Ep. 867: Jim Zumbo - An Outdoor Legend at 85
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What is discussed at the start of this section?
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This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast.
You can't predict anything. Brought to you by First Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds. No compromise gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T.com. L-I-T-E dot com. My God, are we lucky. We're joined today in the 85th year of his life. Very well lived. Veteran outdoor writer, biologist, and TV host Jim Zumbo.
Thank you, sir. Delighted to be here.
Multi-decade tenure at Outdoor Life Magazine to show Jim Zumbo Outdoors on the Outdoor Channel. Known for big game hunting, known for cooking. known for being a great guy, has written, by his own estimation, he tried to count this up one day, 2,500 magazine articles and 21 books. Jim, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I want to go back in time and talk about your career and how you came to do what you want to do, but I'm too dying to talk about something else first. Okay. So the first thing I want to talk about is an article you wrote and a man you talked to, and we were talking about this before we started recording, is I'm just going to refresh viewers on the story if they haven't heard it.
The last known grizzly bear in Colorado, the last documented grizzly bear in Colorado was killed by an archer in 79? Mm-hmm. In 1979. September of 79. Okay. It was an old female. The archer claimed that he was out hunting elk in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. The archer claimed that he was attacked by the grizzly, and he killed it. Now, for many years prior, no one had seen a grizzly at all in Colorado. They were hiding, just very few of them. Most people assumed they were gone. After that grizzly was killed, people launched a monstrous search That's not the right word. Monstrous.
Yeah. Humongous. That's good.
Yeah. A mondo search. That was good. All through the San Juans, trying to establish that there was a population there, never to find one. This story has a lot of twists and turns, and there's some controversial elements to it. But tell us about, until this morning, I didn't know that you spoke to that man in the hospital.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Tell the story. So I was, I'd drawn a desert sheep hunt in Utah, in southern Utah in 79. And hunted for a week and I was on my way home to get more gear. And I heard on the radio that this guy had killed a grizzly bear with a handheld arrow. And I was Western editor for Outdoor Life at the time. So I thought, holy smokes, what a story. So I called my boss in New York and I told him, he says, get that story. Forget your sheep hunt for now. So I drove to Alamos at Colorado, got a motel and visited him in the hospital and spent probably five days. The nurses kept kicking me out cause he was, he was hurt really bad. And so I was able to maybe spend 20 minutes or a half hour a day with him, but I got the story.
What were the injuries he had? Well, the bear had bitten through his left shoulder and it had bitten through his right leg, made hamburger out of it. And, uh, He just sustained all kinds of wounds around his body. He was hunting with a, he had a client, a farmer from Kansas, Mike, and they had split up. Ed was outfitting. He's a bow hunter, so he had his bow and the other guy had a bow and they split up. And all of a sudden, this bear came charging at him. And before he could do anything, was on top of him, knocked him over. Now, Ed's a big guy. He could be a linebacker for an NFL team.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is discussed at the start of this section?
0:00–7:11
2
What was Jim Zumbo's experience with the last known grizzly bear in Colorado?
7:11–40:12
3
How did Jim Zumbo's early interest in nature influence his career?
40:12–54:44
4
What is the story behind the world record whitetail?
54:44–55:48
5
What are the controversies surrounding the Hanson buck?
55:48–57:46
6
How does Jim Zumbo reflect on aging and its impact on outdoor activities?
57:46–58:54
7
What are Jim Zumbo's thoughts on his friendships and the people he misses?
58:54–1:45:24