Ep.087: The Meat Tree, Part 2

Afognak Island, AK- Steven Rinella talks with Remi Warren, Dirt Myth, Ridge Pounder, Pat O’Connel, and Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew.

Subjects Discussed: the brown bear attack story continues; the feeling of your life flashing before your eyes; the short but exhilarating ride of Dirt Myth; the devastating mental setback of being charged by a brown bear; bear attacks as an act of predation; being 'bearanoid'; lessons learned; and more.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You
can't predict anything. Welcome back to the Meat Eater Podcast.
You are about ready to dig into The Meat Tree

(00:31):
Part two. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about,
what I'm talking about is a story about a fog
Neck Island and a particular brown bear. This doesn't sound
familiar to you, back up a episode and go listen
to The Meat Tree Part one. If you've already listened
to The Meat Tree Part one and you know that

(00:52):
you're in the right place, welcome back. We will now
proceed with the story. Are you the first guy it
saw it? I definitely heard him first, and I think
I expressed some some fear that there was something in
the woods right next to us. And then as soon
as I heard that breathing and that that deep, you know,

(01:16):
panting noise, you started hearing some twig snap and you
could hear something coming out as full bore, and then
it was like all hell broke loose? Would you agree
that's how that's you saw? And then and then made Wayne,
Chris and I were sitting did you see him. Yeah,
you guys, I saw Pat's face and that, like I am,

(01:38):
my attention immediately went to the sound and I just
saw like that light color hair just shaking back and
forth and locked eyes with him and he was coming.
And that was probably that's when that pandemonium of oh,
f bombs, shit, this is going down, and it was

(02:05):
this is it was like no chance to grab bear,
spray pistols, anything. It was like that bear was on
top of us before we even knew what was going on. Basically,
what was what was your first, registrate, when did you
first register it? I think in the same moment, But
I knew like the whole time. And this was um

(02:25):
complacency on my part. I didn't have any protection and
like I didn't cross my mind and look for some
sort of spray or I should have been I should
have had something. And so like my initial reaction not
even seen it, was get behind the separate myself from
the sound in the direction all the ship was happening

(02:46):
and the tree. So I just ran behind the see
it before it was in amongst us. No, I saw
only when it wrapped around the tree after all the
other Yeah, and that's yeah, And it was right, I
saw a charging through the woods. I didn't see that.
So you guys saw a char the woods, you suck pounder,
When did you see it? I was sitting there eating
my sandwich, and I remember looking at Pat and seeing

(03:06):
Pat's face and like him registering what was going on.
And then all of a sudden, everybody's up and I
see the bear. So I'm like looking at Pat and
I look laughing, there's a there's a bear, like right there.
I had my back to the bear's approach, and I
somehow when I saw it, like you know, like you
I see all you like the guys that see it,

(03:28):
causes me to turn toward it, turned to my left
toward it. But then it's like passing. I just remember,
it's just teeth passing, I mean within arms reach of
the right side of my face coming into I don't,
I don't know what the like. You know, there's this

(03:52):
there's this idea that, uh, when you remember reading about
this thing where this guy is saying that like you
tell a dude guy that fell off of his roof,
and the feeling that like your life like flashes before
your eyes, you know, and then later feeling like you

(04:16):
think that it did right. There's this idea that, uh
that in that in those seconds you really maybe are
processing a bunch of thoughts or there's a there's this
argument psychology that you really are like processing quick processing
thoughts and fractions of seconds, or the memory you later

(04:40):
your mind overlays the memory with thoughts, and that when
your life flashes before your eyes in a moment, it didn't.
It just becomes overlaid in recollection because you're like thankful
that you're still there, and you and you think that
they were contemporaneous, they but they perhaps weren't. I remember

(05:01):
thinking at the teeth. I remember thinking that, uh, I
was like, life will be different now, yeah, because someone
is someone is getting um, someone is going to be
maimed or killed right now, and life is different. Everything
is in life is different from this point forward. It's like,
I feel like that happened to me the second I

(05:23):
turned and it was like within easy arms reaches, the
thing's a gape mouth and the noise it was making
that that second was ah, yeah, I feel like I
distinctly remember the things that were the most disturbing. Part
of it is the things that you were thinking while

(05:45):
this is going down. I feel like like, oh, that's
the worst case scenario type the worst case scenario. But
I distinctly in the moment had thoughts. I don't think
it was after the fact, but maybe it will. That's
that's because I just like, well, but my my actions

(06:06):
of the thoughts that I had, you know what I'm saying.
So my thought, my first thought was oh shit, obviously,
but what I was thinking of is my pistol is
there and the bear is running towards my like I
have no protection. This is how we're gonna die. And
my thought was as soon as I can get a
chance to get that pistol, I'm either gonna get named

(06:29):
getting that pistol or I'm not gonna like, you know,
because somebody is going to get it here. You know,
My first like actual real thought that I know happened
because I acted upon it was to dive out of
the way of the bear. And I didn't hurt my ankle.
I never like twist my ankles, but actually injured my
ankle clearing myself of the bear. Do you feel like

(06:52):
you got to your feet? No, I don't know. What
I did was in a very relaxed like on his
side almost like you're supporting your body on your elbow,
you're laying down, and especially if you remember that bear
coming down within arms reach and those teeth, I almost
feel like you must have like moved from a down

(07:14):
position to like another down position. I think I just
kind of rolled and sprang downhill. That's what I downhill. Yeah,
definitely downhill. Yeah, there was no because I was at
that little cut out, a little dugout spot. I rolled downhill. Yanni,
Now you tell what happened, because this could be a

(07:36):
thing that's this could be like a very important part,
like what you did. I feel like I'm involved in
the pivotal, pivotal moment, but there could be a lot
of reasons, like a lot of other uh things that
made it a pivotal moment, you know, obviously, just like
what the bear decided to do at that moment. But

(07:58):
I certainly didn't have have um thoughts. There were There
are no thoughts. There was I did I remember pat
saying something. I remember like registering that like yes, there's
a bear coming in, and then I remember like my
sandwich being thrown to the ground. I remember being on
my feet. I do not remember picking up hiking poles.

(08:21):
I do not remember that. I just remember like, and
I don't remember the bear, Like there was like a
little gully that the bear came out of, right, and
then there was about probably ten to fifteen feet of
open grass before he got to us. And I feel like, really,
the only thing I remember is being in a very
aggressive stance with two ski poles held by the handles

(08:42):
in my hands. Yeah, flick locks, fuck saved our lives.
And I don't remember making the choice because I had
my bear spray on my hip and I just like,
on your pack, no, no, no, I had my pistol.
I was running in the same thing I ran last

(09:04):
week hunting the elk. I was running pistol on the pack,
bear spray on my actual belt. That way when you
go take a pack off, take a pee or whatever,
I'm at least carrying one of the And um, I'm
still gonna always have bear spray first, gone second. It's
just gonna I think it's gonna be my life rule
in Gris Country. We can talk about that later, but um, yeah,

(09:30):
it was just there on top on like on top
of us. I remember thinking, yes, this is it. I'm
going to get mauled and I like, all I can
think is that I somehow made not consciously, but somehow
somewhere in my head it was fight. And so I
swung those poles as hard as I could, right at

(09:52):
his face, at his head. And I've already recounted the
story a few times, but there's never been a moment
in my life where there was a um more unexpected
outcome to one of my actions. It was like kids,
they don't just go like, okay, then exactly, here's here's

(10:13):
kind of here's a I'm gonna try to make a
good analogy here. It would be like me stepping into
the cub stadium and if someone could give me a
picture's name and then throwing a fastball at me Muhammad
Ali it was not a picture, he was a boxer,
and me taking a ninety mile fastball and swinging that

(10:34):
bat and knocking it out of the park. That would
be like how unexpected you would think the outcome would
be of that action, right, because you'd expect just to
whiff and you wouldn't even touch the ball. Maybe you
would like touch the ball and foul out behind you, right,
But what it felt like was that I hit that
ball and then went out of the stadium because as

(10:55):
I connected with this with this bear's face, he did
a reason or maybe not quite one eight because I
felt like he came in if you can imagine like
in acute triangle that you're looking from the point down.
He came in on one of the sides, and he
turned and went off the other side. That was that
was a blur of bear that wasn't. That was most

(11:16):
surprised to me is that it I was anticipating this
being a sort of a drawn This was gonna be
a drawn like I feel as though I was thinking
that this is gonna be a sort of drawn out thing.
The fight that is gonna begin, Yeah, yeah, it wasn't
gonna resolve. It was gonna be like someone he's gonna

(11:38):
get that a gape mouth is gonna get on someone
that we're gonna have to like that that we're in
a mix up. Now like the fight has begun, but
it ended, so we haven't even got into the saga
of dirt myth. Yeah, so you connect on his head,
he spins, and what I registered from that moment is

(12:03):
that at that point I turned and I feel as
though he has dragged is dragging dirt downhill. That's what
I thought he had dirt. It was hauling dirt downhill.
Dirt's ready because he just spit into his just spit
into his high end juice bottle that was orange first

(12:29):
light logo and a bear orange logo and a bear
going in the same direction. Yeah, I thought he was
dragging you down, and I we'll get to the reality.
But I thought he was dragging you down. And I
was frantically trying to find my pack, which wasn't hard

(12:49):
to find, leaning against the tree to get my spray
to go down and like that we would all go
down and attack the bear with with whatever. I was like,
where's the spray, where's the guns? Right, We're go save dirt.
But what happened was that so I, like I said,
I wasn't opposite of Yanni. My instant deal was flight,

(13:10):
Like it didn't ever occur like face this thing and
the assess well, because there was but there was something.
There was no face. He was like already, um yeah,
yeah no, but I'm saying so like funny, I couldn't
have a three stooges. But it's just like he was
just like it was like he wasn't but I wasn't
like looking at my pack for my spray type. I
think everybody had that. There was no decisions made. Oh no,

(13:31):
I'm sorry. Remy did say he like, I mean I was.
I was. My intention was to go because when I
said I, well, I didn't add this the story, but
I was thinking pistol and it's in front of me
where you were. You ran out to the side, and
I like start to go to the pistol, and now
I'm caught between. Now I don't have any time. So
I did this like juke move and jumped to the side.

(13:54):
That's when Yanni took two steps up and that bear turned,
so I thought, oh shit, Like I I went left,
the bear went right towards Janice, and then the bear
wheeled around. But Janice was at this point, I couldn't
see the action of the swinging. I just saw Janice
and bear right here. I mean I was within arms

(14:18):
arms reach of the bear, and I think Janice must
have turned around. I juked, then he turned around and
the bear went down. Yeah, it was so much that
I don't even know if if I like made like
if I made contact with the bear or not, like
in rolling out of the way. It was so fast.
It was very fast because it was like here and

(14:38):
just to reach across the couch to grab a pistol
where you go forward, and the action of going for
the pistol made me go, oh funk, I have no
time to get away. So like that left right real fast,
like which day am I gonna go? And I went
right and the bear kind of went right and I
went left, and then the bear kind of did that
towards Janice. Janice must have swung because I said just

(15:00):
after I joked him, the bear turned around and it
was and then later your honest was like you know
why he turned around? It's like no clue, Yeah, dude.
It would be like if you were like sitting in
your living room watching TV and then all of a sudden,
like the bear doesn't come in through the front door.
The bear is just like next to you and you're like,
I gotta do something, and it's like that's the reaction speed,

(15:20):
Like that's how fast happened. I think what the saga
of dirt myth? Yeah, so I was behind the tree,
like you said, even though it's happening fast, I remember
thinking like something it's going to be messing people up
and like assess it kind of and but like the second,
I mean that happened split second, and that same second
it came on the back side where I was, and

(15:41):
I think and try and like, oh, ship you know,
it's like it's happening here. Do you mean he went
all the way around the tree, so the way like
he came in. I don't know if he went all
the way around the tree, because if he did, he
would have the bottom because he would have had to
come over my head and he didn't. I don't think
you ever turned around where Steve was sitting. He came

(16:02):
down my side of the tree. Yeah, he couldn't have
gone around because he would have stepped out all messed
up because I like, I've literally been plant back over
and over. Yeah, but at some point, so I'm totally like,
this is interesting because this whole time I've been thinking
he went above like uphill of the tree, wrapped around
to where I was at. That's what I thought happened

(16:22):
to you and Steve must have ended up in similar places. Yeah,
I think. So it's like this freeze frame of this,
I mean, ship man that was like four ft broad bear.
I feel like I don't know if that's an exaggeration.
Big right there and in some movement of mine or
being bumped by someone, I think in like trying to

(16:43):
get out of the way, I tripped and fell on
its back as it was passing by and was riding
on its on its bag, on its hump, on my back,
just pure coincidence and momentum, like for one Mississippi was
on its back act and got bucked off into an
alder down he went. You went on him about fifteen

(17:06):
feet down and crashed into an alder pack. And I
thought when I was on his back, like my thought
was like I'm the one that's fucked, like he's this
is like he's gonna like I'm gonna drop and he's
gonna turn and get me. And when I got bucked
and was he already had you? I thought he was
carrying you. It looked I was just riding riding him,

(17:27):
riding the storm. Later talking about how he got hurt
when he got bucked off. He's got a bruise. I've
seen it, but the yeah and then then yeah, immediately
realized everything was okay, and hear did you guys say,
where's Garrett? It was surreal, I mean for everyone, but
it was like did I Yeah, I remember somebody yelled

(17:49):
to count off. Remember ever he goes, because I I
remember seeing Garrett at this point. I had my pistol ready,
and I saw you and I started running down in
that direction and then you stood up, and I thought like, oh,
he's got to be right there because I saw you
and bear and going downhill, and I did you because

(18:10):
you would have been on that side of the tree
by that point as well. No, I saw Garrett right,
I thought the bear had Garrett. So at this point, Yanny,
you had your you had your pistol by now. Yeah,
because I think as soon as he was going downhill
with Garrett, I think you were the one saying like,
you know, everybody, get your bear sprays, get your pistols.
And I said, not all of this is legal or not.

(18:31):
I'm assuming it's legal. I said, if that bear comes back,
kill it. And I said no, ship yeah I was.
I was like, I think at this point we've crossed
into because here's the thing you can't okay in Alaska,
you know, so in the Lord forty eight bears are

(18:55):
covered with the exception, with the exception very recently of
the greater you Elstone ecosystem. Uh that you know in
Indiana sized hunk of ground of Idaho, Woming, Montana. Until recently,
we hold me back. That was a confusing way of
putting it. In the lower fort they have ees a
protection outside of a very small area. Uh. And so

(19:18):
it's like, if you kill a bear to defense, in
self defense or in defense, you can't kill it in
defensive property. Okay, you can kill it in defensive life.
In Alaska you can kill a bear in defense of property.
So if a grizzly, if a brown bear grizzly is tearing,
is destroying your camp, you can kill the bear. You

(19:38):
can't kill the bear to protect your kill. If a
bear claims your moose kill and you don't have a
permit to kill the bear as a hunter, you need
to forfeit the kill to the bear. But in this case,
we've been attacked. It wasn't like and there was no
access to the meat for this bear. Yeah he would
he didn't have it. We've been a hacked. So I

(20:01):
yelled out, if that bear comes back, shoot it because
you know, because of obvious reasons, Um, sweet have been Yeah,
defensive life in that case, uh, suddenly uphill, even though
he left downhill, suddenly uphill. We heard him wolfing. So

(20:22):
there's different among our group. There's different interpretations. I feel
as though it was the same bear. They're so freaking fast,
he was just back up there wolfing. Um. There's also
the idea that that it had a cub up there,
then that cub was wolfing. But I don't think that's
what happened. I think that bear just was so freaking

(20:43):
he was jack jacked up and fast he was back
up there. Um. I mean we kind of surrounded the tree.
People everyone facing in different directions. I went up in
the tree started cutting meat out. Some people would have

(21:04):
just ditched it, but I wasn't. I didn't want to
ditch it was I was like, let's get the heck
out of here. We we We made a pretty good
formation quick though. We circled up. Everybody was pointing in
a different trection. We circled up around the tree. Everybody
had protection at that point. To Johannest and I were
the two with the pistols. Everyone now had bear spray
in their hands, so we were we were collecting everyone's

(21:27):
at this point, cool headed and collected. Our backs were
to a tree, so we couldn't get attacked from the back.
We don't see the bear coming in at this point.
You were now in the tree getting the meat, started
cutting meat down out of the tree. And then anytime
somebody went to go get something, we had the pistols
and we made we were creating our own confusion. But
because we're making a ton of noise, because thinking that,

(21:48):
and I know it works, making noise at bears bugs bears. Right,
So like an authoritative like hey, I just noticed through
a lot of personal experience, like an authority hate of
standing up group of guys going hey is intimidating the bears. Dude,
my voice is still raspy from you. But we made
it rule too, don't say bear unless you see a bear. Hey,

(22:13):
and all that's okay, but going hey, bear bar because
we kept like causing a little bit confusion about whether
someone was seeing it or not. And I'm up in
the tree and I got a pretty good view at
half the ground around us. Cut the meat down. Then
we just grabbed the meat up by hand. I remember
looking down from my sandwich and it had been mashed,
and it was as mashed as the original bear ship

(22:33):
laying under that tree. My sandwich was destroyed. UM hacked
to meat down either tree. We just picked up bags
of meat and then in defensive formation. It was impressive
for guys carrying meat. Two guys with everybody with pepper spray,
two guys toting pistols. Do you carry the bone in

(22:54):
shoulder with a busted ankle down a hill and down
to steve Hill and up a steep ravine and a
river crossing until we had a big open area to
load up our packs. I was walking point with the
shoulder son. Now here's what Here's a little bit about
not now we're getting into conjecture. Here's a little bit

(23:14):
about what I think might have happened. Like if I
had to go, if somehow this had all been captured
on film by some secret camera we don't know about, um,
and I had to bet like what the footage would reveal, uh,
And also if this footage was able to assess the
psychological state of the bear and evaluate his motivations. I

(23:37):
feel like this is what I kind of feel like
this is what happened. I feel as though, um, somehow,
in the hours before our arrival, a bear had come
in and was like, uh wow, right, some a lot

(23:58):
of meat, a lot of stuff going on, a lot
of people smell, and he was sussing ship out. I
wouldn't be surprised to learn that us approaching, making a
lot of noise, hooting and hollering. Perhaps I wouldn't be
surprised to learn that we maybe move the bear off.

(24:21):
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that. Then we sat
down to eat sandwiches, and we're all on the ground.
You can't really see what's going on in there. He
is in the area he comes back. In fact, it's
not like a big, threatening pound bear that's coming and
claim to kill site. It's like some low, not very

(24:44):
intimidating things under that tree. I think he came in
to assert his presence, and I feel was kind I mean,
this is so conjectural, almost hesitated even bring it up.
But it's like an interpret I'm offering up an interpretation,
an unprovable I feel that he ran in it was
kind of overwhelmed by what he ran into. Yeah, just

(25:07):
the six, like a collection of six yelling, screaming, extremely
hands swinging like mayhem, and then also one that jumped
on him from his perspective. I think he's telling his buddies, Dude,
I gotta check my people. It was we in that situation.

(25:32):
I feel like, looking back, we were zebras because they
survived in these groups. And when the lion runs in,
it's this scattered confusion effect that the predators stretched so
many ways they don't know a single target to focus on,
and they end up giving up and reassessing. Yeah. One
explanation I have is that that like one ham like,

(25:55):
how could that that mouth have not gotten to somebody?
And I'm like, okay, there's two explanations. One that it
was such an explosion of like it might have been
expected as much as it expects or whatever. Yeah, I mean,
like their predators they attacked you. They know what they're doing.
He was attacking maybe a thing that he thought was
a thing, a single thing, and in fact it was not.

(26:17):
It was out of his line of sight. Was all
of this stuff right? And that that he never got
ahold of someone or it was never his intention to
get his mouth on something. It felt like he was intending.
It seemed like it meant to get ahold of something.
And I'm sure that it knew whatever whoever it was

(26:37):
looking at as it came through the brush. It knew
that I am a lot bigger than that thing. I
think we should also clarify this would like for people,
this was not a bluff charge. This was a full
on charge. And he's been false charged and and there's
a big difference, like false charges go down a certain way.

(27:00):
This was nothing close to a false charge, the type
of charge when a guy ends up if he's there
gets attacked or dying, the surprise charge that goes a
dent of the way. This was that charge. Yeah, false
charge being like lots of hooffing, teeth clack and gets up,
spins that fifteen yards, maybe comes in and spins that

(27:21):
fifteen yards. Yeah, but there is nothing this dude, Yeah yeah. Um.
I had a gun pulled on me in the Vata
and it took a couple of hours. My hand equipped
shaken and I had uh and the time that we
got false charged, it took me a couple of hours.
My handquipped, shaken. It's like that level of but this

(27:45):
was in there was no spin. He crashed through us,
um and I think must have gotten confused, got wrapped
in the face, uh, got jumped on from his perspective, right,
got gang piled. Yeah, he's like what the hell is

(28:07):
going on? You know, and and ran down. I have
a question. I'm sorry not to do you think, like,
how relevant is it that? The more I think about it,
the more it makes sense. It was one bear and
he was back above us, like susten us out even more. Yeah,
I don't have it, I mean not really knowing. I

(28:29):
have no doubt that that's what I happened. But so
in that case, in my mind too, that's very relevant,
like to see even though it's super thick, like if
that would have all gone down and we would have
seen him on the other side of the main creek
like just getting out of there and been like, yeah
he didn't, I don't know. The fact that he wrapped

(28:50):
back around into like a aggressive point contact freaks me
out even more, like he was just like still like
it that way For that attack to happen again, it
was a very confusing moment. It was like in those
movies where someone's getting attacked and it's over here then
over there. It was very over here over there that

(29:12):
we didn't know which way he was going to come
back in because we heard, we saw him go down,
weird crashing to the side, and we heard noises over
here and we heard the wolfing up here. So it
was a very orienting thing where he could come in
again in any direction. And that was the the almost
more scarier for me than the actual charge. Yeah, because

(29:36):
the charge was all instinct, You're just like react, but
this was like just waiting for it to happen again,
and it was intimidating. Man. Now there's this thing and
and and and bear deal with bears and bearrass safety.
There's this idea that if you are attacked by a
black bear, um what you're experiencing as an act of

(30:00):
addation and um, that you would fight that bear as
long as you could possibly fight, because he's attacking you
in an active predation and it's his aim to kill
you and eat you. Grizzly bears grizzly you know, brown

(30:20):
bears do that too. They do predatory attacks, but they
also do attack of that they're startled or threatened or spooked,
and their response to the spooking is to neutralize the threat.
And a black bear's response to spooking is to act like,
you know, everything else in the world run off. So

(30:45):
when people say that this whole like playing that idea
with a with a brown bear attack, grizzly attack, is
that that you're betting on that it's the neutralization of
a threat thing that's happening to you, and it once
you cease to be any kind of a threat. And
he could be like, don't mess with me, man that

(31:08):
that maybe you'll be lucky, and he'll then leave you
alone because he's like, hey, this thing scared me. I
got the situation resolved. Now I'm done. There's all that
kind of talk, right um now. And I've always maintained
that like when people ask these questions you know about
how to deal with bears and bear safety and what

(31:29):
you should carry in this, and that I usually say
like best practices or or when people who have exhaustively
analyzed all these maulings and attacks, like what do they
find to be recommended practices? I'll point these out to people,
but I oftentimes will awful clarify that if it were

(31:52):
actually happening, I don't know how much all of this
is going to be really that helpful. And now that
I know what happens when it happens, I'm more um,
I'm just more aware of of that. It's almost a

(32:16):
shrug of the shoulders. It's like how it really goes
down is so fast and dizzying and overwhelming that you're
not even operating even in a reptilian thing, you know,

(32:42):
like meaning like that your brain is like these layers
right and deep in your brain or these ideas of
just that you need to breathe, okay, like just basic
things that you do, and then layered over it are
these more you know, like these more like I like
emotional ideas and sophisticated actions, right, and I don't. And

(33:04):
I feel like the shutdown that occurred for that half
second was a very deep shutdown occurred to my brain,
like a deep like a deep instantaneous shutdown. And then
you then coming out of that was like if you
found if you're in a boat, if you're in a

(33:24):
boat that capsizes and you're thrust underwater and you need
to swim up to the surface, I feel like I
had to swim up out of a I had to
swim up out of the water to find a breath
of air, the breath of air being a clear thought.
I had to like swim through a haze to come

(33:46):
out with with a clear idea of what to do next.
It was such a mental setback of all your thinking
and situational awareness, spatial awareness, of just being a person
who's like prides themselves on knowing how to deal with
bad situations right learned through like being out in the woods,

(34:07):
lot hunting a lot, being in in shitty situations. Subjecting
yourself to that, you get like pretty good at problem solving.
It was like all that was gone for some part,
for some collection of seconds, maybe it was just wiped
out and I had to like swim to the surface

(34:27):
of some very murky water to put my head up
and be like, here's what you need to do. Yeah,
And in the time it occurred to make that metaphorical
swim to the surface of consciousness was probably the time
in which you're just in its teeth, not even feeling it.

(34:51):
Other maulings play out different ways. Because there was a
guy that got killed, you know, by Donaly, and he
had been photographing the bear that killed him up until
it's very far away and he was still snapping photos
of twenty yards then the bear killed him. So there
you have like a situation like that. We've had older
bears come into our camp or come to claim, like

(35:12):
a caribou kill, that you had all kinds of time.
But I think that all that time gives someone who
knows how you're supposed to behave time to make it
not happen through how you present, how you can figure
your group, how you use firearms for warning shots. Like,

(35:33):
all that time is all the action needed to make
it not become a situation. But when the situation is
fast like that, I feel that like it would take
you would have to live through that six times to
be able to become right. Yeah, it's just like my
analogy of like skiing giant freaking black diamond moguls fast. Right,

(35:56):
the first time you go down that ski run, you're
just like, oh my god, oh my god, you fall,
You're trapping. This is worrying by you. And then you
get to a certain level of feeling comfortable and you're like,
even though you're smoking that hill, it's all happening slow,
every every single turn and bomb just happens nice and easy. Yeah,
it would take a lot of very charges. But the

(36:17):
thing but I want to I want to preface. I
want to preface. I'm using that the preface one I
angles stakes. I am going to turn this into a recommendation,
right good, That's where I was gonna go with that,
too yet recommendations, So all of that said, I'm gonna
turn into recommendation that. UM. I think that that that

(36:38):
it's possible to go into an area, and you go
into an area, a risky area, and initially you're very
aware of the risk, but it's mentally exhausting. Two, it's
mentally exhausting to be aware of risk, and I think
that some part of your brain wants to get out

(37:00):
of the risk mode, and you're like, Okay, we've gone days,
we haven't seen a bear, I don't see evidence that
a bear has been on the kill, and you just
have a gradual letting down of your defenses that that, UM,

(37:21):
you maybe wouldn't have made that mistake on the first
day when you went into it, ready for this thing
to be happening. We were talking about it, we read
about it, we discussed it, we were joking about it.
But over the course of a few days, it's somehow
like a level of complacency took place, UM. And the
concrete recommend dation one would be to try to to

(37:46):
try to maintain that level of awareness even when it's
not being uh reinforced by constant reminders of trouble. Because
the first bear eye laid eyes on on that trip
was within arms reach. Mm hmm. So there's that in

(38:08):
a much more like practical, much more like practical, real
time thing. Having your deterrent um on the waist belt
of your pack is great when you wear in your pack.
But when you take that pack off and set it
down and you remove from it and then all of

(38:30):
a sudden the bear that you see as an arms
reach away, getting it isn't really an option, especially if
the first thing you need to do is roll out
of the way of the thing. It's like you have
to have you have to have it kind of on
your chest. Mm hmm. I would even say having it

(38:53):
in the holster could be clumsy, you know. I mean
you can't just carry it well, I mean if you
take your pack off and you're just hanging aroun just
having it unholstered with the safety on just close to
you all the time. You could have it on your pack,
but have also like a secondary location where you if
you take that pack off, Like Rammy, you actually had

(39:14):
two holsters. Two holster approach. So I promised, I just
had a weird feeling about this trip, and I went
and bought a second holster in Anchorage on my layover
because I was like, and I promised myself, I said,
because I got just a weird you know those just
you feel a little uneasy, I said, I promised myself,
if I take my pack off, I'm gonna put my
pistol in my other holster, even if it's just to

(39:36):
go take a leak. I was diligent with it, though
one time during the trip I did not do it.
Was that that time because your packs right next to you,
and I think that that well it was, and I
remember seeing it sitting there and thinking to myself, I
should grab that pistol. I was thinking tap and I

(39:57):
sat and then the confusion of someone sitting where I
was sitting because I had I actually when we sat down,
I unclipped the unclipped the whole the part of the
safety catch, so it was ready to grab. Because I
was sitting down, I put my hand on it as
like a mock pull out, and then I got up

(40:17):
to get the water, and then people had moved and
I wasn't sitting in that position anymore, and I thought, oh,
I'll grab that. But then throughout the week we had met,
we we had talked about, oh, our best defense is
going to be having six people. A bear wouldn't attack
six people, which is which I think, which is actually
which I ended up probably saving us or one person

(40:41):
from some kind of When I say the group thing,
I mean when you have a bear who's like, oh,
there's some stuff, I'm gonna go over towards that stuff
to suss out what's going on. What they do, They
see stuff and they just go toward it. I think
having a group of people is is very intimidating to
a bear. It is And I think what made because
I'm my dad is hyper bear and now bear anoid.

(41:06):
And after this experience, I'm gonna go apologize to him
because there's a lot of times that I've done dumber
stuff than what we did, way dumber and had no consequence.
If you were by yourself under that tree, you'd be dead.
I agree with the question. Yeah. And and when my
brother and I were on the island previously, we took

(41:30):
very we were seeing bears, but we also took every precaution.
We never loitered around the meat treat. We moved the
meat to cash. Is the minute we got to the cash,
we climbed to the tree and looked. One person always
had their deterrent out. We we had a plan, and
we stuck to that plan because there was two of

(41:51):
us and we knew that it would probably be one person.
One person was always on the lookout, one person was
doing things we were. You know, we went in with
that plan and said, no matter what, that's what we're
gonna do. But with the amount of people we had
and not seeing bears and other things, that whole situation
got lax, you know. And and that's why my first

(42:15):
thought was, like, shot, I'm gonna die without in my pistols.
Right there. The best recommendation, the best recommendation, um, don't
hunt in bear country. Yeah, but that's not accessible, it's
not So you need to work down to a solution
that you can live with. Yeah, yeah, that's I think
that's very relevant. A solution you can live with is

(42:38):
I now realize no one wants to have like extra
unneeded stuff hanging off their body, but I can live
with the idea of having some annoying contraption, which in
in and of themselves are dangerous because I've been holes
by pepper spray. It sucks. H M. Handguns have inherent

(43:03):
dangers to yourself and your companions. So it's like you're
and I have at times been jokingly said, uh, pepper
spray is more dangerous than bears. Haven't been involved in
a couple of situations where peppers cans blew off, went
off inadvertently. So it's like you it's like you're, you're,

(43:23):
you're weighing all these things. But yeah, for the real
time recommendations, it has to be the reason I say,
your chest too. It has to be somewhere where you
can get it blind and your waist belt, your jacket
covers things, things get in the way. It's get caught

(43:45):
out now. I mean it right here is the easiest
place to reach, even if you're if you're on the ground,
you can defend yourself with your arms and still reach
your chest. And I had my GPS unit up front
on my waist belt and my spray and the whole
damn trip. I kept thinking that I should take a
second and reverse them so that the spray was easier

(44:06):
to get at, And every time I look at it,
I'd be like, oh yeah, I you know, I should
really get around to never did it. And that's still
the waste belt problem, the waiste belt problem. And to
think too that we used to we used to bowl
hunt elk. We sometimes have our spray in the lid
of our pack. What and the hell good is that? Well?
I have hunted this island with spray in my pack.

(44:29):
That's stupid. I will never do that again. No, you
only hurt yourself probably with spraying your back your gear.
I think if I could have a couple of minutes
on you take a minute, but there for me the recommendations, Um,
I think that for me it's like even a step

(44:50):
earlier or two steps earlier, Like I feel like we
did a good job coming in there making noise, but
then we quit making a noise, right. It's like and
you can read like on our website, you can go
to the articles about grizzly bear attacks and the prevention
stuff and stuff that that Frank van Mannett was talking
to us about. It's like constantly making noise. You know.

(45:10):
It's like where like bear belts come in you know,
to play where people attach them to their backpacks or
their hiking sticks whatever, you to avoid like utterly surprising. Yeah,
the surprise factor, you know. And I think that us,
you know, making noise throughout you know, obviously not taking
the break, but making noise throughout the meat retrieval process
and basically done what we did after the attack, and

(45:33):
and sort of taking that approach without having that bear
come in. And again this is hindsight, right, but that's
how we should have done it. We should have gone
in there with freaking four four sets of eyes, two
dudes working the meat, two dudes packing the packs, four
sets of eyes looking all directions, constantly making noise, yelling,

(45:55):
being bearware, and moved out of there, even if it
is two yards, but to a place where we could
see and we couldn't get surprised. How do we if
we could see a hundred yards every direction, we wouldn't
have been surprised. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I was actually
gonna add that that, like, and I tried to earlier,
I said, like, the first mistake was lingering under the

(46:17):
hanging tree. But yeah, like without really knowing, I feel
as though had we done what you're just saying, this
might not have happened and hooting and holler and the
whole time, standing up, big presence, loud presence, deterrence, drawn yelling,
hey bear, hey bear, hey bear, getting what you needed

(46:38):
to get taken care of, and getting out of there,
very loud, lots of noise, clustered together, standing up bodies. Yeah.
What I could add is I think when you do
that right, you get into this mode where say, say
we did that, nothing would have happened. Then you get
this mindset like, well, nothing happened, it was a waste

(47:00):
of time. Can get that. Yeah, But from if we
could lend any advice to anyone is if it feels
like a waste of time, it's working. You already know
that you're in the mix. Just assume that it's going
to happen, and then when it doesn't happen, whatever you're

(47:21):
doing is the correct solution. But by us getting that
waysy like, oh it doesn't happen, it hasn't. I mean
I've spent a good portion of my lifetime in bear
country and had nothing happened. Yeah. It's like the first
time you go take a growler, you select the growler
site where you can see you got the shotgun right

(47:44):
with some slugs, you got your spray by the third growler,
You're out there in the dark, chalked up some burm.
How many times did I ask you where your bear
space was? And how come you weren't carrying it? To times?
Too many times I was like, I don't, I got
too much, I got can't, I got too much stuff,
I got time for I don't got time for spray.

(48:05):
That's the other unique thing though, too, is filming. You're
like in you're on your monitor, not necessarily aware of
you know, you guys should awareness, but yeah, you need to.
You need to have a system before you go in
and stick to the system. And because you aren't having
encounters or whatever, you just go like Pooh made it

(48:29):
through that day without an encounter. But I'm still doing
my system, still doing my system. It's almost like it's
a pain in the ass, but it's better than getting mauled.
It's almost like like my brother Danny has the thing
they do when they're moves on. This has nothing to
do with bears, but it's interesting. Thing is people get
carried away in the moment when you're moves on. It's
hard to pack moves. So he'll go up hunt with

(48:51):
a group of his buddies and because they know that
you get carried away in the moment, they'll that like, okay,
before we go, before we get started, what is the
distance that everyone in this group agrees, we will pack
a bull and draw that line now and then later.

(49:14):
There is no room for someone to be like, ha, guys,
I shot one four miles off the river because there's
no room for like making individual assessments about what's past.
It's like they come into it, we're like, okay, we
all agree, we're hunting on our own and everyone here.
If someone kills a bull within a mile and a

(49:37):
half of the river corridor, everyone's cool, and that's we're
packing and unless you want to move it yourself, stay
within one point five miles of this river corridor. And
it works for them. I feel that a good bear
approach would beat that. If you have a hunting partner, um,
this doesn't like work for like my brother Matt like

(49:58):
largely hunts alone. This is self enforced. But if you
have a hunting partner or hunting partners that you would
prior to trip. So like, what's our bear plan? Yeah, now,
let's make a deal that this bear plant plan is
concrete and it is not open to it's not open
to like later complacency or different interpretations of it. Like

(50:20):
our bear plan is this. At any given time, you
have whatever we determined through our own research to be
the most effective deterrent for where we are be at
a pump shotgun with slugs, a pistol, spray pistol l
and spray redundant systems. That our bear plan is such
that there's no deviation from this plan, and we agree

(50:43):
that that's how I think that that needs to become
our way. Yeah. So I just think that one of
the most interesting things of this experience to me was
the mindset. Okay, so before the event, our mindset was
such that we were not going to be attacked by

(51:06):
bears and treated it like that. From the moment that
bear attacked us till the time we got the heck
off the island, we were expecting to be attacked. Everywhere
I looked completely flipped. It went from Oh, they don't
attack to oh, we are going to be attacked. It

(51:27):
was and we did see another bear after, and it
was instead of but had we seen that bear before,
we thought, oh a bear, no big deal. Now we
saw that bear and said that bear wants to kill.
Another thing that people another thing This interesting, man is
I think about a lot of the lessons I learned
from our time talking to the uh Rourke Denver, who's

(51:52):
an author and a retired seal commander, and him talking
about that they train in practice so much in such
real situations that when you're actually doing something, like the
training is so real and so ingrained that when you
actually go and do it and in his case, that

(52:13):
you're actually thrust onto the battle field, it doesn't feel
any different to have it be in reality than what
it did. That what you were trained to do, Like
the training is so real and repeated that it's fluid
to go into reality. He didn't even think like when
he was actually in situate, he never thought about it
being like, oh, this is the real thing because everything

(52:36):
was so real. And I feel that a good system
with like a good system with sort of managing your
deterrence would be that you would with your bodies kind
of test it. Right, Do you think you're cool? Like
where you is your spray cool? I don't know. Let's

(52:56):
let's see, like, okay, get your spray. Yeah, how much
time it was? It's like seven seconds? But you get
your spray out. That's not a good system. Yeah. Now
I have a lot of analogies running through my head
about um and Garrett and Pat. You guys can speak
to this too, about like staying safe in the back country,
you know, learning how to use your avalanche beacon, reading snow,

(53:19):
making group decisions, you know, practicing, it's practicing, I mean, yeah, practicing, digging,
you know, using your probe. I mean it's proven that,
you know, groups, the bigger the group is, the more
dumb decisions are made. You know. It's like another similarity. Um.
But yeah, I feel like I don't I've I've discharged
bear spray. You said you have just you. Yeah, so

(53:44):
three out of the six of us have three, haven't
That should be mandatory that everybody sprayed it. Yeah, And
Dirt was even that we ran out of time. Dirt
was even asking about caught loose with a can. Um. Yeah,
if you if you carry spray or if they even
make like a non act they make a non active

(54:04):
ingredient of practice, can do that just to know what
I mean. The throw is an impressive cloud. That thing
actually kicks when you hit the button. It throws an
impressive cloud. But practice with it. The nice thing about
the one with no active ingredient is you can see
how it works in the wind, because a big problem
we had is we were in an area with very
high winds and came in with the wind. So, yeah,

(54:30):
that's a weird thing too. He came into us traveling
with the wind. You all. You know, if someone said
to me him and bear is gonna come attack, you'd
be like, Okay, he's gonna come from down wind, because
he's down wind right now. But he didn't. He didn't,
he didn't play the wind. The thing I was thinking
about um about the bear plan is like you got

(54:54):
all your deterrence and you're all set up and you practice,
but a bearrett say, a bear charges you, and neither
your shotgun jams or your spray doesn't go off, or
something happens in your group and you're with somebody or
you're alone and you do end up getting mauled. What's
your plan to like get help at that point? Because
like that's what I was thinking about. I was like,
if somebody here got mauled and I had to be

(55:15):
the one to like make a call to the coast
guard or whoever the hell they get a HELLI back, like,
I don't know how to do that. So like knowing
that kind of thing about like where you're at, who
you're going to contact, having something on you that allows
you to reach the outside world in those situations is
a good idea. And that's applicable to any emergency. Oh yeah,
because in it most kind of like travel like this. Um,

(55:35):
you know, there's like we could have the same discuss
if one of us had gotten a compound fracture. We
could have a big conversation about having a compound fracture
on your femur. So yeah, there's there's that kind of stuff.
You guys all know the A K Troopers, which is
the line you call for help when you're out in
the bush. It's in the SAT phone for that reason.

(55:57):
That's good. I also had a emergency beacon on me. Yeah,
but their thing is travel with and this is something
we do pretty good at, is uh. I mean people
come into our organization and and out of it, and
I think that the people that stay within our organization

(56:19):
are cool headed people. So, um, if you're testing out
new hunting buddies and stuff, this isn't like a good
place to find out if someone's a good fit. Yeah,
do it somewhere else. You don't want to be with
a guy that dude. If somebody just freaked out and panic,

(56:40):
that ain't bad. Situation gone even worse. Yeah. And I've
been with people who a couple of times, I've been
with people who like full on legit had like panic
attacks about kind of like wilderness travel and and and um, yeah,
you just don't want to be around I don't mind
like talking to those guys like you know, I don't
mind talking to people like that, but I don't like

(57:01):
being around him in situations it could turn dicey. But
give me. Yeah, it shook me out, man. I mean
just like just for me to kind of like for
me to kind of summarize it. Um, it was. It
was a it was a real eye opener, and it
made me reassass a lot of assumptions I had about, uh,

(57:28):
how I would like to think I am. And it
was because I didn't. I don't like knowing that a real,
big bad surprise can snap me, A real big bad
surprise can so readily snap me out of um uh,

(57:51):
out of my my my mental processes. But without you know,
you could get really hard on yourself about that. But
also you could be like, well I managed the roll
clear of the bear. Yeah, maybe there's some guys somewhere
that wouldn't have done that. It's a laid down gotten
I don't know. So it's like, so you want to
be like nothing happened. So maybe we did as good

(58:12):
as we could have done. And this is an important
point we talked about a lot among ourselves afterwards. Even
if everyone had had no, No, Remy felt that he
had times he saw it coming. If I had had
a pistol or pepper spray in my actual hand the
way I was, there would have never been a safe
opportunity to discharge it. Oh No, I would have been
where I was, I would have been at risk of

(58:32):
shooting one of us because I was behind people. It
sounds like Remy and Janice could have possibly had a
chance to Oh, had I had it in my hands
safely safety and sprayed m Yeah for sure. Yeah so yeah,
so yeah, because I had Yeah, I would have had
time to it would have had, I think though, the

(58:52):
way we were sitting, it would have had to been
on my chest because it would have been really hard
to you. Yeah, I don't know about that's the thing.
Like again, I didn't make the decision, but something like
I've been carrying the freaking thing on me for a week.
I feel like in all of September, I've had a
bear spray on my hip almost and it just like

(59:14):
did it didn't come through my head to pull the
bear spray? And I don't know if that was no
real decision came through my head, except I just was
like in this like it was almost like an out
of body experience. There's somebody else there like just doing
this motion. And then once the bear was running away
and we started talking, and again that might have been
me swimming through the murky waters of my capsized ship

(59:38):
next to it. But yeah, it just it's like it
wasn't a thing. And I don't even like even if
it was on my chest, I don't know if there
would have been the time to pull it out, but
we never practiced. I feel like we need to start
doing things. Draw. Yeah, like now that someone's just draw
and everbody has to whip their ship. Yeah, me and
my brother would do that, like, yeah, we do. That's

(59:59):
the test. Your say it, like, okay, spray and rip
and grab or pistol or whatever you've got or rife,
you know, and to see how just like when you're
a kid, or even now, I still do it. When
I'm wings shooting, I will walk around, I'll throw the
gun up, constantly throwing the gun up, even though I've
shot Chucker my entire life. In those mountains, I practiced

(01:00:23):
throwing the gun up randomly because when that flush happens,
I needed to be instinct to put that gun to
my cheek and shoot and I and yeah, there was Well,
Dirk got a picture of me practice drawing. Actually I
did a couple of times. But yeah. I one time
watched uh, I was watching the Green Bray a team

(01:00:44):
train and what they were working on the moment I
have to be watching them is they're working on transitioning
from your rifle to your pistol. It was like they're
doing drills where you drop one and picked the other
one up, and like, dude, I never once it was like,
so what would happen if I really needed to quickly
get my pepper spray out? Um, that's probably a whole

(01:01:05):
lot more would say about it. I got got the
elk out, ran another bear on the way that. Well,
it's gonna say on a cycle. Like, the biggest thing
I'm trying to wrestle with now is keeping that due
diligence up, but also being able to enjoy and relax

(01:01:25):
in Bearer country because I love outside of hunting. I'm
out in mountains with bears all the time, and I
don't want to be I don't want to let this
that experience, you know, be a constant anxiety. And I
think the way to fight that is to know that
you're doing everything you're you can do and then just
focus on the enjoyment of of the mountains in the

(01:01:47):
wildlife to no no, but it's it's you know, at
a point on that hike out, it was like I
just can't deal with us, but you're like, no, I can't.
I just gotta be Yeah. I feel like if anybody
did after that, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say anything. I
would like if you found me, I would would be understanding.

(01:02:08):
But I like the places that I always have liked
the place to have them. Like, if you gave me
two options, you can hunt in a place that has
them or a place that doesn't, I'm always going to
pick the place that does because I like there. I
like their presence, and I like the knowing that part
of that is. Part of that is like um, kind

(01:02:30):
of feeling not comfortable with risk, but kind of feeling
like drawn to risk. And that's and I'm I'm definitely
no doubt about it back to my normal state with
the addition of being diligent on you know, knowing what
needs to happen. The physiologist Jared Diamond, Um, he's a

(01:02:54):
bunch of things, but that's one of the things he studied.
He had this idea of why is why is really
reckless behavior? Why was it not um wiped out through
natural selection? Because when it comes to natural selection, you
have like sexual selection. In a natural selection, so sexual

(01:03:15):
selection would be things that UM enhance and organisms ability
to reproduce. So like having like big antlers, having like
giant antlers is in one hand, can be a detriment. Okay,
you're putting a lot of energy in the production of
those antlers. That's not helpful. You could be putting it
into fat reserves. Um, it's harder to get around through

(01:03:35):
the woods, right, you got big antlers on your head,
you can't maneuver as good. So that's like a detriment.
So what is the point, Well, the point is there
could be sexual selection, Like the females look at that
and they want to breed with you. And so even
though like natural selection might it might not fit with
that sexual it makes up for it in sexual selection.

(01:03:56):
He has this idea of like why would it be
that you have Like why would it be that you'd
have Why is it attractive to a species like the
human species to be like that someone can really party hard?
Like why would it being a hard partier not have
been just eliminated through sexual or natural selection? And there's

(01:04:16):
a sort of thing this idea he gets. I'm not
doing a very good job articulating it, but it's a
demonstration of fitness to be like I am so fit
that I can afford to do something so reckless in
such a dramatic expenditure of energy, Like that's how fit

(01:04:37):
I am and come out of the other side of
that still walking. So the idea of like why are
you drawn towards risk? Like why has it like risk
been wheedled out? You know, it could just be that
it's like a demonstration. It's like you're demonstrating a level

(01:04:57):
of preparedness and level of fitness by courting disaster and
that in hindsight, was amazing experience. Dude, I wouldn't have
it any other way. It worked because it worked out. Yeah, alright, Garrett.
Concluding thoughts, The experience without the consequence was a gift

(01:05:21):
by Mr Brown Bear a fog neck and with this crew,
Like when when we got out of the the swampy
waters of our intellect, we were tight tight, like I mean,
there was a still fear, but I felt like we
it was like I wouldn't want to be with anybody
any other people, Like everyone was on the same page.

(01:05:45):
Damn get this meet out of there. There was some
group cohesion there. But I also literally and figurative there
was something that we didn't mention was after the rest
of the No, well, this is I think something that
needs to be mentioned before we sign off the rest
of the suck of the day. The sock is But yeah,

(01:06:11):
I mean, we had the bear attack. It's a story
worth telling. The bear attack and then the gayale force
winds which destroyed our camp. So not only do we
have a bear attack that same day, we come back
to a destroyed camp. To to describe the winds as
we're nearing the past, that we've went over I don't know,

(01:06:32):
a half dozen times during the week, some winds come
up to the point that Stephen, I think Chris. Chris
got knocked over by the knocked down by the wind.
And moments later Pat's rain cover gets ripped off of
his pack and disappears into the sky like a helium.
I mean, like the even chance that you would try

(01:06:56):
to go find everybody in the panel of Florida, it's
probably like whatever, freaking little bitches. You don't know what
wind is. But it was windy, and so we went.
When we crest over the past and look down, I
see a sleeping pad from from I think what was
a thousand feet above camp, I see a sleeping pad

(01:07:20):
with sheets of rain. Yeah. Yeah, And then having to
disassemble tents, redo a bear fence because now we're all
to get killed, re set up tents, dry out, wet
sleeping bags, fighting hypothermia the entire time. Yeah, it was
just it was a very taxing day. It was. It

(01:07:42):
was a mostly taxing you know, hypothermia gets way more
people then. Yeah, And I could picture in that situation,
I could picture like the like a loan or a
pair of inexperienced campers could have gotten in that situation
and also on themselves in very serious trouble. I think
we had two pretty close brushes with some trouble. Trouble,

(01:08:07):
serious trouble. That's a song by the National Trouble Will
Find Me. It found us on multiple occasions. Um Pounder. Uh,
My concluding thought was gonna be kind of piggybacking off
of what Dirt said. Just thankful to if you know,
having to go through that at all, just going through

(01:08:27):
it with a group of dudes like you, guys that
are just like level headed and able to handle troublesome
situations and be cool with it. You wouldn't trade it.
Good Now, I'm gonna go back to your lonely apartment.
This is not lonely. I got a lady there. You're

(01:08:50):
gonna go back to Miss Pounder and tell the story. Yeah,
I think I would trade it for going in there
and doing a few things differently and not having it happen. Oh,
to trade it to not have it happen at all. Yeah,
I wouldn't. I want to trade it. Now it happened.
I'm glad it happened. Learning experience, that's true. Yeah, if

(01:09:11):
you like that that way, I don't want it to
happen again. But yeah, I wouldn't trade it. I don't
have too much, but I do know that in the
net the minutes, maybe half an hour. Like he said,
it took half an hour to quick shake, and I
didn't get the shakes, but it took me maybe half
an hour minutes to catch my breath. Yeah, yeah, I didn't.

(01:09:32):
I didn't get Yeah. I didn't mean to say it
for I don't know why I didn't, but I didn't
have that like I when I got the gun pulled
on me. I didn't get the shakes, but I got
something else. YEA, Well, no, I mean the the endorphins,
you know, adrenaline. Uh. You know, it's a freaking serious
high that you're taking on and then you know, coming

(01:09:52):
down off of that, it's uh. I got emotional quite
a few times. I kept thinking about how I really
wanted to give my kids a huge I thought about
that a lot by the way out of there. Um.
But no, that's about it. It was a fun trip.
It was an adventure. It's like you said, this is
gonna be one of those ones that's fun to talk
about later. But wasn't that much fun while you were there? Yeah,

(01:10:15):
because I was gonna ask you your honest just as
a direct question. I felt like the you know a
little bit afterwards, your demeanor had changed, and I was
kind of curious, Now he's not back to normal, and
it's you know, is it the family that runs through
your mind? Is it the thought of are you mad
at yourself for not doing things the right way? Like?
Or is it just kind of a general funk where

(01:10:37):
it was like that was a real shitty experience. You're
more of a learning lesson. I was just kind of
curious on your take on it. Oh yeah, I think
it's just just processing it all still. You know, I'm
not through processing it, and uh, I feel a lot
of responsibility, you know, not really to you, to Remy
and Steve, because I feel like you guys just sort

(01:10:57):
of here on other or don't know, different here as
a guest, you know, but the guys that you know,
I hire, and you know we sort of set up
you know, Um, I apologize to all of them from
putting it into that. You know, I could feel that
on you because like you're you're a natural leader, Like
you have leadership tendencies, and when when I could sense

(01:11:20):
that you were down on yourself, I imagined, Um, I
imagine that you were feeling like you were feeling like
some level of responsibility, which you should know at least,
I may be for both of us, like I understand
the ticket that I'm signing up for. Oh sure, yeah, yeah, no,
I'm I'm not. Yeah, I'm I'm not. No. Yeah, I

(01:11:43):
know that. You know, you guys, you guys get the
heads up for sure. But that still doesn't it just
like you know, that's what it feels like. Um, but yeah,
I don't know. I guess it's just it does suck,
you know, because we do. We all keep thinking about like,
well would have happened had you know? For me, it

(01:12:03):
keeps like I keep just that moment of like the
bear turned, Why did he turn? You know, I have
no idea, but he turned, and that like it changed
it all right, because you know, you having to call
my wife, you know, and because man you're telling something,
you know, um, telling her you know, some bad news. Uh,

(01:12:24):
I feel shitty about it. So yeah, just a lot
of process. So yeah, I guess, yeah, I think that
out of everyone after the situation, you definitely had the
most weight on your shoulders of you know, you're responsible
for this crew of guys, and I could see that.
You know, if I was on a guiding trip and
something like that happened, I would feel like it was

(01:12:46):
my responsibility to the people that I brought in there.
I can understand, probably even legally. Yeah. But no, Yeah,
so that that was That's a lot, it's a lot
of process. But you did, you you, I mean that's
what I said. I felt at ease afterwards because of
your presence. You did do a very good point. You know,

(01:13:09):
I did feel protected because you were there and that
behind us with that piste. Yeah, or even like I
feel like you were a big part of that whole
when we regrouped, like all right, you guys start protecting
like Steve's getting the meat. You were, Yeah, you did.
You were a leader that made it efficient and safe. Pat,

(01:13:29):
what's your take because you do a lot of you
do a lot of things that are more high risk
because you like to climb. That's what stuff ice, stuff whitewater.
Uhuh And I love that that risk element that's more
like that's more risky than el coton. Well yeah, climbing
it that's what. That's what. When Yanni called me up

(01:13:52):
and suggested that come on this trip, I was like,
hell yeah, that sounds like a badass trip. Like I
want to be involved. You know, if he had been
if you called me up and said, hey, we're going
to Maryland or whatever, I probably would have been like,
you know, I'm busy. But I had nothing else going
on us, and I was like, hell, yeah, I'll go
to Alaska and you know, brown Bear Country and you

(01:14:15):
guys need to call if you guys, are anybody out
there looking for work Pat because he always had so
much of it. No, no, no, that's not what I've said.
But it was like a trip you can't turn down,
you know, because of the risk element sort of appealed
to me. But like a couple of days before this
whole thing happened, I was talking to Garrett. I'm like,

(01:14:37):
I'm not I'm not a hunter, you know im, And
we're kind of talking. We both like kayak and do
some stuff like that, and I was like, you know
what like hunting, Like it's cool being out in these
remote places, you know, chasing these animals around, but it's
just not like quite the adrenaline rush you know that
I get from other activities. And we were saying, like
you said to like pulling the trigger might be a yeah, yeah,

(01:15:00):
I've I've never like shot something. I'd imagine that's and
like being a part of like the full process. You know,
I'm just here too, like carry stuff and shoot some
b roll and stuff. But um, yeah, having this happened
completely changed my perspective on what hunters have to deal with,

(01:15:21):
you know, like I don't know, it's just crazy. It
was way scarier, way more of an adrenaline rush than
I've ever gotten from anything I've ever done ice climbing,
big wall climbing, kayaking, rafting. Yeah, it's not even close.
It was like I've never felt like I was gonna die,

(01:15:42):
like quite as much three seconds that this bear was
like on our on our ship, you know, oh my god. Yeah,
but yeah, it was really reassuring to be with all
you guys who I know have spent your entire lives,
you know, dedicated to hunting, being outside. You guys know

(01:16:05):
your ship more than anyone I've I've met. So it
was like when we re huddled and the bear was
still you know, somewhere out there in the woods, I
was scared shitless, but at the same time, it felt
really good having you guys there with me too. So yeah,
it was a hell of a trip. I'm I'm really
glad I was along for the ride. Uh yeah, no,

(01:16:32):
I think um. At first, I was worried that this
trip wouldn't stack up to the level of suckage that
I had experienced. He was afraid it wasn't sucking off
and he'd seem like a guy who blew the suckle arm.
You know those guys who are like, oh yeah, that

(01:16:52):
was real tough. And then everyone I was something like,
what are you talking about? What a woos you know?
And I feel like it met my expectations. I was
a little worried we weren't gonna get those gale force
winds that I promised the honest would happen, because I
was like, it's gonna be windy. Can these tends to
handle this and that and the other thing. So we

(01:17:12):
got the wind, we got the bears, we got the hike,
we got the water. It just overall reinforced my belief
that I don't necessarily have to do that again, but
we'll probably find myself there and um, and it also,
I think was a good wake up call for me
that I needed, uh, because I told myself that I

(01:17:35):
needed that wake up call, but still felt lax and
didn't do things I didn't I honestly was felt. The
worst part about it is me feeling like I didn't
do what I knew I should have done. And maybe
it was the group thing because I just don't do
things like that. It was just I just felt like

(01:17:57):
I did things that were out of character for the
way I would do things, and it led to situations
that were bad. So outside of that, you know, you
just gotta stick to what you tell yourself you're gonna
do and be diligent about the way you do something
and not take it for granted. Yeah, because there's yeah,

(01:18:18):
there's your you know, you know, Steve, yourself and this
whole crew. We put ourselves in a lot of these
situations that if you if you go about it right,
shouldn't be a problem. But there's always that element if
something could happen. And I'm fully aware of that. I mean,
I this last year was hunting water Buffalo completely alone

(01:18:40):
with no emergency system, in just a bow. You know,
it's dangerous, it's stupid. I got charged there, but it
was not anything is scary? Is that? Baar? Like I
legitimately thought, this is how I'm gonna die, And that
is not a I've had that happen in a handful
of times in my life, and I just really, you know.

(01:19:02):
But on the other hand, I wasn't. I used it
more of as a learning lesson than anything. And I
hope that you know, with all the platform that we have,
ID like to see my life as a good way
to take what I've learned and showcase it to other
people so they can maybe learn from my mistakes, learn
from my successes, and they go out in the field
and they can have a better a good experience with

(01:19:23):
having to put in a less amount of time. So
I think that if you're listening to the podcast, I
don't think it's just six guys sitting here bullshitting about
some bear story, because I've heard bear stories before, and
I haven't taken away what I should have taken away
from those bear stories. I sat down on a couch
and a setting like this from a guy that was

(01:19:45):
mauled by a bear in that within five miles of
that spot, and I didn't learn from his lessons this morning.
His brother got mauled by a bear twenty years ago.
But yeah, so I think that if there's a takeaway
take away the things that we're talking about, and the

(01:20:06):
other takeaway is it reaffirmed my belief that when it
actually goes down, like you're saying, you don't know what
you're it's just you play it out in your head
a million times, but the actual one that would probably
get you maybe semi out of your control anyways, and
you just gotta go with knowing that that's how it

(01:20:27):
may go down. I got two concluders. One, if you
had this coffee table in a house where you were
raising children, you would get nothing done besides taking those
children down for stitches. The blade coming out of my
side of this beautiful table, it was beautiful. I look

(01:20:49):
at I imagine little kids with cut foreheads think that's
what it is. It's a it's a birch burrow. That's
a giant. I would think it's a spruce. S don't. Yeah.
My second conclusion thought is it's like I always try
to you know what I'm thinking about hunting man. When
I'll tell people it's like there's two ously there's two things.

(01:21:11):
I'm like, if you remove the food, I wouldn't do
it anymore, Okay, um, because it was the tangible thing
would be gone and I need that like I need
like in my stuff. I really like like tangible results. Um.
And if you remove the fun, I wouldn't do it either.

(01:21:32):
Look when I mean a guy who's like, oh, you know,
I just I don't believe in industrial livestock production, so
I just hunt for my food. I'm like, but you
know what, dude, you're having fun hunting. Stop acting like
this is not like you're like, oh brother, here we
go again. You gotta go hunting again, right, You're enjoying
it all right. So I was like, if you remove
the fun, I wouldn't like it anymore. Would I wouldn't.

(01:21:53):
I wouldn't do it anymore. If you remove the food,
I wouldn't do it anymore. Um. But I almost feel
like that needs to be That third thing is like
if the surprise was gone, if the not if the
every time you wake up, just like being being in

(01:22:15):
a situation, we just can't imagine everything that will happen
today that uh, that they would lose something to Callahan.
Not long ago, Ryan Callahan was talking about the feeling
of someone says, oh, I got a private pond stocked
with trout would you like to come fish? Cal's like,
you're always gonna go once and he were like, he's right,

(01:22:39):
this is great. There's a lot of fishness pond, but
you're never gonna go a second time because you've eliminated
the mystery. Well, it depends on the human because unfortunately,
talking about the worthwhile ones, that's hard because there's a

(01:23:03):
lot of people that even okay, okay, the kind I
like to associate with or I don't know, there's two
kinds of people. There's people who think they can divide
everyone into two groups, and then there's that's a joke.
That was my concluding thought. I love the surprise and mystery. No,
for sure, Yeah, you know, I always you know, we uh,

(01:23:26):
my brother and I don't want to say we argue,
but we debate about like the name of you know,
the hunt e the T shirts, right, and it's just
like we'd like someone us want to really push the
whole like, oh, you're constantly just you know, hunting for
the food, hunting for the food, hunt for the food.
And I'm like, really, I mean, yes, for me, I'm
not even that much like you are. We're like, I
would just give it up if you took away the

(01:23:47):
food aspect of it. I have to get to that
point and then think about it. But for me, if
you took away the chase and like you're saying, the
unknown and the adventure and the exercise and just the
whole activity and the process of the hunt, then I
would not do it. Yeah. Ite, Like if you were,
I was gonna draw some kind of golf analogy, but

(01:24:07):
I'm real bad on golf. I feel like the the
there's the same thing applies to to our job, minding
Garrett's jobs because I don't always you know, I'm not
always on this show working on hunting stuff. But like
the same thing, if like the surprise of waking up
and like, oh what am I gonna see today went
away and stop being fun, I wouldn't do it. Like
if I was working on like some show that was like, oh,

(01:24:29):
this is what we're gonna do the same thing every day,
I would probably try to find something else to do. Yeah,
for sure, And you do some when you're not working
with us, you're still doing sketchy ship, doing some rowdy stuff. Yeah,
all right, that's it. Thanks for tuning in.