00:00:05 Speaker 1: And I'm just panicking. Man, I just grew two new hearts in my body, and both of them are in my ear drums and they are just pounding. I'm going cross eyed. And he's right there and he's got his head up stretched out. I want to say he is about fourteen yards from me, but I mean, I felt like I could have jumped out of deer stand on top of his back. 00:00:25 Speaker 2: Whitetail deer hunting is the epicenter of American hunting culture period, and every year we take some time to celebrate our collective favorite animal that we love to hunt, eat, and tell stories about. Seeing a big whitetail buck in October or November is hard to shake or top in terms of outdoor experiences, and a story told in person is often the only way to truly communicate the full experience, even better than video. Oral storytelling is the original og of communication. It's unreplaceable and the most effective at transferring a bundle of information. Stories transfer knowledge and teach us. They carry our values, They inspire those around us, and help us really to even know who we are. Some stories immortalize people that we've lost, from cold fronts to losing mules to bear charges to an oaklhm full of acorns fallen in front of a camera. These stories are genuine, But there is one thing that I ask of all of you. If you only listen to one story on this episode, be sure that it's the last one from a man named Med Palmer from Mississippi. You're just gonna have to trust me. You've never heard a dear story like this one. Whitetail Week is coming up here at Meat Eater in a few weeks, and we're just ramping things up a bit with this episode. We've got six stories, and I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. 00:02:05 Speaker 3: A trophy is just what a trophy is to the person that killed it. And by far, I could kill a bone and Crockett and it would not name as much to me as this deer. I can assure you it's about the story anyway. It ain't about the deer. The stories everything were hunting. 00:02:29 Speaker 2: My name is Clay Knukem, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the place. 00:02:55 Speaker 4: As we explore. 00:03:04 Speaker 2: Our first storyteller is a man whose name is so memorable you'll likely never forget it. It's my friend, Lake Pickle of Rankin County, Mississippi. He's really a veteran outdoorsman. I think he told me he'd filmed over sixty successful elk hunts in his life, but he himself is a turkey and deer hunting dude. This is a story about a buck that at the time was the biggest buck he'd ever killed, on a piece of ground that meant the world to him. Here's late. 00:03:41 Speaker 5: So I was a college student at Mississippi State, which is in star Fore, Mississippi. It was middle of January, so we had a week maybe two weeks of dear season left, and that time of years, honestly, even though it's a late part of the season, can be some of the best hunting because that's the rut in that part of the state. And we also had this freak cold front come through. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's normally cold that time of year, but Mississippi is not known for having tempts in the teens, and. 00:04:06 Speaker 6: I think that's what we had that time. 00:04:07 Speaker 5: And so I'm sitting in my little duplex house, Startful and I'm supposed to be writing an essay on moist soil vegetation, but in reality, I had about four words typed out on that screen, and I was having this internal debate on whether or not I should try to fight write in this paper or I knew if I got in my truck and stepped on it a little bit, I could drive to cater Reda, Mississippi, where we had a little piece of family land where I virtually did all my deer hunting as a kid. 00:04:33 Speaker 6: And I could be there and just under an hour. 00:04:35 Speaker 5: And that was a big deal because when I was a kid, from where I lived, it took us two hours to get there. From Startfulle, I could get there and under an hour. I think I timed it once. From my house to the gate, I could get there in fifty three minutes. Finally, I decide I'm not getting anywhere with this paper, so I slamm the laptop shut, I grabbed my stuff, I get in the truck, and I'd go i'd get to the gate and I take out walking because I'm already running kind of late because I took so long deciding whether or not I was going to go. Originally, the spot that I was going to go to it's about a two hundred yard walk from the truck, and the reason I picked that spot is simply because the wind was good and it was the closest one to the truck, and I was already running kind of late. So I'm walking towards this spot, and all of a sudden, I get this hunch. I don't need to hunt there. I need to go and hunt this spot that we refer to as Daddy Doll's food plot, and I'll get to why we call it that later, But Daddy Doe's food plot was a little bit further walk, and I just had this hunch, and so I went with it. I kept walking across the creek, getting closer. I get about one hundred yards away. I can kind of start to see the food plot, and I'm worried there's gonna be deer out there already, because sometimes they come out early. I see that the food plots empty. I'm like, okay, that's good. And the way you get into this stand. There was a ladder stand there, so the road kind of dumps you out to the edge of the food plot and then you basically. 00:05:42 Speaker 6: Have to cut the corner of the food plot. 00:05:43 Speaker 5: You have to walk about forty fifty yards across the food plot, get to the ladder and climb up. And like I said, it was freakishly cold that day. I want to say it was like eighteen or nineteen degrees. So the ground was frozen. That's an important factor. Also, we've all been in the woods sometimes after a cold front has moved through and everything just gets dead still. It's like it'll get so steal in woods like that. Sometimes it feels like it makes noise when you breathe. And so it's one of those dead still days. Ground is frozen. I go to cut across this food plot and the first step I take in my boot steps on that frozen winter wheat, and it just just made this loud, crunching noise. Man, it felt like trying to open a peppermint in church. I was just like and I froze up, and I thought to myself, you idiot, what are you going to do now? Because I was stuck, you know, I mean, that was the spot I had to go to, but I had to get that fifty yards across there, and I was gonna make racket the whole way. And all I could think to do was my buddy Erin showed me this trick one time. He said, if he's hunting in the rut and he has to make some noise getting to his stand, he will take out his grunt call and he'll take a few steps, he'll blow that grunk call and it make it sound like it's a buck walking and grunting. And I remember when he told me that. I said, that will never work, But anyway, I didn't have any other options. 00:07:02 Speaker 6: So there I went. 00:07:02 Speaker 5: Across that food plight, step step step right, I blow that grunk call. 00:07:06 Speaker 6: Step step step right. 00:07:08 Speaker 5: I blow the grunk call again the whole way, just feeling sillier and sillier. Well, I finally get across their get to the base of the ladder, tie my rifle off to a rope. 00:07:17 Speaker 6: Shemy up the ladder, hang my pack up. I turn around. 00:07:19 Speaker 5: I start pulling to the rifle up the tree, and I was trying to take my time so the barrel didn't swing into the middle rung the ladder and make even more noise. I remember, I get the rifle about half way up, and I picked my head up and I just looked down the food plot. The food plot's kind of narrow, and it's not that long. I mean, that part of Mississippi a lot of pine thickets and stuff. It's about ninety yards long, so, you know, kind of small plot. But I look down the food plot and in the right hand back corner you can't see it super clear because some of the tree limbs hanging over, but I can tell there's a deer there. And right when I looked, he moved. I caught a glimpse of handler and I said, oh my goodness, it's a buck. So I pulled the gun up the rest of the way and it's no sooner do I get the gun up. The buck steps out in the food plot where I can see him, and he is bristled up looking for that grunting that I was doing. And not only is that happening, but he is the biggest deer that I had ever seen or heard of coming out of that part of the country. Now let me pause the story real quick and say, Cateretta Mississippi is not known for big white tails by any stretch of the imagination. 00:08:23 Speaker 6: I cannot emphasize that enough. I grew up. 00:08:26 Speaker 5: Deer hunting there. I killed my first deer in that area. I had grandparents there, aunt's, uncles, cousins. And so you go into a lot of houses, you go into a lot of barn shops. You just see a lot of deer antlers, deer tax near me, deer skulls. You kind of get a general feel of what kind of deer in the area. And I'm telling you what walked out into that food plot, bristled up and looking around was big for that area. And I'm going, oh, my gosh, Well, he looks around, doesn't see a buck, and he just starts milling around in the food plot. And I go to rack around in the gun, the gun on him. He's the safety off, and I kind of look at him in the scope for a little bit and I'm like, oh, I just couldn't believe it, you know. But I finally decided I needed to do something here. So I put the crosshairs on his shoulder, and I remember thinking, just breathe and squeeze, do not mess this up, and I kept squeezing and kept squeezing, and pow, gun goes off and deer falls right there dead. And it all happened so fast, And you know, I come out of the gun, I look and he's laying there dead in the food plot. And at that moment kind of the reality of the situation set in on me. Now, that was by far the biggest deer that I had ever killed in my life at the time, and like I said, the biggest deer I'd ever known to come out of that area. 00:09:43 Speaker 6: But here's what I mean. 00:09:44 Speaker 5: Like I said earlier, we referred to that food plot, that spot as Daddy Doe's food plot. The reason we caught it, that is, Daddy Dole was my grandfather, my mom's dad. Him and my grandmother, who we called Mimi, lived about a mile up the road from that little eighty acre block where virtually all of my early deer hunting took place. And man did they mean a lot to us, And boy did they love their grandkids, And man, so many memories were. 00:10:12 Speaker 6: Tied to that house. 00:10:14 Speaker 5: We're tied to Mimi and Daddy Dole and were tied to that little eighty acres in cater Reda Mississippi. Not just hunting memories, a lot of them were, but just all kinds of good memories. Man and Daddy Dole built that food plot, I think mainly he built it for us and for folks to enjoy. And he had built this gigantic wooden shoot house into this old oak tree on that food plot. That I killed my first deer out of that shoot house on that food plot. My brother killed his first deer out of that shoot house on that food plight. My cousin Clancy killed her first deer out of that shooting house on that food plot. And I don't know how many other deer had been killed out of that food plot. Daddy Dole passed away when I was a kid. We lost Mimi just a few years prior when I was in high school. And that old wooden shoot house had rided and fell out of that tree a long time ago, and that's why we had the ladders down in there now. But as I was sitting there looking at that buck laying on the ground after killing it in a crazy lucky way, I could look at that buck, I could turn my head to the left and I could look at the remains of that old wooden shooting house on the ground, and all I could think to myself was was, man, what Daddy Doe and Mimi would think if they could see this right now? And I just sat there and took it in for a second, and I finally climbed down the ladder walked towards that deer and it was the first time in my life that I had walked up to a buck and it didn't shrink as I got up to it. And I called my dad. I told him what was going on. Called my mom, told her what was going on, and I told Dad. I said, man, I really didn't come prepared to kill a deer, because now I'm all the way here at the back and I can't get my truck back here. I guess I'm in for a really long drag. And he said, Man, call Uncle Jerry. You know he'd love to come get that deer. My uncle Jerry and Katie Sue. Katie Sue was Daddy Doe's sister, still lived, you know, just up the hill from where me, me and Daddy Doe used to called him. I told her what happened. He rode down his side by side. I'll never forget he hopped out of his side by side looked at that deer. He looked at me with his blank stare on his face, and he said, Lake, I ain't never seen no deer like that come out of here, And that said, I know, Uncle Jerry, I can't believe it either. We loaded that deer up, we drove it back to their house. Katie Sue come out the door with the camera that had a roll of film in it, snapped a couple pictures of me on the tailgate with that buck. 00:12:23 Speaker 6: And ended up mailing them to my mom. She still has them to this day. 00:12:27 Speaker 5: And then she invited me in for supper, and we sat around, talked about that deer, talked about the hunt, and just went on for I don't know how long, about how much Daddy told and me and he would have loved it that they'd been here to see it. 00:12:40 Speaker 3: You know. 00:12:40 Speaker 5: Like I said, that happened when I was in college, and I've got been fortunate enough to do a lot of deer hunts since then. I've killed bigger deer score wise, and seen a lot more since then. But to this day, I've never had a deer hunt that meant more to me than that one. Did that one was that one was something and it happened in a crazy way too. 00:13:06 Speaker 2: That was a good story. 00:13:07 Speaker 4: Lake. 00:13:08 Speaker 2: We learned something about calling and your connection to your grandparents and their land. Our next storyteller is Mitch Sykes from the mountains of western Arkansas. I've known Mitch for most of my life and he's about as good a big buck hunter as there is in the area that we're from. And he's got a heck of a story and it involves a big buck and a bear. 00:13:36 Speaker 7: Oh. On this particular deer right here, I had a spot on the west end of a mountain up here, and it was a big leg that come off the west end of the mountain and it was one of those special places to where it didn't matter if the acrons made, if they didn't make, there was a spot there toward the month of October, it was the place to be. And on this particular deer here, I had went in there, and I believe it was the first week of October. I just carried my climbing tree standing there, climbed up in the tree and for hunting public land in the mountains. I remember that morning pretty well. I saw like seven or eight deer, and that was a wonderful day, a bunch of does and I think a couple of small bucks. And I believe it was on a Saturday morning, and about eleven o'clock. I was hunting later than I normally do. I just heard something right off in front of me there and I looked, and here come this buck. I had no idea, I mean, and he looked bigger than he was, of course, walking right to me. And I got ready and he just come in, just feeding on acres, just coming right to me. And when he got right in there about where I was expecting him to hopefully turn broadside and offer me a shot, he got in some brush, just kind of followed his nose and got in a little more brush, and I'm expecting to hoping he's going to come out, and he's probably within fifteen yards of me, and the next thing I know, I can tell he's turned. And if there was one thing the deer could do and get away from me, that's what he did. He just took off, feeding away from me. And at that time I shot one pin on my bow. I shot a twenty yard pin and I would not shoot past thirty yards. And this deer got out there what I thought was about thirty yards and offered me a shot. And when I shot, I thought I had heart shot him. He jumped and kicked and took off and ran out there about forty yards and he stopped, and I could tell he stood there for a long time, and I didn't do any I mean, I could tell that I hadn't hit him, or hadn't hit him good, and he just kind of finally just eased on off. And when I got down, my air had blood on it, and there was just just a few drops of blood right there where I'd hit him. And I was just sick because I didn't know if I'd hit him too far back or how if I'd just grabbed. I didn't know what I had done, but I knew that that was the biggest buck that I'd ever shot at with my bow, and I was just sick. So every chance I got to hunt, that's where I was gonna hunt. And I believe it was just maybe three or four days later, and I left my climbing stand on this white oak tree's It was just a permanent fixture there during deer season, and I went in there one morning and I always got to my stand about an hour before daylight trying to And when I walked into my stand that morning, when I got up to the tree, my tree stand wasn't there, or I didn't think it was. And the closer I got, I'm thinking nobody would have stole my stand, you know what happened? And as I got closer, I could tell that it was spun around on the back side of the tree, and the seat was chewed off of it, and the bungee cords. It was just demolished. And I knew what had done. So I kind of looked it all over and I thought, well, it's I can climb in it, I can hunt out of it, but I can't sit down. So I went ahead and climbed up in it, you know. And I've had this dreams of this big buck still going to come in. And about thirty minutes after daylight, I looked off up the mountain there before I had come in up that egg, and here come a bear and it was believe it or not, I mean, it was just walking the exact same trail I did. Kind of like it was smelling of me, you know. And when I come down and got in that stand, every morning. I came down that leg, and right before I got to my stand, there was a little old holler, the real steep holler that was just full of trash and briars and holly trees. And I always walked down that holler so I wouldn't put scent. I thought it might have helped. So and with that bear did that same thing. And when he come out of that holler, he come right to the base of my tree. Wasn't a very big bear. I have no idea, maybe one hundred and fifty two hundred pounds. Wasn't no great big bear come right to the base of the tree there, just like I had. And I could tell that he was kind of smelling the tree. And this whole time, I'm thinking, I mean, it's legal to shoot a bear, but I don't want to mess with him. And he kind of started licking the tree, and all of a sudden, he just kind of raised up on his hind legs and he's smelling the tree, and he just grabs hold the tree and just start slowly climbing the tree. Has not looked up towards me, has not seen me nothing, And he'd climb a little bit and he'd lick the tree and he'd look around. Finally, he just kept coming and kept coming, and I said, I'm gonna have to shoot this bear because the whole time I'm thinking he's gonna mess with my stand. I'm gonna shoot this bear. And I don't know if you'll remember it, but about twenty years ago, Muzzy came out with the first maybe fall away rest. It was called a zero effect. It was a big awkward apparatus that went on your bow and anyway. I remember pulled my bow back, but he was he was nearly back underneath me, and my arrow would not rest on my rest. It was just hanging free. And I said, I'm not gonna I mean, I'm not gonna. It's not gonna go where I'm aiming. So I let my bow down, and when I did, he just kept coming up there. And I thought, well, I'm gonna have to make him. I'm not gonna be able to shoot him on this tree with me. I'm gonna have to make him get down. So I took my cap off and I just hit my that rail on a summit tree stand. I just hit that rail, popped my hat on it, and he looked up at me, and boy, when he did, it's like it scared you. I mean I could tell he kind of boy. He took off real fast, climbing back down the tree, and he'd probably up about ten foot at that time, and I was probably twenty five foot. And as soon as he got on the ground, he just stayed there and I could hear popping and looking back at it, he was popping his teeth. But I thought he was chewing the stuff he had chewed up. I had a bungee cord, you know, I had some stuff that he had. My seat was still down there that he had chewed off the stand. But he was popping his teeth, and in just the blink of an eye, that bear just he just jumped on that tree. And I mean he just he just come up it, just looking right at me, coming right up through the grid of my stand. So I just want to head. I knew he was being aggressive, and I don't know how to say that, and because I've never seen a bear be aggressive. I they're always trying to run over trees to get away from you. But he was being aggressive coming up that tree. And about the time he got to my platform, he just kind of peeled off on the left. He came all the way up to my feet. I don't know if when you scare a cat and he climbs up a tree, and I mean he's that's the way the bear was climbing. He wasn't slowly climbing like he was the first time. He was climbing that tree aggressively. And when he got right to my feet, he kind of peeled under, you know, came to the left of my platform. And I don't even remember if I aimed or what, but I shot him right through them, I mean, right through the nose and down into the chest cavity. And when I did, he let out a squall like a coon just why, and just fell, you know, twenty five foot whatever. And when he hit the ground, I thought I'd killed him dead. I mean, he sat there and kicked for just a few minutes, and well, all of a sudden he kind of got to his feet and he took off run, and he ran right into a great old, big pine tree. And when he did, he broke about twelve inches of my arrow off and he ran off in a thicket. I would think that that bear was probably within five foot of me least maybe more than that. I mean, he was probably within four foot He was right at my platform that I was standing on. He was right at that height. Of course, I set up there for a little bit, you know, kind of thinking what just happened? That was I never had anything like that happen. It's one of those stories you nearly didn't even tell because you said, people are not going to believe me. They're not going to think I'm credible by telling that. But that is exactly what happened. Anyway, That's kind of how that all happened. And I was just sick about the whole deal. And I didn't see the deer, and I think I hunted that this buck that I had shot at that I started the story with. I hunted him all through muzzle od in season and I never saw that deer again. So in my mind, that was before I had trail cameras or anything like that. And in my mind I had I had got shot him, that I had done something and he wasn't back. And I think it was on Halloween morning and here where I hunt. If you can, that's something special about you know, if a guy could hunt from the twenty fifth of October through the if the November, those ten days, you'd have more success and have more stories to tell than if you hunted a month on either. 00:22:06 Speaker 4: Side of it. 00:22:07 Speaker 7: Where I hunt, that's just a magical time. And that morning, I remember I got up in that stand and I think I had gotten me a replacement set or something like that. But I was sut in the same stand, the same place, and right before daylight I heard a deer coming from the south going north and it come right in, right in underneath me, and I never will forget the whole time. It looked like a big deer, but it was just a blob. And I'm thinking, that's a buck. That's a buck this time of year, that's above But I was wrong. It kind of went on west, come up in the underneath me, and went on west. And about a minute later I could hear a deer grunting every breath coming from the south right the same track. I didn't know it at the time. I just knew that it had big chocolate set of horns, and it came in there and it was just about as dark as you could see your pens. I could tell it was a really good deer. Anyway, I shot it, and it ended p whenever I got to it. It was the buck that I had seen three weeks before that I had shot at, and I had actually grazed him from if I'd have been three inches higher out of heart shot him, but I just grazed his brisket in his front leg with my broad head. But he's the best buck I've ever killed with a bow, just to He's real narrow, but he's a really good deer. He was a good eight point buck. 00:23:28 Speaker 2: Mitch, that was an incredible story. I'm impressed that you were able to hold it all together on the buck and then shooting straight down at that bear. Deer stories aren't always about deer. We're moving right along and going back to Mississippi to meet up with a guy named Miles Malone. He's a professional nuisance hog and beaver trapper and a good white tail hunter. This is a story about a very unique buck with a third antler growing out of the middle of its forehead. It's a unicorn buck. But what's most unique about the hunt is what happens when a storm blew a limb full of acorns in front of his camera. 00:24:12 Speaker 1: My name is Miles malom I'm from Rudy in Mississippi. 00:24:16 Speaker 4: I at middle of May. It was a pretty day. 00:24:19 Speaker 1: I got off work early when and put out some cameras. My plans were not to go back and go check my cameras or anything. I just wanted to wait until he got, you know, closer season, just see what was around. Had a buddy come into town that hunt with and he wanted to go scout about right there into June, probably June twenty seventh, June twenty eighth. 00:24:39 Speaker 4: And we went. 00:24:40 Speaker 1: I decided to pull my camera cards and I waited a couple of days. 00:24:44 Speaker 4: I wo wasn't really just eager to look at them, and. 00:24:46 Speaker 1: Finally when I got home, relaxed, looked at my camera. It wasn't like two days. I ended up getting this unique buck on camera. He had like a Jsha unicorn horn coming out of his head, but. 00:24:58 Speaker 4: You couldn't tell much else about him. 00:25:00 Speaker 1: But I knew that was the one I wanted to chase without a doubt, no matter what he turned out being. I kept getting him at two cameras, but I couldn't get him north south and couldn't figure him out. So I started trying to go middle of the day when I got time, and I would go and try to see where he's crossing this BYU because I'm getting him on the other side, I would buy you next to a field, and no matter what I did, where I thought I had him, couldn't find it. Kept getting pictures of him at the other two spots, and it wasn't like every day, but was consistent a weekly basis. I was getting him, and normally it was like eight thirty nine o'clock at night, you know, obviously late at night, and the latest on in the morning i'd get him on camera would. 00:25:44 Speaker 4: Be like four am, four thirty. 00:25:46 Speaker 1: And I just felt like he was one of them, dear that I was gonna have to hunt really hard and chase all season long and maybe get lucky. 00:25:55 Speaker 4: And get him. In the rut. 00:25:59 Speaker 1: Time went on and it got time for a velvet season, I just said, I'm gonna stick with what I know, and I'm gonna go hunt the area and. 00:26:06 Speaker 4: Hopefully I'll be able to see the deer and. 00:26:09 Speaker 1: If I'm in the woods and I spend the time in the woods and if he's moving through, I'll eventually catch him and might not be able to get a shot on him. But I'll be able to see where he's going, where he's coming from, and help me dial in on him. So I went to my old faithful spot and the first hunt was really great. 00:26:28 Speaker 4: I saw a lot of deer. I saw a couple of bucks. 00:26:30 Speaker 1: Have me excited, you know, every crunch of a leaf, I was like, here he is and it, you know, be a possum come marching through the wood that old loud, walk through them leaves and just have your heart rattling. But the first hunt Velvet season was great, didn't seem next day's off you deer a couple of young bucks. And the last day of elf season didn't see a deer. So I'm spiraling to have a run him out of here. You know, I don't want to go check on my cameras and boogrihm or bust him up or anything like that and leave a bunch of scent in the woods. Maybe one two days four season, I decided to go out there and go check my cams. Well, when I got to the camera, there was a limb in front of it, and I was mad, it's just been wasted time sitting here, And I moved the oak limb and drug it like twenty yards off, and when I got home and checked the card, you know, had it sept for one second hold my finger down. 00:27:28 Speaker 4: Just it's like a time lapse. 00:27:30 Speaker 1: And I'd been constantly getting you know, doze and yurelings in there, and a couple of young bucks and nothing great, and then all of a sudden, I get to it was about five days before opening season when his oak limb fell and lo and behold in the background in the night picture. I can see it in his rack, and he slowly made his way to the oak limb and he got on top of it, and he sat there and he ate acrens from the limb, and he held it down, and he would sit there for two hours, eating at it, and he'd leave. Three four hours, he'd be right back on it. And it was the first time I'd ever seen him come out in daylight. Like he came back at like six thirty in the morning and was just eating from that oak limb to like eight thirty, nine thirty, and then he left, and then he was back at like eleven or lunch, and then he left. Then he was back four o'clock, and then my heart got to beat and I was like. 00:28:23 Speaker 4: What have I done. 00:28:25 Speaker 1: Like he's right there and he's eating from this limb and I drug it twenty yards away. 00:28:31 Speaker 4: He got my sin on it. 00:28:32 Speaker 7: I should have flipped it upside down. 00:28:34 Speaker 4: Let him get to the acrons. He couldn't get to. 00:28:39 Speaker 1: Opening day came night before and everybody kept asking me, what time are you going hunting in the morning. I said, I won't be going hunting till three, and they're like, you're going hunt at three in the morning. I said no, I said, all the pictures I get of him and he leaves and vanishes probably about thirty minutes an hour before light breaks, and I don't want to risk going in the woods, me trying to get to a stand and busting him up. And I was like, I feel like my best opportunity of getting him is going in way early, getting in my stand, and hopefully catching him in the evening. And I did. On Opening day. I was sitting in my stand at three o'clock. It was like one hundred and eight degrees outside, and I'm sitting there thinking what am I doing out here? A lot of other people and other camps come hang out at watch football and cook, and there are a lot of people in town. I'm sitting there hunting and I haven't seen it deer. I ain't seeing a squirrel. It started getting later and later and nothing, nothing at all. And I got to the point where I was just ready to go. I just, you know, I wish time would hurry up and speed up and it get dark. 00:29:44 Speaker 4: Now I can calm down. 00:29:50 Speaker 1: Usually once it starts getting to that last thirty forty five minutes, that magic hour, you know, I normally fired up and I gotta have buddy take me to the wors goar hole on the face of the earth. And I still got hopeing at last thirty forty five minutes something could at you know, and I didn't this day. 00:30:08 Speaker 4: I did not have no faith. 00:30:11 Speaker 1: I want to say, probably by you know, that last thirty minutes. I did hear deer eating acrons. And this deer kind of hung out under the mid store and just fed for like fifteen twenty minutes. I never could see the deer, but I could see pieces of it and I could hear it eating acrens. I've had success with Bucks in this area, and I mean they normally dude come on out, and this deer wasn't doing it. I didn't want to pick up my binoculars or anything because I didn't know what it could see. And about that time, I look and all I can see is that head up and that rack through the leaves. 00:30:46 Speaker 4: I went from. 00:30:47 Speaker 1: Literally ready to go get my truck and get gone at the camp till I couldn't breathe and a blink of an eye. And I always try to put my mind in the situation and practice how I handle it, and it never works out, but I still practice it. And I practiced this for about two months, and you know, I kind of always visualized. I could seem eighty nine yards away and slowly prepared, but I wasn't prepared for. 00:31:13 Speaker 4: The ten minutes of shooting. 00:31:15 Speaker 1: Light left when he took another step or two, and I had my bow in my hand, all right, ad An Aaronnock. When he came out, he started walking my way. You know, he's probably only twenty yards from me, and I'm just panicking. 00:31:29 Speaker 5: Man. 00:31:29 Speaker 4: I just grew two new hearts in my. 00:31:31 Speaker 1: Body and both of them are in my ear drums and they had just pounding. I'm going cross side and he's right there and he's got his head up stretched out. I want to say, he was about fourteen yards from me, but I mean I felt like I could jump out of deer stand on top of his back. And as I was starting to draw my bow back, it just collapsed on me and went down. And I said, what just happened? And I'm scared of dead that one. Even when I draw this thing back, he's gonna run off. And I go draw it back again and it just collapses. And I'm sitting there just shaking so bad. And I sit there and I think to myself, there is no way I can go back to this deer camp to all my buddies and tell him that I had him at fourteen yards in front of him, and I couldn't find a way to draw my boat back. And I said, I don't care if I scare him off or not. I'm fixed to give this bow everything I got. And I pulled back and it came back, and I got the pen right there on him, and I let it go and it hit him and he took off, and you know, I was feeling real good about it. And I could see him run. I could see the knot kind of going through the mid story. It was like Christmas tree light blinking out there. I'd see it, then I wouldn't. Then I'd see it, and I wouldn't. But I called my buddy and I told him. I said, man, I just got him. 00:32:47 Speaker 4: He's at the camp. 00:32:48 Speaker 1: He's like, look, just sitting the stand forty five minutes to an hour, do not get down and. 00:32:53 Speaker 4: Go look at your era, just in case he's closed. He's like, look, I'm on my way. 00:32:57 Speaker 1: I'm coorblind, so I can't see blood unless it's just big old pools of blood. I ain't gonna see it in that forty five minutes to an hour I waited in that stand. I done convinced myself that I pulled or something and hit him in the hind quarter and just missed it. All up, I went from feeling great on top of the world to just doom and gloom. And they finally got there and we got down. I was so eager to get down and look, and we started finding good blood, and I mean, it wasn't long since he was down, and then I just I couldn't believe it. He's a mainframe eight point but he has a six and a half inch J shape unicorn coming out right over about the dead center of his head and it's about six and a half inches long. I panic freaked out, overthought everything, and I kept telling my fiance, I mean, it's gonna take all season. 00:33:57 Speaker 4: You know, I'm probably gonna have to miss events. I'm probably gonna have to miss this holidays. 00:34:01 Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna have to spend every second I got in the woods just to get a chance. And then man, just for opening afternoon, just to have it done. Man, what a relief as a memory. I'll never forget, that is for sure. 00:34:16 Speaker 2: That's wild that that buck keyed in on those acrons like that. And as you heard, Miles knows how to correctly pronounce the words spelled aco r n. This next story is one of my favorites. It's a deer hunting story but really doesn't have much to do with deer. It involves a lost mule during a deer hunt and my mother's name coming up in a bar. You're just gonna have to listen. I told this one once on the Bear Grease Render, but I decided that I'm gonna tell it again. When bar Nukan was about nine years old, I was wanting to take him on his first big overnight deer hunting trip back into the mountains. We had a young green broke mule named Ellie May, and we packed up Ellie May with saddle paniers and carried a big camp and went back into the mountains and set up our camp. The next day, me and Bear rode double Bear's just a little kid back further into the mountains, and I tied her up to a tree, and Bear and I were gonna go hunting, and we'll tie up our mules and leave them all day. I remember we sat in a saddle most of the day and all we saw was a group of gobbler turkeys that came through that saddle. Didn't see a single deer. As it started to get dark, we head back to find Elie May and then ride back down to our camp. I get to the tree, and what do I see but a lead rope hanging there with no mule, and the lead rope had been chewed. At that time, I had never known a mule to chew a lead rope, but it was wet, and she had chewed it and broke it and was gone. Well here it is black dark bears, nine years old, and our mules lost way back in the mountains. Well, I pick up the saddle, and we go back to camp. The mule is not at camp. I get to thinking the mule is probably back at the truck, and I just envisioned this mule running around on the road out there by my truck with a broken lead rope, and somebody calling the sheriff, and the sheriff run of my tags, and then calling my wife and saying, hey, we found your husband's mule. We think something's wrong. I just envisioned like pandemonium spreading from this. So we head off in the dark and walk all the way back to the truck where we were just as it was. One of the closest places of human occupation was a bar. Well, it was a Saturday night, me and Bear getting the truck. Well, first of all, we get there and the mule is not there. The mule's not at the truck. So we pull up into the parking lot of this bar and there's old trucks and cars and people there. And my son's nine years old, and so he can't go inside. I tell him, I say, son, I'm gonna leave you in this truck, and I want you to duck down and hide and just lock the doors and I should be back in about ten minutes. I leave Bear in the truck in the parking lot of this bar. I'm wearing all camo, and I'm telling you, it was just like a Western I walk in. Music's loud, and every single person that bar looks over at me, and clearly I'm kind of out of place. Well, I walk up to the bar and find a place and kind of lean up against the bar and try to get the attention of the bartender. Well, finally I do. The music is so loud. She's like, what can I get you? And I go, oh, I don't. I don't need anything to drink. I came by and I'm yelling this because it's so loud. She's leaned into me and I'm leaned into her, and everybody in that bar is looking at me. I mean, I'm not kidding. And I go, my name is Klay Nukem, and I lost my mule, and I just wanted to leave my phone number just in case, you know, somebody sees it. And she goes, what And I yelled even louder. I say, my name is Clay Nukem, and I lost my mule, And I mean everybody in the bar is listening, And as I'm talking, there's five or six people there to my left. And at the end of the bar, I see a guy stand up and I can tell he's had quite a bit to drink, and he yelled across all these people to me. He goes, and this was the last thing I was expecting to hear come from his mouth. He said, is your mom, Judy Nukem. When the words Judy Nukem came out of his mouth, I could not believe it. I was just like what, And he says it again, is your mom, Judy Nukem. That was the last woman that I expected to come up in this bar. Just for a little context, my mother. We call her Juju, and she is a legend in her community for being a wonderful, kind, godly, amazing woman whose name should not be brought up in a bar. 00:39:48 Speaker 4: Well. 00:39:49 Speaker 2: A lot of scenarios were running through my mind about what was about to transpire. I didn't know if I was gonna have to fight this guy. I didn't know what he was about to say revealed to me about my mother that maybe I didn't know. Finally, I go, that is my mother and his face just changes countenance and A big smile comes on his face and he says, I quote she's my teacher, but literally what he said, she's my teacher. This is a grown man older than me, and he says, she's my teacher. And he goes, she used to teach me in elementary school. She was my favorite teacher of all time. And I just big smile comes on my face. Oh what a relief, and I go, excellent, man, cool, I'll tell her you said hi. Got the guy's name, wrote down my phone number on a little sticky pad, headed out of there. Luckily Bear was okay. Nothing happened to him, and it was too late to go back up to our camp. We still lost our meals. So I head to Juju's house, to my mom and dad's house to spend the night, and as soon as I walk in the door, I say, me and Barr are just at the bar. Guess whose name came up? Anyway, long story short. We spent the night and the next morning we went back up there and the mule was at our camp. No deer were harmed during the proceedings of that last story, and I was very relieved to hear that my mother was that man's teacher, and for the record, I no longer own la may. 00:41:41 Speaker 1: Now. 00:41:42 Speaker 2: I said at the beginning, if you only listen to one story, it should be the one by Med Palmer. He's a biologist for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, a veteran deer and turkey hunter, and a general all around woodsman. I just want to warn you this one may surprise you. I want you to meet Med Palmer. 00:42:04 Speaker 3: My name is Med Palmer from Kapya County, Mississippi. I worked for the Mississippi Point Wife It's in park. 00:42:12 Speaker 4: The fall of. 00:42:13 Speaker 3: Twenty and twenty, there was a particular deer on our property. My son Gunner, which he's a younger generation, he was running cameras and you know, getting ready for both seasons. And about two years prior, we started getting a picture of the Pacific Book that he was really wanting to kill with his bow. But he just couldn't evernarrow him down, couldn't find his bed in there, and he was pretty sporadic. We just could couldn't pin him down. And then the fall of twenty twenty, that end of that summer, around August, he'd started putting his cameras out and all of a sudden, he started to get pictured of his book, and his book was pretty centralized in one location on our property, which worked out really good because it was in the center of our property and he was really fired up. He would just infatuate with both one and he loved it because he started out real young shooting deer with a rifle. So when he got on up the bowl hunting, it's just a lot more ADRIWND than the rush, a lot harder to do. But this particular buck, he started getting multiple pictures of him, and so we started planning on putting stands up in that particular location. 00:43:14 Speaker 4: It worked out. 00:43:15 Speaker 3: He put a camera on a s Pacific oak tree, and that oak tree is just one of those oak trees that it starts dropping early and drops on end to probably about mid December. It's a big water oak and that tree started dropping early that year, so he put his camera on it and that buck with two other bucks, which was nice bucks. The buck he wanted to kill was at least the six and a half year old buck, and the other two was probably bourn and a half year old bucks. They was shooter bucks for anybody, but the one he wanted was the one we'd had two years prior. Hornwise, he was decent. He was probably about seventeen eighteen inch eight point. You know its gonna be eight point. It's all he's ever been. But he kept watching the weather and everything and the wind direction, and he put his block on and he ended up putting another lock on beside it at a different angle. Got on by the week for bow season, and I asked him, I says the buck still coming. He said yeah, he said they're still coming. So opening weekend of bow season, I mean naturally, that's where he was going to be. The wind was perfect that day, and he took his girlfriend with him that day. She wanted to go, had never hunted in her life, so he puts her in the extra lock on right beside he is, and he gets up in there. Everything was good, and that evening I kept waiting for a text. Well, he started getting later and later, and I hadn't got that text yet and finally got dark. Well, when he made it home, I said he didn't show. He said, yeah, he showed, he said, but the two younger bucks, he said, they come right to the tree and was feeding like they did every eating. He said he was bringing up the rear like he does every day, but he skirted the tree and he said, I had a shot at thirty yards broadside, but there was one limb that was blocking it. He said, I was scared it was deflected in crippling. He said, I just didn't want to do that. And uh, I said, well you did the right thing, because that's surely what would have happened. Bow hunt, you know, with one stick and that's all it takes. And his girlfriend got to see the two bucks right under, so she was all fired up and fell in love with Hunt. But anyway, he was having the hunted with the wind. Of course, on into bow season, the pattern will bucks change, bucks will be buddies all through the summer, and then for the rut they start getting aggravated one another end up fighting and they and they bust up, and that apparently is what happened in this situation. In about two weeks into the boat season, he started not getting pictures of it. So he had decided this boat was getting old enough. He said, if I see him my rifle, I'm gonna kill him. I said, yeah, need to go and kill him because a lot of deer die from head trauma. From fight and every year that people don't realize that's like twenty five percent. And he said, he said, are you gonna shoot him if you see him? I said no, I said you want him. I said, you've always want him. I said, I promise you won't want you that deer. And what I didn't know what that time was. On December third of twenty twenty. That same year, we had a wounded Veterans deer hunt going on here in Capaya County. Baptist Association does it every year. Well, I have to speak at it every year with my job and kind of help them, you know, lying stuff out. And one of the veterans liked to duck hunt, and Gonner had heard that some ducks was coming in on the Mississippi River, so him and his buddy duck season wasn't opening, but it opened the next day. He said, if we find ducks, can I take that bedroom. I said yes, I said, I said, I'd be fine. We'll have to get his duck stamp and everything. I said yeah. I said, if he wants to go duck hunt, I mean it's his hunt. Whatever he wants to do. So they lay up him and his buddy went over there that evening to the Missisippi River and put in at the Eternal Boat Ramp and apparently right after they put in a board hit the boat. We searched were probably the largest search effort on the Missichippi River that's ever been conducted. I mean it was over a thousand people looking at and like a hundred bigy boats the first three days, airplanes, helicopters, National Guard. I mean, it was a big deal. We never found them, so started and you know, December the third. Every day I was on the Missisippi River in my boat every day, no matter how cold, no matter how windy, rained, whatever. And there was a group of gunners' buddies that had boats the missip Is the Point Wilife Bushit in Parks. They was every day the Warree County Sheriff's office. So we was running multiple boats just hoping to find what we could find. And we had gone every day. It had got up into January and that particular day, chance of ice, the windshields down, real cold, the weather conditions and fog on that river you just can't see. And I told everybody, I said, we can't go tomorrow. You know, we'd unlost two, and I don't need to try to lose somebody here. So on January the tenth, we wasn't gonna go when I'd made that decison. On January the ninth, we wasn't gonna go when that gime and give everybody a break. And I was home that evening and my buddy call me. He said, y'all gonna run the river morrow and I said no. I said, the condition is way too dangerous. I said, somebody's gonna get killed. I said, we just can't do it. And he said, you need to go hunt, and I said, yeah, I'm sitting there thinking about it. Because I hadn't been to our place since Gunner's accent. I knew it was gonna be very, very emotional, you know, because that was his domain. That's where he hunted, he grew up. He killed his first deer there, first turkey. And my buddy asked me, he said, I know you said you weren't gonna kill that book. He said, what happens if he comes out? And I said he comes out, I'm gonna kill him. Went on oor Gunner, you know, and I said, there's no way he's gonna come out. I mean, there was no, may. We hadn't had a picture of this deer. Of course, we hadn't hunted after Gunn's accident. But it's just like big bucks do. He had vanished, and I told him he's the only deer that I'll shoot tomorrow if I see. And I said, I'm sure I won't see. I said, but I need to go and I need to be there by myself and get it over with. So the next morning, I get up poor daylight, like you do, and I head to our place start walking in. And it was emotional walking in, naturally, because I was going by deer stand that me and him had put up, or he had put up, and I'm thanking of multiple hunts, you know. Well, I get in. My stand was the house standing on the ground, and it's set up on a pipeline. Then I got two long lanes that run different directions off of it. Naturally, all I was thinking about was the time we'd spent there, you know, and it was it was really emotional, and I literally had seen a deer at all, and it had gone on up about nine thirty, which is pretty unusual, and that kind of weather, especially that stands just one of those stands you see deer, and I thought, I said, you know, I hadn't even seen her deer, I said, but I saw it. I said, you know, I'm not here to. 00:49:49 Speaker 4: Kill a deer. 00:49:50 Speaker 3: And at nine forty five, had just looked at my phone. I said, at ten o'clock, I'm on leave, and I wanted to walk to the stand where Gunner had seen the buck and gone get that old whil I was trying to get everything over with, you know e mostly because I got grandkids, I got other kids. You know, we're gonna be going there hunting. I needed to get that over with and about I just looked at my phone at nine forty five and I laid it down a chair beside me and I looked up and guess who walks out. It's pretty tough. And when he stepped out, my heart stopped. I mean, it's just like this can't be. And he just stood there and he looked right as to stand at me, just like here I am shooting. And I got the gun up and got on him, and he just kept standing there and I pulled the trigger and he run. He run right to the edge of the pipeline and I seen him pol and then I sat there and stand for several minutes, you know, get myself together. I said, the only day I've ever shot in my life that I read it. Walking up to that, I knew was letting her dead. And I got out of the stand and I started walking to him. I said, you know, only God alone could make that happen. I think it was God's way let me know that the Gunner's okay, you know. So I went to the deer and I had my moment with him, you know, but it by part of the most emotional deer hunt I've ever had in my life. It was something special and I ended up having a buddy and he told me, said, I'm mounting that deer by I said no, I said, I'm gonna mount him. 00:51:38 Speaker 7: Well. 00:51:39 Speaker 3: I took it to the taxi Darmis. When he called me and told me it was ready. I went to pay him. He said, this deer's would have been paid for. Gunner always wanted to camp at our place, and after Gunner's accident, I just went on and got a camp for my grandkids and my kids and we love him and it's actually hanging in the camp. A trophy is just what a trophy is to the person that killed it, and by bar. I could kill a bone and Crockett and it would not mean as much to me as this deer. I can assure you it's about the story anyway. It ain't about the deer, the stores, everything what. 00:52:39 Speaker 2: There aren't many words that can be said after a story like that, other than I want to offer a genuine thanks to Med for sharing this story with us. I think that in some way, when stuff like this is shared, it helps spread the grief out amongst us all, so it's not all bunched up in one's bought. Gunner Palmer was just sixteen years old. I'd like to dedicate this episode of Bear Grease to Gunner Palmer and zeb Hughes. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Please share this with a friend this week and keep the wild places wild.