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 today. 00:00:44 Speaker 2: We got like a deep rides from. 00:00:46 Speaker 1: Marito and promise sirl chips on the side. Yeah, sputilla chim that's forrtilla chips. 00:00:56 Speaker 3: We're making a it's a campfire Carbland campfire by It's made with a horn sauce that around since of seventeen hundred five game sauce. 00:01:03 Speaker 2: Man. 00:01:03 Speaker 4: That makes me hungry just just thinking about it. 00:01:07 Speaker 2: Squirrel, I don't know all we're going to the ground. 00:01:12 Speaker 3: We're testing the fritters. Yeah. 00:01:17 Speaker 5: Now, my grandpa when he took a bite of something, you know he liked it. 00:01:20 Speaker 4: If he said, you know what, this tastes like, it tastes like more. 00:01:24 Speaker 3: That's right. 00:01:25 Speaker 4: Good, We'll get you a full deal with everything on with that's good man, Thank you. 00:01:29 Speaker 1: Going to squirrel Cookie. We found ourselves at the World Championship World Championship Squirrel Cookoff Big Springdale, Arkansas, Arkansas. 00:01:46 Speaker 4: With a W. 00:01:47 Speaker 1: That's right, right, that's right now, this is uh, we're in Springdale, Arkansas. Man, the guests that I have in front of me, and this is this is like the this is like dream team, dream team, beggery shrender. Here. We got Brent he's right here working undercover as usual. 00:02:02 Speaker 5: Won't even know it's him. 00:02:04 Speaker 1: I mean, he's so good we don't even care anymore. 00:02:07 Speaker 3: That's right. 00:02:08 Speaker 1: Then we got Kevin Murphy from Kentucky. Came with stuff. He's got his squirrel dog, looks like he's got a nine millimeter on his side, and he brought a Kentucky long rifle. 00:02:21 Speaker 5: Do you mind if I tell you this right quick? Yesterday when Kevin was unloading to get here, I've got a couple of pet peeves in life, and one of them is it's my socks. Okay, A pair of socks will wreck your life. Kevin Murphy drives all the way from Kentucky with a hole in his sock to where the third knuckle on his big toe was showing through. A matter of fact, his ankle was almost through his sock. I know, why did you see his socks because I said, you got shoes on for the first time I ever seen you. And he pulls off his shoe and he's got a hole all the way through his sock. And I thought I could well Kevin Murphy till I've seen how tough he was, because there ain't no way I could drive from Kentucky arkansall the whole of myself like that. 00:03:06 Speaker 1: He's an efficient man. 00:03:07 Speaker 3: I was told not to go barefooted, so I had to let the big toe hang out. 00:03:12 Speaker 1: Do you go barefoot much? 00:03:13 Speaker 3: Hell? No? Okay, my feace as tender as a baby's butt. 00:03:18 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, just checking, just checking. So we've got Malcolm Reid from Mississippi. Where do you live in Mississippi? 00:03:26 Speaker 2: Malcolm, I live in Hernando Desorta County just south of Memphis a little bit. 00:03:30 Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm not too far from the Arkansas line. 00:03:32 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:03:33 Speaker 1: And man, Malcolm is a world famous barbecue man. You were on the podcast last year and I've since been following you. He's like the evil Canieval of Barbara. 00:03:43 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, for real. He breaks older. 00:03:46 Speaker 1: He comes on and he's got a huge, huge following on TikTok and YouTube, like massive. He comes on there and it's like, uh, it's like, guess what I'm gonna do today? Folks? Yep, and man, it's always good. 00:03:58 Speaker 6: Well, I just like to eat, so you can tell I hold back. 00:04:02 Speaker 1: Now, what were you doing here today? 00:04:03 Speaker 6: I came back for the squirrel cook Off? 00:04:05 Speaker 2: You know, I had such a good time last year here that I that when Joe asked us that we were willing to come back, I was. 00:04:11 Speaker 4: Like, absolutely, did you cook? 00:04:14 Speaker 2: I didn't cook in the contest, but we cooked jumble Lie. We cooked three rounds of jumble Lie. Probably fed over about a thousand people today. Come on, we brought a thousand bowls and we ran out of bowls. 00:04:24 Speaker 5: Wow, they were eating it out of the palm of their hands. 00:04:27 Speaker 4: Give me I had I'm. 00:04:28 Speaker 1: Gonna I'm gonna come to you last, Joe. We've got We've got Clifton Jackson. Why is everybody yelling? Todd Razorbacks? Are playing? Playing? Who we playing today? 00:04:42 Speaker 4: Some little team from Oklahoma? I don't even know. 00:04:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't even know what they're called. But we just tied up the game with like a few seconds left. Clifton Jackson. Man, this guy right here, he's glowing we're amongst the world champions today, world champion hill billy, World champion barbecue, World Champion squirrel skinner. Man, it's good to have you. 00:05:00 Speaker 7: Hey, thanks for having me. 00:05:01 Speaker 1: So you've been the so at this event, the World Championship Squirrel cook Off. We also have the World Championship Squirrel Skinning Contest. And you've won how many years, Clifton? 00:05:11 Speaker 7: Every year? 00:05:14 Speaker 5: Dominated you know, Humble is a big part of this program. 00:05:19 Speaker 1: Hey, it ain't. 00:05:21 Speaker 4: Bragging if it's fact. 00:05:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No. 00:05:24 Speaker 7: Where do you live, Clifton, Surewood, Arkansas? 00:05:26 Speaker 1: And you work for the Game and Fish. 00:05:28 Speaker 7: I do twenty five years. 00:05:29 Speaker 1: Man, tell me what you do for the Arkansas Game Fish. 00:05:32 Speaker 7: I'm a wildlife biologist. 00:05:33 Speaker 1: That's awesome. 00:05:34 Speaker 7: I have several w as that I'm in it. 00:05:36 Speaker 1: Now are you are you the squirrel biologist or is that just kind of like a no no? 00:05:42 Speaker 4: I guess. 00:05:43 Speaker 7: I mean, I'm usually the go to person with squirrels, but nah, no, we don't. We don't have a small game pologist anymore. 00:05:49 Speaker 1: Okay, I was you were the That's what I remember. You were the small game bologists for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Man, So could do you uh, did you ever do any research on squirrels or anything or were you just mainly involved in like management, Well. 00:06:05 Speaker 7: Mainly other things like rabbits, and then I had quail for a while too, until they separated that to another one sole person, But not so much to do with squirrels per se. For management, it's just getting people to get out there and hunt them. 00:06:19 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:06:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not really like deer in Turkey and bear where we're like really trying to count numbers and understand management or like harvest and stuff. It's it's a little it's different than that, am I right? 00:06:31 Speaker 7: Absolutely? Yeah, yeah, And it's actually kind of when you say it, that's the d verse of deer hunting, where it's like, you know, ninety five percent participation rates amongst hunters. Squirrel hunting used to be like that, but it's just hasn't been like that anymore, and trying to get people back into the squirrel woods is a challenge. 00:06:48 Speaker 4: Man. 00:06:49 Speaker 1: Somebody was asking me today if if I think that squirrel hunting and small game hunting is coming back, and I kind of gave them a little bit of a tour that I probably everybody here would know, but the wildlife tour and history tour. Is that back when my grandfather maybe your father were growing up in the nineteen thirties, twenties, thirties, forties, there was no there wasn't much big game in Arkansas or any anywhere to speak of in the southeast, especially, I mean, whitetail deer, bear, turkeys, all these things were very low numbers. And if you were a hunter, if you were trying to get game, you were a small game hunter. I mean you were hunting quail, you're hunting squirrel, you're hunting rabbits. And then fifties, sixties, seventies, all these game, the big game just came back, I mean like big time with the reintroduction of wild turkeys and reintroduction of white tail deer, and they just beare all of it. It just kind of took off. And so it's like the hunting community is shifted more towards big game stuff. But this reporter asked me why I thought this was significant what we do here, and to me, it's like it's it's it's a it's a hat tip to our roots and poverty. Really, it's like, because that's you don't have there was a time when you probably had to eat squirrel. Yeah, we don't have to eat squirrel today. 00:08:16 Speaker 4: We could. 00:08:17 Speaker 1: We could have been celebrating brisket. 00:08:19 Speaker 7: Might have that would have been good. 00:08:22 Speaker 6: There's something squirrel dishes that will give a brisk run. 00:08:26 Speaker 1: And and you know this event, it's fun, it's lighthearted, but it's all it's just a hat tip to kind of our rural, humble roots in the squirrel and squirrel world. Is that you think that's about? 00:08:37 Speaker 4: Right? Absolutely? 00:08:38 Speaker 7: I said, it's very much a heritage thing, especially with me and and and even when you think about concessually the things that we eat now, like chicken, I mean it wasn't. I mean there, that's only I don't know, maybe the past seventy eighty years or something. But before then, squirrel was the chicken. Yeah, idea, idea very much. 00:09:00 Speaker 1: Are you hunting with dogs or you like, still hunting. 00:09:01 Speaker 7: Still hunting primarily? 00:09:03 Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah? 00:09:04 Speaker 5: You know Clinton or Clinton has the Jackson squirrel rifle named after him. You know about that, So it's Cooper arms, right, yes, sir? And what's cool is coopting a joke? No, this ain't no joke. Come on, I don't joke you. 00:09:20 Speaker 1: I hadn't even introduced you yet, go ahead. 00:09:22 Speaker 5: I'm the silent guy over here in the corner. But there's a there's an gun manufacturer called Cooper Arms. They were out of Montana and here recently state of Arkansas is. 00:09:34 Speaker 1: Now Cooper Arms out of Bariville, Okay. 00:09:38 Speaker 5: Now that rifle the most high dollar accurate squirrel rifle you could buy. It's called a Jackson squirrel Rifle and it's named after this man sitting right next to me. 00:09:47 Speaker 1: Oh, I did not know that. Yes, sir, I love it. That's awesome. Well, there, that's awesome thing. Clinton's like I happened to have one. 00:09:58 Speaker 7: Right, it's probably been about maybe fourteen fifteen years. 00:10:06 Speaker 1: Ago, and and they just heard about you and your I mean just your reputation as a squirrel hunter, squirrel man. 00:10:12 Speaker 7: Well, actually I met the owner of the company at the time, and he hadn't he grew up squirrel hunting, but he moved to Montana where squirrel hunting isn't a big deal. And he said, whenever, and now this wasn't the original rifle, but whenever the rifle that I ordered would come in, he said he wanted to come in and go squirrel hunting with me. I took him down to the White River bottoms and we shot a squirrel and he just loved it and just he wanted to do something to kind of commemorate that. Oh and flew me out there to the company and oh, that's prototypes and he gave me serial number one. Oh wow, you got it, I do. Oh, that's that's really neat. That's really neat. 00:10:55 Speaker 6: Thank you. 00:10:55 Speaker 1: Well, the only guess I had introduced is Joe Wilson, the founder, Yes, sir, and the originator of this event. Joe tell us like, tell the world what's happened here today. 00:11:07 Speaker 5: Every year I'm more and more impressed. And you know, you asked, I think we were kind of green room in it at the time. How many of the people standing around us, there's one hundred people plus standing around us, how many of them are from Arkansas? And we got about what Brent three four class. 00:11:23 Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't many. 00:11:25 Speaker 5: It wasn't many. And to think that we bring people from Hey, we had folks come from England today. And I'm not saying like Texas or someplace like England. England redcoats man come all the way across here. 00:11:40 Speaker 1: I've talked to folks from Oregon, Yeah, Wisconsin. 00:11:43 Speaker 8: Wisconsin, all over this country, every point of the compass. From right here, you're going to shoot at somebody's house. Yeah, that's coming. 00:11:53 Speaker 5: So what's impressive to me is we get people from so many places, and you know that, we get fourteen hundred inside of a room shooting bb guns and pellet rifles. What's impressive is is I could look around and inside this room right now, there's some camouflage, right, but you see people who don't own any camouflage, right, And so those are the people that I want to touch first. 00:12:20 Speaker 1: We've already got. 00:12:22 Speaker 5: The people in camouflage. We want to grab those people that don't know why we do what we do. And me and Kevin Murphy we talk on the phone and we discussed how important it is that we get our youth, we get the unknowing involved in what we're doing. You ain't going to sell the same truck to the same guy every day, and so what we're trying to do is we're trying to market this to people that wonder why it is that we'll go out and get siggers and ticks, you know, and so this is the way to do it. Malcolm knows our way to get to people in any community events through their through their stomachs, because if we could get through their stomachs, we could get to their soul, absolutely, and we could start preaching shirt box I want. But if we could, if we could get through your stomach, we could get through your soul. Man. And breaking bread is as old as time. And so today Malcolm serving a thousand bowls of jambli us, cooking up one of the fish that nobody ever thinks they want to eat, an old Asian carp and serving it to thousands of people. All of this stuff that we've done rabbits, you know, rabbits have forgotten protein and so that to me is important. And the fact that we know that today we made it. We made some more hunters, and we made some people that will never hunt a better supporter of what you preach every week on the show, you know, So that's important to me. 00:14:02 Speaker 1: So the tell me the structure. So we had usually between thirty and forty teams, Yeah, that are competing for the world title. 00:14:12 Speaker 5: We always shoot for forty. And you know you mentioned brisket. If I asked for forty teams, come brisket. That's no problem because you could go buy it. When I asked for forty teams to cook squirrel you got to go hunt it. And it ain't easy. 00:14:30 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:14:30 Speaker 5: I mean, me and you did a deal the other day at a circle k in the afternoon that we were looking over our shoulders. 00:14:38 Speaker 1: I donated some squirrels to this event that had the freezer. Brent you to like it. I said, Joe, meet me at that gas station off the Johnson exit and I pull up beside him in the truck and he had a guy I didn't know with him, and the guy got out and I said, this is the snitches it and Joe was like, no, he's good, and I'm like okay, And then I reached in and got my stuff and put the frozen squirrels in his b and I was like, I hold on out of there. 00:15:02 Speaker 4: So I'm vaguely familiar with that concept. 00:15:05 Speaker 5: Yeah, I hold on out of there. 00:15:08 Speaker 1: It's it's real tough. 00:15:09 Speaker 5: I mean, people will sign up and then they'll figure out the labor behind it. 00:15:14 Speaker 1: And how many squirrels do you think each team is needing to compete? 00:15:19 Speaker 5: I don't know. I'd say at a minimum, you probably need ten. Okay, you need ten for the judges. That's that's to put a pile on there. But you know, to do this, to feed these people, you need a pile up. 00:15:31 Speaker 1: So everybody, every team's making like ten plates for ten judges. 00:15:37 Speaker 5: Or so, six entrees and six side dishes, and then. 00:15:42 Speaker 1: They're encouraged to give food samples to the public. So that's kind of what people come to do, is try all this squirrel. 00:15:49 Speaker 5: Yeah, let's hear from the crowd. How many of them got to eat today? 00:15:52 Speaker 1: Yeah? Did everybody get some squirrel today? Yeah? Did you try something? Malcolm? Absolutely well, were you a judge? 00:15:58 Speaker 4: No? 00:15:59 Speaker 6: I didn't judge the day. 00:16:00 Speaker 2: We were busy out there with the jumble eye, but people would bring it by. And that's see, Joe, that's something special you have here too. Because all the barbecue contests I go to, they don't let you share with the general public, and so I think it hurts their event because people come out and they come out with this anticipation, Hey, I'm gonna get to try. 00:16:17 Speaker 6: Some barbecue, or they come to the squirrel cookoff. 00:16:20 Speaker 4: Guess what. 00:16:21 Speaker 2: All the teams are encouraged they want you know, they may have never tried squirrel, but they're curious and they come out and they get to try these dishes and it's just amazing. 00:16:28 Speaker 4: You see what it's done. 00:16:28 Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right, men. Men Malcolms traveled the country going to big cookoffs, you know, barbecue and steak and all that, and we get ten times to hold more. We get a lot more crowd. 00:16:44 Speaker 4: Than they do. 00:16:44 Speaker 5: And the reason is is we want you to be involved. 00:16:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, we want to feed you. Yeah. 00:16:50 Speaker 8: It's like going to a ball game and getting to play. 00:16:54 Speaker 4: Same deal. 00:16:55 Speaker 5: But for me, man Kevin Murphy, you know, if you google the name Ebb and Murphy and put say squirrel or rabbit behind it, what's it say? 00:17:04 Speaker 1: The world's greatest small game hunter says here, take. 00:17:08 Speaker 9: Me in right. 00:17:11 Speaker 3: I want to know from the crowd here who didn't have an opportunity to eat some type of wild game today? 00:17:18 Speaker 5: What's wrong with this guy? He must be vegan or something. 00:17:24 Speaker 3: What times you get here? So to be a wild you know, to be a hunter, it's not forever. 00:17:34 Speaker 5: Look what's happening, Kenny. 00:17:37 Speaker 8: Oh, he got a squirrel leggs Josh. 00:17:41 Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna ask this question again. How many people here today didn't have an opportunity to eat some type of wild game meat nobody. So your mission is complete, yes, sir. Not everyone is meant to be a hunter. We don't want everybody. We want that ten percent of the by the hardy people. Not everybody is meant to be a dog hunter. We want that one percent. Handle this dog for three hundred and sixty five days a year to maybe to go hunting sixty days, or if you're retired and work all through the summertime, you can go one hundred days. And that's what's on my calendar this year. But to be a small game hunter, you can be a minimalist. You just need a rifle or a shotgun, a box of shells and you can go to the woods with a hunting license. Or if you're a youth, do you wait for the free youth day and go. But that's why you get a taste of hunting there, and that's where you learn your skills. You start at the bottom, work your way to the top and figure out is this for me or is this not for me? And then you graduate to say, hey, I want to be a deer hunter, turkey hunter, rabbit hunter, out west hunter, or across the pond hunter. I'm going to Iceland in October to hunt ptarmigant. So I've been very fortunate to be around everybody and see everybody. And you know, on Tuesday, I'll be sixty five on the outside and I'm still like twenty one twenty two on the inside. So you know, hunting keeps me young. I go with a lot of young hunters. I tried to teach them, a bunch of pilgrims out there. Some of them got no skill whatsoever. We take a bunch of college kids every December from the BHA, take them out hunting. And this last year we had a young girl that grew up with no farms in her house. Her mom was adamantly against farms. Day had just went along with her mom and she went squirrel hunting with us. Got to kill her first squirrel, got her to skin a squirrel. And that's what it's about. It's about one small win at a time, and that's what we've all all got a deck. 00:19:41 Speaker 5: Hey, if we would have forgot hunting, if it wasn't for people passing it down to us, and we would forgot how to cook squirrel if there ain't those recipes out there. You know, and so it's our duty everybody in this room to brag. I know you're humble, Clay, I know you're I'm not that humble, but anybody Turkey color. But you know what I mean, all of us have our duty to pass it on, whether it's to our children or somebody else's. And and that's what's cool about watching Clifton out there showing people how to skin these things. One of the biggest problems of small game honey is the fact that you got to clean them. And to show a Kevin Murphy of Clifton, anybody who's a master at cleaning a squirrel, it becomes a lot easier to say you're gonna go out and go squirrel. So when we learned a. 00:20:41 Speaker 1: Lot, Yeah, Malcolm, did you do any squirrel hunting this year? I know last year you were telling me about hunting some on the Mississippi River with some friends. Did you get to do any of this winter? 00:20:56 Speaker 6: So I had I had to go out and buy me a new rifle just for squirrel hunting. 00:21:00 Speaker 2: I just I didn't go anything crazy, just a little ten twenty two and coming a decent you know, little loophole rim fire on it. Yeah, And I did, and we've had we've had a ball doing it, and my son enjoys it, you know, and we we take something for granted that you know a lot of times when the people in the neighborhood they see squirrels, they don't realize that they're you know, we're out in the woods and we're out, you know, trying to stalk these things or use a dog or whatever. 00:21:21 Speaker 6: But we we, uh, we have a big time squirrel hunt. 00:21:24 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:21:25 Speaker 2: I'm not crazy about the ticks and chiggers. I like it to be a little cool. But man, there's there's just something about that little animal that you never would realize, is that it brings so much enjoyment to me of doing it. Yeah, and it's you know, to me squirrel hunt. You know, everybody can go sitt in a deer stand or whatever and you're by yourself. You don't want people to know the buck you're after, and all that squirrel hunts. 00:21:44 Speaker 1: A communality pictures squirrels, that's right, exactly. 00:21:49 Speaker 2: And when we've got so many of them, I mean, it's just it's really fun and it's a great it's a great way to. 00:21:55 Speaker 6: Spend time outdoors. 00:21:56 Speaker 2: And if you can take somebody along and teach a kid how to shoot a square or how to properly. 00:22:00 Speaker 6: You know, clean the squirrel. 00:22:02 Speaker 2: All this is life lessons that man, I just I get behind it hundred percent. 00:22:05 Speaker 1: You got any killer squirrel recipes? I mean this guy watch stuff. 00:22:13 Speaker 4: You know. 00:22:13 Speaker 2: That's on my list now, Clay to do some squirrel recipes this fall, because I have never done a video with one, you know, you know, squirrel and gravy. 00:22:21 Speaker 4: That's that's the. 00:22:22 Speaker 6: One we like to do for that squirrel simmer down. 00:22:24 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:22:25 Speaker 2: I don't get really, I've never really gotten too crazy with squirrel. But after coming to this contest and seeing what these ship I call them outdoor chefs, because these jerkers are coming up with recipes that are incredible. I mean it's not just your standard stuff. Yeah, you can do anything with that squirrel. 00:22:40 Speaker 1: Met What what are some of the examples of stuff that people did today today? 00:22:44 Speaker 6: Yeah, Impanadus was one. 00:22:47 Speaker 1: Well today today. 00:22:49 Speaker 5: I think we hit new highs. And if I'm gonna be honest, which I like to be, we may have hit a couple of new loaves. 00:23:00 Speaker 1: No fence to the cooks. 00:23:03 Speaker 5: I mean, you know it was we were lucky that early on we had the best representation of what a box should look like and we had one that wasn't the best, okay, And so it gave me the ability to kind of teach judges, Hey, y'all, this is what presentation should look like, and this is what it shouldn't. But with that being said, there was, man, there was a squirrel pizza today that would knock your socks off with a fried ravioli. That was awesome. 00:23:35 Speaker 8: I a squirrel cookie. I swear I would rob the liquor store for. 00:23:40 Speaker 5: There was a squirrel cookie. There was a squirrel ice cream showed up again today. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: Oh I heard about that. I remember that from last squirrel ice cream. 00:23:48 Speaker 5: Hey, Kevin Murphy, what's the one organ on the squirrel? They say, it's probably like on a pair of boots or something bad for you in California? 00:24:00 Speaker 1: Which which part of the squirrel has. 00:24:02 Speaker 5: Been known to cause products? 00:24:05 Speaker 3: The thinking part, the thinking part. 00:24:07 Speaker 5: We had a squirrel brain ice cream show up. 00:24:09 Speaker 1: Was anybody worried about eating it? 00:24:11 Speaker 5: I told everybody, Hey, this is the part of the squirrel that could cause your heart. Yeah, now go ahead and eat it. 00:24:19 Speaker 1: What's the science behind that? Do you know that Clifton. 00:24:22 Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I mean it's it's it's not been definitively linked to, you know, the Crisfield Jacob's disease. But I mean I think there was somebody, you know, some people. I said something about it if I. 00:24:35 Speaker 8: Read an article about this not too long ago, and I talked about it on the podcast. It was a group of individuals overla like them four or five year period. They were in a very small area in Kentucky that that contracted the disease and. 00:24:52 Speaker 1: The what's the name of the disease. 00:24:54 Speaker 7: It's Chrisfield Jacobs. 00:24:56 Speaker 3: That's Jacobs mad cow disease. 00:24:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a life it's like for humans. 00:25:02 Speaker 8: Yeah, and they had they all the only qualifier for all of them was they had all eaten squirrel brains. 00:25:09 Speaker 5: We'll find out tomorrow. 00:25:11 Speaker 1: So we squirrel brains I have. 00:25:15 Speaker 4: I don't explain. 00:25:16 Speaker 1: So do you not like it or do you not eat it because you're afraid of. 00:25:19 Speaker 3: There's a thing called a prion and you can put it in an autoclave and it will not kill it. It's a protein that gets in the brain. Do not eat I recommend that you do not eat brain from anything back home. 00:25:32 Speaker 1: But it's a traditional dish though, Oh yes, I mean squirrel brains and eggs is something that I grew up hearing people. 00:25:39 Speaker 5: Talk about cavia. 00:25:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go, but yes, I've eat it. It's a delicacy. A lot of people when they would go squirrel hunting, they woudn't shoot them in the head with the twenty two because they wanted to serve up fried squirrel brains in the skull. And then they would, like a butter knife, crack it open and open it up, and that was the ultimate. 00:26:06 Speaker 5: We just lost half the listeners. 00:26:08 Speaker 3: So I've done a lot of research. Man, I'm a wastewater guy. You know, when I go to somewhere foreign country. Next time I go see Steve out Montana, I'm gonna go to their wastewater plant because they've got the state of the art your wastewater plant. But we had a local architect back where I live, and he came down with crutch Phil's Jacob's disease. And the only thing they could think of was he was taking a vitamin that was made out of a from Europe, made out of a cow patratory glan. So that's the reason why I say do not eat brain matter from any any animal. So that's what I highly recommend. 00:26:50 Speaker 5: So let's see if I can start another topic. Man, we also had plenty of egg rolls. We had a squirrel sushi show up. I'll leave it at that. You've had squirrel sushi, didn't you. Yes, yeah, we had squirrel sushi in the past. 00:27:05 Speaker 3: He had it about fifteen minutes ago. 00:27:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, you see skin contest. 00:27:12 Speaker 7: Did you see that Clay? 00:27:13 Speaker 5: Did you see Clifton in the skin and content? 00:27:15 Speaker 4: Oh? 00:27:15 Speaker 1: Yeah video? 00:27:16 Speaker 5: Did you see the technique to win the championship? 00:27:19 Speaker 4: This? 00:27:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, tail method? Well, I mean the teeth. Oh no, no, no, I didn't see the first one. I actually saw him win the first heat. 00:27:27 Speaker 5: He had to go straight to the mouth and pull that skin off with his teeth to win. 00:27:32 Speaker 1: And here this is true. Yeah, yes, Why did you have to do that? 00:27:36 Speaker 7: Well, I had an arm that had been shattered right there at the joint and it was just you know, when I had it was slick as an al pellet trying to pull that knee out, so I couldn't. I just had to use my teeth. 00:27:52 Speaker 5: And you know what's even odd. 00:27:54 Speaker 1: Slick is an al pellet. We'll be using that one. 00:27:57 Speaker 5: Oh yeah, well, I'll give we have to give you credit, but we're What's odd is the second place in the world also went to the te No way. I've been watching Clifton just dominate this event for years. Today was as tough as he had it. I mean it was neck and neck. 00:28:17 Speaker 1: So who's the other guy? 00:28:18 Speaker 5: What's his name? 00:28:19 Speaker 3: Mitch? 00:28:24 Speaker 1: Yoah, Mitch. Mitch is in the Service. 00:28:27 Speaker 4: He's an army recruiter. 00:28:28 Speaker 1: Hey, hey, Mitch, just walk up. 00:28:30 Speaker 5: Here so we can get you on film just one second. 00:28:33 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, where are you from, Mitch? Do you know this guy? You don't know what? Okay, Well, I guess you better practice a little more to get in the gym, work out those arms. 00:28:48 Speaker 4: Mitch is in the Service, he's a he's an armor recruiter. 00:28:51 Speaker 1: Oh cool man, that's good. That's good. 00:28:55 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:28:56 Speaker 5: So they were neck and neck, got it all the way down. I bet you there wasn't two three seconds in between the two of them. 00:29:02 Speaker 4: Oh, it was tight. 00:29:02 Speaker 1: It's tough. He pushed me, he pushed, Yeah, this is it's kind of like Jordan winning that like fifth title, kind of getting a little lazy, and. 00:29:13 Speaker 5: Then he's gonna start trying Baseball Day. 00:29:17 Speaker 1: Uh, but we haven't announced the winner yet. No, who did the Razorbacks win? I'm afraid they didn't. 00:29:25 Speaker 5: We just lost. 00:29:26 Speaker 1: Scratch that from the tape. Can you take no, we that it's not that we lost it. 00:29:32 Speaker 4: They cheated, Yeah, they cheated. 00:29:34 Speaker 1: I heard they cheated. So we have not announced the winner for this year yet though. 00:29:40 Speaker 5: Now as soon as this shows over, we're gonna go out and get on stage and we're going to handle it. I got my buddy across from me. He helped me out on getting them case knives as their awards. 00:29:49 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:29:50 Speaker 8: Yeah, man, we're gonna present the winners world champion with a case knife, right, yeah? 00:29:55 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:29:57 Speaker 1: Kevin, what's your if you could if you could hunt one thing the rest of your life, you only had one dog that did one thing and you got the hunt, that's it. What would it be? Squirrel, rabbit, falconry, kangaroo? 00:30:14 Speaker 3: Well, probably one of the most exciting the question. 00:30:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like, well, let me let me tell you about my policy. 00:30:24 Speaker 3: Swamp rabbits. 00:30:25 Speaker 1: There you go, swamp rabbits with beagles, Yes, swamp rabbits of beagles. I'll be done. 00:30:31 Speaker 3: Because you know, to go get a squirrel. You got a good dog. The squirrel is going to be in that tree, or he's not going to be in the tree. You hit a swamp rabbit, your dogs might running back to you. They might not. Those dudes are smart. They go in hose, they swim rivers. Man, I've seen them do just amazing things. 00:30:50 Speaker 1: So the rabbit is like the thinking man's small game. Yes, just the heel Billy's tree them with squirrels and shoot them. 00:30:56 Speaker 3: The big game a small game, and I can go I can go out, put that on a shirt, and I can go out my door within a half mile and start hanging. 00:31:08 Speaker 1: You got swamp rabbits in Kentucky. Yes, now it's a it's actually a different species of rabbit than a cottontail. 00:31:14 Speaker 3: Yes, it's the largest cottontail rabbit. 00:31:17 Speaker 1: But it's a different species. Or it's just a big one. 00:31:19 Speaker 3: No, it's a different species. 00:31:21 Speaker 1: Okay, do we have them here? 00:31:23 Speaker 3: They're I've hunted them down around the cotton patch, So I don't know exactly where that is from Wigs. I hang out with those deer dog hunter guys down there. But it's along the drainage of the Mississippi River up to about Saint Louis and then as far north it's probably not hardly, uh, Cincinnati, and then all the way down to the Louisiana. But but Bergman's rule is the further north that you go on a mammal, the bigger it goes. So what I want to do is drive up around Saint Louis somewhere and try to find the extended range of it. The biggest one I have killed so far or in our hunting party is like six pound weighed with a turkey scale, so you know it's right on it. It's right right on the money. And so I hope to go like two hours north and get a six and a half pound. 00:32:13 Speaker 1: Be like a world record. 00:32:15 Speaker 3: Yes, that's what I'm going for. 00:32:16 Speaker 1: Crocket impressive. That's good. That's why you're the world's greatest small game hunting. You're thinking, you're thinking like a champion. 00:32:23 Speaker 4: I like that. 00:32:24 Speaker 5: I like that. 00:32:26 Speaker 1: Clifton, When when will you start squirrel hunting? If you already squrel hunting something this fall or like typically, when would you start? 00:32:32 Speaker 7: Typically I would have started last weekend. This is this will be the latest that I've ever started this year. Really, Yeah, So I always go at least by September first. 00:32:40 Speaker 1: Now, okay, this is a good topic of conversation. I had somebody the other day tell me that the liberalization of squirrel hunting, which is a positive thing, like our squirrel season is basically nine months long, or maybe even ten months. 00:32:55 Speaker 7: Yeah, made fifteenth to the end of February. 00:32:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's off for three months. It's not on for three months pretty much March April May. The guy told me, he said that took away the prime season opener, which the season opener is just kind of this like hype that we all have, which used to be like September first. Absolutely, And he was saying, man, when we were kids, we'd camp out for you know, days for the squirrel opener. But now that they've done us good, I mean, like we can hunt anytime. It's not a complaint. It was just interesting, he said. People don't get it excited because the season opener is not like a few people are hunting in May, and it's just you can hunt all the time. What do you think about that? 00:33:40 Speaker 7: I do miss it. Uh, you know, I missed that cultural it is very much. I mean, we still will have squirrel camp and we do squirrel camp, but that opener even as the season changed, you know, it used to be October one, and then what depends on the zones. I mean it's like a you know story past of those dates being like you're talking about like the big opener, and now we've taken that away. And then the limit changed to twelve. 00:34:05 Speaker 4: What was it for? 00:34:05 Speaker 7: It was eight for most of my life. Really yep, yep. Now it's twelve per person per day. So I think that did take some of this thing. 00:34:13 Speaker 5: You know what I think Clifton, that I think that me and Kevin's talked about. I think me and you talked about it. It's it's squirrel hunting is a hard thing to market because we don't have a bunch of cool stuff to sell you to make you a better squirrel hunt. We you could you could spray vanilla flavored deodoring on and go kill a squirrel. You know, it don't matter, And so you could wear what we're all wearing right now and go squirrel hunt. So, since it's so hard to market, it's real hard to put on TV. True, And so since we're not putting it on TV, there's a whole bunch of people never see it. And so one of the times you get to see the benefits of it is right here at the this event. Now, you're a great marketer of small game hunting. I see you out on the mules doing it. You've done a phenomenal job. Kevin's done a phenomenal job. Clifton's done a phenomenal job. I've tried to catch up to you guys a little bit over the last dozen years, but this is our biggest marketing day of the year for squirrel hunting. You see it on news all across the country. Overseas, people see this event. So I ain't saying we need to do one of these every week. I ain't got the time for that. But you know, the industry itself and agencies and departments really need to start thinking about inflation. It's still cheap to go squirrel hunting, you know all the stuff. If you're a father, a mother and you want to get your kids in the outdoors, at least give this a shot first man. 00:35:54 Speaker 8: And this has always been a good It's always been traditionally anywhere you go, folks kids start out shooting squirrels before they start shooting deer, and what the elk and whatever and it's always a good introduction, yep, to what we all love to do, you know, and you can do it with dog. You can add a dog as an extra component which will take you to whether you're chasing coons like I do, or you're running codes or bobcats or whatever. You know, it's just a good a good introduction. I agree, Joe, it's good. 00:36:29 Speaker 5: I just think we need to do a better job of marketing. And you know, Kevin will tell you, well, we don't want everybody in it, you know, but really Kevin may not feel that way. I think if everybody would just give it a shot, it's a great time. You can talk while squirrel hunt. You can walk around and carry on a story and squirrel hunt. There's not really an age when it's not right. If you could walk get out there and walk behind somebody and try to do it, and the benefits of it is, at the end of the day you might be able to make a squirrel pizza out of the deal. 00:37:08 Speaker 4: Kid. 00:37:09 Speaker 3: I can remember in nineteen eighty seven I had a Border Collie and I had some people come in from Alaska that had been living there for a couple of years and hunting and stuff and I took them hunting, and they said, and this is the greatest hunt I've ever had in my entire life. Now, one person was from Ohi, the others Illinois. You know they're out there. They do I set up now, y'all, don't buy it. Just work off my license. That's okay in fishing game department. 00:37:36 Speaker 1: So I said, just work off my license. This was a long time ago, long long time. 00:37:42 Speaker 3: So I would give them a gun and then they would want to shoot, I says, and they would want to like free hand, and I had a twenty two magnum. Man, you really need to shoot them in the head because we're going to eat them and clean them. And you know, they just told me that said, man, this is the greatest hunt we've ever met. We've never had any more fun. And then like Joe said, you can take kids out there, you can talk, you can have a good time in fellowship. I mean, like I said, every year we take ten to twelve college students out there to go squirrel hunting and have a big time. And you can fellowship and you only need to be quiet for like, okay, now's the time to be quiet. We're gonna shoot the squirrel and it's your turn to shoot. You get a shot, and then you get a shot, and we rotate around and then the shotgunner don't let him get away because the pressure is on you when he's running. 00:38:27 Speaker 1: So who said that? Somebody can say something? Hey, okay, I got a question for for the squirrel masters here. What's your doctrine on shotguns versus twenty two s Clifton? Do you have a doctor on. 00:38:44 Speaker 7: A rim fire purist? Kind of just I just really like. 00:38:46 Speaker 3: Just tell her. 00:38:49 Speaker 1: Thank you for a rim fire purist. 00:38:51 Speaker 7: Well, I mean it's it's it's usually they're a little more arrogant. It's just more mentally stimulating to me. You know, it's really. 00:38:59 Speaker 1: Easy taking the high intellectual ground. 00:39:01 Speaker 7: It's me against myself. I mean I have a really you know, really nice rifle and I mean. 00:39:07 Speaker 1: Ruffle after you. Cliff is playing golf, the rest of he's playing chess. 00:39:14 Speaker 7: Yeah, it's really uh. I mean it's days that I don't have any luck. I mean I've gone out there and got skunked. I mean, and it's just kind of say, really mentally stimulating, uh effort for me, just me against myself. I enjoyed the rifle more so than that. 00:39:31 Speaker 1: Okay, what if you're using dogs? Do you dog that much? 00:39:35 Speaker 7: I go and I have had dogs over the years. 00:39:38 Speaker 1: Uh here different? 00:39:41 Speaker 7: Oh no, I love it. I mean it's more. 00:39:43 Speaker 1: I'm saying for the twenty two verses. 00:39:45 Speaker 5: I do like to have both. 00:39:47 Speaker 4: I do like to have both. 00:39:48 Speaker 7: You like you said that that shotgun is like the kicker, you know, if it gets past all of us, Yeah, don't let him get past you. 00:39:57 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yah. So with that, how do they do it down in Mississippi. 00:40:01 Speaker 4: Boat you see both? 00:40:03 Speaker 2: You know, most of you're gonna see kids with shotguns, and you know some of the adults will take them, but most of the time you're gonna have somebody with twenty two. 00:40:10 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:40:10 Speaker 2: And what I what I have seen here lately is usually once somebody's got a thermal too, so you. 00:40:15 Speaker 6: Can see if that ship squirrels up in there, not on the rifle. 00:40:18 Speaker 2: Usually they're just hadelts just to try to figure out where he is and then give the guy with the rifle a shot. And then the shotgun guy is a clean up man. 00:40:26 Speaker 3: When I get part to me, shot. 00:40:30 Speaker 1: Doctor, We'll let Joe have shot Joe, shot man. 00:40:34 Speaker 5: I tell you what, one day, when I get a YouTube channel like you boys, I'll get me one of the thermal squirrel hunters too. But uh, you know, an old eight seventy like we growed up with. That gun was designed to shoot any small game you could imagine. And I'll fess up and say a shotgun was a good way. It's a meat stick, man, it throws meat inside there. But like Clifton said it, if you're going out to enjoy the hunt, twenty two is the way to go. In my opinion. 00:41:07 Speaker 4: It conserves the meat too. 00:41:08 Speaker 6: Though you're not going to damage that. 00:41:10 Speaker 1: Squirrels, right, Yeah, you're right. It does conserve me. You don't bring any home. 00:41:16 Speaker 4: Conserve Swiss. Okay. 00:41:18 Speaker 1: Now here's the like if we were all like, if there was an organization that was the twenty two squirrel purest organization, this guy would probably be the president. Clifton would be maybe vice president. Give me a run for money for president. You're you're a square twenty two man, yes, like without question. Well, it's like a it's like a moral issue for you. 00:41:44 Speaker 3: It's I'm a Kentucky, I'm a rifleman. I'm a Kentuckian. Okay, Okay, I got my long riffle thirty two caliber. But back when I was a killer in my young running in gun to days, I had a twenty two magnum over a twenty gauge. Hmmm, nothing escaped me. Nothing. So if I couldn't get it with a magnum, if it was running, I could get it with a shotgun. Killed quail flying with a shotgun. So that was the all purpose. But to me is like said, you know, if you're a dog hunter, you got a couple of people with rifle, you give them a chance, and then the shotgun guys, he's got all the pressure on him. Because as my friend Steve Ranella when I told him took him squirrel hunting the first time. I said, Ben, Steve, he's going to come out of there like a like a BMX missile out of this this nest there And he come out and he run and he missedy. But I run and squirrel at full steam. I've got waterfowl buddies. They have trouble hitting them. It's hard to get them a lot of times. What it is you're shooting them at a limb and that and the limb is kind of behind him. So you're only shooting. Yeah, you're shooting at a little a third of that height this squirreld. So here's a protest. 00:42:57 Speaker 1: That's exactly why the shotgun pro tip. 00:43:01 Speaker 3: Here's the pro tip. You wait for that squirrel to run out to the end of that limb, and right as he gets ready to jump, he will stop mm hmm. And so you know that, and then he jumps and you shoot him in that air and you can shoot the squirrel mm hmm. 00:43:19 Speaker 1: Pro tip. 00:43:22 Speaker 4: It's a life hack. Control. 00:43:27 Speaker 8: Well, my dad was buying my shelves. He would have loved to have told me that along. 00:43:31 Speaker 4: Come. That's right now. 00:43:40 Speaker 1: Self control that it takes to actually pull that off. That's like high level human psychology and discipline and training to when you got a gun in your hand and there's a squirrel running across a limb and you're waiting for him to get to the end of the limb, it bounces, Bob's he jumps, then you shoot. 00:43:58 Speaker 8: That's high levels like old Damny Glover and leath the weapons. 00:44:04 Speaker 3: But Jedi level is when you can do it by horseback. And I've reached that level, I hear you, But yes, twenty two but whatever works for you, you know, just if he's up there. You know, I got a lot of rabbit hut buddies and they all use big twelve gages and they either miss them or mush them, because when the rabbit's running, they miss, and when he's sitting still, they go center mass on him. They don't hold up to his ears or whatever. And do the same thing with a squirrel. Don't center mass at squirrel. Put it on its head. Know the pattern of your gun, what it's gonna do at twenty yards, twenty five or fifteen, and hold it on his head, hold off a little bit, use some big shot. Number five is the best I have found. That is what I used, Number five. If I had one shotgun shell to go hunting with number five shot? 00:44:58 Speaker 5: Yeah, could I say there's another there's another weapon, and and they're getting better every year, and that's gonna be your air rifles? 00:45:07 Speaker 4: Oh gosh. Yeah. 00:45:08 Speaker 5: And a lot of states have made an air rifle small game help even big game, right, I mean, there's big game caliber air rifles that you can go out and hunt with. I think we're that way in Arkansas. 00:45:20 Speaker 4: Now. 00:45:20 Speaker 5: You could deer hunt with an air. 00:45:21 Speaker 3: Rifle Kentucky's saying. 00:45:23 Speaker 5: So they're making these air rifles that are as cheap as anything you could use out in the field. They're as accurate some of these air rifles were using. You you get fifty sixty shots out of them before you got to fill that tank. And so we had a couple of those air rifle companies here umeer X. I know they've been a part of your sponsorship. They make some fine quality stuff, and you know it's a cheap way to get it. Get into honey. 00:45:48 Speaker 8: I've been using them, shooting coons out of trees with it. 00:45:51 Speaker 4: Really. 00:45:52 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you think they're gonna make one called the Reeves. 00:45:55 Speaker 8: Oh, I don't know. I'm not near it's jacks. I'm not near the caliber at Clifton Is. But yeah, we shoot coons out with it. 00:46:02 Speaker 5: I was in Puerto Rico shooting in Puerto Rico squirrels, you know. 00:46:05 Speaker 6: That leather leather squirrels. 00:46:08 Speaker 5: Yeah, and I ain't going to start that cook off. 00:46:12 Speaker 4: You're good, Yeah, I'm good. 00:46:13 Speaker 5: You know, eating a couple of them all I needed. They weren't that good man, No, they weren't they word. 00:46:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, here in hearing y'all talk about your your doctrine on twenty two versus shotgun it I realize I'm like still in that stage of my squirrel hunting journey that where yeah, I'm playing checkers, you are playing chess because me and my my, my Jedi Master Muleman, squirrel Man, dog Man Michael Lanier. Oh yeah, we shoot them with shotguns because we just want to bring them home. 00:46:50 Speaker 4: Now. 00:46:51 Speaker 1: It is we do live in a place it's tough for squirrel hunting. I mean, like if you were if you were just uh you know, grading uh territory of the United States, like we do with white tailed deer like Iowa and Kansas and the Great Plains, it's just incredible deer hunting. And you know, deer hunting is tough and here, here, and there, those arcs would be on the tougher side of the places we just don't have. The mountains just aren't as aren't as quite as productive. 00:47:18 Speaker 6: Is that right? 00:47:19 Speaker 1: From a management perspective, it is like the river bottoms because the guys over in the river bottoms can just kill the fire out of them. And what do you think do you think it's just better squirrel hunters over there? 00:47:29 Speaker 4: Yeah? 00:47:30 Speaker 7: I think that you know all the soils. You know, productivity is just better in the bottoms. 00:47:35 Speaker 1: I thought he's gonna say way better over there. 00:47:39 Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, and and and and the cavities, those old grolth trees, you know, having better, better habitats, better habitat. 00:47:46 Speaker 1: You are playing squirrel food plots over there and everything flying. Well, my point being, we're just happy to We're trying to bring every squirrel home that our dogs tree, and we and we get going and we we don't care if we get a few pellets. 00:48:01 Speaker 3: I won't shame you for that. Well, you have the right, no, but I mean you're exactly right, because a squirrel, you know, you can't kill them out. You could have season all year long. They're dependent on the mass crop and there might be hard masks, which is the acorn crop, walnuts, whatever, and then soft mass in the springtime. So they've got to have those two types of mass crop to survive. Springtime masks, the soft mulberry's, elum buds, maple buds, whatever buds are out there. They eat some mushrooms. You know, we had the had one of the largest locusts hatches this year in Kentucky. So we're going to have probably the biggest bumper crop of squirrels that I have seen since they will eat locusts. I have not I have not physically seen them do that, but I have skin squirrels from locust years and we had mass fayres and the squirrels were as fat as it's pregnant dog. 00:49:01 Speaker 4: Squirrels will eat a squirrel. 00:49:03 Speaker 1: Yeah, And I remember you telling your story. 00:49:06 Speaker 8: I was I was working at the capitol, the State Capitol Police, and I was sitting in the parking lot eating my lunch and it was it was squirrel left over from supper the night before. And I was sitting there in this parking lot and the squirrels, you know, everywhere, especially all over the little rock. And I was sitting there eating and gnawing on this leg in the car had the winter roll down. Looking the gray squirrel walked just right up beside the car over there was a contry right there, and I thought, I'm gonna hit him in the head with this leg his bone. I threw it out there and I missed him, but he jumped back and he looked at it, and he picked it up and started gnawing on it and then run off with the leg and I. 00:49:43 Speaker 4: Thought, my gosh, that was horrible. Now have a nightmare just thinking about it. 00:49:49 Speaker 5: Hey, Clay, I could I ask a question of the two geniuses sitting around here? 00:49:55 Speaker 4: Ready? Yeah, go ahead. I hope his math. 00:49:58 Speaker 8: You know. 00:49:59 Speaker 5: One of the things, There was a time I was the president of Squirrels Unlimited. You remember that, Clifton. 00:50:05 Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, we're amongst royalty. 00:50:08 Speaker 5: Well you know I'm around royalty. But I'd get people to write to me all the time and ask about the squirrel migration. 00:50:16 Speaker 1: Oh, you know controversial. 00:50:18 Speaker 5: The great squirrel migration when they were dipping them. Oh he's stopping. 00:50:23 Speaker 3: It's not a migration. 00:50:25 Speaker 4: There you go. 00:50:25 Speaker 1: Lady Mask's question is Adrill Reeves. 00:50:28 Speaker 5: Have you heard about where there was so many squirrels crossing across in the Mississippi they were dipping that now, the squirrels out of the river. 00:50:37 Speaker 4: That's not the one I heard. I heard. 00:50:39 Speaker 8: It was my great grandfather. There was a team and a wagon going through the woods and they would have to stop the wagon for all the squirrels running across the river. 00:50:48 Speaker 5: So the great migration, there was a time, Kevin, Yes, there was. 00:50:53 Speaker 3: It's not a migration, Kevin. 00:50:54 Speaker 5: There was a time up in Pennsylvania where they were knocking down the corn fields. 00:51:00 Speaker 1: I heard they were riding on the backs of American buffalo. 00:51:03 Speaker 3: These squirrels were knocking down. 00:51:05 Speaker 5: There was a bounty on the dang old squirrels. Now, what are you calling this? 00:51:08 Speaker 3: It's a dispersal because of migration. You go and you come back. They just say, getting it's Jedi level here between me and Clifton. He's a biologist and just a squirrel killer. But it's a dispersal and I have I have witnessed it in sixty eights, a. 00:51:25 Speaker 1: Lot of squirrels moving in the same direction. 00:51:28 Speaker 3: They're just they're just you've had a bumper cop crop of masks. 00:51:33 Speaker 5: You know what he wanted to say, and then that he wanted to say, they just migrate. 00:51:38 Speaker 3: Dispersal. I can't spell it, but somebody google it for me. 00:51:42 Speaker 5: It's a dispersed Missouri. 00:51:43 Speaker 3: It's just dispersal. 00:51:44 Speaker 1: Clifton does the science back this. 00:51:47 Speaker 7: You know, I've never seen it documented. I know it occurs. But when it says. 00:51:55 Speaker 5: He ain't reading what I'm reading, you're right, Joe. 00:52:02 Speaker 3: Joe was one hund percent right. Clifton needs to go and look at his cliff notes, because it is documented and at Kentucky at one time when you were sixteen years old, you had to kill so many squirrels. 00:52:16 Speaker 1: To be like a Kentuckyan. 00:52:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there was like a legal document there that they had to turn Colonel. They would they would like come through and devastate the corn crop. But like I said in sixty eight, oh squirrels would. That was probably the last big squirrel dispersal. Down in the Carolinas and the edge of Tennessee. They had a mass figure down there, and those squirrels came up into Kentucky through LBL. They would be crappie fishermen out in the lake and with a dip net dipping them up. My dad would go, I remember he would go squirrel hunting and come home. It's probably him in five or six guys hunting. He would have what I call a West Virginia doggley, where you take a sapling bended over and leave a limb cut like this right here, and then the main runner of the tree and you run them through the back of the squirrel leg. He'd come home and have like sixteen on there. He said. The dog would tree one squirrel and then maybe three or four two three would come running through on the ground and he would shoot ups just giving up. They were pushing, they were pushing up. I mean, it's documented, and I saw it and properly. Let me think I saw it on I twenty four going to Nashville. I was taking my son and one of his friends down there, and I started seeing all these squirrels ran over between Paducah in Nashville, and I counted like fifty squirrels on a four lane highway ran over and then went. I took my son from Paducah to Cincinnati to watch a ball game, and I counted one hundred and something squirrels run over. And I had friends that they said that had to take uh there was a barrier wall or something and they got choked in and they took a backo out there and scooped up the dense squirrels. 00:54:13 Speaker 5: Wow, they call that a dispersal. 00:54:18 Speaker 4: I agree. 00:54:19 Speaker 1: Hey, we need next year Clifton finding some literature on this so that we can put the beargrey stamp of academic approval on this dispersal. 00:54:30 Speaker 7: I would love to see that, you know, with the contemporary tracking devices that we have now, That's that's what I mean, that it's squirrels. I haven't seen. 00:54:40 Speaker 1: See here's I believe what you're saying. 00:54:42 Speaker 3: It can't happen anymore. We don't have those huge fans of hardwood forest. It's not it's not gonna I mean, it could happen in like a little regional thing like I saw. 00:54:52 Speaker 4: I see. 00:54:52 Speaker 3: I mean, to many people have ever seen a squirrel run over on a four lane highway? You're seeing it. I mean, you just don't see it, you know, you see all the other dick. Of course, they're not going to last long because something's going to scoop in and pick them up. 00:55:05 Speaker 1: But I see what you're saying, Like they would have to be really wanting to cross a big you know, a quarter stretch for a mile from open ground. 00:55:15 Speaker 9: Yeah, so we need bridges squirrels, I think you know, there was a vision of this great squirrel migration, and I always put the will to beests and the crocodile into the deal. 00:55:28 Speaker 5: And I just thought they were crossing the and the crocodiles would be there just eating them up like wilderbees. That's not what took place. But there is tons of literature over the year, regardless of what you call it. Of these squirrels pushing and fire could fire. It could be a big cause of it. It could be you know, a stand of forest burns down, there's nothing to eat. All the squirrels travel across. 00:55:49 Speaker 1: You buy it, Malcolm. 00:55:51 Speaker 6: I have never seen that. 00:55:52 Speaker 4: Mississippi nuts everything, and we've seen a lot. 00:56:00 Speaker 5: So, Hey, we're getting real close. We're gonna have to bail out this. We got to initiate the world change. 00:56:04 Speaker 1: Hey, it's uh, we've been going for an hour, so I told them that's what we would do. Uh, Malcolm, where can where can we watch all your barbecue stuff? 00:56:15 Speaker 2: It's how to bbq write on all the social channels and you can go to how to barbecue rite dot com. 00:56:21 Speaker 6: We've got a lot of stuff on the website too. 00:56:23 Speaker 8: But I got one of your brands last year from a from Thanksgiving Turkey. 00:56:27 Speaker 4: Oh I hope it turned out. Oh man, it's really good. 00:56:30 Speaker 6: Send me a text and I'll send you some more for this year. 00:56:33 Speaker 1: Oh you're on awesome, Joe. Anything. H When we're doing this next year, same time, same. 00:56:39 Speaker 5: Place, relatively close to the same time. 00:56:42 Speaker 1: Early September, it'll be here. 00:56:44 Speaker 5: It'll be about the same place. I guarantee that. And hey, you know, I've got a podcast called Cooking Up a Story. Yes, and uh, we tried to put faces on on people and and take a lot of pride in it. 00:56:57 Speaker 4: Uh. 00:56:58 Speaker 5: And you've helped me a lot and that as well. So same time, same place. Next year, Kevin Murphy will have shorter hair. I imagine he won't be trying to look like a Viking. 00:57:07 Speaker 3: I'm gonna shave it all soon as I get back from Iceland. 00:57:11 Speaker 5: I could promise you we're gonna bring at least a four time world champion squirrel skinner back. 00:57:17 Speaker 1: I hope he comes. 00:57:18 Speaker 7: Oh, you bet you. I'll be here, all right, I'll be. 00:57:20 Speaker 1: We'll be we'll be looking for some of that squirrel literature on the migration, all right, Uh, Brent, yes, sir, anything you gotta say. 00:57:30 Speaker 8: I am just so thankful that this this episode was not about the bearg Rease latest episode, because I hadn't had a chance to listen to it yet. 00:57:40 Speaker 1: Oh, Sterling hard Joe, Yeah, good, Sterling's getting the getting the short stick today. It's so sorry, Sterling because we had to do this. But yeah, it was a really neat episode. Sterling Hard. I actually just since Sterling Heart Sterling Hard. Joe's a Seminole filmmakers, remember the Seminole tribe in Oklahoma. Really successful filmmaker and uh. On the podcast, this would be the one thing I say about it. He talked about how his people and a lot of Indigenous Native American Native Americans in America, I really messed that up. 00:58:11 Speaker 4: That's really. 00:58:13 Speaker 1: They're terrified of owls, like in their culture, owls are a big deal. And so he talked about that for a long time on the podcast. And there's a there's a text Jermy to owl in this building over here, and I sent him a video. I said, Sterling, sorry, dude, and I showed him the owl and he blurred it out and sent it back to me. He blurred out the owl and sent me a video back and said, here, I fixed it. Sterling is a great guy. Kevin, thanks man, thanks for being here, Thank everybody for being here, Thanks Joe, and thanks everybody for I hope y'all, hope y'all had a good time watching the Render. And Reva. Reva is the one that builds all the Bear Grease podcasts and this country life podcast. So she's actually the one like working with us on the addits, the music and everything. So she's as much a part of this as me and ow Will farm girl. 00:59:07 Speaker 8: Now living in Bozeman, and she is down here soaking up the Arkansas suncha. 00:59:11 Speaker 5: That's right. 00:59:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Reva. 00:59:13 Speaker 3: Let's go crown the winter. Yeah, so I got one short blurb to put in. We're doing a small game boot camp again in Paduca, Kentucky. Be the first weekend in June. We cook rabbit, have fun. Everybody brings their hunting dog out, So look forward to see everybody maybe come out and join us with that. When I was in Mongolia, the owl was a sacred animal. I was over there, I said them, there's all these chicken feathers on your review mirror on the motorcycle, and they said, that's our sacred animal there, and then we hunted. 00:59:42 Speaker 1: An out when we were over hunted them. 00:59:44 Speaker 3: Yes, but thanks for being here. I really appreciate it all you guys, especially bringing your kids out and new people. I mean, it's just like it just charges me up to be down here long with all you Arkansas and so yeah, it's a great. 00:59:59 Speaker 1: Time, right, Thanks everybody. Let's go crown a world can right 01:00:10 Speaker 7: M hm.