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Little Woods Season 1: Episode 7- Elk hunting experience with Sam Bell; ft. Drew, Jacob, Whitt
158 Plays3 years ago
The crew has Sam Bell on to discuss Elk hunting and his recent success with deer.
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Transcript
Introductions and Episode Setup
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome, welcome, welcome. Episode seven. We made it all the way to episode seven. This is Whit speaking. Glad to be here with y'all tonight. I got three other guests with me tonight. We're looking at a beautiful red cheek, Drew Hampton from Desartes.
00:00:42
Speaker
We're praying he stays on the whole episode. We don't know. We never know anymore. That desert internet is not very good. Then we got old Jacob. Jacob's any day now.
00:00:57
Speaker
It's close, isn't it? Any day. Any day. Uh, we're inducing Sunday if you don't show up anytime soon, but I know we've been talking about it from the beginning of the podcast. Hopefully one day he'll look back and be like, Oh my gosh, y'all had a podcast and I was about to be born. Oh yeah. It might be lame by that point. I don't know. It might be. I don't know. Never know.
00:01:23
Speaker
But we got Jacob here, Jacob, the snack.
Sam's Hunting Background and Stories
00:01:27
Speaker
That's his new nickname here on this, on this Zincaster. So, uh, glad to have you. Um, and then I got my, I got my middle brother, Sam. I got a younger brother, John. We've already talked to him, but I got Sam on tonight and he's got a pretty good experience. He's been, he's been an elk hunter for a while, but.
00:01:51
Speaker
I think he's got a little bit of a story that might be a kill. I want to see what happens, but, uh, Sam, thanks for being on. All right. Thanks for taking some time out of your day. I know you're busy. You got a job just like everybody else, but, uh, I appreciate you taking some time out of your day. So, uh, with further ado, I mean, Sam, tell us a little bit about yourself, would you?
00:02:18
Speaker
That's right. Hey, what's up, guys? My name's Sam Bell. I'm a pharmacist here in Arkansas, but I really grew up with my brother's duck hunting, deer hunting, turkey hunting, and I finally got into elk hunting, you know, as I started making a little bit of money and I could travel out there, out west. But yeah, I'm just excited to be here, excited to kind of give you all the rundown of how elk hunting goes and, you know,
00:02:47
Speaker
The trials that I went through and, uh, finally found some success after three years of doing it. No, it's tough. It's for sure. It's tough. It kind of reminds me of my, uh, my hunting with, uh, with turkeys. It's it's, it took about four or five years to kill one. So you just got to figure them out. But, uh, yeah.
00:03:11
Speaker
Man, I'll be honest with you, I'm the same way and I was so glad to be there with you this year. And we're going to get into that story here in a second, but, uh, just kind of some background. I mean, out of my three brothers, I just, I'm going to go off on tangent here saying for a second, cause I know we're not going to talk about this again, but yeah.
00:03:35
Speaker
Out of my three brothers, there's, there's one that's very lucky. Okay. And John, John had a good year this year. You remember Jake? I mean, we went and picked that deer up. I mean, that's a pretty good one. Yeah. He was, uh, his, most of his weight was in his, uh, antlers. So
00:03:55
Speaker
I don't know. I, John, John gave me that meat and, uh, I cooked some of the day and I swear it tastes like it's neck was still swollen. So he was a good mature white tail, say the least little. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they didn't eat real good, but he was a good deer. And I mean, in all honesty, John sets good years, but there's one that kind of.
00:04:20
Speaker
Said everybody aside and it was Sam. I mean, he, he was the first one that killed something over 160 inches at the farm. I mean, that was just, we thought we were killing good deer.
00:04:35
Speaker
And then here comes Sam. Just one day we're out there duck hunting. It kills a really nice deer. I think let's, let's start with that story a little bit, Sam. I mean, we'll go back what, three years from now. And then we'll get on the elk. We're going to get on the elk. Don't worry, but this was a good one right here. Oh God. That was back way back. I'd say, I think 2016.
00:05:01
Speaker
Is when I shot, you want, you may talk about the wide one or the one with the wide because I think we, I think we can go with both of them, but I'd start with just the wide one though. Yeah. I mean, just pick out which 170 inch. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just rub it in a little bit, you know, let everybody know. That's right. There's no problem with either.
00:05:25
Speaker
No, it was, let's start with the date. I'd say it was like the second week of season. No, it was right when a duck season started. So I guess that was probably the second or third week of deer season, modern gun. That's right. And my brothers, they decided to go duck hunting because it was opening day. And we were excited about that. Yeah. I wasn't, I wasn't mad at the ducks just yet.
00:05:54
Speaker
Um, so I decided to, uh, sit up in the North stand. Uh, that's the stand that I like to get in, uh, most of the time. It seems like I see bigger deer on that one, but, uh, uh, kind of a backstory on that. Uh, it stormed hella hard that night. I mean, wind was blowing. It was like a halfway tornado. Yeah, it was. And it was, it was windy all night, rainy all night. And, uh,
00:06:23
Speaker
I guess it kind of made the deer to where they didn't really want to move at night. And this, you could tell this buck was nocturnal by his size. I mean, you usually don't see these deer out during the day. But yeah, he showed up. I probably saw two or three doe, you know, as I was sitting. And this big wide buck we've never seen on camera before.
00:06:53
Speaker
But he came from the north side about 300 yards down. I had my 270 Weatherby out, and I was pretty confident in that gun. So he stepped out there. It was probably five seconds. He stepped out there. I was looking at him. I pulled up the scope on him. I could see antlers from 300 yards away, so I knew he was a bit of a jumbo, for sure.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah. And so I pulled up scope on him. He had some bass when he was looking straight on. Um, and, but then he looked down the lane towards me and I saw he was probably, I think he's about six inches outside his ears on both sides. I said, Oh my God. So, so I just put it on his shoulder. I mean, I didn't give time to get nervous or anything. I put it on the shoulder and pulled the trigger.
00:07:52
Speaker
And, uh, you really can't tell at that distance if the deer is hit or not. I mean, I just saw that he wasn't in the lane anymore. So I was like, well, I hope I hit him. So, uh, I caught my brothers. They, they killed about eight or 10 ducks that day. I mean, they, they did a pretty good job. I actually got a picture of the ducks and the deer together. That's pretty funny. Yeah, that was, that was funny.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah. But, uh, I called them up and I called my dad up and say, Hey, y'all need to get over here. I killed the biggest buck of my life, not even playing. So they get over there and the old Suzuki sidekick, we got like a little cage with a metal rack on the back of it that we, we, we've been known to pull, uh, pull deer out of the woods with. So, uh, dad comes over there and then Whit and John, they're right behind him. And, uh, I say,
00:08:46
Speaker
I saw him right about here. And, you know, he looked like he kicked, you know, you really can't tell. And, I mean, not even 30 yards away, that son of a bitch was sitting there belly up. I mean, he would, and not even kidding. I shot his ass right through the heart. And that's kind of like where we're like.
00:09:11
Speaker
You know, when Sam says he done shot one last couple of years before that prior, we had some troubles with his gun or, I mean, it might not have been his gun. I don't, it might've been the user, but I mean, uh, we, we've trailed some stuff that wasn't dead. So, uh, when you told us he shot something big, we're like, Oh my gosh, let's go get her.
00:09:40
Speaker
tracking dogs, we're going to call Jacob up and see if he's got any. Yeah. But now I felt pretty confident with that 270. So luckily he, he just laid up about 30 yards away. Um, I mean, he was, uh, I think, uh, 11 point, he had a broken off, uh, brow town, uh,
00:10:05
Speaker
He could have been a 12, but I mean, he was, I mean, he had mass out the ass. I mean, just big deer. You can tell he was a mature deer. You know, one of those, you just see on the Weatherby magazine or the Weatherby shells, you know, just jumbo. No, I mean, it was a, it was a great deer. And I'm out of anybody. You hunted the hardest that year. It was a great, it was, it was your turn. It was. I remember.
00:10:31
Speaker
I remember getting that picture of that deer. I was like, my God, that's a big deal. That's a big joker. I do too. I remember I was at work and saw that too, and I was freaking out. Everybody was looking at me kind of funny. I was like, holy cow. Them guys up there, the pine cone eaters, they don't quite see something like that. I'm telling you. I seen a pine cone eater today and I ain't even lying to you. He was standing in a pine thicket.
00:11:00
Speaker
He's a stud though. I mean, you, you told me about him earlier today, a hundred, mid a hundred thirties or whatever, Jake. What? That's what I'm calling it. He's an awesome bro here. So Sam goes and kills this big, wide nice book. It might've been my Facebook profile picture for a while. I don't know. I can't remember. That's back when Facebook was pretty popular. So it was, it was a really,
00:11:28
Speaker
really good digger and I'm pretty stoked for you. I mean, you know, go and throw in that extra deer that had a couple drop times. You've had some pretty good digger killed. I mean, tell us a little bit about that drop time buck. I mean, he had bilateral drop times. That was pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And they were about five inches long a piece.
00:11:56
Speaker
But so this, this drop time deer I killed before this wide 11 point, but you know, it didn't really have the wow factor. I guess, you know, I look at more of the mass and the width of a deer. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you know, but this, this drop time deer, he was inside his ears, but he, I mean, he had dropped times. Like who, who the heck. Kills one with drop times in Arkansas. Nobody.
00:12:22
Speaker
All right, you know, I never doubled up man. Yeah So I'm gonna pass him up. Yeah, so funny story on that My dad he said uh, he said yeah, I saw a really nice deer last weekend He walked out looked like he had earrings on so I shot I was walking out I got out down from the stand and I was walking out so I was free-handed him and
00:12:51
Speaker
I shot once, he didn't move. Well, before he shot, he said he walked out and you pissed like a big dog just right there on the pad. I mean, for about 30 seconds. And so he sat there, he had enough time. He looked at him, he watched him piss and then he's like, all right, well, it looks like he's mine. And he pulled up, he shot and the deer didn't move at all. And he was like, well, I guess I missed. So he racked another one in there.
00:13:21
Speaker
He shot again, and this time it kind of looked like he had hit him somewhat, but it kind of just trotted off. He didn't really just get out there in a hurry. But that's the story he told me, he said. And so he blood tracked him for a bit, never could find him. And that was the weekend before I shot him. He said, there's a big one out there. So I was out hunting him.
00:13:51
Speaker
And funny story about it, so he, when this deer walked out, he was on the North stand like it killed that other 11 point. He walked out probably 150 yards. So it wasn't too bad of a shot. And he, when he walked out, I noticed he had some type of like brown pasture, kind of like a greasy spot on the back of his, on his back, right about mid-ways.
00:14:18
Speaker
I was like, what in the heck was that? I mean, I, you know, you could see it through the scope. And so, I mean, I didn't really care much. I just shot him cause he had drop times and, uh, and he ended up running about a hundred yards, 150 yards away, uh, ended up finding him. But matter of fact, dad hit him twice. He hit him once. He hit him once through the ass cheeks and then he, and then he hit him.
00:14:46
Speaker
once right across the back. And that greasy spot was where he had, you know, I guess skimped him the second time. And that's where he, I guess he felt it. And it was all abscessed up. I mean, we didn't eat the tinloin or nothing.
00:15:03
Speaker
Should've gave him a nine millimeter on him, you know. I heard he can shoot pretty good. We ain't gonna get to a nine millimeter story yet. That's another saying story. But we ain't trying to get like illegal here on the Little Woods Outdoors podcast. I heard he's a pistol here is all. Yeah.
00:15:25
Speaker
He's a game warden and he's a pistol there. That's, that's where we're going to leave that at. I mean, we're going to have to have him on the episode. Cause I know he's got some stories for sure. I can't believe he didn't move when he nicked him that first time. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody else might've caught that one though, Sam, you know it. I mean, but he had a whole, it was about an
00:15:49
Speaker
an inch wide, right through his butt cheeks. I mean, it could have been a deer, another deer, you know, chasing him off and puncturing him, but it was through both cheeks. And so I'm sitting there like, there's no way an antler could go through both cheeks. It had to have been a gun or a, you know, a boat, right? And something I guess we'll never know.
Elk Hunting Aspirations and Preparation
00:16:16
Speaker
Well, uh, I know, uh, you know, killing a big white tail is something that's always enjoyable, but to kind of make a transition here with you, Sam, you know, we see a lot of big deer. It's, it's a little more common to see those white tail deer and things like that.
00:16:31
Speaker
Let's, let's get started on this elk story here. I want to kind of know how that came to fruition. How did you find out where you were wanting to go? Was it just on a whim? Did you have buddies that kind of turned you on to that? Uh, tell us a little bit how you got started on wanting to go out towards Colorado or in that area, close to the New Mexico border and things like that. Yeah. Uh, so I've said a couple of goals, a couple of hunting outdoors goals in my life.
00:17:01
Speaker
And, uh, I guess that was my next goal was to kill an elf. You know, I, I watched videos on it. I learned how to bugle. I was just sick for it. And so, um, I was super pumped to get out there and I did my research in Colorado. They have, uh, the best elk population out there or as what the internet says. So I was like, well, I'll just start in Colorado, you know, make my chances greater.
00:17:31
Speaker
Um, so, uh, so the first couple of years, this is a three year journey. The first couple of years I went out to like Southwest Colorado. Uh, but the thing about it was I was carrying a boat. I went during archery season and I had no idea. Just the only thing I knew about it was the videos I watched. Um, I mean, I kind of knew how to play the wind, right?
00:18:00
Speaker
But I mean, I was just going out there just trying to learn from my experiences, because I may have thought that that's the only way I can really learn. It's just get out there, experience things. But this last trip, this last year, I ended up bringing a gun. I was tired of the bow. I said, I'm going to reach out there and kill them at 500 yards.
00:18:27
Speaker
What gun did you take? It wasn't that 270, was it? Oh, I took the 270. That's the one I'm confident in. So I took it out there. Oh, reliable. Yes. Yes. I was like, well, everybody made fun of me. It's like, you're taking that nice gun out here. I mean, it was a nice gun. It was a nice weather made with the wooden stock. It was beautiful gun, but if it kills, it kills. That's right. Yeah. It was.
00:18:57
Speaker
It was just one that I had my faith in. So I may have got a few scratches. Your transition, I mean, your transition is this story right now, but kind of background for this. So me and Sam, and if anybody wants to know kind of some details on this, just reach out. I don't care to tell people kind of how to do it, but me and Sam over here,
00:19:27
Speaker
We got invited to go on this pack-in trip. All right. So this is our first trip. I mean, Sam's been elk cutting several times, but you ain't been on a pack-in trip, have you? No, I've just always done a DIY trip. So.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah. With the truck walking in as far as I can go. So this was a pack-in trip, me and Sam, we're, we're blessed about it. I mean, and I mean, in all honesty, I mean, if you get cost-wise all contributed, you can go shoot it. You can shoot an elk in a high fence somewhere. It'll cost you a certain amount of money.
00:20:16
Speaker
Or you can go get packed in and say, Hey, good luck. Kill something on public lane. And that was, that's what we paid. I mean, we're just starting our careers. We ain't got enough money to go just play at these high fence places yet. I mean, at some point we might want to, you know what I'm saying? We might want to, I think you get that, that free ranger, uh, what they call it free, uh, fair chase, you know, whatever you call it.
00:20:44
Speaker
I think you'll get more gratification out of that. And you know, one of the things my dad throughout the early 90s, late 80s, he would go to Colorado himself. He would do basically what you guys did, would drive out there on this public ground and just walk in.
00:21:03
Speaker
The stories that he would tell me is the fact of how difficult it really is to kill an elk. It's really just not that easy. To do something that a lot of people spend many years trying to do, I think that's pretty neat. The fact that you guys had a successful hunt was great as well.
00:21:25
Speaker
So how did y'all get into where you were at? Did y'all, you said you packed in. Does that mean you hiked in? Did you take horses? You know, how long of a trip was it? Kind of start there and then we can get into that hunt too. Uh, yeah, so we drove about 16 hours, uh, from Hickory Plains out to Colorado. Uh, we made several stops along the way. I was, I was starving.
00:21:53
Speaker
Yeah, I was tired of looking at you. And when it was tired of looking at me, he had to have a break. And honestly, I was tired of talking on the phone. I like talking about phone. Hey, he, he'd call the same person three different times within two hours. I know y'all talk to me for at least an hour and 45 minutes. I don't know if that was once or twice a day, but, uh,
00:22:23
Speaker
I know y'all talk to me a lot. Yeah, just a warning out there, if you ever ride in the truck with wit, just be prepared. Either bring some earmuffs or just soak it all in because you'll learn a lot along the way and you'll definitely just, I don't even know, you'll check in on somebody three different times, make sure they're good.
00:22:50
Speaker
But uh, yeah, so So it was about 16 hours We went through we took i-40 all the way out there. So it got pretty boring after amarillo And really dusty then But it's neat the change of scenery from arkansas to colorado I mean you'd experience just the flatlands that we grew up in Then we'd go through some kind of the ozark mountains washtaw mountains range and then you'd kind of hit oklahoma
00:23:21
Speaker
where it'd get like to be the rolling hills again with the red soil and just all the the trees kind of shrunk as we went out west. I noticed that the trees didn't know. Yeah and so then we made it to Amarillo then after that it was just
00:23:39
Speaker
Seemed like shrubs, dust, and those, uh, what are those, uh, things that roll across the road? They, uh, tumbleweeds, tumbleweeds. We're saying a bunch of those. If you'd have tried that big Texan challenge and Amarillo, you got to eat that 15 pounds steak or whatever it is. You'd probably been all right till you made it. That's right. Yeah.
00:24:06
Speaker
Hey, I've been eyeballing that stake every time I go through. I'm going to test it out one day. But yeah, we, I mean, after Amarillo, you know, you'd hit, uh, I guess New Mexico. Is that right? That's right. Okay. I didn't know if I had my geography pride, but, uh, you'd hit New Mexico and it was neat cause you'd see different houses, you know, like the houses were had that like Adobe type plaster.
00:24:36
Speaker
as you went through there. It was cool, like the transition from Arkansas all the way up to Colorado, just kind of the different scenery.
Journey and Experiences in Colorado
00:24:46
Speaker
That's all we had time for is just to look out the window, listening to Whit talk on the phone.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah, in all honesty, my main thing from the trip was Sam's driving was really bad. So, I mean, when we were driving down there that far, I mean, you really notice it. And the second thing I noticed was once we started getting to different parts of Texas, and really it was when we cross into New Mexico, it's like, how do people live out here? I mean, it was all the same. It was,
00:25:23
Speaker
I could have sworn at any moment. I thought Trump's border wall was about to pop up. That's what it looked like. You couldn't find a shade tree. I mean, Jacob, you kind of got some experience out there in West Texas. I mean, it's just all the same. Is it not? Oh yeah. I've been all over West Texas and, uh, Southeast New Mexico. I mean, it all just runs together out there. It's a, it's different, uh, different geography and.
00:25:50
Speaker
It's just, I don't know. I don't know. I've been out there a lot and I could never live out there. It's just not my cup of tea. I don't know. I gotta have some, some hills, some little mountains, little green. It's a, it's a different world for sure. I mean, when you're out in Midland, Texas and you're making money on oil field, no, I mean, it's different, I guess, but
00:26:18
Speaker
The, the main thing for us, we were rolling through, we're trying to find, trying to find a gas station for Sam to go pay in. And then next thing we know we show up, we're at Chama. He's talking about this good burger he's had there. We see all these, I mean, we've seen, what do we see? It was a bunch of mule deer kind of in that area, wasn't it? Or, I mean, it was a, yeah, let's, let's back up to Chama.
00:26:46
Speaker
Okay. Shout out to Chama grill there. They shut down. I think COVID got them. Unfortunately, but they had the best, they had the best burger. You didn't get to experience it with, cause you, you went the last this past year. Uh, but the years prior, we'd always stop in Chama and we'd have this burger with like this green chili pepper, I guess kind of like salsa on top of it. And it was, it was fantastic. I mean, it was out of this world.
00:27:14
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, going to Chama, then we'd see all these mule deer. These mule deer, they're not too smart. I mean, we saw 30, 40 of them just laying on south of the road. I'm like, Oh my gosh, what's their deal? But seems like they don't really care about the oncoming traffic.
00:27:39
Speaker
situation. I seen, I seen a Western star truck. He had a mule deer about 60 mile an hour one time out there. It's probably still laying there, but he didn't survive. Hey, I guarantee you.
00:27:54
Speaker
There was not many opportunities. I wasn't going to drive the truck, but the one time I ended up giving Sam the reins to this truck, we almost smoked a mule deer. He was standing out there with his head out in the lane, just ready to die. Wasn't he Sam? Oh yeah. And he was a trophy. Let me tell you. Oh, he was a trophy. He was a trophy buck. That's crazy. He was about a trophy buck in the back of the truck.
00:28:23
Speaker
If I returned just right, I could have hit him and it flipped into the back of the bed and we just kept on going.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah. And that mule deer hunt too, that could be an interesting story that we could get into, but you speak about how much you see them on the side of the road. Dad used to tell me you could almost walk up on top of them before they get, you know, scared and run off and things like that. And, uh, you know, we're talking about people almost hitting deer. He can't really talk. He almost took out two doe at once, missed old red up at the time. No red. He got screwed up that day. We went.
00:29:01
Speaker
We were just trying to go get some Mexican food, but, uh, I think in all honesty though, once we finally made it up there to Bagosa where we were hunting Sam, it was, it was well worth it though, wasn't it? I mean, the trip was long Arkansas to Colorado. That's a long drive, but I mean, by the time we made it, it was blast and kind of getting into it a little bit. I mean, I've had a lot of friends call me and they're like, God, how'd y'all
00:29:32
Speaker
How'd y'all kill that elk? Uh, tell me details about this trip. Man, all you gotta do is find somebody that's going to pack you in just like we had and we can go from there. But I mean, in all honesty, one of these outfitters, they've got a, they got an outfit somewhere. I guarantee there is. And there's plenty of people that still have openings. So if you're still looking right now.
00:30:00
Speaker
This year they got plenty openings. I think. Are we going back Sam or is our trip? Yeah, I mean we do have that drop camp booked up. Michael's got it booked up, so just kind of waiting around. See if we want to go or if we're free that weekend, you know that week. But so I really think the. The drop camps the way to go. I mean, but I guess I may be a little biased.
00:30:29
Speaker
because I've only done DIY walking around with a bow and then drop camp. I haven't really done the outfit or whole set up with that saying it a lot, it's just walking out the back door and shooting out. But DIY or the drop camp, it kind of has a mix of, you know, they get you out there, they get you, we were probably eight miles from the trailhead, but they get you out there far enough to where the typical
00:30:57
Speaker
DIY guy that doesn't have a horse really can't go Consistently, I mean he can make it out there. Oh, you better make it out there. Yeah, he can bring it yet, but he may not make it back Yeah, you just gotta I was worried about food that trip but uh, yeah as long as That's another story but uh, I
00:31:20
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's a good middle lane, that way that you can still hunt on your own. You're not really guided in a sense. You're kind of put around the hill, so you can kind of use your instincts to go from there. I feel like you can have more pride at killing an elk if you're successful.
00:31:44
Speaker
Well, so you make the long journey with Whit on the phone. I mean, that's a trip on its own. That's right. Pick us up there about when you arrive at camp and leading up to y'all getting out to y'all's destination. All right, so I haven't ridden a horse in, I'd say 15, 20 years and I'm 28 years old, okay?
00:32:12
Speaker
The last experience I had, I was leading one out of the round pen and the syrups got hung up in the gate and I just lost control. I mean, that beast was, you know, you know how big a horse is, 1200 pounds. And I just, I was, my young self was like, how in the hell am I supposed to control this animal? There's no way. I mean, it's got a mind of its own.
00:32:35
Speaker
Uh, so I was, uh, definitely scared or I guess, you know, it was definitely new steps for me to get on horse and to, uh, to climb that mountain on horseback considering I haven't rode a horse in about five, 10 years. So, so I got to ask you too, was that a scenery a little bit better than looking at that goofy face in the window the whole time? Oh my God.
00:33:06
Speaker
I was looking, thank God he was behind me. I already have two red flags on going on elk hunt, the drive there and then the Daggum horse. My question is, could you tell the difference between the end of the horse and Whit's face? That's my question for you. You know, there was one horse that resembled
00:33:30
Speaker
We don't even do that. We nicknamed her, uh, her Mimi. Mimi. Yeah, that was good. It was actually a mule, but. Oh, well, that sounds better. So we get to this place, uh, now in South Colorado and we're, we're in a hotel next morning. The whole plan was meet about nine o'clock. We're going to get on horses. We're going to get packed in.
00:33:59
Speaker
So we get there and there wasn't a ton of snow at that moment, was there Sam? Okay, I don't think there was. Well, we did have some snowfall driving up there, but it really hadn't set in just yet. And so there had been a little bit, but not a ton.
00:34:19
Speaker
We ride up into this little spot. We met some nice guys from a New York area and they were nice. I mean, they'd been scouting and getting ready for the rifle season. They were like, yeah, we're about to go kill your L wave back off in here. So we park our trucks all around their camp and they're, they're
00:34:38
Speaker
I mean, they're there doing it right. I mean, do you remember their name saying, I can't remember it. I don't remember the names that they had been sitting there for a week. I mean, they've been there for a week just trying to find one. And, and so they're over there like cutting wood and stuff for like, yeah, I hope there's wood at this camp. But so we parked Sam's truck, get our stuff out. And then by, by then, Oh God, he's about two hours late when he, at least
00:35:08
Speaker
Oh yeah. The guy that packed his hand. Yeah. So, uh, kind of explaining the whole pack in process. So what you do is you find an outfitter. I mean, there's tons that do this and they have these little camps. And so these camps.
00:35:24
Speaker
Are way off in the public forest, but they have these kind of almost lease to some extent. So, uh, basically by booking with this group, we have that spot, right? So, uh, we're waiting there and he's like, yeah, I'll be at this time. We're, we're there.
00:35:43
Speaker
We were there about 30 minutes early, but an hour and a half later, here comes some horses walking up the trail. We're like, God, finally, here we go. So me and Sam, this is our first trip. We're, we're excited. We got these bags. We they're supposed to be certain weights. We're.
00:36:01
Speaker
We're like praying. They're the same way. You know, I, I don't, I don't know what the weight requirement was, but we're a little bit off. I remember that much at least, but, uh, at the same time. So we get all loaded up on these horses and, uh, get our guns loaded into the scabbards and all that. And, uh, about that time, Sam's like.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah. I don't remember how to ride a horse. He's over there pulling on this horse, just jerking him, trying to get him all settled down. And he's like, man, we're about to go about 10 miles deep. And he's like, well, I hope I'm in the back.
00:36:41
Speaker
I guarantee you were in the front the whole time, were you not? Rio just liked to be first place. I don't know what it was. Rio was the horse that I rode in on. He came first, your last. I guess so. But I mean, it was a big black horse. I mean, his name was Rio. He was the oldest one of the crew. And funny story about that, I was asking the guy that kind of walked us through. I said, man, what's kind of the age range on like you carry these horses in?
00:37:11
Speaker
what age range do they sit comfortable at hiking up these mountains? And he said, oh, you know, their best years are about eight to 20. I said, oh, okay, well, how old is Rio? And because I noticed he was huffing and puffing throughout the whole trip. And he said, oh, he's about 24. And I looked at him and I said, well, that's four years old. This poor horse.
00:37:40
Speaker
He was getting it. Uh, but he, he made, made it up the hill and he brought you home. And he brought me home. I said, please bring Rio when you pack me out. I fit in with that horse in so many levels. It's unbelievable.
00:37:59
Speaker
I love that Rio took you on that trip. And the funniest thing, and we'll post some videos of, I think on Little Woods Outdoors on Facebook, we're going to post some videos of Sam riding that horse. I think that was the funniest thing that I've watched in my entire life.
00:38:17
Speaker
Uh, he acted like he was up there on the balancing beam. Um, it was, it was good, but the, I was taking my first steps, you know, yeah, I witnessed it. It was good, but I mean, in all honesty, I, I don't, I'm not trying to scare people away from this. I think that getting a packed in trip like that was.
00:38:42
Speaker
It was terrific. I mean, you're getting packed off into nowhere. Uh, you're on a horse, the horse thing. I mean, yeah, there's some, there's definitely an added element of danger, but I mean, if, if, if you're willing to do that, they'll get you off in there where you can really enjoy it and you don't have to worry about.
00:39:07
Speaker
Oh my God, I've got 150 pounds on my back. I'm trying to pack myself in and have enough food and, and water, et cetera, for a week. Like we had enough. It was there. I mean, once we got to the camp, it was there. So, uh, once we got to camp, it was the stereotypical canvas tents. We had two of them. Uh, one was a cook tent. One was a, uh, kind of a canvas tent that
00:39:38
Speaker
mainly was for sleeping. Um, that was nice. I mean, I enjoyed the setup. Did you say? Oh yeah. I kind of liked that they were connected. That way we could cook, you know, and kind of open that way into the other tent and to heat it up along the way. So we really wouldn't have to, uh, turn on that propane heater for too long, you know, get carbon monoxide. Uh, that's part of the experience.
00:40:07
Speaker
but oh my god yeah it's funny my my god said he said you know if you forget to turn off this you're gonna wake up dead i said what do you mean wake up dead that's reassuring yeah it's so funny it's something stuck with me yeah you'll wake up dead i said okay then well i don't want to wake up dead
00:40:33
Speaker
So we need to make sure to turn that propane heater off as soon as we get warm. Makes you a little self aware of what you got going on on it. Yeah. Oh yeah. You always got to be aware, you know, I will say though, I mean, the entire trip we were there, we were cold. I mean, we're cold, weren't we? Oh, it get down to like the teens, sometimes single digits at night.
00:40:57
Speaker
And I know I got a, I got a sleeping bag that was ready for negative 20, but it sure didn't feel like, like it was ready for negative 20. That was, that was minus 20 in Arkansas. Exactly. Yeah. So, so we piled up our jackets on our, on our legs, you know, just try to keep them warm. Cause that's really the only part that get cold was your legs, you know, your upper body was, was pretty, pretty toasty.
00:41:28
Speaker
Um, but yeah, uh, it was, uh, yeah, but like we said, we finally made it to camp finally got settled in. Um, luckily we had great weather the whole time. Uh, the wind blew great weather. Yeah. The wind blew quite a bit, you know, but that's just kind of the West for you. Uh, but compared to other days, it, it really wasn't too bad. Uh, it was maybe it maybe got up to 15 miles per hour. It's sometimes.
00:41:58
Speaker
But it was perfect conditions to get out there, to hunt out, to just experience all that Colorado had to offer. So it was just a perfect setup. Sometimes you book trips and you can't control the weather. Obviously Mother Nature has you by the balls, but luckily it worked out.
00:42:25
Speaker
and besides it being single digits at night.
00:42:31
Speaker
Well, I gotta ask you to this, you know, being cold. We're not here in Arkansas at a very high altitude. We're obviously above sea level and things like that, but. When y'all were, you know, going in, what would you say the highest altitude y'all got to? You know, was there any concern that it was? Obviously you can't really prepare for that here in Arkansas, but you know what was your thoughts about having to walk in that higher altitude and having to work through that? You know, uh,
00:43:00
Speaker
I took it easy, so. Yeah. He took it easy. He killed one on the second day. Yeah, he took it easy. Let's go ahead. He took the easy way out is what he did. Yeah, so we were sitting about roughly 8,500, 9,000 foot elevation. So it was definitely a change from 170 Hickory Plains, Arkansas. So you could definitely tell the air was thinner.
00:43:30
Speaker
But I mean, me and Whit, we kind of slow rolled it the first couple of days. We knew what was going on. We didn't really want to be up there with the headache the rest of the trip. So we slow rolled the first couple of days. And like Whit said, I kill one second days.
00:43:46
Speaker
I'll chew it at the camp the rest of the time, drinking whiskey. Hey, tell us, uh, tell us like your first day out and then into your second day as far as how you were successful in harvesting that ale. Yeah. Okay. Uh, yeah. So we set up, I think we got in Friday. Yeah. We got in, we packed in,
00:44:18
Speaker
We packed in Friday night or Friday evening season opened up Saturday. Um, so that first day we were just kind of looking around, uh, my, my uncle, uh, Michael, he, he kind of, he had an all next pin that we could, you know, hit up that he, he's had found success in the past. And so, uh, he, he kind of pointed us in that direction. And so me and we, you know, I, I was,
00:44:46
Speaker
Chicken shit up there. I mean, I've heard of cougars, not mines. So I'm like, we're rolling together for the first couple of days. Just make sure we're acclimated. We're good to go. And, and so we, we ended up going. Honestly, I think my main thing was I was worried I was going to get hungry out there on the mountain. So we cared a bunch of food.
00:45:08
Speaker
But, Oh, didn't we? Yeah, that was something. Hey, get on this. Uh, so first day, me and you were out there.
Elk Hunting Adventure and Success Story
00:45:19
Speaker
Um, we seen something we shouldn't have seen. I mean, let's get on that. Oh man. So first day, I mean, we're just getting right into the adrenaline pump. I mean, of the century. So me and went, we're walking through, it's probably 10, 11 o'clock in the morning.
00:45:37
Speaker
We're just easing up the ridge trying to find some type of sign elk sign and we're just easing up this kind of like a saddle and Whit Whit says hold up. Hold up. I see a mule deer And so okay. I'm like, all right. All right scope it in. Well, he scopes it in
00:45:59
Speaker
It's not a mule deer. I said, I said, that thing's got a tail, really long tail. He said, he said, hold on, this mule deer has got a tail. So he scoped in and just a couple of seconds of looking at it, he's like, this is a mountain lion. And it was probably a hundred yards away.
00:46:18
Speaker
And he said, should I shoot it? Should I shoot it? I said, well, if it's coming this way, we're not liable anymore. Make it look like it's coming towards us. I was about to have palm marks on my face after I shot this thing, Jake. I don't know about them things. Oh, man. Let me tell you. But as soon after he saw that, I was like, OK, well, let me make sure I can draw my pistol correctly. I mean, I was practicing.
00:46:48
Speaker
I was jiggish here the rest of the time up there. But yeah, so we stuck together the first day. We actually ended up seeing a cow and a calf. And so we were like, okay, well, there's maybe elk in this area. We're going to go back. So second day, we kind of ease up the mountain, same kind of trajectory that we did the day before.
00:47:19
Speaker
And we just, we have coffee about 10 o'clock. I mean, we're just, we're hanging out. I mean, we're just enjoying our time off. We don't really get much time off doing what we do. So we were just hanging out, just trying to soak it all in. And then about, about noon, Whit said, well, let's split up. So he's in, he went down the mountain and I went up the mountain probably 300, we were probably sitting about 300 yards away.
00:47:48
Speaker
So, about noon rolls around and I'm sitting there, I have service and he has this, what's that thing called that you have, the in-reach? That Garmin in-reach, yep. So, I don't have a Garmin in-reach, but I finally get service when I get to the top of this hill. And so, about one, one or two comes around and I text him.
00:48:12
Speaker
I end up seeing some elk because crazy thing about it is if you use your ears a lot during elk hunting, you can hear those rocks sliding off the mountain. It's not just cuz. There's got to be something pushing around. Something's knocking them today. Yeah, so I look up there and I see, I couldn't really tell how many points they had, but it was a rag horn elk bull.
00:48:39
Speaker
Um, and then he was following about three or four cows. Uh, well, it was cool though. They were just kind of zigzagging down. I mean, and that graded that mountain was 40, 50 degrees. I mean, and that's why those rocks are falling. Uh, I texted with, I'll tell him, Hey, get up here. I need your scope so I can see.
00:49:03
Speaker
And, uh, so, so he's running up this hill 300 yards. He finally gets up there. Yeah. 300 yards, 300 yards. Doesn't sound like far, but when it's about 400 foot of altitude above you, 300 yards, it's a lot. I mean, by the time I get to Thomas Hill and he's talking, all I seen was a rag horn bowl and a.
00:49:27
Speaker
And a couple of Cal elk, I'm like, man. I literally could have pushed him down that hill. I'm so mad, but I finally saw elk. I mean, this is first day. We're, we're pumped over it. I mean, that, that was a blast, wasn't it Sam? Oh yeah. Yeah. Just being able to see elk first day, you can't beat that. I was like, Oh, we're on the X.
00:49:55
Speaker
You know, and, and in all reality, I, my favorite thing would be if Jacob, if you and Drew could have gone on that kind of trip. I mean, my God, if, if we'd had a bunch of buddies out there, I guarantee we'd probably sit at camp the whole time. Just told lies. I mean, cause, cause I know that.
00:50:20
Speaker
The kind of hiking we were wanting to do, we'd have done it one day and we'd be like, ooh, we might just try to kill them here from camp. We would have been in a lot of trouble. I mean, y'all are talking me into one of these trips, but talking me out of it at the same time. But no, it'd be cool. I'd be all about going, uh,
00:50:45
Speaker
So they're just like loose rocks on the side of the seal and these elk are just knocking them down, like, you know, like bowling balls and they're just clacking down the side of the seal or what. Yeah. So, uh, kind of explanation for it. The last day I went, uh, Sam already killed his and we're going to get to that, but kind of.
00:51:06
Speaker
a broad spectrum kind of description of this. I mean, we're, when we're sitting at camp, we can look up and we can see the mountain we're going to like, and these elk where we were, I mean, it might not be the same way everywhere else. I mean, I don't know if you pay enough, you might get something that's on flat land. I think, I think at some point I might pay enough to do that, but
00:51:35
Speaker
These elk are up there. I'm telling y'all. It's, it's like when you're standing up, you're sideways. I mean, there ain't no way. I mean, you're not, you're not, you're like got one hand on the ground. That's how steep it is. And so when they get up there on that stuff, like Sam's talking about that, that rocky area, you can hear these rocks falling down and it's because their feet are knocking them down off the side of this mountain. And.
00:52:04
Speaker
And it's constant. I mean, about two 33 o'clock. That was main time. Wasn't it Sam? Yeah. I said, what? No world is knocking those rocks off. It's not a wind. I mean, there wasn't no wind. There wasn't no earthquake. Um, these elk are knocking these rocks off and it was, it was pretty cool to hear. I mean, you'd hear them at night too. I mean, that was crazy. Mm-hmm.
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah, luckily we're on a second rifle season, so we heard a few beagles the trip. We did. But so, yeah, it's nice to hear beagles when you're up there in the mountain. Kind of makes you feel like, hey, we may be on top of them. It's almost like a turkey gobbling on the roost. I bet it has that same kind of effect on you. I mean, they kind of were on the roost when they
00:52:59
Speaker
I guess we're beagling, weren't they, Sam? I mean, we heard them at night or a little bit right after dark. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. You'd hear them late afternoon and at night, you know, those, those out there season to kind of hang out at night, I guess from the pressure and them being nocturnal, but, uh, yeah, it was cool. We, what did we hear about three or four different vehicles? I'd say.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah, I heard one that first, that first evening, and then you mentioned you heard a couple that other day, but it definitely wasn't like a October bow hunt of no means. I mean, it was just.
00:53:46
Speaker
That is probably what most people would expect for a second rifle. Uh, but so, I mean, go ahead, Jake. I was just going to say rolling into day two y'all are had some activity. Y'all got a little idea what to be listening and looking for. And, uh, y'all get out and try to get on them, huh?
00:54:09
Speaker
Oh yeah. Yeah. Day two, Sam was so scared that a mountain lion was going to eat him. So I had to walk with him, but we finally make it up to, I'm telling you every day we head out there, we went to the same spot. We just wandered up there. I mean, but I mean, we're climbing the mountain.
00:54:32
Speaker
I mean, that's supposedly where they're supposed to be. So that was our area to hunt. We had a group of four of us. I mean, the other two guys went different directions and they had, you know, I could have them on and they had different mountain line experiences, et cetera. But I mean, the second day was kind of the, it was the big day, wasn't it Sam? I mean, the second day was perfect. I mean, the weather was right. The wind was right.
00:55:03
Speaker
I mean, we get up to the same area we've been at the day before seeing those cows and we split up just a little bit. I mean, it wasn't a long ways. I said, Sam, this is, this is where I said yesterday. I guarantee there'll be something come through here. Was I wrong? No.
00:55:23
Speaker
You were right on the money, baby. And about that time I just started strolling downhill. I'm like, well, let's be closer to camp anyways. I'll just go downstream. That way Sam has a longer walk than I do when we get done hunting. And I really wasn't expecting much. And about that time I'm looking off through the woods and I see a coyote. I'm like, what in the world? There's a coyote over here.
00:55:52
Speaker
And then about, about 10 seconds later, I hear a kaboom. It sounded pretty much like he was shooting right at me. I mean, I was only about 200 yards downhill from you at that point. And I'll walk over this hill and I can see him. Like, I mean, that's how close we were to each other on that mountain. Yeah.
00:56:14
Speaker
I mean, now that I think about it, yeah, I was shooting right towards you. My bad. I mean, I was good. I mean, I was good. I'm glad you shot, but at the same time, I never saw those elk. I seen the coyote and I'm pretty sure that was what bumped them towards us. But Hey, that is what it is. And I walk over this heel.
00:56:38
Speaker
I see Sam up there and I put my arms up. It's a stereotypical bell move. And I'm like, where in the world is this hellcat you just shot at? And he starts pointing and I walk over there and I just started hooping and holler. And I, in all honesty, I've been excited about a bunch of things. Like we can shoot a duck and has a band. I'll be excited for, oh, maybe a second or so.
00:57:08
Speaker
But seeing that huge elk bundled up there, I mean, the only reason he was stopped as high as he was, cause he hit a Cedar tree. I mean, Sam hit him good. It wasn't like you just hit him just miscellaneously, just barely got him. We had to track him down. No.
00:57:28
Speaker
Where Sam hit him, I'm pretty sure he just, all he did from the second he got shot was fall and he just fell down this hill. I said, Sam, there's a, there's a nail dead right here. And a lot of people don't understand like the excitement that somebody might get from killing them because they probably killed several, but.
00:57:51
Speaker
You take two guys from Prairie County flat land and we'll go up to the mountains on horses and we kill something. What? I mean, we're like, yeah, we, we've cleaned deer out here on the ground, but I ever killed it on the ground. Have you, Jacob? Uh, negative on that.
00:58:17
Speaker
Uh, my first question was when you said y'all had one down, I said, well, did y'all clean it about 10 minutes? Cause that's how long it takes y'all to skin and clean a deer about 10 minutes. Well, the same has been practicing. I mean, let me tell you, we've been there before. We get to this out. We take our pictures. Everybody knows we got to take your pictures, right? And.
00:58:41
Speaker
I get to rag him a little bit. I'm like, man, everybody acts like you can't move this out. Me and Sam's over there jerking him around, trying to take pictures with them. I'm like, well, heck we don't kill the juvenile, but yeah, man, handling pretty good there.
00:58:56
Speaker
It may have been gravity helping us too. Yeah, we hit that side of that mountain helping us a lot. Little adrenaline rush. A little bit of both. In all honesty, we'll get the picture on the Little Woods Outdoors page on Facebook so everybody can see Sam killed a banger five by five and it was a blast helping him clean that thing.
00:59:25
Speaker
We use the little knife kit I had, didn't get dull. Then we had to go figure out, I'm telling y'all, this was a first time experience for all of us. I mean, we're over there trying to figure out how to tie this thing in the tree, uh, put him in the bags. It was a blast. And I, and I, I can't, I can't say how happy I am for Sam. I mean,
00:59:53
Speaker
I know I wish I would have killed one too, but it is what it is. At the same time, when I paid money and went on this trip,
01:00:04
Speaker
That was the best money I ever paid. I mean, to see Sam kill one, how happy he was. He, when I told him there was one down right there, he called me a liar the first 10 seconds. I was telling him that. Cause it that like, that's how, that's how much it meant to me. I mean, he'd been out there a few years in a row and that's my first trip. I was like, man, I I'll double up on that. And I.
01:00:27
Speaker
I was feeling selfish, but at the same time, Sam killing that deer or that elk, that was just, it was a blast. And so, I mean, we enjoyed that. I mean, you guys got to experience something that a lot of people pay a lot of money for and never hear, never see. Dad went for many, many years before he even saw one. And, you know, that's something you guys accomplished something that not a lot of people get to do.
01:00:59
Speaker
Yeah. So what, whenever you got back to camp, y'all to celebrate it with a little, little drink with, they leave you in here. Do you use that hunting still, wouldn't you? Yeah, no. So the day after we were supposed to have this guy come in here and pack it out. So, and that's what I taught so much good stuff about this pack-in trip, right? Because the guys that pack you in, pack your elk out.
01:01:29
Speaker
All right. They'll take it to the processor for you. They'll take it to the taxidermist. Where are you asking him to do? Well, he didn't come the next day. So thank God me and Sam spot that we put it was pretty cool. I guess, I don't know. He said, put it on the cool side of the mountain. We didn't know what side of the cool side of the mountain was. I mean, we were over there just having us a good old time in the mountains in Hickory Plains or about.
01:01:58
Speaker
Uh, 10 foot tall. So, uh, we had trouble with that, but the third day after Sam killed it, we all out there hunting, except for Sam. I'm like, man, why don't you hunt with me? Come on, my baby. Bring some of that good luck. And he stays at the camp. He walks in with that guy. They, they, they have horses and they pack the meat out. I mean, I'm glad they did.
01:02:24
Speaker
I am, because I worked hard on that meat too. Yeah, it was about time. It was crunch time in terms of the meat expiration date, but about that time when I texted that guy from that Garmin inReach that I had,
01:02:46
Speaker
I said, dude, when you come in, I know you gotta come in and we did not pack right. We only had so many pounds we could bring. I said, man, bring us a bottle of whiskey. And about that time we get back to camp after that, Jacob, I swear on everything, there was none of it left. And I get back to camp, I get back to camp cold.
01:03:10
Speaker
Mad, I didn't see nothing. And, and I got a bottle and they're like, yeah, here you go. And it's like a shot of man. I'm like, Oh my gosh. So I did just kind of an explanation to everybody that ever goes on this trip. If you drink whiskey and when it's cold.
01:03:27
Speaker
Make sure you take some poundage out so you can take that because it's so worth it. And Sam drank every bit of it. I mean, when I got back, he was telling me stories I ain't even ever heard of before. Hey, you know, it'll do something to the mind when you're sitting at camp for three days, just twitting your thumbs, cleaning on that skull. You know, you're sitting there and there's a man in his thoughts and that skull. So.
01:03:54
Speaker
Hey, real quick, Sam, uh, you said there's ivory. You, you sent me a message of the day showing me like the little ivory deal in the school of that. Explain that real quick. I never heard of that. Yeah. So I remember reading about it back a long time ago, but I forgot about it. Can I back y'all up just a second? Yeah.
01:04:16
Speaker
So after we kill this thing, me and Sam hang up all this meat, the main thing was getting this antlers back to camp. So we're like, how far are we Sam? I'm sorry, I'm, I'm buttoning this out. We got it. We got to keep it right. Uh, that three quarter mile from, from camp. Yeah. Which doesn't sound bad, but when it's like a steep grade of, you know, there might be a, uh,
01:04:44
Speaker
Uh, a truck break, uh, break check station on the way down. I mean, like it was Steve. And so me and Sam are heading down this mountain and we've got, and I was making him carry it. I had his gun. I wasn't, I wasn't like I was being a bad guy, but I carried his gun back for him. And, and I had Sam's, uh, elk head attached to the back of his max backpack.
01:05:15
Speaker
We had about, what do we have about 50 foot of, uh, rope wrapped around that thing? I mean, it's recommended everybody go look on a survivalist backpack trip kind of setting. It says bring 50 foot of rope.
01:05:35
Speaker
Well, I didn't want to cut the rope. So I was like, Sam, we just use this 50 foot on your backpack. So we wrapped it around this backpack about 800 times and we had this rope and this elk head attached to Sam's backpack. Well, the max backpack is not equipped to carry a 150 pound elk head out of the woods. That's all I got to say. You know, I learned.
01:06:02
Speaker
I learned about three different knots from the old batwit trying to get that thing on the backpack and I swear we get 100 yards with this thing and I take I missed that one time I slip and then just all of a sudden the dang
01:06:22
Speaker
The dang elk head goes one way, I go the other way, and it's still attached on one side, but I'm walking off Wafford John, halfway down the mountain, Whit said, hey, are you good? I said, yes, let's just get the heck out of here. There's mountain lions up here, I need to get back to camp. I was ready to get back. We had blood all over that backpack, he's worried.
01:06:50
Speaker
But yeah, that max bag, he made it a long ways. I mean, he made it a Colorado. So yeah, I call it my satchel now. Yeah. It's kind of like a man satchel where he just puts it on one shoulder because it's only got one. Yeah.
01:07:14
Speaker
But anyway, so you got the head back on your Max Satchel, Fanny Pack Satchel. You sent me those pictures and I never heard of it, but there's ivory in those things somewhere. Like I said, I never heard of that. Yeah, so right around the canines on the elk, if you look up probably a couple inches, there's ivory up there.
01:07:43
Speaker
And it's kind of where they, what they say in the history books, I mean, they said that there was, they had tusk back in the day to where they fought off each other. But as they grew antlers, bigger antlers, then they just kind of shrunk those tusks into where they were just, you know, small tea or small, like ivory,
01:08:10
Speaker
Knobs in a way, so they really didn't use those so they kind of Over the time they kind of shrunk down But it's neat though. I I cracked them out of the skull. I boiled them down You know a good old YouTube video Show me how to preserve it But yeah, I got him upstairs right now Looking I don't know what I'm gonna make out of them, but hell maybe I
01:08:36
Speaker
Maybe a ring one day.
Elk Hunting Reflections and Tips
01:08:38
Speaker
I find no gal. Hey, baby. What about this ivory? I've got this from the mountains of Colorado for you. Yeah, girl. We just make you imagine set of nipple rings. That'll shine in the dark right there.
01:09:01
Speaker
Well, and that's one thing too, we want to mention about like, elk heads and things like that. You can't really.
01:09:09
Speaker
My dad probably is one of the few people that I know that still has a full head mount for an elk because of the CWD that comes with elk and trying to transport that across state lines. That's a big concern that the game wardens have. And so it kind of prohibits what you can really do with those mounts and things of that.
01:09:35
Speaker
So, I guess whatever you want to turn it into, you know, I'm sure it can be creative. But, you know, a lot of people have to do the European mounts and things like that, you know. Yeah, I turned the skull into Euro mount. It took quite a bit of time.
01:09:57
Speaker
I'm going to pay somebody next time I do it. But as far as the meat goes, you have to debone the meat before you cross state lines. That's right. That's from the risk of CWD. There's a bunch of documented cases in Colorado for this disease called chronic wasting disease, CWD.
01:10:27
Speaker
elk deer that type of animal and Arkansas is kind of worried that CWD could get transferred over from the elk bones if the elk had it to the deer population which in fact they
01:10:46
Speaker
They pulled some elk from, I don't know where, but they put them in north central Arkansas. Now we have CWD in our state, which doesn't make much sense. AGFC, I'm going to tag you in this podcast. I want an answer now. No running from it. Yeah. Sorry, that's a little sensitive subject there. I'm just going to be the first one to say that
01:11:14
Speaker
I think anything that AGFC touches, they screw up. I mean, I'll be the first one to say it. If anybody else disagrees, I mean, come on and tell me, but tell me why. But I've seen the elk up at Boxley. There's a couple of studs running around up there. If you could draw out in that field where everybody goes take some pictures. Yeah. I'd just be sitting that picture of waiting on them to come out.
01:11:40
Speaker
Me and my wife is up there one year and this lady gets out of the truck and you know, everybody's, everybody's lined up on the side of the road and we're just sitting there just kind of watching the elk and watching tourists at the same time. This lady gets out, she's like, oh look, there's big daddy. Let's go see big daddy. We just started dying laughing. He was a big daddy out there.
01:12:05
Speaker
He's a stud out just out there hanging out there their pets now if they're i wouldn't far from ponka which has a big population kind of where that started at really i believe in certain certain aspects of arkansas but but there are more pets for them up there we don't really get to
01:12:24
Speaker
I mean, there's a very limited draw for us to hunt elk in Arkansas. It's like maybe 50 hunters, I think. It may be more now. I've never really looked into it, but it's interesting now how you can see that. And there used to be elk here. They used to talk about it all the time. There's different animals that no longer exist here and have kind of been pushed out, like mountain lions. Elk are now being reintroduced, and our turkey population stinks right now.
01:12:52
Speaker
And I don't know what they're doing to that. I think they're pushing too hard for it, but that's for another subject to talk about as well. You know, by the time we got that elk off the mountain, Sam.
01:13:08
Speaker
It was about time to go home. I was glad to be back in flat lands. I mean, that was a great trip. And, uh, like everybody's talked about, I mean, it, there's not many people that get to get to do that on their, especially their first kind of DIY tree up. I mean,
01:13:29
Speaker
If you pay to get packed in, you're doing it yourself. I mean, they might have you some water there, but I bet you we filtered a ton of water. I mean, we had to walk to the creek and do it. We were glad to be there. We had to hike to certain spots. We had to worry about mountain lions eating us. I mean, what was the last night wind started? What'd you think was about to happen? I mean, tell us.
01:13:59
Speaker
Oh man. I'm telling you, they're just, you really can't let your guard down. You can't let your guard down because I mean, there's dead trees out there. You worried about trees falling on you in the tent. I mean, so I think it was an experience. I mean, it was. And so our uncle Michael, he said something about some bugs or something got into the, some of the Aspen's or the evergreens up there and they, they chewed the bark down or kind of stumps down.
01:14:29
Speaker
where they made them real fragile. And so they killed the tree and the tree's dead, but it's still standing upright. And we had
01:14:40
Speaker
three or four of them sitting there right by our camp. And what was crazy was two or three of them had already failed, but they failed strategically to kind of like box us in. I felt like the next tree was going to be right on top of us. It was going to hit the target. Yeah. So I fell asleep with that thought in my mind.
01:15:03
Speaker
Um, it was after a couple of pulls of whiskey. That's a whiskey night. Yeah. It was whiskey night. And, uh, I, uh, I woke up just for whiskey, not just for Sam. Yeah. Oh, I woke up with like heartburn everything, but what woke me up was the wind blowing, the wind blowing.
01:15:28
Speaker
And it kinda like, you know, it made the, the, the old canvas flat against the, against the post that were late. Yeah. It was flapping real hard and I was like, oh my God. So I guess I had it in my mind that, you know, these trees are about to fall. And so I woke up with my hands pushed towards the outer side of the tent. And I woke up, I said, no.
01:15:55
Speaker
And like, it was funny, I pushed and like these canvas tent had stakes that were keeping up the edges to kind of make it formed. And what was funny is I was like, no, and I pushed towards the outer side of the tent and I ended up pushing one of the stakes down. So it kind of collapsed a little bit on me. It was like, I thought the whole tent was coming in.
01:16:23
Speaker
I was thinking of the same thing. I mean, and, and Sam handed on earlier, I mean, these canvas tents ain't warm, especially this time of year when we were there. I mean, it was cold, it was cold and we're freezing death and I, and I was any second I'd wake up. I mean, I was like, Oh my God, I'm freezing death. I had about.
01:16:47
Speaker
Oh, eight or 10 of those hot hands going in my sleeping bag at all times. I mean, like everybody was cold and, and I wake up and I hear Sam yelling, no. And I was like, Oh my gosh, here comes this tree down. I was like, maybe he'll, maybe he'll stop it or something. You know, it was a blast and in all honesty, I mean, we lived through it. Hopefully that tree fell down. We were worried about, uh, but
01:17:18
Speaker
We're, we're going to go back. I mean, that was, that was a blast of a time and, and, and Sam killing something was just even, I mean, it was icing on the cake. I don't care if I ever kill one, but going with Sam and, and seeing that reaction, that was, that was worth more money than I could even explain to somebody. I mean,
01:17:43
Speaker
getting to be a part of that, that big beast. He stunk. God, he was the worst smelling thing I've ever walked up on in my life. But I mean, it's a smell you'll never experience unless you kill one. And that's what I want people to know. I mean, if you ain't got a ton of money, you can still go do it. Just walk out on some public land and go do it. I mean, that's all you need to do. I mean, we're out in the middle of
01:18:13
Speaker
Nowhere. I mean, we paid extra to get out there, hiked in with horses and, and, and little to say, I mean, I enjoyed the horse walk in. I mean, that was a blast, but at the same time, you could just walk into these areas that we went to and we still killed one and we saw plenty. I think every day we saw a shooter, did we not Sam?
01:18:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So everybody needs to know, elk hunting, it's borderline getting commercialized like the duck hunting atmosphere. But I really do think people can still do it for a reasonable price. And I think this year that we go, I think we're going to try to take a couple of buddies. So hopefully we'll have a good time with that. But you know, we we've been on here for an hour.
01:19:06
Speaker
Sam, I'm going to summarize this whole trip in one little statement here. Sam went on a trip. He's been, he's been hunting his, oh, at least the last three years trying to kill an elk. He's worked his, I mean, weeks of time over there in Colorado and he finally killed one this year. I was fortunate enough to be a part of it. He killed a five by five elk.
01:19:34
Speaker
We're going to get a picture on the little woods outdoors on Facebook. Everybody go look at that. I mean, you get an opportunity like that. He's you can't beat it. So, uh, I'm proud of you, Sam, uh, literally.
01:19:52
Speaker
I'm glad I was about 20 yards past that elk cause you might've shot me if I'd have been any closer, but I mean, that was a blast and, and can't thank you enough. I mean, we talked at the beginning about.
01:20:06
Speaker
this big deer you killed, but that's just, that's kind of almost an out of body kind of experience killing those elk. It was a blast. Oh yeah, I just sent my notice on the elk was the hair on the back was like two and a half, three inches long. It's just, it's not normal. It's not like a white tail. So I was very proud. I respect these animals.
01:20:33
Speaker
I've been chasing them for three years, finally luck out on one. It's definitely an honor to be able to harvest one and be able to feed the family, eat on it for probably three or four months. I'm still working on ... I've got about 50, 80 pounds left.
01:20:58
Speaker
Really what I want to tell all the listeners out here is, you know, it's still, I mean, you can go do it yourself. Get a tag, make sure you stay hydrated. I'd highly recommend OnX Maps. That kind of keeps you,
01:21:20
Speaker
where you're at and just really just preparing.
Hunting Costs and Future Plans
01:21:26
Speaker
You really don't have to learn how to call as long as you can find that elk, find where they're hanging out at and if you're just amongst them, you're going to get lucky. You're going to be able to see them. So just kind of scouting out those areas that are kind of hard to reach.
01:21:27
Speaker
your
01:21:45
Speaker
on onyx that's kind of what I did just kind of preparing for the weather whether it's going to be cold or windy bring plenty of chapstick that's right yeah but just preparation with elk hunting is a thing just make sure you have a way to contact if you you know fall and you can't get it you know if you break something you know make sure you have
01:22:13
Speaker
I personally like to hunt with a buddy, hunt with Whit, because that way we have somebody to pull us out of those hard times. But definitely recommend hunting with a buddy your first couple of trips until you know it. But really, I mean, you don't really have to spend a lot of money to get out there and experience Colorado, wherever you want to go.
01:22:42
Speaker
Yeah, you just go out there and do it. The tax are $600. You really, you can bring your own gun. So, I mean, tops with gas money, where it depends on where you're at, you could probably get by with, you know, $1,500 to max of $2,000. And that's what like meat processing. So, I mean, it's definitely something that
01:23:07
Speaker
I recommend definitely something that I'll do again. I may try to get after them with the bow next time. But it was a fantastic trip. Very appreciative of it to go with me and help me clean it, help me pack it out.
Podcast Reflections and Future Endeavors
01:23:24
Speaker
I mean, it was just a great break from civilization, from real life, doing things like that.
01:23:35
Speaker
really kind of, you remember those things. You don't really remember the day-to-day life, the day they struggle of going through working your nine-to-five, but just get out there and do something that you can remember. You know, do something that you can talk about around the campfire, drinking with your buddies.
01:23:57
Speaker
That's right. I mean, and I enjoyed it too. Same. I mean, that was the blast. I wish y'all had left me more whiskey that night, but it is what it is. I, you know, kind of touching a little bit on Seth. I didn't paint my face a single time. So if anybody listened to the last episode, they'd know what I'm talking about. But Drew, I think he had a little bit of something.
01:24:21
Speaker
Yeah, I just want to say congratulations, Sam. I'm very happy that you guys got to experience that, man. That's a once in a lifetime, and hopefully more times will happen for you and your buddies. I also want to thank the listeners that are listening right now. We're very appreciative of you guys.
01:24:37
Speaker
If you haven't already, check us out on social media. We've got a Facebook page that's really high. You're going to get to see some really cool pictures and videos from this trip. We're going to continue to do better to upload things as the seasons progress. We've started a new year here.
01:24:57
Speaker
I'm really looking forward to all of this. I'm really excited to see everything that we're going to bring to you guys. We're close to a 10 decade episode, excuse me, not 10 decade, a decade episode. Uh, it's hard to believe that we've done seven so far. So really look forward to doing more with this and having more gas and have Sam back on with, with the rest of the crew. And just wanted to say thank you guys. And I've really enjoyed it. Thank you, Drew. Jacob.
01:25:25
Speaker
I enjoyed it. Did you catch the dogs yet?
01:25:29
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I got him. I got him halfway hemmed up. That's right. We're waiting on the next episode on Sunday. Beyond those again. I know you're ready to talk about him, but Sam, thank you so much for being on, uh, Sam starting his own podcast here soon. We're going to be on a health and wellness, uh, from time to time. We'll, we'll bring him back on. Don't you worry out.
01:25:57
Speaker
Just because he's killed a couple deer and an L don't mean that's all he's ever done. So he's got plenty of insight on duck hunting goose hunting. He, he, there's a reason he don't goose hunt no more. So we'll, uh, we'll all touch on that. And Drew, thank you for being on brother. Always. Uh, I'm.
01:26:17
Speaker
I'll be completely honest, be the first one to say it. I'm glad you even last this whole episode. Usually you break off. I made it to the end, baby. I made it. I finished.
01:26:29
Speaker
What'd you say? I just did it. I just did it. Oh my God. Listen to this guy. You froze up there. I'm glad to have you on. I'm glad to have you on too. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed it. That was a blessing. And everybody literally like Drew said, go find us on Little Woods Outdoors. Sam killed a huge elk. It's going to be on Facebook. Just look right now.
01:26:58
Speaker
Everybody good look to it. It was a blast and that trip, I guarantee we're going to do it again this year. And hopefully we got another pitcher. We got a lot of time to go to that. And in the meantime, we've been killing some geese. So Sunday, I think we got a good story for you. So everybody keep in touch. And other than that, anybody else got anything to say? Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
01:27:27
Speaker
It was a good time. Thank you, Sam. We look forward to having you on very, very often. Love you, brother. Everybody else, y'all be good. Thanks again for listening to Little Woods Outdoors.