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The Hunting Stories Podcast
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 113 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Cole Wilks
Ready for an adventure-packed episode? Thrill-seeker and survival expert Cole Wilkes joins us on the Hunting Stories Podcast, bringing his Texas roots and wild experiences from Naked and Afraid Season 17 right to your ears. From intense elk hunts to a bare-all showdown with an alligator, Cole's fearless exploits are nothing short of extraordinary. And yes, if you caught the Super Bowl commercial, you already know the guy we're talking about!
Cole dives into his life in Bertram, Texas, shares some behind-the-scenes moments from his famous TV stint, and gives a sneak peek into his YouTube channel "Flatlander" and new podcast "In the Bush." Whether you're into hunting, survival tactics, or just love a good tale of guts and glory, this episode has something for you. Strap in for some heart-stopping stories and a whole lot of Texas charm as Cole Wilkes takes us on a wild ride through his most memorable adventures.
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Howdy folks, and welcome to the Hunting Stories Podcast. I'm your host, michael, and you know what we got another good one for you today. Today we actually connect with someone that I've been talking with for over a year about getting on the podcast and in the middle of all that, he ended up getting on the show Naked and Afraid and I saw him actually in a commercial on the Super Bowl. Today we're connecting with Cole Wilkes. He's on episode 1, season 17 of Naked and Afraid. He's an amazing elk hunter, a badass and a little bit of a crazy man, and he is basically as Texas as he comes.
Speaker 1:So, first off, I want to thank Cole for coming on the podcast. I'm glad we finally were able to make it happen and, of course, thank you for sharing some amazing stories with us today. I know we'll get you back on the podcast soon To listeners. Let's kick this thing off, man, and let you enjoy Cole's stories, but thank you, guys for tuning in. Yeah, that's it, guys. Let's let Cole tell you his stories. Thank you All right, cole. Welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Brother, how are you? Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:I'm doing good. Thank you for having me. I feel like we've been trying to put this together for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I've been doing this podcast over two years now and I feel like within the first six months, you and I were chatting back and forth because I know you're a big fan of the Elk Bros and they were some of my early guests. But I'm super glad to have you here, man. Um, there's something unique about you, which is you're the first guest on my podcast that I have seen their ass before.
Speaker 1:So that's that's a pretty big deal, so congratulations um but before we go anywhere from that, why don't we maybe stop for a second? Let's introduce yourself, and maybe why you can let everyone know why I've actually seen your ass. So go ahead, cole, and go ahead and introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, my name is Cole Wilkes. I live here in Bertram, texas, just north of the big city of Austin, texas. Born and raised here, I've been hunting pretty much my entire life and, yeah, a lot of you may have seen me or may not. If you haven't. Go watch my episode on the discovery channel on naked and afraid. Um I. I aired my episode aired on um. It was season 17,. The premiere episode, uh, number one, um and uh. Yeah, I also have a little YouTube channel called Flatlander and then my buddy Joel and I have started another podcast called In the Bush that him and I do. That's pretty much geared towards, you know, survival bushcraft, but we do talk a lot of hunting in there as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that, uh, your episode of naked and afraid was was epic. I've watched that show plenty in the past and most of the time it's just people getting bug bites and complaining, uh, but yours, man, when you're crawling up on that alligator. I don't know if you're gonna tell that story, but I'm like what is wrong with this man? You're just naked, crawling through a swamp trying to kill an alligator with a tomahawk, basically, and it's a very cool episode, I would say. I mean, I've seen probably 50 episodes in my life, not all of the ones that they've made, but it was easily the most exciting episode I've seen. And who knows, maybe it's because I knew you were on there, but still, super cool, man, it was fun to watch you do some crazy shit, even though I did have to see your app, man.
Speaker 2:It was really crazy, um, and I didn't even really grasp how crazy it was until after the fact. Um, so we have, whenever we were filming the show, we have ph's. If anybody didn't know, that's, that's a professional hunter in um, in africa. Um, by law, they have to be there with us just for protection, because, cause I mean, we are out there in the middle of nowhere and it's, it's legit wild Africa, you know, and the, the one animal that my pHs are scared to death of, was a crocodile and none of them would go anywhere near that water.
Speaker 2:And, um, it was funny because I had killed one on um. So we were coming back from a little walkabout on day three and uh, and I ended up harvesting one on day three and uh, caught it on the trot line and, you know, processed it and everything. And then, after we ate that sucker that night, it was just so good, the eating was so good and they had so much fat on it that you know I had a captive audience there. So anytime that I was done with my big game hunting, walking around out in the Savannah and stuff like that I would go back to the. I would go back to my pond and hang out in the shade and just wait on these little crocodiles, because it was full of like adolescent to teenager kind of young adult size crocodiles. I think the biggest one in our pond was probably about six foot Um and uh the biggest one you knew about at least right Well
Speaker 2:that is true and that's what my pH is like. So freaked out about is because they said a big one won't show his face for a long, long time. They can pretty much tell you're coming or walking up to the pond long before you can even, you know, see them, um, but I felt confident that there wasn't a big one in there. So I uh, you know, with my producers and stuff there, I it was my goal to make that episode the best episode of naked and afraid ever. And yeah, I was constantly doing.
Speaker 2:I was constantly doing things to really make good TV. You know, it is reality TV, so it's up to whatever the contestants do to be exciting, like the. The producers don't tell them to go, hey, go do something cool. They just, you know, they just follow you around and document the situation. Um, on the 21 day challenges anyway. And uh, it was just to the point to where I was like you know what man, I can't seem to get close enough with a spear on this thing, so I'm just gonna get in the water with it. And uh, and I'm gonna creep up to it and try to grab that sucker with my hands.
Speaker 2:Um, you know so that is they, they played that, uh, that little scene through so many of the previews and you know all the sizzle reels and stuff like that. Um, I, I went after that crocodile in the. There were several of them actually, but I went after them on a daily basis. Um, you know, and you guys got to see probably the, the two coolest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh, my goodness, man, like you know watching that show in the past, it's typically just I'm lounging in in the couch, I'm sitting deep, but your episode I'm sitting on the edge of the couch like cole, what are you doing? Like yelling at you, being like come on, man, get out of there, so it was.
Speaker 2:It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Uh, if you guys haven't watched it, guys please do go check it out, because yeah, it's the craziest shit you'll. I don't know what you'll think of Cole afterwards, cause it's not something I would ever do, but you're just braver than me, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I mean, it was just one of those things that you know, if I was to capitalize on it, I mean, what a crushing moment for the show. It would just be epic, you know. And uh, not just that, I mean, as you can see, I mean we did make some good TV. So that was my goal, man is to go out there and have fun and just be the wild man that I am and, you know, enjoy every bit of it, and that's, that's exactly what we did yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome man, yeah, and you and your partner had a perfect kind of uh, like you just have a perfect team, like you guys had complimentary skills, um, and you guys took care of each other really well. It was. It was a fun episode to watch, man.
Speaker 2:Uh, thank you like I said, at first I was like these guys are gonna get along, but you guys got along so great oh for, immediately, I mean, you could just tell that we clicked and we both had.
Speaker 2:Um, we were both like-minded as far as the way we wanted to go about our challenge and and, uh, you know, you know, shell was awesome. Anything that I asked of her, she was totally there, and vice versa. Um, yeah, I, I couldn't ask for a better partner. Honestly, that was the one thing that I was worried about the most. I didn't care about being naked or any of that. I knew that was all. That shit was going to fade away after you know, an hour and a half, because the real work starts. My real worry was my partner, and you know, I definitely didn't want to end up in there with a bitch and somebody. That's just, you know I, I even told my producers I said, if y'all pair me with somebody crazy, I'm going to. I'm not even going to deal with them, I'm going to leave and go do my own thing. Um, so y'all are going to have to be prepared to fill us in different or film us in different locations. But yeah, I hit the jackpot with shell. It was, she was amazing yeah, that's awesome, man.
Speaker 1:Well, uh, again, I encourage everyone to go check the episode out. It is phenomenal, it's great. Um, and you see, cole do some crazy shit, but we're here to hear some of your favorite hunting stories and I'm sure those are maybe on. Some of that stuff is on the list, but you're you're a pretty well-regarded elk hunter, so I'm assuming you got some crazy stories for us today. So what do we got? Why don't you set the stage?
Speaker 2:Oh man, um, I've got so many to pull from. Um, let's go with, uh, let's go with the Colorado elk hunt. I'll start off with first and then maybe we'll go back into the neck and the frayed, because I, I do want to touch on, uh, my big game kill that I had there in africa. Um, but uh, but yeah, elk hunting man is my, that's like my passion, that's what I work all year for, that's what I prepare so much for, and and um, I spend the entire month of September.
Speaker 2:Um, 10 years ago, I I quit working for anybody else and started my own company, um, working for myself as a contractor here in Austin. And uh, we actually my wife and I, were getting ready to um buy a new house and do that whole thing and have, you know, the big house payment. And we decided to, we, we decided to move onto some property and pay cash for a little mobile home, and now we travel the world and I hunt, uh, as much as I possibly can, man, um, the entire month of September for elk, and then we move into deer after that, and it usually goes till about January.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, but all of that. If you have the spot in Texas, there's some great deer hunting down there, so yes, there is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Typically, most of my deer hunts are out of state um because there's not enough public land in Texas.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, um, I just for the amount of money that I can I can spend on out of state tags versus a lease and, um, you know, feed and stuff like that, it just benefits me to go get three or four out of state tags and, um, you know, oklahoma's right here across the border and you know so, as so many other States are great hunting. So, um, I don't hunt in Texas too much anymore, but, um, where I was going with that is we, me and my wife pretty much changed our life, um for the better. I mean, we're, we're debt free, we don't have any house payment or anything like that, and that's just so I could go, um, selfishly, so I could go elk hunting for the entire month of September. Um, so this, uh, this particular hunt, I was hunting with a kid there that lives in Colorado.
Speaker 2:Um, his name is Kyle. We hunted together for several years and, uh, I hunt with Kyle because he's one of those mountain kids. He was like 18, 19 years old, just super athlete. Um, he was the one guy that I could really get to hang with me in those nasty parts in the back country and not want to go back to the truck or get scared or whatever.
Speaker 1:So yeah, how'd you? How did you meet him? I got to ask how does this guy from Austin run into this super athlete in Colorado?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my first, my very first hunt, um, that I did in Colorado. I went up with some friends of mine. They were like, hey, we're going to go elk hunting, would you want to go? And I was like, yeah, man, but how much does that cost? And uh, anyways they, they introduced me to Kyle, um, which was just kind of a friend of a friend of theirs, um, diane's son, and uh, yeah, we just, I ended up, you know, meeting Kyle and he lives there at 8,000 foot in the mountains and, um, you know, just a total mountain beast.
Speaker 2:And uh, my buddies were like, if you really want to go do some crazy hunting, you need to get with Kyle. We don't even, they don't even like to go with Kyle because it's just too difficult. Like he, he just whips their ass up the mountain. Um, and uh, you know, after our hunt together I knew right then I was like, well, the, the style hunting that we're doing currently is not my style and I want to go. You know, I want to do the deep back country. You know the nasty stuff.
Speaker 2:I want to get back there. I don't want to see people, I want to be as far from people as possible. So then Kyle and I started really teaming up and it was just, you know, it was just meant to be just everything about the way we move through the woods to our calling. You know, it was just meant to be just everything about the way we moved through the woods to our calling. You know, just strategy, the aggression, everything just matched with us. And uh, yeah, so it, we teamed up and, um, I mean, immediately, we're, we're just in elk. Always it's crazy. Um, that's awesome. It's good to find a good hunting buddy like that.
Speaker 1:I've had some that like they're. You know they throw in the flag pretty easy. I'll go and go and go and go. But if someone's like, hey, we should probably go back to camp, I'm like, all right, let's go. But I don't think about doing it. But I'm quick to jump on their suggestion. So it's good to finding someone that like matches your style or your, your fire, and you can just keep going with it. It'll definitely put a lot more elk down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, man, and that's kind of hard to find for some guys. You know, finding a good hunt partner that is, uh, you know, on the same level that you are and you guys are going to. You know, your mindset's the same. It's always like what's on the next ridge. For us it's always, you know, we're always pushing further and wanting to go more and deeper. And, um, to some people it's just, you know, they think about the dreaded aspect of having to haul that meat back. And you know, to me, I want to get into fresh elk. That's never heard anybody bugle. So that's that's kind of my, my mindset.
Speaker 2:Um, but this, but this particular year, we were having a rough go at it and we were having elk bugle back to us and we were having, you know, failed opportunities. Just, you know how it is elk hunting wind switch and puff the other direction and just screw up. So it was getting to the point to where we were both getting frustrated with our area. And, uh, I told Kyle, I said, man, I've got this spot, but it's, you know, it's a six hour drive from here, it's way, it's way up against the Utah border. Um, I said I, you know, I've had some guys or I had a friend of mine kind of tell me about it one time and, uh, I think we should just leave this area and start fresh and go somewhere new. So we bomb off the mountain that afternoon and it's probably, you know, it's getting close to peak hunting time and we're, we just made the made the decision, we're gonna do this, we're gonna move. So we pack up camp, we go back to the truck, spend that whole evening and night driving across Colorado going to another OTC unit, and uh, we pull up there and we, um, we actually I think we drove part of the way and we were just so beat from the hike we camped and then the next day we finished the rest of the drive. It was probably another three hours. We get there.
Speaker 2:Um, there's not a particular like trailhead. We don't ever pick, uh, we don't ever usually hunt off of a trailhead. I just don't like all the people. We usually pick some random, weird like pull out on the highway and we'll just throw the backpacks on and have a destination figured out and then we'll head up the mountain. Um, so this morning we, uh, we get, we're, you know, sitting by the highway and it's I can't even remember it's a weekday, so there's people, you know, flying by us and we're packing our stuff and everything and we're getting ready to go in and uh, I mean, we're just right there by the truck, I think we we just barely skipped into the woods to where we could barely still kind of hear the traffic and everything's just right there. Chaos, you know, it's just it's busy, way busier than what I was expecting.
Speaker 2:And I told Kyle, I said, man, let's just, let's rip a bugle right here, you know. So I rip a bugle and I mean immediately, probably a half a mile from us. This bull answers and uh, I mean we're just scrambling immediately and I wasn't expecting you know a bull to answer me with 18 wheelers blowing our doors off, you know, 150 yards behind us. So we, we tend to do this often. It's so crazy these weird spots that we land in that hold so much elk. But, um, so this bull, he fires off and this particular spot is real weird because we have to navigate through some private property before. It's like a real narrow stretch of public land and then it opens up into everything that we can hunt you know, 40,000 acres or something like that and uh, man, I'm, I've dedicated my elk hunting career to learning the language of elk and and how to speak the language and how, just everything about elk hunting I've I've just dove into and gave myself a masterclass, basically through podcasts, through all different kinds of things. I mean that's how I've become a an elk bros coach. So I actually coach for the elk bros. I did for two different seasons on hunt wars, but anyways, cool, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're, we're barely in this little necked up spot where there's private property here, private property there, and and we're, you know, it's a pretty good distance, and uh, so I've got this bull and he's just absolutely going crazy, and and it's. It's one of those situations where I don't think I could have made a bad call. He's just immediately committed from the first bugle that I ripped off to him. And here he comes, man, and it's just. I mean it's just like clockwork, because I was explaining to Kyle like what I'm doing, why I'm saying what I am, I'm going to do this, and then the bullshitter respond like this you know, it's kind of a teaching lesson, sure enough, I mean, everything is just working like like magic. It's just like so like he read the playbook, right.
Speaker 2:So I tell Kyle. I'm like, get up here. We were, you know, we're moving and covering ground and doing all the you know set up here and this isn't going to work. And then we, so we move a little bit, cause you know the bull moves, and, um, I finally get Kyle set up and I can tell I'm like, okay, the bull's going to be coming right, right at him. I get there, get back behind him just enough to where I can see Kyle and uh, you know, I'm doing my thing, calling the bull. And uh, man, I, I can hear the bull now, I can hear his footsteps and, you know, I can see Kyle. He's getting his, getting his arrow all ready to go, and he's starting to put tension on the string. And I'm sitting there and everything's, I mean it's, it's all great.
Speaker 2:And uh, all of a sudden, uh, uh, somebody bugles back behind me Like they just they just walked in right on the same path that that we just walked in on and I'm like, what the heck? You know, and I and I, you know the bulls up there raking and you know how it is, it's sometimes it's's, you know, these animals have their own cadence. It's not like they do exactly what you want them to do so. Now he, he starts chirping off to this guy that's coming behind me. So I'm actively having to call in this hunter because he's he's cutting around like far wide to get around me because he thinks I'm a bull as well and the real bull is in between us. So I'm trying to, I'm trying to keep the bull coming towards Kyle and at the same time, I'm trying to call this hunter in so that I can wave him down to keep from screwing this situation up.
Speaker 2:Well, here, and I'm, you know, I'm almost kind of getting kind of worried because this hunter's coming, it's, we're in super thick country. I can hear the bull raking or getting close to Kyle. I'm watching Kyle just to make sure that whenever he draws, I'm ready to, you know, to do something. After he makes, you know, executes the shot. And here, all of a sudden, here comes, here comes this dude in orange and I'm like what, the what the hell? Like, why is somebody wearing orange? And seriously, this is oh, it was a muzzleloader hunter dude, and this guy is. It's a week before his season starts.
Speaker 2:So now I'm, I'm really stressing to try to get this guy to um, you know, to make eye contact with me or something. I'm trying to call him to me. But then I'm like, oh shit, this guy has a gun, this guy really has a gun, and he's. And so now I'm starting to worry. And the bull's getting closer to Kyle. The guy's starting to get closer to us. He's here in the big bull bugle. He's hearing me, bugle, get closer to us. He's here in the big bull bugle.
Speaker 2:He's hearing me, bugle I can't tell if this guy is if he's gonna shoot one of us or if he's gonna saw. You see his gun actually, yes, sir, he, he had a gun and um I, he was just making his way he's a week early a week early.
Speaker 2:He's a week early, yes, he's a week early. And at this point I'm just trying to decide, like, am I, do I save kyle and i's life and just shut this guy down and yell at him and like, hey, we're hunters, you know, we're not elk, um, you know. But I can't, I can't see the guy again. It's just like a flash of orange every now and then out, you know, probably a hundred, maybe 125 yards from me. So I'm like taking cover and I'm still in the process of trying to get this bull um to Kyle's shooting lane, um, so I do some raking bull blows up, you know, big bugle screams, I mean to the point to where I feel like I could feel his breath. He was so close. I'm like, okay, kyle's gotta be right there, it's gotta happen any second. And uh, I'm looking through the brush, looking through the brush, and I, okay, I spot Kyle again. And uh, because I was trying to drop back to pull that hunter, that muzzleloader hunter, back over to me and keep him away from sight of the bull, right? So this point I'm, I'm going back up so I can see where kyle is and I'm crushing brush and making all kind of noise. That's just my style whenever I'm elk hunting. You know, big animals make big noises. So I, I crush through the brush and I'm just back there going ham on it and uh, I I finally I spot Kyle, and he's probably 30 yards from me at this point and boy, he cranks that bow back and I'm like, okay, he's fixing to shoot.
Speaker 2:This sucker anchors, shoots bull, blows up. You know, I bugle, the bull takes off and uh, here comes and then the hunter. I hear the hunter bugle. So immediately I just yell out, you know, because I'm, I figure, okay, the shot is has been executed. So I'm just like, hey, I yell over there at this guy and he's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. He's like I thought you guys were elk. Um, anyways, I, I didn't even, I didn't even make any ground towards the guy, just kind of shoot him away. And uh, luckily he, he just packed his stuff up and and left country immediately. I didn't even have time to go over there and be like, hey, I wanted to let you know, because he's poaching man.
Speaker 2:He's poaching, yeah, but I don't think he honestly I don't think he knew that he was in the wrong season. I think he had just mistaken the weekend that he was allowed to go out Because, I mean, he had his Hunter Orange. I mean because if I was a poacher I wouldn't think I'd be running around with Blaze Orange all over the place. So I just assumed the guy made him.
Speaker 2:There's also a bear season at that same time Rifle Bear so maybe, yeah, maybe I mean, but this dude was bugling elk, like I mean he was bugling this bull in myself, um, and, and I mean he was doing a good job of covering distance, like he was definitely pursuing elk, um. So, anyways, I, I, you know, get this guy gone, or whatever. And then, um, I look back at Kyle and Kyle's walking back over to me and, uh, he's just sitting there shaking his head, you know, and I was like I know, dude, this is the craziest thing. So how good was your shot? And Kyle goes, I missed him, dude. And I was like what, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:He was like I was like what do you mean? You missed him. And he said he was like I don't know, dude, he was like remember earlier, whenever I was shooting my bow and I was shooting out to 70? And I was like yeah, he was like, well, I totally forgot to roll my pin back up to the 20 spot and I shot the bull, pulled back, aimed, executed the shot. He said total broadside shot at 22 yards. He said I shot the bull, pulled back, aimed, executed the shot. He said total broadside shot at 22 yards, and he said I slung it right over his back.
Speaker 2:No way Just oh man, I was just devastated, you know, because what's funny is is the day before he had made a bad shot on a bull and we ended up, um, we ended up tracking that bull for an entire day just to find that it was a mere flesh wound. He shot the bull in the brisket, real low shot, and then to hit, and then to shoot this bull and shoot totally over his back, um, so, and this is, you know, we're just now starting this hunt on this new spot. Haven't even I mean, we haven't even gotten away from the truck yet, right? So I'm like no big deal, let's, uh, you know it happens, let's just regroup, let's just continue on with our plan. Um, let's just continue hiking in. So we hiked in about six miles from that spot. After that whole blow up in that incident spot, after that whole blow up and that incident, we go in, we make camp and then, uh, we proceed to to hunt that afternoon, after camp is set up, we've got water, everything, we're camped right next to a perfect little spring and, uh, so I told Kyle, I said, well, let's go redeem yourself, okay. So you know it's about. I want to say it's probably about two or three o'clock.
Speaker 2:At this point, you know, by the time we make that six mile hike in it's, it's, uh, it's well into the afternoon from that morning and uh, as you know, in Colorado, typically in the mountains, every day three to five o'clock you're going to get a thunderstorm up there at high altitude. So we're, we're batting down the hatches and uh, we're hiking, we're probably a mile or so from our spike camp and um, this is the same day, and so we get ready to weather a storm. And uh, before we weather a storm, we hear a bugle, an unsolicited bugle, probably just below us, five to six hundred foot in elevation. So I told kyle, I said, all right, let's batten down the hatches, let's get in our rain gear, let's find somewhere to sit down, get some snacks and we'll just wait this storm out. That way we can go pursue this bull. So that's what we did and it probably took about an hour, I'm guessing.
Speaker 2:It's probably probably about four o'clock now and uh, rain stops, we're good to go. It's real chilly. We're about 11,400 foot, just below, probably about 12,000 foot elevation. So it's, you know, it's in the. I mean, after a rainstorm like that at that elevation, it could be in the thirties or forties, sometimes the temperature just plummeted, yeah. So immediately after the storm finishes we get that same bugle rips off down below.
Speaker 2:So I go ahead and respond to him and answer and probably about an hour goes by of me working, this bull and us getting into situation, figuring out the thermals from the storm and the wind and all that, and we finally get set up, perfect, and the bull comes in and I I'm in just some tall grass to where he can't really see me, um, and Kyle is set up to my right to where I'm bringing the bull across him, if you can picture that. He's coming straight to me but he's coming across Kyle in several different shooting lanes Right, and at this point I'm just calf calling. I'm just pretending to be a lost calf, a calf in distress. I'm tucked down into that grass as tight as I can be. We're in like north slope, but it's sparse, open, canopy, so there's just these random spots of like thick undergrowth and then it's just like that typical bedding area where it looks like mulch on the bottom. You know mulch and moss. So I can see the bull coming from a pretty good ways.
Speaker 2:This bull comes all the way into me and he's I don't know, calf calling, and this bull is stretching, stretching his neck out to try to see over this clump of grass so he could see this, this calf that I'm pretending to be, and the whole time he's. He's given me kind of like a roundup bugle and a slight lip ball telling me to come over to him. You know he's trying to, he's trying to get me to come to him so he doesn't have to come so far to me. And behind him his cow call. His cows are calling and you know they're calling me as well and he's in front of them. Because I'm acting very distressed, you know I'm making a very extreme point to to get this bull to come over to me. Um, and I mean it's working like nothing. Here comes boy. I mean he closes in and he closing is so tight to me that I can see this bull's rack starting to like almost make shadows over my body. I mean he's really close to where I can hear him and breathing.
Speaker 1:Yes, dude, how did he walk by kyle like how did he get?
Speaker 2:that walking by Kyle, I guess. So what happened is is is he kind of skipped through a couple of lanes, um that Kyle had to shoot and Kyle was too scared because of how close he was to us. Kyle was too worried to make a call to stop the bull. So he knew that at some point the bull was just going to stop within getting you know, close to me, but not that close. Well then the bull stopped at this point and he's getting I don't know what the bull's doing, like he's really just looking deep into the grass and I'm sitting there looking at him. I mean, we're eye to eye almost and, you know, 10 yards apart, eye to eye, eye almost. And uh, you know, 10 yards apart, eye to eye.
Speaker 2:But all of a sudden, you know, I'm looking at the bull and I'm waiting to just watch an arrow go through him, because he's the bull's head on to me, and I'm watching an air, you know, trying to wait for kyle's arrow to go double lung through this bull, when all of a sudden I hear and the arrow passes right in front of the bull, right in front of his nose, the bull blows up.
Speaker 2:The bull blows up. I bark to stop him. The bull wields out about 20 yards from where he was standing, so he's still within a 20-25 yard uh shot of k of Kyle and Kyle's fumbling to get another arrow on. You know, he gets another arrow knocked, rips the bow back and at that point, you know, the bull catches his movement, the bull barks, he blows up and the bull disappears into the wild. Um, what was so shitty is this time Kyle had everything ready to go on his bow and what had happened was is he left his rain gear on because he was a little bit cold and he had it zipped all the way up to about his neck and his bino harness was underneath it. So it was puffed out a little bit and Kyle shoots one of those damn thumb releases and whenever he pulled back, it clicked off on his rain jacket and prematurely shot the arrow off right in front of the bull's face.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, I just had to bring that thing off. That makes sense. I was like how'd he go left?
Speaker 2:But yeah, okay, mid draw man, and I didn't really care because I'd committed the whole rest of my season to trying to fill Kyle's tag that that particular season I had actually shot my bull on opening day. I killed it two hours into the season um, and proceeded to call. In 28 days, I think, I called in 14 bull elk into bow range for Kyle and we could never get an arrow in one of them.
Speaker 1:No way. Yeah, that's too bad. I bet he hates this story.
Speaker 2:He does. He does hate it, but you know it's one of those, it's one of those humbling stories that I like to tell people, because it doesn't always go the way you want it to go, you know, and uh, just to keep persevering and pushing forward. And you know you just can't ever give up. That's my motto, especially in elk hunting. You never know when it's going to, when it's going to turn around, and you never know when a when an elk is going to respond to your bugle and just come right in. You know, um, but then you also need to make sure that you have all of your, all of your stuff dialed in and checked.
Speaker 2:And I try to tell guys all the time I teach hunting courses and stuff and always practice with your equipment, no matter what, and you know nobody ever thinks to go shoot with their backpack on, their bino harness on and their rain gear. Make sure, whatever the situation is that you are, that you're prepared for it. You know, in whatever, whatever scenario might land in your lap. You know, in whatever, whatever scenario might land, uh, in your lap. You know you kind of got to be ready for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good point. I've shot with all that stuff, except the rain jacket. I've never shot my bow in my rain jacket. I should probably try that out sometime. That's a. That's a great point. Now, now I feel like, uh, I feel bad for cow, that's, that's. That's a tough break, man.
Speaker 1:14 different attempts, that's uh yeah, tough um, let me ask you this, cole how long have you been elk hunting? You said that, like you know, you got hooked up with Kyle initially. I'm sure that wasn't your first hunt with Kyle, but, like, how long have you been chasing elk?
Speaker 2:this is my 10th season um of going uh, of going elk hunting somewhere in the United States. Yeah, this is season number 10 for me, and that's always archery or all archery. Yes sir, I don't. I don't shoot a gun unless I just am having a really bad day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Primarily all primarily all archery.
Speaker 2:I consider guns are more for protecting against people. Um, that's just my philosophy. I've I've had a bow in my hand since I was man, since I was probably six years old, and, uh, pretty much every single animal, except for one white tail that I harvested last year, as a matter of fact has been shot with a, with archery equipment Everything from coos deer to every, elk, everything.
Speaker 1:I went antelope hunting last year and I'll tell you what you archery, antelope, spot and stock for a couple days and all of a sudden you really do want a rifle.
Speaker 2:But as a whole.
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm with you. I try and do everything with archery if I can. I do have at least one rifle tag this year, but that's just cause I wasn't sure if I'd get to do archery elk, cause I do have that archery moose tag. So, um, I want to fill the freezer and if that's, the opportunity given to me. That's what I'm going to take, I guess All right, so it's real funny that the rifle story from last year.
Speaker 2:I don't ever pick up a rifle, but it just so happened. I had spent a week with Keith from season seven of the History Channels alone. Keith flew out and we spent seven days in Oklahoma chasing whitetail, and I had a longbow. Then I've been switching over to traditional equipment since the whole neck and nephraid thing. So Keith and I just grounded out in Oklahoma. We rattled in I don't know how many whitetail bucks to bow range, but we just couldn't get it done. And then, it's so crazy, I took Keith back to the airport, dropped him off, ran back to the hunting area that I was hunting and, uh, that evening ended up getting it done with my long bow at 15 yards.
Speaker 2:Um, the place we're hunting in Oklahoma, I mean it's, it's kind of like high desert. Um, it's very arid, very, um, very New Mexico, kind of Northwest Texas looking um country, um, so it's very. There's no trees. You can't tree stand hunt or anything like that. It's all hunting on the ground. You either spot and stalk or you rattle them. You know, rattle them in. So extremely difficult. And uh, the last day, last evening, I've harvested a buck at 15 yards. And then, um, I got an invite from one of my family members. They had just purchased 600 acres in North Texas and was like, hey, nobody's hunted here in so many years and, uh, you're welcome to go hunt it. You know, do whatever you want, you have it for the whole week. So I, uh, so I went down to Texas and, uh, I grabbed my rifle after that extremely difficult Oklahoma deer hunt and within the first hour, and a half within the first hour and a half I had found a 152 inch whitetail and had him on the ground at a 300 yard shot and was just.
Speaker 2:I was so excited and so pumped to not have to struggle so bad. Uh, I mean it was just to to go through that amount of struggle, through archery, elk season and then deer season, um, and then to just walk onto a brand new piece of property and and and harvest one of my biggest bucks ever. Uh, you know, was just, it was super awesome. Uh, you know, because of the whole situation beforehand, it just made it made it epic and uh, yeah, that's my one, my one deer hunt I've done with the rifle that's too funny.
Speaker 1:Did you have your bow with you as well, or were you like I'll?
Speaker 2:just take whatever opportunity comes and you only brought your no I straight up was just like this is going to be an easy hunt and I'm gonna uh, I'm just going to enjoy, you know, walking around and seeing a deer at 100, 150 yards and not have to worry about getting within 30. You know it is just. There's something that is just brings you such great peace of mind whenever you have that rifle with you. Um, you know what a, what a great way to, uh, absolutely to end a rough season.
Speaker 1:I bet I've been. I've actually never. I don't think I've ever killed anything. The only thing I've killed with a rifle this is funny is actually a turkey I've been out hunting with my rifle a couple of times and I've just never been able to put it together.
Speaker 1:But I was axis deer hunting in Texas and the property I was on was really long and skinny right. So I was like, well, if they come near me I'm going to use my bow, but if they don't and I see them at the other end of this field I know that they're like 50 yards before they're going to dive into the other property. So I was like I'll bring my 270 as well. Didn't see any access to here, but I did call in a turkey right as I was about to pack it all up and I just didn't feel confident shooting through the amount of brush that was in between me and him. And then he ducked away.
Speaker 1:So I was at full draw, put my bow down and then picked my rifle up, took my call out again and called again on my slate call and he popped his head up and I was like, well, there you go. So I pull my rifle up and of course it's times nine scope so I can't find anything. So I pull it back down, drop it down to three, pull it up and just boom turkey's over and I was like, oh, um, yeah, I'm like.
Speaker 1:I said all the time I'm, I'm an opportunity hunter, but I've been rifle hunting a bunch but just never, never had any luck with a rifle I've, I've even killed a whitetail, but that was with a shotgun, of all things.
Speaker 2:So I just never, never really had a rifle kill. So maybe this season, yeah, I've killed several whitetail with, uh, with shotgun, um, but I just because of you know kind of the area in the brush country that we, that we have over here, um, when you have those deer in close counter sometimes it's difficult to get that, get a rifle or scope on them, you know, quickly and be able to get your shot off. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Well, uh, Cole, you mentioned that you have some details that you wanted to share about your your African big game harvest that you had on the show. So why don't we dive into that one man? Yeah?
Speaker 2:man. Yeah, so it's official that I hold the largest animal harvested on Naked and Afraid history by probably. I'm going to guess that I kind of beat everybody by about five to 800 pounds of meat.
Speaker 1:Um, I on day record.
Speaker 2:I think it was day 13 of my time there in Africa. I was able to uh connect with an Eland cow and um, yeah, we can, we can dive into that story, man, it was uh, so I I had been having little successes throughout my entire time there, you know, this being day 14. Um, it's, it was kind of a screwed up situation because you know a lot of these TV producer production companies or um networks. They don't really have a frigging clue about hunting or anything like that. So when they go in there and they set up there, so they have to have like a base camp to be able to have um medics and they have, uh, you know, just some of their crew, a place for them to hang out.
Speaker 2:Wherever shell and I decided to make our camp, they had to make a camp nearby and they had a general area that they wanted us to stay in, you know, so that they could, they could be able to access us quickly and safely without, you know, without any trouble or anything like that. So we had to be, we had to set up kind of you know to trouble or anything like that. So we had to be, we had to set up kind of you know, to where it was convenient for them and unfortunately that setup looked like the predominant wind blowing into my hunting area the entire time that we were there.
Speaker 1:So for me to be able to. How far out were?
Speaker 2:they like quarter mile, half mile or like closer, oh as far as the production crew yeah, yeah, where was their camp relative to yours? Roughly their camp was probably yeah, probably about 400 yards from mine. Maybe, maybe not even that far oh, so not far at all.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that's tough with that wind, okay yeah yeah, they had to be.
Speaker 2:They had to be close enough to where a medic could, um, you know, to where they could get to us with if we were screaming and hollering.
Speaker 2:Um, they had to be within earshot of us because, I mean, we were in wild country, you know, there's, uh, there's elephants, there's Cape Buffalo, there's hyena, there's baboons, there's lions, I mean everything, leopards, everything you can think of that's out there in Africa, that it was legit there, I mean, we could hear these animals every night. Um, so, but the crappy thing is, is they the, the wind, the way it was set up, and I had a boundary that I wasn't allowed to go past, um, you know, on on this one side of me, and then the wind was coming from that direction and blowing my scent all into the area that I was allowed to go hunt. So, long story short, it took me usually a couple miles of hiking every morning to get into fresh country, to where I knew that our scent wasn't blowing out any. You know, any of the big game that potentially could be close, um, in this particular, production team, just like following you, or how?
Speaker 2:did that work Cause they want to be within your shot. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Um after I killed that crocodile on day three, they knew that I was a serious contender as far as hunting goes. And um, they told me they were like, if you don't want us to go with you on a hunt, we will give your um your pH, a camera and show him how to use it and everything and he can document it with him because he has to stay with me, no matter what. It's just the law. Um, so they would actually let my ph and me go out in the mornings and me and him would go all over the place. Um, I I had roughly eight or nine thousand acres all to myself. Um, on this hunting concession and just, I mean just okay for clarity, just for clarity, it's a lot like texas man.
Speaker 2:it it's a lot like Texas man. It's a high fence ranch, but this particular ranch just so you have a grasp of the size of it this particular ranch was about 20,000 acres that I was on. I had about 8,000 of that that I could free range and roam. I could walk. Six miles was probably the furthest that I ever put on on one day, and that's barefoot and naked Okay. Just so we're clear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in country with thorns and yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh God, they have these carpet stickers.
Speaker 1:This is just a personal question here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, go ahead well, I was going to ask if they give you sunscreen because I am pasty but, like they got to be giving you guys sunscreen, or do they not? Whenever we go in for insertion, they give us sunscreen and water that day because it's a very produced day. They have a lot of stuff to cover. Whenever we're inserting, they have a lot of filming to do.
Speaker 2:They have a lot of filming to do. They have a lot of questions to ask you and just get your feelings and what you're thinking, and you know just everything about the environment or anything like that. So it's it's they do give it to you then, but then that's only the first hour of us kind of being filmed and then after that you don't get anything. Man, it's up to you to figure it out on your own way.
Speaker 2:Um, like everything, they don't. They don't assist you in any way. Um, yeah, it was. It was all up to us.
Speaker 1:You know, stay out of it, I'd come out a lobster man. That wouldn't work for me.
Speaker 2:I was semi worried about it. Um, but I was. I'm, you know, being a hunter, and even during our hike into where we were going to be making camp, you know, I'm moving through the shadows in the shade. I I stick to the shadows so that I'm, you know, I don't want my pale white ass shining, you know, all across the landscape, so landscape. So I made sure we, you know, we tried to stay in the shade as much as possible and that's just the way I moved through the country. Anyway, if I have, if I have shade and shadows, that's where I'm going to be sticking.
Speaker 2:You know, being a archery sniper, um, so this, uh, this particular, uh, hunt this day. I can just remember I was, um, I was pretty aggravated because nothing had been going my way. I think the day before I had missed a, uh, a warthog at like five yards and, and I I don't want to say I missed him because I actually didn't take a shot, I just had a screwed up opportunity at a, at a warthog at five yards, and I didn't want to say I missed him because I actually didn't take a shot. I just had a screwed up opportunity at a, at a warthog at five yards and I didn't want to take that shot whenever he was walking. So I was kind of waiting for him to stop and, uh, he ended up catching my wind and blowing out. Anyways, I was a little upset about that because I mean, we could have had bacon that night. So the next day I'm headed out and, uh, this is, this is later.
Speaker 2:Um, I actually took the morning off and, uh, just kind of did some work around camp and, uh, got some water and in my area we had this dry creek bed so I was able to to walk this dry creek bed and I had little wells dug all throughout. So I mean, you got to think, whenever you're six miles from your water source, you got to figure out either either you're going to go back and get water or you got to find water where you are. So throughout the two weeks that I had been there, I had dug these little wells so I could actually get some extended, uh distance away from camp and know that I was okay because I could go back and drink out of these wells. Um, so this this particular day we had gone and I'm at my furthest, well, I go over and I'm uh, I'm getting getting some water. Um, I'm just drinking through my straw. I say straw. I actually took the broadhead off of my arrow in my knockoff and I used it as a straw to be able to drink out of my well.
Speaker 2:And uh yeah, man, that's awesome. And so we're sitting there and it's probably about 95 degrees, something like that. I'm just chilling in the shade getting good and hydrated when, uh, all of a sudden, an ox pecker flies over and, uh, if anybody doesn't know what an ox pecker- is an ox pecker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so an ox pecker is this gray gray bird, and they typically stick around the herds of big game animals. They're the birds that you see that are going in like the giraffe's ear and picking all the bugs and stuff off of them. Um so they frequent um any big game, that's out there.
Speaker 2:Very good sign. Whenever you hear or you see an ox pecker, um, you want to move towards that ox pecker. That's almost like a bugle in the elk woods man. So, uh, I go towards where this ox pecker was flying and, just you know, moving super slow, just being very observant, and all of a sudden, my, my pH, he says. He said I can hear Elan and I was like okay, well, what, what does that sound like? And he was like you can hear a clicking and I was like what what?
Speaker 2:what do you mean? And uh, he. So he explained to me. It's like, well, whenever elan walk, their toes actually overlap each other and once they push pressure down, one toe goes up and the other toe goes down and it creates this clicking sound. I couldn't hear it. So they were, they were a couple hundred yards out and uh, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh yeah, okay, now I can hear that. So we, we back up and get set um, where I anticipate where they're coming from and where that ox uh pecker had flown to. Sure enough, man, I could hear this clicking coming and it's just. You know, this whole scenario probably took about 20 minutes to unfold.
Speaker 1:Sitting there and uh, that's so interesting. They click like that when they walk. Man, that's cool, it's wild man.
Speaker 2:I mean, you can really it's, it's a, just a, a very repeatable click, just that's just exactly how it sounds and it's loud. I'm telling you, I'm I'm hearing this or is it just the like?
Speaker 2:I think it's just the front, um, but I could be wrong on that, it could be every, every hoof, but I think it's just the just the front, because of the way they're built, I don't know. I mean, if you've seen an elan, there are enormous animals. I mean their chest, from bottom to the top of their back, they look like a, they look like a crazy brahma bull and they have this big hump on their back, so their body is about four foot in depth, from from their belly or their brisket to their shoulder blades. Huge animal. So, wow, the clicking is very, very noticeable and I mean, you can hear it coming and I know that they're coming to my water source. Um, so I'm, you know, I'm getting ready, and, sure enough, here comes this one of the ones that you made.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, yes, one of the ones that I made. So what what happened is is the baboons will get in, the baboons will get into my well or they will dig their own well, and, uh, then the animals will come into that area and sometimes they'll even dig their own well as well. Um, they just know that a foot or two under that sand there's clean flowing water, um, and they just, you can just tell, like some, some, there's wells that are scattered all throughout this little creek and the baboons will come in there and dig these wells very well and, uh, get down to the water table, um, and then the other animals know that they can come in and frequent those spots as long as they haven't been filled in by sand. Okay, okay. So I'm sitting there and I can see all the way down. I can see all the way down the creek and they're not making like, they're not coming very fast.
Speaker 2:It's probably 20 minutes has gone by and I can hear them out there, 150 yards or so. So me and my pH, we creep up, up, get the wind to where it's perfect, and and we know that those animals are going to be working across us, man and uh, we can hear them come and hear them come. And then I tell my ph, I see one out about 60 yards and uh, you know, I'm, I'm sitting there, butt naked, uh, just huddling, huddling behind a, a Mapani bush. And uh, my pH is there and actually he's in front of me. Um, so that he can kind of, uh, so he can make sure, because we've we've been seeing Cape Buffalo and the baboons. He just wants to make sure that he's on point for any scenario to where he needs to protect me, gotcha and he has a rifle or something like that.
Speaker 1:I'm assuming he does.
Speaker 2:He's got a okay yes, he's got a 500 bushman, uh, bush master, yeah, big rifle, and uh. So then I I spotted this cow out at 60 yards. Well, what I didn't know is one had already closed in even closer and all of a sudden, out pops this cow and I'm talking to ancient old cow. She pops out and she's 30, 35 yards from me and my ph. He's looking at the one that's at 60 and I'm like I told him, I said right here, right here, you know, because I have to communicate with him, because he's my camera guy it could, because none, if none of this gets on camera, then it doesn't happen. That's just the rules of TV. If it's not, if it's not on camera, it's not going to make it to the show. So even if I was to kill this um, this Elan, and it didn't get on camera, it wouldn't be shown. They wouldn't even show us eating any of the meat, um, because it didn't get on camera. They don't have any context on how this animal got harvested.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, okay, yeah, so so I'm communicating with him to make sure he's got the camera on. So he's having to flick the camera on and get situated and he's looking to try to find and he thinks that there's another cow near the cow. That's at 60 yards, right? So I this point, I'm like I need to take my shot or I'm gonna lose this opportunity. So it's a scramble for him to get the camera up and he's looking back at me and I'm drawing the bow over his head at this point and he's like, oh shit, I'm yeah. He's like, oh shit, I'm looking at the wrong animal. So he pans over real quick and gets, gets the camera on the eland, just in time for me to be able to execute my shot and make a 35 yard shot.
Speaker 2:It punches through the bottom end of her chest, just barely clipping her heart and then breaking her offside um leg. It was, uh, real, real close to screwing that shot up. Man, yeah, very, very little penetration, because I hit that offside leg, you know, and all the chaos that went on. She, she blows up and goes out there and then she actually stands for a few seconds out at like 50 or 60 yards, just enough time to get for us to get a good glimpse at her and, uh, my pH. Immediately he was like oh, you killed her, no problem. Well, man, an animal that is barely heart shot, uh, you know, just clip the heart with the adrenaline that's going, those things can cover an enormous amount of land of distance Okay.
Speaker 2:So this time of day it's already creeping into getting into, the sun is kind of setting. So we go up and recover the arrow. The arrow's got good blood on it, unfortunately, it's just not a bunch of penetration. The arrow's got good blood on it, unfortunately it's just not a bunch of penetration. And uh, so I we have to go. Uh, my ph has to call it, because as soon as the sun goes down it's an absolute no-go on anything. We're not allowed to move about, we have to stay in shelter in place.
Speaker 2:They actually lock us into our boma and and put a bunch of brush and briars over the door to keep us protected at night, and then they leave us. Okay, so we make our way back. I let shell know hey, I've hit a, an Eland. Um, we can't do anything right now, but tomorrow we're going to go back and um and try to track this thing down so the happiest you've ever seen her at that point telling her you got a whole bunch of meat.
Speaker 2:it was, but at the same time it wasn't because me, knowing what, you know what happens in these scenarios I've had a, a bull elk hit in the liver and him not pass away for over 10 hours. And I've come up on, uh, you know, an elk and deer and them not be completely expired and end up spoiling the whole situation because I bumped them and then never find them. So I was pretty worried about that, you know, um, so I, I just told her. I said, you know, I did get a good arrow in her. I didn't get a follow-up shot or anything. Um, all we can do is just let the night, you know, let the night go by and then tomorrow we'll take up trail right where we left off, um, and this cow ended up making it. Um, she ended up making it. She ended up making it. I think it was around three miles.
Speaker 2:I didn't have any way to really track it, yeah, and luckily nothing had gotten her. And what's crazy, man is, I actually ran out of blood and the way that we found her is I spotted the buzz circling up above. I mean, just like you would see in a movie, you know, like those South Africa buzzards are just whipping tight circles over the top of my Elan and uh, I actually spotted that from about a half a mile away and then went straight to the birds and walked right up on my eland cow. Uh, laying right there on the ground, um, it was just. And at that point, that's awesome, did you?
Speaker 1:I was gonna ask if you had any support as far as, like breaking it down with the ph, or are they like required to do anything, or is it all on you?
Speaker 2:no, no, they, they're not allowed to, no, they're not allowed to get their hands in there at all. So the only cutting tool or only cutting tools that we had was shell had a Tomahawk, um, with a removable head, and then I had, of course, my arrows with uh, with my broad heads on it.
Speaker 1:Um oh man so that being processing that like that had to be a chore, and then packing it out completely naked. I want to hear all those details.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you can imagine this tomahawk has you know the cutting edge on it is probably only about two and a half to three inches long.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's basically like a small curved knife. The good thing is is I was able to spend some time that night with a good flat rock and I actually got that tomahawk to shave hair on my arm that night. Um, and I in believe it or not, it was insane how well that thing worked because I was able to take the head off of it, off of the handle, and I could grasp the head. Real similar to a knife, but it was just kind of an awkward knife because the blade was kind of at the front of it. But, man, as soon as I touched that thing to her hide on her belly, it split hide and I mean I went all the way up and cut through her sternum and immediately pulled out her liver and heart, and I mean it. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Um, the the biggest thing is managing that big ass animal with 110 pound girl with you, so just the just just the hind.
Speaker 2:So to put into perspective, I mean we have a cow eland on the ground and my ph estimated her to be between 900 and 1100 pounds, so we're talking about an enormous animal. I mean, this thing is it is literally the size of a horse, or or you know right there at the size of a horse, or or you know right there, at the size of a horse. So each quarter, like her hind quarter, had to have been pushing 150 to 200 pounds just for one hind quarter. So the difficulty of us getting the skin off and then getting the, the meat off and then off of the bone, and all that was just an extreme amount of work. And because it was only shell and I, we could only carry so much meat, yeah, so I, I did take the choice pieces of meat right off the bat. We took the heart, we took the liver, I took both back straps and both tenderloins and that's what we were able to carry because we had such a long distance to get back to camp.
Speaker 2:Um, it was just, uh, you know, we had to make, make a decision on what to do and by the time we found her it was only a few hours until dark again, and at that point she had been sitting out there for over 24 hours, um, and luckily she hadn't died, she was. She hadn't even gone into rigor mortis yet, um, so she wasn't stiff or anything, so she was still super fresh. I wasn't worried about the meat going bad. The one thing I was worried about is the predators that were going to be on her within a few hours, um, because that blood trail was so long that she you know she's laying blood scent for three miles until where she laid down and then her just laying there and I was processing. That was a feat on its own, and I didn't want to be sticking around her whenever the sun started getting ready to go down, because, I mean, we could actively hear lions, um, in the distance and every night we could hear, uh, hyena.
Speaker 2:So it was, um, you know it was daunting, it was, it was a little sketchy, uh, even with having two, yeah, even with having a couple of pHs in the production crew and everybody there, um, it was just, you know, it wasn't a situation to take lightly, um, so that that was the meat that I ended up taking off of her. Um, I will say that none of the meat went to waste Um, I'm not allowed to tell you exactly because of my contract, um, but I can say that none of it went to waste. As far as you know, it rotting or anything like that, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you can read between the lines there, yeah, Um, yeah, it, it, it, it went.
Speaker 2:The meat went to a good cause. Um, the rest of the meat anyway, yeah. So let me ask you a question here um the hide or the skull or anything like that.
Speaker 1:Obviously I don't think you want to expend the calories during the time, but we're like did someone go? This is a big deal. Let's, let's get him a little bit of like a memory of what he just did and what he accomplished. And do you, you have any of the I mean, that's not the best word, but trophy? Do you have any of the trophies from the experience?
Speaker 2:Um, so they're actually waiting there in Africa for me. Um, I got the head, uh, euro mounted, um, as well as my crocodile skull. Is Euro mounted? Crocodile skull is Euro mounted? And, um, the hide was tanned and made into a rug. Um, so I I haven't it's so difficult communicating with um, with the, with the ranch manager and the pH and all that. So, um, I am in the process of trying to get all that stuff to get shipped back here. It's just, it's such a pain in the ass with the way the laws are written and stuff. Now it's uh, it's just difficult for them to get everything ready to go and then get through um, customs and all that or or whatever that has to go through, uh, and then get through the States as well, um, so I am still waiting. It's been over a year, uh, but hopefully I do get, uh, hopefully I do get my skull and my my cape back, yeah, Gotcha man Did production help with any of the costs of that stuff?
Speaker 1:Just being like hey man, thanks for such a great content, Like let us help you out, or is it all on you?
Speaker 2:You would think right, but no, that's all uh, that was all left up to me to to foot the bill on that. Um, the good thing is is the taxidermy in Africa is nothing like the taxidermy in the U S?
Speaker 2:um most of the guys that are doing the taxidermy work there are local native tribesmen, um, so the the it's very cost, uh, cost efficient, um, if I could say the least, I wouldn't call it cheap, because it's uh, these guys do really good work. I mean, they're fantastic taxidermists. It's just the cost of it is so much more inexpensive than than what we have here.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. You know what's funny about that? I shot an axis here in Hawaii recently, um, and your experience sounds a lot like that because like I had trouble kind of connecting with them. You know it's Hawaii time, they're not really trying that hard to get back to me, but beyond that, it was on Molokai, it wasn't on Maui, it's not this big resort place where people with a lot of money go hunt axis deer. It's kind of you know, we were basically staying in a beat-up, old, dilapidated cabin and the taxidermist there was cheaper For cabin and, uh, the taxidermist there was cheaper for him to do it there and to ship it to me was cheaper than to bring it back to colorado and then have someone do it here.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's crazy, isn't?
Speaker 1:that crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it is so crazy. Um, yeah, I think you know one thing that I see with my taxidermist here is he just gets so overrun because he does such good work. He gets so overrun with people that he can't do anything but raise his prices just to try to minimize the volume that he's getting. If that makes sense, yeah, supply and demand, man.
Speaker 1:That's the basic rule of economics. That's it, man Cole. Two great stories, man. Thank you so much. I know I only asked for an hour of your time, so I tell this to everybody, but I'll listen to stories as long as you will tell them. I want to be respectful of your time, sir, so if you have any more you want to drop on us? Great. Otherwise, let's tell the people where they can find you, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, brother, I so appreciate it. I do have some other stuff I do have to run and do, um, but uh, yeah, you guys can find me, uh, cole Wilkes, on Facebook, um, cole Wilkes Hunter, on Instagram, and then you guys can follow our podcast Also it's in the bush underscore podcast, um, anywhere or or on Instagram, and then anywhere, of course, that you get podcasts, you can find us there. Um, yeah, michael dude, it's so great to be able to finally do this and uh, we've been trying so hard and I apologize because it's just my schedule is always so crazy man, so I'm glad that we finally got to nail this down and, uh, I hate that I took up some of your Saturday, uh, but I so appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Oh, not at all. My wife actually found a play date and uh with, uh, with another lady that, uh, the husbands are not invited. So this, this worked out just fine, cole, uh, and I'd rather be here right now with you anyways.
Speaker 2:So uh, man, thank you so much. This was great to do you listeners.
Speaker 1:I'm going to make sure that I'm go ahead and go ahead, Sorry dude, I'm stepping all over you.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to ask you a little bit about your and we can do this offline if you don't, uh, if you don't want to put this on the recording but I was curious about your cow moose, um, and what your strategy is uh going in there on that thing. Do you? Have you been doing a bunch of scouting? I mean you, you kind of led into that, uh at the beginning that you kind of uh have had some issues with with the moose before, um, but what's your, what's your strategy going in there on those?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know I haven't done a ton of scouting, to be completely honest, because, uh, you know I've spent so much time hunting, with a week in Hawaii and going, uh, antelope hunting and doing other things. I'm making sure that I'm putting in family time. But what I do know is I hunted there and did a bunch of scouting last year, so I have a pretty good understanding of the layout of the land and I understand where I saw moose and so I ran into a bunch of moose and every time I ran into them they didn't go very far and they were there day after day after day. So my plan is basically find the moosey country. You know those big open fields with marshy water running through them, and I've got about 50 of them pinned in the unit that I'm going to be in. So we're going to glass those things up until we spot one, and then we're going to develop a plan and we're also, you know, midday we might drive.
Speaker 1:There's a giant valley that kind of goes through the entire unit. I've seen them standing on the side of the main road that drives through that unit. So we're going to spend midday probably driving up and down seeing if we can get something to pop out. But yeah, it's just about finding them, because all the research I've done says they don't travel much. The bull moose will travel a fair amount when the rut starts. I'm kind of hunting right before the rut, before, yeah, and before the rut, before um, and the cows they just kind of stay put, is my understanding. So that's yeah, that's kind of the goal, and I got a good handful of guys coming out to help me, since, uh, I know I can't get a moose out by myself, but uh, yeah, it's gonna be a fun trip man that's awesome dude.
Speaker 2:So um, is that just um? You don't have to divulge this information. This can be between us. I was curious about um you, this tag. It doesn't sound like it was very difficult for you. Um, was it just kind of?
Speaker 1:we'll talk about that one offline. Sorry, listeners. Um, but yeah let's wrap this thing up, cole, and then we'll have a conversation. But guys, make sure, make sure you guys check out Cole's podcast and and really do check out his episode of naked and afraid, or, as Cole puts it, naked and Afraid. It is really good TV, man and Cole. I appreciate you coming on, man, it's been a lot of fun, absolutely. And I have a feeling you've got plenty more stories, so we'll have you back.
Speaker 2:Oh dude, Next time I'm down in. Austin, yeah, yeah, Next time I'm down in Austin.
Speaker 1:I'll take you to dinner. So thank you, sir, I appreciate your time Absolutely. Thanks, man. All right guys, that's it. Another couple stories in the books.
Speaker 1:Again, I want to thank Cole for coming on the podcast and sharing his experiences from the Colorado mountains to the bush of South Africa. It's some pretty amazing stuff. I'm sure you have plenty more stories, cole, and we'll get you back on here in the future to tell some of those. I know that we I guess our paths may cross in the Colorado mountains this year, as you're hunting elk and I'm hunting moose. I know at least one hunter is going to jump in between us. So thank you again, sir. Appreciate you To you listeners. Thank you, guys for tuning in. Please check the show notes and check out all the stuff that I've linked there. Review us, check out Cole's podcast, check out the episodes of Naked and Afraid Guys. Thank you so much. If you have a story, please make sure you hit me up. I'd love to hear it and I'm sure my listeners would too, but that's it. Thank you so much again. Now get out there and make some stories of your own.
