Handguns on and bear spray.
This has been a tremendously bad year for bear encounters and fatalities in Wyoming.
It was supposed to be the year that we got to hunt them for the first time in a long time.
A liberal, federal judge shut it down again.
It's not good.
People's lives are in danger.
Go on, Get out of here!
So we are definitely in the heart of grizzly country.
We just got to be careful, be smart, and watch what's going on.
One can't take anything for granted.
That little black dot moving around there in the camera is a grizzly.
He's about two miles away, but it's a grizzly bear.
We're moving in on these elk.
They're starting to move up the hill, and we're moving into position,
and I looked down and I could see him down by a pond.
That's a grizzly!
This is our public land and we will enjoy it.
I don't care what anybody says.
This is the first night of our 2018 archery elk trip.
Todd's has hunted in this area quite a bit, so I'm learning all of his secrets.
And there is usually, historically wallows just over the hill where we are going all the time,
so we're go check those out tonight.
Three or four different bulls working right now.
We're gonna try to get around on them.
Get the wind right and just see how this plays out.
If we can get a calling sequence, we will.
The winds wrong, we're going to get out here, so we don't mess it up.
It's the first night, we're here for five days.
It's the fifth one we've seen.
A couple of them are a little bit dried up, but there's three right in this immediate area.
There's rubs all over the place.
There's bulls bugling.
This is pretty early in the rut and so they're not being real aggressive,
but they're definitely here.
Super encouraging for the first night.
Todd Helms and I went out to try and chase elk around with a bow,
and we expected to maybe get in some pre-rut behavior
and kind of more of a glorified scouting trip that week and then go out the next week
and we got in the middle of a rut fest on September 5th.
you know everybody thinks, elk rut -September 15, right.
That's the date that's note everybody talks about, mid - September,
and man that's a good guideline,
but it's not a hard number.
We as human beings, I think sometimes, that animals follow a calendar like we do
and that's not the way it goes.
Brian Barney: No they don't follow our calendars do they. (Eastmans Elevated Podcast)
We're right above all the elk.
They're down in this timber way down on the bottom.
We think they're gonna bed right down in there.
They will probably come back up and feed out here at night.
We're in a super good spot right now,
but we can't go bombing in after him.
There's about a hundred sets of eyes right there.
Maybe bugle off one of those satellite bulls and challenge them to come our way.
For right now we're just gonna sit tight
That was cool!
We were super aggressive. Todd was raking brush,
bugling his brains out, cow callin and a couple times I thought they winded us.
Yeah even if they did he convince them to turn back. Nice work Man!
It's fun! I live for this stuff!
That was awesome!
Some of the Joys of hunting in grizzly country huh? That's right.
We found the rut fest that you're looking for when you're early season elk hunting.
That's what we talk about all the time in the magazines.
Guy and Ike and Mike have been talking about forever.
Behind me, in one of those patches of burnt timber,
there's gotta be a hundred elk over there and there's several bulls.
And so now our challenge is just figuring out how we're gonna get closer without spooking them,
cuz the Sun is at our disadvantage right now, as you can tell,
it's at my back right now. So we turn around and go after him, it's right in our face.
Which means, we're lit up like a spotlight is on us.
So we have to find a way to get low or something and sneak around and get on them.
I couldn't shoot!
I know.
I had broad side shots at those bulls with like 50 cows behind him.
I couldn't shoot.
There are four or five good bulls in that bunch, especially with archery anyway.
Oh yeah! Any of those bulls, any of those 6 point bulls is a shooter for archery.
Dude,
There's still bulls going ape in the bottom.
They were right there.
Brandon's wife Laurie hooked us up with some great meals.
My wife Grace hooked us up with some great meals.
Tonight I'm gonna treat Brandon to pasties. A UP tradition.
My wife made a bunch of pasties for us.
So we're gonna get the stove fired up and whip out the pasties. Get them warm.
Our Wives are really better than we deserve.
Amen to that!
Over here on the second trip out bow hunting for the fall.
We only got a couple days and because of work schedules and a lot of other good stuff,
We're gonna go hard for a couple days and we're back in the same general area.
But at the opposite end of it, so that way, we can get a feel for what's going on in this.
And it seemed like the elk were kind of gravitating down towards this end any way.
We're just glassing tonight,
but we're gonna hike up on this ridge tomorrow.
That's the plan anyway and hunt a lot of basins that are up in there.
Put these in a burrito. And you got an Alaskan burrito my friend.
Pretty dang good when you're starving in the back country.
Last year's.
Yep.
Technically a six-point.
A lot of times the archery season butts right up to the rifle season
and so you can go in the last three or four days of archery and maybe get it done with your bow,
but if you don't, you're right there for opening day of rifle.
Gonna go down after this bull.
We still haven't gotten a good look at him but judging on
where he's at, in that timber behind me,
it's a very good chance it could be the bull I saw last week.
and he's a tanker. He's a good one.
And we're studying the maps a little bit better and looking at the terrain,
it looks like a sea of green behind me, but there's an opening where there's a little separation.
He's just on the other side of, yeah, we're gonna try and creep through those trees,
cuz it is pretty open in there, and get on an elk trail
and try and peek up over the ridge.
Hopefully get a shot.
Stay tuned.
And I've got my good luck hat on, besides.
Got him! Hit him again.
You got trees. You got a tree in his way.
He's down.
You just killed a big bull!
Dude!
I told Scott I'll wear my lucky hat and that everybody thinks is ugly.
It is the ugliest hat ever. (truth)
Dude.
Look at his off side.
I did not see that.
I didn't see it either!
Look at his fronts man!
Yeah, dude. look at his Royals on that side.
Look at that big sword.
Dude!
Look at that bull!
I might do this type of stuff but, I'm gonna walk out.
I heard a really wise person tell me a number of years ago, he said
"life is made up of the experiences that you live."
And I know that sounds pretty simple but, do some exciting things,
and what's exciting to you might not be exciting to somebody else but,
whatever trips your trigger, you gotta sometimes take a chance, you know,
you got to see what you're made of.
And that's what I tell my kids, like I've got four little kids,
and part of the reason why I do it, is you got to, I don't know, test yourself,
is the right word, but it always shows you what you're made of,
but whether it's being a father or husband, or an employee, an employer,
or hunter or whatever,
whatever you're doing, do it as hard as you can.
as best as you can, and you have no regrets when you're done.
I'd like to know why I had to carry the video camera?
Because I had the horse...
Excuses, excuses...