours before daylight you get up right before daylight and kind of get a bite to eat and you let the you want to get some daylight where you can you can see the shore you know when when you leave the camp you get out and you go and we’re going to different spots along the shore and if weather’s right and it’s and uh and you can see uh you know you may be able you may spot a moose before you ever set up to call one now we didn’t we didn’t see him uh the first two or three days we were there uh so we would just go to different spots along the lake and call and we’d set into one spot and i talked to even in the film i’m talking to craig about it you know asking him how long he likes to stay in one spot after we do a call and it’s right i would think you know 45 minutes you know or But he’s like, no, two hours.
00:10:48
Speaker 2: And it’s the way.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: Those bulls react to a call. It’s just so slow and methodical. I mean, they can hear it a long ways, but they’re usually not just, okay, I hear a cow running over there. No, he’s just going to start easing his way that way. And he may be a mile away from it or more.
00:11:10
Speaker 2: Right. And just start easing his way.
00:11:13
Speaker 3: And you were there what time of year?
00:11:16
Speaker 2: That was in late September.
00:11:18
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:11:18
Speaker 3: Is that, is that like peak for the rut?
00:11:20
Speaker 2: I think it’s the kind of toward the end of it.
00:11:22
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: Cause everybody, we were the last hunt for that, for Craig’s outfit up there, his father’s outfit up there. So, and anytime I was talking to someone, they’d say, oh, you’re going to, when are you going to hunt this moose?
00:11:36
Speaker 2: And I’d say, oh, we’re leaving.
00:11:38
Speaker 1: I think it was like the 18th or 19th of January or September, something like that. And they go, oh, you’re going late. I’m like, golly, that seems early. But you take into account the weather up there in October as opposed to how it is down here. There’s quite a difference. So it was a tail end of the rut, but bulls were really active. And as you can see, it paid off pretty well.
00:12:05
Speaker 4: So, um, you, you traveled with your rifle on several different airplanes. There’s a scene in the, in the, in the film where you want to go just check your zero on it. Um, what, what, uh, a lot of questions about what caliber, what rifle you were shooting, what caliber, and why was it important to you to check the zero?
00:12:25
Speaker 1: So Sig Sauer cross and 300 PRC, which was the largest round I’ve ever shot, you know, in a, in a civilian rifle. And when I looked at it, I thought, you know, that’s probably a moose round right there.
00:12:39
Speaker 3: As big as it is.
00:12:41
Speaker 1: But I sighted it in with my friend who lives here not far from my house here. And he actually works for SIG. He’s an engineer for SIG here at their Arkansas ammunition plant. And Matt Burns, who’s a competitive shooter and just a man, he’s just so knowledgeable about it. But he’s got a little range at his house. And we went there. I went there and sighted that thing in. And the whole time we were traveling, you know, from plane to plane, I’m looking out the window and I’m watching them load stuff. I’m like, that guy right there is not concerned whether my rifle stays on zero or not. But, uh, we got, that was the first thing that I wanted to do once I got there. And you can actually in Canada, uh, in Manitoba, that is, you can hunt the same day you fly in as long as you don’t use that aircraft to, you know, spot anything, which we didn’t see anything.
00:13:34
Speaker 2: But you can, uh, it’s legal to do that.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: So as soon as we got settled in camp, I mean, Dave pushed record and we started, we started hunting right then.
00:13:43
Speaker 2: Awesome.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: Awesome.
00:13:44
Speaker 3: Where, uh, what distance did you have your rifle zeroed in at?
00:13:48
Speaker 2: I sighted it in.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: It was, I could shoot out to 700 yards on Matt’s course. And we shot a hundred. If it’s good at a hundred, Matt said it’s good at 700. And I shot both at his house and. That was what we did there.
00:14:03
Speaker 3: Based on the ballistic calculator?
00:14:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, based on all that. We did it there once we got into camp, and it was good to go. Awesome.
00:14:11
Speaker 2: Well, that’s cool.
00:14:15
Speaker 3: Let’s go ahead and hit this next clip.
00:14:19
Speaker 1: We talked about this earlier, and I’ve heard you explain it to other folks, or talking about going and calling, and then at night, and then leaving and coming back to that spot.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: Is that more like putting bait out?
00:14:31
Speaker 6: Yeah, pretty much. Unless he’s right there, you’re not going to get him right away. But he could be two miles. And if it’s dead calm and he hears you, and moose aren’t fast, when they’re coming, he’ll start grunting and slowly make his way there. So we leave in the morning. He’s probably coming if he heard you.
00:14:49
Speaker 5: Right.
00:14:50
Speaker 6: And then when we go back in the afternoon or the next morning, he’s probably within a couple hundred yards of where you were calling from.
00:14:59
Speaker 1: What’s your pitch or Perfect weather for calling moose in the rut.
00:15:04
Speaker 5: What are you looking for?
00:15:06
Speaker 8: Below zero temperatures and dead calm.
00:15:08
Speaker 5: Celsius?
00:15:10
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker 2: So 32 or under and no wind.
00:15:13
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:15:31
Speaker 3: Now, I don’t, I don’t want to be presumptuous here.
00:15:36
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:15:37
Speaker 4: I’ve spent quite a bit of time practicing a turkey call and a duck call.
00:15:46
Speaker 9: Yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker 3: And don’t claim to be good at either one.
00:15:48
Speaker 2: Right.
00:15:49
Speaker 3: I think I could get that one down.
00:15:52
Speaker 1: I’ve got, man, I’ve got videos of folks with their kids blowing through a toilet, toilet paper roll. Like, how’s my moose calling? It sounds good. And Craig will be the first to tell you. It’s all you got to do with a minimum amount of practice to call one up. And it was the thing that got me so much is something that I just keep beating the hair off of is it’s like calling turkeys right now, going back to camp, going to bed, and getting up the next morning, going back and sitting by that tree and shooting him when he walks up. I mean, it’s just so out of the ordinary. That’s what I kept thinking about.
00:16:34
Speaker 4: I mean, it’s pretty amazing that you can put.
00:16:36
Speaker 3: A call out and 12 hours.
00:16:39
Speaker 1: Later that Moose is coming. Yeah, yeah, he’s coming. Or 24 hours.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: It was.
00:16:47
Speaker 1: When we would leave and there’s something in there, and I don’t know if we’re going to get to something that, didn’t make it into the film that i wish would have if this is a good time to cover it now but one afternoon and i can’t remember now if it was the day after i think it was a couple days after uh that i actually killed a bull we were going down that river the same river and we just pulled up on the bank and craig made a call and then we went on fishing down the and as we left dave’s filming him and craig says there’ll be a bull here when we come back and we laughed dave laughed i laughed craig laughed we went fishing we came back there was a bull there three hours later really yeah we got some footage of him from the boat and but i wish that would have made it in craig saying that but he because i mean you like oh this guy’s got esp oh that that’s awesome it was pretty it was pretty funny were.
00:17:50
Speaker 4: There ever any You know, when you’re throwing these cow calls out there, was there ever any, before you saw one respond to it like that, was there any doubt in your mind that you’re like, eh?
00:18:02
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you trust the guide.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: I was a duck guide for so long that I knew not, if I’ve got a client with me, I’m not going to tell him something that’s not true. You’ve got to be honest because in the course of of being in the wilderness, being outside and dealing with nature, the truth is going to come out.
00:18:24
Speaker 5: Right.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: So I had to do nothing but trust what he said. And, you know, I would be thinking, Oh, we need to get up and move in my mind. I’m thinking we should get up and move. Right. The next thought would be, I should pay attention to Craig because he does this for a living.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: Exactly. And that gets us wrong.
00:18:40
Speaker 3: He doesn’t get paid.
00:18:40
Speaker 5: Right.
00:18:41
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:18:41
Speaker 1: So, I mean, it’s, You never guide the guide, and that’s something I always keep in the forefront of what we’re doing, and I’m trying to learn. I learned so much from being a turkey hunter or a whitetail hunter. You’ve got to be patient a lot of times. But I learned patience from him up there, especially when you’re making a call that could have an effect 24 hours later.
00:19:07
Speaker 5: Sure.
00:19:08
Speaker 2: It was really cool to see.
00:19:10
Speaker 4: So Craig mentioned, you know, his ideal calling conditions were, you know, zero degrees Celsius, 32 degrees Fahrenheit, dead calm.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: Why those conditions?
00:19:18
Speaker 4: Obviously the dead calm makes sense.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: I think it’s the sound carries and it’s, uh, they seem to be active during that time, you know, during, with that temperature, they’re most active. And obviously with the, the sound will go not just downwind, but in every direction.
00:19:34
Speaker 3: Now, was that from your first day hunting?
00:19:37
Speaker 2: That was. Okay.
00:19:38
Speaker 3: So first day was just call and wait.
00:19:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, call and wait. Okay. We got there that afternoon.
00:19:45
Speaker 1: We went over and across the lake. We never hunted that. side of the lake again because of the wind. We were facing into the wind there and we were right on the edge. We had the lake right behind us, the edge. We were calling across that tundra or whatever technical term that is for that part of Canada there. And They had, you can see forever, but I mean, in that also in that instance, I mean, you can see that the wide open country, but something big as a moose can just all of a sudden just slip up on you.
00:20:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, so it was.
00:20:25
Speaker 3: Now, is this private land or public land?
00:20:27
Speaker 2: It’s all public. It’s all public land.
00:20:30
Speaker 1: And I’m not sure if it’s native land or whatever, if they have a lease or whatever it is, but it’s like a concession that they hunt up there. Okay.
00:20:39
Speaker 2: So, I mean, they’re the only folks allowed in that part.
00:20:43
Speaker 3: Like, give us an idea of how big of an area you were hunting.
00:20:46
Speaker 1: As big as the world is. As big as outside. I mean, there was thousands of acre miles of what, unnamed lakes and unnamed rivers and just wilderness, absolute wilderness. And from the time you left Thompson in that airplane, that float plane flying at a little over 3,000 feet, Once those, that part of civilization got behind the aircraft, there was, I mean, there was nothing. And it looked like it went on for absolute ever.
00:21:21
Speaker 4: I’ve not spent much time in the Canadian wilderness like that, but that’s what everybody says is just, it feels like you’re.
00:21:28
Speaker 1: It feels like you are a million miles from home and really you are.
00:21:33
Speaker 3: Like an uninhabited planet.
00:21:35
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
00:21:36
Speaker 1: And you’re smelling, you’re breathing air. then it’s never been, nobody’s breathed it. It ain’t got to Arkansas yet, but by the time it gets to Arkansas, they’ve been, folks have been breathing it all over the country.
00:21:48
Speaker 3: You’re breathing something that’s been inside someone.
00:21:50
Speaker 1: All over North America. And it’s just a, a feeling. It’s just all encompassing really. It’s a little, it’s, if you like details and I love the details in, places that I go and I, the small things and it’s over, it’s, it’s overwhelming.
00:22:11
Speaker 2: It really is.
00:22:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:22:12
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:22:12
Speaker 3: That’s cool. Um, let’s, uh, let’s hit the next clip.
00:22:18
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: Normal on a foggy morning.
00:22:24
Speaker 1: I just lay up until the fog clears.
00:22:26
Speaker 8: Or no, I think it’s just, uh, it depends where you are.
00:22:31
Speaker 5: If the bulls have cows with.
00:22:32
Speaker 8: Them or not.
00:22:33
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:22:33
Speaker 7: It’s how moose hunting is. It’s just, You could see nothing for days. And then all of a sudden, there’s moose.
00:22:41
Speaker 2: Over the place, yeah. Famine to feast.
00:22:43
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker 7: It’s just the way it goes.
00:22:46
Speaker 5: Oh, Lord, he’s seeing something.
00:23:01
Speaker 3: Wait, I think I see a bull.
00:23:03
Speaker 8: Look up in the green over there. Is he up in the green, up high? Definitely a moose, 100%. We’re going in there.
00:23:16
Speaker 3: We got time.
00:23:31
Speaker 7: Oh, I see him. He’s to the left of the tree down lower. I’d stop in seven minutes. Yeah, they just disappear.
00:23:50
Speaker 3: Now that was that the second day or was that?
00:23:52
Speaker 2: That’s the first day there.
00:23:54
Speaker 3: The very first day.
00:23:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were coming back from where we were set up across the lake and saw that.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: He saw that moose. And it’s hard to see it, man.
00:24:01
Speaker 1: I don’t know that if you could even put a pause on it and zoom in on it on your phone or your computer, whatever you’re watching on and see that moose. But he was there and you could see the paddles on him and he had a cow up in there. And that spot right there where eventually I shot the moose from probably another 40, 50 yards around that bend down there is where I found where we were sitting when I shot that moose. But something that impressed me about that was there is nobody within any miles and miles and miles of where we are. And Craig says, we got seven minutes. And buddy, in seven minutes, we were packed up and gone.
00:24:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:24:45
Speaker 1: At five minutes till when we didn’t have anything close enough, we were unloading and just standing there watching just to see what would happen. And there’s nobody that would have known.
00:24:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. But me and Craig and Dave.
00:24:58
Speaker 5: Right.
00:24:58
Speaker 2: But it’s by the book, man. I love it.
00:25:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker 3: That’s awesome.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: It’s there.
00:25:02
Speaker 1: Just got to appreciate guys like that. Absolutely.
00:25:03
Speaker 3: I mean, the integrity is what, what stands out.
00:25:06
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:25:06
Speaker 8: Yeah.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: A hundred percent.
00:25:07
Speaker 4: Um, I can imagine cruising up and down the lake there. You’re, you’re probably every Brown spot.
00:25:14
Speaker 1: Is a moose. Yeah. I saw this, there’s one stump I tried to kill for six days up there that I kept seeing through those binos and I, that’s gotta be a moose.
00:25:24
Speaker 2: No, it’s still a stump.
00:25:25
Speaker 3: What’s a legal bull. Is there a, is there a size requirement?
00:25:28
Speaker 1: I think it’s gotta have like four on the front, I believe.
00:25:31
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:25:31
Speaker 1: And then, um, I’m not exactly sure. I mean, we talked about it, discussed it then. I don’t remember now what it was, but it was just incredible to be in those places and to be able to see that much.
00:25:46
Speaker 5: Right.
00:25:46
Speaker 2: And know that, you know, behind that ridge.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: How difficult was it to see one? Well, it turns out it got pretty easy. The longer we stayed there, the more we saw. But you just didn’t see them. like Craig’s described, he said, man, we’re allowed to come around the corner and they’ll just be, you know, walking up and down the bank.
00:26:07
Speaker 5: Right.
00:26:07
Speaker 1: Way down there, uh, you know, across the lake, you’ll see them over there. No, when we started seeing them, we just rolled up on them and there they were.
00:26:15
Speaker 5: Really?
00:26:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:16
Speaker 2: Just as unconcerned with.
00:26:18
Speaker 3: Over the course of the hunt. How many moose did you think, do you think you saw?
00:26:22
Speaker 1: Oh, I think we saw five different.
00:26:27
Speaker 5: Bulls.
00:26:28
Speaker 1: Including the one, no, uh, been four bulls and then one that had the cow with it. Okay.
00:26:34
Speaker 2: Okay. Now that’s including one of the bulls that I killed.
00:26:37
Speaker 5: Wow.
00:26:38
Speaker 4: That I would have thought you would have seen more, but that’s a pretty amazing to see those. Well, you saw what you see is where they were and fresh tracks and evidence of them.
00:26:48
Speaker 2: And yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker 1: And you really got to play the wind up there, man, because I mean, one of the only creatures on the planet’s got a nose bigger than mine and it’s, they can mine me and you and you got if you don’t play the wind right they’re gone that’s what.
00:27:04
Speaker 3: I was wondering too because was that something you had to manage 100 i.
00:27:08
Speaker 1: Mean you you look the wind direction we walked outside and we got in the boat determined 100 where we were going that day and it also the main thing it determines where we weren’t going to go right we’re not going to go in there and just dust this area was sent when we know that there’s moose in this and we’ll, we’ll wait until. Was it pretty windy when you were there? At times it was more than not.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: Okay. More than not.
00:27:33
Speaker 1: And there was a couple of storms that blew through and it was raining.
00:27:37
Speaker 2: I can remember, I.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: Can remember sitting in the, in the cabin and we had a Starlink system up there. So I, we could, I called home and I was talking to my wife on the, And it was just raining, man. It’s raining so hard. Water’s coming in on the floor and we’re picking stuff up and setting it on tables. I told her, I said, it’s coming a storm. There’s water in here. My stuff’s getting wet and I can’t think of any place I’d rather be right now than right here. It was just that much fun, you know? So yeah, but it was windy. It was windy and it displayed a lot, but you really had to be smart about And just take your time. You know, it’s not a, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
00:28:21
Speaker 5: Right.
00:28:22
Speaker 1: And every day that, every day that you’re there, you’re learning more about the environment, more about what the moose are doing by the tracks we’re seeing and just, you know, playing the hands that were dealt.
00:28:35
Speaker 3: Interesting.
00:28:37
Speaker 4: Um, as you, as Ty went on, you kind of picked, you, you, there was a scene in there where you talked about Is that a, you were asking him, is that a moose?
00:28:49
Speaker 3: And he’s looking, he’s like, I don’t think so. And he said, it looks like two eagles. What, what was it?
00:28:53
Speaker 2: It was two eagles.
00:28:54
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:28:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: Eagles up there are buzzing around like hummingbirds here. They’re just everywhere. And it was way across the lake and they were sitting close, far enough apart from each other or separated enough that you thought it resembled paddles. Right. Cause that’s what you’re looking for. And you know, Craig said, you gotta look for those paddles. You see the paddles and then you’ll see the moose. So that was to my untrained eye, that’s what I was looking for. And then we looked and saw, oh, that’s a, those are eagles there. Okay. And right after that is when we, I think first, yeah, we first got in there and saw where those moose were eventually where I would wind up killing one. Okay. All right. All right.
00:29:39
Speaker 3: Let’s, uh, let’s move on to the next clip. We’ve got a two-minuter here. And I think it’s a good one.
00:29:48
Speaker 1: Everybody found a comfortable place on the log and sat down.
00:29:51
Speaker 2: We were like a bunch of crows sitting on the light line.
00:29:55
Speaker 1: And I had my ballistics calculator out on my phone and I was range in different places and just really passing the time because I didn’t figure we were going to see anything until late. And all of a sudden, Craig said, oh my gosh, there’s a bull.
00:30:17
Speaker 5: How far?
00:30:19
Speaker 8: That’s a shooter, Brent.
00:30:20
Speaker 5: How far is.
00:30:25
Speaker 2: It?
00:30:25
Speaker 5: 460.
00:30:26
Speaker 8: Wind’s right on pretty well.
00:30:27
Speaker 5: 2.3 You ready?
00:30:39
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker 1: Hit him.
00:30:54
Speaker 7: Shoot him again.
00:30:56
Speaker 8: Oh, he’s hurt.
00:30:57
Speaker 5: Where’s he at?
00:30:58
Speaker 8: He’s butt facing you.
00:31:06
Speaker 2: He turns one way or the other. I got him.
00:31:09
Speaker 1: I can poke quartering, but he’s hard quartering.
00:31:12
Speaker 8: Pretty sure you hit him.
00:31:14
Speaker 5: There’s no doubt.
00:31:20
Speaker 6: Hit him again.
00:31:23
Speaker 8: He’s going down. There you go. He’s going down.
00:31:34
Speaker 2: Can’t see him.
00:31:38
Speaker 5: Holy man.
00:31:40
Speaker 2: Weapons on safe.
00:31:41
Speaker 5: Oh, buddy.
00:31:42
Speaker 6: I think you put three in him.
00:31:44
Speaker 5: That’s a good bull.
00:31:49
Speaker 2: I love it, man.
00:31:50
Speaker 1: I get the chills every time I watch that. Craig was so excited and I was so excited. It was, it was overwhelming. Yeah, 100% overwhelming. And that whole sequence there, when we got there, it was early. It’s like 2.30, 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And that’s the same point you recognize from where we were the day before. And when we got there, I said, you know, the wind’s blowing and it was kind of warm. He said, they’re probably not going to start. moving until later unless they’re following a cow he said but it may be warm enough that they want to come get a drink of water to cool off so we just set our stuff up got comfortable dave sat down with his camera craig sat right beside him and i sat down on the other end of this log and i’ve got that ballistics calculator out and i’m thinking okay if craig calls out five hundred you know, I’m poking it in there and fine. And, and cause I, I messed with that scope enough, Matt and gave me a crash course on it.
00:33:05
Speaker 2: And we shot.
00:33:08
Speaker 1: Round after round after round, and he’s calling out different distances and I’m doping it in there. So I was very familiar with, with the process and was very comfortable with it. And so I’m just sitting there for nothing better to do than pass the time because Craig says, you know, You might see one, but it’s probably.
00:33:26
Speaker 2: Going to be late when it kind of cools off.
00:33:29
Speaker 1: Right. And then all of a sudden he jumps up and runs by me and says, there’s a bull right there. And he’s a shooter. He’s running back over here to get his binos and stuff. Dave gets his camera and stands up. I don’t know what to do, so I just kind of run around in circles there for a second until Craig got back and we got on the gun and.
00:33:52
Speaker 2: The rest of it was… I mean, you saw it happen. And when.
00:33:57
Speaker 1: There was, he called out the distance to me twice.
00:34:01
Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
00:34:02
Speaker 1: And because the first time he said, it’s 460. Well, I dialed it in and I said, how far? Because I get off the scope and I look and I can see him.
00:34:11
Speaker 6: Right.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: And I’m like, there’s no way that thing’s 400.
00:34:14
Speaker 1: It’s way closer than that. Because it’s huge. You know, I can see him. And he said, 460 twice is what he said. 460 twice. I’ll never forget it. okay i trust him you know and i got back on the scope and when i turned it loose it when i shot i thought i’ll be able to hear it hit him i shouldn’t be able to and it seemed like it took forever but wham you can hear it hear it you and on the video you.
00:34:39
Speaker 3: Could actually i felt like i could hear it on the video.
00:34:41
Speaker 1: You 100 you can and then if you look you can see it actually go through him oh and hit those splash the water on the other side okay so he took the first round right In the ballroom behind his shoulder on the right side. And the other two, I wish we would have got a photograph of it. But the other two, you could have covered up with your fist.
00:35:02
Speaker 5: Really?
00:35:03
Speaker 2: I mean, right in the zero. Wow.
00:35:06
Speaker 1: That’s incredible. It was just like he didn’t flinch. I mean, he just walked right up on the bank and laid down and died.
00:35:15
Speaker 4: Man, it was incredible. It was incredible to see that just… that huge animal. I was amazed that how little he moved after that first shot.
00:35:28
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:35:28
Speaker 4: I mean, just like he didn’t know what hit him, but he wasn’t too concerned about it at the moment.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: He just soaked it up, man. And he got two more and he, I mean, he didn’t limp. He didn’t do anything. I mean, when it hit him, he moved, but as far as like shaking or anything like that, he just, he toted all three of them up.
00:35:47
Speaker 2: I just plumb out of sight.
00:35:48
Speaker 4: Now you, you spent, many, many years in law enforcement, um, working with SWAT. What are, what’s your background with firearms? Oh, well, I was also a firearms instructor.
00:36:02
Speaker 1: I taught at the state SWAT school down at Camden when they would have special classes down there for SWAT personnel.
00:36:09
Speaker 4: So you’re very familiar with long range shooting, how to handle firearms. I, somebody, uh, we had a guy that commented, Hey, I appreciate hearing Brent, you know, full of excitement. But the first thing he says is weapon on safe.
00:36:24
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
00:36:24
Speaker 3: Just letting everybody know.
00:36:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:36:26
Speaker 1: That’s a weapons instructor right there. Yeah, I think that’s just a force of habit, which is a good habit to be in.
00:36:31
Speaker 3: Absolutely. What were those feelings when Craig said, there’s a bull?
00:36:37
Speaker 1: Man, it was just, I mean, the whole time, that whole hunt, I was thinking about how, you know, it’s a grand adventure for sure. But it’s also my work. There’s a lot of responsibility, uh, to that encompasses my portion of it. You know, that that’s always why I talked about being the camera guy, you know, win or lose.
00:37:01
Speaker 2: Right.
00:37:02
Speaker 1: If the camera, if the camera’s recording, I’ve, I’ve got all the shots, whether or not the hunter misses or not.
00:37:08
Speaker 5: Right.
00:37:08
Speaker 1: Now I’m in front of it. Now it’s all on me.
00:37:11
Speaker 3: Right.
00:37:11
Speaker 1: I know Dave’s getting his part. Can I hold up my end of the bargain? And that’s where the pressure comes from. And, I mean, but it is part of the story. Had I missed him, had I made a terrible shot, it had just been part of the story. Luckily, I didn’t. I put three good ones in him, and it was absolute euphoria, really.
00:37:33
Speaker 4: Did you see it immediately when you came around the bushes? Were you like, oh, there it is, when Craig said, there’s a bull over there? And I’m sure you were full of adrenaline when you walked around those bushes. Did you immediately connect with him?
00:37:46
Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
00:37:47
Speaker 1: I mean, we, you could see down the river from where we were sitting. I didn’t have to walk out from where we were sitting when he, when, when Craig ran past me fast enough to set the grass on fire, you know, I didn’t know if it was something after him or what should I keep up with him or outrun Dave or what’s going on. And he said, there’s a bull and you know, a good bull right there. And I looked down there and immediately it was like, it was like a painting. I mean, he’s knee deep out in this river and just slowly walking out there and the sun shining on him and the water, the ripples are lit up from the sun and this thing, it looks like a movie. I’m getting chills now, Josh, just thinking about it. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I mean, the sky was blue. It was absolutely unreal.
00:38:38
Speaker 2: It looked like a film.
00:38:39
Speaker 9: Wow.
00:38:39
Speaker 7: Wow.
00:38:42
Speaker 4: And when he said 460, you immediately went into.
00:38:46
Speaker 2: I got to trust him. Yeah. My first thing was there’s no way. But he said it’s 460.
00:38:51
Speaker 1: And I made him or I asked, you know, how far I’m wanting him to, you know, to make sure that’s what it is. Confirm, you know, and he confirmed it 460 twice. And I’m like, well, that’s how far he is.
00:39:06
Speaker 4: And I love that you kind of had more or less immediate feedback of whether that animal was down or not. I mean, it was clear he was going down.
00:39:14
Speaker 2: Well, I didn’t see it that way.
00:39:18
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:39:18
Speaker 1: Craig says, you got him. He’s going down. And I’m like, bro, that thing was walking last time I saw it. Of course, Craig’s looking at a lot of, he’s looking at, right he’s seen moose move that are shot good he’s seen moose that are walking that are shot not good right but i mean his confidence was overwhelming but it wasn’t for brent right when he walked out of sight as far as i was concerned that moose is still walking Because you shoot a deer and you think, well, he’s in trouble.
00:39:47
Speaker 2: You know, you can kind of tell. But I didn’t know what to look for.
00:39:50
Speaker 1: And to me, it didn’t look like he was moving any faster or any slower than when he walked out before I ever shot him the first time. Okay.
00:39:58
Speaker 3: So did you wait or did you guys go immediately after?
00:40:03
Speaker 1: 14 days we waited right there in that spot is what it felt like.
00:40:09
Speaker 2: I think it was 25 minutes.
00:40:11
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:40:11
Speaker 2: Because I was checking my watch.
00:40:13
Speaker 5: Right.
00:40:13
Speaker 1: And. We got in the boat and went down there, and when he walked out of the river and walked up on the bank out of the river, he walked right past a rock that was sticking up.
00:40:23
Speaker 2: It was about the size of a.
00:40:25
Speaker 1: Basketball, but it was right on the edge of the bank, a flat bank where, and I think it was maybe two feet from the edge of the bank down to the water, just a cut bank straight, and that rock was right there. So in my mind, when I saw him, I logged that in there, and I think, That’s the trail I’ll look and start looking for blood right there.
00:40:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. And we just started to float down there. Okay.
00:40:52
Speaker 4: Well, we’ve got our next clip coming up. So you sat there for 25 minutes.
00:40:56
Speaker 3: I can’t imagine.
00:40:57
Speaker 2: It was the longest 25 minutes of my life. I can’t imagine.
00:41:00
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:41:02
Speaker 2: It was absolutely brutal.
00:41:03
Speaker 3: Well, let’s watch this next clip here.
00:41:13
Speaker 8: He’s laying right there, right through here, Brent. See the horn?
00:41:19
Speaker 9: 15 feet.
00:41:31
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, he’s right there.
00:41:36
Speaker 1: What an absolute monster.
00:41:43
Speaker 2: I don’t know what to say, that is incredible.
00:41:47
Speaker 5: Absolutely incredible.
00:41:51
Speaker 8: Beautiful fronts on them.
00:41:54
Speaker 5: There ain’t nothing bad about it. Oh my gosh.
00:41:58
Speaker 2: I don’t know what to say.
00:42:02
Speaker 1: I’m just, thank you for the effort.
00:42:07
Speaker 2: Thank you for your friendship, man.
00:42:10
Speaker 7: Thank you guys.
00:42:11
Speaker 1: This is already a success. Absolutely can’t believe it. I just can’t get over how big they are, man. I mean, I’ve seen pictures of Steve, one Steve’s killed, Clay and all.
00:42:31
Speaker 2: I’ve seen a jillion.
00:42:33
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:42:34
Speaker 2: Pictures.
00:42:34
Speaker 1: I’ve seen one that y’all have taken, but the body on these things is just… The day that that I killed a moose, I was absolutely not prepared for what that was like. That adrenaline dump was unlike anything I have ever seen because I glanced down the river before I went back to get my rifle and I could see him standing in the river. And it looked like a dinosaur. It looked like a school bus with antlers.
00:43:09
Speaker 2: It was huge. Awesome.
00:43:15
Speaker 3: I’m no, I’m no expert on moose, but it looks like a big one.
00:43:21
Speaker 1: Man, I was looking the way he was moving when he stepped up out of the river onto the bank and had just seen his hind end going in into the bushes.
00:43:32
Speaker 2: You know, that was the end of it. I’m expecting this thing not.
00:43:36
Speaker 1: To be where he was because he was literally 15 feet from the edge of the water.
00:43:43
Speaker 5: Really?
00:43:43
Speaker 3: So he literally walked off and just collapsed.
00:43:45
Speaker 1: He walked up and just laid down and was dead as a hammer when we got there. But I was looking past him. I was looking over him. And Dave is sitting, if you can obviously see in the boat, Dave’s the cameraman. He’s sitting in front of the boat, and he’s facing back and shooting back towards me and Craig.
00:44:05
Speaker 2: And I’m looking hard, and Craig says, there he is.
00:44:08
Speaker 5: Well, I look.
00:44:09
Speaker 1: I look over at Dave’s face and he starts smiling. He looks back at these, he’s back on the camera. So Dave sees him. I know, I can, I know Dave, I can tell he’s like.
00:44:18
Speaker 2: Man, we got him. Yeah.
00:44:19
Speaker 1: And Craig’s like, there he is. And I’m like, no, he ain’t. I can’t see him. I cannot end this hunt until I can see this moose.
00:44:28
Speaker 5: Right.
00:44:28
Speaker 1: And I’m looking further. And when he said 15 feet, I thought 15 feet. And I looked down and there he was in the wide open. How I could not see that moose.
00:44:41
Speaker 2: I don’t know.
00:44:42
Speaker 3: Must’ve felt a tremendous sense of relief.
00:44:44
Speaker 1: Oh gosh.
00:44:45
Speaker 3: I mean, you can see it on your face. I mean, you kind of, you kind of gasp a little bit there.
00:44:49
Speaker 1: Oh, I did a hundred percent.
00:44:50
Speaker 2: I did.
00:44:51
Speaker 1: And you know, it’s, that’s one thing that I love about how we film these things. It’s there’s, there’s no way I could have recreated that.
00:44:59
Speaker 9: Right.
00:44:59
Speaker 2: You know, uh, if, if Dave hadn’t got it, it wouldn’t have gotten got. Right. But he did.
00:45:05
Speaker 1: And it, it really shows the raw emotion and, just overwhelming relief that what we came there to do, we did.
00:45:15
Speaker 3: So walking up on this animal expectations versus reality.
00:45:20
Speaker 1: I was not prepared. I’ve killed deer before. I’ve been after bears. And when you get to them, you’re like, ah.
00:45:30
Speaker 2: Man, he’s good.
00:45:30
Speaker 1: He’s nice. Thought he was bigger.
00:45:33
Speaker 2: I thought he’d be a little bigger, you know?
00:45:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker 1: You know, and not no disappointment or anything like that. That thing got bigger the longer I sat there and looked at it. It was not, I had no comprehension of it. I’ve seen moose one other time, and I was in Alaska, and I saw him across a bay.
00:45:55
Speaker 2: So he might as well have been a horse in a pasture.
00:45:57
Speaker 6: Right.
00:45:58
Speaker 2: So I was not prepared for how big they were.
00:46:02
Speaker 3: Any idea how much that thing weighed?
00:46:05
Speaker 1: Craig estimated him to be, 12 to 1400 pounds.
00:46:08
Speaker 2: Holy smokes.
00:46:10
Speaker 1: I know that when we, when we skinned him, processed him, brought all the meat back, we stopped in a Craig’s cousin. I actually got a place in, uh, outside of Winnipeg and we dropped the meat off there, but I brought the back straps home. Okay. And the back straps had two soft coolers. One of them weighed 51 pounds and the other one weighed 49. So I brought home with me 100 pounds of backstrap. Holy cow. Yeah, it was over 600 pounds of processed moose that me and my neighborhood and family and friends are still eating on.
00:46:51
Speaker 3: Not your friend Josh, though.
00:46:54
Speaker 2: You will before you leave here.
00:46:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker 4: So what, what, you know, you could tell by the look on your face when you finally see it, just this massive sense of relief, excitement, elation, satisfaction, all wrapped up into one. When you walked up on it, what were the top three things that you thought when you walked up?
00:47:20
Speaker 2: I was just grateful.
00:47:21
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:47:22
Speaker 1: And that is that the top three things that I felt. was was grateful every all three of them grateful grateful great i mean it was uh from the opportunity that i have backed my way into for this career that i never would have dreamed of having to the people that made all that happen you know and it has been i pulled the trigger but i had the easiest part right you know um from everybody that that saw that film to the people that work in the retail stores that under this umbrella that we all work for, everybody plays a part in that. And I’m grateful for every one of them. And it truly is a, um, a blessing to be the tip of the spear to tell these stories. And, but it all, it’s all possible because of everybody behind the camera that do everything. And it was an absolute physical and literal thought of, while I was there.
00:48:24
Speaker 4: You, you kind of immediately express your gratitude to Craig and, and, uh, the other guys.
00:48:32
Speaker 2: Why is that.
00:48:33
Speaker 1: Important to you? Oh, it’s just important to, uh, this is never, I love being the center of attention and talking to a room and entertaining a room full of people.
00:48:45
Speaker 2: But my least favorite subject is me.
00:48:48
Speaker 5: Right.
00:48:49
Speaker 1: I’m just, uh, I’m blessed to be where I am and have this platform But I think it’s not to tell Brent’s story. It’s to tell everybody’s story. And everybody has a part. Everybody’s got a story, and everybody’s story needs to be heard. And I enjoy telling my part of it, but my part of this story is just a part of it. There’s a lot of parts, and everybody plays a part in it.
00:49:14
Speaker 4: That’s one of the things I really I really appreciate about you Brent is just your your sense of gratitude appreciation you’re a humble guy and based on all the the comments that I’ve read on social media and YouTube it’s pretty obvious to everybody else so I appreciate you being a being a model of that so yeah what’s it like processing an animal.
00:49:41
Speaker 1: That pig took us two and a half hours to get him skint and quartered up uh which is you know fairly quick for something that yeah big and the pack out like i said man was it was pick up a load of meat take four steps and load it in the boat right i mean it was just so easy uh it was skinning a bear skinning a deer you know times 10 And, uh, easy as far as how we handled the meat, how it is to, to skin one, you know, laying down is a lot easier skin of moose.
00:50:21
Speaker 2: Laying on the ground. It is a deer to me.
00:50:23
Speaker 5: Oh, really? Yeah.
00:50:24
Speaker 1: I think so. Just because it’s, it’s so much bigger. You got a bigger handhold. And between, you know, Dave did some film and then he set the camera up and he jumped in there with us. So it took three of us two and a half hours of solid skinning and cutting to get it out and get it in the boat.
00:50:40
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:50:40
Speaker 1: And I’m not sure, I don’t know what the next clip is, but the highlight of that whole thing, or I wouldn’t say the whole thing, but one of the top highlights of it was when we got that moose back in the boat and we were headed back towards the cabin as probably a mile and a half, I think.
00:51:05
Speaker 3: What time of day did you shoot it?
00:51:07
Speaker 2: Oh, it was.
00:51:07
Speaker 1: Probably three o’clock in the afternoon. Okay, so you guys are going late into the evening. Yeah, it’s late into the evening time we get there. So by the time we get loaded and everything, done skint, all the rib meat, neck meat, everything cut off and loaded into the boat and left there. we had our headlights on in the boat and we start heading, we’ve got 20 minutes, you know, of motoring to get back to the cabin. I turned my, Dave, of course he didn’t, he’s filming.
00:51:39
Speaker 2: I turned my light out.
00:51:41
Speaker 1: Craig turns his light out and then it’s too dark to film, but the, our way is lit up by the, the Northern lights. And I was sitting in the back and Dave was sitting behind, was sitting right there beside me in the Northern. You can see that, moose the moose antlers and on the bow of that boat up there and then the northern lights up above it and that’s how we what led our way back from where we skint that moose to our cabin and it was unreal it was so the emotion was i mean it yeah it brought tears to my eyes how beautiful it was to be in that place in a place like that with two of my good friends and do something like that.
00:52:24
Speaker 2: And share that with them.
00:52:25
Speaker 1: It was, man, overwhelming is a theme from the time I got there to the time we left. And anytime I think about it, and I’m not sure there has been a day go by that I hadn’t thought about one portion of that trip or the other.
00:52:39
Speaker 3: I mean, not, not to put it cheaply, but that sounds epic.
00:52:44
Speaker 5: It is.
00:52:45
Speaker 1: It was, it was, you know, outside of something with my children or grandchildren, it was the event of a lifetime for me. That’s incredible.
00:52:54
Speaker 3: Um, is that the longest shot on game that you’ve ever taken?
00:53:00
Speaker 1: A hundred percent. You know, growing up down here in South Arkansas, um, you have a scope on a rifle, but any place I, we were hunting, I hunt in the woods, you know, and I don’t, um, I never had a shot more than 150 yards, you know, and And I like to bow hunt, so I hardly ever hunt with a rifle anyway. And so that was by far, and that’s what was so important to me to be prepared when I got there is shooting with Matt and getting comfortable and dialed in with that scope and changing distances with a quick shot. call out and swap into different targets and putting the dope in the scope.
00:53:46
Speaker 4: You mentioned dope a couple of times. Tell our listeners and viewers what that means.
00:53:51
Speaker 1: Well, it’s just those scopes, they’ve got dials on them and turrets on them, and they’re numbered. And for wind and then elevation, left and right and up and down, Depending on what those factors are, you can put that into what’s called a DOPE calculator on your phone, an app you just put on your phone. And then if it coincides with the turrets on the scope and it tells you where to dial them in so that you’re shooting for distance and wind correction.
00:54:21
Speaker 4: DOPE is an acronym for data on previous engagement. So you’re using ballistics from a known target and based on your round and your rifle, the the velocity of that bullet, you can calculate if it’s zeroed at a hundred, you can calculate how far you need to click for elevation.
00:54:43
Speaker 2: Yes. Way smarter than me. And it works really well.
00:54:47
Speaker 1: And though, like I said, you know, I made three good shots on that, but I had real good equipment and real good information working in there. Really all I did was control my, try to control my breathing. As you can hear in that clip, I tried.
00:55:03
Speaker 2: To settle down.
00:55:04
Speaker 3: You did a good job because I was like, well, Brent’s huffing, coming around that corner. And then I heard you just kind of calm down.
00:55:11
Speaker 1: I just had to because he was dancing around in there like he was at a disco until I got it.
00:55:16
Speaker 3: What power scope is on there?
00:55:17
Speaker 2: Do you remember?
00:55:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a 3x18x50, I believe. Okay, okay.
00:55:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it’s pretty stout.
00:55:26
Speaker 3: Okay, we got another clip here.
00:55:32
Speaker 2: Here it is.
00:55:33
Speaker 5: Oh, sweet.
00:55:36
Speaker 2: This is yours Tim. I wish you’d been here with me.
00:55:39
Speaker 1: My older brother Tim took me hunting when he didn’t have to. When I was more in the way than anything else. The only thing that would have made that moment better was to have watched him do what I just done. It’s a long way from the hay field in Bradley County where I grew up to right here.
00:56:00
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:56:01
Speaker 2: It’s a good place to be man.
00:56:02
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:56:03
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:56:06
Speaker 3: Anytime. I put that in there just so you could get choked up.
00:56:11
Speaker 2: Trying to get me.
00:56:13
Speaker 4: Oh.
00:56:16
Speaker 1: Man.
00:56:18
Speaker 3: Your brother Tim’s been a real fixture in your life.
00:56:20
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
00:56:21
Speaker 3: As long as you can remember from the stories you told.
00:56:24
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:56:25
Speaker 3: And that really.
00:56:26
Speaker 4: Comes through in the film and the time he invested in you, mentoring you and hunting and as a brother and a friend and a, and a hunting companion. And, and, uh, that, that was pretty meaningful to you. What, what, uh, what did Tim teach you that kind of came through in this hunt?
00:56:48
Speaker 1: Man, he has taught me so much stuff that comes in my everyday life. He’s probably the most forgiving person I know. And he is, um, he can look at a situation where I’m ready to grab a hammer and and start tearing stuff up. And he’s like, just sit back a minute and let’s, let’s reevaluate what, what we really need to do. There is no one on that. I know, or have ever heard of that has more integrity than, than my brother. He’s always doing the right thing, whether it’s the easy, easiest thing to win it when it’s not the easiest thing. And he is, um, he is an example of what, A brother and a friend and a father he is. And he is a good man. And I talk to him every day. And I haven’t talked to him today, and it’s absolutely driving me nuts. Because since you got here, it’s a normal time that we call back and forth and talk. So I’m ready for you to get out of here, Josh.
00:57:52
Speaker 2: We can see if we.
00:57:53
Speaker 3: Can pipe him in.
00:57:55
Speaker 2: But he is my buddy, you know, and we’re tight. What would.
00:58:02
Speaker 3: How would that moment have been different if Tim had been there?
00:58:07
Speaker 1: That’s the only thing that would have made it better. I mean, I was literally, I would have loved to have seen him do that. He’s the guy, he’s eight years older than me. And when I was just little, he was taking me everywhere. And he decided when he was 16 and I was eight or 14 and I was four or six, he.
00:58:32
Speaker 2: He’s like, I want to grow up and be a trapper in Alaska. Me too.
00:58:36
Speaker 1: I wanted to do whatever he did. And I wanted to put a track. If I wasn’t putting a track in my dad’s tracks, I was putting one in Tim’s. And everything that we just seemed to be so close. And it would have been the culmination of all the things that I have been so blessed to do to be able to share that with him and watch him do that.
00:58:58
Speaker 2: That’s the only thing that would have made it better.
00:59:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:59:01
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:59:01
Speaker 3: You know, I think.
00:59:03
Speaker 4: There’s been opportunities, you know, I’ve I’ve talked about, uh, on bear grease, just about, I didn’t grow up hunting and Clay and Newcomb is the one who kind of taught me how to hunt and became a friend and a hunting mentor. How valuable is that to, to take younger people or people who haven’t had that experience?
00:59:26
Speaker 5: It is.
00:59:28
Speaker 1: It’s the only way we keep this going. That’s how valuable it is. You know, if it stops with one generation, it’s done forever. You can go, it’s easy to go back and count the generations that got us to this point, but the responsibility is on us now to keep it going and to show it to the next folks. And there’s, I have always said, you share a tragedy with someone, you can cut that sadness by 50%. You share a joy with someone and it multiplies it. There’s no end to the number that you can, that’ll multiply. And that’s, that’s what we got to do. Yeah.
01:00:13
Speaker 2: And that, that’s how valuable it is and how important it is.
01:00:15
Speaker 1: And we want to keep doing these kinds of things and having these moments and sharing them.
01:00:19
Speaker 2: We, we got to share them.
01:00:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and share, sharing them with the folks that are not already exposed to it, get somebody else in a position to do the same thing.
01:00:29
Speaker 2: And it’s, It’s vital.
01:00:31
Speaker 1: And as a kid, I probably never thought about that. Sure. As a young man, I didn’t think about it as much. But now it’s at the forefront of a lot of the things that I do.
01:00:42
Speaker 4: I think it has so many benefits, you know, relationally and, you know, just learning the sport and the ethics behind it. But even just basic health, being outside, being in nature, being in the sun.
01:00:57
Speaker 1: I mean.
01:00:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.
01:00:58
Speaker 1: There’s so many benefits all the way around, and if you can take someone and teach them that and teach them the value of hunting ethically and harvesting organic meat, I mean, it pays dividends.
01:01:12
Speaker 2: No, we were watching. We had a premiere party.
01:01:15
Speaker 1: I actually saw the two rough drafts before the final version came out, and the final version, we waited until that night to watch, and I watched it over friends of ours, friends and family. We all gathered up there. huge television, you know, like a movie screen and, and we watched it. And, but before we watched it, we, we had moose chili from that moose, you know?
01:01:38
Speaker 3: And so it was that moose responsible.
01:01:41
Speaker 1: Not only for the entertainment of the evening, but for feeding everybody.
01:01:45
Speaker 2: At the table, you know?
01:01:47
Speaker 1: So it was, it was, it’s a, it was a very special day, a very special thing to see that come out and, uh, to have the, the story in there, showing my dad and my brother, it was a special, special moment. That’s awesome.
01:02:06
Speaker 3: Let’s move on to the next clip here.
01:02:07
Speaker 2: Night strap and moose heart.
01:02:11
Speaker 1: That is the first combination of that I’ve ever had.
01:02:20
Speaker 6: Ready?
01:02:20
Speaker 2: Man, it was so tender.
01:02:26
Speaker 1: Yeah?
01:02:29
Speaker 2: We got some back straps too.
01:02:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, they’re… I’ll cook all the heart and then we’ll tie into them. We got a picnic tomorrow with all this meat we got. That gum is good.
01:02:48
Speaker 2: Well, let’s go catch a fish.
01:02:51
Speaker 6: Heck yeah, maybe some walleye for supper.
01:03:02
Speaker 1: Oh, there he is.
01:03:03
Speaker 3: Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.
01:03:05
Speaker 8: We found one.
01:03:05
Speaker 5: Come here, little fella.
01:03:17
Speaker 2: Get back out there. To your grandpa.
01:03:24
Speaker 5: There we go.
01:03:26
Speaker 1: That’s a good one.
01:03:29
Speaker 5: There he is.
01:03:31
Speaker 2: It’ll be a little treat for supper tonight.
01:03:36
Speaker 9: Is he good?
01:03:38
Speaker 1: I’m guessing him 15 pounds.
01:03:43
Speaker 6: Yeah, right on.
01:03:45
Speaker 2: Don’t you think? Yeah, for sure.
01:03:48
Speaker 5: 14 at least.
01:03:51
Speaker 2: My fish, I say how big he was.
01:03:53
Speaker 3: That’s right.
01:03:54
Speaker 4: So I’m a little jealous of that moose meat.
01:03:57
Speaker 3: It looked pretty tasty.
01:03:58
Speaker 6: Yeah.
01:03:58
Speaker 3: Was the heart good?
01:03:59
Speaker 1: Oh, fantastic. And I’ve eaten deer heart before. I had never eaten a bear heart, believe it or not. And I may, if I’m fortunate enough to get one this year, I’ll try it. But that moose heart, there’s some.
01:04:13
Speaker 3: How big was that moose heart?
01:04:15
Speaker 2: As big as about like a volleyball. Wow.
01:04:18
Speaker 1: Close to a volleyball. It was humongous. And I’ve got some photos of it, you know, of me holding it. And it’s just unreal how big that thing is.
01:04:29
Speaker 2: But we.
01:04:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I had to bring some of it home. We were there for, I think, four more days, three or four more days. And we ate, from the time I killed that moose, that’s what we ate, moose and something every night from then on. And we still didn’t eat all that heart. Really?
01:04:48
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, yeah.
01:04:49
Speaker 1: It’s huge.
01:04:49
Speaker 7: Wow.
01:04:50
Speaker 2: Absolutely huge.
01:04:51
Speaker 3: What did it taste like?
01:04:53
Speaker 1: I was expecting, and I like liver. I was expecting the texture of an organ, like a, like a gizzard or a liver, but it was just tender.
01:05:04
Speaker 2: It was absolutely tender.
01:05:05
Speaker 1: And it was, there was no, people say, and I’m not a fan of the phrase game, something tasting gamey. I mean, coon tastes like coon, fish tastes like fish, deer tastes like deer meat, you know, beef tastes like beef. They compare everything to beef, but it’s, I mean, it is what it is. Um, There was no strong taste to it. Right. No iron taste like you would kind of get like you eat with liver sometimes. You get kind of an iron taste to it. It was just really good, man.
01:05:40
Speaker 3: Did it compare to any other game that you’ve had?
01:05:46
Speaker 1: I don’t know that I would be able to say, oh, that’s Mooseheart.
01:05:50
Speaker 5: Right.
01:05:50
Speaker 2: I took a bite and a blind taste test.
01:05:52
Speaker 1: It just tasted like good.
01:05:56
Speaker 2: Seasoned fried meat.
01:05:58
Speaker 4: For those who have never experienced it. What’s the feeling of eating meat that you harvested that day?
01:06:05
Speaker 1: It’s hard from that day. It just, it never gets better than that day. It’s like fish. You know, I’m not a, I love fish. I’m not a big fan of eating trout. They don’t just don’t, I’m with you. They don’t taste that good to me, but you catch a trout and you cook it on the bank of the river.
01:06:24
Speaker 2: It’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten.
01:06:25
Speaker 5: Yeah.
01:06:26
Speaker 1: And it’s all got to do with environment and where you are, you know, and who you’re with.
01:06:30
Speaker 2: The experience.
01:06:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, the experience.
01:06:33
Speaker 5: Okay.
01:06:33
Speaker 1: Here’s the big question. Fried fish or moose? Man, I asked Craig that. He said moose. And I probably have to tend to agree if it’s fresh moose because of the environment. But you bait a trap with a fried fish and you will catch me every time.
01:06:48
Speaker 3: Did y’all catch walleye?
01:06:50
Speaker 2: We did.
01:06:50
Speaker 1: And that was one thing we didn’t. Dave was changing out a battery or something and we just kept fishing. We’re like, Dave, you’re on your own. We’re fishing. We’re fishing for supper, buddy. And, uh, we didn’t get that or it didn’t make it into the film, but we did catch some walleye. Walleye is great eating.
01:07:05
Speaker 5: Oh gosh. Yeah.
01:07:06
Speaker 1: But the pike up there, I mean, that’s the, we call that a jackfish down here, but the jackfish we eat down here. Ain’t like those up there. That cold water, man. Good clean tasting.
01:07:16
Speaker 2: It is so good.
01:07:17
Speaker 5: Yeah.
01:07:18
Speaker 2: It’s great.
01:07:18
Speaker 1: Oh, that’s awesome.
01:07:20
Speaker 4: So we’ve, uh, We’ve got a couple comments and questions that I just want to kind of run by you here.
01:07:26
Speaker 2: Okay.
01:07:29
Speaker 4: I’m not going to try to say all of these names from people who made comments, but Aaron Song3913 said, I heard that moose is the most tender meat. It doesn’t matter how old they are or young. They taste very tender. I don’t know how things taste tender, but was the backstrap tender?
01:07:50
Speaker 5: Yes, it was.
01:07:51
Speaker 1: And the longer it, the longer we had it hanging in camp, the more tender it got.
01:07:56
Speaker 3: Did you leave it up the whole week?
01:07:57
Speaker 2: We did.
01:07:58
Speaker 1: We left it up for, I think we were there three more days after I killed that. Okay.
01:08:04
Speaker 2: After I killed that moose and it got.
01:08:06
Speaker 5: Yeah.
01:08:06
Speaker 3: What day did you kill it on? I forgot to ask that.
01:08:09
Speaker 1: It was like the second full day of hunting, but like the third day that we were there.
01:08:13
Speaker 5: Okay.
01:08:14
Speaker 3: And, uh, it was nice and cool there.
01:08:17
Speaker 1: Oh gosh.
01:08:17
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
01:08:18
Speaker 1: Okay.
01:08:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
01:08:19
Speaker 3: Um, Jordan Pollock.
01:08:21
Speaker 4: 9,004 said only one question I got. Why are they putting quartered meat into plastic bags?
01:08:28
Speaker 1: That was get it out of the boat, cross the Sandy beach up to the place where we had it laid out to cool.
01:08:34
Speaker 2: It didn’t stay in plastic bags. All right.
01:08:37
Speaker 3: Um, few more questions. Did you like that style of hunt or.
01:08:42
Speaker 1: Would you prefer a spot and stalk? I, you know, I would like to do the spot and stalk. It would be hard to do that in that country there because of the, limited visibility. But that’s, I mean, that’s going to be my favorite because it’s the only way I’ve done it so far. I’ve been on one moose hunting trip and killed a moose. So that was, that would be my preferred. Would I like to try it?
01:09:09
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I’d like to try it. My next one was archery.
01:09:12
Speaker 1: Okay.
01:09:13
Speaker 5: Okay.
01:09:14
Speaker 4: Um, Quinn Scott said, What’s a big thing that you took from behind the camera to being on camera?
01:09:23
Speaker 3: That’s a great question.
01:09:28
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I learned the most was patience. Being a cameraman, you’re always wanting to stretch that shot out as long as you can. You think about like a whitetail hunt. If you just showed the kill shot on a whitetail hunt like an archery hunt, that video would probably be, it’d be stretching to do 30 seconds. Right. You know, from start to finish, from the time you see him. And as a cameraman, you’re wanting to milk that time out to be able to tell that story. So I think patience is, is an extra sense of, of patience would be what I took from behind the camera to in front, because I’m, I’m thinking about it, but I’m also thinking about what Dave’s looking, looking at, you know, am I giving him time to get, set and everything. Cause he’s, I mean, he’s a professional. He’s, he’s two steps ahead of me where I’m at on, on that part. But it is conscious in my mind, especially if you’re filming a hunt, the, the time that it takes to get it right.
01:10:31
Speaker 4: Right.
01:10:31
Speaker 1: Okay.
01:10:32
Speaker 2: Great answer.
01:10:33
Speaker 4: Um, you know, you’ve, you’ve had that moose meat of quite a while now. Um, Ethan Kenley said, what’s your favorite recipe you’ve made with your moose meat? Man, we, we, We have a bunch of it in burger.
01:10:50
Speaker 1: We have made meatloaf and tacos and burgers and everything you can imagine. But probably my favorite is probably chili. Okay. The chili is good. The steaks are great. I’m not saying the steaks aren’t good. They are absolutely fantastic.
01:11:06
Speaker 3: You chunk it up like into stew meat?
01:11:08
Speaker 5: No.
01:11:08
Speaker 2: Or you grind it? Grind it on the ground like burger.
01:11:11
Speaker 1: Okay. But we did have some stew meat done, and I’ve done recipes with that. And I gave a buddy of mine a tri-tip and he fixed it off of that moose. And he said it was unbelievably good. And after he told me that, I thought, dang, I shouldn’t have.
01:11:30
Speaker 2: Gave it to.
01:11:32
Speaker 1: Him. But it’s been really good. There’s been no way that we have fixed it that it hadn’t been good. And literally anything that you would do with beef or deer meat, you can do with this.
01:11:43
Speaker 2: Okay. It’s really good.
01:11:45
Speaker 3: Broad question here.
01:11:47
Speaker 4: But we’ve got a comment that says, what’s the best part about moose hunting?
01:11:55
Speaker 1: I can only attest to this trip because I’ve only been once. I was never a cameraman on another moose hunt. I mean, this is my experience. And the best part about it was being there, sharing it with my friends.
01:12:11
Speaker 2: It was great.
01:12:13
Speaker 1: You know, when I go bow hunting, I’m usually by myself unless it’s a filmed event. And I come back and I’m like, man, Josh, I wish you’d have been there.
01:12:22
Speaker 5: Yeah.
01:12:23
Speaker 1: And saw this. You know, it may have something, not even anything to do with the moose. It may have been two squirrels fighting that fell out of a tree. But on that hunt and to this very moment right now, I can pick up my phone and text Dave or Craig and say, hey, remember when this happened.
01:12:41
Speaker 2: You know, how cool is that? So I think that’s probably my best part.
01:12:44
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
01:12:45
Speaker 4: Well, we’ve got one more. We’ve got one more clip here we want to show.
01:12:48
Speaker 1: I hope no one asked which had a bigger effect on me, the moose or the lights. The answer might surprise them.
01:13:00
Speaker 3: Quick clip.
01:13:02
Speaker 4: But the Northern Lights, you talked about there in that clip.
01:13:09
Speaker 3: Don’t if someone were to ask.
01:13:11
Speaker 5: Yeah.
01:13:12
Speaker 4: Tell us what that meant to you. Like what, what did it do? You, you talked about the being on the boat and seeing that and that being your, your, your light that you follow home back to camp, but, um, it clearly did something to you.
01:13:26
Speaker 1: You know, from a little, when I was a little boy, I was reading, uh, adventure stories from in seventh grade. I was reading Peter Hathaway, cap stick, you know, death in the long grass about big game hunting in Africa. And before that, I was reading Jack London and adventure stories in Alaska. And they talk about the Northern Lights. And to me, that would have been as foreign as listening to Neil Armstrong talk about walking on the moon. Something that I would never have dreamt I would have got to see. And that has been over a lifetime. You know, I’m 60 years old. And I’ve been thinking about that since I was 10. And then to be there and to look at it with my eyes, there is no way Dave’s camera could capture all the things that went into that. And it was an easy answer for me. The northern lights had a bigger impact on me than that moose did. Because I will eat that moose and it’ll be gone. And then there will be no more moose. But those lights will be in me forever. And it was amazing to sit there and think that the same creator that made those lights made me. So it, it, it made a very significant, it was a very significant moment for me to sit there and see that. And it was, it has been so good. Every, every bit of it. I think about them now and I can’t quit smiling about it. You know, it was, they were, You ask a question, we talked when you first got here about a lot of the clips that you see of the Northern Lights are sped up so you can see the movement. You can see the movement in them if you’re just sitting there staring at them. But it’s almost like you could hear them. It is an overwhelming experience to sit there and see that.
01:15:27
Speaker 2: It was for me.
01:15:29
Speaker 1: And I’m a detail-oriented person where I try to pay attention to everything except when alexis tells me to do something apparently i’m not very.
01:15:38
Speaker 2: Good at that but it was.
01:15:42
Speaker 1: Very easy answer that that had the biggest impact on me and it was all good man.
01:15:48
Speaker 4: That’s great any final reflect reflections on the on the trip.
01:15:56
Speaker 1: There was nothing bad about it you know it’s hard going from getting all that stuff up there and all the logistics that went into it. I can’t tell you how many meetings we had meetings after meetings, after.
01:16:08
Speaker 2: Meetings on prepping and planning.
01:16:11
Speaker 1: And I knew once I got there and we got feet on the ground, why we had so many of them, because it is such a big undertaking, but just the whole experience as a whole, uh, I would, there was, I had, there was no detractors, even the long drive. You know, we, Dave and I flew into Winnipeg and then drove like 10 or 11 hours to the northern part of Manitoba to catch a float plane to go in there to where Craig was. So, I mean, it was, once we got there, I mean, it was, Katie, borrow the door. You got to go. You know, you got to load up and drive. And then, I mean, it was effort. It took effort to get there. But every bit of it was fun. Every bit of it was fun. you know, new and refreshing. And I got to share it with my friends and it just made it so good. It was, uh, it will be with me forever. And I hope to get to go back and do it again soon, you know, with, uh, in a different place or with Craig or whatever, but I won’t go with a bow and just get that much closer. Yeah.
01:17:17
Speaker 4: Well, thanks for sharing the film with us and, and, uh, and talking, talking with me today.
01:17:23
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thank you for being here, Josh. I appreciate it. Thank y’all for being here. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the 12 and 26 Manitoba moose hunting episode that I did there on the meat eater YouTube channel. Uh, it’s been a, it was an absolute pleasure to do and I appreciate it. And send your comments in anytime you see one of these, when we do one of these companion podcasts, your questions can get answered right here on the air. Thank y’all for watching and y’all be careful.
01:17:54
Speaker 2: Thanks, everybody.
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