We're just gonna jump right into it. I have Mike on the phone.
Mike is in Colorado. He's a big game hunter, big game outfitter in
Colorado. I don't know what part of the state he's in, but southwest
southwest Colorado. He's gonna es her is Poeblo in the southwest. Mike,
Well, I don't live in Pueblo. Our ranch is southwestern Colorado. We
live in Jars, Colorado. Okay. The reason I was asking, I've
got some contact with a woman down there close to Poeblo, and she's got
some weird things going on too. But anyway, Mike contacted me and told
me that he's got some really unusual stuff going on with his lease and his
ranch, and I just wanted to talk to him. I wanted you to
hear his story. So, Mike, if you just want to start from
the beginning and just tell us all what you want us to hear about this
stuff. So just go. Well, as you've stated, my name's Mike,
m I own an operator working ranch and I the six hundred acres total
that's owned. I've got another eleven thousand acres that are leased in southwestern Colorado.
UM, we do guided big game hunts. We do heel, deer,
bear, elk, mountain, lion, um, pretty much anything that
would walk these heels we hunt. And we also are a full working kettle
ranch. And this all started in two thousand and fourteen. Um. I've
been on this ground though, let's just get that in the air. I've
been here my life. I was born and raised on this ranch, and
there had never been anything until the first instance that I was aware of.
It was twenty fourteen. UM. I was. I had two elk hunt
clients at the time. I had two guides full time at then. UM.
We were overlooking some of the dark timber um and we had from our
position to the timber itself. We were sitting at some ol quake. He's
on a hillside looking down into the timber, and it was forty seven yards,
you know, from us to the timber, and we had a seventy
to ninety pound rock and it was thrown uphill from the dark timber and landed.
No. I mean, this is this, honest to God's truth.
He landed an inch and a half from a client. And this is not
your average client. This guy's hunted with me since two thousand and two.
Now we're talking twenty fourteen. This is his twelfth year hunting on this ranch,
and that rock would have literally killed the man had it a hitting.
I mean it was thrown forty seven yards and it came with some with some
velocity. I guess I had left a four and a half inch imprint in
the ground where I hit. Holy crap. Okay, go ahead. This
client's exact words to me were getting me the hell off this mountain and get
me the hell out of here. This is a pay hunter. These these
aren't free be hunts. These are these are pay hunts. And when a
man that has hunted the world over tells you to get you, you know,
get him the hill off this mountain, you know it's serious. Not
a word of anything had been spoken between us the ride down. Um,
I've got two outfit or shacks on this property that we guide out of,
you know. And upon arrival at the shack we were staying in, it's
it's more like cabins. I guess we call him outfit or shacks, but
they're little one bedroom cabins. Um. He turned to us and said,
this is not what I meant he said when I told you to get me
the hill off this mountain. I want off this mountain we ended up on
and that's day three of a seven day pay hunt, and we ended up
packing this man all the way out back to the ranch and at which point
drove him to the airport and the way he went. He's never been back
since. Man Um. Yeah, this is a paid hunter, you know.
And like I said, this was his twelve year hunting with us,
and I haven't heard a word from the man since. Now. I know.
I know you've got a lot more to tell, but I and I
hope you don't mind interrupting, but I've just got a couple of questions.
So you're born and raised on this property, and you know these woods,
you know, you know the wildlife, you know how to hunt them,
track them. I mean, you know everything you're saying that I thought was
here. Yeah, But all of a sudden in twenty fourteen just pops up.
Do you Is it too early to talk about that at this point or
were you going to get to that. I'm curious how all your do you
think these things have migrated in? Do you think it's bigfoot? I know
it is without a doubt in my minyn On and sill it. It's like
anything in life that you got to tell somebody about. Half of them laugh
at you, the other half think you're crazy. In you got a few
selects you, including yourself, that even think you are crazy. And but
no, I know exactly what it is. I've been here in my whole
life. There's been instances prior to this, but it was never anything like
what had occurred, and so I always shook them off as being you know
bs stories that my grandpa would tell us. I've never believed it right right
until I picked that rock up and I attempted to throw it down the hill,
and the rock landed less than twelve feet from where I chucked it.
You know, I'm I'm six foot four, two hundred and forty pounds.
I know I'm pretty good side his boy. I've packed elk out all the
time. Deer, you know, were pretty healthy guys up on this ranch.
And I couldn't chock that rock very far and it came up hill.
We watched it, We watched it come over the timber at us. I
mean, it was plain as daylight, right. And when you asked me,
do I know what's here? Absolutely I knew what I thought lived in
these woods. And I've never had a deer throw anything at me. I've
never had an elk throw anything at me. I've never seen a bear pick
a rock up and chuck it at somebody. Just something to do. So,
I mean, explanation fits itself, right. So that's two thousand and
fourteen, this is two thou this is two twenty. That's a lot of
you're a little concerned about all this, and uh so what's transpired since that
first elk hunter? Well, we got, like I said that, the
two cabins. Every year, Um, we close them down January thirty first,
empty am out. And these are these aren't you know, you're not
driving to these cabins. These are these are rough backwoods, full guided horseback
hunts. You're not you're driving to these places. These aren't the trout that
you'd see the BFR or any of these clowns on TV that are hunting big
foot, that are walking in there and then they walk up a single ridge
of linen, say oh there's oh, this is you know, from the
house itself at eighty two hundred feet to twelve thousand feet in altitude, we
got fourteen thousand foot peaks in the background here that we hunt, and it's
true back timber, you know, big country hunts. And so when I
say these cabins, these aren't you know, you're not getting in a car
and driving to this cabin. This is the west cabins a twelve and a
half mile ride in on horseback. The southwest cabin is fifteen and a half
miles, right. And so we when we're done for the season, you
know, with the guided hunts, we close them up and we'll come back
early in the spring and get them opened back up, make sure there's no
damage from winter trees falling, et cetera, et cetera. Just you know,
we spend a lot of time because, like I said that these hunts
are eighty percent of the revenue that this ranster sees. On a uarly basis,
the cattle markets so up and down anymore. I try not to focus
on cattle as heavy as we used to hear, you know, such as
my father and my grandfather's days. But so's you know, the guiding is
a pretty lucrative business. It keeps this ranch alive, it keeps four people
employed, and it keeps my girlfriend pretty happy, you know, during the
year and time. So we spend a lot of time taking care of this
property. It's not a fly by night kind operation. Right. Oh,
so you're you're you're a little concerned this is going to cut into your your
livelihood. Uh yeah, because as I stated that, the first actual like
I don't know what you'd call it an instance or don't I'm not quite sure
what you want to call it. The first warning. Perhaps we could call
that, I guess from a rocklestrodnis, I don't know. Yeah, Um,
it's progressively gotten worse. Um, we thought in two thousand and fifteen,
the spring of two thy fifteen, you know, we had twenty fourteen,
which is September first January, and then we go back up in the
spring. So now' in twenty fifteen we go up in the cabins or just
tour to health. I mean they are it looked like tornadoes hit them,
but we don't have tornadoes in Colorado right here, It's never been one.
Yeah, so we had supply. Now this is another time. It's a
costly adventure doing this because everything's got to be flown in. You know,
you can't carry four by each chet supply wood four by each cheats and the
insulation up in here on horseback, you just can't do it. And so
we had you know, a local pilot, helicopter pilot fly in a bunch
of supplies. We fix the cabins back up, and throughout the summer we
had many instances of doors being just knocked in, stuff being thrown around,
wood burning stoves thrown outside. I mean things that you know you're going to
scratch your head to it, because why would anybody be back here to begin
with? In this country? I mean, everything around me is private except
my lease, which you know is private too because I have the lease rights
to it. Right, So this isn't you know BLM within a mile of
us that somebody would be trespassing the nearest the nearest BLM you know, public
lands are eighteen miles I think to the west of us. So if it
is people doing it, you know what we were thinking, then then they
fight back in there quite a ways, and you know, why would they
do that just to tear stuff up? Yeah, just it makes no sense.
And so what we've done is we've we started, you know, summer
twenty fifteen, just kind of fixing things, and I got a wild idea
by Steve at how to hunt dot com about bear boards, and I said,
well, let's try it a bear board for those of you that aren't
familiar with the locket cabin up the winner in Alaska. You'll take two by
sixes and you'll drive three in screws, I mean hundreds up in these two
by sixes, and you just lay them around the property of access points to
your cabins where the bears noda, you know, carrying a door or tear
through a window or etc. And then get into these cabins. So we
did that and it didn't work. Let's put it lightly. What happened was
is the boards had gotten dug up and they were stuck into the side of
the sighting of the cabins like somebody thrilled it like a baseball bat. Like
the boards were used as a baseball bat and swung into the sides of the
cabin so hard at bury three in screws. I'm sure anybody out there they
were driven a screw knows how hard to drive a three and screw in the
summits, especially when there's hundreds of them on a board. And these boards
were swung into the sides of the cabin not a single screw had been stripped
like a drill had done it and had as many screws that were in the
boards. I guarantee, if you're if you're doing that on the screw,
you you better have packed in a hundred batteries with you. So that was
one of the weird things that we kind of noticed, Like, you know,
I just had to scratch in our heads as far as you know,
what the hell are we dealing with here? And so it got to the
point we just it's kind of common to expect now that we got to fix
the cabins all the time. So that's where we're at with that. And
then in two thousand and fifteen hunting season and old a round Plan one.
I'm going to get it too. Here we had we had some undred We
had some hunters up here. I had four of my husband, a wife,
and two kids, and they were on their first ailcount. It was
kind of neat, you know, to do a family hunt like that's pretty
fun, and so I took them. I took them personally, you know,
I didn't I had my other guides, you know, guiding them.
I think they were doing lion hunt at that time, and a bear hunt,
and then I took this family to help, and the son, the
youngest son, I don't I don't think I would probably named names, but
his name was Trevor. I just won't use their last name. But Trevor
killed a real nice flight by six bull elk, this stuff fifteen year old
boy. So during that he, you know, we got his bull,
and we got it quartered up and processed and all as far as field processing
would go. I caped the bull out for a mount and away we went
back back into the cabin and h we Yeah, I don't know how many
people are familiar with an elk, but they're a big animal, you know.
And when you got clients with kids and you're by yourself, you know,
the sacious death to dudes. Get your clients and their kids back to
camp, and you go back in and pack the reats back in. That's
what I had planned to do. And I went back in. I had
left the hind quarters of this elk and the red cage. I took the
front quarters. I took the cape and the head and the backstraps and tender
goings out as part of the first load back to camp. And I went
back and the hind quarters were gone, and I said, well, what
the heck you on? So I walked for probably a good three miles,
probably going in circles. There wasn't a drag mark anywhere. And if you've
ever kicked up an al quarter, you know, an al quarter, hinds
one hundred hundred and fifty pounds, you know on these were hid on the
on rush quarter, you know, laying they're ready to be finished, deep
boned and packed out. And I found it ironic that these had been carried
off. I mean two quarters, that's three hundred pounds of meat. Um,
they're on the drag mark. And that's what throwed me the most,
is on me. You know, if kayo, we don't have wolves m
up here at all. So on the on the base, I'm going to
say it could have been an outline. It could have been better harder than
kayos. Well, number one, there'd be drag marks because neither neither one
of the step for a bear is going to carry it off. When a
barrel carry a short distance and then a barrel you know, eat, it'll
carry it again. And then within usually of any kiel I've ever seen,
within one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards. The bear will burry it
right and they'll come back in the feed. And I've seen this thousands of
times. I mean, this isn't something I'm guessing that this is first hand
experience. I deal with it for, you know, years and years on
the ranch. I've seen thousands of bear keel mount lying keel. They're they're
all buried, and they're within a hundred yards of the kill site to begin
with. Generally speaking, sometimes you'll get them where they'll carry them a little
closer in. If they've got a Danner cub nearby, they'll they'll take it
in one hundred and fifty two hundred yards. But that's a very, very
exception to the case. Kayot's, on the other hand, they'll eat the
right where it's at there. You know, Kayote can rarely ever drag anything.
They're an opportunist. They're going to eat it right there on the spot
or what they can, and they'll come back until it's finished. These are
vanished. There wasn't nothing. There wasn't nothing. I mean there's and this
is hard rocky rocky trained or you know, so you're not going to get
tracks, but you would get drag barks. So later on in that week
that was kind of the end of that. Later on that week, Jeanette
it was her name, She took a big cow. Help that afternoon,
we feel dressed it, and then I had noticed a couple of bulls less
than probably four hundred yards from where we'd field dressed her cow, and the
husband was anxious to get on a bulls. So I said, let's leave
the cow, we'll come back. We're gonna knock on these bulls down.
We'll come back, get a boat back that of year. So I went
and radioed one of my guides to come up and help me out. And
you know, we already had one cow help down. I went ahead and
field dressed, and then we took off after these bulls, and we ended
up probably all a thousand to fifteen hundred yards later on these bulls, and
he took a nice sixth flight bull elk And so here I was processed and
you know, breaking down that bull and getting here ready for a you know,
for a mount bike. We uh skin them out and keep them,
you know, that way he can mount the animal. And then anything that
where I've removed hide, i'd take the meat immediately put it in game bag,
so it's not getting dirty, etc. And generally speaking, all either
rear quarters still hide on that way. When I come back, it's easy
to just hide him right there, break them down, and bring him out
of them. So about four in the afternoon, my guide gets back up
in there to us. You know, like I said, this isn't a
drive in location. It's it's it's a long way, and it's US country.
This isn't going to the zoo or you know, walking a nature trail.
This is serious backwoods country. And nah, he gets in there and
we get the US up. Bull broke down and back in and I said,
well, let's go get this cow out of here. Now, mind
you, all I had done was spiel dressed this cow, which is getting
it. Basically, I didn't break any corners down. I didn't nothing.
Just we get it or it's cold here, will come back and break it
down. And we get back and this elks thirteen foot in the tree.
Figure that one out, oh man, thirteen foot like wedged up in a
wine the trunk or something, or she was she was thirteen foot up in
a in a deep wedge of a cottonwood now or not. I'm sorry,
I'm an aspen right now. When I tell you she was wedged these aspen
had growed together, so one aspen had come kind of straight up and the
other one had growed across that aspen tree, which made a pretty big V
shaped wedge. And like I told you, it was thirteen foot. I
measured it. I knew exactly to the inch how I was. I mean
it was thirteen foot in here a full cow elk carcass man that is.
That is so. I know I sound like a novice at this, but
all of these strange things, these things lead behind just blows me away.
The things that they do with with you know, hunters kills and stuff they
kill. It's just unreal. So did you guys get up in there and
get that cow out of the tree or what did you do? We couldn't.
I mean a full born cow elk, you know, we're talking four
hundred pound animal. And the way she was wedged in there was like when
they was put in that wedge, it was pulled and then trees kind of
come apart a little bit to wedge it even tighter. So what we ended
up doing is we couldn't get her out and leave the trees. We ended
up cutting one of the asp and down and she fell to the ground and
we had noticed her legs. This is another weird kind of I don't know
why, and I don't claim to know why, but her legs were snapped
off at the knees, all four legs and tied almost like a damn backpack
strap would be wow, you know they were. They were literally pulled together
and tied like it carried it like a backpack if that makes sense to you.
How the legs had been broke and that gives them that, you know,
just that floppiness enough to tie the hide around each other and pulled tight.
I mean it was tied like a backpack. And we kind of looked
at each other and just scratched our heads like you know that, and I
think would have done now, this is can't be there. I've killed probably
myself thirty mile lines over the years up here, probably twenty five bear myself.
I've never seen nothing like this, right, And so we ended up
breaking that countdown and getting her back to camp, and you know, that
was pretty uneventful. The rest of the season twenty sixteen, same kind of
thing. Cabins just screwed with a little bit hunters messed with rocks throat at
us. Uh, let's see, let's get this twenty eighteen. Let's let
no, no, no, let's do twenty nineteen. Let's cut to the
real good stuff. You're twenty nineteen. My wife comes leus he's my girlfriend,
not my wife. Comes in the house and she has this look at
just disbelief on her face. This girl has lived up here with me for
three years now. And I said, what's wrong, honey, And she
says, we ain't got no chickens. Said what she said, The chickens
are gone. I said, what are you talking about? She said,
my goat's gone and the chickens are gone. So I throw my boots on.
You know, it's it's five o'clock in the morning. I don't up.
I just got off a haul and some kettle and she's telling me the
chickens are gone. So I'm thinking, all right, she left the door
open. The chickens got out last night, that's all I'm no. The
chicken coop was still locked, but it had been turned over on its side.
Something picked the chicken coop up and turned it over. Now this is
not let's make it clear This isn't a chicken coop that you go buy on
Amazon that holds thirty chickens. This is a two by six built fourteen by
I think it was eight fourteen by eight coop had been lifted up onto it
and flippover on inside and the chickens. Now, the gate gets socked at
night. Something or reached over the wire, the chicken wire, and pulled
them out of there. Figure that out, every one of them, fifty
five chickens were gone, No dead chickens lying around anything, just gone.
Not a single one of them dead nowhere. But the coop. It's like,
it's hard to even say stuff like this allowed to people because tell you
even think yourself you're crazy talking about it. You know. But the gate,
you know, the chicken coop gets locked at night because there are foxes
and coyotes up here. You know, we've never had a problem around the
house, but but we still take precautions because we're working ranch, and so
we locked the gate at night, and then the chicken coop gets closed up
and it gets a little lock on there. Now, the lock isn't locked
on the coop itself. At the gate, it is locked and the only
funny thing is is the coop just sits on the ground. You know,
you got your straw in there, you got your nesting boxes and then your
roosting areas and the coop. But it was pushed over and then the chicken
scraped from out of it. I know, sounds crazy. That's amazing.
A pigmy goat that I got her for. She's always wanted a goat,
I agree, don't ask she got this stupid goat. It was her little
pal bolder everywhere, bottle fed it from from the time I got it until
it would grow that this goat was like a stupid dog. You know,
it was literally a dog at this point. It wasn't even goat. Yeah,
but it lived in the chicken coop. Yeah, uh yeah, lived
in the chick It was gone. The goat was gone. Something took the
goat too, and fifty five chickens taking oh unreal, right up close to
your house. I mean this, it's a quarter mile behind the house,
right right. Did you guys let the chickens out in free range dare in
the day or just keep them cooped out? Absolutely? Absolutely okay, And
that's why we hence the reason we locked the gate. At night, right
right, because they would go back into the coop themselves in the evening,
you know, and and we just go up, shut the door, locked
the gate, and go inside. It was done for the day. So
there's there's how that happened. Um the goat, y'all never did find it.
Never found a stegn wanna chickens. And I've been all over these mountains,
but so we don't have any chickens just cruising round up here on the
hills, you know, like they're having the time of their life. So
did you replace the chickens? Yes? Any any other other trouble with your
new chickens? Yeah? Absolutely, we never have eggs. Man, I'm
having the same problem. But go ahead. We've got forty Rhode Island reds.
Well it's mixed. There's twenty Rhode Island red hens. We've got twenty
wine dots and out of forty chickens. Not what we would like to do
normally, which well, let's not weave this situation. Let's put it back
to where it belongs. What she likes to do is take the eggs to
town and she just dispenses them amongst who ever wants eggs. This is kind
of her little hobby. You know, they are these these damn chickens.
Yeah, and of course we eat them too, you know, but there's
no way we're eating forty eggs a day, right. But what's even funnier
about the whole situation is that, um, she will get to the point
that she would just it didn't matter who you are. If you want eggs,
here's eggs. Kind of dealing. And we went from these were now
mature birds starting to lay, you know, and you get your pullet eggs
for a little while, and we were leaving the pullet eggs, crumbling them
up and three feeding, and then they started to actually produce you know,
good sized brown eggs and stuff, and you know, pretty large eggs,
you know. So we stalked up on ours and then started giving them out
again. It just died. It just kind of one day. It was
like she went to get eggs, and low and behind there's like two eggs.
I mean, they're forty chickens two eggs. How does that work?
You know? But yet nothing was disturbed. I mean, well, you
know, I've seen a thousand skunks and my time come into a chicken coop
and and they'll eat, you know, some eggs, or they'll gnaw the
heads off a two chickens. And they're going right right, I'm talking thirty
plus eggs at the time, yall. A lot of times a raccono,
Yeah, a lot of times a racconal. They won't. If they can
get a chicken out, they'll take it with them. Apossum will eat a
chicken right there. But what's funny is is, uh, and I don't
know if y'all have opossums in Colorado, but anyway, and I'm not trying
to I never do this, and I forgive me, but I'm having the
same problem. And we've got thirty and we just got a mixture of americanas
and uh, sex lengths, wine dots, and they're just pets, you
know. And we we're down to about thirty. And they molted in the
fall and the egg production stopped. Now I'd to thirty chickens, we'd go
ten days and we wouldn't get a single egg. Now that's on. They're
a little they're a little older. These girls are a little bit older,
but uh, they're still laying age. And we've got some younger ones.
But we we went ten days without any eggs, and then we would have
one or two when we were getting you know, twenty to twenty four a
day out of thirty chickens, so exactly. And this is this is the
towards the end of January, and they've gone through the mold. They've got
good you know, plumage on them. Their book, they're beautiful, they're
our winners are nothing like yours here in Mississippi. But uh, and they
should be laying. We've got some sunny days and they should be laying.
But we're still not getting any eggs. And it's uh. And I've never
thought of this until you just said that to you, just talking about getting
eggs, but you're not getting them. Let's put it that way. They're
laying eggs. I mean, you're not gonna I've been around this my whole
life. And then then chickens. The chicken. The chicken does two things
that well three things. It scratches and eats, it boots, and it
lays eggs. That's all the chicken does. And out of thirty chickens,
you can expect no less than twenty eggs a day, right, but they're
laying. You just aren't first in lying for them eggs. And that's kind
of what our situation has been. And it's mind boggling because if it was
a predator coming in and doing this, like you're saying, if it's a
coon, a fox of kaya, what have you, what have you,
it's going to eat a few of the chickens. There's gonna be broke eggs
everywhere because they're not going to eat the shell. They break the egg open,
they get the yolk out of it. You know, they're any egg
and yolk, and then they're gone. You're always going to have, regardless
bits of postuma, coon, a fox, et cetera, et cetera,
you're always going to have something left behind from that predator coming in and doing
that. We don't have that. We just don't have eggs. I just
can't believe I've got the same I just I don't think I have the same
thing going on that you do. So or maybe it's just wishful thinking,
but I'm gonna keep I'll grow blackberries too. And last spring when we got
our first we got our first production of blackberries, I know we had I
know we had ten or fifteen gallons of blackberries on the vine ready to pick
I mean they turned black almost overnight. We got there to the next day
to make the first pick, and every BlackBerry on our vines and bushes are
gone. It's the weirdest thing. And they rebloomed again and we got a
pretty good harvest. But anyway, I'm sorry to enter jack stores. No,
no, I don't find it weird at all. I just find it
even more compelling evidence, you know. I mean it's right there in front
of us. See the deer come up, and the deer come up,
and they I take the I take the wildlife fencing down during you know,
around the first of deer hunting season here, and the doze will come in
and they'll munch on the branches. Well that's a good for them, because
they're pruning for me. And so yes, next year, on the on
the branches that are green, that were green the last year, there'll be
four or five shoots come off where the deer nipped them off. So I
let the deer munch on them. But when there, when there, when
there's berries on them, I've got wildlife netting. A deer won't come through
it. It's just they just won't do it. No, No, they
won't. What is what is getting in my I don't know. It just
blows me away. But let's let's drop that. So this your chicken problem
was in did you say twenty eighteen or nineteen? It started? It's still
going on today. I mean, we can't win flues with this chicken situation.
Um, it's just insane. Um. Here here's you know you reference
to your garden and your your blackberries and blueberry stuff like that. We put
in that. Well, I didn't personal way about it. I'm not a
gardener. I'm a rancher and a hunter. And my girlfriend put in a
great, big garden last year, I mean a big one. Um squashed
cucumbers, melons, cantaloupe melons, watermelon, corn, and then she did
about nine rows and chilis U Publo chilies to be specific, and Samanaheim chilis.
And she did about three rows of hall opinions. And we like our
chilies up here, you know, we like that spicy food. And um.
Our garden got rated about I think the second or third week of July.
Some had rated the garden, and I mean it stripped bear. I
mean it took all opinion. I mean it just the whole entire garden had
been gone through, and she come in the house and was just mattering a
hornet and somebody's been up here, you know. And I went out and
looked, and um, nobody had been in here. I mean, it's
kate poison obvious when you're you're looking at a nineteen inch footprint, bare footprint
in the ground. I kind of wiped my foot over this footprint. I
didn't want to notice in it. And there wasn't just one, there was
about twenty of walking through art so I kind of with my boot would just
kind of kick the soil around a little bit like I was looking trying to
track something, but I just didn't want her kitchen was so I mean,
it was obvious what had happened. But the funny thing was obviously they don't
like chilies or hall apenios, because about two days later and all that produce
that have been taken, the chilis and hall apenos were thrown at the house.
Oh man, a throne. I mean, they were literally scattered,
and you could see because we got a stucco house and you know, take
a chili and bounce it off some at these little green marks all over the
place. And we had green marks all the way downside of that house or
something had chucked all these chilies and hall opinios at the house. So evidently
they don't like hall opinios or chilies, and they were pissed at you.
Well, they brought them back, you know. I mean I was kind
of happy. I don't care about the watermelon and stuff. Just bring me
my chilies. And they returned them. But it wasn't It wasn't in a
fair manner. I don't think if they're going to take them from us,
bring them back nicely. But they were literally thrown across it. And that
was another thing. You know. I get up early in the morning,
I went and started the semi. I was gonna haul load the cows that
day, how to hear in my calves, as a matter of fact,
So I fired deal with semi up and I seen it and I said,
oh, hell, well, I had got the hose and I washed the
house down a little bit, kind of you know, I don't really want
her knowing what I'm expecting this is, you know, or up to this
point, because I just didn't want to scare and especially because there's a lot
of times I leave you know, I hauled our cattle all over the country.
We've got some summer grounding Kansas and Oklahoma both that we'll haul cattle to
bring them back in the winter, and they we'll haul our cats out to
say. Oh, so I'm on the truck quite a bit, and I
was always kind of just trying to I was afraid basically for her to know
what's what's going on, you know, And I know that's kind of selfish
of me to do so, but at the same time, I just,
you know, kind of just kind of cover your woman, you know what
I mean. Yeah, you don't want to. You don't want her worrying
about stuff that may not be a huge issue exactly, especially when I'm gone,
because up to that point, there hadn't been anything, as I would
say, attack wise that it happened. Now, let's fast forward to a
month and a half ago when I really got serious Um David polags and uh
with with Steve himself to reaching out for help because our house started coming under
attack quite a bit. Um. We'd be laying there at night and the
sides of the house was getting banged on, and I mean just things out
of the blue, um feeds getting stolen. We're losing like your oats and
stuff that you'd feed your horses. I mean, something's taking four hundred pounds
of feed sacks. You know, that's a lot of weight. Um.
I don't know of any animals that's gonna carry it off. I mean they're
gonna tear it open right there and get into them, like the coons or
you know, even you get your spring bear cubs. They're young, they'll
come into a barn and you know they'll they'll rummage through your your oats and
stuff like that for your horses. But they're not carrying bags off. Something
took the bags, you know. And M Steve Um kind of insinuated that
we should do that. They don't like certain light, and so we set
up triggering motion activated spotlights all over the place. I did. She thought
I was crazy. I said that it keeps the bears out. So I
started doing a lot of that. I put up trail cams everywhere, and
a real weird pattern started happening after that. The trailcams, we're never getting
video of anything. I think it's infrared, like everybody's trees that these things
know about. But my trailcams are being demolished. I mean on four hundred
and twelve pictures on thirteen trail cameras. Okay, mind you, four hundred
and twelve pictures of tree branches poking at them. Figure that out. They're
in the tree within one hundred and fifty yards of the barn and where we
store our feed, and there's no but tree branches are poking these cameras.
And eventually it led into the cameras are being demolish. I mean they're being
smashed to pieces. Lights are being the poles, the light poles that we
had put up are being pulled down to the ground, just NonStop weird stuff
like that. And I got real serious with mister Steve there at how to
Hunt dot Com. I got pretty serious for him with asking for some help.
And he's the one that put me in touch with Steve, and I
had to call him because it started into where these these turned out from occurrences
in the down right attacks. I mean, they were tearing stuff up.
I had a tree of probably eight inch diameter pine throwed through the windshield of
my pickup. Um my semi truck doors had been you know, I got
a twenty seventeen Peter built truck there quite expensive investment there, you know,
and it had taken and it looked like somebody had squarely punched the door,
but it punched it so hard at Kape a Dorian, you know, that's
twenty seven hundred dollars repair right there. Yeah. Um, rocks are being
thrown at the house to the extent that it's busting stuck, go off.
Um. It's gotten to the point it scared her so bad. The howl
and that's the other thing. And it's been happening a lot where the howls,
and they started earlier, earlier about September this year. It started more
like kind of I would damn, I don't know how to describe them if
but it's not really a hell, it's not really a call of any sports.
Are more like a damn grunt, you know. And and it start
out is a real powerful but muffled grunts. That makes sense. I mean
you can feel it. It just wasn't real loud. And it started as
those and there'd be you know, three or four different directions of these grunts
coming. And then it got to where things were occurring around here so frequently
that I kind of got fed up with it. And so as a guide,
I'll tell you a little background on where I'm at with it. Is
I hunt Africa every two years. I go, I go to Zimbabwe,
South Africa, and I hunt. I've got a four or fifty eight with
mag I've got a five hundred night to Express. I've got some real heavy
firepower that we'd use, you know, for hunting. The big five are
in Africa, because I'm pretty take buffalo hunt and I've killed seven of them.
Kind of my thing to do is I'd like to go Africa every other
year, stuff like that. So it got to the point where I loaded
that five hundred Cho Express and when I started hearing drums, I'd fire shots
in the direction of them, and and it get to where I think that
it's more a I don't know, a retaliation on my part. I guess
I'm just trying to tell them I'm sick of it, knock it off,
you know, and ways that I know how to handle it. And and
that's where Steve has been a big hilp um. Let me let me last
three or four months. Let me stop you. You said, David Pilates,
and this, uh, the man named Steve, does he have a
YouTube channel. I don't know. I don't do this whole YouTube thing very
often. Um. I talked to him directly all the time. I don't
do the YouTube. UM. Let me look real quick. Well that's okay,
because there's a guy up in British Columbia who's an outfitter like you.
Oh yeah, that's Stephen Howd hunt dot com. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely,
he's got a YouTube channel and everything. He's a he's a very seasoned,
very professional, big game guy. You know, we share a lot
of the same passion. You guys are living the dream. I've I've seen
a couple of his a couple of his videos, and he lives in a
beautiful place man. Yeah, I mean yeah, see, And and he's
the one that has put me in touch with plauties and with with the one
that's been a real big hill has been Scott Carpenter. Okay, I've worked
I've worked real close and directly with him throughout these last episodes because it's just
been it's gotten to where it's it's you know, it's coming down to it.
I mean, you're going to kill him or we're gonna find common ground.
Yeah, you know, I don't know how to sugarcoat that. But
this is my livelihood, this is my home, that's my lady. I've
got a child here. I mean, it's coming down to the point where
either we're going to find a way to co exist or I'm gonna kill them.
That's where bottom line is. And I know that's harsh and a lot
of your viewers are going to say, well, how dare you? But
until you're in this situation, don't dare me. You know what I mean,
don't question me, because there's time. That's why I say these aren't
your friends, you know, people that want to feed them and leave gifts
and this, and that you're bringing in something you have no idea about.
I'm telling you there's a whole lot more to this than we all know.
Than anybody have you had a visual three of them are okay? You want
to talk about that? Yeah I can. The latest was less than two
weeks ago. I just I brought a lot of the calves out of here
because we're starting to get the big, heavy snows and it's hard, you
know, this time of year, because we'd have to feed constantly. So
I took a load of the healing calves down to Oklahoma, I've got some
grass down there that we liked to run them on in the winter. And
I was late, of course, because we'd had a good hunting year.
It's been real busy, and I was late getting my kettleman. Didn't I
noticed a shadow. I was in the kitchen looking out at the barn.
One of the lights had triggered, and I noticed a very large shadow just
to the west of the barn there, and I ran out the front door,
and I had a rifle, and I was expecting it more or less
to be a bear, like you know, I kind of the way the
shadow had looked was like a bear was leaning up trying to figure out how
to get in the window of the barn. Well it wasn't. It was
crouched over looking in the window of the barn, trying to figure out how
to get in there, to get that feet. Because I have recently I
ran four or forty direct each of the door handles that at night I switch
on it. I spend kind of the only thing they've in our feed,
you know. And I've done a lot of a lot of prep work here
lately, thanks to Scott Carpenter and his great ideas. It's really started to
cut my feed dealing as again. But it has also made it to the
point that these things are they're they're turning into oh I guess for sake of
words, or they're little bastards about everything. I mean, if if they're
determined to tear it up and get in there, they're going to. And
I've reached some boarding points with it, so I grabbed their effl and I
went after it, and I was probably less than forty yards from it.
I fired a couple of shots. Now, when I say I fired a
couple of shots, let's get this straight. I did not shoot in any
unsafe direction, nor did I shoot directly at it. I fired shots into
the ground directly in front of me. So before anybody freaks out, I
wasn't trying to shoot a kah because I'm gonna call them hit because I don't
know what else to call them at this point. I don't know what they
are ye sasquats or big foot, but there's so much mystique involved in it.
I'm just gonna say it because it's easier. But um, I fired,
and I screamed at it, and was you know, get that hell
out of here. I'm sick and tired of this, and I fired some
shots and it ran off, But it made the most god awful hellen sound
I've ever heard, you know, more of a scream type hell as it
was leaving that I've ever heard my life. It chilled me to the bone.
But I haven't had anything happened since then. Maybe I don't remember.
I don't think there's any teaching, if that's any anyone's mindset that you can
teach these to come now and tell you can't there. I've heard so much
that of different they can teleport or they can shape ship, and I've never
seen nothing like that. To me, it's a living, breathing gods.
For sake of words, I really don't know what to call it. It.
It's a squatch. It's a living, breathing, eating animal. I
mean, if it lives, it for easy, it dies. And I
think they know that as well. Now do they have ways about them that
are that we would never expect? Sure, I'm sure they do, because
I don't know anything about these things, and I don't think anybody truly does.
I think all we know is what we've heard and what we can use
that we've heard versus experiences, and from that, I think we can come
away with certain ideas of what these things can do. Can they talk?
Yes, they can, and let's get to that. Here's an interesting subject
for you, if you want to talk about it. They've got a language.
They have a damn a language. It is not English. It is
not anything you've ever heard in your life. It is like listening to I
would describe it as a mix if I I don't want to. I don't
want to call nobody out, no race or ethnicity. But if you've ever
heard tribes speak in tongue, that's kind of what it reminds me of.
Ye, and I've heard it. My girlfriend called me the other night paranoid
as all hill. It was about how god I think. It was like
one thirty in the morning. She was crying, she was upset. I
said, what's wrong. She said, Hell, there's somebody out of here.
And we talked about She said, well, honey, I can hear
them talking. I hear them. There's two voices, and it's a man's
voice. I said, well, what are they saying? She says,
I can't make it out. It's nothing I've ever heard before. And that's
when I started really getting nervous. It's like, all right, something's got
to give. I'm not home, she is, They're not, you know.
And that's the other thing. And I think a lot of people realizing
they're not afraid to show themselves to women. And ninety eight percent of the
occurrences around here evolved around a woman period, right, And when Scott Carpenter
was talking to me about this, it really hit home because then I started
thinking, you know, every time we've had an instance or an occurrence I
guess you want to call it, is when I had recently just gotten home.
Now she had possibly been home for three or four days by herself at
this point. And I truly feel that women and children piqued their interest.
Yeah, for reasons why. Hell, I don't know. Like I said,
I'm no expert. Well that's but that's a that's a that's a real
common thread throughout history, you know, historical accounts. I'll bear that out,
but go ahead. But in all that night I told her, I
said, well, just open the front door and fire a few shots out
there, get rid of it, because I bought it. But I do
have the gun, and I'm gonna I'm gonna stay here and in the room
with the avien, and I said, well, I'll get home as soon
as I can. And so I put the old semi in gear, and
to the house I went. And that morning I went out looking. We'd
had fresh snow on the ground. Sure enough, there were tracks less than
forty feet from the house. Man. And when I say tracks, these
aren't these aren't human footprints. I mean, you get a human up here
and there's snowing ground, they're going to be walking and clothed feet, you
know. And these are barefoot prints, but they're big. I mean several
other footprints are not as big that you know, I could see maybe a
real, let's say, an eight foot tall human being perhaps to be running
around up here, because these are seventeen inch prints. But a set of
the other set of tracks that I had found were twenty one inches. I
don't know it down man, in the world with twenty one inch long foot
especially barefoot yea at eighty five nine hundred feet in altitude in the Colorado back
country, Come on, you live it? Yes, Okay, that's oh
man. Now my house from the highway, just the nearest the nearest pavement.
I'm thirteen and a half miles up their road. So you don't tell
me that some gigantic basketball player type feller walk thirteen and a half miles up
here to stand by the damn kitching window and talk. No exactly, No,
no, oh man, Well we were talking. We were talking before
we got started, and you were unless you have some more encounters you want
to share, got about ten minutes left. But you've got some opinions on
these things, and I think you and I agree. Now on my YouTube
channel, I never really give an opinion, but I'll tell you this.
I don't think they're interdimensional. I think they're flesh and blood animals and you
and I think for the most part, they have a for the most part,
they don't have good will towards people. Now, I know you've you've
said it in this interview, and I'm agreeing with There's gonna be people who
disagree with that. I think they're they think they're they got a little butterflies
on their shoulder and little birds in their hair and stuff like that. They
don't know them too, will do they? Well, they're they're a predator.
I mean they kill wild game. I mean, from all accounts,
they kill wild game. They just you. You've had an experience where they
put a cow elk twenty feet up in the tree. I ain't thirteen foot
unbelievable. Unbelievable. So you've got some opinions on these things, and you've
talked to some guys out there that know who have experienced these things. Uh,
will you talk about that a minute? And let I think people need
to hear it from a guy if you want to ask me that two of
the biggest authorities on the a Ka, big foot Sasquatch wouldn't want to call
it. I call them a paint in the ass because that's all they are
to me. But Number one Steven how to Hunt dot com. The man
is a wealth of knowledge about him and Steve himself coming from another lifelong guide,
professional big game guide. I've seen it. I've killed it. I
killed everything. I killed elephant, I've killed Kate Buffalo, I've killed brown
Bear, I've killed Griggs, I've killed my god. I've got a twenty
two hundred square foot game room in my house. I mean, when it
comes to it, I've done it. I'm anything but a novice when it
comes to wildlife and behaviors of wildlife such as Steve himself. And when the
man can look in the eyes and tell you what he's seen, you know,
a man of his caliber, you need to listen, I mean.
And then you got another man on the other side of the country for months
where you are, and in down there in the old neck of the woods.
Mister Carpenter, the man the wealth of knowledge. Some of his ideas
I do tend to disagree with a little bit, but I'm no one to
question him because he's got a lot more knowledge than I have. I do
not, for one second, though, believe these are any type of a
shape shifter. Absolutely not. I've ran after it, I've shot at it,
well, I've shot near it in an effort to ward it off,
and never once. Now and now, if that's an instance that it's a
shape shifter, why the hell didn't it do it? Right? Yeah?
If it's interdimensional, why didn't it jump back in some dimension and take off
away from me. I fired live rounds into the ground while running at the
thing, screaming at it. It was running away from me screaming. That
tells me right now that this is an animal that knows fear, This is
an animal that recognizes intent to harm because I had full intention had it turned
or wouldn't le I was going to shoot to Kiel to protect my place.
Period. This is my home. And so when it comes to that,
I truly I cannot wrap my head around it. Am I right by saying
that, no, do I have proof of otherwise? No? I do
not. So I'm not going to try to go against people with that kind
of knowledge and say that maybe these things do or don't because I don't know.
I only can tell you from my experiences. I don't I don't see
that. I see a living, breathing, bleeding animal. But let's get
away from the animal terminology. To me, this is more of a Neanderthal
type creature. I guess it's what I want to say. I mean,
if for you know, I'm no scientist, I'm no crypto leology. Just
I don't know what the hell the coat up. I call it what I
see it, And it's a big son of a gun and it runs upright
and it eats it, use it it lives. Am I knowledged enough to
go against some of the greatest minds in this field? And I'm going to
call these people my great minds in this field? Because these are not your
year BFRO type television people. These are true grit, down to earth,
good hearted, honest men and women that I'm going to take into consideration because
I don't judge a man by their knowledge. I judge them by their character.
And if I can trust you, I trust you. If I don't
trust you, you mean nothing to me. Right And I can honestly say
that if my life was in jeopardy, mister Steve himself how to Hunt dot
Com one of the greatest big game guys you're ever going to come across,
period, hands down the man of s and he's done it. M Scott
Carpenter. I trust him out of my life and I have trusted my life
with him. Let's not just say that. I'm just saying that I have
taken his ideology and applied it to things around here that we're happening. That
has truly brought easement on this. Yeah you've seen results. Yeah, I've
seen results. Now, this man didn't just dream this stuff up. I
mean things that he has had me doing. I'm not going to go into
details, because if people are having these issues and they need to reach out
for help, there's there's truly help available. But you have to go with
an open mind. Well, here's what I'll do. I'll I don't I
have a YouTube channel, but believe it or not, I don't watch too
much YouTube. I'll work. I'll work all day, but and then and
then, if I'm not working, i'm working on a video or I'm talking
to people like you, I just don't have time to sit and watch.
But I'll find their channels and I'll link them below. If they're popular on
YouTube, then people probably probably already know about them. There's also another you
were talking about killing one or or killing one if you had to, there's
absolute I will there's a channel in two guys in West Virginia, and they
apparently have I just found their channel. Somebody sent me a link to their
video. It's called Old bears Den of Bigfoot. These guys are in West
Virginia. In the first video, I pulled up the guys talking about he's
following up on some stories that he shared on his channel, and he's talking
about these people killing them so they can be killed. He's like, well,
this one that was, you know, trying to bang down his door,
trying to reach in the window. He wound. He finally wound up
killing the thing. And I don't know what people do with the carcasses after
they kill them, if they just take the front endloader and excavator and bury
them, or what they do and they don't report it for fear of ridicule
or whatever. But I can bring some light into that subject real quick.
That would put a lot of people's minds at ease. And I think if
somebody would listen truly to what I have to say as far as what happens
when you kill one, I think it's going to shed a lot of light
on these people that are being ridiculed that have said they have killed one,
came publicly with that information, and everybody braids them over where's the carcass?
Wears this? Where's that? I'm going to tell you right now, if
you see one, They're never alone. I'm telling you. Experience tells me
this first hand experience. These are never alone. When you are in that
fearful of the situation that you are taking the life, you're not going to
come out and stand above it and stare at it. You're going to leave
and you're going to collect your thoughts and you're going to come back. By
then they have collected that they're dead and they are gone. And I would
say, after you take the shot, you knock one down, you need
to keep your eyes open and get them off of that thing you just hit
and start watching your flanks that you know, a big part of this whole
topic of bigfoot is people using critical thinking skills in my opinion, and the
flesh and blood animal is just logical. It's it's a predator. It's just
logical thinking. And I know that's how you see it. And I and
with your with your experience and your run ins with these things, and they're
they're taking money. I mean, you just lost a ten year client over
over these things. So I mean, and and folks, these hunts are
not cheap. I mean these folks people who hunt these big game animals in
the high country in the West. Let me put it out there for people.
This this is these chopyol counts or twelve thousand, five hundred dollars right
for a fully guided seven day chopel counts twelve thousand, five hundred dollars,
you know, And this is a man that has hunted with me for ten
years. You do the math. People at twelve thousand, five hundred dollars
a hunt. This man spent one hundred thirty hundred forty thousand dollars over the
years, a hundred with me to never again willingly stepped foot on a mountaintop
in his life. This man has never picked a rifle up since. And
I know this for a fact. He has never stepped foot off of a
paved trail since its occurrence. Wow, was it just the rock, Mike?
Was it just the rock? That is? That? Is that all
he experienced? The rock and the sighting. I did not. Now let's
clear that I never saw it. I was focused on these elks that we're
looking in the direct and that rocket came at the time, I was unaware
of that. I did not know that they had seen something or were aware
of something until the rock hit and heil took off. I was focused on
judging the quality of these bulls. He had seen something never to be spoken
of. Ever, I can't get a word out of his mouth as too
far as what he saw. All He'll say, point blank, I will
never go in the woods again. I know what I saw. That's all
he'll tell you. He will not go into any detail. He will not
say a word otherwise. And I've tried since two thousand and fourteen to get
him to talk to me, to get him to come back up here and
hunt with me. I've offered him a free fully Guided mulebeer and calbo hunt
fully Guided. That's twenty two thousand dollars worth a hunt. He won't come
up here. He's probably a successful guy and an achiever, and he probably
doesn't want to very so he probably doesn't want his name associated with it.
And I can see that. I mean I could, I can see that.
I'm shameless. I don't mind talking about it, but but I've never
had an encounter, so I don't, you know, I don't, I
don't really. I mean, if somebody asked me, I'm just like,
I've never seen one. But I've heard a lot of stories, which you
know. And what kills me with this subject is you talk to somebody about
it and all you're making that up, and it's like you think, for
one second, I'm gonna cut the hand that feeds me, son, Are
you out of your mind? Right? I go public with this, I
stand to nothing, gain nothing but lose everything. This honey is eighty percent
of this ranch's money intake. Every year eight of our yearly income is honey,
And you think coming forward, I stand a game by that, Are
you kidding me? I don't advertise guided sessk wants viewings. I don't advertise
none of the sort because I know what that's going to do to me.
So I have everything to lose by coming forward. I have nothing to gain
by it. So anybody that mocks these people to come forward and tell their
stories, I'll be the first one to stand up and tell you to kiss
my ass and kiss their asses too, because I'm telling you, these people
gain nothing, nothing, no by telling their story. Which brings us full
circle to when we talked. Now, for everybody listening, I do these
interviews cold Mike started telling a little bit of his story before we started recording.
I said, hold on, I don't want to waste your time.
I just want you to tell at one time. But I can usually tell
on the front end if a guy knows what he's talking about. And but
the reason that you were willing to when I ask you to do a recorded
interview was you want people to know something about these things. Why don't you
or do you feel like you've been through that enough? Or do you want
to do. You want to kind of wind up and sell. What it
boils down to is if you want to step back into the nostalgia of this
whole thing for just a minute. Okay, missing four one one, let's
start there for just a second. I don't want to get case to case
by it, but let's start with this. Thousands of people disappear in national
parks across the US each year, each year, thousands of documented disappearance.
Is not a single trace some of these disappearances. And I'm not going to
say a little number. I'm not saying five or ten. I'm saying sixty
percent of these. If you want to do the research, people, it's
out there. Sixty percent of these are very experienced, very experienced hikers,
very very experienced backcountry hikers. These people know what they're doing, and they're
disappearing without a trace. These are people that have never had suicidal issues,
They've never had mental issues. These are very fit, very trained, very
knowledgeable people going back in these parts back country and disappearing. There's more to
this than meet the I. People need to be aware of what's out here.
And if you are one of those that now it doesn't exist, it
doesn't exist, fine, so be it. Have your opinion, but damn
it be versed in what could be there, because I'm telling you people,
they're there. And if you happen to cause paths And I'm not saying this
is what's happening in these four one cases, I'm not. But what I'm
saying is there's a damn good probability a lot of this can be tied to
this because what if you happen to step into a then sight and they've got
young and they God forbid, but they kill you to protect they're young.
I mean, I'm putting it out there simply all I'm doing. Be aware.
I mean, this is as real as you and I are bathing talk
well again, critical thinking and logic would tell you that it's not the natural
predators that roam at least you're part of the country. The biggest predator we
have down here's a cotton mouthed snake. We have coyotes. So but in
your part of the world, I mean, you have big man eating predator.
They will kill a man. They can kill a man, let's put
it that way. Yeah. Absolutely, I don't know that they do that
much. But um but when they do. Over the last few years,
we've had a lot of black bear fatalities. We've had many cougar attacks,
not so much fatalities, but attacks that there have been several fatalities in the
last ten years over black bear here. But what but when they do the
black bear we're talking about, Yeah, when a bear or or a mountain
line takes a human as prey, that half the carcasses, bones, a
skeletal structure or something is left. And we're recovering these, yes, but
on the recovery is one hundred percent so far. So the missing four one
one thing. These things that these people just vanish, they don't there's no
sign, there's nothing, nothing, And some of them show back up with
and I haven't read too many of them, but some of them show back
up with one shoe on two weeks later, or you know, there's all
kind of odd circumstances that goes around it. So and it is a mystery.
But I think logic, I think logic will kind of bring you back
to I'm not going to say it, but it brings it will bring you
back to something that I think people like you verify. That's my opinion,
and I think it verifies itself, and I think people are just closed minded
and they don't want to believe out of fear. I think fear drives people
more nathing goes as feared And I feel that if you have to go against
what you've been told in life, it be the fear inside you, and
that fear becomes an animate. You don't want to admit this. You don't
want to use that extra precaution when you take your family up into the wilderness
for the weekend. You don't want to think of that out of spear.
And I think instead of being fearful, you need to be knowledgeable and realize
there are things in this world we have no explanation to. Don't discredit it.
Keep it as a safety aspect in your life. Keep it, hold
onto it, and think about it when you're doing these kind of activities because
it could happen. It does thousands of times every year. You're the second
person I've talked to, and I feel what you're telling me. I feel
guilty because people ask me a lot. I don't know why they ask me.
But I'm out in the woods all the time. Even though I work
all day, I take breaks. I'll ride my bike out in these you
know, these hardwood forests. I just like being out and I'm always asking
are you carrying? Are you And I never carry I carried a pistol two
years ago through the winter because we had a pack of dogs around here,
and it wasn't to protect me, it was to keep them off my dogs.
And I never ran into them, but I knew they were there.
And you know, i'd see them across a lake, or i'd see them
running through a slough or or a bottom, and usually they're running away from
you, but they pack up. It's not like coyotes. These are domestic
dogs that just go curk and but when that which is ten times as dangerous
as any kyo pack or a wolf pack to begin with, Yeah, coyotes
won't mess kyodies don't mess with people. They avoid people at all costs.
They know, they know what they know, they know we're the top predator.
But and I tell people just going because I enjoy the woods so much.
I mean, every single day I'm out there alone and I just love
it. I love it. But our wilderness. I can walk a mile
to the north here and I'm gonna hit a road if I walk to the
east, I'm gonna hit a road in a half a mile. So it's
not like where you live. We live in very tame We live in a
very tame environment down here in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Florida. Maybe
it's a little different. I think they have some larger predators down there,
But where you are, it's a different story. And I don't know how
to juxtapose or you know what put on the balance scale to tell people to
please the outdoors is so much fun and it's so nice and it's good for
you and not to try not to think about. You know, there are
very very few cases of these sasquatch creatures. Matter of fact, I'm not
even sure I know of any where they're a how do you say it,
a verified case of one killing somebody because it's still considered acryptid but on too
cliche exactly. But on the other hand, it might be a little dangerous,
So I don't Maybe I should just refrain from giving advice. But I
can only speak from my experience, and I have never other than you know,
big fat cotton mouse. Where we live in delta areas, and it's
swampy, it's wet, it's full of big swollen cypress tree trunks and cypress
kneeze. It's so different than where you live that it's just that's my experience
and that's where I come from. But by the way, Colorado is probably
my favorite state. I remember when we my dad took us there camping when
we were kids, and we camped at a place called I think it's called
Lake View. It's a it's a reservoir there, just I think it's a
little north of Gunnison. Yes, it is um And I remember I was
man eight or nine years old and we had camped and we were trout fishing
in that reservoir. We're catching trout like crazy, and I had never never
caught trout before. And you know, just a Southern boy. And I
remember one it was it was dusk, just enough light over the mountain where
the sky was just you know misty blue, you know that blue at the
end of the day. Yeah, And here here comes these two cowboys on
horses. It was a Friday night, and I know they had just gotten
off work and they were riding full I mean, I don't know much about
horse riding, but they were riding full steam ahead on these horses in their
hats were blown back, and you know they had their they had their hats
tied down under their chins and just whipping those horses back. And I thought
that I will never forget that image. Those guys were having so much fun.
And everybody I've ever met that grew up in the rural areas of Colorado,
I've never met a person out there I didn't like. And you guys
have more you guys have more fun. And but you've got such a playground
there. It's awesome. I mean, it's just unbelievable. But that's just
a memory I had, and I wanted to let you know. And you're
one of them, Mike, You're one of the guys that I've talked to.
You're easy to talk to, your you've got a good head on your
shoulders. But you got a problem there, and I just wanted to tell
you. I appreciate you coming on and agreeing to do this because I think
it's important stuff. And we'd about an hour or fifteen. Now I can
probably edit out all my blabbering on chickens and cut it down to but I
hope you've got my number. I hope you'll stay in touch with me if
something else comes up, or if you ever want to do this again,
you are always welcome, absolutely, and I love to. I mean,
the more people are informed, better all they are. But let's touch on
that real quick. Where you said you never go armed, I never go
unarmed. Now, when I say unarmed, I'm not open carrying. I
don't believe in an open carry. I think it makes the fool of a
man to carry an open style like that. This isn't the old West.
I carry concealed for a reason because I don't want anybody to know that I'm
armed. Number one. Number two, I know that I am, and
that's all that matters, right, And I encourage anybody that's taken their children,
their families camping to take a firearm. Keep it concealed, but keep
it ready. You never know, and it's always better to have it and
not need it than need it and not have it. Simply put, it's
great advice, great advice. So any advice I've ever given people, well
one advice, I'm just telling you I don't. I don't carry when I'm
in the woods unless I know there's a pack of dogs out there or something
that I might have to get off my dogs. But Mike's giving you some
good advice and I would heat that. And if you're camping or hiking or
whatever, find a place to to, you know, slip that pistol in
your waistband or whatever. There are a thousand ways to carry and properly,
properly carry exactly, and so Carrie, just for self protection, that's a
good idea. Well, listen, I'm gonna wind this up. We get
past an hour and people quit listening, but I think I think people are
going to be really interested in this. And again, thanks again for coming
on, and guys, I appreciate your listen with me. Yeah, you're
welcome. Appreciate you listening this far. And we'll see you guys on the
next video.