EP 180: Alaska Moose Drop Camp Hunt, Wyatt and Devin Report. In this episode of the epic outdoors podcast Wyatt and Devin tell us about their recent trip to Alaska on a Drop Camp Moose hunt with Dillinger River Outfitters. It was a unique experience with a lot learned and well worth the trip. Along with both harvesting great bulls Devin was also able to tag a Wolf. If youve ever wanted to do a drop camp moose hunt you need to listen to this one.
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We went in there and headed in towards the Alaska range there, and it’s just stents, fog, flash of a paddle. And I could tell it was a good bull. I popped my mag out, put an extra shell in, got to Anchorage and booked the quickest flight out of there. Anything to do with Western Big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast. Today we’ve got Adam Bronson, John Peterson, Chris Peterson, Devon Archibald, and Wyatt Bowles. They, they made it back from Alaska. They got married and promptly left for Alaska, as we’ve all very eloquently documented what it was gonna be like getting married, right. Going into hunting season. But they made it back and we’re gonna find out how it went. It was pretty awesome, I think. But, but anyway, Devin, I see you’ve got a nice fresh bottle of Nestle there. One thing I was gonna ask you there, what did you think of Alaska? Snow melt water. You are up there. Well, we had a, a good filter. Yeah, it worked good. We, we went through a lot more water than we thought. Yeah. We were calling a day grabbing water outta the creek. Did you have one of those bags that you just hung? Yep. Yeah. And grabbed Caine. Caine? Yeah. Caine filter. Wyatt picked up a clear pop-up. What was that? Yeah, just a gallon jug or five gallon jug of water.
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And we just kept filling that over and over to, you know, cook with our mouth. It wasn’t too bad, but yeah, definitely recommend. I brought crystal light and we had some propel for electrolyte stuff, but we almost ran out and I was pretty tired of the same flavor. So if you do that, get a couple different flavors. ’cause mix it up. Yeah, mix it up. Gotcha. I don’t know, when I’m out there, pure water, at times there’s nothing better. And sometimes you gotta have something more than pure water when it’s only pure water every day. You gotta like, I don’t know. I remember when we went sheep putting together in Escal plant, you gotta, you just gotta have something. You can’t drink that water. Some of that water has tastes like pine needles and you get a mask it. But even just pure water, that’s good. I don’t know. You can, I can drink more water and stay more hydrated if I have some flavor in it. So I ended up up drinking more, more, I mean, was, it was better than narrow head. But yeah, it was a super cold glacier fed stream or river that come down by us. So the water was pretty, pretty clean, I think, as it was just a little bit of sand in it.
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And that’s, but, but the plastic from the filter, then that plastic jug plus our Nalgene bottles, it had a little, little plastic crystal light helped a little bit. Well, let’s boil it down. So this is a trip that put together in this last year up there with the Dillinger River Outfitter Bunch. Kind of a drop off situation there. Tell us about your trip. Tell us about, I don’t know, I don’t know how you wanna go from day one to day 15 or whatever it was. I know you guys spent some time. You guys each, you know, can grow a pretty good beard. You had a good, when you left and you came back, it’s, they were pretty thick. Yeah, we probably ought to start with, they know how it all came to be with, you know, the guys here at Epic. Kind of surprising. Devin and I with the, with the trip we were, you know, just minding own business working. Of course these guys are, you know, in their meetings getting, getting things going and they call us in and thought we were in trouble maybe or something. Yeah. Kind of thought we were might office A little bit of trouble when we get called in there and, and they’re just like, Hey, well how do you think about, or what do you think about going moose hunting this fall?
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Like we’ve, we’ve got a trip set up for you and basically just give this guy a call and work out all the details. And it happened to be with Aaron Osa with Dillinger River. He is been a, a friend of ours for a, a few years now that we’ve, you know, Mel dealt with, dealt with and talked to at shows and worked out, you know, pretty, pretty good. So we were, you know, both pretty, pretty excited about, it’s been a bucket list animal’s mind for a long, long time. And I think it quickly became one of Devon’s tops too, as we, you know, got researching and looking at ’em and everything like that. Yeah, a lot of research. We looked at videos about how to judge a legal bull and I’m like, that thing’s looks legal to me. How to call 50 plus. You know how to call something you’ve never done in your life. Well we, I didn’t, I didn’t try that. I, I, I tried a howling wolf howling with my voice. With the, with the SUU megaphone. Yeah. You know, like you take it in the ballgame. I took one of those up there and howled through that. Everybody laughed. I’m like, sounds pretty decent, but I, moose are just a little bit, it’s not one of those you just want to cut loose with with film rolling for the first time. See how you’re gonna sound.
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Why volunteered me to be the designated moose caller before we’ll even left. Tell I tried it, you know, driving solo in my truck would give it a shot every now and again and I’m just like, I’m terrible. I hope Archie’s got it figured out and then I nominated myself to be the Raker. ’cause I just figured I could, couldn’t screw that up. Yeah. So look, looked like you found a piece of bone up there when you got there, huh? Yeah. On site now. All natural. Yes. Scapula. Yeah. We’re walking the, the river bed and act ended up picking a scalpel up and that was our, our raking tool that we ended up raking about day. What’s 8, 7, 8, 9, 10? I don’t know, we just had a lot of, lot of raking going on and it ended up breaking that. But anyways, we picked up a, a bull magnet call at Walmart. Yes. When we got there, which was a great idea. ’cause to carry that sound it’s just like, like you said, a tube. Just a tube. We didn’t use it as a raker fiberglass too. Yeah. Just kind of carries the sound. But anyways. Well I guess we can start with, you know, getting, getting to Alaska. Yeah. How was any, any, I heard you had an interesting dinner at the airport. Archer Ball with a nice woman. Yeah, nice old elderly lady. Oh. Shared her pizza with me. Oh.
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The first time he told girl told us, he didn’t say the word elderly. He said, yeah, mean, meanwhile I had to get something to eat and I sat down, started chatting with this lady and Richard decided to have dinner together. And I’m like, whoa, you gotta say this on a podcast, huh? All right. He just got married then he added the word elderly and things seemed, you know, it kinda became, you know, just good Samaritan, you know, this lady was traveling alone or something and pretty soon you’re eating, finishing off her vegetarian pizza. Yes. I asked her, yeah, where’d you get that pizza? It looks good. And she’s like, well, well I’m only gonna eat half of it. And I was like, oh, I’ll just get my own, you know? And then she says, well I won’t touch it. And I was like, no, I’m fine. And then I watched her and she tore half of it, let the other half on the box, tore the box in half and handed it to me. I looked at why and I thought, what the heck? So you shared a dinner with the lady at the airport? Yeah, veggie pizza. Here we are in what Jason would call a covid environment. That’s right, that’s right. Yeah. I had to pick the tomatoes. Total stranger. Did you even know where she’s from? Yeah. She picked the tomatoes off and ate it. Yeah, Archibald’s got a vegetarian pizza.
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He’s sharing with some random, random lady we just met. If you pick the vegetables off of a vegetarian pizza, what do you have left on there? Pure cheese. Cheese and dough. And then, then another hunter sat by us and we started talking moose hunting and stuff. And was were they going up moose hunting at the same time? She she just disappeared? Yeah, she was a vegetarian. She went and sat a couple rows over. Oh, the vegetarian. I gotcha. So, so that, but you got there. All right. Your gear all arrived in Anchorage. Yep. Yep. None of that. No surprises. You guys had, did have a little bit of, had some friends, Justin Schaeffer, KU Wyatt, you’ve known him for years. I think you made a pit stop there. He gave you a few packed frames just so you didn’t have to flap with quite as much stuff from Utah at least. Yeah. So a few of the logistical things that were gonna be a little bit tougher to get in our, you know, carry on bags or the bags, check bags that we did take, you know, but we borrowed a tent, some pack frames, you know, just, just things like that. But you took your food up. Yep, we did take our food up. And you mainly freeze dried for meals, right? Yep. What type of food?
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Let’s like what was your, I mean you’re going for, you got plan for two weeks, two of you. And you know, we were not, we were, we were lucky and we didn’t have a weight limit that well, I mean we didn’t, yeah, we didn’t, I mean obviously not over a hundred pounds. Yeah. But we had peak refuel mountain house. We flew up there and then, you know, we went and got some peanut butter, stopped at p butter, peanut butter, you know, kind of got some peanut butter and jelly, some bagels, tortillas. Just eat with our Oreos. We breakfast. We could have some Oreos. What’d you have from breakfast? We had breakfast skillets or the granola pink refuels with tortillas. They were actually really, those granola ones are good. Really good. Shockingly, I didn’t think I’d drink granola fan, but it was really good. Oh, the cereal. So you are a granola cruncher. Yeah, I mean it was great. I, I was kind of, you know, questioning it for sure when Archibald brought plenty of ’em. But they are, they are pretty good. Yeah. So yeah, we were good there. He was a lot of help. Big thanks to him. Pack frames, which are not the easiest thing to, you can’t collapse ’em really. So he had some meat haulers for you? Yeah, Alaska guy tent, you know, just a big old tent. It was, it was basically bombproof.
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He was, you’ll tell you a little bit more about that. We to later, we’ll get to that later than that. It’s the, the little two man Walmart tent in Alaska. It’s not gonna cut it. We would’ve been in trouble. But yeah. So we got to the, let’s see, we got to the lake hood, right? Lake Hood. Lake Hood, yep. And we, we bought our pilot lunch. I had a big old bacon burger we’re supposed to take off at 6:00 AM Yeah. And then it took, switched to 10:00 AM and then pretty soon it’s 1:00 AM 1:00 PM I guess in the afternoon. And we still haven’t taken off either, guys’ just watching the, watching the cameras like crazy. Just saying, you know what, we can’t fly through this yet. We can’t fly through this yet, but I’m gonna get you there today. Like there, there’s no doubt we’re gonna get in there today. We by dark you’ll be on the ground. Yeah, just, just got waiting for the wait for the fog to lift. And, and I asked a lot of people questions about these moose hunts and flying. ’cause this is my first time to Alaska and no one told me to get drenamine pills for the flight. Did you get six? We hop on this, what was it, a 180 5? What was the plane called? Yeah, I five. You could fit four people in pretty small.
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And that was taking you to base camp to into, yeah, into the Camp Dill River Base Camp Dill river camp Base camp. And about 10 minutes in, maybe five minutes in, I started to feel pretty sick. Bouncy. Oh yeah. I was, please don’t be that guy. You know. Did you have a gallon Ziploc sat there? I should’ve. ’cause I, I thought I was in trouble. Sat there until like 1:00 PM you and you’d eaten lunch one 30 probably and then took off, just went and had lunch. And then we get back there and the guy says, let’s go giant baker over. Right after you just belied up to a, something greasy. And, and when we came home, we didn’t eat, which was good ’cause we were both sick too on the way back. So bring drum, I mean pills if you ever fly up there. But I mean, those pilots up there, they’re amazing. He just, let’s go. And we, we went in there and headed in towards the, towards the Alaska range there. And it’s just dense fog and he’s just finding little holes just to bounce through these peaks. Every time we get a little break there, we’re looking out the window like, oh, there’s a peak and it’s a lot higher than us, so we better be super careful. But he knew what he was doing and, and got us in there. Wow. And I mean he, he’s pretty awesome pilots.
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Those guys are up there that spent a lot of time flying. So did you spend the night there at base camp after he dropped you off and just kind of get gear situated? Yep. So we spent the first night there at base camp. The, the weather had, you know, socked back in and we didn’t know if they were gonna get him out of there or he was gonna get back out of there once he got in there, the pilot that took us in and he ended up taking off and making it back outta there. Just, just fine. And they couldn’t get us out of, out of base camp that night to, to get us into a hunting area. So we spent the night there and it, it was good, I mean, just to get everything organized and, you know, meet the guys and the crew that, you know, would be hunting, you know, the same kind of area as us. And then the next morning, let’s see, we woke up, you know, super early and actually me and Aaron flew in first, just kind of, you know, trying to, trying to build a runway. Just, it was a place they hadn’t, hadn’t hunted much before and had not actually, you know, figured out a runway or anything like that. So we spent probably, what, an hour and half? Yeah. He said he made probably 30 or 40 loops right there.
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Trying to find, I always liked those stories when they’re like, yeah, we’re gonna go land somewhere. I’ve never land, never landed. There’s no runway. We’re gonna, we’re gonna put down, we’re just gonna find a runway. It sounds like a great spot. Exactly. It, we’re sitting there circling and Aaron’s like, you know, I, I typically don’t ever bring anyone with me when I’m building a runway, so you just, just bear with me here. Yeah. Because you got an extra, let’s say 200 pounds of guy plus his gear. So let’s say 300. And if you’ve flown in a super cub, you know, 50 pounds a lot of times puts you over certain thresholds that they don’t, I mean it’s amazing on that line of what they like to put in. Those, those planes are light and 50 or a hundred pounds is, is a lot of weight. Yeah. You know, they don’t even put starters in those things. Yeah. You know, they, they hand crank ’em to start. So, and you know, they can’t put a starter that’s this big in there ’cause they wanna lighten ’em up. They’re counting, counting pounds. So anyway. But you got down and Yeah. Made it, made it down. It’s kind of cool. Little rough flying in, making all the circles, you know, ended up spotting a bunch of moose paddles and, and things outta the plane sheds. You really get a Yeah.
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Sheds really getting a guy kind of, kind of excited about being somewhere for, for a little bit at least I had, you know, sheds to go pick up and look at and keep, keep me busy for a little while. So yeah, we landed and ended up, you know, I no actually went, we landed, figured out the runway and went back to camp Devin had been back there. You were, I was shooting, shooting rifle rifles and shooting like that and getting things organized. Then we threw our stuff in the plane and headed into, headed back to that area. So actually Devin went in first and Yep. And we were kind of surprised, which it was smart ’cause he probably knew, I mean we were in a really flat, it was flat as a pancake and we could see what the river bed, the river bed where we landed and that’s where we camped. We could see what 500 yards up river and about 1100 yards down river. Wow. That was our world. And I mean like the tree line just felt like the end of the world, didn’t it? One to 200 yards wide. Yeah, yeah. In, in the wider place. It was probably 200 yards wide. And then it was just, just thick, thick trees. Trees. Like, you couldn’t even, I mean you couldn’t pick anything out of it, even if you started I brought his spotting scope. I never saw it one time.
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Yeah, it stayed in the backpack the entire time. Hoping I would get to use it sometime. Yeah. So we couldn’t really glass, you know, so we just, he and Aaron told us, said just call, call, call. And they’re gonna, they, they’ll be walking through the river, the kind of, kind of be, could be migrating. He said when we landed from Summering to Redding, he kind of, kind of had an area where he’d, he’d figured the water bulls had spent the summertime and then they’d be working their way up towards the benches and, and hills to where they would actually, where the cows and stuff were, where, where the cows were. And it was more open to where they could, could rut the cows and you know, work the cows, things like that. So as the rutt went on, he figured they would be, be working that direction and I mean he, he was spot on. Did they all do, did they all come from what side to the other? Or did you get ’em going back? Every single moose we saw came from one side. Came from one side going the other way. Yep. So I’d almost say what north to south? Is that, that kind north? Yeah, so, so that we couldn’t hunt the first day and it was kind of, it was raining that day. We set the tent up kind of in the rain. Yeah. So light, light rain wasn’t, wasn’t terrible rain.
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Yeah. But yeah, we got, got down, got the tent set up and camp kind of set up and we just kinda kind of hung out around there that, that day for the rest of the day. What was left of it? Just, just a couple hours because we, you know, couldn’t hunt till the, till the next day. So. Right. Then what was the routine? So how early, I mean you got pretty, a pretty, a lot of daylight, you know, I mean, sometimes feels like too much. I mean, what what do you mean by that? You get up at hours, days, days is getting light six or something like that. Yeah, we, we got up, you know, early with, you know, the break, a break of dawn there. And the first couple days were, were just, you know, gungho and like let’s high excited we’re Yeah, the first day we did exactly what we were not supposed to. What? Yeah, we left, we left the river and we first we went up river, wed go around the corner and why, I’d say, well let’s just go around this band of that point than the next one. Well let’s just, we can see more from this point. Next thing you know, we’re two miles over two miles walking up river. Yeah. Well you, you get in a river there and always the next bend’s gotta be where the moose is.
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Like you, you’ve checked this band, so it’s gotta be the next one. Right. So it’s only, and every bend is only, you know, 200 yards further. 250 yards further. Like if we just walk 200 yards, we’re gonna see a whole new world. Are you seeing Mo Moose sign a little bit. Yeah. That’s weird. Kind of just getting our bearings, really checking for Moose sign and I mean the, the the grizzly bear tracks we saw. Yeah. We were running into what grizzly bear tracks Wolf tracks moose and moose tracks all within like five yards of each other in one spot’s. Pretty cool. Yeah. We just kind of, kind of all over each other. And it got to the point to where when we’d walk up the river one day and the next day come back up the river and there’d be wolf tracks over the top of our tracks. I think the grizzly bears were still pretty nervous about us that we, we never saw a grizzly bear and a couple fresh tracks and it kind of seemed like they got to the point to where they could wind us or, or whatever. And they were out of there. I mean it, so we didn’t have any, any encounters with those. The second day was bad weather. I remember it was pretty bad weather. It was tough to hunt. And then day three it cleared up a little.
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And what was it, mid-morning we saw Little Bull come out. Yeah, yeah. Mid-morning a little bull came out. Well we were just kind of sitting outside the tent a little bit. Devin was still out kind of in the river bed. I was back in the food box trying to, trying to get me some breakfast. Trying to grab up. Yeah. Yep. And we could tell there was, I knew there was another bull there ’cause there was something that the little bull kept looking back and about 30 minutes later a bull come out. It was a good bull. He had heavy brows, but on his left was only what, two split one? Yeah. He was at two brows on the one side, four on the other and just not as strong in the paddles. So that early in the hunt we decided to Yeah, Wyatt passed him was a good call. Let him go. So how did you guys, when you say Wyatt passed him, why didn’t you pa like how did you decide you’re up there, you’re good buddies for life, all intents and purposes, lifelong friends, you know, since teenage years, whatever. How did, were you, was it alternating days? Like, hey today if we see one it’s mine tomorrow. It’s your, how did you decide No, who’s gonna shoot the day before the hunt? Well, we were just kind of getting everything ready. Devin just looked at me, said, you’re shooting first.
00:17:37:19 –> 00:18:44:10
And I said, well I guess, I guess I’m good with that. You did. You said, Hey, hey, you’re having another helping him out now Stephen, let me, let me take care of your dinner tonight. In the end, it works out for him really well. ’cause he, he, he doubles up, so Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And in the end it, it kind of works out. So, so you just kind of decide why it was shooting first we just, you know, just decided. So, but yeah, that was tough because the bull come out. Wind is terrible. Those two bulls every morning would go down river. Yeah. And the first bull crossed this other one come out and we’re, we’re trying to decide and look at it and boom, he hits our wind takes off like a meal meal. Deer gone, gone run. And I’m like, holy cow. We saw that thing for what, eight, 10 seconds? Yeah. And we didn’t have a ton of, and then we just experience, you know, we just make a huge, you know, we didn’t know that would, that would surprise me a little bit. Not, I mean, only because like, I don’t know, it was, have they ever even seen a human? Yeah. Where they, where you were? Probably not. They weren’t, they weren’t rutting stupid like you see or hear about. It was, but they obviously, obviously knew you weren’t something they ever smelled and they just didn’t like it. Yeah.
00:18:44:10 –> 00:19:45:19
It was still, you know, super early. Probably, probably pretty, pretty rutt Yeah. Type type days there, you know, a week, week early probably for the Rutt. And then later that day we decide, you know, we’ve seen these two moose come out. So we’re gonna, you know, work our way down the river and we’re gonna set up, you know, just there’s, there’s a couple little lines of trees that are inside, inside the river corridor. Cat little brush pile type thing. Yeah. Little brush piles out on the, you know, river where the river break us ups sitting in the shade, you know. Yeah. So we decide we’re gonna, you know, get, to get to one where we can see basically 500 yards up, up river and probably 600 yards down river. Just calling my guts out, call and sit there and rake call and rake and call. And how, how often would you do that? Every 15 minutes or so? Or a half hour or just whenever you like 20 minutes, half hour. Just every your support. You had to do something different every 20 minutes or so. And so we, I brought two books. Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. Lucky for us, Devin brought books. I didn’t, I didn’t bring anything because like I’m usually g glassing or usually got something to pass the time when I’m up there in Alaska.
00:19:45:22 –> 00:20:36:00
But G glassing wasn’t gonna happen on this hunt, you know, so we were both reading, they’re in a series Wyatt’s reading the one next. So he up backwards. He’s leading the one where everybody dies at the end. So he knows the result of the book I’m reading. So I tell him don’t say nothing. So we’re both sitting there reading a book where you can go ahead and tell we were stretching a little bit. Yeah. So we, we were just sitting there reading the book and you know, you get sitting there for, for long enough you have to get up and stretch every now and again and just kind of kinda look around and see what’s going on. So get your blood flowing. We were each, you know, reading a page or two and then looking around reading a page or two looking around and finally, you know, we’d been there for a few hours and just stood up and started stretching. I mean we’d only been up for a few seconds and Devin said Moose paddle, you know, I could see a moose paddle you turn and sure enough you can just see this moose paddle just coming over to the top of these little little willows that kinda went out into the river miracle. I saw him at the edge.
00:20:36:01 –> 00:21:29:13
You just kind of just see the top of him and I threw up my binos, he kind of turns up, up river and looks at us. I said, that’s the bull I’m killing like it that fast. Yeah, it was a split second decision, but we only had a, you know what, 22nd window maybe out. So your guns are already, I’m shooting him. And, and he was ready, which was good. Bipod guns slammed at the bipod there from, yeah. So I got kind of around in front of Devin there ’cause he was on the other side of me. So I just, you know, got around in front of him and kind of belly down and Devin said, you know, should I, should I film it? I said, just get me a range. Yeah. He said I need a range and I just 4 65. Yeah, I hit it 4 65. And you weren’t calling or anything right? This boost? Well we were, but he did not but not for half hours. Like you didn’t initially, like you didn’t call and boom he stepped out. No, I, it was like he was just moving through 20 minutes earlier, half hour earlier. He didn’t, he was, he was travel Yeah. Fast. Nothing was stopping him. I mean we made some noise trying to get him to stop, you know, cow, cow called whatever. He wouldn’t even turn to look at us.
00:21:29:16 –> 00:22:26:18
I just think he was just kind of migrating through and just happy to catch you on his mind. He knew where he was going. I gave wide a range. Next thing I did was cow call as loud as I could. Didn’t even phase him. Yeah. But in a matter of five seconds they can cover 20. It’s like, it’s it was incredible how fast they just crossed that corridor. Just take a step. So yeah. Anyways, I, I threw down real quick and just put the cross airs on him. Pulled the trigger and luckily it dropped him right there, right where, right where he was. I mean there was a kind of a river right in front of him and he is walking up to, and he just folded and dropped right there on the sand bar and it was over like that. Really? That was about it. Yeah. I mean it was, it was pretty, pretty quick and I, I bet it was like 15 seconds, 20 seconds from the time we saw him to the time he had to die or the time he died. Wow. But there was still no like, well I hope he’s what I thought he was, I mean we’ve all seen the pictures after and it seems like a no brainer, but like in that amount of time you’ve been there three or four days, it’s like the first legitimate maybe. Yeah.
00:22:26:19 –> 00:23:30:29
I mean we big moose or whatever that you might see, but it was, you were still pretty confident. So Yeah, we saw, well that first bull you passed, so that was our one comparison and this one just blew it away. Yeah. So I mean why you couldn’t have looked at that bull for more than four or five seconds? We could tell he had big fronts, front bigs, front plenty of fronts. You know, we were looking lots of fronts in an area where it had to be four fronts or, you know, 50 plus inches wide. So we, we were in that, that area there and we just told you could just tell that, I mean he was easily over the 50 and he had just a bunch going on in his front end and Right. Just range and plug your ears Saral. Exactly. So I mean that was what, the 7th of September that I had killed that one. So you walked up on him and, and what he he grew as we’re walking up on him. I mean he just kept getting bigger, the body kept getting bigger and I mean, it, it worked out crazy mass. I couldn’t believe the mass got pretty, pretty lucky. He was, you know, ended up being just hair over 66 inches wide and Oh yeah, he had big old palms. Yeah, big, big palms. Had five fronts on one side, three on the other.
00:23:31:03 –> 00:24:34:13
And, and we’d been told by people that, you know, moose quarters, you can barely physically take ’em and stuff, but we, it wasn’t, wasn’t terrible that Yeah. We, we didn’t think this one was too, too bad. We kind of, you know, like well, okay. Yeah. Wow. Threw it on our backs and, and packed it out. I mean it was upper a river bed so it was pretty, pretty easy. I mean we only had to get about a thousand yards up to, to get back to our camp and hang them in the trees there. So got ’em all, you know, hung up in the trees. And then the next what? The next day. So now your camp’s. So now we are covered in blood. Yeah. Now you’ve got the at attract going. So, so we had a, ended up having, you know, another little island of trees. It was probably 150, 200 yards from our camp where we ended up, you know, building the meat pool. Yeah. So it was right out in the wide open rivers so we could watch it and it had trees around, we could put a tarp over and keep it shot, had a tar tarp, everything to keep it pretty, pretty shaded. So we didn’t feel too, I don’t know, too paranoid about the meat being there too vulnerable because of, you know, bears or anything like that.
00:24:34:15 –> 00:25:39:07
Just because it was out there far enough to where we could watch it. Right. Of course. You know, that’s where they were gonna come. Something’s coming. It’s not coming to your tent probably they’re gonna hit that or your carcasses right up to canyon too. So, or the river. So I mean you got, we took all our, our clothes down instantly after we killed it too and washed ’em all out in the creek real good. We were super cautious about, you know, the sand and everything like that just for both moose then, because you got another moose to kill too. I mean you wanted to kind of, so that was day three you killed yours. And then we had the next day we still were packing a little bit. Yeah. The next day we were packing a little bit then the weather got bad. Yeah. Started the wind. Oh yeah. Was that the, that Yeah that was the, the fourth, the night of the fourth. Yeah. We get a text from Aaron or an inReach and it said get ready button down the hatches or something. Yeah, button down the hitch hatches. It’s blowing Gale, 70 plus mile an hour wind, Guss. And we’re in this river corridor and I’m watching water get sucked up off the, you know, the river and just, I mean it’s like, it was scary wind, just peeling it up out of the water, out the, yeah. Dust.
00:25:39:12 –> 00:26:38:23
I mean, and so sad. Yeah. When we set the tent up, luckily we, we didn’t Now is when you’re thinking you wish you’d have been backing the trees even more, huh? Maybe. Well we were kind of right on the edge of a little cove. So I think a lot of the wind, you know, just kind of skipped past the one side of us. I don’t think it really, we don’t really didn’t get hit, you know, head on or it would’ve been a whole different Yeah. Different story there. And luckily that when we initially set the tent up, we put it, we did the stakes. We did did it right or we, ’cause it happened like that. Yeah. I mean it went, when we got up in the night free stake, the tent we used every stake we had doubling up and I mean it was just crazy down. We were What was the analogy you said? What were you like what, what? Oh, I’ll just laying What marine animal were you, were you laying there like a starfish? Just holding the tent down. Had my arms and legs spread and my feet were coming off the ground. Yeah. It was, it was blowing pretty good. You know, we got out and any extra stakes we had, we just put in there as a precaution. But we were pretty, pretty well bombproof.
00:26:38:25 –> 00:27:38:21
I mean that tent held up really, really well to the didn’t didn’t you guys or through Aaron or the neighboring outfitters here that some of the gusts even hit a hundred miles an hour in other parts of the Alaska range that night. Yeah. Other guys that had weather stations had over a hundred mile an hour gusts. Yeah. And it wasn’t really in a storm. Wasn’t a storm event was, it wasn’t like raining and all that. It was, it just mainly a big front windy front. Little bit of rain with it, but not like hard, hard rain. It was just, just mostly wind. But yeah. Another guy that was within probably 10 miles of us had had a clock of 105 mile an hour winds. Wow. Up there that night. I think we, you know, we, from the guys we talked to that were being guided around us, we were the only one who didn’t lose their tent, our tent, everybody else, they, they lost their tent, had to wrap up in a tarp and make a lean tube and shred and just wait it out. Just started shredding them. Yeah. Yeah. It collapsing. And then you’re just wrapping up like a burrito for the night. Yep. Yes. We, we fared pretty, we were lucky pretty well is from what it sounds like, like the rest of day. And then the next day it was nice and sunny and we just did the same thing.
00:27:38:21 –> 00:28:34:16
Walked down there, set up and, and the thing was is we, I, I think the, we had had, was the meat picked up by then the next day or? No. So the next day it was windy up there but had stayed calm where we were so they couldn’t get a meat flight in it. Actually, that’s right. The following days when they, they came in and gathered up the meat. So we hunted it for one full day and I, I believe it was kind still kind of a little windy and stormy a little bit where we were that day. Yeah. And then they brought in the, the plane and picked up meat the next day. I just remember three days, three days after wack killed, we had, we could, the one spot we sat, I could barely, barely see the gut pile and the spine. That’s all that was left. ’cause we had to take ribs, bone in meat, you know, the only thing left is the spine and the guts. And I could, I had my 15 set up ’cause I had a had in mind, you know, we’re seeing so many wolf tracks, like, I’m gonna be ready. I already had it plant, but the wolves that’s cleaned it up that much, there’s no nothing touched it for three days. Oh wow.
00:28:34:20 –> 00:29:27:06
I mean, birds had started three days after and yeah, yeah, it was, I don’t know, 10 o’clock in the morning I looked down and I, same thing with his moose. I thought it was a paddle. I saw a flash of something, something white. And I look in my fifteens and I saw tail go behind the bush. A white wolf down by his carcass. Yeah. Probably 30 yards from it, would you say? Yeah. Devon’s in his camp shoes. Got his, got his crocs on, got his running, running shoes. I had my crocs on. We both did. I would, we were probably making a breakfast skillet or something. Yeah. That’s what happened every time we were trying to cook a meal or, or do something different is when, when things happen. Yeah. So we’re, we’re cooking a meal there and Devon’s got the camp shoes on. I got the camp shoes on and just sitting there kind of staring down the river in the middle of the day. And that wolf shows up and I was, yeah, Devon was like a fireman had had his boots on in seconds. Was it? It’s like Ken tracks laced up and down the river. I ran. Yeah. I ran through the, the trees And you left quiet up back there just to watch. Yeah, I stayed, I stayed back and was gonna kind of signal or whatever to try, try to, try to help him out a little bit.
00:29:27:06 –> 00:30:20:06
But he worked through the trees to where I couldn’t see him. So he, he was kind of on his own and I was just catching glimpses of the wolf down there as Devin was stalking on it. Yeah. And I, I popped out of the trees. I knew the wind wasn’t great. Yeah. That’s where, that was my big concern. And I could get bits and pieces of the wolf. It was kind of traveling, going back and forth, just being nervous. Didn’t dare go all the way to the carcass. You know, the spine didn’t dare, it was close, it was going back and forth and I just had four or five bushes and I was gaining a hundred yards at a time in between bushes and just finally hit that last bush that I knew of laid down. And she was still there. And I’m like, thank goodness. Oh crap. And I couldn’t range her. I couldn’t, it was so flat. Too flat. It’s like antelope. I couldn’t get, sometimes couldn’t. So I hit the trees next to that I knew were right there on a point and it was three 20. Yeah. Dialed de turret laid down. And she was running so fast I thought maybe she winded me. ’cause the wind, I could feel the wind on my back. And I just howled. She stopped and poof.
00:30:21:00 –> 00:31:17:27
And I just put another shell in and she was spinning shot again and I hit right or she spun and I missed and just takes off gone. And then I thought, oh no, you know, I didn’t know. So I stood up and I’m thinking, well I guess, you know, we’re gonna have to track this thing thing, go check it through the trees and I look up river and here’s why. It just strutting fast with a packed frame on. I thought that’s a good sign. Did you see a good look at it all? Pretty much. Yeah. Well, I, I couldn’t see it bit and pieces, but right after he shot, I watched it, you know, whirl out of the trees and I could see, you know, blood coming out, you know, where, where he’d hit it. And I knew it was hitting good. And as I, as I’m watching it, it, it runs and tries to jump the jump the little river there that we’re in and just lands just right in the middle of it. And I can just see it splashing up water and it’s, it’s dead, you know, stop it. It’s, it’s tipped over right there. And I’m 40 yards. Like, we gotta get there. ’cause that river’s gonna take it down. Take it down. So that’s why you’re, you’re spreading through on your, you laced up your Crocs.
00:31:17:27 –> 00:32:28:09
Yeah, I laced up my Rex and grabbed the pack frame and just took off kind of just hauling down there. And Devin was still pretty unsure what had, what had happened when I run into him in the river. I mean, it felt good. I mean I couldn’t hit her any better. No, I couldn’t have. But they’re tough man. I mean, well seven mag, I mean yeah. And I’ve shot a lot of coyotes of spin like that. But to see her run that hard, that fast, it’s gone. Yeah. She didn’t go, just outta my view was where she died. White wolf. That’s awesome. Got a Wyatt one. So, so that was the wolf day. That was a two, three days after your moose. Wyatt. Yeah. So I, so you had just enough baiting you in to keep you guys arch ball’s in the game. Now at point, Wyatt had a great statistic. What was the statistic at that point? We killed 50% of the animals that we had seen ma mammals. So you killed the moose and the wolf. And he had seen two other smaller bulls. So that was, so yeah, those are the four mammals. We had a great ratio going 50% you guys, that that could be viewed as, you know, extreme, you know, overharvesting area, killing half the living creatures. So then the next day I actually thing yeah. Was just glass in kind of the middle of the day.
00:32:28:09 –> 00:33:19:25
We, we got doing other, other things. Probably started to cook breakfast about that time. Took our boots off, looked down the river. We were, we were making a breakfast skill at that day because remember we had to worry about it getting cold. Yeah, that’s right. We ate it when it was cold. Yeah. Looked down the river and there’s a wolf in the exact same place. Another one, Devon had killed his Yeah, I mean, exact same place. So I’m like, oh, the stock worked yesterday, it’s gonna work again. So did you take off this time? Yeah, I took, we both took off this time. We had our boots on this time though. Yeah, yeah. Devon was right behind me and we, we went down there and got to the same bush he shot from and the, the wolf just must’ve got a little tired of, you know, walk, just circling and thing and went back in the tree. So we sat there for an hour, you know, waiting to see if it never came you, if it’d come back or, or anything like that. And it never showed up. So that was my, he had to go have a cold breakfast after that. Yeah. Yep. My opportunity gone right there. And then the, the cold breakfast and from that point on we were there a lot longer.
00:33:19:28 –> 00:34:18:28
But from that point on, everywhere we would walk the next day there was a wolf track on our track every, everywhere. So at night they were yeah. Active at night. I just think they kind of got, you know, more, more used to us being there, more confident with our scent that they, you know, should have been scared after Devon killed the one. But I guess they weren’t. Yeah. So then, all right, now you’re in a grind. Now you’re in a routine. Now you’re in a And wife told me, he said, he said this is kind of a grind, you know? And I was like, no, that’s not that bad is it? And it’s just all day, just more mental sta staring into the river, you know, it’s just more of a kind of a white tail hunt. You know, you’re gonna just sit there and, and wait for something to happen. And I’m not used to that. We’re not, I’m used to making something happen or, or yeah. Western guys, we aren’t, we don’t hunt like that that often. It’s just we’ve got so much country to go look at you move, you ask something else. There’s more country you can ever hunt. We’re and up there there’s more country than you can ever hunt. But there’s also more country than you can ever kill a moose and get it back out of. Yeah. You just keep hiking.
00:34:19:09 –> 00:35:09:28
We have no glassing knobs, no points of view. So I mean, we can’t, we can, can’t make why it’s already finished one book, anything happened. I mean it’s just, I’m impressed. I, I mean I, I’m not a big greeter. I put some audio books in my phone, the last couple sheet punts I’ve got on. ’cause you can get trapped in a little two manor. Not a big, not a big bomb shelter or a big outfitter series, Cabela’s tent where you can stand up and do some cardio and jumping jacks if you felt like in one of those. But I’ve been in tents like that before. And if you’re, you could only talk so many hunting stories in a two man ten first. So you’re like, okay, let be out here. But anyway, we’d already been there early, but I’m not a big reader so I get the audio books ’cause I’m like, all right, plug it in and somebody can just read to me. You know, I also had some stupid games on my phone. Some puzzle games just to kill the time, you know? Yeah, keep your mind. We got, got lucky.
00:35:09:29 –> 00:36:12:13
We took a solar panel, a solar panel and then one of those last light battery chargers up there for your phones and yeah, batteries and everything mean that’s, it had a solar panel on one side and it charged itself and just kind of kept us, at least our phones charged up and our rates charge it up and keep your wives that are long ways of home and they’ve been married for three weeks. That’s another, that’s, that’s another problem. Got a story about that. Really. I didn’t mean to tell any scabs off. I didn’t know that. I amm 100% not getting husband of the year award for 2020. And I’ve only been married two months, almost two months. So I would, I would text her every day once or twice an update, you know, and she wasn’t replying. But I, this is another regret. I didn’t do the maximum unlimited, unlimited, unlimited plan. What were you on? Emergency only I had 40 texts because I didn’t wanna just text like I wanted to just be there, you know? I don’t know. And that was great. Enjoy the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Like I didn’t, I didn’t So they weren’t, you thought they going through and they never went through. So I was texting her and I’m thinking, oh, she’s just not replying. ’cause she doesn’t wanna use up all our, my texts.
00:36:13:04 –> 00:37:22:22
Oh she, this is what a thoughtful wife, she’s just letting me text her, but she’s saving the text for not coming back. And so then after you know, 10 days I’m like, Hey, text back if you get this. Nothing. So then I, so you, I had said, Wyatt, will you text, you know, but you got the unlimited. I text my wife on Wyatts thinking maybe, you know, I said, Hey, this is Devin, this is why it’s in reach. Just going through or not nothing. Not even from yours. Was yours on the unlimited plan? Yeah, mine’s unlimited plan. No, no reply. But I’ve been texting, you know, car, they’ve been texting you guys getting you a little update. I I text you off why it’s there, it’s all working. But yeah, my wife’s didn’t get it. And so you’re wonder, jumping forward a little bit, you know, 10 days later we kind of, we had, we’d finished and yeah, we got a text from inReach saying that all at t customers messages have been blocked since this day to that day. Why? And it happened to be the 20 day window or 15 day window that we were there. Why did they, I, I still need to find out, but the, well, the, the one night she, your wife text you and said, Hey Devon’s wife Miranda’s asking if you guys alive, if are you alive? Yeah, if Devon will text her. ’cause she’s been getting updates.
00:37:22:22 –> 00:38:28:12
You know, Carly’s been getting updates. But Miranda far, this is bad. Yeah. Two guys together, both married within days. One guy’s giving his wife all the love and attention. I miss you, da da da da da. And the other one silent. Silent because you’re Verizon or what? Yes. And then my wife’s texting his wife, you know, kind of like, Hey, you know what? Yeah, they’re doing good. They’re, they’re eating good. They’re, yeah. So I had told my family everything, like, I’m gonna text Miranda, she’ll update you. You know, so my family’s calling her, Hey, have you heard from Devon? She’s like, no, not for six, seven days. Are you Verizon? Yeah, I’m Verizon. So your yours are fine. Yeah. And that was the problem. Yeah. At and t customers. So yeah, when she sent, when we, when I got that message about, you know, my wife asking, Hey, will you have Devon text me? It was like 9 30, 10 at night. I was just sick. I was like, oh my gosh, she’s not getting anything. Shes thinking of for a week. Doesn’t heard for me in 10 days. And then the next day I walk out and just pick up my inReach and look at it and it’s got a text saying, you know, a message from inReach, you know, if, if you text anyone with at and t service, try texting them again. ’cause they’ve blocked our service for the last 10 days.
00:38:28:27 –> 00:39:36:18
I what I screenshot that can’t screenshot off a Garmin, but they sent emails like when I got home, I got an email. The same thing. But I haven’t found out why. In case Devin Wents to the spousal court or whatever, overdose. He’d have some, some evidence. She’s a tough gal. Wow. She was good. Yeah. I called her when I got home. It’s almost like Carter, if you remember Carter back in the day, he got married, of course this was 1995 or six. No inReach, no SAP phones. And he went to Brooks Range. And Jan is just kind of waiting by the phone for updates. Well you don’t call from the Brooks range or the Alaska Range, you know, I mean it’s just, it’s like what are odd? Jason obviously didn’t make that completely clear that I’m not gonna be able to check in with you Bie. But yeah, she thought, you know, it’s a matter of days. And she’s like, oh, I got a terrible wife. My husband doesn’t even care about me. I’m here all alone. And then she has to answer my family’s questions. Like, Hey, what’s, have you heard from him? Blah, blah blah. No, nothing. So since you got home, before we get back to the story, what have that been patched up? Oh yeah, she’s, it’s all been blamed on Garmin. Garmin, yep. Or whoever. Garment or At&t.
00:39:36:21 –> 00:40:50:00
I mean some, who knows some At&t att I don’t, I don’t know the story, but yeah, she’s, she’s tough. She was good. So, but yeah, so then we, we killed the wolf the next day. Had not had to, I mean this is the highlight of our day. We saw a wolf, which is awesome. But then after that, which kind of made our percentage drop too, seeing the other wolf and not being able to kill it. Oh, now you’re below 50%. Now we’re bothered. Okay. You know, and then at some point you saw Porcupine. I know. Well that Yes. One we went, now you’re to 33%. Right? You’re two outta six. I mean, I’m just doing quick math in my head. It gets a little worse before it gets better. Okay. Okay. I can’t remember the days, but after we, after that last wolf, it was sunny a couple days. So it was the 11th when we killed the wolf. After four days after your base? Yeah. So the 11th, the next day we saw the other wolf. And then we had two days, three or two or three days of just, oh, solid sunshine. Just warm Alaska, Alaska temperature. I mean, we were bathing in the creek. It was, it was that kind of temperature, 65 or something like that. Nice. Yeah. I got some bird, but no animals, huh? Yeah, neither no animals. Those two days.
00:40:50:00 –> 00:41:49:05
And we’d sat out and, you know, done the same thing we’d done. And I mean, we’re talking all day sitting there, so like six or seven in the morning till eight or nine or roughly at night or whenever it gets started. And for Wyatt, you know, I mean I, he’s got a great bull and I’m, I’m, I was sitting there thinking like, this might not happen for me. Like, I’m thinking they’re, they’ve migrated through, you know, it’s like hunting the gon in October 20th up high. You’re up at Tropic Reservoir. Exactly. October 25th. That’s exactly what I told. Hey, get onto a hope and a prayer. Yeah. Like this is gonna be, you know, so mentally it was so hard for me. I mean it was, ’cause I’m thinking we got our camp, we have the runway where we had the meat, we have the meat pole and then the carcass plus us going up and down like the walls. And we’ve lived here for 10, 12 days like this. Yeah. And we’ve lived there. So, and every morning the, the wind was going right where we seen all the moose down river, I mean, right through the corridor. So we’d try hunting up river in the morning and it was just dead. And so it was, it was just, and then it was sit in the midday and afternoon, evening the other way when it was drawn back the other way. Yeah.
00:41:49:05 –> 00:42:49:19
And so I’d tell Wyatt like, okay, we’re gonna sit right there all day, middle of the day. This, this is when you told me he started to assert his Yeah. His hunting technique. Authority, right? Is that when, yeah. Yeah. And you’re like, well you’re the only one with the tag left. I guess you can call the shots right now. Well, one second. He’d be like, we’re gonna sit here all day, not gonna move from this point. You know, you, you turn around 20, 25 minutes later, 30 minutes later, get, get your stuff. We’re going up river. We’re going down river. Like, we’re gonna go past everything further than we went before because the cent, you know, we’re gonna make this happen. Yeah. That’s what I told him. I said, we gotta do it. ’cause in my mind I thought, you know, that wind or just something, ’cause it, I mean, it was dead, dead, dead. And we couldn’t see anything. Yeah. We put our packs on and go down river further than we’ve ever went before and call and call and call and nothing happened. So finally we had overcast and it was a little cooler. I mean, it was colder ’cause it was, you know, we had frost. It was cold. Those clear nights woke up at 3:00 AM by the way, to check for the Northern Lights. And that was a cold mistake. Yeah. We couldn’t see anything. No, no. Normal nights.
00:42:49:20 –> 00:43:48:25
But it was cold and we were hoping for the best. The next day they were out and we just missed them. I guess it’s true. So yeah, that finally was overcast and we’d been calling like, you know, Aaron and people said, you’ll call, call, call. And then one day they’ll just be at your tent. You know? That’s what I kept, we kept hoping for waiting. So maybe you’re hearing you out there at half mile or just, I know you’re over there. I’ll come in a day or two when I’m ready. I said to what? I said, we got the river noise, we got a wall of trees and it’s just flat. And I’m like, I, I mean, I was calling as loud as I could. I mean, I probably sounded terrible. You got some of this on video. It’s probably some video. We’ll just show. Good man. Chris. I, I’m, I, I just, I’m glad I wasn’t the one being videoed for my first time calling. I, I think I got pretty decent after 10, 12 days of calling. No, I thought you were great from the start at calling. That’s why I nominated you as the caller. And I was the great anchor. I mean, I, we went through a scap. We found a scapula. Why? It was rubbing trees with, it was nothing but like a bone. Like, like a, you were to fist full of bone.
00:43:48:27 –> 00:44:53:06
By the end, he had rubbed the scapula to nothing. It looked like a shin bone of a mess up. Yeah. So it finally was overcast and we’re sitting there and you had to do something like with your tag somebody. Yeah. They, they didn’t reach me for my tag number. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I’d gotten my backpack or digging through my backpack trying to find where my, you know, hunting license number was. So he’s turned around and I’m looking at, I’m like, what’s he doing? You know, and all of a sudden I hear, oh. And I was like, what? Did you hear that the first, first time we’d ever heard a moose make a noise? Did you hear it? Yeah, I, I’d heard it as well. And I turn around and the moose is standing a hundred yards behind me. Not even a hundred yard behind the only bush, the only bush, you know, in the river bar. Hundreds of yards. Yeah. And I look up and he just, all I saw was, you know, antlers. And I looked and, and I just said, Nope. ’cause he was, he was kind of narrow and his fronts just, I wanted a bull with big cool fronts, I guess. Oh yeah. Width wasn’t huge for me, but it just looked narrow and then it walked away and, and then we kind of looked at each other like, that’s a pretty good moose. Yeah.
00:44:53:07 –> 00:45:58:22
It had giant, giant paddles and palms and points. But it just, it just wasn’t wide. It was probably, you know, 50, 53 inches wide maybe. I don’t know. But it just had just huge paddles with lots of points. I mean, just, so now I’m thinking, well that’s the first moose we’ve seen in days a week since the third to the 14th. So yeah. And he just let him go. I just let him go. And he, he was on the runway, literally standing on the runway shoot. And so, and I’m just like, you know, I thought I was prepared. I got everything laid out and this moose completely surprised us, us on you. And if I would’ve shot, if I would’ve, you know, killed shot him, it would’ve been a scramble. I’m just like, man, I gotta be more ready. You know, I put my book away. So re and so there, you got there your thumb’s on the safety at all times? Yes. I was like, yeah, scope covers off, ready to go. And then we had a porcupine come by and that was exciting. Yeah. ’cause I mean, we literally hadn’t had any action. And yeah. So then what, an hour later I looked down and I see same thing, flash of a paddle and I could tell it was a good bull, you know? And then I had my 15, what’s cutting through the river?
00:45:58:22 –> 00:46:59:29
Just, yeah, he came, it was like he was sniffing something. Yeah. He was more, more ruddy act. And he came out and was, you know, kind of, kind of doing his little walk and, you know, kind of coming across the river pretty slowly. But maybe he, how long after there, he still, he stood there for a minute. Then when they decide to walk, I mean, they cover ground. I couldn’t, I could tell he had awesome fronts. And that’s really, I was like, okay, this looks like a boy, it’s a side view. So you really can’t see width through any of that side view. View. And he come out and so I’m getting, I mean, I’ve got, I’ve got, I’m getting my gun ready. I put, I put my mag out, I put an extra shell in, like, I’m ready, you know, and I just was like, I just want him to look at me. And Wyatt got a, a range at like 5 88. I mean, when he came out, I thought he was two 50. I’m thinking, oh, I’m gonna shoot from right here. Yeah. And he says, 5 88. And I’m like, oh boy, I gotta get close. You know? So I kind of took off and, and I, and I mean, as I’m going towards him, he’s walking and he comes out and he rakes this tree and I’m thinking, sweet, I’m gonna have plenty of time if he rakes this bush.
00:47:00:01 –> 00:48:02:19
And he turns, looks at me. And that’s when I was like, yep, I’m shooting him. You know, he’s, I’m gonna shoot this bull. And then he tr and then he started walking again for the tree line. So I range that like across the Yep. Going down the river. He is going straight across, crossing it, just like Wyatts crossing it. Yep. And, and I mean, I just had to lay down right there. And it was, my bipod was too long. I’m trying to get comfortable. And, and I started, you know, he goes behind that bush and I only had, from my line of sight, I had about a what, 20 yard window? Yeah. 2030 yard window right there to as soon as he comes out that other side, I’m on the gun. I’m yelling, Hey, you know, like trying to stop him. I’m yelling, making noise, why at yelling. I mean, and I just kaboom shoot. And then it, you know, I just started belt feeding rounds, man. Yeah. Far threw, whipped and looked at me. How far did you, how far did you get? It was still 500? Or was it five? It was about 500. Five 20 maybe. Yeah. I might’ve been, yeah, I might, I might’ve been not dialed five fours or, but yeah. Might’ve been dialed too high. But yeah, he whipped around and, and you know, my cross hairs land right on his chest. That’s all I had.
00:48:03:04 –> 00:49:02:25
And I shot and I looked like I hit him. Hindsight, I shot through a brow and threw the paddle. So a little character. Tell people he was a fighter, you know? Yeah. He faced you head on. He faced me head on and I was just, you know, I mean, we didn’t want him to get in the trees. ’cause you can’t see, I mean, I want to anchor him right there. And he You got the river too. He’s not in the river. In the river. No. Just wanted to anchor him right there. And then he turned and one more shot, two more shots. And he was, he was down right there. Where, where he stopped. I mean, it was awesome. I mean, same thing a couple, maybe a minute since we saw him. Yeah. To where he was dead. I mean, it happened so fast. That’s hard when you’re there for 10 days, roughly, whatever it was, 10 or 12 and it, and it’s only a 62nd window or Yeah. In your case, 15 or 20 seconds. What it all comes down to that you’re there for 10 days. I mean, are you, what if you’re, what if you had your eyes closed? What if you literally were taking a nap? Wouldn’t happened. Yeah, they could, they could, they could cross there. I mean I, I know what it’s like to sit there, that long glass and whatever.
00:49:02:25 –> 00:50:03:06
And sometimes you just gotta close your eyes for a minute when you’re, especially on these earlier season hunts in August and at Daylights, you know, you know how this bow hunt is. It’s wa it’s, we were right in the middle of mixing up a nice cereal raisin. Granola granola at the time. See, every time we’d make breakfast, something would happen. Yeah. It was weird. But I mean it was, you know, if we would’ve been in a good part of that book and not just saw that, you know, it’s just, yeah. If you have your, that’s crazy. I don’t know. It happened so fast. Yeah. A different way to hunt anything living on moose or whatever. Just awesome. He was 65 inches wide. 65 was six five brows, or six brows on one side and five on the other. Yeah. We get down to him and I mean, I like that day the rud had started, we had another bull come into us while we were sitting there, while you were taking care of me trying to take care of that bull. Then the bull from that morning that he’d passed shows back up. I mean, just dumb. Just the, yeah. Dumb just stute fence post. We were packing meat and as we come back, this bull comes out just grunting at us. The one I had passed earlier, just heard your grab walking on the gravel or something. Figured you were removed or it was weird.
00:50:03:06 –> 00:51:03:19
Comes, you know, 35, 40 yards from us, huh? Yep. So we went all those days and then three more bulls showed up that day. That was the 13th or 14th or something? Yeah, the 14th. So yeah, it was not a up, it wasn’t a physical physical grind, it was just a hundred percent mental. Yeah. But as we walked up to Devon’s bowl, that thing just grew and grew and grew the body size. Like just like this is the kind of moves these guys talk about that you can’t physically move these quarters. It was, it was a huge difference. I mean really the Cape was really, and they were both giant a Atler wise, you’d put ’em in this very similar category, but body-wise, they weren’t, huh? No. Devin’s, I bet it had 25, 30 pounds a quarter on mine probably. Wow. Right. Yeah. Wyatt says, what the heck is this? It looked like the Michelin man laying there. I’m like, what you mean? And he said, look how fat it is. Fat rolls, fat rolls in his neck and his legs. Just when you skinned him, was it actual fat or was it just a bigger frame and muscle? He was, he had about the same amount of fat as yours, but yeah, he was just bigger. Just, just like, just bigger. Wow.
00:51:04:03 –> 00:52:06:23
The cape was, yeah, the, they said at camp when we were, I was turning the ears and lips and they said this, that cape is ginormous almost couldn’t fit it in the belly pod. Yeah. That’s when they were coming, coming quarters pick out quarter, like two days later. He is like, I’ve never had a quarter that I couldn’t fit in the belly pod. This is the first one. Wow. Really? Yeah, he was trying to, you don’t get it up on the shelf in there and just couldn’t, couldn’t get it in there. I think it made him look a little, just like any animal wouldn’t have big bodies, you know, it makes it look and as we break it down a little bit and why it’s like, dude, he’s wide, you know, and I’m thinking he’s maybe 60, you know, but, and then as you Yeah, we’re not used to measuring moves. Yeah. We never have. And then you get it next to a couple other bulls and it’s like holy cow. Yeah. Like it is, I mean the skull plate was way bigger. Yeah. I don’t know. Wow. Kinda interesting. But he was 500 yards from the meat pole and runway. Yeah. Wow. So yeah, lty split. That’s where on him in a nice drive o’clock that afternoon we were at camp eating Oreos. Yeah. Because we’d killed, finally we saved the Oreos for celebration. Oh my gosh. Really? Why? It caught me stealing wine once.
00:52:08:06 –> 00:53:09:22
Was there, did you get disciplined? You had your nose in the corner to the tent? Yeah. I mean that was the highlight of our day. Like, hey, I know we were gonna save these, but you want two Oreos? Yeah, well, we’ll get, have two. You know, and then Wyatt checked him and I had snuck one and he knew there’s three gone. So, so I had to give him a hard time. Called him out on eating the Oreos before we, he, he said, I’m, I’m gonna ask you this once, did you eat an Oreo? I was like, yes. Pretty funny. A lot of the world have a different, you know, little spicy type beverage when they kill something. Good. You guys had a double, was it even a double stuffed Oreo? Well it was just regular. Oh. We had chips of Hoy for when I killed mine and Oreos for when Devin killed his. All right, well whatever works, whatever’s that carrot dangling out there that, that make keeps you, keeps you going. Just driving. Yeah, we had, and then we had a weather day. We were stuck in the tent and then another couple, couple days at the lodge waiting for clouds. Get it back out to wind. Huh? Wind. Yeah. McGrath or wherever where got us out of there. But that was fun. We got to hang with Aaron’s crew there and they were great guys.
00:53:09:23 –> 00:54:07:13
Other hunters as they were kind of getting ready to wrap up too. They cooked us back. Strapp wasn’t that good to have just meat. Yeah. It was way good to, you know, show up and have meat after all the fountain houses. And I asked you if you guys took a fry pan and you said you didn’t. I’d have foundered on a little bit. I’d had a little thing of olive oil and a pan look, looking back, that’s the one thing we probably should have should’ve done for sure is took the plant in there with us. But yeah, the Aaron and his crew, I mean they were all topnotch. Stayed there at the cabin with them for two days. We were weathered in there waiting for another flight out. And I mean it was, it was awesome to get to know those guys topnotch, you know, helped us flush the capes and just the awesome crew. Yeah, they’re good deal. What else on gear? I mean frying pan and some oil. Okay. Yep. Drma mean pills for flights. Okay. Well when we, when we went home, I looked back at Wyatt ’cause he hadn’t said a word for like a half hour leaving the lodge back to, I gotta sit in the front on the way home. Yeah. That makes a big difference. It didn’t help me. I tried to look out front window and I was like, yeah, that’s worse.
00:54:07:21 –> 00:55:11:29
I just looked out and just tried to look for moose out the window to keep my mind ’cause yeah, we got out and white says it’s a good thing we didn’t have a grilled cheese ’cause Yeah, they offered us a grilled cheese right before we took off. I’m like, nah, I’ll eat something good when I get anchor during an hour. I’m that because I was kind of hungry. And I’m like, why is, why doesn’t he want grill cheese? And then I was like, okay, yeah, we’re flying outta here. So Dr. Amine pills, I would’ve took tent steaks, bring extras, stake the tent down right the first time. Yeah, we’d, we’ve done our research enough and had, you know, we were pretty geared up. Pretty geared up. I think we, you know, there wasn’t a lot of two things that I wish I would’ve had that I didn’t have there. We definitely had enough to enough to make it work and be pretty comfortable. A lot of cordage, we went through a lot of cordage was good to have Hanging your meat just yeah, definitely don’t bring sequel books. That’s maybe a something. ’cause that got, that was a read the end first was, you know, bring books that are standalone books. Why not? Not one where you gotta read the sequel before you read the first one. Something like that. Yeah. I mean, lucky enough it was a series that really didn’t go hand in hand.
00:55:11:29 –> 00:56:13:19
It referenced a few other books so it wasn’t, wasn’t as bad as, it’s not like Star Wars knowing the ending before, you know, every, every book was its own own book. So. Well I’m just, I’m just proud. I I mean it’s been a while since I’ve read a book. I, I mean I’m it, I’m a reader a while since I read a book too. Not a Reader. It’s a good book. Yeah, it was. What a really good book. So, so let’s, what else, tell, tell me real quick about the outdoor edge knife. Like what would you recommend you, you yeah. You kind of ran outta They were, yeah, they were great. We both had two or three knives, just backups. But ’cause you, you, he accused me of stealing his one, you know. Well how do you tell ’em a apart had two. Yeah. But we, we went through a lot of blades. I mean they, you know, they’re great but moose are big and we were in that sand and so hides got a lot of that probably. Yeah. It’s just a lot of sand and the blades were, you know, yeah, they, they last a while but bring, bring plenty of blades and we did just learn that you can res sharpp ’em just so take a sharpener, you can sharpen those outdoor edge blades and then use ’em a couple times and then replace ’em when you need to.
00:56:13:20 –> 00:57:13:13
But yeah, it’s good to have that option. Have a little diamond steel or something. Yeah. So we definitely, definitely had that and it was a, you know, key to, key to the success for sure. And getting those things cut up and getting ’em out there. Gotcha. Made it home without a hitch pretty much after some bad weather it kind of delayed you getting outta Alaska, but not terrible. And the yeah, we were, we were ready to get home. The ladies were, that’s for sure. Was your, was your both your porch lights on when you got home? Well they were both at the airport for us. Oh. Even better. So we, she said, I wanna pick you up so we can go to lunch and stuff. And we, we’d been up for like 24 hours. Well that’s, I called you. I don’t even hardly remember that day. I didn’t know, I just knew you were back. But I ended up calling Archibald something ’cause I was, I was out hunting and I had, somebody was asking me about optics on our shelf, what we had, if they had a certain optic. And I’m like, I, I don’t know, I haven’t been there in 10 days or two weeks. So I called you first. You didn’t answer. I called him and he was just about to sit down to real food. I think that was some lunch. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:13:13 –> 00:58:16:05
I was, we, we both got to, got to Anchorage and got on our phones and booked the quickest flight out of there. So we flew all night. 1:00 AM we left 1:00 AM you left Anchorage at one, got here at 9:00 AM Utah time. So we, we landed here and Devon’s girl wanted to take him to lunch and take him out on a date. And I just wanted to go home and just take a nap. I did get a glorious nap in that afternoon. I, yeah, so she drove you home? Yep. Oh, that’s good. Still married. Good. That’s definitely a good thing. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yep. Yeah, I joke around with Devin about every day, about all the, you know, Carly just drove past your house and there was some cardboard box in the driveway. I dunno if that sh she moving out or you’re moving out. Which one? I thought you guys were fully moved in when you left. I thought there shouldn’t be any stacks of cardboard boxes in the front yard. Should there bunch of hunting clothes out in the front yard too? Should I have her go look and see if it’s guys’ clothes or girls’ clothes? Yeah. That’s awesome. Well that’s awesome. Awesome adventure. Couple giant bulls and that’s cool just to hear, hear stories.
00:58:16:13 –> 00:59:22:12
It’s, it’s, I go back to that if you added up your sighting shooting time for both of you, you’re both under two minutes and you’re there for what, two weeks? Yeah. Yeah. I mean there’s like, it, it’s, I mean, yeah, literally you could take a nap or go to the trees and use the bathroom. I mean, in two minutes or three minutes of bull crosses. I mean, and then after seeing what Wyatts Bull did, we never once were both not watching together. Yeah, yeah. It was like I’d go back and, you know, do something, get a, get some food or water, whatever. He’d stay, we’d switch and yeah, it just, it was like guy garden, an armored truck. Huh? You guys wanna, somebody was awake. Yeah. It was an incredible experience and we definitely just have to say thanks to, you know, you guys, all the guys here at Epic for, for setting that up and you know, send us on that hunt and then, you know, as well as Dillinger River Outfitters, Aaron Dero, and you know, making great guys, making our dreams come true up there. It was, it was incredible. Well, they’ve had a good year and I know we got, maybe it’s the head of an announcement I, or give giving away a sheet hunt away with them this next year. So stay tuned for that this coming winter. But that’s awesome guys. Well we appreciate you guys.
00:59:22:21 –> 00:59:49:03
You guys work hard at what you do obviously in the, in the license application and booking in an outfitter type division here at Epic Outdoors and o obviously we’re all big hunters and you know, you’d mentioned this at one point about wanting to be a, as a bucket list item and we’d, we’d actually talked to Aaron, he had mentioned it to some passing and just kind of one thing led to another. So I’m glad it worked out. I’m glad you had an awesome trip. So thank you. Couldn’t have been better.
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