Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
From Management to Harvest: Ken Klemm's Deep Dive into Bison and Ethical Hunting Practices
Ever wondered what makes North American bison such extraordinary creatures? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Ken Klemm, president of the National Bison Association, as we clarify the often-confused distinction between bison and buffalo. Ken takes us through his captivating journey from the rugged mountains of Wyoming to his influential role in bison management. Gain unique insights into the techniques and challenges of raising and containing these magnificent animals, ensuring their well-being and preventing their escapes into the wild.
Explore the fascinating world of bison subspecies as we dive into the differences between wood bison and plains bison. Learn about their unique physical traits and how environmental factors have shaped these subspecies. We also unravel the historical attempts at crossbreeding bison with cattle, resulting in hybrids like beefalo, and discuss the modern shift towards maintaining purebred bison herds for meat production. Discover the reasons behind this transition and the health benefits of bison meat, along with how climate impacts the size and weight of bison across different regions.
For those intrigued by the thrill of the hunt, we delve into ethical bison hunting practices with insights from a seasoned hunting guide. Understand the sensory abilities of bison, the gear and firearms best suited for a humane hunt, and the unique challenges of archery hunting for these formidable animals. Ken shares invaluable backcountry insights and busts common myths about bison behavior, enriching our appreciation for these iconic creatures. Don't miss this episode packed with expert knowledge and captivating stories about North America's majestic bison.
Check us out on Facebook and instagram Hunts On Outfitting, and also our YouTube page Hunts On Outfitting Podcast. Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!
this is hunts, an opening podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, ken meyer. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to how-t. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast. Alrighty, welcome to Hunt's Unopening Podcast.
Speaker 1:The only podcast brought to you by Pete's Prairie Oysters the original Sack Lunch, and if you don't know what those are, look them up. Imagine, if you will, the size of a moose. A lot of you listening to this may have been on a successful moose hunt or you may have seen them just out in the wild while driving or maybe on TV. Most all of us are familiar with the sheer, massive size of these animals. Now for today's show. We are talking about another North American animal even bigger the bison. These animals are huge, extremely tough and only called bison, not buffalo, here in North America. We're going to talk about and learn that and so much more with an expert on these species, ken Clem.
Speaker 1:Ken has been around these animals for a long time. He gives us a lot of insight and expertise into these animals and I found it really interesting and learned a lot. I think you will too. I hope you guys enjoy and also subscribe. Share us out. It really helps. We appreciate it. And let's just get to the podcast there. Well, from one Ken to another, really appreciate you coming on to this podcast. Just first question, just to get this out of the way with before we get going is it buffalo or bison? Are they two completely different species?
Speaker 2:Well, the animals that we have here on North America, that when people say buffalo, technically their family species in genus is bison, bison, bison. They're the only ones in their family species in genus is bison, bison, bison. They're the only ones in their family species in genus. The two true buffalo in the world are the Cape buffalo of Africa and the water buffalo of Southeast Asia. So a lot of people call them buffalo and have for thousands or hundreds of years, but technically they're bison. Everybody's heard of Buffalo Bill, which is his nickname. No one's ever heard of bison William, which would be proper. So, uh, in this conversation you'll hear me probably switch back and forth from Buffalo to bison, but I'm referring to the North American Buffalo or the or the bison.
Speaker 1:All right, well, thanks for clearing that up, cause I I was not sure you just hear both all the time. So, ken, if you don't mind telling about how you're very heavily involved with these animals, and if you don't mind saying how you did get to that point and getting started with them, Sure, sure.
Speaker 2:Well, my first trade as a young man, when I just turned 18, I started working in the mountains of Wyoming and eventually became a packer and a hunting guide and then I trapped for living in the winter and then the fur market collapsed in about 85 or six and I wound up doing some cowboy and then eventually started managing being a foreman on a big ranch. And then I started managing a large ranch that had bison and I really liked them, found out I had a act for raising bison and turning ranches around and making profitable and in getting the land really healthy through holistic management practices that I learned. So I turned that big ranch around and then I turned another one around and South Philadelphia, wyoming, and then we bought our own place in Northwestern Kansas and operated that for about 23 years, something like that. And, as you mentioned in an earlier conversation, I serve on the board.
Speaker 2:I'm the president current president of the National Bison Association, which is a national association. We have members throughout the world but most of them are in the us and canada and we are proponents of raising bison ethically and producing meat and that is for the consumers and it's ethically raised and harvested and we just foster good management practices and encourage good policy in Washington DC and coordinate with other groups that share our vision. But we are the only national association for bison and we provide a lot of material for people that like to get in, that are just interested in bison or want to raise bison or want to eat bison. We have chefs, we have marketers everything is in our association. So we're kind of the clearinghouse for knowledge when it comes to all things bison.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, this is a hunting podcast, but I want to talk a little bit about raising them. I mean, people see these giant animals and wonder you know how, in their wild animals, how do you keep them in and contained and deal with them?
Speaker 2:Well, you're right, ken, they are wild, doesn't matter where they're at, they're inherently wild animals. It would take thousands of years or more to domesticate them, which domestication means that they have been changed physiologically to our standards man's standards and bison are not. They're still inherently wild. The happy bison is the bison that will stay home, and that's true no matter how big the place is or how small the place is. And happy means they have a herd structure, they've got plenty of feet of water, they're not stressed out and they just feel like they're at home.
Speaker 2:On the big ranches I've managed. We've actually kept them behind three-strand barbed wire. The smaller the pastures, the more time they're going to spend on the fence. But fence can't make up for poor management. I know of places that have eight-foot woven wire and the bison get out. They can tear down that fence. That have eight foot woven wire and the bison get out, they can tear down that fence. But typically a four strand electric fence or a five strand barbed wire fence is sufficient to keep happy buffalo home. Corrals are a whole nother story. You don't scrimp when you have corrals because bison can jump over a six foot fence with one or two jumps before that and they're over the fence. So corrals are a serious investment and need to be done right, because bison are fast, agile and dangerous and you don't really realize that until you get them moving. But mostly, if they're happy they'll stay home. That's the key.
Speaker 1:When you're dealing with them, are they more likely to spook and run or charge?
Speaker 2:They'll mostly run. You know there's the fight and flight thing that you've talked about. They're not flighty like deer or elk. They look at the world different than any other game species. They have been the top of the food chain forever. They haven't had an effective predator on this continent since the last ice age closed and all the great bears and huge wolves and all that stuff, they're all gone. So they look at the world different. They'll run if they want to run or they might just turn and stand and face it, but generally they'll stay together in a herd and move and if the herd stops then the herd stops. A herd and move, and if the herd stops then the herd stops. So yeah, they can be aggressive.
Speaker 2:it's usually the cows that are more dangerous than the bulls. Okay, but it's not a common thing, which is good for us, because if they were as aggressive as cape buffalo, for instance, uh we we'd have a whole number of different discussions.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, so do do the cows and bulls. Both have horns.
Speaker 2:Yes, Cows and bulls both have horns. Cows are born with they don't have horns, but just in a matter of a week or two they'll have nubs. Okay, and they are a horn that's made from bio tin, like your fingernails. No, I'm sorry, not like your fingernails. A cow horn, a beef cow horn, is made from bio tin, like your fingernails. A cow horn, a beef cow horn, is made from bio tin, like your fingernails.
Speaker 2:Bison horns are made from hair, much like an antelope, and it stays on. Nope, nope, they're made from different material and they don't shed if they have a serious injury or gotten into a big fight or something. That horn cap it's a cap. It can pop off and there's a bone core underneath that that goes almost all the way to the end, usually within two or three inches of the end of the horn, and then a horn will regrow over that, but it will not be as big and as symmetrical and uniform as the original one, but they will regrow a horn after they pop it off. So sometimes you'll see a head. One horn is different than the other and generally that's what's happened, you know, when they were fighting or ran into a tree or whatever and a horn cap popped off and it regrowed.
Speaker 1:Okay, so with the bison that we have here, are they from the original ones? At West, where you saw they had the herds of, I think, literally millions of them. Those are from the same bloodlines, I guess you could say.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the story in short was nobody really knows how many bison there was, but estimates are somewhere between 30 and 60 million. That's a huge spread, but nevertheless those are the numbers you hear. And then those were slaughtered all the way down to anywhere from 500 to 800 heads, that's about it. And those were scattered in five different herds. There were five different ranchers that decided it would be a shame if bison went extinct. They did this on their own. That decided it would be a shame if bison went extinct. They did this on their own.
Speaker 2:And the story I'm telling now is rather unique because this is the first time in recorded history, and likely all of mankind's history, that mankind has saved an animal from extinction. So in these five individuals they were scattered throughout the US and right there on the Canadian border as well, and they just went out and saved buffalo calves and just kept them around. So all the bison that we have left today are basically tied back to those fly birds they did discover when they made Yeltsin a national park here in Wyoming and Montana and Idaho a little bit. That was the first national park in the world and they didn't think there were any buffalo in there when they made it an national park. It was, and they didn't think there were any buffalo in there. When they made it at National Park it was largely undiscovered. And then they did find, I think, 27 bison in Yellowstone National Park and they watched them for quite a few years and they just weren't reproducing.
Speaker 2:So a fellow by the name of Charlie Goodnight down in Texas brought up a couple of bulls which I'm sure is a hell of a story in itself, how you bring one from Texas all the way to Yellowstone, but he did and then that herd started growing and of course that herd is very large. Now it's over 5,000 head and still growing. So yeah, there are some wood bison up in Canada that the Canadian government has supplemented with other animals. And such Interesting story is that there was a fella up in Montana that was one of these five herds and he was part of native blood himself. And then he had to get rid of his herd and the US government didn't want to buy him, didn't want anything to do with him, which was very short-sighted of the US government. But the Canadian government said, yeah, we'll take them. So it took them a couple of years but he got them all to Canada and I don't know the bloodlines of all the Canadian buffalo but a lot of them are going to trace back to that purchase. The Canadian government made.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's really neat. I did not know that at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so now there's about we figure about 450,000 buffalo in the world, wow, and about 35 or 40,000 are in government kind of NGO hands, and then the rest are all in private hands.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, so with the bison too, are there you said I was going to ask about that with the Canadian ones. Some of them were woods bison, and then are there plains bison. Are they quite different?
Speaker 2:Yes and no. These are subspecies. So yes, there is the woods subspecie and they are taller, longer. They're put together, different. Their head looks a little different. They've got a different hump on them. They don't have as much hair on the front end of them, they're shafts, which is the hair that goes down the front legs and over their hump, and such the hair isn't as thick and they are.
Speaker 2:I've seen plains bison that are born that wind up looking like a wood bison kind of bison, that are born, that wind up looking like a wood bison kind of. And then I see some wood bison that are born and kind of grow up and look like a plain bison. So essentially what it is, it's a genetic variation in the overall species and then the environment selects for certain traits and then, after that's been done long enough and the animals are excluded from other influences, enough. Then you wind up with a subspecies. There was a subspecies of mountain bison that you can read about in old journals and here, as I can tell, there's no more of those left.
Speaker 2:I imagine there was an eastern woodland subspecies of bison. They have done work on the bones, determined that they had a completely different diet and I know there were bison in Florida. Matter of fact, that's the first place they were seen, and Florida is a very inhospitable environment for bison, so that would require another subspecies to fit that environment, and who knows how many other subspecies there were. But now we have the plain bison and the wood bison, which are two clearly identified subspecies, and then there's some crosses between the two as well, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:And then one more thing I guess about raising them is how. I've always kind of wondered this we have cows and lots of many breeds of cows. Where did people think to try to contain and raise these massive wild animals?
Speaker 2:Well, it would have been on the American prairies, the western prairies, and you know, there were storms that came through and wiped out cattle in the winter and the heat and the hail, storms and such, and it didn't take long for the local population to realize that, boy, these bison handle this stuff a whole lot better than the cattle. And, as you said that, there was already a long, long history, thousands of years of history, of crossbreeding cattle to improve different genetic traits. So the thought was rather easy for them to think well, gee, if we could crossbreed these bison into cattle or cattle into bison and create some sort of crossbreed, that they would be much better suited to their environment. So that's where the term beefalo comes from, which is actually 5-8 cattle and 3-8 bison. That's a true beefalo. And then cattleo is another one where it's just a cross, indeterminate cross, indeterminate cross. And the first problem is that there's problems with sterility because they are closely related, but not that closely related. So it's a lot like breeding a donkey to a horse. You get a mule and 99% of the mules are sterile. It's not that bad with breeding bison and cattle. So with these beefalo it really wasn't a success. They didn't really get what they wanted and people struggle along with that and we're still kind of messing around with it, clear until the 70s. There's still some people that do it. It's against our code of ethics and the National Bison Association to crossbreed bison with cattle because we intend to keep the gene pool free from cattle introgression.
Speaker 2:But in the 1980s is when people discovered, or realized, I should say, that there's a direct link to the food that you eat and how healthy you are, and people were looking for lean, clean meat and the bison industry was ready to produce that.
Speaker 2:We had enough numbers and enough herds and we had some marketers. And then we discovered how to fence them effectively. We discovered how to build corrals that would handle them effectively. We discovered how for us to behave around the animals so that we could use their wild traits effectively to manage them, and that was basically the birth of the modern bison industry as far as producing meat for human consumption, and because of that there was no need to crossbreed them with cattle, and there is no need whatsoever now to do it either, because we can handle purebred bison, bison that are genetically don't have any cattle genes in them or very few, and act and behave just like wild bison do, and we can handle that perfectly fine without damaging them and and still produce a really good quality meat. So the whole reason for crossbreeding cattle and bison back in the 1800s and early 1900s is gone now.
Speaker 1:All right, thanks. That clears that up quite well. Actually, what is the average weight and age of the bison? And I'm sure it doesn't vary much whether they're being raised by humans or being just out in the wild somewhere, or would it not vary quite that much?
Speaker 2:Well, it varies and bison's normal range went clear from just north of Mexico City up to the Arden Circle and then east to west, well into the Rockies and, like I said, into the eastern woodlands, and clear to Florida. So their range was huge. But let's just talk about what there is now. So this is a hunting channel. So people know that when you go way down south, like to Alabama and Texas and stuff, the deer get small and when you go up north they get bigger, and there is a reason for that. And the same thing is true with bison.
Speaker 2:In the south, where it's hot, the most important thing that a large mammal needs to do is release heat at night. If they can't release the heat they've absorbed during the day, then they're in a heat problem. Then they're in a heat problem. So when an animal is small, there is more surface area of the animal than when the animal is big. But if you take a 1,000-pound animal versus a 1,500-pound animal, that 1,500-pound animal has a lot more mass in relation to the surface area. And of course, when you're in a northern climate, you want to conserve heat. So the best way to do that is to be stocky and larger. So the same thing's true for bison. When you go on the southern plains, the animals, the bison, will be smaller and when you get clear up in northern Canada they're much larger and that has to do with the thermal dynamics of the body.
Speaker 2:There also is a difference in feed quality and I'm not even putting in the man effect of this.
Speaker 2:But when you get at higher elevations or higher latitudes there is more protein and energy in the feed that they graze, so there's a higher nutritional level. So you're going to find Canadian bison are generally bigger than you know central and southern American bison, and that's just the impact of nature. Now there are breeders and such that have done genetic selection for meat production and they do supplement some feed and such like that and some of those can get very, very large and then in nature, you know, like the Yellowstone herd, for instance, is. I mean, they're those, those bulls. It's not uncommon for one of those mature bulls a bison bull doesn't get mature until they're about 8 years old and I would say, just judging from what I see in Yellowstone, about 1,800 pounds. But it's not uncommon to find animals that have had better care, because those animals run out of feed a lot in the winter, especially now that there's so many animals in the park. But it's not uncommon to see bulls that weigh 24, 25, 26, 2700 pounds when they're full grown.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. So yeah, they are big.
Speaker 2:Oh, they're huge. Yeah, they're the largest land mammal in North America and they're fat even at that age, even at that size. That's what's just amazing. They're not just these. You look at them and you think they're just these big lumbering giants that can't move. But that's just not true. They can turn on a diamond. Even a great big bull like that can probably hit 25, 30 miles an hour pretty easy.
Speaker 1:Wow. So yeah, that's incredible Just to be that size and be able to move at that speed, and I mean their legs aren't really long either.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not true, ken, and it looks that way. But yeah, if you watch a bison move, especially when they're not in their winter hair, you can actually see that that shoulder blade goes almost to the top of their back. It's about six or eight inches below the top of their back. It's about six or eight inches below the top of their back. So on a cow, a buffalo, you know, at the top of her back she's probably about five foot somewhere in there. So her front leg is four and a half feet long. It's way longer than people think it is yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 1:So they are made for running a bit.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and then they got a windpipe that's two and a half times the diameter of a beef windpipe and it's hinged, so when their tongue hangs out, their windpipe opens up and they have lung capacity. It's gargantuan. Their heart is just huge. They can really really cover the ground for a long, long time. They are built. They are built to travel.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's yeah, that's interesting. I did not know that. Um, I think we got a pretty good history of them. Uh, very good and clear cut. Now there's a lot of confusion with myself before on it. Um, see you outfit for them. How did you get into outfitting for them?
Speaker 2:well, when I first started managing the big ranch, you know remember I came from a background of hunting and trapping and guiding and people just were interested if they could hunt them and it was a big ranch and so we started doing some of that.
Speaker 2:And then everywhere I've been raising them, I've just had a clientele kind of follow me. And then the place that we bought in Kansas was the last place that I owned and operated. We would do 50 or 60 hunts a year on that place. And now I've moved to northwestern Wyoming and partnered with a ranch nearby to here, a big 30,000-acre ranch with a couple thousand buffalo, and my clients have followed me there so we hunt them there. So that's basically how I got started with it. It's a really it's ethical way to to fill the freezer and it's a lot of fun for people to go out family and friends and a good way to introduce younger people or women maybe that haven't hunted the hunting, uh, so it's, it's just a really enjoyable way to, an ethical way to to hunt and fill the freezer yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, speaking about hunting them, what is some gear besides the guns at the moment, and what kind of gear would you bring on a typical bison hunt? I guess it depends on the time of year, but is there going to be a lot of walking involved, a lot of glassing?
Speaker 2:Well, again, bison, look at the world different. So, you know, you see, you see deer, elk and and of course, a lot of wildlife has all been trained. If you read journals, uh, you know, people used to hunt elk and deer in broad daylight. So we, just because of our impact, mankind's impact on wildlife, we've changed that to be nocturnal and very spooky. But, but you can read the Lewis and Clark journals and see that firsthand.
Speaker 2:So bison hunting, generally anywhere you see bison, they're pretty much used to vehicles so you can drive right into them and shoot them out of the vehicle. We don't do that. We just really don't enjoy that. I imagine there's some people that probably need that or want that and that's fine, but that's not what we do. We like to go out on foot. So when you're out on foot with bison it's a whole different deal. You need to stay out of sight. They're not real good about using their sense of smell. They're mostly vision-sourced animals and their vision is about like ours. Well, I shouldn't say that. I'm 62. My vision is as good as it used to be, but the vision is like mine when I was in my 20s, put it that way. And so we go out on foot and obviously this is a ranch hunt, so there is a perimeter fence around them and obviously this is a ranch hunt, so there is a perimeter fence around them. Generally we hunt in areas where you don't see the perimeter fence, or if you do, it's not very often.
Speaker 2:And the object is we can usually get within 100 to 150 yards and make a good, solid shot. We go for a good hard lung shot. Generally it's a lung shot. The heart is way, way low. It's really hard to hit and if you're a little bit low on the heart you will just completely miss it. We've had 300 mags hit that lower end of the rib cage and hit the rib cage and just go right around and come out the other side without ever entering into the rib cage and I'm talking four inches up from the bottom and they bleed, which you know when you're in the field.
Speaker 2:It's like, well, I don't know Is that a good shot or not? And sometimes that shock of hitting that brisket area is hard enough that they might actually act like they've got a hard shot because it's been a big shock to their heart. But they are not. And then what happens when you wound a bison is they get in this survival mode, deer and elk will run like crazy Buffalo generally. Sometimes they'll run like crazy, but generally they just hold. They are just holding. And when they get that adrenaline it's a different. You know, as soon as I say adrenaline, people think they're running and being crazy like an antelope or a deer and elk or something. Bison are different when they get that, it's like this will, will to live, and then you can make a really good shot and it doesn't matter. And you can make a really another really good shot and it doesn't matter. They're just amazingly hard to kill if that first shot isn't a good, you know longer hard shot, so that that first shot is it's really especially crucial with hunting the bison.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. Yeah, Just because of that, will live, and a wounded buffalo is just I mean, they are just hard to kill.
Speaker 1:Cause I mean with them. Yeah, because you said the shots afterwards, even if they're really great, it's not as good at the first.
Speaker 2:One Isn't dead on Yep, so that's what we go for. What kinds of?
Speaker 1:guns and ammo are you recommending? When people say I want to come out on a bison hunt with you, what should I bring?
Speaker 2:I like big calibers that move slow and push slow bullets 375H and H 35 Whalen is excellent, 444 Marlin is really good. We kill a lot with 45-70, any of the big African calibers. You know the Rigby's and those sorts of things. Those are all good. 50 Smith Wesson we've had pretty good luck with those. And then you know 30-odd, 6, we've had good luck with those as well. So we pretty much hold to a 30-caliber minimum. But if we're just talking calibers we're missing the point.
Speaker 2:Bullet construction is paramount with bison hunting and the bullet has to hold together to penetrate maybe two inches high and break bone. Bison bone is hard. If you've ever been around bear like grizz and you've taken an ax and you've hit the ax on a grizz bone, it goes tink, tink. Hit it on the deer or an elk and it goes crunch, crunch. Bison bone is like bear bone, it is super dense. So the bullet has to penetrate the hair, the side and the bone. But then it also has to expand.
Speaker 2:We had trouble with 45-70s for years because these guys were coming out with hard cast bullets and we would punch one or two through their lungs, sometimes three, and they wouldn't stop them, they'd just keep going. And if you don't get lucky and hit a rib. If you hit a rib, you know, then it's like a little grenade in there and everything is wonderful and you think, wow, that was great. But if you don't hit a rib, and it's just the bullet performance and it goes between ribs, those can just shoot right on through and I've, you know, taken them apart and you've got blood shots maybe the size of a silver dollar, which isn't much, not enough. So what we learned on the 45, 70 thing after years, because we just we wouldn't give up, we being me and a group of Arizona hunters, about 15 guys have come out for every year for like 20 years is, well, you know, we know, gazillion buffalo have been killed with 45-70. What the heck is going on.
Speaker 2:So what we finally figured out to make a long story short was, I told them, I said bring an all-lead bullet. They said, well, if we do that, we've got to slow it way down, or it will foul the rifling, and I said that's right, just do that. And or it will foul the rifling. And I said that's right, just do that. And that solved our problem. So you needed something that opened up and our modern thinking of is if you've got a 180-grain bullet, for instance, and it's traveling at 2,000 feet per second, well, if it's going at 2,500 feet per second, that's even better yet, and on paper that's true.
Speaker 2:But the terminal performance of that bullet really matters. And if it's going too fast for what the bullet can do, it can absolutely disintegrate. Last year we had probably five cases of ELDX ammo just completely hitting a bite and completely flattering. It's a good lung shot, two rounds and nothing's happening. It's just hitting it and splattering. And when we finally get the animal dead with my 375 H&H for backup, then we find out that the bullet never even entered the rig cage, it just splattered on a 300 mag or a 7 mag or something like that.
Speaker 2:So bullet construction is almost more important than the caliber. My son uses a 30-odd six with 180 grain barns triple shock for a backup gun. Works really good, really good. So bullet construction is key. We like barns triple shock. We like swift a frames on the on the 45 70s same thing, swift a frame, barn, barnes triple shock. We like Swift A-frames on the 4570s Same thing, swift A-frame, barnes triple shock. And then we like the Leber Revolution, which is one of the XTP bullets, which works well on the 4570. And then there's just like I had a guy call me yesterday on another ammo and I had never heard of it. There's just so much stuff out there it's hard to keep track of all of it. But if you look at those three rounds and see what they're doing, your round, if it mimics that, we're good to go.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I was going to ask you about that because from the sounds of it, your lever action guns are the right guns, in a way, for the bison. But I was going to ask you if the lever revolution I mean I know about that for the lever guns if that's really helped change the game for as well, for using the lever action guns and expansion and really doing some damage yeah, yeah, the lever revolution ammo works well in the 45 70.
Speaker 2:And then there's uh, there's some other bullets out there. There's a custom guy in new jersey hawk hawk bullet okay, and you can order those with with, uh, different thicknesses of it's. A jack guy in new jersey hawk hawk bullet okay, and you can order those with with different thicknesses of. It's a jacketed bullet, so you don't have to worry about um, uh, filing your your rifle barrel, um, and you can order different thicknesses. And I can't remember what these guys were bringing, but but they fooled around with that and and those guys that were bringing 45, 70s they actually graduated at 50, 90s and 51, 51-20s and stuff like that had a lot of fun with adult guns and such and used those hawk bullets with great success.
Speaker 2:So bison are unique. When you shoot a deer or an elk or antelope or even moose, it's not common that you actually get to see, or most guys just gut them and then that's it. They don't go ahead and quarter them and take them apart and there's not enough mass there to really see what the bullet does. But you know, I gut these animals, I skin them, I quarter them and that's like been a hobby of mine is to see what the bullet actually does. And after seeing I don't know how many thousand of these we've done now over the years, but you really really learn a lot about the terminal performance of bullets and you can see what they've done and what works and what doesn't. And what I've shared with you are the principles that we've learned and just have to apply them to the caliber that you like. The first rule of thumb is you know, bring what you're comfortable with and hopefully it's a big enough caliber, and then after that look for the right bullet and that's it. And we're not.
Speaker 2:This isn't precision shooting. You know a heart and lung shot on a Buffalo 150 yards. You're shooting basically a large pizza at that distance. So it's. This isn't precision shooting. You just need to make sure you stick it in the red basket and the bullet's going to do what it needs to do. Whatever trajectory you put it on, it needs to stay there. We've had trouble with nozzle partition bullets. That front part of that partition come off. It's like a good heart and lung shot. And we found the front half of that nozzle partition clear up in the rib eye at the top of the. You know that's steeper than a 45-degree angle and the rest of the bullet goes straight through, but there's no mushrooming on that. So unless you hit bone with that, or unless you happen to hit an artery in the lungs or you happen to clip the heart, that's a bad shot and you wouldn't think that would be the case. But you know, when shooting a bison it's different right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I think that's great. As an outfitter, you know outfitting for animals that are so massive and aggressive and dangerous um, you doing that and checking every time you know where did this hit, how did it perform. I mean I think that's really great, just kind of doing your due diligence on making sure people are bringing the right guns and ammo on the hunt yep, yep, yeah, we actually have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 2:And every year, you know, there's all these wild caught, wildcat, calvary birds and such that people bring out and you look at it on paper and you say, yeah, this might work. You know, um, and then you take it out in the field and it's like nope, that didn't work. And then you figure out out in the field and it's like nope, that didn't work. And then you figure out well, why? Okay, what happened? And we always back up clients and such the rules are. We've got a backup gun and if we think you've made a good shot and the animal's going to have a good, ethical, clean kill, he's going to lay down and die and bleed out and everything's going to be fine. We're not going to shoot. But if we think that the animal's wounded or if your weapon isn't performing or something's wrong, we're going to go ahead and take the shot and end it, and I generally don't like to shoot. So that's how we handle it, just to make sure everything is ethical and done properly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. Now just to touch on it a little bit for the archery guys listening to this do you have many and do you recommend archery for them?
Speaker 2:well, it's a real challenge, um, in two respects is you got to get so darn close and, um, you know you got to get within 30 or 40 yards, which is a real challenge with bison because generally they're out in the open, they're not woodland creatures and you're not going to shoot them from a tree stand or anything like that. And, and if you want to do it, you know, if you don't want to shoot out of a truck, you want to be on foot. But we can do it and we've done it. Uh, and we've done quite a few over the years. But I have a rule that if you've had to have taken a Cape buffalo or polar bear or grizzly bear with your bow before you come out and the reason I say that is because it's not the archer's skill what I've learned over the years is a guy can come out with you know heavy-duty elk setup with broadheads and you know 65-pound bow and all whatever he's got for elk and make a beautiful shot, and I have seen this over and over again Make a beautiful shot right behind that front leg and the bison takes a step and the broadhead comes off the shaft and that's it.
Speaker 2:Bison hide will just seal right back up and there is no. That shaft being attached to the broadhead is actually what kills the animal when they move, because then that broadhead moves around and creates a massive wound channel without that shaft being attached to the broadhead, that broadhead just embeds into there and we've had them go back to grazing. Wow, we know there's an arrow in it, because we saw it happen and you know, and and they just go back to grazing. So that, to me, is unethical. So when people have put the effort into finding a setup that is set for, like you, go to Africa on Cape Buffalo and I had a guy this year or last year that wanted to shoot with his bow.
Speaker 2:I told him what I just told you. He says well, I haven't shot a Cape Buffalo yet, but I have got my outfit set up for that and I am going to Africa with it and they coached him over there. So he sent me some notes on what it was and it's basically a very heavy arrow and it has a shaft insert. So that weak point that I've talked about, where the broadhead meets the shaft, there's an insert from the broadhead that goes inside the shaft and then the shaft goes over the broadhead as well. So it strengthens that. And he was at about 25 yards, just to give you an idea, and the bull was quartering a little bit away from us, actually a fair amount away from us, but it was the best shot that we had. He was going to start to walk off and go into country where we were not going to close enough again. So he made the shot, and made a beautiful shot. It went in on his left side and went between the ribs, went through the heart and then stuck on the other side. It did not come out the other side at all and it didn't hit bone anywhere. He just got lucky. It went between ribs on both sides and never came out the other side at all. And it didn't hit bone anywhere. He just got lucky. It went between ribs on both sides and never came out the other side. That's some tough that bull took about. It was over 15 minutes before he laid down With a hard shot with the arrow and I've got a picture of the heart. You can see the broadhead print on the heart so plain as day. And then once he laid down, it was probably another 10 minutes before we walked up on him because he was still sitting up fully conscious. So that's how hard they are to kill.
Speaker 2:I guess this bull weighed about 2,500 pounds. He was a big boy. So anyway, that's my piece on archery. Got to have the right equipment, got to make a good shot. And then my rule of course is if something goes wrong, if I see that broadhead come off the shaft, come off the broadhead, then you're going to hear my 375 bark and we're going to end it. But I'd rather not do bow hunts, but if a guy is properly prepared and has the right skill level, then we'll go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, yeah, no, that makes sense. Thanks, ken. If somebody wants to book a hunt with you guys to check you out, what is the best way to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got a website. It's real simple. It's klemhuntcom and my name is K-L-E-M-M, like Mother Mary Hunt, h-u-n-t-s dot com, and E-M-M like Mother Mary Hunt, h-u-n-t-s dot com, and you can see what we do and how we do it there. And there's my contact info. I pack mules in the summer and guide elk and deer hunters in the backcountry in the fall, so sometimes I'm hard to get a hold of, but when I'm out of the hills I return all my phone calls and texts and just send me a message I'm happy to talk with anybody about it.
Speaker 1:Awesome, Thanks Well. Ken, I can't thank you enough for coming on to the podcast today. It's been really insightful having you on. I had a vague idea about bison, but today pretty much everything really was cleared up for me and a lot better understanding of the animal.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate you taking the time to visit with me, Ken, and I wish you best success with your podcast series. Great Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Take care.
Speaker 2:Bye now.