00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country Life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Bucks Mama and Brent's Bucks. Dear. Season is upon us, and I can't wait for the mosquitoes to thin out a bit so I can climb a tree down in the river bottoms. Unlike hunting with dogs, which was passed down to me from my dad and my brothers and I were on our own when it came to deer, I'm going to tell you why, along with some other stuff. But first I'm going to tell you a story. The story this week is a listener story from a family that lived twenty two minutes for where my wife Alexis grew up in the big city of Tyler. Lyndale, Texas is a small town well just over six thousand people according to the twenty twenty census, and if you look it up on the Internet. You'll see a list of quote unquote notable people from Lyndale, pro athletes, successful singers, composer, even the director for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. But a name you won't see on that list is Julie Thompson, a lady whose career for the last thirty years has been in education. She's the wife of Dee Wayne and mother to a son named Buck. And it's Bucks story that I'm sharing with you today. So when Buck Thompson's words and my voice, here we go. My name is Buck Thompson. I live in northeast Texas in the small but growing town of Lyndale. I grew up deer hunting and fishing, and my mom was always a big part of that. Now I don't remember a time when she was Most of the time she killed bigger and more dear than all the guys on the lease. I didn't grow up in a culture of men only camps. My mom was always there, a part and accepted into the man dominated world. Some of my greatest memories are hunting with my mama. She really taught me how to hunt, and when I would go hunt with Daddy, we always had a good time. There was always going to be plenty of snacks and some sort of adventure. But my Mama, she took it seriously. Bringing home the meat was the name of the game. It was nothing for her to sit all day with a scope Marlin thirty thirty waiting for a deer to cross a small, narrow shooting lane where she hunted. Now once she sat motionless for hours waiting for the opportunity, and right a dark deer started crossing the lane, one after the other. She timed them crossing perfectly, and when the next shadows started across boom that Marlon notched another white tail and it was a buck. But the most special thing Mama did was take me hunting. My dad had to work one weekend and we loaded up and headed to Marion County, Texas for my first deer. The year was nineteen ninety nine and I was nine years old. I was in love with hunting. I remember staring at the kitchen window waiting for the mailman to deliver the newest deer hunting VHS tapes, and I washed them until they were broke. I had it all figured out, at least I thought I did. I had a few opportunities to kill my first dear, but none ever panned out, and I was getting antsy and have my picture taken with that old gray ghost of the East Texas woods. Finally, Mama and I got to the lease and we were hunting. We sat in my favorite hunting place we called the Hickory nut Stand. It was a homemade tripod stand with camo hanging from the shooting rail and built for two hunters. It only stood about eight feet off the ground because the pines that were surrounding it were only about eight or ten years old, and deer would literally walk right by you and never know you were there. Now, we got there before daylight, and this don grew in. Today, the deer movement was zero, and I got frustrated, impatient. I dreamed all summer about getting my first deer and was certain I should have already filled my tag and be telling tales of the hunt around the campfire. But there we sat, me and my mom for what seemed like years, until she finally gave in to my complaints and we left to go get something to eat. After lunch. I was ready to go home, convinced there were no dear for me that day, but my mama was confident we'd have better luck that evening. Another member, mister Dennis, he showed up to hunt that afternoon and decided he'd hunt with any earshot of us should we have any luck. And not long after Mama and I were back in the hickory nuts. Stand. Now, you remember how intense I told you my mom hunts well when you sat with her, That's how you're expected to hunt too. An hour, an agonizing hour of motionless staring into the woods was about all I was good for. And after an afternoon of sight eye looks and threats, she said, look, we've only got twenty more minutes set still. One will come out right at dark. My eyes rolled and a quiet sigh left my lips as I lowered my chin back on the woodstock of that single shot rifle that was secured on the shooting wreck. Light was leaving the pines, and shadows moved across the gray landscape, and just at the last bit of light, the image of a dope emerged from the pines, coming from right to left. Mama's hand patted my leg and whispered, there she is when you get it on your shoulder, squeezed the boom. Because of my mother's teaching, I already had my gun ready, and because of her lectures on shot placement, I knew where to settle the cross hair. The image of that that dough mule kicking straight up and down steals ingrained in my memory, and she tore off and made a big loop in the short pines. We found her with the help of mister Dennis, and me and my dad have had a lot of great memories in the woods, and I've hunted mule, deer and elk in the rocky mountains, experienced thousands of ducks. In migration, I ran up and down the river running through lines for big flathead catfish. But until my own children and I get to experience what me and my mama did that in November morning, it will forever be my favorite hunting memory. Don't ever take for granted the love of your mama, what she's willing to do to help you make your dreams come true, even if it's taking her only son by herself hunting all day, not expecting to have any help. But because she knew how much he loved to hunt and how bad he wanted to go get his first deer taking my wife and getting her into hunting as well as my little girl has been one of the most rewarding things I've done. I believe a lot of us out there and out on amazing opportunities, either because of a male only stigmatism or we are too wrapped up in our own wants and wishes. We missed the forest for the trees. How much joy we would have sharing our love of the outdoors with those who may never consider themselves an outdoorsman or an outdoors woman. Thank you, mama so much for loving the outdoors and not giving up on your desire to hunt and fish just because you weren't always invited because you're a girl. And thanks to my great great uncle George for taking my mama squirrel hunting when it wasn't the cool thing for a little blond headed tag along to be following you through the woods. One person's decision can shape a whole generation's outcome, and according to Buck Thompson of Lynndale, Texas, that's just how that happened. Thanks for sharing that, Buck, It's a wonderful sentiment, a wonderful tribute to you, mama. The love of a good mama just can't be big. Deer hunting is a big tradition in my family. Any and all game that was available was on the menu and supplemented the family on both sides of my lineage. My maternal grandfather, find a sly who grew up during the Great Depression, told me about catching possums and keeping them in a cage and feeding them out for weeks at a time with table scraps to clean out their systems before they knocked them in the head, cleaned them and ate them, and then sold the hides. Of course, but that side of my family was comprised mostly of subsistence farmers and saw mill workers who didn't have the time or the desire to hunt. My paternal side was a polar officer. If it crawled, walked, flew, climbed, or swam in the outdoors, it was fair game. In stark contrast to the other side of my family, there were no possum eating stories from the Depression era. Now I ain't saying they didn't eat them, but if they did, they didn't tell nobody about it, and I assume they didn't have to because of all the wild game that supplemented the livestock that was consumed. You know, squirrels, rabbits, and deer, just to name a few. I have a picture of my great grandfather love it reeves and a buck deer he killed in the nineteen fifties. There weren't a lot of deer back then in Arkansas, not in our party anyway, And if I was a betting man, I'd guess that buck was probably in the wrong place at the right time, and cross passed with my grandpa on a squirrel hunting'd be pretty easy to hit the magazine, cut off on his brown in a five, and slide the boat back and exchange it squirrel oed for some buckshot. If the opportunity arose, who knows, he could have been a stander on a deer drive and smashed that rascal in the hounds pushed him by his location. What was for sure was he was a hunter, and a good one. But the deer hunting jeans skipped the generation with my dad. He hated deer with a passion and coined the phrase that I and others still use, interjecting our own nouns into the statement when talking about fire ants, farrel, hogs or red walks. Now here's the quote from my dad about the white tailed deer here in the natural state. If I could mash a button and kill every deer in Arkansas, I'd mash it twice to make sure I got them off. Now, my father's deep seated hatred for deer came from two places. Number one, they ate his garden, and number two, his old cold dogs would, on occasion chase them instead of CODI is a trade very unbecoming of a hound that was supposed to be broke from chasing deer and on to chasing codes only. My dad killed a lot of deer, but he ate only a few himself. They were giving away the folks that needed meat, or my brother and I would split them. Wasting them wasn't an option. But he cared nothing about antlers. He'd be proud of us if we killed a buck, but as far as horns go, he cared nothing about it. And in my office it's a set of deer antlers from a buck that my father killed a friend and a coworker. My dad saw the antlers laying in the back of his truck, having been freshly harvested and removed from the deer. He said, buddy, where'd you get that rack of horns. But Dad said, I killed him over in front of the house. I gave the meat away and told the man that I gave it to. I wanted the horns back. I'm gonna give it to one of the boys if they wanted. He said, well, let me mount it on a plank for you to give him. And with that our friend of forty years, Jackie Beathay, coworker of my dad, mounted the antlers and gave it back to him. A few weeks later, he's like, here's your horns, buddy, say you never told me how that that hunt went, he said. Dad looked at him and said, well, it's probably one of the best shots I ever made. I didn't really have time to react, and I got him just before he got out of sight. Jackie's a deer hunting has always been one, and he was intrigued by the story, and he said, well, was he about to run in the woods on you? Dad said, no, he's about to jump out of the headlights. He had a mouthful of my peas when I shot him about midnight. Now that was about That was about the extent of my dad's deer hunting. Everything on the outside of the hot wire around his pea patch was free, but everything on the inside deer had to pay for. There's one more incident that I can tell you about my dad and deer. My brother Tim and I were talking about the other day. He reminded me where we got the inspiration to rope the deer that I talked about back on episode two thirty one of This Country Life. My dad had been out running his hounds one night and on the way back home he rounded a ninety degree curve on a gravel timber company road, and standing in the middle of the road staring at the headlights was a huge buck deer. Now, the deer just stood there staring at the truck. Dad honked at him. He didn't budge. He inch closer to him, he didn't budge. He stood and stared along. That dad thought there was something wrong with him. Now, if you got the impression from the Peapat story that my dad was a deer hating poacher, well here's the evidence that should knock that silly thought right out of you. Nagging. This encounter was in the middle of nowhere, well past midnight. Had he chosen to, he could have just driven on by or shot got him out the window the ladder ben what a deer hating poacher would have done, but that's not what he did. He decided to see if he was injured and if need be render aid or put him out of his misery, both things that are heavily discouraged these days, but this was a different time. Moving on, he grabbed a brand new Laryert rope from behind the seat, walked out in front of his truck, and through a beautiful loop about fifteen yards that landed, as he said, like an angel had placed it around his antlers. He popped the rope to tighten the sensi, and that's when the buck came to life. Apparently the deer was none the worse for wear, and only blinded by the truck lights, because as that buck ran into the darkness, it took most of the hide from his palms and all his fingerprints and a brand new rope with him. Now he found that rope about sixty yards off the road two days later, where it had unceremoniously called on the limb after that deer it mocked too shortly after takeoff. Thinking about that story makes me realize that apples really don't fall far from the tree. My brothers and Eyelow, with most of our friends and relations, love to deer hunt. I've been hunting surrounding states and been successful on many occasions. Nothing earth shattering as in antlercized, but good mature deer just the same and trophies to me for sure. But it's the ones that got away, though, the ones that I slip through my fingers, that caused me to pause or reflect on what I did to mess it up, sometimes resigned to the fact that some things just aren't meant to be. I was hung with Jacob Wood, a good friend of mine, on family property that he's been hunting on forever. We're good friends. He's very good friends. He's like a brother and a son all in one to me. Both of us loved a deer hunt, and I filmed him smash a great buck back when I was just filming for the experience and trying to learn how. I made him pass on that buck with his bow at twenty five yards one evening because the camera light was bad. The next day we left for New Mexico, where we chased elk for almost two weeks all over creation to no avail, regretting the deer that we let walk away for that stupid camera back home. That sixteen hour drive back to Arkansas was mostly in discussion on how we were going to rest for a couple of days then try to get that buck hemmed up with his muzzleoader. We got home well after daylight, exhausted and beat down from the butt kicking we'd received in New Mexico. He crashed at his house and I crashed at mine. Three hours later, I was picking up my phone to text him to see if he was awake when my phone buzzed, I'm going after this afternoon, he texted. I texted back, picked me up on your way through. Three hours later, we were standing over one hundred and fifty six inch white tail that walked out in the golden hour of light like he'd read the script we discussed all the way back home from that unsuccessful Elkhunt feast to famine to feast. Sometimes it just works out. What seemed like a sure thing went soar fast because of no camera light on the first opportunity, and then a couple weeks of self doubt, and then bingo, we got him. Then there's the times when all looks perfect, and Fate hands you an oatmeal raisin cookie you thought was chocolate chip. Can there be a bigger betrayal? I think not. I was both hunting the back of the property where my friend Jacob had named this buck High Beams because of his tall antlers. I called him a deer because I don't think an almo was outside of dogs and horses should really have names, and that includes cats. Sorry, Reva, but I said what I said. Anyway, This great specimen of a white tail buck was notoriously nocturnal, and Jacob had been watching him for coming on to four years. We had pictures of him, mostly at night, but on a whim, I went to the back where he hung out, just to sit on a food plot and see what I could see. I was facing the north and staring out across a hlf acre plot about lost in thought when I caught moving out of the right side of my vision. A doe was walking from the east edge of the woods, making her way steadily toward the center of the opening. As I watched her walking, tracking her smooth gait with my eyes, I looked past her and they're seventy yards away was the mystical book Old high Ben. It's halfway sticking out of the brush on the north side of the food plot. He walked out and followed her lead, pausing along to grab a bite of vegan food as he made his way closer with every step. At twenty five yards of broadside, I punched a hole just behind his left front shoulder. The mechanical broad had stopped when it hit the other side. The shot was as easy as falling out of the bed. He wheeled ninety degrees and smoked it out of orbit, heading northwest with about a foot of airw poking out of the entry hole. And that was the last I ever saw of him. We never found a drop of blood or him. Trust me when I say I looked, and we looked. We looked for days, and I looked for weeks. I crawled in and out of more treetops and thickets so thick with briers that a rabbit would have to toe the hatchet to get through them. And I never found so much as a hair. That was eight years ago, and I killed a lot of dear sins. But I will never get over not getting that one. And I don't get mad because his head isn't hanging on my wall. I'm disappointed. All the effort my friend put into passing him year after year, allowing that joker to reach his full potential, was seemingly wasting. I didn't get to have his antlers hanging on my wall. Now that was a big deal, don't get me wrong. But most importantly, that deer meet was lost, and that would have fed my family and my friends. And we can kill six deer in Arkansas. It's taking another deer for the freezer wouldn't be a problem, but that one would go to waste and wasting game. That's no way on. Now. Fast forward two years later, and on the opposite side of that property, I shot a good deer with a very familiar looking set of antlers. Now, the story of all stories would be that I cleaned him and found my era from two years before. But this ain't Hollywood. But standing there looking at the characteristics of the antlers in my hand and comparing them to the pictures I had in my mind of the one that got away, you know, OHI bem I'd say they were closely related, who knows, But I'll post pictures of them both and you can see what I'm talking about and decide for yourself. Now, that doesn't make up for the one that was lost by any means. Nothing will replace the loss because no portion of that deer that I shot was ever utilized. But it does speak for wildlife management and the plan Jacob had going on that property, allowing the game to grow and reproduce with the strongest jeans winning out a great and hard lesson in conservation all in one, and anything I can take a lesson away from good or bad that will help me in the future is a lesson learned. White Tail Week is going on until the sixth of October, and if you're in the market for some new first light, the savings set up this year is pretty unique and the more that you spend, the bigger the savings. Now, if you don't spend anything, you save at all, but you also don't get any new cool deer smashing threads in the systems they put together this year really cool. Check out all the details over at the meat eater dot com. Thank y'all so much for listening. Remember our folks that have been affected by the devastation brought on by Hurricane Helene, and do what you can to help and be sure if you're sending money that is to a legitimate organization. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.

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