00:00:14
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast, brought to you by Tacoba’s Boots. I’m a cowboy boot man, and I’ve been wearing Tacoba’s for years. They’re the most comfortable boot I’ve ever put on. Good boots for good times.
00:00:45
Speaker 2: Action.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: Well, welcome to the Bear Grease Podcast. My name is Josh Landbridge Spielmaker. My name is not Clay Newcomb, as you can tell. Much better looking, more engaging, more friendly, you know, just like Clay Newcomb, only better. So I just want to welcome everybody to the show. We have an illustrious group of people here. Um, that we’re going to be visiting with today. So I’m really excited about it. I’m going to introduce them. First of all, on my left here, who I affectionately refer to as my niece, River.
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Speaker 2: River Newcomb. Welcome.
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Speaker 4: Hello. Thank you.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: River, how long have you known Clay?
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Speaker 4: How long have I known Clay? 23 years.
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Speaker 2: Really? That’s a long time.
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Speaker 4: Long time. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I’ll say.
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Speaker 3: What about Misty? Do you know her as well? Have you spent much time with her?
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Speaker 2: A little bit. Okay. Yeah. Since she’s your mom.
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Speaker 4: Since she’s my mom.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: So you’ve known her So that same 23 years plus an extra nine months.
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Speaker 4: Yep, a little longer.
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Speaker 2: Great.
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Speaker 3: Well, glad you’re here, River. You’ve been on the render a number of times.
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Speaker 4: A number of times, maybe. I’m trying to remember. I was on once.
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Speaker 2: Once? Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I think you were on when your dad was gone again one other time, I think.
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Speaker 4: I remember coming and talking about land.
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Speaker 2: About land? Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, I’ll take your word for it.
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Speaker 4: But I think it was just once.
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Speaker 2: We’ll have to dip back in the archives to find out.
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Speaker 4: I could be wrong.
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Speaker 2: Then as we go around the circle here, we have Mr. Matt Gagnon. Matt, welcome.
00:02:20
Speaker 3: Good friend of ours, me and Clay. Lives close to us here and just an all-around fantastic guy. He’s like the guy that comes in clutch. Like when you need a guy there, you call Matt Gagnon. Because not only will he be there, he’s going to have all the resources that you need to get you out of whatever pickle you’re in.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: So, man, glad you’re here.
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Speaker 5: Thank you, Josh. Really good to be here.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, man.
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Speaker 3: And what’s been going on with you? What’s new and exciting these days? Tell me what it is that you kind of do.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
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Speaker 5: So I know all of you guys through outdoor media. You know, I used to work with Clay at Meat Eater. I run a production company. I film a lot of hunting content. everything like that. So that’s kind of the connection to here. And then relocated to Arkansas from Wyoming at the end of last year, which has definitely been a big adjustment, but I’m loving it down here. And I’ve kind of started in the real estate world down here in Arkansas, selling land and hunting property. So very blessed to just be out on the land constantly.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: Some pretty amazing properties.
00:03:23
Speaker 5: Pretty incredible, man. So, you know, coming from Wyoming, we’re known for a beautiful state. I mean, it’s one of the prettiest places, in my opinion, on earth. But you come down here and you spend time around kind of northwest Arkansas. I mean, it’s truly a beautiful place here. And there’s a lot of just undiscovered gems. So I’m just really, really fortunate to be able to travel around here, show some places to people, and just discover it for myself.
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Speaker 2: So, yeah. Well, awesome, man. Well, we’re glad you’re here.
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Speaker 5: Thank you.
00:03:48
Speaker 2: Glad to be here. And then last but not least, we have last.
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Speaker 3: We’re going to go with the misses first. So we have Crystal Lyles with us here.
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Speaker 1: Hi.
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Speaker 2: And Joe Lyles.
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Speaker 3: Now, Joe’s been on the podcast one other time?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, one other time. Yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker 3: So y’all are Mr.
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Speaker 2: And Mrs. Joe Lyles. That’s correct.
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Speaker 3: And y’all are from the glorious town of Mena.
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Speaker 2: Yes. The big town of Mena. The fabled town of Mena. You bet. Yeah. Have you been there a long time? Lifetime.
00:04:22
Speaker 6: Really?
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Speaker 2: That’s home.
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Speaker 3: Really?
00:04:24
Speaker 2: You too, Crystal? Yes.
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Speaker 6: Born and raised.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: Wow. Mm-hmm. Y’all are true locals. We are, yes. Yep, we’re local people.
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Speaker 3: Y’all have seen all the stuff. Do you know where all the bodies are buried?
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Speaker 4: Yes, we do.
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Speaker 3: Oh.
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Speaker 2: Especially from my last career, so yeah.
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Speaker 6: We may have even buried a few ourselves.
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Speaker 2: So you had a career in banking. I did, yes. Okay, but Joe, your career was? I was with the Forest Service. I retired from the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement. Okay.
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Speaker 3: I bet you’ve got some stories, don’t you?
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Speaker 2: I’ve got a lot of stories.
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Speaker 4: It’s got to be.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Now, that’s why you were on the last time when we had done a story on some game wardens.
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Speaker 2: Yes, I believe the Outlaws. And you came on as a subject matter expert.
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Speaker 3: So some of our most popular episodes were the Louis Dale and Charlie Edwards.
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Speaker 2: I know them well. I do. Yeah. And Russ Arthur, you know. Yeah, yeah. Now, did you work direct?
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Speaker 3: I think we talked about this last time, but you worked kind of directly with Russ, right?
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Speaker 2: Russ was, you know, he was a special agent, you know, in the eastern part of Tennessee and that part of the world whenever I was in law enforcement. So we were in different areas, but I’ve worked with Russ, you know, different times. Russ also is a fantastic guy. Russ is a great guy. He is. Just a good quality man. Well, we’re sure glad you’re here.
00:05:41
Speaker 3: I want to mention at the top of the show here, I want to thank our sponsor.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: If I can do this. Takova’s Boots.
00:05:51
Speaker 3: And, Joe, I don’t know if you noticed, but you are sitting in the Tecovas hot seat here. And we’ve got some boots here at Tecovas Boots.
00:05:58
Speaker 2: And I’m not even wearing Tecovas.
00:06:01
Speaker 3: Well, you’ll have the opportunity now because you are going to get a pair of boots from Tecovas.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: Oh, well, that would be great. Yeah, congratulations. We appreciate you coming up to be on the show. Absolutely. Well, thank you. Yeah.
00:06:13
Speaker 3: A couple of things before we get too deep in the conversation.
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Speaker 4: Okay.
00:06:18
Speaker 3: We have a new podcast coming out on the Meat Eater Network that I think probably everybody in this room would enjoy. It’s called The Gunfighters. Author Brian, as he says it, Brian Burrow. The regular folks call him Brian Burrow, but he says Brian Burrow. He’s doing a series on some historical gunfighters. And there’s a trailer out right now, but it actually, when this podcast is released, it will have come out the day before, so… For us, it comes out tomorrow. But for you listening, it came out yesterday. So get on the Meat Eater Network, a podcast, and listen to the new Gunfighters podcast.
00:06:59
Speaker 2: It’s going to be really good. That’ll be good. Yeah, a lot of.
00:07:03
Speaker 3: Cool stories and some voice acting and all kinds of cool stuff. So it’s going to be good. So check that out for sure. We’ve got Whitetail Week coming up at the end of this month. Whitetail season is right around the corner. Did you velvet hunt?
00:07:20
Speaker 2: I did. I did for one day. Actually, one morning, actually. And? Didn’t see anything? Nothing. It’s so hot that it just wasn’t.
00:07:29
Speaker 3: We are in day, I think, 1,862 of near or above 100 degree temperatures here in Arkansas.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: It’s been absolutely miserable hot. It’s hot.
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Speaker 3: Bear season started a week ago, and it’s like it feels weird to hunt when it’s 100 degrees.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: That first morning was hot. It was. Miserable, miserable.
00:07:53
Speaker 3: But anyway, we’ve got the reason that River’s here and Joe and Crystal are here and Matt too, honestly, is because we’ve got some bear killers in the room. Arkansas bear season started last Wednesday, so Wednesday the 9th. And we’ve got three bear killers in the room from this season.
00:08:18
Speaker 2: One of them’s yours.
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Speaker 3: One of them’s mine. And I have to say that you may be able to see the glow. You know, when Moses went up on the mountain, he was in the presence of the Lord, and he came down. The people couldn’t even look at him because his face glowed. I kind of feel like Moses right now.
00:08:34
Speaker 4: That’s how I feel, too.
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Speaker 3: You know, glowing after my first bear kill. It’s my first bear kill, so I was pretty excited about it.
00:08:41
Speaker 4: Congratulations.
00:08:41
Speaker 2: But anyway, yeah.
00:08:43
Speaker 3: I want to, I want to kind of jump in and talk about, um, about your bear hunts. And I want to talk about mine because mine was pretty, pretty eventful. So, well, I can start out. So, um, I, I got access to a piece of property, pretty prime piece of property. I have to say pretty prime, um, because it’s, it’s, it’s nice because it, it butts right up against the wilderness area.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: And, uh, The problem with that is it’s.
00:09:15
Speaker 3: Landlocked, and I can’t drive anything up there. So my good friend Bear Newcomb, which folks may have heard of before, he’s got a little mule named Slow Trap. For a young mule, he’s pretty trusty. He’s pretty dependable. And then I borrowed a mule from another buddy of ours named Justin House. Shout out to Justin House, cuz. He’s the other guy you want to call when you need something. So Justin loaned me a mule that’s not.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: New to him, but he hasn’t had it a long time.
00:09:52
Speaker 3: But I have ridden this mule quite a bit, and uh it’s a great mule i mean just calm easy to handle good natured you know what i mean it’s it’s he’s easy to catch he you know just does what you ask him to do and uh i’ve been using him to bait bait these bears so where i’m baiting is it’s about two a But it is 1,100 feet of climb. And so it’s a trek up there. And it’s a good drive from where I live, too. So baiting is more or less a 12-hour job. So by the time you come and get the mules and get your bait all ready and get it all loaded up, go out there, pack it in the panniers, and get to the spot and make it home, it’s leave at 6 o’clock and get home at 7 o’clock.
00:10:45
Speaker 2: So… I did that, I think, six times.
00:10:48
Speaker 3: And I was having to bait every three, four days because the bait was getting eaten up.
00:10:56
Speaker 2: I mean, they were just hammering.
00:10:58
Speaker 3: And I think, looking at my camera, and sometimes it’s hard to tell, but I think I probably had at least a dozen bears coming into my bait, maybe more. I mean, I feel like that’s pretty conservative to say that I had a dozen coming in there. And, you know, anywhere from cubs to a pretty decent-sized boar. But I did have a good-sized boar coming in pretty regularly. And I’m guessing 375, pretty decent, solid, big boar. Not old, old, but old enough, you know what I mean, that he’s pretty solid. He’s the kind of boar that when he walks, he jiggles, you know what I mean?
00:11:37
Speaker 2: So that’s what you want.
00:11:40
Speaker 3: I had baited in Clay, and I put a video up on Instagram of… I think the third time, and the first two times I went up there to bait, my lovely wife, Christy, affectionately known as Kiki, went with me. I mean, she was a trooper to hike up that mountain with me and help me load and unload all that bait. So I’m glad this didn’t happen when she was there. I think she would have panicked a little bit. But the third time and the fourth time I went out there, I had a sow on the bait who wouldn’t leave. I mean, I was having to I was having to, I parked the mules not far from the bait. And as soon as I, soon as I stopped, this sow came in and she was, she wanted my bait real bad. And there, and there was still bait, a little bit of bait on the ground. So it wasn’t like she was starving, but it’s been so hot and there’s not a lot of water right now, but she came in and she was salivating, literally dripping from her mouth, wanting to get my bait. And so I was shooing her away, you know what I mean? And I have to be honest, there were a couple of times where it made me a little uncomfortable because how close, I mean, she was within seven feet of me. And a couple of times I did draw on her. I had my sidearm with me. And I wouldn’t have shot her, but I definitely would have shot in her direction to scare her off. But, you know, I ended up throwing a stick at her and hitting her in the face. But she never backed off more than about 30 yards. So I got it baited. The day before season opener, I looked at my cameras, and I had good bears coming in. I had my target bear that I was looking at. I also had a couple of sows with cubs, but I also had some other sows that didn’t have cubs that were pretty good size. But I noticed that there wasn’t hardly any bait left. So I thought, I had originally just planned on taking Rudy, mule that I had borrowed and ride him up so I wouldn’t get all sweaty and just park him and get in the stand but I was having bears in there 24 hours a day I mean there was hardly a time when I didn’t have at least one bear at the bait so I thought if by chance I don’t get a bear on day one and I’ve got to hunt a second day there’s not going to be any bait there so I thought I better take both mules and I’ll I’ll pack one in with bait, and then I’ll ride the other one. So I got there, unloaded the mules, put the saw bucks on slow trap, and loaded slow trap with bait because he’s pretty little. I’m a fairly good-sized guy. I know we had the men’s health episode last, but I’m still.
00:14:26
Speaker 2: A fair-sized boy.
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Speaker 3: And so I rode Rudy because he can handle a big man like me. So I rode Rudy up, had my bow and ponied. ponied slow trap up there and got there and there was a sow there and I think it was that same sow and and then there was a then she had two cubs and I had I had taken the bags of feed out of the panniers on the on the mule and set it over by the bait pile and I was trying to get my tree stand set up But while I was trying to get my tree stand set up, one of those cubs came in and started.
00:15:11
Speaker 2: Trying to get in the bag.
00:15:13
Speaker 3: So I had to get back down and shoo him off.
00:15:16
Speaker 2: And I unloaded it.
00:15:17
Speaker 3: So then I went and took the mules and parked them about 250 yards away.
00:15:23
Speaker 2: Came back and got up in the tree probably about 1 o’clock, I think. And there was a bear. It was a sow.
00:15:35
Speaker 3: But there was a good size bear there that watched me get in the tree. I mean, just, you know, just stared at me while I climbed the tree, but she didn’t go anywhere. I mean, she just stayed right there and, and ate. So I got set up and, you know, I wanted to try to film it. So I set up a camera in the tree and I, you know, I got a little tree, you know, tripod thing. I guess it’s not technically a tree. It’s a tree pod, not a tripod. Would that be a tree pod for your arm?
00:16:02
Speaker 2: I like calling it a tree pod.
00:16:03
Speaker 3: Um, So I did all that. And, and this was a good size bear. And like, you know, the thought comes through like, am I going to get another bear coming in here? And so I was like, you know, it’s always a consideration, but I didn’t. And she was there for a bit. And then finally she left. And then a sow and two cubs came in. I assumed it was that same sow. And they were there for a while.
00:16:31
Speaker 2: And then.
00:16:32
Speaker 3: I guess about 245. And the whole time, those cubs were just going to town on that bait. And it was pretty wild. I think this mama knew I was there. She didn’t ever look up at me, but I think she winded me a little bit because she kept standing off and popping her jaw.
00:16:53
Speaker 2: Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
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Speaker 3: And those cubs would look up like, we know we’re supposed to come, but we’re.
00:16:59
Speaker 2: Having a great time here. We’re hungry. Exactly. Exactly.
00:17:02
Speaker 3: And so she’d come in and take a bite and then circle out and pop, pop, pop, pop. And then a couple minutes later, those cubs just ran up the tree and that sow took off the opposite way that she had come in.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: And then the cubs ran down and followed her.
00:17:18
Speaker 3: And lo and behold, at 2.45, in walks my target bear.
00:17:26
Speaker 2: And I’m like, this bear is beautiful. And mind you… I’ve been shooting… I haven’t consistently.
00:17:35
Speaker 3: My hunting until the last couple years has been sporadic.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: It’s been hunt on a weekend here and there.
00:17:41
Speaker 3: And most of the time it’s rifle hunt because I didn’t feel proficient with my bow enough to be bow hunting. With this kind of thing, it’s been so much work baiting, so much cost baiting all the time. I’m like, the last thing I want to do is get in the tree and make a bad shot or completely miss. So I’ve been trying… to shoot 100 arrows a day, as often as I can. So when I go outside, just shoot 100 arrows. And so I felt more confident with the bow than I ever have.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: And so.
00:18:14
Speaker 3: This big boar comes in, and I’m like, I got it. Because I’m maybe 15 yards from my bait pile, and I’m like, I got this.
00:18:26
Speaker 2: All I need is a shot.
00:18:27
Speaker 3: Well, this bear walks in, And immediately once he gets past the tree, he turns his rump toward me.
00:18:35
Speaker 2: So I have no shot.
00:18:37
Speaker 3: Then when he gets over to the bait pile, he turns broadside and flops down into the bait pile, scrunched up with his arm right back over his vitals.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: And I’m like, oh, dadgummit.
00:18:51
Speaker 3: And so I’m looking at this bear, and I’m thinking, should I shoot? Should I not shoot? And my bear hunting mentor, Clay Newcomb, you know, he said, he said, it’s really important. He’s like, try to get a pass through shot if you can, because bears are notorious for not bleeding. You know, you stick an arrow in them and they don’t like to bleed. So try to get a pass through. And I’m thinking if I shoot, I’ve got a good chance of hitting that shoulder, which means it’s too many variables. And I thought, surely he’s going to stand up. And when he stands up, I’ll have a shot. Well, he eats for about 10 minutes and then he, immediately turns his rump toward me again and walks straight away from me. And I’m just, I’m sick. And you know, you’re sitting there double guessing yourself, you know, second guessing yourself, should I have taken the shot?
00:19:43
Speaker 2: Should I have taken the shot?
00:19:45
Speaker 3: And it’s like, in the end, you know, you feel good because you feel like you made the right decision. but it’s like, you made the right decision, but you still have regret, you know? So, um, but I’m like, you know, it’s, it’s two 45, you know what I mean?
00:20:00
Speaker 2: I got hours before dark and I got five hours before dark.
00:20:03
Speaker 3: I’m just going to wait it out. I know the, and I thought, man, he’ll probably be back. Um, Clay was out of town, and so I’m kind of messaging him. And he’s like, man, don’t worry.
00:20:14
Speaker 2: He’ll be back. He’ll be back.
00:20:15
Speaker 3: So I’m just hanging. I’m in my saddle. I’m sitting in a tree saddle. Then another sow comes in, a medium-sized sow, probably 180 pounds probably. And she comes in, and she’s got about a six-inch long, inch wide gash right on her rump I mean deep not bleeding but pretty fresh you know I mean it’s red meat and she goes in and she frolics in this bait like a cartoon I mean at one point she’s got her back to me and she’s she’s taking bites and she puts her arms up like this and falls backwards and it was pretty funny to watch but she’s standing there and then all of a sudden Boom. She looks over to the left and bolts. And I’m like, all right, here comes my boar.
00:21:15
Speaker 2: He’s coming back.
00:21:17
Speaker 3: So I see this big head walking through the woods and it comes in right at the edge of the bait, gives me a quarter and away shot. And I just draw back and 10 ring this bear. I mean, I heard it pass through and hit the other side. And when it took off, its front legs, front arms go out from underneath of it and it slides on its face as it’s starting.
00:21:48
Speaker 2: To run away.
00:21:49
Speaker 3: And I hear crash, crash, crash. And then I don’t hear anything. And then I hear, meh. And I’m like, I texted Clay. I immediately was like, excuse me, I look at the camera and I’m like, think I just smoked him. And I immediately picked up the phone to text Clay. And I, in my mind, I thought I’d just gotten the bore just because I was so caught up in the moment. So I just kind of take my time getting down. I’m, I’m confident the bear’s dead. And I walked down and walk over to the bait and there, my arrows completely pass through.
00:22:26
Speaker 2: It snapped in half.
00:22:27
Speaker 3: I think when it, when it, when it came, went charging out, it broke that arrow in half. So I kind of just followed the path. I watched real careful to see where it was and went, and sure enough, 40 yards away. But it was a big, mature sow.
00:22:44
Speaker 2: Oh, that’s excellent.
00:22:45
Speaker 3: Which I don’t, I mean, when you see the head on this thing, you know she’s mature, and she was dry. So, I mean, for my first bear, I can’t complain.
00:22:54
Speaker 2: I can’t complain.
00:22:56
Speaker 3: And she ended up being, I mean, she’s bigger than me.
00:22:59
Speaker 2: She’s probably 275. Oh, that is? Yeah, 250, 275. That’s awesome.
00:23:03
Speaker 3: So anyway, I was elated. But the story doesn’t end there. I’m going to try to make this part a little shorter. So I’ve got two mules that have never seen a bear. And so Clay had instructed me. He’s like, now when you’re skinning this bear, take these mules and tie them up to a tree downwind of you so they can get the scent. And then he said, you’re going to want to try to desensitize them. So maybe you get a little blood on your hand. let him sniff it before you go trying to pack a bear out.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: On these mules.
00:23:34
Speaker 3: So I’m thinking, I’m thinking Rudy is Mr.
00:23:37
Speaker 2: Calm.
00:23:38
Speaker 3: I’m going to be able to pack on him. No problem. And I feel like Clay was kind of like exaggerating it a little bit for me, you know, just so I would really take my time.
00:23:50
Speaker 2: He might’ve been right.
00:23:59
Speaker 3: So I, uh, I park the mules, go get the mules. I’m still on cloud nine. And I go get the mules and tie them up. And they’re acting a little funny. And so I cut into the bear, get my hands a little bloody, and I walk up to Rudy, and I stick my hand out. And he immediately, those ears perk up, those eyes get big, and he sniffs my hand, and he backs up and pulls on that lead rope tied to the tree.
00:24:27
Speaker 2: And I thought, okay, I’m going to back off. I’m going to give him a minute.
00:24:30
Speaker 3: I walk over to Slow Trap and kind of let him sniff my hand a little bit. And he’s pretty chill. And I was surprised. He sniffed it pretty hard, but he didn’t get riled up about it. So I go back to start skinning. Mind you, it’s the first bear I’ve ever skinned, so I’m struggling a little bit.
00:24:46
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
00:24:47
Speaker 3: Skinning a bear by yourself is hard anyway. So a couple minutes later, I go back to Rudy, and I let him sniff my hand.
00:24:53
Speaker 2: Same response.
00:24:54
Speaker 3: And he just, I can tell he’s not crazy about it. Slow Trap, Pretty chill. So I get my bear about halfway skint and go over to Rudy one more time to let him sniff my hand, and he goes ballistic. I mean, absolutely ballistic. It’s a 10-inch white oak I’ve got him tied up to, and I feel like he’s going to pull it down. He’s yanking on this rope so hard. Well, he yanks so hard that he gets the halter off, down over the tip of his nose, and it’s just dangling on his neck. And so I’m like, all he’s got to do is lean that head forward, and that halter’s going to slide right off. So he’s pulling so hard, I want to kind of get him away from the bear a little bit. So I untie the rope, and I’m going to try to get back with him. Well, when he does that, he puts his head up and yanks the rope.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: Out of my hand, and pew! He gone.
00:25:55
Speaker 5: See you later.
00:25:56
Speaker 3: So I’ve got a borrowed mule loose in the National Forest, and Slow Trap’s still tied up, fortunately, and it’s 92 degrees, and I’m thinking, I’ve got to get this meat out of here.
00:26:10
Speaker 2: So I finish. I thought, I’m just going to have to deal with the mule.
00:26:14
Speaker 3: I’m going to get this cut up, get it on Slow Trap, get down to the trailer, and then I’ll come back and look for the mule, and I’ll get reinforcements if I need reinforcements. So I get it cut up. I put it in game bags, and Slow Trap’s got the panniers on him. Fortunately, Slow Trap’s got the panniers on him. So I go over, and I walk by Slow Trap, and he kind of side-eyes me. The mule term is he was a little watchy. And I put the game bag in the panniers and then Slow Trap. proceeds to go ballistic himself so he starts bucking and bucking and bucking and he he calms down enough for just a second i pull the bag out and he calms down.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: And so i messaged clay again he’s.
00:27:08
Speaker 3: Like man i don’t know what you’re gonna do he said uh you might try blindfolding him so i take my i’d taken an extra change of clothes so i could get out of my sweaty clothes before i got in the stand so i got my shirt and i just tied it around his face.
00:27:23
Speaker 2: Loaded him up, no problem.
00:27:24
Speaker 3: And I’m like, I’m loading all of my earthly possessions on this mule and we’re going to get the heck out of Dodge. So he’s tied up, I’ve got him, and I’m like, okay, I’m going to get him to the bottom, get my meat on ice, and then I’ll come back and look for Rudy. So we get down there. We start to take off. We don’t make it 100 yards. All of a sudden, Rudy shows up. And he follows us all the way down that mountain like a puppy dog. And We get to the bottom. I tie a slow trap. I’m thinking this is easy peasy chip shot. We’ll just get these mules in the trailer and we’ll bust it on home. Well, guess who still smells like a bear?
00:28:02
Speaker 2: Me. Guess who doesn’t like the smell of bear?
00:28:06
Speaker 3: Rudy. And so I proceed to try to catch him for the next, let’s see, that was probably 8.30. I proceed to catch him for the next three and a half hours. And River and her cousin Clara were hunting just a couple miles down from me. And I said, River, I might need your help. So River and Clara were kind enough to come. And y’all didn’t come over until like 11 o’clock. They came over at like 11 o’clock. And we spent an hour trying to catch this mule. And he would never wander off. I mean, the farthest he’d go was just, you know, 40, 50 yards away. But he would not let us put our hands on him. And so I said, girls, y’all go on. I’m just going to sleep in my truck. And maybe in the morning he’ll chill. And I had some hand sanitizer, and I tried to scrub up with hand sanitizer. So I slept in the truck, and he stood by slow trap all night long. And the next morning I get up, and I thought, well, maybe I can just. So I ease out there, and he’s standing next to slow trap. and I’m petting Slow Trap, and Rudy starts backing up, and he turns around, and he’s just slowly walking off, and I manage to grab the rope, because he’s still got that lead rope. It’s shredded, but he’s still got that lead rope, and he drags me down the road, and just, then he starts trotting, and I can’t keep up with him. So, I know that I am done for with this mule. So I pick up the phone. It was like, I send out the bat signal, you know, shine the light in there. And two hours later, Matt Gagnon shows up. Matt, what happened at that point?
00:29:53
Speaker 5: Well, I showed up. You look like you had had a night. Uh, I figured that you were going to be just as stressed as the mule, so I brought you a burrito and a coffee. And then, yeah, I just showed up, and you had Slow Trap tied up fine on the trailer, and he looked pretty cozy. And then Rudy, you could just see him watching, and I think he wanted to be with Slow Trap, and he’s probably about done with the whole experience himself. And so what did you have, some like alfalfa cubes?
00:30:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, some alfalfa cubes.
00:30:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I just walked out, and Rudy didn’t look spooked. He just looked like he didn’t want to.
00:30:26
Speaker 2: He didn’t want me. Didn’t want you. Yeah, exactly.
00:30:28
Speaker 5: Pretty much. So you sat on the tailgate.
00:30:29
Speaker 2: And he looked at you and he said, have you smelled that, dude? He’s like, why are you even talking to that guy? He’s filthy.
00:30:34
Speaker 5: And so I figured my best bet. So I brought my lariat. I was going to maybe, you know, Justin advised maybe try to get a rope on him.
00:30:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker 5: And on the way down, you know, coming from Wyoming, I’m like, this is going to get really Western. I figured I’d be on slow trap and I’d have to rope this mule and dally him.
00:30:51
Speaker 2: Yeehaw.
00:30:51
Speaker 5: But slow trap didn’t have a saddle, so that wasn’t.
00:30:54
Speaker 2: Going to work out.
00:30:55
Speaker 3: It’s really uncomfortable to ride on a set of saddles.
00:30:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it’s hard to dally on nothing. If you broke something, you don’t want to hold on to it, and then you’ll take off. I went over it and just figured I’d say hello to Slow Trap and make sure he was comfortable. And I noticed I was giving him some of those alfalfa cubes and just loving on him a little bit and trying to be as calm as could be. And then Rudy was like, well, I want a little bit of that. Why don’t I get some cubes? Why don’t I get some love? So the more attention I gave to Slow Trap, Rudy eventually just walked right up to me. And I gave him some of that alfalfa cube and ate out of my hand and it’s kind of rubbing his head a little bit. And I had my rope in this hand and the idea was I was going to slip it over his neck and then hold on and hope for the best, maybe try to get him tied to a tree or something. But he was super calm and I felt like, all right, he’s got that halter back around his neck and that rope was shredded to bits dragging below him, but it was half hooked on his saddle too. So it’s pulling on him on one side. He probably sees it underneath him and doesn’t like it. So I took my time, kept feeding him a little bit, kept loving on him. And then when his lip started to drop, that lower lip, he was very calm. I just grabbed that halter and kind of pulled it over a little bit. And I just took my knife out and cut that rope off the saddle so I could at least get the rope in the bundle. And then just spent a little more time with him. And from there, I think I walked him on the trailer once. Got him on the trailer. And then he started to back out. He was freaking out a little bit. So backed him out of the trailer. Got that halter a little re-situated. Walked him on. You met me. You kind of tied a lead rope. You took that lead rope off a slow trap. And we tied him up with that. And he seemed calm enough. He was in there eating alfalfa flakes, hanging out. And then it was time to get slow trap on. And you told me he might need a little finessing to get on the trailer. But I took my rope, took my lariat, and then just used that as a lead rope. Pulled him on, and we got him tied up. There was a moment when I was between the two of them in the trailer, and it was a little… I’m, like, trying to sneak out of there, and then it was one of those, I’m just going to go for it and not get kicked, ideally. But, yeah, we got out, closed the gate, and that was kind of it. We got him on there. We got him re-situated. We had to fix that halter. It got a little jacked up from him pulling on it so much, but cut that and tied that off, and good to go.
00:33:08
Speaker 2: And a story. That’s it. Drove home. Fun stuff.
00:33:11
Speaker 4: Easy peasy, wasn’t it?
00:33:12
Speaker 2: I figured he was still out there wandering around. No, he.
00:33:16
Speaker 5: I think it was just, man, you probably smelled something awful, and then he just associated with you.
00:33:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:33:21
Speaker 3: Funny thing is, I came out here the next day after I’d showered, and he was fine.
00:33:24
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:33:26
Speaker 2: He didn’t smell like bears. Didn’t smell like bear anymore.
00:33:28
Speaker 5: Trying to rub blood in his nose.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
00:33:32
Speaker 3: River, tell us about your bear. You spent some time in the woods.
00:33:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:33:38
Speaker 3: It wasn’t just this chip shot first thing, sit in the stand and kill a bear.
00:33:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, we hunted three days, which we only planned. I hunted with Clara, who’s my little cousin, and we both got two days off work.
00:33:50
Speaker 3: By little cousin, you mean like a couple years younger.
00:33:52
Speaker 4: He’s my little cousin.
00:33:55
Speaker 2: We’re not talking about an eight-year-old.
00:33:56
Speaker 4: No, she’s 19. But we both got off work two days, and we hunted. We ended up hunting a little more than that, but we had a spot just close to you. I don’t even know how far it was.
00:34:10
Speaker 2: I mean, it was more than a couple miles.
00:34:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was closer than I thought. Um, and he, you baited for me a lot.
00:34:17
Speaker 2: You owe me big.
00:34:18
Speaker 4: I know I do.
00:34:19
Speaker 3: Actually, you don’t owe me because you came out in the middle of the night.
00:34:21
Speaker 4: You better get him a meal or something. But me, we went out, me and Oakley baited a little bit too. And then we were feeding probably 20 bears. We had the camera, there was bears there every hour of every day. Sometimes there’d be five or six of them at the same time.
00:34:36
Speaker 2: And big bears too. And big bears.
00:34:37
Speaker 4: We had, yeah, we had three pretty good bears there. And anyways, the first day, the idea was we were going to go in and just kind of watch bears and wait and let the big bear come in. And we got there at 12, and we didn’t see a bear until around 2, but we saw, I think we saw five bears the first day, maybe six.
00:34:58
Speaker 2: No good shots on anything, though.
00:35:00
Speaker 4: No good shots.
00:35:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. They were all kind of in and out.
00:35:05
Speaker 4: And they were smelling us. The first bear that came in, came in and we probably watched it for 20 minutes and it got right up to the bait and just turned around. And then a sow came in and same thing.
00:35:13
Speaker 2: What were you feeling? Were you like, were you still hopeful?
00:35:17
Speaker 4: Oh, I was first day. Yeah, I was hopeful. It was different than I thought it would be. Just, we were watching the camera. Dad, I was texting dad, just like you. And I was like, is it weird that there’s not bears here right now? And he said, he said, it looked like they were there all the time, but, but they’re actually not. And I looked at the timestamps. They were there all the time.
00:35:34
Speaker 3: Well, I also think that you girls smell a lot different than I do.
00:35:39
Speaker 4: I know.
00:35:39
Speaker 3: There’s a lot of product that goes into the maintenance of these young ladies that I think probably the bears were smelling.
00:35:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they might like that.
00:35:47
Speaker 3: It’s true.
00:35:47
Speaker 2: They might.
00:35:48
Speaker 4: I figured they would.
00:35:49
Speaker 2: It’s true.
00:35:49
Speaker 4: That’s what we were talking about. I said, I wonder if they could smell that we were clean on the first day and a little less about the third day. Anyways, the second day we went in there. And we saw six bears. We watched bears all day long.
00:36:02
Speaker 5: Really?
00:36:02
Speaker 4: And right at dark, two pretty good bears. We could have shot them, but I was just waiting. I thought maybe. The way they were acting, like a sow came in and she spooked. And then like a little boar, tiny, tiny boar came in. And then two more came at the same time. And it just felt like they were all coming. So we waited. And then when we got home, that was our last day to hunt. I had to work the next day.
00:36:25
Speaker 2: Oh.
00:36:27
Speaker 4: And we, on the drive home, we were like, I bet we could pull off a morning hunt if we went really early in the morning. And it rained hard. It was pouring rain. And we thought we were going to have to get out if it started to lightning. But it never got that bad. But it rained hard that day. And so they came in right at dark. On the drive home, we were like, I bet we could pull off. I work nights.
00:36:44
Speaker 2: Drive home, drive back to where you were staying. Not home.
00:36:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, drive back out of the woods. And so anyways, we decided Claire didn’t work the next day. And then I didn’t have work until, I work nights, so until 7.30pm. So we woke up at five and it was horn rain, lightning, thunder, everything. We drove out there and just kind of sat for a little bit. We woke up at five, got out there at like six and we were going to walk up and hopefully be in the sand right at daylight, but it was pouring down rain. And so eventually I think seven 20, it stopped raining. It was still pretty dark. And we walked up there and really we had decided if we could kill a bear, if a bear came in by nine, just a respectable adult bear came in by nine we’d be able to shoot it and that was kind of all the time we had if we’re going to get to work on time and skin and everything and at 8 45 we saw just kind of like a flash of black and i couldn’t tell it looked it didn’t look like a little bear and she was moving super slow but we saw a flash and i told clara and we just kind of like both were watching it and waiting for it and i thought it’s raining and so everything oh it was raining then It was sprinkling then, but the trees are wet and everything sounds like a bear because if the squirrels run, it just like, it just sounds like a bear. Something big is on the ground because all the water falls down. And so I saw it and then she disappeared and I was watching from behind me and Clara’s sitting on the other side of the tree. So I, and I couldn’t see, I was just watching, waiting to see her again. And then I said, Clara, do you see that bear? And she said, river. And it was right in front of me. I was looking over here and it was right in front of me. And she walked in and we were trying to decide like size her up, trying to decide if we were going to shoot her. And she turned to a good position and we probably watched her for 30 minutes.
00:38:26
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:38:26
Speaker 4: And any other time I’ve killed two bears, I’ve killed three bears, but two bears on bait in Arkansas before. And any, both of those bears, my dad was with me. What I’ve realized is that he, I didn’t realize how much he would tell me when to shoot. He told me it was a good bear. He told me how far it was. I have no concept of how far things are is what I learned. But anyway, so he usually does all that. And both times I would kill a bear, we were like 10 yards from him.
00:38:52
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:38:52
Speaker 4: And so they would get in and they would just look up and see us. And they would know we were there. And both of them stayed and hung out. These bears didn’t. So we took our time. And then she finally got to where she was standing just slightly quartering away.
00:39:06
Speaker 2: And you were in a tree stand.
00:39:06
Speaker 4: We were in a tree stand.
00:39:07
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:39:07
Speaker 4: We were in a tree stand. And she was standing slightly quartering away. And so I got up and I got ready. And she put her head down. And right as I pulled back my bow, she dropped her head and kind of was, I don’t even know. Kind of stretched out. Just kind of scrunched up.
00:39:22
Speaker 2: She put her head down.
00:39:23
Speaker 4: And we watched the video. So I was drawing on her for a minute and a half before she put her head back up.
00:39:30
Speaker 3: I watched the video. River held that bow for at least a minute, minute and a half. I mean, full draw.
00:39:37
Speaker 4: A minute, 39 seconds, full draw. And anyway, so she eventually put her head up, shot her. And we just watched her run. And then she ran just barely. She ran over the side of the ridge. So she ran just barely out of sight. And we thought we heard her fall. And anyways, we got out of the stand pretty quick. Clara, and maybe, I don’t know if you’ll keep this, Clara said, I don’t think that was a good shot.
00:39:57
Speaker 2: And I was like, wait. I was a little panicked.
00:40:01
Speaker 4: And so we got out of the true stand immediately because that was terrifying.
00:40:05
Speaker 2: Right. Did you hear a moan?
00:40:08
Speaker 4: I didn’t. I looked at the arrow and it was just pale blood and it looked like a vital shot. And anyways, we looked around for not very long. Dad would have been upset with us. We didn’t look around for very long. And we couldn’t find any blood. And I said, I’m just going to walk over there and just see because I think she’s just right there. And we went down there. She hadn’t run 50 yards. She was just laying there.
00:40:29
Speaker 3: I say any shot that the bear expires in 50 yards is a good shot.
00:40:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. So take that, Clara.
00:40:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:36
Speaker 4: I was like, thanks, Clara.
00:40:38
Speaker 2: Thanks. You know what, River? You mentioned that.
00:40:42
Speaker 3: Obviously, clay has been a big part in your hunting.
00:40:46
Speaker 4: Uh-huh.
00:40:47
Speaker 3: Career and you know i’d play as you know i’ve talked about clay has was the one who taught me how to hunt i didn’t grow up hunting not having him there was a different kind of experience because you know he’s not there giving you on your own giving you the pointers telling you what to do it it it’s a little bittersweet you know what i mean because he has invested so much time that you want him to share in it but at the same time there’s the sense of accomplishment that like yeah hey, I was able to do this without someone else.
00:41:20
Speaker 2: So that was pretty cool.
00:41:21
Speaker 4: Going up there, I knew it would be a little bit of a different hunt. But I also, Claire’s never hunted before. She killed a deer one time. She said that when we were like, she was maybe 11 or 12. She said that Uncle Zach texted and said, hey, Claire’s going to pick you up today. And we were going hunting. So she came hunting with us. And she killed a deer with a muzzleloader. And that’s it. That’s her only hunting. And so I was like, I’ve hunted, but I’ve not hunted… I’ve hunted a lot, but bear hunting without my dad. I’ve never killed a bear. Yeah. One time we killed a bear in Tennessee, me and Bear did, but we had dogs, so that was different. But I’ve never killed a bear without him. And both those bears I was in high school.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: You’re right.
00:42:04
Speaker 4: And it was a different hunt. I’m trying to think what I was about to say.
00:42:08
Speaker 3: That’s all right.
00:42:10
Speaker 2: Well, that’s a great story, River. Congratulations.
00:42:13
Speaker 3: Your first solo bear.
00:42:14
Speaker 5: Yes.
00:42:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, but packing it out, that was the other thing. Packing it out without any bear I’ve ever killed. And I’ve tracked a lot of bears with other people, but we take big groups. Like Levi killed a bear last year, and it’s a big deal. Like we’ll go back to camp and wait for everybody and tell them and then go back out and find it. It’s getting a bear by ourselves.
00:42:34
Speaker 2: It’s a lot.
00:42:35
Speaker 4: And that’s what I told Claire. I was like, that I’m pretty confident. I can skin a bear. I’ve skinned a ton of bears. I’ve never broke them down the way that we did by myself. It was harder than I thought it would be.
00:42:45
Speaker 2: Well, well done. I was super proud of you.
00:42:48
Speaker 4: I was proud of it. Yeah. That’s awesome.
00:42:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. A lot of work. Well, well done, River.
00:43:03
Speaker 3: Joe, this is a, now you’re a trad bow hunter.
00:43:10
Speaker 2: I am. I have been now since 2017. Oh, since 2017? 2017. Like exclusively? Exclusively. I sold my compound in 2017, the year I bought my recurve. Really? Yep.
00:43:24
Speaker 3: Are you shooting the same recurve that you bought?
00:43:25
Speaker 2: Same one. Really? I’ve got a little 40-pound Black Widow. I love it. Nice. And that’s the same one. I’ve shot a few other ones, but this one I can just, I shoot it pretty good, and I really like it. I do. Awesome. But I have not hunted with any other bow. No, I take that back. I did crossbow hunt a little bit in there, and I thought… I wouldn’t be telling people that. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. No shade to the crossbow hunters. And I thought, this is just not for me. And I don’t even own that anymore. But no, this hunt, it started, really, we could start baiting 30 days before the season. Right. And I can remember James Lawrence telling me, you know, don’t start too early. Not just James Lawrence. The James Lawrence. The James Lawrence. Of wherever it’s at. I tell him all the time.
00:44:15
Speaker 3: The Bear Grylls Hall of Fame member.
00:44:17
Speaker 2: Yes. James Lawrence. I tell him all the time. I say, you’re famous, you know. He’s like, oh, yeah. Get out of here. And you’ve known James. I’ve known James a long time. Your whole life, bro. I have. Yeah. We used to live by him.
00:44:30
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:44:30
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I’ve known James. I knew his mom, his dad, his grandmother. I knew them all. I love him. He’s a fine, fine man. Really good guy. He is. And. You don’t want to start baiting them too early. You just don’t want to get them used to it. And like you were saying, they’re just eating more than you could put out. So I went with another young man who’s really getting started. And I set a barrel up just on another piece of property just to get it set up. Not even put any bait in it or anything. Actually put a camera on it. Just no bait. We actually had bears come into an empty barrel. Really? An empty barrel. They would just come and check it out and then go on. So we watched that for a while. And I believe it was a week after we could abate it. It seemed three weeks before season. And that Sunday, we were at church. We actually had a bear come into an empty barrel. Were they messing with it? Yeah, a little bit. You know, not much. They would just mainly come in. They knew what it was. They’re used to it. Yeah. So we went down after church, and we baited that. And keep in mind. You and Crystal. Yes. We went down there and baited that one. You needed some muscle. Oh, absolutely.
00:45:48
Speaker 5: I did, yes.
00:45:49
Speaker 2: And we baited that one. Knowing that there had been a bear there that morning, no bear ever came to that. We let it sit a week. With bait in it. With bait in it. No, the bear never came back after it had been baited. So after that, the next day, kind of like you, I got to hunt a piece of property this year that, you know, the James Lawrence and another friend of his had actually taken some people. They have a few people that they let come hunt that. Well, those people didn’t come this year. Okay. So they said, hey, do you want to go hunt this? And I’m like, oh, yes, please. You betcha. So we started baiting that three weeks before. We could not keep them fed. You know, they were in there a lot. Were you putting it in barrels? In barrels. I actually, a week later, we went and got that other barrel and brought it out there. We had two barrels set up. Two barrels. Now, what were you baiting with? And just a little bit of everything. We actually started saving some of our stuff from the house that we knew the bears were going to. Oh, really? That’s a good idea.
00:46:56
Speaker 6: We froze scraps, leftovers, that we didn’t eat.
00:46:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:46:59
Speaker 2: That’s a great idea. I hadn’t thought about that. That we knew, you know, that they would eat because everything’s just gotten so expensive. Yeah. You know, Dog food. Yep. Corn. Yep. They love sardines to cover up your scent.
00:47:10
Speaker 3: I bought six cans of sardines and took them up there with me when I was hunting. The first day I was hunting. And that first bear that was there just destroyed all six cans right immediately. Oh, it takes nothing. And they eat them quick, too.
00:47:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The guy that runs the Little Debbie route down in Mena, he’s a good friend. I say, hey, Billy, you got any of this stuff left over? And he says, oh, yeah. You know, so I ended up with big boxes of that. And we’d sit in the shop and open those. And I’ll tell you. The bear will eat those.
00:47:36
Speaker 6: They love little debbies.
00:47:38
Speaker 2: Who doesn’t? Yes.
00:47:40
Speaker 4: That’s right.
00:47:41
Speaker 2: So she goes with me all the time. And we were going in the evenings baiting them. And just as soon as we would bait them, they’re in there. And as hot as it was, we knew that we’ve got to transition this to the morning because it’s too hot during the day. So about a week before that, We started going in the mornings. We bait them in the mornings and we’d watch our cameras. They’re in there. You know, when we pull up, we’d run them off. Right. And before we could make it back to town, they’re already back on that bait. We’re talking less than 10 minutes. Well, this is a good deal. So the plan, here’s where it starts. The plan was we changed up. We decided that opening day, you know, we’re going to do everything the same. She’s going to go in and bait. And at that time, about, I think it was the Friday before season started, I set up all my tree saddle stuff. Okay. Got them used to that. And then when she’s baiting, I’m going to climb up in my stand. And I’m going to get all my stuff ready while she’s baiting. I said, take your time. You know, they’re not going anywhere.
00:48:50
Speaker 4: Right.
00:48:50
Speaker 2: So that’s what we done that first morning. She walked in there, baited it.
00:48:56
Speaker 6: We had run them off.
00:48:57
Speaker 2: They were there. We ran them off that morning. Yeah, just.
00:48:59
Speaker 3: How many bears do you think you had coming in there?
00:49:02
Speaker 2: Maybe at different times, six or seven. Okay. That’s what I think. And so whenever we got there, we ran them off. She started baiting. I got up in my stand. I texted a few people that I had lined up to help me and said, hey, I’m set up. Are you ready?
00:49:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:49:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I said, you be ready. And this property is about 600 acres. So I said, you just go on down there by the house where you got good phone service and just kick back and take a nap. She likes to bait.
00:49:32
Speaker 1: Right.
00:49:33
Speaker 2: So it wasn’t five minutes after we left. I can see a large sow coming in here and believe it. I’ve got a recurve, a 40 pound recurve. The barrel’s about 12 yards. And I thought, no, that’s just, that’s a little too far.
00:49:48
Speaker 5: Right.
00:49:48
Speaker 2: It really is. So before we’d already planned that you put me out some bait right here. Cause I knew it was six steps. Right.
00:49:56
Speaker 3: And.
00:49:57
Speaker 6: He had stepped it off the week before when you set your steps up. And I went down and again, you know, I baited and then he, He had showed me the spot where he wanted, so I dropped that there. And I go back to the truck, and I’m thinking, all right, I’m going to take me a little nap. And I went down to an open spot where I had enough service that he could text me and say, hey. And I did. I just kind of leaned back in the seat, and I thought, okay. And then my phone goes off. He said, come on back. It wasn’t 10 minutes.
00:50:28
Speaker 3: How dare you interrupt her nap?
00:50:31
Speaker 2: I interrupted a nap. It’s your bear harvest. Yes. It was a sow. It came in, and I knew that I was going to shoot this one because, you know, like the James Lawrence, and I always talk about if it’s above that second ring on the barrel, you know, that’s a shooter. Right. And it sat there. I watched it for 10 minutes, and I’m thinking, you need to come to this spot right here. Right. You’re just too far. So it looks around a little bit, and here it comes. It starts walking to that spot, but it’s head on. And by this time, I’ve got my bow up. You know, got it there in front of me, and it’s just walking right to me. And I thought, no, you’ve got to turn. Yeah. It walks right underneath me, like where that boot’s at. And I’m just sitting there looking at it, and I thought. How high in the tree are you? Well, feet. Okay. Because I don’t get real high with that. Right. The higher I get with my recurve, I can’t shoot good. Right. So I thought, I need my spear. I could have speared this thing. Mm-hmm. Because that’s a whole other story, spearing deer. I’ve been trying to do that, but been unsuccessful with that. But I could have speared this thing. So I’m just sitting there watching it. And about two minutes, it just relaxes. It turns around and it goes right out there and starts eating it. In six steps, just… Right in the vitals. Right in the vitals. It runs out there. I hear it crash. That’s awesome. Call her and tell her. You didn’t even have time to fall asleep, did you?
00:52:08
Speaker 6: I didn’t have time to fall asleep.
00:52:09
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
00:52:10
Speaker 6: I said, well, okay.
00:52:11
Speaker 4: I said, here we go.
00:52:12
Speaker 6: I thought, no rest for the weary here.
00:52:14
Speaker 3: Now, Crystal, when all the skinning and everything happens, do you get your hands in there?
00:52:19
Speaker 6: I do, yes.
00:52:21
Speaker 4: Yes, I do.
00:52:22
Speaker 6: I help them, and I also help track the bear. I love to bait.
00:52:28
Speaker 4: It’s fun.
00:52:28
Speaker 3: Have you taken a bear?
00:52:30
Speaker 6: I have not taken a bear. I still can’t quite get past the fact that they have the death moan. Yeah, so I thought I did consider it.
00:52:38
Speaker 2: I thought about it. Yeah.
00:52:40
Speaker 6: But I thought, no.
00:52:41
Speaker 3: Do you deer hunt?
00:52:43
Speaker 6: I do deer hunt.
00:52:43
Speaker 2: Okay. Yes. Do you deer hunt with a bow, rifle?
00:52:46
Speaker 6: I’m a gun girl.
00:52:47
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:52:47
Speaker 6: Yes.
00:52:48
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:52:48
Speaker 6: Yes, I’m a gun girl. One and done. But I’m like you. I didn’t start hunting until I met Joe.
00:52:54
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:52:55
Speaker 6: So.
00:52:55
Speaker 2: How long have y’all been married? 20, what, 15? 2015. Okay. Yeah. So after that, you know, we got all that taken care of. My son-in-law, he’s a PT doctor. Okay. Down in Mena. And, you know, he’s killed a bear last year. And so they want, these people want some more taken off. They’re deer hunters. So they want some of these bears taken out.
00:53:20
Speaker 1: Right.
00:53:21
Speaker 2: So it was probably the day she’s talking about, Friday. Rains and rains and rains. He sits in that stand, just sees something. Several bears. But he killed one out of that same stand Saturday.
00:53:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was Saturday.
00:53:35
Speaker 2: Oh, really? Good one? It was just another sow. Yeah. And full of acorns. So the bigger bears, I think, are… They’re pulling off. Yeah, they’re pulling off. They’re eating acorns and everything else. Yeah. But that’s our bear story. I love it. How many bears have you taken? I’ve killed two. Okay. Yeah. Recently? No. The first one I killed, 95. Oh, wow. Yeah. And… Back in the 1900s? Yeah, back in the 1900s. I’m really showing my age. I killed it with a gun, and I thought then, you know, I just don’t want to do that anymore. It just wasn’t for me. And then I got to going with James and David and got to helping the guys bait a little bit more. No, you know, and then I finally got the idea, but I want to kill it with a recurve. Because where you were talking about the broadhead, I would stand in there. I’ve hunted that spot too.
00:54:30
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah?
00:54:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:54:32
Speaker 2: And that’s a good spot right there. But I never had any come in right there. We’ve been there, and they’ve been on bait whenever we pull up there. Oh, yeah? Yeah. But that’s a good spot.
00:54:44
Speaker 3: Well, I, you know, there’s this big discussion, and Clay has talked about this quite a bit, about hunting bears over bait. Hunting bears over bait is not a sure thing.
00:54:55
Speaker 2: Oh, it’s not.
00:54:56
Speaker 3: And it is so much work. People have no concept of how much work it is. We worked a lot.
00:55:01
Speaker 4: We did.
00:55:02
Speaker 6: You work hard.
00:55:03
Speaker 2: And the cost to it. The cost is a lot.
00:55:06
Speaker 3: But I think one of the biggest benefits of hunting these bears over bait is your ability to be selective.
00:55:14
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
00:55:15
Speaker 3: That you can harvest your older age population to make room for the younger ones that are coming up and they’re not getting.
00:55:23
Speaker 2: not getting pushed out of food. You know what I mean?
00:55:25
Speaker 3: It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really part of the conservation process.
00:55:30
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
00:55:31
Speaker 3: And, you know, I, I really have great respect for the folks at, at Arkansas game and fish. They, they research our policies.
00:55:39
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
00:55:40
Speaker 3: There’s, they’re not just making up rules arbitrarily. And, uh, if they’re going to allow us to bait, there’s a good reason that they allow us to bait. And so, um, you know, I, I think, I think anybody who, who, um, tries to, to decry the, the, the baiting doesn’t understand what we do. And so, um, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a neat thing to be able to hunt these animals, but to still have a lot of respect, you know, I have a lot of respect for bears and, uh, the incredible population that we have. I mean, we have gone from zero bears to a, to a significant huntable population that because of the conservation efforts in our state.
00:56:23
Speaker 2: And so my hat’s off to them.
00:56:25
Speaker 3: Even though I don’t have a hat, my hat’s off to them because they’ve done an excellent job in just giving us the ability to harvest these animals, provide organic meat for our families.
00:56:37
Speaker 2: I mean, it’s an incredible thing. And you talk about the mules. We have a couple of corgis. Well, they didn’t like that. Really? No. And we kept this bear on ice. And, you know, for several days, we actually put it in our… Our utility room where one of those dogs sleeps. He wouldn’t go in there.
00:56:54
Speaker 1: Really?
00:56:55
Speaker 5: He would not.
00:56:56
Speaker 2: Even in the cooler, he wouldn’t go in there. Has that dog ever seen a bear before?
00:57:00
Speaker 3: No.
00:57:00
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
00:57:01
Speaker 6: Now, when we harvest our deer, they’re both. They’re all up in it, but neither one of them. That’s really interesting.
00:57:10
Speaker 2: He wouldn’t go in the room.
00:57:12
Speaker 6: Would not go in the room.
00:57:13
Speaker 3: Well, I’ve got two great Danes, and they were sniffing me up and down. They were trying to go back to their roots of… baying those big bad boys in the corner and so they uh they thought it was.
00:57:25
Speaker 5: Great yeah i’ve got a blood tracking dog like a canine game recovery dog and you know we talk about that a lot in our circles that there’s some dogs that’ll just take to it they get on the scent of a bear they get you know kind of fired up about it they want to go find it if they’re even bears are very easy to track they leave a ton of scent but you get some dogs you bring them up to that track for the first time and they’ll just they’ll try to fight their their collar to get away from it it just seems good it goes from dog to dog Like, Brian loves it. I’ve got a Belgian Malinois I track with, and she’s all about it. And then there’s some dogs that just want zero part of it. You know, where you put them on a deer or an elk, and they’ll track all day long. But that bear, something about that bear scent, there’s just certain dogs that just do not like it.
00:58:05
Speaker 2: No, they don’t like it.
00:58:05
Speaker 5: They want nothing to do with it.
00:58:07
Speaker 2: You’d think that Malinois would. She loves it, yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:58:10
Speaker 5: They have no self-preservation. So I come from Wyoming, where we track on lead. And so it’s a little different dynamic. It’s my first tracking season here in Arkansas where I could run her off lead. And I go back and forth on that about sending her on a bear track off lead because I genuinely don’t know what she would do if she got there on a live bear. She has no self-preservation whatsoever. So I’ve got to kind of bear that in mind.
00:58:33
Speaker 3: And she can probably run up 12 feet up a tree.
00:58:35
Speaker 2: She’s a little athlete. She really is. She’s pretty high strung. Yeah, most of them are. A lot of energy. Oh, yeah.
00:58:41
Speaker 5: But she loves the track. She’s very gritty, and it just makes me wonder. Well, I guess we’ll… burn that bridge when we get to it and we do, we do a bear track, but it’d be interesting to see how she handles that off lead down here.
00:58:51
Speaker 2: That’d be pretty cool. We’ll see. Do you know how many bears have been harvested so far?
00:58:56
Speaker 3: I don’t, I don’t know. I probably should have called to find out. Um, but I think I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve, who’ve harvested bears.
00:59:05
Speaker 2: I think so. I talked to a young man.
00:59:07
Speaker 3: He’s been on the podcast before Caleb fleas. Have you met Caleb Fleas?
00:59:13
Speaker 2: That kid is a kid. He’s not a kid. He’s a young man.
00:59:16
Speaker 3: He’s married and has a child, so he’s not a kid. He is a self-bow-killing machine. I mean, just incredible hunter.
00:59:29
Speaker 2: He killed, he.
00:59:32
Speaker 3: Harvested one on private land. He almost got one on public with a self-bow. He killed a great bear last year with a self-bow on public land.
00:59:43
Speaker 2: And he exclusively hunts with a self-bow. That he made.
00:59:50
Speaker 3: That he made. He makes incredible bows. I mean, just really beautiful, incredible bows. I haven’t ventured into that yet. Yeah, that can be your next thing. Bear Newcomb can be your mentor.
01:00:00
Speaker 2: Well, he could because he’s good with that. I’ve got the spear on my mind.
01:00:04
Speaker 3: Well, Clay’s got a spear up here he always wanted to hunt with, and now that it’s legal, he probably needs to go out and try.
01:00:11
Speaker 4: He has two.
01:00:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. Have you harvested one with a spear? No, I’ve got some hair off one.
01:00:15
Speaker 1: Oh.
01:00:16
Speaker 2: But the funny thing is when you throw that spear, they don’t know what it is. Really? And then you’re sitting there, they’re still there, and you don’t have anything. The very first time I went, I took one, and I threw it, and there they are. They’re still standing there, and I don’t have anything. Interesting. The next time I go, I have two. There you go. Yes. So I bought a backup, but. So I’ve got some spearing stories for later, but they’re all misses. And if they’re underneath you, you still have to throw that spear. You can’t drop it. Oh, really? They’ll move out of the way. You can’t just… I’ve had them right underneath me thinking, well, I can just drop this. No, you can’t do that. I have not been successful doing that. You have to put some momentum behind it. I think they think it’s a limb or something. Sure. And they have an instinct to get out of the way. They’re just gone that fast. So you still have to.
01:01:11
Speaker 3: The one you got hair off, was it right under it?
01:01:14
Speaker 2: No, it was, I don’t know, three yards, something like that. Oh, really? And you were that close to the deer? I was that close. And it takes a long time for them to get comfortable enough to get right under that tree.
01:01:27
Speaker 3: Wow.
01:01:27
Speaker 2: Close shave. Yeah. Hey-oh.
01:01:30
Speaker 6: There you go.
01:01:31
Speaker 2: Ba-dum-bum-tss.
01:01:33
Speaker 3: Well, that is awesome. Great, great bear hunting stories. We sure appreciate you guys.
01:01:39
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
01:01:40
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us. The booming metropolis of MENA.
01:01:43
Speaker 2: Of MENA, yeah. It’s really got a lot going for it. It does. Lots of new activity in MENA from new bike trails. Bike trails, really?
01:01:53
Speaker 3: Bike trails, yes.
01:01:54
Speaker 2: Wow. Big deal. You’re a cyclist. You mountain bike, don’t you? No, I do not. More like a motorcyclist. Oh, okay. That’s what I would rather do, too. Okay. That’s another one right there. Okay.
01:02:06
Speaker 3: I still love motorcycling. You know, you mentioned earlier just.
01:02:11
Speaker 3: Hunting with the recurve and stuff and shooting the bear with a rifle and not wanting to do that again. Man, I don’t have a problem with anybody using a rifle at all. The biggest buck I’ve killed was with a rifle. But there is something that’s visceral about using a bow. I think it’s part of the reason why I love to fly fish so much. There’s just that feeling and that connection to the fish is different than with a traditional rod and reel where you’re just cranking a fish to you you know and uh i i have great appreciation for people who put in the work and the time to be successful at something it it just makes it more rewarding you know so anyway.
01:02:56
Speaker 2: Well done yeah don’t hesitate to pick up a creek or a long bow or i’m gonna have to i think i’m gonna have to don’t wait too long too long in life well great.
01:03:06
Speaker 3: Well thank y’all for being here it’s been a great great time together and uh clay will be back for the next render if we let him maybe river and i’ll just start hosting this show anyway but uh keep the wild places wild because that’s where the bears
01:03:24
Speaker 2: Live thank you guys for for tuning in
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