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The Hunting Stories Podcast
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 114 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Dustin Garrett
Join us as we welcome Dustin Garrett from Ontario, Canada, who shares his touching and adrenaline-filled hunting adventures. Dustin started hunting ten years ago, inspired more by his grandfather than any immediate family tradition. He recounts his early days of deer and turkey hunting, leading up to a poignant 2019 moose hunt with his father fighting esophageal cancer. This episode is filled with emotional highs, showcasing the resilient bond between father and son amidst the challenges and triumphs of their hunting journey.
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Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and as usual, we got a good one for you today, guys. Today we're actually connecting with Dustin Garrett. Dustin is a listener who was like man. I've got some great stories to tell and he did not disappoint North from Canada and he has some wonderful moose hunting stories with his father. His father did pass away and then a second story that actually kind of pieces that whole story together.
Speaker 1:It's a really beautiful one to punch. So I want to thank Dustin for one, you know, having the courage to get on the podcast and reach out to me and say, hey, I got some stories, and then two for giving us some amazing stories. So thank you very much, dustin. Let's go ahead and kick this thing off, guys, but real quick. Before we do, I just want to mention don't forget about Vote for America, our goal here this year get out and vote, but not only that. Take someone with you who didn't vote and they probably align pretty well with you, but make sure that they get out there and they vote as well. Hundreds of thousands of hunters registered hunters did not vote last year and we got to make that we get the, the election to do the right thing here this year. So, uh, that being said, guys, find your one person. Now let's let dustin tell you his stories. Thank you all. Right, dustin, welcome to the hunting stories podcast brother, how are you man?
Speaker 2:I'm good man. Thank you very much for having me Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Of course, man, of course I talk with everyone a little bit before all the podcasts, and I told you and I'll tell everybody again and this goes out to the listeners. My favorite stories to hear are from the average Joe like yourself man, not to say that you're average, because you're at least braver than most um willing to reach out to me and say, hey, I've got some fun hunting stories. So, dustin man, thank you so much for, for you know, stepping out on that limb and uh, and reaching out to me, man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:So let's do this, let's kick this thing off and let you introduce yourself, so the people know who they're gonna hear stories from today dustin vernon.
Speaker 2:I live in southern ontario, canada, and, uh, just started hunting um probably 10 years ago or so now, oh, really yeah, wasn't, wasn't born and raised into it or anything like that.
Speaker 1:My uh what got you into it? I gotta ask, because that's about the same time frame as me, man. Maybe we're uh maybe we're meant to be hunted buddies, best buddies. We started at the same time yeah, I'm, uh, I'm 33 now.
Speaker 2:I went on my first couple hunts when I was real young but I never got the like, the licenses and all that stuff. I just went uh went with a bunch of old guys, some old relatives, as a dogger pushing deer through bushes I think I was probably like 10 or 11 then.
Speaker 2:And, uh, they did shoot a deer while we were pushing, so that was kind of cool, uh. And then, a few years later I think, I went on a turkey hunt with my brother. I was sitting on the sitting in the dirt playing with sticks, waiting for a turkey to come in. Nothing ever come in, it was it doesn't matter how old you are, that's basically what turkey hunting is. I was sitting on the ground playing with sticks yeah that's.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, and so you, it was in your family. You just didn't really like really pick it up until the later years my.
Speaker 2:It kind of skipped a generation, I guess, because my grandpa on my dad's side, he, he hunted, I think he did a bit of waterfowl. I don't know how much deer he did, I don't think much deer but he actually uh, oddly enough he's got. There's some cool pictures. He did, uh, some wolf hunts with, like an old cooey single shot shotgun oh, wow they used dogs for the wolves. It was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was pretty cool, but that's awesome, man. Yeah, that's cool to have that kind of heritage, um, well, cool. So you live in ontario, um, and you've only been hunting for 10 years. Anything else we got to know, man, about you before we jump into some stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I don't think so, that's it Okay perfect man.
Speaker 1:Well then, let's just jump right into it. I know you've got a list of a couple different stories for us why? Don't you set the stage?
Speaker 2:So this is 2019, so five years ago.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I'll get a little sad here for a bit my, my old man, was diagnosed with uh esophageal cancer in 2018 okay yeah, uh, so he was. He took treatments all through uh 2019 and uh, he, he, him and I started our hunting uh together, kind of like we both got hunting like uh license and all that stuff, gun license, all that stuff together.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, that september 2019, my brother he's been in a moose, he had been in a moose camp for uh five, six years already and two of the guys couldn't make it, so we were extended uh an invite as guests, my dad and I oh that's awesome moose camp. And uh, neither of us had a clue the day before we left.
Speaker 2:And when they do the chemo treatments. I don't know if it's the same for all chemo treatments, but they give you steroids as well, just so you can fight the side effects, I guess, of the chemo treatment. The treatment is a bitch man.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you heard the episode about my father-in-law. Yeah, he passed away from cancer and man he hunted with me every year ever until he was diagnosed and then I unfortunately never got back out into the woods with him. So you're lucky that you were able to go out again with your dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that that stuff's. I mean, for lack of a better term, they say like fuck cancer man.
Speaker 2:It's awful. It's awful man it sucks, so I'm sorry. So he, I remember him joking. He asked the uh, the doctor who did the chemo treatment that day if you could give him a little extra steroids. He had a moose hunt to go to with the boys yeah. So uh, but I'm sure it didn't happen anyways. So we, uh, my brother tells us dress like, or bring all your warm gear. It gets like 10 below. I don't know what 10 below is in Fahrenheit for you guys. So we're, we're celsius here.
Speaker 2:so let's see that's, uh, that's like 20 something, because zero is 32, so it's cold, nothing too crazy. But we also we tent, so it's uh, it's a tent camp, um, so we, we get all our gear ready, we got all our warm gear, blah, blah, and we get up there and the forecast reads the first four days, uh, 24 degrees celsius I've done.
Speaker 1:I've done a hunt like that in a tent.
Speaker 2:It's tough, it's tough so I'm like chewing out my brother like I don't have any of my light gear here. Uh, anyways it yeah, goes on and on. But uh, so we had to buy dad and I had to buy gear. We had to buy cots, we had to borrow tents. Borrowed uh crossbow for him from my brother-in-law.
Speaker 2:I had an old like psc whitetail obsession bow that I think shot like 160 feet per second or something yeah, the arrow rolled out of the uh the rest, that's funny everyone's uh sighting in their bows at camp after the trip and these guys are all shooting their new bows and there's like when they hit the release, there's zero delay from when they hit the release to it hitting the target. And then I shoot and it's like loading, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, we're. Yeah, it's a 12-hour drive for us to the, to the camp, and uh, there's seven or eight guys. Uh, we drive through the night, we get there, yeah, we get there. In the morning, we, we grouse hunt our way into camp. We're shooting a couple of birds driving over some sketchy logging bridges that are like 50 feet in the air and rugged old things.
Speaker 2:And we, we come across. We came across a cow, moose on our way in. So it was cool, it was exciting and we, actually we let out a couple of calls through and we heard something crash in the bush. So we figured it was either either a calf or or maybe a bull what, uh, what time of year was it?
Speaker 1:if you don't mind me asking, and is that?
Speaker 2:september, so the day before would have been september 19th, I believe.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's like the beginning of the rut, maybe, yeah yeah, exactly, so we, we did the archery hunt.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's, it's, uh, it's during the route, which is, I don't think I'd ever do anything different. It's to be able to call them in something else, man yeah they're the guys that right one. They go up and they just find fresh tracks.
Speaker 1:Follow the fresh tracks, find the moves and zoo right from 400 yards away but yeah, you want to get that thing drooling, ripping antlers right in your face. You're not crapping yourself, you're not really hunting. That's what it should be so we get in.
Speaker 2:We get uh camp set up. Takes us all day. We're bagged everyone. We drove through the night. My brother, I think he worked. He worked a night shift the night before so he didn't. He'd been up for like 36 hours or something crazy we're all um, so we didn't even get to scout or anything.
Speaker 2:We we noticed a couple cuts on our drive in off the main logging road. Um decided the one not too far from camp was the one we drive, opening morning and uh, we go out. It's my, my brother, my dad and I and we go out. Uh, we're sitting for all of five minutes and I look over at my brother. He's like maybe a hundred yards from from me. We've all got our hoods drawn in as tight as they can, going like waving the thousand mosquitoes away from her face kind of thing, and really the mosquitoes.
Speaker 1:When it's that cold, they're still out so it was 24 degrees celsius, like plus plus 24, okay so then it's pretty warm crazy hot, yeah, okay okay, that makes a lot more sense I was thinking, when you had that 20 degree, uh, okay, yeah, that makes sense yeah, so uh, I think we were there maybe 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:I look over at my brother and he's giving me the like fuck this, let's get out of here okay we, uh, we pack up, we walk back to the truck and we decide that it's going to be a drive around and scout kind of day Stay moving, keep away from the mosquitoes, kind of thing. So we found a few nice cuts. This is one of my brother. He pulls up this. He just bought like some fancy GPS and he's showing me how it works. It's literally a blank white screen that shows us on it and a trail where he is traveled. So I guess you can get back to camp if you use it.
Speaker 2:I pull up my my iphone that didn't have any service at all, and the.
Speaker 2:The satellite imaging was working on it with our location, so I was able to see all the cuts, all the lakes, everything like that. So so that helped a lot. We got looking around and we found a couple nice spots, found one cut in particular with tons of fresh sign and decided that would be the. That would be the spot we'd set up for the next few mornings and we just hunt in the morning for three or four hours and then in the evenings for three or four hours, kind of thing, and then through the day is kind of at camp eating.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me ask you about that Only because I am going moose hunting in like 10 or so days, right, 11, 12 days, something like that. That's kind of my plan too, and that's I thought I was maybe being a little bit lazy, but I know they're crepuscular right, so they're in the mornings and the evenings?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Do moose? Just what do they active in the the mornings and the evenings, can they? Yeah, especially when the heat that we had right, it's cool in the the mornings, cool in the evenings during the day was so hot like I imagine they were laying down. Yeah, okay, got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's that's kind of what I'm predicting as well and that's kind of how I'm expecting. I was thinking mornings and evenings we're gonna hunt, hunt those. They're not cuts because they're not you know, but they're like big valleys with like streams coming through that we have right during the middle of the day it's going to be at camp or kind of cruising and driving up and down these big valleys that are on the main, the main, like valley that goes through the entire area, because I've seen moose just cruising along the side of the road.
Speaker 2:So why not cover ground when it's uh, when you're not doing anything? Yeah, if you're not sitting, you might as well try and put a stalk on one, if you can see him right absolutely, man, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Uh, okay, I interrupted, sorry. I'm excited about my moose hunt yeah, you should be.
Speaker 2:Uh, so yeah, uh, day, day one, two, three, pretty uneventful, just based on the weather like it was. It was just too hot.
Speaker 2:We yeah I think day three. So the cut that we decided to hunt had like a it's it's an old cut so it had a little bit of overgrowth already starting in it. Uh, the spot we decided we would try had a high spot and then dipped off both directions, uh, north and south, and uh, so my brother, we, he put his uh 2d cow decoy up on the high spot and that he was going to call from the high spot.
Speaker 2:Dad was on one side of the the hill. I was on the other side see if they kind of come up the cut one direction or the other. I could see my brother. I think it was day three. I could see my brother and he signals to me and he's looking over the hump so I can't see. And he, he makes this gesture like this and I'm thinking, holy shit, there's a moose. He's called, he called a moose, and there's a moose coming. Yeah, I see him get his, put his uh release on his, on his uh bow. I see him draw and I'm like, oh, my god, he's gonna shoot a moose two or three seconds, lets down. I'm like what happened? Sit there for 10, 15 minutes. I'm stirring Cause I don't know what's going on. Then I see him, my brother started to move a little more so I'm like, okay, whatever happened, it's gone. So I crawl over to him and I'm like what the hell just happened? And he goes it was the links.
Speaker 1:I'm like a cat If you see the link, you go. Yeah For the listeners he just licked his wrist and rubbed his head okay. So yeah, that's a much better gesture if you're running into cats than the moose hands.
Speaker 2:I guess he had this link was within like 15 yards of him or something like that. He just drew on it. I guess I don't know if he ever intended on actually shooting it or not, but yeah we're firing a warning shot or something, I don't know, but it did spot him and then eventually ran off, but uh yeah, that's awesome day three and then uh, day four.
Speaker 2:We uh in the morning, we look at the. I actually sorry, yeah, sorry, backtrack Day three on the way back to camp. Because we always shoot, we'll stop and shoot grouse on the way back. Because they're all over the roads and pull over. We're shooting grouse with those like the punch broadheads kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always call them bunny busters, but I'm sure that they have a different name than that. But yeah, the blunt someone like springs a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, impact kill them yeah yeah, so I'm out of the truck to shoot a grouse, shoot the grouse, get back in and my brother's like did you, um, have unread text messages like from three days ago, four days ago, before we got here, is it? No, he's like oh, we have service here. We found like a spot with like a random spot, just pulled over shooting routes, with service. So that was, uh, that turned into a nightmare when all the guys were like can we, uh can we, use your phone and and facetime our family and so that was non-stop the whole time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but uh. So we uh got the forecast. While we, when we got the forecast, when we got the service and it said that night was supposed to drop nice and low and get good and cold for the morning. And sure enough, that morning my brother and I we decided we said, whatever, we'll just sit together.
Speaker 2:This morning I'm sitting next to my brother in a lawn chair, literally sawing logs, sitting sitting next to my brother in a lawn chair, literally sawing logs, and all I hear is, um, like like a horse running into the bush, yeah, and uh, I look over at my brother, we look and we see the trees waving and it was uh, we could just see the ass end of a moose running into the bush. And then I kind of like replayed the kind of like replayed the sound that I had heard and I remembered hearing a crossbow go off before I heard the like, the stomping, and I'm like I looked at my brothers. I think dad just shot that thing and he goes. I think he did too. So we're sitting around, we just we wait a little bit and then we kind of creep down to dad from camp.
Speaker 1:Was your dad like how far out was he so?
Speaker 2:he. He set up where he had the two three days prior to where just my brother and I said we would just sit together for that morning. He he went down on his own. He was about 70 yards from us.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um and uh. So we walked down to down to dad and he's well. First of all, when we walk up to him, his hands are like this, just shaking like a leaf, and the first thing we noticed is his pants are undone. What?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, we're like why are your pants undone? He goes. I was behind my chair taking a piss on my knees and I heard thumping. I turned around and this moose was charging up the cut. So he shot this moose with his pants around his knees, pretty much it would peck her out.
Speaker 2:That's so funny I guess while he was fizzing he kind of crawled back to the chair, grabbed the bow and it stopped like 25 yards in front of him and he let him have it. My old man not a very confident hunter, it was his first first time, yeah, like he had shot the crossbow camp. But yeah.
Speaker 1:So we asked him how was the shot? I don't know and I hit it.
Speaker 2:Maybe I don't know so we tracked a bit of blood into, uh like the cut itself that we're hunting is only about 50 yards wide, and so we tracked a bit of blood just to the edge of the, the bush line where it had walked in, and my I was going to carry on looking kind of thing. We had waited maybe, maybe a half an hour, which I know isn't long enough, and uh, my brother says to me Dusty, just back up, leave it. He says because I, they had told me stories a few years back, I guess one guy shot and they, uh, they tracked a moose and they pushed it all the way into a lake and they lost it. And so now it's like cardinal rule any anymore unless we see the moose drop, it's like three or four hours, we don't even, we don't risk it. So, yeah, we go back to camp when we send a message on that we had a, two sat um phones or whatever, just for emergency and to talk to each other if we think, if we've shot a moose.
Speaker 2:So, uh, everyone gets back, have lunch, do all that jazz, get all geared up, get the chainsaws ready, all the four, like the four wheelers loaded, everything ready to go to pack out this, uh, this moose, hopefully, if we can find it we have. We still have no idea how the shot was longest four hours of our lives. But uh, so we all get back to where he shot and we start tracking and there is minimal blood like micro drips of blood and we're like, oh boy, this isn't a good sign. We tracked those micro drips for maybe an hour and a half and it went cold like stopped dead. We didn't see, we didn't see anything. We looked in the last spot of blood for probably a half an hour and I remember looking at my dad, he was white as a ghost, like he just sick to his stomach, and uh, I looked, I looked at my brother. I said, well, we, we have to do a like a grid search. I looked at my brother and said we have to do a grid search.
Speaker 2:We've got to at least try the kind of prankster joker of the group, his name's Steve. He goes oh God, I really don't want to do that right now. It's like again now midday, so it's like 26 degrees. He's like, well, we have to try. It's this direction we spread out and we're not 10 minutes into a grid search. And that guy, steve the joker of the group, got it and I'm like I'm just, I'm just waiting to hear, just kidding, and I was like I will, I will kill this guy if he's joking with us right now yeah I said are you serious?
Speaker 2:yeah, I got it over here. I said keep, keep hollering, we'll all run towards you and it it laid down in the smallest little stream that had a little bit of water and kind of thing and just expired there.
Speaker 1:So wow, well, it's okay. So how was the shot right like what? What did it look like when you got there?
Speaker 2:when we got to the moose it looked high and back a tickle. Not terrible though, um. And when we gutted the moose, uh, single lung just caught a back edge of it, kind of thing pulled. Yeah, just enough yeah, just enough, exactly, but perfect yeah, so that was, uh, that's, that was dad's moose story. It was pretty so dad ended up passing away like three months after that.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I'm sorry to hear that man. That's tough. Yeah, but it's great that you have that awesome memory of that hunt, Incredible man Him running over with his crossbow and his pants down.
Speaker 2:That's such a great memory yeah, yeah, I uh like I know guys who have hunted moose, hunted for years and years and years and never bag one. And then he goes on his first one and uh, yeah, gets one with a crossbow, so pretty yeah incredible how uh was.
Speaker 1:It was a decent size moose, or just like an average and was it like a? 36 inch.
Speaker 2:So, um, a little bit of paddle to it, but nothing crazy. Um, oh yeah, I'll send you pictures, for sure of everything good eating either way oh yeah, oh the we ate. Uh, we hung it, pulled out the tenderloins that night ate tenderloins. Ate tenderloin steaks that night the best steak I've ever had in my entire life, probably because we worked so hard for everything and we were all gas, but it was so, so good.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 1:And I looked up, the temperature where you were was probably somewhere around 79, 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then because I'm an idiot and I was thinking it was cold at the start of the story before we figured out the, before I actually started listening, I guess I should say I wanted to tell a funny story about being in tent camping when it was actually 20 degrees, which is like negative whatever in Celsius.
Speaker 2:And we're in a tent.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm not sure if I've told this story before or not, and it's a quick one, um yeah, no no, it was like three seasons ago, maybe two seasons ago. I'm with my two buddies. Um, and my buddy uh, we're about to go to bed the first night and he busts a zipper on his sleeping bag. Yeah, and it's just like oh and you know, you know, a bunch of dudes in a tent. No, I'm good'm good, I'm good and I'm like I'm a sissy. I'll admit it. I plan to cover my sissiness.
Speaker 1:So I've got like a silk liner in my sleeping bag. I've got a like felt liner in my sleeping bag and then I've got a zero degree bag and then, just because like I'm like I'd rather have more than I need, than not enough.
Speaker 2:That's where I'm going to look at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you've seen the movie, the movie Tremors, right, it's not overkill if you need it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's how I live my life. So I also have this like Pendleton wool blanket, and so I'm cozy, I'm a you know cozy as a bug in a rug, and his thing blows up. And so he's like, no, no, no, I'll be, I'll be fine. And I'm like, no, just take my blanket. I'm like I'm too warm, like, just take something, let me give you something. And he refuses it, refuses it. And that night I think it was like 15 degrees, 12 degrees, and we're in a tent that like had basically holes in it, so like there's a breeze in the tent, like we. We woke up in the middle of the night to him, here we are like two mr buddy heaters and he had them around him and like just trying to like wrap his sleeping bag around him and he was just like so miserable. When the next morning we woke up, I mean he was up hours before us because it was so cold he couldn't sleep.
Speaker 1:And which is great because he, you know, got the actual stove running for us. So I got up and I'm like, oh, it's nice, it's actually warm in here this morning. That's great, it's because he'd been so cold all night long. Um, but we did the morning hunt and then he's like all right, guys, I'm gonna go buy a sleeping bag. And I was like, why don't you just take all the stuff I was offering you? But, um, but yeah, you, you sparked that memory and it cracks me up. It's actually. I don't know if you've I've mentioned that my hunting buddy's name is a little pricker um, so yeah, it was that guy my buddy Little Pricker.
Speaker 2:Little.
Speaker 1:Pricker yeah. It's too funny though we still make fun of him. And then the other guy he bought like a negative 30 degree bag Right and his is the biggest sleeping bag I've ever seen in my life, so like we couldn't have been warmer Right, and then he was just almost dying so cold, so it was.
Speaker 2:That reminds me I never mentioned what our camp setup is like and it's so we have like one of those big army barracks tents and that's like our common quarters kind of, I guess. So we we cook, we clean, we eat everything like that in there and then we do have our individual tents to sleep in. But that first year that we got invited I didn't buy a tent because I didn't know if I'd get the invite back, so I borrowed the spare tent from the guy that runs the crew. Yeah, get the fly on it. First night it poured rain and it rained just as much inside that tent as it was outside that tent there. It did like I I'm assuming it was just an ancient tent didn't work. Yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 1:It was a nightmare yeah, yeah, I've, I've borrowed. I will never borrow someone's shit again. Here's another story. We're just going down this rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:For me, this was my first archery hunt ever and I literally went on facebook and was like guys, my wife wants me to hunt with someone, just looking for somebody to go trounce run in the woods with like 10 guys got back to me a lot of them real weird, um, but a couple of these guys were pretty normal and I was like, all right, let me, let me hit these guys up. And it ended up being this group of like six or seven army guys. Credit to them. They got messed up every night and were out there hunting hard every day. Um, but, yeah, man, they were, they were super tough. But one day we're like all right, we're gonna backpack in to this draw, and so we hike in like four or five miles and I'm like well, I don't have the gear for this. And I told him that ahead of time. I was like I don't have the gear. Face like dude, we're in the army, I got everything you need and I was like okay if you got it.
Speaker 1:I'm down, so we hike in, don't see much um, and we set up and he's got me in a bivy, so it's basically just like a like a raincoat sock, right, that like fits my whole body right. And uh, turns out the reason these draws don't have any trees is because that's where the cold settles and it's too cold there for trees to actually grow and like that's that's kind of why those areas don't have any trees is because that's where that that coldness sits. At least that's what somebody explained to me, or maybe I heard it on a podcast. Um, but it got like he set me up in like a 30 degree bag with a bivy and with all my clothes on, so like maybe, like you know, when it's a 30 degree bag, 30 degrees, you'll stay alive, right.
Speaker 1:That's basically what that means. It doesn't mean you're going to be comfortable at 30. It means you'll stay alive, right. And so we wake up and there is frost, there's snow, everything is iced over, so we're sub 30 at this point and, like I remember just being the coldest I've ever been in my life, when I breathe in my sleeping bag, I would run out of air. So then I bring my head out and it was so cold it would go up, hit the top of the bivy and freeze and then drip on me. So I'm getting like cold rain dropping on me. So my choice is like cold rain and a freezing cold face or suffocating.
Speaker 1:And I'm just, I'm just. I've never been so miserable. I I don't remember sleeping. I'm sure I dozed off here or there for a little bit. The only smart thing I did was like, when I took my boots off, I did put my bag on top of them so they weren't frozen on the inside right.
Speaker 1:Man, it took until noon for my my feet to warm up and I remember when we woke up when I heard the first alarm go off, the guy that gave me all his gear was like. The first thing he said was michael, you there? And I'm like, yeah, he's. Like, I'm sorry, dude, you tested the limit of that setup I gave you and I'm like let's just. I'm like let's just get moving, like I need to move my body, like let's go, I don't, I don't care if I got no sleep. Um, we saw a couple elk, but nothing, nothing helps happen. But that's just one of those memories of being like miserable. Yeah, I don't think my wife knows how close I was to death. I'm like that's what you get when you make me find facebook friends to hunt with.
Speaker 2:So I I remember I had to. I had to hang my uh sleeping bag, mattress, pad everything, my cot even out on the the trailer the next day. Luckily we did have the hot weather because it it dried up by the end of the day, but yeah yeah, yeah never, borrow other people's gear no, exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah, no, yeah, or at least test it before shit hits the fan Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, we went down a weird rabbit hole there but that's all right, that's what this is all about what else you got for us, Dustin.
Speaker 2:Let's keep going, man. So, off of dad's moose story, we have gone two times since. Yeah, uh, the second time, no moose. And then last year we went again and uh, there was only four guys that went and same spot, uh, like same camp set up. Yeah, camp is set up on like a creek there so we can get our water and everything like that. We rough it but we don't really rough it. We got all the kind of fancy tent stuff that you can have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the middle year when we didn't get a moose. My brother did call a bull in and just couldn't close the gap on it. It come out in the cut. I said that's 50 yards across. He's comfortable shooting 50 with his bow. But when it come out all the vitals were still behind like a spruce tree he could only see, it's like lower back and antlers above the trees, and that was the closest.
Speaker 2:It was a cool encounter Like that was day one. It grunted the whole way into us but just, uh, didn't, couldn't, didn't make it happen, so, uh. So then fast forward to last year. We went again and because dad shot a moose there, we had the bull come in the second time. My brother and I said we have to go back to the same cut and uh, what was it? Day? Day one we hunted and same kind of weather again. It was like we had bug nets on it was just gross and uh we nothing.
Speaker 2:On day one went back to camp. Uh, we actually. On our way back to camp we saw a a bunch of fresh sign right on one of the roads like hair, blood, everything. We figured there was a bullfight.
Speaker 1:I guess that happened oh, okay, I was like blood huh, but yeah, it makes sense and it stunk, like you could smell the, like the smell kind of all around this yeah. So, uh.
Speaker 2:so we thought about maybe changing it up on day two. And we, we convinced one another, we're like, no, we have to give dad's spot, like a couple of days of calling to see if we call something in. And sure enough, day two, um, where I'm sitting exactly where dad was when he shot the moose, I'm using my brother-in-law's crossbow that dad used.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pants are off, pants are still on. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:My brother comes down to me to I don't know we're probably at that for an hour and he's like I can't. He's like I can't do this anymore. He's like it's this is driving me nuts, these bugs. He's like I can't hear anything. If there was a moose somewhere around us, we wouldn't hear it anyways, cause I can hear it.
Speaker 2:And I was like, well, we can, we can go back to camp. And then he goes no, we'll stick it out a little bit longer. He goes back up to his spot and I hear him he's pouring water out of a water bottle into a puddle to make it sound like a cow's peeing, all that kind of stuff. He's rubbing, scraping, making all the noise. And uh, another hour he comes back down to me. He doesn't have his bow and he just walked down to me and he says, uh, he's complaining again, about, again about the bugs. And I said, well, if you want to go, let. Uh, he's complaining again about, again about the bugs. And I said, well, if you want to go, let's go, like we're not going to sit here and cry about it. And uh, he had brought the call, like he's got the, the cedar bark call or whatever he brought it out and he let one out standing right next to me.
Speaker 2:And he lets it out and then looks at me and goes and I'm like what? What he's just like? I just heard a grunt. He sprints back up to his spot and not not. 45 seconds later I see straight across in the cut, the trees start to like spread and I'm like, oh my god that's cool like, and it's quiet enough that you can literally hear your heart thumping.
Speaker 2:And, uh, this thing is, uh, this young bull steps out, just its head out of the bushes, looks both ways, steps out further, sees the cow decoy and I think it, I think it spooked it kind of, maybe I don't know if it thought it was a bull or not, maybe and it started to run away from it. So we thought right then, and there, we thought it was over, we thought it was busted. My brother, just right on top of things, he lets out like a nice soft cow call it, stops dead in its track, turns around, looks again and starts walking slowly right towards the cow decoy, comes out to me at 20 yards. I'm sitting in a little turkey chair huddled in the bush and I'm like, oh, I guess it's not gonna get any better than this right broadside, 20 yards. And I, yeah, let him have it that.
Speaker 2:Uh it it like staggered, probably 10 yards further away from me, but still standing broadside. So it's 30 yards now and I could see blood just pouring and I'm like, oh, yeah, this is. And, uh, my brother, he had walked like, crept up behind the tree while it was staying there and he sends one from like 70 yards with his compound lean underneath it but, like spooked it to like further out, to even like 45 yards, kind of thing, and I'm standing there.
Speaker 2:I actually have a little video of it. It uh kind of gets like the side wobble going and just lays down and I'm like perfect, that's it, it's done. And I'm like maybe I shouldn't be taking a video, maybe I should be reloading the crossbow right now yeah, that's what I'm thinking never make that mistake. Ever again, I will have an extra bolt or an arrow ready to go right away. Um, but how long does it?
Speaker 1:take to. I've never even touched a crossbow.
Speaker 2:How long those things take to reload uh, if you're quick enough, um 15, 20 seconds, I guess okay, but it's like your brother wasn't thinking, oh man, I gotta put another one in it because it's still on his feet.
Speaker 1:He's just thinking, yee-haw, like I'm not shooting there with that moose.
Speaker 2:It's not a real graceful reload like it is with a compound right it's uh it's. You got to get the little string on there, put your foot in it and pull it back. Then put the bolt on the top kind of thing, and as I was pulling it back, the moose saw me, got up and walked into the bush gotcha exactly where dad's moose had ran into the bush and I'm like I, I, just I.
Speaker 2:I got up right away after I knew it was I don't know 30, 40 yards in the bush and I started walking towards my brother like shake my fist, like I I smoked it, I knew I did, and uh, same thing, because we didn't see it fall or go down and expire. We back to camp for breakfast and all that jazz. And uh get, we get the four wheelers loaded up and we get back into the cut and very, very similar to my dad's. We see, like I saw the pool of blood where I could see it bleeding, like 30 yards for me, but beyond that, like micro drops. Again I'm like, oh my God, there's no way, do?
Speaker 1:you think that's because of just the way the moose bleed, or do you think that's the broadhead? You put on the bolt, or what do you think we do, broadhead, you put on the bolt, or what do you think?
Speaker 2:we do use fix so they don't make a big hole, I guess, or a big cut, okay, but I do know after spoiler alert we found it.
Speaker 1:Yeah I guess, but with a shot sounded from the 20 yards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep going shot was double lung, but it was a little high, I guess, and and I guess they just basically plug up and bleed internally then, like after that, so, uh, yeah, so same thing micro dot or micro bits of blood, and we're following and goes pretty much cold. Again, we circle back and start looking on the blood trail again, make our way a little bit further. I remember looking at my brother saying I'm gonna puke, like I felt sick to my stomach. He's like what? He's like what's wrong with you? He's like I. Now I feel like I made a bad shot and we're not gonna find this thing. He's just like remember how dad felt a couple years ago? Like it's yeah, you relax, we will just take our time and hopefully we'll find it. And very, very similar. This thing died like 30 yards from where dad's died in the, in this bush.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Dustin man, that's too cool.
Speaker 2:To the point where, so when, when we drag dads out, it's pretty thick. You take the chainsaw with you. You do have to cut down a handful of trees so you can drag it out. Uh, we like, we like to get them back to camp hole and hang them there and then and process them or whatever. So, um, we cut down probably 15, 20, I don't know three inch trees when we dragged dads out. We didn't have to cut down as many trees to drag mine out, because we had cut those trees down three years, four years prior yeah so it was pretty, uh, pretty, uh, pretty wild, yeah, that's so cool that you had such a like a similar hunt to your dad's hunt.
Speaker 2:That's a really cool experience you and your brother at this point, just like all teary-eyed I think I've only hugged my brother like twice in my entire life and that was one of them. And and, uh, yeah, so we were.
Speaker 1:I'm a hugger. I want to hug you right now, man like that's an awesome story. I'm getting glassy-eyed here yeah, it was. It was pretty cool so, yeah, but that's amazing, man, and that was last year that you did that, that was last year, yeah, and that was that bull ended up.
Speaker 2:it was like, uh, I think it was a 40 inch, so it was a little bit bigger than my dad's, but mine grew completely. Like I'll send you. We have the two skulls hanging in my brother's shop His grew. I guess they can grow sometimes with some like paddle to them. Or they can grow when they're young, very spiky, I guess.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So mine grew mine looks like kind of like a deer or an elk rack almost.
Speaker 1:You're going to send me this photo and it's going to be like a mule deer. I'm like Dustin. Well, that's cool, man, that's cool. I've actually so last year hunting elk. We saw I don't I forget what the term is called I want to say like emaciated, but I know that's not it, but it's something similar to that but we saw a bull that had first glassing it up. I'm like something's wrong with that, that bullet, and I thought an antler had been snapped off right. So like one side he was like a 350 inch bull and I'm like like, oh man, he was a monster. And then I realized his other side wasn't snapped off, it was like paddled out like a moose antler.
Speaker 1:So his right side was the paddle and his left side was just this giant elk, antler. And yeah, I don't remember what we called him. We named him something, filthy King, something, something, something. I won't repeat it on the podcast, but yeah, yeah, he was a monster and it was super cool to see that. In fact, I could like touch, get in touch with those guys. The only video I've ever seen of it was like putting an sd card into my phone and like a really shitty version of it when they got a another camera and they got like high def video of us.
Speaker 1:I want to. I want to see what that guy actually looked like, because he was, he was and he was mean sounding. He just wouldn't come across. He wouldn't come across the 400 yard valley.
Speaker 2:Weird, um, but yeah, it was still fun, huh. Well, so you're thinking like old bull, then, or yeah?
Speaker 1:super old, super old in fact. They said that one of their buddies had killed a bull in that same unit a couple years before they had that same kind of, maybe palmated or I don't know. I don't know what it's called, but like right, yeah, yeah, and so they're thinking that maybe that there's some kind of genetics in that unit for, like the, the big bull, that that guy is spreading his dna and making these weird freak balls.
Speaker 2:So no cool yeah that's on the uh. That's on the bucket list for my brother. So my brother's the the big bag hunter. He hunts like crazy, but elk is on our uh, our bucket list. I don't know if we'll ever be able to afford it or not, but hopefully you'll do it, man, you'll.
Speaker 1:You'll make it happen. Yeah, all you got to do is just decide to do it and then you can get that, get out and do it just pick a season and make it happen yeah, I gotta.
Speaker 2:I got a kid on the way now, so it'll be. Uh, it'll be a little bit later down the road. I think if it happens?
Speaker 1:That does change things. That is an understandable delay. All right, dustin, what else you got for us? Man? I don't know if you have any more moose stories. I think you said you had a turkey story.
Speaker 2:That's it for moose. Yeah, I got one pretty funny turkey story, so turkey's my favorite hands down. I love turkey, honey. That's like my uh, my bread and butter.
Speaker 1:I love that I love it too, man. I just wish you got more than like two meals out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that's my main problem with turkey hunting we've been doing a lot of uh pot pies, turkey pot pies with the meat, and it is dynamite, so good yeah, um, jeremiah dotty, who was on my podcast, the field the plate guy.
Speaker 1:He had a recipe for a kfc bowl oh my god, I remember I listened to that. Yeah, yeah, that was good. I made that. I like I talked to him and then I killed the turkey a couple weeks later and I made that and sent it to him. He said I used too much cheese.
Speaker 2:But I don't think there's such a thing no, but the recipe as a whole is just out of this world man so yeah right on.
Speaker 2:So, uh, turkey, turkey hunting where I am, and I do a lot of turkey hunting around my hometown little town called woodville, but uh, so I have a lot of friends and family who are farmers and so I get to just get a lot of permission to a lot of properties and, uh, as far as when, as far as turkey, like I'll, I'll go out for the morning sits. Actually now we go to down to my brother's way, uh, every opener and we usually shoot one or two down there. But uh, for for the most part my turkey hunts, like opportunity hunts, drive around with my gun in the truck, some camo, and check all my spots and if I see a bird I'll try and put a stock on them, kind of thing. Yeah, and uh, found just actually the nearest property to town, found two jakes on hens. Uh, the property itself is like a very tiny, uh gravel pit elevated in the middle of a farm field yeah uh, this the field that time of year had cut beans.
Speaker 2:There was beans on it and they were cut. Uh, anyways, the, the two jakes are are on these two hens and I'm I had let out a couple calls and they just weren't having it at all. They didn't care at all, they were staying with the same, with the hens. That's what I'm trying to come up with, a plan. And uh, I hear, I hear a car coming up the gravel pit behind me, loud as can be, and it's a buddy of mine I saw your truck from the road, I just I thought I'd come up here see what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Are you hunting? I'm wearing full camo gun on shoulders, two decoys in my hand, I'm like well, I was hunting.
Speaker 1:No, I was just going for a hike with my stuff getting ready for the season.
Speaker 2:I told him he had he's hunted a couple of times, so he knew a little bit. I told him I was like, just peek your head over that hill and you'll see them. There's the two jakes right there. And uh, he's just like, oh shit, sorry man, and I was like it's all right, I I just. I think I think we need to get your car out of here, though without you turning it back on. He's got like no exhaust on this car. Oh, so we both, him and I, get this thing started to push and he runs and climbs in the driver's seat and backs out of the the gravel pit. We're in in neutral with the car off. Okay.
Speaker 1:So he's gone now For some reason. I'm thinking of like the guys from Letter Kenny on that one.
Speaker 2:He would fit in with that crew, I think so. Letter Kenny is only like two, three hours away from me. Yeah, yeah, there he is.
Speaker 1:I bet your buddy's from there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so, uh, I'm I'm trying to devise a plan how to get to these jakes, or pull these jakes off the hens, and I creep around the corner and they're doing their thing.
Speaker 2:Actually, they're on the hens, they're breeding them all right and uh I had uh, I had a turkey or I had a hen and a jake decoy. And I gun over my shoulder and I started army crawling and this, this gravel pit, kind of had like hills with gaps in between leading to the field. So I army, crawl through the gap just into the field and plant the two decoys, get my gun off my shoulder, I'm watching them do their thing and when they finish they start walking towards the bush, away from me. They're about 150 yards away or something like that yeah I let out.
Speaker 2:Let out a couple calls. The two jakes turn around, saw the two decoys and started darting right towards me. I surprised myself like holy shit, I can't believe that worked. But uh, so I pulled the gun up and getting ready and they, they were sprinting like coming in on a rope and shot the one on the left, thought the one on the left thought the one on the right would just turn and run away and the one on the right came over and started beating up the dead one.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I had never seen that before. I've heard that happening, but I've never talked to someone that's had that happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just, and wailing on it with its spurs, with its beak, like everything. I watched it for probably three or four minutes and uh, and then I realized I remembered my other brother who lives nearby here. He, uh he'd been, he had dad's gun and this is after dad passed away. Uh, he had dad's gun and wanted to shoot his first turkey with dad's shotgun yeah so I'm laying in this field. Pull out my cell phone behind these decoys oh my god, my brother.
Speaker 2:I'm like, hey, do you want to come and shoot a turkey? He's like, yeah, I do. Where are you? I told him. I was like I told him which field I was at. He knows the field. He's like what do I need? What camo need? I was like grab the gun and get here as soon as you can. You don't need any camo, nothing Like just get here as soon as you can. So it took him probably four or five minutes to get there.
Speaker 2:No way he crawled up behind one of the hills that I was laying in between, and so we kind of had to do like the loud whisper to talk to one another and I said let me know when you're ready. And because I needed it was still pecking and spurring at the dead one. So it wasn't, it would be, you wouldn't be able to shoot it. We needed its attention.
Speaker 1:I wonder what that is Like. What is the like? You know fight or flight, Like why do they attack other dead? I honestly I think it's just they're dumb.
Speaker 2:And why do they attack other dead turkeys? I honestly think it's just they're dumb and it's like a mating season thing. He saw another male in distress and was like now's my chance to beat it up.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So my brother tells me he's ready, he's laying down on the top of the sill and I bet you I screamed on on my call for two minutes and this thing would not stop beating on the dead bird. And uh, yeah, like to the point, I like my calls didn't even sound good at all. I was screaming into the thing just to try and get it to lift its head just for a half a second and uh he, uh I. I think I ended up gobbling.
Speaker 2:I kind of know how to gobble into the mouth calls I gobbled, and that's when it head up and boom and uh brother, brother dropped his first turkey and he didn't have to work for it at all that's so funny, he just got a phone call from his couch and yeah, yeah, wearing his, his like ding dong uh, like sweat pants, you know, like host of sweatpants or whatever pants, and pictures because he he said to me he's just like we get back to his place to take pictures with the two of us and he says, uh, let me go, let me go change. I want to put my camo on. I was just like, why Poser?
Speaker 1:Yeah right. So how beat up was your bird from like of course you shot it right.
Speaker 2:It was shredded Like the thing was on it for almost 10 minutes. Yeah, it was shredded Like it had feathers plucked off it and, yeah, at that point I had shot a handful of turkeys, so I didn't care too too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Anytime when I a handful of turkeys so I didn't care too too much. Anytime when I shoot a jake anymore, usually I keep the the fan for uh, like a decoy or something like that, but other okay, yeah, but that's crazy man. That's so weird that was exactly to the date, a year after dad shot his last turkey that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's some synergy to your stories and I like it, I like it. So your dad's definitely there looking down on you boys. Absolutely. Why is he wearing sweatpants? He shouldn't be wearing any pants.
Speaker 2:That's what your dad's thinking. Yeah, that's like a hunt, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh man, dustin, that was fun. Well, dude, these are great stories and I and I love how they all tie together. Um, you got? You got any more? Or is that what you got prepared for today? I know you got a lot in general, and we'll have you back on in the future but, uh, is that what you got prepared for us today?
Speaker 2:that's all I had for you today. I, yeah, I'd, uh, I'd like to maybe come on some another time but and share some more. I got lots and maybe I'll have some more after this. Uh, wolf hunt this uh oh man, what is? It two. When do we go? No, I'll be three weeks. I guess we leave for the. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, let me know how that goes. I definitely have to have you back on. Maybe your brother could jump on with you and you get, and then he'll he'll fact check these stories for us that's that's always important.
Speaker 1:Um man, this was fun. This was a lot of fun. I really, really enjoyed all of your stories and it got me even more excited for my moose hunt, which is coming up here shortly. Dustin, yeah, man, let's, I don't know. Do you want to? Do you want to tell the people where they can find you, or do you want to just walk off into?
Speaker 2:the sunset. I can just walk up into the sunset. I don't think I even know my Instagram handle offhand.
Speaker 1:Okay, easy enough, brother. All right, man. Well, thank you so much to you listeners. Make sure you guys, if you got some stories like Dustin, please reach out. We'd love to hear them. But, dustin man, thank you so much. Thank you for reaching out, being brave and sharing your stories, man, these are obviously special stories, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, Michael.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it. Yeah, all right, guys, that's it. Another couple stories in the books. Again, I want to thank Dustin for coming on the podcast, having the bravery to tell and share his stories. I know you're not a hugger, dustin man, but your stories had me a little teary-eyed. I wanted to give you a hug when you were shooting in the exact same spot, using the same weapon, shooting the same species. It's a pretty cool story. So thank you, sir, I really do appreciate it. Now we'll let you walk off into the sunset.
Speaker 1:To you listeners again vote for America, guys. Find one other person to go out with you. Take them, drive them, buy them lunch, whatever, just have them vote. I feel like your priorities and your thoughts on who you should vote for probably will align. So don't necessarily tell them who to vote for, but get them out there, especially in Colorado, because we need to. This is what I will say. We need to stomp this mountain lion hunting ban. But that's it, guys. Thank you for tuning in. If you have a story, make sure you reach out to me. Beyond that, I don't know. Go ahead and review my podcast or something More. People will find us that way. Thanks, guys. Now get out there and make some stories of your own.
