#2426 - Cameron Hanes & Adam Greentree

What’s up, boys—good to see you both back in here.

We were staring at that mountain lion in the lobby like, what a beast. Adam, that’s the cat you took years ago, right? You sent me meat—it shocked me how good it was.

It’s incredible meat, kinda sits between venison and chicken to me. I barely cooked it and it was still tender.

But that cat wasn’t some random kill; it was tearing through livestock.

The dogs treed him, but before that we found a cow alive and being eaten from the back end. The rancher had to put the cow down right in front of us, and after that I was fully committed to taking that lion. It was a giant—felt like around one hundred seventy pounds.

Out there, only people stop suffering the way that rancher did. Animals don’t do mercy; they start eating as soon as they can.

Most folks never see that reality. At the same time you’re lining up for coffee, somewhere a lion is closing on zebras. Cam and I even watched a feral cat pin a mouse yesterday, and even that tiny moment reminded us how constant the predator–prey grind is.

Colorado manages lions with strict quotas and check-ins; in my unit the annual cap was thirty-five. Once it’s hit, the season shuts down.

That model funds wildlife work too. Without it, you get what Japan’s dealing with—brown bears hammering people and livestock, and the military stepping in.

I hunted Hokkaido for sika and only later learned massive brown bears were there. I stumbled on a deer carcass stomped into mud with dinner plate paw prints. The local cop showed me photos of a fatal bear attack; it was brutal.

Part of why Japan’s using soldiers is their hunter base aged out. The next generation isn’t replacing them, so the state fills the gap.

In California, even without sport hunting, authorities and depredation permits still take a lot of lions each year, and diet studies show a big share of Bay Area lions are living off dogs and cats. If you care about your pets, you have to manage lions.

Oregon allows tags but no dogs, which makes success rare, so a lot of depredation still happens. Utah went further—you need a hunting license, but no separate cougar tag; it’s year-round with check-in. Texas treats them more like coyotes.

British Columbia banned grizzly hunting and now they’re dealing with more attacks. City voters drive policy, but many don’t know the backcountry reality.

I’ve only seen two lions in the wild while hunting; they’re ghosts. One sat above my elk kill in a tree while we packed meat out under headlamps. It held its ground; that will wake you up fast.

Cam’s brother had the nightmare version—running at dusk in Southern California when a lion shadowed him.

I saw green eyes right off the trail, figured it was a coyote, and then a mountain lion stands up. I sprinted, turned to yell and throw rocks a few times, and it kept closing. I was ready to give up; it felt like it was on me. I finally ran flat-out toward town, hearing dogs in the distance, and it broke off. That was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through.

He’s out there constantly, which is why his story cuts through. People who never see this stuff vote on emotion, and they don’t think about monster control as compassion too.

Tool choice matters for ethical management. Dogs and bait sound harsh, but they let you select big males and avoid females with young. That’s better than random long shots and far less wasteful.

If you don’t allow the only effective methods for lions, you won’t control them. They see, hear, and smell you long before you ever know they’re there.

When Oregon lists a target of around nine hundred seventy lions and never reaches it, you know the population is swelling, and that pressure falls on deer and elk calves.

Derek Wolfe took heaps of online hate after taking a huge lion, but people forget how many deer a big cat kills yearly, especially where wolves push lions off kills and force more predation.

Australia has a shark problem now; bans on shark fishing drove numbers up, and they’ve learned to pick prized reef fish right off lines. Red emperor numbers tanked, and there’ve been several fatal attacks this year.

Most people live far from the wild, which is why modern life feels unreal to me—while the mountains feel like the real thing.

I can feel my mind settle every time I get back to quiet country. Then the city pulls me off center again, and I have to reset outdoors.

We’re wired for movement, stress, and purpose, not doomscrolling and cubicles. Exercise helps because it scratches part of that primal itch, but a deeper fix is reconnecting with the natural world and choosing voluntary struggle.

I don’t chase happy; I chase being useful and tested. Suffering means I’m doing something that matters to me.

You love the discomfort because you know the growth on the other side. People who never push only get drip-fed misery all day.

If you choose hard on purpose, the rest of the day is easier. Avoid it, and you get anxiety in tiny doses forever.

Hunting earned respect where I grew up, and respect is a huge driver for men. That’s why these mountain moments stick—they test character and commitment.

Your Oregon bull pack-out with Cal Halliday was that pure test. He rallied a crew in the dark, hiked miles in, and showed up at your bull by eight in the morning—those are the men you want at your side.

Eight of us hauled three hundred pounds of boned-out meat plus gear, and it was the best day of the season. Sitting under the stars with the meat hung and the tents up—there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

It’s the same raw joy a fighter gets after a knockout, but yours lingers longer because it’s tied to food, the land, and your crew, not a roar of a crowd that fades in days.

Perfection doesn’t exist in bowhunting, which is part of the magic—every encounter is open-ended and you have to solve the puzzle in real time.

I even shot a bull straight down from a cliff in Arizona—rangefinder said shoot for forty-two because of angle, but it was more like sixty in space. Hit just off the spine and the bull made a short run. I’d never even imagined that scenario before it happened.

Nothing beats a bugling bull closing on you; it’s like your skin turns electric. If you didn’t know elk make that sound, you’d think demons were in the timber.

On the sable, we crept painfully slow so it wouldn’t register motion, but the sun was burning my eyes. Cam tapped his arrow on a branch to nudge it up, it grunted like a brawler, stood, and I had to send it fast before the glare blinded my pin.

Calm animals die quicker and the meat eats better. If you hoop and holler over a wounded animal, adrenaline carries them farther. With a bow’s quiet, they often don’t even know what happened.

Between better training, recovery, and stuff like stem cells, I feel physically primed at fifty-eight, and I’ve got four decades of hunting wisdom to match it. That combo didn’t exist before.

Jelly Roll proves you can turn it around at any age. He went from five hundred-plus to running, lifting, and bowhunting, and he’s lit up about being here for his family.

He changed his body and his head. The self-talk, the habits, the hope—he’s a different man, and it’s contagious.

He used to call a walk a run just to set his mind right. That’s how you stack momentum—one win at a time on the right path.

Millions watched his story and thought, maybe I can do it too. The first steps are the hardest, but once you’re moving, momentum carries you and the days get brighter.

We all carry doubt, and that’s fine. It’s part of any puzzle worth solving—on the mountain and in life.

Intelligence isn’t just grades and titles; it’s how you manage stress, learn from chaos, and adapt, which is why bowhunting has a steep mental curve that rewards experience and pattern recognition.

Raising kids expands your range of intelligence too, because it forces compassion, responsibility, and real accountability you never learned in school.

Parenting taught me to be brutally honest about my own screwups so my kids see I’m not perfect and understand the why behind discipline and love.

I watched alcoholism up close and chose not to drink; a lot of people numb the stress of uncertainty, but that escape just compounds the problem.

The worst thing parents model is blame; making excuses poisons kids, while ownership creates resilience.

Many people never see true character in action, which is why someone like Jelly Roll hits—he crawled out of every trap and shows change is real, so pick a path and move.

Tree-stand hunting in deep cold is a mental marathon, and even with phones, heated gear, and better clothes, long sits still suck.

Modern fit and stabilized optics help, and image stabilization is huge for catching tiny movements, but wind and scent still betray you instantly.

Banning the Garmin rangefinding sight in some states misses the point; it doesn’t make it easy, it tightens ethics by giving exact distance at full draw.

I like ranging through binoculars for precision, but if that sight’s reliable at full draw it can reduce bad guesses; it still comes down to mind control under adrenaline.

A Leupold that shows peak arrow arc helped me thread a tight hole; tech that clarifies trajectory can prevent wounding, but you still have to adjust for branches and angles.

We went from finger tabs and early hinge releases to pins and crude rangefinders, then to faster bows and better sights, which flattened trajectories and raised effective accuracy.

Laser rangefinders changed the game, dialing sights sharpened long shots, and mapping apps made the backcountry accessible, but thermal optics go too far because they erase the art of glassing.

Laws vary by state; many allow thermals for predators, but a lot prohibit them for most game, and that line matters if we want to keep hunting honorable.

Trad bow shooting can be instinctive like throwing a rock, but most of us set tight yardage limits to stay ethical.

Extreme long‑range rifle shooting is its own craft, but copycats with bargain rifles and no reps create bad outcomes; practice and limits matter.

Every camp has its purists, from rifle to compound to trad to a spear, and the real constant is making clean, ethical shots.

The bow and arrow likely arose in multiple places, and seeing ancient stone points reminds you how far broadheads have come.

Lighted nocks look cool, but the extra weight and electronics at the string interface cost accuracy; I’ll trade visibility for the most precise arrow I can build.

We lagged in Australia and wasted time on the wrong gear, which is why mentors and shared knowledge save you years of trial and error.

My hypoxic training room at home let me work and shoot at simulated high altitude, and stepping outside at sea level felt amazing on the mountain.

That STPR fan bike crushes you in the best way, and with modern recovery, nutrition, and hormone knowledge, you can be in killer shape late in life.

People can sneer at peptides and stem cells, but I’ve never felt better, and FDA approval isn’t my gold standard given how much bad stuff gets through.

There’s peer‑review on BPC‑157 and strong evidence for stem cells, but regulators and companies protect profit, and we watched that dynamic play out through COVID messaging and walk‑backs.

They pushed mandates and now drip out side‑effect warnings, while safe tools that help you heal get smeared; it always tracks back to money and control.

All right, let’s end with lessons from this season—what did you learn?

Leg conditioning is everything for elk; you can’t have too much, and over‑practicing archery gave me a low‑back tendonitis that trigger‑point work fixed, so I’m training smarter and protecting a knee that stem cells helped.

Dialing in food, consistent training, and the hypoxic studio made climbs easier and hunts more enjoyable, and the mental lift was just as real as the physical one.

Fitness improves decisions when you’re tired, and I learned I love helping new hunters succeed because sharing this lifestyle gives me purpose.

This was awesome—great hanging with you guys; love you all, thanks for listening.