KHC 147 - Elk Season Autopsy

Join us for recap of Cam’s hunting season - from a dream Oregon Wenaha hunt to his traditional yearly hunt at San Carlos. This podcast covers all the details of each hunt! Listen on: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3XCm31n Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3Dm6ClE Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 This Years Hunts & Hunting the Wenaha - Recap 00:10:33 Colorado Mule Deer Hunt 00:19:36 San Carlos Elk Hunt 00:31:56 Colorado Elk Hunt 00:37:24 The Man from Alaska: A God-Felt Meaningful Conversation 00:41:03 Utah Elk Hunt: Adam Greentree, Joe Rogan, and Evan Hafer 00:44:51 Hunting Wenaha: A Dream Hunt 01:16:02 Packing Out Cam’s Oregon Bull 01:21:07 Thrilled with the Wenaha Hunt After a 24-Year Wait 01:23:04 Feelings of an Undeserving Success in Bowhunting 01:28:08 Final Thoughts Thank you to our sponsors: Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Cameron Hanes?

  When I'm glassing ridges for elk or mule deer, I can't afford to miss any movement. That's why for the past two seasons, I've been using Sig Sauer binos and I absolutely love them. These optics change the game. The binos I've been using are the Zulu Image Stabilizing. That means no more shaky glass after a long hike, no more struggling to hold steady after you've humped it up a hill. With image stabilization, you lock in and pick apart the country in a way that just isn't possible with standard glass. I've found more animals and saved more time because of these binos, plain and simple. And here's the kicker, optics companies almost never offer discounts, but Sig is giving the listeners of this podcast 10% off. Just use code CAM at checkout.

• 0:43Cameron Hanes?

  So if you're serious about glassing and want the same edge I've had for the past two seasons, head to SigSauer.com, grab a pair of Zulu binos and use code CAM for 10% off. Sig Sauer Zulu Binos, see more, hunt harder. Hoyt began with a dream and a simple desire. Create the best bow hunting and target archery equipment possible. And since 1931, that is exactly what they have been doing. I'm skeptical every year that this year's bow will be better than last year's, yet somehow their engineers seem to figure it out. I think that's what sets them apart, is their engineers are all avid hunters themselves. So they take their bows in the field every year with intent to make them stronger, faster, and more accurate.

• 1:27Cameron Hanes?

  Hoyt is actually my lifetime bow sponsor. Yes, I signed a lifetime contract with them. That is how much I believe in them. Hoyt is offering listeners of the podcast 20% off on all soft good items at Hoyt.com using code CAM. That's CAM.

• 2:01Cameron Hanes?

  This is the Keep Your Moment Collective. This is Hunting Season Recap, Episode 1.

• 2:10Cameron Hanes?

  Of 1.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13Cameron Hanes?

  So we're, what is today? Is it, is it in September still?

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Yep, 29th.

• 2:18Cameron Hanes?

  29th. So we're pertinere through all of September, which is the Sauer Bowl for me.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Pertinere.

• 2:26Cameron Hanes?

  Pertinere. Shit, hellfire. And so September is what I work 11 months for. And it's about elk season and a couple, maybe a deer or two in there. But yeah, so here we are. It's, we wrapped it up, 2025.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  And now it's time to do a recap.

• 2:45Cameron Hanes?

  Let's do it.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  So we should cue everybody, cue everybody in.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  We should let the people know.

• 2:54Cameron Hanes?

  No laughing on this is not shit talkers.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:58Cameron Hanes?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Okay, uh, that.

• 3:02Cameron Hanes?

  What the?

• 3:06Cameron Hanes?

  Well, I guess a short sold good.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so we should let everyone know that this year I did not go on three of the hunts, just went to Wenahawk because I was training and swimming, which we'll get to later. This isn't shit talkers, though.

• 3:23Cameron Hanes?

  No, so we'll save.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you want to hear those stories, go check out the previous episode. But I did do research, obviously, into what we've talked about, what you posted. So I got some questions.

• 3:34Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, good.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  We'll get some things cleared up.

• 3:36Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  We'll run through all four of your hunts this year.

• 3:39Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that sounds good.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  So number one.

• 3:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Who is?

• 3:46Cameron Hanes?

  Kremren Hayes.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. So it started with, you went down to Colorado.

• 3:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Well, actually, it started here. We should, we should talk about that. You went opening day.

• 3:57Cameron Hanes?

  Right. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, okay. Here's how, here's, here, God, here was my schedule. I think Colorado opened September 2nd. Arizona, first San Carlos, big bulls opened September 3rd. I had to be in Utah for an elk hunt on the 16th.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:22Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. So we got from the 2nd to the 16th. I have to kill two bulls and a buck.

• 4:33Cameron Hanes?

  So that's in what is that second to see 14 days. So two weeks, not, not, I mean, I've definitely done that before.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 4:41Cameron Hanes?

  Though what I didn't figure in is in between all that was driving back and forth a couple of times, 10 hour drive both ways. Cause the bulls, San Carlos was so hot, the drought is just crazy down there this year. It's, they've never seen anything like it. It's so dry. But point is, um, before that Oregon opened on the 28th of August. So I'm like, I can't just sit at home for a couple of days. What am I going to do? Not hunt? So I'm like, okay, I'm going to go bomb over to Winnebago, try my best to not kill a bull by myself. And I, this is a whole other thing. I don't even know if we can show the film because back

• 5:22Cameron Hanes?

  in the day. So I said, we were going to film this and make a film. Back in the day, I had to quit hunting the wilderness in 2008 because some new law BS, whatever license or permits said you couldn't perform commercial activity, like filming a movie in a designated wilderness. And I used to hunt the eagle cap. So I'm like, well, they weren't giving permits for it. You couldn't, there's no amount of money you could pay. So we had to basically stop hunting the wilderness. I don't know if that ever changed because I've just been, I'm like, okay, well, I'm not going to have somebody dictate whether I can share this and or document

• 6:04Cameron Hanes?

  it or do whatever. Um, and then, you know, getting landowner tags, putting in for draw tags. It's just like, I just wasn't in the wilderness for a while. I mean, I've done some grizzly hunts and brown bear hunts and things like that where it's definitely, you know, backcountry. But down here for elk, I hadn't. Um, so I don't know what the status of the filming permits is or are, or if it's changed, or if they just said, you know what? We're making a big deal out of that. That was stupid.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Right. I know a couple of years ago, they passed.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  I don't know, I guess passed, but they they basically amended filming in national parks because they had the same, the same kind of rules, but they completely opened it up.

• 6:50Cameron Hanes?

  Did they?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:51Cameron Hanes?

  So I haven't heard anything about it since then, but that was back when I was with Eastmans and that was all I was doing was wilderness. And that was like, the business model is public land. And then I went to Rocky Mountain Elk for a while. They said, oh, you're killing too much, you're making it look too easy. Like, okay, so then I'm not there anymore. But anyway, it wasn't, wasn't filming. Um, so I don't know if it's changed and I'm to the point now where I'm like, you know, is this commercial activity is like, we don't have catering and a film crew. And it's like, there's like you with a little, basically your phone.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:32Cameron Hanes?

  Is this a commercial activity? So I'm almost now, if it still is a thing, I'm almost like, I don't give a. It's not like, people can, they'd make a big deal if I ever got like a ticket for no film permit and tried to turn it into like, you know, a Ryan Lammers thing, but obviously it wouldn't be. And I'm almost like, I don't care, I'll pay a. I don't know, what, what are they gonna do? They can't, they can't tell you, you can't hunt.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  As long as the consequence wasn't like poaching.

• 8:02Cameron Hanes?

  I guess I got to figure out what the consequence is before I'm willing to just deal with it. But the point is, um, I wanted to, I wanted to film it or document it or whatever, whether we could show it or not, or whether there's just a home movie. We'll figure that out later. Um, so I went over there and I was trying not to kill on opening weekend, wanted to check it out. I had never been there and I knew that that was going to be my last elk hunt of the year. The thought process was I'm going to go and get so dialed in on these other hunts. You're going to stay home, swim and get in shape for the mountains.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Damn straight.

• 8:39Cameron Hanes?

  Uh, hopefully work on the storyline for, you know, this, this film we want to make. And, um, I would just go and just be, I'd be on my A game by the time I got to win. That was my thought. So I went in on opening weekend for a couple of days and what I what I learned and yeah, I think we've talked about this on maybe Tanner's or probably shit talkers, but I learned that it was very rugged and where I wanted to go was going to be a big test. So I called you on the way home and I said, you're gonna get your shit ready because it's gonna, this is gonna be real.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:16Cameron Hanes?

  And if we're, we're doing this, you gotta be ready. So I said, take these three weeks off from, you know, because man, last year filming all four of them, we had some emotional roller coasters.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Drama, some might.

• 9:33Cameron Hanes?

  And you were like, if anybody says this must be nice, or this is just easy because you just show up and then you were just like, you're gonna have some words with them because it is fucking hard.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:45Cameron Hanes?

  Dude, traveling and okay, not, not aside from the traveling, killing anything with an arrow, I don't care where it is. And just so you know, I've killed, people will say, oh, you only hunt private, this, that. It's like, I can hunt everywhere. I've hunted all over the world, different countries, different states, everywhere, Australia, Africa, multiple times, Alaska, a million times, Canada, a million times. I kill everywhere. So guided, unguided, private, not or public, it whatever, I, I, I get it done everywhere. That doesn't mean that it's easy.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 10:25Cameron Hanes?

  It, because it was a grind last year.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, and it's not like you're just going to these private places looking for any animal.

• 10:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  You know?

• 10:34Cameron Hanes?

  And people like to say, oh, you get led around. They, they tell, and I'm like, shut the up. You have no idea what you're talking about.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  I didn't witness any leading. I got led around.

• 10:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. So point is, um, it's really hard. And I thought, well,

• 10:51Cameron Hanes?

  It was like in a, it was, by the time we got back last year after four elk hunts, it was, I mean, we needed a break. So I'm like, I don't want to go, I don't want to drag you into Winneha on a rugged rugged backcountry hunt like we were last year.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:10Cameron Hanes?

  You know, just barely hanging on by the end. So I'm like, you just get ready. I'll go do my thing. I'll be hopefully on my A game and then we'll get to Winneha. So I tried, I went in that weekend. I saw a couple, couple of good bulls. Really, it was really hard not to shoot them. But I didn't and it was amazing. It was, I was by myself also because I was down in the bottom of the, in the hole where I killed my bull, actually the same creek. And one reason why there's like a 360 down there, I could have killed it 20 yards, occurred a shot, you know, and there's no guarantee on, on these killing things with the, with archery, but I could have uh, loosed an arrow at them. But I didn't even know if I was going to be able to get out of there, let alone 300 pounds of elk meat on my back.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:55Cameron Hanes?

  So I was like, it wouldn't be responsible to kill this bull right here. So I didn't, I didn't have a plan for the meat really. I was by myself, packed in and uh, point is, got out, called you, said, hey, this is the real deal. Let's get ready and then I'll see you when I get back.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:13Cameron Hanes?

  That was it. That was opening weekend.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So he did that and then he came back and you flew to Colorado.

• 12:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I flew to Colorado Springs, got a car, got down there. Um, what did I do? So I, you know, got everything squared away. You know, I've hunted this, I've hunted this area for 20 years since 2005. So I definitely know what to expect.

• 12:45Cameron Hanes?

  Bobby Hill owns this, this property and the same guys are always there. Johnny Hamilton's there. Wes Yoder's there. It's Patty's the cook. It's, it's all good. I love it, but there's big, I always have a buck tag and a bull tag. And so my thought was I'll go and I'll get a buck because they're in velvet. You want to get them before they rub out and you know, opening weekend is about the best time to catch a buck off guard for sure. So went down there, opening day came, I think we went out. Yeah, we did. We went out, then I got there on the night before. We went,

• 13:25Cameron Hanes?

  looked at some bucks and you know, just driving around glassing, getting to vantage points and then, you know, looking for deer. We had a couple bucks. I posted those like a number one and number two buck and they're big, like 190. Yeah. I mean, fricking giant bucks. And as it turns out,

• 13:51Cameron Hanes?

  I just, I'll just say, there, the, okay, it wasn't the one, the 190 kind of eluded me, but there was this heavy, heavy, probably like 185. And yeah, I mean,

• 14:06Cameron Hanes?

  the fact is, I shot two arrows at it.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Really?

• 14:10Cameron Hanes?

  I did.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 14:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Both times, looking, both times juke'd it.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  No kidding?

• 14:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yes.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 14:19Cameron Hanes?

  And I hadn't even, yeah, we hadn't even really talked about that, but I think like 50 yards. One was 46, yeah, one was 46 straight down. And this buck was eaten on the, there's some acorns up there, eaten on the oaks. And I came in perfect, right over this ridge. And I'm like, oh, he's fricking dead quartering away 46. And I draw back and I, I don't know if I skylined or whatever, but he looked right when I drew back and I shot and it sounded like it hit. And Johnny was glassing from, I don't know, he's in the spotting scope. I wanted him to film. And

• 14:58Cameron Hanes?

  he was a ways away, but you know, I shot and I'm like, knew I missed. And I was gonna go get my arrow. I could, I was like, wow, how in the hell did I miss that buck? 46 yards. And he's like, I was going down there, then he came over and he's like, he goes, he goes, you hit him. He goes, I heard it hit. I'm like,

• 15:21Cameron Hanes?

  didn't hit him. He's like, I, I heard it hit. And I'm like, oh, no, he's texting me. And I text him back. I said, well, you're wrong. And I held up, my arrow hit this like log. And I held up this log and the arrow is sticking in it. So that's why it sounded like he hit the buck. Buck went over, bedded down again and watched him go. Perfect spot. I get back down 50 some yards. Could have been,

• 15:50Cameron Hanes?

  could have been 58 or 59, but same shooting down. He gets up and I'm perfect. And he same, he kept going to the right. I shot, went to the right and missed him again. I'm like, what in the frick? I haven't, you know, I don't have a missed a lot.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  A complete whiff?

• 16:08Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I mean, I'd rather have that than a, than a wound for sure, but uh, I just didn't know what the heck was going on. That buck was just, he was, had my number. So, um, came, you know, whatever. That was like the whole first morning.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  I, I saw a clip from, from Johnny through the phone scope of you were kind of playing cat and mouse with the buck.

• 16:30Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, oh, yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  And he busted you.

• 16:32Cameron Hanes?

  Forgot about that.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Different buck?

• 16:34Cameron Hanes?

  I think that was the same buck.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Okay. I just know I commented somehow this is still my fault.

• 16:38Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, that's right. Yeah. You, you did. Oh, so that was the first duck of the morning. And I had that buck dead. That was the same buck. I missed it twice, but before I missed it.

• 16:49Cameron Hanes?

  I got down and I was like, oh, this thing's dead as shit. Wind was good. This little tiny buck got in between me and the target buck. And it just, you know, I was kind of trying to stay in the shadow of the oak, but I was sort of in the sun peeking up and he saw something. Anyway, that was that footage. Yeah. So that was through the spotting scope. And I wanted that on the, on the kill. But anyway, so I had some opportunities and I just couldn't, you know, it was just, again, I don't, I don't miss a lot. I don't completely miss hardly ever, but uh,

• 17:22Cameron Hanes?

  Um, anyway, that didn't work out. So in the afternoon, I still wanted to find that the number one buck. I'd, I'd shot at the number two buck, that 185. Well, the number one buck we figured was 190, 195, big frame cheaters. So, um, we're up high on the ridge in the afternoon and I glassed down and I see this buck and I'm like, oh, I'm like, there's, there he is. That's a buck. And then Johnny looks, he's like, no, I don't think that's him. And he looked very similar, but he was heavier and a little tighter. Point is, perfect position. So I went down and had a great landmark. There's a log there and like this cup bank thing and, and right at the top of the cup bank was a log. So I'm

• 18:06Cameron Hanes?

  like, if I can get to that, if the wind holds going up like it is, he was feeding right there, kind of on this little bench. And I'm like, if I can get to that log, I got him. So took a while, got down there, got to the log, slowly eased up on this, this broke, this dead tree thing. And I'm up there trying to not make any noise because it's just solid oak brush and I just can't see anything, or I can't see any animal. But I'm like, I thought he could be close. So I just eased up there as quiet as I can. And I stand up, then I'm up like three feet higher. That thing's about as high as this table. And I'm standing up there and I'm like, God, where the hell is he? Should be

• 18:47Cameron Hanes?

  right here. Just right then, this big oak brush right in front of me. Here comes that fucking giant buck walking around that oak brush at 14 yards. Like, so he comes and he looks at me and I'm just standing here like this and I, I can't go, like I'm bouncing on this log, first of all, I can't do like this big thing. So I, I'm like this, and I just pull my bow like this, which about dislocated my shoulder, but just like, kind of pulled like this, is like, could barely get it back. Got it back and then went right when I got to him, just shot and just fricking smoked him.

• 19:27Cameron Hanes?

  And he ran 50 yards, just, just fricking legs going everywhere, blood going everywhere, piled up in seconds. And I get down there and he is fricking giant.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:38Cameron Hanes?

  He is, you know, we scored him at 205, which is, that's my biggest buck, that top one right there. And that's 208. He, he looks bigger than that. That, that buck is, I don't know. I, he's got little extras that I think add up, but the buck I killed, giant, heavy, heavy thing.

• 20:00Cameron Hanes?

  But yeah, smoked him. Uh, then I thought, well, this would be a good one to pack out on my back. It's not a good one to pack out a little bit.

• 20:10Cameron Hanes?

  And, uh, so about killed myself doing that, but point is got the buck killed. One of my best ever made a good shot, uh, felt good about it. Uh, overcame, you know, the two misses, which it's about like, I mean, you can dwell on a miss, you can dwell on, on a screw up for sure. Um, but we always, what we always talk about, you know, me and the boys are like, you know, Brady in the Superbowl against the Falcons, he threw a pick six, I think, and he's like on his hands and knees and kind of dove at the guy, but he's like 10 yards away. Wasn't looking good there. Down like 28, three or something thing. And then he was able to shake that off and come back and

• 20:52Cameron Hanes?

  lead him to the greatest Superbowl comeback ever. So we always say, hey, Tom Brady gotta, gotta shake it off, gotta, you know, can't dwell on it. Gotta get it done. You know, it's like, this is where you, you prove, you know, who you are. And so, yeah, I was able to get past those misses and then, um, make a good shot on that buck. He's a giant. And yeah, that was, that was incredible. So out in the mountains, there's no room for a weak gear. When I'm packing out meat in the heat or loading up for a long range training trip, I need a cooler that holds the line every time.

• 21:31Cameron Hanes?

  That's why I use grizzly coolers. These things are bear proof, rugged as hell and keep ice locked in for days, literally. I've had coolers on the trail, baking in the sun, still holding ice after hauling out elk quarters. That's performance you can count on. Whether you're running deep in the back country or just stacking meat for the weekend, Grizzly is built for that grind. Right now, you can get 20% off at grizzlycoolers.com with the code KEEPHAMMERING. And that's all one word. And I'm not going to spell it. Keep hammering. Again, keep hammering, one word for 20% off. Don't roll with weak gear.

• 22:11Cameron Hanes?

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• 22:52Cameron Hanes?

  gives listeners of this podcast 10% off any knife right now. Just use code CAM at checkout. The KEEP HAMMERING pack out, my signature blade, built for the backcountry. Get yours October 1st before they're gone. My thought was that I would, I would go to San Carlos after that, try to get a bull and then come back to Colorado for a bull because the bulls weren't really going in Colorado. So, um, I think we did. Yeah, no good ones. No, no, nothing big. Just nothing was

• 23:31Cameron Hanes?

  bugling. It was just quiet and a lot of water. So all the animals were spread out. Couldn't really, yeah, they weren't really in a, and normally it's kind of dry. And so they're going to be around water when there's water everywhere. It makes it tough. Anyway, I bombed down a 10-hour drive all the way to San Carlos, got there.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you texted me, this 10-hour drive really sucks alone.

• 23:59Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, dude. Cause I think you drove, well, except for coming back, I drove, but you drove a lot of it. And it just, it's easier with somebody.

• 24:09Cameron Hanes?

  Um, easier to navigate all those McDonald's orders and

• 24:12Speaker 01

  In and out.

• 24:13Cameron Hanes?

  In and out and Red Vines. And so, uh, yeah, I did the, did the solo, um, all the way down there. Got there and heard that it was rough because it was the drought and nobody's really seen anything. Nobody had heard a bugle and, uh, it's like normally

• 24:33Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 24:33Cameron Hanes?

  It's San Carlos. Yeah. It's like the best ever. Um, so we went out and I don't think we heard a bugle. And I don't, I'm wondering if we saw an elk, me and, uh, I have a different guide every year for whatever reason, but, um, this year I had, uh, Randy Hopkins, who's a stud. I've, he, he's guided kit before. He's never guided me, but we were doing our best there. Beau was shooting good. Everything was good. Everybody was doing well. Homer was there, talked to, swung by, talked to Tim Stevens at fishing game. Yeah, it was all good. Uh, but just the bulls just were not going and, uh,

• 25:19Cameron Hanes?

  we ended up like trying to find, so they weren't in their normal areas where they, we even went up to, you know, the dry lake area and it was just bugled like before light, not one sound.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  No kidding.

• 25:31Cameron Hanes?

  It was

• 25:31Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 25:32Cameron Hanes?

  Dead. And they're like, where in the hell are these bulls? And Dry Lake was like small. It was kinda, it's normally a big lake. It's just dry.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:43Cameron Hanes?

  So we went lower to try to find some bulls for the second day and found some in the morning, glass them up and there, there's actually some bugling there. So then we had a plan for that afternoon.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  They run cameras and stuff. Were they getting anything on their cameras or?

• 26:00Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Wow. That's insane.

• 26:03Cameron Hanes?

  So Big Joe's son, do you remember him?

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:07Cameron Hanes?

  He had cameras everywhere. I think he's, he's helping guide this year. Uh, Mark's son, Dan had, had cameras.

• 26:15Cameron Hanes?

  Just no bulls. And so that I think the rut, I think the the cows just weren't coming in heat because it was so hot. So the rut is going to be delayed, which is not good when you got the first two weeks of September. That's I had the first hunt and then the second hunt is the last two weeks. I'm hoping it picked up by but after I left. But when I was there, we found that pocket. I think we saw like seven or nine bulls when we went lower and there was some bugling. So in that afternoon, we had this big stalk into this get into this kind of this rim and hopefully get the the wind was going up. It was miles to get back there or to get up there. And then, you know, I had this this spot I wanted

• 27:00Cameron Hanes?

  to get to. And I thought if we could get there and look down where those where we put the bulls to bed in the morning, that we're going to be able to spot them and then make a play. So me and Randy all the way. Dan was way down, miles down, but had a spotting scope. And he's just kind of watching from the distance. He ended up filming and got getting me some cool footage. But we didn't have communication with him at all. So we were just kind of going blind. But it was fun. Saw a bunch of kuzbaks, saw rams up on the rim. It was

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, the

• 27:30Cameron Hanes?

  Bear.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  The area looked just so beautiful.

• 27:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it was.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  It's cool.

• 27:34Cameron Hanes?

  And that part was wet. They had water there. So obviously, that's why the animals were there.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:40Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, there was tons of bear. But but like I said, the rams and those bulls and lots of kuzbaks. But anyway, we're kind of waiting through all those animals got up to where I said to that spot that I wanted to get to then. I was like, Okay, perfect. We had like maybe an hour left, which is little bit tight. It took a little bit longer to get there, maybe an hour and a half left. But got up there and right where it's like you could look over and kind of finally see the the laid land and try to figure out where these bulls might have been. We saw two younger bulls on the way in. And you know, they kind of had spooked, but they were down in there somewhere. So I get up

• 28:20Cameron Hanes?

  there and this is place where there's, I mean, it's just amazing country and cliffs. And so I'm on the edge of this cliff and I look, I like just kind of look down like you do. When you're mule deer hunting, you're always looking straight below you because it'd be, it's sick to see a big buck batted down there. Right. And so I look straight below me and here's this giant bull. I'm like, oh, I was right above this huge or this nice big six by six. And I'm like, oh my God. So I range, rangefinder says 42 yards, which straight down normally it says 20.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:02Cameron Hanes?

  Cause it's straight down. So I'm like, if it's 42, it's gotta be like 60 some.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:09Cameron Hanes?

  It shoot, and that is a hard, kind of a hard shot. So, so, um, here's another fun fact. I shot, I missed that bull.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:27Cameron Hanes?

  So my, thank God I'm Tom Brady, basically with the attitude. And I can just be like, oh yeah. Oh, you I went up to? That's all right. Watch this one. So I'm like, it was hard. It was just hard shooting that far, straight down. So I'm like, I don't know what I did, but it went right over his back, but he didn't know what the hell happened. So I shot and he was just like, he didn't know, you know, he doesn't expect anything straight above him from 60 yards. So he didn't move or he kind of moved maybe a couple of steps and uh,

• 30:02Cameron Hanes?

  I'm like, okay, I gotta buckle down. So I pull back again. I just really, really focused. I got that pin and holding, holding, holding right on, right on his spine. Cause I'm like, I'm just gonna go straight through this thing. And I hit like, Maybe an inch or two, a little bit to the left, but pretty damn straight down on him. And the arrow went into his chest and I watched him take off and he, you know, went like a hundred fifty, I could see him flashing through the trees, a hundred fifty yards and then kind of heard a crash and then nothing. So I'm like, good sign. Randy's like, where did he go? Where'd he go? Do you see? You know, cause he's like right there, but over that cliff is hard to see. And I said, yeah,

• 30:47Cameron Hanes?

  he's like, right. I said, last I heard was right there. So it took us a while to get down, but we get down there and yeah, Bull's, Bull's dead. He died in probably 10 seconds. And yeah, got him, got him killed, made a good shot. He looked healthy. So the drought, I don't know. I guess, I think down there, there's a little more water, but that, that was that, that was a.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Had a little velvet left on his.

• 31:13Cameron Hanes?

  He did. Yeah. It's just like, they're so far behind. It's just so weird.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Wild.

• 31:18Cameron Hanes?

  So weird that they've never, you know, they've hunted, they've been in this elk country, you know, the Stevens brothers for their whole life and never seen a year like this. So I don't know, I don't know what that's gonna mean.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting. I, I remember seeing the footage of you up on the cliff band and I was like, it'd be such a sick photo.

• 31:38Cameron Hanes?

  Dude, it would have been such a sick video.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I mean, if I could get the elk too.

• 31:42Cameron Hanes?

  Straight down. I don't know how you could, it was hard for me to, to shoot that way. Sort of film? I don't know.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  It'd be tough.

• 31:50Cameron Hanes?

  But the photos would have been incredible.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would have up the video. So the photo would have been.

• 31:56Cameron Hanes?

  Your legs would have cramped. No. So that was, that turned out good. I got that kill. And you know, everybody was, yeah, everybody's doing good. Yeah, the camp was good. Other than, you know, it was just slow. It was just slow, but a great camp. Dan, Dan Agnew was in there.

• 32:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, Big Joe had another hunter, I think in Nine Mile.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Big Sexy.

• 32:23Cameron Hanes?

  Big Sexy, he did. And they killed a bull with rifle.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 32:28Cameron Hanes?

  So that's good. And a nice bull, too. But yeah, other than that, I mean, I know, I think Eric Chester was over there. And I think he hunted every day of the season, no kill. And that's like, it's like 18 days, dude.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's.

• 32:43Cameron Hanes?

  That's not what you expect at San Carlos.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:46Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, with a bow, you're definitely making it harder on yourself. Most people don't bow hunt. Especially with how coveted those tags are. You wanna, most people wanna take a bull home. Most people won't stick through it with a bow the whole time, or stick it out with a bow. But he did, and no bull.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  It's tough.

• 33:07Cameron Hanes?

  It's kind of breaks sometimes.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  So how many days total were you there for?

• 33:12Cameron Hanes?

  Like two.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Two?

• 33:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, yeah, no, it just seems longer.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  You gotta load up and drive right back.

• 33:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, so killed a, killed a buck in Colorado the first day, killed on the second day in, in San Carlos. Then it was headed back to Colorado to try to find a bull, which I figured that was gonna take a little while, but I had some time because I didn't have to be in Utah till the 16th. So now I was a little bit ahead of schedule. I think, God, I might've got back there by, I mean, it took a couple of days. I think I, I dicked around for a day, then another day to drive, then got there. So maybe it was like the 7th or something. By the time I got back, and yeah, got back to Colorado and let's see, how did it go?

• 34:00Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yeah, that, um, we had, yeah, other hunter, Robert was in camp.

• 34:10Cameron Hanes?

  Let me think how that went. Yeah. Okay, so that's what it was. Robert is pretty high strung. And big personality and thought that Johnny's so, so calm, cool and collected. Thought that, that it'd be good for Johnny and Robert to, to work together, then I would go with Wes. Wes, I don't know if you remember him.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:35Cameron Hanes?

  But Wes is a stud and we've hunted together before. And so we, I don't know, I think they were, I think, I don't know how it was, maybe Wes was guiding Robert before I got there. But anyway, we made the switch.

• 34:49Cameron Hanes?

  Or no, Robbie and Wes were guiding Robert and Johnny was gonna take me. But we made this switch and Robbie and Johnny took Robert and Wes went with me. And then Wes took his camera and did everything, has whatever. So we were out hunting pretty good, trying to find bulls, which is, it still wasn't easy.

• 35:11Cameron Hanes?

  But one evening, things started to turn a little bit. And I had done this walk, got dropped off at the top and I did the walk, kind of how I killed that bull right there. But from down a different drainage. And when I did it, it looked awesome. I didn't see any bulls. But I saw a bear and I'm like, well, I got a bear tag, maybe I'll try to kill a bear. But I'll, so I liked that walk. Well, we went back over there. Because earlier in that afternoon, we had heard some bugles in that area. And sometimes there's some gas wells there, sometimes a gas well sound like a bull bugle. So you're like, sometimes it's hard to tell, like you hear the high pitch from a distance.

• 35:52Cameron Hanes?

  Anyway, we thought we had some bulls, so we're heading out there and rain's starting to spit, little thunderstorm moving in. And I heard a bugle and I'm like, I, I just heard a bugle. And then we're like trying to figure out where the hell it came from. And uh, cause it was super windy and um, so I went over to the, kind of the, the far side of the ridge. Wes was on the near side of the ridge. And I went walking back to his side and I saw him running to the other side of the road. I'm like, why is Wes running around? And so I just go and I'm, I didn't know what he's doing. I thought maybe he just was cold, maybe he's had to burn some energy.

• 36:36Cameron Hanes?

  Well, so I, I kind of head that way. Well, he, he circled around to where I had been. So we're running circles, basically. Anyway, I finally see him and he's like pointing, I do it like this. And I'm like, oh shit. Okay. So he goes, there's a bull coming, bull coming. And uh, and I, I get right over the ridge. And he's like sits down like he's gonna film like this bull's gonna come in and I said, no, stay with me. And so we went, went down. I saw this bull coming up and he's like an old gnarly bull. And I just bring Wes with me and I tell him, you know, stand right here. And here's this bull coming up and I'm like looking, didn't know what side of the tree he's gonna go on. I didn't know, I had to draw back and then try to figure out which

• 37:17Cameron Hanes?

  way he was gonna go. So I saw he was coming on my, kind of to the right side. So I draw back. Wes was kind of, you'll see in the film, but we actually can make a film out of this because the footage is amazing. But uh, he was kind of stuck in the open. And the bull, I think saw him, of course, didn't see me.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:40Cameron Hanes?

  How could it see me? Um, anyway, I was at full draw. The bull's like for me to you.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:47Cameron Hanes?

  It's close. He spooks and I just step out at full draw and he stops for a second, smoke him and uh, he goes down and piles up on film and.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  I saw the GoPro footage that Wes was wearing.

• 38:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  And it's pretty.

• 38:02Cameron Hanes?

  Did you, did you see the real footage?

• 38:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Did you post it?

• 38:06Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Okay. Cause I was gonna say in that, in the caption, you said you were going to, and I was kind of waiting to see it, but.

• 38:11Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, it is.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 38:13Cameron Hanes?

  It is sick.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 38:14Cameron Hanes?

  And the GoPro, cause he just wears it on his chest. Those GoPro cameras.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Wasn't half bad.

• 38:19Cameron Hanes?

  Dude.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:20Cameron Hanes?

  They're crisp nowadays. Um, but then he had a bigger camera. So between the two, it's, it's incredible. Um, but yeah, anyway, made a good shot. And that was another one at like, so I mean, the San Carlos bull was a little bit farther of a shot, but these two in Colorado, both were like 14 yards on the buck. And then this shot was probably like, I don't know, 10 yards. I like that.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:45Cameron Hanes?

  Um, anyway, got him killed. Uh, then it was, um, it was kind of cool. There was a, a guy flew down from Wasilla to meet me that had met Roy's wife.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 38:59Cameron Hanes?

  At Walmart or somewhere. And, and Johnny said, hey, could, you know, there's this guy I wanted, I want you to meet. He's, you know, whatever. He wants to fly down and, and have lunch with you, which normally I'm just like. I I don't need more shit to do during a hunt, right? I don't need to be thinking about entertaining somebody at lunch. And just like, I want to focus on the hunt, right? I want to focus on getting ready and and shooting during the the middle of the day if I need to. Or just getting in, you know, I I missed a couple shots.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 39:31Cameron Hanes?

  It's like, I got some shit to work on, right? I mean, I'm not like, I'm not used to, I mean, that was what, three airballs? I'm like, what the hell is going on? I had so much confidence, but that confidence can go quick. But when you've done it for so long, it comes back, right? Point is, though, I can't be distracted by entertaining people. But it actually, um, I said, you know, kind of reluctant. I'm like, okay, whatever. Yeah, I guess if he wants to fly from Alaska for a lunch to Colorado, you know, must mean something to him. And I didn't, I didn't know who it was at all. Well, turns out I killed that bull.

• 40:14Cameron Hanes?

  He had showed up from Alaska and he showed up to help pack it that night in the dark. And I'm like, who the this guy? Oh, it's a guy from Alaska. And I'll just tell you right now, it was probably one of the most impactful conversations I've ever had.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:32Cameron Hanes?

  It was like such a God thing and such a faith thing and and so much. I I just will never forget that talk that we had. And I'm so thankful I didn't say, no, I'm not doing that. I'm so thankful it worked out the way it did because it it'll it'll be, it'll be something I'll, it'll be a night I'll never forget. For not just because I killed a bull, but because of, you know, I was able to to meet somebody very special and hear some incredible testimony. And I'm so thankful for that, even though I was so reluctant and I don't like things screwing up my hunt or distracting me ever.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:17Cameron Hanes?

  When I'm focused on that, but it was for a reason and it was, it was important. And, um, yeah, so that's, you know, that.

• 41:29Cameron Hanes?

  Was incredible.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, wild how, you know, if you didn't do it, you probably wouldn't have thought twice.

• 41:35Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  You know?

• 41:35Cameron Hanes?

  I wouldn't know what I missed.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 41:37Cameron Hanes?

  But now, his stories were crazy. Uh, he's a, you know, bought a plane up there in Alaska. Has been with this badass pilot who's just, yeah, it's just, the stories are crazy. So, yeah, I mean, I, I just can't, I just can't say enough how thankful I am for that whole thing from, from Johnny to Wes to, uh, you know, I'm always thankful for Bobby for allowing me to hunt his property and, uh, you know, Patty the cook. It's just, and Robbie, I love Robbie. It's just like that 20 years there. And then to have, you know, another positive experience on the night of a kill. Never forget it.

• 42:22Cameron Hanes?

  But, um, yeah, so that, that wraps up Colorado. All right, hunters, listen up. Hunting season's here and the last thing you want is to tap out before the action starts. That's why I'm dialing in with Mountain Ops Ignite. Ignite isn't your average energy drink. It delivers smooth, long lasting energy, no jitters, plus mental clarity that cuts through the backcountry fog. Powered by amino acids and brain blend of nootropics and 200 milligrams of clean caffeine, Ignite keeps you sharp and pushing hard mile after mile. Whether you're glassing ridges, packing in before dawn, or heading to elk camp, one scoop in your bottle and you're locked in. It's my go-to every hunt, every hike, every

• 43:05Cameron Hanes?

  long drive. And Mountain Ops isn't just about performance. They're mission driven. Every purchase helps feed families in need through Operation Conquer Hunger. Right now, you can get 20% off your purchase. Just go to mountainops.com and use code CAM at checkout. This season, don't settle for sluggish. Ignite the hunt.

• 43:26Cameron Hanes?

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• 44:09Cameron Hanes?

  And I think.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  We had a few days.

• 44:11Cameron Hanes?

  I think I came home.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Came back home.

• 44:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I came home because I killed that one, got that done, and I had like six days before Utah or whatever it was. And so I came home for a little reset and then went to Utah. Utah is just, you know, I've been there for 15 years too. So it's, you know, incredible elk hunting. The hard thing there is just, uh, just finding an old bull.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:36Cameron Hanes?

  You know, they, they, they want, they want it to be seven and a half, eight years old for sure. And it's, it's hard to age elk sometimes. There's a lot of bulls, a lot of like three and four year old bulls. And just loaded with them, but hard finding an old one. And I was, uh, a little bit, yeah, I mean, I was kept thinking about Wenahaw. I need to get back, but this one was Adam was there, Green Tree, Rogan was there and Evan Hafer. And this was our big kind of fun hunt. I like intent, it's intense because it's elk hunting, but it's also a lot of camaraderie and, and we have our own little camp.

• 45:17Cameron Hanes?

  And it's just, it's just, I looked forward to it all year. So while I didn't want to miss it, I was thinking about the big hunt at the end of the season, you know, the one, it's a once in a lifetime. It took me 24 years to draw this tag here. So I'm there the whole time there thinking like, do I need to really kill another bull in Utah? Or should I, should I go and take full advantage of this Wenahaw? So anyway, it was, I mean, we, we had Caleb was there taking photos. Truett was there. Uh, I love sharing, you know, the hunt with Truett and all that.

• 45:54Cameron Hanes?

  So yeah, it's a I I mean, Joe killed Evan, killed Adam, killed everybody killed. And I took off out of there. So I texted to I I texted today about going back. If you know, they already have their schedule set, but.

• 46:15Cameron Hanes?

  And I'm like, do I do I need? Do I really need to go back? I want to.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  According to some people, you don't, but.

• 46:24Cameron Hanes?

  Who would say that?

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Oh, I I would.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  This isn't Shit Talkers Weekly, so.

• 46:29Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, right. No, we can't say. Yeah, we can't say. But yeah. So I mean, I don't know. I'm not broke up either way about it. I've had, you know, I've had a lot of success this year, but I just love if those bulls are bugling. And if they're bored and and need somebody to keep them company. I could make that trip. So anyway.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Were they pretty active there or?

• 46:54Cameron Hanes?

  Ah, they're off, dude. It's fucking nuts. It's nuts there. It's just so many. Yeah, it's steep, steep, steep, steep. We and yeah, I mean, it's right. You were there.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:07Cameron Hanes?

  It's not flat.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  No, I mean, it's a cakewalk compared to Wenahaw, but.

• 47:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, definitely. But it's for for most people, it's pretty steep country.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Oh, it's not. I mean, none of them are easy, but for whatever reason, people seem to think in their head that it's a flat pasture with elk in a little 10 by 10 foot cage.

• 47:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, and you got see the fourth bull from the left. That's the one you want to shoot. Just walk right up to them. Yeah, that's what they think.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  And our 3D scan that scores 363.

• 47:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. And this is through our R3 program. We got more hunters in here than we've ever had. And we're really building this. No, just kidding. Some people get have big freaking boners in their butt about R3.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Okay, so you came back here, but because this is the hunt I was a part of and.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Whether or not we get to make a film out of it. This one, I wanted to do a little differently because I can ask questions.

• 48:10Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Some of these are, it could be tough.

• 48:15Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Or you might not want to answer them, but there's, there's a few, so.

• 48:18Cameron Hanes?

  Pass.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:20Cameron Hanes?

  Wait, no, ask the question first, then I'll pass.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Question number one. What do you think of when you hear Wenaha?

• 48:29Cameron Hanes?

  Legendary elk country. I mean, Oregon's most famous trophy unit, basically, is what Wenaha is. Everybody knows Wenaha. Everybody. Here's how it works. In Oregon, your dream hunt is Wenaha. Sometimes you put in so long, you build so many points. It's been 20 years and you're, you're not drawing. So some people switch to Mount Emily or Wallowala. They call that the, those are the big three in Oregon. Those are the trophy units, but Wenaha is the best. Those other units do border it. Wenaha is just what everybody knows. It's like, you're going to draw Wenaha. Everybody knows, and everybody knows the bulls that live there.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Okay, so you put in for, for 24 years?

• 49:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yep.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  I mean, walk me through a little bit, just kind of about when you first started putting in for it. Obviously you said everyone knows about it, but knowing, I'm sure back then it wasn't 24 years to draw.

• 49:29Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Right? You get point creep, but when you first started putting in, I mean, when did you expect to draw?

• 49:36Cameron Hanes?

  I, dude, I do not think about the future. I think about like tonight and tomorrow, and that's about it. So I was putting in for it, which is pretty impressive.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:49Cameron Hanes?

  For me to play the long game on anything, because I'm always like, now, I want it now. Right now, what do I have to do? How much does it cost? Could I buy it now? Because I can, I can make money more than I can make years of time, right? I can't make up years of time, but I can replace money. So that's where I'm always like, I'll just do whatever it takes to take advantage of this opportunity right now. Well, with a draw and how Oregon works.

• 50:17Cameron Hanes?

  You have to play the long game. So I wasn't even thinking, I wasn't even thinking about Wenaha at all. I thought, you know, I'm hunting, doing my, you know, the wilderness hunts or whatever. I can't even believe I put in for 24 years. I can't believe I had my shit together well enough to make that happen.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  I know, I know last year you had mentioned like, oh, you know, I got a good chance of drawing this year and he didn't.

• 50:45Cameron Hanes?

  I should have.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  But when you didn't, it was just like, you know, another year that you didn't draw.

• 50:51Cameron Hanes?

  No, even this year, my odds were 70% and I figured probably won't. But I did. But yeah, it's a, yeah, Wenaha is legendary.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. So I've got more questions, but we'll scatter them throughout the story of Wenaha. So you, you got back. Well, first of all, you texted me and you said, coming home, leaving tomorrow.

• 51:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the next day.

• 51:14Cameron Hanes?

  Cause I didn't know, you know, I didn't know my schedule. So nobody really knew Tanner didn't know. Wayne didn't, Wayne stayed over there for, he's been there since like the eighties waiting for me. But he, everybody was just, when are you getting back? When are you getting back? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I gotta see how these hunts go. And so finally I'm like, okay, I gotta get, you know, this is third, I was like, I gotta go by Thursday. I gotta get out of here. And I wanted to drive over there Friday, be there Friday to pack in Saturday morning. And so finally on Thursday, I said, coming home, we're leaving in the morning.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  What I thought was cool too, is you know, Tanner was such short notice, but even he was like, you know, everyone at his work knew you drew in the, drawn the tag. Everyone was like super supportive of him being like, hey, I gotta go. You know, I got a two hour notice.

• 52:07Cameron Hanes?

  I did.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  At work.

• 52:08Cameron Hanes?

  It was like 7:30 in the morning. And I said, I texted, I hadn't even talked to him. I said, hey, I'm leaving at 10. I'd like you to go. And he's just like, I'm at work. Wow. Okay. He said, should I ask? I said, yeah. So he did. And they were like, oh yeah, hell yeah, go. It was, it was pretty cool. You know, the thing about like his crew, they all take all September off elk hunting. So, and another, it's a great company. So you start off, this is like his second year there, but he's got four weeks of vacation, which is, that's generally not how it works. So he's in a, in a great, great position to take advantage

• 52:48Cameron Hanes?

  of an opportunity like that. But yeah, he was, he was all in and, uh, and in two hours, so left work, got home, got his, all his shit thrown together and was here on time with 10 days worth of stuff loaded up, ready to go. You know how long it takes people to get ready for a 10 day backpack hunt? A while.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Took me longer than that, that's for sure.

• 53:11Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, he was just, cause he was so dialed in from his own wilderness hunt where he killed that giant bull. And, uh, so he knew kind of what he needed, just had to assemble it again. And, um, yeah, everybody's here at 10 and

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Took off.

• 53:24Cameron Hanes?

  We were out.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Kind of a long drive over there. Uh, you know, seven and a half hours, but made the drive and pulled into camp where Wayne was at, where he's been since the eighties waiting for us.

• 53:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, Wayne, um, so he grew up hunting the Wintahaw. His dad took him there when he was 12. He's 64. So a long time, 50 years of knowing that country and mostly just loving it. And he said himself, he's like, he thought this was his last hurrah on this, these type of hunts. Cause there, it's, it's hard. You know, 10 days on your back is, in that country, it's hard for anyone. And, uh, he thought this is probably it. And I don't know about that. I, I think he seemed like he's got a little more in him still. He's getting around pretty good, but, uh,

• 54:16Cameron Hanes?

  Um, yeah, it was cool. He'd been there. He took out, uh, Big Joe is another guy here drew a tag. He took him out for about four days and he killed like a nice seven by six. Not quite in the bottom where we were, but still very steep country. And, uh, then he took out the kid that was camped Riley that was camped by where Wayne was. And they had some opportunities. I don't think Riley ever shot, but Riley ended up killing a great kind of gnarly old bull also. Not with Wayne is when, when we were all together. Um, I think he was with his dad or somebody when he killed that that rightly kid was, but, um, yeah, Wayne had been there. We were fired up.

• 54:57Cameron Hanes?

  Wayne and because he'd been hunting, he, he had a really good idea of where the bulls were. But still with as dry as it was over there, it felt like the country was changing by the day. As far as where water was, and that's going to, that's going to determine where the elk are. So we had to do a little, you know, learn it on the fly also.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  How, how valuable was Wayne's knowledge though? I mean, 50 years to, to kind of have him staying out there and ready to, to help in any way he could.

• 55:28Cameron Hanes?

  Well, I mean, he's,

• 55:32Cameron Hanes?

  he loves helping people. I mean, he's like just, he loves teaching people. He loves,

• 55:40Cameron Hanes?

  yeah, just being involved and helping people succeed. I mean, that's what he does every day at the bow rack. He helps new people succeed at shooting a bow. New archers succeed, and this is no different. He just wanted to help me succeed, do whatever he could. He's like, it's your hunt. You tell me. He goes, he goes, you, you tell me what you want to do. And, you know, I'm like, I'm just trying to appreciate being hunting with him again, because it'd been probably about since I killed that big buck in like 91, since we did a, a backcountry hunt together. Been, been a while. And, uh, so I was just trying to, uh, really just, um, just honor that just our, kind of our bow hunting history and how far it's taken us.

• 56:24Cameron Hanes?

  And then has taken us apart a little bit and, uh, then brought us back together for this hunt. So I was just trying to like, really just. Uh, just absorb that, what it meant.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:37Cameron Hanes?

  This is my life.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:39Cameron Hanes?

  It's a big deal. And to have him there and to be friends with him for decades and him on the bow rack and be such a pivotal figure in my life. It was a, it was a lot, it was a lot going on, but it was all meaningful.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  What did Roy think about Wenaha?

• 56:59Cameron Hanes?

  Uh, Roy, he hunted it before as a draw. So yeah, he's used to running around that country. I don't think he ever killed a bull there. So we, I mean, we never hunted Wenaha together, but you know, I would go, I can't remember if I, I don't know if I killed, I can't remember when he hunted it. I remember him going with Wayne. And I remember them saying they're in the Blue Mountains. And I just, I wasn't, I didn't go. I wasn't with them. I don't know if I had to work or what it was, or if I'd already killed a bull. But, uh, yeah, I don't, at that time, that was before Wenaha was really Wenaha. When, when Roy was there.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I couldn't help but think, you know, or listening to the kind of the stories you and Wayne were telling throughout the trip, you know, about your guys' history and Roy. And I mean, it was super cool. Um, but you know, you, you guys also talked about how much he loved backcountry hunts like that and.

• 57:56Cameron Hanes?

  Who?

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Roy.

• 57:57Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, that's all Roy wanted to do. Yeah. This, he lived for that shit. Um, yeah, Roy was made for the backcountry, made for the mountains and, uh, just at home every second of every hunt we were on.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, you know, I couldn't, it, it felt like to me, here's this hunt that you'd put in for, for 24 years and it, as someone who's trying to capture a story and soak up as much of it as possible, it just, it felt like, you know, all of that time really culminated into this one hunt.

• 58:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I mean, whether you, whether you're thinking about it or not, like consciously and like what it means, it's like, oh, this is so impactful because this has been, you know, two and a half decades of waiting for this opportunity. Whether you, you put it in those terms or not, it just, subconsciously, you know how long you've been waiting for this. Whether you, like I said, you think about it or not, or whatever. I'm the one who put in my, my application for that tag every year. So I, I knew what was at stake. I knew how important it was. And um, yeah, so it was just trying to take advantage of that.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we woke up that, that next morning, we drove into camp and

• 59:17Speaker 01

  you know, drove to the trailhead and it was not that long of kind of walking out onto that spine where we just started going straight down.

• 59:27Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  And it was steeper than

• 59:31Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it was, uh, what's steeper than a cow's face?

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, steeper than a $2 chicken stuck under a coop.

• 59:41Cameron Hanes?

  Steeper than a $2 whore.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  That's steep.

• 59:46Cameron Hanes?

  That is steep. Yeah, no, that drops right off.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:49Cameron Hanes?

  But we drop off, we hear bulls. Then we get down there. Wayne loves calling. So we set up and there's a bear down there and I was like, maybe I should just kill that bear to get warmed up. Came in, it's like 39 yards, wanted to smoke it. Uh, but I mean, I've been thinking about this outcome. I can't screw up first day of my outcome messing with a bear. So I, I let it go.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  I really thought you were gonna shoot it and I was like thinking about the pack out and what we were gonna do and

• 1:00:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, it was, it was cool to, it was good footage.

• 1:00:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that was fun.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Cameron Hanes?

  Um, and then afterwards Tanner said, if you want to kill one, I'll, I'll pack it out. And once we got over on the other side, I think that, that probably changed. I mean, he still would have probably because he's a beast, but definitely turned into a bigger ordeal on the other side because that bottom was a mess.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Cameron Hanes?

  It was a mess to get through, to even walk through. So there's no horses getting through anywhere.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:00:53Cameron Hanes?

  But, but yeah.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  So, uh, if you want to hear all the details about me shooting the bed, I have to go to Shit Talkers Weekly. But get down to the bottom, refill water and start it up the other side, which was hot and dry. And, uh, you know, eventually made it to camp with some mishaps.

• 1:01:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  But we were all pretty thirsty.

• 1:01:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yes.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  And low on water.

• 1:01:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, we, uh, we made it up to the ridge and it was a good spot. And we had a bull bugling over there. He sounded giant, but he wasn't.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Cameron Hanes?

  He was just pretty good. It's like a three forty bull, a nice bull, but, um, he sounded like a frickin'. We thought it was gonna be our, the big bull we were after. He wasn't, but, uh, the, the thing I remember about that was yes, being all dried out. And then also waking up at one AM in the morning. Cause it's raining and we didn't put any, any of our rain flies on, cause it was a thousand degrees. And why would it be raining when it's a hundred during the day? One in the morning starts raining and when you don't have a rain fly on, that rain is just, you're basically sleeping in the shower.

• 1:02:05Cameron Hanes?

  So we, we scrambled up. It was a, like a one AM fire drill. Throw that rain fly on and, uh, try to get back to bed. But, uh, yeah, so that, that was that night.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, before that, don't wanna skip over, we ended up getting into a, into a bull. We had a calling set up. Tanner was filming, um, again, go hear details on the other one, but I, my legs were cramping. I shit the bed. I couldn't keep up. So Tanner filmed, uh, Wayne and I ended up kinda dropping back. We got no call set up cause there was a bull bugling up on the ridge. Tell me a little bit about what happened there, cause he came in.

• 1:02:45Cameron Hanes?

  He came in a little bit too hot. Um, yeah, that basically I screwed up on that one too. Um,

• 1:02:55Cameron Hanes?

  so he was coming in hot. It sounded good. I could see him. He was a shooter, definitely a big bull. Then I looked back and Tanner was kind of in between. I mean, I like being in shadows or being by a tree for sure. Tanner's in between, in between two trees. And I was like, I told him, I said, this bull's come bearing down on us. I said, I don't, I don't want you in the middle. I want you, I wanted you back in that tree. I said, just get up here. So then me and him are both like behind this tree, like in this little tiny area. Here comes this bull and then I'm like mad because I'm like, I wanted Wayne to call this bull down here. It's coming right over the top of me, which if you, if you've got a bull coming in, you don't want it coming right over the top of you.

• 1:03:36Cameron Hanes?

  That's why we talk about directing calls to the side to try to get a triangle. So if the bull's here, you're here, you want your caller here to pull the bull here. Um, nobody can see this, but just envision, yeah, yeah, exactly. Triangle. Um, so this bull is coming over the top. So I drew back like right behind this trees again, not knowing what side he's going on. He came here, he's gonna be like two feet away. He went here spooked, whatever, um, turned into a shit show.

• 1:04:10Cameron Hanes?

  But we didn't get him killed. That's all I know. Uh, and he was big and he had a drop tying. And I think the footage is pretty good. Uh, at least, yeah.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Him coming in.

• 1:04:21Cameron Hanes?

  Him coming in is good. So we'll, we'll show that for sure. Um, but yeah, that was, that was, yeah. That was that kind of that encounter. And then, you know, got rained on, then we got up in the morning and went way out that ridge. Like eight or nine more miles. You stayed at camp to kind of get your bearings straight. We went out, didn't hear shit because it's dry.

• 1:04:46Cameron Hanes?

  We heard a call like maybe one bull bugle two times way at the bottom.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Super windy.

• 1:04:51Cameron Hanes?

  It was windy, couldn't hear anything. Uh, checked in with Cal Halliday, who was also at another, another place. He said he froze all morning because of the, that wind and couldn't hear anything. So it was just a rough morning. Um, but by the time we got back, I think we had lunch. Or we ate something and then loaded up because we're still out of water.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:05:13Cameron Hanes?

  You hadn't got water all day. We hadn't got, you know, we went all the way so far down. And I asked Wayne, I'm like, how far is this? I said, we're so far down here. I'm just gonna go down and get water. And he's like, oh, it's still a long way. So I'm like, God. But we make it all the way back up. I don't know if we ate something. I don't, I don't think we did.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  So everybody's mouths were too dry to eat anything.

• 1:05:39Cameron Hanes?

  So we got, we got packed up because we knew that there's water about two point, six, seven miles away. Just under three miles. There was another spring that wasn't dried up. There's a spring that was dried up or kind of where we were. But this other one, Wayne knew he had water in it from helping Big Joe and or knew there was water there. So we made it out there, got to the water, ate, drank. We were merry. Everybody was pumped, can drink, drink, drink.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  The mood changed a little bit once we got some water.

• 1:06:10Cameron Hanes?

  He gets some water and fuel, dude. I think we ate two meals and it's so good.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Cameron Hanes?

  And then, yeah, so we got camp set up right there at the water. Then went over the ridge to try to, to see if we could hear anything down in the, in the draw. Or it's not a draw. It's a freaking big drainage, but we heard a couple of bulls and I saw the bull, I think that I killed was down there in the bottom. And so we had a play and that was, that was that, you know, getting kind of close to dark, but we had a plan for the morning. And went back, got some sleep, loaded up in the morning, ready to go.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, woke up and there was pretty thick layer of smoke that morning. I remember waking up and my mouth was so dry.

• 1:06:59Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  But yeah, um, ended up making the sunrise kind of cool, at least for, for video. But anyways, yeah, so we woke up and headed down that, that same ridge, knowing that, you know, we had time now and

• 1:07:15Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  We were gonna bomb off of there and do whatever we had to.

• 1:07:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  So what is your, in a situation like that, where I think a lot of people would see that bull and see what they have to go down and back up. Where is your advantage in that?

• 1:07:29Cameron Hanes?

  Um, endurance. Yeah, I can just push. I, I don't, I don't, I don't want to say I don't get tired, but it's going to take a, a lot to get me tired just because, you know, of the training. So I can, I can go after every bull and still hunt well, I feel like, still make good decisions. Cause a lot of people, they might try to go after every bull, but they're taking shortcuts. They're getting lazy. They're getting fatigued and breaking sticks and kicking rocks and just, you know, where they could, should make a big circle to get the wind right. They're, they're going a little shorter, a little tighter. Sometimes the wind gives them up. I feel like I can, I can hunt right for a long time.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Cameron Hanes?

  And so I'm not, it wasn't even fair. I was actually getting, each day that went by, I was feeling better back there, getting stronger. So by the time we dropped down there, and then we saw a herd bull up, way up on the other side and went up after that. I wanted to go after that one too. And so, uh, we did. And that turned into another shit show. Did not, I mean, it is, you might say you're going to go after stuff and that's fine. You can do it, but to get into bow range takes, takes some luck.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  That bottom that there, that we had to go through.

• 1:08:51Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  It was like playing limbo through there.

• 1:08:55Cameron Hanes?

  Well, Tanner started to film because he thought I shot a bull and it was busting through stuff dying. And I'm like, nope, that was just me. That's how loud it was.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. We crawled through there and all of a sudden the bull that we thought was kind of up above us or directly kind of side-hilled was down below us.

• 1:09:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  And I remember you looked at me and you were like, what the?

• 1:09:17Cameron Hanes?

  Oh God. Yeah. I was, it just didn't, it just, sometimes just.

• 1:09:23Cameron Hanes?

  You try to go because you don't know it could, that could be the chance, but that one, nothing was well, other than way the hell up on the ridge, found water up there.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34Cameron Hanes?

  There's a little spring.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  That was nice.

• 1:09:35Cameron Hanes?

  And we got a little, you know, got our mouth wet a little bit, but uh, other than that, I don't know what we learned on that one, not much. But we had elevation and then we're, you know, now we're on the other side of where we camped, the big drainage. And now we're like, okay, we've got elevation again. Let's do some calling. We had more bulls lining up. So, so with that fog in the morning or the smoke in the morning, there was not a sound. It was dead quiet. And we're like, what, how is this? This is Wenahaw. And we were bugling over miles of country, not one, but they woke up. So once, sometimes once the sun comes up, those bulls start to get going a little bit. And then by like 10 or 11, bulls were going off.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Cameron Hanes?

  And uh, yeah.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  I love sitting there, you know, you're high up on this side and you hear bulls bugling and you're, you know, trying to pick it out, like where is that coming from? And sure enough, it's coming from at the same level or even a little higher on the other side.

• 1:10:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's never on your side.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:10:38Cameron Hanes?

  It's never like 200 yards away. It's like two miles away. I mean, that, there's big bulls, but in that wilderness country, they're not around every tree.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the only time that, you know, we weren't hunting with all of our shit on our back was when you guys went out that morning.

• 1:10:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Other than that, we had, you know.

• 1:10:59Cameron Hanes?

  Forty, 50 pounds.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  You know, wherever we ended up choosing to camp is where it was going to be. We didn't have to go back to camp. We carried it everywhere. But yeah, so we sat there and there's some, some bulls going off on the other side and, you know, you being you.

• 1:11:14Cameron Hanes?

  Got to go.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  Got to go check it out.

• 1:11:16Cameron Hanes?

  So, yeah.

• 1:11:19Cameron Hanes?

  On that one, we got down to the bottom, got water again. And I just, I asked Wayne, I said, could you keep this bull engaged? Cause we had one going off in the timber up there, probably about a mile away, but straight shot. So that sound is going. It's not like it has to go through a bunch of timber over ridges or shit like that. It's a straight shot. So I asked Wayne, I said, could you keep that bull engaged bugling? I can circle all the way around, which I said a mile, but it's thousands of feet up to get elevation on them. And he said, yeah. And then I decided to switch Tanner out. I'd have him, um, instead of like, like blowing your legs out on every stock. I thought, uh, maybe it would be better if you guys switched. Cause Tanner can run a camera.

• 1:12:03Cameron Hanes?

  He's, he's not as good as you, but he can, he can at least get it up the hill. And, uh, so we went, we, we took off, you and Wayne stayed down and called. And, uh, we got up and got in right on that bull. I had him in bow range and he just wasn't, he was a nice six point, but I just didn't, I had, I had another, like a satellite bull bedded at 58, I think. Nice six or six by six there. Um, but the herd bull came over and I could have shot him too, but I just, you know, Tanner wanted me to cause it was perfect. And I'm just like, nah. So, uh, we didn't shoot, we ended up, we ate one of his peak, uh, chicken Alfredo meals with no stove. Just poured a little

• 1:12:47Cameron Hanes?

  water in there, ate it dry and crispy and cold. And it was actually good.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Peak cereal.

• 1:12:52Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, it's so good. And, uh, at this time, I wanted to get back down to you guys because we'd been gone for hours. It takes a while, but this other bull was going off in the next drainage over. And I'm like, was wrestling with shit. That bull is begging to be killed. He was going crazy. But that's more, that's hours to get over there. And you guys had been down there for hours. So I'm like, just really wrestling with.

• 1:13:23Cameron Hanes?

  You know, I mean, we couldn't communicate. So you wouldn't know what I was doing. I tried to send you that satellite message thing, but uh,

• 1:13:31Cameron Hanes?

  I just was like really wrestling with, should I go try to kill that bull or head down and like, cause there was other bulls bugling down. So I just decided, um, I'm just gonna drop straight down that ridge and see what these bulls at the bottom are doing. Well, by the time we got down a little bit, there was a bull coming up the bottom towards you guys. You guys are still like probably, you know, a mile away, but he was coming and he was bugling. So I was like hustle, hustle, hustle, running, running, trying to, I knew he was gonna be passing where the bottom of that, the, the draw we were in, he was in the big drainage. And I said, so I needed to get there. So I go brush, you know, like breaking through brush down there,

• 1:14:10Cameron Hanes?

  trying to keep Tanner up on, on me. I get down to where I can see over the bottom, like from the bank kind of, and I'm like, okay, I think I can shoot from here. And I look and I can, I can see him coming. It's like black horn. He's like, you know, I saw he was a big six by six and he's just coming up the bottom. So I'm trying to have Tanner hustle up, but also be quiet. It's like, how do you do both? Um, but that bull was coming. I was cow calling, keeping him coming and he kept coming and I ranged thirty two yards to the other side, twenty one yards to my side of, of the bottom where the creek was. And I'm like, okay, thirty two at the furthest, twenty one here. I, uh, you know, put my sight on, uh, twenty one for the close one and the second pin would be on thirty one. I'm like, perfect.

• 1:14:56Cameron Hanes?

  Bull comes out, breaks out at thirty two and, and turns right to me. So I'm at full draw waiting and he comes right to me and to twenty, twenty yards probably or twenty one, and then turns broadside. So I'm at full draw here. Tanner's filming, it's perfect footage. And I'm like, ew, he doesn't hear me. And so I'm just like, shit, he's gonna be gone. He's already quartering away. So I had this little window through the brush. I saw it and just let it go and, uh, That bull, the arrow hit the bull and the bull like went 20, maybe 20 yards, but it's so thick, I couldn't see him. So he disappeared and it was just dead silent. And I'm just standing there and I'm going, normally when you hit a bull good, they crash until they die. You know,

• 1:15:41Cameron Hanes?

  it's like 20 or 30 seconds, just sounds like a herd of elephants. And then they're, then it's quiet, but he didn't go hardly anywhere and dead quiet. I'm like, the hell is going on? Did I, you don't know what happened. And then, and I don't know how much time elapsed on the footage, you, you probably do, but, and then a big crash and I saw him and you could tell he went down. I'm like, and Tanner's like, dad, he goes, I got it. I got it. It's, it's epic. And we were just super fired up. And so he's, you know, a big, heavy black horn, six by six and made a good shot, put him down quick. And that was my winter hunt bull and Tanner was all fired

• 1:16:24Cameron Hanes?

  up. He ran up to get you guys. Everybody came down and there we were.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. My, my favorite thing, obviously we weren't there for the kill, but when we walked across the creek and in, into where the bull had, had died was, I mean, perfect. It's like this dark background and everything's so thick and then just this little opening and that's where he died. And it was just like,

• 1:16:49Cameron Hanes?

  It was meant to be.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So beautiful.

• 1:16:52Cameron Hanes?

  It was meant to be with all that happened, even though it was three or four day hunts, pretty short, just relatively speaking, for Tanner to be there to, to last minute, to be able to help out filming, to go with me on that, to, to actually film that one with my oldest son, who just killed a big bull in the wilderness himself. And then to have you guys close enough to, to go get you and to have, it's just,

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Got the satellite message.

• 1:17:16Cameron Hanes?

  Dude, it, it could not have been any better. Where he died, the photos, where we could break down, we camped right there. Wayne told us incredible John 316 story. It was,

• 1:17:28Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, it could not have went better.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just realized when Tanner came up and started to, he gave us like three bugles back to back to back.

• 1:17:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  We had just sat down. We had just made it right there across the creek.

• 1:17:44Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, really?

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we had just gotten down when he, when he started doing that.

• 1:17:47Cameron Hanes?

  So you guys had moved from where we left?

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we, where you left us, we ended up going kind of across.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Wayne had thought he'd heard you cow call. So we were like, okay, we'll go across this drainage and see they're probably going to go check out those other bowls because it had been a couple hours. So we figured you passed on that bowl. But then I got that text and we waited for like another hour. We're like, there should be plenty of time. So that's when we, we headed down.

• 1:18:13Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Cameron Hanes?

  So how far were you from the bowl at that time?

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, we probably walked 250 yards.

• 1:18:21Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, so you're close.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty close. Yeah.

• 1:18:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, shit.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  So, but yeah, I mean, couldn't have died in a better place, at least for photos and, and the video. Super cool. Yeah.

• 1:18:32Cameron Hanes?

  Man, it was amazing. Um, very thick on the video. Very thick, but that bull breaks through that and he's, looks big as shit coming, coming through all that creek bottom.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty. I mean, on the video, it's like, you know, when Tanner showed us on the camera, it was like, oh, you can just see him. But when it's blown up on like a big screen, it's like, damn.

• 1:18:54Cameron Hanes?

  You see it good?

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Yo.

• 1:18:56Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, okay. I haven't, I haven't even looked at it. I've only looked at it on, well, on Tanner's phone. I should put it on my, do the.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  And that's not punching at all. That's just as it is. So we'll be able to.

• 1:19:06Cameron Hanes?

  Should be good. Yeah. Should be good.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then we, you know, celebrated and broke him down.

• 1:19:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  And I mean, it doesn't get any more in the bottom.

• 1:19:18Cameron Hanes?

  That was a pack out, but I wouldn't want it any other way. Uh, Wayne, I think we talked about this on maybe one of the other, we, we did Tanner's podcast and then, you know, we talked about it a little bit, but. Wayne, he had a horse packer set up and then I had also talked to Cal Halliday. And when I was in there by myself on an opening weekend, he said, hey, if you kill a bull in here by yourself, he goes, let me know, send me a text or something. I'll have, you know, four or five guys here within five hours to help pack. So no, it wasn't opening weekend, but I'm like, I told Wayne that and I said, he goes, well, who do you want to, who do you want to get a hold of? You want to get a hold of Cal or do you want to get a hold of the horse packer? And I'm like,

• 1:20:00Cameron Hanes?

  I think I'd rather have Cal with some other badass, you know, mountain guys and just share this pack out with them. And this is, you know, once in a lifetime and these guys are savages. Let's get them down here. And, you know, true to form, Cal, they got up, I don't know what time, three in the morning, made it all the way there. They said they'd be there at 8:00 AM. They were down at my bull at 8:01 and I don't, I mean, this is miles and miles and miles, driving, rough road, packing miles and they showed up one minute late.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  I don't even know how you do that.

• 1:20:39Cameron Hanes?

  I don't either, but they were, couldn't be any happier to be part of that.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  They're stoked.

• 1:20:47Cameron Hanes?

  Just, you know, just studs.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:49Cameron Hanes?

  And so, yeah, it's like, I'll never forget that. I'll never forget the whole, obviously the whole hunt, but that morning was a special one. You know, we had, we had the bull broke down by that time, but man, they were down to like, we didn't bone out the front shoulder. That morning though, they were like so willing to, you know, we hadn't boned out the shoulder, you know, it's, there's, comes a point where like, you know, you can work on those bulls for a long time. Sometimes it takes fresh perspective, energy. They say, hey, Cal said, hey, do you want me to bone out these front shoulders? You know, I can do it, you know? And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And then take the bottom job off, which I hadn't done either.

• 1:21:31Cameron Hanes?

  So it was nice having just fresh energy in there and then just packing like, we would have had to do two trips, which in that place, two trips. I mean, so that would have been a whole nother day of getting your ass kicked.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  I probably would have expired down there.

• 1:21:48Cameron Hanes?

  Probably would have died. But, uh, so to have, have the, I, why, why can't I figure out Ryan's last name?

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  I don't know if we've ever known it.

• 1:21:58Cameron Hanes?

  We haven't, but I should be, oh, all I have to do is text Cal. It's like, is that impossible? But Cal, Eric, Keith and Ryan, just freaking studs.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So thankful for them. They definitely saved my ass. That's for sure.

• 1:22:14Cameron Hanes?

  It was incredible.

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, and then, you know, of course packed them up, packed up the, the base camp that Wayne was staying at and, and drove out, dropped the bull off at, was that White, Whites?

• 1:22:27Cameron Hanes?

  Whites, yeah. In Gresham.

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. That guy was super nice too.

• 1:22:30Cameron Hanes?

  I know. Yeah. He's, he's pumped to make pepperoni and sausage for me. Just doing special stuff with it. But, you know, I will say,

• 1:22:40Cameron Hanes?

  a wilderness bull, they gotta work really hard to live, right? Normally they're not giant bodies because it's so hard back there to, to survive. Well, this bull was fucking giant.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 1:22:57Cameron Hanes?

  So, and people, they talk all sorts of shit. I mean, I got the piece of paper here. We weighed every piece of boned out meat, 304 pounds. So the butcher at Whites said, that's a thousand pound animal. So a thousand pound elk on the hoof in the wilderness? That's an animal.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  That's the first thing I noticed when I walked up to him was like, holy shit. But then I was like, maybe it's just, I haven't been around, you know, I wasn't on the other trips. I haven't seen a dead bull this year.

• 1:23:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  But I was thinking, this is a big body.

• 1:23:28Cameron Hanes?

  Giant.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. He was giant old bull. Um, yeah. So we got tons of meat. I mean, and normally I'm not saying anybody wastes meat, but,

• 1:23:40Cameron Hanes?

  When you have to pack that far to that hole, people maybe aren't like is as precise

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Cameron Hanes?

  On getting that meat out of there, but I take all the rib meat out. I take every stitch of meat off that thing. And it ended up being three hundred and four, four pounds. So, you know, we're getting tenderloins, all the neck meat, all the, you know, in between the ribs, all the, the stomach lining meat, all I'd get all of it. It's like if I kill a bull, everything's coming out. And so we, we did a good job with that.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So 24 years of putting in, are you happy with the outcome?

• 1:24:19Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, you know, the hunt couldn't have went any better other than it could have been longer. I mean, you know, I think about the experiences I had and, and I'm glad I didn't get that bull killed that first morning. You know, the one that came in so fast because I would have really felt cheated. I still a little bit, a little bit feel cheated on. Uh, it happened. It still happened pretty quick. Yeah, we, we, we enjoyed the hunt. We got, we got everything somebody would want on a backcountry hunt. I just would have wanted a little more.

• 1:24:59Cameron Hanes?

  A few more bulls, a few more getting close, some more miles, maybe some little bit more misery. But when I look back on it now, when you look at the photos and you, and you think of the memories, when you talk about the hunt like this, it's like, how could it be any better? Yeah, I feel so grateful to have, well, to have my, my oldest son there. Uh, you know, he's away in the army for quite a while, so we didn't get a chance to, to do epic trips.

• 1:25:29Cameron Hanes?

  The herd bull was there. Wayne Indicott is, you know, one of the best men you'll ever meet. And then to have you there to basically document the hunt with those photos. And we'll have those forever. That's history too. And,

• 1:25:46Cameron Hanes?

  How could it have been better?

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:48Cameron Hanes?

  It's, it's as good as it gets. And then have the, the guys come in, Cal, Eric, you know, Keith and Ryan have to, to meet them and to see them work and to be like just influenced by their passion. I'll never forget that either. So yeah, it's a, I don't know. I don't, I don't know how it could have went better.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Okay, this is my, this is my one tough question and we could take it off the end of the podcast. It might not fit in here, but I think it'll apply to the film.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  So obviously Roy was who got you into bow hunting and your life is bow hunting. You are the bow hunter. You, it's what you've dedicated your life to. So when you have these trips and you have these experiences, knowing that Roy was the one that got you into it, and obviously he passed away, is there any amount of survivor's guilt or anything like that where you feel undeserving?

• 1:26:49Cameron Hanes?

  I feel undeserving to be in the position I'm in because Roy was better than me at everything. Everything I care about, the mountains, bow hunting, woodsmanship, confidence, he was better. So here I am, having all the success, and he was better than me. He should be, um, he had a lot of success and he made a huge impact on those around him when he was here for the 49 years he was here, but I wish it wasn't over. And, uh, whatever I do, I just

• 1:27:34Cameron Hanes?

  think he would have surpassed that. And so whatever success I have, he would have had greater success. And that's, um, I don't know if I feel cheated that I don't get to witness that and be part of that and share that with him, but, uh,

• 1:27:53Cameron Hanes?

  And I'd I'd love to. I'd love to share all this. I'd love to. That's what I miss the most. It's like, I'm still gonna, I'm still gonna do what I do. I still am, you know, the bow hunter. But it's not the same.

• 1:28:08Cameron Hanes?

  You know, it's not, it's just the the victories, the successes just aren't quite as sweet. It's just, everything is a little muted since he fell. And, uh, yeah, so,

• 1:28:28Cameron Hanes?

  you know, we lose people we love in life and we must go on and we must try to honor them. And so that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to, he's, he got me started in bow hunting. I'm just trying to live up to the example he set for me.

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  Well, I think the, the few years I've known you, I never knew Roy, obviously, but the stories I hear, I think he'd be proud, you know, I think

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  the, the, the foot you put forward for hunting, for bow hunting, for standing up for others, you know, we, we talked about this yesterday, but that to me is, is, I don't know, you know, I've been with you during Coca Dona and, and times where I, I can understand why people look at you and hold you to such a high standard. It's like, this is Superman and Coca Dona, I talked about this too, is like, there were times where I was like, this is just the raw form of who you are as a man. And, you know, beat down, you were still one step, you know, one foot in front of the other. And, uh, I mean, I'm inspired. I've talked about that, you know, there's a lot of things I wouldn't do

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  had I not known you. And the, the grace you, you show me when I show up to hunt and I can't continue, you know, um, yeah, I mean, I think he would be proud. I know he would be proud and I'm honored to know you and, and to get to capture those moments and, and spend those hunts with you and, and your family and Wayne and people who are closest with you. So, thank you.

• 1:29:59Cameron Hanes?

  Well, I think, I mean, thanks, that's so, so well said. Um, but just know that that's Roy.

• 1:30:08Cameron Hanes?

  It's not me.

• 1:30:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I wasn't. He was a much better man that made me look at things differently and have a different perspective. So I'm just doing what I think he would do. And so when you say offering grace, or if you say, you know, that's just his influence. I'm trying, I'm trying to be, you know, I'm, I'm not a kid. I should know better, but, but I'm flawed. And he always helped me navigate or just be the, be the man I should have been. He, he helped with that. So, you know, he's been gone now for 10 years and it's been tough.

• 1:30:54Cameron Hanes?

  But just, just trying to do what he would do. And like I said, honor that legacy. And so you, you say in those, those kind words means a lot. And I'm, I'm glad that you feel that way. And just, just know that in some ways that's Roy, that's Roy's influence. So.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's all I had for the recap.

• 1:31:20Cameron Hanes?

  It's a good one. Well, maybe I got one, one more quick little elk hunt.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe we're gonna have to do recap episode two.

• 1:31:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  Maybe it's not the only episode.

• 1:31:30Cameron Hanes?

  Well, thanks for, yeah, thanks for all that. That was a good discussion and, and yeah, that's, that's update from September, guys. Hope you enjoyed it.

• 1:31:42Cameron Hanes?

  Keep it written.