"Growth" Modern Day Mountain Man, Moose and Grizzly Bear Hunting with Guide, Billy Molls

[Music] [Music] is so [Music] uh [Music] remarkable hunts are realized in the same manner as remarkable lives both are achieved by ordinary people who take extraordinary action [Music] just as storms in the wilderness will never cease so too are the storms of life unlike plants and animals however when rough weather hits we sometimes quit striving to learn to grow and give all we can to the environment surrounding us it's easy to give up the struggle to improve oneself and just accept our present circumstances or the convenient mold modern society likes to set before us but for some that's not good enough there are some people out there who dare to dream who refuse to quit and who are willing to lay everything on the line for a chance to defy the odds [Music] the latter describes many of the clients i guide barry barton is certainly one of them [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah probably the one right off your wing or one of them one about like it that might have been that one that was uh he's getting her turn around pilots here walking the strip talking about their landings not a bush pilot but i think that's what they enjoy most walking in with a fellow pilot describing their landing and their takeoff landing's gone bad sometimes they've cheated death because it's like guides getting together and telling war stories about the wind-blown rainy nights that they spent on the mountain but yeah this was a pretty cool spot not far from where it was hunting last year this looks like actually i think this would be a better spot i would see i was seeing bulls up here all the time last year when i was hunting so i think it'll be good it's got a nice a better uh better glassing knob than where we were at where was that last year the landing strip kind of sucked so yeah they're going through it it's pretty rough but most of the time in here we're not landing at our camper we're not packing the moose to where we're camping so you're going somewhere else to pick up the moose anyway so it's not a not hugely imperative it would have the necessarily the best landing strip where you're camping [Music] well poke around here over this other side of the hill got a little protection here from this side just try to stay out of the main the main drainage as much as i can get over here find a flat spot with some protection set up the tent i will sigh wash hunting buddy barry made her in just as i was leaving so he should be out later this afternoon so i should be able to get her all buttoned up before he gets in there's definitely good moose here lots of grizzly bears so yeah i don't go anywhere in this country without a rifle there's lots of willows and stuff for them to be hiding in too so i never go really anywhere anywhere in alaska without a some type of weapon with me but definitely in this country these bears i think are can be pretty aggressive here i think the guys found a little better line on this landing strip after they landed on it once we were hunting one of the most game-rich areas in all of the yukon watershed and we had a fine crew of pilots to support us that guy looks ready to moose hunt i fried a video camera on my last hunt so i got to be careful with this one having taken a 60-inch bowl in a grizzly bear seasons prior barry was only interested in shooting exceptional animals barry chooses to hunt in alaska for the inherent challenge and the adventure but above all else his journey to this great wilderness is one of self-discovery and spiritual [Music] renewal seems like every time i land where you're at it's raining is there a reason for that i don't know just unlucky might just be uh the venue it's pretty beautiful isn't it oh it is it really is beautiful i didn't think we were going to get this far i didn't think we were coming clear over to the mountains it's september 9th glassing right out the side the tent's been raining all evening we ate some supper and rain just died down and so we just crawled out of the tent just glass a little bit yeah he's a pretty nice beer i would say it's a big bear yeah that you do i would say he's probably 95 chance it's a boar definitely very mature definitely be giving him the hard study through the spotting scope if we see him hear that you can hear a bull raking his antlers right either that earth two bulls fighting i can't see him but are we in them i'm not allowed to shoot today they'll be around tomorrow we'll find them in the morning till then we'll sleep soundly this isn't right to do gohan so does that get you a little bit excited for tomorrow morning it even gets me a little excited it's it's almost we're better off no bear tag in the moose tag what'd you show me uh a huge grizzly and we have a bowl rake in the brush that you wouldn't let me go look at it's almost better that we don't know how big he is he might be a 75-incher he might be a 35-incher we don't know oh that's pretty cool they're all 60-plus yeah we're living large i'm telling you this is nice we're gonna go to bed early well it is already 10 o'clock [Music] 10 o'clock yeah it's getting uh probably getting daylight around seven ish a little before seven so we'll get up early fire up the stove eat some coffee get some breakfast we're pretty well dialed in pack her up and glass right from the hill see what we see but that looked like a really nice grizzly bear uh i'm pretty sure it was a boar so we'll probably be able to check him out with that let's see in the morning you know you're not going to learn from talking to people because you have the other is another way to learn that's just experience it for yourself morning day one barry's getting the smoke pole ready to roll a little bit of rain pattern on the tent about 6 30 probably another 15 20 minutes maybe half hour she'll be lightening up rain's pretty much hot weather up here if you don't want to hunt in the rain and laughter you pretty much don't have we're we're fogged in you can see about 50 60 yards is all so we're just gonna hang tight definitely don't want to do any moose calling or something you can't see anything a moose will come downwind yeah especially on the first day there's just no sense in us trying to do anything when we can't see this is nice open country as soon as this lifts we can see forever so we're gonna hang tight barry's having a cup of coffee and uh let her break and climb out more glass but i'm sure it'll burn off here at some point but there's just absolutely no wind and saturated air so part of alaska humming now sit and wait nothing to do but nice part about anticipating with the weather is you anticipate anticipation gets even more oh yeah get out and get hunting yep no doubt yeah so nothing you can do except just relax and enjoy the downtime yep and you just appreciate it when you get some good weather you can get up and go and yeah it's just grab a book read relax that's beautiful yeah i don't know how wide he is but he's got really long points i think i could shoot that and hurry up and shoot the bear at the same time then what would we do so we gotta he just turned his head a little bit we could maybe see him [Music] this bowl is right in the direction of where we hurt the brush raking last night probably right around 50 a little over got enough brows where he's legal but we got another one on the other side of us that's quite a bit bigger but i think he's quite a bit bigger maybe this one doesn't have enough brows but yeah he's right about the 50 mark they're getting bigger yeah they are getting bigger i'm getting more of them too we've seen four so far today four bulls four bulls and two bears and uh we got a lot more to go and one cow that pulls he's walking straight away from himself he's swagger and moving his body around there's one ball right in there and another one just stood up it's four o'clock in the afternoon that bull's pretty good yeah this one's in low 60s solid 61. rain's been moving in and out of here it's been raining really hard there for a while so we're set up under a tarp now we just got a little bit of a reprieve and got rid of some of the clouds and stuff so yeah it's uh it's looking pretty good we haven't seen you know any definite shooter bull yet we saw one another bear we saw a long ways away in the ridge just it was pouring out couldn't get any kind of glimpse of him he was heading the other way but um yeah it's looking good if we can we can string some good weather together um yeah we're not able to see a quarter of the country that we have here and i could see that bull that bigger bull when he got up every step he was taking he was he was given a grunt so and then the one bull we saw was was with a cow heard a lot of brush raking the other night and so yeah i'd say the rut is on it's not very cold but uh i think if this if this these clouds lift we get some good cold weather i think we'll see some really good movement [Music] i figured that it was indeed a cell but it was a big bear this is how you usually spot bull moves at least in the middle of the day you spot bothering [Music] well that's pretty well a wrap for day number one yeah pretty encouraging um yeah real encouraging so saw plenty of game but we're gonna hold off you know at least for a few more days try to get something you know in that 65 class good good massive bull and uh hold off for a a good good big try to get a boar grizzly september 11. first thing in the morning we're up on top of the hill gave a call one of these bulls stood up and they started kind of coming in the one on the right i figured 60 real low 60s and all of a sudden the smaller one see if i can find them the smaller one kind of took off running i found that to be odd that's why they were running their right upwind of that grizzly i'll scope that bear out might very well be big sal we saw yesterday i think thinking the bears we saw yesterday were two lone sows and then one medium-sized bore damp cool and breezy time for a little cider i'm barry i'm seeing a few beams of sunshine through the clouds now and again to the north but it ain't hit us yet pretty tough to beat something warm to drink up on a hill like this got a little bit of a breeze especially a damp breeze it's just kind of been missing on and off all morning visibility's pretty tough we've been seeing a lot of the same bulls we've seen one two three seen six bulls today i think all the same ones that we saw yesterday yeah they're just not moving most of them they're on pretty much in the exact same spot as we saw them yesterday so yeah they're just not really traveling about another five days it seems like around the 15th then you really see bulls moving in and out and start seeing different moves on a regular basis so we're just going to be patient we're really probably more particularly looking for bears you know there you'll see them moving anytime because they're feeding yeah we've seen plenty of game we're just going to try to stay comfortable do all day sits and something warm to drink something warm to eat lunch time sure helps you achieve that keeps you focused keeps you glassing keeps you keeps you upbeat doesn't beat you down it's larry like barry and i were talking about an alaska huntsa marathon it's not a sprint about one in the afternoon all the moose bedded up real early today and here is the fifth grizzly bear of the day i don't know how big he is he's long way off or if it's a i hey put a scope on it yet just spotted it with the vinyl but the clouds are lifting the sun's starting to peek through some of the clouds warming up a little bit wind was out of the north now it's out of the west well barry and i are climbing up into this next knob downstream get a little different vantage point it's about a mile a little over a mile from camp probably no matter where you go in moose country it's tough walking soft slick spongy this is actually a lot better than most moose country but still tiring out and i've got eight game bags two tarp string rifle rangefinder by nose camera tripod i mean i got over 50 pounds of junk so when you get into soft stuff with a heavy load busan is a lot of work it's a lot of fun but it's a lot of work especially these hunts where you're having to pack the moose out uphill there's our tent that's where we were glassing we just wanted to check out this point typically i don't like tracking up the countryside but having never hunted here before i wanted to see what we could see from this point a lot of the same country obviously but a little better angle into most of it i think but climbing up here and checking it out we'll just figure out if it's worth the extra climbing i kind of think it's probably not going to be typically when i'm hunting especially bears but moves to in here where we are hunting bears the bears smell a lot more uh probable to spook if they cut your track bears are than a moose so typically when i'm hunting virtually anything in alaska other than sheep i just find the best vantage point close to camp where you're moving less and looking more and spreading less scent and pretty well just hunker right there and just be patient and that's always worked pretty well for me let me get up to this knob and i glass i see a couple of the moose there's the bowl we've been kind of watching him and four cows take off running and there's a grizzly bear right on our heels i don't see the bear right now but i did see him so that would be the sixth grizzly we've seen today for him but yeah there's a lot of bears in this country that's for sure yeah there's so much game out there that we're not seeing you know it's pretty wide open but i don't see it there yeah i just saw him for a second he was running right behind him he gets the better he looks i don't know if i'll i'd be able to keep you from shooting him even if i didn't want you to oh yeah you're the guy no i'm not insinuating that i need to make the call i don't have any problem doing what my guy i don't have any problem with you shooting that bear though yeah i think that cow probably yeah there she probably smells him now she's upwind of him but she probably didn't know if it was another moose in the river or what it was yeah you're you you sort of judge him you know you judge what he's like i mean i'd want around here billy i mean it's day two you know so the closer they get the better and bigger they always look to me yeah well i don't think you're unique in that regard kind of an interesting glimpse into the life of a grizzly bear in about a 15-minute time span he chased after some moose presumably ate a fish on the riverbank or on the gravel bar along the river and then he crawls up on the bank and then he's foraging on berries that's why grizzly bears are so notoriously mean and aggressive as they're very opportunistic you know they just live life one second at a time whatever before them is edible they go for it so um yeah it was kind of kind of interesting barry spotted this old heifer out this clearing big old blonde cell this sound is so fat it's ridiculous she's all belly and hind end she is healthy every other bear we've been seeing has been very dark even some that i'm sure we're sows of course most of the time it was raining when they're wet they look a little darker than what they are but nothing nearly this blonde there's lots of bears lots of moose in this country interberry more than i've ever seen i've seen more moose and bear the last two days than i've seen in four seasons i can't believe there's that many animals here big country yeah glass and a lot of bears and a lot of moose that we can't possibly get to but it's still just amazing how many animals are right here and now in the next section there's probably that many animals up in the other end of the valley [Music] we had two bowls over 60 inches within a mile of camp with the rut drawing near barry and i both knew there was no guarantee of them sticking around but neither of us was ready for it to be over just yet [Music] to date i've guided barry on seven alaskan hunts not once has he ever based his decision on whether or not to shoot an animal on the fact that he might not get another opportunity he's never been one to worry about going home empty-handed barry doesn't come to alaska to collect trophies he comes to alaska to collect experiences memories and friendships that said we were keeping a close eye on an old scarf-faced bull but with 10 days still to go we both wanted to see what else might be in the area [Music] oh are we being foolish to just stand here and look at this moose berry this same bull is hanging tight he isn't going to hit the 65 mark yeah he's a nice bull his palms aren't terribly wide or long but they seem like they're real far apart he's not laid out to where his points are really reaching out they're they're more or less cupped in but it's it's a nice bowl but yeah we could we could easily there's no doubt we could hunt 12 days and not see a bull better than this one but this is a this is a very good area it's fun being here waking up in the morning and uh you know wondering what you might see well yeah it is the rut hasn't kicked in yet so you kind of kind of you know if like i said if the whole idea was to shoot a bull in in two or three days they'd sell two or three day hunts yeah we'd have been done a long time ago the whole point is that to hunt and take the best animal you possibly can knowing that the risk could be that you take nothing yep this high pressure we were promised isn't real high is it well i put the tanning lotion away yeah that way it's getting lower and lower yeah it's gonna get pretty so now he's finally back up on his feet again i thought he'll go very far but we've seen yeah we've seen very little activity they've definitely been holing up in this wind it wind's pretty well it's switched uh about 90 degrees since this morning's lightened up quite a bit but the rain's steady i was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to see that thing three days we haven't seen much of it no sir at all we may end up with a day or two here moose hunting it seems like the best mornings are those real those clear starry nights get nice and cold and then it's nice and calm in the morning especially well for for just game movement in general when you get some frost on the tundra the moose generally are real active and then calling you know when it's real calm i just then i'll do a lot of calling and that call those calls will just echo up into all these valleys and yeah you can really really make some stuff happen when your call's reaching out but every day we've been had fog and wind and rain and it's been virtually worthless to even try calling but so hopefully we can string a couple good days together one of the keys to success when hunting in alaska is endurance cold stormy weather long hikes and a spartan existence can wear hunters down awfully quick through our hunts together barry and i have withstood brutal even borderline life-threatening conditions barry's motivation to work out 365 days a year isn't just so he can kill an animal his focus is to be able to endure whatever alaska throws at him on his annual adventure and enjoy his experience from beginning to end when i look back on hunts gone by it's rare that i'm able to recall the details of when my clients shot their animals but what i always remember are the new things i see the unique situations i encounter and the lessons i learned day four of this hunt offered one of those experiences barry and i will never forget day four barry yep day four about 50 yards of visibility an eerie silence can't see can't hunt it's maybe lifting a little bit i've been studying this bear for a while pretty good sized bear i think he's a bore he's about half to three-quarter thousand yards below us so we're gonna the winds from right to left so we're going to scoot down over here scoot over that edge try to intercept them should we try this yeah i think i yeah i think it's a good looking bear so i was studying this bear with the spotting scope and yep i saw the see the penis sheath as he was facing away and yeah i think this is over an eight-foot bear and it was a real big bear so finally i just figured man that thing's got to be a board i just got a good look strap on that sack and let's ride got a grizzly bear to kill he saw us know he's coming for us let him come let him come get up a little farther if you need to okay just hold still hold still let him come you ready you got to get up higher get up farther get ready take your time make the first one take your time let him come let him come he's not going to smell us bust him in the shoulder take him right there okay he's gonna come up right over to your left he's gonna come up to your left get a little higher there you go just rest on your elbows he's gonna be to your left barry you're laughing he's over to your left very very he's way over to your left it's right over there over there over there get up get up he's right there he's right there hold it don't move don't move [Music] oh wait for him to stop well we had everything but a shot i could have almost taken them when they stood up but i was still shooting through that real thick grass you know he was he saw us coming down over this hill they're skyline for a second yeah we had him at 40 yards yeah we just we couldn't get over the edge yeah just that's hunting that's the way she goes yeah i'm glad you didn't we don't want to plug them in the hind end going away or anything could have done that but no i wasn't gonna yeah it was a good bear and there's other ones here that sucks that was close real close coming down i was ahead of barry a little bit ducked off the edge well barry tried catching up to me and scutt and running the skyline and i thought about mentioning it to him but i figured we'd be okay and i figured he'd just go right where i went but he tried to gain a little ground on me i like to stay a little bit ahead so i can get ahead in glass and kind of decide where to go and pick a route while not slowing us down and then when we got in close so then the bear sees us and started coming in that's never ideal because you got to make quick decisions and they had a few undulations and by the time we got up there the bear could see us and so yeah then at that point communication was a an issue barry's like well i probably should have just got up and shot off hand i said yeah but i don't i don't like to tell hunters to do that then they get pressured and i don't want them to take a shot they're not comfortable with on on bears particularly um especially in this brush you got to make that first shot count and i'd much rather be sitting where we're sitting than having a wounded bear in the alders you know that's you never want that a hunt with guarantees ain't my kind of hunting there ain't no guarantees here so maybe that was a way to warm up that was our warm-up all right we got we ironed the kinks out time to actually shoot one i guess next time we got a sow and two of this year's little cubs and they're probably about four miles away mary's kicking himself in the butt for not buying a porcupine tag i guarantee we wouldn't screw up the stock on that the one thing we did do right like i always say make the first one count doesn't have to be perfect but yeah when in doubt on grizzly bears and brown bears especially when you got alders and willows and stuff around yet first one's got to be right otherwise don't shoot doesn't matter how many you know things that we wish we'd have done different barry didn't do that and that's that's the right thing to do there's a change in the air and we just got to be patient uh but when you're a hunter and you know you've got a tag to fill sometimes you get anxious and you just need to calm down and realize that things are going to happen when they happen you just have to be ready i don't like this wears you down you got to be careful you don't exhaust yourself in a day when you don't have to save your energy whenever you need it it was we had a little bit of a frost this morning and it's been it's been cool every day but it hasn't been real good and cold normally you'll have a couple good hard frost by now and we haven't had that and that really seems to snap the moose into the rut and get them at least more more active the bulls morning of september the 14th day five moose activity was slow mid-morning i caught a glimpse of a mature bear several miles downstream in the area we last saw the big bore from the day before we knew it was a long shot but barry and i decided to give chase and hopefully get a better look at it almost four o'clock so we got six hours that's about the quarter to four so we're gonna go down up that ridge stop at that point in glass i don't know barry if we're nuts or not but i guess we're gonna go for it huh oh no no i i think we're crazy but i just think that that's what you do that's where we were glassing from that's where we first spotted him and he went down we last saw him just over this hump so i'm kind of house thinking we might catch him crossing the saddle or this face or we might catch him around there working up this hillside whatever just judging my way the way this bear was traveling kind of looks like he's going to go up over this ridge into the next drainage that's mainly why we're going after him that the wind's good so we're going to get up over this ridge up to this ridge you know on the drainage that he was in he's heading that way so we're gonna get up there peek in that backside the drainage that he's in and then work it down down that ridge obviously we're gonna be careful of him peeking over on us barry and i have spent the last one hour and 20 minutes traversing about two miles hillside countryside to see this bear and i knew it was a good sized bear wasn't entirely sure what it was it was pretty dark but these bears are so fat they're real difficult to tell what they are and i'm about 99 certain this is the same bear that was right up above our tent the first night it's pretty dark sow and it's got a long nose but it's narrow and that's what kind of gave it away when i saw it by her camp and so we boogied up here to try to catch it knowing that it was a big bear but you know i wasn't sure if it was a boar or a sow it's pretty dark i thought there was a good chance it was a bore get up here get a closer look without the heat waves and stuff we're oh yeah we're less than a thousand yards we're probably 700 yards away from it right now looking at it and right off the bat i could tell the nose was skinny came to a point it just didn't have that big strong nose that you look for in a bore and uh watched it for a while and i told bears and i'm 95 sure it's a sow and about five seconds later it took a leak so but this area is such a good area with a lot of bears so we're trying to get big mature bores and barry's got a monster brown bear and so i'd like to get him a big grizzly this is a big sow i'm sure she's well over seven foot you know probably maybe close to seven and a half it's a big big mature bear but uh yeah we want to get a big bore we having fun yet yeah we did a lot more your guide's running you ragged barry we're gonna get it put together sooner or later i hope you're gonna be 60 in three two days right yeah it's a 14. you're an animal wow this is no lazy man's moose hunt there's our tent that's where we've been glassing so when we tried to get a better look at that bear we came over to here that's why there's so many berries there are bears these blueberries are huge big as anything you buy in a store they're 100 organic you get an organic blueberry in the store it's about the size of that crowbarry right there bears will eat both of these when you find a bench or you don't have to bend over to pick blueberries you stop yeah barry smile i am smile now they ain't too blue tell me if that wasn't fun those holders and willows are miserable once you get in there you can't tell where you're going mary and i are but home quarter after eight [Laughter] with the home you got leaves and stuff all over you well that bull he was kind of hanging out right in the middle of this thunder flat kind of no man's land right now he's right in there i think you could see his antlers sticking up in there so i think if he's there in the morning we're probably going to make a play on him got a jug of water that i filled up with me head back to camp and see where he's at in the morning see if there's anything else around too obviously this wind switched so out of the west off the bering sea so don't be surprised we're going to be fogged in tomorrow it's rolling in already barry's changing his duds and i'm just out here glassing this bowl yeah i figure if he's right in there in the morning we're gonna have to give him a go there's very few places that are gonna be any easier than to pack him up that mountain right there [Music] this kind of sums up days lots of fog a little bit of rain nothing new on the moose front except for a cow and a calf ain't that right mr barton what's that we gotta wait for the right conditions and make our move on this bull yeah i think it's time we saw the bowl again but the wind has been literally swirling 360 degrees almost throughout the day and without a solid wind direction i don't want to go down where that bull is where he's at there's one two three four there's kind of like five drainages and he's pretty much right in the middle of it [Music] morning and day seven feeling lucky their birthday boy i always say hey barry you seen anything i think it might be time to crawl under the tarp and boil some coffee it's 12 o'clock the fog cleared and here's our bowl there's a cow in the background he's got another bowl with them that we spotted earlier through the fog and so the fog cleared and barry said i think i see them and sure enough there they are it's 12 37. we dumped off a bunch of stuff from camp lightened the loads now we're gonna dive bomb off this hill work our way over to him it's probably two miles to these bowls so we got a good good ways to go uh they're still bedded out in the open i doubt that'll change their rate i shouldn't say that um that's likely to change um they're they're bedded right downwind of the cow there's i think there's another one in there i'm sure there was another one two cows yesterday so they're bedded right downwind of those cows so those cows stay in that little patch they might just stay right right out there in the open that's not real typical but you see it once in a while pick our way through here try to find the easiest fastest route to travel and where they're at is right there 60 years old with two artificial needs take your time well we're down on the bottom working our way up now last time i looked it's one o'clock on the dot last time i looked they were right where they were so i'll just keep on going slow and steady try to put this together we're 650 yards away just see their antlers they're still bedded i saw one cow standing up wind's pretty much going from our left to right and interface 500 close moose down on this quick bottom of the moose are just about 400 yards away right over top i think we're gonna ease along here come around winds blowing up this canyon about 2 30. [Music] camps right over let's see up there on that ridge so we work down where all did we go okay came through there got into this bottom the bulls were right there we're within about 150 yards of them but it was just a real subtle rise so we went back into the bushes and worked around right as we exited this brush i saw the big bull right there just casually walking away following a cow snuck to that bush called a little bit he never came out you still see him barry you still see him barry oh yeah now he's right there yeah there you can see that he might be a little bigger than i think he looks pretty good he's 400 yards away right now if the ball was all alone we could have just snuck right up that low ground and went right at him but because there was two bulls there you know they were bedded right side by side then they stand up you know it's just yeah just i didn't just didn't want to do that so we worked around i mean it only took us an extra three four minutes but that made the difference literally two minutes earlier we just shot that bowl piece of cake this bulls 400 yards right in there yeah you're able to pretty much put your elbow right on the ground then and got the right elevation five a little o'clock going out in the open about it down so there's him about a low 50s bull and then this one and the big one and there's at least two cows in here right now the wind's blowing up the valley up the draws so it's just an uphill thermal because the sun's coming out and warming it's five o'clock i don't figure we dare stay here too late or otherwise we're gonna get caught in a swirling wind and we're only 400 mile 400 yards from these moves so i don't know i'm just kind of thinking of sitting here for a little bit and then bugging out of here before the wind swirls and then we booger them out [Music] that little guy's got all kinds of stuff running through his head he don't know what to do making a scrape now one of these cows is up and the other cow is in there and then the big bull bedded right there so quarter after five it might actually happen yet that's him but he's facing right at you barry and that cow is just to his right i'll keep an eye on it i can just see your ear so whatever we do i just don't want to force anything here yeah i think we need to wait unless it's just perfect here's our bull he's moving to the right i just saw some bushes right in there moving i think that's a cow barry and i moved a little bit and i came up here to see if i could see him so i think we'll probably do is maybe get down in that bush and hope these cows come out to the edge that bull followed just gotten kicked that little bull came out and he's been working this way following a cow so we're going to get down here get set up they look like they're going to come out of this little opening over this other willow thicket here [Music] cone is browsed that's gotta be do you have scar on his face take him reload okay try to get them right in the shoulder wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait yep don't shoot don't shoot don't you barry i think that's your birthday bowl buddy there goes the cow okay i think god yeah you hit him both times i know yeah she's looking at him he's hurting him i'm glad we had enough time oh so many near misses did you see the scar when he looked at me i knew it was him because he was wide enough i was like well we don't have to look for brow points just look for the scar on his face oh man i'll tell you what that happened quick didn't it yes he's down he's good yeah i mean i'll put a couple down in the magazine just in case in fact the battery led yeah once once i saw him look at us i knew that was him i figured it was i was 99 sure that was him to begin with but i wanted to make sure we didn't shoot that low 50 bull i'm glad we stayed past 5 30. well we kept talking ourselves yeah yeah we were going to stay longer alone i'm happy for you buddy well i heard that you know it hit him hard yeah i just felt bad and when he came out before the cow i think he probably came out to see that young bull we will ease up there yeah and see what we got there oh okay i'm on safe okay very good yeah that cow's taking off awesome awesome awesome i'm happy for you 60 years old you got it happy birthday to me yes sir that's why we can't see him i'll let you ease around this corner in front of me and we'll see if he's down i'm sure he's down in there but he's probably laughing there's a cow in there too i think that bull's laying right there we never did see that 50 inch bull i haven't seen him either that guy was huge compared to that boy i see his palm right where we figured he was right where we figured he should be that's why they didn't want to leave him right on the edge of the brush um oh got yourself a birthday bull moose oh he's got he's got he's got some mass and some waves he's all scarred up talk about no ground i think he's here boy look at his face he is all scarred up on the nose i'm gonna lay this gun right here oh leave it up well right here is one of her i've been digging scratching bedding in here congrats man awesome awesome awesome awesome still the biggest bull we've seen boy he's got some nice mass oh yeah yeah that's a good moose that's a good moose look at those points sizes hey uh billy and i are standing in here over about a 63-inch bolt we just got him about 15 minutes ago he uh he he brought me over here about is about a i don't know pretty close to two and a half mile hike we got a lot of work to do here we haven't stuck the knife to him yet but uh we're gonna get butchered and we'll butcher them out and then we'll get back around dark tonight and uh we'll celebrate a little bit you know we did around well we're about a half hour after we shot this pool uh today's my birthday i'll probably say that 15 times but i just you just can't plan things out like that i just it's just amazing we wet this bowl for a week and uh finally uh we he just got in a place where we just got tired of waiting is really what happened i guess we got impatient and that's how we got this bull and uh here he is like say about a half hour ago we put him down two shots from the rifle and uh we got a lot of work ahead of us that we do but we got a lot of we got the hard part done well but he then you know as far as getting a bull moose down like this he's in as good a place as you could possibly ask other than right beside a river that you can get a boat too yeah we think he i don't we don't have a tape but yeah it's going to be 63 give or take an inch 63 i think and that's pretty well about where we figured he's got nice mass yep palms are nice and wide he doesn't lay out you can see his points going straight up and yeah that's a good bull to pass them up as many days as we did i don't know it just seemed seemed pretty foolish to me but uh yeah it worked out in the end so we were just waiting for my birthday yep couldn't ask for more so well we're cruising along just got her started went right up the back came about out on a moose i go about eight inches eight nine inches behind the shoulder and then go up and this is pretty much how i butcher and skin anything we're just doing a shoulder mount come up the back of the leg and if you try to gut a moose like you would a deer boy you're gonna be in for some fun so the way i'll do it is uh i'll butcher all this top side and once i get everything off but the ribs then i'll cut right along the edge of the ribs get the get the guts pull them away and get rid of them get the tenderloins and then i'll take take the ribs off and then we'll flip it but on a mousse always leave the legs on until until you get it after you get it in the game bag because that's your lever to flip it over so we're going to cruise along hopefully we should be able to get this thing done in about about two hours get it butchered up and get back to camp before it gets too dark it'll probably be dark by the time we're back to camp but better get barry on the uh off the camera and onto the cape pulling detail here okay hold it punch it you don't want billy you wanna cut that last little bit there's one done 125 pound front corner okay there we go nine o'clock little before nine that's where we gotta go to get home two miles they're all butchered up meets under the tarp barry took off we're gonna go through these thinner strip of willows it's just solid willow and alders yeah we got a long hike ahead of us get home tomorrow we'll start packing it knew something's nothing but work i'm glad it worked out for barry he's a he's a happy man heck of a dude great great guy my pleasure to guide him no doubt great influence on my life and barry's getting his money's worth out of me today probably will tomorrow maybe the next day they're right barry getting your money's worth out of me today we gotta get home or dark preferably yeah we'll be home a little after dark but let's get a nice steady pace keep trucking you're working this hard last thing you want to do is take a lot of breaks it's just that much harder to start start again imagine packing out a moose and this stuff yeah you don't want to get caught in this crap after dark you get lost and you can't find your way through tough enough for alaska barry barton yeah actually from the time you start hearing the sound i was about 40 yards back i made her back by the light of the moon by the skin of her teeth oh we're in 20 minutes 10 a.m barry's eating his lunch already can't blame you you didn't eat much for breakfast no but it was in my pack i was getting kind of concerned about it getting frozen that a boy we got a our first good hard frost last night as you can see down the valley that's all frost the morning after the kill we're waiting for the pilots we're gonna let them shuttle us over rather than hike we figure it's about two and a half three miles of the kill by way of the crow it's probably two two and a half but by walking it's pushing three so we got one grizzly bear over there it was digging for a ground squirrel a minute ago and then we got another one this one's a small one i think that that one was a sal this one i'm not sure what it is but it's a pretty small bear young bear so our moose is right over in there you can actually see the cape out the tundra cape and the horns so the pilots are gonna bring a couple packers hopefully they're gonna land on that ridge right there somewhere up on that bench up in there the second one over so rather than us hiking another hour and a half to get over there we won't be able to hunt then but they drop find a place to land they'll drop off the packers and then i'm hoping they'll come over and shuttle barry and i over it'll be an extra trip or so we can make packing the meat up the hill and have us a little bit fresher and get it all hopefully with two packers we should be able to get it all up on the hill and out of here tonight so that's a plan for today and after that we'll have three days left try to find very a big grizzly dream billy right underneath me [Music] colin very good yeah that'll work it'll work good okay sounds good do you want us to grab you up here or what's the program roger roger okay this will be nice our chariot come pick us up oh man not have to walk across that two and a half miles again yeah but that will help yeah i'm gonna grab my stuff we're gonna be about right under you right now air strip have them shuttle us over the eagles have landed said they got a nice long strip up there so that's nice they can all have your loads off so hold the dive bomb off that ridge and then moose is right down there center of the screen all right barry here's the drill i don't know if you remember what it's like to be young and impressionable but it wasn't long ago this was me we got to tell these guys how great we've heard they are at packing build their heads up to big swollen hot air balloons to where they think they have to perform to impress us and i have a series yes and you've got a great big fat pocketbook and you pay off of performance they don't know that the people that say that stuff usually are the ones that don't deliver but we'll just teach them the lesson now and talk them up to where they feel that they'll say yeah man i remember this one guy he used to pack two quarters at a time hopefully you can see my bag they make it look pretty easy don't they barry's gonna get shuttled over and he'll come back get me look barry ate too much breakfast ryan said the packers are doing pretty good he said this is going to be the longest pack they've had thus far but he said oh yeah we've been we've been we've been breaking them up pretty good wow you guys did awesome uh yeah i had it done to me many many many many many many times it probably took me about a decade to figure it out now i don't i don't care but yeah we'd be packing out caribou oh yeah i think we can get all four quarters and a little neck meat in there don't you think oh yeah probably gotta tell guides would always tell stories of great packers that they once knew of course now knowing what i don't know i'm sure they were all fictitious but i believed it so you had to try to live up to that standard so yeah goes around comes around i got mine these young bucks will learn get theirs a pretty good little crosswind quartering crosswind backfiring on [Music] [Music] [Music] so i don't think i'll ever see those days again buy the extra cash i'd give them 500 of these that's work where were you when i was packing i think the most i i think one time on a on a 15 day brown bear hunt now granted i mean i packed out the hide i got 350 bucks that was pretty sweet yeah i didn't think it wasn't that long ago i didn't think anything of that now just looking at that it's just like dang i'd say these hiding quarters are about 140. [Music] [Laughter] yahtzee look at how thick that skull is for good reason that one had scars all over the place done deal got the k thing caped out had a real hard time he called him scarface because he had all these scars on his face and it was all the way right through to the ball and some of that stuff so hopefully a taxidermist can repair that so now we're just waiting for the fellas to return they got the hindquarters by god we saw them go up over the hill that was about 45 minutes ago maybe they quit i'm not sure but so once they come back then we'll start packing with them and they did good they didn't quit us tough kids where are they going to go [Laughter] what'd you say about him that is a bad man that's a roger he's a tough old bird i couldn't catch the old dog about 45 minutes probably took about four days off my life but what the hell there's salty dog we timed her out just right we got a couple of tired packers and we got an airplane that went pretty darn good those two packers were very good they're from washington yeah they did they did well pretty tough good kids ah here comes salty dog with the moose slayer himself barry barton yeah we made really short work of that that moose went yeah surprisingly well yeah less than six hours is about a mile and a quarter so we packed that whole thing up that hill it was excellent this is a rough strip i don't think any of the pilots really like this one oh it didn't take much to get airborne there well barry that bull's in the bag man literally he's in the back two boys up there they are they're gonna be glad yeah i think i think they're gonna rest easy tonight i'm gonna fix my sling i've been too cheap to buy a new one it's been like that for about two or three years every once in a while the 550 cord let's loosen what i'll do all right when i leave this i'll take the sling off this right we'll give it to you because i don't even like this swing no okay flying swivels and the whole thing yeah well solves my problem see that's why i'm cheap but i know i'm going to get some nice guy like barry to bail me out if you have crappy enough gear these hunters will feel bad for you and they'll buy you new stuff so so now we got a couple onions and we're gonna have some mousse tenderloin tonight onion and some garlic you got that garlic yeah i killed it the boys were sick so they had some garlic in the pocket to attaboy and the vampires one with your vitamins alrighty yummy the weather was marginal when we set out early the next morning [Music] eventually the clouds parted like great white velvet curtains and unveiled the spellbinding story the bull berry shot was the biggest we'd seen in our eight days of hunting he was the king of this valley but now he was gone the hierarchy of the kingdom was left in disarray every prince jester and wannabe romeo from across the land had sensed the news and swooped in to claim the monarchy and with it all the king's maidens but he's just waving his antlers real slow his eyes are probably rolled in the back of his head just trying to run that other bowl off so establish a pecking order the grizzly the arch nemesis of the moose noticed the change in activity as well it seemed as though all the bears were on high alert we saw nearly a dozen cruising through the valley and scattered across the hillsides [Music] barry and i soaked in the drama until the sun went down both of us were sorry we wouldn't be there for the second act was that worth the price of admission oh yeah that was exciting but i almost got frozen inside now we're gonna head back to the to the tarp grab our gru stuff and head for home yeah we're gonna get some hot hot something man i have froze yeah she's cold tonight i think we're gonna get a really hard frost especially if these clouds clear out the wind's straight off the north out of the north she's going to be cold i'm guessing it's probably about 25 right now it's going to get cold [Music] blackberry he's been making tracks [Music] i just say he's about a medium-sized [Music] bear i'm barry barton from pennsylvania a little town called butler just north of pittsburgh i'm here in the middle of the alaskan wilderness again you know this is the third hunt i've had with billy third successful hunt i might add uh billy has a tradition where he likes to let his hunters reflect a little bit about the experience they've had on the hunt and this one was as unique as they come we've seen a lot of game but i climb on these hunts to reflect a little bit uh when you remove yourself from the day-to-day life i always come to those plays like this and every time i come back gives me a chance to think about the way i conduct my life and the way i do things and personally adjust myself so whenever i go back i'm a better person but billy has provides an unbelievable experience he just takes care of every need you have every year he takes care of me again like i said this was special for me we had we got a beautiful moose uh i would like to take a minute to uh thank uh uh two lovely ladies for making this possible of course billy's wife stacia i just don't know how she does it you know he leaves for a long period of time to do his job and that job is very difficult this is this is demanding i come up here for basically about two weeks and it just it wears me down terrible but he does it week after week hunter after hunter month after month so stacia once again thanks for letting billy uh guide me on this hunt and make one another one of my dreams come true magnificent moose and karen my wife thanks sweetheart i owe you everything i uh i know you don't like to see me leave all the time but i also know that uh you like to see me live out my dreams and you know hopefully i can help you live out your dreams too by being the kind of husband that i should be and oh by the way this was my 60th birthday so that made it uniquely special and i plan on celebrating my birthday whenever i get back home but for all of you people who would like to experience an adventure like this because it's not a hunt it's really is an adventure it's not about the game it's about the adventure itself billy moles provides an experience that is second to none barry's flyout day it's been pretty decent most of the day it's quarter to five now now we're getting these snow squalls coming through like this one coming right at us where you can't see visibility's less than a half a mile so there's one that just passed us so they're getting more frequent and there's another one moving up the valley so we're going to call base camp let them know because it's you know it's 90 flyable but one of those snowstorms hits you could kill you in seconds and the adventure continues i'll say man according to barry's itinerary his hunt was over but mother nature had other plans persistent snow squalls off the bering sea made it impossible to fly [Music] we were still on the lookout for a big grizzly but by late afternoon we were totally socked in that storm right there sweeping through the valley is what we're scared of visibility less than a mile that can ruin your day following day the weather was even worse barry and i made it out for a few short walks during brief lulls but we mostly just hunkered in our tent read our books and ate the last of our moose steaks and onions even though the sun's shining i don't think there's any way barry's gonna make it out today that night we savored our final ration of whiskey the hunt was officially over we finally have some good weather after not even sure how many days got a fair bit of snow again last night pretty cold today i'd say it's probably below 20 this morning or at least it was so i got a threshold marked out nice and fancy like mary and i stomp the center line wind's pretty well coming down the valley so that should be good get very loaded up what's the wind i got kind of a crosswind strip that i'm marking now um i'm going to call it northwest well i don't know how we're going to do going uphill out of there billy how much weight we'll be able to really take yeah it gets a little rough a little bit bumpier once you get to the gear but i gotta i think we got a real good line stomped out you know just parallel to the runway you're gonna have a little crosswind obviously but uh yeah i think it's pretty good all right well as is always the case plan changes second by second grease out sucker mary's loaded enough a bunch of camp gear pretty much a whitewash so now i'm going to pack my stuff up and they're going to shuttle down to a better strip longer strip into the wind and where they can you know haul a lot heavier load then brian's gonna come back and take all my stuff we'll get up get in the air and get out of here camp broke down heading out of dodge making my way for the peninsula do some brome around so very few of the hunters i guide are the wealthy elitist some would like to believe them to be most of my clients are among the kindest most humble people i've ever met [Music] we're all products of our environment and there's no doubt the interactions the friendships and and the mentorships i've received from my clients have made me the man i am today [Music] becoming an alaskan guide was my life's dream since i was 12 years old i achieved that before i was old enough to drink beer legally which was great and i loved it but after a while something was missing and i grew complacent it was as though life had lost its flavor [Music] with nothing new to strive for the storms of life became difficult for me to endure and i fell into a state of depression [Music] the bible says where there is no vision people perish at that time in my life i had no vision and i was most certainly perishing this was the first of many adversities in my life in which my faith and my observations of nature renewed me [Music] not every alder bush can withstand the gale force winds of western alaska some alders are hit harder than others but not a single one worries about its misfortune the alder bush simply focuses on its purpose and resists against the wind and continues to grow [Music] by resisting the storm though it leaves behind a bend in a scar the older limbs adjust their course and become stronger this newfound direction of growth doesn't prevent future storms but rather toughens the alder for bigger ones [Music] as a young man the gales of life eventually knocked me flatter than a garage sale tent set on an alaskan ridge top if anything noteworthy emanates from my life on this earth i'm certain it will come as a result from the journey that followed desperate for answers and in need of hope i began reading the bible on days i was stranded in my tent the love of my family and faith that brighter days may lie ahead were the only things that kept me alive [Music] for two straight years i prayed for god to help me finally on a spring brown bear hunt i witnessed a pregnant moose cow turn away from the willow she was feeding on to watch her yearling for the river [Music] in that very instant i recognized as soon as that cow was ready to give birth to its new calf she would force the yearling out on its own bears wolves and wolverines would try to kill that yearling every chance they could and no one would be there to help that young moose never would that yearling feel sorry for itself and never would it quit [Music] it was in that moment i realized everything in nature strives to maximize its potential without fail [Music] that was a light switch moment in my life my two-year depression was over [Music] i can't say whether god orchestrated the events or he simply opened my eyes my mind and my heart to notice it but i know his hand was in it he spoke to me in the language i've always loved the language i've spent my entire life learning and the language i believe i best understand the language of nature [Music] since then life hasn't been overflowing with sunny days 70 inch bowls and easy pack outs the storms of life will never cease it's our job to harness them and allow them to guide us in the direction we need to go unlike the alderbush man doesn't have to stay on the same windswept ridge we select the soil in which we plant our roots the environment we choose the path we take and the outcome of our lives is our responsibility and no one else's [Music] at the age of 60 with two artificial knees barry had every excuse not to go hunting in alaska but like everything in nature barry didn't quit he resisted against the storms thrown at him he didn't focus on the pain or the difficulty he focused on getting stronger and healthier overcoming the obstacles and experiencing a wilderness in which only the strong survive [Music] of the wisest most successful and generous people i've ever known a vast majority of them were met in wilderness hunting camps i know that's not an accident my clients and co-workers are drawn to the wild because it's where we find life in all its glory the storms the sunsets the bitter cold the maddening mosquitoes the grizzlies that may try to kill us and the animals we kill to feed our families life was booming in that tiny range of hills along the yukon river where barry and i hunted moose and bears were everywhere salmon spawned in the creeks willow bushes were head high and the berry thickets were so dense and vast you practically needed a compass to get out of them as each organism grew it was able to give more life back to one another as a result the ecosystem flourished here in the alaskan wilderness where life is delicate and death is tangible an adventurer discovers that the essence of life is growth barry's example has taught me that personal growth is never easy in fact if we're not pushing our comfort zone testing our limits overcoming adversity growth is all but impossible growth is not measured by what we attain or we achieve true growth is demonstrated as it is in nature by our impact on our ecosystem by what we give to improve the lives of others and the world around us [Music] well the fine tooth come with my notes my attorney will be there anyway so what did we learn about um emergency rations for the next time you come hunting in alaska barry well there's several key ingredients that you need more of in case you get stranded like we have been for the past two days one of them is you need more alcohol for emergencies yeah i mean one of us could get some kind of a puncture wound or something what might happen boy my hair's got i think women would pay good money to have hair with volume like this look at that i pay good money [Laughter] that's just uh five six days a lot of showers all that is get a little natural oil going in there it's a tip of whiskey and change your underwear kind of night i was lathered up getting over here i didn't know i'd make it over here but we did pretty good yeah yeah oh a cat i really wow not much left i heard what you said but i think the only thing dumb enough to stay out in this weather was hot so we've had the most fun time moving to tarp yeah and we don't need any more gummy bears or candy we could go for some pretzels and as a matter of fact we could actually even have some jerky we wouldn't do it right now okay just hold it nice and still to where you can see up that way all right remove your finger from the lens well i really can't answer that i i i just ended up with a root canal on friday morning and uh i'm fixing it yeah we're going to bed early well we're going to bed here yeah yeah put your arms up you can probably fly now jump see if you fly then we'll know if i had an ultralight i can fly back no yes it's almost bedtime well i need some more coughs here [Laughter] last thing you want to do is shoot them somewhere and you don't know if you can land anywhere nearby that's how you lose friends and make enemies real fast as a guide i told barry when i retire from guiding i'm gonna try to sell my beat up rusted up old 375 and advertise it that has only had two boxes i am almost shot through it because i probably haven't even shot maybe a box through it and it's like seven years old yeah maybe i'm on my second box by now no but i would not be false advertising misleading yeah a little bit misleading what what else could we use any kind of fire water small ones not for smoke outsole maybe some dijorno pizza would be nice pizza would be good we could grill up a pizza barry walked about four or 500 yards back to camp to grab the coffee pot he grabbed cheese danishes both mugs and i was looking at him i said what are you looking for i said how about the pot [Laughter] i'll run grab the pot oh yeah everything they all after that is gonna be the smoking drink [Laughter] two boxes of ammo and about two billion raindrops have been run through the in the barrel of that old sucker two billion rainstorms a couple river dunking yeah and cleaned probably about four times yeah about every about every two years i give her a cleaning whether it needs it or not what'd you say about him [Laughter] that's a roger he's a tough old bird i got hearing aids glasses bifocals two artificial knees we need to get this done for the 60th birthday before i need another part this young bucks like a teenage boy that just got invited over to a girl's house it's a tool for me yeah i don't i don't name my guns that's for sure it's well broken in yeah it is i say we got plenty of candy and yeah billy's had three sugar attacks that's all we have left is sugar it's the most candy you were quitting over there we've pretty well pretty well gone through all the food we've got basically all we've got left is uh freeze-dried and then just solid sugar pretty much all kinds of packaged sugary stuff that barry and i haven't been eating for the last two weeks and now that's all we got left pretty much so yeah getting a little little jittery it's beginning to look a lot like christmas everywhere you go i don't know i don't see it now for more information on other dvds books and modern day mountain man apparel log on to billymolesadventures.com 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 [Music] information

Channel: Billy Molls Adventures

Views: 123,588

Rating: 4.7977695 out of 5

Keywords: Alaska moose guide, Alaska moose outfitter, best hunting video, alaska grizzly bear guide, alaska grizzly bear outfitter, bear hunting video, moose calling, diy moose hunt

Id: VWrNe7UfqWA

Length: 114min 22sec (6862 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021