Grizzly Bear Attack - The Old-timey Montana Grizzly Attack

A small-town group of hunters goes out in the wilderness and has a run-in with a massive grizzly bear. One terrible, albeit heroic, decision later, the hunt ends in tragedy. Subscribe to us on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/toothandclawpodcast ~ Wild Alaskan Company - Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/tooth LMNT - Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/tooth. LMNT Lemonade Iced Tea uses a full black tea extract and electrolytes for steady energy without the crash, free of sugar and artificial ingredients. 3 Day Blinds - For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to https://3DayBlinds.com/TOOTH. ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mike Smith?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. Today, we have a bit of a special treat for you all. This is actually an episode that we posted to our subscriber feeds a long time ago. Wes led it. It's about a grizzly bear attack that happened up in Montana back in the 1950s. A really cool story, a lot to learn from it. Wes did an awesome job. He actually found this while he was preparing his Night of the Grizzlies series that he did forever ago. And he did an amazing job. I'll just say that for him. He wouldn't say it himself. I'm going to say it for him right now. But we just wanted to say that if this is something that you do enjoy and you want some more of it, we keep things a little more loose, but still educational over on our subscriber feeds. We have 150 or so and counting subscriber exclusive episodes.

• 0:42Mike Smith?

  And most of those episodes are led by Jeff and me, but Wes did tell me recently that he wants to get more involved and start making more bonus episodes over there as well. So if you want more Tooth and Claw, or if you want some animal content that's a little off the beaten path, or even things like we talk a lot about sports, movies, all kinds of different stuff. We're posting a lot of bonus content over on Patreon. Anyway, just wanted to give a quick introduction to this episode, where it came from, why it sounds like maybe there's some outdated references in there. I've done enough talking, though. Let's get to the episode. Take it away, Wes. Let's go.

• 1:29Mike Smith?

  Hey, guys.

• 1:30Jeff Larson?

  Hey.

• 1:31Mike Smith?

  Hey, we're here.

• 1:32Jeff Larson?

  Here with a couple of crybabies.

• 1:34Mike Smith?

  My dudes, yeah. I cry in movies. I cried in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

• 1:40Jeff Larson?

  That's not the name.

• 1:41Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:42Jeff Larson?

  It's Everything All the Time Everywhere All the Time.

• 1:48Mike Smith?

  I cried a couple of times. I went and saw it by myself.

• 1:50Jeff Larson?

  I felt it coming when I saw it. And I just was like, you can't cry. You're a man.

• 2:00Mike Smith?

  That sounds healthy.

• 2:00Jeff Larson?

  I buried it.

• 2:01Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 2:02Jeff Larson?

  And then, Mike, you cried in The Northman.

• 2:05Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it was, it was a hard... I dare anyone to go see that movie and not cry. I saw it yesterday and I didn't cry. When they're having sex in the forest? And you're like, oh, I wish that were me.

• 2:19Mike Smith?

  Hey, Mike. What's up? How do you feel about Montana? You know, actually feel about it? It's in like the 60th percentile of places that I I like, you know, it's above average.

• 2:32Wes Larson?

  What's above it?

• 2:33Mike Smith?

  That's a good question. I mean, like, I don't know, probably Hawaii. I like Mexico a lot.

• 2:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 2:38Mike Smith?

  I like any of like southeastern Asian countries I've ever been to.

• 2:42Wes Larson?

  How about as far as states go?

• 2:44Mike Smith?

  States.

• 2:45Jeff Larson?

  Hawaii?

• 2:46Mike Smith?

  Let's go with.

• 2:47Wes Larson?

  Do you like California more?

• 2:49Mike Smith?

  South and North Dakota.

• 2:50Wes Larson?

  What?

• 2:51Mike Smith?

  Let's go with.

• 2:52Jeff Larson?

  Alaska?

• 2:53Mike Smith?

  Wisconsin. They got some good cheese.

• 2:54Wes Larson?

  Alright, nevermind. I just asked because when we first became friends, you kind of had a bit almost where you hated Montana. Or it wasn't that you hated it, but you were comparing it to Colorado.

• 3:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 3:07Wes Larson?

  And you would send me like photos of like rocks and streams and be like, look how beautiful this is. And it, I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, but it would be like the most weirdly disturbing photos that you would send over. Like somehow you managed just to capture the ugliest looking creek in the world. And they're just so boring and disturbing. And then you would be like, look at Colorado. Look how beautiful it is.

• 3:35Jeff Larson?

  I didn't think it was disturbing, but it was like, it'd just be like a rock with like no like backdrop.

• 3:42Wes Larson?

  I shouldn't say.

• 3:42Jeff Larson?

  A picture of a rock and then he'd be like, here's Montana. Then he'd show like a mountain range and be like, and here's Colorado.

• 3:50Wes Larson?

  It wasn't disturbing. It was more like just cold and industrial. He would like make a creek look like. Yeah, I don't know, like a creek that I imagine in like Newark, New Jersey would look like.

• 4:02Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I have a real gift, a real artistic eye.

• 4:05Jeff Larson?

  The thing was it bugged you the first time he did it was because you're like, that's not fair.

• 4:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Jeff Larson?

  And then that just like lit a fire under him to do it for like the next three years.

• 4:17Mike Smith?

  I'm the kind of person, and this speaks very poorly of the kind of person that I am, but when someone gets really, really excited and proud of something that they want to share with me.

• 4:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you want to tear him down.

• 4:28Mike Smith?

  Really just makes me want to look for all the bad in it because it's like, dude, Montana is. Great. It's it's a perfectly great place. And I've been there and I I think it's great, but I don't need to hear about how the freaking Flathead Cherries are the best cherries on planet Earth. I don't need to hear about how Glacier is like the last safe bastion for all things beautiful. It's like, let's get over it. You were born there. That's awesome. You won the lottery of living in an amazing place. That's it.

• 4:56Wes Larson?

  You still got it. It's still there.

• 4:58Jeff Larson?

  I feel like.

• 4:59Wes Larson?

  That is a terrible quality.

• 5:01Jeff Larson?

  Me talking about how good I think Stephen Curry is is like, single-handedly keeping Mike from fully embracing him.

• 5:09Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we can't. I never feel like I can fully love something around Mike or else he's gonna hate it.

• 5:15Jeff Larson?

  He got negative about Lord of the Rings for like a little stretch, but I feel like he's gotten over that.

• 5:21Wes Larson?

  Well, he hates. He hates Mary like 100% because I like Mary.

• 5:26Mike Smith?

  That's the only reason. This, the sole reason. Yeah, I'm, I don't, I don't like the way that I am. Don't think that I do.

• 5:34Wes Larson?

  We do.

• 5:34Jeff Larson?

  We love you, dude.

• 5:35Mike Smith?

  Thank you.

• 5:36Wes Larson?

  I I brought that up because the story that we're gonna talk about today takes place in our lovely home state of Montana. Me and Jeff's lovely home state of Montana. You don't really have a home state, do you, Mike? You kind of traveled all over.

• 5:47Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's hard to say. I was born in Oregon, but only lived there for like two years and then just moved so much. I'd pretty much just say Utah is my home state at this point because it's by far the place I've lived the longest now. So, I don't know. It's weird.

• 6:01Jeff Larson?

  Were you mad at your parents when they made you leave Oregon?

• 6:04Mike Smith?

  Oh dude, I was crying probably.

• 6:06Jeff Larson?

  You're like, all my girlfriends here, all my friends are here.

• 6:10Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I had a real thing for my cousin back when I was three, apparently. So it was probably sad to leave her.

• 6:15Wes Larson?

  All right, well, um, we're just gonna move right along to our story. This is one that, when I was researching initially for Night of the Grizzlies, this is one that I stumbled on because I kind of, when I was doing Night of the Grizzlies initially, I was like, you know, I should pepper in some other attacks that happened kind of right before it or during that same time period. And I was looking at older attacks that happened in Montana, Wyoming area. And I found one that I really just, it just like stuck in my brain and I really wanted to tell and I've wanted to tell it for a while now. And I was gonna do like a main feed episode about it, but then I thought, you know what?

• 6:51Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, isn't you doing the episode? Isn't that me and Mike's job?

• 6:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm doing the Patreon episode.

• 6:57Mike Smith?

  Oh, good.

• 6:57Jeff Larson?

  All right.

• 6:58Wes Larson?

  Uh, I was about to wing it. Yeah.

• 7:01Jeff Larson?

  I was like, yeah, I don't have anything.

• 7:03Wes Larson?

  No, it's, I'm doing the episode again. I've done a couple, you know, here and there. But this one, I, like I said, is it makes a great main feed episode, but I kind of think, you know, I want to give this one to the patrons. I just think this is, and to our subscribers, I just think this is one that's, that they deserve. And just them, so.

• 7:23Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 7:23Jeff Larson?

  What about me?

• 7:23Mike Smith?

  Yeah, should we plug our ears?

• 7:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you guys get it too.

• 7:26Mike Smith?

  Oh, we're allowed it. Okay, great.

• 7:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you guys can listen. All right. So today we're going to talk about the Kenneth Scott bear attack in Montana. It's a grizzly bear. Kenneth Scott was pretty much the golden boy of Fort Benton, Montana, when he left to go elk hunting in the fall of 1956. So when I say that, when you look at photos of this guy, he, it's in the like 40s and 50s that most of these photos are from. And he's got that weird little wave in his hair. And it's this really beautiful shiny golden blonde, like a tow head color.

• 7:57Mike Smith?

  He's a real Adonis.

• 7:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah, and he just looks like an all-American 1940s and 50s kind of guy, you know? Just really like handsome and athletic. He'd grown up like really dirt poor in this town of Fort Benton. There's only 1,800 people in the town at the time. I think there's actually less now. But it's out on the, this really expansive part of the central Montana prairie, so northeast of Great Falls. So pretty much, once you get east of Great Falls, everything starts getting pretty flat in Montana. And that's where they are. They're, they're in Fort Benton. He was class president and captain of the Fort Benton High School football team. He set several records in both football and track and field. And he was so athletic that when he graduated, he had several offers to play professional football.

• 8:42Wes Larson?

  Both the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears tried to get him to join their teams.

• 8:46Mike Smith?

  Same divisional rivalry.

• 8:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah, this is in the 50s and I don't think it was quite the like status symbol and probably quite as lucrative as it is now. So he turned him down. He didn't go.

• 8:56Jeff Larson?

  Still a good job back then though.

• 8:58Wes Larson?

  I know, but he ended up moving to nearby Loma, Montana, where he leased a 1,200 acre cattle ranch. And he married his high school sweetheart, Bernita Flat.

• 9:07Mike Smith?

  Oh yeah, that's way better than playing professional sports. Marrying Bernita and doing a cattle farm.

• 9:14Jeff Larson?

  Sounds nice.

• 9:14Mike Smith?

  It does. I shouldn't put.

• 9:16Jeff Larson?

  Then just spearing someone with your head and breaking your neck.

• 9:19Mike Smith?

  Yeah, with your little leather cap, whatever they wore back then.

• 9:22Wes Larson?

  In their knickerbockers or whatever. It was kind of interesting to me to think that back then you just graduate high school and it's like, huh, should I play professional football or Lisa cattle ranch? You know, you kind of just like, the world was, the world was your oyster if you were a tall blonde man in the 1940s and 50s. So he married his high school sweetheart Bernita Flat. They had three daughters together Connie, Shirley and Glenda. So they kind of lived this really bucolic, beautiful life out in Loma, Montana on their huge cattle ranch. And in 1956, so he's 29 years old, I believe. Kenneth Scott was getting ready to go on his annual hunting trip with four of his friends.

• 10:04Wes Larson?

  And they went hunting in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. So the Bob Marshall Wilderness is a 1.5 million acre wilderness. And it's very different from the relatively flat town of Fort Benton. It contains some of the most rugged and remote wilderness in the lower 48. Jeff, you kind of creaked there. What, or peeped or whatever that noise was.

• 10:23Mike Smith?

  Did a cheetah noise?

• 10:24Wes Larson?

  How do you feel about the Bob Marshall Wilderness? You want to talk about it a little bit?

• 10:28Jeff Larson?

  I didn't realize it was that big.

• 10:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's huge.

• 10:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I love the Bob. It's like in the lower 48, I feel like it's probably the most wild place you can go.

• 10:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's up there for sure. It's definitely one of them. Me and Jeff did a multi-day float through the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We hiked in like 30 miles and then floated out. And it's very pristine, very remote. You don't see any kind of like civilization or anything. There's some ranger cabins here and there, but that's it. It's very like, if you're looking to get a true wilderness experience in lower 48, it's a good place to do it. Another thing that's really interesting about it is that it's, it's home to a completely intact Northern Rockies ecosystem. That includes all of the animals that were here for thousands of years. So we're talking like Wolverine and lynx, grizzly bears, everything. And there's actually a decent amount of grizzly bears in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and they tend to be a little honorary in those places.

• 11:24Mike Smith?

  When was the last time you truly trusted the seafood that you brought home? I used to question everything, especially after I met Wes. He got me thinking about the sustainability and frankly, the morality of the seafood industry. So when we were approached by Wild Alaskan Company to partner up with them, we were all super excited to spread the message of a company that does things the right way. Wild Alaskan Company is the best way to get wild-caught, perfectly portioned, nutrient-dense seafood delivered directly to your door. And honestly, it's the best home-cooked fish I've ever had. But more important than the taste for me is the sustainability of how they do it. Their wild-caught seafood matters to me because I love the ocean. I love all the animals that live in it. I spend as much time as I can in the water and I know how badly the population,

• 12:06Mike Smith?

  especially if sharks are being affected by less ethical operations. Not so with Wild Alaskan Company. Their stuff is 100% wild-caught, never farmed. That means there's no antibiotics, GMOs, or additives. Just clean, real fish that support healthy oceans and fishing communities. Every order placed at Wild Alaskan Company supports sustainable harvesting practices and your membership delivers flexible shipments, expert tips, and truly feel-good seafood. I especially love their sockeye salmon. Absolutely delicious. The little bit of olive oil, a dash of salt and pepper, throw it in the oven, and it's the best meal I'll have all day. And if you're not completely satisfied with your first box, Wild Alaskan Company will give you a full refund. No questions asked, no risk, just high-quality seafood.

• 12:51Mike Smith?

  Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can trust. Go to wildalaskan.com/tooth for $35 off your first box of premium wild-caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com/tooth for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode.

• 13:12Mike Smith?

  So I wanted to talk a little bit. We've gone over a lot of grizzly biology on the podcast and it's hard not to feel like I'm repeating myself. So I want to talk about one thing that I think I've hinted on before. Jeff?

• 13:23Jeff Larson?

  But like with our, I mean, just with technology nowadays and people on their phones all the time, our memories are bad. So just go ahead and repeat yourself and it'll feel new.

• 13:33Mike Smith?

  I'll repeat.

• 13:34Wes Larson?

  A little bit of it. One thing that I really wanted to bring up, though, is the difference between coastal grizzlies and kind of more inland grizzlies, especially in their behavior. So the coastal ones are the ones that get really big because they're feeding on salmon. They have a lot of different food sources that come right from the ocean. They tend to get really big and they tend to be pretty docile as far as grizzly bears go, because they don't have to compete with other bears for food. So because there isn't that level of competition, they are pretty tolerant of other bears. And as a result, they're pretty tolerant of humans, too. They kind of treat us like they will treat other bears.

• 14:07Jeff Larson?

  You can just walk up and pet them.

• 14:08Wes Larson?

  You probably could. I mean, that's what Timothy Treadwell did. And you might get mauled, though. Don't do it, because you might get mauled. Uh, yeah, he ended up dying. But they are pretty docile. And then, on the other hand, these more inland grizzlies, like the inner mountain grizzlies we have here in Montana, they have to patrol a very large area, a huge territory to find all the food that they need. And when there is a really good food source, often they have to defend it from other bears. So if they find like a carcass or something, that's a great find for a bear in one of these places, because they don't just have a ready supply of protein like a salmon stream. So they're going to do their best to make sure they get the most out of that carcass as possible, and they're going to run anything and everything off of it that they can. Because sooner or later, another bear will show up.

• 14:53Jeff Larson?

  You could say they're a lot more difficult to pet.

• 14:56Wes Larson?

  Yes.

• 14:57Mike Smith?

  You could, you could say that.

• 14:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they are, for sure. Mike?

• 15:01Mike Smith?

  You often talk about how they can be all kinds of different colors, their fur. Is there any correlation between their colors as far as like coastal and inland goes? Is there like a way to kind of differentiate that way?

• 15:13Wes Larson?

  I mean, it's not a tried and true way to differentiate, but typically, the coastal ones do tend to have like a more uniform color. And this is just anecdotal, but I find that when I see pictures of coastal bears or have seen coastal bears, they tend to be like, they're all brown or all blonde or whatever. And then with these inland ones, a lot of times you get that really like grizzly appearance, where they have like the silver tipped kind of back and the dark legs. And they tend, they tend to look like a little bit more what you imagine a grizzly bear to look like.

• 15:47Mike Smith?

  Right. So you're saying if a bear is wearing a uniform, you know you can pet it?

• 15:52Wes Larson?

  That's not what I'm saying. But it's not, that's not a good way. Like if you're looking at a photo, there are coastal bears do look a certain way and the more inland ones look a certain way, but it takes some time to kind of get used to what that is. There's not like a silver bullet, kind of like this is what you look for.

• 16:10Jeff Larson?

  Is this wrong? Or do the coastal ones not normally get quite as dark as some of the inland ones do?

• 16:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I think that's, that's true, but it's not, again, it's not like a rule. They can get that dark. So it's, it's tricky. There's not a, there's not like a perfect way to tell them apart. Coastal ones get a lot bigger usually.

• 16:30Jeff Larson?

  A coastal bear that's like really dark is super offended right now.

• 16:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Jeff Larson?

  That I just said that.

• 16:38Wes Larson?

  So as far as like what grizzly bears are capable of, we've talked about this a lot. They can run 35 miles per hour. They have a bite pressure that's strong enough to break a bowling ball, two, two and a half inch claws. They have a really muscular, powerful hump in their shoulder that's used for digging, but that also comes into play if they're like swatting or scratching. They're really powerful, explosively fast, amazing animal. And they're in, in the lower 48, they're our top predator. They're the thing that can mess up your day the quickest if you're in a forest that has grizzly bears. So I did want to talk a little bit about their history as well in the lower 48 and kind of what's happened to them and why Montana is a place that still has grizzly bears.

• 17:22Wes Larson?

  So between 1800 and 1975, westward expansion and European settlement, grizzly populations in the lower 48 states receded from like around 50,000 bears to fewer than a thousand. There's a lot of reasons that happened. A big part of it was livestock depredation control, habitat loss, commercial trapping, unregulated hunting, and then just hatred of predators too, just people killing them because they're afraid of them. By 1922, the last California grizzly bear was killed, followed by 1923, the last one in Utah, 1931, the last one in Oregon, 1933, the last one in New Mexico, 35, the last one in Arizona, and then the last one in Colorado was seen in 1979.

• 18:07Wes Larson?

  But for all intents and purposes, by the 30s, the only really occupied grizzly bear habitat in the lower 48 was in Yellowstone National Park, around Glacier National Park, the middle fork of the Flathead Drainage, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. So while grizzlies were disappearing all over the west in the 20th century, Montana really stood out as a conservation leader for grizzlies. Montana Fish and Game did their best to slow the decline of grizzlies in the state by abolishing baiting and the use of hounds to hunt bears, listing them as a managed game species, prohibiting the killing of cubs or females with cubs, and just really doing a lot more studies than any other state was doing. So Montana really saw this happening and they decided pretty early, we're going to

• 18:50Wes Larson?

  keep our bears, we're going to make sure we still have a population of grizzlies here.

• 18:54Jeff Larson?

  How do you feel about Montana now, Mike?

• 18:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah, Mike.

• 18:57Mike Smith?

  I'm checking one in the pro column, so now I gotta come up with two to put in the cons.

• 19:03Wes Larson?

  Uh, and even today, Montana in the lower 48 is the state that has the most grizzlies. I think there's probably somewhere around 1,500 to 1,800 grizzlies in the state of Montana today.

• 19:15Mike Smith?

  And how many, how many in North America total?

• 19:17Wes Larson?

  In North America total, I believe there's around 50,000.

• 19:21Mike Smith?

  Okay, so a good little chunk down in Montana.

• 19:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I mean, most, the wide margin of those are found in Alaska and Canada, British Columbia and Alaska. So as far as grizzlies in Montana, they really don't get much bigger than 800 pounds. One of the biggest ever in Montana was killed in Lincoln and it weighed 830 pounds. And Lincoln, Montana is really close to the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It's also famously where Ted Kaczynski was caught, the Unabomber.

• 19:47Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:47Mike Smith?

  Nice, another in the pro column.

• 19:50Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we love the Unabomber. Anyway, he's got some interesting ideas. Okay, in 1956.

• 19:59Jeff Larson?

  That's a new episode.

• 20:01Wes Larson?

  Something else we're gonna have to talk about. Okay, in 1956, there wasn't a lot of information about grizzly bears and grizzly bear safety. If you remember the Night of the Grizzlies episodes, we talk about how there really wasn't a set thing to do if you're approached by a grizzly bear. Really what they thought was like run away and try and get up a tree.

• 20:19Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 20:20Wes Larson?

  And a lot of Montanans still viewed them as a dangerous nuisance, but not necessarily like something that would potentially kill them.

• 20:27Jeff Larson?

  It was interesting in United the Grizzly to like hear the mindset of people about grizzly bears. Just how like the group of people didn't feel safe searching for the girl because of one grizzly bear.

• 20:40Wes Larson?

  Exactly. Yeah, they just don't really know what they're capable of. So like Kenneth Scott, for example, he for sure knew that grizzlies were capable of killing someone, but he didn't really have a concept of how to act around grizzlies. He didn't know the rules, didn't know exactly what to do, but.

• 20:55Jeff Larson?

  He didn't know the rules?

• 20:56Wes Larson?

  Nope, he didn't know the rules. Right. In the early dark hours of October 22nd, 1956, Scott kissed his wife and daughters goodbye and left for the Continental Divide with his four friends.

• 21:08Mike Smith?

  Never do that. When you kiss your wife and kids goodbye, trouble follows. Never kiss your wife or child, never. Under no circumstance.

• 21:16Wes Larson?

  You also though, can't be a dick to them right before you leave either.

• 21:19Mike Smith?

  No, it's gotta be.

• 21:21Jeff Larson?

  Can't like leave something unsaid.

• 21:23Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 21:26Wes Larson?

  It's a, it's a thin line to walk, but you do have to be careful. So one of his closest buddies was with him, uh, his buddy VF Squires, which is a pretty good name.

• 21:36Mike Smith?

  That is good.

• 21:36Wes Larson?

  So far we've got Bernita Flat and VF Squires.

• 21:39Mike Smith?

  Uh, names today are so boring.

• 21:41Wes Larson?

  I know they are. Mike Smith.

• 21:43Mike Smith?

  Gosh, get out of here. My parents, man.

• 21:48Jeff Larson?

  What's your middle name again?

• 21:49Mike Smith?

  Don't, we don't need to do this.

• 21:51Jeff Larson?

  What is it?

• 21:51Mike Smith?

  I'm not gonna say it.

• 21:52Wes Larson?

  Say it.

• 21:53Mike Smith?

  That's a mystery that must never.

• 21:55Jeff Larson?

  Tyler?

• 21:56Mike Smith?

  It's more boring than that, but continue us.

• 21:59Wes Larson?

  Sunday we'll get him to reveal it. Anyway, Mike, you were right. He should not have kissed his, his wife and his daughters goodbye. This would actually be the last time that his family would see him alive. So the hunting party was Scott Squires, Mo Embolton, Lloyd Klein and Ray Hamm. And they decided to go hunting in the area of the headwaters of the Flathead River, near the Continental Divide in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Scott and Squires quickly picked up an elk track after they set up their camp and showed up. And they decided to head out by themselves to track down the animal. And Embolton, Klein and Hamm stuck together back in camp. So Scott and Squires separated to surround this elk and they knew they were getting really close to it. So Scott went up on a ridge to kind of get some high ground because you can't

• 22:44Wes Larson?

  beat the high ground.

• 22:46Jeff Larson?

  It's a good move.

• 22:47Wes Larson?

  And Squires continued along the bottom of this ravine and he was following the tracks of the elk through some thick brush. And suddenly there's crashing in the timber ahead of Squires. It grabs his attention and he looks up to think, oh, this elk is coming out at me. But it wasn't an elk. It was a huge enraged male grizzly bear. So this massive bear's running full sprint and in a few strides, it covers the 50 feet between it and Squires. And in a shock, Squires tries to back away, but immediately he trips and falls onto his back and the bear's instantly on top of him. It bites into his skin, the flesh and the bone of his ankle, and it lifts him up into the air, shaking him around like a dog shaking a toy. It's funny because that's how he described it and that's how everyone always describes these things.

• 23:32Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Wes Larson?

  But you can really picture it, just like a dog just whipping a toy through the air. And that's what he said it felt like with this bear.

• 23:39Jeff Larson?

  No, that's super funny. You know my humor really well.

• 23:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah, sorry, I shouldn't say funny. So Scott's nearby and he's watching just in stunned silence as this huge bear is shaking his friend senseless. And then he watched Squires repeatedly start kicking the bear in the nose with his other leg, but the bear's not reacting to that at all. So in a fog, Scott raises his .306 to his shoulder, which is a pretty high caliber rifle. And he fires a warning shot to scare the bear away. But as soon as he fires the shot, the bear drops his friend Squires and charges towards Scott. So Scott still has his gun up and he takes a second shot. And this one's not a warning. It rips right through the bear, hits it in the chest, clips its shoulder, punctures

• 24:22Wes Larson?

  both lungs, and lodges six inches underneath its spine. So you're thinking like, okay, this thing's

• 24:29Jeff Larson?

  That's a good shot.

• 24:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's been shot on the shoulder, both lungs are punctured, it's right below its spine, this bear's toast.

• 24:35Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Wes Larson?

  You're wrong. But it was enough to discourage the bear and it immediately turns and runs back into the thick brush of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, leaving a really huge blood trail behind it.

• 24:46Jeff Larson?

  Makes me think Think of Dominic Toretto in the Fast and Furious movies. He's just like, we'll get shot and he doesn't even flinch.

• 24:54Wes Larson?

  Yeah, yeah. So Scott runs to his friend, but Squires really miraculously seems to be relatively uninjured. The two quickly discuss the situation. He's like bleeding out of his ankle, but that's about it. And they, they're talking about what to do and they end up making a decision that's so bad that it would end up costing one of them their lives. So what do you guys think they decided to do?

• 25:18Mike Smith?

  Follow the trail of blood.

• 25:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's exactly what they decided to do. They decided they would follow, and it's for a kind of a heroic reason. But they said they would follow the bear into the brush and finish the job. Because they were worried that it would potentially attack other hunters that might stumble upon it. And they knew there were a lot of other hunters in the area because they had passed other camps as they drove in. So they just thought, okay, we just injured this bear. It's enraged. We don't want anyone else to stumble on it. But this is a terrible decision. It's a really, really bad one.

• 25:48Jeff Larson?

  It's like, oh, I wonder what the other hu- like these other helpless other hunters won't be able to defend themselves.

• 25:55Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 25:55Jeff Larson?

  Like they all have guns.

• 25:57Wes Larson?

  I think it's more that they just knew, they knew there was a hurt bear out there and other hunters would.

• 26:01Jeff Larson?

  That was like being aggressive.

• 26:03Wes Larson?

  Right, but still, I get what you're saying. And I'm just gonna say right here, this is a bad idea. If you've ever, if a bear's ever injured, like say you hit a bear with your car. Or if you are a hunter and you end up hitting a bear for whatever reason with a bullet, hitting a bear with a bullet. You, if it's, you definitely shouldn't follow it if it's injured. That bear is 100% in self-defense mode at that point. And it will absolutely rip you to shreds if it gets the chance.

• 26:31Jeff Larson?

  Is hitting a bear with a bullet, throwing it a bullet at it?

• 26:34Wes Larson?

  No, I mean, like you pinch it between your fingers and just hit it with it.

• 26:39Mike Smith?

  And the, the, the powder will explode if you hit it hard enough.

• 26:42Wes Larson?

  Exactly. The other thing to think about is this is a huge wilderness area. This bear has plenty of places to go where it's not gonna run into people. And it has a really good reason now to avoid people. So what I said earlier, like if someone's. Stumbled on it and they were too close, it will attack them now, almost for sure. It's when they're injured, you're dealing with a really, really aggressive animal because it's doing, I should say defensive, it's doing everything it can to defend itself. But he shot it in the chest and in my mind, it would have been like, you know what? It's gonna die, let's just let it die, let's go back to camp and call it a day.

• 27:19Jeff Larson?

  I mean, in my mind, they're out hunting, they have like justification to kill this bear. And they probably just kind of wanted to kill it too.

• 27:28Wes Larson?

  Probably.

• 27:29Jeff Larson?

  But I, that's an assumption.

• 27:30Wes Larson?

  And it was a huge bear and back then I do think they could kill it legally.

• 27:34Jeff Larson?

  And like keep its paws or something and like have a cool fur.

• 27:38Wes Larson?

  But just, just from like a bear biologist standpoint, there's like a lot of different types of bears that are dangerous. We talked about how a female with cubs is dangerous or a male defending a kill is dangerous. Like those are really dangerous situations. Probably the most dangerous situation out there is dealing with an injured grizzly bear. That's the one that truly you want to avoid at all costs because they are really upset and really, really, really defensive. All right, it actually, it didn't take them very long to find the injured grizzly. They had a really good blood trail to follow. And when they spotted it, it was on the edge of a meadow and completely unaware of their presence. So both Scott and Squires opened fire. Scott's rifle jammed and Squires quickly ran out of bullets.

• 28:20Wes Larson?

  While Squires was reloading, Scott looked up to see the bear once again charging his friend. And he yelled at Squires that the bear was coming. Squires turned and ran to the edge of a ravine where his rifle actually caught on a branch. And he tripped and tumbled all the way to the bottom of the ravine, losing his rifle in the process.

• 28:37Mike Smith?

  Twice that this guy's tripped?

• 28:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Jeff Larson?

  I mean. This one, he's been bit by a bear on the leg already though, so he's, it's probably throws off your equilibrium a little bit to have a bear bite in your ankle.

• 28:51Wes Larson?

  Sure. Yeah, but he's laying at the bottom of the ravine, he can't see Scott any longer. But suddenly from this hill above him, a scream cuts through the silence. And then he hears a struggle break out. And this does, there's this joke in Montana that you always hear of like, can you outrun a bear? No, you just need to outrun your buddy.

• 29:10Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's hilarious.

• 29:10Wes Larson?

  Something like that, you know, it's like something around that. Or like the guy's tying his shoes and he's like, why are you tying your shoes? You can't outrun a bear. And he's like, I just need to outrun you.

• 29:18Mike Smith?

  I laugh at that joke every time.

• 29:21Wes Larson?

  That's kind of what happened here in a way.

• 29:24Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's so funny.

• 29:25Wes Larson?

  Squires was the first to run. He got away and Scott got attacked. But he could hear this happening and then suddenly the forest goes completely silent again. And Squires knows that he has a decision to make. He no longer has his gun. His only weapon he has is a really thin skinning knife. And he knows that Scott is a championship runner, that he's like, you know, the best runner ever from Fort Benton, Montana. So he figures, okay, Scott might have gotten away. Which, knowing what we know now about bears, that's not a possibility. And you would think that Squires, who had just seen this bear charged twice, he should know.

• 29:59Jeff Larson?

  Is it maybe a possibility with a bear that's been shot in both lungs? Maybe evens out the playing field a little.

• 30:05Wes Larson?

  But I wouldn't. It doesn't even out the playing field. There's still, no, you don't want to run. But he knew that he couldn't do anything with just his knife. So he decides to actually run down the ravine to their horses. And then try and go back to camp to get help from their other friends. So he gets, he gets back to camp pretty quickly and the four men all together, charge up the ravine toward the area. Where Scott and Squires had been attacked. And to be fair, where the bear had been attacked too. They found Scott on the ground and the bear's nowhere in sight. Their friend, who had been this athletic pinnacle of their community, was lying crumpled and broken in the bushes. He was covered in blood, his scalp had been completely torn off. His face was covered in puncture wounds from the teeth.

• 30:48Wes Larson?

  And his eyeball was completely out of his socket and was hanging down by his ear, connected only by those optic nerves. So he was still conscious though, when they found him and they all gathered around him and he told them what happened. It's pretty crazy to think about talking to your friend that you've known forever while his like eyeballs dangling out and his scalp is off of his head. Oh, and another crazy thing, like a little anecdote, they were, right when they found him, they tried to give him water. And it poured out of the holes in his face.

• 31:15Mike Smith?

  Oh my gosh.

• 31:16Wes Larson?

  It made me think of like Looney Tunes when they get shot with a bunch of bullets and like the water squirts out of them. That's what happened when they tried to give him water.

• 31:25Jeff Larson?

  I'm the most popular person at my apartment complex and I owe it all to Element. Thankfully, Element's been very gracious with the amount of samples they send me each month. And I've been giving it away to people at my apartment complex. And I currently have about eight people consistently asking me if I have any extra Element, which I use to my advantage by forcing them to be my friend. But I love how much people are asking me if they can have some more Element because it's a product I believe in. I think it makes me feel better, so I'm happy to share it with my friends. I currently have two people waiting for a box of raspberry and I don't know how I'm gonna decide who gets it. Maybe like in The Dark Knight where he breaks the pool stick and throws it in the middle of them, something like that.

• 32:10Jeff Larson?

  Also, you gotta try the Element iced tea. It's the perfect amount of caffeine. It tastes great. I love a cold drink in the summer. Tea works differently. The caffeine comes bundled with L-theanine and polyphenols, the way it exists in the plant. That's what gives you a noticeably steadier feeling, less spike, less drop. And I really need caffeine throughout the day, so I love having the Element iced tea, ice cold, sitting in my fridge all day. Take my word for it and get a free eight-count sample pack of Element's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com/tooth. That's drinklmnt.com/tooth. And use the sample pack to find your favorite flavor and then go from there.

• 32:54Jeff Larson?

  Also, no questions asked refunds. Try Element and see how you feel. If for any reason you're not satisfied, Element's customer service team will take care of you.

• 33:04Wes Larson?

  So apparently, the bear had charged him the second time and it quickly overtook him. Four times during the struggle between him and the bear, it got its jaws around his head and picked him up by his head. And then he fought back with his knife as hard as he could, but obviously he was no match for the grizzly and it tore him apart in a matter of seconds. And then after it tore him apart, and this is really indicative of like a bear that's just really pissed off, it laid down on him and rolled around on him. And it crushed, it crushed his rib cage in the process and did a lot of Internal injuries to them and they do that when they're just really mad at something. They'll lay down and like roll on it and just try and crush it. Kind of like what camels do too.

• 33:44Mike Smith?

  Yeah, or alligators, right? They do that kinda.

• 33:47Wes Larson?

  No, they do.

• 33:47Mike Smith?

  A little different. The Gator roll is a little different.

• 33:49Jeff Larson?

  You would steamroll me when I was like four years old, just the steamroller.

• 33:54Wes Larson?

  We still do that.

• 33:55Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I saw that like two weeks ago. It still happens.

• 33:59Wes Larson?

  Anyway, the men took off their shirts and they made an improvised stretcher for Scott with some tree branches. And they moved him to a creek bottom nearby. And then just as they were ready to go look for some more help, the bear shows up again. And in a split second, Embelton, their friend, raises his gun to his shoulder and fires a shot. And he hits the bear in the neck and shatters its spine, instantly killing it. So they needed this dude with them before.

• 34:24Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 34:24Jeff Larson?

  It sucks that, uh, I forget his name, his gun jammed.

• 34:29Wes Larson?

  Scott.

• 34:29Jeff Larson?

  And so like unlucky.

• 34:30Wes Larson?

  The grizzly was eight feet tall and 750 pounds.

• 34:33Jeff Larson?

  Geez.

• 34:34Wes Larson?

  Which honestly is an absolute monster. The only, in Yellowstone, we have some bears that get close to 700 pounds. But you see like a 600 pound grizzly and they are massive. So 750 pound one, that's like three or 400 pounds bigger than average.

• 34:50Jeff Larson?

  So that's a male.

• 34:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, a huge male. Later, a taxidermist would find a bone deep slash in the bear's face from its eye to its ear. Where Scott had cut it with his knife during the fight. So he got, he got a couple in. So the men rode out for help, but the telephone line from the local forest service cabin was down. So they ran into these guys, Frenchie Meyer and Roy Hom. And there were two other hunters in the area and Meyer rode his horse 16 miles across the Continental Divide to the benchmark campground. Where he called the Palmer Air Service in Great Falls. And a plane was sent to the area, but it was unable to land in the dark. And at this point, it had been almost 12 hours since Scott had been attacked. And he told his friends, God, I'd wish I'd die and get this over with.

• 35:34Wes Larson?

  And not long after he got his wish and the 29 year old Scott died an hour before a doctor finally arrived early Sunday morning. So a lot of this story came from a magazine from the time it was called Real Magazine. And they reported that Squires, his friend, had a really hard life after the death of his friend. And that his son, Mark Squires, was actually bullied in school by kids who called his dad a coward. Because he left his friend to go find help. And some of the other hunters had to go and like, talk to these kids and be like, hey, that was the only option. He had to go find help.

• 36:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask if that was the right move, but it sounds like obviously it was. He just, he didn't have any ammunition left, so.

• 36:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I mean, with an injured bear, it was. It was for sure, because that bear's injured, it's enraged, it's gonna attack either way. If it hadn't have been injured, there's a chance him showing up and looking for his rifle, maybe he could have scared it off. But yeah, I don't know.

• 36:32Jeff Larson?

  Cause he had ammunition, he just had to reload when the bear was charging at him.

• 36:38Mike Smith?

  Oh, okay, I see.

• 36:39Wes Larson?

  And then he dropped his rifle up top. So, to be honest, I probably would have scrambled up there and tried to find my rifle. I just think, I don't think he did the wrong thing. I think for the time, like for it being 1956, he did what he thought was right. Sometimes those attacks though are so brutal and so quick. That where it suddenly went silent and everything, I probably would have run up and tried to check on my friend and make sure that I could like, staunch bleeding, do some triage, and then go and get help.

• 37:09Jeff Larson?

  I wonder like, how far down a ravine can you fall? Was it like hot rod where he just falls down the whole mountain?

• 37:17Wes Larson?

  I don't think it was like that, like a 10 minute fall. I don't think it was that far.

• 37:21Mike Smith?

  Are you supposed to plop people's eyes back into the socket when they're dangling out like that? What do you do it?

• 37:27Jeff Larson?

  I was wondering, I would wanna do like the how many fingers am I holding up that with like the eye by his cheek, yeah.

• 37:35Wes Larson?

  I was gonna say, like, I'd be really curious to see if they could still see out of it.

• 37:39Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Wes Larson?

  And then be like, maybe you should just keep it like this and you can use it as like a little periscope.

• 37:46Wes Larson?

  Anyway, I know like the bear then they stuffed the bear and it went to some hobby land or something and then they were they were destroying the building that the bear was in and they learned what bear it was and how important it was to the Fort Benton community. So they brought it back to Fort Benton and the daughters of Scott were there and they were really happy to have the bear back in their community.

• 38:08Jeff Larson?

  So the bear's still in the community there?

• 38:11Wes Larson?

  I think so. The article that I read was fairly old and I should say the article I got was from a Great Falls newspaper that I got most of this information from, um, the Great Falls Tribune.

• 38:21Jeff Larson?

  Once we start our Tooth and Claw Tour Company, that'll be one of our destinations.

• 38:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we'll go to Fort Benton and see the bears and we'll go see the Lions of Savo in the Chicago National History Museum.

• 38:33Mike Smith?

  That'd be sweet. And the Harambe statue.

• 38:35Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Wes Larson?

  Anyway, I thought it was a really interesting story just because here you've got two pretty experienced hunters who grew up like around guns on ranches. Really, I guarantee these guys are good with their weapons and they both get attacked by a grizzly bear, you know, and it kills one of them before they finally manage to kill it. And it just goes to show to me how effective bear spray is because with bear spray, you're just shooting a cloud of it out there for the bear to run into. You don't have to get a perfect hit. Like this dude shot this bear in the chest, punctured both of its lungs, almost hit its spine, and it still managed to kill him. That shows that guns just aren't the best

• 39:19Wes Larson?

  option. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have a gun, but go to your bear spray first and then go to your gun because bear spray does really work a lot better than that.

• 39:29Jeff Larson?

  That's why I clean my gun out three times a day while I'm hanging upside down naked. Just so it will never jam.

• 39:37Wes Larson?

  Do you like disassemble it and then assemble it blindfolded?

• 39:39Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, forest gum style. I'm like, I'm quick.

• 39:43Wes Larson?

  Someone wrote us recently and I forget their name and I'm sorry, but they sent us a DM and I think they're some kind of psychologist or psychiatrist and they've done a lot of work on stress response and everything and they, they mentioned the fact of like how when you're preparing for public speaking, you can't prepare for that feeling of like getting up on stage and actually like delivering in front of an audience.

• 40:06Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Wes Larson?

  And like a lot of people that feel like they're really prepared when they actually get on stage, they kind of have this fear response and things lock up for them. And that's the same thing with like preparing. You can go out and target shoot and practice with your rifle and get really good at it. But when you have a grizzly charging at you, you don't know how you're going to react. It's impossible to prepare for that situation fully. And there are a lot of people that will be fine, but there's some people that won't. And the great thing about bear spray, it's like the same thing there. You have to prepare with your bear spray too and like practice and know how to use it, but it has a much bigger margin of error. It shoots a big cloud. Mike, what are you laughing about?

• 40:45Mike Smith?

  I just want, I want to hear a story now about how someone is really, really good at shooting, but only when they're hanging upside down and naked because that's how they practiced.

• 40:54Jeff Larson?

  I always had-

• 40:55Mike Smith?

  They can't shoot any other way.

• 40:56Jeff Larson?

  When Wes went off of my tangent with like, someone wrote, well, like someone wrote in and said, I was like, where's this go?

• 41:06Wes Larson?

  Anyway, it's, it's just, it's not that bear spray is like a magic bullet either. It's just that there is this margin of error. And, and like the other thing about is this dude shot the bear through its lungs and it kept coming later. You know, it ran off, but then later they approached it. So actually that's not a great, because it did stop it when he shot it through its lungs. They chased it down. And if you chase down a bear that you sprayed with bear spray, it might maul you too. But the thing about bear spray is that it gets into their nasal passages, it gets into their eyes, it gets into their sinuses, their throat. It just kind of shuts everything down for them and it's a really uncomfortable experience for them and that's what makes them run away.

• 41:47Jeff Larson?

  And you've probably said this already, but my memory, like I said, is really very short, but they didn't have bear spray back then. So that wasn't an option for them.

• 41:57Wes Larson?

  It was developed in the eighties, I think. I'll do a deep dive into that at some point, but.

• 42:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but that's my plug for bear spray again. And one more time, like, bear spray isn't just any mace. Like, it's, it's a specific type of mace that's developed for bears. So you can't just like go buy any pepper spray and use it as bear spray.

• 42:16Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Wes Larson?

  Do you think that bear was just mad that he didn't want to go play for the Chicago Bears? Uh, he's like, you don't like bears, do you? Yeah, you better watch out for lions, too. Well, I guess he doesn't have to because he's dead. Um, anyway, sorry, that's not very nice. That's it for the story. I thought it was a really interesting one. I really like these older stories with grizzly bears. Just because there's a lot more kind of chaos associated with them sometimes because the people just have no idea what to do. Aside from like, shoot it, which is, you know, it's effective sometimes. But I thought it was an interesting one. And when I read it, it really stuck with me, probably partly because of the eyeball part. But, yeah, anyway, do you guys have anything you want to add or ask?

• 43:01Jeff Larson?

  No, I think I'm good.

• 43:02Mike Smith?

  No, I just, I can understand why squires would have such a hard time, like, survival's, or survivor's guilt's a real thing. And he kind of got away with it twice because his friend is there to take the attention away. And like, it's just a sad situation for everyone. I, I feel like maybe I was a little too irreverent earlier about some of these things. But, I mean, obviously, this is a tragic thing. And to live with the knowledge and kind of as a firsthand witness to your friend's death has got to be really, really hard to deal with.

• 43:33Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. And I'll, I'll say like, it's admirable that they considered other hunters as their reasoning to like, try to kill the bear.

• 43:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Jeff Larson?

  That's admirable way to die that he was thinking of others.

• 43:48Wes Larson?

  Well, and we talked about this a little bit in the polar bear episode. It's kind of just this weird wilderness Russian roulette, where that bear could have just as easily gone after squires. But for whatever reason, it zeroed in on Scott on that last charge and went for him. Because Squires ran away, but he didn't run away fast enough to discourage a grizzly bear.

• 44:07Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Wes Larson?

  You know, it could have still gone for him. So it's just bad luck for Scott is what it is. And Squires doesn't, shouldn't hold.

• 44:15Jeff Larson?

  Maybe it's good luck.

• 44:16Wes Larson?

  If he's still alive.

• 44:17Jeff Larson?

  Cause then Scott would have survivor's guilt his whole life.

• 44:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 44:21Mike Smith?

  Yeah. What's worth death or survivor's guilt? Yeah. It's a toss up.

• 44:25Wes Larson?

  All right. So we're going to go into our categories. Um, we've done a lot of grizzly bear episodes. So instead of doing grizzly bear pop culture, we're going to say our favorite hunter from pop culture. Do you guys have yours?

• 44:38Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, but I think mine might, I'm, I'm worried about crossover. I'll go last because I have a good backup.

• 44:44Mike Smith?

  Were you gonna pick Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter?

• 44:47Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Is that yours?

• 44:49Mike Smith?

  No, I was actually, I was gonna pick a vampire hunter, but it's Simon Belmont from Castlevania.

• 44:54Wes Larson?

  Ooh, over Buffy, huh?

• 44:56Mike Smith?

  I know it was a tough one, but.

• 44:58Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 44:59Mike Smith?

  Simon, Simon was in my life first. So, you know, first love kind of thing. Have you seen his thighs? He's got good thighs.

• 45:05Wes Larson?

  Speaking of good thighs, Robert Muldoon from Jurassic Park. Uh, and those little, those little khaki shorts. He's my favorite hunter from pop culture.

• 45:14Jeff Larson?

  That was mine too.

• 45:15Wes Larson?

  He's the one. Okay. He's the clever girl one.

• 45:18Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, he's great.

• 45:19Mike Smith?

  He's, I recently read the book again and he's another one of those characters in the movie. That's just like so much cooler in the movie. And in the book, he's just like an old alcoholic guy.

• 45:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah. He gets stuck in a pipe and the velociraptors are like attacking the pipe while he's in it.

• 45:36Jeff Larson?

  Uh, I'm gonna go with the hunter that killed Bambi's mom.

• 45:42Jeff Larson?

  I just think.

• 45:43Wes Larson?

  It's your favorite, huh?

• 45:44Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. I think if he doesn't kill Bambi's mom, the movie is just not that good. So I think he really just adds a lot to that movie.

• 45:53Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 45:53Mike Smith?

  Interesting. Do you even ever see the hunter? Isn't it just like a gun from off screen?

• 45:58Wes Larson?

  I think so.

• 45:59Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I haven't seen it in forever.

• 46:01Mike Smith?

  I'm going to allow you to call that your favorite hunter, but just know skepticism is mounting.

• 46:07Jeff Larson?

  Well, it's my.

• 46:08Mike Smith?

  At a certain point.

• 46:08Jeff Larson?

  It is my backup.

• 46:10Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 46:10Jeff Larson?

  I had to think of it on the fly.

• 46:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah. All right. So we're gonna do the anaconda scale. Let's do it. Are we doing it for both men or just Scott?

• 46:19Jeff Larson?

  Uh. I think it's, I think they both work together, right? It's the same.

• 46:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they're pretty much, they pretty much did the same thing. Yes, well, for both men, I think there's some strong elements of both hero and villain here. And I'm not saying they're villains at all, but I'm saying like applying it to anaconda. The fact that they're chasing after an animal that is injured and in distress has some John Voight feelings to it. But then they also were being heroic by trying to kill it because they were worried about it attacking other people. And I say heroic in quotes because honestly, like this whole thing, no one's the winner in this whole situation. Cause you don't want to kill a bear either.

• 47:03Mike Smith?

  Plus, it seemed like that there was no ill intent that instigated the event from the start either. So like, no one was looking for trouble. They just were dealing with it.

• 47:12Wes Larson?

  He even tried to fire a warning shot to get rid of the bear. He wasn't just immediately trying to kill it.

• 47:17Jeff Larson?

  See, I'm, I'm going different than you altogether. I'm going Owen because I just think they put themselves into a bad situation that wasn't necessary. Owen Wilson goes in the jungle to get laid and then gets eaten by an anaconda. And these guys put themselves in a situation where they could have just left.

• 47:39Wes Larson?

  No, I see where you're at, man. I would say Owen with hints of John.

• 47:44Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I see, yeah, I see the John.

• 47:46Wes Larson?

  I don't think they're bad guys.

• 47:48Mike Smith?

  This is our most lurry line, Anaconda skill.

• 47:50Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, what, what do you say?

• 47:51Wes Larson?

  I feel like I need to re-watch Anaconda.

• 47:54Mike Smith?

  That's really my main takeaway right now.

• 47:56Wes Larson?

  Cause there's other characters too. We have like three characters that we use.

• 48:00Jeff Larson?

  Four.

• 48:01Wes Larson?

  Or four. Okay. So do we all agree Owen with some John?

• 48:05Jeff Larson?

  Mike, you gotta say something.

• 48:06Mike Smith?

  Uh, I was, so I was agreeing with Wes, but then Jeff changed my mind. So now I'm agreeing with, I'm agreeing with what Wes ended up at. Yeah. So like an Owen slash John.

• 48:19Mike Smith?

  If you're anything like me, you spend a lot of your time trying to figure out how you can stay home and not go out. I don't know what it is, but when I step out of my front door, I feel like I'm just hemorrhaging all of my free time. So why waste some of your precious time wandering around a blind store when Three Day Blinds brings the showroom to you? We can shop for almost anything at home. Why not shop for blinds at home too? Three Day Blinds has local professionally trained design consultants who have an average of 10 plus years of experience. That provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you in the comfort of your home. Just set up an appointment and you'll get a free, no obligation quote the same day. And again, if you're like me, not very handy, these projects can be fun, but measuring and installing blinds can be a huge challenge. The expert team at Three Day Blinds handles all the heavy lifting.

• 49:03Mike Smith?

  They design, measure, install, and so you can sit back, relax, and just leave it to the pros. Just a quick scroll through Three Day Blinds Instagram and I was seeing all, I've been ready to just renovate, completely overhaul my entire house with their stuff. Right now, get quality window treatments that fit your budget with Three Day Blinds. Head to three day blinds.com slash tooth for their buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery. For a free, no charge, no obligation consultation, just head to three day blinds.com slash tooth. One last time, that's buy one, get one 50% off when you head to the number three D A Y blinds.com slash tooth.

• 49:46Wes Larson?

  All right, so let's say you're in the situation at the very beginning where a bear charges out and mauls the other one of you and is shaking them around and you're just sitting there watching it. What are you gonna do?

• 50:01Jeff Larson?

  Well, I was just thinking the best defense for the bulldozer or the steamroller technique where they just roll over you a bunch.

• 50:09Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 50:10Jeff Larson?

  Is you really gotta ball up and like get your knees pointing into him. So when their back rolls across your knees, they like kinda.

• 50:19Wes Larson?

  Kinda hurts?

• 50:20Jeff Larson?

  Kinda, yeah, hurts them back a bit.

• 50:22Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 50:22Mike Smith?

  That would probably work.

• 50:24Wes Larson?

  Mike?

• 50:24Mike Smith?

  I don't know what I would do, but I know what I would be thinking. I would be laying there getting thrashed and be like, I should have just played football.

• 50:34Mike Smith?

  Cause I don't think there's really anything you could do at that point.

• 50:37Wes Larson?

  No, that's a good point. So I'll tell you really quick, we've talked a lot about what to actually do in a grizzly bear encounter. I think with this one where it was a surprise encounter, they were creeping around in the brush, trying to be as quiet as possible. They probably got too close to this bear and it charged at him. And it was already, they were close enough to where it was going to be a full charge, not just a bluff charge. And it immediately hit one of them. So typically in this kind of situation nowadays, I would say discharge your bear spray, spray the bear, group up, and then back away is what I would tell people to do. Back then, if it were the 50s and bear spray wasn't around, I think they did the right thing. I think you fire a warning shot and then if the bear still doesn't respond,

• 51:20Wes Larson?

  you shoot at the bear once you have a clear shot. As far as like, you shouldn't follow it after you hit the bear, definitely. Like, once the bear's out of there, you've accomplished your purpose, get out of that area. But, um, one other thing I wanted to talk about is in this kind of situation, like an enraged bear, especially after it's been hurt, there is an argument for playing dead once it's mauling you. Because if it's mauling you, it's really just trying to neutralize you. It now sees you as a threat. It sees you as something that's caused it pain. It might actually just rip you to shreds. But if it's mauling you and you have no other option, playing dead could work because it might convince the bear that it's taking care of business and that it can leave.

• 52:05Wes Larson?

  But that's not advice I would generally give people. You don't, you only want to play dead once a bear is actually mauling you and you've exhausted all your other deterrent options. So if you don't have a gun anymore, you don't have bear spray, and it's actually on top of you mauling you, you can play dead.

• 52:19Mike Smith?

  Gotcha.

• 52:21Wes Larson?

  And that looks like you want to cover your neck and you want to be on your like, you want your belly facing the ground so it can't get into like the softer parts of you. And if it flips you over, you want to roll back over onto your belly and again, cover your neck.

• 52:33Jeff Larson?

  Do you stick your tongue out and roll your eyes?

• 52:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah, just pretend you, yeah, go, "Oh!"

• 52:40Mike Smith?

  And then draw X's over your eyeballs with that. Hide your, you gotta hide your bowling balls too, or else they'll bite those.

• 52:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's move on to some questions. Jeff, do you have some questions from patrons?

• 52:54Jeff Larson?

  Yes.

• 52:55Wes Larson?

  Will you please share them?

• 52:56Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Okay. This person has told me how to say their name before, and I'll just preface it like that.

• 53:06Wes Larson?

  Oh, can't even say "preface." Preface, this should go well.

• 53:09Jeff Larson?

  I'm pretty sure it's Akshara.

• 53:12Wes Larson?

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 53:13Jeff Larson?

  They say, "Since Bart was mentioned in the most recent episode, that might not be relevant right now." How do handlers reduce the risk of an attack on movie sets? Do you know how they deal with logistics like travel seems pretty crazy to transport a grizzly?

• 53:31Wes Larson?

  I don't know how they deal with logistics. As far as reducing the potential for an attack on a movie set. I think the main thing that they do is they only have absolutely necessary people interact with the bear. So wherever possible, only handlers are going to be interacting with the bear and then they. You know, act as a stunt double or whatever. Or the stunt double of the actor and then in some circumstances, I think they let the actual actors interact with them. But I think it's pretty rare. I think it's almost always a handler or a stunt double that are actually doing the interaction. I think that's the main way they they reduce that those chances just because the bear has a relationship with that person. They know their commands. They know their behavior.

• 54:16Wes Larson?

  And they can respond and if they are mauled, they're the ones that are kind of taking that liability upon themselves. So I think that's the main thing is just reducing any kind of interaction with the bear.

• 54:26Mike Smith?

  As far as travel logistics go, I mean, these, these are like big shot Hollywood bears now, right? They're probably first class, flying them first class everywhere.

• 54:36Jeff Larson?

  They sit shotgun everywhere they go.

• 54:40Jeff Larson?

  All right, this one's from Hannah. I spent six months in New Zealand doing field research on kiwi birds. And there was a population of fifty birds that we worked with that had been tagged for thirteen years. Kiwis are mostly magnan- magnanimous? Magnogamous? How do you say that?

• 54:58Wes Larson?

  Monogamous.

• 54:59Mike Smith?

  Magnanimous is a word, though.

• 55:03Wes Larson?

  What word are we trying to say?

• 55:05Mike Smith?

  Wow, this is the first time you've almost slipped into an entirely different actual word. That's amazing.

• 55:12Jeff Larson?

  But there have been a few couples that broke up. Taco and Belle broke up sadly. So that's kind of funny that Taco and Belle were a couple.

• 55:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that is funny.

• 55:22Jeff Larson?

  And there were two throuples in the population. We had a lot of fun gossiping about the birds like it was a reality dating show. So I was wondering if Wes has had any similar funny stories of animal populations he has worked with? With their juicy drama.

• 55:40Wes Larson?

  Not really. I feel like most of the animals I've worked with, the only animal I think I've ever worked with on a more extensive level that are monogamous are golden eagles. And we don't really get close enough to them to really tease out a lot of like relationship drama. I'm sure the people that have worked on that project longer than me know some like kind of juicy tidbits about their relationships. But as far as me, I can't think of any, any animals where I felt like there was like something really juicy or, or kind of fun like that.

• 56:12Mike Smith?

  Are there any documented incidents of grizzly bears or bears in general mating with the same mate from one season to the next?

• 56:22Wes Larson?

  I'm sure there are, but I think that's more of just like a coincidence than like a monogamous kind of thing. It's not the bear like trying to get its old partner back. It's just that they ran into each other again in the spring and, and made it.

• 56:33Jeff Larson?

  I saw some bears mating last week.

• 56:35Wes Larson?

  Nice. Where?

• 56:37Jeff Larson?

  Youtube. No, I'm just kidding. At the Hoagland Zoo.

• 56:41Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah. That's right. They're siblings, right?

• 56:43Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 56:44Mike Smith?

  I always miss the good stuff.

• 56:46Jeff Larson?

  All right. Uh, this one's from Emily. And they say, besides Lord of the Rings, what are your favorite fantasy stories or series? And I told them a guess for Mike already. We'll see if I'm right.

• 57:00Wes Larson?

  Mine, mine was the Song of Ice and Fire.

• 57:03Jeff Larson?

  Hmm. Yeah.

• 57:04Wes Larson?

  The Game of Thrones, but then it got ruined. But I loved, I read all the books and was so into it up until the end of it, but.

• 57:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. No, that's probably mine too. Uh, I, I really liked the new Dune movie and I'm excited to see the second part of that.

• 57:19Wes Larson?

  The book's good too.

• 57:20Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 57:21Wes Larson?

  I, I, I actually love the Harry Potter books.

• 57:23Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah, that's true.

• 57:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 57:24Jeff Larson?

  All right. Mike?

• 57:26Mike Smith?

  What did you, what was your guess? So I'm pro, I'm gonna guess the thing that you guessed right off the top.

• 57:32Jeff Larson?

  I can't, I can't say the guess before you say it.

• 57:34Mike Smith?

  Okay. Is it, you probably said either Miss Born or Stormlight Archive?

• 57:38Jeff Larson?

  Nope.

• 57:39Mike Smith?

  Okay. Any of like the Gentleman Bastard books?

• 57:42Wes Larson?

  I do like the Gentleman Bastard books.

• 57:44Mike Smith?

  The like the Greenbone Saga? Anything by John Gwynn? What are we talking about?

• 57:48Jeff Larson?

  Enders Game.

• 57:50Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's more like sci-fi, but no, I

• 57:52Jeff Larson?

  That's like a series. That's a fantasy story series.

• 57:56Mike Smith?

  It's sci-fi.

• 57:56Jeff Larson?

  No.

• 57:56Mike Smith?

  It does get a little like fantastical in the later books.

• 58:00Jeff Larson?

  That doesn't mean it can't be a series if it's sci-fi.

• 58:02Wes Larson?

  Well, she said a fantasy series. Didn't she say fantasy?

• 58:05Mike Smith?

  Maybe we misunderstood.

• 58:06Jeff Larson?

  She said, what are your favorite fantasy stories or series?

• 58:10Wes Larson?

  Right. Fantasy stories or series?

• 58:13Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 58:13Wes Larson?

  That's not fantasy. She's saying fantasy stories or series.

• 58:17Jeff Larson?

  I think Ender's Game would count, but whatever.

• 58:19Wes Larson?

  Have you read it?

• 58:20Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Wes Larson?

  It's very sci-fi. So is Dune. Dune's more sci-fi than it is fantasy.

• 58:25Jeff Larson?

  I don't think those are mutually exclusive sci-fi and fantasy. You can't have a fantasy sci-fi?

• 58:30Wes Larson?

  I think you can, but I don't think either of those are.

• 58:33Mike Smith?

  I mean, I get what you're saying, and I actually do agree to an extent, but they're two different genres for a reason.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 58:40Speaker 04

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite?

• 58:42Speaker 03

  Uh, Taylor Hanson? Sure, I'll try one.

• 58:45Speaker 04

  Mmm.

• 58:48Speaker 04

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 58:49Speaker 03

  But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.

• 58:54Speaker 04

  Taylor Hanson? Nice. Try one. Mmm.

• 59:01Speaker 04

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.

• 59:03Speaker 05

  There's nothing like it.

• 59:09Speaker 05

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 59:39Mike Smith?

  You go to the sci-fi section or the fantasy section in a bookstore and like, they're divided for reasons.

• 59:45Jeff Larson?

  But there's a couple of books that they don't know which one to put it in, I bet.

• 59:49Wes Larson?

  You can have an erotic thriller, but you can also have a thriller or an erotic book. And there's like, it's not like they're this, they're always the same. You know?

• 1:00:00Mike Smith?

  But you're right, Jeff.

• 1:00:00Wes Larson?

  To me, Ender's Game falls squarely in sci fi. It's not, there's no fantasy elements in it to me. But that's me. I'm trying to think of others.

• 1:00:10Mike Smith?

  Okay, so if there's one that I could recommend to anybody, it would be Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. It's, it's like a contemporary fantasy author. Some people kind of call him like the Marvel Cinematic Universe for fantasy lit. But it's very accessible, incredibly epic in scale and world building, awesome characters and just like a really easy fun time. With like a lot of really, I'll just say, kind of like poignant and important life lessons to be learned along the way. I think that that series is gonna go down as one of the all time classics, once it's all said and done.

• 1:00:44Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:00:44Jeff Larson?

  Cool. Would you choose Ender's Game i- if it qualified?

• 1:00:50Mike Smith?

  I would, but it doesn't, so I won't.

• 1:00:54Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, no, we established that already.

• 1:00:57Wes Larson?

  Right. I love fantasy, but I really just go back to Tolkien usually. That's just kinda where I am.

• 1:01:02Jeff Larson?

  And then, this one's from Gracie. If the multiverse was real and you guys had to pick an alternative or alternative reality to live in, which reality would you choose? So I'll, I'll head this one off just to give you both some time to think. Lately, I think I'd wanna be a F1 driver in my alternate reality. Because I, I just think it'd be really fun to like, drive a race car and be a super celebrity. And go to like, all the coolest cities in the world.

• 1:01:34Wes Larson?

  Okay. I think I'd pick one where dinosaurs haven't gone extinct.

• 1:01:37Mike Smith?

  Ooh, that's a good pick too.

• 1:01:39Jeff Larson?

  And you're a race car driver?

• 1:01:42Jeff Larson?

  That's better than mine then.

• 1:01:44Mike Smith?

  So I'm gonna be an F1 driver in mine too. But I want to live in the alternate reality. Every history teacher I've ever had always says, oh, if the library at Alexandria hadn't been burned, George Washington would have been fighting the British with nuclear submarines. And it's just like, really? Is that like, really what would have been happening?

• 1:02:07Wes Larson?

  Me neither.

• 1:02:08Mike Smith?

  Mostly just out of curiosity, I want to live in the reality where the library at Alexandria was not burned. Just to like, see if all these history teachers were just here, like, repeating something that they heard that's actually just kind of really stupid. And that's a petty reality for me to live in.

• 1:02:24Wes Larson?

  I love that you have infinite possibilities of realities to choose from. And you pick one that you just are mad at your history teacher about.

• 1:02:33Mike Smith?

  Listen, I'm happy with where I'm at.

• 1:02:34Wes Larson?

  One where humans can fly.

• 1:02:36Mike Smith?

  That's boring.

• 1:02:37Jeff Larson?

  At least he says he's an F1 driver still.

• 1:02:40Mike Smith?

  Yeah, yeah. Listen, humans are nothing if not adaptable. So like, if we can fly, that'd be cool for two days and then be like, well, we can fly, sweet.

• 1:02:49Jeff Larson?

  They didn't have cars in your time period, right? So you're winning every race.

• 1:02:54Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:02:58Wes Larson?

  Alright, great question.

• 1:02:59Mike Smith?

  Good slate of questions this time.

• 1:03:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that was. Alright, so quick conservation corner. We've talked about this a little bit. In Montana, grizzlies have done pretty well compared to the rest of the lower 48.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  Ugh, I hate Mondays. King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite? Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.

• 1:03:25Speaker 04

  Taylor Hansen? Nice. Try one. Mmm.

• 1:03:32Speaker 05

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. There's nothing like it.

• 1:03:40Speaker 05

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:04:11Wes Larson?

  But with the current political climate here and with kind of this return to really anti predator sentiments in Montana, a lot of bear biologists in Montana, and myself included, are pretty concerned with the future of grizzly bears. A lot of laws have been passed that are pretty aggressive that allow for things like chasing bears with dogs, or setting wolf traps that can catch bears. Lots of just like really aggressive laws, killing bears like in self-defense, but it's not really, or if they're threatening your livestock, but threatening isn't even defined. There's just some really loose, aggressive laws that are being passed toward grizzly bears

• 1:04:50Wes Larson?

  and other predators in Montana that make people like myself pretty concerned about the future of those bears. So while their numbers are pretty good, the attitudes are what are mostly concerning right now. And we're just kind of crossing our fingers that things don't slide too far in the other direction. So that's a quick conservation corner. Quickly, we'll do our claw rating, which is pretty easy for me and Jeff. This is a 10 claw animal. This is probably my favorite animal. So yeah.

• 1:05:19Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, number one, 10 claws.

• 1:05:21Wes Larson?

  Mike?

• 1:05:21Mike Smith?

  It's a nine claw for me.

• 1:05:23Wes Larson?

  Oh, you bastard.

• 1:05:24Mike Smith?

  They're, they're close. Of all the nines I've handed out, this one's the close, the closest probably. Besides polar bears, which we did last week, but they're awesome. I love seeing them. I haven't gotten nearly enough opportunities to do that myself. I'd love to do it some more.

• 1:05:41Jeff Larson?

  What ratings of panda bear?

• 1:05:43Mike Smith?

  Um.

• 1:05:44Jeff Larson?

  Giant panda.

• 1:05:45Mike Smith?

  It'd be, it'd probably be another nine. They're not a top 10, but they're.

• 1:05:49Wes Larson?

  So you don't have a single 10 that's a bear?

• 1:05:51Mike Smith?

  I don't think there's any bears in my top 10.

• 1:05:53Jeff Larson?

  Where do grizzlies rank for bears? Like, yeah, give me your top three bears in order.

• 1:05:59Mike Smith?

  Well, I think we've done this before, but it was polar bear, grizzly, panda, and then I don't know.

• 1:06:04Jeff Larson?

  In that order?

• 1:06:04Mike Smith?

  Forgettable. Black bear is what a boring ass bear. Just sitting around.

• 1:06:10Wes Larson?

  All right. So 10's for me and Jeff, a nine for Mike. I'm kind of bummed that bears don't ever crack your 10's, but that's okay. That's fine. Well, thanks, guys. This one was a fun one and I really enjoyed this story. So I'm glad I got to share it with you guys and thanks again for supporting us, whether you're supporting us on Patreon or on Apple subscriptions. It really does mean a lot to us. It is up to this point, what's gotten us this far on the podcast. So we really, really, truly do appreciate our subscribers. So thanks again.

• 1:06:42Jeff Larson?

  Thanks.

• 1:06:42Mike Smith?

  You guys are the best.

• 1:06:44Wes Larson?

  We love that.

• 1:06:45Mike Smith?

  We say it, we don't say it enough. Maybe we say it too much, but we do mean it.

• 1:06:49Wes Larson?

  We talk about it all the time. So we do mean it. All right. We'll see you.

• 1:06:53Mike Smith?

  Bye.

• 1:06:53Jeff Larson?

  Bye.