00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukleman. 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 h F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place. As we explore. Well, I'm very tempted to podcasts out of my new saddle, very very tempted. I didn't want to start off, so I have in my office. You guys were at the Black Bevenanza. Sir a man named Coult George, custom saddle maker, third generation custom saddle maker from Wyoming, who I had met one time in Wyoming. Just shook his hand, just he was like, Hey, my name's Colt George. I met him and his dad. He's a third generation saddle maker. His dad makes saddles, his grandfather makes saddles. Colt's probably like, I don't know, his mid twenties, maybe late twenties. Yeah, he and his When he saw me in Utah, he said, hey, clam coming to the Black Bear Bonanza. And I was like, cool man, And he said, I have something I want to give you. I was like, great, great, look forward to getting it. You know, people bring me books or just different stuff all the time. So I was grateful, but I didn't think too much about it. 00:01:44 Speaker 2: Did you know at the time he was a saddle maker. 00:01:46 Speaker 1: No, no, no. So then at the Black Bear Bonanza, I see him and he's wearing a big cowboy hat and he's and I recognize and I'm like, hey, man, yeah, I met you. And he comes up to me and he's like, hey, sometime today you need to come out to my truck. And I was like, okay, and uh, anyway, long story short, I went out to his truck at the very end of the day and he pulls this saddle out. 00:02:12 Speaker 3: Okay, and that's what you want to do. This is how you want to play. Is now in the saddle. 00:02:18 Speaker 1: I'm in the saddle and he gave me in this saddle stand and uh, this is what they call their hunting saddle. 00:02:26 Speaker 3: It's super super. 00:02:28 Speaker 1: It has on the saddle horn, it's got an acre and it's got four bear tracks. It's got a BG right here, it's got an out a barred ol feather, and it's got on the back of the gro the back it has it has a plot hound tree and but uh, anyway, it's very fancy and I. 00:02:49 Speaker 3: Don't think any of us could take you podcasting. 00:02:52 Speaker 1: Well, I think that would be too much for the room. I will probably do a lot of podcasting. He wants me to use it, like he's like, Clay, this is a saddle I want you to use. But it's just so pretty. It's just sitting here in the office. So that's that. We have a very a great crew of people here today. I've got to my right, my brand new saddle to my brand new saddles right, Josh Lambridge, Spilmmaker and very special guests who we've not had on here before. We got to skip them first, skipping over the very special guests to another very special guests, so less special guests. Mo Shepherd. Everybody knows Mo. Moe is my go to man for turkey stories. Dear stories are hillbilly stuff, yea. 00:03:38 Speaker 2: Mater stories, mountain lion stories. 00:03:40 Speaker 1: Whatever you want that you got it all. 00:03:42 Speaker 2: If I ain't got them, I'll make one. 00:03:43 Speaker 1: Mister, did you know that Moe's Let me just tell this story, Mo, can you correct me when it's wrong? Moe's great great grandfather who There is a mountain named after that's on like a topo map over here, named after They were killed by Union bushwhackers under a bluff during the Civil War. 00:04:04 Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know if they were Union bushwhackers, but they were bushwhackers. Most bushwhackers weren't for either side. They were just they were just out there self serving rob pilfer and steel and get whatever they could get. 00:04:15 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:04:16 Speaker 3: Oh wow, I did not know. 00:04:17 Speaker 4: So he had gone to meet his two sons that were on a furlough to come home for a few days. So I don't know where they'd been fighting, but they were on a furlough to come home for a few days. And he, however, they got their notes to each other by someone an other or however, they were going to meet at a bluff a few miles from where he was living at where he'd homesteaded up there. 00:04:38 Speaker 2: And he went and met him, took. 00:04:41 Speaker 4: Him some food and some more clothing and stuff, and they visited a while, and he got ready to leave and said, you know, we'll see you if when when you get out of the war, when the war's over, probably before I'll see you again. He walked out from the bluff, walked up on top and the bushwhackers shot him. 00:04:56 Speaker 2: Wow, and run down and grabbed his stuff and took off with whatever he had left. And then. 00:05:03 Speaker 4: His two sons got out and found him and he was still loud. They took him to his wife and his daughter back by their house and they cared for him. And the boys took out after the bushwhackers and found them both and killed them both. 00:05:17 Speaker 1: So wow, wow, do you know exactly where that happened? Yeah, I mean you know the bluff. 00:05:24 Speaker 4: I meant a picture of the bluff with my dad satting under it and. 00:05:28 Speaker 1: Really on my phone. So this mountains, I mean Shepherd Mountain and Moe was raised up there and really unique. 00:05:38 Speaker 4: History and him and his brother when they first came in in the I think it was in the eighteen thirties or something like that. They first place they settled was down on the Frog Bayou and they found a spring there in that place is still called Shepherd Springs. 00:05:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a lake there. 00:05:56 Speaker 4: Now they combined that lake with the Lake Fort Smith, but it still has a lot of stuff in the lake fourth miss State Park about the Shepherd Springs and my great great grandfather settling there with other people, and then his brother stayed there, and then he moved up into the mountains and home stated up there, and that's how it got the name Shepherd Mountain. 00:06:13 Speaker 5: So yeah, let's just say that you don't stumble on most Shepherd's house accidentally. 00:06:18 Speaker 1: No, no, you don't know. We're still in introductions though, to Moe's right, my lovely life, doctor, mister newkem so great to have you. 00:06:27 Speaker 3: Good to be here. 00:06:28 Speaker 1: Our special guests though, John and Demmy whitting Hill from Oklahoma, welcome. 00:06:35 Speaker 3: I think we should have them, you know, make a random animal sound just to We're going to. 00:06:41 Speaker 1: Say that I've met John a couple of times. Y'all came to the Warner Glenn film premiere, and then I met you just recently at the Black Bear Bonanza. Saw you again. And John, you work for Oklahoma is It Game and Fish. 00:06:58 Speaker 6: Oklahoma Compartment Wildlife Conservation. 00:07:01 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, but the real reason you're here is because of your wife. 00:07:06 Speaker 6: That's right, Demmy more famous than me. 00:07:09 Speaker 1: Demmy, can you a greet everyone? No? No, no, I just say hello. 00:07:15 Speaker 7: Oh hi, everybody. 00:07:18 Speaker 1: So Demmy was both of you guys were in the al Hut competition yes, sir and U. But there was a video of Demmy that I put out, Yeah, that I got from one of your friends had taken that video, I think. 00:07:34 Speaker 8: Yeah, our pastor's wife actually she recorded it. She was there and okay, send it Tommy. 00:07:39 Speaker 1: So I put that video on my Instagram and it has one point three million views. No, I've never put a picture of video of you. Now we got one point three million views. 00:07:49 Speaker 2: I don't know if you've ever put a picture of me on there or not. 00:07:52 Speaker 6: You probably have to get you some long blonde hair before that. 00:07:55 Speaker 3: For a long time, Tho Shepherd. I don't know why, but his picture was Clay's screen. Say it was mow and do you remember that? Oh yeah, it was like Clay put it up when he was first doing Arkansas Black Bear Store, and he saved it to us. He probably didn't know. He probably did it on accident and then never changed it. And so for years the kids would be like, look, there's most every time clayve would open up his. 00:08:19 Speaker 1: Laptop, it was a really good picture you with a with a bear, or that you killed with a pistol. 00:08:24 Speaker 6: Yeah, there we go. 00:08:25 Speaker 3: Any presentations he did. 00:08:27 Speaker 1: No, So so what do you do for the Department of Wildlife in Oklahoma. 00:08:32 Speaker 6: John, I'm an intern right now. So it's basically just kind of like interning for a technician role, so running tractor, you know, playing food plots and doing control burns, any kind of habitat, manipulation, just stuff like that. So the road greater. 00:08:49 Speaker 2: He got a real job. 00:08:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like a real job. Do you do you want to you wanna be in? You like working for I mean. 00:08:58 Speaker 6: Is it? Yeah? Yeah, a good job. It's great. Man, Like I said, Demi and I and my family ran a business for about eight years that we had and that my dad left to us when he passed away. And it's been been a refreshing change, you know, to get out and just kind of be out and outside. That's where I like to be, you know. I always My mom handed me some papers, you know, a couple of months ago and she said, here, these are from you know, homeschooling way back in the day. And you know, I went through there and looking at them and stuff, and it was like fishing, wildlife biologies just circled, game warding circled, you know, just military circled, you know, And so I did the military thing, you know, coming out of high school and ended up getting hurt overseas, and then you know, that kind of changed the trajectory of some of what I had planned. And so you know, now twelve or thirteen years later, I'm starting over and probably going back to school for wildlife biology. That's awesoe. I'm gonna give a shot. Man. I'm not much of a school person. I'm more of a hands on you know, like working with my hands, you know, running machines. I did heavy equipment school, you know, when I went through Votec and stuff like that, and run a bulldozer. I know everybody's a big fan of class bulldog. Yeah, I've got one. If you ever want to come running, you have one yourself. I do certainly. 00:10:13 Speaker 2: I like it. 00:10:14 Speaker 6: I do well. 00:10:14 Speaker 2: I wouldn't let him drive in. 00:10:15 Speaker 6: Okay, there we go, funny store. I had a big rat up under the seat the other day and it made me hit my head on the ceiling. Come up out of there. I sat down and he come out by my side, and boy, I shot out that thing pretty quick, So I didn't want that crawling in my lap. 00:10:30 Speaker 1: But uh yeah, anyhow, where were you deployed in the military, if you don't mind me asking. 00:10:35 Speaker 6: Yeah, Afghanistan. So that was back in twenty eleven. 00:10:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, really really how long were you there? 00:10:40 Speaker 6: About six months? So you know, I got six months in and uh came back from leave for my sister's wedding and stuff like that, and hit a hit an I d over there and uh kind of a big deal. Uh you know, broke my back and collar on shoulder bust a few two and a couple of my good friends you know, died as well, uh in that accident. So I'm not an accident, but uh, you know, wow, an ID explosion. Wow, so one guy, one of the guy made it out, you know. Yeah, definitely at nineteen that kind of ship board a little bit. 00:11:15 Speaker 7: You know. 00:11:16 Speaker 1: So yeah, I didn't. I didn't know that about you. 00:11:19 Speaker 6: It's not something i'd really share a whole lot, you know. Like I said, I'm open to sharing it. Obviously. Now everybody's gonna know about it, but. 00:11:24 Speaker 1: That's fine, and we can take it off if you want. 00:11:26 Speaker 6: No, No, no, that's fine. Like I said, I'm I'm an open book man. Anything anything you want to know, just ask, Like I said, Uh, I'm happy to happy to share, you know. I just I want people to I don't want to be strutting around like it like I did something. I knew what I was signing up for. You know, when I when I volunteered, nobody knowing me put a gun to my head to force me to go. You know, I wanted to and I liked it, and uh, you know, obviously those events, like I said, they still stick with you. But I'm working on trying to get get that figured out and do me. And I've had some you know issues as far as my stuff of being able to communicate what's going on inside my head, you know, trying to be respectful of you know that and not share too much detail. But I've got some work I've got ahead of me still, you know. And this I've been doing this for, you know, twelve thirteen years now. This is back in twenty eleven. So uh, it's a process. But it's good, man, that's good. So I kind of like like where I'm man, Yeah, no doubt. 00:12:34 Speaker 3: And did they discharge you after that? Did you get honorably discharged and came back and then you took over the family business? 00:12:41 Speaker 6: Yes, ma'am. Were y'all married, No, we got. 00:12:44 Speaker 3: We did how long. Have y'all been married six years? Six years? 00:12:47 Speaker 6: Okay, so the Blackbird Bonanza was actually our six year anniversary. 00:12:52 Speaker 1: Yes me. Yeah, And now you guys are big outdoors men and women. Absolutely dimmy. What what's what's your favorite thing to hunt? I've seen your Instagram and I see you turkey hunt, some deer hunt. 00:13:05 Speaker 7: Definitely turkeys. 00:13:07 Speaker 1: Really yeah. 00:13:08 Speaker 8: I've done a little bit of everything with him, but my first successful hunt was with turkeys, and I was hooked. 00:13:16 Speaker 1: Did you grow uphunting or did did John take you? 00:13:19 Speaker 8: I didn't, I but I always had a desire to. It's kind of weird. My parents never really understood why. I always had a fascination for hunting, and I always wanted somebody to take me. 00:13:29 Speaker 1: And here comes John. 00:13:32 Speaker 7: We had known each other. 00:13:33 Speaker 8: Since yeah, and his sister actually saw a picture of me with a fish I was bass fishing with my dad and I said, yeah, and now I just need somebody to teach me how to hunt. And she said, well, I know a guy, and she you know, tagged him. He didn't say anything. 00:13:48 Speaker 3: It took John. 00:13:50 Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm a slow learner. I'm the I'm the subordinate gobbler off to the side, in the back door strutting turk could get shot first. 00:14:02 Speaker 7: Yeah, so yeah, it took a little while. 00:14:04 Speaker 8: But then and I think at first maybe he thought and a lot of other people thought, Oh, she's just doing this because. 00:14:10 Speaker 7: They're dating or whatever. 00:14:10 Speaker 8: I'm like, no, I really, I'm really interested and i'd really like to know, you know, the ins and outs of hunting, and but yeah, turkey hunting out of I think turkey hunting and then duck hunting is probably my second time. 00:14:22 Speaker 6: Okay, big waterfowlers, I am. I was ate up with it pretty bad for a couple of years there, and I still am. Like I said, I love to go. It's the it's the thrill of the hunt man. It gets me. I like birds. So, you know, I like shooting deer, but you know, I don't I don't shoot big deer. You know, I don't know how to kill big deer, but I do know how to kill ducks and turkey. Yeah, yeah, I'm just I'm just not skicky. 00:14:44 Speaker 1: I guess y'all grew up in the same community in Oklahoma kind. 00:14:48 Speaker 7: Of when we were little. 00:14:49 Speaker 8: We yeah, we our families were connected at church and so, and I stayed in contact with his sisters when my family, when I was a teenager, we moved to the East Coat, so we stayed in contact just through I. 00:15:03 Speaker 1: Assume you mean the east coast of Lake Worcester. The east coast of the US was a joke. That was a joke. Come on, that was funny. That was a micro geography joke. The east coast of Lake Worcester over there where they live, sort of close east coast, the east coast of the US. Yep okay. 00:15:26 Speaker 7: So that's how we stayed in contact. 00:15:28 Speaker 8: And then I can't I remember his sister's wedding and him being there coming back from overseas, and he was just a wallflower. He just was on the side and I'm out there dancing with his sisters and everything. 00:15:42 Speaker 1: But but yeah, he wasn't strutting, just drumming, spitting and drumming. 00:15:49 Speaker 8: Our parents were friends. They came up for you know, family vacations. We you know, stayed in contact that way. But he never I had a younger brother, and so he would run off with my brother and play, you know, when we were real little, and I would go off. 00:16:00 Speaker 7: With a sisters. 00:16:01 Speaker 1: Okay, see I kind of knew each other. Yeah, that's cool. 00:16:04 Speaker 6: We went to church. I don't know if you said that or not, went to church together when we were little kids. 00:16:09 Speaker 3: At what point did you start impersonating animals? 00:16:14 Speaker 1: Question? 00:16:15 Speaker 6: There we go. 00:16:19 Speaker 1: In the industry, we call it. 00:16:22 Speaker 7: I would dabble just because he would. 00:16:24 Speaker 8: He would do it a lot, and so I would try, you know, and and I would even. 00:16:29 Speaker 7: Ask him like does that sound okay? 00:16:30 Speaker 3: Does that sound good? 00:16:31 Speaker 7: And he'd be like, that's okay. 00:16:34 Speaker 6: I'm not the most encouraging word person. Words of affirmation is not my strong suit. So yeah, we're opposites in that area. And I'm learning that everybody has their own style and so just because it doesn't sound like mine doesn't mean it's bad. 00:16:53 Speaker 7: You know. 00:16:53 Speaker 1: Now, did had you been out in the woods enough to hear a bard owl? 00:16:58 Speaker 7: I had. 00:16:59 Speaker 8: I had heard owls, but I don't know that I heard a barred owl like I just I had. 00:17:04 Speaker 7: I had heard them, you know, just. 00:17:06 Speaker 8: Out and I've heard I've actually heard one laughing before, so I did. 00:17:10 Speaker 7: I had heard one like that. So I'm like, okay, that's what that really sounds like. 00:17:13 Speaker 1: Have you heard her alhu yet? 00:17:15 Speaker 6: Yeah? 00:17:15 Speaker 1: I listened to the Okay, your alhood is so realistic, Like I figured you would have like listened to a lot of natural owls. You're saying you didn't. 00:17:29 Speaker 7: Really, I think I blame it too on the fact that I studied music. 00:17:33 Speaker 3: Okay, okay, so maybe the earting. 00:17:38 Speaker 1: Yeah you're a fiddle player, Okay, we won't she brought her fiddle? Yeah, no, for real. So I was a judge in the contest, in the out hout and contest, and and we're blind judges. We we don't have are we're facing a way so we can't see or we don't know who anyone is. And it was really funny because I remember somebody, somebody sitting right in front of me that was watching, said, man, she's good, like she said she and I to be. I mean, I just assumed there's all men you. I think maybe you had said you were gonna AUHU, but it didn't register to me that you were up there. But unfortunately, the guy that won it, Cam not unfortunately s cut that out. Cam is he's incredible. Yeah, one day I'll have him on here. He's really really good. You were like right there. So she ended up getting second place, which it's not an entirely fair contest. There's just three of us setting up there listening or rating them, you know. But no, I remember being surprised when somebody said she's really good, because I just envisioned ten men standing up there. I mean, am I right? 00:19:01 Speaker 6: Yeah? 00:19:01 Speaker 7: For sure? 00:19:02 Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that's the way it's been. 00:19:03 Speaker 3: You probably I shouldn't say that, all. 00:19:06 Speaker 1: Right, I'm yeah. 00:19:08 Speaker 2: I told I told Cam the other day. 00:19:10 Speaker 4: I was talking to him the other day and I told him, I said, you just better consider yourself lucky. He said, why is that, I said, because I wasn't there. 00:19:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, he said next year. 00:19:19 Speaker 2: I said, yeah, next year. 00:19:21 Speaker 6: Yeah, if was there, you know, we might not be sitting here right now. 00:19:24 Speaker 1: You know, Well it would have been a good I bet, I bet y'all might have been the top top three. 00:19:29 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:19:35 Speaker 1: Now you were in there too, John, you were up there in the top ten. 00:19:39 Speaker 6: Yeah I got so I got into the top five, but. 00:19:41 Speaker 1: You made it into the top See, I didn't even know who was up there. Yeah. 00:19:44 Speaker 3: So have enormous genetic potential. 00:19:48 Speaker 6: Your children, Yeah, they're probably going to live in you know. So we do live live in the woods, so that's that's a possibility. So, uh so I got into the top five, but I think I was number five of five. 00:20:03 Speaker 2: You know, you've probably been six if i'd been. 00:20:06 Speaker 6: You know, I lost to you once before, you know, so I wouldn't I wouldn't die. 00:20:09 Speaker 1: So you were in the year before, but not them. 00:20:12 Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, that's right. 00:20:13 Speaker 2: I remember him being there. 00:20:14 Speaker 1: Okay, Well there I was. 00:20:16 Speaker 6: I was shaking, you know, up there on stage because I don't like being in front of people, you know, so I was trying to hold it together. 00:20:23 Speaker 1: We need to we need to hear somebout Yeah, what mo You should go first? 00:20:27 Speaker 2: You ready think I should? 00:20:29 Speaker 1: You can stand that and can do whatever you want. 00:20:31 Speaker 2: I can. 00:20:32 Speaker 1: I can laying down, standing up, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. 00:20:35 Speaker 2: You have to help me back up. I get done that far. I'm sixty three years old. 00:20:41 Speaker 1: Miss Yeah, let's let's hear it. Let's hear it. 00:20:45 Speaker 2: What do you want a whole. 00:20:46 Speaker 1: Series or you're whatever. Here's what I've as been a connoisseur of al Hoots people. I'm a connoisseur. That that means I'm the best. No, that's not I'm saying. I'm saying. Connoisseur means you just. 00:21:00 Speaker 2: You know, think you know stuff. That's what that's right. 00:21:06 Speaker 1: No, everybody, the real good people or a lot of people have one thing that's real good, like they have a real good laugh, or they have a real good tone, or they have a real good sequence. A whole lot of it is timing. You can have somebody that does it good, but they're timing is slightly off. And and so anyway, I'll be giving commentary on what you guys are all good at. 00:21:30 Speaker 2: Okay, go ahead, mo, there you go. 00:21:32 Speaker 1: Then very good has really good. 00:21:58 Speaker 3: Sound like a human it does like I'm watching him trying to figure out how are you doing that? Like are you using your He's not using his throat. 00:22:08 Speaker 6: You'd have to kill you if she's going to try next year if you tell her vocal cords, so your vocal that's. 00:22:14 Speaker 1: It, all right, John, let's hear yours? 00:22:16 Speaker 6: All right? Yeah, beautiful. I can't do that. The laughing part. That's my Achilles heel man. I'm competitors know out there that. 00:22:41 Speaker 1: Don't show him your weakness, right, I think in the woods you're out. It would be really good because it's loud. Yeah, and you got you gotta do you want me to do a loud one. 00:22:51 Speaker 3: Super competitors like I wasn't there and I didn't know you want to just do it loud? 00:22:56 Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I'm just I'm just looking for positive things to say here. Okay, no, no, that's good. All right, Demmy, you ready. 00:23:05 Speaker 3: I guess. 00:23:06 Speaker 1: So this can't be. This can't be more nerve wracking than al hooting in front of I. 00:23:13 Speaker 6: Don't know, I don't know, I don't come on now. 00:23:34 Speaker 1: Perfect. That was good. That was good. The the what I think people were saying on the Instagram, the like the laugh like yeah, oh yeah, good tone, good tone. 00:23:50 Speaker 6: Does so she I think she learned that, you know, from gomber Pile and Andy Griffiths show where he's eating that peanut butter sandwich outside and they're trying to warn Andy or when Andy's coming, you know, when they're all thinking they're getting married. They said you got to keep your cheeks all holler. 00:24:06 Speaker 8: You know. 00:24:06 Speaker 6: So I think that's where Demmy learned that. 00:24:10 Speaker 3: Are we gonna hear Josh? Josh's musically trained. 00:24:14 Speaker 6: Not to crack a whip, probably pretty good with whipping that fly out around, right. 00:24:20 Speaker 3: Yeah, Clay was the first person I did not know that people could I was just not at all raised around outdoorsy people like like our hunters especially, and yeah, and I remember Clay and I were just friends and he went out. We were out in the woods and he started doing that and I'll called back to him and it was like, hands down, the coolest thing I've ever seen a guy. I was like, that is super cool. And I remember telling my friends this guy can talk to animals. 00:24:58 Speaker 1: I didn't grow up. 00:24:59 Speaker 5: I didn't grow up hunting either, And Clay is the one who taught me to hunt. And I remember hearing him owl hoot yea and me thinking like, that's just something that owls do, but I'll never hear it, and then going turkey hunting, it was like, oh wait, there's there's owls out there, and yeah, it's. 00:25:16 Speaker 3: Super cool if you if you've had no exposure to it, it's kind of like a different world that you're being introduced to. 00:25:22 Speaker 7: Yeah, well that's how A lot of my friends that are not. 00:25:25 Speaker 8: At all yeah the realm, they were like, Okay, what is ol hooting? 00:25:29 Speaker 6: What is. 00:25:31 Speaker 3: After you had video? 00:25:33 Speaker 7: Yeah, like I see the video, what is this about? 00:25:37 Speaker 1: That's fun? 00:25:38 Speaker 6: You know? 00:25:39 Speaker 1: The best practice that I've ever had is uh is getting the owl coming in and I know you two have probably done it before and just getting calling with one just like that's setting right above you. Have you ever had them do that? 00:25:53 Speaker 6: John? 00:25:54 Speaker 1: Oh, that's that would make would probably your game next year would probably be way better. Demmy, if you if you could either love for that to happen or just like listen to one online and man you can, because I've like for me to outhou right now, it'd just be okay. But if I was out and listening to one and he was sitting on a limb above me, like that's your best alhooting and then you kind of you kind of remember it. 00:26:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what Bear said last year. He went out in the woods and he said that just sitting there, two got into a little call fest and he recorded it and as soon as he said coming home, he could immediately call better than just from like being in the woods and just sitting underneath the tree. Well while they were calling back and forth. It's pretty cool. 00:26:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, Bo, you heard some turkeys the other day, gobble They're they're doing it. Huh. 00:26:44 Speaker 2: They're they're getting started a little bit up here in the mountains. 00:26:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, John, have you heard any gobble? 00:26:49 Speaker 6: I got something to gobble at me on the side of the road the other day. Yeah, we were driving to go do a little fly fishing, and uh, it's all a group of you know, about a flock of about twenty turkeys and saw some little cigar butt Jake's in there and started yelping at them and they let loose and there I got got my fill on that. So that was the first gobble of the season for me. 00:27:09 Speaker 5: We were in Colorado last week on the way home. I looked over and I was like, is that what I think it is? 00:27:14 Speaker 6: And there were probably sixty turkeys in field in Colorado. Yeah. 00:27:18 Speaker 1: Where Yeah, Yeah, I'll send you a pen exactly. Yeah, I don't mind spot burning Colorado. 00:27:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, what are the are the turkey? Is the turkey situation in Oklahoma better than it. 00:27:30 Speaker 1: Is here a little bit? 00:27:33 Speaker 3: You would see him on the side of the road. 00:27:34 Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say so. 00:27:36 Speaker 1: So. 00:27:36 Speaker 6: I mean when I was growing up, we used to have them come up in the yard. You know, there there was a group. Again, I see a group flock of you know, hunter turkeys wow around our house. And I mean you'd come out and we had like a little center like an oval driveway, and I mean that whole patch of grass would just be covered or turkeys. 00:27:52 Speaker 7: And uh, we would see them too. 00:27:55 Speaker 6: Yeah, it's definitely changed. It's it's sad, you know, to see him see them go. But I mean there's still a few round, but it's not not the good old days I was. 00:28:04 Speaker 2: I started hunting in Oklahoma and eighty two yep. 00:28:08 Speaker 4: And I haven't hundred every year out there, but I've hunded a lot of years out there. And when I first started hunting out there, there was a lot of turkeys. I hung it in the southeastern part. I went kind of central part out towards Oak Muggy and up there on Honey a little bit, went Plum to the western part, hunted some and I've seen it. It kind of stayed stable till about two thousand and then really started to climb, kind of like Arkansas did in the early two thousands. 00:28:36 Speaker 6: Yeah, there's pockets of birds still. So I mean, like I said, where I work, there's birds. You know, around home, you can find water and you can find the habitat, you can find the birds. So it's just like I said, they're a little you got to look for them. 00:28:51 Speaker 2: Same way here. 00:28:54 Speaker 4: Back in the nineties here, you could go about out at any ridge or lesten off of any hollering, you'd hear a turkey. 00:29:00 Speaker 2: Now you have to really look for them to find them. 00:29:03 Speaker 4: Kind of like when I started hunting tinkey's in seventy six here in Arkansas, and that's what it was in You had to you had to spend several days just finding turkeys. Once you found them, there was positive you could hunt them, but you had to spend several days out just trying to find where the turkeys were. That's kind of way it is now here in the northwest part of Arkansas. 00:29:20 Speaker 1: Anyways. I've heard some positive reports though coming from Arkansas about a few more birds than there's been the last few years. Yeah, which is good. 00:29:29 Speaker 6: Yeah, that is. 00:29:31 Speaker 4: I saw more young birds this fall deer hunting and stuff out where I do a lot of deer hunting, turkey out in both and I've seen in twenty five years as far as good flocks of young birds with hens grouped up. 00:29:41 Speaker 1: So that's good, that's good. 00:29:43 Speaker 6: I think knocking that season date back a little bit has helped. And then you know, obviously Oklahoma used to be a three birds state, you know, and so they've knocked it back down to one now and so I think that that helps too. So yeah, and that's just my opinion. That's not anything from the Wildlife Department, you know. That's just yeah, me as a turkey hunter going out there and I'm you know, finding and seeing some more birds. 00:30:08 Speaker 1: So we started our Turkey Stories episodes. We're gonna do probably one more. These These are some of my favorite podcasts that would do because I get to travel around and meet all these people and hear their stories. It's it's really hard. It's actually harder than it may seem Miss Nukem to uh go talk to somebody and get their best turkey story that translates good on Josh will tell you he was looking at while I was doing some editing today, I'll talk to somebody for forty five minutes and get one get one story. Yeah yeah, but Josh, of all the stories that we're told today, and we had a good sample in from we we went down to Mississippi and then to Alabama and then to Tennessee. So we did. We did a three state tour on this one. There were no I don't think North Carolina, wasn't you North Carolina? Well, I had a North Carolina storyteller. 00:31:06 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:31:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm saying from North Carolina. 00:31:08 Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, Yeah, that's right. So it's four stayd thing I remember dead? Yeah, which which Josh? 00:31:17 Speaker 5: So there were two and I'll tell you one once quick. Macy's story, mainly because I like the end when she takes her her turkey feathers and turns them into flies. 00:31:27 Speaker 1: For fly fishing. Oh really, she's quite the. 00:31:29 Speaker 5: Fly fisher I've seen. Yeah, because she she posts a lot of fly fishing. 00:31:34 Speaker 1: Anybody else big follow her? 00:31:36 Speaker 3: I followed her? 00:31:37 Speaker 1: Did you know her before I had? 00:31:39 Speaker 7: I mean, I just followed her on social media? 00:31:41 Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, so I liked I liked that. 00:31:44 Speaker 5: But honestly, the story that stood out to me the most was the old gentleman who got shot because it reminded me of when we were turkey hunting and we got lost for a large number of hours and when we got back to camp. 00:32:00 Speaker 1: Phrase that, Josh, you were lost. No, no, not me, but we did. 00:32:06 Speaker 5: We found a turkey nest. 00:32:07 Speaker 2: You remember. 00:32:07 Speaker 5: That was quite a We did get lost, but it was a lot of fun being out in the woods. 00:32:10 Speaker 3: Was that with our kids? Okay? 00:32:15 Speaker 6: Yeah? 00:32:17 Speaker 1: But when we got back. 00:32:18 Speaker 5: You remember, they a couple of guys had stopped by our camp because one of the guys that that was hunting with us was a doctor and uh, one of Gary Newcomb's old friends, John Mesco. 00:32:30 Speaker 1: And we had turkey camp. John Mesco was their dad. Me and Josh went off and got lost the whole day, came back to camp and they tell us. 00:32:37 Speaker 5: And they're like, the gentleman just came by because he had just gotten peppered by some some joker just saw the white he was an old man, had white hair, and just shot one off at him, and he took seventeen pellets almost in the same place, seventeen pellets on the back of his ribs. 00:32:56 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:32:57 Speaker 5: And you know, there wasn't much they could do do other than, you know, just let it, let it heal up. 00:33:03 Speaker 1: And uh. 00:33:04 Speaker 5: But that I I appreciated the I appreciated the the compassion with which the story was told in the podcast. Just the the level of concern for the gentleman to help him get over that. I mean that that has a way of being pretty traumatic. 00:33:23 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:33:24 Speaker 5: Yeah, And uh, and just the way they wanted to help him but didn't push him, but created a really safe environment for him to to kind of get get past that. I thought, I thought that was really neat. That really spoke to me. 00:33:38 Speaker 1: So David Joy, he's the he's the guy that told that story. David Joy. He is a award winning novelist. And uh, I love it when he talks because you would never you would never guess that he has a real he has a real appalatch and cool accent. But yeah, he just got off of European book tour. His books are really famous in France. I mean they're they're they're they're they're they're famous here. He does well here, but his his he sells. I don't know this, he didn't tell me this somehow I've read this, but in France he has a huge following. So he just got back from France. But like I said, he's like as country as cornbread. And uh, anyway, David, he's a cool guy. But I have several of his books. This one's called When These Mountains Burn. They're a little dark, a little dark. 00:34:30 Speaker 4: Uh Yeah, him telling that story, he sounded country, I mean, sounds. 00:34:34 Speaker 2: An old country boys telling. 00:34:36 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:34:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's a he's a neat guy, a neat guy, Uh, which one stood out? Who wants to go next? 00:34:43 Speaker 8: Then? 00:34:43 Speaker 1: Which one do you like? 00:34:44 Speaker 7: Yeah? I liked Jim's story. 00:34:47 Speaker 8: He just I don't know when I when I heard it, I'm like, oh, that's a tear drinker, you know, finding his dad's journal and. 00:34:55 Speaker 1: Like Russ Arthurs. 00:34:59 Speaker 7: Yeah, like, I just I don't know. 00:35:01 Speaker 8: And it actually made me tell John that, you know, I know, for me, like I've had a lot of first hunts, you know, just like doing all different types of hunting, and I'm like, I really need to write these things down because like even in the moment, you know, it's so exciting, but then you know, as years passed, you forget stories. And so I'm like, how cool would it be to have a journal and just have all your you know, hunts and different things, and then have your kids be able to read it and go back. And yeah, I feel like I'd be the same way as him, Like I might start reading then and be like, Okay, I need to save this, I need to emotionally prepare myself and get away and you know, read it. 00:35:35 Speaker 7: But that was just really yeah, it was definitely a two. 00:35:38 Speaker 1: I think he said there were seventy two books. 00:35:42 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:35:42 Speaker 2: Oh, well, same journals. 00:35:45 Speaker 6: Yeah, goodness, can you. 00:35:46 Speaker 1: And what stood out to me about that is that, I mean his dad, like Russ is probably in it's in his sixties. Russ Arthur's in his sixties sixty four? 00:35:57 Speaker 4: About what he said, did he say sixty, Well, he said when he was born in Yep, Yep. 00:36:02 Speaker 1: I was going to say probably mid sixties. So his dad, his dad probably would have been born in the early forties or late thirties, something like that. I don't know when his dad was born. Point being, some of that generation was pretty Private's probably not the right word. But I can't imagine me having seventy two full journal books and my family not knowing about it. It seems like something that might from that generation have happened, you know what I'm saying. And Russ's Holy cow, I'm going to do more stuff with Russ Arthur. He is a jewel of a man, truly is. But I met him. Did it make sense how I met him? I mean, he kind of if you followed Bear Grease, I did that story on Loui Dell and Charlie Edwards from my hometown. It was so wild, But I was interviewing a law enforcement guy about Louis Dell and Charlie, these two guys, and and he said, hey, do you want to interview the undercover agent that tried to catch Louisdale? And I was like, yeah, well it was Russ Arthur and he said, we lives in Tennessee, and so I remember we were we had built the episode, and then I got this intel and like the next day, I like jumped in the truck and drove to meet Russ Arthur in Tennessee. And it was spooky because Louis deal this Louis Dell's passed away. Louisdale had told people that he'd suspected all these years that this guy might have been an undercover agent, and he told people, he said that guy was the best natural voice mouth caller ever heard. And uh. And then when I meet Russ Arthur, one of the first things I said was let me hear your awl, let me hear your yelp, let me hear your gobble. And he did it all. And none of these people in my hometown knew this guy. They didn't even know he was undercover. I mean, we kind of busted his cover, you know. Twenty five years later, it was okay, but they didn't even know for sure that he was undercovered. Louis Delle just always told him. He's like, I suspect that guy. So it was just interesting. And Russ has some wild, wild undercover agent stories, like blow your mind kind of stuff. But the real Russ Arthur is like a very dedicated turkey hunter, just a really good guy, really deeply embedded in Appalachia and that part of the world over there. And Russ actually hooked me up with the ninety two year old guy named Jack Hall who told the EMU story. Yeah, and so anyway, Russ super cool guy. But Russ is on the next episode two. He has a cool story of the next episode two. I was just to spoil the fun fortunate. 00:38:56 Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, I thought I did listen to that story. And when he said he didn't read it, that is not something I would have ever done, Like I thought that was Oh yeah, I thought I thought it was kind of wild. And like when he said I still haven't read it, I was like, hold hold. 00:39:12 Speaker 5: On, I think I would have read it too. 00:39:15 Speaker 3: I think I would have read it for sure, like I would have. 00:39:17 Speaker 1: It was ten years ago. 00:39:18 Speaker 8: Yeah, really, Okay, yeah, I wouldn't wait that long. 00:39:23 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:39:23 Speaker 3: So you saying that someone has like all those journals and didn't and his family didn't know it. I think that type of person would have a child who would know that there's a journal entry about his first time that he doesn't read, like I think there might be a family thing here. 00:39:37 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:39:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was kind of fascinating to me. 00:39:39 Speaker 6: Yeah, maybe so I think he kind of got emotionally prepare for something like that too. And I mean you could hear it in his voice, Yeah, when he said, you know, forgive me if I get choked up. Yeah, that's the man emotional stuff. Man. You know, there's a bond there with your dad. You know. It's when his son and a dad that when they say something nuts about you kind of chokes you up a little bit, you know. So, and I think that. 00:40:03 Speaker 1: You don't care about words of affirmation, So now that matters to you, right, I. 00:40:06 Speaker 6: Think that's maybe why I don't care about My dad was not that way to me. I kind of learned to leave without it. So uh yeah, it definitely it eats to me sometimes, you know when I think about stuff like that, for sure. 00:40:21 Speaker 1: So which story stood out to you John. 00:40:30 Speaker 6: Honestly, I got two. Uh, I won't go too long because Josh kind of already hit on it. But that David's story, you know about his friend getting shot again John John dumping his dirty laundry out here in the on the Bear Grease podcast. But I had a friend, a good friend of mine also that got shot and killed in a friendly fire accident right in front of me in the military, the same same deployment, same thing. And uh that that's a scary thing to me, you know, to be around somebody I don't know with a firearm, you know. And it's not not that I'm scared of guns. You know that I carry them daily and you know their tools and uh, you know, responsibly used there there, that's what they're intended for. But yeah, when anytime I get around, you know, a group of duck hunters, a group of turkey hunters. If a gun is sitting on table turkey camp, like, I'm checking it, I'm looking at it, I'm making sure it's unloading. And I you know, duck hunting, I usually make sure everybody I'll watch them shoot before I'll shoot. You know, I got I got some hunting buddies that you know, they're kind of like, why are you shooting? I'm like, I'm just watching here for a second, you know, just to kind of make sure. But yeah, I I appreciated the compassion and the understanding that the wife and the friend had, uh by extending that to him and just being patient, uh to let that kind of wound heal. But I also thought about uh podcast sixty six, you know with Leon Boyd the Hicks from the Sticks, where he talks about. 00:42:12 Speaker 1: The number of the episode I. 00:42:16 Speaker 6: Wrote notes this morning. Yeah, yeah, I've been listening since day one man, so back back in the Bear Grease magazine days. So uh yeah, the quote that he said, he said, I'd rather leave this old world right here coon hunting as in the best hospital in the world. I enjoy these woods, and I like to see youngins like Shepherd enjoy hunting. There's a lot of things in this old world that ain't near clean a sport as coon hunt is. 00:42:43 Speaker 1: And that's a high level comment. He's taken something from episode sixty six, weaving it in episode I don't know what episode. 00:42:52 Speaker 6: After job, I know what episode this is too, And I got a present for y'all later that I'll show. 00:43:00 Speaker 1: So did you do anything like that. 00:43:03 Speaker 4: No, I got it up here. 00:43:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, so, uh not trying to interrupt you, John, Oh you're good. 00:43:12 Speaker 6: You know that that David said, you know that it's good medicine to be in the woods. And I resonated with that. You know that that's kind of where I've gone. It's to the woods, you know, and uh not not sharing my feelings all the time, and just kind of getting out there with with yourself and God and just sitting out there and being lone, you know, or you know, with a with a friend or your wife or whatever like that. And I'm at the stage of life where, uh I kind of like watching my wife do stuff and enjoy the things that I like to do, uh more than I like doing them now. And that kind of ties into my second one there with Billy Johnson and the Clay Matthews. Man, I got I got chills when I heard that. Yeah. Just so that's kind of the life that I'm looking for these days, you know, man, living off the land. Uh, simple life, you know. I just I thought it was incredible. Again it's it's woodsmanship, but you know, knowing where the mulberry trees are to uh know where to find those turkeys. You know, that's pretty neat. Watching the hornets nest to see how high they are off the ground by the winter is revenue squirrel hair. Yeah that I'd love to sit down with a fellow like that and drink a cup of coffee. I mean, like the stories that they can tell, you know, walking to sell his furs, you know, doing all that. And again, like I said, the Blue Yodeler story was neat, you know, because, like I said, you get that involvement, you know, with that animal, and it just it means so much to you. But it just you know, at the end of the day, the animals, not the killing of the animal is not not the thing for me anymore. It's just the the enjoyment of being out there. And I just I can tell from that how that guy talked about Clay Matthews, that he just he loved what he did. You know, the world changed all around him, but he didn't know any different because he just kept on doing his thing. That that says contentment to me. That says, you know that he's just okay being who he is. And yeah, that, like I said, I got I got kind of choked up thinking about that, you know, like, that's a that's a pretty good way to live. 00:45:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that a lot. So, man, that story was interesting to hear Billy Johnson tell because again it was it was kind of a there's always more than what we edit down. Yeah, And he started off the story like real quick by saying, there's this old man that lived on the river named Clay Matthews. He was a lamplighter. And he starts telling me the story, and then he starts talking about the Blue Yodler and I was confused. I was like, what what about? What about the guy on the river? Like That's what I was thinking in my head as he was talking. And then he tells this turkey story and then he goes back to Clay Matthews. And by the time he's you, you realize that he he can't talk about turkey hunting without talking about Clay Matthews. 00:46:07 Speaker 2: Mathews had nothing to do with the Blue Yodler. 00:46:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, it had nothing. But in Billy's my and Billy's the older guy. I don't know, Billy's probably in his sixties too, maybe maybe older than that, I don't know, but but he he had a real he had an agenda, like in a good way, like when he started telling that story. Yeah, like the story was about Clay Matthews. Yes, there just happened to be his own personal little turkey story in there, you know. And and yeah, I thought it was really cool and the fact that we've done quite a bit of stuff on the Mississippi River. It was really cool here and about he was a lamplighter, Yes, on an island, which so the Mississippi River is they marked. They've marked the channels since the eighteen hundreds, maybe even the middle eighteen hundreds, thirty thousand dollars to conservation. Uh uh the uh yeah? Is that was that a microwave? 00:47:05 Speaker 6: John, Yeah, microwave. 00:47:07 Speaker 1: No, you're supposed to tell them it's not. People think that it's a microwave. People think we're cooking burritos. People think that I had a guy write me give me back to Clay Matthews, had a guy wrapped me a very detailed instructions. The other day, I've had to change the battery on my laptop because they thought it was a laptop. They thought it was a Garmin dog thing. Say my dog was treed. Anyway, I like it. I like it all so much. I'm just gonna let it keep beeping. 00:47:34 Speaker 6: Part of the DNA, just like Clay Matthews and the blue yo oldler. 00:47:37 Speaker 1: It's part of the big story, the beeping, mysterious beeping. They mark the channels on the river so that the boats, like the river might be a half mile wide, but maybe there's only you know, two hundred yard stretch where you could drive a big boat where it's deep. And so uh they had Kearris floating kerosene lanterns that somebody kept like for like a thousand miles up the river. And this guy, Clay Matthews was a lamplighter on Mississippi River. 00:48:06 Speaker 6: That's fascinating in it. 00:48:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and lived on that island. It was cool. 00:48:10 Speaker 6: Yeah, we lived live on the Arkansas and so we got big barges coming up and down all the time. 00:48:14 Speaker 1: And you can, you like, can see the river from your house. Oh that's cool. 00:48:18 Speaker 6: Yeah, So that's fascinating to me. I mean, I can't can't see the bank with a nice duck duck light, you know, let alone a kerosene lantern. You imagine that that'd be wild. 00:48:28 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:48:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was a good story, man. That was a that I love that. I love that story. Yeah, and he did a good job too of describing how he woke up the next day. It was kind of sad that he couldn't chase that turns. Yeah, which one did you like? 00:48:46 Speaker 4: I really liked the the one you're all were just talking about Billy Johnson and the Clay Matthews deal, all that, all that went together. When you finally got to the end of it, then you realized how all that, like you said, tied together. How Billy Johnson tied all every everything he talked about, Turkey hut, anything that he related to Clay Matthews because that was his life, you know, that's he he learned so much and picked up so much stuff from him there on the Mississippi and doing that. And then the other story I liked was, Shoot, I just forgot the guy's name, the boy Stubs, yeahs Arthur. 00:49:26 Speaker 2: The one Roy the one. It was the next to last story. 00:49:28 Speaker 1: I think it was Roy Stubs, the older guy the Mississippi. 00:49:33 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:49:34 Speaker 4: I really liked his story, uh, because I relate to that a lot. 00:49:39 Speaker 1: For all the years I've been turkey hunting, missing. 00:49:41 Speaker 4: Some of my fondest memories missing or not getting a shot a turkey getting away. 00:49:46 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:49:47 Speaker 4: Uh, I've had some really good hunts that it ended in in either a missing a shot or not getting a shot at all of the turkey. And uh, it's the same way with deer hunting too, but especially on Turkey. It seems like that you remember that stuff when it goes like you don't plan for it to go, but it still sticks in your mind. And it's a great hunt because of everything that happened through the whole episode of the hunt and everything. So those two stories, I really, I mean, they were all pretty good, but if I picked two out, there would be those two right there. 00:50:17 Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, that Roy Stubbs gentleman. I had never met him before that day, didn't know anything about him. I called Billy Johnson, who runs that museum, and if you're ever near Leland, Mississippi, really should go there. It's top notch for what it is. And I just said, Billy, I need turkey stories, and he said, be here at nine o'clock on this day. And I show up and he's got three guys there and one of them is Roy Stubs. So, I mean, I didn't know this guy from Adam sat down with him and it became clear real quick, like people just carry something, Like everybody has something intangible that they bring to a conversation or when they're talking about something, they just bring something. And he just had like incredible respect for the turkey. Yeah, you know, like he he in his little preamble, I kind of asked these guys, like, give me a little bit of history about yourself and you're hunting and uh, and he and he told about when he got started and there weren't many turkeys, and then there were a lot of turkeys. And but then he said and he said, turkeys are really special and if you get to hunt one, you you should you should thank the Lord. It was just like super genuine. Yeah. I get a lot of people say stuff like that, but when he said it, it was like, I think this guy really means it. And then I thought it was really funny when at the end he said he was sure that that turkey was in Turkey Keavin, it was. He said it as a joke. He knew he was joking, but he said it. It was funny the way he said it, But he was in need. He was a neat old guy. 00:51:57 Speaker 4: That sounds like, yeah, he seems like he had a lot of respect for the wild turkey, I mean just as a as a game bird and out there because this way he talked about the whole episode. He talked through till the end when when he was, you know, laying on his belly and when he shot and didn't have his head down on his going good, he figured what happened, and when the turkey flew over his head, it was like this is this is don't get no better than this? 00:52:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's yeah, you know, I think to me, they were all they were all special. I liked that the old man, ninety two year old Jack Hall, when he had one turkey story to tell, and he actually told me a couple. I wheeled through him. But he's killed hundreds of turkeys, he really has. He there was an article about him in the National Wild Turkey Federation magazine that I read before. I just kind of saw before I interviewed him. He was Russ Art friend. But the story that he wanted to tell was about when he tricked his old brought in some Yeah. I just thought it was I thought that was a good a good story. But all those on this episode, there were quite a few older fellas other than Macy Watkins, who was, who was, Who's young? But all the old guys started. I actually had to cut it out because it you know, when you're building an episode, you don't want it to be too repetitive. But almost every one of them told me the same story. There used to not be any turkeys, and then there were, and they would talk about how their dads didn't turkey hunt because there weren't any turkeys. And then when they kind of came of age in the fifties and sixties, there started being turkeys. And then and I kind of alluded to it in the podcast and some of when I was talking, but it's it's interesting now to be a part of a turkey decline and and more there's everybody's hit a little bit different, Like the turkey decline in Arkansas pretty much shut me down for ten years. Like, uh, turkey hunton was not like my number one focus for in hunting, Like I was probably more focused on bear and deer, but always turkey hunted, and if turkey hunted every year of my life since I started turkey hunting. But like the turkey the point of this, this uh, what I'm saying here is that wildlife numbers declining actually affect people. Point being, for the last ten years, I've kind of opted out of being very serious about turkey's just because the places I used to go don't have them anymore, and so my my sons and daughters, they have not grown up with a real rich turkey story, even though we've done some pretty good youth hunting MOS been with us on some of them. But uh, it just makes you appreciate having wildlife. Yes, Like you don't realize that. I don't realize sometimes how special it is what we have in North America. I mean, we just wake up and it's like what we have. If you're in rural America and you want to hunt, you've got access. But for me, the turkey hunting decline in Arkansas as deep a dive as our turkeys took and hopefully they're coming back. I mean, it kind of takes the fire out of you. 00:55:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, And like I said earlier, the when I first started in seventy six, there was turkeys, but there wasn't a lot of turkeys. I mean up in this area. I heard people talk about it in the Washtalls. There was a lot more mountains back then in the sixties and through the seventies, but in the in the in when I started in the in the mid seventies, like I said, you you would go out. 00:55:59 Speaker 2: Or see with a month long it was the full month of April. 00:56:02 Speaker 4: It went from April first to the end of April and whatever days you got to go hunt it. And even before seasoned scouting, you didn't hear much. But when you found a pocket of turkeys, you'd hear some goblin you could go hunt them. And there wasn't near as many hunters back then. I'd say there was probably a fifth of the hunters back when I first started, as there is now as far as hunters. But in the last what you said of manygo clay. In the last ten years, I've seen those same turkey hunting hunter numbers seem like they've declined just because the turkey population has shrunk here in Arkansas. And a lot of people say, well, you know, I ain't gonna go turkey hunting here in Arkansas because they're hard. 00:56:48 Speaker 2: To find, and I'm just gonna go fishing. I'm gonna do this or do that. 00:56:51 Speaker 4: You know, Ignorant hardcore people like may I spent a whole month to chase them around, whether there's any out there or not, because I love to do it. 00:56:58 Speaker 2: I love the turkey hunt. 00:57:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, but I've seen the usually find something. 00:57:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, I usually do so yeah. 00:57:05 Speaker 4: But there's a lot of miles under these old boots and feet in that time to find them too. So so many people got spoiled. Like I said, in the nineties and early two thousands, they didn't have to go scout unting and just go out two or three days for a season, find a few turkeys here. 00:57:21 Speaker 2: I'm goblin. 00:57:22 Speaker 4: The last few years, I've killed a couple of big turkeys that I never heard god before the season or anything. I killed the one that I've got mounted, the only turkey I've ever mounted. And the only reason I went in there is because I was deer hunting in there the fall before and I found a big, old, huge track on an. 00:57:38 Speaker 2: Old logging road in there. 00:57:40 Speaker 4: And I didn't even go back there before the season or anything. And I hadn't had no luck. I hadn't killed a bird all season. I told my wife, I said, I'm gonna go back over there where I was deer hunting. I said, there, I saw a turkey track where I saw a big turkey track and she kind of laughed at me and until I come home that day with that big old bird that I've got mounted. 00:57:58 Speaker 6: Now, so there we go. 00:58:01 Speaker 8: Right on. But the challenge, I feel like makes it more exciting, I mean for me at least, because I know the first two seasons I hunted with John, I didn't get on a bird, and I think the second year actually I wasn't able to go hunting. But the third year I've spent in the one story about how he. 00:58:17 Speaker 7: Said, I don't know what I'm gonna do. 00:58:19 Speaker 2: Now he's like. 00:58:20 Speaker 7: Hunted for what twenty four days? 00:58:22 Speaker 1: I don't forgot, Yeah, ye, twenty one days. 00:58:24 Speaker 8: Okay, So I didn't hunt that long on my first turkey. But the first one that I got was like five. 00:58:30 Speaker 6: Yeah, six days, five or. 00:58:31 Speaker 8: Six days straight, and I was like so bound and determined by the end of it. And that was the other thing when Macy was talking about being just like just done and like you know, it was raining and everything. 00:58:43 Speaker 7: It was just the same kind of thing. But I remember like after I got that. 00:58:46 Speaker 8: First one, I was like, wow, like that was but you know, there was so much build up to that point, yes, and it was just like, oh wow, now that it's done, it's like, you know, it was kind of fun when it was you know, the chase, Yeah, the cat and mouse thing there for a while. But yeah, it kind of makes it more exciting though when it's not so easy. 00:59:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, do you do you call? Do you turkey call? Yeah? 00:59:20 Speaker 8: But I use a box call usually, but I'm going to use my sleep call from Brent that he gave me. 00:59:26 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he gave me one. 00:59:27 Speaker 7: Yeah he did. 00:59:28 Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, will we all go hunt anywhere other than Oklahoma or yeah. 00:59:34 Speaker 6: So we've had a camp, or my family has had a camp in Missouri. My great grandfather bought a place up there, I think maybe back in the thirties, and so it's been in the family for a long time. And so back in the I mean when I was a little kid, you know, probably back in ninety six, ninety seven or so, we started going up there, you know, in suburbans and you know, camping in ten and some stuff. And we had you know, two by fours nail to the trees for shelves and stuff like that. And we'd always drive past this little cabin up there and uh busted out when his floor sagging. You know, my great grandfather had built it for his ranch hand, you know, years and years ago. And so one year we went up there and I mean it rained for five days straight and everything was sopping wet. You know, our tents were soaked, you know, all clothes were soaked, and like, why why are we not sleeping up in that cabin? And you know, we had a guy from Kentucky that was hunting with us. I ain't sleeping up in that cabin. There's ghosts in there. They I can hear those chains rattling up there right now. His name is old Larry Moore. So uh anyhow, long story short, we redid the cabin and so we got a little camp up there now and that we go up there at least for a week every year. It's it's very hot. 01:00:50 Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I love I love going there. That was Yeah, the first time I went out, it was just like, Wow, it's so peaceful out here and there's I mean you can hear them gobbling all around. And that was my first like the experience of turkey hunting. But yeah, it's pretty neat. 01:01:06 Speaker 6: We actually have plans to go hunt with Cam, the winner of the al who is that competition. Now we we just exchanged the numbers there and uh, I think we're gonna go hit that first week season. Maybe if we get our butts kicked, we'll go to go to the place in Missouri on private and try to get a bird there. 01:01:24 Speaker 1: So cool, cool, Well cam has two of Josh Spillmaker's made. I'm jealous raccoons skin hats. 01:01:31 Speaker 6: I don't know if I got what it takes to win them. But DEMI mind, Demi, for real, you need to on it. 01:01:38 Speaker 1: You need to you need to train her head. 01:01:41 Speaker 6: She can feel it. 01:01:42 Speaker 2: I want. 01:01:43 Speaker 1: I want to hear like your your regiment for like how many al hoots a day? 01:01:48 Speaker 2: Yeah? 01:01:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go and like listening to recordings. 01:01:54 Speaker 6: Didn't you know what when I did that? 01:01:56 Speaker 1: Uh that One of the first couple of Beargrees episodes was about I think I can't remember the name of it, the thing about the thing about the thing about out hooters, and and it was about. 01:02:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, you called me and said you want me to be on it? 01:02:13 Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, yeah, Well no, I met with a voice coach. I interviewed a voice guy that trains actors and singers. And listen to that episode listen to listen to it before yeah episode anyway. The guy I interviewed it, it was online and he he said, let me hear you al hoot, And so I owled at him and he said, uh. He said keep. He watched me and he gave me instruction of what to do and it actually helped. He said, you need to keep your tongue lower. It was from New York City. He didn't a thing about sounded like yeah, pace peconic. He uh, anyway, so you could take this serious, Tommy. 01:03:07 Speaker 3: This is how Clay talks to our kids. 01:03:09 Speaker 1: Like he don't see potentially Like he's. 01:03:12 Speaker 3: Having SHEP right now. He's like, SHEP, you gotta work out, you gotta like he's constantly telling what he's got to do. So he basically sees potential for you to be, you know, a legendary. 01:03:22 Speaker 7: Well, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna put in the work next. 01:03:25 Speaker 3: Year, assignments. 01:03:30 Speaker 1: You got you think you got her? 01:03:31 Speaker 4: I told I told you when I've planned on going up there that I had had a couple of secrets I've been working on. 01:03:37 Speaker 2: Oh I didn't show. 01:03:38 Speaker 4: Them while ago, Okay, okay, this year, son, all I'll say is that it took me a while to figure it out. But when you can sund like two three hours at the same. 01:03:51 Speaker 1: Timeloquist, Hey, let me tell you this hot tip. And I don't know if I'll be a judge next year if we if we start getting real serious with it, I don't know that I'll be a judge. But uh, I think it's a trend to start with a with a screech. 01:04:11 Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't. 01:04:12 Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know that that's the way to go. 01:04:15 Speaker 2: See, that's something I can't do. 01:04:16 Speaker 4: I've tried and tried, and I can't get that high sound out of my throat. 01:04:20 Speaker 6: It's kind of hard to do. 01:04:22 Speaker 1: I think. I think the if if cam we're here the winner, who's an incredible out hooter, Absolutely, I would say I'm more interested in the basics. I would like to hear a laugh and all that as a as like a like an afterthought, because the basic even like three note four note who't being real tight? To me? Is what makes it? 01:04:50 Speaker 2: The trill? 01:04:52 Speaker 7: Well, that's what's going to ask. Is that that important? 01:04:55 Speaker 1: It is? 01:04:56 Speaker 7: Because for me it's hit or miss. I can't seem to can you do it? 01:04:59 Speaker 8: So? 01:05:00 Speaker 1: Sometimes though yes, sometimes, well, keep practicing. 01:05:02 Speaker 5: Okay, here's your Every time when I hear. 01:05:05 Speaker 1: That, that is something that as a judge, I'm listening for. If somebody can trill. 01:05:09 Speaker 6: It's like, yep, I like that. That sounds good. 01:05:17 Speaker 1: I can't. I can't do a trill some guys. 01:05:21 Speaker 8: Yeah, And there's times I will get it like that, and when I'm not trying. 01:05:25 Speaker 1: It just comes out. So you got the potential though, Yeah, So you gotta. 01:05:29 Speaker 7: Keep working, and it's good to know how to roll your rs. 01:05:32 Speaker 6: Like if you can roll your cars then in Spanish, so I use my ute. 01:05:37 Speaker 1: Can you can you trill? 01:05:39 Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, I can't. I need to drink of water here. 01:05:46 Speaker 3: It's pretty good, pretty good. This is what it's like. Just like waking up in April at our house. You're first stressful if you're not a morning person, playing bear, going back and forth. 01:06:02 Speaker 7: I feel that I'm not a morning person. 01:06:04 Speaker 8: It was just funny because he always would make fun of me, saying that I was a night out or like you know, it would be when we were first married, like I'd be wanting to have a conversation late at night. 01:06:13 Speaker 7: He's not a night out, He's a morning person. 01:06:16 Speaker 8: He would joke and say ten o'clock time to talk, like I was just like that, and I'm like, I'm sorry, my mind is like full deep conversations. 01:06:30 Speaker 1: Can we do this in the morning coffee when I'm ready. 01:06:33 Speaker 6: I'm ready to go at five, you know, so I think. 01:06:36 Speaker 1: I'm ready to talk anytime, right, Misty. 01:06:38 Speaker 3: Well, I mean Clay falls asleep in like thirty seconds and I'll be like, hey, by the way, I mean to me, we haven't disengaged from our last conversation. And he'll be asleep and I'll say hey, by the way, He's like, oh my gosh, you just woke me up from a dead sleep. And I'm like, there's no possible way I could be in a mild sleep, much less a dead sleep at that time. Hey, I've got a funny sweet for Josh because he was talking about Macy with her her flies. Clay Bear told me this week he said I need to I need to go to work making some flies and I said yeah. He said, I'm wanting to put in some special edition Tim flies. Tim is our squirrel dog, and he plucks hair from Tim to make. 01:07:19 Speaker 1: Animals. Animal He's like, I need to make sure. 01:07:29 Speaker 3: See that. 01:07:29 Speaker 1: Well know, it is. 01:07:31 Speaker 3: Okay, just Bear's been flying ties. 01:07:33 Speaker 6: Flying TI time. 01:07:37 Speaker 5: Can't ever say it right the first time says Oh you're gonna go fly some ties? 01:07:42 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:07:45 Speaker 3: Second, yeah, that does sound like a T shirt. 01:07:51 Speaker 1: Well I've I'm going to Mississippi next week again. 01:07:57 Speaker 7: Awesome. 01:07:58 Speaker 5: Yeah, looking for the Mississippi turkey population. 01:08:02 Speaker 1: Way better than here. It's better, Okay, it's better. Hey, if this is for all the folks out there, if you are well, if you live anywhere in the world, you could come to the Meat Eater Live Tour, which starts on April to twenty third and runs through May the fifth. But we'll be out west, and man, it's wild that meat eaters never come to the South for a live tour or the Midwest on a live tour. No, Kansas City. Yeah, but they're gonna, they're gonna. We're gonna be in Arizona, California, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah. 01:08:47 Speaker 6: How long is the drive to Washington. 01:08:48 Speaker 1: I'll come see you long ways. But you can buy you can buy tickets to the Meat Eater Live Tour right now, and uh, it's gonna be a lot of fun. So don't you think they should go? Josh I think they should. Yeah, just if they're you know, if you're within I would say, if you're within fifteen hours drive of there, you should go. Absolutely, no question. It's a joke. 01:09:13 Speaker 6: Misty. 01:09:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, I meet your live tour. The other thing that you can check out is Brent Myy's Mississippi River Expedition film, which watch watched it. 01:09:25 Speaker 5: Sorry, I've been on vacation. 01:09:27 Speaker 6: Oh wow, I immensely enjoyed that. That was good. 01:09:30 Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was a lot of fun. 01:09:31 Speaker 6: Yeah, it really one hundred and fifty miles in a boat, two hundred fifty miles. I needed a vacation from. 01:09:39 Speaker 1: Come on, Josh, you look like you're looking for something. 01:09:44 Speaker 3: They were They were in Dallas. 01:09:46 Speaker 1: Oh wow, in twenty. 01:09:47 Speaker 2: Nineteen, she's proven you wrong. 01:09:49 Speaker 1: Okay, that's all. 01:09:50 Speaker 3: I'm just doing some research. 01:09:51 Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, they were in Dallas just doing Don't go Toe to Toe with dog? DEMI? Do you want to you want to hiss with a fiddle tune? 01:10:02 Speaker 6: Oh? 01:10:02 Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, absolutbsolutely. I gotta I gotta follow the leader of your husband here, he's saying you should do it. 01:10:08 Speaker 6: Uh huh, she's good at it. 01:10:11 Speaker 3: Let's hear it. 01:10:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very Yeah, can you get it for you? 01:10:16 Speaker 8: John? 01:10:16 Speaker 6: I love to we need to use it. 01:10:18 Speaker 3: We've not had a while. 01:10:21 Speaker 7: Now, what kind of I wish I wasn't alone in this. 01:10:23 Speaker 5: Listen you played the fiddle and off the violin, well, well both, I was. 01:10:28 Speaker 7: I was classically trained. 01:10:29 Speaker 8: So but I had a friend in high school that actually he approached me, handed me a CD. He was real introverted, but I'm real smart. He just started playing the banjo one day and he handed me a CD of like fifty songs and he said. 01:10:42 Speaker 7: You need to listen to these and learn them because we're going to start a bluegrass band. 01:10:46 Speaker 8: Okay, I said, I don't know about that. I'm not I don't I don't really play. He's like, well, you're gonna love it. It's gonna be great, And so we did. We had a blue grass band and your Tree Redemption, and I loved it. It was the most fun actually that I play to music. 01:11:01 Speaker 7: So I don't know if this is even in tune. 01:11:04 Speaker 1: So you can take your time. We can edit it out if you need a minute. So what is the I think I know the answer to this, but maybe not everybody does. Tell us the difference between classical violin and fiddle. 01:11:22 Speaker 8: It really comes down to style mostly, but there are things that you can do to adjust the instrument to kind of make it more, you know, lean more towards like that's. 01:11:35 Speaker 1: There's something you can do to the instrument, or it's the it's the cadence and the style of playing it. 01:11:43 Speaker 7: Like, yeah, the bridge has. 01:11:45 Speaker 8: Something to sometimes people will have different levels of the bridge and then also a lot of fiddle players I've talked to have like steel strings. Okay, so but for the most part, I mean, it's it's basically the same instrument. 01:12:06 Speaker 1: Okay, man, Just think if if we all practice a song, we could play meanful. 01:12:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, we should have. We should have. We should have talked, we should we should have played next time public? 01:12:21 Speaker 1: What are you gonna play? 01:12:21 Speaker 3: Unbear? 01:12:24 Speaker 7: I don't know, I might play. 01:12:26 Speaker 1: You don't know old slew Fo do you that song? 01:12:29 Speaker 7: Don't? 01:12:29 Speaker 1: Okay, don't worry about it. 01:12:30 Speaker 7: Trying to think of something that I could just play by heart. 01:13:15 Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't that. 01:13:21 Speaker 1: Very rough. 01:13:22 Speaker 6: I don't want to ol hoot. 01:13:25 Speaker 7: I'm very rusty. 01:13:26 Speaker 8: I played for a long time and then I put it down and didn't play it for a long long time. 01:13:30 Speaker 1: So right, that's awesome. It was a very good You got another one? 01:13:37 Speaker 7: I don't know. I don't know if I can come up with you can't. 01:13:40 Speaker 1: Come up with another one. 01:13:41 Speaker 6: Yeah, that's great. Well I could come up with one. 01:13:44 Speaker 1: But do you play anything? John? 01:13:46 Speaker 6: I don't calls Turkey calls. 01:13:49 Speaker 7: He played mandolin. 01:13:51 Speaker 6: Yeah, it was kind of one of those deals. 01:13:53 Speaker 7: He wanted to play banjo. 01:13:54 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:13:55 Speaker 6: Sorry, Mom, if you're listening to this, I doubt it was kind of one of those deals. It was pushed on me when I wasn't ready for it. I just kind of didn't like it too much. But I wish I could play the guitar. Really. I like to sing and uh, you know, make up make up my own words to stuff, you know, and tunes and stuff like that. So that's pretty neat. That's why I like uh oh, Hawking Horse. When he did that Arkansas Mule, Yeah, it was neat, wasn't it. 01:14:22 Speaker 1: Yeah? 01:14:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he released it today. 01:14:25 Speaker 1: He was releasing it on April nineteenth. 01:14:27 Speaker 3: Okay, I got something. 01:14:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, I thank you, Thank you for playing. That was awesome. That was awesome. Thank you guys so much for coming. 01:14:35 Speaker 6: Yeah for you too, before, but waiting around here, you want to. 01:14:45 Speaker 1: Bring us any gifts? Brought myself gift. 01:14:48 Speaker 6: Enough in itself. All right? I got one of these for each yell and I got one extra one. They're all unique rendered boy Brent, since he didn't show up, you know, show today? 01:15:00 Speaker 3: Is this the one that incorporates the number? 01:15:02 Speaker 1: This is? It's wrapped in taper. 01:15:04 Speaker 6: Take a guest to what you think it is? 01:15:06 Speaker 2: Because I've made him? 01:15:08 Speaker 6: Have you made you know what it is? 01:15:11 Speaker 1: Holy cow? 01:15:11 Speaker 6: Have you made? 01:15:13 Speaker 1: What is it? 01:15:15 Speaker 6: Edition five of five? 01:15:17 Speaker 1: Wing bone call? That's awesome? Wow episode? Look dad, gun, that's a big time. 01:15:29 Speaker 6: There we go, okay, and now so look on the other side of that. It is b B three three? 01:15:36 Speaker 1: How many black three? 01:15:38 Speaker 6: That's that's the that's the yield yell three. 01:15:44 Speaker 1: That's a ton of work. That sounds good. 01:15:48 Speaker 3: That sounds that sounds really good. 01:15:54 Speaker 1: Man, that's work. 01:15:55 Speaker 3: Thank you? 01:15:57 Speaker 1: This is awesome? 01:15:57 Speaker 2: Man? 01:15:58 Speaker 6: Is the open yours? Will yelp? 01:16:03 Speaker 1: That's gonna hang here in the office. Man, it's beautiful paper. 01:16:10 Speaker 3: Did you wrap this? 01:16:14 Speaker 7: Thank you? 01:16:17 Speaker 1: I don't even know what to expect on this. 01:16:19 Speaker 6: Yeah, because really good. Hard to get that down, isn't it. 01:16:25 Speaker 7: You might have to cut it. 01:16:26 Speaker 3: I'm not as good I got bucket if you need, probably not as hard as. 01:16:31 Speaker 2: Back in the seventies. 01:16:33 Speaker 6: I started doing them about five years ago. It was beautiful and so those those are off. 01:16:37 Speaker 1: Of ohy feather did you know that's awesome? Those are beautiful. Oh my goodness, the tail feathers of the Mallard. 01:16:50 Speaker 7: Mallard with the turkey. But then I had to throw in some o. 01:16:54 Speaker 1: That's awesome. 01:16:55 Speaker 7: Some Mallard curls in there. 01:16:56 Speaker 2: I'll get along with this this year. 01:16:58 Speaker 6: But if you, if you would, i'd appreciate. Hold them right out from him, I'd be I'd be real happy for you if you did, I'd be happy for you. Anyways, if you didn't use it, So yeah, if you want to use it and hang them up. 01:17:15 Speaker 1: Displayed somewhere prominence. Look, John, this this call right here is my dad's old call. That's neat that uh just ever since I was a little kid, my dad always had that one, and he showed us how to use it and everything. And I nabbed it from him a few years ago and said, that's going in the museum. 01:17:33 Speaker 6: Yeah, so that it's a different sound in the woods. You know something I was going to say, uh, when you were talking about that out hooton episode. I remember staying up late late when David Letterman was on TV and listening to Preston Pittman and like two other guys he had on there doing the Goblin and stuff, and I remember thinking, like, I can do that, you know, and so it's it's neat. I just story. 01:17:59 Speaker 1: So well, yeah, thank you guys for coming, Thanks everybody for listening, and we will see you next week

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