00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay and Nukeleman. This is a production of the bear Grease podcast called The bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. I've had people contact me and they're like, did you guys quit singing? Singing? Yeah, so there's probably a group of people that are glad we haven't sang in several months. And then some just like think that, like our spirits just shut down. They're like, are are y'all quitting the Burger's podcast? You hadn't saying recently. It's like a rubric of whether the podcast is working. Yeah. I think it has some validity inside the idea because where there is energy and spirit and life happening, what happens. Music, music is written. People are inspired for millennia. So almost so. My my wife, Miss Nucome, is here on my left and almost if you'd gotten here just a little bit earlier, I would have said, we're gonna play. But this is what I'm going to guarantee next Burgary's render that we're here, We're gonna play. Okay. I had a song request. I can't remember what it was, but the guy sent me a video and it was a bunch of otters singing about barbeque that work. Oh man, it's fabulous. This is a this is a fantastic stick afternoon. And it has been a long time since we've had a barger surrender here at the Meat Eater South World headquarters here in Arkansas. Is it sanctioned? Is it sanctioned for you too? I mean, like you call it Meat Eater South? Is that I mean? Has there been I mean papers filed? Of course it's been. It's been. Yeah, there's been a declaration. So it's been a while since we've all been here. And we always have these with the with the kind of the standard crew in my office. I wish I could show everybody in my office. This is like, it's great. It's a great place to hang out. I love I love this office. It's a visual Smorgess board I like to peel for It reminded me of Will Primo's office. Yeah, hey, I'll tell you what. Will Primos had an incredible office. It's hard to describe he's got I believe it's walnut wood lined walls. Really it's kind of dark and it's just kind of like yeah, kind Oh. He had a he had a huge original painting of a spring Turkey scene with lights on it, just like super classy. And then he had a bunch of freedom mounts, you know European mounts of white tails that you know, he killed most of them in Mississippi. And he had his collection of like handcarved decoy's. It was like a museum you could just walk around. He had a wall that was full of the original prints from the negatives of the photographer who shot still photos. Stay with me on the Jeremiah Johnson films, Will Premos Will Primos is like Lake Pickle told me, and he told it for truth. He said, Clay will Primos has watched Jeremiah Johnson over five thousand times. And I said, and I laughed, and I said, oh man, that's cool. And I said, how many times do you really think he's watched it? And he said no, I'm I'm being serious, Like he's calculated. He believes he's watched it five thousand. What do they say about ten thousand? An expert and if the movies two hours long? He is, I mean he has a PhD. Basically, I don't. I don't know where. I never quizzed him on it, but Mr Will told me that on his farm there were different roads on the farm and they named him after the characters and Jeremiah Johnson and he had Oh he was saying stuff. I didn't even know what he's talking about about the movie, like like h memorabilia that he had. So, yeah, I really need guys, he probably does. Yeah. So we're back in my office, which I think my office would be maybe noteworthy for the for all the bear hides and the bear chaps. I do have a let me give you just a just a quick like audio tour. Right behind my dad Gary here, I've got Oscar Nukeam's shotgun, James Lawrences Hawkins rifle, and a cane that Adam Dean gave me from Europe that he made me. I've got a picture of a Bob white quail that hung in my home where I was raised. Gary's home for years. That was a picture of Bob Whacke quail. That picture of that dog is a dog that dad owned, a bird dog named snipper. I painted that when I was in high school. Gave it to my grandfather that hung in his office till he died. You swing slightly to the right, and I have all my stone points, most of those I found on my property on the window sill um. This is where I got my computers. Here I'm just kind of swinging around, and then I had my white tail wall. I've got, you know, I kind of quit a mountain deer, but I've got maybe six white tails mounted and then probably fIF you know, twelve racks. But this is the this is the coolest part to me. This is the the legacy section. And there are three photos up here. They're sixteen by twenty high quality photos with lights on them, and the far left image is James Lawrence in the late nineteen seventies. It's that yes, it's a it's a it's a hawk and muzzloader as I understand it. And James Lawrence is somebody that I've just always really looked up to, and I consider him a mentor and somebody that's kind of like family to me. So there's a big picture of James and then that rack right there beside it is a deer that James killed on public land in the nineteen sixties. And man, it's not a huge rack. I mean, it's a beautiful rack with big old brow times. But when I go to James's house I was there two days ago and I see his wall full of white tail antlers, I am mesmerized when I think about the hours in time that he's spent hunting to kill those deer back in that time where he did in National Forest in Arkansas. So there's James. The middle picture is my father in law, Steve Schultz, who has been one of the most influential ever in my life. He really is Steve is Are also are Are the pastor of our church. Steve was a falconer and that picture was taken when Steve was I think in nine in nineteen eighty, so basically the same time period as James. He's holding. It's a red tail with a Mallard hen duck. And this is a super cool photo and it's real neat for me to see these guys when they were like my age, you know. So there's Steve Schultz and then the picture to the right. Many people have said that this man looks like Elvis Presley, have you heard that picture. It's the coolest picture of Gary nucom And it was the first dear that Dad ever killed. And he's got this buck in the back of the truck. He's got his old bow, what tad, And he's mustachio he's got a nice mustache. And then that deer is right there that I've got a mounted deer right beside that photo. And that deer is the deer that Dad killed. What did Brett and I have to do to get our pictures up there? Could be? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Now what do you remember about that dear Dad? Well, you know, I wouldn't tell people about it, but I'm telling you, for months, i'd be in a room with a group of guys I just say, I wish somebody would just ask me if I killed a deer this year, And no one ever would, But I tell you it meant so much to me because you know, it was a bow kill, and back then that was kind of different. Yeah, that was way different in South Arkansas office sure, yeah, yeah, there weren't a lot of people killing deer with a bow very consistently. Yeah, you know, and I was pretty lucky on that dear. He was trailing a dough and I was on the ground. Are you killed it from the ground? I killed it on the ground, not in a stand quite the deer. Yeah, so that's a twur of the office. And then I've got bear hides hanging from hooks. Yeah, some bear big bear skulls. Yeah. And then I have one big mounted bear in the office, which is it's not the biggest bear I've ever killed, but probably the most valuable bear to me personally, I've ever killed. Killed one, uh, National Forest, public Land the last day of the season, shot the bear in the head, snook up on it while I was asleep. Not a joke. Um, pretty incredible deal. But anyway, a couple of things we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about this Turkey podcast, but I also want to give you guys an opportunity to talk about the Clower podcasts because brit was the special game. Yeah. Yeah, so we're gonna talk about We're gonna talk about Clara. We're gonna talk about turkey hunting. We've covered a lot of ground. What y'all think the last render crew they did? Okay, B team, Yeah, I get my B plus because they recognized all over us on here. They got funny accents from Michigan. Your people are from my people are. I've spent way more time in this, Hey, I was. I was pretty happy that Steve Vernella knew who Clouder was, and he didn't just know who Clouder was, he was he was passionate about Clower, which I was impressed with. I was. I actually thought they I thought they did a good job. I thought that it was a very entertaining podcast. They did a great job. I was a little hurt when Britt got the call out and Josh and I got the shaft. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is the price you pay for fame, gross celebrity. When you're in this circle, you gotta be CONTs. Hey, you talk about micro celebrity. Did you guys know that Misty Newcomb works for Wild and Whole, which is a brand inside of Meat Eater. We've never we've never true story, We've never officially said this on the podcast, but so wild and Hole is like a sector inside of meat Eater that how would you describe Wild and Whole? Wild and Hole focuses on in this sense that media focuses on hunting, is primarily focused on hunting. Wild and hole is more focused on preparation of food and sourcing of food, and so they look at farming, homesteading, foraging, gardening, gardening. Yeah, and so Misty she works for them, and she does a lot of stuff about her garden, about cooking, just about feeding our family. Yeah. So you can follow Missy at Newcombe Farm. At Newcomb Farm. That also reminds me of one of my favorite George Bush junior isms when he was talking about he was giving this speech and he said, we got people out there working hard to put food on their family, putting food on Uh. Yeah, so that's great. While speaking of food, while we were out just before this, Brent was telling me a story about his turkey hunting mentor Mr. Leon. And now, so Brent's gonna tell a story, and let me just say, you're just gonna have to hold your horses until you come to too many judgments about in the direction this story is going. Okay, Grant tell them about Mr Leon. Well, let me let me let me tell him first. While we were talking about that, I was telling Brent about two kumps. Okay, this is potentially some foreshadowing, but I'm doing a little research on a Native American leader named to kumps who was arguably one of the most prominent skilled indigenous leaders of at least modern history that we can record of Native American stuff. Twokumpsa was kind of a peculiar guy and he broke He broke his leg when he was like sixteen years old riding a horse shooting a buffalo, and he walked with a limp. And he was always real weird with taking on a wife. And he he had three wives, different ones, but he he never stayed with him and he was always just to kind of like take a wife and be like ah. And his second wife Mamita. One time he had killed a wild turkey. And this is why this is relevant to this podcast. This is April where there was a goblin turkey, I don't know. He killed a wild turkey and he took it back to Mamita to take care of and she plucked the turkey, which is interesting that she plucked it, she didn't breast it, and she served it to Twokumpsa and the family. This isn't a joke, this is a real story. When when it was served there was still some pin feathers on the plucked bird, and it embarrassed and made two comes to so mad that when dinner was over, he got up and he said, you're gonna have to leave. He said, we're done. Actually, he said, you've brought shame on me, and I cannot tolerate this, and he essentially divorced her. What was wrong? What was wrong with that? His actions better? Oh? Yeah, I could actually read it. Go ahead, and Clay is reading this book somewhere and he clips that part out, takes a picture of it, and sends it to me. And I read this whole story and I get to the bottom and see that he send her away for, you know, not proficiently plucking a turkey. And I wrote back and I said, hey, Clay, is this a threat? Here's the exact section that says to comes to discovered a few small feathers still stuck to it. After his friends left, he handed his wife her clothing and told her to leave. The astonished woman asked to come to why he was banishing her because of the turkey feathers. He replied her entreaties to stay met with a cold rebuke. No, you must go. I'm ashamed of you. We may separate forever. And he drove her out so after I told Brent that story. Brent tells me this story. But before you go, if you like, stop the podcast and you go these misogynistic you know, people don't think that, But just listen to Brent's story. This was a nineteen This happened in nineteen forty six. It could it was either forty five, late forty five or forty six when Mr Leon got home from the war. This was a guy Brent worked I worked with. He was He was a turkey hunter. And you know, we all said something about Colin Turkey's with a briar leaf for a green leaf. Mr Leon could do that. He used to used the green briar leaf. He sound just like a turkey. Anyway. He told me that one time. We'll right after he got married, so they spent they had a one night honeymoon. They went to the house that they lived in. This would have been in nineteen eighty eight or eight or nine when he told me the story. And they've been living there since they got married. And he's the first morning after their honey went when the first night they spent there, he got up and she was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. She said, what do you want for breakfast, and he was walking outside to bust some wood up. He said, I want two eggs over easy. I want some grits. I want some ham and the eggs. I don't want no pepper on him and in a cup of coffee, and out the door he went. He went out and he starts busting wood. She calls him, lean, your your breakfast is ready. He comes back in the house and sets down to the table forwards yourself a cup of coffee. And she sets the plate down in front of him, and it's got everything he wanted, except it had pepper on the eggs. And he said, he said, I thought to myself if I should say something about the about the pepper, But then he said, no, I'm just gonna I'm gonna start this off right. I'm not gonna let her get away with this. And I picked that plate up, I held at an arm's length and just slowly dumped it out in the floor. He says. She was standing behind him, and he handed her the plate, and he said, my intention was to tell her, I said, don't put any pepper on my eggs. He said, I think I got to like the first p in pepper when I assumed she turned up played up edgeways. It hit me on the top of the head with it, because the scar when I woke up, Matt's like the edge of the plate. He said, it in the morning had gone. It was up midday, and I had laid there and knocked out unconscious in the floor so that the yellow on them eggs that stuck to his face and dried, and he said it sounded like duct tape when he raised his face up off the floor. He said, I stumbled around in the house, and I looked and all her clothes were gone, said, we didn't have it one car, and it was there, so but we did have a phone, but her mom and daddy didn't have one, he said, and they lived in town. He said, I assume that's where she went, he said. So I got in the car when I could see, and I drove to town, and sure enough, that's where she was at. And her daddy told me, said she ain't coming right now, but she says she'll be home and when she gets ready, he said. A couple of days go by and she comes home and it's right for supper time to start cooking supper, and she come in, didn't say a word. They cooked supper, they went on like nothing had happened, went to bed gaps. The next morning, the same routine played out. He started to go outside to do his chores, and she asked him what he wanted for breakfast, and he told her the exact same thing. Grits, ham, eggs, no pepper. He said, I went outside, done my chores. She called me back in to eat breakfast. I sat down, poured a cup of coffee. So she set that plate down in front of me, and he said, it looked like a can pepper poured on top of them two eggs. So I and I had know Mr Leon was not an easy I loved him, absolutely loved him, but he was not an easy guy to get along with. So I know this this story where this is going. He's fixing the dump this in the in the in the floor again And I said, well, what you do? He said, I've been eating pepper on my eggs ever since. So the lesson there, I mean, there's lots of lessons in that story, but adapt and overcome. I think I like that held you that story in nineteen two. No, that would have been like nine and he was still married to the apparently they worked. Tell tell me about the way Leon about his entry and exit routes. He uh. We worked in the woods. We managed timber for George Pacific, and our office was in Florida Ice, Arkansas at the mill where the meal was at and we'd go in every morning we get our orders from the forester, which tracked UH to go either mark for cutting or whatever we were doing, we had to leave and go out in the woods to do it. And every time we would come back in, if we went out one direction, he would make us come back another way. We never took the same route back to the office, even if it was the quickest way. And this went on four I was just a young fellow now, and he was, like I said, of war two vets, so he was older, and he just he put the orders out there and I said, yesterday, and we did them. But this particular day, it was in August, and it was so hot, and we've been out in marking timber all day and we think there was no reconditioning in the truck. We got through with work and he said, all right, let's go home. We got in the truck and we started home and I said, I'm just gonna go straight down the highway like we come up here, be quicker, go back home. He said, no, when you get down here and take a ride on such and such road, we're gonna go the back way. I said, Mr. Lee, And I'm hot, I'm tired. I smell it's hot in this truck. I want to go home. He said, no, take that road up there. So I took the road. And I was taking the road, I asked him. I said, we have been doing this every day, not one time, and would come back the same way, even even when it would be quicker. Why are we coming back a different way than we went out? And he reached in his pocket and I'm driving, I'm watching him over there. He never even looked at me. You're reached in his pocket and he took out a cool menthor cigarette and he did it. He took a puff off of it, and he's staring out the window. He's that son. Have you ever been ambushed? And I thought ambushed? Uh no, sir, he said, well I have, and we ain't going back the same way we came out. So that was a habit he got into in the South Pacific fighting World War two, and it served him, Well, we never got ambushed. Never go back the same way you came. Science is good. That's pretty incredible. Well, hey, it's uh. We're recording this in early April. The Arkansas Youth Turkey Hunt and season is this coming weekend, and so the people I have here are missing Newcomb. To my left, Brent Reeves, Josh Lambridge, Spillmaker. Good to see you, Josh, Gary knwcom So we were twenty minutes then. I'm just not introducing you, but I wanted to so me and Josh we have been youth turkey hunting with our kids for long. I mean last year was the first year that I think you didn't go because you kind of had kids that kind of crested crested out of it. But me and Josh had some pretty incredible years of youth turkey hunting, and I wanted to tell one of my favorite stories we where we're hunting. It's pretty it's it's pretty cool because during the youth hunt, you can find birds because when birds are are not thick, which in Arkansas. You know, if you listen to the last podcast, you heard us say that six of our birds are gone. So back in the heyday, we had a lot of birds are easy to find, but what happens across the landscape when birds die out is that there'll be pockets of them that they're fairly thick. So that's why it's kind of confusing to some people, because you might be in a pocket a good turkey hunting and be like, what's the big deal. We still kill turkeys, and it's like, well, but every other place doesn't. Well, on public land, everybody knows where these little pockets of turkeys are, and during the youth season you can usually slipping there, especially if you camp there, you can go in there. So me and Josh and the kids did that for for years and had great turkey gun I mean we could just walk out from our camp and expect to hear a turkey and killed a few. But the best story, well there's two stories the act three. The best one was the kids were I want to say Willow and Mallory, our oldest daughters were probably like was probably eleven or twelve, and Willow would have been ten, and we had we had two little girls, and I think David was with us and me and Josh, so there's there's five of us and we we hear turkey gobble. It's like late in the morning. And on this one rivers there's six of us, six of us, two kids, and well who had the gun? Willow. It was Willow's year. David had to go. David had the gun. There were seven of us were we were all there, David, Mallory, Willow, River, Clay, Jock, Okay, six of us, six of us. Anyway, nine o'clock in the morning, late in the morning. I yelp here, turkey gobble. We've got the kids all camoed up on the you know, face paint, and that we're just ready to go. And and and our kids were pretty good at being still and quiet. Yeah, we've trained them pretty good. And this turkey gobb was so close that I'm just like, get down, everybody, you know, and we're giving orders like you two sit here, you two sit here. And the person with a shotgun maybe was right with me and you were sitting back behind. Yeah, David was right with me. Well man, directly here comes two big long beard gobblers. I see him from sixty seventy yards and they're kind of walking up to our left. And I've got Mallory and Willow at a tree like arms reached from me, David the gun man, in between my legs right here. These birds are coming up like this. And we had told the kids, you know, over the campfire all these years, we'd say stuff that Dad used to tell me, which turns out was probably a lie. He would say, these turkeys can see the whites of your eyes. I mean a dad that when he's trying to inform his kid about turkey hunting, you're trying to scare them into then still and you know, these turkeys can see the whites of your eyes. We told the girls that in David, Well, these turkeys come in and they played gobble out in front of us, and they they never strutted, but they were just beautiful coming up the ridge. The turkeys come in, and David was just a little kid, and I couldn't get him on the turkeys. And they stayed out at maybe thirty yards and they were kind of in a weird at a weird angle too, if you remember it. Just it's just one of those deals. I just couldn't get him on it. But the birds were really enraged and close and and they missed. They circled back around the tree almost I remember it was. I mean they weren't ten fiftet, but the way they were at we couldn't get a shot on him. And so the bird finally goes off, and I mean he's gobbled and we've seen him. And the kids are just like, oh, that's great. And so we after they leave, we're all standing up and I say, man, wasn't that beautiful. I mean, I'm trying to interpret for them. This is like a magnificent thing that's just happened. We didn't get in, but that's okay. And Mallory, Josh's oldest daughter, goes, oh, man, and I said, Mallory, what do you think do you see those turkeys? And she said, no, I never saw him. And she said, you told me to keep my eyes closed, And when she heard those she shut her eyes tight. Man. She never for the shooter. Sheer one thing you can't say about I mean, she is straight like an arrow. Right. It was. It was so funny because she was dead serious. I mean she was like, I didn't even I didn't even see him. And she's so happy knowing Mallory. She's so happy. And then as the kids got older, the next year, David was again the shooter. We heard birds, but we had a different strategy. Me and David went in kind of like yards ahead, and all the kids set back, and so we called in a gobbler and David had a single shot four ten, break open single shot four ten, and we call a big gobbler and man, he comes in, dude shooting range and I'm just like, he's probably twenty five yards, which is you know, but he wasn't coming closer. He would not. I mean, he was there for twenty minutes. Probably he will come well. But but when he finally came in, David gets on him, and you know, David's probably ten ten years old. Boom shoots, and that turkey just kind of like jumps up in the air and hits the ground. And I start calling, mind you, this is a single shot, and I think it's the Hunts over. But when I call that turkey just kind of looks at me and starts kind of just doesn't run off. And so I say, David up another showed up another shell, and so I'm you're trying to break this gun over and David scrambling for a bullet and he puts another bullet in and I say, shoot him again, and so he pulls up that four to him, boom, shoots the turkey kind of jumps up and I work, work, work, work, work. How many times did he shoot? Four times that he shot at the time, I mean a long beard gobbler and four times just didn't have enough. All the other kids, Josh and the little girls are all back there and they hear him shoot and they're like, yes, David got one. And then and then he shot again and they go, oh, I wonder if we got it? And then boom and shoot again. He has to kill two and then the fourth time. You you guys had to be like something. You and oh, man, we walked up, I remember David, and I walked back to him, you know, and we're just like, man, exactly, anybody got an extra box show. He's still waiting for us something. And he shot at another turkey that same day. Do you remember that good he We were in him thick man that hunting might not be David's game when he was sixteen. He killed when he was sixteen. Some of the most beautiful pictures that I have remember when he had turkey camp. We had a backcountry turkey camp where we went back in took a mule and took all the boys and David and man, we walked up on top of the mountain daylight opening day, when Howling hadn't been in there to scout, just kind of thought there might be one in there, and I mean no more, sat down and called up two big gobblers and so, you know, yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, why didn't you take me youth hunting? I didn't like, you know, it's funny back in the day, like, uh, I don't know, we just didn't have maybe we didn't have you. You know, you didn't show any interest in turkey hunting. I mean a lot of stuff I did. You know, you're like going, I'm too cool for that. But the whole time you were sore being all these little stories I was telling. And as you got a little older, you know, you were going like, yeah, man, it's I want to do some of this stuff. Do you remember that year when when you first took me hunting down Polk County and went out hunting. We found it? You know what when when I was listening to this podcast, do you remember us finding that nest with eggs in it? And then we proceeded to get lost for hours and hours and walking miles and miles before smartphones. Yeah yeah, we camped out there. Yeah yeah, yeah, that was pretty fun. You know, I've seen a nest just right out in the middle of the woods. I'm sure everybody that's probably Turkey had a lot is running into that, but I'd only encountered it one time. I mean, I'm just thinking, I think I would have put it over around some brush or something. I was just like, not, yeah, just on the side of a hill and right there. I mean, you could see how many turkey nests you think you found one? Just one one? I mean I've seen where I just knew there was a nest because I could tell the way the hen was acting, and I'd go in and I never could find it. It's like they kind of hied them. This this bird was I think I think some some statistical group of hen turkeys will do that. I mean, they might just put it right out in the open, and then some others are real clever with the way they hied them, you know. But I think I found two turkeynests. How many Turkey nts have you found? Brand Well, I worked in the woods, so I was in the woods every day. I have a bunch yeah, yeah, yeah, a bunch of them. Would you find kind of in the brush or the open or what it would be mainly in like wood lots. You know, you'd get a group of our stand of timber or in the edge of a edge of a like a pasture. I mean it wouldn't really be hidden. I mean a lot of the A lot of them I would find only because I got so close to the hen she jumped up, and she jumped up and flew, or if she stayed set, I'd probably never seen it. What doesn't make any sense to me from a biological perspective is why those eggs are so bright. Would it not make sense for those things to be just brown camouflage. I don't know. Maybe it's something for the for the turkeys to identify to find them back. You know, I don't know, but I thought about that too, you know, like different colors of eggs, Like you know, some chickens lay brown eggs, And if I were President of the Turkeys, I'd suggest that we need different color eggs. I think for s Minister, maybe that would be a way that we could help the turkey populations. We could, uh, we could have different colored Turkey Giggs. MISTI have you ever seen Turkey Giggs? What what Mike? Dr Mike Chamberlain wild Turkey doc on Instagram. He he has a pretty interesting well he has He has a real interesting story. Um. He works for the University of Georgia and as a as a Turkey researcher, and he went on the Mediator podcast a couple of years ago and all of a sudden just rose to national prominence in a lot of circles. Now in the academic circles, he was always kind of where he was at, and there's there's lots of other incredible Turkey biologists that are around the country that you know are his peers. But he kind of was in a unique situation and that he kind of rose to like some have some influence in kind of the mainstream culture world, which is kind of interesting because usually academia has a hard time reaching kind of pop culture. And that's what Dr Amberland has kind of done and he and he did it through being on the Meteor podcast. He'll tell you that I asked him while I was there and he was like, oh, being on the Meteor podcast is what you know got us this? And but he is a very articulate, passionate, very knowledgeable, neat guy, and he's the one that introduced to many of us. You know, lots of people would have known this, but I knew a fair bit about turkeys, and I would not have known the details of the predation stories on these turkeys. But I mean, turkeys are just designed to die. They're born to die. And the the to hear him talk about the he tells a story of this great horned owl. And I didn't go into all the detail, but he he had he did a research project on where he had callers on a whole bunch of small game animals in a certain wood lot. He I believe he did the while he was in college. So he had like possums, collard, pair of raccoons collard, He had like a banded mallard. He had some kind of birds that he was measuring, and he was trying to measure how these animals interacted in this kind of wild space. And he said that a male and female great horned owl moved into that area and and so they would get a dead signal when one of their animals died, you know, if it didn't move for four hours or something it would send a signal. And he said that a male and female great Horndel killed every single one of his research animals. I'm not kidding, killed them all dead. I mean it wiped out his research project. He said it actually made him happy because it was like a two hour drive to get over there, and he had to go over there like four times a week to do his radio work or whatever. And uh, they're voracious. Forty miles an hour. They for they weigh three pounds, but they killed turkeys. They killed goblin turkeys. I mean, you come in at forty hit him. But he had a had a a coons squaller snatched out of his hand one time. Yeah, by who are you serious? Yeah? And he got it was on a leather. It actually wasn't a coon's quald. It was a predator call. And he and my brother were standing on the end of on in front of the truck, and they were trying to get a coat to run upens right at dusk, trying to call a coat up into the road where they could shoot it. And so he was sitting up there blowing that predator call, blowing, blowing, blowing, old Johnny Stewart call he's said in the next thing, he knew he's my brothers at the back of the truck watching that way, and said he could hear flopping in and Joe Tiree sitting up for the cussing and having a fit and scared and holler. And he looked and he said, and it was a al trying to drag him, and that Pretri called out. He had a big old cuts on his hand from them talents. So it heard, so it comes, it comes to something in distress, and thought that it was a dying rabbit. Wow, that's I believe it. I believe it. Voracious predators, man, They and these turkeys are just born to die. What was so interesting to me about the whole story of this podcast because I I interviewed you know, Mr Will Primost, who's just a legend, and I can't say enough cool things about being around Will. He's one of those people that you meet and you kind of will never forget him, this kind of the way he is and the he impacts everybody's around he's around just by how disciplined, how focused, And I wouldn't have seen that. You wouldn't have seen that with him out in the turkey woods. But when you're sitting with him in a room for a couple hours and you kind of get to know him, it is very focused, very disciplined, very passionate, passionate, very teaching oriented. Everything he does like he'll tell you about it. You know, he'll be like, he'll he'll like it. With his eating, I had met him for like forty five minutes and already knew what he ate for breakfast and why it was so healthy. And he does it everything. You know, he's really passionate about everything he does. And it's it's hard not to be impacted by people like that because you see the intentionality with which they live. That sound bite that that you played on there with the guy who's killing the turkey, was that him? Yeah? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah it It said josh uh in a voice over. It said, this is Mr Will primost Okay, somehow miss attention got a little bit tense in here. Sometimes sometimes my friend, well, I had a good run. You see yourself out. So I interviewed Mr Will And as I go into some of these stories, I don't really know exactly the direction that's gonna take. It's not like I had this totally scripted out in my mind. I knew he was a turkey expert. I knew that Dr Chamberlain was a turkey expert, and I knew I wanted to bring them together, not physically, but have them in the same podcast. And as I'm talking to Mr Will, it becomes crystal clear that his part of a component of his success in the game call industry and the video industry came because of the resurgence and these very good populations of turkeys and the innovation and all that that spawned. And it's it's like it all, it kind of all came clear. And then here in Mike Chamberlain talking about and he didn't know about the conversation I had with Will, you know, I was just talking to him about turkeys, and he was like, man, our turkeys in the Southeast populations peaked in mid nineties and two thousand's it was. And then it became clear to me that my ideas in the foundations of the way that I think turkey hut not a b came about during that time. While I learned when I learned the turkey hunt back in the nineties, and you remember me, you heard me say that that place that you heard ten or twelve birds in the same morning. You knew where I was talking about. You didn't where I killed my first turny. See. The reason I went in there was because, like the Saturday before, you came out of there and you said, man, I bet I heard ten or twelve turkeys just you know, throughout the whole morning. And so you have these ideas of what Turkey should be like. And then when it's not like that, everybody's upset about it. I mean, like everybody in this part of the world, just like, oh man, yeah, you know, just they're they're they're upset about it. They're blaming agencies and all this. It kind of helped me to see that there's a there's a bigger thing going on. That's that is, it is inside of our control. But the control is gonna be kind of it's gonna be harder to wrangle the control than it would have been thirty years ago. I mean, partly due to there are vastly more people on the landscape today than there was thirty years ago. It's kind of hard. It's kind of like a slow burn. But I mean, think about anywhere, think about where you're from, Dad, think about this little community we live in here. I mean there's a Dollar General there and there used to be a wood lot. There's five different landowners where it used to be one big farm. And those five different new pieces of property all have new houses built on them. And they cut their grass with lawnmower and they do this, and they do that. UM, timber companies in National you know, the timber harvest and National Forest here is different than it used to be. UM. And then this is the main takeaway that I would say to people, is that, and Dr Dr Chamberlain said it. But predator communities are so different than they used to be. And the rise of the Messo predator, the Messo predator, which is a mid sized predator, misty, skunks, possums, coons, foxes, kids of my existence, the Messo predator. And and in the big the giant picture, the reason there's so many Messo predators here is because all most of the apex predators are gone. The black panthers are gone, the wolves are gone. Now the bears are back. And I know a barrel eat a turkey nest around here. Um. But really it's like there's so much space for predators inside of the ecosystem, and if one of them leaves, other ones rise up and and and man, I mean, which didn't have coyotes thirty years ago like we have today? Um, and they're just wearing the turkeys out and my chickens. Man, tell them about your chickens. I mean, no, no no, it's it's kind of an emotional topic. Fit's perfectly into me. Never trust in the ground nesting bird, even a chicken. Tell him. I mean, we lost nineteen in one one night this week? Or did they just kill them? So there's there's two stories here, Josh. We we lock up our coup like it has an actual lock. And I had some young chickens in there and it was icy, and it was icy for four days, and I put some grain in there. I usually just let them, you know, roam around. But because I knew the predators were out, because whenever you get really low temperatures like that nice for days, they come out. And so I put the grain in the coop and then I put a wood box in front of the door, so that if we won't say who, but is he? The mule decided she wanted that grain and went over gonna unlock the chicken coop. Is he can unlock the chicken coop with her nose, she can undo the lock. So is he went in, That's what she did. She unlocked the coup and then those predators came. And because Izzy can't move the box, you know, like she just had, they moved the box. I think it was one of the predators moved a box. They lack opposable thumbs. I don't think that. I don't think that. I think with their body you can see it's scraped. My coup was scraped around the edges. Point being something. We lost nineteen chickens and one night most of their whole bodies were gone, most of their whole I mean they were gone was feathers. Well, so the only reason we know what it was I was I was gone that at that time. Is My neighbor has a cell camera kind of on the edge of our property, on his property, and I told him, I said, man, something's after my chickens. Well, the reason he knew something was after my chickens because one night I turned loose my dogs on it right after it happened, like I went out that was that was actually a different time. It was a multiple chicken kills. And one night I went out there and it happened, and I knew it happened since dark. And I turned Fern loose, who is a top notch coon dog that won't bark at anything but a coon. And I turned a loose on a coyote, and turns out she'll bark on a coyote if I encourage her too, And she and Tim trailed that coyote and then made a big loop out in front of the house circle rat Well already told the story of this podcast. Text my neighbor and he says, I'll you know, I'll be on the porch with a and uh. Anyway, he got a picture of a code. It was a long way to say that. Let me also say this. I had I got fifteen more baby chickens, and I was super proud of them because they made it. You know, it was a rough winter and these chickens made it a long time. And I was out there looking at them one day and Clay and you guys all went scrawn and Clay decided to take Tim with him, and the day y'all left, I said, look, that's fifteen eight week old chickens right there. That means none of them. I ordered fifteen, I got fifteen. Yeah, fifteen were alive. Not the coyotes, Josh. The hawks. Every day that Tim was gone, every single day. I would go in at night and I count them every day. I had one lesson the day before and it stopped when he came back. So I think that Tim keeps the hawks away. He does. Tim will tree buzzards and hawks that land out in the trees. He'll see him from in the house and stand up on the window sill and we'll let him out and he'll just take off running and he'll go tree underneath that tree, and you know, the hawk, they'll fly and he'll chase him off our property. He's kind of like a cartoon, you know how they run in place for a second. Are he gets so excited. He just runs in place and just like screams. Yeah, it's really fun on our heart. Well, what do you guys think of the podcast? Awesome? Tell me give me your takeaways. I loved it. It was killed my first turkey. That would have been when you know, we all was talking about when he arty. When it started going up. I saw those video the late fees I paid to the video store on his taste would fill up a car with gas at today's prices premost in the Southern boys or whatever. I saw him all and he uh they sold his calls in a little uh store there, Savage Carls one stop. Mr Cross Savage had had a bait shop and sport and good store there and and Warren and they his calls were in there when when they were going out those tapes you know, we're in there, the cassette tapes, and it was, you know, it was a big deal to watch that. And I started turkey hunting when turkey started, and he got better and better every year. I saw what Dr Chamberlain was talking about in the growth and the turkeys. I'm sure I'm sure Gary did too. And it went when it started falling off, it was, you know, it was pretty quick. And we all said something about about the older he gets and and sacrifice and backing up on killing turkeys. Now, so kids in the future. Kid, I got a three year old grandson, I would hate to him miss out on what we all talked about and the recording that you played. I would hate for him not to have the opportunity to experience that and what you talked about David c and then on y'all's trip. So man, if it's uh, it's gonna hurt right now. To back up off of that, but how how good is as we say that? As and as I said that on the podcast about sacrifice, and that's kind of kind of what I ended with. You know, I wanted to functionalize that because I mean, like, what does it mean for me to sacrifice for turkey hunting? I mean, it's kind of a kind of a abstract statement that sounds good to say, but I tried to say, it's gonna mean something different for everybody. It may mean burning and managing just a small acreage that you have. And Dr Chamberlain I just wasn't able to include it on the podcast because it just was it just didn't fit right. He I asked him, I said, what do we need to do? And you know, part of his answer was just everybody needs to do what they can. You know, if you have turkeys, make your habitat as good as possible, even if it's just one or two things that you do to your property that helps that that's going to be meaningful. It could be as simple as not shooting a jake turkey when you can when it's legal, you know, may maybe you back it off and and and there's there's lots of guys that won't shoot Jake's, but there's lots of guys that will and uh, and there's nothing wrong with it if it's legal. I mean, but maybe that's a choice that we would make. And then I've gotten to the age where I can see that we're now talking to a generation of kids that is one day going to be the leaders conservation leaders and stuff. And you know, maybe there's maybe there's kids that are listening or that are influenced by this time period that will be leaders of conservation groups that have to make wise decisions. But you know, so it's kind of like what can you do and do it where you can. And then there's there are people that that have big, huge properties, you know, that could really make a den and something the habitat. I think that's the importance of taking kids out hunting, because you know, we've got four kids and some of the one of those girls that you took really loved hunting and one didn't. So we've got pictures of Willow with with a turkey. But I think that all of our kids have a real appreciation for it. And when you think about like I think about here and Gary say that Clay wasn't really into turkey hunting, which is, well, it's a lie now. But I think that sometimes we gauge what we do with our kids based off of what they're what they show emotional interest in, you know, and it's like, oh, well, they like this or they don't like this. I was gonna say kids like go karting, but maybe they don't anymore. Maybe that's like maybe I'm majoring myself. They like playing video games or whatever, and so those are like easy, so we we put the video game in their hand because that's the thing they like. But sometimes you gotta get your kids involved in things they don't necessarily just just love. Because I think about the experiences that Clay had kind of caught up with him later on, Like he was exposed to turkey hunt and he was exposed to all these things. They might not have been super fun for Clay at the time or emostly rewarding, but Clay baby is an adult. Is remember Dad telling us that if you dropped the chain in the back of your truck, you can get on the shot gobble. Yeah, I still believe that. Hey, hey, let me just tell the group how Clay got started turkey And I mean he was a basketball player. He was, you know, just a normal kid running around coon hunt and I'm going, what coon hunting? And uh uh you know, uh, he just had so many hobbies and so many activities and I'm out turkey hunting. Of course he was here in these stories, you know, but he would never act like he was too interested. It's just being a cool guy. And so he was really one of the better basketball there's and mina. But when he got in high school, one of Zach Knucolm's very best friends just whipped Clay's fanny every day. And even my buddies would say, Clay Nuclem is gonna be the best point guard come through me in a long time. Well, Clay kind of believed that. He got in high school and the fastest guy I believe I've ever seen would just pick his pocket intentionally because I think he heard all this stuff here. You know, Clay Nuclem is gonna come in. You're gonna take over this thing, man, This guy whooped him every day. Clay came home one day and he goes dead. I know, I'm not gonna play college ball, but I'm gonna stay with the team, and I'm gonna go to practices and I'm gonna just monkey around. But I want to be the best hunter in Pope County. And I said, if not, right then, I said it within a few days, you gotta learn how to turkey hunt. And so we went out and it was just blind. Look. Of course I really knew there's turkeys in there. But the first place we stopped and you probably remember where it was, and we got out. You remember if we called or who we just out at him, I think, okay, and all of a sudden, just you know, to two gopers right there, and I mean, he was hooked and with it. About two weeks, I felt like he was a better hunter than I will. I mean, you know, I mean he could call, he had a good ear fort, but uh showed no interest in turkey hunting. I mean, he was interested in basketball, being a cool guy at school, having a nice truck, all this stuff, you know, telling me that his truck had a hole in our that his truck leaked, water would come in the bottom of this truck. And then one day I find this disclosed picture. I'm going through some stuff and he's going through a mud hole. You can't even see the truck, just maybe a one greet. It did have a holding floor in there. But anyway, that that's how I was sixteen when I killed my first turkey, and so we started turkey hunting probably the year before. I mean, now, I had been with you when I was a kid. I mean I vividly remember going with you, but I wouldn't have taken it serious until But that's also about the time that we started really feeling like we had a lot of turkeys, you know, mid nineties, and then uh yeah, and then I'd ended up killing one of sixteen, and we had a we had a little pocket of turkeys that they were just as thick as thieves man, and real good turkey hunters would be you know, a mile or two away, or even one guy was three four yards down the road, and I mean they're having a tough time killing them, and we'd go in here. I mean it was just like walking in a turkey zoo. You know, it's hard to keep a kid interested in something, too, because I mean, how many times you've been turkey hunting that you hadn't seen a turkey bunch, and it's hard. It's hard to introduce somebody to that, especially at a young age that there's not a lot of action. You know, it's not it's not happening every time you go out, and so it's it's a challenge. Dad. What stood out to you about the podcast? You learn anything? He probably wouldn't have been up too much on turkey biology. Yeah, you know, I thought about that on the way up here. Uh, there's not really one thing. I enjoyed every bit of it because I could relate to everything he said. Now I learned quite a bit, especially from Dr Chamberlain, you know when he started going through those five things. Uh, but uh, you know, primost was a big deal. But I go back he's talking eighty three. I go back to seventy six, seventy seven, and I was getting a little customed tapes from guys around Polk County that were good hunters and they pass them out and you probably remember me going around the house all time calling and uh, you know, I was one of those guys, kind of stupid, but I didn't want someone to take me out and show him we how to turkey out. I just want learning on my own. And I went a long time and I'd get him in close, and you know why, no one day I was bored and I tore my mouth, call up, had to me reads and I would just just going, just making noises. You know, It's ten eleven o'clock in the morning. Hunt was over, I thought, And they got the goblin at that so uh but but uh, I tell you, Will is such a tremendous individual. I mean I didn't realize that at the time. You had all these little I don't want to say heroes, but they were the leaders of the sport ben Lee and you know, you just go on and own and uh not in hell. Uh but he is such a quality guy. There's so much to learn from him. It's just incredible. You know, you just take what was his three passion, focus, discipline. I mean he runs his whole life on that. I mean, if someone just listened to that podcast and had any desire to be successful at life, that's I mean, he hit on everything. And you know he makes it sound like well, he didn't necessarily make it sound like a blood. These guys just you know, I got lucky. If you know, the time was right, there were a lot of birds, but he might wanted me to make a call. Well, guess what. He was passionate, he was focused, he was disciplined. You know, he was gonna be successful picking up trash. It doesn't matter what he did. He and you could tell that. Probably his family had five restaurants, you know. I mean they're they're they're smart people, they're disciplined, they're focused. He could see it. He had a he had mentors in his family. I mean, they didn't wake up and try to be successful. That was in their DNA, in passion. You know. That's one reason I think these podcasts are pretty successful is I mean there's a lot of passion that goes into him. So I have really enjoyed that about Will, finding that what a quality guy he is. And then Chamberlain, I mean, twenty five years of research on Turkey's Holy Cow, and when I drove up here, I saw this hardwood forest and I thought this kind of just shoots a hole not really follow me through on. I mean, we got all this hardwood. I mean forty miles of hardwood. Okay, so rule that out. It's not hardwood here. Huh? Are you saying it's not hardwood. I mean, I mean, you know he's saying the hardwood's gone. Well, I'm driving and I'm looking around going what you know, there's hardwood everywhere. So so it's you know, here in this area, it's gotta be predators, it's got to be disease, it's gotta be weather. And so like where we are, we got a lot of clear cuts. You know they've taken they've taken Yeah, they've taken it away from us. But it looks to me like up here, it doesn't make any sense at all. Why this in incredible Turkey woods And it's well, it's it's a combination of a bunch of stuff. I could I could nerd out on it, but that you're right. What you said is right. And what what Dr Chamberlain said in a part that I couldn't include, was that every almost like micro region is different. So the difference between here and eighty miles away where you live dat it's really could be vastly different, even though you the average person would drive between here and there and think it's the same kind of country, but it's but it's actually fairly different. So it's man, these dang ground nesting birds. I'm telling you, if turkeys would just build a nest like a normal bird in a tree, we wouldn't have all these problems. Do you remember when we went to uh too Falsome m hmm. We got into Falsome It like t o'clock at night when we went to to do the podcast next morning, we we stayed in this little airbnb that that uh, that Matt's mother has. When we got up the next morning, we're driving along and all of a sudden we looked through town and this mind mind you, this is a town of fifty people. The the entire town is covered in wild turkeys. I bet we saw at least a hundred. Yeah. Yeah, there's some big, big flocks, man. And that's what's that Also is an interesting component of talking about turkeys in decline because out west, all people see as turkeys increasing. Yeah yeah, yeah, And so I mean that's a good thing. But they're in places that they've never been before. So the same thing that happened here is kind of and now we've we always had turkeys in the East, but the reintroductions of the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties kind of put them into these landscapes that essentially had a vacant vacant spot for turkeys and and so out west. They've introduced them in like the predators haven't caught up to them yet. The habitat is still really good and maybe they'll thrive out there for the next three thousand years. Who knows. But well, I just want to say one thing about having people change their desires and interest in all. I think it's got to be regulated myself. I mean, I just don't think your average person. I mean, you gotta you've got a different Yeah, I mean, you know, heck, I'm not gonna do anything different. I mean because I'm not hunting them right now. But I mean, if I'm a kid, I could care less. What do you think. I mean, it might have some impact, but not even of those kids could care less. If they can kill a bird and go to school and tell their buddies, that's all they care. So you know, you gotta cut it back to one bird. You gotta cut seasons down. I mean I would think, I mean, there's something well and and that and that's happening and in part of what we I can't remember this In this Podcas asked the one y'all hadn't heard yet, but I talked about how we've got to give room for state agencies to do what they need to do because people love to dog on state game agencies and blame everything on them, and man, it's just nine of what goes on in state agencies I believe is from a good heart. I mean, but way way more than that. But but the point is is that if we all kind of were on the same team and we cut it back to one, would just be like, great, we can just kill one turkey in Arkansas this year. Fact that's great, and not throw a fit about it. You know what I mean. In education so important and what you're doing here, it is part of that. But uh, you know, they could expand their budget, go to schools and you know, if you're interested in the game fish, you know, talking about turkey, and come in and you know, explain what's going on. I mean, education is so much, so important, and uh, you know kids would listen to that. I think, Yeah, well, there's also a lot of people that are I think in this modern era of wildlife management and what's even happening inside outdoor media, Like back in the nineties, we were watching Will Primos and the Juries and Night in Hell and all these guys you know, kill twenty turkeys and twenty minutes you know on a VHS tape. Anymore, if you watch a lot of the media, it's a lot more education focused, conservation focus, and it's still entertaining. It's got to be and you know, we'd like seeing turkeys get killed. Um, but there there are people that are like, yeah, to be a sportsman is to be a conservationist and a biologist and understand what's going on. And the landscape is shifting where people want to be like, it's it's cool to be in the know. It's cool to know what's going on. It's cool to see the macro picture. I think that's a good thing and I think that's happening. And so there are their private land on well. And what's interesting too when you talk about what you can do which can't be regulated, is private land stuff. I think indy percent the state of Arkansas is um it's private land, and that's that's fairly good. I think less than one percent of the state of Texas is is uh public land. I mean, there's having ten percent of your state being public lands. It's decent. Some of the Western states are a lot more. Point being, most turkeys in Arkansas live on private land, and if if you can do things for them, you know, selective timber cut burns um the way you manage your grasslands. Burns help the turkey population, oh Man. Burns are like almost a miracle cure for a whole lot of stuff. Kills a lot of the saplings and invasive plants that want to grow up and crowd out sunlight for hitting forest floor. It regenerates um a lot of different plants that are that are that are fire induced for them to germinate. It also fertilizes soil with different things that happen when it burns. Turkeys love burn. We'll see all of guys that I hung around at turkey hunting, I mean we go, why are they burning right now? I mean they're nesting, And I mean see, they could educate us. They could put a little clip in the you know, in a little folder. We get the first you know, the hunting deal and and go look, hey, hey boys, we're burning for these five reasons. Man. The burning is so interesting because growing up in an area with a lot of national forest. Every year just before turkey season, they'd burn the woods and you know, smoke would come into town, and it was just kind of common knowledge that turkey hunters will be like, that's what we don't have, mean turkeys. They're burning the woods now, burning up all the turkey eggs, and that sounds really reasonable and it is absolutely false. But see, why don't they tell us? And they probably do and we just don't. That's it, It's just like they the mechan is just not a perfect world. I mean, in a perfect world, we would have access to every single hunter and they would actually listen to us without a lot of the burden falls on us. To educate yourself, Yeah, waiting on somebody to tell you about it. You gotta get out there and find the answer. Because I was the same way you are, Gary, Why is this going on? Now? Why is this happening? And then when I found out when somebody actually told me, I thought, you know, it's it makes sense. Yeah, and a biologists could talk to you about the burns and the timing of them, but oh man, the burns dramatically increased pult revival. It's the best thing you could possibly do at that time. And yeah, there's a minuscule amount of nests that might get burned, but it's so miniscule it doesn't even matter. I mean, it's just insignia, statistically insignificant. And but the positives of a burn are just through the roof helping these birds as really you know, I yeah, bear grease, render educating America. That's the new tagline. There you go, Mr hucom any thoughts, just quick thought, how do we do? I thought you did pretty good. I felt like the Turkey podcast was lacking one specific story that I think is the greatest turkey story of all time. Just to be real, honest, that turkey story isn't a it's more of a visual story. That's spring turkey story. That's a spring turkey story. It's not a spring turkey story. Well, it's one of the greatest turkey turkey out and stories of all time. It is about of the reason I married you is Hey, I want to tell you guys something. The next I'll give you I want foreshadow, I will shadow. He didn't tell the story. No, No, The next bargrease after this one is full. It's a it's a it's a storytelling podcast. Eight storytellers, one after another. Bam, bam, bam bam. Big names in the outdoor industry, big names in the Clay Nukem back Woodsmen Real Deal book too. Yeah. Is it gonna be incredible? Yeah? Next podcast all about Turkey? Is this story on that? Okay, I'll tell the story. It's a good one. We'll end with this one, okay. Yeah. So let me just say this. I I don't know if everyone knows this. The night before I met Clay, this is a true story. I don't know why we were even having the conversation. I was too young to be talking about getting married or anything. And I said the one, the one like absolutely no factor on marriage, would be a hunter. Did y'all know that I would not marry a hunter? This is a true story. The next day I met Clay Newcomb, and I remember when he told me, I mean, the first like conversation we ever had, he hunting came up and I remember looking at him going, oh, you're a hunter, and it was like really sad to me. I'm sorry. I thought you were a nice guy. And he won me over with the stories. I mean, like I remember I remember him telling the stories and I was like, this can't be all that better Me and Joy when the story. Do you remember this story? Well? I think so, I think, I think I do. And Clay came to my house right after this happened and told the story. And it has been a a newcom family thriller at that time. For what are you gonna say, Dad, Well, I go ahead and till kill that story. Well, so, okay, it was the fall of I was twenty one years old, so whatever fall. That was late nineties, and I was going bow hunting on top of a big mountain over there on public land one bow hunting, and I remember I got off work. I'd been Weldon for mc McDonald building a house made a metal and I was built driving to go. I was driving to go deer hunting in this place that Dad had a stand. And on the way there, I was driving on an old basically a two track logging road and unma maintained road that at the time this would have been like, Okay, I see a deer jump the road. I get out of the truck and I'm going deer hunting and I grabbed my bow and I this deer is just kind of standing out there. Long story short, I get out of the truck walk off side of the road and I shoot this deer with a bow and uh, the deer takes off run and I had just ten ringed it. And I don't wait for it to die, you know, usually you wait thirty forty minutes. But I had to go hunting, so I just fell in right behind it. And about the time it hit the ground, I grabbed its back hoofs drug it to the truck, put it in the truck, and I go deer hunting. I get up to the top of the mountain, parked the truck, walk to the stand, his dad's old ambusher, I believe ambusher tree stand. Climbing the tree stand and you can you can see that there's a big draw that comes up right in front of me. Well bye, was it a log you by? Okay? Log you by? And the big draw coming up here? And I've been sitting there in an hour maybe, and I see a big swinging beard gobbler turkey walking up the other side of the draw from me. And at the time, there's a fall turkey season in Arkansas, and so he's walking and he's gonna be twenty five yards, so I draw back and when he comes into an opening, twenty five yards torch off an arrow the air, sails right under his beard and hits the side of the bank opposite him. So he hears something to his right, you know, hit the bank. I'm to his left. He jumps straight up in the air about two wing flaps, you know, and just jumps straight about twelve feet up in there, lands on the ground and and start to trot right towards me. So I grab another era, and he's just coming right towards me, and he gets about ten yards and I I just nail him. Just I see the Arab pass all the way through him sticking the ground. The turkey. I'm kind of on a ridge that kind of slopes off, and I can kind of see a bigger kind of holler over here, and that turkey turns and just just takes two big wings flaps and just just puts his wings out and just sails, just sails off the side of that mountain. And I go, oh, dang. I just remember seeing a silhouette up against the other mountain over there, and so I go, oh wow, that it's gonna be hard to find that turkey. So I sit there for a little while, and it's starting to get dark, and I think, man, I better go find that turkey. And I've already got a deer in the truck, you know, And so I get out and I just start making loops off the side of the mountain and I just knew the direction it went, you know, start making just big horseshoes, you know, off down there and make a big circle. And it's just almost dark, and there's no way I'm gonna find this turkey. The leaves were real wet, it was. It's wet, had been raining. I end up making it back to the truck and I put my bow in the truck and I'm gonna leave, and I think, man, there's one little section I didn't look in. I'm just gonna walk back up there. So I decided I didn't take my bow, which was a key component of this story, and I started walking up the road. Well, I don't get probably a hundred yards from my truck, walking on a road just lined with pine needles, you know, and like a gravel road. So I'm walking real quiet, and I come around like a little thicket and just walking. And I come around and I can see something new area and bam, I see a turkey. Laying on the ground like a hen with its head up, and it is probably eight or nine feet for me, like from here to that bucket, and it is laying there and it doesn't see me. It has its eyes closed, and I just freeze and I go, what do I do? And I knew that that was the turkey EDD shot and that it was laying there, and I actually wanted to go back to the truck and get my bow and come back and shoot it again. Well about the time that I started to do something, the decision was made for me what was gonna happen When I saw that turkey's eyes pop open and I could, I could? I mean, I just saw his eyes pop wide open. He sees me, and he jumps up and proceeds to run as fast as a turkey can run down the mountain. Well, I was wearing my big lacrosse green boots that all the bow hunters wore back during that time, and man, I had one option, and that was to chase him. And so I just take out after him, and I remember just crashing through briars and brush and limbs, and I'm running as fast as a twenty one year old claim nucomb can run in the rain with all his hunting gear, chasing this turkey down the hill, and man, he is losing me. I'm running as fast as I can. He's getting further and further away, and I just remember thinking, no, I cannot lose this turkey. And we get to the bottom of the hill and one day I'm gonna go back up there and see how far it is. It probably wasn't that far. It felt like I ran a quarter of a mile. I'm sure I didn't. If we get to the bottom of the hill and he goes down through it and he starts to pull up the ridge on the other side, well, I fall in just right behind him, except he's now pretty good ways out in front of me. We start going up the hill, and man, I start gaining on him. I started gaining on him, and all that does adrenaline, adrenaline, and I know that I'm about to just run out of steam. I don't have much left, but I'm gaining on him, gaining on him, gaining on him, gaining, And I remember thinking, I'm gonna catch that sucker. I mean, that was the words that were formed in my head. I'm gonna catch that sucker. And man, I got up about five ft from him, and I just dove on that sucker and just just wrapped him up and we boom hit the ground, and we were both so out of breath that I just laid there breathing, and I remember seeing his head pop up, and I remember his eyes looking at me just like this right here if when I caught my breath, and I guess he caught his too, I don't know. I reached over and just wrung his neck, carried him out of there, threw him in the back of the truck with the nubbing buck I just killed and went to Misty Shreeve's house. True story, told me the story. I took it to your house. No, I remember, just the story. Yeah, you took it to the house. Remember your beautiful blonde, swaying, shaggy hair the l nineties. Yeah, I remember that that story didn't qualify for a Spring Turkey story. Okay, well, so yeah, I don't care. It's a good story, great, great render, guys, Josh closing thoughts, closing comments. I just remember the last are the one of the first times I went hunting with y'all. Do you remember We're sitting around the campfire. Clay is telling that story. You've probably heard that story twenty times. I love it every time. Though. Are looking at each other, breathing real hard. That's the best part. We're sitting around the campfire. You probably remember this, and uh. And these two guys pull up in this in this actually was a little earlier than the campfire. I think we've just gotten none are hunting for the day. This guy comes walking out and he goes, is a dog hare and we're like, yeah, Gary, one of Gary's close friends as a doctor, And uh, he said, I just got shot. Some guy had shot him in the woods, saw the white of his hair and just instinctively just shot and peppered his back with shotguns. Yep. And then it was Dr John Mesco was with us. Well, it might have we might have blended two stories together, but that that exactly what you said happened. And this guy knew that I hunted with Mesco. We're in a We went out and every place I had picked out somebody was there. And we just went back to camp drank coffee. And this guy pulls up and he goes, man, hey, Gary, you got that dock with it? And I go, yeah, he's here, and he came down and took his shirt off. He hold back seven out his knife and he like licked it and ran it under his arms and he started he started poking him on the back, and he goes, you'll be okay, man, don't do anything. I don't even go to the doctor. They'll work themself out. What kind of pattern? It was pretty wide, you know, it wasn't It wasn't. He probably had twenty pellets in his backproof cylinder. Anyway, you were there for that, Yeah, yeah, I think I was hunting. You must have been some reason I was. I don't remember. Yeah, a lot. You know, we're all hunting him by Route Arkansas. Wow. But anyway, I appreciate the podcast is I think I think the way you left it was good just for people to think and do what they can, you know it. It I felt a little sad thinking about generations that may not have the turkey hunting that we've had and it it was such good times and good memories for me, especially with our kids, that I want people to be able to have that experience in the future too. So yeah, the death by a thousand cuts that was very accurate. So we can just do the opposite. We put a thousand band aids on it, maybe it'll get better. Podcast is over drop thousand band aids and hissvation. We're starting a foundation thousand Brent Reeves and his thousand band aids. They'll probably make up they'll probably make up bronze monument him and his overalls one day with holding the Gattler turkey and it's and Dad and Johnson and Johnson. Oh, thank you guys. Hey, there are some burgeries hats on the website. A tan Burgaries hat there there for sale. Hand Burgeries hat look pretty good, I mean, so you can check that out. And uh, we should have Burgaries hats and may starting pretty quick and there'll be a lot of them, but they'll still probably set out you buy. You should buy them as quick as you can. And um, anyway, thanks guys and gals. Is that what it sounds like. H

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