The Blacktail Coach Podcast
We're here to share tips, strategies, and stories of hunting the Pacific Northwest.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just getting started, we'll help you turn preparation into achievement and passion into results.
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The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Smokey Crews Lessons from a Lifetime of Bowhunting: Bulls, Bears, and Hard-Won Wisdom
Some hunts hinge on perfect gear. Most hinge on better judgment. We sit down with Smokey Crews to unpack the quiet moves that turn a fleeting chance into a clean kill—why he swears by a Chuck Adams side quiver through thick coastal brush, how a “60-yard” caribou needed a lower hold despite a correct range, and what really happens when a big Roosevelt bull makes that straight-line “death run” into huckleberries. It’s part campfire, part masterclass, and full of the hard-earned notes you won’t find on a glossy gear ad.
We follow Smokey through family drives where a forgotten quiver forced patience, bear baits that vanished minutes after being set, and an opening-day elk that proved bugles can switch on in late August. He lays out a timeline most hunters miss: bulls often start talking around the 20th—22nd, and they’re far easier to call before they’ve been educated by road-landing bugles and preseason “practice.” We contrast side quiver versus bow quiver in real terms—brush clearance, balance, and groups at 50—then bridge into the mental game: most people want a shot; disciplined hunters want a hit. The difference shows up in when you draw, how you hold, and whether you listen when the caller says “move now.”
But this isn’t theory. We get locker weights that challenge assumptions (a skinned Roosevelt bull still hanging at 500 pounds), practical blood-trailing through thick understory, and a candid look at access: caribou herds walking by camp, whitetails on bait, private-land mule deer regrets, and creative bartering with guides to make dream hunts real. Smokey’s stories double as checklists—protect wild behavior, avoid educating animals, communicate ranges as they change, and act before the window closes.
If you’re chasing elk, bears, caribou, or deer—and want fewer “almosts” and more clean, ethical kills—this conversation will sharpen your decisions on day one. Press play, subscribe for more field-tested tactics, and share your biggest early-season lesson or calling mistake with us. We read every note and might feature yours next time.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron. Before we get started with part three with Smokey Cruise, I wanted to remind all of our watching and listeners that feedback for the next three seasons is open on the wdfw.wa.gov website. Please jump online and give your feedback for the hunting regulations of the upcoming three seasons. Thanks a lot. Okay. So I know lots of Dave's memorable mistakes and good stories too. But I'm sure you've got them. So what are some of your stories, whether it was just how the heck did I do that? Like to the good or to the bad, of just, you know, get out and you realize that you forgot some necessary piece of equipment like your rifle or let's hear some of those stories.
SPEAKER_00:I can't tell you how many times that, but 95% of the guys that go out in the woods and hunt are hunting with a bow quiver. I quit liking the hunting with a bull quiver 40 years ago. And I've been hunting with the Chuck Adams eight arrow side quiver. I can get through the brush anywhere I want to go. I can't say it's easy, but everybody says, well, you can't hunt through the woods very good. You're too pressured if you've got a side quiver. Well, might be, but I've been doing all right. So I can't complain. Even if it would have been easier, I like the side quiver so much, I don't want to go back to anything else. And I've tried shooting with a quiver on my bow, and I've tried shooting in practice in my backyard with a quiver off my bow. And to tell you the truth, it'd be say I'm shooting 50 yards for a group. I got four arrows. My group down there at 50 yards would be two in a spot and two barely out. With a quiver off, it'd be two in a spot, two four inches off. It was close enough that I still shot the animal I was aiming at. So it wasn't important for me to worry about whether I had a quiver on the bull or off the bow. To me, it was the most important thing is to be able to hit the animal where I wanted to hit him when I had the opportunity. And most people want to I've found out they want to get a shot at it. I want to hit it. That's the difference. I can re I can remember my wife and son, two of my boys, and my wife and I making drives. It was my turn to set on the stump. They made the drive. I could have shot a fork and horn, but I was hoping one of my young boys would be able to get it, and so I never shot at it. Nice fork and horn blacktail. When they got that, I had to tell them that I'd forgot my quiver in the truck and it was over there about 100 yards, and I didn't want to run back and get it. So I just sat there and watched. And I even, my old season, you mean we did that drive for nothing? I said, no, I said nothing come out that I wanted to shoot, those and fork and horns or spikes. So it wasn't for nothing. I wouldn't have had to shoot at anything anyway. But I've done that three or four times on hunts. One time my wife let me off of I can't remember exactly where it was, but it was about a half an hour drive where she was going to pick me up. So she dropped me off and I got out of the car. And for a side quiver, you got to take your belt buckle loose and put the belt through. Well, when she was about 15 yards away, driving away, I realized it didn't have my quiver. So she got way down there and got parked and got her gear out and looked, and there were my quiver was. So she drove all the way back and gave me my quiver, and I don't want to have to come back and do this again. You know, and uh so uh that what is very beautiful memories that I remember. Like I told you that black tail. First time I put up a bait up above my house, I baited for a month or so before the season came. And I set up there, the first day I sat up there, two hours after I was there, I shot a spike blacktail. I was so damn tickled it wasn't funny. I mean, I'm still proud of that buck. Nobody wants nobody baits for blacktail. Dave does now. Well, not anymore.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think the state of Washington, they shut that down for us.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't say you didn't. I well I wouldn't tell the governor.
SPEAKER_01:You may have, you may have just told him. If I don't publish, then no.
SPEAKER_00:Well that's fine because he's a liberal anyway, and I don't give a damn what the liberals say. I killed that caribou, I was telling you about when I was the first day I was there at 10 o'clock in the morning. I killed that caribou at 60 yards. I already tell a lot of people this, but I arranged that caribou with my range burner, it said 60 yards. So I set my pen for 60. I used a single pin sliding sight and a thumb release now. I was using a trigger release then. And I had a guide with me right behind me, about 15 or 20 yards, and I shot at that caribou and shot a foot over his back. And he was standing still broadside with the other two caribou. And I thought he would run out. He never, he just kind of looked around like that. And so I loaded up another arrow and I shot again after I had ranged it a second time. It still said 60 yards. So I ranged it a third time and come up with 60 yards, but the guide was standing behind me, lower, lower, he was lower. I said, it said 60 yards, I'm shooting 60 yards. I hit the caribou and killed him in the third shot, but he was sitting there, you ain't gonna get a third in the world record caribou that often and shoot three times at it, standing there looking at you. I mean, you gotta be proud of yourself. And uh so I can remember when I shot my I shot a bear one time. I'm not I I shot my first bear. I I baited bear and didn't know what to do about it. I got a place down in Long Beach Peninsula where I could hunt legally and on some state land and put the bait out and went down there, and first day I was in a stand, I shot a 200-pound bear. Well, my son wanted one, so we went down there and I had built another stand just about 100 yards through the timber, but there was an old grade to it, made a big circle, come back over to that stand. And so when he said he wanted one, he was going to college at the time, and so I told him I'd set it up and he'd come down and spend some time in the morning before his classes and shut. So I baited it out and got ready, and so the day he showed up, he was carrying a beef head in, and that's what we're using. I carried a beef head in, and he set a beef dead down about 10 yards from where the tree stand was. And we walked over to the other tree stand and put on another beef head. And he was going to sit in that tree stand. I was gonna go back and sit in the 100 yards through the timber. I got back over, there was no beef head on the ground. So I walked back and I asked him, I said, What kind of a trick are you trying to pull on me? He says, What do you mean? I said, You told me that you put a beef head out there. There ain't no damn beef head. He said, That I did. He said, I carried one in. You've seen me better. Baloney. I said, Mom, let's go look. So he marches there back. And when you got looking, you could see where a bear had come out of the brush when it was going over to the second street stand and grabbed that beef call and drug it off because there was a drug mark with skull dragged on the dirt road. So I had to eat my tongue a little bit after that. But you know, there's no way I killed an eight-point bull. Dick Yapel, a friend of ours, that was in the archery club, 88 years old now. Super nice guy. He he worked in Oregon driving dog truck. And he said he'd seen elk all the time out of that dog truck, and he wanted to know if I was interested. And I said, sure. She says, Well, I'll take you over there Sunday. So Sunday we go over there in the afternoon, take my wife and everything. Dove over he'd been sitting out, look out in a clear cut. There's four bulls out there. Two rag horns, a decent five-point in this seven by six. Eight by six, excuse me. Eight by seven. Yeah, it's it's a that score's an eight by seven, according to book. So it was eight by seven. You know, at Roosevelt's crown and all that crap. Well, one crown was broke off, and the other had three small points on it besides the the full crown, you know. And so I did that for five weeks. The last time I did it was on the 17th of August. It opened on the 1st of September, and every time we went over there, we'd get there an hour before dark, and every time there would be five bulls in that clear cut, no cows. The last time I was over there, just before hunting season, on the 17th, there was five bulls, three of them had shed their horns. A five-point in that eight by seven still had their horns. The next week we went over there hunting at daylight. There was no elk in that clear cut. And so my wife and I didn't know what to do. I said, let's let's just separate. You go one way, I'll go the other, and I'll make a four-leaf clover around this clear cut. Just make a clover kind of circle and come into it and come, and then you can do it the opposite way. So she drove me about a mile and a half up the road and dropped me off, and she was going to go to this other place. And I walked in the brush 100 yards and looked up, and here was a five-point bull looking in the brush at me. And so I had told my wife I didn't want to shoot any more five points, and I wanted to shoot a six-point, I wasn't going to shoot anything less. And so when I seen that five-point, I didn't know what to do, so I cow called and he turned his head a couple times, looking back and forth and stuff. And a bugle out in front of me, about 40 yards away, squealed. And I thought, that bull squealing, and this bull is a five-point. I gotta find out what this bull is. So I kind of ducked. It was a lot of huckleberries and stuff, and it was a big tree by me. And I looked around this tree, and there the seven by eight was standing, broadside at 40 yards. And so I ducked back around it, got an air out and stuck in a string, and I went to full draw, and my point of aim was 20 yards. So all I had to do is put the broadhead on him at twelve of his back. So that's what I did. I held the top of his back when I found the bull. The arrow was broadhead was still in his heart. So I'd made a good shot. And he took off on what I call a death run. Now, when you shoot them and kill them, it's what they do. They make a death run, they know they're dead. They don't think they're dead because they're animals. They don't think like reason like we do. But they know something's really desperately wrong, and they go and they don't turn right or left. They go straight to every huckleberry, any bush that gets in front of them, or anything gets in front of them, they run over until they drop. And that's what that bull did. He ran about 60 yards. And when I tried trailing him, I found that if I lost a trail, I'd have to walk around the other side of a big huckleberry bush opposite where I seen the last bush, and that's where I'd find the next brush. Or if I went into the middle of the huckleberry bush, it that's where the blood was. And so I found that bull, and I couldn't believe how lucky I was. But that bull and had gathered cows that week, and I shed the velvet off his horns, gathered cows, and just moved to a couple hundred yards to the other side of the road and in the brush. The week it went from the time that I'd last found him to open a day. And they weren't bugling until opening, I don't know, sometime in that week, that one week period, that's when they wanted to bugle. We never could get a bugle, never heard no bugling. We see scrapes, but never dreamed that the next week we'd call an elk in. And then I learned from that elk that the bulls start bugling around somewhere around the 20th of August. Because they weren't bugling the 17th, but they were bugling the 22nd, because I killed that bull on the opening day in the morning. So in that one week period, they started bugling and had collected cows. So most people think they don't really get going good until September, sometime later in the season. But they don't, they start in August, about the last week or week and a half. And I'll swear by it, because I use that as my reference for years now, and it's pretty much fell right in line. And another thing I found out in my experience, this is what I feel, that if you have bulls, if you're hunting around the 20th to the 30th of August, be ready to call the big bulls in. Because I've had better success calling bulls in from the first last wet last week, August to the first week of September than I have the 17th and 18th of September when everybody thinks elk or the bulls are bugling. And my theory is that when the first day of elk season comes, the bulls haven't had a lot of people bugling in, so they're more apt to bugle, except for the people that road hunt them and bugle out the windows, what I've caught and seen lots of times. And I've had guys at seminars tell me that they practice calling in elk before the season opens up. They drive out on every log landing they can and bugle to see if the elk will answer. Well, I mean, you're all you're doing is, hey, that guy over there on that landing is a knucklehead. He's not an elk, and I know what he sounds like. So we're not going, we're not just educating them. Yeah, that's all they're doing is educating them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I heard guys for different archery companies get up and tell they do that. And I actually got says, why would you practice out in the woods and teach the elk that you're buggling at them, and then when the hunt season comes, well, we can't get the damn things to answer us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I said that to the guy writing the seminar. I said, You got to be nuts. Well, that's the way we do it. I said, Well, I'm not going to listen to you no more because I said, You don't know what in the hell you're talking about. And I said that right in the seminar. That was at the Olympic Archery Club, right near 100, what do they call that?
SPEAKER_03:When they have the 100 R100? Yeah. Yeah, Reinhardt 100. Yeah. And that was the last seminar he gave as a Quaker boy rep. Yep. I thought you were going to say when you started talking about that bull and shooting that bull. And you said you shot him and he went on that death run. I thought the next words out of your mouth was going to be, and he died on the road.
SPEAKER_00:No. You wouldn't know what that bull weighed hanging with hiding skin out of it, which weighed exactly 500 pounds hanging in the locker downtown.
SPEAKER_03:Golly.
SPEAKER_00:And it had no legs on it except for from where I stubbed him off, but I had the hindquarters, the front quarters, and the bodies off and a head cut off. Still weighed 500 pounds. And I took 70 pounds of meat off of him before I took it there. It was fat, three inches thick all over the body, and he was as tender as you could ever eat in a hamburger. But I took that fat and I put it in a big box and weighed it on the scales, and it weighed 70 pounds. So that bull weighed seven, 570 pounds. My son shot one a year or two later that weighed 515 pounds hanging in a locker, a seven by six. And those are Roosevelts. Now you'll hear stories about guys say yellow swords aren't that big. Well, they're every bit as big as Roosevelts are, but they got to have more maturity to get there. They got very good food here, lots of water, even in the summertime, they can find water, and they have good winters here. Very few of them died of starvation or infections from, unless it was bullet wounds or something like that, a poacher. They grow fast and they grow big and they can be. I've killed a three-year-old bull that was a fork and horned bull that was 375 pounds hanging. That's a big bull. I've killed several in 370, 340, you know, I mean 470, 440, stuff like that. I've killed several bulls like that that were rag horn five-point bulls, you know, but they were big, heavy-horned bulls, probably six years old, just and they got big forks on the top, you know. But you kill a yellowstone, I've killed yellowstones. That moose I killed over there, it's 37 inches wide, probably a three or four-year-old bull. Most likely three. He weighed 350 pounds hanging in a locker. That's all. But they're tall, they got long legs, and they haven't got nothing on the body. Our elk, our Roosevelt elk over here are bigger than a Shyrus moose. And I can verify it by the size of the way what they weighed in a locker, you know? And so I think my wife's weighed like it's got a paddle horn, it's about seven, sixteen, seventeen. I think it weighed like 250 hanging a locker. Really? Yeah, great meat, they have no wild flavor, the shirus moose. But they're not big. And when they say they're not as big as a regular conventional moose, they're telling the truth.
SPEAKER_01:So what's your what is your favorite species to hunt? Like if if not that you have to, and you would, but if you had to only pick one thing to hunt, what is your how would you compare a caribou?
SPEAKER_00:The caribou hunts I went on, we'd walk a half a mile from the airstrip to cabin where we stayed for a week. We'd have to chase caribou off the airstrip. And in that week time, one day I'd see 2,000 caribou, next day I might see a thousand, next day I might see 5,000. And sometimes we'd get up in the morning, there'd be a caribou, it'd be the biggest record book caribou you ever seen, 200 yards from the cabin where we're eating breakfast. And so out of every day, you'd see a thousand caribou. Every day, if you paid attention or did what you thought you should, you could have chances of caribou. My wife was the first woman to kill two caribou in her camp ever in a five-day period. They'd killed one, but she'd killed two. And so that was saying a lot for her. But in reality, we could sit there and look and see across this lake from where our camp was. There's 200 caribou come down off a hillside and jump in the lake and come out of the water on the other side, quarter mile away from camp. And if you run like hell, you could be there when they got out of the water. You know what I mean? So sometimes there's a lot of times it's not comparison. I would like to say that we had a great time hunting white tails. I mean, I can remember the first white tail bait I ever put out went back the next day about noon, and there was a 10-point buck standing on a bait, and we drove up within 30 or 5 or 40 yards of him, he just looked at us. But it was the day before hunting season. I think I've showed you the pictures, some of the picture camera we got of the black tail white tails. They're all over the place. But then I can remember what click a tat was liking. We were hunting black tails there before the baiting was getting popular. We'd go over there before the velvet was stripped, that means like before the first of September, when the season normally opened, the deer would have velvet on the horns. We'd drive over there and they wouldn't go on a timber and out of sight from the clear cuts until about nine or ten o'clock in the morning because when a deer runs and go into the timber and they're in Huckleberries, it breaks the velvet off and they bleed and it hurts. So we get over there and we'd sneak into these little places where we knew there was clear cuts, and we might even walk up the road and look over the banks and stuff, and we'd see three or four. One day we seen 34 point bucks before 10 o'clock in the morning, and they all were in velvet. And then you go mule deer hunting. I paid for$1,800 apiece for my wife to go on a mule seven days completely, all paid license and everything. Only thing I had to get down there and spend a week hunting on is 20,000 private acreed ranch. It had not been hunted in 20 years. And the first day I could have made stocks on five bucks going around their four by fours or four by threes going around 130, 150. And I remember the guide said, There's one right there. And that was 15 minutes after he started. I said, I've already seen five deer as big as that one. I'm not going to walk up that damn hill and try to play that. And I did. I'm not walking that far up on that hill when I can shoot one right here in front of me. It was a great hunting opportunity. It's dedication. Well, I missed two 200-inch bucks that week. Oh, did you? Yes. And so I didn't miss anything by not going after them deer. I got to shoot at 200 inch bucks. My wife killed a four by three bucks, 130, 147. Well, I don't know, something like that. But she's got it bound. You've seen it a desert mule deer. I would have been glad to shoot the deer. I was in shock when I got out and started walking. I walked a half an hour and had five good bucks to shoot, you know, within sight. And any time I wanted, I could have spent a half an hour looking in a binocular and I would have seen a buck like that at any time during the day in that ranch. Wow. It cost me 1800 bucks and they paid for the hunting license. The next year they called me up and asked me if I wanted to come back. And I said, I don't think so. And he says, Well, I'll only charge you$1,500 this year. And I said, Well, I don't know. He says, I'll buy your license for you.$250. I didn't go the second time, but I kicked myself in the butt a lot of time for not going on that hunt. But I had other things I thought that hunts that I, you know, local hunts and stuff. I was fortunate I had a job from 1994 until 2008. I had a job where I could take all the time I wanted off anytime during the year and come back and go to work anytime I wanted to. I made a lot of money. I made$100,$120 every year. And I could have made$140,$50 a year if I wouldn't take three months a year off to go gallow out around the country. And my wife would go with me. She went everywhere with me. We went to New Mexico on that mule deer hunt. She was with me. We went, we baited bear. I had hounds for 10 years. I hunted hounds. She'd hunt with me when she could and stuff. We had kids sometimes. Unfortunately, I had to leave her at home sometimes and go hunting. And she had to stay there and put the kids to school and meet them there, unfortunately. I was so tickled that I was able to kill that eight by seven bull. At the time when I killed him, I think it was number eighth in the world. It scored around 3-1 or 2 gross. It was 295 net.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:But the world record was only 340 or something like that. It wasn't that big a deal. But I've hunted mountain goats and had the opportunity to kill two world records. And one time another guy walked in between me and the one goat, I would have had a good chance of shooting at that goat. But I was half a mile from him. I watched him on the spot, and I knew that this goat was past world record size. And my son and I was on our way over there to hunt it. And a guy named Dennis Dunn, which is a world-class hunter, was already halfway between us and that goat hunting it. And the next morning we got up and started out from our camp. And here he was coming up the mountain toward where our camp was. And he didn't know we had a camp there. And he didn't know we were there. But we came over Ridge and ran into him, and he was so thirsty, he spent all night after shooting at that mountain goat twice and missing it. And he stayed out on the rocks hoping he could find it the next morning. And so we gave him our orange juice so he could get something to drink and get himself back on his feet and get the cat. Another time was another goat, and they called him Charles Atlas. The goat was supposed to be, and they had game department, they'd taken pictures of him. They said his horns were 13 inches long. And I think the world record right now is 11 or something like that. Wow. I can't remember what the world record is now. And that goat came from Canada. The guide called the hunter, went up there, chased the goat, got an arrow in it, and killed it, which is fine. That's the way it was. And that's the difference between a guy that's got money and a guy that don't have money. If you got a guy that's got lots of money, not always hiring guide is going to make you successful, but it's going to knock your odds up there. Most people that got a lot of good animals, they read a lot of hunting pamphlets. And the port show in Portland is really a good place to go if you want to get information. You run a lot of hunters. I at one time was had talked to a guide from Canada to give me a free guided grizzly bear hut for a free Roosevelt hut because he wanted to kill Roosevelt, had never done it. There was a big thing to him. And then he backed out when he found out one hunt with bow and arrow on a grizzly bear. I mean, you think of a guy who do something like that be smart. But anyhow, he backed out because of that. And that's fine. I mean, he had his reason. He says, I've shot enough grizzy bear that was in a willow pat someplace, and I had to go in and finish it off for guides that guys that didn't kill him. He said, I'm not going to do it for a bow and arrow on her. That's the reason he backed out. But you can find things like that if you try and make deals and stuff. You could probably do it for people that had not hunted in the Calyx River or fish in the Calyx River.
SPEAKER_01:Because wheeling and dealing to get more hunts and if any fishing guides are listening to this and would like to go through Dave's classes or to the boot camp, please contact us for bartering and wheeling and dealing. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of times guys don't think about those things. You don't? Yeah. I can't remember who the guy was, but he was world famous and he had nine or ten big, huge, non-typical black mule deer. And he was giving a seminar in Portland. And there was a lot of people that wanted to listen. He'd wrote lots of articles for outdoor life and stuff like that. And he's a rifle hunter. Well-known hunter, world well-known. Can't remember who he was. And that was one of them instances where I sat through a seminar and everybody had a bunch of questions, and I waited till everybody was done, and this and he said he had to go and get ready for another show and stuff. And so everybody was gone. I walked over and asked him, I said, When you remember you telling me you were sitting on that rock and you sat there for about an hour and a half and shot that last big buck you've had in articles about? Yeah. I said, You never said anything at the time how long you sat on that rock. You just said you came out and sat on that rock and finally seen the buck you wanted and you shot it. How long did you sit? Oh, about an hour and a half. He says, The buck had been in the area and I didn't say anything because the guys didn't ask me the question, so I don't really like to say a lot of things. I and unless they pointedly asked questions then. And sometimes I don't really want to answer them. And I found out that to be true with myself. I I took a couple of guys hunting at bow hunting and different experiences and stuff. Well, one of them would he had three animals going, he had North America big big 28 or nine. And he wouldn't do anything I told him to do. Consequently, he could have killed a really nice Roosevelt bull, and that's one of the things he needed to have. The first day we were hunting together, and he hunted five days with my son and I because he'd had all this experience in Africa and the East and all over Canada and Alaska for all these different animals. Super nice, wonderful person. Had an archer shop in San Diego, and I happened to go down there to work on a military ship for longshoremen. And so I was there. I went to his archer ship and I got to talk to him. And we got talking, he said, asked me to go take him hunting. I was well, because I had four animals in a book. And he seemed to think he knew me. And I said, fine, my son and I will take you up hunting, but we can't guarantee anything because you just don't always get an animal. But we think we know whether some animals you want to go out, and we'll try and take you again, you know. So the first day we called in this six by six bull, about a 280-90 bull. That's not exceptionally big, but it was a decent bull, and Dave would like to have it.
SPEAKER_03:I'd have loved to have that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I told him to follow my son down this trail because that bull was coming in, and Ivan was getting as close to the bull as he could, and he was going to turn around and wave at him. And I told him just to follow Ivan. And he didn't want to do it. And he was making a video of it. And he had his friend of his hunting too and doing the camera work. And so the bull came in right within 20 yards of Ivan, across right in front of him on his old grade. Then when the bull walked across the road, he wasn't ready. He didn't shoot the bull. He could have easily shot at the bull. And he was five times California state bare bow champion. Broadhead. Bear bow broadhead champion. Five times state champion of California. When the bull walked across, I was 70 yards, Ivan was about 20 or 30 yards, and he could have Travis shot at him. And I said, Why did you stay here and instead of going up like I told you to? He says, Well, he could have shot the bull from here. I said, that was 70 yards. Oh, I said, I don't have no problem shooting at the 70, bro. I could easily hit it. And I says, you know what you hired a guide for? He said, Yeah, take me out hunting. I says, No, you you hired him to tell you what you needed to do. I said, and you I don't even care about taking you out anymore because if you don't want to do what I want you to do, I can't help you. And that's the truth. With any guide, semi-like it's babysitting. I've grabbed guys that were bear hunting with me, and turkey, one fella had killed four bears with me. I took him turkey hunting over and killed, called a turkey in. The turkey was 20 yards away, a big old gobbler. And he turns to me and says, How far away is it? I said, 20 yards. So he draws up and anchors on the anchors out. The turkey started turning around, walking away from me. He keeps anchoring and holding hold. Finally shot and he landed about 40 yards, four yards behind the deer, the turkey. And that went on three times. Each time the bird was 20 yards, 30 yards, then 40 yards, then 50 yards. You missed him three or four yards each time. Finally turned around, he says, How come you told me that kind of yardage? I said, Because at the time that I told you, I was ranging it with my range finder, and that's how far it was. But you hold so long, you don't shoot at it soon enough, and you don't say, hey, it's walked five more yards away. I got to hold higher. I said, So you miss it because you won't listen. And you don't execute when you need to. Wonderful guy. We're still really good friends, been years. And I got him a nice five-point bowl on one time. And about two months later he called me up and said he had meet me halfway to his house in Vancouver. I said, What for? He said, Well, I got something for you. I said, Well, I don't need anything. He said, Oh, yeah, yeah. He said, I got so I go up there. I don't wear it because it's so big and so gaudy. But he put a solid ounce of gold in a ring and had it made. And it it's bigger than this ring, and it sticks up about three-quarters of an inch because I got him a bull. And it was just his way of saying thanks. But I mean, I I I haven't worn it.
SPEAKER_03:So if any of the guys that I've taken out deer hunting. Currency is allowed.
SPEAKER_00:Gold is very welcome. Well, I wasn't tooting my horn or nothing. I mean, it's hard for a guy that like when I was running my dogs, it was harder if I took somebody out with me to hunt the dog, hunt to hunt for bear. If I took them out, I would almost always have to watch them close or stay beside him. And I can remember coming up behind him and grabbing them on each side of their shirt and pulling them over to the right or the left or and lining them up so they could get the shot. Because they wouldn't think fast enough to step right or left or be ready when it was time. Right. I called this one bull in six times for that guy I got four bear for. I I called one bull in six times one day, and he could have shot the bull every time until the sixth time which he did kill the bull. And I was like 80 yards behind him doing the calling, and a bull would run in and he had cows, and he'd turn around and run back to his cows, and he'd run in about 20 yards from Lloyd, and about the time he got ready to shoot, he'd turn around and run back the other way. And so he could have shot this bull if he'd had been drawn up when a bull won't come, just the bull started coming in the side and be ready. But he'd wait until it got to where he wanted to shoot, then he'd try and draw. And then when he did shoot it, I was about 80 yards behind him and I heard him shoot. So I walked up there and said, Did you get him? And he says, I think so. And I says, Well, you don't know. And he said, Well, he ran off over this way. And I just happened to turn my head about the same time, and I seen four legs come up near, and the bull had ran about 20 yards and flipped upside down and dropped over the bank where he couldn't see it. But the angle I was at, I seen the legs, I seen the legs go straight up near. And I knew the bull was dead. And he says, I said, I think I hit him right behind his shoulder. I said, You did, Lloyd. I said, he's dead right here. And I said, Come on, let's go over there and get him. He said, Well, we've got to follow blood trail. I said, No, Lloyd. I said, You just, he's right over here. Well, I'm gonna follow blood trail. I said, Well, go ahead and follow the blood trail if you want to, but I'm gonna go over there and dig a little bit of bulk. And so he finally walked over with me. He says, How'd you know that? I said, I told you, I just seen the legs fly up near. I said, That's funny.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so we were told that five o'clock was our cutoff and we've exceeded that. So we will call it quits here. Thank you for uh coming by, giving us your stories. Smaller. Definitely appreciated.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I could sit and listen to you for hours. Well, thank you. I appreciate you doing this, and we love you and uh hope to have many more outdoor adventures with you.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I I don't know how to explain everything, but in my heart, I think I have tried to let anybody know, and a lot of guys resent it when I try and help them. But I don't try to go out there and tell people things that aren't right. I tell them the things I think are right. And you've seen me do that in a few different instances with you and your families. But so many people got really closed minds, it's hard to really communicate in a manner that they will accept stuff. Yeah. All I've ever wanted to do is to try to shoot good, hunt as much as I can, be successful, of course. But I I'm tickle pink to help anybody I can. And the prettier they are, the better it is.
SPEAKER_03:I had the same philosophy, but my wife doesn't appreciate that one.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't say, I didn't say what my wife's philosophy was.
SPEAKER_03:Well, thanks again for coming, Smoke.
SPEAKER_00:All right, sure. Thanks everyone for listening.
