00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and the country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tail gate. I think I got a thing or two and teaching hunting heritage. I went coon hunting with some folks last week, and just like every other coon hunt I go on, I spend the next few days going over in my head how my dog Whaling did and analyzing his performance against my expectations the terrible weather looming in front of us. What I expected was nothing short were terrible. What I got was nothing less than spectacling. I'm going to tell you all about it, but first I'm going to tell you a story. Papa All builds me a boat. This episode is about hunting heritage. This story recalls a time and an event that was more related to fishing. The heritage link is on the land in which it happened and my maternal grandfather is the protagonist in this story, a man who didn't hunt. The location and farm had been in my mother's family since sometime either before or just after the War between the States. That's how it relates here. And with that said, here we go. When I was in high school, my maternal grandparents, Finest and Buless Life, were the only grandparents that I had that were living. My grandfather on my dad's side had been killed while working in a shipyard in California during World War Two, and my grandmother on that side died in nineteen eighty three. So my only set of living grandparents were Mama Sly and Papa That's what we called them. That's what everyone called them, even my friends. Mama Sly liked to brimfish and liked to eat fish as well as anyone. Every Friday night was automatic we were going somewhere to eat fish. And I stayed with them a lot, and we'd had to Monticella, Arkansas, all to a fish place over there, or out to Ann's restaurant and warned to eat. They had good fish at Ann's, but I'd rob a bank this very second to have one of their chicken fried steaks. I done got off track thinking about victuals. Anyway, Mama sly liked fish. Papall worked on the farm and didn't hunt or fish much at all. Matter of fact, I don't ever remember him doing either to amount to anything. He wasn't against it, he just didn't have the patience for it. He liked farming and everything that went with it. He was always fixing or building something to make life easier on the farm. He was a voracious reader. He read national geographics from cover to cover, Western novels by Zane Gray and Louis Lamore, and popular mechanics. He was highly intelligent and mostly self educated. They bought their first VCR player that they or I ever saw, and it looked as big as a bathtub. You could load a tape in there and it sounded like you were slamming a bank vault shut well. They quit working one time and Papa took it apart and fixed it. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. It was in a billion pieces on the kitchen table. Tiny screws, gears and parts were laying everywhere. No manual, no instructions, no Google, no YouTube, no help desk, but last, and not least no training in VC or repair, just brain power. I was grown and married, living on my own and didn't have enough sense to set the clock on one. It worked, but that flashing digital twelve still haunts me. I done got off track again. Papall read every night after supper and TV before he went to bed. Now, one evening he read an article in Popular Mechanics that described how to build a one man fishing boat using rudimentary materials. He loved building stuff and was assault after tablemaker and craftsmen. During his retired years. He built all his grandson's gun cabinets, and we all still have them. He made them out of oak and they are tremendously heavy and built to last. He loved building things for his grandkids, for babies, furniture, toys, whatever he took a notion to make, he'd make it, and not only would it work, but it would work well and better than anything that was commercially available. Now, this one man fishing boat he made for me. He surprised me with it one day when he drove up to the house. Come out here, son, I got something I think you're gonna like. Well. Ibou took the doors off the hinges getting outside to see what he'd made for me. I didn't have a clue what it could be, but if Papa had made it for me, it was going to be cool and one of a kind. We had a two acre pond less than one hundred yards from the house. It was full of fish, a big bass, brim and catfish and crappie, also bull frogs and snakes. It was a good place to fish, and I have a ton of memories catching fish, snakes, and gigging frogs there all year long. That pond was the focus of some type of activity for me, my brothers, and my friends. That day, however, it would be the launch pad from my grandpa's latest feet of engineering and the first ship in his fleet homemade boats. Y'all get you imaginary pencil sharpened and draw this out on your brain while I describe it to you. He had a big interview from one of our tractor tires inflated and two tuberfoes laying parallel to each other along the top. The boards were wide enough apart to attach a square milk crate that sat down in the doughnut hole of the inner two. He had one eighth inch plywood as decon screwed in place across the top of the tuberfores. The decon was less than three feet wide and about five and a half feet long. Now, inside that milk crate, he had a car battery and it was wired to a troller motor that he'd mounted to the front of the plywood deck. Mean you following me? I hope you are, because the best part is coming right now. Centered directly above that hole in the enter tube that housed a milk crate was a folding lawn chair. It was the old kind, with a woven synthetic webon for seating, and the legs were fashioned from U shaped pieces of aluminum stay women. Now, the rear legs were held in place using electrical conduit fasteners screwed to the decad. The front legs were free, allowing the chair to be folded down when in transport. Now, that's assuming that you'd want to take this little beauty out on the road, and who wouldn't. I could already see myself loading this unit into the back of my truck and launching my one man battleship down at Crane's Lake and getting back into places we couldn't get dads or TEMs. Illuminum boat in I would be a brim fishing ninja. A fly rod would be my semuraized sword, and crickets would be my throwing stars. And this boat my Papa built for me would be my trusty steed on which I would ride into battle. Tim lived right up the road and came down to watch the launch. Mama had walked outside and stood by my mama's sly and watched A Me and Papau unloaded it from his truck, hooked the battery cables to the terminals, and sat the whole contraption gingerly down on the surface of our pond. I unfolded the lawn chair, dropped the trolling motor into the water, and climbed aboard my ship. I knew what Neil Armstrong must have felt like when he climbed into the Apollo spacecraft flight of the Moon. I knew what Columbus must have felt like when he set out on his voice to the New World. I knew what Captain they Have must have felt like when that big white Well did a tomahawk chop to the middle of the peak. Wuad because only seconds after settling into the captain's chair of the USS. Papa, I was upside down in the pond, looking up at the surface of the water and on the bank. I could see my mama and my mama, my brother Tim, and my Papa all looking for me, like I just disappeared in a magic show. Why did Tim have to be here? I would never hear the end of this. Weighing my options a ridicule against just staying on the bottom of the pond. I let the lack of auxyens down there make my decision for me, and I surf as much to the delight of everyone. My boat floating aimlessly upside down, just off the bank with the troller motor buzzing like I saw with the lumber man. Papa waited out to get me, But like the rest of the onlookers, he was laughing so hearty he hardly catch his breath. Son, he said, between laughing and trying to breathe, our center of gravity was off. I know how to fix it, no, sir, not for me. I'm gonna swim out there and get this thing back for you, and I'm gonna help you load it up. But I have sat in the last in or two boat I will ever sit in That was forty years ago and I still haven't. And that's just how that happened. Hunting Heritage. You know, I can make this whole podcast about hunting heritage, and maybe in a way I already have to a certain extent, But this week it really came home to me in a special way. You hear me talking each week about stories and events that evolved me and my family and friends, and this week will be no different for you. But it was for me, and at the time I didn't even realize it. My friend Brad Clark called me. He lives in Mississippi, and you heard me talk about him when I was doing my duck hunting episodes. You also heard me talk about his lifelong friend, Randall Widmore, who you didn't hear me mention was Randall's younger brother, Wade. Now Randall and Wade are the sons of the late Dick Widmore, all from Tennessee, but Wade now lives in Texas. Their father, Dick Widmore, is a legend in places where folks put importance on good dogs and more so revere good men, and mister Widmore was placed highly in both categories by those who knew him. Now back to the phone call from Brad. He wanted to know if my fellow coon hunting added coonhound trainer, CEO Sunspot Hunting Lights and part time spiritual advisor Michael Roseman could take Brad, Randall and Wade coon hunting on Michael's lease when Wade came up for a duck hunt. What make a plan and commit ourselves to go on coon hunting? You bet we can. They didn't actually need me for any of it. Michael's got one of the best dogs around and it's his lease. Pretty sure they keep me around in case they need to blame something on somebody or comic relief. Regardless, I was happy to be in the mix and was looking forward to going coon hunting with the boys. Randall and Brad are partners on a coon hound and they can hunt anywhere. But where Michael hunts now was for years mister Whidmore's coon hunting lees. All three of those guys grew up hunting with mister Whitmore, and it's a great place to train young dogs because of all the coons that are there. I know I've talked about it before on here and I'm sure I will in the future. But that's what I'm talking about this week, Hunting heritage. That's the binder and the thread that keeps the tapestry going is we knit out, living our lives and sharing our experiences. Every person adds a thread of experience or a memory to the never ending project that tells the story of that place and those people. Michael and I hunt a lot by ourselves on that property. Normally it's just me and Michael and our dogs wailing and Heck, yes, this dog's name is Heck. It's a long story anyway, regardless of who's there or who isn't, and it's just me and Michael. He'll tell a story of another time when he was hunting there with other people or even mister Widmore. Some of them I've heard before, but I always enjoy hearing again. Some are new to me, but they all make me feel closer to that land and closer to the people he's talking about by hearing the stories from someone who was there. Here's a case in point from my family. My great grandfather on my father's side died in nineteen sixty four, that's two years before I was born, but my dad told the story that my brother Tim reminded me of today when we were visiting on the phone. In October. Every year when all the crops were in, Grandpa, Uncle Ev, Uncle Dob, and Uncle Bob and I'm sure a laundry list of others at different times would go down to the Saline River and have squirrel camp. So they didn't have a tent, so they fashioned a camp out of tar paper and they'd stay for several days. Dad's first recollection of being involved was when he was ten or eleven years old, and they wouldn't allow him to go because he was in school. But what he did have to do was to hitch a waggon up to the mule and ride it several miles down where they were camped to pick up the squirrels and all the other game that they killed and skin out to be taken back home to put in the family freezer. He said he had to make that trip three or four times during the week, depending on how long they were staying down there and how good the hunt was. Now I know where that spot is where they camp. My brother knows where that spot is. I will never go by there or talk about that place without seeing my dad as a little kid driving a mule drawn wagging down the dirt road by himself, going to see what the men folks had got on their hunt, then making that sad trip back home with all the game because he had to go to school the next day. And in my mind, I could see my great grandpa standing beside that tarpa for camp and his coat and overalls, a fire crackling in the background, watching my dad drive away while checking his pocket watch and figuring the time in his head when that boy ought to be getting home. Now, I don't know if that happened, but I know that that's what I'd have been doing if i'd have been to him. Heck, if i'd have been him, i'd probably let him lay out of school. I used to take my son hunter with me for a week every year in Missouri to turkey hunt. He'd do his lessons every day in the afternoon once we came in from hunting. Then the school put an end to that, wouldn't excuse him anymore for missing school. But I never go there that I don't think about something that he said or did when we were there together. And I've been going every year for over twenty years or better, and hunter hadn't been back in ten. But just like that place in the Saline River Bottoms and in Missouri, I'm connected to that place and that heritage by the first hand experience and the stories of the places I've seen. And I say all of that because a heritage of hunting is connected to the land and to its people, my ancestors, and the Saline River Bottoms, my son, and my friends in Missouri, Michael, mister Whitmore, Brad, Randa Wade, and a coon hunting who's who of others have hunted that property along the White River that we were hunting that night. Michael's nephew r Jay was riding with us the other night when we met Brad and Wade at the legendary Dick Whitmore camp on the Cash Bio near Augusta, Arkansas. The best part of that recent coon hunt was the addition to Cooper Wade's six year old son No. Coop had been on a coon hunt recently with his daddy, Brad and Randall, but he'd never been on that property where his grandfather had hosted so many people for so many years and hunted some of the best dogs in the country. It's pretty cold that night, and if we hadn't already had the hunt set up to take Wade on his visit up from Texas, we may not even win. They say the worst day fishing beats the best day working, and I can't argue with that. But the worst night hunting in bitter cold will never beat a good night's sleep in a warm bed. Luckily for us, this wasn't going to be the worst night hunting. I told Michael when we popped up on the levee, and it's side beside with RJ in the middle and the dogs in the box and Brad, Wade and Coop falling behind us. And there's that if we could see one coon tonight on the outside of a tree, we'd be successful. Coons down here don't stir around much when the high temps dipped below freezing. Our frigid weather doesn't usually last more than a few days, and the coons pretty well lay up in the dens and waited out. Now they'll come out to eat a little or get a drink, but they don't ramble far from the den trees, So that's where we normally tree when it gets real cold. Is in a den. If you can't see all the way up in the hole, then you can't see the coon. And seeing the coon is what we're that's what we're out here for. So, like a lot of my efforts over the last fifty seven years, I expected the whole hunt to be mostly an exercise in freezing futility with occasional bouts of despair. But I also like to have fun, and being outside is fun to me. Being with my friends is even better. Throw in a pack of coon hounds and a kid, and that'll make even the worst of times good. I still live by the motto my dad told me when I was a kid, if you're doing something that ain't fun, you make it fun. So, in spite of everything that was working against us weather wise, I was determined to have a good time, which, if you know me, is what I'm always trying to do. We treat a couple den trees and Whaling bade one in a hole. Then Whaling and Heck we both treed one each on the outside of the trees where we could see him, and Hex's coon was in a good spot. It was easy to see and to shoot out and to bring home, so we waited for Brad, Wade and Cooper to get there before we did, and I watched as we all shined our lights and Wade showed his son Cooper the coon that was fueling Hext's excitement. RJ knocked that coon out of the tree with a brand new twenty two rifle that Michael had given him for Christmas. He made a good shot and we were all proud of him for it. Then we all walked over and Wade picked up that coon and he showed it to Cooper. It wasn't the first coon that Coop had ever seen, but it was the first one he'd seen in that place where his grandfather had hunted. And this hunt was the first time Wade had been back on that property since mister Whidmore passed away a little over six years ago, which coincidentally is just how old Cooper is. There's a lot there in that story, and heritage is just part of it. Thank y'all so much for listening and being a part of this country life family. And it is a family. Someone called me everyone's favorite uncle the other day. I like that and it made me smile. Hold on to your memories and the folks and the places they're made from. That's the fabric of life's quilt that we're constantly sewing. The more folks you let add to it, warmer it gets. That's where the heritage lives until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful to be done anything enter

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