Ep. 83: Spring Bear Hunting in the Backcountry with Josh Boyd
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Thanks, Dirk. It's good to be chatting with you again. Yeah, you guys might remember Josh from episode 75. That's where I referred to Josh as the elk master. We kind of dove pretty deep in on his bio and his persona of being an elk hunting mountain man type of machine. But tonight I wanted to have Josh on here just to

to say, you know, he's not a one trick pony. Josh, you know, he likes to hunt bears too. And, you know, he lives in the beautiful state of Montana. And I just thought I'd kind of pick his brain a little bit about it. You know, it's spring is in the air. Spring is kind of sprung about everywhere in the West, I think. What's it doing up where you're at?

Oh, it's definitely sprung. Things are getting really green. I was just noticing today, I was out at work and the hillside, the lower hillsides are greening up. A lot of flowers are popping, a lot of green grass. The snow line's moving up quite a bit. And yeah, spring is here. Matter of fact, yesterday at work was my final day of snow surveys.

So that always, for me, marks the beginning of spring bear season. When I knock out the end of April snow surveys, it's like, all right, it's time to start thinking about bears. So yeah, it's nice. We got a lot of rain. Things are greening up today. It's going to be like popping really, really hardcore here in the next couple of weeks.

Yeah. Do you think you're ahead of schedule this year on springtime or you like normal? Oh, yeah, we're way ahead. I'd say we're at least three weeks ahead of our normal melt out from what I've seen. The snowpack numbers are showing that the snow line is showing that at the elevation that you look at up on the mountainside.

I'm seeing snow. I can look out my window and see the snow line on the mountains over there. And that's where I'm seeing it right now is typically like probably the second week of May would be more normal to where it, to what it is right now. You know, so we're, we're definitely a couple of weeks advanced snow melt. Right on.

Yeah. I've been talking to people, um, other places in the Northwest and they had kind of the same, same thought that we're a little bit ahead of schedule. In fact, uh, Phelps and I were out in Kansas turkey hunting here last week. And even back there, uh, things are, are more progressed than normal. Um, it's just seemed like we've been there. Typically we go out there turkey hunting like May, middle of May to late May and you know, the green up and everything is about what it is right now. Um,

In fact, we were finding turkey nests with eggs in them already. And then, and the toms weren't all henned up. You know, there was, there was like hens that would come out into fields, single hens and come out and feed a little bit and then go, go back and get on their nests and stuff. Whereas a lot of times there's this early, they're just henned up, you know, more than you really want them to be. So it seems like, you know, maybe, maybe things are a little bit ahead this year. So what's that mean for bear hunting?

Well, I mean, people get pretty excited about green grass and bears for good reasons. And I'm one of those people. But there comes to be a point, there's a point where it's like too much green grass can be a little detrimental to trying to find bears. Because if everything is really green, it can be pretty much everywhere. But I would say...

I don't know. I still focus when I'm, when I'm looking for bears, I'm still focusing on the, the fresh shoots that are kind of emerging as the snow lion recedes up the mountain. Those bears, I've noticed they like to eat the freshest, most palatable Forbes and flowers and grasses as they can find. And that seems to be that fresh emergent growth. Yeah.

I mean, it's low in fiber, high in nutrients, and they just mow it down whenever they can find it. So there's a point to where the snow line hits the top of the mountain. And then it seems like there they'll kind of find these little micro habitats where it's the greenest of the green and the luscious of the lush. And then pretty soon they'll just disperse out into their summer patterns.

But, um, you know, when the snow melts early, that snow line goes up higher. Those bears tend to be more, a little more scattered. So it can be a little bit to your disadvantage in an early spring. Oh yeah. But an early spring allows you to get out and hunt earlier because they're kind of out of the dens and they're, they're on that fresh grass a little earlier than normal. So it gives you more time to go find bears and hunt bears. Right.

But there's a point where they start to, it seems to me like in this area, they start to disperse potentially earlier than they normally would. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely.

Are you a typically like an opening day guy or do you kind of let things kind of get, get to the, like the green grass levels and the, the four levels and the places that you like to go, like all your little nooks and crannies. Do you like to kind of just wait till things get good there or like, no matter what, like opening bell, it's like, well, I'm going to hunt them where, wherever, you know, it looks good, whether there's lots of snow or not much snow. Yeah. I think I, I kind of,

I wait until the conditions are good in the areas I like to go hunt. Okay. But that can be like on a year like this, you know, some of those spots were probably good by April 20th. Whereas in a normal snowpack year, they might not be that great until like May 10th. Right. So I, I being local, I can, I have the luxury of just hanging back and observing conditions.

And of course, part of my job is to go out and probe the snow and see how much is there. And it allows me to kind of check on conditions when I'm out in the field and get an idea of like when prime time might be. But I typically on a normal snow year, I'll wait until I don't get too excited until about the first part of May.

Okay. What is the opener in Montana? It's April 15th. 15th. Okay. That's same as Idaho. Yeah. And then what is a close? Well, it used to vary. This is a little bit longer answer. I could just say June 15th and that would be 100% correct now. Right. But when I first started hunting bears in the area that I live, it used to close May 15th.

Oh, which was really early. It was on a normal year. It didn't really get good until that last week of the season. And then you start seeing more bears, more habitat was available. You could get out and get up to the glassing areas and just had, you know, better opportunities. And I don't know, it must've been eight or nine, maybe could have been 10 years ago. They bumped the season out to May 31st here.

which was great. I mean, it's perfect. By that time, a lot of the avalanche shoots are melted out and you can hunt some higher country. You can just hunt more diverse terrain. You can get up on these big ridge lines that I like to hunt on and find bears up on that stuff. But this year I just ran the regs. We were extended to June 15th. It's never been June 15th there. Oh, wow. But I mean, almost all the way across the state. There's some units in Montana that are on a quota of

And so like certain number of bears get killed or certain number of females get killed. They shut the unit down. But most of Western Montana is on that April 15th to June 15th schedule.

Which is, I think, pretty similar to most of Idaho as well. Yeah, yeah. I know when I was a kid, they used to shut, you know, there were certain units that would close down pretty early. They would shut down the end of May. And then some of the backcountry stuff would be later in June. Just because some of that stuff, you couldn't hardly get into it. Like, the roads wouldn't be melted out in time to access a lot of that backcountry, you know, stuff.

You know, Idaho, in the Bitterroots, the part of the Bitterroots where I grew up, it holds a lot of snow. We've got a lot of big hemlock groves and a lot of North Face stuff. And a lot of the roads are on the tops rather than the bottoms. There are some bottom roads, but man, if you want to try to get anywhere, you'll be going just fine. Like, man, this is great. You'll come around a corner in a hemlock grove and there'll be a huge drift across the road that's, you know, a quarter mile long and 10 feet deep.

Yeah, that, I mean, that area is, it is a wet part of the world and it gets a lot of snow. I mean, I was looking at some of the snow tail sites in that area just the other day. There's 90 some inches of snow at some of those snow tail stations. And, uh, and it's, they're having a pretty weak year. Right. So on a normal year and they're looking at over a hundred inches of depth at some of those upper elevations. So yeah, that, that area is super wet. We're pretty wet up here as well.

And I find the same thing as access is gets in, I guess, uh, you get impeded by dark corners that hold snow and you just can't get up the mountain. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's another, you know, you know, separate topic elk hunting, you know, if you want to get to the back country and set cams or, or just kind of hike around the places you'd like to run around and find elk in the fall. A lot of times you can't get to those places until July, you know, some of these parts of the bedroom. So it's, it's, it's, it's disheartening because then your window of enjoying those, those places is so small. You know, I, I love being in the mountains and, um,

looking for elk and for bears and just I just love being up there and to get to my favorite places I sometimes can't get there till you know after the 4th of July it's like right they burned up the whole month of June and couldn't be up there but you know that's that's the way it is that's the way it is so tell me what what is it about bear hunting that you like I mean I can kind of make some assumptions but um

What is it about spring bear hunting that just, you know, and you can get as philosophical or as romantic of it as you want. You saw me scratching my chin, didn't you? But, you know, I know what I like about it, but I'm sure you probably like some of the same things. Yeah, it's, well, one, it's, you know, springtime is great. I like getting out and having fun.

an opportunity to just stretch the legs and go look for animals and go hunting, which is awesome. Anytime I can go hunt, it's great. But like spring bear hunting is just, I find it amazing because the, the, the forests and the mountains are so different. Like the songbirds are back and they're, they're mating and you hear them all evening long. You'll have these really

long drawn out sun sunsets where it just slowly the light slowly fades yeah and it's really calm and you're usually in like big forests and the birds are singing and it's just echoing you can hear owls and thrushes and it's i don't know it's just kind of a really cool sort of magical time of the year to be out you can hear the water rushing down out of these high basins and

And it's just a sensual kind of overload that you don't get in the fall. And the warm days, the warm evenings, the long days, that's, yeah. And it's kind of a leisurely activity too. It's like, you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn or before dawn and hike, you know, a couple hours in the dark to get to your spot. You can if you want.

I wouldn't recommend it. It's never really bought me a whole lot. So it's like a lot of times I'll get up and have leisurely coffee and hang out and glass from camp and, and kind of get a day plan together and, and hike in and glass for the evening. I don't know. It's just a, it's a different pace of a hunt and bears are just cool animals. They're fun to watch. I love seeing sows with their cubs and,

and they're they're fun to hunt too i love the stock i love to bow on them i mean rifle hunting them is pretty cool i've shot a few with a rifle but man they're super fun to stalk with a bow and uh get in close and they're i mean i think more if people tried it more often they would realize that it's it's a pretty obtainable goal is to sneak within bow range of a bear yeah

Yeah, that I feel like your heart probably has to be beating out of your chest with anticipation when you get, when it's almost going to happen, like,

I can picture it now like, oh man, I think I might get this one. And you're closing in the last little approach. And I can't imagine. I bet your heart's just about ready to beat out of your chest. I mean, I think mine would be just with anticipation. Yeah, especially if it's a big one and you really want it bad. I mean, it's like anything else. It's that level rises and you get that surge of adrenaline and you have to focus and not screw up. Because those big bears, they're pretty cagey.

They can hear really well and they can see better than a lot of people give them credit for, especially with a year within like, you know, a hundred yards and closer, they'll pick you out and they'll hear the tiniest little twig snap. And I don't know what it is, but they're, even those big ones are pretty wired. And so if you, I had one like lift, he was feeding on this big grassy hillside and I was probably like 50 yards away. And he,

He lifted his head, and I thought he was going to turn and look my direction. So I hunkered down to get in a ball, and my knees snapped. You know how cartilage will pop in your knees sometimes? It's just a light snap. And man, he whipped his head over there and just stared at me for minutes. And then he just got nervous. He never ran, but he just walked away.

at a kind of a faster walk than normal. He wasn't feeding anymore away from me. He was just walking away from me and, and I couldn't believe he heard my knees snap. So to me, that's, and he was a big bear. Oh, he was a giant. Oh man. But that's fascinating. Yeah. It's really neat though. I love to sneak in on them. It's, it's fun and it's, it really polishes your stalking skills because you have to,

You have to bring it back to the basics. You have to locate them, for one. Then you have to figure out what the wind potentially, or guess what the wind could be doing on the mountain that he's on. Then you have to pick landmarks and make a plan and then sneak in. I think it's a great learning opportunity for people to learn how to stock game with a bow.

Yeah, man, you've got, you've got me hooked there. I was planning on going to do some rifle hunting this spring and now I'm like, man, I want to do it with a bow. You just painted a pretty good picture. Um, I, and I want to kind of go back to that part about the eyesight. I know people, they're like, oh yeah, bears can't see shit. You know, their, their vision's not good. Um, but you know, if,

Maybe if you're rifle range, you know, across a draw or a Canyon, maybe they're not going to notice as much, but it sounds like, you know, you've got enough reps and up close to bears where they, they're, they still notice things pretty easily. Yeah, they do. Yeah. And I think you could get away with more movement, like at a distance than you say you would a mule deer. It's over, you know, 300 yards across the drainage range.

or maybe even further, mule deer will pick you out and elk. But bears, you can get away with more movement at that distance. But when you're up close, they'll definitely scrutinize you. And I think a lot of people, there's a big push to wear solids bow hunting. I think wearing camouflage when you're spring bear hunting is key.

Cause you're at close distances. They're in the open and you're kind of sneaking across the open too. And you just need to have that outline broken up a little bit. And, uh, I think wearing camouflage pays dividends. I mean, if it helps you out one time, it's worth it in my opinion.

Right. Right. You know, I, there's a lot of people that will say, Oh, camouflage, you know, for elk and, you know, camouflage is for people, you know, you can hunt elk in solids and which you can, but I'll tell you what, I've had some amazing close counters for a lot of different years. Um, mostly in camouflage. Now I've had some,

solid pants on before and camo top and got picked off. And I don't know if it was something else, maybe, you know, from the elk standpoint, it was like, I was silhouetted or maybe, you know, maybe I stood out, you know, more than normal, but, um, I'm a firm believer, um, in, in camouflage. Um, definitely. Yeah, I am too. I, for elk at the distances that,

they get called into in this country, in North Idaho, in that brush country. I mean, we're talking like 10, 12, sometimes closer yards that they come in and then they're stopped and their, their eyeballs are just scanning around looking. And, and I think the more you can blend in, the better off you'll be. It doesn't hurt. Yeah, I agree. And I think, um,

elk when they come in they're not necessarily looking for a human they're looking for another their adversary right you called him in he they're looking for another bull elk and if you're wearing like a big solid pattern what else is solid i'm like the side the side of a bull elk is pretty solid you know it's a light color so um i would if i were to wear a solid i'd wear something a little more subdued like a green or something a little darker um maybe yeah not a real like even like a

Flat, dark earth type color, you know, as a top, maybe I wouldn't do that. Right. So probably the same with bears, right? Yeah. With bears, they're, they're looking for other bears. I mean, they're, they're, you know, they're looking for another bear that's coming into their area. Right. If it's, it could be a female that the boar is getting excited about, or it could be a medium sized boar that's scared of a bigger boar coming in. So they're looking for dark brown or black bears.

colored features or creatures so i think if you can do anything wear something to not look like a darker blob when you're stocked both at least bow hunting you're sure you're better off in montana you have to wear hunter's orange regardless of what you're hunting with okay yeah yeah um i'm not a huge fan of that but uh that's why i kind of like hunting idaho

From just a simplicity standpoint, you can go hunt anything you want without orange. Right. But in Montana, you have to wear the orange, whatever, 400 square inches above the waist. Right. So you have to kind of contend with that a little bit. But as long as you break up your outline and your form, I think you will get away. You'll get away with a fair bit with a bear. Okay. Yeah.

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I don't want to sound like a tinfoil hat guy here. I'm orange, but, um, this is, you know, you always think about like, man, should I wear an orange? Cause ever since I was a kid, you know, safety orange, you know, Idaho, like you said, it's not required, but sometimes I feel like.

Yeah, definitely orange is good because people will kind of see where you're at and maybe they won't shoot your direction if there's some animals in between you. But sometimes I feel like you got people like, oh, there's somebody in orange over there. I'm going to look through my scope at that guy and see if I recognize them or something like that. So almost maybe now it's a target, but I do understand the safety of it. I think both things do happen. Right. Yeah. I think both of those do and have happened.

I think the orange law is ridiculous. I'll go on the record and say that. I hate it. I think it's absolutely pointless. If you want to wear it, there's nothing stopping you from wearing it. But I feel like I don't need to wear it. I'm not going to say anything else on that subject. I could go off on that. I love your candor. Yeah, it's great. So...

you, you majority of the time you're bow hunting them, uh, more than rifle, but probably depends on the year, the, the, the location maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I'll have friends up, um, and we'll, you know, pack rifles or I'll pack a bow and no pack a rifle or vice versa. Yeah.

The last couple trips that I had people up on, there were some photography trips. So I packed a rifle. Or I could be testing some gear too. Last year I was testing a rifle for rock slide. So I packed a rifle. I wanted to use it and get as much time in the field with it. So I rifle hunted for bears. So I'm not against shooting a bear with a rifle. I've shot a handful now.

Yeah. With a, with a smoke stick. But I, I really liked a bow on them. They're fun. Yeah. And it's, it's one of those things where it's like, if I don't kill one, it's not a huge deal. My freezer's full of elk meat. Right. Right. You're, you're, it's all about the, the, the process, all about the experience. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Yeah. And I, I don't, I go out in the field every year with the intention of killing a bear, but I don't,

I just, I probably, and I, and I could probably kill one every year if I wanted. There's just sometimes I just don't feel like doing it. So I just walk away, you know, it's like, ah, it's fun to sneak in and not, not kill that bear and back out and just, you know, have the experience of stalking it too. So I don't know. You know, and that's people who are against hunting. They don't understand these kinds of things. They, this kind of way they label us all lump us on this blood, blood,

cold-blooded killers you know bloodthirsty killers um and they almost like put us all in the same category as poachers or something you know people are just bad people doing bad things and right but but when you hear somebody talk about it like like you you know it's it's you know you're you'd like to kill one but it doesn't you don't have to and it's just the experience of being out there and chasing around a little bit and getting close and observing and

you may or may, you may make the decision not to just because I don't really feel like it doesn't, it doesn't really, if I take this bear's life right now, it's not going to make me happy today. It's right. Right. My, my cup is full. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Last year was a good example of that. I, um, you, you, you know, Steve Drake. Yeah. Yeah. So he came up and we were, we were doing a, uh, a hunt in Idaho and,

We were seeing some bears and I ended up, we saw this, it was a nice chocolate bear on this hillside. And we ended up working our way around and getting above him. It was middle of the day and the wind was coming up and we just, I had my rifle, like I mentioned earlier, and I just kind of stalked down the hill a little bit and got within a hundred yards or something. And like, that's a, that's a decent bear. I don't know. I might, I might shoot him. He's really cool looking. Let's get a little closer.

So we go down a little hill, a little bit further. And I'm like, let's get a little closer. And the whole time, Steven's just like, Oh, this is, he's just back behind me with this lens shooting these images. Yeah. And I, I got within a 35 yards of him and, you know, I had my shooting sticks up and I had looking at him through my scope and I'm like, I just,

He's a night. I, if I would've had my bow, I probably would've tried to sneak a little closer and then I would've shot him with my bow, but I just, it just didn't feel right shooting with my gun at 35 yards. Yeah. Cause it was, it took us a, probably, you know, an hour to, to, you know, bridge that gap.

Yeah. And, uh, spent some time at it and I don't know, we let him walk. He got some awesome images of the bear kind of eventually I snapped a little bear grass stock and he kind of looked up and got nervous and he walked away, but then he circled above us. Kind of, he kind of came in from the side to kind of see what was going on. Oh yeah. Steven got some great, great photos of him, but he got some great pictures of me.

With kind of the back of my head and shoulder kind of blurred out. And then the bears just right there kind of head up, looking around or head down feeding. It's pretty cool. That is cool. Yeah. So yeah, that's stuff like that, that I just love to do.

That that's awesome. That's, that's worth the, the price of admission right there is just to get that close and yeah, I love it. We're going to do it again this year with our bows. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I can't wait to see the pictures. Yeah. We'll see how it turns out.

So are you a boot leather or are you a glass guy? Are you a kind of a combo? Are you like, you know, are you hiking a lot? Are you glassing a lot? Are you like hiking a lot to get to your favorite glassing points? Are you glassing from the truck and then making a big plan and diving off into the huge canyons to get over to them? What, what is your. Yeah, that's a good question. I'm both, um, man, I like to hunt big country, big open glassable country. And so I like to cruise and glass, um,

you know, ideal terrain and habitat for bears. Rocky, like early in the spring, I like looking at like, you know, big rocky out, out crops with, with grassy edges and stuff. And a lot of that occurs in these big canyons. So, you know, I'll hike into places and park my butt on the opposite side and glass where I can see a lot of it. Right. And plant a stock that way. Avalanche shoots are kind of the same way. I kind of hunt them that I hunt them the similar fashion and,

Um, but I also like to hunt and I've killed most of my bigger bears hunting old, not too old, but grassy logging roads. Okay. So cruising logging roads, miles and miles and miles of walking and or riding a mountain bike. Sure. Um, looking for sign, looking for tracks, looking for piles of poop.

And, and hunt and just still hunting down those roads, just creeping down, down those roads, right at dark, you know, like within the last hour and a half of daylight. Okay. So yeah, I do both. I put a lot of boot leather on the ground and I also, you know, use my eyeballs a lot too, but I don't, there's not a lot of places I glass from the truck. It seems like those places get glassed a lot.

Okay. They're few and far between here, and they're fairly well known. A lot of non-residents will see those places and just key in on them. Sure. And a lot of those places aren't really like quality habitat either. I end up seeing a lot of sows and cubs and some of that stuff that's very observable from main roads. And I don't know why. Maybe it's just not...

Maybe those boards are too shy or something, or they just know they're not safe there, or they just prefer not to be there. I don't know. Anyway, I try. I had wool glass from the road occasionally, but most of my better spots, I hike in a ways before I have to sit down and start picking apart the hillsides.

Right on. Do you, how often do you bivvy, bivvy hunt for bears? Do you do that going for two or three days or is it more of a, just kind of a day trip in it thing? Well, yeah, I'll do both. I will. I like to like set aside some time, take some time off of work and do some longer backpack trips. And, um, yeah, it'll, I'll, you know, I'll go out for like maybe four or five days or five nights. I mean, those days are long, so that's a, that's a fair bit of hunting.

It seems like I can cover and glass a lot of country in the four or five evenings of hunting. It's a fun adventure. I love to do it. I don't think it's necessary, but I do like it. And that's what Steven and I were doing last year. It was this big, long ridgeline we were camped on. We just kept moving our camp a little further, a little further, a little further.

There's no real water sources up there, but there's big snow drifts. We could get water, like no creeks, but we could get water off the melted snow and stuff. Okay. Yeah. It was super fun. But yeah, I like to do some backpack trips if possible. The weather's usually pretty nice and the bugs really aren't too terribly bad until maybe early June. And even then they're not horrible.

So, yeah. I've been up, like, later June, I've been in some back country. And, man, the little black flies are terrible. Like, you can't really open your mouth. Maybe it was that particular area specifically, but, man, it was tough. Or sometimes, same with mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. You know, closer to the 4th of July than there's been some places where, I mean, you couldn't hardly open your mouth without breathing some in. It was horrible. Yeah.

I would rather fight grizzly bears than, than mosquitoes, I think. Yeah. There's just no relief from them. Yes. There's some places I go hiking in some of the local mountains here in July and August and oh, it is miserable. But yeah, the one, the one insect that you just can't get away from when you're spring bear hunting is you, you know, are the, the ticks.

Yeah. I remember back when turkey hunting, when I was a kid in Florida, my Florida cousins used this stuff called musk all. And it was, uh, and it came in a little tiny, uh, bottle, little plastic bottle that says 100% deet.

And I think they might've used that in Vietnam. You know, it was that, that level of grade of goodness. And if you got any on your hands and then got it on your lips at all, your lips would go numb. So it must've been the good stuff, but you cannot buy a hundred percent deep anything anymore. I think it's so bad for you. I think they're like, yeah, we got to pull that off the shelf. You know, we went on a canoe trip in British Columbia in,

july late july a couple years back and there's a series of lakes where we're going through this big circuit and it we're talking mosquitoville and in the little store there they had some of that 100 d and i think it was the mux musk all i think it was like an orange bottle yeah yeah works worked well keep away from your mouth and nose oh and i do is rubbing it

It'll melt plastic. Yeah. First thing I do get it on my lips. Okay. Dang it. Can't feel my lips now. That's nasty. So can you guys bait bears or run bears with dogs in Montana? Baiting has never been allowed and hound hunting has been allowed in certain areas just for the past two seasons now.

Right. For, for the longest time, it's never been allowed. And now there's a few, few areas where it is allowed. There was something passed by the commission. I think it was two years ago. It seems like, I think some stuff down there in the bitter root country is open for hound hunting. And then God, maybe, maybe more South central. I don't really, I, I don't know. I haven't looked that close into the, where the hound allowed, but,

They tried to keep it out of most of the grizzly bear habitat, which is most of western Montana. Right, right. But I think the Bitterroot, I know for a fact the Bitterroot's free and clear, and some of that stuff down by Superior, I think there's a little bit of area down there they're allowed to use dogs. But yeah, baiting's never been on the...

on the menu around in Montana and not even in Northern Idaho. I don't think it's allowed. Certain areas in Northern Idaho. So I think, I think in that grizzly bear habitat, it's definitely not allowed. Okay. Yeah. So like the panhandle, it's not allowed. So there's, I think there's a line in the panhandle where you can, but there's a definitely a line where you can't. Okay. Grizzly bear habitat. Yeah. That's smart. I mean,

there's been a couple of times people have shot grizzlies over bait in Idaho, um, on the border country there, you know, in the past, it seems like, um, accidentally, you know, it was like, right. And it was like maybe with an outfitter, like the outfitter, the guide would drop the, the hunter off at the stand and then be like, all right, I'll pick you up a dark type of thing. And grizzly came in and like, Oh shoot, there's a bear. Bam. Well, that's a grizzly bear. Ooh. Yeah. Not good. Not good. There's some paperwork in their future. Yeah.

Yes, yes. Some testimonies and paperwork and photo sessions and all sorts of stuff. I do not envy that. Well, even here with spot and stalk hunting, it seems like there's always a bear, grizzly or two gets killed by just mistaken identity. Yeah. Just locally here last spring, there was one killed, collared bear. And I've got some information.

Regarding that, I'll maybe tell you off the air. Yeah. I can't talk about it publicly right now. Right, right. Well, I know we've hunted in Wyoming before and there's a couple of times it's like, well, that's a big, you'll see a big bear on a hillside. You're like.

And the color, the color will look like a grizzly bear. You're like, oh, there's a fricking grizzly. So you sit down and analyze and study, okay, look at his hump. And like, sometimes the way they stand on a hill, like a black bear will get a hump on their back. Absolutely. Just by the way they're standing and their stance. And you got to watch them for a while. It's like, man, does he have a dish on his face? You know, you're looking for all the telltale signs in it, you know, four or 500 yards. It's, it's kind of hard sometimes, especially if you don't have,

a spotter or, you know, if you're just looking through maybe your range finder or some like eight power binoculars that are not real good, but eventually, you know, if you watch them long enough, it's like, Oh yeah, that's not a grizzly or, Oh, that is a grizzly. You have the telltales are there, but. Yes. Yeah. And I, I've, you know, I was talking about this a couple of weekends ago about just, you know, just sizing black bears and, and identifying, you know, a good bear.

The difference between a big male black bear and their shape, they're very similar to a grizzly bear body profile as far as they do have a hump, a smaller hump, but they will have a humped shoulder. And their rear end, their rump is really rounded. And they come in all shades. And so do grizzly bears, too. They can be pretty dark-faced, too. I've watched several black bears.

at you know close range within a couple hundred yards i there was one i was i had to look at him for a long time before i could tell it was a black bear wow a big great big chocolate male just huge hump on his shoulder and i was just in and out of all this kind of this regen lodgepole and i just could not get a really definitive look and then finally he even had an ear tag that was i saw the ear tag oh man

But it ended up being a black bear and I shot him. Perfect. How old was it? How old was that bear? That bear was 14. Oh yeah. So they'd, they'd captured him in a grizzly bear foot snare and they'd collared him and he's, he was nine. Then I killed him a few years later.

Huh. So it's pretty cool. The local, uh, grizzly biologist is, he was all excited to get the ear tag. I'll hold on. Let me run in my office and look up his number and I'll let you know exactly where he caught him and how old he was. Cause they probably pulled the tooth out of him. He had a tattoo on his lip. Oh, he was like a gangster, you know, pretty tough flashing some gang signs. Yeah. I'll tat it up and

had packing some, some ear jewelry, but yeah, it was a cool bear, a really neat bear, big chocolate. But yeah, he looked a lot like a, like he had some aspects of a grizzly bear. Yeah. Um, but he had that very distinct black bear face. No rounded, less dish, you know, that that's what really gave it away. Okay. How far away, um, from, from the kill site was he tagged?

with the oh uh not far

I would say within maybe two air miles max. Oh, really? Wow. That's, that's crazy. Crazy. Yeah. You hear stories about, you know, collared bears or, or your tag bears, you know, they tag them one place and they'll turn up in a complete different mountain range or whatever. Yeah. Wow. That thing had some wheels on him. Yeah. I've had some friends kill. Yeah. Buddy, mine killed a bear.

that was tagged like 27 miles away. But we don't know if that thing got moved by itself or in a culvert trap. Right, right. There's always that too. O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you, the other day I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

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This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at huntthegreatest.com. So is there a particular food that

that bears like that you're trying to find in like, cause you didn't mention some Forbes and flowers or is it just kind of the general, the stuff that's kind of growing up right after the snow leaves there? I think there are definitely, uh, Forbes and grasses that they key in on. So I, what I've noticed around here, they really love orchard grass.

Okay. So it's a, especially when it's short, you know, orchard grass will eventually get tall, sprout out and, you know, it's not very palatable at that point. There's a lot of fiber and not very many nutrients, but when it's, you know, within that, you know, six inches tall and just comes up in these little clumps, but it has like a kind of a bright green bladed, you know,

piece of grass or a head of grass that comes up. They love that stuff. Okay. Not to be confused with fescue because they'll grow, they'll grow right next to one another and they look kind of similar at a distance. So you're glassing across the hillside and you'll see like, Oh, it's green is Ireland over there.

And you go over there and it's all this fescue with a little bit of orchard grass mixed in. If you watch bears over on that hillside eating at some point, you'll see they're keying in on the actual orchard grass. That fescue, they just don't eat. They don't like it. Deer and elk love it. But you know what I'm talking about, Scott. It's more wiry blades, but it still grows in those small little clumps. Yep. And it's a little darker green, I think.

So yeah, if you can find orchard grass, definitely bears will be munching on it. If you're like walking logging roads or hunting in cold clear cuts, skid trails, log deck landing areas, sometimes you'll find those have been seeded with clover and black bears love that clover.

The Forest Service doesn't use clover much anymore. They're going to more of a native seed mix. But some private timber company, industrial timber ground, sometimes they'll use clover to seed their roads and skid trails for erosion control. So you might find that out there. If you can find clover, it's like crack to bears. They just love it. Flowers, I've seen them eating...

the fresh flower heads off of the arrow leaf balsam root. They'll just walk. I'll have seen either. I have video of this great big board, just walking from plant to plant and just, you just eat the yellow heads. Oh man. Just moving along. Um, and I think that, you know, those things are so high in nutrients, um, that they just, it's preferred. Oh, glacier lilies. They'll eat the heads off the glacier lilies, little yellow, like shooting star looking, um,

plants that come up right after the snow kind of leaves. You have a big snow drift on a hillside. You'll see those things popping up right, right behind it. Yeah. I've seen them eat this plant called biscuit root. It's this really weird, wispy, tiny little yellow flowers that kind of come up and like these little fluorescents, almost like, like a picture of firework blowing up and each little trailer would be like a little tiny flower.

I've seen him eat that stuff. So yeah, I mean, and I think it's kind of localized. Certain areas grow certain forage. Sure.

I recommend people just, if they do see bears, you know, grazing on a hillside, just really pay attention to what they're eating. Or if you're out hiking around, walking through bear habitat and you see bear sign tracks and you just pay attention to what's been bitten, what's been eaten. Like you'll see that orchard grass nibbled down to like, just down to the basal area. That's cool.

um, the area I grew up hunting a lot, uh, it's a little lower elevation in more Canyon country, like lower Canyons. And there was a lot of like wild onions and stuff like that. Oh yeah. That area. And they, they liked those things. I mean, you could go walk over there and just pick one out, you know, wiggle it a little bit and you could pick out this little weird onion looking thing, uh, off the hillside. So they liked that. And

a lot of other things. Um, and then later in this, you know, like early, early summer of that, that June time, uh, May, June, there were these old orchards everywhere from back in the homesteader days. You know, everybody had a little orchard at their, at their homestead, you know, and they had cherries or, or apples or what at plums, um, um, all those kinds of things. And over the years, you know, since then bears have gone into those orchards and, and eaten, uh,

all the different fruits and then magically planted the seeds all over the landscape. So you, you, you see, you know, cherry trees and apple trees and pear trees and plum trees all over this Canyon country. Like, Hey, there's apples or there's, there's cherries and the right time of year, man, those, those bears just wreck havoc on those trees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, we kind of have that here as well, but they're,

I don't know. Some of our little orchards are like in people's backyards. Sure. And I definitely see them coming down in the fall and hitting that stuff, especially if our huckleberries have failed, you know, in the summer. So yeah, like it seems like our huckleberries start coming on. Like it's usually right around the first part of July in certain areas, but,

And then where those huckleberries are coming on, the bears are on them from then till they're off the plant. You know, sometimes that's into late September. Yeah.

Yeah. I've seen, yeah. I've seen bears in late September a lot when I'm bow hunting, you'll see black bears eating huckleberries. I seen this monster one. I drove right by him. I was driving from one spot to another. I looked over the hill and there's this giant black bear sitting on his butt. And he's like sitting there scooping the brush into his mouth, eating the berries off. And I'm like, that's the biggest bear I've ever seen. That thing looked huge. So we kept driving.

And kind of snuck back. I didn't have a gun, you know, and it was really, really open country. I'm like, I'm never going to get close enough to this thing. And I got to about a hundred yards from him. And like you said, he heard a twig snap and he looked up and then it was just gone. I don't know why the vehicle driving by didn't bother him. It was a pretty...

traveled road. A lot of people drove on that road and he was kind of in the shadows a little bit of some, of some trees. And I think he just thought, eh, it's just some Huckleberry pickers or, or, you know, tourists driving around. Right. So as soon as things got quiet and heard, heard me snap that twig, it's like game over. He, yeah, that was something he didn't want to hear next to him. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So what kind of, uh, if you were to recommend a rifle caliber for hunting bears, would you say, you know, I know, I know the greatest rifle hunting rifle of all time is a six, five Creedmoor. Is that too much? I mean, it's all over the internet. That's all I read on the internet.

it depends on which camp you listen to. There's the ones that says the greatest and the ones that says the worst. But, uh, what, uh, what should a guy look for, um, in a good, um, bear hunting, uh, rifle? What, what kind of, what, what would you recommend? Um, man, that's a good question. I mean, a six, five Creedmoor will work on bears. No problem. Yeah. Um,

Just have the right constructed bullet, put it in the right spot. Everything's hunky-dory. I know people use stuff that's even smaller. There's a growing trend in certain circles to use smaller and smaller calibers. Personally, I like big bullets. I own rifles from a 6.5 PRC to a 375 Ruger.

Right. And I love them all. 338 wind mag is amazing. I have a 300 ultra mag that I absolutely love. I have a 28 nozzler. It just thumps lights out. 30 ought six to 70. Some of the old classics work great. Um, but I would just say, make sure you have a well-constructed bullet, um, that can break bones because you might need to, you know, bust through a shoulder. Bears have weird angles, um,

They don't look, they're not like, they're kind of more roundy than a, than a flat sided deer or an elk. Right. That people, and so it's hard to like pick a spot on a bear and know exactly what you're aiming at. So you might hit off, you might not hit exactly where you think you need to hit. And it might be in the front shoulder. You might have to penetrate through a fair bit of hair and maybe a little bit of fat.

and some jiggly meat to penetrate the vitals, but bears aren't overly big. It's not like shooting a moose. So yeah, I would say just any cartridge that will work on a, that you would be willing to take on a mule deer hunt will work for a black bear. Sure. Yeah. That's good advice. I think.

Now, as far as shot placement, you know, some people, they may not know where even where to shoot a bear, you know, right behind the front shoulder, they say, but, um, bear vitals are a little different than, than a deer elk. Yes. Yes, they are. They they're yeah. They're tricky. Um, if you're used to shooting into the armpit or the pocket of a deer or an elk, you're probably going to be too low and too far forward.

on an air. So you want to back that up and go a little higher. So I've heard people say, shoot for the middle of the middle. I would say just shoot forward of the middle. Yes. So maybe not quite right in the middle of his body, you know, uh, front to back, but maybe just

a little forward of that middle line and then, you know, halfway up from, from chest to back. If you're right in the middle there, you're good. So yeah. Yeah. The vital sit back a little bit more than people think or their shoulders move forward more. Right. Over there, you know, up in front of their, their chest cavity. They sit further towards like the, the, the brisket bone or whatever they're the thoracic or opening maybe.

Yes. Yeah. That was a good question. Cause that's, that is tricky. Their anatomy is different than if didn't white tail deer or mule deer elk, you know, stuff that people are used to shooting and, and butchering and breaking apart. So. Yeah. So let's say you got your bear down. What are you doing with all the meat and the meat? Are you, are you taking the fat? Are you taking the bones? Are you taking the, the meat? What are you doing with it? Um, so the hide.

Yes. So there's certain, you know, states have certain requirements to what you got to check in. So in Montana, it varies by the region, but you know, you need to report your kill and some places, some areas you have to bring the hide in the hide and skull in to get checked. Some places you don't, it's a self check-in, but regardless, I take the head, the hide, and I take all the meat and,

And if it has fat, I will take the fat. So the hides I typically, I don't have, I do have a bear rug. I take that back. The first bear I ever killed, I got a bear rug.

It's ridiculously expensive and it's up in my attic that I never look at. And to me, it was like, why did I do that? They take up a lot of real estate, really. Oh, and this bear was massive. It was my first bear ever and it was my biggest bear still to this day. Oh, man. That's huge. So, yeah, you have to have a big wall to put that thing on it.

but um but the other the other hides that i take i'll usually just get them tanned and hang them hang them up in a display or something it's kind of neat to have just like some bear hides hanging if you're into that thing um or that sort of thing but the the meat we eat it like almost almost all of it i mean it's it's great stuff uh

I don't like cut bear steaks out of it, but we'll, sometimes we'll, I'll cut some roasts and then I'll slow cook them and shred them and eat it more like a pulled pork or slow cooking on a shred on a trigger. And so it's, you know, like you're doing a, like a pork shoulder or something. Yeah. We'll cube it up, throw it in and make chili out of it or a stew or like a pot pie or

which is really good. I bet. That sounds amazing. Yeah, it is good. And a lot of it I'll just grind. I just have a spice mix that I use and grind it into breakfast sausage. And it makes, and I'll add some bacon ends to that as well. Oh, yeah. It is really good. I'll bet. It's my daughter's favorite breakfast sausage.

meat by far. I mean, she likes bacon, but she loves bear sausage. Yeah. And, uh, same, same recipe with my mountain lion, uh, grind stuff is made breakfast sausage with the spices and the, and the, um, bacon ends and my hands down. Best, best thing I've ever had. You know, as far as sausage goes, it was amazing. Yeah. It's really good.

And then the fat, like if it's a fat bear, fall bears are typically better for this, but spring bears can be as well. I'll render the fat, which is a very simple process. You know, I thought it would take more effort, more work than what it actually, actually does. But basically we just,

Chop, cube it up, put it in a crock pot on low or several crock pots, and then just strain the liquids out and put them in a jar. And it kind of comes out like this clear kind of golden liquid, but then it solidifies into this nice white, creamy shortening. And we just store it in these mason jars in our freezer and just pull that stuff out whenever we need it.

Anything that requires shortening or you want to short fry something like eggs or sear. If you have a nice elk roast that you, you know, you slow cooked on the, on the grill and you want to like reverse sear it, I'll sear it in bear fat. Oh, wow. Or rub a little on your baked potato before you bake them. It just gets those, the, the skins nice and crispy. But my wife makes, uh,

And I'm like biscuits with it. So like pastries, pie crust makes an amazing pie crust. It's phenomenal. I was very skeptical of it at first. She made a pie crust and I'm a convert for sure. Yeah. My uncle, he always used to swear by that. He used it for everything. And he said the same exact thing. He's like, if you want really good pie crust, you make it with bear.

Bear grease. But he would like, he put it on his boots. He would put it in and he was for stuff to bake with. He would cook with it. Like he used that stuff for everything. Yeah. Yeah. So.

And it's kind of a lost art sometimes, but I think, I think, you know, you know, like Clay Newcomb, you know, he's got a really big, large audience in his podcast and he talks about all the cool stuff you can do with bear grease. Well, bear grease podcast, but, but I think people are starting to understand, you know, um, you know, bears are very edible and they're very desirable, um, to hunt, to hunt, to eat, um,

Um, they're just not, I feel like at some point bears might've got a bad rap, you know, ah, stupid bears, not fit to eat. Like I've heard people say that, like I would never eat a greasy old bear. I'm like, really? The bear meat I've had is amazing. Well, I think it,

comes down to what they've been eating oh that's so i think if it's been if it's been eating salmon out of an alaskan salmon stream for three months i bet it's going to taste like fish yeah probably not going to be good yeah not probably not going to want to eat that but if it's been eating huckleberries for three months i'll tell you what when i cut up a fall bear it smells like fruit i mean the meat literally smells like fruit it is amazing yeah

Wow. Well, huckleberries are very overpowering scent and flavor profile as well. Like if you have huckleberries and if, even if you like double Ziploc bag them in the freezer, you, you crack your freezer open a few weeks later. It's like, dang, I smell huckleberries in the freezer. Like they're like potent. Yeah, they are. So that's no surprise that a bear, a bear's meat and fat would smell like huckleberries. Yeah.

It's it smells really good and it tastes good too. I haven't, I've never had a bad one. I did kill a bear. So they used to Montana used to like offer these trick and Nella test kits and you would like cut off, you cut out a chunk of the tongue and put it in state. I like the little Ziploc was salt and you throw it in the bag and seal it up and send it off to the lab. And you get your test results back. Well, I found out that most bears don't,

Most bears in Montana have it. Just the degree that what they have it, like the density of the cysts in them. This one particular bear, it was a pretty old male. I had sent the test off and I got a phone call. It was like a Sunday afternoon. I remember it was a spring, warm spring day. I happened to be in the house getting a drink of water or something and the phone rings and it's the guy from the lab in Billings.

He's like, hey, I'm just calling you about your bear. I was like, yeah, what are you, what's going on? He's like, yeah, have you, have you done anything with that thing yet? I'm like, no, haven't. I'm just kind of, it's in my freezer. I've been waiting to get the results. He's like, oh, don't, don't eat that bear. That thing has 128 larva per milligram of it in its tissue.

So a milligram of tissue is tiny. And he counted up to 128 per milligram. He's like, go ahead and throw that bear away. You've got our permission to not utilize the meat. Good to know. Yeah, that is good to know. So there is that aspect of it could be off-putting to some people. Right.

So that's why you got to cook it. Well done. Right. Yeah. Right. You just cook it. Yeah. 160 degrees. That's what they recommend. Yeah. I did see a chart one time, depending upon it was, uh,

The temperature and time. So if it was a lower temperature, it had to be a longer time. I don't know how valid that is. I don't even know where it came from. It could be just some guy on Pinterest made it up. I don't know. But yeah, 160, I think I've heard that is to be safe.

Okay. But if you're making breakfast sausage, you're going to cook it well done. And if you're making a pot pie, so everything that I make with bear meat, I make sure it's a dish that can be cooked well done and not be ruined.

Yep. I, uh, we like to take, take it and just kind of cut up in little, um, chunks, you know, they're about an inch and a half, two inches in, you know, almost like kind of nuggets and then put them in a, in a Instapot, right? Put a bunch of seasoning on that, put it in the Instapot. And so that'll cook it really fast.

It'll like shorten the time instead of like sitting there for a few hours, uh, in a crock pot, then it shortens that time and it breaks the meat down. It cooks, it kills everything in it. But then, uh, we make like a stroganoff out of it. So you can put it over either noodles or, or rice. Um, and,

And it's, it's amazing. My, my son-in-law who's, uh, was raised non-hunting, um, and non-hunting family never had wild meat before until he became part of our family. And he's had deer, elk and everything. But when he had that, that bear stroganoff, he's like, oh my God, this is like the best thing I've ever eaten in my life. It's stunning.

So nice. So that's awesome. You should try that. Um, one of your recipes are here later on after you kill your big spring bear or not. Yeah. Or you may decide not to shoot a big stream of spring bear. Just that's true. Yeah. I might. I think, I think it's time. Actually, I, it is time. Uh, I'm out of bear breakfast sausage. Oh, so yeah, it's time. Yeah. Another thing I really want to try and I've, I've never done it is can some of it.

Oh yeah. Um, I've heard, I've heard people canning it, uh, like Cody rich, I think is talking about cannon bear. And, uh, I'm kind of curious. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Elk meat. I'll can elk meat. Like I'll take the neck meat, you know, which is always kind of tough and kind of weird. And,

And especially on a big bowl, then I found though, the, the smaller the pieces you cut it, the better it's going to turn out. So like that one and a half, one and a half, two inch, you know, nuggets or whatever is optimal. If you put bigger, you know, you know, about the size of smaller than a golf ball, let's say if it's any bigger than a golf ball, then it doesn't break it down as good, especially on that really tough cuts. But, but,

Man, you stuff a mason jar completely full, like as much meat as you can, but leave enough room at the top. And I just, it's simple. I take like a spoonful of Montreal steak seasoning.

dump in there screw the lid on and then you then you can it and when you take it out it's like the best beef pot roast you've ever had in your life it's amazing so i can i can imagine like bear would be same thing and probably yeah probably but better yeah there's a pretty rich meat yeah yeah i could see how it would be really good canned yeah i'll try the shot yeah

Well, we've hit over an hour here talking about bear hunting. I think we could probably get two or three hours in really easily. Oh, for sure. For sure. But do you have any closing thoughts on bear hunting to leave our listeners with? Yeah, I guess I would just say bear hunting is real hunting. I mean, there's a lot of people that poo-poo it and just go try it.

It's fun for a variety of reasons. I think it's super rewarding. So if people are thinking about it, Kim and Han, they're on the fence, just try it out sometime and yeah. And just see, see how it fits you and it might not fit you, but it, you might just become smitten with it and just want to do it every spring when the flowers start blooming and the green hillsides start arriving. Yeah.

Birds start singing. God, it's a great time to be out in the mountains. So yeah, I'd just say give it a shot if you're a little bit curious about it.

Yeah, man, I agree with that a hundred percent. I don't know how many times I've been out in the spring, whether it's bear hunting, turkey hunting, whatever, horn hunting, morel mushroom hunting. Uh, you just like that. You'll be, there'll be a very moment in time where you're like sitting on a warm hillside and the temperature is just perfect. And you hear the birds chirping and everything. It's like, man, what a time to be alive. This is awesome. Um,

And usually those are the trips. I may or may not even see a bear, turkey, mushroom or whatever I'm after, but it's just so fun to be out in the springtime. It's my second favorite season. September is my favorite season, of course, but the springtime is a close, very close second. I'm with you a hundred percent. Yep. September and then like May, just the smells too, man. The green leaves coming on. It's amazing. I love it. Yeah.

If the elk bugled and we had a season in May, that probably might be my favorite. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, thanks so much for coming on again, Josh. Anybody want to look you up on Instagram? What's your handle on there? It is josh__boyd__mt, as in Montana. Okay. And pretty easy to find, I think.

If you just did a little search for Josh Boyd, it should pop up. And Josh uses Instagram like Instagram was made to be used, right? Like when we, back when we first started using Instagram, pretty pictures, a cool little quote or something. And like those kinds of things, it's not all these razzle dazzle reels that you see now. Yeah, I try. I do appreciate, you know, your content on there. Cause it's, it's still, it's still really good.

I try to steer clear of reels as much as possible. I just, I'm not into it, but that's not the reason I joined Instagram, but yeah. Or you, I guess people could find me on rock slide too. You can hit me up there on that website, rock slide.com are okay. Slide. And I'm a staff writer over there. I do reviews and stuff. So you can find me over there. Ben, use your name is just Josh Boyd there as well. So.

Yeah. Easy to, easy to track down in those two spots. And that's about it. Sure. And if you guys like reading, you know, articles and stuff, definitely give Josh's articles a read. I said it before in our other podcast, but Josh has a great, very good writing voice and it makes for a good, a good read. I always enjoyed your articles back when you used to write for,

Extreme Elk Magazine for us. Yeah, thanks, man. Appreciate that. Always looked forward to your next article. I was like, oh, what's it going to be this time? It's so good. So anyway, I won't keep you anymore tonight and I appreciate your time. So we'll see everybody next time. All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Dirk. Mm-hmm.

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