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Life on the Edge: Ivy O’Guinn on Alaska, Guiding, and Grit
158 Plays4 days ago
In this episode of the Tricer Podcast, Drew Miles sits down with Ivy O’Guinn, Alaskan hunting guide, commercial fisherwoman, and cast member on Mountain Men. Ivy shares her incredible journey growing up among strong, subsistence-driven women and how her early life on Alaska’s waters eventually led her into guiding big-game hunts across the state’s unforgiving interior.
Drew and Ivy dive into her experiences guiding brown bear, moose, and sheep hunters, the lessons learned from living completely off-grid, and her recent adventures traveling and hunting in Africa. Ivy also opens up about the realities behind TV survival shows, her passion for empowering women in the outdoors, and why conservation and predator management matter so deeply in Alaska.
This episode delivers an honest, inspiring look into life at the edge of the wilderness—and Ivy’s mission to help more women step confidently into Alaska’s hunting community.
IVY O’GUINN
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ivyo/
TRICER USA
Website – https://tricerusa.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tricerusa/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tricerusa/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@tricer6985
#tricergear #tricerpodcast #alaskahunting #alaskaguide #mountainmen #womenwhohunt #backcountryhunting #bearhunting #moosehunting #sheephunting #huntinglife #outdoorwomen #huntfishlive #publiclandhunting #predatormanagement #conservationhunting #offgridliving #subsistencehunting #mountainhunting #alaskanadventures #outdoorcommunity #westernhunting
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Transcript
Black Friday Sale Announcement
00:00:01
Speaker
What's up everyone? I want to encourage you to head over to tricer.com November 21st to December 1st for our massive Black Friday sale where the entire site will be discounted. Our RP bipod is 10% off.
00:00:12
Speaker
All tricer BC and BC glassy kits with the BC in it are 30% off. The biggest discount we've ever given.
Introduction to Ivy O'Gwen
00:00:18
Speaker
And everything else on the site is 20% off including but not limited to our 80 tripods, all of our glassing tripods, shooting tripods like our X-Series and HK kits.
00:00:26
Speaker
This is by far our biggest sale of the year. Don't wait and load up on it while supplies last. This black variety sale lasts from November 21st to December 1st at tricer.com.
00:00:37
Speaker
You guys have heard of like the most interesting man in the world from the Secchies, right? Well, I have, I've only been hanging out there for like 30 minutes now, but probably one of the most interesting women in the world, Ivy O'Gwen, who is married fellows.
Ivy's Alaskan Lifestyle and Family Background
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm sorry, but she seems pretty epic.
00:00:53
Speaker
ah Ivy, how are you doing? Oh, thank you. That's wonderful. um I'm great. I'm glad to be here. Glad to put a face to the name. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So Ivy hangs out or has been in touch with a lot of my staff and they hooked up on the pod and I'm just talking to her i'm like, i really don't know much about you. And she's like, oh, I just got back from Africa and Spain hunting. And ah I captain in a boat in the summers for fishing. I live in Alaska interior. i guide brown bear, black bear, moose and tall sheep.
00:01:24
Speaker
And about to do caribou and sick of black toe, I think. um ah Your subsistence living, you've grown up in Alaska, your whole family subsistence living, you were fishermen, sports, sports person.
Transition to Alaskan Interior and Living Off-Grid
00:01:35
Speaker
um And now here you are, you are married to a guide in Alaska and you're traveling the world hunting and guiding hunts. That's pretty epic. It's been pretty epic. Yeah. I'm not going to lie Very blessed.
00:01:48
Speaker
We're very blessed. Just following following your dreams, right? That's the goal. Exactly. So let's kind of get to like life in Alaska. You grew you grew up there. You were born and raised in Alaska? Yeah. you were born you were down more on like the island chains, right, before?
00:02:09
Speaker
In the summertime. So my mom's side of the family is Alaska native. So um I grew up in the summers out there. That's where I got into commercial fishing. mic I come from a line of women that do it. So my mom and my grandma were both commercial fishermen.
00:02:23
Speaker
And then in the wintertime, um we lived in Kenai and that's where i went to school and wintered. My dad's an oh in an oil field. So that kind of placed us there.
00:02:34
Speaker
And so then when did you do go to the interior? Is that after you got married or?
Remote Alaskan Life and Guiding Business
00:02:40
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I met a ah mountain man that lived in the woods. ah important but like Took me away from the water and I moved more into the mountains, which has been fun in its own regard. It's a totally different world for me.
00:02:52
Speaker
um But yeah, I left all my fishing behind and now I'm trapping and hunting full time, which is a blast. So what is that? When you say Mount Matt lives in the woods, I mean, like, is he like, are you a bush plane into your house type woods or are you like driving to your house from town woods?
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, both, both. So um my husband, Brett, he built a cabin in the woods when he was 19. It's a big house and it's very remote. So it's by bush plane or snow machine in the wintertime.
00:03:21
Speaker
um So, yeah, basically, i relocated extremely off grid. ah We've since expanded. So we've got houses all over the state now just with our guiding business. It's we can't just be out of one spot
Subsistence Living Challenges and Joys
00:03:33
Speaker
now. So ah we've grown a lot since then. But um yeah, I mean, it's extremely remote.
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah. See, this is kind of like my dream, right? Like I tell people all the time, like I'm really like money doesn't excite me. Like you'll know I made it when I'm living. Like I love the book. Have you ever read the book by Henry David Thoreau called Walden or Life in the Woods?
00:03:55
Speaker
I haven't read it, but I've heard of it. it's It's a thick Put it on my T-shirt. Yeah, put that one on and listen to it. You need to do it. like You need to read like five pages a day. But basically, like he just this is like in the eighteen hundred s He's talking about how the world's too commercialized and the world's too crazy with trains and stuff. So he like goes out...
00:04:12
Speaker
And he just built a cabin for, i think it was like $1,700 at the time, which is a substantial amount of money. And he just lives in this cabin out in the woods. And so that's kind of what you guys are doing. So I imagine like you guys don't have a heating system, right?
00:04:27
Speaker
No, no, it's all wood fire stove. Yeah. We just added a solar system this last year. So that's been a game changer just to not have generator noise all the time. Um, and then there's a natural spring nearby. So we get all our water local from the ground and we haul that in.
00:04:42
Speaker
Um, but yeah, no, it's, it's primitive, but in a good way. And you're living on a lake. I take it or something close to a lake. I imagine. Yeah. You're living my dream. My wife, I don't think my wife will do it, but I keep telling her like, man, i just want to move up to Alaska and live in a, like a fish hut, fish hut somewhere and go hunting every day.
00:05:01
Speaker
It's a challenge every day, but it takes a special person. You just have to like to live in the crap all the time, you know, and then just find beauty in it because that's what it is. It's just hard. But it's good. I mean, like I do nothing else all day, but tedious chores around the house
Commercial Fishing and Guiding Hunts
00:05:18
Speaker
or like yard or whatever problem we have to fix. Yeah.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah. I joke that I'm like part-time homeless, right? People will like ask, what do you do for living? I'm like homeless. yeah I live in a truck or live in my tent at most, like half the year now. um What does that look like for you? So are you guys basically full subsistence living when you're in that situation? Like you guys, like everything you eat, do you grow your own food as well? Are you bringing food in or what are guys doing?
00:05:41
Speaker
Well, we're mostly bringing food in and then everything is, it's very high protein. carnivore diet for the most part. It's a lot of our wild game. um Now we have – our business has been thriving, so we have clients all the time. So I am making trips to town to pick people up from the airport, and so we bring in food a lot from that. So that's nice.
00:06:01
Speaker
It switches it up. But – in the summertime I'm fishing. So, uh, this summer I had a garden growing growing and it had to be totally self-sufficient. So I had to have like wifi water set up with Starlink and I had some, I had things to come home to. I was like, that's cool. I grew some stuff, but not to where it made sense for me to you know, have a huge harvest or anything, but.
00:06:26
Speaker
i still did it. This is still fun incredibly interesting to me. This whole thing. I'm excited to hear about all this stuff. So do you have your pilot's license or is your husband? He does. Yeah, my husband does. I went through ground school and then um when I started ah to get some hours in, I realized I liked looking out the window and not being in charge.
00:06:44
Speaker
um So if I had to land on the plane, I could possibly. But no, he he flies. And we had a plane, but he's sold all that. And now we've invested in many snow machines and other fun equipment. So maybe in the future, we'll have a plane again, but it doesn't make sense now for us.
00:07:03
Speaker
But Yeah. I thought about getting my own pilot's license. It's hard in like down here, like we're in Southern California, moving to Arizona in the spring.
Experience on 'Mountain Men' TV Show
00:07:11
Speaker
It'd be nice be able to jump. It's a two hour drive, but you could probably fly here in like 20 minutes.
00:07:15
Speaker
Right. But I'm like, I'm such a bad driver that I'm worried about a plane. I would just crash. Like, I mean, like there's like, I'm constantly like, look, it's like, it's gay. It's totally different world. You'd be fine up there. It'd probably make sense for you.
00:07:28
Speaker
That may be, it'd be fun. Like I would love it. Like I know like when I've spent time, like in the Frank and Alaska and stuff, like there's something said about being able jump around in a plane. Like it's, it's just cool.
00:07:39
Speaker
It's really the big balloon tires doing it. Yeah. Everyone's a pilot in Alaska or has some, knows somebody that is closely related to. So yeah, it's, it's definitely a tool everybody has access to here.
00:07:54
Speaker
Are you friends with the guys at Limitless at all? Limitless Outdoors? limitless. No, they're Christian dudes. They work Tracer. Um, they ended up moving. They just justin got his pilot's license. They moved from Idaho to Alaska.
00:08:08
Speaker
um and they're just, they killed giant bulls. I mean, they killed, they just hunt, they don't guide anybody. They just go out and kill their own stuff and film it. It's pretty cool. Living the dream, but jumping around doing that. And it's like, man, like I told my wife, I'm like, dude, Alaska is like 0% tax.
00:08:22
Speaker
There's no taxes on Alaska. And I can't talk her into doing it. She's like, no, I'm from San Diego. The best girl in the world. I don't want to go to Alaska. We're moving for tax reasons out of California, but we're moving to Yuma because it's close California. So we still come back and see friends and stuff.
00:08:38
Speaker
And I can't talk my wife and to go into going to Alaska. Alaska is like no taxes. Like it's, it's a great state to move to. And you can hunt doll sheep every year, brown bear, all these different things. And ah she's like, no, I'm from San Diego.
00:08:51
Speaker
Taxes. I pay quite a bit of taxes. Oh, I guess like, um well, what you don't make. Yeah. But you make up for it in property tax. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we live in California. You get all that. You get you get a 14% income tax and property tax and all that stuff.
00:09:07
Speaker
So, but yeah, we have our stuff's through the roof. either We
Insights into Commercial Salmon Fishing
00:09:12
Speaker
get, we get for being a resident. Yeah. No, not in California. no, not unless. Yeah.
00:09:18
Speaker
Not unless you're homeless or an illegal immigrant. Um, Politics aside, but it's the truth.
00:09:26
Speaker
So you fished. What does that look like for you? Are you fishing crabs? Are you fishing salmon? What are you guys doing? i know you guys just had an insane summer, right? Yeah. It's been record-breaking numbers.
00:09:37
Speaker
um Yeah. I fish ah for sockeye salmon, but I catch all five of the species. But June, July, I'm only targeting sockeye. So I gill net out of a set net skiff or set net out of a skiff with gill nuts.
00:09:50
Speaker
pick the fish out of the net, deliver them to the same crabbing boats. They come in, buy salmon in the summertime. How big of a crew are you running on that boat? I usually have my two cousins with me and they're like 15 to 18. Okay.
00:10:04
Speaker
okay is this an all-girl crew? For the most part. ah The last two years I've had one of my little boy cousins, um but i I usually have two girl cousins that are in the boat with me.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah. That's epic. And now these are like family boats, I take it? Yeah. so what the one's mine and ah my great grandpa made that boat. He welded it a long time ago before I was born.
00:10:27
Speaker
And then my mom has a boat. She runs a crew next to me. And then my grandma has a crew as well. So we're boom, boom, boom, lined up next to each other. so All three of you ladies are out there just fishing. That's pretty epic. That's awesome.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah. And you guys just had, I know like normal years, like what, 1 million salmon. This year i think it was like 3 million salmon or something crazy. Am I am i you saying the numbers right? That's just the escapement numbers for my river. The whole bay I think was over 40 million for Bristol Bay.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah. so it was a, it was a record year, a banner year. Yeah. Yeah. What does that look like? can we talk dollars and cents? Like, what does that look like for you? I know it's fishing. Like it sounds like it could be a great sport until it's not. And then it's really expensive sport.
00:11:13
Speaker
um Like how many fish are you bringing in this year? um I did 80,000 pounds, which is a little on the low end. um And then the price was a little low.
00:11:24
Speaker
um So basically the river just kind of changed. The channel changed for me this year. And a lot of fish were pushing to the other side of the river. But I still, I mean, I was grateful with what we had. You know, I get to pay my cousins and that gets them through the year and um whatnot. So we
Portrayal of Hunting on TV Shows
00:11:39
Speaker
were blessed. But um if you're over 100,000, you're doing good in poundage.
00:11:46
Speaker
um If you can get over a dollar in pound, then you're doing great. But I think it was 80 is what the sellout is. They're supposed to pay out more. But we're probably the only industry that they don't tell us a price until end of season when we've already delivered all the product.
00:12:04
Speaker
And then they tell you how much they're paying you. So that kind of sucks. But um it's a busy it's a busy gig. There's a lot of people involved. So is that like a supply and demand thing? So I didn't know what think about that. The season was so great that there was so much salmon that the price went down, I imagine.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, but that's what they always say. They always say they can't sell the product, and it does. I mean, everybody wants wild-caught Alaskan salmon, and it's not just the U.S. It's primarily overseas, you know, China, Japan, and all those areas.
00:12:32
Speaker
And so, you're I mean, you're talking like, to buy salmon, $25 a pound, $20 a pound in San Diego, and they're giving you $1 a pound? But I is that a dollar pound, like non-gutted full fish?
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's whole. Yeah. That's whole. But I mean, still. They're still kicking when I deliver them. They are the freshest that they'll ever get by the time they go in the fish holds, like at their temperature that they want.
00:12:56
Speaker
They're not going to get a fresher product, but yeah. So ah you see you fish for and you fish for two months for 80 grand. That's not terrible. Yeah. Yeah. It's not terrible. It's a good time. and And you get to do something awesome. I mean, like those, are you kind of down in the Sitka area down there then, I guess?
00:13:12
Speaker
No, I'm in Bristol Bay. Okay. So the panhandle of Alaska. ah Still very beautiful. Oh, it's gorgeous. You can't beat it. Yeah.
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah. yeah But now, like you were just a fisherman. So now when you're in Bristol Bay... and you're going around catching salmon, are you like watching the shores for like browns and black bears? Or are you like trying to figure out where they are now? And where the, where's the best sitka blacktail hunting? And like, what, I mean like this. Well, down there it's brown bears.
00:13:42
Speaker
um And yeah, we usually hunt one in the summer. So I didn't shoot one this summer. I was pretty busy, but last summer my husband did. ah It was funny. So we, we didn't cover this, but ah Brett and I filmed for mountain men on history channel.
00:13:57
Speaker
So we're two characters on that show. And one of our episodes last year was ah filming us commercial fishing. And then a bear came out and was ripping my net up. And then we like hunted the bear, but they let that part out of the episode. They didn't show us hunting the bear.
00:14:13
Speaker
I thought they were going it was pretty cool, but they left that part out. But yeah, we do hunt them. It's pretty fun. I have, I had no idea that you were on um history channel. So do you ever kind of feel like this is, i don't know how to answer ask this question.
00:14:28
Speaker
ever kind of feel like they make you look like a little bit like kind of like a tool? Like, does it make sense? Like yeah sometimes I watch a show and they're like, they make things look really extreme that i know aren't as extreme as they are. Right. They like really just like when you go back and watch it, you're like, how did you guys get that out of this? Like sometimes sometimes sometimes I'm always worried about it, but they actually do a really good job on that show. And our stories are such a minimal, we're one of six characters on the show. So maybe our story, you know, we film for 10 days and we get nine minutes of story time.
00:15:02
Speaker
Oh, okay. Maybe not, you know, around that time. And ah they do a good job. there They're pretty realistic. But what's been fun is Everything's gone freelance now. So all the camera guys are all freelance um that are brought in and they' they're all very good at what they do and they work a ton of different jobs at a tender ton of different shows.
00:15:24
Speaker
um So when they come out to our location, we're so remote and we always have stuff going on that they kind of have to throw the script away because the networks always want a little bit of a script to fund ah the show.
00:15:36
Speaker
And they come out to us and they're like, we're going to write the story as it's happening. So I feel like our stories are really genuine, which has been cool to see. We've been able to really share a lot of cool short stories of stuff that we're doing, but it's realistic and not totally far-fetched in that we're going to die if you know we don't do this or that. or Yeah. like you have You have to get – without this salmon, our family is going to starve this this summer. you know I'm just like thinking back at some of the Discovery Channel shows that I've seen where I'm like, come on.
00:16:03
Speaker
little bit. A little bit much. we wouldn't have We wouldn't have signed up for it if it was like that because we're like, which it's not realistic for us. We don't even like watching those shows, you know, and we don't even watch TV. so Yeah. you Yeah.
00:16:17
Speaker
But no, they've done a good job. It's been fun.
Bear Hunting Experiences
00:16:20
Speaker
So back to the hunting. So you are, i mean, you have a brown bear claw on your necklace, right? Yeah. Is that a brown bear?
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah. This is mine. One of yours? When... how many round bears have you shot? Are you into it? Is it like you're, I still don't know if I'm into it. Like if I want to do it in my mind, I'm like, i don't really don't want to do it yet.
00:16:43
Speaker
i don't know if I want to, are you into it? Do you like it? Why? Yeah. I mean, I've myself, I've shot one, but I've been a part of, you know many, but, um, yeah, at first. So I didn't start hunting bears until I met Brett and Brett's my husband and he's known for it. Um, he, i mean, that was his kind of like,
00:17:04
Speaker
claim to social media fame, I guess. Uh, he was notable for, um, saving his dad. His dad was mauled by a bear and he shot the bear off his dad and his dad had his face ripped off and it was really gruesome. And, but his dad survived and everything's great and fine. But, um,
00:17:20
Speaker
So Brett's kind of known for killing bears. He went on a bear killing spree after that, just had like a vengeance against bears after they tried to eat him and his dad. um So I've always had that in the back of my mind and all that imagery with me when I started hunting them with him.
00:17:37
Speaker
And I was just like, man, I don't know if this is for me. And a lot of it was just very up close and personal, like den hunting and you know winter hunting. And that's one of the ways that we do it here.
00:17:48
Speaker
So yeah, initially I was like, man, I don't know. And then once I did it, it just kind of clicked and made sense. um I guess predator hunting in general, it's such a different mindset to put yourself in when you don't know the outcome.
00:18:04
Speaker
i guess that's with anything. If you can't foresee what is going to happen, your mind can tend to shut down. And I mean, that happens in all hunting situations, but When you're hunting predators, it's, it's just, it's very different. Yeah. Cause you're like, man, that thing could eat me or like, this could go really bad. It's not just deer hunting to put food on my table, you know? And then there's the idea of conservation behind it, you know, and watching our moose numbers go down and seeing bears everywhere and, you know, all these things play factors.
00:18:35
Speaker
um So doing your part to do that ah is a big deal too. So yeah, initially once I did it, i was like, okay, yeah, this makes sense. But it it was really terrifying at first.
Adventures in African Hunting
00:18:45
Speaker
I mean, I didn't grow up seeing that.
00:18:47
Speaker
I didn't have that imagery already. So I just jumped right in blindly followed husband and was like, cool. I feel like he'll protect me. He saved his dad. So, but if he gets eaten, I don't know if I know what to do, but we're going to figure it out.
00:19:02
Speaker
So. yeah Yeah. Yeah. I love predator hunting, right? Like I'm, i have an e-caller. I'd probably say that I like predator hunting, like calling coyotes, popcast, stuff like that, as much as deer hunting, which is probably shocks a lot of people because I love glassing, but I love predator hunting.
00:19:19
Speaker
and't I don't know why i don't lump bears in that. I don't know. For some reason, I'm like, i don't know if want to kill a brown bear. Maybe if I can like, if I live there didn't pay to do it, I'd be into it. But like, for some reason, I'm just like, I don't know why. Unless I can do it with a bow.
00:19:30
Speaker
Like, I think if I did it with a bow, I'd be really into it. Like that would be like, I want like that, like, like getting that close and having, you know, having to that bow shot. Like I want, like that would be pretty epic for me. I'd like that for something about like, like black bears. I'm all about it, but brown bear. Like, I feel like it's just such a big animal and it's a big animal and they absorb everything. I always get so nervous when we have bow guys that want to come and I'm like, you got to be okay with me backing you up.
00:19:56
Speaker
like Both Brett and I are going to shoot this thing. You've got to be okay with that because they I just see them absorb bullets. and yeah i mean there' They're just mass. I'm like, dude, you don't want to get eaten. i don't want to get eaten. you know Sure, go ahead. Shoot one with a bow, but it's 50-50.
00:20:15
Speaker
You're really gambling with the scenario when you have a bow. I've heard something like they can go 90 seconds after they're dead. Like they have so much adrenaline and just violence inside of them that they can just go for 90 seconds after they're dead and just keep going.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah. It's wild. It's cool. So you got, you got, yeah. um yeah And you have, you you had any close calls yet as a guide on the round bears?
00:20:43
Speaker
I haven't. No, I've been good. Brett's had a couple. um Luckily all of the ones I've been on have been really good. Yeah. Yeah. pound them pound them with lead yeah yeah i always tell people like we were in africa we did just hunt lions both brett and i in south africa and so that was like a new predator hunt for me and that one was pretty crazy i did a lioness and i hadn't it's been a long time since i've felt scared on a hunt so it was really exciting but while we were tracking her
00:21:16
Speaker
um we heard her kill a baby gems buck, like right next to us. And then we like walk up and see the dead baby gems buck and like, no, she's right in the brush. And so that was really crazy.
00:21:26
Speaker
But that's the first time that I've felt that like, I hadn't felt like that since I was a kid, like fly fishing and you like know there's a bear in the brush next to you. And then it like false charges you and you think you're going to get eaten.
00:21:38
Speaker
I hadn't felt like that since I was a kid. So i was like, Oh, this is crazy. Lion hunting. Right. But that was cool. That's awesome. um Who do you hunt with in a lot South Africa?
00:21:49
Speaker
What outfitter? um We went with DeClerc Safaris, um saw them at SCI, i kind of chatted with them over the years. um But our guide, he's kind of a freelance guy and we mostly just hunted with him just on that property there. But it was up kind of by the Botswana border, like right on it. So we were yeah far west.
Conservation and Wildlife Comparisons
00:22:09
Speaker
north What else did you shoot besides the lions? Yeah. I did a brown hyena, which was really cool. That would be sick. and was that I wanted to do that. That was top of my list. i was like, if I go to ah Africa, i want to hunt a hyena.
00:22:22
Speaker
um We did that. I did a kuyu, a gems book. um We did a caracal, jackals. um i miss Oh, a black wildebeest. Brett shot that.
00:22:37
Speaker
ah He did a lion. And um I really wanted a porcupine, but I couldn't find one of those. Dude, we got a porcupine. So we I ended up shooting. I shot a kudu myself. I shot a zebra. I wanted a zebra so bad because I went to Argentina yeah like almost 10 years ago and they had a...
00:22:56
Speaker
a pelt on the wall. And I was like, I want that someday in my house. So I'm super stoked to have this, um, zebra pelt on the floor of my office. Um, and then I shot a black wildebeest or blue wildebeest. I'm sorry.
00:23:09
Speaker
sure yeah And then, um, they have blue, black and gold over where I was. And it was, it was epic, man. I loved it. I loved everything about it. i would have loved to have shot a um, a jackal or done predator hunting over there. Cause it's just, it's just so cool. And they do a lot of it. you guys do it at night when you're over there? Do you guys it during the day? Uh, the jackals were in the day.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah. Really? Just got lucky and they showed up or? Yeah. Yeah, we just kind of came across them, which was cool. um When we were hunting for the porcupine, we did see a few. we didn't shoot them.
00:23:43
Speaker
That was cool. And then the caracal was with dogs, was with hounds. So that was really cool. Yeah. And the warthogs. We had to do a couple of those. I forgot about that guy. But yeah, it was just it's a different world there.
00:23:55
Speaker
I mean, here- You can shoot anything you want. To see one animal and you you know you're a minute into your so safari or the hunt for the day and you're seeing herds of animals everywhere. And I was like, this is wild.
00:24:08
Speaker
No, it's just a different world. You know what's neat? And like, this is really ah just a testament to conservation is I've been been to Kenya twice. just got back from Kenya last week and there's like no animals. There's no hunting allowed there.
00:24:21
Speaker
There's no animals. So like I was telling them, like there's a lot of cows and goats, but there's no wild animals because they don't allow hunting. So they just push them off or kill them off. And you go to South Africa and yes, they hunt lions. Yes, they hunt elephants. Yes, they hunt buffalo, you know, everything, right?
00:24:38
Speaker
There is so many more animals in South Africa than there are in any other part of
Expanding Women's Participation in Hunting
00:24:43
Speaker
Africa. It's crazy because they allow hunting and the conservation is there. We actually, on our on our hunt, one of the guys I was with was going after a water buck, I think, and all sudden a porcupine showed up And he shoots a porcupine and then like another porcupine. He shoots another porcupine.
00:24:59
Speaker
you know shooting i think he shot three porcupines with his bow. There was like everywhere coming out of the woodwork and like going crazy. And I think they had call down a hole and like grab one out. and But yeah, the porcupine was pretty cool. And they eat them. They actually love eating them over there. It's like a delicacy for them. Yeah.
00:25:12
Speaker
I mean, I've eaten porcupine here and it was good. I'd eat one. Yeah. If I had a chance to shoot one there, I would have had him cook it up for me. Yeah, we have no porcupines down here in San Diego, but they are are around for sure. I know they have a bunch up there, but you guys and a bunch up there in like Montana and stuff. So Idaho or that area.
00:25:31
Speaker
So that's pretty cool. So you start guiding. you're doing yeah are you guys guiding sheep as well?
00:25:39
Speaker
So yeah what what what does that look like for you a year? I mean, how much are you guiding? Let's talk about your guiding, your hunting career now, like what that looks like. I didn't do sheep this fall um with Brett, but um we had two sheep guys and they saw 60 sheep and none was illegal ram this fall. So that was that was a bummer there. So we're starting to kind of switch gears and that's why we're moving into more caribou just because our sheep numbers have been so low.
00:26:05
Speaker
um It's really hard to find illegal ram now and – um We've had hard winters and yada, yada. Just, you know, they're dying off. So it's going to take a while for those numbers to come back. But I didn't go this year, but they're pretty intense hunts. I mean, um you almost – it's – I feel like a lot of – the hunting community or people that we like chat with about coming on these hunts, they're just not mentally prepared for what a sheep hunt entails.
00:26:36
Speaker
Um, and that's the biggest part of the battles. Like if you anything going on at home or or your work or whatever, like don't come on this hunt. Cause the mountain's going to make you face it all. You're going to think you're dying. You're going to quit.
00:26:50
Speaker
You're not going to make it. Um, I mean, it's not the safaris. It, I went and hunting in Spain and Africa. I was like, I'm on vacation. We're riding around in vehicles. Making you a giant breakfast and dinner every day?
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i yeah, you're not eating mountain house on a sheep hunt, but um I like to think I cook good meals for everybody. But I mean, you you see an Ibex on the mountain over there. You can drive get in the car and drive to the other side and hike up. like it's It's not a oh there's sheep over there, you know four drainages and four mountain peaks over there. It's going to take us six hours to get over there, you know, buckle up, let's go.
00:27:27
Speaker
You know, it's not like that. um and people don't know how to hunt hard anymore, I guess, or I don't know, I guess
Guiding Experiences and Future Plans
00:27:35
Speaker
Alaska, I mean, I know Alaska is tough, but it's, it's mountain hunts are different, different kind of category for sure.
00:27:43
Speaker
But it's hard to make people upset because people ask, well, can I go hunting with And say, no. and They go get upset with me. It's like, I've just done it enough to where I know like who I want to hunt with and the caliber person I want to hunt with. When I did Alaska this year, I went with Eric Chesser, Ben Denimani, and Brad Hunt, and I'll hunt with them any day of the week.
00:28:04
Speaker
Miserable. I mean, just miserable hunt. I mean, it rained. Anyone else would have quit. There was no way to stay dry. We were wet, sleeping in water for six days. We had a blast. We just watched movies and laughed and Like it was anyone else, lot of guys would just back out.
00:28:20
Speaker
And I've been on other hunts where guys are just like done after a day. You know what i mean? And you have to really choose your hunting partner wisely, which can be tough for the last because it's so expensive.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah. Right. So you have to, I mean, sometimes it's better to go by yourself than to bring someone who has money because you you just, you might get end up with a, there's nothing worse than going on a hunt with somebody who just doesn't want to be there. Or like you said, it's having problems at home or. lot of people don't know until you start putting your body through physical work and then it digs up stuff that you bury. Yeah.
00:28:52
Speaker
you know, and and there's good and bad and in that. So, I mean, even as your partner, if it's happening to your partner, you got to kind of just be there for them, keep them alive at that point, you know, or encourage them. But yeah, it is tough. I always, it's a conversation that is had with everybody beforehand. and I'm like, it's not you, it's, you're going to dig some stuff up. That's just what happens.
00:29:15
Speaker
You can hunt mountains anywhere. It'll do it to you. I love being miserable. I love everything about being miserable in the mountains. Like, I'm just like, Oh, this is makes me so excited. I want to go do a sheep hunt so bad.
00:29:26
Speaker
i do want to do caribou. So what are you like? What are you guiding most of them? you guys doing mostly moose then or? Moose and bears. Yeah. Moose and bears. um Mostly browns or mostly bucks?
00:29:39
Speaker
Mostly browns. Mostly see brown bears. We do a couple of blacks and that's over bait in June, but for We have our couple sheep hunts in August. Then we go straight into Moose all of September.
00:29:52
Speaker
And then sometimes this year we didn't because we traveled, but um otherwise we do a couple of fall brown bears. Then we go into spring bow brown bear, which is April through May. And we do those on Snow Machine.
00:30:03
Speaker
And then May, early June is brown bear over bait. So a lot of brown bears. yeah that's kind of That's kind of what you're known for is the brown bears. Yeah, they're fun.
00:30:14
Speaker
It kind makes sense for you guys too, right? Because as a non-resident, you cannot hunt brown bears. Like you can't hunt brown bears. You can't hunt doll sheep. You can't hunt goats. Are you guys guiding goats at all or no?
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah. We just don't have an area for it right now. um But I'll have my – so I assistant guide right now. That's my license. And then I'll have my registered, hopefully – in December. Um, and then I'll, uh, hopefully expand to some other areas that I want to do, which is Kodiak for black tail deer and mountain goat.
00:30:46
Speaker
Um, and then Alaska Peninsula for brown bear and moose down
Couples Hunting Dynamics
00:30:49
Speaker
there. So we'll just kind of expand a little bit, but, uh, we've stayed pretty interior just with location and, um, lodging and logistics for us.
00:31:00
Speaker
So what's your plan? your plan like, you say your husband's name is Brett? Yeah. Is your plan like later, Brett, I'm going to take people out hunting? Yeah. 50, 50.
00:31:11
Speaker
but He'll come. Yeah. it kind of depends on the groups. Yeah. I want to get more women involved. So I've been doing, uh, like, For trapping, we take people trapping in the wintertime and I do women's retreats through there. So I'm trying to get more women comfortable with coming out and doing hunts.
00:31:29
Speaker
ah We just had a women's brown bear hunt this last June and that was great. I had two sisters and then I want to expand and do more deer hunting, moose hunting.
00:31:42
Speaker
I just had a gal come out and shoot a 66 inch moose this fall. So I want to get more women involved. That's kind of my plan. feel like I'm not knocking. This isn't a knock on women. um I feel like that Sitka Blacktail hunt would be like an epic like girls hunt.
00:31:57
Speaker
Like you could do like some fun hunts with some ladies on something like that. Are you guys doing flying hunts for that? Are you guys doing like boat stuff? Yeah. So it would be flying, but operating out of a transport vessel.
00:32:08
Speaker
It's, I have one in the works. I haven't posted it yet, but. um Oh, your own transport boat. Yeah. It's, well, it's a good friend of mine. It's his transport boat, but it's a boat that I worked on, um, a couple of years ago for, for, uh, deer season, uh, transporting. So I have boat time in that vessel, but I know the area really well and it's an awesome place to hunt. And I know that, um, some girls would do.
00:32:31
Speaker
Dude, I feel like that would be like the most epic. And then like Alexa, like, do you know, you hang with Courtney Preet at all? you know Courtney? I know her. Yeah, I've met her. I haven't hung out with her, though. Courtney lives up there. You guys should connect. You guys get along really well. She does a bunch of retreats, too. Does she live in Oregon? She lives in Oregon and Alaska.
00:32:48
Speaker
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. she goes back and forth, Oregon, Alaska, but like they do these girls, like they just did like a girls hunt over in Hawaii and like, but I'm like, think dude, like, can you imagine like, dude, that'd be a fun for these girls. I just knowing k Courtney and Alexa, like the trips they do, like getting like six to eight girls to go do like a boat, sick of black tail hunt would be Kodiak would be like, it'd be dope. It'd be fun.
00:33:12
Speaker
and know. I think there's definitely, i think you definitely have a niche there that people aren't scratching you can do really well because there's a lot of ladies who want to hunt. Like we have a lot of girls on our staff, We'd like Danielle Halverson as well.
00:33:23
Speaker
Um, and she's a little more hardcore, but, but, uh, Danielle's like, Danielle's like, you know, I was like, give me a 10. I'm going out in the woods. Like, but, um, there's definitely a niche there to, to do that. I think that would be, i think those like, even that, or even like some of those boat black bear hunts would be really fun.
00:33:42
Speaker
And I think if you can promote that, like, I think no one's really doing that, right? Like, like on a, like, Hey, we're promoting a woman's trip we're gonna go do this thing. And I can go out there and do it. Yeah. That's kind of been my niche. And then, um, since Brett and I also guide together, we get a lot of husband and wife combos and that's been really cool too. So there are women that are interested in doing it, whether they want to come out with a bunch of stranger girls and leave with brand new friendships or they want to go with their husband in an environment where, you know, there's also a girl that's a guide there.
00:34:13
Speaker
ah that's just been really special to see. We've had so many couples come and hunt with us. i mean, I just think that's so cool.
Plans for Women's Guided Deer Hunts
00:34:20
Speaker
I'd love to see that just whole demographic grow. Yeah. So my wife doesn't hunt.
00:34:28
Speaker
would have a hard time hunting with her. What's that dynamic look like for like couples? Like, I feel like that'd be a tough, like a tough dynamic sometimes. Yeah. i've We've had good groups.
00:34:39
Speaker
You have? um Yeah. it's i I can't say any of them were butting heads at all or anything, but with a lot of it, I mean, we're able to kind of split up and then come together at the end of the night. Okay, I got you. ah little like Maybe the husband doesn't feel like he's hovering over his wife too much or my husband's already stepping in and like making things easier.
00:35:03
Speaker
so i don't know. I mean, it's different when you're – when you go on guided trips and you're in somebody else's world. So whether or not you're this big hunter at home, you're not going to go to somebody's backyard or their operation and pretend like you know them or whatever. You know you're there in their world and you're just letting them do their thing. So there's that kind of relaxation aspect to that you know because you're kind of off the job. Somebody else is taking care of all that stuff. you're able be with your wife and enjoy doing something that you like to do. Maybe she's developing a new love for it or –
00:35:38
Speaker
is just as interested and she has time and space to grow in that. So, i mean, it's been, it's been a very positive, I feel like it's been really positive with all the groups we've had. Yeah. That's an awesome dynamic. Like you, what you guys are doing and like, especially like offering that, like, cause it does make it a lot easier having you in camp.
00:35:56
Speaker
Like not going to lie, right? Like you're there, like you understand what's going on. Right. Like I just took my daughter to Kenya. She's 15 years old. And like, if I didn't have like one of my good friends' wives with me, like it would have been really hard.
00:36:08
Speaker
It's like, there's times where like she was upset about things. I'm like, I don't know what to do. and She'd like take off the side and talk to her. You know what i mean? Like having that really, like makes it, it probably like makes it a lot easier for the wife to show up and do it. It's having you there and in that, you know, out there with them and enjoying it with them, you know?
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we do little bit differently and you know, I don't know. It, women do stuff differently than men do. So when you're in that space, having somebody already be like, hey, you're going to need this but or this is how I do it, it's it's a lot easier. And yeah, I mean, it makes you think
Hunting Tales and Choosing Partners
00:36:42
Speaker
a little bit differently. and And you can take what your husbands teach you or your dad or whoever, whatever ah man that you have in your life may be introducing or showing you or teaching you something, um you can take that knowledge and still warp it to work for you because we're just biologically different. And there's a lot of differences, you know, so.
00:37:01
Speaker
It's okay to change things. make it work yeah you guys process up process a lot different like i couldn't imagine this and like some of the stupid things i do in the woods like my wife would just be like what are we doing right now like what what like she wants to know like what's going to happen like you know tomorrow versus like i'm like let's just go and we'll figure it out when we get there you know what i mean like this the processing is so much different to me and my wife and that stuff so yeah it'd be nice to have you in camp i guess um that's pretty epic that's gonna be cool and when are you gonna start having those boat the boat deer hunts like next year
00:37:32
Speaker
Next year. yeah No way. um So I'm working on all the logistics for that. um I mean, I have all the logistics, but in terms of little fun sponsorships and things like that, I got to kind of lock in.
00:37:45
Speaker
um I'm going to have rifles available for everybody. and Oh, really? you just fly up there and go hunting? So you're just going to come. Yeah. It's DIY, but you don't have to bring all that stuff with you. I'm going have everything available. So people will get to the girls will get to try really great gear, you know, take that logistic out of it. It's all going to be there. other new tripod company I have my AD that's going to come, but maybe one more.
00:38:13
Speaker
ah Oh, you have one coming right now? No, i have I've been using AD and it's been awesome. and So this when this releases, it'll be co and common knowledge. There's a new AD coming out that smokes the old AD.
00:38:27
Speaker
That's exciting. The new AD is the best. and I can talk about it now this will come out in December. The new AD is the best tripod I've ever used. And we're actually starting to ship them now. So this month, and when you order your tripod, you're going to new AD and no one knows about it. And it is the it's the same price, but it is so much more compact. It is so much more stable. And the old one was, it's the best-selling tripod in the world right now.
00:38:50
Speaker
The new one is like, it's better. And I cannot wait to get it in your hands. We'll get you one. but Maybe we'll get your boat dialed out. We need to get Alexa up there doing this hunt with need get you hooked up with Courtney. Okay.
00:39:02
Speaker
I'll take her. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be fun. Alexa's like, she's getting pretty hardcore. Like she's killed an elk now. She's just missed a deer. She's got to go. Social media. Yeah. She's been working hard at it this fall. I was just so happy for her. And she finally got that elk and, and then Luke just got an elk and super cool.
00:39:20
Speaker
They did like 20
00:39:23
Speaker
thats they did like 20 days to get that oh they ended killing a they just could not get done on a bull they got so close they like she's like she's got the bug she's crushed it so like it's i talked to her like every day i'm like you're still hunting she's like yeah she's out there just trying to get it done like she's she's hardcore so um i think a hunt like alaska would be just she would be all about that to go up there and do that sitka blacktail and she has the connections now within the industry of like it's fun to watch her like she runs all tricer social media so she's like kind of getting this like gang of women together like in the industry to like work together and do stuff so it's pretty cool i love that i'll take her yeah let's get we should get alaska up there uh lex up there and we'll film it we'll do like a filmed tricer women's ah women's deer hunt we'll we'll we'll sit we'll pay for the i'll say it now on the air i'll pay for the filmer we'll get a lex up there and we'll do a woman's boat hunt with i don't know what you what's your stuff called bbb which
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah. BBB Alaska BBB boat, Alaska, Sitka women's stewards. i but make All the women's hunt, but yeah, do it would sound better. You can find something better than that. Like, I don't know. I'm on a boat. I don't know.
00:40:32
Speaker
but Girls on boats, girls on boats, killing deer 2026. There we go. Yeah. That'd be awesome. I think you can find a better name than that too.
Caliber Preferences for Alaskan Hunting
00:40:42
Speaker
That'd be really cool.
00:40:43
Speaker
So, um, give me a Give me a caliber. like What caliber are you shooting up there? 300s. There you go. Atta girl. All right. Why 300s? Why don't you shoot a 6mm? Because everyone shoots 6mm now and they is match bullets and they work great.
00:41:00
Speaker
No. I don't have... Oh, no. A 6mm? No. Like 6.5? Is that what you're saying? Well, 6mm. Everyone's going down to 6mm and 5.56 now. But okay. So you don't so you guys shoot three hundreds So i'm I'm a big guy.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. I've just, that's what I grew up with and it's, it kills everything. We shoot our bears with that. um I mean, spring bear will do three 75s, but H and H, but no, I shoot everything with 300.
00:41:31
Speaker
um I haven't done anything smaller. you say 300, you mean like 300 wind mag or you mean like 30 at six, 308? Oh, 300 wind mag. Yeah. Yeah. three hundred win meg throw him back yeah With – are you using copper bullets or are you guys using like horny bullets?
00:41:45
Speaker
No, um but we just – I mean I've never shot copper bullets, but um we're wanting to move into that. So, I mean we've been talking to people that use them here and they sound great. So, um I didn't – I had never even thought about I guess lead and ah how that affects your food and all the things. So, yeah.
00:42:08
Speaker
The copper Barnes bullets for what you guys are doing for Moose and Brown Bear, you really can't beat them. um Yeah, I'd love to try them. Barnes is awesome. I love Barnes and I also love hammer bullets as well.
00:42:21
Speaker
little more niche bullet for if you're reloading your own stuff, it's fine. But for just like off the shelf bullets, man, like that 300 wind mag shooting 190 grand copper bullet or 180 grand copper bullet is just going to go all the way through a bear, all the way through a moose. And it's just going to do the damage you need to do.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. Yeah. i have blood we just whats that I haven't ventured out. I haven't tried any new things. So, um, yeah, that would be awesome. Cause we had just, we had just started looking to manufacture, um, Sledotna or not Sledotna, but Alaska Ammo.
00:42:57
Speaker
ah here in town was telling us about copper bullets. we We live in the woods, true. We've used the same stuff for a very long time, but um yeah, ah we've been wanting to switch it up and try something different.
00:43:10
Speaker
um So yeah, that would be awesome. 300s is my go-to. I like that you said that. i like that I like that anyone who lives in Alaska or anyone who actually like guides elk or does stuff, their opinion is always 300,
00:43:25
Speaker
Oh yeah. Let's use the smallest bullet possible and hope for the best.
Hunting Equipment Discussions
00:43:30
Speaker
No, I don't, I don't like that feeling of, I mean, I don't want to down rounds, right. Or calibers.
00:43:38
Speaker
Um, but well please do. I love doing it. It's great. cla It's great. click they Just talk crap. Yeah. I have friends that swear by the 6.5. I've never hunted with one. I use it in Spain and I'm,
00:43:53
Speaker
My friends in Spain are awesome and they're killers and they're lethal. I have never felt more unsure of my shots than I have with hunting with a 6.5. Where we were sitting there looking at our footage, um...
00:44:08
Speaker
thank you for tricer AD and my own setup where we could sit and be like, yeah, no, you hit it right where you, where you wanted it to. And then we're literally having arguments if we got shot something or if it was a good shot um because they just don't even know that they're hit.
00:44:26
Speaker
And I mean, when we walked up and I into that thing, it looked like I shot it with a two, two, three. And that was just so depressing for me. And I mean, I just want my things to drop.
00:44:38
Speaker
i want I want weight behind it. i I want assurance. I don't want things suffering. yeah I don't know. i've just know When I shoot things with a 300, I get what I want and I'm satisfied and I'm happy and I know that everything was lethal and deadly. And there is no and there is no Let's wait for it to die. Let's not bump stuff. Let's not do this or that. So, I mean, I've never put my clients, none of my clients bring 6.5s.
00:45:05
Speaker
We don't hunt with them. Everything's been 300 or higher. um So I've never felt like that until just recently when I was in Spain and I thought I will never, ever buy this caliber.
00:45:18
Speaker
I'm not letting anybody come and bring one of those because our animal, I mean, that was an Ibex. And like, if somebody came and tried to shoot probably even our black tail deer with that, what a joke, but I'm, I don't know.
00:45:33
Speaker
Black tail, it works good for deers. I would, I would bring a six, five to work for deer. um My difference is like, I want to be, I actually, i actually use a 30, 30 lever action when I went to Sitka this year and got them with that open sites.
00:45:44
Speaker
um Like I'm actually leaving when I get off this call or I want more podcast for this. I'm going to actually pick up a six, five, create more for my son, but the barrels interchangeable. And after he gets comfortable for a couple of years, a little bit bigger, I'll put him into a 308, which is a 300, right? So I'm a big, on I'm big on 30 caliber because I just know like marginal shots.
00:46:03
Speaker
Like I shot a stick of black tail at 650 yards this year with Brad Hunt's 300 Win Mag. And it was like three inches right of where I wanted it to be. But that deer died within 75 yards. It's just, it's a yeah big old bullet going through a deer. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:18
Speaker
ah yeah you can be marginal and it'll still be good. And I, you know, and I'm not, I'm not rallying for that. Right. Like it's just, it was still a great shot. I still got lungs. It just wasn't exactly where I want to be, but know with 300, like it's just going to, it's going to put it
African Hunting Story
00:46:31
Speaker
down. It's going to leave a giant hole in the backside.
00:46:33
Speaker
And it just, I mean, the thing was bleeding everywhere and it was just done. But we did, we killed, we killed two Mildero 65 Creedmoors this year. I've been shooting a lot of like, when I go to, when I go to, um,
00:46:45
Speaker
Mexico this year, I'm bringing my 280 Acoly, which is like a 7mm, right? So I'm shooting like a heavier, heavier caliber bullet than that, like a less of a millimeter. 6.5 is just on the bigger stuff, man. Anything over a deer, it just freaks me out. Like I've killed a bull with it, but i shot the bull four times, right? Like it's just like... On our end. I mean, it was lethal. When we walked up there, I was like, why did everyone around me question this situation the last hour? Like it just tumped over and died out of sight, you know, but everyone's like, Oh, probably still alive. And it was just this whole debacle. And for like an hour, i just felt like crap, you know? And I just, it almost ruined the whole hunt for me in a way, because for a lot of amount of time, I was like,
00:47:27
Speaker
I suck. Why am I here? I haven't hunted enough, I guess, in in terms of pulled enough. haven't pulled the trigger enough myself recently. And now I'm screwing up international when I'm going and doing a dream hunt.
00:47:41
Speaker
And I hated that feeling. then we walked up and it was like, oh man, no, like, this is exactly what you want to do. This round's lethal. And I'm like, well, why did I feel like this the whole last hour? But anyway, so it was that whole like mental mentalness about it, I guess, that I was like, don't want this.
00:47:57
Speaker
round it or it works great it really does and like i said we're going to continue to hunt with it i have a six i'm bringing luke actually shooting my 260 remington in mexico this year and i'm shooting 280 ackley um you know it for deer it's phenomenal for coyotes i love it on coyotes six five cream on coyotes so i know when i'm gonna big animal i want it they're like i shot in and they use the same thing in south africa when i was there I used sit there six by Creedmoor and I shot a freaking will to be Sinekudu. I shot them both twice. It's just like, you just have to keep shooting. Cause it's just like, they don't know they're You know what I mean? It just doesn't have that, uh,
00:48:30
Speaker
Like I want that freaking like Charlie horse, you know, freight train hitting them big bullet, you know, high velocity, lots of connect energy hitting that animal. The, I want to know they're hit, you know, instead of running off and dying somewhere. So I'm glad you said that.
00:48:44
Speaker
Um, I do want, I wanted to talk about trapping with you, but we're getting to the end of this thing. yeah Why don't we, let's end with the hunting story. Give me a, give me a hunting story. Give one of your hunting stories. Give me something good.
00:48:57
Speaker
We'll wrap the sucker up. and We'll figure out where to find you guys. Oh, geez. I don't know. Hunting story. um Prompt me. Is there any, any thing you want to hear about? and Nothing I want to hear about. Just give me a hunting story. Give me, it could be just like your favorite hunt. Doesn't have to be your biggest animal. and It doesn't have to be the craziest hunt. It gives you something just really memorable for you. Give me a campfire hunting story, sitting around the campfire and deer camp and you're telling a story.
Final Reflections and Future Plans
00:49:21
Speaker
We'll just do this recent Africa one just because it's fresh in my mind. My kudu was really, really cool. Um, I got to experience it kind of like you did in Africa where it was all spot and stock. So that was just really neat. um i It was not what I was expecting going into Africa. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I wanted to work hard. I wanted to see a lot of animals. So what was cool was we saw this like,
00:49:44
Speaker
screwed up curly horned kudu had had a major injury and then it grew into the side of his head on one side and so i kind of thought and he was just in bad shape so i wanted to go after him and then this huge literally as we decided and i was like let's go for it this colossal rainstorm just like came in it was just this torrential downpour and uh so they didn't want to hunt the rest of the day our guide and whatnot our ph and so we went back and so the next morning they were like well Chances of us finding that bull are pretty slim. So we went back to the area and there was one set of kudu bull tracks in the rain.
00:50:20
Speaker
And they thought, well, we could you know track this guy for a while and see if if it's him. And so we got off on foot. We put about four to five miles in of just tracking the set through the lake. Isn't it cool how they actually track animals there?
00:50:33
Speaker
It was so cool. They still track. They track animals there, which is like unlike a a talent that is missing here in the States. Back to your story, but like they track animals. I loved that because we do a lot of that in the wintertime. So with our bears and and wolves, you know, we're in Wolverine, we're seeing tracks in the snow. So to kind of correlate how we hunt in Alaska to somewhere in Africa it was just really neat. We loved that. It was i just there was a blast.
00:50:58
Speaker
um So yeah, a couple of miles in, we put a wind in through all this crazy country. And sure enough, it was like the bull tracks of that bull that I saw the day before. And ah so that whole aspect of the hunt was awesome. And then, you know, great shot. And that got within 60 yards when we saw him and it was it was awesome. But even at the end, our PH was like, I will never forget that hunt. He's like...
00:51:21
Speaker
That was just like the kudu dream, right? You want to like track kudu through the brush of Africa you know and just have these close encounters. and That was just really, really cool. I loved love to that.
00:51:33
Speaker
yeah It's wild. Kudu is probably the most skittish animal I've ever hunted. It's crazy. like You would think ah and and generally like the smaller the animal or skittish they are, right? Kudu deer, I call them like the level 10.
00:51:47
Speaker
Kudu are like right there. like They're not like an elk. they're not like a bull moose. like They're like... they They go. They just run, like which is weird to see a big animal be that skittish, but they were so skittish.
00:51:58
Speaker
The gray ghost. ah great goat The And down there they say that the kudu were the last animals that the Lord created, and that's why he painted them with his hand and did like the um chevron like white strips, and then they call it the fingerprint of the Lord, which is the dot on their face.
00:52:16
Speaker
thought that was so cool. Yeah. we're doing Are you going to mount yours? Yeah. I do my own taxidermy. So I'm going mount one. Dude, you just keep adding the cool stuff to this. Cool factor to this. Yeah, I'm not mounting mine. I just did the skull on mine. I did the hides. I wanted to do the hide, but mine ended up getting shot. I ended up shooting like mine. Very similar, right? Like it's just, there's just animals everywhere, spot and stalk.
00:52:39
Speaker
I actually found some odd ad, which is random. Right. And i was like, I called, I was with, at this point I had told the guy, I want to go myself. So i was just me and the camera guy by myself, which is pretty epic. And do this, this giant million acre ranch. Right.
00:52:52
Speaker
And I called the guide and i'm like, Hey man, I found some odd ads. Like don't shoot those at the neighbors. Don't shoot those. So I'm looking at these odd ad. I'm like, dang it. And all sudden like some wildebeest came out and I'm like, Oh sick, there's wildebeest. Let's go shoot this wildebeest. Right. It's my last day.
00:53:03
Speaker
um And we'd put the bows away now. because I want to actually kill something. Cause I suck with a bow. Apparently. And I like lay down and I'm laying there. These bull, the bullies just lay down and I'm laying there for like an hour and a half.
00:53:15
Speaker
And all of a sudden, like I look up and there's a kudu. I'm like, Holy smokes. There's a kudu. So now like in my scope, I have, Odds, wildebeest, kudu, and there's baboons everywhere.
00:53:28
Speaker
So there's four species. It's just like, this the only thing you can experience in Africa. Right. And, uh, I end up, um, finally this bull stops out. and I tell the camera guy, I'm like, it's on camera. I'm like, I'm to, this, this actually just dropped. If you can watch this film, it's on the, the African hunt series. We just put out with, Tali's mountain ops. We all released these films. Um, yeah, I think you find on my YouTube channel.
00:53:49
Speaker
And I'm like, I'm to shoot that kudu. And then that, that bull's going to, then a, then that bull's going to stand up. I'm going to shoot that wildebeest and I'm going to shoot baboon. like, going to shoot all three of these. This is because you start getting probably with Africa, you get a little trigger happy. You get a little bit like, we just get this bloodlust. You're just shooting stuff. It's fun.
00:54:05
Speaker
And so I ended up shooting the kudu and then the baboons are skittish as heck and they just took off. They were gone. The wildebeest stands up and then lays back down. And it was like ah hundred wildebeest for only one bull.
00:54:18
Speaker
And finally I'm like, at this point I've been laying here for hours and I'm just like, start yelling, Hey, Hey. And I stand this bull up. and i shoot them and uh shown twice so these both the kudu and the wildebeest died within like i think 75 yards of each other but they were in hell so we had to bring in like eight guys to get these things out and the hides got ruined so i just said whatever just give me the skulls and i'm good with that so that's cool that's really i feel like i'm gonna buy a new house to fit these animals if i shoot animals like that they're just so big
00:54:48
Speaker
Yeah, I know. So i mean that was a fun podcast. um Plug yourself, plug, ah plug your outfitting business, plug everything you're doing, plug this woman's hu that we're going to next year. I'm excited for that. Alexa doesn't even know yet.
00:55:05
Speaker
No, I haven't even, I haven't posted it yet. I just finished the graphics for it. So I will chat with you on that. But yeah, um I got some women's stuff coming up. My Instagram is IVO o and our hunting business is bbbalaska.com.
00:55:23
Speaker
Easy peasy. And mark my words, I will provide tripods. I'll but i'll provide tripods for the women's on a boat deer killing hunt 2026. And I'll provide a filmer.
00:55:36
Speaker
Ruger is 21 years old. So he's going to be stoked. Like when Ruger going on a boat full of women to film sick a sick of black tail hunt, yeah I'll send them up there to film this thing.
00:55:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love that. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Let's do it again. stoked on everything you guys should doing. Thanks for working Tricer. I appreciate you guys so, so much. Thanks, Drew. We appreciate you. Come up and shoot brown bear with us sometime.
00:56:00
Speaker
I got to do it Cross that bridge. I need to do it. I'm goingnna i'm i'm coming up this year, so I don't know. Brown bear is probably the next couple years. I'll probably come up there and do it for sure. You've got to do Kodiak though for sick of black tails, so put that on your list for sure. I've got to do it. I know. it' I can live up there. I can hop there all year and just stop hunting down here altogether. The adventure is so much better.
00:56:20
Speaker
Go to Alaska. Everybody, go to Alaska. It's so awesome. man Thank you, Drew. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Tricer podcast. Do us a favor and like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on.
00:56:33
Speaker
Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at TricerUSA and go and check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com. Until next time, shoot straight, have fun, and always put God first.