Ep. 842: Jani's Hunt for a Manitoba Giant | 12 in '26

Janis Putelis https://www.instagram.com/janis_putelis/?hl=en answers your questions and breaks down his archery Manitoba black bear hunt captured in MeatEater's brand new "12 in '26" film series. He hunts over bait for the very first time to see what the fuss is all about. Presented by @Moultrie. Products and @onXHunt Watch the film now on MeatEater's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oDPIaTYZq0 Connect with MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAaa0mleeU128Ad5iM1RFIg, and YouTube Clips https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterClips Subscribe to MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:03Speaker 03

  The bait thing is very contentious.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  Even for me personally, like when you watch this on television, it looks almost too easy. And I've watched YouTube videos of this and been like, is that really hunting? Is it easier than Zan's pot and stock hunt 100%? But one of the cool things that you get from baited hunt like this is you get to be very particular about the animal you hunt. You don't have to make a judgment call on the size and the sex at 300 yards or 500 yards or even 100 yards. Here you get to do it at 10 yards, 12 yards. And so it's much easier to pick out the mature male.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Not shoot a salad cubs. I don't know, it'll be interesting. I need to put some time in and just get a feel for all of it until I can really even have an opinion about it. At this point, it's all new to me.

• 3:14Speaker 04

  What you just heard there were my ruminations from the first afternoon, evening of my Manitoba bear hunt. Uh, where I'm sort of trying to figure out what in the world is going on.

• 3:29Speaker 04

  Welcome to 12 and 26 podcast. I should say, welcome to the 12 and 26 podcast. This is the companion show to our 12 and 26 hunting fish films rolling out this year. What are the fish films, uh, Corey? I only know of 12 hunting films. Is there some fishing?

• 3:50Speaker 05

  Well, we know there was some fishing in the behind the scenes on your Manitoba bear hunt.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  There is.

• 3:56Speaker 05

  I don't know if there's any front and center fishing.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  Who wrote this script? Not me. Corinne.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Anyways, we're gonna do this for all of the 12 and 26, uh, episodes, films, things that are coming out this year, which if you haven't heard, we're doing hour-long, um, just hour-long versions of what we always do, but we're gonna drop one a month. And alongside that, we're just gonna have other things like articles and podcasts like this one, where the host of the show will answer your questions from the internet, whether it's YouTube or Instagram, um, and then just sort of give you a little bit more background, a little more context to, uh, the, the things that we do. So, um, if you're turning into the show right now and haven't seen, uh, my Manitoba Bear Hunt,

• 4:47Speaker 04

  go and watch that, and then this, uh, podcast will make more sense to you. Um, and you know what the next one is, Corey, coming up in March, I guess, the next 12 and 26?

• 5:00Speaker 05

  Well, it all has to do with our post-production team getting it out on time.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 5:04Speaker 05

  Depending on which one, but I believe it stars Clay Newcomb. I think we're trying to balance out which location and which pursuit.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  He's got a couple of them this year.

• 5:13Speaker 05

  He does. Yep.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Maybe some more bear hunting?

• 5:17Speaker 05

  Maybe. Maybe. Mr. Bear Grease? That'd make sense.

• 5:20Speaker 04

  We'll see. We'll see. Alright, today I'm here with Corey, who you've already heard from, and Phil the Engineer, to address your questions about my Manitoba Black Bear Hunt. And, uh, wanted to thank you for writing in and giving us some questions, so we can, uh, make this bonus content here. Um, Corey and Corinne took a, uh, bunch of time to curate, uh, these questions. The, i-if there was, you know, 10 of the same question, or 10 versions of the same question, we definitely chose those. So we're trying to answer the, uh, the most, the most requested questions. Um, let's see. Up top, we'd like to address the controversy,

• 6:03Speaker 04

  drama, and disagreement inspired by a baited bear hunt. And, um, again, you guys all made your voices clear on both sides of this issue. Let's see.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Should I tell, should I say the names of who, uh, wrote in?

• 6:18Speaker 06

  I think so, yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. Give them a little shout out? MarkMCMurphy9507 writes, "I'm sorry, guys, but this is not hunting. I should probably be careful about editorializing with my voice, huh, Phil?"

• 6:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, maybe.

• 6:32Speaker 04

  I could be, it could be very easy to do that.

• 6:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, maybe, I don't know if you want to say like quote, unquote, anything like that.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, but the, the, because these are the anti hu- uh, baiting.

• 6:42Speaker 06

  Oh, you mean editorializing with like the tone of your voice?

• 6:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 6:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, you don't want to sound like, like Steve's did it, did it thing, you know?

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Because these are, these are the folks that are not down with the baiting. "I'm sorry, guys, but this is not hunting. This is just killing. Even if there is a expletive ton of bears in Manitoba, in parentheses, heart my Canada, and if you're only taking mature boars, there is no stalking and no actual hunting. Is this right up there with animals caged then released for killing? I don't think so, but come on, guys. You're better than this, and I still love Meat Eater." At ChristopherO-k2i says, "If you can't hunt it fairly, don't hunt at all. Actually, this is not hunting, it's just killing the easy way. Disgusting."

• 7:36Speaker 04

  Here's at Moosee1961, "I will never understand why any good hunter has to bait an animal in to kill. They are not real hunters. Get expletive out there and track and hunt." Now, on the flip side, at StruggleBusOperator, kind of like that, uh, handle, writes, "It's population control. Anybody who wants a 'challenge,' in quotes, can find one elsewhere, but baiting can be a part of wildlife management." At MyFrenchBulldogInMe says, "Incredible watch and representation of how ethical hunting doesn't end with legal bait and plenty of bears. Just a different look at hunting." At Powder Knit states,

• 8:19Speaker 04

  "I dislike the uppity mentality that hunting is only big time spot and stalk hunting." At

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Some random gamer. Some random gamer 1260, thank you.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  I was going somewhere else with that, but uh, they write, there's literally evidence in the animal world of other species using bait to hunt. Birds using bait to attract fish into striking distance, for example. Turtles with tongues literally shaped like a worm to lure fish into their mouths. And yet there's still some grown men who think hunting has to be difficult. At the little spoon 1982 says, as a fisherman, I see nothing wrong with baiting your catch. Seems like gatekeeping to me to shit on people who bait for hunt, who bait animals for hunting.

• 9:14Speaker 04

  So.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  If somebody asks you now, what do you think about baiting bears? What would your take be, Yanni? That's Corinne asking this question. Oh, no, Corey, maybe you were supposed, and I see your name highlighted in there.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I didn't want to interrupt you. You were rolling. That's all right. We'll get, we'll get this dialed by the end of it. That's perfect. Not before, by the end. I've been thinking a lot about the whole baiting thing. Especially since the episode came out and the comments came out, it just, you know, I've, I've had almost a year to be thinking about this. And there's a lot to say about it. Number one, I'll say this, I am still a very inexperienced.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Like bait hunter. I only have those three days. Well, that's not true. Like I said, I've done, I think I've done two days. Over feeders in Texas for bear or for pigs and deer. So it's still very, very small amount of experience. You're a big spot and stock guy. Well. Or sitting in a tree stand or a saddle. Yeah, I mean, I do all kinds of hunting, a lot. But I just don't have a lot of experience doing baited hunts. And I say that not as a way to get out of answering the question, but because I've often found myself, because I, what I get to do and going to try different kinds of hunting all the time.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  That a lot of times, the first, even second time of when you're on a hunt. It doesn't matter if it's guided or not. I'm a stranger to the landscape. I'm a stranger to the animal. If it's a new animal that I'm hunting, right? So I'm just, I'm still like in the introductory stage. I'm still learning. I'm still building a relationship, both with the landscape and the animal. And so it happened to me in Latvia, right? Where we went there to hunt and I had this great stag kind of presented to me, but it was literally two hours into the first morning of the hunt. I'm kind of like just there being kind of casual like, ah, I don't know. This looks like it's pretty easy. I mean, we'd already seen like

• 11:21Speaker 04

  two other stags that morning and I didn't feel the pressure of like, oh, you need to get this thing killed now because this is your opportunity. Right? And so same thing with these bears with a baited hunt. I think going back and doing it a second and third time, I might actually be more excited, have more buck fever in the moment on the second or third time I kill a bear over bait than I did the first time. Because again, you're just, it's so new. You don't, I don't even know to be excited yet, right? Because you're just kind of like, oh, this is easy. But as I saw in my hunt, it's like the mature boar, he only showed up on day three.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  And maybe he wasn't going to show up, right? So it's not.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Again, that's my experience. Um, but I don't know. We're going to continue coming back to like probably what I think about baiting bears. Uh, there's a bunch of questions related to that.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  I don't think there's anything wrong with it. The thing that has caused me the most sort of thought and, and sort of friction in my head has been,

• 12:34Speaker 04

  well, if that's okay, how come I'm not really okay with baiting deer?

• 12:41Speaker 05

  Hence a question we received via Instagram.

• 12:44Speaker 04

  Was that a question?

• 12:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Would you have the same outlook on baiting bears as you would baiting whitetail?

• 12:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, and that one has, I think the word is consternation.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  It's just giving me a lot of time to think about it because where we are in Wisconsin, you're not supposed to bait. But there's some baiting that goes on.

• 13:07Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 13:07Speaker 04

  And it definitely, Steve has always said, talking about bait,

• 13:13Speaker 04

  that anytime the bait sort of changes the animal's natural movement patterns, he doesn't really like it. Well, obviously with these bears, it's changing where they are. It's concentrating them big time, right? And we talked about the reasons why to do it, right? It's like, it's all kind of there in that intro of that episode. It's like, you get to see a lot of bears, you get to observe bears, and then you get to pick which bear you're gonna kill. With spot and stock hunting, as you know, a lot of times, it's like, you're like, oh, I think it's a big bear. There's something black, like, I'm gonna shoot it and I'm gonna kill it.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Spot and stock bear hunting, I mean, unless it's sow with cubs, or if it's like, obviously a small bear you're seeing, it's like, pretty hard to pass up an opportunity of just seeing one of those needles.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you've been grinding. It's hard, right?

• 14:02Speaker 05

  Typically, yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  So, I think that, and as you can see in the comments, a lot of people don't like it because it's too easy. And to that, I feel like I have a great answer. It's like, if you're sitting in a blind on a food plot, not even a food plot, let's just say it's a cornfield or any field where deer are gonna come out, like, an hour before dark, and then you're gonna shoot one. That's by no means any harder.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Than what I did, right?

• 14:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Like, you know they're coming to that food source. You've set up on that food source in an ambush location. So, sure, maybe you didn't dump the corn out in the field. A farmer grew it or whatever, but it's kind of basically the same thing, right?

• 14:54Speaker 05

  But you did a fantastic job in this episode, Manitoba Black Barrett, setting the scene as to what goes into the bait. And how much work that entails, you know, time and money, a lot of energy.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  For sure, for sure. But I'm just saying like, it's, I, I, I think that people see it and they're just like, oh, it's too easy. You're just there and you shoot it. And as the hunter, on a guided hunt, yeah, we went and I helped Craig do a little bit. But yeah, I'm not putting in the effort that, that he is, right? To get the bears to be coming to that bait. So that feeling that you get from a, a hard earned opportunity, whether it's hiking the mountains for elk for a week or for multiple years to get a shot at one.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  And then you get one, sort of that elation, I'm probably not going to get that from shooting a bear over bait, right? But what I do want to say is that just because it's easier, I don't think that should necessarily take away from the experience. Just like set your expectations, right? Like, you're not going to have that big, oh, moment and just like tears are going to come bursting out because you just put in five crazy days of work, right? This is way more casual or whatever, but it is what it is and it shouldn't take away from it. There's a lot, like I said in the, watch the episode, there's a lot of things that you get to experience doing that, that you don't get to experience grinding the mountains for five days, you know?

• 16:30Speaker 04

  So again, I just don't think that we, we should look at it as it's, um, that it's exclusive of one another, that just because one, one version of hunting is easier, that it's not proper hunting or not ethical hunting or not the right kind of hunting. It's just different. So.

• 16:50Speaker 05

  Cool. Let's watch this next clip, which I think he's kind of set up the kind of environment that you're in.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  Phil's ready for us to move on, folks.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  Two hours northwest of Winnipeg and we're still very much in southern Manitoba. This central Canadian province runs 760 miles north to south. The outfit sits just north of Riding Mountain National Park and just west of Lake Manitoba. To the south are the Great Plains and to the north, the beginnings of the boreal forest. This part of Manitoba is an even mix of forest and agriculture. Aspen and bur oak dominate the woods and the fields are mostly canola, wheat and soybeans. This makes for unbelievable bear habitat. Manitoba is estimated to hold 30 to 40,000 black bears.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  Man, something about black bear hunting, yanni and forest fires and smoke. When we went hunting in our

• 17:53Speaker 04

  Oh, that's right.

• 17:54Speaker 05

  In Montana, we had somehow had to deal with forest fires in May. Didn't expect that and it affected our hunt, but.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, you could see it's a little smoky in that clip there and

• 18:05Speaker 05

  Pretty thick haze.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  We actually ran into hunters traveling on that hunt. That had gone farther north and had to be evacuated and didn't even get to go black bear hunt.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Oh, interesting.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it's a thing.

• 18:18Speaker 05

  So after we watched and heard that, were you hunting McCarthy's property in Manitoba? And can you describe the layout of that habitat?

• 18:26Speaker 04

  Uh, so we were not hunting the McCarthy's place.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  We were hunting either public land that he has the right to bait on or private land where he has an agreement with the landowner to have a bait site.

• 18:45Speaker 04

  As far as what it looks like, um, I mean, you saw it there in the clip. If you're only listening, um, it is a very even mix of woods and ag. I mean, it's kind of what you would you expect in a lot of parts of the Midwest. Where the ag hasn't gone completely nutso and where they're not agging, you know, farming from ditch to ditch. Um, but here there's still a lot of woods left between the fields.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  And yeah, it was, I was surprised to see, I was because like I said in the description there in the video. It's aspen and oak trees, which I've never seen that mix anywhere else. I mean, we have. Big toothed aspen down in Wisconsin, but not these populous tremulodes like the ones that we have out west here, the ones that are white, real white barked and you know, you get the great colors in, in the fall and they shimmer in the wind. That's the same aspen that's there. So it's a really cool mix and I bet you in the fall, it's just absolutely gorgeous. I mean, oak trees and aspens, I mean, it's gotta be killer.

• 19:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, colors, the foliage would be popping.

• 19:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:48Speaker 05

  Um, that's a lot of bears, obviously, that you got to witness daily out there and then obviously Manitoba, massive province, but the, just the section you were in, you had a lot of bear encounters. So there must be plenty of places for them to, to rest and recover and hide out, assuming during the day. Uh, so just looking at that photo we're looking at, uh, from that clip, it's a good mix, lot of, lot of habitat for them to hide in and then plenty of farm field.

• 20:19Speaker 04

  Farm fields to feed in, yeah. It's the best of both worlds, everything a bear wants.

• 20:24Speaker 05

  And then you were there in June, right? So it's probably early farming season, assuming nothing's like standing too tall yet in those fields.

• 20:32Speaker 04

  No, no, we saw farmers actually planting.

• 20:35Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  Planting fields, prepping for the season, yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 05

  So did you pick those dates that you hunted in Manitoba that week?

• 20:44Speaker 04

  Nope. Uh, I think the season ends second week of June or after the second week of June. So it pretty much runs all of May and then two weeks into June. Um, he usually, a lot of times doesn't hunt into June, um, but because this is kind of last minute, he, he got a spot for me, kind of on the back end of everybody else hunting. Um,

• 21:11Speaker 04

  he felt like, it's good and bad. The, basically the farther you get into June, the hides are gonna be more rubbed, except for the big boars. He said that for whatever reason, the big boars seem to keep, do less rubbing, um, and, and keep their nice hides longer. It might be because they're more focused on rutting. So that's kind of peak rutting a-activity is that June time period. And so because they're, you know, looking for sows, they're not sitting around rubbing their hides off.

• 21:42Speaker 05

  I was gonna ask that. Did you witness any rutting action?

• 21:47Speaker 04

  Ah, I mean, the big boar that came in, I mean, probably any boar that was sort of, you know, middle-sized, middle-aged to bigger or older is coming there because they know there's going to be sows at that bait. There's going to be more than one sow and there's going to be more than one boar, you know, coming around, right? So, um, but I wouldn't say that we didn't actually see any sort of boar chasing a sow activity. No, not specifically.

• 22:18Speaker 05

  Coming in is kind of a win-win for them. They might find some food. Well, they will find some food. Maybe they'll find a lady, too.

• 22:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 05

  They probably, they probably do that undercover in the thick oaks and aspens.

• 22:31Speaker 04

  Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  I would.

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• 23:04Steven Rinella?

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• 24:13Speaker 05

  Let's see, changing topics. We had a few questions come in about bear bait ingredients. Someone on Instagram asked, "What kind of bait is used? And how does it affect the flavor of the meat and fat of the bears?" Uh, we've got a clip here from the film which could help answer that.

• 24:33Speaker 07

  I just put a bit of oats and then I'll top it off with some corn.

• 24:44Speaker 07

  At the start of the season, I usually just use oats.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  Just oats?

• 24:48Speaker 07

  Just oats and, uh, the grease, used grease.

• 24:52Speaker 04

  How do you get your hands on enough grease to, for this?

• 24:55Speaker 07

  Uh, I got some inns with a few restaurants. And, uh, they just hold it all for me.

• 25:01Speaker 04

  So I use fryer oil?

• 25:02Speaker 07

  Use fryer oil, yeah. And then I put, uh, an ounce or two of Northwoods bear products in it.

• 25:09Speaker 07

  Some expired stuff.

• 25:14Speaker 07

  They eat anything that's soaked in fryer oil.

• 25:18Speaker 04

  You think they would eat it less if it was just plain bread?

• 25:21Speaker 07

  Well, if it's got green, they're fussy.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  Really?

• 25:24Speaker 07

  If it's like rotten like that, they won't eat it.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  No kidding?

• 25:28Speaker 07

  Unless you soak it.

• 25:32Speaker 07

  They don't eat fish.

• 25:35Speaker 07

  Because they're not raised on it like they are in B.C. and stuff, right? At the salmon runs and they just...

• 25:44Speaker 07

  And in meat, if the meat goes rotten, they don't like it, but something about beaver.

• 25:51Speaker 04

  Something about beaver is right. Now, if you're only listening, again, we were at the bait barrel and after putting in the corn and, um, oats that were soaked in the fryer oil, we added some outdated, uh, bread that was moldy. So that's why we were talking about the mold, but he said if you, you know, soak it in some grease, then, uh, they're, they're more apt to, so get after it. Um, so yeah, our ingredients included oats, corn, grease, bear lure, birthday cake and beaver meat. The most interesting part about it was that there is some tactics involved with baiting. Like early on, when he's doing this sort of pre-baiting to set the stations up before he's got hunters coming in,

• 26:37Speaker 04

  it's only the oats and they're soaked. And the reason he does that is because the oats don't fill the bears up. They just go right through the bears. They kind of just poop them right out. And it's very evident when you're at the bait site because it was like a 20 yard radius where it's almost like a just a smear of bear poop of oats that are just, they're still whole. Like they're just not breaking them down. They're not getting nutrients out of them. So they fill up, they leave, they come right back. So he feels like that helps him come back. And then as it gets time to hunt them, he starts adding the corn and adding other things to sort of sweeten the pot a little bit.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  And hopefully make that one, you know, big bear come in during daylight hours.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  The other more interesting thing was how into the beaver meat they are. Yeah. Um, the first night it was just hung basically where they could get to it very easily. And the first bear that came in, got the beaver out of the tree, went off 50 yards and you could hear munching on it. Other bears were coming in, they could smell that he was over there or she was over there chewing on that beaver meat. They would go over there, they'd tussle, you know, get a chunk or whatever. And you, and once it was all gone, the bears started hitting the bait barrel. But that beaver meat is number one for whatever reason. And I even asked Craig about, like, how come you just wouldn't use roadkill? Yeah. Like there's moose around, there's elk around, there's deer around.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  And he's like, man, they're not into it. Wow. Not into it. With that sweet beaver meat, they love it. His theory is that it's one of the first of easy available foods for them in the spring. And the sow can teach those cubs to basically sit on a beaver run and hunt them easily. So they sort of grow up, you know, with a taste for it.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, like you were saying, they don't like fish, which is surprising to me because it's just a stinky old fish. You think would just.

• 28:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, you would think anything, right?

• 28:42Speaker 05

  But if they're not used to it, if they're not grown up on it as for a beaver.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  And I would imagine they're like anything, if you just kept giving it to them, kept giving it to them, that some would start to eat it slowly. And then, you know, maybe they develop a taste for it, but anyways, um, so people want to know. Uh, i- if like that changed the flavor of the meat or the fat. Again, he only baits them for about eight weeks total. Maybe that's enough time to change the, the flavor of bear meat. But again, it's mostly corn and oats. There's like some oil on there. There's a little bit of the pastries and the sweet stuff.

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Birthday cake.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I just don't think it's quite enough. The only time that we've experienced that is with the Prince of Wales island bears. They're literally are eating fish or seafood year round. Like they're always scavenging on the beaches, whether it's they're eating mussels or they got salmon coming up the creeks and they're eating those, whatever it might be. That bear meat. Steve one time gave me a chunk and said, close your eyes and eat this. And when I ate it, it was a smoked chunk of bear. But when you ate it, you thought you were eating salmon jerky.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Cause it just tasted like a salmon.

• 30:10Speaker 05

  That sounds pretty good.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, it actually wasn't bad at all. Um, it wasn't like it was rotten salmon. It was just, you know, smoked, it was a more of a smoked salmon flavor than a smoked red meat flavor. So yeah, I don't think it it changes changed it at all. Um, so.

• 30:29Speaker 05

  Did you notice any different taste? You did that, uh, what was the recipe that you cooked up up there at their?

• 30:36Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  Their camp. Did you notice any off putting taste in the flavor?

• 30:40Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:40Speaker 05

  Or the fat that you've been eating on?

• 30:41Speaker 04

  No, the fat is completely, what makes bear grease so great is that it's odorless and flavorless. I mean, I just, I think that if you did a blind taste test and you had, I don't know, olive oil and avocado oil and whatever, grape seed oil, bear would land, bear grease would land in the oils that are just the, the most flavorless and odorless. Like, I feel like olive oil I could probably pick out. I'm trying to think of one other one that's like, it's like just very, very bland. Um, but yeah. There's just no flavor to it.

• 31:23Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 31:24Speaker 05

  That is.

• 31:26Speaker 05

  Uh, from YouTube, at UA2894 asks, isn't it bad to feed the bears on that stuff?

• 31:35Speaker 05

  Wondering the overall health.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, we, the health of the bears. Again, if it was a year round program, it probably, it would not be good for the bears. Um, everything in moderation, you know, we did hit this in a meat eater podcast where there was some sort of study being done. I think maybe even North Carolina, they, excuse me, outlawed, um, some types of bait because literally the bears there were getting tooth decay and tooth, tooth rot.

• 32:07Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  Um, but again, I'm assuming it was like a year round program or just a, a lot of it, you know, bears aren't brushing their teeth. And it was, you know, it was affecting the, affecting the bear. Um, so.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, again, too much of it, probably not good.

• 32:27Speaker 04

  Follow-up question, someone asked, when this encouraged bears to raise garbage cans? I talked to Craig McCarthy this morning about that. They do not have like a higher prevalence of bears in garbage cans or at people's houses than anywhere else where there's bear human interface. You know, I think that once these bears are off the bait, once the season ends, again, there's just so much food in that habitat between acorns from those oak trees and then all of the stuff that they're growing. Canola, corn, soybeans, sorghum, you name it, it's all there. Like those bears are just have a lot of food at their disposal.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  Fawns, calves, moose, deer.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm sure at some point, you know, when there's, when there's the, when it's fawning season, I'm sure they snack on a few.

• 33:21Speaker 05

  Beavers.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, beavers.

• 33:24Speaker 05

  Well, okay, moving on from baiting. A few folks asked if you could detail your archery setup, your bow and arrow setup. Where were you shooting?

• 33:36Speaker 04

  Uh, that was a Matthews Lift X set at 70 pounds.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  You know, my draw length is just shy of 30 inches. I shoot a, about a 30 inch arrow, maybe my arrow's 29 and a half. I'm shooting the, uh, Rip TKOs. Uh, with the 200 grain head on them, there's a weighted insert as well. I think my total arrow weight is right around 500 grains for that setup.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, anything else you want to know about my bow and arrow setup?

• 34:13Speaker 05

  No, that was pretty good. I don't think we're gonna.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Single bevel broadhead from Iron Will. That's what I shot through it and, um, yeah, got a nice pass through and the bear died. Fifty yards later, you know, less than 30 seconds, we heard the death moan.

• 34:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't remember if you covered it in the film or not, but where did you hit him? Did you hit the middle, just forward of middle of middle like you and Craig talked about?

• 34:37Speaker 04

  You know, you just can't, we've replayed it, which is often fun to do when you video hunts is you can replay and see exactly where you hit. But the light's fading just enough, that arrow's moving just fast enough that you, it's, it's hard to tell exactly where it is. Cause the bear, you know, shrugs just a little bit as the arrow's going in there. Um, it was hard to find the middle of the middle.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  Because your sight picture is just full of black hair and it's low light. And there's no shoulder crease, there's no ribs that you can, you know, see. Um, there's no other coloration that you can kind of work off of. You know, like a pronghorn antelope, I mean, it literally gives you a spot to aim on its side. Where there's like a right hand, you know, a right corner of white coming up into its vitals. And literally if you pull, put a bullet on that corner, it's money.

• 35:35Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, an all black bear does not have that. And so you can actually see me in the video sort of like moving my pins around, going up and down. I kind of come out of my peep a couple of times just because I really wanted to be sure. You know, and try to get it into that middle of the middle, um, spot. Um, but, uh, yeah, we, we did a little necropsy and, um, it had gone right through the lungs.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Beautiful. Yeah. How far did he go?

• 36:05Speaker 04

  Maybe 50 yards.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Okay. Through some thick stuff, but easy blood trail. Even with all that fur, that could be, that could be tough to blood trail bear.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, like any animal, people are always like, oh, how come there's no blood right off the bat? I don't think that there is blood right off the bat, not the kind of blood that you really want to see. I mean, sometimes you see it when you get a muscle wound and you get some muscle blood like spurting right off the bat. But really when you go through the vitals.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  Um, that stuff just doesn't start bleeding. You know, you basically have to fill up that cavity for it to start coming out the edges. Right. Or, or the motion to start sloshing it out of there.

• 36:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. And with a bear, it has to, it, it mops it up like a sponge before it actually hits the ground.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  Bears can be very.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  Or, you know, if you've gotten the lungs good, or, you know, one of those big arteries where it's going to cause the blood to be coming out of the face.

• 36:58Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 36:59Speaker 04

  Right. That still takes time and animals go so far, so fast. The people are like, oh, I didn't have blood the first 50 yards. Well, you know what? That's not an issue for me if I don't have blood the first 50 yards. Um, it's just like, it, it's just not a thing that I think about. Um, and usually if you've made the right hit and there's a bunch of blood, it's like the animals, they're dead at 50 yards. So.

• 37:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, not, not a thing I'm, I'm too worried about.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  I was curious, you weren't using illuminated NOX.

• 37:31Speaker 04

  I was.

• 37:31Speaker 05

  You were. Oh, excuse me. Obviously I didn't watch it enough, but that's good. Obviously the lot of shots on those big boars are going to be at last light. That helps so much be able to see, especially if you're filming, look back at it and.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  See where you hit it.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  Let's see, at CJJ98 asks, doesn't safety say to use a gear harness and pulley to get your bow rifle crossbow into the stand with you? Yet Yanis climbed up with it in his hand.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  What do you have to say about that?

• 38:02Speaker 04

  Um, so yes, I knew this would be a thing. The first night I wore a, um, a saddle and I was tethered in the second two nights I did not. So these stands were what I would consider a low stand, 10 feet.

• 38:19Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  Maybe your butt's 12 feet off the ground. Like you're just not that high. Um, you don't have to be that high, right? Just like a, a little bit. Um, and it's probably more for, to be able just to see and get the right angle over foliage and stuff more than trying to hide. You know, like with deer hunting, we're trying to get 20 feet up all the time because it's like part of the hide. Um, so, yeah, it was a huge stand. It was a two-person stand. It had the bar around it. Yes, could it be bad if you still fall eight feet or 10 feet off of a ladder?

• 38:58Speaker 04

  Hundred percent. Um, it, uh, it just, in that moment, I felt very safe that I can make it that short distance. I wasn't that high off the ground that it, uh, I could deal with this safely, you know? And then the second and the third night, once I was in the stand, I wasn't, I wasn't strapped in. Again, big wide platform. I was only, you know, my feet were like eight or 10 feet off the ground. Um,

• 39:26Speaker 05

  Low enough for that seven-foot bear to grab your foot if you wanted to.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. But, uh, yeah, so hundred percent. Kids, when you're climbing up into those stands, you should always use a, uh, a rope to pull up your rifle or your bow. Um, like when I'm in Wisconsin, I always do that. It's probably impossible with the way I climb up into a tree, probably be impossible to go up with the bow in my hand. But, um, yeah, that's the way you want to do it. Again, it was literally like three steps for me. It just seems so short that, uh, I wasn't worried about it.

• 40:03Speaker 05

  Well, thanks for explaining. We have another clip of the film to show, and we'll explain what we're seeing here. Phil, take it away.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Alright, I'm out.

• 40:26Speaker 05

  So for those who couldn't see what was going on, on the first day of your hunt, we see Craig, your outfitter, standing feet away from the bait drum and feet away from two bears before he leaves it to you. A bunch of folks wrote in asking, what the heck? What's going on? Why are those bears so close to the guy and not getting spooked? They almost look tame. Can you explain this scene, Yanni?

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. And you can see on my Instagram too, there was other videos, you can check out Craig's.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  Excuse me, this La Croix is really giving me some uh, some gas in my chest. Uh, there's other videos out there where that same day we're messing around, we're setting up camera gear and whatever. And behind our backs, there's bears already coming to the bakes. We've already prepped the bait. And, and at one point I tried to just sneak alongside the K and M and I get within, yeah, two or three feet. To where I could reach out and smack him in the face if I wanted to, right? It's a young bear. So I was talking to Craig about that this morning. And he's like, he's like, look, you gotta look at it that here's this food source. They're interested in it. There's a bunch of bears in the area.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Those young bear, it's a competition. Those young bears are pretty much like, if I want to get some of this, I gotta be here first.

• 41:49Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 41:50Speaker 04

  And so I like, there's certainly a custom to the sound of the buggy coming in.

• 41:56Speaker 05

  It's like a dinner bell, probably.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Oh, a hundred percent. And so they're there and they want to get first crack at it, right? And um, they're ballsy enough to where they're like, yeah, other things, whatever, K and M, humans. I'll, I'll take my chances because I want to get some of these calories. So, yes, it's like, it's, it's, it, again, it does make it, it gives it this like, oh, they're like, they're tame. Well, they're tame when they're young and they're hungry. And as they get older and they start to dominate, they start to not be quite so bold in during daylight hours. Like they've had weeks where the big boars only show up in the dark.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  And the clients don't get to kill a big boar because those big boars have it figured out.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, outsmarted them.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  Somehow.

• 42:48Speaker 05

  Well, there's other scenes uh, of bears getting really close to you. And I was curious, once that K and M leaves, where did those bears acknowledge you three, their two cameramen and yourself in the tree?

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that's a weird thing when you've never been there to get used to that. Because they're sort of like come in and then they glance up. But then they just go back to what they're doing. So they're very aware of your presence.

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Again, I just think that it's like this bait is here. They want those calories. They're that risk reward. They're willing to do the risk for the reward.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  Again, for whatever reason, the big boar is not doing that that much.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  So they they know that the threat is there. And like, we're still, when we're setting up on those baits, we're still thinking about where are the, where is the boar gonna come from? What's the wind doing? Because the wind was set up just right for when that boar came in, that he did not smell us. Like, it was a kind of a crosswind. And so had he, like, looped the crosswind, he would have smelled us. But he came in on the trail, and he just, he just never cut my wind. It could have been a totally different thing had he, you know, looped around and gotten our wind. I don't know what the result would have been. But that bear never knew we were there, the boar. So.

• 44:13Speaker 05

  Well, we have some clips showing just how close some of these bears got to you.

• 44:44Speaker 05

  Such good climbers. Looks like he's kind of taking his time, too. Is that right underneath you?

• 44:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's kind of coming up the side where there's no ladder. Those were Max's feet, you could see. And I'm on the other side of the tree.

• 45:02Speaker 05

  Oh, another bear coming from the field.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, this one, you can see it's, that's a cub that's, that was, had come in with that, with the sow, which you can see underneath Eli there. A big cinnamon bear is a sow, and she had a black cub and a blonde cub. And I'm not worried at all about that little cub. Like, that dude, you know, you can pop him in the nose and you're, and you're probably gonna turn him the other direction. But if that sow thinks that there's danger in that tree because you just popped her, you know, cub, that's the problem, is that like, you piss off that sow. That sow is not that much smaller than, than the boar that I ended up killing. She's a tank. Yeah. Beautiful color.

• 45:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, yeah, we didn't have anything like that happen in our tree. It just happened to be that when that sow sent those cubs up the tree, that, that one chose that one that Eli was in. Okay, that's what was happening. They were retreating from that boar coming in. Yes, exactly. And that happened a lot, like, every single night. There'd be a sow in there with cubs, they're doing their thing, and then, a lot of times even before we saw the other bear, the sow would make some grunt, some noise, some movement, and those cubs would just be, you know, thirty feet up a tree in a, in a heartbeat, because the boar's coming in, so. And what would mom do? She'd hang out kind of at the base of the tree.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  If she had to, she'd, she'd sort of charge at those other bears and run them off. But, uh, yeah, I think she was, out of all the bears we saw in three days, she would have done that to every single bear, except the one that I killed. Oh, really? Yeah. Though, if, if she would have charged him, it would, there would have been a little battle royale on our hands. Yeah. Those look like yearling cubs. No, those were definitely not yearling. Those were probably second year cubs. Okay, ready to get kicked in. There's the second night, the, you'll see, there's a lot of clips on it, on the episode, but the second night, those are probably more like yearling cubs. Like, one year old, not like, born that year in the, in the den, but one year old.

• 47:25Speaker 04

  I think those were probably two year old and getting ready to kick, because those were like decent size. I mean, when that one's next to Eli, it doesn't look that much smaller than Eli. No. Oh, interesting. You know, so coming on two hundred pound bear, you know, I doubt that's a yearling.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  They're eating good.

• 47:40Steven Rinella?

  They are eating good.

• 47:41Speaker 05

  Hard to say, obviously.

• 47:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, for sure.

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• 49:24Speaker 05

  Let's see, another question from at Relaxing Drives 6075. "I've never hunted bears before, but I'm confused about how you all get away with moving and talking so much and not spooking the bears. Can you please comment on this? I understand that bears see very well, but they get face to face with the cubs in the tree and seem to be unbothered. Are they aware you are there and just don't fear you?"

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Hundred percent. Hundred percent. They just haven't. I think they do fear it, but again, it's that risk reward for that bait.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  And again, we're not there doing jumping jacks and hooting and hollering. Like, we're doing some talking. It's very quiet. Um, I think that if you climb down out of the tree, you're gonna run the bears out of there, right? If you start yelling and talking in a normal voice, you're gonna probably run the bears out of there. I don't know. We didn't, we didn't test that. Cause I think that the whole goal is that you're trying to like minimize your presence. So that the boar, who is sketched out about the situation, so that you can fool him into coming in.

• 50:36Speaker 05

  Well, seeing you move is one thing, but do you think you, you must have had pretty decent wind? When they were all hanging around there, or did they not really mind that as much either?

• 50:44Speaker 04

  It just, it depended. But yeah, we know, like those, your stand's never set up upwind of that bait.

• 50:50Speaker 05

  Sure, it's never gonna be perfect all the time.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it, but, well, that would be the wrong version. So it's set up in a way so that most of the predominant winds of the area are gonna not be blowing right at the bait, you know? Um, so I, yeah, I think if they were,

• 51:10Speaker 04

  again, cause they don't see that great. This fellow seems to think that they do, or this person. But bears, right? In your opinion?

• 51:17Speaker 05

  I've not, yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  Not the best vision.

• 51:18Speaker 05

  You can't fool their nose, but yeah, they're, they're a little, they'll question what they see. Till they smell it or even hear it.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:25Speaker 05

  They'll look at you for a while, but if they smell you, you may not ever get a chance to see him.

• 51:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's over.

• 51:30Speaker 05

  Normally. Uh, let's see, here's another question. What signs do you look for to tell a boar from a sow on camera?

• 51:40Speaker 04

  Um, definitely just a stockier front end, especially those with those younger bears. I don't know if it's impossible, but I don't think I could tell, but as those bears get older.

• 51:54Speaker 04

  The boars have just a more shoulders on them and then they almost start to walk and you can definitely see it with the bear that I shoot. When he comes in, there's like a little bit of a swagger, his front toes are pointed inward almost a little bit. And just the body shape. The sow seems to be rounder, I guess, if that makes sense.

• 52:17Speaker 05

  More pear shaped.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  Definitely rounder in the butt.

• 52:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, rounder in the butt. Yeah.

• 52:25Speaker 04

  Other than that.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  It's, it's basically the cub thing.

• 52:29Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. It's not easy.

• 52:31Speaker 04

  No.

• 52:31Speaker 05

  It's nice when you get some time to look at them.

• 52:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:35Speaker 05

  But in spot and stock, especially around here out west, it's hard to, to get enough time, first of all, to be able to tell the difference. Uh, but yeah, make sure cubs is the biggest giveaway, like you said.

• 52:49Speaker 05

  But that bore was obvious, like you said, coming in hot, swaggering, owning the joint. Let's see, moving on, we want to flash another clip from the film, which shows just how smart black bears are.

• 53:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, so this one.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  We hung that basically like you'd hang some food in the back country, in bear country. Looped it over a limb, had it hanging down.

• 53:28Speaker 04

  And then had tied it off there on that tree that, uh, where we had that mulch camera.

• 53:34Speaker 05

  Never even looks at the barrel. He goes straight to the not so easy to get beaver carcass and never gives up. He climbs every tree in the vicinity multiple times. He eventually realizes that the yellow rope is attached to the beaver. And after enough manipulation, he gets what he wants. Oh, there's something about that beaver meat that a barrel full of used.

• 53:59Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 53:59Speaker 06

  Our, our video playing services having some issues, but that was basically the end of the clip.

• 54:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, we got it. Um. Just trial and error. That's a very, uh, abridged version. That bear. Yeah. I think that bear knew that we had put that, I don't.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  I don't want to say that he knew that we put that beaver carcass there, but I think that he knew that somehow we were associated with it. The same way that he kind of knew that that yellow rope was associated with it because he came over. Cause you got, the whole thing happens there in a span of a minute or two, but that actually lasted closer to an hour. Wow. And that bear came and climbed our tree multiple times. And he definitely had a, a little bit of a huff and a puff and an attitude to him about it when he was coming up that tree. As a kind of, you know, and again, it's a little bit of anthropomorphization here, but you're thinking that the bear is like, hey, you guys have something to do with that thing.

• 54:57Speaker 04

  Like, I need to come up here and maybe if I do something with you guys, that'll make the, you know, the beaver carcass fall out of the tree. I don't know. But like I said, he went up every single tree and just messed around, messed around, messed around until finally, you know, he gets ahold of that rope and then he sees that when he's holding on to the rope, the carcass is moving. And he just kept messing with that rope until the carcass fell down. Clay, in his new book, he dives into, I haven't read this part, but Clay told me all about it, about how black bears are like, it's, it's proven, it's studied that they are the most curious animals and like, like

• 55:37Speaker 04

  they're, they're able to do more problem solving than any other wild animal on our continent. Right? So this is like a prime example of that bear being like, oh, I want that. I'm going to figure out how to get it. As opposed to just being like, oh, it's out of reach. I'll go and eat the stuff out of the barrel.

• 55:56Speaker 04

  This is a trip. And again, that was worth the price of admission was just go there and watch that bear problem solve that.

• 56:05Speaker 05

  And was that bear able to devour that whole beaver? Or did somebody else come and steal?

• 56:09Speaker 04

  Uh, he ran off with it eventually. And then other bears would, you know, go into the woods where he was and you'd hear some growling and some, you know, I couldn't see what was going on. But again, like they love that meat. And I'm sure someone else got a little, little bits and pieces of it.

• 56:27Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. Smart little bugger.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 56:31Speaker 05

  He's got an interesting coat too. He's kind of trying to become a either cinnamon or blonde.

• 56:36Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, that or he's rubbed out. Hard to say.

• 56:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, could have rubbed that, that outer coat off.

• 56:44Speaker 05

  Let's see, where are we at here?

• 56:48Speaker 05

  We talked about how they love the beaver meat over the, the sugar and the baits.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 56:55Speaker 05

  You did eventually get a chance at the target bore and made a pass through shot. Your reflections on sight picture and taking the shot were interesting since you've never been that up close and personal with a bear.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  Sure. And we kind of covered that. It's just like, it's a big black target and your sight picture, had he been at 30 yards, it'd be easier to pick the middle of the middle. Because you can just, your sight picture, you can see the entire bear. But when he's at 12 yards is I think how far the shot was, like you can't see the top, when you're looking through your peep, you can't see the top of the bear or the bottom of the bear. You can just see black. And so it was just a little bit of a challenge to find the middle of the middle.

• 57:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, we got a clip here if you.

• 57:41Speaker 09

  What do you think about that? Looks good, man. Looks like good blood? I'd say.

• 57:49Speaker 09

  There's some bubbles in there. Oh, yeah. All in here.

• 57:54Speaker 09

  It was tough because you know, it was getting a little bit dark and you're so close to him. Yeah. That like your whole sight picture is just black bear. Right. And so I had, I came off him like three different times going, okay, there's his leg. Okay, there's his, you know, bottom of the bear. There's the top of the bear. Yeah. Okay, there's the middle. Yeah. And there's the middle of the middle.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  Um, let's move on to the next one, Corey.

• 58:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, YouTube question from at Regular Guy dash J4L asks, honest question. If the bear was wounded, did you have a backup weapon and can you even have one in Manitoba?

• 58:38Speaker 04

  Um.

• 58:38Speaker 05

  A pistol is what he's referring to.

• 58:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know the answer as far as can you have one in Manitoba? Um, I don't think I could have traveled up there with a pistol. I'm not sure. I didn't look into it. I did ask that of Craig when we were tracking the bear. I'm like, wouldn't this be something that you normally do? And he normally does have, I believe, a shotgun. Um, it's, I can't remember if it was that or a lever action, some kind of a small, handy maneuverable weapon that you can pump off some rounds if needed, you know? Um, and he usually does pack that, but he had forgotten it. He did feel confident with my report on, you know, that we had,

• 59:21Speaker 04

  thought we made a good shot. We heard the death moan. We heard him crash not far away. Like, he felt like we were gonna walk in there and find it. But normally, he said, when he is tracking, he does have a, um, a weapon. But I was, I was not carrying one.

• 59:37Speaker 05

  How long did you guys wait after your shot?

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Um, I mean, we really only waited because, well, one, you're making a television, piece of television, so, you know, the camera guys got to wrap their stuff up and, you know, we're trying to shoot stuff and make sure we got it all covered. And then, I forget how far away Craig was, but it took him, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes to get there, maybe? And so, um, yeah, not that long.

• 1:00:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  30 minutes.

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  Well, that helps to be patient, let them expire, just make sure.

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure, for sure.

• 1:00:12Speaker 05

  Okay, we want to show the boar you got. Phil?

• 1:00:16Speaker 07

  Wow. Yeah, he's a tank.

• 1:00:20Speaker 07

  Look at that. He's a beast.

• 1:00:25Speaker 07

  Look at that animal, huh? That's a mature boar right there. It's the one we're looking for.

• 1:00:33Speaker 07

  You got him. Wow.

• 1:00:37Speaker 07

  Look at the claws. Yai yai. That's a big bear.

• 1:00:47Speaker 07

  Oh yeah, look at the head on him.

• 1:00:53Speaker 07

  That sucker's thick.

• 1:01:01Speaker 07

  He's awesome.

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  Thanks buddy. Thanks Craig.

• 1:01:06Speaker 07

  Yes sir.

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  Love that bloody handshake.

• 1:01:12Speaker 05

  What a giant, giant beast.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, people ask if that was my biggest one. Well, that's my only bear. It's not true. I killed one at Mingus tree in our backyard once. That was, I don't know, a 75 pound bear. Um, he was eating our chickens and I called the warden. He's like, look, you can kill him or I'm gonna have to come and kill him. If you kill him, you can put the meat in your freezer. So, uh, I chose that route. Um, so this is the first one that I, I, I went on a hunt and, and got.

• 1:01:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm stoked. It's a big bear.

• 1:01:50Speaker 05

  Good luck topping that one.

• 1:01:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, he's got a, we, we think we, I texted Craig if you remember what we, we green scored him.

• 1:02:01Speaker 04

  19 and change is what he thought on this, on the skull, which I think 20 inches is like, Buna croc at minimum, 21 is all time. And we, he thinks he's squared around seven and a half feet. Um, so yeah, big, big old, big old giant bear. I mean, I'm, I'm stoked on it. It's, bears are kinda nice. It's kind of like a turkey in a way where any mature bear, just like any mature tom, you know, tom's become a little mature sooner than a bear. But they're all nice. Cause they're all like big and fat and got a big skull on them. And like, I don't care if it's an 18 inch skull or 21 inch skull. I said, I don't think that's ever gonna be a thing for me.

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  Or if the hide is six feet versus seven and a half feet.

• 1:02:52Speaker 04

  Uh, like I was just happy with the experience. Now that I have a skull and a hide at home, I'm like.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  Probably not gonna go try to kill another bear to have another skull and more hides. We just don't have things to do with them these days.

• 1:03:09Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:10Speaker 04

  Like my hide is basically laying on the, in the middle of our living room, which is fun. Mingus has been taking a lot of naps on it.

• 1:03:18Speaker 05

  Oh, good.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  I've laid down on it a little bit. I have a dream or a vision where once I move my sto- uh, my wood stove to a place where you can actually, right now it's like in the entry area, which I understand why the guy did it, but I would prefer if it was like in a corner of the house where you can sit in a comfortable chair in front of it, watch the fire. I'd, I'd like to have that hide laid out in front of it there where I could have my hound dog sleeping on it. I could kick my feet up on the hound dog that's on my, the bear hide. You know, I, I'm not gonna try to preserve this hide by any means. Like I'm gonna use it. I'd like to use it as little, literally as a rug of some sort on the ground. I'm not gonna just hang it up on the wall just to be, just to be able to look at it.

• 1:04:04Speaker 04

  Um, that being said, I don't need more hides. I don't need more skulls. What I do need more of is bear meat.

• 1:04:11Speaker 05

  Oh, amen.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  The more I eat it, the more I like it, and it's just such a nice change of pace from all of the super lean venison, you know, whether it's elk, deer, pronghorn, moose, whatever. All that stuff just gets to just kind of be the same after a while. And it's nice to have some meat. It's got some fat in it. So I'm one hundred percent gonna keep hunting bears. But primarily for the meat.

• 1:04:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a good change up. And here in Montana and a lot of places seasonally, you can add to your freezer in the spring.

• 1:04:45Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. People feel obligated, I think, to do stuff with hides and skulls. Um, especially with bears. I mean, in some places you have to pack it out. Uh, but, uh, honestly, it's, uh, for me, it's not, that's not what I'm into bear hunting for. I want the meat and, and the fat. Like we're almost out of all of the, I know someone asked, um,

• 1:05:12Speaker 04

  Well, we can just go to the next question.

• 1:05:14Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, let's bring this one up. At Max Straight 6235 asks, what are your thoughts on scoring bears? I think we've established that. Is there a better way to identify trophy status? Or does it even matter? Skull size is very difficult to assess, even some pumpkin heads don't score as well as you'd expect. As much of the appearances can be soft tissue. I'm guessing yours went around 20 inches. A great example of what our province has to offer. Must be a local Manitoba.

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:44Speaker 05

  But yeah, good point. I mean, you mentioned that skull was under 20. I harvested a bear last spring that sounds like, we need to clarify this, might have a little bit bigger of a skull, but he did not go as long or as squared as your bear. So he'd had a big, wide skull, which probably helped that score.

• 1:06:05Speaker 05

  Growing up, we just worried about length. Like you were always looking for a seven foot bear, which is pretty rare to find in Montana. I know of a few, but they're hard to find. That's an old bear. Doesn't always mean it's an old bear either, just a big, long bear. So, you know.

• 1:06:22Speaker 04

  Good genes.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  On the hoof or on the paw, as they say, scoring a bear in the field as far as Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young is very difficult. You'll know if he's got a big old noggin on him, but most people that I know look for the length, nose to tail, as far as what establishes a big bear and the size of a bear that you could brag about to your friends or whatever.

• 1:06:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna continue to try to kill bears and just kill ones that aren't the size of a black lab.

• 1:06:52Speaker 04

  Uh, someone asked, or maybe this is just Corey asking, how much the bear weighed? And how much rendered fat did I get off him? The bear was 388 pounds because I had to travel with all of it back from Manitoba to Montana and, you know, airplanes and all that. Um, I, I got surprisingly more meat and fat back than I thought I would. Um, I filled up, I don't know, three Yeti soft sides and I still had, I felt like the majority of a bear left. Cause I had, you know, hide and skull. And so we had enough time because we killed on day three and didn't leave until day six or seven.

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  That we processed, well, rough process, basically just got the meat into Ziploc's. And we were able to freeze most of it. And so I actually then just put it into big, heavy duty garbage bags and just literally filled a duffel bag. I think up to a hundred pounds and we just paid the extra fee on shipping that back. So I had an amazing amount of meat and fat coming home with me, plus hide and skull. Um, but, uh, in the end, when I rendered that fat down, I ended up with about two gallons. Um, I think I probably could have gotten at least another gallon, maybe two. I mean, we weren't being like super picky about it when we were breaking it down again. Cause I knew I just had limited space to get it home.

• 1:08:20Speaker 04

  But yeah, it was two gallons, super stoked on it. I've been giving away too much of it and I'm only, I'm down to like two pints now. And, uh, so I'm sort of starting to savor it a little bit, but, uh, I, I like sharing it. Cause people are like, no way, really bear oil? I'm like, yeah, check it out. And they're like, man, it's just so pure. You would never know, you know, that you're eating bear oil.

• 1:08:45Speaker 05

  Two gallons is an insane amount compared to some of the bears that I've, I've taken the fat off here in Montana. Have you talked to Clay about the two gallon mark? Is that, is that a lot for down south too?

• 1:08:56Speaker 04

  Man, I just think a lot of it, like that bear, he ended up weighing three eighty-eight. Craig, the outfitter felt like, had we killed that bear in the fall, he could have easily been four eighty-eight, if not five fifty.

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:09:10Speaker 04

  Because they're just, and that's pretty much all fat, you know? I'm sure he's gaining some muscle too, but they're just putting on fat. So I think a lot of it just depends on what status state you catching them. I, I know a guy that killed a giant bear, like a solid six and a half footer here in Montana. And he killed it on the last day of rifle season, which is late November. And um, man, he said that they actually spent more time packing fat than meat.

• 1:09:39Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:09:40Speaker 04

  Like there was like in just like way, weight wise, there was more weight in the fat than there was in the meat. Um, and I forget, he, that was like six, six gallons, I think that he got, like, I almost didn't believe him.

• 1:09:52Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:53Speaker 04

  And when he started describing sort of how the, he said that the fat just sort of, there was a layer that just went all the way right down to his paws. And then it sort of stopped right where his paw was, but from here it just jutted out and you could just like jiggle the fat all the way up his arms. And just all, it was covering his entire body. So I think it just depends on, you know, what he's been eating and what time of the year it is. Cause that, that's, you know, right before he goes to hibernate, that's when that bear is going to have the most fat on him.

• 1:10:23Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. Well, let's see, uh, we know what you're doing with the hide.

• 1:10:28Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:29Speaker 05

  Mingus is sleeping on it right now. So last question, which a ton of folks asked, do you plan on doing this hunt again?

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  A hundred percent. No doubt. Like I said, with any hunt, I say this a lot of times to Steve going to Mexico for coups deer. I like going the first year to a new ranch because you get to experience a completely new ranch. You have, you don't know anything about it. It's just a hundred percent mystery adventure. It's great. You spend a week there. The next year I'm excited to go back because I have some relationship with that landscape. I'm like, okay, don't need to go to that high point. That one wasn't good. We need to spend time here, here and here. Cause those were the best glassing knobs, right? That's where the action was and sort of that gets me excited.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  And then the third year, you kind of have it, I don't want to say dialed, but you got a pretty good idea of what the program is. And by the fourth year, I'm like, man, let's go to start this process over again, because I just don't want to keep doing the same thing over. I think when you look at it with a baited black bear hunt, it's the same thing. Sure. I went there and experienced it, but it was only three days. Yeah, I was successful, but like I want to still, there, there's more there that I did not get to experience yet, right?

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  And again, I think the next time a giant boar comes in, I will recognize that giant boar probably sooner. And my heart rate might actually be spiking more than it did on on this trip. The one thing I would like to do that I think would be fun is that instead of being up in the tree, is doing it down on the ground and just being even that much more intimate with the bears. And just being at eye level with them. Um, and just seeing how that plays out.

• 1:12:15Speaker 04

  Just again, for something different, you know?

• 1:12:17Speaker 05

  Maybe tie a beaver carcass around your neck?

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  That I'm not gonna do.

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:12:21Speaker 04

  No, not gonna do that. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put any castor. Uh, scent on my boots, nothing like that. Um, but yeah, I think building like a little ground blind and just set setting up downwind.

• 1:12:36Speaker 04

  I think that that'd be the way to do it because as close as you are, 10 feet up in a tree, 10 yards away. If you were on the ground at seven yards, it'd be that much closer. It'd be cool. So.

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  See.

• 1:12:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're, we've actually booked some spots with Craig for 20. Can't remember if it was 27 or 28. So, yeah, not a hunt I need to do every single year, but uh, if you're like, hey, let's go up there and uh, hunt a baited bear, kill a baited bear. Come home with some meat. I'm 100% in for every other year.

• 1:13:18Speaker 04

  What about you? You've never done a baited black bear hunt, I imagine?

• 1:13:21Speaker 05

  No, I haven't. Never had the opportunity. We neighbor a state that allows baited bear hunting in Idaho. Not every unit, but some units. I would totally try it. I'd love to get that close and see that many bears.

• 1:13:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. What's interesting about the baiting is a lot of states regulate it much differently. Because of course, as soon as I came back from Manitoba, I'm like calling my friends in Wisconsin saying, hey, have you tried beaver meat? Because that's the thing.

• 1:13:46Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:13:47Speaker 04

  In the, in Wisconsin, you can't use any kind of meat product.

• 1:13:50Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 1:13:51Speaker 04

  Not.

• 1:13:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, restrictions.

• 1:13:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can't use any kind of a metal, like fabricated can either. The bait has to basically be in a, most people will use a hollow stump or a log. And put it in there.

• 1:14:09Speaker 04

  So, yeah, it's uh, they, they restrict it a little bit.

• 1:14:14Speaker 04

  So if you're gonna go do it, you know, make sure you know your state's regulations. For sure. But yeah, I a hundred percent want to go back, man. It was a great time. McCarthy's were great people.

• 1:14:25Speaker 04

  So awesome camaraderie, awesome time in camp and yeah, just a fun hunt. Well, good. Yeah. Baiting bears. Don't knock it till you try it. No, I'd like to share it with more people. I think that's Craig mentioned this too. It's like a great animal for people to get their like first bow kill. Right? There's just a lot of opportunities, you know, maybe your goal isn't a giant one. Maybe your goal, you go up there and you're just like, oh, I just want to kill an animal with my bow. Well, the shots are nice and close, lots of opportunities.

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  There you go. Great meat. Another, another good reason to, you know, to do a baited black bear hunt.

• 1:15:08Speaker 04

  Well, any other topics you want to discuss? No, wish I would have brought my skull in. We could have met, you could have measured it for me and told me if I had a boon or not, but. Well, maybe we'll have to make a little video. We can do that next time. But yeah, thank you guys all for tuning in and remember in about a month or so, we'll have, I think one of Clay's episodes will come out or it will be one of Clay's films. Excuse me, Clay. One of Clay's films will come out and you'll be able to punch in your comments on YouTube and Instagram and he will do roughly the same thing, but maybe he'll have Bear or Brent ask the questions instead of Corey because they'll probably do it down in Arkansas. So thanks again for watching and yeah, tune in next month for another

• 1:15:52Speaker 04

  edition of Meat Eaters 12 and 26.

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