00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. 00:00:06 Speaker 2: I'm your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences in life lessons. This country Life is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that airways have to offer. 00:00:29 Speaker 1: All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores to share here. Have an elk. 00:00:43 Speaker 2: Archery season is kicking off in a few days and is already begun in some places. In my seemingly unending desire and habits of most things outdoors, both hunting is close to the top for me. Now I'm gonna share the story my first bull elk. It's my only elk actually, but it's also the only one I ever drew my bow on. Every trip before since that hunt was to film someone else. I'm one for one on six or six bull elk, and I should stop right there. 00:01:16 Speaker 1: If I want to keep my elk. 00:01:18 Speaker 2: Harvest to hunt average above average. But I can't in theory anyway. I just need to get drawn in the state. 00:01:27 Speaker 1: That allows it. 00:01:28 Speaker 2: But that's that's another story, and I'm fixing to tell you this one. I was on patrol with my phone ring caller, ID said, Leon Boyd. It was July twenty eleven. Leon is a friend of mine from Virginia. I'd met him a couple of years before when I was hired to film him and some of his friends and employees on a deer and elk hunt in Colorado. They put on a big hunt nearly every year and were some of the absolute best folks I ever had the pleasure to meet. Humble to a fault, and their generosity was beyond measure. I like these people, and Leon was a shining example for all of them. His accent and tonal voice would fool you if you'd only talk to him on the phone. Seeing him in person was a little more intimidating. He is a big rascal, but his equally big smile and polite nature put me at ease from the moment I met him. Two years before that conversation, I asked the phone, and in his easily identifiable accent, he said, Brent, you're gonna be able to make it out to elk kin this year. 00:02:55 Speaker 1: Now. 00:02:55 Speaker 2: I had to smile and said, of course, Leon I'll have my camera ready. He told me that was what he wanted to hear. But I didn't need to bring my camera this year. Well, I assumed he was renting some better equipment for me to use. That's when he said, I want you to bring your boat and kill you a bull. I sat there in the parking lot where I'd pulled over to talk to him, eyes unblinking and staring at the phone like a cow stairs at a new gate. You're kidding, now, oh, my friend, I want you to kill a bull. You worked your tail all feeling for us, and now we want you to hunt with us. You know where we're going, so get your license, get practice at we your boat, and we'll pick you up in a little rock on our way to Colorado in septem Now, what do you say to that think he doesn't seem like enough? He still doesn't, and that's been fourteen years years ago. Leon is the kind of friend that you can have and not speak to for weeks, months, or even years, and when you do, you're right where. 00:04:10 Speaker 1: You left off, as if you'd spoken to him the day before. A true friend. I'm blessed. We called him might. 00:04:21 Speaker 2: The days, weeks and months passed like cold molasses pores, and finally September, the drive out seemed even longer. I'd practiced and practiced shooting my bow in the backyard religiously every day, rain or shine. I was ready for anything out to sixty yards, even though I'd drawn the line myself at fifty. That was the mark I'd set, the limit I'd put on myself to keep from doing the thing I feared most, and that was to make a bad shot. Everything else would be acceptable. No opportunity. That's called hunting. He keeps you from hunting. 00:05:01 Speaker 1: It happens. 00:05:02 Speaker 2: Wildfires closed down the area where we're going. That happens too. No, the one thing that I had total control over was to shoot or not to shoot. That was all up to me, and no one else could or would be responsible. But now practice was over. It was time to climb the mountain. The bugles in the distance hadn't faded in beauty or frequency from the last six days, and the mountain I found myself on resonated with those echoes that will forever haunt my memory of that September afternoon in Colorado. All during the week, as I stumbled along behind my guide I felt as if I may have been trespassing, not in the sense of being somewhere I shouldn't, and maybe trespassing isn't the word I'm looking for, but I felt as though this ritual that I was witnessing wasn't me for me to see. The dynamic of what I was seeing and hearing was so overwhelming that the majority of time that I was staggering through the woods, my mind raced to record all of what was happening. I would replay in my head what I had just seen and heard. As I was logging that memory, it would quickly be replaced by yet another amazing display of nature. We hunted hard all week. One morning, the light rain fell as I raced from place to place at the direction of my guide to intercept the bulls that were responding to his calls. Young bulls slipped into where we stood, and at twenty yards, I let him walk. He had some growing to do, but I'll never forget how he looked as he stood close enough for me to hear him breathe. Another bugle and we were off again. I could hear limbs breaking in the bulls bugle sounded like a roar. It was loud than what I'd expected. I stared into the trees and strained to see the elk that was making all that racket. How could something be so loud, so big, and so close and me not be able to see him. My heart was beating fast, and I was trying not to hyperventilate when he was getting closer. And I didn't know how this was going to play out. But I knew right then, right there in that vast wilderness I had dreamed of all my life. 00:07:28 Speaker 1: That I was right where I was supposed to be. 00:07:31 Speaker 2: I imagined every scenario I could think of, trying to anticipate what was going to happen next. I arranged every possible place the bull would emerge from, and tried to remember each point, calculating which pen I would use and when to draw my bow. Cal trotted out from behind the brush, stopped and stared at me. The bull I could hear getting closer and closer as he broke limbs and racked his antlers on what sounded like every tree between where he and I stood. I saw the city limb shaking, and from less than twenty five yards he walked out until the opening he faced me and bugle so loud. 00:08:13 Speaker 1: It hurt my ears. 00:08:16 Speaker 2: He was a heavy five by five, and I could draw my bow now without him ever knowing I was there two more steps. He's two steps away from giving me the opportunity I've dreamed of since I was a kid. The cow that I'd forgotten about had stood at all she could, and with one swift motion, she wheeled and ran into the woods. He followed on instinct and stopped at fifty five yards, offering a marginal quartering shot. I wasn't steady enough or confident enough in the angle to wrist trying to slip that broadhead into the narrow kill zone. I just I wouldn't do it, and he walked away. Now I didn't regret not shooting. I tried to breathe again. I tried to realize all that I had just seen and felt, and couldn't keep from shaking all over this thing that was happening to me, The transformation that was taking place inside me, and the insignificant role I was playing in the grand production occurring all around me was changing how I thought, felt and saw the world. All of the events that led up to this September afternoon hadn't prepared me for what was about to happen. Walking around a mountain trail and standing face to face with a black bear, listening to the literally countless beautiles day in and day out, and standing on a small portion of this magnificent place on Earth aching to share with what I was seeing with my loved ones didn't offer a clue what I was about to experience. We settled into the blind above the pond. Bulls had been bugling above us since we left the truck as we snaked our way up the mountain to the watering hole we hoped would give us a shot at a decent bull. By the time I got my gear stowed and caught my breath, it was time to put on the rest of my camera and try to find a comfortable place to sit on what had to be a forty five degree grade. I had never shot a boat sitting on my behind, but I had no choice in this spot unless I moved further away, and that wasn't an option. I referenced this place as a blind, but there was nothing man made or manufactured about it. It was just a couple of bushes that offered a place for me to sit down behind. I wanted every advantage in my favor, and I would have to deal with the uncomfortable conditions and just make the best of it. I wadged my left foot against the stump of a long gone sapling and sat on my right leg I had tucked underneath me, and it was actually somewhat comfortable. 00:11:10 Speaker 1: The minute to minute and a half it took before the. 00:11:13 Speaker 2: Circulation was cut off to my leg didn't take long, and my leg was killing me. I tried to ignore the stinging that plagued my lower extremities. I ranged every large rock and bush I could find, trying to determine the lay of the land. Bugles were inching closer and becoming more frequent. I practiced drawing my boat from this terribly uncomfortable position. It had been a long week. My muscles ached, I was hot, I was nervous. I was ecstatic to be there, and the beauty of this rugged land was surpassed only by its lack of oxygen. The guy that taught me how to film was serving as my cameraman on this hunt, and he said it best when we first arrived at our hunting area earlier in the week, as I looked up the mountain at the awe inspiring scenery. He said, don't let them pretty woods fool you. Bub There ain't no air up there. He wasn't kidding. The movement caught my eye and I focused into a gap in the timber across the water hole, and I sat motionless as a bull elk walked out into the opening and announced his presence to the world, as only those majestic creatures can. Other bulls answered him in the distance. The spike bull walked to the opposite side of the pond and drank. And yet this one he strode confidently to the water's edge, ignoring the challenges that were being thrown in his direction. He drank loudly. I could hear him slurping down what seemed like gallons of water. Is a mere thirty yards away, well within my range. When I started breathing so hard and trembling that I closed my eyes and I said a prayer to calm my nerves, steady my aim, and for my arrow to fly true. Immediately I calmed down, relaxed, and I concentrated from a mission at hand. He drank as he waited closer and farther into the water hole, stopping twenty yards in front of him. Then he turned broadside. He looked away in the distance and started the bugle. This was my chance. The dream was about to become a reality. He was a half second into his bugle when I decided to draw my bow, And with all the adrenaline that was coursing through my veins, the excruciating pain that had rendered my right leg useless, and the excitement of what was about to happen, I failed to take my left index finger off the arrow that lay in wait on the arrow rest, and I drew my bow back so hard and so fast, I pulled the string right out of the knock. Then, like an axe handle Postuman, who just had what a little sense he had left knocked out of him, I released the pressure of my left indexed finger, and gravity took control. 00:14:17 Speaker 1: My arrow dropped and clattered. 00:14:19 Speaker 2: Against the bottom lemb of my compound, and held short from falling completely off only by the broadhead that caught on my arrest. The bull stopped just short of finishing his bugle. He turned his head and he looked dead at me, and I felt my dream slipping away as I held an empty string with a perfect sight picture focused on the twenty yard pen and decreased behind the shoulder of the bull elk I'd been waiting on all my life. A bull bugled in the distance, and he looked in his direction and slowly started moving away. I whispered to my cameraman, I can't shoot. My arrow fell off, he said, put it back on. I said, I can't. He pleaded, why not fix my arrow? He turned and saw my predicament, and in one smooth, subtle move, he gingerly picked up my arrow, placed it back on my string, and resumed his duties on the camera. I remained calm, more calm than I had been on the whole trip, and at a point in the hunt when the worst thing possible could have happened actually happened. I followed him with the top pen and transitioned to the middle pin. When he reached the forty yard mark, he stopped to grab a few bites of grass, and my camera man whispered, he's about forty five yards, three more steps, and I fixed my bottom pin on his right front leg that I could see as he quartered away, exposing the left side peep site settled perfectly around the pin and I remember out loud, he's fifty yards, and without realizing a conscious effort, the string left my release and I tracked the orange knock of my arrow and watched it as it buried up in the fletching, right where I had envisioned it going only a split second before they helped charge into the timber, kicking rocks and breaking limbs as he disappeared. Now, I looked at my friend, who was running the camera, and ask about the shot placement. I replaced it in my mind and felt confident it was good. Thirty seconds later I heard him crash. Calm that I felt during that near calamity of my air coming off the string was replaced by the realization of what had just happened. A flood of emotion rushed from within, and I struggled to think of something to say. I tried to compose myself, but was overcome by the fact that I had just seen a lifelong dream come to fruition. All I could think of was how proud my dad was going to be of me, and that's when I started crying. My family is so supportive of me and what I do, and to have experienced that moment knowing they were going to be just as proud as I was, seemed to be a little more than I could deal with. I was a wreck, and when the tears started, it didn't stop. Waiting to prescribe thirty minutes from shot to track, it may have been tougher than they sent up the mountain, but eighty yards later we were kneeling beside my trophy and thanking the Good Lord for giving us the opportunity. What a release of emotion. Outside of events involved in my family, this was the most moving experience I'd ever encountered, and one. 00:17:56 Speaker 1: That has changed my life. 00:17:59 Speaker 2: The people that don't do what we do, that don't challenge themselves to seek out their dreams and struggle through the hardships and obstacles that separate just getting by from getting it done. We'll probably find humor in the fact that a grown man cried on the side of a mountain after shooting an elk, But it was a pivotal moment in my maturity as a person of faith who needed help and asked for it, and in an instant was granted to reprieve from losing my mind when a small, seemingly inconsequential mistake nearly cost me the opportunity of a lifetime. It's funny now that always seems to work out. Good night, Nurse, what a hunt. I'm thankful for that day, my friend Leon and all of you who give all of us here on the Beargreas Channel some of your attention each week. If you're close to eleven and Missouri, come see me tomorrow September the sixth at the celebration of the Ozarks Case Knife event put over by my friends at Shepherd Hills Cutlery. It's gonna be so much fun. And Alexis and Bailey they're gonna be there too. Then on next Saturday, September the thirteenth, we'll all be at the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff in Springdale, Arkansas, where the love of humanity the fund never stops until next week. 00:19:36 Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful