EP 302: The Epic Bear Attack Episode

We wanted to remind everybody that we are in the final stretch of the 2024 winter membership drive. That's where we give a bunch of awesome hunts away. And this time, I mean, we've gone all out and we've purchased an $85,000 British Columbia stone sheep hunt for kind of the flagship hunt of the giveaway. And I don't know about you, but winning a hunt like this is the only way I'm going to do a hunt like that. So every chance I get, I put in. So I'm not eligible this time, but you are. So the membership drive part is if you join, if you're not a member and you join, then you're going to get a free ticket into the giveaway. In addition to the British Columbia stone sheep hunt, we've got two phenomenal elk hunts, two phenomenal mule deer hunts, a coos deer hunt for two and a Idaho wolf hunt for two. So, um, if you want to hunt giant elk,

those are the, the one is a Utah it's on the Utah, Nevada, uh, border and pilot peak. And you can actually hunt both States and, uh, it's $30,000 hunt. Uh, we've got members of Epic who've killed 400 inch bulls there. Uh, just great, great hunt. And then we've also got Nevada, uh, elk hunt for that one's a $22,000 hunt. So quality, quality, uh, then the two mule deer hunt hunts that we've got, we've got a Nevada mule deer hunt and that one's on Atlanta tag. So you can technically hunt, you know, all seasons on that. Uh, you can, uh, the guide portion of it is for seven days and you kind of choose your season, but phenomenal, phenomenal hunts. And then, uh, the Utah, uh, mule deer hunt is also $22,000. So, uh, best hunt that, that we can find. These are, these are hunts that we would love to go on personally. Then we've got Mexico coos deer hunt for two people. So you win, you choose

somebody else to go with you. So pretty awesome. And then same thing with the Idaho wolf, that's for two people. We, and then finally we've got a gear package, $15,500 value on that. So it's got fierce rifle, Hoyt bow, a, uh, spotting scope from Swarovski, a Zeiss rifle scope, and then a couple other pairs of binoculars. So this is another chance for you to draw an amazing hunt. We're putting it in all the States, but this one's a really good opportunity. I mean, it's so easy to get in either join or refer a friend or purchase tickets as low as $25 can get you an entry. And then we've got incentives, you know, and ticket packages. Um, if, if you do buy, um, the $500 ticket package, there's a special bonus, uh, drawing for that. And so you will, you will get one ticket for each $500 that you spend

on it. And, uh, the winner of that gets to use $10,000, however you want on any hunt you want. So kind of you choose your hunt and then we'll write the check to the outfitter. So go to our website, epic outdoors.com. And it's the first thing you see. The first banner there has a link, click on it. It's got all the details for every hunt. And, uh, so you can, you can just join right there or you can purchase tickets or you can also call our office. If you just want to do it over the phone. Um, you can call four, three, five, two, six, three, zero, seven, seven, seven, and hope you get lucky and win one of these hunts. Uh, I mean, it's, it's really fun. We give them away and somebody's got to win. So might as well be you. You're listening to the Epic Outdoors podcast. Check us out at epic outdoors.com.

Hey everybody. Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Logan. Of course you're here. Always here, right? Always here. Always loving it. Yeah. Hey, uh, before I get, first off, we're really excited. There's a bunch of rain coming, Bronson. We always talk about the weather and everything revolves around the weather here in Cedar city, Utah. Okay. So we're excited about that. We've got another week or two of that coming, maybe even more. And then Logan, I just wanted to know how tall is this girlfriend of yours? You just busted it out early, huh? Yeah. We got to get out of the way. She is five nine. How tall are you? I'm six foot on the dots. Are you? Yeah. Okay. You got a tall one. I don't know. Your dad told me to ask you that. Yeah. Why? Well, that's all right. Have they been teasing you about her height? Yeah. Well, she has, she has these. If she wears heels or pumps. Yeah. Well, they, they make

these thick Converse shoes that give you like an inch and some. And so she wore that to a family Christmas party and everybody thought she was taller than me. It was pretty close. Yeah. Well, if she throws real heels or wedges or pumps or whatever the real, I tease my wife all the time. She laughs at me about what are heels, wedges. What's the difference? But if she wears those, she's over six, going to be over six foot. Oh yeah. I told her, I said, we got to throw away those shoes. Cause what are you squeezing there? It's not a juice box, but I got an apple juice box. Oh, applesauce squeeze. I opened that. I think he goes, isn't there probably a section in the grocery store that's for 12 and under. And that's where he goes. It's called Gerber, Gerber row. How do you take your vegetables? Do you have a little grinder,

the little baby grinder for the bees? I get the carrots, all the vitamins that a young toddler needs it. I love it. It's carrots? No, it's applesauce. Oh, I'm like freak. I'm not that weird. Okay. Just making sure. But hey, you teed yourself up, but you have a squeeze applesauce thing here. So this will be a unique podcast, Bronson. We've been talking a lot about bears. Okay. And I don't know if it's, if it's consulting on Wyoming elk or maybe all the Alaska trips we're talking about and things like that, but bears have been on our mind and we know guys. It's one thing to like know that maulings happen, right? Yeah. We've had one. Another thing to know about a half dozen people that have been mauled. Yeah. We had, I don't remember what podcast it was a long time ago. We had Jim Craig from Indiana on here and he

got crunched and munched repeatedly by a grizzly on a sheep hunt years ago in Alberta. And yeah, we've had John Alderson, one of our licensed app guys get treed. I was in the top of that tree. And I mean, and dude, that story sticks with looking for a wounded bull elk that he wounded with a bow, but he didn't even have his bow or a pistol or pepper spray. And he won't, and he'd go back. He, Oh, we've applied him for the same unit ever since. I would never want to go back. No, I wouldn't either. I kind of avoid those areas. I'm not anyway, but then we have more and more. And, uh, we've had, yeah, a good friend of Aaron and I's had an encounter last year in Idaho. We'll call him in a bit. And then we have, you know, you and Logan know this, one of the guys today. So we've got three guys today. We're going to maybe for maybe for, we're going to talk about

that was right here in my down, down in my neighborhood. Yeah. All the wrestlers in Wyoming. Yeah. Yeah. Try him too. So, so, I mean, what we can learn from it. I mean, they're interesting stories. They're kind of crazy stories that show maybe we can hear and learn how fast stuff can really happen, but also maybe be prepared if we're hunting, whether you're up north in Canada, Alaska, or one of the States, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, that you could have a problem. So what I think is funny is we're, we're planning trips to Alaska and things and we're taking big rifles, right? And we still, what would we do? Bought 10 millimeters. And all the ammo, all the best ammo we knew, we heard stopped. Your brother, your brother sends a picture. We buy 500 around. Now, I mean, we didn't buy that many, but enough to protect ourselves. You got to get acquainted with

with the new 10 millimeter before you, you don't want your first shot to be at a charging bear. Yeah. We're going to have to go through some rounds. I always think it's going to happen in a, while you're in a tent or something like that, but it's not. It's usually walking on a trail and you startle something usually. All right. Well, let's, let's tee the first one up. This first one we're going to call is Jace Taylor. He's, he lives here in Utah now. He, he used to work for the division of wildlife as a sheep coordinator. Now works as a biologist for a military base in Northern Utah. And, uh, you know, he's had a crazy story back, I think I'm in his college years recently, not too long ago about getting charged him and a buddy and actually mauled and lived to tell about it in Idaho and Idaho as well. So we'll get to call him first. Jace Taylor. Let's tee him up.

Well, this is Jace. Hey Jace, this is Adam Bronson and Jason Carter on the Epic Outdoors podcast. How's it going? Going well. How are you guys doing? Really well. You got service. I know you're out in the field working today and maybe you got tinfoil on a, on a barbed wire fence and a makeshift antenna, but you got service. It sounds like. Yeah. If you can hear me, then it's going to work. Okay. We gotcha. Well, we appreciate you making some time for us today. We, we teed up just briefly who you were, but, but maybe before we get talking about what we've kind of teed up, our theme of the day is kind of bear encounters. Uh, why don't you tell us a little bit about, about who you are and where you're from and you know, your background, where you worked and stuff like that. Sure. Yeah. And then I'll, uh, make up a good bear story for you. Yeah. You probably got scars,

scars to prove it from what I've heard. So. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, name's Jace Taylor. I'm right now a wildlife biologist up at Hill Air Force Base. Uh, prior to this, I was at the state, uh, DWR, uh, doing big horse sheep and mountain goats. Um, and then prior to that, it was doing, uh, schooling at BYU, doing research, uh, doing a master's stuff on, on big corner sheep out of Antelope Island. So that's where I spent most of my time is there Antelope Island, doing sheep and a little bit of deer stuff, um, up to the state. And then now out here on the, on the Air Force Base. Gotcha. Where are you from originally? You from Utah, Jace? No, not originally. I grew up in southeastern Washington state. Um, and then ended up coming down this way through school is, is how it ended up. I was down at BYU doing my school, uh, when I was doing the master's work through some

connections, got me here. And, and then just, you know, working there on the Island, just got me connections with DWR and been here ever since. My wife is from down this way. She's from Benjamin. Gotcha. Down by Spanish Fork. So, so it's good. And then actually a lot of my family's ended up moving this way since as well. So I've got, um, a fair bit of family up Logan way and up north in Utah. So yeah, so loving it, loving being here. Well, good. So as you tee this up, maybe what, when was this, when did this occur and what were you doing at the time? Well, Josh, so Josh Pollock called me and said, Hey, can you tell the bear story? And then the hardest part was I was trying to remember what version of the story I told Josh. Was it just, was it just bears or was there a couple of mountain lions and some wolves as well? Well, Hey, if they were there, let's hear it.

Yeah. As time goes on, it always changes and gets embellished. But, uh, but no, it was, uh, so this was 2013. And so at the time I was on the Island, um, I was a student down there at BYU. And during the summers, what I would do is I had this, um, job I could do up in Idaho. It was a, uh, environmental consulting. So it was a private company that would go out and do environmental surveys. We did like some stream surveys, some cultural surveys, like artifact surveys, but this stuff specific was, um, forestry, um, forestry health. And so what we were doing is we'd have a crew of guys and we would go out to BLM parcels that they wanted to get, um, like a, a health survey or a value, timber value survey, um, stuff that they were either planning to, you know, improve or change something down the road. And so they needed to know what the, what that forest was like. So it

involved a lot of, uh, walking around, we'd, you know, they'd give us a set of points. We'd hike around, we'd go to the points and it involved like measuring trees, you know, counting is, uh, you know, kind of looking for defects and trees, kind of getting an evaluation of the trees, um, the habitat, that kind of thing. So, so it was good. It was, it was a lot of hiking was a good job. Um, and you know, most of the time we'd go out just as individuals and go to these plots and do these surveys. Um, but for this one, what it was, was we were doing those types of surveys and we were in Island Park. So it was August in Island Park. And because we knew there were bears in the area, you know, we'd, we'd come by, we'd do surveys all around Idaho and into Montana and some in Wyoming as well. So, I mean, you know, it's, you know, we'd come across bears, but for

this one was in grizzly country, we were, instead of working as individuals, we had some extra stuff we were doing. So working in pairs, um, the guy I was working with was, his name was Scott Webster, good dude, um, up there at Idaho Falls. And we had bear spray and we worked in the pairs and try to, you know, make some extra noise and just kind of keep conversation as we hiked around. You knew you were in bear, bear country. I've had friends say, I mean, it's almost somewhat prevalent to, to encounter grizzlies up there. You, I don't know if you encountered very many, but it feels like that's, you're in the heart of bear country right there. Oh yeah. No, it's a lot of bears that just, as they overflow out of the park out of Yellowstone. So yeah, at the time, you know, more and more so bears are becoming more and more common.

It actually, even the week, it ended up being the week that, that we had our bear attack. There ended up being, I think two other bear attacks up there in Island park. Um, so I mean, it was at this time, especially, and I know it's probably hasn't changed anything. There's lots of bear, lots of bear activity there in Island park. We were, we were up by like the reservoir. So Island park reservoir, we're working just West of that. Um, and like I said, we'd known about bears, we'd seen bear tracks in the area. And so we were, we were well aware and thought we were well prepared. Um, this day, like I said, it was in August, we were hiking along doing our surveys and it had gotten, gotten into the afternoon. We'd had lunch. I remember we just had lunch and we were, it was kind of hot and we were just hiking along and for whatever reason, just,

just kind of just lulling the conversation, you know, kind of that afternoon siesta time of day and just weren't talking a lot. Um, and so that's what ended up, that's what ended up being the big mistake. And we walked right up on this bear. So I was in front. Um, and you know, like I said, we're just, we're just walking to our next point. So we had a set of coordinates that we were walking to. Um, so I have this, this, uh, you might remember like the, the GPS units were these big brick trembles, um, big yellow brick, like a 10 pound brick. And we used to, we could do all our data entry in there and navigate with that. So it's funny. I was in the front and I was, I was wanting to be in the front and Scott was a little older than me, but I was just trying to, you know, social initiative, but also I was wanting to be the guy in the front usually was the one that found

sheds. Scott, this guy had found a big old moose paddle or something. He'd found this giant moose paddle that blew up our surveys for a couple hours, but I was so jealous. It was this awesome paddle. So, so I'm in front, you know, walk in and, and like I said, we just, just, we usually did a good job of talking, but we just weren't making enough noise and it was hot. And it was an interesting spot. We had, there was like some, I remember there was some lava rock that kind of made, um, that was, you know, just kind of broken stuff that you couldn't really walk through. So we had this kind of natural funnel that we're walking down. It was a lot of like lodgepole pine, but small pines. Um, and then every once in a while, so you could see it through there fairly well, but every once in a while there'd be like fir trees or spruce trees. And there was this,

we're walking from North from the South, walking North on this game trail that went kind of through, um, this, this funnel. And there was a fir tree. There wasn't a great big tree, but it was actually, you know, it was thick enough that you couldn't see under it. Couldn't see around it. And as we got to the tree, we're probably just 40 yards from the tree and walking along. And that was the bear was sleeping behind the tree. We didn't have any idea he was there. He had no idea we were there. He'd come from a different direction. So his, his tracks weren't on the trail. Um, and so when we got to 40 yards, finally, this bear woke up, I remember as he came out from behind the tree, his back kind of came out first, um, like his rump. And I remember it was real dark. And as he kind of stood up from around the tree, the first thing I thought it was, uh, was a cow, like a black Angus cattle.

There was cattle in the area. It was real dark. And I think, Oh, here comes a cow. And then his head swings around, around the tree. And just this, I remember it was dark too, but I remember it had a lot of white, just a lot of like white on like the bridge of his nose and up like through his eyes, just kind of, you know, just scattered, um, hairs right through there, just big block head, you know, look like big lunchbox. Um, so as soon as his head came around the tree, um, he's spooked, I'm spooked now. So, but for him, you know, I guess he just had that point of fight or flight and, you know, running away from us was running right through us was just as easy as running, you know, away from us. And so, so he did, as soon as his head came around, he, he charged. And so as he's come, he's only got 40 yards to cover. And I just remember just thinking, I was amazed how fast

he was like the way that he covered that, like I said, it was pretty open. There was like some shrubs and then these small trees. And he just came flying through that straight at us. I started yelling. Probably don't even have time to grab your bear spray. That was the thing. I, you know, I had the bear spray on my hip, but I had that big tremble thing in my hand anyways. And so I remember yelling and putting my hands up and I was just, I don't know. I was just so confident that he was going to stop. I just, you know, like this, this bear is going to stop. And, um, that didn't try to be the case. So by the time he got to like 10 feet, maybe not 10 feet, 15, 20 feet. And I realized this bear is not going to stop. I took that tremble thing and I threw it, I threw it at him as hard as I could hit him right between the

eyes and it just shatters. And bear doesn't even, doesn't even notice that it happened probably. So that thing bounces off his head and I go to that point. I, the only thing I think to do is just to jump out of the way and try to run. So I turned to my left and try to jump out of the way. And, you know, he covers that last 10 to 15 feet and probably about, you know, a second. And so I turned to try to jump. And as I turn, he gets me right on my, on my right leg. So, um, basically there's holes, the, his bottom jaw hits right above my knee, maybe two or three inches above my knee. Um, and then his top jaw gets me like right in my butt basically. So, um, he actually bit through my wallet. So he grabbed me there. That's where he grabs and then he bites down on it. The holes down or the teeth down by my, my, my knees to hold still, but everything else from the top,

his top jaw just kind of rips down through. Shredded down. Yeah. It just shreds down from my rear end. The whole back of your thigh basically. Yeah. Basically now he's got, yeah. So it just rips down that. And he's got me on the back of my thigh. I remember when he grabbed me, so he hits me and grabs me there and it kind of pulls my, pulls my body back towards him. Um, and I remember still thinking like, you know, they tell you when the bear gets to you and actually touch, you know, stand your ground. But when the bear touches you, start playing dead. And I was just, you know, I'm just adrenaline's pumping and I'm not thinking anything along those lines. You're fighting. You're trying to get away. I was fighting. I decided I was going to fight this bear. So I remember seeing his eye. I remember his, it must've been his right eye was right there, you know, on my leg and

had my right hand right there. I remember taking swings and I was thinking, I just, that's my, that was my thought. I was like, I'm going to go for this dude's eye and try to try to stab me. So I'm proud of myself. I think I got at least a couple of punches in because afterwards my hands smelled like wet dog, like, wow. Slobber and stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah. He had a real strong smell. So I took a couple of swings, but then, I mean, that didn't last at all. Cause the next thing I know, my, I feel my feet come off the ground and then he, he'd bit there and he held it with that bite they had on my leg. He just picked me up and just ragdolled me. So he just, just starts shaking me. You know, I can't tell up from down or, you know, even where my legs at at this point. Like he's just like, like a dog when you see a rat

and just tries to shake. Yeah. You're trying to, they're trying to kill it. There's like, we see it and we see dogs, we see bears when they're trying to kill something. It's like, that's what they do. It's the shake. It's the kill shake. It's the orcas on a seal. They're trying to, they're shake the life out of this thing. Shake the fight out. Yeah. So where's your, what, what's your buddy doing now? And is he? So Scott, Scott, Scott, so I told you, I don't know if I mentioned Scott's a little older than me, but Scott's maybe just a few years. Now I was in my twenties, I guess at this point. So Scott's probably in his thirties. Scott's a big, big, strong dude. Scott's probably like six, four, six, five, like two 40, two 50. And like, like hard getting fat on him. So big, strong dude. He's back there. Um, so

I didn't realize this till afterwards, but Scott at this point has his bear spray out. And while this bear's shaking me, he's just bear spraying pepper spraying both of us. He's just crushing you. Yeah. It was good. It might end up being one of the thing that saved us, but, um, cause after it shook me, just shaking me left and right. How long do you think it did that? Just like, I don't know. It, you know, that's one of the things I'd love to know. I'd love to see what it looked like. Um, it felt like forever. A second half could feel like 10 seconds. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm sure it was hardly anything. I'm sure it was just a couple of seconds, you know, that he, that he was trying to shake me. Um, cause then he kind of tossed me off to the side. And remember I landed next to that trail. And at that point, you know, that point I realized

it took the shaking got the fight out of me. I'll tell you that much. Now it's time to play dead now is what you're thinking. There's nothing I can do but play dead. So, so I'd curl up and I put my hands, you know, back behind my neck. Um, and that was probably the worst few moments, um, right there. Cause I think this bear's just standing on top of me with his mouth open about to come down on me, you know? Yeah. You're, you don't want to look for him and trigger or something. You're just, you're thinking this is the last, this is the end. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's just, just the, just the makes my neck still just itch. Like just crawl, just waiting for the bite to come down. Is it going to come down on my back? Is he going to get me on the neck? Is he going to, his mouth's going to wrap around my head? You know, it's

just, here it comes. Just wait and see what happens. And that was the worst. But then after, again, that's probably only a couple of seconds, which it seemed like forever. And I hear Scott yell and I realized the bear's, the bear's not on me. It's on him now at this point. So I jump up and my next thought, again, I'm still just, I'm just terrified. I can't run. I can't, I don't want to lay down again. Cause that, that was horrible. So I'm going to, I'm going to try to climb a tree and the trees, but this would have been funny to watch too. Just little, like I said, little trees and I have, by this time, my backpack is like probably like is around my elbows and like down around my waist. Cause he just shook everything. And so I'm trying to like clamber on this tiny tree with my arms all like tied up in my backpack. It was probably, probably another hilarious sight, but I look

over and I realized the bear's getting off of Scott. Um, and so then I just, then I yelled at the bear a few times and the bear is off of Scott and running away. So basically just ran straight through us down this trail and kept going. And the whole thing, you know, who knows how long it took, but it was probably only, you know, a handful of seconds. Um, but God, the entire encounter. So what did he suffer? Yeah. What did it do to him? Did you, did you even know he was on to Scott with Scott screaming at him? Yeah. I heard Scott yelling and that's what got me to, and then I was laying there and I was like, God, got to get up. I can't keep laying here waiting for him to see what's going to happen. So yeah. So it'd gotten off the Scott and then I yelled at the bear as it, you know, I was getting off the Scott. I just yelled at it a few more times as it

kind of ran away. Um, so then we're, we're sitting there. I still didn't realize that he had sprayed the pepper spray. So I was, Scott's like, how are you? And I was, I couldn't breathe. And I was just like, I can't, I can't breathe. I can't, I can't see, you know, my skin's burning. And then Scott's like, well, it's probably cause I sprayed pepper spray all over you guys. So yeah. So getting my breath was tough. Um, I was bleeding, but not too horrible. It just, you know, like the fat and the flesh of my butt was basically what he'd ripped through the holes down by my knee were bleeding pretty good, but we got that wrapped up. Scott was Scott. What happened is he's spraying everything. And then the bear tossed me and came for him and just kind of ran him over. Like I said, he's a big dude. I ran him over and he

was on his back with his hands up. Um, and the bear was biting down on him. So he got bit on his hands and wrists mostly. So he had bites through his hands. Um, but nothing was broken. At least he could, I don't know. I hate to say that and then turn out to be wrong, but I don't, he could use his hands essentially. Yeah. Puncture wounds, but luckily didn't crush. Right. Right. No reconstructive surgery or anything. How far are you guys now? You're like, all right, the bear ran away. We, you know, you're not going to your transect point. You're how far are you from a truck or something at this point? All right. Back to work. Trimble's, tremble's broken. Yeah. Did you file that on an expense report or what? No. So the lucky thing was usually as we hike, you know, we could end up being anywhere from, you know, three, four or five miles from the truck. But luckily we,

the way it played out, we were only a quarter mile, maybe half a mile from the truck. Um, and that was lucky. And I could walk, Scott could carry, Scott carried my stuff and round everything up cause it had just been thrown everywhere. So we got everything rounded up. Um, and I'm limping back. I could hardly get, I could, I couldn't stand for a while just cause he'd, he just whiplash me so bad. I couldn't, I couldn't get dizzy real easy. Yeah. You probably maybe had a concussion or something. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It could have been. Yeah. It could have been. So yeah, we were able to walk back. We got back to the truck by the time. Well, we got to the truck and then, um, oh, this was rough. I get to the truck and I lay down cause I couldn't sit. And when I laid down to the back of the truck, the sweat got that, that pepper spray going

again and rolled into my eyes. And so I'm like in the back of the truck, like calling my eyes out trying to get control of that. Yeah. Works on, works on people, you know. Yeah. Oh, it worked. It was. And who knows? It might've been the difference for the bear. I mean, I, I imagine the bears was just getting out of there and just running this over as he went. But you know, maybe that was something that deterrent and like, yeah, I thought I wanted to eat this guy and now I don't or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It just kept him from, from staying there. Who knows? But yeah. So anyways, we finally got, we drove a little ways, able to get service called. We met an ambulance, but by that time, you know, we'd gotten things, it could have been so much worse and, you know, I don't want to make it sound like it's, you know, one of these horrible bear attacks

where people get their face mauled off or anything. Yeah. So by that time, you know, we met the ambulance, the ambulance patched us up. And then the company that we worked for had actually met us there in Ivan Park as well. And the company drove us to the, to the Rexford hospital. Hospital. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a good time too. So the hospital, we get there and they're ready for, they, you know, heard about this bear attack and they're ready for, you know, people with limbs falling off. They got stretchers and a dozen people. And you just walked, walked in there. Yeah. So we, we hobbled in there and everything. They were great though. They, uh, at the hospital, they, they measured for me, it was from the bottom holes to the top holes. It was about 14 inches, uh, was how big he was able to, the bear was able to open his mouth. So he got his mouth 14 inches around on my

leg. And then the fish and game met us there, that whole fish and game met us there, a couple officers, and they were able to take my pants. And from the pants, they could pull enough saliva to actually get DNA off the bear. Yeah. Wow. So they could maybe, if it was a problem bear from the past, they had DNA and they'd be like, that's bear number six. This is his last chance or whatever they use it for. Yeah. Yeah. So, and they did, they had some history with them. So the bear had been caught, had been caught in yellow, in Yellowstone, um, six or seven years prior. And they'd estimated to be six or seven years old at the time. It was a boar. They'd put a collar on him, but it had got ripped off over the years from fighting or whatever. He'd gotten ripped off. And they, at the time I have, I went back and looked at my notes. The note I have written down is that they said

at the time that it weighed like 670 pounds, which seems like a lot to me, but I guess it was right before going into hibernation. So they said it was, um, so it was pretty, you know, bulked up at that point. But, so that was really cool. And, and then, so after that, between them catching it, it had had one other encounter with an archery hunter, an archery, an archery elk hunter in Island Park, where he had done the exact same thing as us. He'd walked up on it, sleeping, you know, archery hunting, being quiet. And it had bit off part of his hand. Um, so, so that was really interesting. They didn't do anything with the bear just because neither of them were predatory. What do you mean? Sounds predatory to me, but I'm sure they have a, I'm sure they have a very specific definition of predatory when it comes to, and they were both out

in the sticks. Like neither of them was near, you know, campgrounds or residents or anything. What would you do looking back on it? What would you do again? Like, would you, would you buy it or carry a pistol 10 millimeter? Or, I mean, have you since learned what you would do or? Yeah, you know, I think back on it, you know, I wish, um, I, the, the main thing that I think would have saved us is just, if we'd have been making more noise, you know, if we'd just been making enough noise, then I think the bear would have heard us hundreds of yards away and that had gone off. And, you know, who knows, maybe that had happened already, you know, during these, these, you know, other trips. Yeah. But, you know, as far as, um, the pepper spray and, you know, fire rum goes, yeah, I think they're both great things that, you know, maybe Scott, you know, getting on his pepper

spray real quick, you know, something that helped. I don't know for me, if I'd, if I'd have had time, I mean, that 40 yards, it was amazing how quickly he covered it. I mean, he came through that brush. I mean, there was a log that he had to come over. I mean, he just, he just bounded through it. You know, it probably just took a couple, couple, three seconds for him to cover that ground. And, and, you know, like I said, my hands were already kind of full. Um, so, I mean, I would say definitely practice whatever you're going to decide to use for you need a pepper spray or your firearm, you know, practice, you know, having it handy, get to it. Yeah. Pull it out pepper spray, you know, pull out your pepper spray and practice spraying it, you know, getting the cap off and everything. Cause it was just the amount of time that you could have, there was no

buildup to it for us where we just walked up on him sleeping. It was like you saw the bear from a ways away. You might be, yeah. Being in pairs. I mean, that, that might've saved your life. If you'd have been alone and the pepper spray didn't happen, he might've just stayed there and tromped you, you know, like, who knows? He could have left you alone. But I mean, I think that was probably a blessing there, right there too, to have another person there, distraction or the pepper spray, like I said, or just yelling or, you know, concerning the bear to some extent. You never did go meet up with the archer or anything like that? Just, just. No, no, never met the guy. I actually haven't. And I haven't called back the fishing game. I had to, so when I got that information about the bear, I called

back, you know, a month afterwards or something. I should call him back again and see if everything ever came with the bear, you know? Yeah. Well, maybe someone's got him at his house. Yeah. That's 10 years ago or 11 now. So, I mean, he was what, 12 or 13 or whatever at the time. And I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. He's probably dead. And who knows, maybe they got him, you know, one of their offices or someone's got him somewhere and it'd be fun to go see him. So. Yeah. Wow. What'd you do with your pair of pants? I have them. You keep them as a sous vide? Yeah. So yesterday I was going through my stuff. So I was going to look at some of these notes and yeah, I've got some different things from there. I got something, I have my hospital pants too. Funny. I remember at the hospital, they were asking me all kinds

of questions, you know, Hey, are you allergic to this? And Hey, can we rinse this? Can we do this, that and the other. And this one nurse, I remember she says, Hey, can I take a picture? And I said, Oh yeah, go ahead and take a picture. She whips out her, she whips out her personal cell phone. And I'm like, Oh geez. Of what? You just, you and a gown and a, no. Yeah. Like my butt. The leg. The leg. Freshman's. I thought it was like for the hospital. Hospital like notes. Like something that we. It was like selfie style. And I'm like, Oh crud. You figured this was going to be a hospital camera protected by HIPAA laws and all that. Now it's turned it on on Facebook that night. Yeah. My butt, my picture of my butt's out there somewhere. There you go. Some nurse. Wow. Well. No, it was good. It ended up being,

it's on the end. It's, you know, it's a good story and it was a good learning experience. And hopefully, you know, somebody takes it from that. But like you said, it was a real blessing just the way it went down. Could have been obviously a lot worse. Real, really blessed that it wasn't. I had like a two month old kid at the time, you know, my wife was, you know, down here in Utah and everything. It would have been, could have been horrible. Could have been catastrophic. Yep. Absolutely. Do you have some scars to remind you? I mean, did it scar over? Oh, I'm sure. No. Yeah. No, it's got, I got a good, the ones that are easy to show are down by my knee. You know, if I wear a pair of shorts, just a couple holes there and then everything else is up on my butt, like I said. So it's, but even that's not, I don't want to make it sound like it's huge. You could cover it with your hand kind

of thing. It's just where it kind of ripped through. They had to stitch it in layers, which didn't all work out. It didn't all, didn't all heal. And so there's, there's some scars there, but yeah. Yeah. Well, overall lucky. And yeah, that's kind of what these are for. They're, they're kind of shocking all stories, but they're also, yeah, just a little learning experiences. Learn something, a little bit of something. I don't think from what you described, there's nothing you can do at 40 yards when it just lifts its head and starts charging. You're really. Just avoid Island Park. Don't buy a, don't buy a cabin. Don't buy a lot of people just buy cabins, like vacation homes and cabins and things, but. Go there in the winter on snowmobiles. That's what I'm, that's what I do when they're all danned up. Yeah. All right. Well.

Just know that it can happen, you know, and just be prepared as much as you can. Because you know, there was, there were things that we did that, that made a difference. Just, just realize that it could be, it could be quick if it happens. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we appreciate you taking some time today. I know you're out in the field, you're, you're working and that's, that's a cool story. It's, it's a good one to tell your kids, I'm sure. And, um, but appreciate you. Somebody like says, going to learn something from it. And that's kind of what today's about learning from some of these kinds of scary ordeals. So I'm glad, glad you, you're still here to tell about it. Yeah. Everything turned out good. All right. Well, we sure appreciate you. Yep. Take care guys. Thanks. Have a good day.

Kind of crazy. Dude, I didn't know it was that bad. Yeah. I mean, it's just, when they get ahold of you, it just pretty well, you know, you're just, you see all those things that do the ragdoll, whether it be a hippo, whether it be a croc, whether it be an orca, whether it be a bear, that's when they're, they're trying to just snap your neck. Oh yeah. We're just talking, is this your beaver people now? Yeah. So anyway, this would be, yeah. Clint Reynolds, he actually married kind of a cousin of mine, not first cousin, but anyway, a little, a few, a time or two removed, but anyway, really good dude, Clint Reynolds. And yeah, he did have an experience. Glad you reminded me Logan. Cause I, he came, he came to my class when I was like in middle school or elementary school and did a whole presentation on it. And I don't remember much of it, but I just

remembered walking out of that classroom with my jaw dropped. Cause I never want to have that happen to you. Well, let's see if he'll answer the phone. We'll get his story real quick.

Good morning, sir. Hey Clint, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Logan here. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Good. It's been a minute. Yeah. How's things going over in Minersville? Oh, it's God's country.

That's so true. That's true.

Are you in his head like, yep. Are you, uh, you working today? Nope. No, this is, uh, this is day two of my, my break time. That's nice. Yeah. Good. Well, we kind of, we've been talking, uh, bears, bear attacks and things like that today, uh, had a story from up in Idaho and we just kind of wanted to get your story. I'm glad Logan reminded me. Cause I remember we've talked extensively about your story, but it's been, it's, it must be 20 years or 15 years since you and I've talked about it. But anyway, I thought maybe we would, uh, kind of get your version of it and how it all went down and maybe tell us a little bit about yourself, background hunting wise and whatnot, and then let's roll into it. Okay. Uh, so I, I wanted to make sure I was in the right ballpark. So this was ancient history ago, 1992, which dates me quite a bit, but yeah, I graduated high school. 92. I was only,

I was only 14 years old. Traumatic. And my dad and I had this opportunity come to us where my dad's brother-in-law, which is his only brother-in-law, uh, my mom's side of the family. Uh, he was kind of a geologist out of Texas and he come to my dad and says, Hey, we're, I'm thinking about going to Alaska. There's some investors that want to put some money together and they, they want us to go up and see if we can get this six and a half miles of claims opened up and started gold mining gold. Yeah. Yup. And so I'm like, Oh heck yeah. You know, this sounds better than building houses. I, I was sick and tired of building houses with the old man. Cause that's what I was doing with him was growing up as a kid. I was a general contractor son. And so we built houses, we poured concrete, we framed houses, we shingled houses, we sheet rock houses. We,

we was doing all that and we had to, we had to finish up all that work before we could take off and go to Alaska. And we had about four or five houses that we were doing that that summer before we could go. So we were, we were really jamming me and me and my dad and a friend of ours who was working for us at the time. He, he went up there with us. Actually, he's like, well, if you guys are leaving, I, I need a job. So he went with us too. Now that's his name's Chuck Levering. He, he went with us and he helped us drive up there. Cause I was 14, right? So, so 14, I was, I was not legal to drive, but I would drive. Yeah. In Beaver County, you were legal. We've been driving for five years by then. That's right. Yeah. I knew how to drive a stick. I could drive a trailer. I could do anything. Drive a semi. I mean, 14 in Beaver County. Yeah, absolutely. You're certified, whatever it takes.

You're certified. So yeah. Uh, so we got all that going, ready to, ready to head up there. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't want to go up there barehanded. So my dad and I started looking around and we started at the time we, we, we met a guy and I don't know if you remember him, but, uh, John Chambers was like a County cop or something. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Anyway, he, he hooked us up with a guy that, that, uh, exchanges highway patrol weapons and updates highway patrol weapons. Okay. Don't throw anybody under the bus. Yeah. Don't get anybody fired. I can't, I can't remember his name, but anyway, this guy was, he, this guy was hooking us up with, uh, some, with a couple of, of high patrol short service weapons, just little six, six shooter revolvers. They take 38s and three 57 ammo. Both of them are interchangeable. And I'm like,

yeah, I don't want to go up there alone. I don't want to go up there without something. So dad and I, we started looking around and we got those for us and, and we took them up and I be in 14, you know, you're a little, little excited about carrying a gun. And so I carried that thing everywhere. I was just one. I knew that there's bears up there. I knew that there was things to shoot. I knew that it was the highlight of an adventure to go up there in the first place. And you're driving through Canada with pistols. So back then, back then, back then we just, I think, I think we put them in our cargo, but they didn't check our cargo. You know, I'm not a hundred percent certain on that one, but I do remember having a pass. I don't recall. I don't recall. I don't recall. That's the safe answer. All right. I don't,

yeah, I don't recall that information, but anyway, we got going up there and, and, uh, I took my motorcycle too. And just knowing that I wanted to have some wheels to where I could adventure out a little bit, knowing that I wasn't going to be anywhere near anything. Or yeah, you just go claim to claim to claim or whatever. Just good to have wheels. You get up there and I found out that Tundra is a heck of a lot of fun to ride on. It, it, it kind of opens up that wilderness area and gives you a little lead. You can go up there and ride. We were, well, let's just say that I was prospecting for new claims. Yeah. You were living your best life. 14 year old with a three 57 on his hip on a motorcycle in Alaska. Like what's, there's not much better than that for a 14 year old paid trip. No. Maybe even knowing paid trip. I was, I was literally 177 miles Northeast of Fairbanks,

which is what they call the circle mining district. And it, it takes forever to get there. It takes about, Oh, five, five and a half hours to drive it. Yeah. So the best way to do it is if you've got one of those little bush planes and those guys that were next to us that had claims below us, they had a bush plane and that thing could take off in about a hundred feet. Yeah. And they were amazing. Just some really cool people. And they were, they were some, they were some friends of ours. And, and I, I kind of wish that I could still make contact with those guys after all these years, but I would imagine one of them is dead by now. And the other one, he's probably forgotten me a long time ago, but they were good friends. And, uh, anyway, that, that experience, I, I was on that motorcycle and I went up, I went upstream about a week before

this bear attacked us and I got up into this little sandbar and I found a pretty good size bear track right there in the sandbar. And I'm like, Oh, I'm scared. That scares me right there in itself. You know, I, I hadn't seen a fair track. Yeah. And I went back and told my dad, I says, Hey dad, I'm pretty sure I found a pretty good size bear track up there. And so we started, I mean, everything we were doing at the camp, this camp was like, it's like a man camp. I don't know if you've ever experienced one of those, but we're talking two single wide trailers with a kitchen on one end and living quarters on the sides down, down, down the corridor. So there was like six bedrooms or something to that nature. And, and there was kind of a, a shower room or whatever you'd call it on the one end on the other side of the kitchen. And so the kitchen and all the food

and everything's on the one end. And we pretty much slept on the other end, which is not what we were worried about, but that's just how the arrangements were. And then in the hallway, there's a hallway through the center of this camp and it was a plywood hallway. It was framed up with plywood and I'm not even sure what, but it was a sealed off with a window on one end and a plywood door on the other end with a stairway. And, uh, that's the only way in and out of, the trailer is the one end, the plywood doorway, or you could go through one of the, into the dining room area and then through the kitchen and out. But there's, there's no other way out of that area except for that plywood door. So the night of attack, uh, it was probably 10 30, 11 o'clock at night, which to us daylight hours looks about like five 36 o'clock in the morning right now. It's light,

but not, not, yeah, just dusk. You can see, but you can't see good. And I'd just gone to bed and it was kind of one of those things where I'm 14 and I couldn't sleep because it's just hard to turn it all off when you're, when you're excited about being there. So this is like, I got up there, we left here July 1st. I got up there and we were starting to gather equipment, build the sluice and everything that we were doing, putting together machinery that would be required to, to get this place up and running. This is literally Parker Schnubble stuff. I mean, is it? Yeah. This is literally Parker Schnubble kind of stuff. I was literally living the gold, uh, the gold rush dream. Only not, no camera man, you know, kind of thing. You were 30 years too late. You don't, you don't have quite the attitude he's got. He, uh,

I don't have that attitude. I know I'm not that rich, you know, I just, so July 1st, we went up, started gathering all that equipment. Well, this is the very end of July. We had gotten things up and running. We were actually running gold. We were turning material and we were coming in for the night, not operating a hundred percent at the time. Cause we were shutting down. We had to, we were actually pumping our holes out and my dad came back and he, he'd shut the lights down. We'd all gone to bed. And the next thing I know, I hear glass shatter and break. And I'm like, what on earth was that? And I get up and I hit the hallway the same time my uncle hits the hallway and I'm in the middle of the hallway and he's on the end of the hallway. And he opens his door and he goes face to face with a bear trying to climb through the window on the end

of the hallway. And the hallway had a little tiny can rack on it with boots and, and stuff on it. And my uncle, luckily that was there. He took a swat at him and the bear lost its balance. Its hind feet were up on the wall, lost its balance and fell back out. And he screamed bear. And I was thinking fire. I thought fire. I never experienced or thought that we were going to get attacked by a bear. And sure enough, there he come. I mean, he was right there. He was almost into the hallway. And if he would have gotten the hallway, we would all been trapped. And all of us would have been going out the windows of our bedrooms, which was on stilts. All of our rooms were on stilts because this is up off the ground, trying to, trying to protect the camp from snow. And so luckily that bear fell out instead of getting in, which was about two seconds difference of, of being a totally different story.

So as soon as he yelled bear, I ran back into my, into my bedroom, grabbed my gun. Well, at that time, my cousin and the kid that he would, he was there with this kind of a troubled kid from Texas that my uncle thought maybe he could save him. So this kid come out of that room, they come running, screaming, just zipping out of there. Like, like the bear was on their tail. And sure enough, that bear had just attacked their window. So that's the second window he'd already attacked. And he was in there just a tearing the paneling off the wall, trying to come into there. And that's when I met him at the window and I started to shoot at him. What were you, with the pistol or a rifle? I mean, this, this is a, a 14 year old, not, this is a dream for any 14 year old. Here's your, I mean, I mean, it's a scary dream. Picture this. But you get to actually shoot this pistol now.

So I'm, I'm literally in tighty whitey underwear. Yeah. That was everybody wore those. I'm standing there in broken glass. I cut my foot and I started shooting that bear. With the pistol, the 357? Yep. 357 Magnum pistol with, with believe it or not, hollow tip, lead rounds, lead tip rounds. Had no idea that those are not the choice of. Yeah. You need something more solid. Yeah. So anyway, those things were flattening out and they were not going in. Yeah. And I was not hurting him at all. Ticking him off. Yep. Yep. I totally figured out real quickly that hollow tip lead, lead rounds are not only, but for target practice or whatever, or maybe even for cop killers or whatever. You, you use them in a crowd where you're not going to hurt and kill somebody. You're just going to hurt them.

That's, that's kind of what I figured out real fast, but I was using the wrong ammo. And sure enough, I emptied my gun and I'm wondering what I didn't hurt him. I didn't even hurt him. I got to go reload. So I ran back to my room, six more rounds, not thinking I'm going to need more. I went to a different window and I shoot six more shots. Well, that bear's still on his feet. He's in a bed. He's in a bedroom. One of the other bedrooms is where he's still at. Yeah. He was just at the edge of that window after I'd shot him six times, or at least I thought I'd shot him six times. I'm starting to wonder, you know, and he's still standing. And I'm like, what on earth? This thing's not turning. He's not going away. I didn't scare him. I didn't. And now I've got a possibly injured bear, which is what, what was just scaring me to death. I'm like, no, because those always return.

And so I went, I reloaded again, shot him and emptied my gun, 12 shots. And I'm like, either this gun's off or I don't know what I'm doing. And adrenaline out the yin-yang. I was, I was shocked, scared, barefooted. You got your dad or anybody else bringing back up or were they at this point? You know, my dad had his rifle, his 30-06 rifle. Didn't have it ready. My uncle had an empty 30-30 with no bullets in it. And in the meantime of me grabbing my gun out of my bedroom, my uncle went in and faced that bear with the butt of his rifle and hit him in the nose before I took the first shot. And, yeah, that ticked him off pretty good, but at least it gave me enough time to get there. But other than that, no one else had a rifle until way after it was all said and done.

And after I reloaded for my third full set, I went outside and I was going to meet him as he turned and was going to go back towards the brush, which may have been 50 feet or so to the brush where he could start going uphill, which he didn't go very far uphill. So I ended up shooting one more shot and I hit him and he tumbled over backwards and then he just laid there and just breathed. And I was like, this thing's never going to die. My uncle, he finally gets his gun loaded, goes out there and shoots him one more time with that 30-30 and finishes him off.

And I was like in just shock and awe of the whole thing. Couldn't sleep for days, it seemed like. When can we go home to Beaver, Dad? Couldn't even close my eyes. Yeah, I can imagine. Then we hauled him off. We decided that the best case scenario, we had to go into town to replace windows regardless. So we ended up deciding that we were going to, instead of just covering up the whole thing, we decided we were going to take it in. Which is, my uncle was afraid we were going to lose claims over it, you know, if things went weird. So we went ahead and went right straight to the newspaper, which is what my uncle would have done because he's a city guy. I would not have done that. But he went to the newspaper first and he says, we've got to tell this story. And I'm like, eh, whatever, you know. Let me put my pants on, you know. Yeah, right.

So luckily, and this is the right thing to do, we went to the newspaper and we told our side of the story first. And that was a lifesaver. Because after we finished telling our story, the newspaper knew all about it and what had happened. Then I went to the wildlife division and they're saying, well, what did you do to provoke the bear? And we're like, what?

We were in its neighborhood, I guess, you know, that kind of thing, you know. And other than that, they're like, well, what? You didn't try pepper spray? And I'm like, you've never been in front of a bear, have you?

Yeah. This bear was not going away. This thing was almost seven feet tall, weighed almost 600 pounds. And come to find out, and this was way afterward, come to find out, he'd been in three other cabins over the mountain from us. Wow. Then they knew it happened. He knew his way into a double wide or single wide. Yeah, he was finding his way into cabins, and he thought that was kind of fun. So he decided he was going to try ours, too. So we were number four cabin for this bear. And so I probably did everybody a favor by doing it. Where did that last round you fired, did it hit him in the back of the head, or where did it hit him? Well, I tried shooting him in the head, and it ricocheted off. And I was like, this is ridiculous. And when he was standing outside the window in front of me, he was roaring at me like, you know, big old mouth open and mad and everything.

I shot him in the face, right in the mouth even. And it just didn't seem like nothing was working. Yeah. And I don't know whether it was just him getting hit in the face by the butt of that gun that did it and set him off with his own adrenaline or what. But that bear was just, I mean, he was not going to turn and go. He wanted to fight. And I couldn't believe, I've never felt that kind of fear. Never been the hunted before. I've always been the hunter. I've always killed things. I've ate things. I've enjoyed putting up my own meat and stuff. But you've never felt a feeling quite like you're going to be the victim. Yeah. Crazy. And not only did I save myself, but I saved my aunt, my cousin. And on her side, there was a girl and about a 16-year-old boy, another 16-year-old boy, myself, my dad, and Chuck, the guy that we took up there with us.

So there was about eight of us total that I kind of reacted in the right way in the right time. I was able to stop this bear from getting inside the trailer. How did you guys get into gold? I mean, did you know what you were doing? Obviously, you had the equipment and all of this kind of stuff. Was this the first experience up there and just kind of diving into it? Or did you do it years after that or years before that? Not my experience with, I'd never gold mined, but I'd operated a lot of equipment over the years. My dad had a backhoe. I'd operated some track coals here. I had spent some time on machinery. Even though I was only 14, I'd dug a lot of trench. I'd dug quite a few foundations. And so I was pretty experienced. Dad taught me a lot of good things growing up as a kid. Never gold mined. So my uncle was the brains behind science of gold mining.

You don't know what ripples look like until you understand what a ripple looks like and what the carpet's designed for. The angles of sluice boxes, size of material and water flow, things like that all come into play when you're gold mining. Did it ever really work out for him? Did he hit pay dirt like he was shooting for? So the first summer, we mined a total of maybe 35 days. Something to that nature. Because from the time that the river breaks open to the time that we got our machinery set up, our first year, we grossed maybe $150,000 worth of gold. The second summer was much more profitable. We went back up a second year. But my uncle ended up having pretty bad on the job injury where he had a radiator blow up in his face. And we ended up sending him back to Utah to the burn center to get him taken care of. After that, Dad and I penciled it out.

And we weren't feeling like we were making enough money to do anything with it. So we bailed after the second year. Okay. Gotcha. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. Well, 14-year-old, you go up there, you know. Yeah. Being a mountain man. And then now you're, yeah, you got real problems, you know. Yeah. Glad you had that because, I mean, yeah, I guess you had everybody. Everybody, the .30-06 and the .30-30 probably was full of ammo the rest of the summer, I imagine, right? After that night. You know, I didn't ever worry about that because I was taking care of myself. I wasn't really worried about what anybody else was doing. Well, I felt like I. Bought some solids in town and went back at it. Yeah. At about $50 a box even back then in 92. Geez.

Well. Well, crazy story. That's a good one. Yeah. To make it all better, you know, my brother, he was on his mission out in California. He got a phone call first from us, but he quickly saw the newspaper article. My brother, my other brother, he was in Rhode Island. He got the news article. I didn't call him, but he got the news article and found out that his little brother killed a bear in Alaska and saved everybody's lives or whatever. David Crockett. Yeah. So this actually, the story itself went nationwide due to the fact that luckily we went to the newspaper first. And I didn't hear it, but I guess it went on talk radio too. There you go. And they tore it apart. They tore it apart. You know how. Oh, liberals. You know how it gets because they have the other side of that story. And they wanted to find out what I had done and why I. We were burying our trash.

I mean, literally every night, every day, every morning, whatever. We were taking our trash up and disposing of it properly. We were not leaving food out. We were making sure that the camp was clean and pristine and nothing to provoke. Nothing to provoke. Yeah. And the buried didn't even attack the kitchen. Yeah. It went to the other end and didn't sniff around at all. Yeah. And so that's kind of the story. It's like, well, we didn't do much. It just decided that that's the end it started on. It was going to go through the whole place. Yeah. Oh. Got to do what you got to do. Well, Clint, we appreciate your time today. It's a great story. It's awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. Yeah. I don't know what you can turn of it, but. Well, it's good. It's just these stories help people think and take a little something from it. Not sure what.

Maybe put solids in your .357. More than six rounds would work. Magazines. Definitely pack and be prepared. That's right. So, all right. Okay. Well, enjoy your days off. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you, Clint. You bet. Talk to you later. Bye.

That's a good time. He's a good dude. Clint's good people right there. So, helps a lot of people around town. All right. Well, Bronson. All right. So, next we're going to call a friend. He's a really good friend of my brother's. I know him, too. His name is Jason Young. He's actually from southeast Idaho. Lives in Oregon now, by the way. But he's always been a very avid hunter. I've done some hunts with him and my brother Aaron. He's done other hunts with Aaron himself and obviously a bunch on his own. But let's give him a call. He has another wild story about an Idaho bear. Hello.

Hey. Adam Bronson, Jason Carter. How are you doing today? Hey. I'm doing well. How are you guys? We're doing good. Doing good. Doing good. You got a few minutes to talk, I guess? I definitely do. Yeah. Well, good. Well, you know, I've heard secondhand through Aaron about this encounter. And we can talk about this at the end. We may or may not have taken some other steps in our own life to be prepared. No, you've sold a couple more pistols. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like that. Single-handedly. But, yeah. Anyway, for everybody that doesn't know, this is Jason Young. Grew up in, what, St. Anthony, Idaho, right? Yeah, I grew up. Yeah, actually, Chester. Chester, Idaho. Is that even smaller than St. Anthony? I haven't even heard of it. It's a thriving site. I've never heard of it. It's by St. Anthony, though, right? Isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I always just associate it with St. Anthony.

But, anyway, Southeast or Idaho and, you know, Abbott Hunter Hill. If you live in Oregon now, but why don't we just, yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself for listeners, about who you are and kind of what, you know, you've obviously been a hunter most of your life, but where you're at now, and then we'll lead into this crazy story. Yeah. So, I'm just an Abbott Hunter. I love it. You know, I can't do it enough.

I don't know. I was just born that way, I guess. But, to start off, I've got to tell a story about Adam. I love it. I don't even know what he's going to say, so I'm scared. There's a lot of stories. Well, Adam, I don't know the first time we met, but I can remember it. Is this the... Your brother and I were getting shipped off to the middle of nowhere in Montana. Oh, okay. You came to see Aaron off. At the airport. Okay. At the airport. I don't even remember this story. Okay. I remember going there, but I don't remember what he's about to say. But, here we go. I hope it's good. I hope it's good. I was excited. You know, I was looking forward to meeting you, but you were there, and you had... Did you have white leather pants on? Oh. No. This is good. Leather pants? With fringe? Come on. With fringe? I just know you came straight from Monticello, Utah, and you're wearing white, tight pants.

Johnny Cash. Some Johnny Cash looking. They weren't leather. I can guarantee that. If they were tight, they were just because they were... This is awesome. Random. Hey, this was 1995 or 6. I mean, I was just lucky to have pants. I was a pro-K college student. Wow. Hey, all I know is that I know the year, the quarter that was in your pocket. Oh, no kidding. What? They were that tight. They were that tight. Come on. 1976. Come on. I probably... Centennial quarter.

Was I married then? I'm trying to remember if Becky remembers any of this. AI? Paint a picture of Adam Bronson in white leather. Was this 96... When was this? No, I was not married. This was like summer of 95. Yeah, you were in your mind. I was not... I was bachelor. So what do you think I was doing? I mean, juice box? What do you wear before you got your... You wear whatever you have. Yeah. I mean, just... I mean, maybe not tight pants because baggies come in and gone. But I mean, it was not... Whatever I had on, I can just assure you was purely random. I love this story. Yeah. And then just to segue into that, like three years later, we went to Wyoming out of the high country. Remember that? Oh, yeah. And you showed up in a white Ford Ranger. Oh. I had a Ford Ranger. The first real truck I had. Was it white? It was gray. Was it white? Was it gray? Was it gray? Anyway.

I thought it was white. But I can just remember that trip. That was the worst night sleep of my life. So... In between you two, my pad had a leak in it. Yeah. It was raining like crazy. Three man... Three guys in a two-man tent. Yeah. I hate that. One of those... Usually a two-man tent's made for one guy. Yeah. Broke college kit. So you're just... Doing what you could do. You're just... You know, surviving. Surviving. But you just go up there and you're all full of you-know-what and ready to hit the high country. Aaron was a resident or had been. He was a resident then because we could hunt the wilderness in H. Aaron was our resident guide for Jason and I. There you go. So we were packed in there and we got crushed. That's awesome. That was a good hunt. Really. Probably saw a lot of bucks back then. We did. Jason killed a really cool buck. Really, it's had like six a side or something.

It was really nice. And that was after the winter kill by two or three years. The heavy winter loss. This might have been like early 2000s. Okay. It's like 2003 by then because Aaron and Jason... Aaron was out of college there and they were living in Cheyenne Laramie. He was working for Wyoming Game of Fish. That's why he was a resident. Okay. Way past 1995. 2001 or 2000. No, it was 2002. I bet it was 2002. Drought year down here. Good year up there. But yeah, it was good. Fun country. I haven't been back. Aaron moved back so we haven't... I didn't hunt that specific spot ever again after that year. But anyway. Good stuff. Those are a couple great stories actually. Anyway. Don't know how much we can authenticate them, but we'll... The white truck turned to gray is what you're saying. So maybe the other story is not quite true. I'm still cut up on the leather pants. I don't own leather.

Not now. Were they not? Okay. Then it was white Wranglers. I don't know. I just remember white pants. They were white. Probably leather. They could have been white. Probably a little fringe. I like it. Anyway, well... They clean up easy. Leather cleans up easy. All right. This is good. Well, anyway. So fast forward, I guess, in life. You got kids now. You're living in Oregon. And you still like to hunt and get away. And probably... I would imagine Idaho is probably your hometown state. You like to go back there maybe every year or often, I would say. Right? I go back every year. I got a place over there. And yeah. I go over there six, seven times a year. So... Still got family and whatever. Probably. It still feels like home. You know. It's just... I have never really left Idaho. But... Yeah. You know, Oregon's been a good landing spot. You know, I'm kind of getting into the black tails.

And... That's awesome. You know, I do a lot of fishing and some duck hunting. So... It's been good. Yeah. Great bird hunting. Yeah. Well, all right. So let's... I guess fast forward to when this cool... Well, crazy story happened. So I'll jump right into it. You know, I got to go for the prior year because that's what really saved my life. The experience I had the prior year. Yeah. Absolutely. That's kind of what... And it's 2022.

You know, I am just up there hunting in Idaho. And, you know, this particular place I hunt. I mean, I'm looking at a map right now. I knew how maps will indicate where there's forest. And it's like a green color. And then, you know, flatlands, the white color. Well, I was hunting out in the flats. And it doesn't even look like bear country. It's where they run cattle, actually. And every once in a while, you can find some elk out there. And I was out there just pushing the... You know, hunting, just sneaking through the woods. The thick stuff. Last year, this was in 2022. 2022 and just kind of going along, minding my business. And out of nowhere, all hell breaks loose. And, you know, the forest just blows up. And I have a grizzly just coming right at me. Come on. Just weren't even thinking grizzly country, really. No. No. I wasn't even... Fortunately, I was carrying bear spray.

But in years past, I wouldn't even carry anything. I mean, I'm out in cattle country. Yeah. And you're archery out hunting. So you got a bow? Yeah. So I'm just standing there with a bow. And I got this grizzly bear. Just giant. You know, this bear fortunately stopped about 10 yards. And I'm screaming at it. It's screaming at me. It kind of wandered off. And I grabbed my bear spray and hit the bear spray. And I think more went in my eyes than it went in the bear's eyes. And I'm just like, dude, this stuff is not going to work. And fortunately, that bear went off. And, you know, from that experience, I was just like, gosh, I got to be prepared when I go in these woods. It happened so fast. And I was so unprepared. Yeah. Have you ever shot the bear spray? Like, most people don't. You buy it and have it, but you don't. You've never even sprayed it. You don't test it.

Or know how to pull the pin and start using it. It's like testing a dog shocker collar. You're not... You know what I mean? You don't... Or an EpiPen. Which you're not going to test an EpiPen on you. You just don't... Some of this stuff, you just trust that it's going to work. Yeah. Yeah. But one of our other callers talked about that, how getting oriented with spray and spray. And, you know, maybe you're like, well, that's... I don't think that's going to work. And in this case, maybe that realization was after, fortunately, the bear had started to leave. But that prompted you to, what, think about other options before you came back? Yeah. I mean, well, first of all, with those bears, I mean, I don't know how big this was. But it was a... I'm sure it was a big old boar. I mean, they run. I don't know how fast they run. 30 miles an hour? No problem. I just don't think a... You got time.

...some mist in the air is going to stop this thing. That's a little pepper. A little mist with some pepper in it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could see, you know, if they're going to stop and stuff, or they give you a warning or stand up and, you know, give you some time, I think the spray works. But, man, when they're intent to kill you, I just don't think it's going to work. Yeah. Yeah. So, what did you... The hunt ended, or you left, or whatever? Yeah. After that, you know, it kind of shook me a little bit.

And I was just like, I got to figure this out. I used to carry a 500 Smith & Wesson. But, you know, you got five shots, and that thing weighed about, I don't know, five and a half pounds. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And if you shot it, it just basically broke your wrist. Yeah. So, I ended up getting one of those 10 mils, a Glock 10 mil. And I can still remember when I was picking up the ammo, I was at Sportsman's, and, you know, you can get the cheap stuff, or you get the good stuff. And I bought that good bear load stuff. It was called, like, Valco or something. It's that hard cast lead. And I was just like, well, I'll use it just in case. And so, this year, I went out kind of the same place. It was about a mile from where that bear charged me last year. And I had a buddy with me, and it was his first time ever hunting up there. So, I was just kind of showing him the ropes.

And I took him into this spot I just love. And just as we're going into the dark stuff, I look over, and I see where there's these grizzly bears will dig these holes. And they're just these little shallow holes. And in years past, every time I find these shallow holes, I usually see a grizzly bear, or you'll find, you know, a pretty fresh sign. And so, I wanted to show my buddy, Brandon, his name, these holes. So, I walked over to this hole, and he's like, okay, Brandon, you look at these holes. You see these. You know, just kind of be prepared. These are no joke. Yeah. Yeah. These are no joke. And that was just kind of my theory at the time. And at that time, I took my Glock out and loaded it. And I also bought a strap for my bow. So, instead of, you know, usually you're carrying your bow with your hands. I got a strap so I can have my gun in my hand while I'm going through the woods.

And as we're looking at this hole, we look in front of us, and there's another hole. And then there's another hole. So, we kind of go, and we're exploring these and looking at these holes. And then I find this little hole that's only about the size of a, twice the size of a softball. And it was dug in there really deep. And I'm just like, oh, you know what? This is a badger. A badger's been in here digging these holes. And I was just like, oh, I bet Brandon probably thinks I'm an idiot. And so, then we look up, and I see another hole. And this one is freshly dug. And it's a little bigger than the other ones. And it had just rained. And as we walk up to this hole, the water that was at the bottom of the hole, you could look down, and there was an impression of a grizzly bear track. And I can just remember Brandon looking at me and saying, isn't that a grizzly track?

And I'm just like, I knew game was on. And just, I don't know how long it was. It just felt like almost instantly, just out of nowhere, actually jumped out at 13 yards. And it was just on a dead sprint to kill me. I, you know, I just reacted. And it was just like bleak in my eyes. I just started shooting. And I think I got two or three shots off. Did you have the pistol in your hand when you were kind of inspecting these? I had the pistol in my hand, yeah. Once I saw that first hole, I took the pistol out, put it in my hand, and loaded it. And if it weren't for that, I would be a dead man. Or I wouldn't have beat up pretty bad. And loaded it means just jacking one. Just jacking one in the pipe. You probably had the bag. Yeah, yeah, one in the pipe. Yeah. So this thing came out at 13 yards. And, I mean, just right at me. I mean, there was no warning, no nothing. It was just like, holy cow.

Just noise. Probably sleeping right there or something, digging another hole or laying in the trees. After the fact, yeah, he was in a hole. Really? He was in a hole. Bedded down in that wet dirt or that stuff. They lay down just cooling school in the day and whatever. Yeah. So, anyways, when this, I mean, I just reacted. And this bear just, he's coming. And I get two or three shots off. And it's all dead falls in there. And I must have been stumbling backwards. Because all I knew was that I fell down. And it was like a glitch in the matrix. I swore time kind of stopped right there. I thought about everything. And I just couldn't believe I was laying on my back knowing that there was a bear just about ready to come over that log that was in front of me. And so I leaned up and I just, you know, in the back of my mind, I said, you got to make every shot count.

And I can just remember focusing right on his mouth and, you know, just unloaded that 10 on him. As he's coming at you again? As he's coming. Oh, yeah. He never stopped. You fell down. But he kept coming. Yeah. He kept coming. Yeah. And, you know, I had, I don't know, eight or 10 shots in this thing. And you could just see the bullets hit him and ripple. And there was no effect at all. And about after I got about 10 in him and I'm shooting as fast as I can. Brandon was able to draw his weapon and load it. And he was carrying a nine. He starts shooting. And it sounds like a cat gun going off. And there's no ripple when he's hitting the bear.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. But hearing his nine millimeter go off, it was like the best noise I've ever heard. Just reinforcements. If the bear's on hold of me, he would have more holes in him. Yeah. And anyways, I just kept shooting. And then my gun stopped. And just as this bear's about to come over the log where I'm on the other side, he drops dead. And, yeah. I mean, what is that immediate, like, threats over, but your adrenaline is, like, still maxed up. Like, nothing can get it higher in the world, probably, than your adrenaline right there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We were humming. That's for definitely sure. I can remember getting up to Brandon. Just like, what just happened? I was like, I have no idea. Let's get out of here. Because, you know, you just, I mean, the bear's, like, just right there. And, you know, you don't know if he's dead or not. Yeah.

So we just kind of gather our thoughts. And the crazy thing is I looked down at my gun, figuring I dropped all 15 shots off. And it had jammed on number 14. Oh. You had an empty cot? No, it jammed. Oh, it did? So I think when I was laying on my back, you know, those glocks, you got to hold really tight to have a cycle. And I might have limp-wristed one. I have no idea. But it was jammed. Didn't kick it out, huh? Yeah, it didn't kick it out. So, and we didn't, I mean, at that time, we didn't know if the bear was, you know, we thought he was wounded or we didn't know he was dead, dead. So, you know, I put that final shell in the back of his head and, you know, we got out of there.

Oh. Jeez. Okay. So that ended the hunt? I mean, yeah. Sounds like you need to do hunting. Sounds like you need to do hunting, boys. Two years in a row. And you probably did lost a hunting buddy, too. Your initiative. Yeah. I probably did. It was his first, I mean, that was his first 20 minutes in this particular unit. And that happens to him. Jeez. Yeah. Pretty crazy. That's crazy. Did you go back to game and fish? I mean, did you start making phone calls or anything? You know, a lot of things go through your mind. Let me just tell you that. And fortunately, you know, we're just walking out and I just called the, the Fremont County Sheriff's Office and just, you know, just said, hey, I just killed this bear in self-defense. And they wanted me to just kind of hang out up there. And we waited around for like two hours.

And they called us later and said they couldn't get an officer up there so that they just beat me at my place. And so they came out, interviewed me that night. And then the next morning they had a team of investigators out there. And I just showed them where the bear was and I went out there with them. And they went in first. They kept me out of the woods. And they did their investigation. And then they called me back in. And then I just kind of reenacted everything that happened. And basically they just shook my hand at the end and said, you're free to go. Yeah. It was dead right there. It's not like it crawled off in the night or anything. No. No. Yeah. I mean, I guess you put one in the... It's not like you shot from 100 yards away. It's just all... In the trees. I mean, it's like you can't... Yeah.

If it's in trees or any kind of forested area, it's like, yeah, this happened at close quarters. Yeah. I mean, my casings were... Strewn all over. ...next of the bear. You know. Nines and tens everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. But, wow. It was a crazy thing. You know, the biologist was out there who did the investigation. I got to talk to him. You know, they had that bear tag. And it was a 20-year-old boar. 20. You know, he had no other prior, you know... Fractions. Was it marked or tagged or anything? None of that. Didn't have a history. Yeah. Bad behavior. Do you think there's a chance? I mean, do you have a gut feeling it might have been the bear from the year before? You know, I was almost 100% sure. Yeah. And so, two weeks go by, and I'm thinking, hey, that bear is now out of that place. I'm going to go back. No, it's not a big place.

And it's like, you know, like I said, it's not where you'd expect a grizzly bear. And I went out there two weeks later, you know, chasing elk and parked my side-by-side and got out of the side-by-side. And there was fresh grizzly tracks there. Big old boar track. No kidding. Who knows? It's really time to find another place. It is. I mean, I know you probably have memories on every ridge around there, but they were all from the 90s and early 2000s. Yep. Now, it's hard to leave a place. You know, the crazy thing is. The crazy thing is that I did jump spots, but there's grizzlies everywhere up there. Every spot I went had fresh grizzly tracks. Wow. Well, yeah. So, in the end, I mean, yeah, it was, they got the bear, you're in the right, I guess, or not in the wrong, whatever it was. And you're on your way. Your story corroborated exactly what it laid out when they were there. Yeah.

But, I mean, yeah. So, the moral of the story, if you had pepper spray, again, might be telling a whole different story. Because this was in close quarters. Yeah. There is no chance. There was zero chance that bear spray would have stopped that. Yeah. No way. And, you know, that was, you know, during the investigation, that was the main thing. It's just, they were just like, well, where's your bear spray? I go, well, it's in my pocket. And it was funny because when they went out there to check on dead bear, you know, this team of, you know, three guys, they were all carrying AR-10s and sawed-off shotguns. And their spray was deep in their pockets, too. So, I just said, you know, the same reason you're carrying a weapon. Well, you've been there. Tell them, I've been here before. And I've sprayed it at times. And I don't trust that that's enough. And so, that's why I have this.

And, you know, that's, if I have the choice to go for one hip or the other, you're usually going to pill the pistol versus the bear spray. So, do you still, or would you still pack bear spray? And is 10 millimeter the right answer? You've done a lot of research since, I'm sure. You know, I'll definitely have bear spray. And, you know, if those bears, you know, if they're out there giving you, you know, the boarding bark or, you know, you know, doing circling you and stuff like that, I'd spray them. Yeah. Yeah. But situations where they, I mean, both those situations, I mean, there was no warning. You know, you're minding your own business. It reminds me of when I was a kid in the 80s. And you'd be walking home from school and the dog, the neighbor's dog would come chase you for no reason. Yeah. Yeah. No? It was just the same thing.

You got reaction, your reactionary time is to do one thing. And whether, a dog you can maybe run. But on a bear, you're either grabbing a pistol or you're grabbing spray. And I know which one I would grab if you're in close quarters like that. You don't have time to try one. Oh, that didn't work. I'm going to get the other one. You don't. No. You don't. Yeah. You know, if I had a grizzly bear snapping at me at 30 yards, you know. That's different. I'm pulling the spray out and filling the air with spray. Yeah. But when their head's down and they're coming at you at 10 yards, I'm using my 10. Yeah. So 10's the right one? Well, I like the auto. It worked for me. Mostly the auto versus six rounds. It worked for me. Well, and you got more than. So I just, I mean, I don't know how true this is. I just heard through the grapevine, some friend of a friend knew the guy who did the investigation.

And they said I hit the bear like eight times. Out of. And it penetrated. Out of 14 or whatever it was. Out of 14. Yeah. So, I mean, you want to be able to fill the air with some lead. Did it penetrate good? I mean, did they say? Or did they indicate? I have no idea. I, you know, it was. And again, this is from a third hand. Yeah. It actually came from my sister. She had a class, a student in her class to go about the story who knew the guy who did the investigation. So she mentioned that I hit it like seven or eight times. The bear had like nine inches of fat on it or something. Wow. It was some crazy. Yeah. So. You've got to have some. I was looking at our bear rounds. We got the 10s mostly because of you. Well, yeah. Aaron's got a trip planned up north. So did some of us. And I don't know. When Aaron. I've said this many times.

And Aaron does research on something, whether it's trucks, tires, gear, whatever. I know it's thorough enough. I don't need to do any more research on it. I just. I buy. I said, all right. Where'd you buy? Okay. I'm buying that too. And what am I? Okay. I bought that too. But I looked at the data on the bear rounds. And I don't know. I was just. I mean, they're 190 grainers. And it just. The energy was. There's some. Significant for being an auto. But it wasn't. It wasn't like. Like even a 357 was pretty impressive actually. But. Yeah. I think it's. The problem is you got a. You can't shoot a revolver. Six or even eight. It's. Not what you want. You don't. You want a 12, 15 plus. Yeah. Yeah. If I had six rounds. I mean, that bear would have been on me. Yeah. Right. I mean, he didn't even slow down. Well, let's just face it. You're. You're aiming. But you're kind of point aiming.

And you're just. You're pulling the trigger. And you're hoping. Like you're going to miss over half the time probably. So if you have three. What if. Or six. How many are you going to hit it? Yeah. Let's just. One or two. Keep it real. Yeah. I don't care. That's right. How. Unless you're really trained. And you have. Like law enforcement guy. And have been in weird situations. Nerves of steel. And you have nerves of steel. But like. You don't. Most people have never had an encounter like that. Nerves of steel. Are not. Not what you have. And so you just. You react. And you're going to miss over half the time. Or three quarters of the time. I contend. I mean. Myself included. Yeah. You definitely will. Yeah. Yeah. Just go chucker hunting. Yeah. Exactly. Spray and. Spray and pray. Yeah. Right. But. Well. The chucker hunters. I mean. There's a lot of chucker hunters out there.

That never kill a chucker. Like there's. They're not. They're no joke. They're kind of hard. Are you getting into it up there? I do a little bit. You got dogs. Or you just flush them and hunt them? No. I got a pair of can of tracks. The devil. Hunting the devil bird. Yeah. Squawkers. Desert squawkers. It's funny. When you're in them. Like it's never seasoned when you're in them. Oh yeah. It's always. Hot. It's always summertime. And they're gathered around water by the hundreds. Yeah. Well. That's a crazy story. Jason. I mean. Yeah. I mean. Brings awareness. And I mean. You guys are in Idaho. Southeast Idaho. Wherever. I mean. Or you're in Wyoming. You're in Montana. And there's other places within those states. You know. Even north. You know. North. West Montana. There's a lot of places you can have these types of things happen. And. I don't know. It. Take precautions.

That's kind of what we're just talking to people about. You're. Second or third guy we've talked to. And it's. Everybody can learn a little bit. Something different from it. But every situation. You better have. You better have it somehow mapped out in your head. Luckily. Like you said. You had the year before. And I think that's very. That's. They're very fortunate. Had a year before. It was kind of a close call. But didn't get real. Real close. Fortunately. That allowed you to say. I need something better than pepper spray. And then. Who knows. Maybe bring in a buddy. I mean. You know. Two people. Better than one. Whether you're just making noise. With a nine millimeter. Or whether you're actually helping. You're just still making noise. Or yelling. Or whatever. It's. Yeah. Not going to happen that way. Very often either. A lot of times you split up. You go in an area with a buddy.

And you're. A mile apart. But you know where you're both at. But. Anyway. That was probably fortunate too. I'd imagine. Yeah. A lot of good fortune. You know. The sad thing is. You know. I've been hunting out there for 20 years. And. You know. The thought of. You know. Even people seeing a grizzly bear. It was kind of like a. It was kind of like a unicorn. I mean. You just heard about it. You never saw them. You know. I. I saw four. In. In 2022. And you know. I had that one last year. And up until then. I've never even seen grizzly bears up there. Yeah. And you found it there. Most falls of. Of your life. You know. Yeah. Over half of the falls. You know. Last say 20 years. Or 30. Whatever. So. Yeah. Well. Crazy. I did. Just so you know. I did. We did find a picture of Adam. And his white. We did. You did. Logan. Logan found one. I had to dig deep on the internet. But I found it. Dude.

I'm pretty impressed. Who is that? Come on. Looks like my. My friend Adam. Come on. That looks like Vin Diesel. We'll have to send this over to you Jason. It's pretty. I have a feeling. I want to see it. And it's in the. It's in the hills. It matches the environment. When Adam had a full head of hair. No. Okay. AI shows it with. We're bald. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Well. I appreciate your time. We do. And hopefully you got some hunts to look forward to this year. And draw some cool tags. I know you have in the past. But be safe out there. And I'm sure you'll be packing the 10 in Idaho. Yeah. We appreciate. Hey. Hey. And Adam. You know. Thank you. And Aaron. You know. Fortunately you two have. Been instrumental in me drawing a sheep tag. Yeah. Two amazing elk tags. Awesome. A moose tag. Yeah. And you know. I'm staring at some Colorado points. Yeah. That need a burn here soon.

And it would not have happened without you guys. Awesome. Well. It's. Maybe it just brings awareness. And to. Yeah. Have a. Dream. And start applying. You know. For you probably 20 years ago plus. That. Yeah. You know. You just got to have your name in the hat. Like we always say. Some of these like sheep tags. And you drew Nevada desert tag. I mean. As a non-resident. That. That's no given. Doesn't matter how many points you have. So. Yeah. Or some of the other tag. Utah boulder. Yeah. Archery tag. So. It's fun. Good luck to you this year in the draws. So. All right. Thank you guys. Appreciate it Jason. You bet. Thanks Jason. All right. You bet. Bye.

Jeez. I don't. That is awesome. I want to hunt this. I'm going. I'm staying south. I don't like these northern states. I don't either. We got one more story coming up. What did we do yesterday? That's pretty intense. We just applied for Wyoming elk. Fine. We're deep in bear country. No. I mean. Anyway. Just a little. We're going to amend. Amend. You can amend until May 8th everybody. That's right. If you just had to get an application in yesterday. For the deadline on Wyoming elk. And we talked to a lot of guys. And made a lot of plans. And made some plans ourselves. It's a long wait. You just got to get an application in. So you can amend and choose a new unit. Free of charge. Yep. Many times as you want. Plug and play. Like Jason likes to say. We actually. I don't know of how much rumor there is to this. But. You know. Obviously Wyoming. Everything else is due later. April 31st.

To May 31st. They've always liked to be the first thing to open. And their elk. In January. They used to get the results out by the end of February. That was awesome. Yeah. But the problem is. They were kind of going off of tag quotas from the year before. And so they had to draw non-resident tags. Yeah. And then the resident draw occurred in May. And if they had to cut tags in a unit. They still had to give us our tags. They already had drawn our tags. And so the residents took all of the tag cut. And they. Understandably. They don't want that to happen. But I've actually heard. I'm going to call it a rumor. I'm not saying it's. But. That they are actually looking at maybe using. Moving the elk deadline later. Yeah. In the near future. Yeah. Because of those. Should throw things in a wrench for our business. It is. Well. It is. It's the 20. I mean. It's 2024.

And we're applying in January. And we don't find out until May. And they keep your money. And they keep a full. Funds up front. Full deck of it. Yep. Another frustrating thing about Wyoming. Everybody's frustrated with Wyoming a little bit. Nobody likes change if it's negative change. All right. Everybody. Little shout out to the Hunt Expo. We got that coming up. Go to HuntExpo.com. You're going to be able to apply for 200 tags at $5 each. So up to 200 tags. There's things on there that you might not be interested in. There's a lot of turkey and all kinds of different things. And whatnot. So anyway. That's a drawing. They pull them. And it's pretty awesome. It'll be February 15th to the 18th. You've got to be in person. You've got to show up in person to validate your selections. And you can go on to HuntExpo.com and select the different hunts that you want to be in the draw for.

And the Hunt Expo is one of the most impressive hunting conventions there is. But quite frankly. It's where we would choose to go if we could choose one hunting convention to attend for Western beginners. It is for Western. Yeah. Exactly right. It's right up our alley and probably most of our listeners' alleys in terms of a really good mix of Western lower 48 species. As well as, you know, Alaska and Canadian outfitters there. Some Mexico outfitters. So it's very good coming up February 15th to the 18th. We'll be there in our same place as always. We're going to have some great deals. We'll talk probably more before then about some of our optics deals. But we bring a bunch of optics. We want to get rid of them. So if you're looking at something, want to look at something, want to look at our new tripods and some of that, we'll have all those there. So, yeah. Hunt us down. Same pot.

Going to be some special deals. Awesome. Yeah. We're looking forward to it. HennExpo.com. Also, we want to throw a shout out to Kinetrek Boots. You know, Kinetrek's been a long-term partner of ours here at Epic Outdoors. We appreciate them. If you're looking for a new pair of hunting boots, go to www.kinetrek.com. K-E-N-E-T-R-E-K.com. 1-800-232-6064. Just so happens to be on the very back cover of the newest Epic Outdoors magazine that we just barely got our first sneak peek of. Right here. We had to box them. Show up. That's right. The EMAG's live online, so if you're anxious, there's really nothing real pressing as far as deadlines. We cover Utah. We cover New Mexico and Oregon in that magazine. New Mexico being the earliest deadline covered in that state, which I believe is, what, Jason, March 20th, I think, or somewhere around there. Yeah. We're excited. It's pretty fun.

You know, this is kind of a fun time of year. It's stressful here. It's stressful here in the office because we're cranking pretty hard and whatnot and trying to shape everybody's plans. Bronson, we're talking to people about their short-term, mid-term, long-term strategies and how many, every single person has a different strategy. So it takes you mentally into their life and you're doing that 20 or 30 times a day trying to put yourself in their shoes and help them make good decisions on where to utilize their points and whatnot. Yep. That's right. Something we take pride doing. So, yeah, March 20th is the deadline for that. And, of course, inside the front few pages, page 7 of this one, we have the tentative outdoor schedule for, epic outdoor schedule for all the deadlines and application results and things like that that'll, drawing results that'll come out.

So, anyway, it's jam-packed. So, again, this is MAG number two for 2024 and we're just clicking down through the different states. So, all right, let's contact a guy, a really good friend of mine. He's actually, he was, I knew him as a young kid. Watched him grow up here in Cedar City. He ended up moving away. He wrestles up north in college and one of the best wrestlers our town's ever seen. And, anyway, Brady Lowry, and he's an intense hunter. That's what I like about this kid. And they were out shed hunting, came across the grizzlies. A lot of you saw this on social media. I don't know that he's ever done a podcast about it, but I'd just like to, I would just like to give him a holler and kind of get his take. Different time of year to spring. You know, we're not out during a big game hunt where you sometimes have a weapon with you, whether it be a gun or, I guess, bow.

But it's not in the middle of a hunt. That's right. A hunt per se would have been May or I don't know when this happened. We'll find out. Yeah. Pretty awesome. You can Google it, too. Brady Lowry, Bear Attack, and there's all kinds of news articles on it. But let's just give him a holler.

Hey, Jason. Hey, Brady, Jason, Carter, Adam Bronson, Logan here, Epic Outdoors Podcast. How you been doing? I've been doing good. How are you? Good. Just grinding away here. Of course, doing the hunting thing. As you know, it's all we've ever done. But how are you doing? I'm doing good. Good. Have you got a few minutes? I do. I want to just give you a minute to be able to kind of tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from. Obviously, you're from Heron Cedar, which we're super proud of. You're a pretty incredible, talented wrestler and whatnot. And come from that background with your dad and whatnot. But just maybe tell us a little bit about your background. And then, obviously, you're super into hunting. You've been a shed hunter like crazy. Shed hunted the crap out of all this stuff. And then, when you got tired of this country, you headed up north.

So, maybe just tell us a little bit about that. And then, lead into our fun story. Yeah. No. I was born and raised in Cedar City. Love it. Still do. But I wrestled my whole life. My dad was the head wrestling coach at Canyon View there. So, I was kind of born and raised into it. And ended up being a two-time state champ in high school. Their first one. And that was cool with my dad being the head coach. That's awesome. But, from there, I went and wrestled in college in Wyoming. And became a two-time All-American up there at Northwest College. And that was cool. But I've shed hunted. Hunted. You know, just kind of love the outdoors everywhere. So, everywhere I go, I'm attracted to the mountains. And end up there one way or the other. Yeah. And you went to school with my kids here in high school and whatnot. And so, you know, and, of course, lived just down the street from me, basically.

Yeah, pretty much neighbors. Yeah. I feel like I've known you since you were little, little. But that's not necessarily the case. Maybe 10 years old and on. So, anyway. Tell us, you know, maybe tell us how this got going. You went up there to Wyoming. Do you, you know, maybe do you love Wyoming? There's a lot of game and a lot of opportunity up there. Do you see yourself staying there forever? And maybe what do you like about Wyoming and then how this led to the incident? No. So, Wyoming's awesome. I do love it. Every part about it. The people are awesome. And when I lived there, I did my two favorite things in the world. I got to wrestle. And you got to be in the mountains all the time. So, I've seen a lot of cool things out there. And I'm actually living in Lewiston, Idaho now. Oh, awesome. In northern Idaho. And going to plumbing school up here.

But I'm in the mountains, you know, all the time up here. That's awesome. And it's getting to be shed hunting, so. Got to be that time of year coming up right away. Yeah. So, when did this, I mean, you were wrestling at the time. And I know wrestling here is like a winter sport. But I don't even know collegiately when it is. And so, is this obviously spring or early summer? When did this incident happen? And where were you roughly at in the state? So, it was fall. It was our preseason. It was actually our first week of actual wrestling practice when I got up to Wyoming. So, it was in October. Okay. And we were out, you know, looking for bulls, actually. One of our buddies had tag. And we just went out to the mountains and we started picking up sheds up there. And once you start finding sheds, it kind of takes over the day. Especially if you're not the one with the elk tag.

You're like, well, now I can shed. I can shed. I'm going to glass from this knob over here and I'll be there. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so we, and I actually took three of my other wrestling buddies out with me. So, it was me and three other wrestlers that went out. And me and Kendall go out all the time. He was kind of just like me growing up. It's an outdoors every chance he can get shed hunting fool. So, we kind of knew what we were doing. And the other two kids were kind of a little fresher. Didn't spend as much time out there. So, we went and we hiked all day from, you know, 8 o'clock once we got out there until 5 o'clock when we decided to turn around. And found a pile of sheds. It was, you know, I had a good day. They didn't find much. Have you found some big, big old elk sheds up there? Yeah, I found a couple. That day we didn't find anything big. But, yeah. Yeah. But I've found some good ones up there. Yeah. And I've been to this spot multiple times before. Okay. With other people.

So, it wasn't my first time going to this spot. Yeah. But we turned around and decided the two kids who were kind of fresher, they decided they were just going to go to the bottom and kind of look for deer sheds on the way back and take the bottom out. And me and Kendall just looped, you know, 100 yards down from where we just walked. And we're just going to walk a little bit lower elevation all the way back to the truck. We were probably five, six miles away. Oh, jeez. You and Kendall, are you and Kendall, I mean, as tight as you get, really good friends. He wrestled, too. Yeah. So, he wrestled, too. He was from Evanston, Wyoming. But we didn't know each other. We knew about each other, but we've only been hanging out for about two months at this time once we got to college. But we did become super tight, super fast. Yeah. Kind of just our hobbies matched up.

But we're going, and it probably wasn't, I don't know, five minutes after we split up with the other two kids. We were walking down below, and me and Kendall were, oh, 50 yards apart, 30 yards apart. And I came kind of up on this hill and saw a big, big old pile of bear shit. Like, it was everywhere. And so, I look over to Kendall and said it out loud. I said, Kendall, you know, there's a big pile of bear shit right here. And simultaneously is when I heard the first branch break, and I looked over, and the bear wasn't 10 yards away from me. Well, are you, how open or how timbered is it where you're at right here? I just got to the tree line. So, we were walking in open, open, and I just came up on a tree line. And Kendall was kind of in the trees a little bit, but he could still look back and see me. Like, I could see him when I was talking to him. Right at the edge, walking in, just in.

So, the bear's in there, and he's. The bear's in the tree line, yep. Yeah, okay. Yep, and so, I yelled at him and hear the branch break and look over and didn't have nothing but to yell bear. I guess the only thing I got out of my mouth before I got tackled, really. He was coming at you that fast? Yep, yep, coming at me. Like, five or ten yards, or how far away was it when you first saw him? When I first saw him, he couldn't have been, you know, more than ten yards away. Yeah. Yeah. It was right there. I don't know if I jumped him out of his bed, if it was bedded down right there. Yeah. If I just was looking for sheds and not really looking ahead of me. Yeah. It just tackled me. You know, it didn't really start biting or hurting me until after it tackled me. It pushed me probably 40 yards down the hill with its head throwing me with its paws. Really? Gee.

It was kind of just like, you know, what the crap. And I don't know if it was trying to get me away from its cubs or what it was trying to do. But it was getting me the hell out of there. And it kind of pushed me up against these rocks and pinned me up against these rocks. And that's when I looked up and we kind of locked eyes for a second. And I was like, holy shit, this is actually happening. Yep. Like, this is game on. Jeez. Yep. It's game on. And how long do you think that pushing, rolling, whatever, down 40 yards took? And what's your buddy doing at this time? Is he fairly close? Yeah. He's watching the whole thing. He watched the whole thing happen. And he's kind of up above a little bit. And he's coming down yelling, you know, hey, bear, throwing rocks, throwing sticks. Do you guys have any protection of sorts? Me and Kendall didn't.

So we're kind of just free handing it at this point. You're wrestlers. I mean, that's what. Yeah. Probably just. My paws or my weapon. They usually handle their own business is what they usually think. Yeah. Our other two friends, though, they had a gun that were with us. But we had just split up from them. Yeah. And Kendall's watching the whole thing happen. And, you know, not to take his words, but he said he couldn't even see me. The bear was just. On. Just over the top of you. Yeah. Engulfing me. He's like, he knew I was under it, but he said he couldn't even see me. Like. Wow. And so he was throwing rocks and doing everything he could. But at this time, I, you know, threw my arm up. It bit my arm and broke my arm. My arm was kind of just hanging down at a 90 afterwards. In the forearm or up in the. Yeah. About my forearm. Halfway. Down low. Not up in the upper arm, but. Wow. No.

Yeah. My forearm. Just grow the elbow or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And. So you. Broke my bone. Okay. And it started doing the shaking. It started shaking. With your. With your arm in it. In its mouth. Yeah. Like the death. Death shake. Yeah. With my arm in his mouth. And I just remember thinking, you know, there goes one of my arms. He's going to get it. He's going to tear it off. Yeah. Like an arm is not. Yeah. It's the smallest. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Got the molars around it. And it's. So. Shook you for a bit. Yeah. Let go. I'm sure the pain was unbelievable. Because it's broken. And now he's shaking a broken arm. Or your adrenaline. Yeah. Who knows. Yep. I couldn't feel much at this point. Yeah. Or. Really. Until we got off the mountain. But. Um. Broke my arm. It kind of tore up my shoulder a little bit. I just remember thinking, I got to keep my head away from it. Yeah. Yeah.

You know. Whatever wrestling moves I was taught since I could walk. Since I've been three. I was. You know. I was trying to keep my head. You were doing it. Yeah. Everything I could. So. You know. It tore me up in a couple other places. But. Kendall's watching all this happening. And. He thought to himself. You know. I probably should just turn and run. Like. That's probably the best thing he could do. But. We'd known each other for two months. And. He kind of crawled right down. And. He physically grabbed the bear. Kind of by the rough of the neck. While it was. On you. Chewing on me. Chewing on me pretty much. Kind of grabbed it by the rough of the neck. And just. Did a yank. And the bear stopped chewing on me for a second. Didn't really know what was going on. And. And Kendall took off running after. He broke free. After it yanked on me. Yeah. And the bear turned and. Went after him.

And they went into the trees. And. So I stood up. And I don't really know how. Bad I'm hurt at this point. I just know I'm. I've got a broken arm. I can see that my arm's broke. And there's blood. Everywhere. And so I stand up. And I go. Look for my phone. Don't have service at the time. And. Don't even know what's happening to Kendall. It's. I don't have really nothing to run in there. He's like 30, 40 yards away. Maybe into the tree line again. And. Yeah. He's back into the trees. And. I can't see him. Where they went. I don't even know if the bear really got him. Yet at this point. So. I stand up. And I look. Down. And. Sure as crap. The two kids who weren't in the mountains. Much. They. Were wearing a red. Bright red. Hoodie. And they were standing about 70 yards down below us. Don't know how they didn't hear. They didn't. They were just shed hunting still. They didn't.

They didn't even know. They didn't hear the commotion. And we're coming. They didn't hear. They didn't hear nothing. You know what it's like in big country. Oh yeah. So you yelled out. It just swallows in the sound. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so I look down. And I just see the red hoodie. So I start screaming. And yelling at them to come up. Help. I knew they had a gun. You know. Help. Screaming as loud. As I could. And I actually ran up the hill a little bit. To see if I could get service. And I called 911 on my phone. While I'm yelling at them. And I think they finally got the memo. Like something. This isn't a joke. Yeah. Yeah. This isn't. This isn't a joke. So they started running up to me. And I started running down to them. And I told them. I said. The bear's got Kendall. Like Kendall's dead. Somewhere. That's what I told them. He went in the trees. I don't know where he's at.

He went in the trees. I don't know where he's at. And they just took off. And started running up. Right into the trees. Where the bear was at. And I'm like. Oh my gosh. Here we go again. But I followed him up there. They got a pistol. Or a pistol. Yeah. They had pistols. Yep. Going into the trees. And by the time we got up to the tree line. Kendall was. He was walking back out. Other trees had got away. The bear just. It actually attacked him once. And left him. And he got up. And kind of tried making a run for it. Back down. And the bear circled around. And attacked him. Twice. And really tore him up the second time. Like. Like his face. His face. His. Yeah. His head. Gouges in his head. His arms. Really tore him up the second time. And kicked some dirt on him. And thought it. You know. Kendall thought he was dead. And I'm sure the bear thought he was dead. And.

And something just got Kendall up. And he walked. Broke out of the trees. While we were coming up to him. And. I just remember seeing him. And he was red. Covered in blood. There was nothing to it. But just red. And it was like. Oh my gosh. At least at this time. 911 had been called. And Life Flight was on their way. But. Still. We're. You know. Six miles. We're six miles away from the pickup. Jeez. And. We're still right where we got attacked by the bear. Like. You know. It's. There's no. There's still. Yeah. There's no time to really stop. And be like. Oh my gosh. It's. We're going. Going. Going. Did you ever see any cubs? Like. You mentioned cubs. But it was more like you just. Were guessing. Did you. That. Never seen any cubs. Okay. Yeah. We dropped our backpacks. When the fishing game went back up in there. They said that there was. Cub tracks. Is what they said. But. I don't know.

From what I knew. I kind of thought it looked like a boar. Yeah. From seeing bears before. I thought it was a boar. And I was pretty close to it. But. I'm not going to go against it. You've seen quite a few. Yeah. A few bears up there. I have seen bears up there before. Yeah. Just not that close. I'd glassed them up across canyons. Yeah. And knew they were in there. For sure. So you meet up with him. I mean. Initially. Now you got. Kind of. One or two. The guys with pistol. Kind of. Maybe watching. In case it comes back. But you're kind of assessing what? Your injuries. His injuries. And like. Is it even optional to start walking out of here type thing? Can he speak? Is he in shock? So yeah. He comes walking out of the trees. And the first thing he asks us is he says. How do I look? You know. And Gus just goes. Oh you look great. He goes good. You know. And just keeps walking. I don't.

I don't even know how he's walking at this point. But he's in great spirits. Just. You know. Happy to be out of there. And he makes it probably about 200 yards. And he's getting lightheaded. He's like. I just need to sit down for a second. And so we're like. Okay. And we sit down. And they check our necks. You know. See if anything's really bad. Bleeding really bad. Lifelight's not there yet. You're saying your buddies are checking your necks. Yeah. Our buddies are checking us out. Just kind of making sure. Putting. They took their shirts off. And wrapped their head. His head in their shirts.

And. Took a little break. But we still knew we needed to get Kendall. Down. We needed to get him out of there. He's got a lot of facial. Wounds and bleeding. Yeah. You don't really know. At some point. Yeah. At what point. Does he. He's lightheaded. He's already told you. He's getting lightheaded. Like is that the start of something really bad here. Or you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. We aren't medics. So. They kind of pick him up. And start helping him down the hill. And we're just heading straight down. We aren't going on the trail at this point. We're trying to get to the farm fields. Thinking where a helicopter can land. You know. You're just going to a clear spot. Yeah. So. Yeah. Is it getting evening. Late evening. Is it. Is dark coming up. Are you getting. Like that time of day. Yeah. It's getting. Getting there. We probably have an hour. Hour and a half till dark. But. Not enough time.

We start heading down. And just straight down. By the time we get down to the bottom. We have to cross the fence. And. Kendall's hurting. Pretty bad at this point. We pretty much had to pick him up. And carry him over the fence. And. Two farmers. That. Were out there. On their side by side. And. Apparently when. Somebody calls live flight. They call and notify all the farmers around. That there is a bear attack. Keep your eyes out. You know. Really. The kids are alive and injured. And so when we got to the bottom. These two farmers drove on their side by side. And came and. Picked us up. Drove us. Yeah. Drove us back to where. The ambu. There were ambulances there waiting. But. The live flight still hadn't showed up. It takes a while for live flight. To get called. Spool up. All their checks. And balances. I don't even know where they're coming from up there. Cody.

I don't know where they're coming from. But. Yeah. And we were moving pretty quick. You know. To get them down. And out of there. And. So. At least they had the ambulances there waiting. And to get us back. And. Rip our clothes off. And I didn't realize how bad I was. You know. Tore up. Or how bad he was tore up. When we were up there. Until they started. Cutting our clothes off of us. And seeing. You start. Semi-relaxing a little bit. Like. Yeah. Okay. We're enhancing. That's when. That's when the pain kicked in. And that's when it was like. Nasty. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Nasty. Snapped. Was it compound fracture in your. In your arm. Or just displaced. Terribly. Yeah. It was sticking out compound. Yeah. It was. It was nasty. But I was. Just running with it. Not even holding it up. Was it swinging? You weren't. Yeah. It was just hanging. It was just hanging. And I look back at it.

And I was like. Man. I probably could have held it up. A little better. Could have. Could have supported it a little more. But.

Nope. With. So. One thing we say though. Kendall says it. And I say it. Is. We'll go back. And people ask us. Well. Do you wish you would have done this? Do you wish you would have done that? And. And really. With the outcome of it. There is nothing I would change. And. There's nothing he would have changed. Other than packing a gun. Yeah. A pistol is like the only thing. It happened. Oh yeah. It happened. One with you. You jumped a bear at. 10 or 20 yards. He was on you. Immediately. What could you do? You might not even abandon all of that situation. Even if it got your pistol out. Do you feel like Kendall saved your life? A hundred percent. Yeah. If he would have just left me and that bear. That bear was. There to kill me. Yeah. Yeah. And amazingly. After it came after him twice. And maybe. I don't know if he actually quit moving. Played dead. Or just. I don't know what happened.

The bear fortunately left without killing him. Right. I don't know why. Sometimes you don't know why. But that's. Just had enough. You know. It's. Fight or flight mode too. And so then he got done with you. Went in. Saw a dude running and. Took after him. And then. Dealt with him twice. And then at some point. It's like. All right. Fortunately. Wow. So those two farmers are probably on your. Christmas card list. For the rest of your life. Huh? Probably. For sure. Yep. Wow. All three of them will be. There are three. Yeah. That was. That's crazy. Kind of a godsend there. Because. Who knows. I don't know if he had a couple more miles to go. Who knows. What happens. So the photos. Of you guys in the hospital. Went on. They're pretty telling. Like he. His face. And all of that. It was. It was pretty crazy. Yeah. It was. It was crazy to. You know. Be. In college.

Knowing that it was a possibility. But never thinking that it would happen to you. And. I still go out in the mountains. But I tell you what. I'm a lot more prepared. Every time I go out. Do you take bear spray and pistol? Or. Yeah. I double up if I'm in. Montana. Or Wyoming. Yeah. If I'm in grizzly country. I saw somebody was reaching out. Offering you guys. You know. Free firearms. Or whatever. Did that ever happen? And what. What. What did you learn on your research. As far as your best calibers? Um. I. Did. Someone reached out. And bought me a 10 millimeter. Just. I like that. It has the more rounds. Auto. Yeah. Personally. Because. I think if a bear's running at you. You're going to be so freaking scared. You're going to miss half your shots. Yeah. We say the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Does it bother you anymore? Would it bother you to go in bear country anymore? Or are you just like.

Bring it. Or just. No. I. I've been back after. I've had another bear. Run up on me and my buddy Cole Lake. Oh yeah. And. Coley. From here in town too. Yep. We were up at the. In Montana. At the Clearwater Open. And had another one run up on us. After I got attacked. And. It was kind of scary. But. You gotta. You know. I was prepared. Yeah. That time. A little bit different. But. Yeah. It's a little bit different. So they. Obviously had to do surgery on your arm. And all that. Your wrestling seasons. Both of you. Probably that year. You didn't wrestle. Out of my. Obviously you didn't. So did you. How's your arm. You recovered. Did you wrestle. I mean. How did it all go. No that's the. I think that's the coolest part about the story. Is. We got attacked. We both went in for surgery. And. At the same hospital there in Billings. And. About three months later. I was. You know.

Back on the mat wrestling. And he was. Cleared up just as fast as me. Just because he didn't break anything. Wow. A lot of cuts. Lacerations. And so. When I got back to the mat to wrestle. He was taking his red shirt year. But it was my last year in college. So I kind of really. Wanted to wrestle. Poor guy. He was my drill. He was my drill partner. Getting me back. Getting me down to weight. And. And I only got to wrestle. At regionals and nationals. But. Made it to nationals. And I came back and took fifth place. And all American. At nationals that year. So. Without a season under my belt. That was. You know. Yeah. Pretty big accomplishment. I guess. Awesome. Yeah. That is. Wow. But you've always. You've always had. Incredible genetics. And natural talent. It's pretty awesome. A lot of drive. Obviously. Yeah. To even. To get back to that. And then. Yeah. Your dad was good. Let me just.

Anyway. Well. Anything else you want to add. To. All of this. No. Just. You guys are awesome. We've always watched your stuff. Me and Kendall both. You know. It's. You guys got a good thing going. When Jason reached out. I was like. Heck yeah. We'll hop on and talk. But. I'm glad. It wasn't available. Well. I'm sorry. We didn't. And. And. A lot of times. We just don't know when we can do them. And what not. And I hit you. What a week and a half ago. But then. Anyway. Just. We. We decided today was the day. We had Wyoming deadline come and go yesterday. So. We've. We've got a few minutes. You know. Yep. So. Well. Tell him. We. We missed having him on here. And. We're just. We're super. Glad you guys. Glad you guys can tell the story. Yeah. Alive and well. Exactly. So. Have you done any other podcasts on it? Not any. Big ones really. We did the news articles. Yeah.

Kind of people come and did stories. But. We haven't done too many podcasts yet. What year was it? Was it 2022?

It was. Yeah. 2022. October 15th. Okay. All right. All right. Well. Well. We appreciate it. I mean it's. You know. We've had a few of these stories today. And. Some of them. They. Prepared someone. Some they couldn't. And yours. I mean. You just had to survive. Basically. That's all. That's the moral of I'm getting. It doesn't matter what they. He had. At least you. You were. You were going to get bit. You know. Yeah. You know. He. You know. Brady. He was. He was. Had a gun. Had pepper spray. You wouldn't have probably had to do anything. Had. Your immediate buddy had a gun. And maybe that could have stopped part of it. But. Those. These stories are. They're real. Inspiring and real. And yeah. Make us all maybe prepare a little bit. And. And almost everybody said the same thing. You know. They just said. I just figured it never happened to me. Everybody has said that. So. And it.

And it can. So that's. Kind of what we're trying to talk about. Idaho's pretty. Pretty good to their residents. You got a lot of. Good hunting there too. What. What. You got any goals and aspirations. Big game wise. Or. I love the opportunity. It. It gives you to hunt in Idaho. You know. I get to go and buy my sportsman's pack. And. Yeah. I get to kill. You know. Kill an elk. Kill a deer. Kill a wolf. A bear. A cougar every year. You know. It gives you as much opportunity as you can want. Going to be awesome. Yeah. It's going to be awesome. All right. Brady. Well. We sure appreciate you taking some time. And. Man. We're. We're glad everything turned out good. Obviously. We talked prior to this. And. You know. Right when it happened. And. A little bit. Exchange some text and whatnot. We're just. Happy for you. And. And it was just. Awesome. We appreciate you coming on. Telling your story.

And. Allowing all the listeners to hear it. First hand. Yep. Thank you. For letting me come on. That's awesome. All right. You bet. Brady. We appreciate it. Thanks man. You bet. See ya. All right. Kind of crazy. Kind of a. It's no joke. Mellow day. Mellow ending. I mean. It's like. Jeez. Yeah. Kid's tough man. No. Yeah. Well. He's one of the toughest kids in town. He's just tough. Honestly. Probably a great. Reason why they were able to at least. Hobble down off the mountain. They were obviously in great shape. They're young guys. But they're. You know. College athletes that. You know. Have been pushed through a lot of. A lot of. Tough. You know. Hard things. And. Anyway. A lot of people. You go up there. If you're not even in shape. Good luck trying to get off a mountain. With. Your arm dangling to the side. Or. Your head bleeding all over. But anyway. Yeah. Take precautions people.

Well. Anyway. Appreciate everybody. That's been able to call today. It's been. You know. And lightning's been. You know. You learn from it. You do. I mean. We've. Because of these stories. We've taken precautions with hunts we have coming up this year. Jason. You know. With just. Stuff we didn't have. That we're going to have now. Whether it's Alaska or other places. So. We appreciate the stories and the time that they've been able to share. And hopefully everybody else. Maybe learns a little bit of something from it too. Yep. I want to give one more shout out to. One of our main advertisers here. From the very start. QU. QU.com. Whether you've got backpacks. Whether you've got hunting gear. Whether you've got accessories for hunting gear. Tents. Sleeping bags. Tents. Sleeping bags. All that. They've been with us from the start. We appreciate. Brendan Burns. Justin Schaefer.

Administer some of their guide and outfitter program. I've been great friends of ours here at Epic Outdoors for a long, long time. QU.com. K-U-I-U.com. Limited lifetime warranty on all their gear. Great stuff. Whether it's base layers. Insulation. Outerwear. Like I said. Packed. Sleeping bags. Footwear. Everything. Check them out at QU.com. They sell direct only. You're not going to find it in stores. Very unique business model. Frankly, kind of a little bit surprised it hasn't maybe caught on more with whether it be hunting or other. I mean, there's other stuff that sells direct, but it's not really caught on. They just avoid the middleman. Go. As far as their sales tactic. Yeah. Good practice. Yeah. Not a common way to do it. No. I like it though. I do. It's unique online. Of course, they're going to be at all the shows. They'll be.

They've been at a bunch we've been to already this year, and they will be at Western Hunting Conservation Expo if you need to fit, try, and check out their new stuff. You know what I like about QU? They're not afraid to say they're pro hunting. No. Absolutely. Oh, they're hunters. It was, you know, Jason. I mean, he was a hunter. Yeah. It was built. I'm building hunting gear for me and my hunts. That's what he's. They're not afraid to show a rifle on social media. No. I think there's. Or dead animals. Gripping grids. In this day and age, there's companies doing that, and I just think. Anyway, I think it's important. I think some of that kind of stuff, not being embarrassed that we're in the hunting industry, I think it's important anymore. And it's sad you even have to mention it. Wouldn't that be natural? I think it'd be natural. Right. But anyway. Appreciate it. Just like Adam said.

Appreciate y'all that's been on here. Anybody out there that has crazy bear attack stories, why, maybe reach out to us on Instagram. Maybe we do a part two, part three. Who knows? I know there's plenty of people out there. These are just a few of the guys that we know that came to mind last minute as we were kind of trying to prep for this. And, Bronson, we've got one month left for our membership drive where we're giving away incredible hunts. Yeah, it is. It's deadline, what, the 29th? This is the leap year this year in February. You can't believe it's the first of February here. But the 29th at, what, 1159 that night is the last time. So you might get some mailers from us. You might get, you know, last, you know, it's in the February magazine. But it is our 2024 Epic Hunt and Optics Giveaway membership drive. Getting away some awesome hunts.

You know, if you haven't seen it already, it's all online at epicoutdoors.com. But I'm just going to read through the species real quick. We've got a British Columbia stone sheep hunt for 2025. Dark. Dark. Dark stone. Incredible. One of the outfitters that has the most tags anywhere in B.C. We've got a 2025 Utah slash Nevada. Both sides of the border. An 091 on the Pilot Peak. Pilot Peak Ranch is elk hunt there. We've got a 2024 Nevada elk hunt. We've got a 2024 Nevada 231 mule deer hunt. As well as a Utah early September 1 CWU deer hunt. What else, Carter? Do you want to read through the rest of them? We've got a Mexico coos deer hunt with one of our favorite guys ever. Just consistently kills giants. We actually sent a hunt winner on there with them. Killed a, I think I want to say this, 150 or 120. 15 or 20. We sent multiple. And that's for two hunters, actually.

So we did that a little bit different. Yeah, we actually did that for two hunters, Bronson. And then we're looking at each other like, why don't we give two individuals an opportunity? And maybe we do down the road. Who knows? But this would be for a party of two. One name pulled out, take you and your buddy. We're also doing a wolf hunt for two hunters. Again, same kind of thing. Two hunters get to go. Enjoy that five-day wolf hunt with hard X up there in Idaho. Grizzlies will probably be asleep then. I don't think you'll have grizzly problem, but kill every wolf you're freaking see. That's right. Kill the pack. That's right. Anyway, Bronson and I have both killed wolves up there. There's nothing like it. When you shoot one. You get one in your scope, it feels like I'm about to do something wrong. It doesn't as much now, but we did this. You're going to do federal time.

This was the first and second year that they became delisted. It was like a whole life. These are like protected. It doesn't fill as much now. Not as much, but still. It's a rush. It's one of my favorite trophies, actually. You killed the alpha male. Absolutely. In your pack. So anyway, pretty awesome. Epic gear package with a Hoyt bow, fierce firearm, as well as incredible optics. Rifle scope, 15s, whatever. We got a whole stack of stuff in there. So actually 18s from Vortex. But anyway, Swaro, Zeiss products. We're proud to give that away. $15,500 worth of gear. And then you can buy tickets to get in. We also have a bonus package where you'll get a, what are we giving? $10,000 for a hunt of your choice. That's right. So we're putting up $10,000 for a hunt of your choice. You book a hunt, we'll give the outfitter $10,000 direct. There's no ifs, ands, or buts. It's not a gimmick.

It's real money. And so anyway, you can buy tickets. You can refer a potential member, refer your buddy to join Epic Outdoors. You get a ticket in for the hunt of your choice. You can join up as many of your buddies as you want. We have ticket packages. You can go online, epicoutdoors.com to buy. You can call in, or you can mail us. So anyway, call in at 435-263-0777, epicoutdoors.com. Or you can enter by mail. You can take a photocopy of this thing in the magazine. Or download a form on our website and mail it in if you want. If you want to mail in a check, that's fine. The time of year, too, even though it's February, we've only really missed one deadline. That's the Wyoming Elk. Of course, if you do points only, that's in the summer. So if you've been a listener and haven't joined our service, it's kind of the time to do it. It'd be the time to do it. We still have January magazines.

We get you January, February, get you caught up. And then you get them for the rest of the application season from now through June, July. And you get a name in the ticket. Or ticket.

Ben. Ben. Ben. Barrel. And the hunt of your choice. That's right. So it's kind of time to do all three. You only got, what, four weeks left at the end of February. So get it in. Looking forward to seeing everybody at the Hunt Expo. That's coming up here shortly. Basically two weeks, 15 days. We'll be there. Hopefully you're there, too. Come by and visit us. Buy some optics. There'll be some deals you don't see anywhere but the Hunt Expo. Just because people like Swarro have authorized it. So, all right, everybody. Have a good day. If you hunt in multiple states or want to expand your hunting portfolio, the Epic Outdoor license and application service is for you. We have dedicated hunt consultants and a team of application specialists to help you develop and achieve your short, medium, and long-term hunting goals. We do the work. You draw the tags. Epic Outdoors license app. 435-263-0777.

The Utah Hunt Expo is right around the corner. Head over to the Epic Outdoors booth, chat with us, and get access to exclusive optics deals. Don't miss out on the 2024 Utah Hunt Expo at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. From February 15th to the 18th. Handcrafted, quality, precision rifles from start to finish is Red Rock Precision Rifles. Many of our staff use Red Rock rifles and we are excited to announce the new Red Rock Epic Mountain Rifle 2.0. Visit RedRockPrecision.com to learn more. If you're in the market for a hunting property, look no further than St. James. St. James Sporting Properties specialize in premier hunting properties throughout the West. Check out available hunting properties at StJamesSportingProperties.com. Here at Epic Optics, we are a verified dealer for Swarovski, Zeiss, Leica, Vortex, Pulsar, Stealth Cam, and more.

Call us today to visit about available optics we have and what would be right for you. Or visit EpicOptics.com. Good looking, comfortable camo describes Kuyu. Check out the new Encounter Camo line for some of the best early to mid-season gear out there. Check out Kuyu.com to learn more. Kena Trek makes great boots for any situation. Most sheep hunters in the high, rocky altitudes use these boots to keep their ankles in check in the rough terrain. Visit KenaTrek.com to learn more. We at Epic Outdoors are a Fierce Firearms dealer and have many popular models in stock and ready to ship. Call us today if you would like help deciding which options are right for you. Fierce Long Range Rifles are a great rifle and many of our employees here use them. Visit FierceArms.com to learn more. Thompson's out-of-the-box, thousand-yard accurate rifles can't be beat.

For affordable, long-range rifles and shooting schools, visit ThompsonLongRange.com. For only $150 a year, you get nine issues of the Epic Outdoors magazine and unlimited access to our hunt consultants, as well as to our verified research website and member experience program. To see all other member benefits, visit EpicOutdoors.com. Thank you to Phonescope, the best camera optic adapter out there. Phonescope makes high-quality phone cases and optics adapters. Visit Phonescope.com to learn more. Stealth Cam has high-quality, durable trail cameras that we all love to use. Check them out at www.stealthcam.com or call us to order today.