The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 105 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Bill Vanderheyden
Join us for a thrilling conversation with Bill Vanderheyden, the genius behind Iron Will broadheads, as he shares his inspiring journey from a mechanical engineer in Wisconsin to a pioneering designer of high-performance hunting gear in Colorado. With a background in bow hunting and a drive fueled by a commercial product failure, Bill opens up about the meticulous craftsmanship and technical details that go into creating the ultimate broadheads. Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of Iron Will and the importance of sharpness and penetration in broadhead design.
We swap riveting hunting stories, from heart-pounding bear encounters to the unpredictable challenges of caribou hunting. This episode promises a delightful mix of technical expertise, and thrilling hunting adventures.
Our journey doesn't stop there. Bill shares an enthralling account of a demanding caribou bow hunt, highlighting his persistence amid multiple challenges. From tactical decisions during midday caribou hunting to the climactic 98-yard shot that ensured an ethical hunt, Bill's narrative captures the essence of dedication and skill in bow hunting. We wrap up with insights on upcoming hunting seasons and extend a warm invitation for listeners to share their own stories. Don't miss this episode packed with practical advice, mouth-watering culinary insights, and unforgettable hunting experiences!
Join us for a thrilling conversation with Bill Vanderheyden, the genius behind Iron Will broadheads, as he shares his inspiring journey from a mechanical engineer in Wisconsin to a pioneering designer of high-performance hunting gear in Colorado. With a background in bow hunting and a drive fueled by a commercial product failure, Bill opens up about the meticulous craftsmanship and technical details that go into creating the ultimate broadheads. Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of Iron Will and the importance of sharpness and penetration in broadhead design.
We swap riveting hunting stories, from heart-pounding bear encounters to the unpredictable challenges of caribou hunting. This episode promises a delightful mix of technical expertise, and thrilling hunting adventures.
Our journey doesn't stop there. Bill shares an enthralling account of a demanding caribou bow hunt, highlighting his persistence amid multiple challenges. From tactical decisions during midday caribou hunting to the climactic 98-yard shot that ensured an ethical hunt, Bill's narrative captures the essence of dedication and skill in bow hunting. We wrap up with insights on upcoming hunting seasons and extend a warm invitation for listeners to share their own stories. Don't miss this episode packed with practical advice, mouth-watering culinary insights, and unforgettable hunting experiences!
howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and once again we got a good one for you today. Today we're actually connecting with one of actually the creator of one of my favorite products, iron will bill vanderheiden. If you haven't used his broadheads before, they are best in class. They are sharp, l and hell and they kill an animal quick. So first off, I want to say thanks to Bill for coming on the podcast. It did take a while for us to get together, but that's because the guy is always in the woods honing his craft and putting down bears and caribou and all sorts of things. So, thank you, bill. I do appreciate it For you, so for you listeners, thank you guys for tuning in. Yeah, let's just kick this thing off, man. Let's let Bill tell you some of his stories. Thank you, all right, bill.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Hunting Stories Podcast. Brother, how are you? I'm good, michael. How are you doing? I'm doing great, man. I'm excited that you're here. I don't know, actually, if you noticed, I'm wearing my Iron Will shirt. I got this attack last year. It's one of my favorite shirts, and so I'm excited to talk to Iron Will Bill himself. So thank you for coming on with me today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you told me what you did with just telling hunting stories. I'm like that sounds great. I'm usually, you know, talking technical things, but you know I love bow hunting, you know I live for it, so it's fun to tell hunting stories, for sure.
Speaker 1:Let's kick this thing off. Why don't you, bill, introduce yourself, maybe explain why you talk technical so often and why this will be a nice change of pace for you and where you started hunting your origin story?
Speaker 2:I grew up in Wisconsin hunting whitetails, moved to Colorado 25 years ago. I got an engineering degree, also while in Wisconsin um, but yeah, I saw I'm a mechanical engineer and developed products for other companies for many years.
Speaker 2:I got obsessed with elk hunting um had a broadhead fail to penetrate an elk shoulder blade. Then I started designing, developing my own, my own broadheads, and now I do archery components, you know, full arrow systems, along with some ultra light hunting knives. But I designed about products and then go go bow hunting a lot to test them out. So you know I love bow hunting, love good mechanical engineering and kind of combine the two together in my job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I don't think I'm as extreme on either one of those things as you are, but you sold me and then my first broadheads I ever bought were iron wills and it was a YouTube video of uh, it was like a, a press just going through a chunk of meat and a shoulder blade, and you showed the pounds of pressure it took for, you know, an arrangement of broad heads to actually penetrate just the meat, just the skin, and then actually get to the shoulder blade. And I was like, wow, that that makes sense to me. Um, so what you're doing, it works. I've I've used your broad heads on several animals and I've never had anything but a complete pass through, so they definitely work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as an engineer I knew that keeping that force to penetrate low is what gives you more distance through it. So it was kind of obvious to me, but it's. It wasn't talked about much in the industry. Getting things really sharp takes more passes of grinding and honing and it's not that common, but it's really important. So anyway, yeah, that's helped a lot of people try our product and like it for sure, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, bill, so we're here for a reason, right? We want to hear some of your favorite hunting stories, and I think you get out probably more than most, so why don't you set the stage on on your first story, I know?
Speaker 2:you have a couple in mind for us. Yeah, I was thinking about telling, uh, you know, my first, uh, my first bear hunting story and, uh, we've got time, maybe that my first caribou hunting story. And these aren't you know, there's other stories. I could tell where I look. You know I look like um, you know, a top, top notch bow hunter, and things went perfect and I got, you know, big, great big elk and it's uh, you know, I'm a hero in it and these, these are more like um, I didn't really quite know what I was doing. Um made a few mistakes here and there, but they're uh, they're kind of special stories to me. I can remember them very vividly, you know.
Speaker 2:So, my first bear hunt first, you know, I saw. You know, I grew up in Wisconsin, then I moved to Colorado, hunted elk, mule, deer, antelope for years, but I didn't hunt bears and I kind of wasn't sure if I wanted to hunt bears or not. It was rare that I saw them. It was really cool to see them and watch them and you know, they're just kind of different. They're a predator and you know, I've got nothing against people that wanted to do it. I just wasn't sure if I wanted to, which it seems kind of silly to me now because I've killed lots of bears and I love bear hunting.
Speaker 1:I love eating bears at this point.
Speaker 2:But at the time it's like I didn't know bears well enough to kill them. It was kind of almost the way I felt about it. Um, but after many years of elk hunting and getting up close and personal to bears a number of times and, um, you know, I, I really felt like I was competing with them at times, you know where I was hunting.
Speaker 2:I decided you know I'm gonna, I going to hunt and kill a bear here, um, so I started just picking up a bear tag when I was elk hunting. So it wasn't it wasn't necessarily on purpose, it was more going to be an incidental encounter, uh, encounter, I think, to kill one, um, so I get this. Uh, anyway, I'm on an elk hunt, I get an elk, um, I got just the two of us. It's a backpack hunt with a buddy of mine. We pack out, um, I guess we got it kind of late. We hung up the quarters in a tree and we oh, actually he got, uh, my buddy got the elk on this one, not me.
Speaker 2:We hung up, um, we hung up a couple of quarters and we hiked, packed out a couple quarters in the dark all the way down to the truck, slept or slept there for the night. We hiked in early the next morning to get the second couple of quarters. We just got up to where we had hung, hung these. So this is in the wilderness, um, you know a few miles, um, and we're we're tired, we sit down, have a sandwich, um, or snack there and we're just talking. We're just talking away back and forth and we look over and there's this bear bear coming in. You know he had smelled the meat hanging behind us and was coming in and um, even though I had a bear tag, I was pretty exhausted from that pack out the night before the hike in that morning.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking, man, I don't want to kill a bear right now, plus, I want to fill my elk tag yet, yeah. So I'm thinking I just stand up and try to scare this bear off, like, hey, bear, get out of here, bear. And it just starts circling us, you know, in the timber, and it's not really leaving and it's trying to circle behind where the uh, where the quarters are. I didn't have a gun, but my buddy had a 44 pistol okay, and um.
Speaker 2:So I said I've got a bear tag. I think I'm gonna, I think I'm just gonna try and kill this bear here. And it was. It was in the thick stuff back. It wasn't that far, but it was back behind the where we hung the quarters and it was just hanging out back there. So I go like try to be super quiet, crawl in there, as it's just kind of circling back and forth and um, I I'm like 20 yards away and I draw and I'm thinking like the bear doesn't know I'm here because it's not looking at me. Well, yeah, I go to draw on it and the bear just turns and looks right at me. It knew I was, it's a boar, it knew I was there the whole time. It starts rubbing its butt on this tree and then snapping his jaws at me.
Speaker 1:So that was a, that was a new experience for me.
Speaker 2:It's like hunting, something that for one knows you're there and it's just not afraid of you. Also, it could mess you up if it wanted to. A bear could easily kill a person A bear that's. I don't know what it weighed, but it was. I think. An average adult bear in Colorado is like 260 pounds.
Speaker 2:So they're not huge but that for it could mess me up for sure. Um, uh, yeah, so you know it. It turns it, snap. It's not snapping his jaws at me like loud and I'm at full draw. I don't really want to take a frontal on this. I didn't have a great shot angle on it. And I whisper to my buddy who's so? My buddy? I walk in on this little path and it's kind of thick and he's standing 10 yards behind me with the pistol, which is pretty worthless really from where he's at. But I whisper like you got me covered here, something like that.
Speaker 2:So then the bear drops down on all fours and it goes to circle me and I'm still at full draw and it goes through this little opening and I take the shot. It zips through it. I mean, it looked like a good shot, but I take that shot and that bear took off running. You know, luckily it didn't run towards me, it just ran in the direction it was facing. Yeah, but holy cow, did it run fast? I'd never seen a bear like it was like a black streak through the woods. Like wow, did that? I turned on to my buddy and that's what I said. Like wow, did you see how fast that thing. So it ran and then we heard this death moan like within five seconds.
Speaker 1:Oh, really, okay, yeah so you knew you got it. That's a noise I want to hear, really bad it, uh it.
Speaker 2:I mean it's just a streak going by yeah and then I would say it was under five seconds. Might have been like four seconds. We hear this death moan, but it's over 100 yards away in four seconds you know wow it ran so fast it was crazy. So I turned to my buddy and say, man, if that thing would have charged me, would you have hit it? He says not a chance not a chance for one?
Speaker 2:it was thick and for and two it came so fast. That was crazy. Anyway it was. You know my adrenaline was way up. That was an exciting experience for me and really it got kind of hooked on bear hunting after that, just the challenge and the kind of elevated level. And you know, I'm not saying I was a super tough guy or anything but just getting on the ground, getting up to a bear and getting a shot on it.
Speaker 2:It's just a level of, um, you know, I don't know if it's danger there or whatever just something that brings out the predator, the hunter, into you to a higher level, like, yeah, like when that bear was snapping his jaws and then turned go sideways. It's like my senses were keyed up. I could, like, see every hair on that bear was snapping his jaws and then turned to go sideways. My senses were keyed up. I could see every hair on that bear exactly. I was just watching what he was doing. I'm worried. Is he going to charge me? Am I going to get the shot?
Speaker 2:But just that level of intensity was something that I hadn't quite experienced with deer and elk. Now, I love deer and elk hunting. It's just a little different with a bear. But, um, yeah, so I've taken, uh, I've killed, and, yeah, that bear was laying dead when we got there. Um, we made it about a hundred yards, I'd say Um, but that that experience. You know, I'm kind of hooked on bear hunting now. I think I've shot seven bears in the last eight years with some big ones some big ones in there.
Speaker 2:but I understand now why people want to hunt bears. I didn't quite understand before. Also, the meat's great, I love the meat. Um, I just shot a bear a few weeks ago in Saskatchewan and I ate bear for a. I do this when I get an animal now is I hate throwing it in my freezer and saying I'll eat it all later. I like eat as much as I can that first week. So I eat bear every day, sometimes twice a day for a week and, yeah, bear roast.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you about cooking bear, because I do have a question for you. So it's a predator, right and it's got. I'm drawing a blank on what it's called. But so you have to cook it. Well done, is that? Is that accurate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Bears are like pigs. Um, they can have trichinosis, I guess. So you want to, yeah, cook it. Well done so um, yeah you don't want to have like rare steaks or anything out of out of a bear.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times and I will I I'll cook it on a smoker, I'll cook the loins like long time, low and slow um, or I'll throw it in a crock pot, also cook it low and slow um, and it's good. It's like like the boar I just shot was a you know, adult, you know an older boar and yeah the meat's kind of marbled. There's some fat on it and uh, it's, it's, it's more like you. It's similar to a beef roast.
Speaker 2:But, anyway, I really like it. You know, if you read, like I think, the book's Undaunted Courage with Lewis and Clark, they preferred bear meat over deer meat. Yeah, I've heard that it really is good. And you know, prior to shooting one, that's part of the reason why I wasn't sure if I wanted to shoot one, because I like to eat what I kill, so I also kind of wasn't sure about that. But at this point I know that I love bear and I'll cook a bunch of roasts and make it into sausage. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's good as well. Part of the reason I asked is have you ever cooked sous vide? Are you familiar? I am, yeah, okay, so I've done this with chicken Because you cook chicken to 165, and the reason you cook chicken to 165 is at 165, everything bad in there that there could be instantly dies, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually saw a graph that showed that. Those same things at, say, 135, right, a medium-rare temperature for most meats. If you can keep it at 135 for two hours, everything will die as well. So those things. It's kind of a hockey stick type graph where you can do lower temperatures if you cook it for a long time at that temperature, which with heat is hard but with sous vide is doable. So I've cooked chicken to medium rare, which was gross. It tasted fine, the texture was really weird of the chicken and I was just curious if you had heard about anything like this, because I want to get a predator and I want to cook it sous vide and find out where that like you know, three hours at this temperature is to maybe get a medium rare bear steak. I'm trying to find someone who's tried that, cause I'm sure, I bet that would be good.
Speaker 2:I bet you that would be really good on a bear, because the yeah, I try not to overcook it but yet I want to make, I want to get it to the you know 160 that you're supposed to. Um, yeah, if I'm doing it like as a loin, like on a grill or something, but I bet that would be good in a bear, I'll have to do my research, figure out the the how long trichinosis, at certain temperatures, stays active before it dies off, because I think that could be a fun way to cook some of those predators.
Speaker 1:I've asked the same question to a guy who's big in mountain lying and he's like you know I've never heard of that. That'd be interesting. So it's. I guess it's now my. My main thing is I need to get a bear so I can figure this out and let everyone know what a medium rare bear steak tastes like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sounds good, let me know. Let me know if you need one Any parts sent to you, I can help you out.
Speaker 1:Will do. I want to tell you a bear story. I've similar to you before. You were actually into bears. I have bear tags, but it's kind of just complimentary to what I'm out there for, which is typically elk. I think it was my second archery season. I had a bear tag and we were on this hillside glassing. The morning before we had seen a bunch of elk, so we figured we'd try it again this morning. And this particular morning we're glassing, no elk, but we see this giant black spot on the side of the mountain about a mile mile and a half away and we're looking at it. We're like what is?
Speaker 1:that Is that an elk and we realize it's just a really big bear. I mean, it seems big to us, right. So we charge down this valley and then up the other side and we know exactly the trail that it's on. So we're like, if it maintains on that trail, we can get ahead of it.
Speaker 1:And your story reminded me of this story because I just remember being on like maybe five yards off that trail, being like he's coming. I know he's coming, I'm going to get him and I'm standing there with my bow I don't have a pistol and all of a sudden he is 10 yards away and I'm terrified. He's through a bunch of brush. So I never actually laid eyes on him. I could just hear him. I could hear his teeth clacking, I could hear him sniffing and I'm like oh God, what have I done? Like I was just like this is the dumbest, dumbest thing.
Speaker 1:Why am I sitting here with a sharp stick, 10 yards from a bear that I can't see? Um, he realized I was there and he booked it. Um, so I got out of there without killing anything or putting anything down. And my buddy's on the other side of this, like ravine, and I look at him and he's like what's up, you know, hands up Like did you see him, did you find him? And no joke, 10 yards above him up a really steep incline, is a bull elk and like 90 yards from me.
Speaker 1:And I'm like no like that's what to turn around and he just doesn't get it. And I'm not quite confident enough to throw an arrow right over his head at this elk, but I mean, he is as the crow flies. He couldn't have been more than 10 yards from this elk. It just was up a steep hill so he couldn't see it. Um, and somehow that elk completely disappeared. It didn't run off, didn't run off, it just slowly meandered into this, this point, and then we surrounded that point and we it just never came out. We don't know what happened to it, but your story reminded me of that and being super close proximity to a bear, it's exhilarating. It's not like anything I've ever done before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure it's, it's a whole, it's a whole new experience and, um, yeah, I can understand why people, some people, love to do it. Um, at this point and I can understand why some people don't want to do it too, but um, it's uh, yeah, it's. It was a new experience for me, but yeah, I'm I'm hooked on it. That's cool.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that was a good one, um, and a little scary, but what else you got? I think you said you had a caribou story for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought I'd tell my first caribou story because it's kind of interesting. I think I've been caribou hunting three times now or every other year for the last five years or so. This is up in the Brooks Range, so I use a flight service to get dropped off in the Brooks Range for 10 days and then picked up later. So it's kind of a do-it-yourself hunt but you get dropped off where there's some caribou around. So the first time I went with two buddies of mine. One of them was the same guy from the bear hunting story but uh, um, and you know he had he'd never shot more. He was a guy in front of mine from the Midwest. He'd never shot more than 40 yards. So I really pushed him to um sight in his bow and get accurate to at least 60. I just heard that. You know that open. You know bearing ground caribou, it can be tough to get under 40 quite often. So I had done a lot of long range practice and shooting Myself. You know I've got a target at 100 yards that I shoot at every day with broadheads and field points and I'd practice to 120. And I wasn't planning to shoot that far but yeah, I wanted to. I wanted to be able to shoot. You know, I've been told by guys that hunt there a lot, man. If you can get very accurate to 60 to 80, it's going to really open up your opportunities. So that's what I was trying to get to that level.
Speaker 2:Um, really, I knew nothing about caribou, though we get dropped off and you know we can't hunt the first day, but we're watching these caribou running around and they're, they're amazing animal. If you haven't seen them they're, you know they're beautiful. They have these like silver, brown and white. You know, coats. Um, at that time we went up in august, it was like august 13th. So they have these chocolate brown, you know velvet antlers and they are just running all over the place which and we spent, you know we're trying to figure out what are these things running for and why. You know whether it be one running north, one running south, and they pass right by each other and keep running in their directions and we're like that's weird, I had no idea like nothing's chasing these things.
Speaker 2:Why are they running? And I feel like it's maybe just a defense mechanism.
Speaker 2:They feel like they want to be on the move and and these things can move like um, they almost like float across the tundra. I think they're just built to run, you know, and they're not running super fast. Typically they're not running super fast, it's just kind of a you just kind of a, you know, a trot, but they cover. They cover miles and um and and I think I think they're just capable of, you know, running 50 miles a day type thing. It's just what they do, um. So yeah, anyways, we're trying to kind of figure out what these animals are doing, what, how do we ambush them, or something like that. So that's that evening we're watching them. Next morning we get up and it's light at about 2 am. There it's only dark from maybe midnight to 2 am, but we just decide we're going to probably just sleep in until 5 or 6 and hunt until 10 pm. Can, you know, get some sleep?
Speaker 1:So Quick question on that that I just thought of. Uh, most hunting, right you do, right in the morning and right in the evening, with such short evenings. Is that something you care about at all? Or you just, you know, hunt whenever, cause they're always out there and they're not. You know what is the word Capuscular? Is that the word I'm looking for? You know, hunt whenever, cause they're always out there and they're not.
Speaker 2:You know what is the word crepuscular? Is that the word I'm looking for? Yeah, what I I mean, what I've seen, is that, um, often when I've been on these hunts, if you're on a high point, you can see caribou at all times somewhere. Um, now you might decide it's three miles away. I'm never going to get to those caribou, you know in time, um, or whatever. But you know there's been some years where I went on stock after stock after stock from you know I'd get up at five or six hunt till 10 PM and I was on stocks all day long. Um, so you know, there you can do it for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Depending on the weather. The weather, um, they might be tucked in and bedded down, um it's. I can't say I figured them out exactly, but that first trip they had some just kind of bizarre behavior, um, where most of the time they were just moving, which became a challenge. So, anyway, that, um, any more questions on that? Or no? No, I was just. I was just curious.
Speaker 1:I never thought about. You know animals that you're hunting all day like that, and not just at those peak times, cause, um, the evenings are so short. So it was just a just a question, but go ahead continue. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, yeah. So we, we get up, we're having some you know and breakfast, and we just start glassing around and get up on a little bit of a high point near camp, we spot this caribou. I'd say it's probably just like 300 or 400 yards away. We saw some others moving, but this one was just standing still and it was in this little cut or ravine on the side of this, on this hilly kind of hillside, and it looked like a good bull. I mean, wow, that's got some decent tops, decent fronts. Looks like a good bull. It's just standing still, looks like, you know, is it sleeping? What is it doing?
Speaker 2:So, and we know, we really know nothing about caribou behavior at that point, but the best I can tell it was just like sleeping, standing up, like taking a little bit of a rest, but just standing there, not bedded down, um, which we saw occasionally, you know, on that on that trip. Um, you know, sometimes they'll bed when there's bad weather, a lot of times they're bedded. But you know, this particular one was just standing still and somebody told me that they never see that in October. So maybe it's more of a or September, so maybe it's more of a mid-August thing too. I don't know. I know one thing they're often running. I think they're often having problems with bugs and mosquitoes, and that might make them be running around too, or moving that would make me run.
Speaker 2:So that makes sense, yeah yeah, and it was a warm. It was a warm trip. We hunted in t-shirts and, um, you know, I pretty much hunted in t-shirts or a long sleeve t-shirt this whole this whole week. But so, anyway, we see this, we see this caribou and we think, man, somebody could come over the ridge behind it and get, maybe, um, a 40, 40 to 50 yard shot. So, um, I have my buddy do that, that that doesn't shoot quite as far as I do. Like, hey, why don't circle up around? Come up over that ridge and you'll have a shot down at it. And, um, it'll probably run out the top of this cut, this ravine, and so I'll get positioned up on top of the ridge where kind of the direction I think it might go, you know, just in case it comes my way, maybe I'll get a shot. So he stalks around there. Um, I see him sneaking up and over and I mean to me it looks like it's a chip shot for him but it's hard to tell.
Speaker 2:You know from my distance, like how far the shot is. But he gets drawn back. Um, takes the shot, seems like there's no wind, uh, and there's no wind where I'm at. Takes the shot, seems like there's no wind and there's no wind where I'm at. So I figure he's, and I see the shot go. I see the animal like jump up and do like a mule kick. You know it jumped up, kicked its hind legs or kind of all this leg, I don't know. It was kind of a mule kick, which you know white tail hunting.
Speaker 2:That typically meant man, you hit a heart shot or you know, through the body cavity anyway, um, that's typically what it's meant to me, like oh yeah, he got it, he hit it. That's what I was thinking. So it does run past me but it's on the move, coming by me. It goes up over the hill, um, that I'm, the ridge that I'm on. I don't think it really saw me. I was kind of tucked in and went down. I'm just watching because I'm thinking it's going to drop. It goes down and it stops now and it looks back and I'm thinking man, did he uh, did he miss it or did he not. Is it like a gut shot or is it something where, anyway, I quick decide, I'm gonna try to put another arrow in this thing and I don't remember the distance exactly, but I'm gonna.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say it was like 75 yards. So it wasn't a close shot, but it was, you know, within my capability on a caribou. Um, okay, so I quick, you know, let's look at my way though. So I draw and at the shot it just takes off running. You know sound of the shot or whatever, because it was keyed up and alert. That's another thing I had no idea. I was like, do caribou jump the string? Are they going to run at the shot or do they like stand there and take it?
Speaker 2:I had no real idea on caribou behavior, I just took the shot. It looked to me like it ran out of the way and wasn't there when the arrow hit. Um, that was my best guess. But I see this caribou now go down this Hill, down to this long, open bottom, so I can see for miles my seat go down in there, go probably 500 yards, and then, um, stop and bet and bet down. So I go, I go quickly to where, where I had shot. I don't see my arrow anywhere and it's tundra. So it's hard to find an arrow in tundra um, yeah, just buries itself yeah, um.
Speaker 2:But I see us, I see a speck of blood. So I see a spot of blood. I'm thinking, huh, I don't think I hit it, but I think my buddy did. So I went back, found my buddy and said, hey, I don't think I hit it, I think it moved on my shot, but I found blood. So I think you hit it. And he says, no, I didn't hit it. Here's my arrow. And there was mud on the broadhead so you couldn't really see the broadhead. But his arrow looked clean, like I didn't pass through the cavity. So, like man, if you didn't hit it, I must've hit it, cause I haven't found my arrow yet.
Speaker 2:Um, and I didn't really know, um, so anyway, I decided I've got to go after this caribou. Now it's uh, you know we uh, blood's been drawn. You gotta, you know, follow it to the end. Uh, do it to your best to try and recover this animal, was my thought there.
Speaker 2:So, and I could see it bedded down out there 500 yards or so, um, so I go down the ridge side into the bottom and the bottom is wet. It's, um, it's probably like six, eight inches of water. It's probably like six, eight inches of water and, um, there's all different kinds of of uh terrain in a ton up there in the Brooks and the tundra, but I could tell you it all sucks to walk through and uh, this was what I would say is like, um, kind of this was like tussocks on on the on the high stuff it was I think it's probably tundra where it was just kind of spongy and wet. Down in the bottom it was a bit more like basketballs, with grass growing off of them, with little channels in between where it's hard to see if you're stepping on top or in the bottom and there may be a foot drop if you're not in the top.
Speaker 2:Hard to walk through. It was a mix of tundra and tussocks, but it was like six to eight inches of water through it all. And then there was, you know, a cover that's a foot or so high, just either brush or grass, little bushes or grass. There's really no brush or trees, at least in this area. But so I'm thinking man gotta stay low.
Speaker 1:So I crawl in the last probably 300 yards through the water to this thing like moving my bow in front of me, um, and I'm soaked, you know.
Speaker 2:So my, my, my knee is my pant, you know, I'm like army crawling on my elbows so I'm wet. Luckily it wasn't that cold. But um, and then, you know, I get out to where it's bedded and I, I, I range, decide I'm not close enough, so I move in. I get to about 70 yards or so, maybe I think it was actually 60 yards range. I'm like, okay, I can make this shot, but all I could see is like the head and the tops of the shoulder it was in, it was down in enough brush. That like okay, I just gotta wait it out.
Speaker 2:So I got my bow ready to draw and I'm waiting and this caribou is kind of looking over my way. Um, I'm just above the cover but moved a little bit. It's looking my way and it it pops up, I quick try to draw, but I mean it just popped up and ran. And so what I learned is that you know, a lot of times like mule, deer or something, well, they'll like stand up and stretch and let you, let you shoot out, give it a few seconds to shoot. At least caribou, in my experience, don't really do that, okay, they like stand up and go um, and it's probably like a defense mechanism. They probably figure like, yeah, I'm not gonna, I don't want to stand around too long, uh, I want to be on the move in case something's talking in on me, maybe whatever, yeah. But so we went up, it popped up and it's gone, so I didn't get a shot. Like dang, um goes a couple hundred more, you know, a few hundred more yards probably. Um, maybe 500 more beds down again. So I do this over again.
Speaker 2:I like you know I like I'm like bent over walking for quite a ways and then I get down and and crawl in on this thing Again. I get to 60, 70 yards, I think. This time I got to be faster on the shot. So I'm I'm clipped on like I'm ready to draw, just waiting it starts getting up, I draw and I immediately shoot as it, you know, gets to its feet, but it's already moving and and I could see that I missed it the arrow hit where it was and it went under it, basically because it was running away from me.
Speaker 1:You're running out of arrows at this point, Bill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started worrying here because I brought a quiver full of arrows, I think, on this trip of six. I thought I can't get done with six. There's something wrong here, but now I'm starting to worry.
Speaker 1:I got three, three uh no two.
Speaker 2:Two arrows gone or left in the quiver, um, and so this happens a couple more times, um to where it beds down, and you know, I don't know. I'm not finding a blood either when I get up to where it was. So I'm starting to really question what is going on here. Um, and it doesn't seem to be hurt that bad, but yet I know I found blood back where I started.
Speaker 1:I was 100 sure that was blood um, and it keeps laying down right, that's, that's indicative of him being hurt.
Speaker 2:So right and I didn't. I mean, I kind of felt that was probably the case, but now that I've hunted them a few different times, I 100 think that was the case, like something wasn't quite right for him to be laying down. Yeah um and you'll yeah, you'll find out later what that was.
Speaker 1:But anyways all right.
Speaker 2:so a couple more times of this. Finally, he's like all the way across this bottom. It's two miles from where I took the first shot on him, so two miles. I had been after this caribou, so I'd spent hours now spotting and stalking. He relocates, I spot and stalk again, and I was exhausted from crawling. You know, I probably crawled a mile through tundra as well. But this last time he starts going up the hill, like up and out of this ravine and, you know, off into the mountains. He beds down one last time. Now he's on the hillside that slopes up, up, up, all the way to a mountain ridge, but he's just a little ways up it. But now I can see his whole body. Um, so again I get close, I crawl in, I crawl into this little berm, I peek up and over it and I can see his whole body. I'm'm glassing him, I range him. He's 98 yards away. I'm trying to figure out how do I get closer and there's nothing.
Speaker 1:This berm.
Speaker 2:It's like go over this berm I'm wide open to his view because it's got a little dip. And then it immediately starts climbing this open hillside. So I'm thinking there's no way I'm going to go straight into them. The ridge behind him was hundreds of yards away, so I can't really come over the ridge and get the shot. So, um, you know, after five minutes of thinking about it, thinking, man, I shoot. I've been shooting 100 yards every day with broadheads. I know I can hit, you know, eight inch, ten inch, group consistently.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Caribou's vitals are pretty big.
Speaker 1:There's zero wind right now. Yeah, and it's not your first arrow right. It's not like an unethical shot. You're trying to finish this thing off and be as ethical as possible, so sometimes you can extend range in those circumstances.
Speaker 2:Exactly and I already had. You know, 80 yards is my max range I'm going to shoot, but it's a follow-up shot. This is a wounded animal and in that case I do extend it out. I didn't know to what extent it was wounded, but my concern was it's gut shot and it's going to die and I could put it out of its misery quickly and salvage all the meat and do the right thing here, hopefully so anyways and I thought, all right, I'm just going to draw back and if things, I'm not going to shoot unless it feels, perfect.
Speaker 2:But I draw back. It's not looking at me, which is good, it actually was looking the other way. I settle the pin. There's like zero wind, the pin feels rock solid and, without even hardly thinking about it, I squeeze it off. It just felt right, yeah, and send that arrow and I could see it just um, I had a lighted knock on it, I could see it the whole way. Drop, drop right in there. A hard shot, 98 yard hard shot. Oh my god, that's awesome yeah, that caribou it's.
Speaker 2:It popped up onto its feet, staggered one more step and dropped.
Speaker 1:Oh and man, was I excited yeah, had to be the most satisfying thing you've ever done, after crawling a mile it was.
Speaker 2:It was. I worked so hard to get that caribou, um, and you know it didn't all start picture perfect, for sure Some mistakes there. But, man, to see that thing drop and be dead and to go out there and put my hands on my first caribou, with that brown chocolate, velvet antlers, just a beautiful animal and so unique man, was I excited and I was so happy. I had practiced so hard all summer on long shots so I could could make that shot. But, yeah, it was. Uh, it didn't go quite, you know, as I would have wanted, as I maybe would have planned it, but, um, in the end it's, it's uh, you know, I felt like it was a great accomplishment. I was super excited to get it and put my hands on it.
Speaker 1:And so, um, yeah, you want to know where the wounding shot was to start. You knew it. You knew where my question was. Where'd that?
Speaker 2:first arrow go. Yeah, so it wasn't me, it was my buddy, okay, and he actually just cut the hoof. So it had a little cut on its hoof, huh, so it, you know, wouldn't have died from it for sure. It was like one inch deep cut on the edge of the hoof, but it it just kind of made it splay. I think it made it splay. It probably didn't feel quite right when it was running.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it run for 500 yards and lay down. So, it was. It was, you know, kind of a superficial wound, but it was enough that I found blood and I was concerned that we wounded this animal and I've got to stick with it, go after it and do my best to try and recover this animal.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. So you're sure it was his arrow that hit it in the hoof and not yours.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember all the reasoning I had for what that is but I'm pretty sure, yeah, okay. Yeah, I think it made sense from what what I showed him it he's like oh yeah, I think I'd hit it. No, also, it jumped and kicked its hoof when he shot. Oh, that's, that makes sense, yeah that's right.
Speaker 2:It jumped, it kicked sense, it thought something hit his hoof and it did this weird kick with it. Um, yeah, and so, yeah, that's. I think that's the reason we decided it was probably his. And I mean, when you shoot lighted knocks, my, my experience is you got it really a pretty good idea of whether you hit the animal or not. I mean, you've kind of. I mean you've kind of. That's one reason why I use them more. Now is prior to that I might think, oh, I made a great shot and then you'll look at a video later or something. They're like man, I didn't hit anywhere close to where I thought I hit, but with that lighted nox, it seems like your eye can see that going through the animal or missing the animal.
Speaker 1:You know I've been, you know a lot higher percentage of knowing where I hit it or if I missed it with lighted knocks. I'd say, yeah, I use lighted knocks now for that same reason. I actually I was in Molokai hunting axis deer and there's a doe and I shot it and I drilled it Like I absolutely knew I drilled it because I hit it. And then I go and look for the arrow and there was not a drop of blood on the entire arrow, it was a complete pass through. The fletchings, though, were covered in meat, so I was like, okay, I got it.
Speaker 1:It turns out I hit it a little high, kind of like that pocket, you know, didn't find it. That day because, I'm not kidding, 200 more deer came in and I kind of just like sat there waiting for these deer to pass, and they hung out until two hours after dark with me, and the next day we went and actually found the deer. But yeah, those lighted knocks are amazing. They're they're wonderful for helping you track it and also for helping you just completely know that you missed, because I did that, probably more than I did uh hitting any deer in Molokai so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree there's I I don't. There's a lot of them I don't like. A lot of them aren't that reliable. A lot of them don't have that good of a structural integrity. But I've actually had some prototypes made that I've been using.
Speaker 1:Oh, cool yeah.
Speaker 2:Definitely when you can see it. It just helps you know whether you hit it or not and make the right decision on do I track right away or not, things like that. I did go back and find my arrow as well, and my arrow was clean, so that was just confirmation that what I thought I saw was probably right on that one.
Speaker 1:That's a great story, though I think it might be the first caribou story that we've heard on the podcast, but it's amazing that you crawled a mile through eight inches of water and all that tundra. I lost my cell phone as well.
Speaker 2:I had my phone in my side pocket of my pants and after that hike through there it was gone. So yeah, the rest of the. You know I was navigating by hills. You know terrain, topographic features after that for the rest of the week. And you know I went after caribou all week just for fun. My buddies, all three of us got three bulls with our bows um in five days. So it was, uh, it was pretty epic uh epic hunt, loved it, um.
Speaker 2:But now I'm hooked. I've gone back um two more, two more times. I actually scheduled a hunt again this year to go, but then I drew a sheep tag in Colorado. So a bighorn sheep tag, so poor'm going to put caribou off till next year and hopefully kill my first bighorn sheep.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, congratulations. I got a cow moose tag this year in Colorado, so I'm pretty fired up for this season as well. Yeah, great. Well, bill man, those were great stories. I don't know if you have any other ones that popped up while you were chatting. Do you want to share with us, or we can wrap it up. It's up to you were chatting. If you want to share with us, um, or we, we can wrap it up, it's up to you. I'll listen all day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's, uh, let's wrap it up. I'll save some for next time, maybe.
Speaker 1:Perfect Bill, perfect, all right. Well then, let's do this. Let's tell them where they can find you know, if not you on social media, at least your company. Let, yeah, our website is um ironwelloutfitterscom.
Speaker 2:We have an instagram and facebook that is um at ironwell outfitters. Um, yeah, we make kind of premium broadheads components um arrow. We do custom, full custom arrow builds. Now too, I make ultralight knives. But you know I love good engineering and bow hunting so I try and make products you know as reliable as science allows for that bow hunter that's just trying to get better, improve and you know it does don't want to accept failure and have, um, you know, his best chance of success.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's what we're about. Yeah, and I'll vouch for your broadheads. I've killed two animals with with the exact same head, and I've also shot that thing into the dirt three different times, uh, without having to resharpen it, and it's still complete pass through razor sharp. So you make a great product bill. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks. They are more expensive, you know, two to three times more expensive than something you're going to get at a local sporting goods store maybe. But yeah, if you think about the fact that you can reuse them over and over and lifetime warranty, if you bend or break it, shooting out or through an animal cause, they will. They'll go through bone and look like new, you know most of the time. So, yeah, if you use them over and over, they kind of pay for themselves over time, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well cool, bill. Well, thank you very much for coming on. I know it took us a little while to get this thing scheduled, but I really do appreciate it and definitely planning on having you back on again in the future to hear about your, your bighorn sheep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, michael, let's, let's talk after season here, see how it goes Sounds good man.
Speaker 1:Thank you All right guys. That's it. Another couple of stories in the books. I want to thank again Bill for coming on the podcast. I know he does have a very big or busy schedule, but those are some great stories.
Speaker 1:It actually scratched an itch of caribou hunting. That's one of my bucket list hunts that I still have yet to go on, so I actually have been researching some of those hunts since I talked to him. So thank you, bill. It was a ton of fun to hear all of your stories. Beyond that, guys, make sure you check out Iron Will. If you do, shoot a bow and hunt with your bow set up. Shoot a bow and hunt with your bow set up. Iron Will. There's nothing better out there. So make sure you check them out.
Speaker 1:I'm going to put links to everything in the show notes. Check out their Instagram, bill's Instagram, their website, all that stuff. It is a little pricey but, like I said, I've killed multiple animals with one broadhead and I've bounced that broadhead down a road multiple times. Don't ask me why, but thank you guys. I don't ask me why, but thank you guys. I appreciate you. If you do have any stories, please reach out to me. I love to hear from some guests, but beyond that, get out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.