GRIZZLY CHARGE | SHADOW OF DEATH | Alaska grizzly bear moose hunting, Modern Day Mountain Man

[Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] the thing about tracking bears the bad outcome of it is someone dies [Music] that's how it is i'll just fan across a little bit there's why wasn't i in front [Music] i want to be the guy laying in a hospital bed with his face chewed off not my buddy with with kids and a wife you know i'd be surprised if he's in here pretty tight i got blood right behind me i know the value of family this is where palm bear grizzly bear hunting gets interesting when you're measuring the shot in feet rather than yards every bear hunt is different but after 20 years i can't remember [Music] 90 80 percent of them and i'll remember this one until the day i die [Music] so i was like oh my god i want to be this guy like there were rock stars there were legends these bear and sea fishermen and he was the deck boss on on a boat up there he took me up to the berry sea on his boat under his wing and it was a catcher processor so we had six processors on board and six deck cans and i started out as the low on the totem pole processor and that changed that changed me it changed my life i had no idea what hard work was i had no idea what long hours was i had no idea what an angry ocean was it's the bering sea is a hard place i fished up there for eight years school didn't work out [Music] so i had my springs and fall and most of the summer free i wanted to fill up those gaps yeah i had no idea what i was getting myself into and also that first moose that i walked up to that i saw was dead i guided because one of the guys got drunk and anchorage and missed his flight and butch threw me to the walls okay kid you're uh you're gonna guide so i was flying in in the back of a super cub and i didn't know how to cape or any of that so the pilot was flying the plane and he had a pen in his mouth and a paper and he was drawn how to cape on a pen a pen and pad of paper and just handed it back to me and said here you go [Music] thank god he was not experienced hunter because he would have been able to tell that i didn't know what i was doing i had a compass and i would walk in you know how the brush is on the peninsula and i'd walk in about 100 feet and try and stay and i get scared because we were gonna get lost i wasn't going further than 100 feet into that brush i never seen anything like it there's a second morning i wake up right at daylight and i get out and i look my binoculars and there's a bull standing at the end of the right where we got dropped off and we shot it and it was like i think it was a 62-inch bowl three brow tines legal a few days after that and they asked me to stay for uh brown bear trying to get close to a brown bear uh when someone's paying that amount of money and a lot of these guys are are powerful uh gentlemen you know they're and i was just this young kid and i'm supposed to be in charge of them and that brings in a whole guide dynamic of how to deal with that it's tough for every young guy i know but i shot and killed three brown bear that that season some of the older guys were i i was fortunate to work with some guys i consider a legends uh everybody knows who they are they're just old-timers and they uh they gave me a lot of guff for everything i did but they were also good teachers and i learned a lot from those guys honestly i was terrified the first time i had to guide you know i had no notice nothing um but after the first day i really got a sense of adventure about it and i and i realized that and a lot of it too i couldn't wait to get home and tell dad guess what i did you know he was always real proud [Music] i wasn't one of those kids that was any video games or anything inside i was always muddy i don't know how many times i went to dinner with a wet shoe or a missing shoe [Music] 12 years old and it started out as a little bald patch on the back of my head and 13 rolled around and half my hair was gone and by the time i was in eighth grade i had lost all my hair i remember i came home a little bummed out one day because a kid had said something i said he was bigger than i was too he's making fun of my head and my dad's his first reaction i actually spoke about this at the funeral yesterday but my dad's response was to knock his teeth out and then i wouldn't be in trouble for any of that when i came home freshman year i went to a catholic high school in the city a whole new group of kids a whole new group of people that lasted freshman sophomore year they asked me to leave i think i'd been in 51 fist fights 53 fist fights and i didn't get kicked out though they just asked me to leave [Music] spending time in the field you learn how to you know you're not comfortable a lot of the time and when you are comfortable you learn how to appreciate it more i think kids that don't get out they don't get cold they don't get wet they don't get sore they don't get hollered at life can be a little too easy and being in the field too you get to kind of know yourself because you've got other people around influencing you i learned at an early age i'd be comfortable in the quiet and in the field earliest memories i have about my love for the water is just sitting on dad's lap and let him help me drive the boat [Music] it's a big reason i live on the kenai river i like to fish for trophy rainbows but fly fishing is something i picked up on my own when i was 14 years old my dad didn't fly fish he was a spin spin guy a walleye guy two or three years before my dad got sick we talked about when i started just doing a lot of that stuff on my own fly fishing's a big big part of me it's a big part of my life and he kind of he noticed that you know this kid really loves the outdoors my dad was uh he kind of he was a tough guy he was a hard guy he he had four children he was a traitor but when we went hunting or fishing it was a different dad it was special time you know so hunting and fishing trips like that was a reward for me to be able to go do that really look forward to it [Music] and by the time i was 18 it was time to head west and it was actually my dad's idea to go check alaska out and i've been there 24 years now 25 years it's been home [Music] buddy of his a lifelong buddy has had that conversation with me yesterday and he he told me you know when he first found out that i was going to alaska he said to my dad he said john you're nuts you're going to send your kid all the way to alaska and my dad's response is this the only college that'll take him i didn't know the difference between juno ketchikan sikka fairbanks anchorage and it was getting down to the wire and mom and dad were like come on man like what do you want to do what are you i was like on the phone with a buddy and i'm like hold on a second i'm like i'll just go to juno i could have said like fairbanks or ketchikan you know but i said juno and we sent the paperwork in and the next thing you know i was on a jet to june i was 18 years old didn't know anyone anything [Music] within three months of being in juneau i was befriended by a group of local kids that completely blew my mind to what the outdoors could be how hard it can push you i got the royal treatment and it was because of those guys and it just expanded my mind and i just wanted to keep pushing and pushing [Music] like it's kind of weird almost taboo but i like to second guess will i die if i do this will i make it will i go around this corner the wilderness to me and the way i hunt and where i hunt and how i hunt it's uh it's a sport and the other team a lot of times is mother nature or or the animal the thing that is beautiful to me about that moment is there's nothing else on my mind that's all i think about it's it's so crystal clear it's almost like you can uh when you breathe the air you can almost taste that your senses are heightened everything's just really clear it's like my time out from from my spirit for me as a whole it's my time out it's my little my vacation and i don't get it if i go to a beach or if i go goofing around down south with some friends or it's a vacation but the hunting thing is more spiritual to me i guess just because of how quiet and pure everything everything seems to be [Music] [Music] we got and his daughter madison looks like she's got a pretty good line [Music] nicely done once they start bouncing they don't like to stop seems [Applause] [Music] yeah they're definitely moving the same way basically yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] pilots love dipping out of sight for effect like that [Music] mitch miller is your typical modern day big game sportsman an honest hard-working self-made man seeking to escape the busyness of today's modern culture with him on this hunt is his daughter madison just 17 years old with a lifetime of choices and decisions ahead of her this hunt would mark one of their many adventures together [Music] and perhaps reinforce their bond and alter the course of their lives more than any other [Music] [Music] morning of day one decided not to go after the black bear just focus on moves rained all night last night clearing off should be a good morning so it just grows on there it's just like a sponge really no root to it so it absorbs that water and it holds it there so there's no it takes like 70 to 100 years for that to grow so about 50 years ago there was caribou everywhere here now there's none because they ate all their food so by actually hunting the caribou you keep them around so not so many because they multiply so fast so the caribou herd will explode eat all the food and then disperse or starve to death basically get disease so like someday 20 30 years from now there'll be caribou all over here again but there's really none here right now okay well now you will [Music] [Laughter] [Music] we saw a few cows in a couple small bulls that morning by midday a frigid air mass had surged over the bering sea and brought with it rain snow and a half a gale of wind [Music] late that afternoon i took a walk around our lookout to thaw my frozen toes and scan the area half a mile beyond our tent threw a hole in the fog i caught a flash of white and a thicket [Music] through my binoculars i saw yellow leaves burst into the air like confetti as a bull thrashed a willow bush upon hearing my call he swung his head in my direction [Music] one look was all i needed i turned and raced back to get maddie [Music] the bull eventually lost interest in my cow moans john took my plastic jug and crawled down to a nearby cluster of alder to challenge the bull with some brush raking you're on a maddie okay yep stay nice and calm looks like it's gonna work out for us 380. 360. does she know where to hold high on the shoulder right now does she know where to hold are you telling her where to hold so you're dead solid and you like it maddy you can take him okay wait he's not all right maddie from here on listen to me okay take him right in the chest right now squeeze it real slow right in the chest wait for him to turn his head hey wade right in the shoulder drill them hit him again maddie all you maddie hit him right in the butt reload hit him in the front shoulder matty right behind the front shoulder perfect beauty hit him once more right behind the front shoulder take your time take your time you want to sit sit if you want come on get prone just take your time right behind the front shoulder take your time halfway up okay oh look at the yeah he's done put it on safe don't shoot don't shoot gloves you got him eddie you demand john boy you helped so much that made the difference that's what he wanted to hear sure good job john that raked him right in billy's idea nice job brother there he's tipping his last now that's what he needed to hear my hands were like white they're so cold he's a shooter all the way around it didn't matter yeah as long as he's over 55 that's a beautiful moose yeah he's i think he's right around the 60 mark that's a good moose but yeah his fronts are awesome and his palms are nice and wide long times kind of a little pot hook thing off of his palm boy she's a beautiful day to shoot a moose huh congrats nice shooting girl you pounded him i think you hit him every time so you were able to watch him through there on john yep that's how i repositioned myself because i wanted to watch him react to the scraping you know in case he was starting to get weird right i couldn't see him on the right so i just came right down to the left i could see him through a little hole right kept breaking perfect i think that's what yeah that helps so much because he kept noticing that yep see they and they're so smart when they come out and they know they should see something they get pretty leery you know and that's the scratching the the raking definitely that's what he wanted to hear all right let's get chambers empty and safety zone actually uh magazines can certainly be full but i don't have any more yep we're clear we're clear okay very good i'm gonna clear mine awesome job guys when you woke up this morning i bet you were thinking oh i hope i get to butcher a moose today when it's raining a little harder though [Applause] six o'clock we got our hands full tonight we're fueling up what is it 500 yards from the airstrip [Applause] you ready to go take a look at him there slayer talking to you you ready to check them out yup hold annie oakley maddie oakley you're gonna have to google her when you get home see where he got gourd fighting there probably last year six by six on the front wow that's awesome that's pretty rare call those little drop tines pot hooks actually a true pot hook grows out the palm and kind of curls up but that's pretty awesome he probably got in a fight with another bull and he got gored probably last year probably healed oh it's up starting to wonder if that was a bullet hole yeah no i saw it when i was looking through my well before you even shot yeah i saw it woke up this morning pretty cold um it was really windy so we sat out up under the tarp we didn't really see anything so we came back to camp for a little bit kind of rested billy went and looked over kind of more by our tent and saw moose comes running back saying like a 60-inch moves like we gotta go like gotta go look for it we called it in um john got did like the like the raking yep brush breaking and it started coming in closer you called it in came closer came into 160 170 yards and shot it were you nervous before you shot yeah i was cold but we got it done what were you thinking as he was kind of walking across this big opening pretty much right to us what were you thinking as he's coming in you're watching him through your scope i've never seen a moose this close and i want to see it closer and now i got to yeah and you can see how he's kind of wavy in the back and that palm got a little dish that's a good indicator of maturity and he's an old he's a fighter too he's got an abscess probably from last year but the tape said 66 that's that's a heck of a pull yeah absolutely do a lens cleaning service beauty welcome to the boar's nest she's musty stinks like moose got the hand sanitizer going victory trying to get a little bit of air flow through here probably it stopped raining once no nice and warm we are officially wet until the sun comes out one week two weeks one day yeah there's no recovery from this no no we're gonna you're gonna be wet we're both so trying to get cozy eat some supper and uh go to bed who gets to pack out a moose in the rain today we do we do yippee skippy john boyz making his way up finished butchering it i did there cut the legs off got the height off all that stuff john's on a second load already looks like mitch and matty are coming to help that'll be nice speed up the process a little bit all kinds of fun we don't have we actually got really good footing no this we got pretty lucky a little boggy all that good stuff exactly a parking lot but it ain't bad we broke her up in the manageable pieces mitch is 50 i'm 40. john's 42. so we got the geriatric camp here mitch all the old boys packing it out but when you get three guys working on it it goes pretty quick there we go half mile yep bear watch she just i told her i said you ever watch those marathons those people that hand water bottles as you go by that's you so it's just misting a little bit rain's done i got rid of the rain gear i was sweating too much anyway so we'll get her knocked out it's noon uh we should have done it in camp by two hopefully we'll just take her one load at a time we're getting her piled up rained i just got a bunch of alders here and just kind of stacking it up keeping the meat off of each other got some meat in there and all that good stuff so rained all night last night rained on us the whole time we were butchering um so yeah we just want to make sure this meat gets nice and dry yeah get some air flow so we're getting there a little afternoon went pretty good 1 20 p.m so pretty much five hours of hauling meat and i don't know about you john but i'm ready to lie down decompress the spine a little bit [Music] do [Music] you got a pretty nice grizzly right up on the hill here just crossed over the top [Music] i have about a well and i think we gotta go after that one [Music] wind right now out of the south thermals right now are going down the camp is right over there so i think we're going to try to stay away from these willows ease up the hill hopefully by the time we get up there the thermals will be going up wind will still be coming this way and then we'll have both items in our favor wind's been swirling a lot already this morning but here it's real steady ah see how it's about noon a perfect time to be bear hunting moose should have slowed down it's like we got a good day calling for weather to move in tomorrow so this would be ideal we're almost there i'm afraid to stop you're gonna run into me [Music] knowing the grizzly would be out of our line of sight for most of the mile and a half stock john agreed to stay behind and signal for us [Music] glassing back at our system of a blue tarp and game bags i was assured as to the whereabouts of our quarry [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] as we closed within 300 yards the bear was feeding on blueberries and working toward us we set up on a slight promontory and waited for several minutes but the bear eventually turned and foraged aimlessly on the opposite side of the brushy draw [Music] i knew we would be cutting a slim margin with the wind but we needed to get more elevation for a clear shot [Music] we slipped within 120 yards before we were completely set up to shoot the bear caught our movement hit him right in the chest whenever you're ready squeeze it real slow right in the chest are you on him right in the chest squeeze it slow squeeze it real slow let it reload i can't hold this thing this one's too heavy again mitch i haven't seen him yet i see him out [Applause] gone where in your eye oh my finger i can't hold this thing and shoot you guys stay put and bring my pack when you come [Applause] do you really think i hit it though i honestly do i do sucks sucks that he busted us yeah but he's really pissed if we wounded it after maddie's rifle jammed and mitch's first follow-up missed the mark i grabbed my 375 dialed my scope all the way up to four and took aim for an offhand shot with maddie still fighting her rifle and seeing mitch's second shot taking no effect i knew i had to make the shot count at 200 yards just as the bear was about to disappear in the brush i settled my sight and touched it off i heard the report as the bear tumbled and rolled into the bush completely out of view [Music] i left mitch and maddie and went down the hill to look for blood and to see if perhaps the bear was lying dead just inside the brush [Music] a big part about hunting is failure and people don't understand that and how how you react to failure really shows who you are how they react when when the animal doesn't do what you you want it to do or when the weather does what you don't want you know alaska especially does not care about your plans it'll laugh at you and spit on you and and i've seen guys fold i've almost fought i've thrown fits before i've kicked trees and thrown rocks swore pouted simply pet like a five-year-olds walked in circles pounding my fists hunting in alaska if you know how hard and you hunt multi-species you'll be tested you will be tested i didn't find blood only bent grass and disrupted tundra i followed it for several yards to the point where the foliage was so thick i could no longer see my hand in front of my face and all i could smell was bear it was time to back out after the gun shots i saw where the bear ran i saw how it ran it looked like it had a full head of steam heading into the brush though so i was at that point you get your game face on is he coming up let's see yeah welcome to the all you can eat adventure buffet well he's got three slugs in him but he ain't laying here blood and zany i was was i in the right spot you think back in the open tundra i glassed back at our lookout to see john glassing down at me i waved for him to come join us with his pack already on john immediately trotted down the hill and the funniest part of all that was just when we first saw each other and you were looking i just started laughing i'm like all right what are we gonna do after rejoining mitch and maddie we reviewed the footage the first shot was clearly to the four leg originally i thought one of mitch's rounds connected but we couldn't make out a report on either shot i knew my shot was to the backside as the bear ran away you don't have to be an expert hunter to know neither is perfect placement on a grizzly this adventure was about to begin the first thing we did though was uh we had to come up with a plan and with your experience it was a discussion i know yeah i don't know you that well but i know how long you've guided and and i hear how people talk about billy moles i know we wanted to wait uh we had the weather waiting for a wounded bear can can bite you in the butt sometimes because you know how the weather is out there if it rains we just lost any you lost it unless you're extremely lucky but where we were we weren't going to find anything on a web okay design i think this is this has got to be it'd be nice to find we can't find where he went down you know what i'm saying so we're gonna find blood here's our best chance [Music] i suggested that maddie stay on the hill and the three of us would go in with chambers loaded mitch would stay behind us to mark last blood i would go in front to take the trail while john followed behind to guard my flank all right come right down to me mitch hey dude you don't have to go on point this is my i'm happy to do it i'm not trying to put you in dude actually i would be more comfortable if i did it be truthful but john said no i'm taking the blood trail you've got a wife and kids at home i don't if i die today nobody's going to miss me like your family would you john and i both knew full well that while the job of protecting the tracker was perhaps more difficult and important if things went south whoever was in the lead was almost sure to be the first one attacked it's just the thing to do i couldn't live with myself if something happened to to a fellow guide that has a family it'd be horrible why wasn't i in front i want i want to be the guy laying in the hospital bed with his face chewed off not my buddy with with kids and a wife you know john and i argued back and forth about how our consciences would eat us alive if anything happened to the other i know the value of family they instilled in me from the day i was born and and the direct reaction of that is for me to put myself in harm's way so some some kids won't grow up without a dad because they were going after a wounded bear as our voices grew louder and our eye contact more intense i remembered john telling me how many fistfights he'd been in and i decided maybe we'd better do it john's way got blood to the right okay i got blood right here okay don't be surprised if he's in here pretty tight the thing about tracking bears grizzly and brown bears black bears um it's definitely a the bad outcome of it is someone dies that's how it is [Music] and i'm a pretty easygoing guy i joke around a lot and i make light of a lot of situations but when it's like that it's you know you got to take it take it seriously because that is the negative outcome is someone gets really severely mauled or dies i never want someone to go in after a wounded bear if they're not experienced enough or if they're not comfortable but if you want to start calling yourself a guide and you want that respect that is part of the job that a lot of people don't understand and and it's it's scary but it's part of the job gotta do and blood it here i don't know you have blood though okay right here okay i'll come with you you want to stay put mitch any time you do stock a beer too and thick brush like that there's no room to go side by side so someone's got to go in front um typically he's going to have his head down quite a bit more because he's looking for blood uh so the guy in real close next to him which often ends up being the guy behind him you're putting a lot into that guy it's not just uh cover me if this bear charges you know it's know where i'm at in relation to your gun if you do have to cover me that's a really good recipe to shoot someone in the back of the head unless the guy knows what he's really doing you know i wouldn't trust a lot of guys to do what she did for me you know so you couldn't see five feet you couldn't see three feet in that brush it was it was as thick as a thick get john and i both wore white to maximize our visibility he also chose to wear his pack frame to protect himself in a worst case scenario because the foliage between waist and eye level was so dense we were forced to duck walk or crawl most of the right way [Music] [Music] okay did you get one in them i can't imagine i missed i didn't get your ears did i never that it was about 20 minutes into the trail john froze still raised his 458 lot and calmly announced i got a bear just as i stepped beside him no more than 10 yards in front of us the bear burst out from its bed the bear turned at the shots and button hooked away from us we listened as the brush crashed a few seconds later all fell silent well we think he's got two more in him we were right there the bear was right there he didn't it didn't go very far hey let's wait like 20 minutes we've gone maybe 50 60 yards from where we shot him again we for sure hit him once i'm pretty sure twice forecast is supposed to rain tonight so that's why we're pushing it as hard as we can or as hard as we are we're definitely gonna bump this bear again this is where brown bear grizzly bear hunting gets interesting when you're measuring the shot in feet rather than yards after another hundred yards the blood trail was still easy to follow john and i both knew this bear would not be dead when we found it people always comment tracking a wounded bear that's got to be the ultimate adrenaline rush adrenaline and fear in a situation like that can only lead to disaster for me and i think i speak for most guides when i say this the complete opposite is true i dare say tracking a wounded grizzly is one of the most peaceful events one can ever experience the rest of the world ceases to exist i literally don't think at all and i simply become holy present in a situation like that your instincts must completely take over and you simply react i'm solely focused on the bear those i'm with and any clue nature might offer i'm listening for a bird to chirp a stick to break anything to help me kill the bear before it kills me sensing the bear was close we slowed our pace we would duck walk a few steps then look and listen for a few minutes take a few steps look and listen as we continued along i looked back and noticed mitch holding his video camera behind me i suggested he leave the camera turned on because whatever was gonna happen was gonna happen quick um ah so i'm loading yep all right i'm done did you get that on video i think i might have dropped it was he coming he's only 15 feet away and he's laying right there but he charged we can shake now that kind of shake well you got it on yours yeah that thing's running wow [Laughter] it was nice did you see him before he grunted huh did you see him before he grown up i didn't know he just came and i got on them kind of paid to stop and listen huh right there i told you about what 15 yards back there i'm like you might as well turn that thing on it's gonna happen fast here i see him right there he's definitely dead that's only that's less than 20 feet away but he i was standing up and i could see the brush coming this way yeah so he was coming i'm glad he didn't make it hey hold that hand out i gotta see if you can hold it steady i don't think my i don't think mine's steady either so it's all shaking excellent work brother not a lot of that was there not a lot of people i would have done that with i'm anxious to see this bugger there's a lot of furry in that good beer yeah that's good bear holy smokes beautiful hide on him he's got you've got a lot of loose hair oh shoot he was ready south that's a good great yeah it's a little bit short yeah i don't know this is hard to tell dark dark for a style holy smoke uh it worked out it worked out really good actually the way we did it having three guys just kind of and you know what you got to have it because the guy looking for blood can't be it's pretty dang tough to be scanning the perimeter you know and concentrated on one thing right pretty much something coming a frontal attack which is what we just had that was unbelievable that that thing did charge yeah you guys were talking about it and i thought well this one's going to be running remember it's going to happen it's going to go down over the years i've had to do that a number of times it just turned out that this this actually turned into be the real deal to the end i've never had to kill one that close at a full charge [Music] every bear hunt's different but after 20 years i can't remember 90 80 percent of them and i'll remember this one until the day i die when you get to be 21 i know a couple guys that you owe a beer [Laughter] yeah that was an adventure madison that was the real deal it was all kinds of fun yeah well the last volley john shot at least twice i shot four times so there was eight shots there oh okay i lost track like a black bear up there for a while and i was like it like would sit and then walk over then i was like if that's it i'm gonna be the dangerous work is done now the hard work begins well congratulations young lady you got a grizzly bear 17 years old shooting a grizzly bear ah yeah that first shot slowed it down and then i think it's all of our bear he did good though that was a good stock he's waving see john boyd down there waving away bear tracking machine that guy was handy to have john's been guiding up here for 20 years and that's the kind of thing where going in with a lot of experience you know it's not patent ourselves on the back but you know that's having two guys with that much experience was pretty key a pretty good man it is that's a pretty good bear beautiful boy it's got nice undercoat [Music] i could not imagine that nothing coming at me i shot first when it was like standing and it was like facing towards me and then my dad shot and he shot and then i stayed up and then they these three went and they found him except he was still alive and then he charged towards them and they had to shoot him again well as we were that was the yeah as we're coming down john's taking the uh point and mitch and i were cover men and fortunately we found blood pretty early and we went probably 100 yards or so bumped bumped him actually john saw and that was that was key when you said i got a bear billy and you just waited and i was able to get right there and then he started moving boom john shot boom i shot then we had good blood but it was pretty tight on dad this tight going yeah yeah we were just crawling through this stuff yeah it was close quarters and we probably spent about an hour going the last or maybe 45 minutes going the last hundred yards and then i know did you see it before or did you just hear it coming john i heard it and then saw it a half second later it was we knew it was coming at some point but i mean i didn't expect it right then but it was common probably about 10 yards is our guess and it was it the brush just erupted and all of a sudden he was growling before we ever shot and then it was [Laughter] so yeah it was a fury of uh copper and lead at that point but it's a good bear it's gonna be over seven and a half foot i i think and uh fine grizzly bear great coat about as exciting as it gets all sorts of fun old john boy gotta hand it to you man thanks brother thank you he was our eye in the sky and uh guided us in that's so key it's so helpful when you have somebody who can has a bird's eye view to watch the bear as you're grading in you know when we're out of sight of the bears so we know where it is this stuff can be incredibly dangerous well this was incredibly dangerous but fortunately it worked out with the rain coming yeah we got pretty lucky so thank the lord for this one we're all here one piece and got a fine trophy [Music] [Music] well after 50 some days in the bush i'm ready for some bacon [Music] got john boy frying bacon mention maddie going to bed [Music] goodbye to some moose meat happy occasion always [Music] that was a gnarly takeoff he had like no ground speed [Music] we hunted seven more cold wet and windy days [Music] we saw plenty of moose but not the 65-inch bull mitch was after we also saw several bears we even chased after a huge potential nine foot grizzly this bear was a toad and he is absolutely hauling tail he's right up there wind's kind of doing this but he was moving too quickly for us to get the wind right and at 300 yards he caught our scent [Music] that's the way the cookie crumbles that is a big big grizzly bear [Music] the morning after season had ended as we were waiting for the planes to pick us up a 70 inch bull walked up the valley no more than a half mile below our airstrip some might call that bad luck but perhaps it was the perfect ending to our hunt a pretty bad limp he looks pretty thin like he's run down he'd be a excellent bowl to take but our hands are tied and we're waiting for the airplane [Music] it's over 63 days in the bush coming to an end heading home can't wait to see the family back to the real world for better or worse well it's a bummer to not get it done for mitch i think the first time i've had a hunter go home empty-handed lord willing i'm doing it long enough or it won't be the last but good hunt got uh madison some good critters that's for sure was pretty darn exciting [Music] things don't always go the way we'd like or expect them to that's hunting and that's life with maddie's grizzly the wind direction the stock the setup the shot none of those were perfect [Music] as it is on any good adventure we did some things right and we did some things wrong together all that gives the experience flavor and makes it worth doing worth remembering and worth sharing with others [Music] the emotions and lessons we glean from such significant challenging situations forge our personalities our instincts our character our very identity [Music] and when we face difficult decisions and weighty moments in life it's those virtues that guide our choices with maddie only months away from college i don't think mitch could have scripted a more valuable undertaking for the two of them to share not because she shot a fine grizzly bear or a record book moose but rather she didn't back down from something that was well out of her comfort zone and she navigated through it yeah that was an adventure madison that was the real deal [Music] as a father myself i can't think of anything more satisfying than to see your child learn show courage and build self-confidence [Music] though i've never met john's father i have no doubt he took his children into nature for the very same reasons mitch and i do to open their minds to help them mature to appreciate things appreciate life and to discover themselves [Music] i firmly believe john's character and the service the gift that he gave us that day came as a result of his father's influence and the experiences they shared hunting and fishing [Music] john put my life mitch's life matty's life and for that mattered the lives of both our families ahead of his own that day [Music] it was jesus who said there is no greater love than that to lay down one's life for his friends and that is exactly what john did for us that day [Music] in my mind that will always be john anderson's legacy and as a father i can think of no greater legacy than to have raised a child so willing to put others before himself [Music] [Music] remember your show when you actually when you had a tv show my dad watched that and we were talking about tv shows one day and he told me that he really liked this billy moles show and uh i like to think that he's watching what kind of yeah i was just so sick so i'm like this and and it happened two or three more times where we'd stopped for 20 minutes and and we both agreed we're like this thing's so wounded that we're going to get charged yeah i'm like we're going to get charged and really think i know it's coming he'd be so stoked to have you here you know and and to know that we had some experiences together and and you're sitting in his daughter's basement interviewing me about a about some stuff it'd be really cool that's pretty wild i enjoy this but i don't know if i enjoy it as much as you do and i go to college this is one party where you don't really want to be invited it took me seven and a half hours to get it quartered out i'd never done it before never caped the pilot flew over and he flew over when i was i had my butt on the ground and my feet on the moose's head and i was pulling as i didn't know how to get the nose off so i just pulling i was afraid to cut through that cartilage and he he said that it looked like someone blew up a moose with dynamite there was moose everywhere we're just going through going through and i was like here we go here we go here we go bailey just like that uh my hunters were happy though i guess i just i learned uh i mean the mistakes you make over the years if you don't make mistakes how do you learn [Applause] when you get to be 21 i know a couple guys that you owe a beer it's amazing what we do for so little money stay in school kids don't day jobs don't do guiding yeah you're gonna do full body full body man hell no i i don't wanna skip that thing off full body i've never done a moose there's a ten thousand dollar surcharge i think the last time i i quartered and kate the moose was with billy actually it took us an hour and a half so that's what 20 years of experience will do for you it'll cut about seven hours off your field work time then it wouldn't hurt my back oh you're 17. you don't know nothing about back pain [Music] all right hold that string we're getting some work out of her that's amazing she didn't think that's why i'm getting video otherwise mom would never believe it okay can i put her on my waist again sure actually let's do this we're going to tie it to a bush to my dad that bush is a little more trustworthy than you all right but you're going to grab or they start second guessing yeah yeah and i don't like when they do it in front of the hunter you can hear them or sense it you know when they're 100 feet behind you you can hear the yeah the chirping we're like oh my god no there was one it was boom boom i shot three times you shot twice or just once but twice okay but they're not even then i was like billy i'm going behind you i'm out of bullets i say we're going around this way i'm not being hardheaded i'm not being norwegian it's because i know mountains and you're from iowa and this is your first season up here you know i'm from illinois but i've been doing this for 20 years dude you know got about five more loads so party party party on wayne can you imagine if we didn't have this thing [Applause] driving rain good stuff gotta love it it's all it's all about the glory the chicks will come in due time money and glory and women that's what guiding's all about right for more information on other dvds books and modern day mountain man apparel log on to billymolesadventures.org here you'll also find information on alaskan hunting opportunities with billy for doll sheep caribou moose brown bear grizzly bear as well as white-tailed deer hunting in wisconsin [Music] much of billy's off season is devoted to public speaking he travels across the country sharing his knowledge and passion for the wilderness at corporate events schools conservation organizations wild game dinners christian outreach events and much more billy is a master storyteller attendees are sure to be entertained educated and inspired log on or call for more information

Channel: Modern Day Mountain Man

Views: 793,435

Keywords: best hunting video, bear charge, grizzly hunting, brown bear hunting, Best Alaska hunting video, Kodiak brown bear hunting

Id: ZzXdS-FLNX0

Length: 76min 26sec (4586 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 11 2022