00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Neukman. This is a production of the bear Grease podcast called The bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. Well, welcome to the bear Grease Render Podcast. So for anybody that is new to this the bear Grease world, the Render podcast is where we talk about the bear Grease podcast. Bear Grease podcast is a documentary style podcast. Brent right, right, and so the Render is where we gather up an eclectic crew of usually just like gritty Americans that come in here, and we talked about last week's podcast. Man, I'm pumped about the eclectic group of people that we have here today. So I do my introductions. To my left, Brent Reeves looking sharp. 00:01:25 Speaker 2: Brother, always clean, socks good right one left. 00:01:29 Speaker 1: Good man, You're you're this country Life So Brent's the host of this country life podcast. We'll come back to that. To your left two brothers that you guys are like legends in my world. I mean, I'm not kidding I'm going to tell you why I understand it. I've got Andy and Aaron Stanful here today. Aaron was a storyteller on the Dear Stories podcast and he's going to have another story on the next podcast. But let me describe how I know these guys and then friend, Well, yeah, I went to prison in two thousand and three. I knew no. So I was one of my heroes and still is to this day. Is Scott Brown. Scott was like four years older than me, which is the perfect age to idolize somebody and to kind of be influenced by who they are. Scott went to the University of Arkansas. I get married, My first married home was in Faedville. I start working and Scott was from my hometown. Me and Scott start working together, which has worked the same place and so and by that time, Scott had knew you guys and was hunting with y'all, and he talked about you guys like y'all were just like the best hunters that ever lived. He did, and so I just I believed him back then, And no, no, no, do you remember remember one time Aaron, I rode in the truck with you and Scott to go hunting. See, I was just like a little pip squeak. It was just like, it's just like Brown, who's this guy? Why is he here? That's the way I felt around you. 00:03:16 Speaker 3: It seemed like a group of guys. We hunted all the time. Me, Lucas Scott. We went to the management area three days a week. So you've may have been on one of those trips. 00:03:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was, as I remember it, So you don't. But didn't you come to our camp one year? 00:03:31 Speaker 4: Well? 00:03:32 Speaker 1: Yeah I did, so that would have been after that, probably the same year. Okay, y'all camped in some public ground over here, and I went to the camp and it was all the guys. I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me go ahead and introduce the whole crew, so our our buddy here can jump in to Aaron's left. Is my dad, Gary the Believer? Nukem? How's it going to do? You hear your name come up in the podcast? 00:03:57 Speaker 5: Come down me and I love it. I'm getting all most of amous is old render man over there. Yeah you agreed with me too. Didn't you knew it was a black panther that stole? There's no question about that. I mean everybody knows that the rector cougar won't go up a tree. Yeah, of course, you gotta had to be in a black one like that. 00:04:18 Speaker 1: It's like that one right there. You see our black panther over there. Andy. That's nice. Yeah, that's that's a nice touch. So the Dad's left, Lucas Austin Luke, good to have you, man, Thank you. 00:04:28 Speaker 4: So. 00:04:29 Speaker 1: Luke was a storyteller too, he man, he had a home run on the last the last story on this first episode he did. It was fantastic, it really was, and I told it so so, Luke, Luke, I've known you most of my life, but we weren't our circles never they overlapped briefly because you're enough younger than me. 00:04:51 Speaker 6: And uh and then when you and Scott when you came to Fatteville, it was about the time I was leaving Fayetteville, right, And uh, I remembered you as a as a young pup, your dad bringing you the bow shoots, and I mean you was a youngster. And uh, I remember, so I've known you. When you said a long time, that's that's accurate. 00:05:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know where I remember your face most. Lucas was on uh, polaroid pictures at the bow shop for real. Oh killer, There's just some things you just remember. Yeah, I remember seeing, you know, this guy four or five years older than me that was killing deer and hogs and stuff. I feel like you killed. I feel like I remember there was a picture of you a hog. So anyway, just stuff you remember. But uh, no, I told I told Luke that for what a lot of times. For what I'm trying to do in a stories podcast, a sentimental story is a hard one to pull off, and I'm glad I didn't tell him. I'm glad I didn't coach him because I just trusted him that he would know how to handle a story. I often coach people not to tell sentimental stories because everybody's got one and they don't always translate. Do you understand what I'm saying. I mean, I'm not trying to be like mean or something, but like, everybody's got a story about whether kids first deer or this or that, and a lot of times it's super meaningful to you, but as far as entertainment value, it's hard to translate. He knocked it out of the park with this one, Like the I meant it, I meant it when I said, sitting there listening to you tell the story, I was like, take that gun away from that book. And then and then then Ryan gives him the gun and I'm like, oh, dang. I was a little upset. I was like, shoot, I didn't really want him to take it. And then he gets to beat and I'm like, yeah, he's about to shoot that buck and he's like nope, and I'm like, no, Luke, don't give it back to it. Back when I knew Luke, he'd have shot the two dos I ever got there. 00:07:03 Speaker 5: That's why I made this statement that I have not always been this way, because yeah, one, because when Aaron and I run around together, there was nothing safe with me. 00:07:15 Speaker 6: And the things have sure changed. They sure have a lot of things have changed. 00:07:22 Speaker 1: Well, now to go back, so, so, Lucas, Aaron, and Andy, y'all all knew each other real well for years and years. Aaron, tell me how you met Lucas. 00:07:39 Speaker 3: I was a sophomore or a junior, probably sophomore in college. Went to the University of Arkansas, and well about the first week I walked into a computer class. I don't even remember what the class was called, but Anyway, I walked in there and I was lost and just just trying to find somebody. It looked like me, you know, to sit by. And I saw no we sitting over the High Country Archery shirt on. 00:08:03 Speaker 1: And. 00:08:05 Speaker 4: That's a mark right there, and I'm. 00:08:07 Speaker 3: Gonna go sit by him. And anyway, we become best friends immediately. 00:08:16 Speaker 1: Mm we we did? 00:08:19 Speaker 4: That? Was it? When? 00:08:21 Speaker 1: After that? So in our deer camp the next fall? Yes? Yeah, Now that brings up an interesting name, high Country. When you told that story to me the other day, what the high Country used to be? This is a little bit of a rabbit trail. But dad will Dad was a big high country man. Back in the day. High Country was the top of the line bow in the nineteen nineties. It was. It was hard to beat. It was fast, good looking, it was. It was I'd like to do a marketing a marketing inquiry and a business like to understand what happened because they could. They were so big. The name was so good, the bows were so good. And today I think they're actually still in business. I think the name, I think they're still in business, but they're like not a major player. Unfortunately. It'd be interesting to find out what happened. 00:09:18 Speaker 5: You know, I would bet I would bet they bought an airplane. 00:09:23 Speaker 1: What do you mean a lot of companies? You tell me what you mean? Well, uh, it's kind of a dealing. 00:09:32 Speaker 5: If you get your you know, you first time you really get in a big buck, you want an airplane, and sometimes you buy it about ten years. 00:09:39 Speaker 1: Too early, Mike dropped moment from the old banker bought an airplane. What kind of high countries did you have? 00:09:49 Speaker 5: Oh? 00:09:50 Speaker 1: I had ex caliber, Yeah. 00:09:53 Speaker 5: Yeah, I had several, and I blew a lot of up. 00:10:00 Speaker 4: You know. 00:10:01 Speaker 5: They I got one shooting three hundred and forty feet per second back when guys were shooting two twenty, you know. And I mean you just won a big archery tournament with it because I could shoot out to forty yards pretty flat. I mean you put it at forty yards and just come up two inches and wacko, and uh. 00:10:23 Speaker 1: I you know, it was pretty amazing. 00:10:25 Speaker 5: Took it home and I thought, I'm going to go to this really big shoot down in South Arkansas. 00:10:31 Speaker 1: With a bunch of fannies. 00:10:33 Speaker 5: And I pulled my bowl back in the backyard and both limbs just folded up. And I never went to another tournament until you know, Louie Dell got me to go to a tournament one year out of his house, and so I just quitch tournaments after that. 00:10:52 Speaker 2: There was a bow shopping Warren, and this was probably been man, it was rarely. It was late eighties, maybe ninety at the most, and they had a seventy pound high Country in there, and I knew the guy that run the bow shop and he said, Man, you gotta shoot this thing, he said, So, I said what you said on He said, seventy pounds, that's all. Yeah, I can pull that back. I was worried I wasn't gonna have children for a long time. That was the hardest. That thing was stout, buddy. I mean you had bows back then. A seventy pound bow pulling back today and one back thirty years ago. I guess that's been thirty years in it. It's a big difference. 00:11:33 Speaker 4: So it was. 00:11:33 Speaker 2: I remember that was my first introduction to the high Country. Was that was a man's bow. Yeah, man, I didn't get one. 00:11:42 Speaker 1: Er, Andy, when did you start bow hunting? 00:11:46 Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety five? I believe so I was fifteen and nine year. 00:11:53 Speaker 1: How much younger Aaron's older brother. I think there's three and a half years between us. 00:11:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, so I just wasn't strong enough to shoot a compound bow until you know, ninety five. Really, I shot a crossbow there for a couple of years, and uh started bowl hunting ninety five and that was the first year that I hadn't even killed a deer before then at all, and hunted a lot. And I think in the podcast last week, Aaron you mentioned, you know, how hard it was to even kill a deer with a bow back then. Uh, you know, I don't know if it was just a lack of experience or what it was, but we it wasn't. I mean, I was hunting hard out there and just you know, wasn't seeing the number of deer. And anyway, that first year that I started bow hunting, ninety five, I killed my limit. 00:12:37 Speaker 1: I limited out that very first year. And uh so, yeah, ninety five, yep, ninety five. Dad brought up an interesting name there that came upon the podcast Louis Delle Louis. If you if you've listened to the Beargrease podcasts, you know who Louisdale and Charlie Edwards are. I actually went back and listened to all three of those episodes from early in the Bear Grease world on Loue Dale and Charlie. Because on this episode lou Deale and Charlie came up. You probably knew them pretty good, didn't you lose? 00:13:11 Speaker 6: Yeah this, you know, coming from a dog hunting family, you know, there were just certain areas of dog men, you know, and you knew not to go that way with your dogs because that Edwards, you know, that was their territory. We had our territory, and uh, you know, and back then everybody had a pen full of dogs. And of course my family was similar to what Travis Ross said. They running his dad, Jean, and my dad and uncle and all them running the same circles. 00:13:44 Speaker 4: You know. 00:13:44 Speaker 6: Okay, so your dad fox and wolf hunting was the main thing, and uh, and then they just ran ran deer. When season opened, it wasn't that they had specific deer dogs. They just had running dogs that would run a deer. 00:13:59 Speaker 1: You told me how many many dogs your dad and uncle had at one time. 00:14:02 Speaker 6: Between my dad, my uncle, and my grandpa, it was not uncommon for us to have fifty hounds. And when I say fifty hounds, I'm talking fifty walker running dogs, not tree They were specific to running kyotes and fox and deer. And uh so I grew up in that still hunting was not in my family, so I kind of broke the mold with still hunting. You know, in my my dad's generation, there were no deer, kind of like Andy Brown talking about his dad, Barney, who I knew as a young man. He was a character, let me tell you. And if you were offended by language, you would get offended quickly with it in his presence. 00:14:54 Speaker 4: But he was. 00:14:54 Speaker 6: He was a good man. Loved them July hounds, and Andy even mentioned, you know, his dad casting them July as well. I come from a family of folks. 00:15:05 Speaker 1: That hated julyes. 00:15:07 Speaker 5: Oh really, yeah, my, if it wasn't a walker, it wasn't worth having now. 00:15:12 Speaker 1: But a July as a walker? 00:15:14 Speaker 6: Not in my world? 00:15:16 Speaker 1: Okay, uh not in my world. They weren't. But they looked there were. They were a tricolored white, black and brown dog. Did they would they have looked any different? 00:15:25 Speaker 6: They were built built basically the same, but there was you could tell looking at them if it was a walker, if his July. 00:15:32 Speaker 1: What would a July would be? 00:15:34 Speaker 5: Sleeker, thinner, not necessarily, uh maybe, but more they're coloring. 00:15:40 Speaker 6: They'd be more of a yellowish color. 00:15:43 Speaker 4: Uh, then have a lot of white on them. 00:15:44 Speaker 6: You said, really they were they were really they were not black white ten They were kind of yellow yellow black tan. 00:15:52 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:15:53 Speaker 6: Uh, but it is always fun to listen to them old timers, you know, fuss the July men, very wi is the Walker men. I mean, it was a dividing line. It was just like OU and OSU. If you're if you're a Sooner fan, if you're a Cowboy fan, you know, you could get in to fight quick. 00:16:11 Speaker 1: Now. Travis said something that I would have qualified, but I kind of just let it go. He said his dad was a fox and wolf hunter. Yes, sir, which we all know and he knows it too, that there hadn't been wolves around here for one hundred years, right, or probably one hundred and thirty years, but. 00:16:33 Speaker 6: That was what everybody referred to as you know, I guess back in the original days of whenever it was one hundred and thirty years ago or whatever long ago it was, we did have wolves and uh. But when you hear somebody talking about fox and wolf dogs, that's what they're talking about. 00:16:49 Speaker 4: Coyotes. 00:16:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of just a given. I knew he was talking about running kyotes. Yep, and he did too. 00:16:56 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:16:56 Speaker 1: Fox and Wolf Hunter. 00:16:57 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:16:58 Speaker 6: If you're seeing the associations around the state still to this day, they don't say fox and Coat, it's Fox and Wolf Foxner associations. Yeah, huh, at least the ones I'm familiar with. 00:17:11 Speaker 1: Dad. Did you know Barney Brown and his dad? I did not. He dies in the mid nineties. Maybe, Yeah, we're pretty young. We're Scott and I were. There's about a year difference to Scott and I. 00:17:23 Speaker 4: He was. 00:17:25 Speaker 6: Probably ten or so when his when his grandpa passed. 00:17:29 Speaker 4: Uh. 00:17:31 Speaker 6: He loved his hounds, probably more I mean I and you you've probably heard Andy say this very thing that the dogs ate before the family did. I mean, he cared for his dogs and because they put meat on the table, you know, it was it's kind of a net. 00:17:46 Speaker 1: It was a tool. Yeah. And uh, does your family, any of your family still run dogs? They do not. 00:17:53 Speaker 6: Most of My family's gone. My uncle still living, but in poor health. And he was the he was the sure enough dog man of and who was that. Uh, everybody's gonna know him as as dude Austin. His his handle, his CB handle is the watchmaker. 00:18:12 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:18:16 Speaker 6: He he worked at Thomas Jewelry and had his own jewelry store for years, and he his trade was working on watches. 00:18:22 Speaker 4: Okay, okay? 00:18:24 Speaker 1: Is it? Are you a little bit sad that that's gone? 00:18:27 Speaker 6: I am because some of my greatest memories of my my previous generations, my father, my grandfather, my uncle, and all those guys that a lot of them have passed on our memories that I was that were made with dogs, and and it was a totally different kind of hunting. And I know, for for folks that have never done it, it might have been you know, it might have been controversial. It was never controversial. 00:18:58 Speaker 4: For me. 00:18:58 Speaker 6: I understood, Yeah, you know, I understood the game because I saw the love and respect that my family had for their hounds and the feeling two different, two totally different feelings that you get from running dogs to steal hunting running dogs an adrenaline rush, like like I can't explain, you know, And there ain't no deer management with that. You're not you're not being very select You're not being very selective, you know, as I've heard my uncle say plenty of times. You know, you just you just build a fence of bullets and hope they run into it. And but most of them guys did it not for not for killing anything. They want to hear good race. Yeah, And so having a good dog was was better than money and because you could sit. 00:19:56 Speaker 1: Around and talk about it. A good dog for. 00:19:58 Speaker 6: Generations and he's gone, you know. And some of the finest men I ever knew, the best storytellers. 00:20:06 Speaker 5: I ever knew, we were dog hunters. They could tell a story. And it's kind of an art to telling a good story. And not everybody is home their craft. 00:20:15 Speaker 6: I'm afraid I want to get off on a wild goose chase here, But I'm afraid our younger generations are losing that because of social media and texting and the lack of communication. But I'm gonna tell you something, telling a story to me will last outlast most things, because people are gonna remember a story that they heard, you know, just like all of us in here right now, I could tell so many stories that we'd be here a week. And I'm not sure that a younger person could could duplicate that, because I don't know that they've soaked it all in or know how to articulate what they've seen, what they've experienced. Extremely thankful to have been exposed to people that could tell stories, have some stories of my own, and and so very important. 00:21:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, did y'all have any exposure to dog hunting, Aaron Andy, Very little, but we did have some. So listen. In Arkansas, there's like basically four regions of Arkansas. There's the Ozarks, there's the Washitalls, which is a southern mountainous region, It's the Gulf Coastal Plain, and there's the Delta. It's not really four quadrants, but it's like that. In the mountains. Well, I mean fifty years ago, you could have run dogs anywhere in the whole state, and that would have been common throughout the southern United States. Running deer with dogs was the way that deer were hunted. And then gradually just things changed and dog hunting in the Delta it was less practical there because of lots of private land. But in the Ozarks. I heard I heard this from someone who knows the story that in the nineties there was a commissioner of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission that lived in the Ozarks. That just wanted dog hunting gone, and that was his agenda on his seven year term as a Game and Fish officer was to eliminate dog hunting in the Ozarks, and he did that. 00:22:31 Speaker 3: I was going to say, I think one reason we weren't exposed as much as we hunted public land. Yeah, and I think just prior to when we really got to hunting, they'd banned hunting with dogs on public land. 00:22:42 Speaker 1: There's the early nineties. 00:22:44 Speaker 3: You know, lots of times we'd be hunting, we could hear dogs that were joining the management area on private and lots of times they'd run deer to us or you know, be honest with you, I remember trying to sit close to those fence lines. 00:22:57 Speaker 1: Well there was one year. I don't know who pulled the strings. 00:23:01 Speaker 3: I don't know if it was a dad or who it was God uscendo that joining property and so we could I don't know how many. There were several hundred acres, So I mean we we got in there and we did. That was my first chance or first opportunity to run dogs, and man, I remember it was. 00:23:19 Speaker 1: It was awesome. It was it was excite. I killed two deer. 00:23:24 Speaker 4: And I killed a Bobcat. 00:23:26 Speaker 3: So when we when we left Kid, when we left camp, I had never been exposed to that. So when we left camp, Dad looked at me and he said, you know, we're after meat. 00:23:35 Speaker 1: I mean, we we need meat. You know, world, we are camped. We don't have any meat. And uh, if you see a deer, you you pulled the trigger. And uh so here come them dogs. I could hear them and and uh man, I was excited, and uh, you know, of course, just like they told me, here we're two dogs out out in front of the of the dogs, and I had a level action thirty thirty open sites and then they were there were two does and which I don't know back then, I don't know what the laws were. But anyway, so these two does were out in front of these dogs and it was probably one hundred and fifty hundred and seventy five yards away up the haller and made the two best shots I've ever made in my life. The first one dropped and second one I miss and of course I know levered another one in there and I missed a second time. And third shot I got that next one, but man, it was awesome. I mean, we were all excited and I was, I was hoping to holler and had a great time doing that. I'd like to have got to do that more. Yeah, yeah, you know, to me, it's a lot, it's a lot bigger issue than just can you do it in one spot or not. When you look across the big traditions of hunting in North America, there's really not a lot of places where you can still run dogs. And I said on the podcast, I grew up as a bow hunter in an area where they could run dogs, and I killed a few deer in front of dogs unt with the cunning Hams, some good friends of mine, and uh, and I loved it. But it's you know, we didn't have deer dogs. That's not the way we hunted. Dad was a bow hunter. But now I am adamant. I mean, just I'll debate anybody in the world Brent Reeves on the the just the importance, the cultural importance of keeping some of this stuff alive. I mean, and yeah, and if you live in some area where they're running dogs and you don't want to have dogs, and I you know, I could talk about the pros and cons, and the cons would be dogs don't understand private property, lines and they just don't and the deer's going to run somewhere and the dog's gonna follow it. And man, the way that that was handled in the decades past, when people knew their neighbors, they they understood kind of what people were doing. Is they just they just kind of tolerated when things when a dog came across, or when it was just kind of a known thing. And and it worked. That a system that worked. And then as the world has changed, which it has, a lot people are moving into these rural areas. I mean in the seventies, eighties and nineties where we all grew up, there wasn't a lot of people quote unquote yeah outside, Yeah, there was no reason to go there. Today, a lot of people buying recreational property in rural America everywhere, coming from different places, and and so it's a lot more of a society that is it doesn't know each other, that's and so there's there's there was a system that worked, and it's much harder now. And and even back then when I was a kid, I remember people that hated the dog runners for sure, and uh, and in my mind, it's like for what we're for what we're up against culturally. I love it. I love it, and I love that there's still there's still a lot of dog running going on. A lot of families are still are still doing it, and even even some younger generation to people that are still running dogs and whatnot. 00:27:03 Speaker 6: Yeah, but it's not it's not extinct. In some of the counties that you have a lot of national forest in Scott Montgomery Polk, still still a lot of dog hunters. 00:27:18 Speaker 4: You know. 00:27:18 Speaker 6: And I miss it just because you know, it was a it was something that generations of my family did and uh and still have you know, the connection to the memories that were made doing all those things, and and you know, I could probably reel off ninety percent of the dogs that my uncle and my dad owned. I could still I could describe them to you, tell them to tell you their names and all those things. 00:27:47 Speaker 4: And uh uh. 00:27:49 Speaker 6: It was the night before modern gun Deer season in my family was was better than Christmas Eve gather at my grandparents' house. And my grandpa was a War two veteran, hardest working man I ever knew, ever will know. He had no hobbies zero, but other than he liked to go deer hunting. And carried a shot gun buckshot. He'd shoot the whirl down. 00:28:23 Speaker 1: He shot. 00:28:23 Speaker 6: I guess he shot at every dear everything and didn't kill a lot. You know, he's kind of like, you know, kind of like Barney Brown. My grandpa was born. It was either in nineteen sixteen or nineteen seventeen, and one time, my grandpa was not one to throw a lot of kudos your way, a lot of compliments. 00:28:45 Speaker 1: He was a real tough guy. 00:28:48 Speaker 6: But I skinned a deer one day in front of him, and he said, you know what you're doing right there, And that was maybe one of the first and only compliments I ever got for my grandfather and got all that. 00:29:00 Speaker 1: It meant the world to me. 00:29:01 Speaker 6: You know that I had a skill that my grandpa thought was pretty neat. But I think that year, I think in that one season, I killed more deer in one season my grandpa did in his entire life. And my grandpa lived to be eighty three years old, so he was in that generation of where there were no deer at all. You know, I can remember a story. I can't remember who told this story, but I know it was true because I heard it from more than one person that somebody had not made it to church that Sunday morning, and on the wherever they were at to send it deer across the road, and they drove to the church house, kicked open the door, and announced to the congregation in the middle of the sermon, I just seen it deer across the road. And everybody filtered out of the church house, went to the house, gathered the dogs, and the race commenced. And to the best of my knowledge, this occurred in July. 00:30:02 Speaker 1: It was. 00:30:03 Speaker 6: It was not even a hint of deer. Season, you know, season didn't Season did not matter. They've seen it, Dear, They're gonna they're gonna do their best try to collect it. 00:30:12 Speaker 1: So, Brent, of the stories you heard, which one stood out to you? So there was seven seven stories on this episode. 00:30:22 Speaker 2: Well, they were all good. 00:30:24 Speaker 1: Uh. I figured you'd probably like mine the best. 00:30:28 Speaker 4: Did you tell one? 00:30:31 Speaker 1: Probably the apple story? M hmm was great, Craig. 00:30:35 Speaker 4: It was. 00:30:36 Speaker 2: It was, absolutely it was wonderful. And while I was listening to it, I could I could see he told the story very well, and I could say when he dropped that apple, when apple started rolling, I thought, Oh, I know where this is going. 00:30:50 Speaker 1: Man, Oh, did you think he was gonna call it, dear. 00:30:52 Speaker 4: I did. 00:30:52 Speaker 2: I did, I really did. I thought this is going to be good, and it fell out. It went that way because I was reminded of a story a friend of mine told me twenty years ago when when the snort weeze craze just started coming out, he said, no. 00:31:09 Speaker 7: Deer never did that before. Two thousand and one, exactly before. But he said, he said, I bought one of these things. He said, I climbed up on my deer stand. He said, I was sitting there, he said, I when I first sat down on that stand, he said, I pulled it out of my pocket. He said, I didn't know which end of this thing to blow. He said, I just went and blowed it like that. He said, I looked at it the next thing I know. I mean it was a good deer. It's a one hundred and forty inch deer come crashing through and he shot him at the bottom of his stand, just from that one little blow thing, you know that he did, he said, And he wasn't even close to what it sounded like, he said, but I heard it coming. So they reminded me of that story that I had. 00:31:50 Speaker 1: You know, some unexpected calling in a deer exactly. Yeah. 00:31:54 Speaker 2: And I killed a turkey one time in Missouri, crossing the fence, and I was a lot closer to that turkey than I thought. When I put my hand on that barb war it screeched in the in the staple, it went in the turkey golf. I said that by the fence posting. Ten seconds later, the turkey poked his head up over a heel and I killed him. 00:32:16 Speaker 4: So I know what that guy was dealing with. 00:32:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, so identified you know this, this episode came together and I had I had more. I've got twice as many stories as what it's been told on this first one, and I I cherry picked kind of entitled at the Unexpected, because every story there was something unexpected that happened, from Dale's Apple to Aaron Peen out of a tree calling one in, to uh to uh most Shepherd's mysterious deer in the tree, to Andy Brown's dad hitting one with a truck. 00:32:57 Speaker 3: Me. 00:32:57 Speaker 1: I threw mine in just because I could my me, my daughter down below me, which was just different. 00:33:04 Speaker 4: That's the best story you have ever. You said that, I loved it. 00:33:09 Speaker 1: You know what I did. I told that story to Aaron. I learned a trick a lot of times. If I'm telling a story I recorded in here by myself and he was here at the office. Aaron came here at the office to tell me a story, and I said, hey, let me tell you a story, and it was it was easier. It's easier to like kind of. I feel like you could do a part two, three, four through thirty on deer stories and they would all be fantastic episodes, you know. Yeah, really well, I'm gonna make at least one more and maybe even two more. And uh, you know, I could have done one on big Bucks. I probably will at some point. It's not nearest fun well, it might it would be. It could be, though. I mean to hear everybody's like biggest Buck story. Might do one on the deer that got away. You know, Dad tells a story on the next one of a big one that got away. It was a great story. I want to go back though, to Dale Cragg and the Apple. When Dale Craig told me that story, he I told him afterwards, I said, that's one of the best stories that I've ever heard told on this podcast. I thought that just just the way, just the way it happened. That's the kind of story I like. But Dale Craig is the kind of guy that I don't. I can't say that he's never listened to a podcast, but it would not surprise me in the least if you just if he said, Claire, I've never listened to a podcast in my life. I mean, you know Dale Craig Dad, You know him, Uh, he's he's a rural cattleman, cowboy, ferrier. And I went to his house and this first time I've been to his house. I kind of just have known him most of my life and I went to school with his boys, but they were just kind of people I knew and always had a lot of respect for. And so I finally went to his house and I said, man, I'd love to see some of your deer. And he was like, yeah, I got a few out here. And I mean people like me have him hanging on the wall like right here, you know, and if I meet you, I'm like, hey, you want to see my deer? Dale was like, yeah, yeah, I got a few. And we went out to a storage building and he had some racks in there and he pulled them out and set them in the grass, and I mean they were just all just it was five or six, you know, one forty to one fifty inch deer. And I was just like, oh man, wow, this and he's telling me the stories. You know, this one came from here, and this one came from here. Some of the places he could see from his house. He looking miles away into the mountains from his house. He'd say that deer came from over there. And then he's like, come out here for a minute. And we walk into his barn and these deer weren't up. I envisioned, like just deer all over this barn. He had barrels full of racks that he probably hadn't looked at in fifteen years that he starts pulling out, and I mean like deer that would be mounted on my wall. I mean, like one hundred and thirty five one hundred and fifty inch deer just on the skull. 00:36:19 Speaker 4: He just just admit something to him, wouldn't he as well? 00:36:23 Speaker 1: It reminded me of again, I'm kind of reminiscent on the Louisdale and Charlie episodes, but the final episode of the louis Dale and Charlie series, I asked Stony Edwards. I said, do you have a bunch of the racks of the deer that your dad killed? And he was like no. And I was like, what do you mean you don't have any deer horns or your dad's and he said they didn't keep them. I was just like what and he said, he said, Clay, he said, when we'd have deer camp, he said that week of deer camp, whoever killed the biggest deer was a big deal, was as big a deal as anything in the world. And we'd have those racks setting over there, and he said when we started packing up deer camp, Dad would have to tell some kid, Hey, if you want to take those horns home, you can. I mean, it just didn't mean anything to him, and these horns meant something to Dale. But my point is this guy is a big buck killer, I mean a big buck killer, and you know he's not advertising it to the world. He's not. I just went to him and cherry picked some of his stories. But those are the kind of guys I like to have on the Bear Grease podcast, Guys like Luke and Aaron and Andy that hadn't been on many podcasts. Well, he's a good storyteller. He did a great job of that. 00:37:43 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:37:44 Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm gonna tell you something. He is he is one of the hardest working human beings that's ever lived. And probably it'd be hard to it'd be hard to argue this probably one of the most successful cattle ranchers. 00:38:01 Speaker 1: Around. 00:38:02 Speaker 6: And he is a working dude, and he has he has raised some hard working deer killing machines too, and his daughter is one of them. She's killed some thumpers. But he's he's taught all his kids, Yeah, to live life, live a life like him, hard working ex you know, good hunters. So yeah, Dale, could they could sit around and tell you stories till the cows came home? 00:38:31 Speaker 4: Literally? 00:38:32 Speaker 1: M h Yeah, that was a good one. Andy, which which of the stories did you like? Man? 00:38:39 Speaker 3: I remember listening to the episode, I thought, man, this is you know, I'm going to talk about this one. I mean, every every one of these guys, you know, had had something that really struck home with me. You know, I just went through the roller coaster emotions throughout the whole episode. I felt like, uh, you know, some of them are funny. Eron's and Andy's were hilarious, you know, and Uh. 00:39:00 Speaker 1: Were you surprised when Annie's dad ran that deer over? 00:39:04 Speaker 3: Unbelievable? You know, to back over the thing again. Was just putting the icing on the cake for me. But you know, back then, like he said, you know, it was you know, there wasn't all that very many deer. So when you've seen, when you finally seen a deer, you did what you had to do to put meat on the table. So that's just where we come from. And I really appreciate that that episode or that and telling that story, but uh, no for me, you know, Luke yours really. I mean, I just want to give you a big old bear hug when you finish, you know, man, because I can relate with that. 00:39:38 Speaker 1: I mean, I have a six year old boy and I'm getting in you know. 00:39:42 Speaker 3: Uh, he's finally getting into it, you know, and he's really wanting to be out there. And and this is our first year, opening day of weekend, opening weekend of both seasons, our first time get out there. And you know, every year previously, I've been shooting my bowl a lot, you know, in the summer and getting ready and doing it all for me. But it's not about me right now. It's I just want to get him going. So I related to you, you know so much. It's a huge sacrifice for you to let you know, him pull the trigger on it. And uh yeah, I was basically just about in tears at the end of your at the end of yours, like I said, I just want to give you a big bear hug. 00:40:19 Speaker 1: Yeah I had. I had a lot of feedback on yours, Luke. A lot of people really said that was a neat story. It was you did a really good job. Luke appreciate it. Yeah, Aaron, which one stood out to you? And you can't say Luke's, now, okay, Luke's. You could say mine, you want. If mine stood out to you, that's fine. I'd like to hear about it. But we've given Luke all credit he needs. I mean, this is his like second podcast, so I don't want him to like start thinking. 00:40:44 Speaker 6: Hey man, you know, man, I'm too busy to be a podcaster or so. 00:40:51 Speaker 3: I liked all of them. I did, I liked I didn't have a favorite. I did like the fact that Andy Brown said he said, if we'd have met a car, we'd just run over him. 00:40:59 Speaker 1: Yeah a minute, Yeah, you know, yeah, man, stories like Andy I'm cutting you off to be your turn just a minute. To me, when I hear a good storyteller, it's always some obscure thing they say that isn't relevant, you know, Is it highly relevant that you never forget? 00:41:18 Speaker 4: Yeah? 00:41:19 Speaker 1: Yeah, and Andy said, we were coming down through there and we're going so fast we to just run over somebody. If we'd have seen him, you kind of you just like he would have met a car. We'd run over them. 00:41:29 Speaker 2: We did just run over them. Yeah, it's like kids and cussing. You can be talked about anything and say one cuss word and that's what the kid's gonna go back in the house. How do you know that, Brent, I'm just saying I saw it on TV. 00:41:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, But I likeed Andy's honesty with his with his dad. Yeah. I enjoyed that. 00:41:48 Speaker 3: I enjoyed the history of his dad and what that meant, you know, to his dad. Killing a deer was a big deal Feather family. It was part of the sport too. But I mean, none of that deer went to waste. It would be totally unethical today, you know, to do something like that, But back then it was. 00:42:05 Speaker 1: A different time. Yeah, I had enjoyed that. I really did. I had to talk Andy into telling that story. So Scott told me, he said, man, you ought to get my dad to tell about Barnie Brown in that particular story. And I had texted Andy and he he didn't respond back immediately, and he called me and he said, Clay, if I tell that story, they're going to run us out of town or you know, something like that. And I said, I said, I said, I hear what you're saying. And I said, I don't want you to tell if you don't want to, I said, for real, But I said, I think we can give the context in such a way that it'll be it'll actually be really powerful because that's where we came from, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. And I felt like it the he did such a good job of telling the context, the history of his dad, I mean, his dad going to prison and you know, just the hard times, what it meant for them to kill a deer. I mean, just it was perfect. I loved it. I loved it. I did too break it in Abner Store. 00:43:16 Speaker 4: I wish. 00:43:17 Speaker 5: Yeah, a lot of listeners might not know what he was talking about, right, I mean, it's lumb and Abner. I mean they were the star Hollywood people and probably what the twenties or so. 00:43:27 Speaker 1: So the Dick, I'm glad you said that. So the Dick, the Dick Huddleson store in pine Ridge, Arkansas was the basically the home office of lum and Abner, which was a national radio program that ran for twenty three years in America. And these two basically these guys we talked about them on our Arkansas podcast, we did, but Lumon Abner were the face of the American hillbilly for twenty three years when radio was the biggest thing. I mean, they were national celebrities like you would have recognized the President of the United States and Lomon Abner and and uh. And they were based out of pine Ridge, Arkansas, down there where we were at. And so the Dick Huddleston Store was the Dick Huddleston Lumon Abner store. 00:44:13 Speaker 6: The down store is still there today, it's. 00:44:18 Speaker 5: Now you put a post of that store, yeah, a couple of months ago. 00:44:22 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:44:24 Speaker 5: So Barney, he he knew how to pickle man. 00:44:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, do I get the little grocery store down here? The Lumon Abner stores yeah, well, I thought it was interesting that they turned he turned himself in, he went and told his uncle. You know, boy, I'd like to hear how that story went, you know, yeah, what happened there. But uh no, that was probably I'm kind of like, I'm kind of like, well, a couple of you have said all of them. All the stories were really meaningful. Andy's was probably was my favorite, just because it's so unique. He's just so gifted as a storyteller. Yeah, it's yes, he's one of the best storyteller. Yeah. 00:45:10 Speaker 6: Yeah, And I've obviously I've known Andy my entire life, spent a lot of time hunting with him, worked with him for almost eleven years. And uh that guy can tell a story like nobody else. And you you can see the same thing. You be standing right next to him, see the same thing, and he tells that story, and you're sitting there the man that is a At times you'll be like, no, wait a minute, was I was I there? You know he's got a little more les. Yeah, yeah, and uh oh, yeah, Scott's got some of the same. Yes, Scott can tell he can tell a good story, but uh Andy can sit around and tell you countless countless stories about his dad, about all his wild youth and and all the hunting trips he's been on. And he's I know, he won't be offended to be telling this, but he is literally a calamity just waiting to happen. And you know he's he's notorist for dropping stuff out of the tree stand. In fact, he dropped He dropped his light out of his tree standing two days ago, you know, and it's shining up in the tree. 00:46:20 Speaker 1: Right at him. Crawl down and get it. Yeah, he crawled down, got it. 00:46:25 Speaker 6: But uh uh, you know he's he come by it honest. His dad, Barney was a storyteller. Uh Barney was Uh, he was full of it. I mean he could he could put a little icing on the cake and uh uh but anyway, that. 00:46:43 Speaker 1: Well, it's it's to me, it's uh, it's a unique intersection with somebody with a high level of competency and a high level of ability to tell a story come together, because anybody could. I mean, you could go to school and learn how to tell the story, or you know, I mean, storytelling is a big deal in the world. Really, when you look at just even television, I mean, everything is a story. But when you have somebody like Andy who's a veteran hunter and is a is a what I would say, I mean, I would one say. I mean, he's a bonafide woodsman for the woods. He hunts, he knows what's going on, and so when when those two things meet, it's it's pretty unique. Yeah, yeah, that which one stood out to you? No question? 00:47:36 Speaker 5: They were all pretty boring. And now I tell you what, I did you remember that story? 00:47:46 Speaker 6: No? 00:47:46 Speaker 4: I did not. 00:47:47 Speaker 1: It's not one I've really thought. I don't even know. 00:47:51 Speaker 5: I didn't probably didn't even know what happened, but uh, you know that it was pretty neat in that you accomplished a lot that you you you you held up your duties as a father, and you twisted it to where you could deer hunt. 00:48:09 Speaker 1: I think we've all done that one way or the other. But probably you know. I'm like you, guys. 00:48:14 Speaker 5: Every story was just unbelievable, but I would go with most Shepherd. 00:48:21 Speaker 1: Really, I mean, you find your deer up in a tree. Yeah. And you know another thing I liked about it. 00:48:26 Speaker 5: You know, I'm out of that age where I don't know how to corn hunt, I don't know how to put a camera on the side of a tree. I just go out and hunt deer, and that's what he was doing. He was out there just hunting deer the old fashioned way, and he killed that buck and a mountain lion pulled it up in that tree. I just almost one hundred percent sure or a black panther. It could have been a black panther. 00:48:50 Speaker 1: That was That was part of Mo's story that if you were paying attention, you would have caught something. He said they were deer in that area in the fall, and he hadn't even been in there scouting, but he knew when the ice came that those deer were going to be in those old home places with the greenbrier above the ice. That's good woodsman. Yeah, he knew. He didn't even have to go scout. He's just like, there'll be deer there. 00:49:15 Speaker 5: He wasn't hunting a pinch point or a trail. I mean, he was hunting where they were going to eat. 00:49:20 Speaker 1: And I can relate to that. So yep. 00:49:22 Speaker 3: Anyway, that was a significant ice storm that year. I told you the story that the day. I remember, well, I told you the story the other day of that same ice storm. Yes, yeah, yeah, they were starving. 00:49:33 Speaker 1: It was bad. 00:49:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, they had trails in that ice. That's the only place they could walk. If they got off those cutout trails, they were slipping and sliding everywhere. 00:49:43 Speaker 1: What do y'all think happened to his deer? I mean, there's there's debate you could debate, and it would just be speculation of did a animal drag his deer from that pool of blood? Because I mean a question I would have had for it is like, wouldn't you have seen drag marks through the ice, like if an like if the deer had been laying there and something carried it off, But the ice was so hard that they weren't. It wasn't like snow. So But there is not a beast in these woods that carries like a jaguar or a leopard carries stuff up in trees to eat. I mean even a mountain lion doesn't do that. A bear doesn't do that. Oh you were serious when you said they don't do that? Yeah? I thought you were. Could they? Well, well, black panther will no. I mean, I'm I'm saying some animal acted outside of its norm. 00:50:50 Speaker 5: What do y'all think? Anybody have any Hey? I got I got the answer. I know what happened. I mean, I know black panthers, and I know I know mountain lions. That mountain lion caught that deer right where the big block of blood was, and he knew if he drug it off, every animal in the woods would follow that trail. So he ate quite a bit of it, cleaned the blood up was real neat, drug it off, drug it up. 00:51:18 Speaker 1: In that tree, and he was probably a black panther. 00:51:21 Speaker 5: But I don't know that that could be crazy, but I just know it could be the deer. 00:51:27 Speaker 1: We all almost every deer I've had the track, I don't like tracking them. They're going to do that. 00:51:34 Speaker 5: They're gonna run, They're gonna lay down, they're gonna bleed, they're gonna jump, and then the blood gets real thin. So the deer probably laid down, something scared it, it jumped ran off, and then the mountain lion came in drugge good. 00:51:52 Speaker 4: That's the good. 00:51:53 Speaker 1: Maybe it jumped it and then it killed it somewhere else. Yeah. The other part of the story was that it was real steel deep country and Moe went downhill looking for that deer. He kind of made an emphasis that he was he didn't go uphill, but that deer was two benches up. Yeah, but what do you think, Well, the bobcat do that? I mean no, but bobcat won't do that. I mean they don't. It's not typical for and I mean I'm not a bobcat. Well, I am a bobcat expert. I mean, look at me. They're not a leopard or African a jaguar. Leopard will take kills up in a tree. I mean typically, I don't think a Bobcat's gonna do that. I don't think. 00:52:38 Speaker 2: They're big enough. Yeah, not as big as that deer was. I thought maybe, and I listened to it. I had to back up. I thought, well, he shot the deer and it jumped off that bench and letting a tree. But it was up above where he shot him. 00:52:53 Speaker 4: Correct. 00:52:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I went back and I thought that, mo, I got your answer. I'm fished to call you up. And I thought, wait a minute, maybe it was above And so I went back to listen to it again, and yeah, it was above where he shot it. So the only other thing other than something dragging it up in that tree is it makes the loop and jumps. 00:53:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, I bed if Moe was here. I bet he'd tell you that that physically wouldn't be possibve. I mean, I I'm just. 00:53:23 Speaker 4: Having the picture how he's describing it, you know. 00:53:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I found a deadhead one time, about fifteen feet up in a tree. I have no idea how I got up there. It was tangled in like small small branches. Deerhead, Yeah, deerhead weapon a tree. 00:53:39 Speaker 3: We've got a lot of bald eagles, you know. The deer may ran off. The deer may ran off and died the moment I found it. It may have rotted down the ground and buzzards, coons, everything might have chewed it up for days, and then an old bald eagle may come in there and grabbed it or I don't know, I mean and put up in a tree. 00:53:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, a melanistic bald eagle. There you go. 00:54:04 Speaker 5: What do you got, Dad? You're right, I didn't know this. Mountain lions do not carry prey up trees. So there you go. I've been wrong my whole life. 00:54:15 Speaker 1: I didn't say black pans, right. But here's the thing is that they're in all animals. There's a typical way in which they're going to act, and would a mountain line be capable of carrying a deer up a tree? And and the thing that's not up for the bait is that something carried that up a tree and it wasn't a human. I mean it's like a human didn't do it, an animal did it. So something did it that was here. 00:54:42 Speaker 4: And then it was. 00:54:44 Speaker 1: Pretty compelling to hear him say three years later he saw a mountain lion. And you know, for those of you guys that don't know Mo, in my mind, Moe is like highly credible in terms of any way I evaluate someone in the woods. I mean like he's he's a real deal, like a lot of these guys that I'm talking about. And so I mean he tells me he sees him out in line. I believe him, And so interesting story. 00:55:11 Speaker 3: Yeah, when you spend as many hours in the woods as a guy like him, yeah, you're gonna have a story like that. I mean, everything happens to you, you know. 00:55:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a great Have you ever seen him out in line? 00:55:22 Speaker 4: No? But he has. 00:55:23 Speaker 1: Have you you have seen one in Kansas? 00:55:26 Speaker 4: Oh? 00:55:26 Speaker 1: I have absolutely? You forgot I did. I wouldn't. Well, I was thinking around here. 00:55:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, twelve thirty in the afternoon, eighty degrees middle of Kansas, wide open cattle pasture both sides of the road. Andy and I are driving down the dirt road and a cat jumps the road. I don't know if he landed once or twice, but he jumped a fence, jumps the fence, hits the road, jumps again over the fence, and just goes right out across a pasture. 00:55:56 Speaker 1: And was gone. 00:55:57 Speaker 3: Middle of the day. And there was no question what it was. Mm hm yeah, probably two thousand and ten, just guessing. Really, yeah, sure enough. 00:56:07 Speaker 1: Big can in Arkansas, you think, Andy. 00:56:09 Speaker 3: So, my cousin Jared and I were bow hunting around Eureka Springs and two the guy that owned the local bow. 00:56:18 Speaker 1: Shop whatever his name, I can't remember. 00:56:20 Speaker 3: We still got the bow shop over on Beaver Dam. Anyway, he had pictures of some cattle that had some claw marks on the hands of the cattle, and so anyway, going knowing that we uh we got permission to bow hunt on him and uh yeah. So we we were just sitting there bow hunting and a a doe come running through the field out of the woods, just really you know, running running hard. 00:56:48 Speaker 1: We thought, what in the world you know? And this it wasn't all that far away. 00:56:53 Speaker 3: And I wish Jared was here too to confirm the story, but because it seems like you always need to people to confirm it. 00:56:58 Speaker 1: But yeah, we're not. I know it sure enough. You know, here comes a big cat and it was it was right as a pasture. So you saw it playing his day. 00:57:08 Speaker 3: Blain's day, running over after this dough up over the hill and that was that. So as we sat there, Jared he always had a predator call in his pocket, and he thought it'd be funny or smart to try to call this thing in. He started, you know, on this call that like, what in the world are you doing? I was trying to get the heck out of there. 00:57:28 Speaker 4: That's the last with Jared. 00:57:30 Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't come back, didn't come back, didn't come back. Well interesting, I've never seen I've never seen one in Arkansas, seen seeing them in different parts of the world. But uh, Luke, which story stood out to you? 00:57:46 Speaker 6: Well, uh, just like the rest of you guys, they all stood out to me. The dog hunting connection with Travis. I enjoyed it because talking about transitioning from being a lifer dog hunter, going all the way to the mountains to try this new method of hunting with Dale and to end up right back in the dog race. Because I've been in this, I've been in several situations exactly like that. You know, I'm off, you know, in the nineties and the early two thousands, trying to trying to still hunt. You're hear in the distance, you hear that dog open, and immediately you start looking to man the battle station because you know, golly, I'm sitting in the right spot right here, and a lot of times here they come. 00:58:42 Speaker 1: Everything changes when you hear a dog too, Guarantee it does. 00:58:46 Speaker 5: Yeah, if you're carrying a lever gun, the hammers getting caught getting snapped off your shoulder and your gun trying to get all comfortable, and because when it happens, it's like that, and you you're shooting skills and all those things out the window. 00:59:03 Speaker 6: They go and and you just sling as much ammunition towards them as you can. 00:59:10 Speaker 1: Mm hmmm mm hmm. Well, Isaac, what was your favorite story? Being out of the tree gave Isaac validation. 00:59:26 Speaker 4: I've heard relief, didn't it. 00:59:28 Speaker 1: I heard that story. I've heard that story for for years, and that was the first time I heard it straight from you. You're pretty sure you damaged your bladder, huh. 00:59:40 Speaker 3: I spent a lot of hours in a tree stand. I mean I used to hunt a lot, and I didn't know any better. You know, I'd hold it and I remember holding this bad that I would just get to hurting, and uh, I don't do that anymore, but. 00:59:56 Speaker 1: I carry a bottle now. I don't know where it does. 00:59:58 Speaker 3: But uh, yeah, I think I damaged my bladder as a kid just holding it because I just knew that if I was in the bathroom, the deer would smell me and then I wouldn't get to kill a deer, you know. But that particular day that all worked out, that all worked out, that was that was I'll never forget that. And they come in just like you had a breadcrumbs to the woods. 01:00:20 Speaker 1: You know. 01:00:21 Speaker 3: The part that he didn't tell was he calls me and he says, hey, I've shot some deer, you know. So I it was getting dark and I drove up there and he's sitting there on the side of the road, sitting on top of his climbing tree stand. It's blaring you know, where's your deer at He gets up, picks up his climbing tree stand and both of those deer underneath that time. 01:00:43 Speaker 1: That's to tell that party. That's my favorite part of this story. I mean you it was a big deal. Lots of my life I to this day. Probably if I wasn't after a big buck man, a Yearland deer comes by. Oh the idea that you wouldn't shoot at Yearland is beyond me. There was no chance I to pass them up. I mean that was a big deal. 01:01:12 Speaker 3: Now we were to kill one, I killed two. I was talking of the camp. It didn't matter if they were Yearlands or not. 01:01:18 Speaker 1: You know that was that was my favorite part about that story. And you remember what I said. Do you remember how I introduced him. Oh yeah, this man has killed at Lite well as of two days ago, twenty five deer that went over this story to me that you know, you got a big time deer hunter here. 01:01:36 Speaker 5: But when he gets started, there's not as many deer back then. No, So I mean, to kill two deer in one day, I could relate to that man. I mean when I started in seventy seven, Holy Kell people, the entire city of Hot Springs. There was only two of us that could kill a deer with a bowling era. It is a you know, the gun hunter guys didn't know how to do it. Yeah, they're raised in deer camps. They don't know why to kill the deer with a bow. And I didn't even know how to hunt. But it just hit me one day, Hey, if i'm hunting humans, I'm gonna going to McDonald's and I'm gonna find the McDonald's. And so it was real easy for me to kill deer. Now, if I could kill two little deer. I told this story. I don't know if it's on a podcast, but I'm sitting in the stand one day and a big dough comes out boy, and I'm getting already I'm gonna nail her. And I look back and she's got a smaller dough behind her, and I'm thinking, okay, easier to get to the truck. Well, I look back and there's two more, and the last one was the small one. So I let them all walk and I whacked that little doy. 01:02:43 Speaker 1: That's where I come from. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is no zero shame and killing a killing small deer. I mean, as long as it's within the boundaries of the law. 01:02:56 Speaker 5: Hey, I got another deal that that might be good for some of the youngs. You set your goals in life, and many many times you set them way too low. But because I started in the seventies, my goal, and I didn't know how to deer hunt, My goal was to kill a deer every year with a bowl and eraw All my buddies thought it was funny, my dad thought it was funny. Everybody just laughed at me. So my goal was to kill a doe, a deer with a bowl and era. So when it got up to where you guys were coming on killing big bucks, hey, I was still happy. 01:03:36 Speaker 1: To kill a doe. 01:03:37 Speaker 5: Yeah, you know where if I said I'm going to be a big buck hunter, you know. 01:03:43 Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, no, you always said that to me, and that made a lot of sense. And it also But what I've seen you do, though, is stay true to your roots and not really be influenced by what society said was valuable. And I'm kind of I kind of live in both worlds, like you know. I mean, I love to target the mature deer and try to kill him, and that's really important to me. But I also very quickly can turn into a dough hunter and go out and shoot a doe and it just be like a big deal and it and it comes from that and and yeah, what you would the trend of the age is, and especially now that we have exponentially more deer than we used to have, options are there's more options. They're they're they're you know, and and it's kind of funny. It's like something happened about two thousand and five twenty ten, and everybody and their mom could kill a deer with a bow, I mean it, and it it happened probably because of just more people were doing it. It happened because there was more information about how to do it. 01:04:55 Speaker 3: Uh you know, our technique. The technique changed about that time. 01:05:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, and in states where you can bait I mean, where where you can bait a deer on private land. Absolutely, and it's it's happened around here. I mean it. He changed the. 01:05:09 Speaker 3: Absolutely, And we can talk about that another time. But yeah, uh it it changed the way deer hunting is today. Uh yeah, probably for the worst, but that's a discussion we have some of time. But uh, prior to that, I did I didn't know people baited deer at all. I mean, it just wasn't that something that you heard that happened in South Texas. 01:05:32 Speaker 1: We hunted, we hunted, We'd hunt for days to see a deer. Yeah. 01:05:36 Speaker 3: I can go get a fourth grader right now, put him in a line with a crossbow over a corn pond. He can harvest a deer this afternoon and he's never shot a deer up cross bow before today. That was unheard of on our day. But just the way things have changed, and it's a good or bad, it is what it is. 01:05:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt, Aaron. 01:05:59 Speaker 6: I think that, like when you and I first met you, you thought you didn't have very mey deer coming from where I was from first time y'all took me hunting, I thought I had died and went to heaven. 01:06:14 Speaker 1: I remember that. 01:06:15 Speaker 6: I mean because I saw more than one deer. 01:06:17 Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah, there were, well I. 01:06:20 Speaker 5: Saw six or seven deer, you know, I mean, I'm like, by golly, the fact. First the first I told this to Clay when we were talking about how you and I met and everything. The first day we ever hunted together, Aaron killed at eleven point buck shot him in the throat. 01:06:40 Speaker 3: Because they got that, because deer still got in my shop. Yeah, I said, what happened? He goes, well that's what I could see. I'm like, good enough. I was so proud of that deer. That's the biggest buck that's ever lived. It probably ninety five inches. I mean, I was so proud of him. 01:06:57 Speaker 1: Hey, I was gonna I was gonna bring up Aaron killed two days ago, Dad one hundred and forty seven inch deer with his bowl here. 01:07:04 Speaker 5: Really, yes's amazing, man, I really congratulate people that do that. But hey, you one thing I did, I was so impatient if a deer walked up, I'm going to kill it. No one that if I'd sit there all day, a buck probably would walk in. And the way I hunted, I had several big bucks come in, usually October twentieth through November the fifth, and just it wasn't meant for me to kill them. I mean I very seldom ever missed a deer. They usually dropped within fifty yards, but a big buck would come in. I wouldn't even be nervous, you know, And I just do all this kind of stuff and finally get on it and forget it's at thirty yards and I got my twenty pence. Stuff like that just happened. 01:07:52 Speaker 1: And you were and you were hunting public land too. Yeah, I don't think you ever killed a deer on private land. Probably you probably did one or two. 01:07:59 Speaker 5: Maybe in Texas. I went on a Texas hunt a couple of times where I did. But anyway, and another thing, most of you guys have be embarrassed to tell this, I'm not, but I was afraid of heights. I jumped off a big old building when I was ten years old, and I think that's why I had my knees replaced. And I mean I could not stand up on a stand. I could not shoot to the back. I couldn't shoot. I let so many deer go on the right hand, left hand side. I just let them walk. I mean, I hunted for the deer to be right here. I didn't even want them in front. I wanted them right there. And so I mean, I think about all the deer I killed, I probably could have killed twice that many if I could have stood up and turned. And as I got the last five years, I got a little bit over that. 01:08:44 Speaker 4: But it's kind of. 01:08:47 Speaker 5: Everybody's got their own little niche and you got the big bucks. And you, I know, you killed a bunch of big bucks. 01:08:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, Brent, you did it. Deer Stories. So this country life with Deer Camp, Deer Camp Stories, Deer Camp. 01:09:06 Speaker 2: Man, let me tell you, petty jam baloney made right here in Arkansas. But the pepper realist that that was the trick. 01:09:14 Speaker 1: Mm hmm. 01:09:14 Speaker 2: That was good, good stuff. 01:09:17 Speaker 1: It sounded good to me. Man, I thought it was funny. He said. 01:09:20 Speaker 3: He still had his mouth full. He was chewing as fast as he could when he walked up there. He won't make sure his buddy didn't get any of this. 01:09:28 Speaker 1: You have to be hungry. If Brent had half a baloney and relish sandwich and you walked up to him and you're like, hey, you might have had the rest. 01:09:36 Speaker 4: That's my nephew. Now. 01:09:37 Speaker 2: He's twice as tall as I am, and he could he would eat it. 01:09:41 Speaker 1: Sure, that's funny, that's funny. Well, shoot, guys, that's been good, been real good. This is just the just the beginning of the Deer Stories podcast. This is always one of my favorite times of the year because I get to go and meet with guys. I mean, just like Luca came down to where you live, met with you, Aaron came over here. Dad's got a story. I went and saw Andy, I went and saw Mo. I mean, you know, just like it's kind of like for me, it's it's a lot of fun gathering up all these stories. And I'm interested in other people's stories too. It's hard in some ways doing what I'm doing is it's kind of a bummer because there's a lot of great people that listen to this podcast that hear these stories and are like, oh, they need to Clay needs to hear this story. And it's very difficult to like parse through. Like if you message me, you're like, Clai, I got a great story. I mean you do? You probably do? I know you do. 01:10:45 Speaker 2: I tell you what I'm interested in. I would like to hear. Does Willow remember that? I would love she? 01:10:51 Speaker 1: I actually brought it up to her. I told her, I said, well, you're on the podcast this week, and I told her, and she she I don't think she has any recollection of that? 01:11:02 Speaker 4: Is that right? 01:11:03 Speaker 2: Because the whole time I was listening to it, and I sent you a text when I listened to it, that's the best story you have ever told. And I was there with you when we told the world the story about the bear slipping in on us, you know, But that to me was the best story. 01:11:18 Speaker 1: Was it the story or the way told it or both? 01:11:22 Speaker 2: It had to be a combination of all of it, because I could see the whole thing playing out, because you know, I know you obviously, and Willow, and I could see her and I've seen pictures of her when she was that age, and I could see all that playing out in my head because I would take my oldest daughter Amy with me when we would go duck hunting, and she'd be sitting in the blind, or i'd take Bailey with me, now you know, and she would at that age and she'd just be playing the color and then just having a ball and while I'm trying to kill a deer, but really just spending time with them. But to hear them, to hear my daughter Amy, and to hear Bailey or my son Hunter tell a story from their viewpoint of a story that I've told with them with me, it's it's it's different. They see a whole different thing, and it's to me, it's a better story. So I hate that she don't remember because that's the story I would love to. 01:12:16 Speaker 1: I thought about it. I think it was just like and I'm not trying to say that we did that kind of stuff all the time, but we did that stuff all the time. I mean, I think it was just like a Tuesday. I mean it was special because we killed a deer, and it's special because I, you know, just the unit. I never did that again, just like that. But I mean they went with me a lot. 01:12:40 Speaker 4: Well, it was just imperfect. It was a perfect story. Yeah, that was perfect. It was good. 01:12:46 Speaker 1: I looked. I thought about too a photo I took. I've taken a picture of almost every deer that I've ever killed, and I cannot find that picture. And I think it was the the beginning of the digital age for me when I went from actually taking real photos that you went to develop. And I think we took pictures of that on a cell phone and they just are gone. And it was before social media. I wasn't on social media then, or nobody was, I guess two thousand and six to speak of. And so I think that now I can go back twelve years into social media and find pictures, which is risky because I mean, who's to say, Facebook's gonna be around tomorrow. I mean, but anyway, it just it was a gap of about five years or were. I hardly have any pictures. 01:13:37 Speaker 5: I know, you run out of time, but I'm the grandpa. Let me tell you something that it really impressed me is you got a little girl that's real compliant and real smart, and you just say you've got to do these things and she goes okay, and she did them. 01:13:54 Speaker 1: You're a little boy. 01:13:55 Speaker 5: You got a little boy rocks just forget totally what the instructions are, Yeah, and start pitching rocks in the creek. 01:14:07 Speaker 1: Hey, Daddy to watch this. Yeah. Yeah, But little Willow she followed the rules. She did she did. You know what. I actually thought about another hunt that took place in almost the same spot, different scenario with with my two youngest sons, Bear and Shepherd. That was a that didn't turn out so good. It was in that same field, but we had a blind. I actually had a pop up blind, and I don't remember the scenario, but I had both the boys in there and they were probably three and five. So it's been a couple of years later because his sister's older and I remember seeing some deer way off, like a quarter mile away, off like twenty minutes before dark, and the deer weren't gonna make it. And I had a bow and I told the boys, I said, boys, y'all stay here, I'm going to go try to get that deer. And I had them stay in the blind, and I slipped out the back and went and stalked these deer and was gone for way longer than I thought I was gonna be. And when I came back, I heard shepherd just crying in the blind, just bawling. I mean for like three hundred yards away. I could hear him, and I was like, oh no, And I went over there, and they got scared. They got scared, you know, but I could they could They could have seen me the whole time. I was never out of sight of that blind, but I was a long ways off, and so they lost track of me. And then I was on these deer, Aaron, I mean, I was like about to kill them, and it got dark on me, you know, and I went back. I felt terrible, I mean to the point to the point I just like almost cried because I could hear him from anyway. That was a nightmare. And I learned something on that one. I really did like, I was like, I will never do that again. And I, you know, leaving a kid cuz my dad. I don't off I ever told y'all about my dad. But my dad wasn't afraid at all to leave me in the woods for long in the dark. And I would it. I would get scared as could be. But I'm kidding dead, I'm not. I did it. 01:16:16 Speaker 5: A lot of it had to do with I didn't know how to hunt. Everybody thought you couldn't kill a deer, and I was so committed to kill a deer that that I wasn't gonna I mean, you know, I'm gonna kill deer, and I don't know. If we've got time, you can cut this out. 01:16:31 Speaker 1: I don't tell. 01:16:32 Speaker 5: These dead gum followers of years what a whimp you are. He's ten years old, true bothers me to see him thirteen fifteen years old. He kills his first deer. Well at ten years old. I got the best spot in the host thinking world, man. I mean I hunted forty years. This spot was the spot. I mean, you had everything there you wanted, sixty piles of droppings, everything, And I counted. 01:17:00 Speaker 1: Her a single acron tree. 01:17:02 Speaker 5: I counted him, and so I put a stand up and there everything was set up perfect. Ten years old. We had to be back to town by like ten o'clock. I need to kill a deer because I'm only hunting on Saturdays, you know, and maybe Sunday morning occasionally. 01:17:20 Speaker 1: And uh, so I walk him in here and I go, okay, right, Clay. He climbs up in that tree. 01:17:26 Speaker 5: It's black dark, and so I turned around to walk off, and I hear I hear him cray. You know, most daddies would have said, hey, don't worry about Clay. I'm going to get over here in the corner and sit down in that bush and I'm will be right here the whole time. But that never entered my mind because I got I got one day to kill this deer. And if this little dirt ball won't set up there, I put him in the car and the truck and we went over and I killed. I shot that little deer, and uh I got my gold done for the year, and I'm ready to quit now. So but but that was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. And you don't see that anymore. But you're when you got when you guys came up and started hunting, you couldn't find stuff like that. But for some reason, first ten years I hunted, to see thirty forty fifteen piles of droppings under a white oak tree was very common. 01:18:25 Speaker 1: Sixty was kind of unusual. 01:18:27 Speaker 5: So I don't know what if you had to come in there, there'd have been a whole herd little doze walk in. 01:18:33 Speaker 1: So no that that that hunt, It's a wonder I made it through. It's because I just it was the first time I'd hunted by myself. And I mean it's like probably an hour and a half before daylight because he had to go drive ten miles to get to his It's not like we were hunting like down the ridge. He was going somewhere else. It's just the way we had to hunt. There were just two good spots, and they happened to be miles apart. I don't remember the details, but he put me up in that stand and I was just like bro oh, I cried like I was scared. I was in the fourth grade by myself, and uh oh, yeah. It was intense. But really you were so tough. He was so tough. We were. We would scout a lot of times on full waders, fast forwarders. 01:19:21 Speaker 5: I mean, we'd be running through the woods going right, here's a spot, uh anyway, and he'd be he'd be right. Might take him a while to catch you up, you know. Me and my buddy, we'd do that a lot of time just for the fun of it. But it's a real effective way of scouting. And Clay would be right there with us, never wore out, just wouldn't quit. So I thought, man, put him in a tree. Holy cow, this would be easy. 01:19:48 Speaker 1: Got scared, Got scared Clay. 01:19:51 Speaker 6: I'd like to say something before we wrap this up, because it sounds like we're coming to a close here. I don't want to say thank you uh for for us getting together. I have to thank our our friend Scott Brown for getting us together. Scott's one of the He's one of the best hunters woodsman. He does not hunt bait. He does not go and travel all over the country hunting. 01:20:19 Speaker 1: He hunts. 01:20:20 Speaker 6: He hunts some of the in my opinion, some of the worst places you could go to go there, But that sir, career is consistent. He'll kill there when nobody else will. He's the real deal hunter. But he got us together, and in doing so, I'm sitting here today, He's sitting across from a couple of guys that I realized sitting here, I have missed y'all a lot. And as I'm walking up, Aaron's like, how long has it been? It's been over twenty years? Has been over twenty years, and my goodness, life will just fly right on by, right in front of you. And I think of all the things that have happened since the last time we've seen each other till today, a lot. I mean, both my folks are gone, both my brothers are gone. You know, I've married and got step sons and you know, and done all these different things. I know, y'all, you know, probably done the same. And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, I'm I'm grateful that that you cut, that you shot me a text now and said, hey, you want to tell a dear story, And I'm like, I sure, do you know, not knowing I was gonna be sitting right here looking at you two boy before. 01:21:38 Speaker 3: We got here, Lucas thinking of the very same thing, how a white tailed deer can bring us back together, you know, and bring us together in the first place. Yeah, you hadn't had that high country shirt on. Yeah, we probably wouldn't be here together. 01:21:51 Speaker 6: And that was in the That was in the fall of nineteen ninety seven when Aaron and I both that was both that we were both transferred students going to Faetteville not knowing a soul. I mean I didn't, I didn't know anybody. 01:22:07 Speaker 1: I didn't either. You know what you said at the end of your story, I thought was really powerful in that. I mean, it's not there's nothing about a white tailed deer that is is gonna cause somebody to have a I mean, there's nothing magical, and we talk about a deer being magical and all this stuff. We loved hunt yea yeah, yeah, but really what brought us together because what's valuable is a human relationship. Yeah, and all the everything that I do inside of Bear Greece and stuff. Really we're talking about deer hunting, we're talking about the land, we're talking about rivers, we're talking about mountains and lions and deer like all this natural stuff. But really what's interesting to me is how humans interact with that, and then how humans interact together around those things, like the relationships that we have and you did such a good job of saying, you know, a white tailed deer is really what brought us all together and uh and and becomes a medium to which you can exchange and have relationship, like you'd have a bond like I hadn't seen Area, well, I saw you ten years ago. I hadn't seen Andy in probably twenty years. And I mean me and you, we can anytime we see each other. It's like we got a connection. And it's it's deer, but it's but it's bigger than that, and that's special. It is it's special. And I'm sure there are other things in the world that people can connect over, but there is nothing in the world that is more more in order and or I could even use the word primal than the hunting connection between humans. I mean that is the bond that made the human species, was hunters connecting. I mean really, when you it just like boiled it down to like I have to be safe and warm and have shelter. I have to reproduce and find a wife, and I have to kill stuff to eat. Maybe maybe you could throw it a little bit later. I got to find some land to grow some crops on. I mean, it's like pretty basic level human stuff. So for us to come together and talk about deer hunting and how it's connected us, it's like, I love it. So yeah, yeah, I thought you did a good job of saying that. 01:24:21 Speaker 6: I appreciate it. 01:24:21 Speaker 4: Good stuff. 01:24:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thank you for having us on. It's been fun. Thank you. Yeah, well, well we'll do it again. Brent closing words Wisdom Go one two three. 01:24:33 Speaker 2: I talked about it in my podcast. It's tradition and legacy and the value of sharing something good with people that you love and people that you like. There was only how many stories were on this podcast. Seven There were seven examples of everything right there. 01:24:51 Speaker 4: It was good stuff. M hm. That's it for me. 01:24:55 Speaker 1: Excellent. Thank you all for kind of great to see everybody. Thank you, thank you,

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