00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. 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. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores to share. Mentors, Giving, and Gobblers. I've got some good ones for you this week. Tales of mentorship and given from Alabama to Nebraska. Three stories that fed my soul and I think that you'll enjoy too. The last one is about a man that I've talked about before, one who continues to make a big impact on my life. We've got a lot to talk about, so let's get started. If you haven't already heard, Blood Trail season two is live and episode one is out right now. You're gonna love this kind of stuff. If you like that true crime genre, you're gonna love this because Jordan Sellers has done an absolutely excellent job. Check it out. Blood Trail season two, Episode one. This story was sent in by this Country Life listener Brandon Jones from Rainsville, Alabama. Rainsville is in the northeast part of the state and interestingly enough, gets an average of forty five point eight inches of rain a year. That sounds like a lot, but Miami, Florida, where the beach in the sun is, gets almost a foot and a half more. Anyway, Brandonson, in the story I'm about to share with you now and in his words in my voice, here we go a little backstory to this hunt. I was a young dad, recently divorced, and I loved turkey hunting and had a young son that was only four. I never missed opening day of turkey season, and I wasn't going to let be in a single dad slow either one of us down. As with all dads, I had to adjust my hunting style to include him, a later start time, a trip through the drive through and snacks and drinks, and a pop up line with two chairs and a four year old boy. The Good Lord blessed us with keeping a little piece of public ground unoccupied. You heard that right, Alabama, public land and a gate without a soul at it on open and in day at six a m. Now that hasn't happened since, And this happened fifteen years ago. We arrived at the gate this piece of public and I started gathering up all the things necessary to make it through the morning, just saying a little prayer that we'd hear a turkey so he'd have a good time. We were getting ready to leave the truck and I noticed he didn't have his jacket. I told him to go grab it, but he didn't, and I didn't check to make sure. We started our hike in and made it about sixty yards from the truck and Branson said, Dad, I'm cold. When it was then I knew he hadn't done what I told him to. This guy was getting pretty well lit by now, so I knew I needed to hurry to get this fixed. After some thought, I just dropped all our gear, the chairs, pop up BLYD food drinks in my vest. His little legs was so short. I just had to make a dad decision right then, just stand here and don't move. I can see you the whole time. The truck's just right there. I'm gonna go get your jacket. Probably not the wisest decision, but it turned out to be the best one. I ever made. I hustled to the truck and retrieved the jacket, and as I shut the door ever so carefully, I heard a hen followed by four gobbles. Oddly enough, it sounded like that hen is right where I set my vest and my four year old. I grabbed another gear, hustling back to find my son working the lid on that old lynch proof box. Call. To me, it sounded terrible, but to those four two year old toms it was a sweet melody. My son was laughing and smiling. It was the best moment of his life. He really had those birds worked up. They were double goblin and anything he did with that call, they'd answer him. I truly hated to make him stop, but I did, and I rushed to get us set up. I gathered all our stuff and we went up about another fifty yards and made the best set up I could in the open hardwoods with a pop up blind. He had those birds so worked up that they gobbled at the noise that came from me popping the blind open. We barely got set up when I heard him fly down. I actually thought they'd come to their senses and flew off, he said, Dad, I'm hungry, so I got him a biscuit. He sat back in his chair and just eating that chicken biscuit and smiled. And after a few minutes of quiet, I decided to throw out a call, just in case they hadn't flown over to the next county. And to my surprise, a few softy ups on one cluck and I got a gobble close, real close. Then I could see all four long beards working their way to us. I told Branson they were coming, just to keep looking for him. He kept reassuring me the fact that he couldn't see them. At this point, I was getting that adrenaline build up and I may have forgotten the four year old boys will do random things at the most inappropriate times. I said, Branson, can you see them? He said no. I said, you see that big white oak, as I pointed in the direction from inside the blind, not realizing I hadn't taught my four year old what a white oak was. No, Dad, i can't see him. I'm getting ready to shoot, giving up on him being able to see him. At this point, I figured the only way he will see him is if I shoot one of them. Branson grabbed the side of the blind one and pulled it down and stuck his head completely out, to my surprise and that of the turkey I was aiming at. I see im, Daddy, they're big now. I'm not sure who was more stunnan me with the turkeys. Those Alabama public turkeys quickly remembered what they were supposed to do. I gathered myself, gave a couple of quick cuts on the mouth. Call stopped, and I had just enough time to squeeze off that first shot. Yeah, the first shot. The next two were where this story gained the humor. I made a bad shot and that bird came down to us from downhill, so I couldn't get the gun barrel down low enough for the follow up shot due to the blind bres. I reached with one hand and threw that blind back over my head, settled my bead, and squeezed off the second shot just as the blind fell back down. At the same time the shot left the barrel. That brand new three hundred dollars blyd had a brand new hole. Still concerned about the bird, I threw it back up again. I jumped out of my chair and took off down through the woods, chasing the turkey. I had to give him one more shot before I got him. As I was making my way back to the blind, I could hear Branson just laughing. And when I did get back, he was laughing so hard he had tears running down his face. He said, Dad, you threw the blind up in boom blew a big hole in it and threw it back up and chased the turkey down. You are so funny, daddy. I love turkey hunting so much. Can we go again tomorrow? I took a few minutes to process the events. Thank the Good Lord for the chance and a blessed day in the woods with my number one new turkey hunting partner. That was fifteen years ago. This coming March, he's grown and married and turned into a turkey hunter himself. I believe life got a lot easier that day for the both of us. There's been many wonderful trips since, and that first one, though it will never be talked, and according to Brandon Jones of Rainsville, Alabama, that's just how that happened. Well, Brandon, I appreciate you sitting me in that story. There's lessons in there for all of us. Being a single parent is hard, and adjusting how you go about life while maintaining and growing your relationship with the most important part of it, well, that's the biggest reward of all. Good job, Dad. This next offering rose in from Colorado, where Rennick Christofferson, his wife Anna, and their eleven year old son Charlie are living the good life up there in the Centennial State. I liked this story, so Rennick's words in my voice here we go. I became a turkey hunter a little later in life, around thirty years old. Looking back now, it's clear that my life has been full of God's blessings, even when I couldn't see them at the time. Love the Lord has truly changed me, shaped me, carried me further than I ever could have gone on my own. I grew up poor in the inner city of Denver, Colorado, surrounded by drugs and gang violence and all the things that go with it. Onme wasn't much of a refuge. I had an alcoholic stepfather who made things difficult, so my escape was sports and staying outside until the street lights came on. Home was mostly a place to sleep and eat. Even in those years, God was at work despite my circumstances. The Lord consistently placed strong father figures in my life, men who showed me what integrity, patience, and faith really looked like. One of those men is mister Horn, and I will always be grateful for the role he played in my life. When I was twenty nine years old, mister Horn asked me to come work for his asphalt company. I told him honestly that I didn't know the first thing about the asphalt business. His response was simple and life changing. I didn't ask you if you knew anything about it. I ask you if you wanted to come to work for me. I need people I can trust and I can teach you the rest. Fifteen years later, I like to say I earned a master's degree in asphalt. Mister Horn was absolutely right that one decision changed my career, strengthen my family, and helped me grow as a believer. He didn't just teach me a trade. He modeled leadership and humility and faith. My family is better because of him, and I am deeply thankful for the time, the patience, and the trust he invested in me. Then he introduced me to turkey hunting. Mister Horne's family homestead of land in Nebraska, and each year he takes the company up for a week of hunting and fellowship and cracking a few open It's a great time for everyone, assuming the what that cooperates. One year it didn't. The storms were so bad we thought we might end up hiding in the cellar of one hundred and fifty year old homestead house. The next morning, under dark clouds that were clearly planting something, mister Horn still took me out hunting. No rain yet, but there was some coming for sure. Mister Horn is what I'd like to call a turkey whisper. Walking through the woods with him as almost to guarantee a turkey will gobble back, And unfortunately, after a lifetime of being a turkey slayer, his hearing isn't what it used to be. So I was officially signed the role of listener. Well, that morning there wasn't a single gobble. We took a break and mister Horn mentioned it sometimes turkeys will gobble at thunder, and I was I was skeptical until it happened. Thunder rote and I heard God was about two hundred yards away. I looked at mister Horn straight in the eyes and coined as we moved toward the meadow. Mister Horn suddenly grabbed my turkey vest and gave me to the ground. Belly crawled. Now, he whispered. I crawled up to a burn and peeked over to see at least thirty turkeys. Mister Horn slipped behind a tree about ten yards back and started calling and working his magic. Four gobblers broke off from the hens and headed straight toward us. I lined up on the biggest bird when he was in easy range to pull the trigger. Click. Nothing. I cleared the chamber and reloaded. By now, the one I'd been aiming at was out of my line of sight, so I settled the bead on the second one. Click, still nothing. I cycled into the last shell as the first and biggest gobbler of the group stepped back in my sights. Boom, dead bird. We celebrated like two kids just won the Super Bowl. I may or may not have jumped into a grown man's arms, but in that moment it fell right. On the walk back, the clouds finally let loose and it poured, but it didn't matter. Fun was had, memories were made, and I was officially hooked. Today, I know without a doubt that the love of God changed my life, and he used man like mister Horn to show me what that love looks like in action. I am grateful beyond words for his guidance, his friendship, and the example he said. Because of him, I found a career, a deeper faith, and yes say, a lifelong love. A turkey hunter and according to Rennick Christofferson, master of all things asphalt, turkey smashing companion of mister Horn, and believe it or not, the Colorado Rocky Stadium DJ, that's just how that happened. Well, Rennick, I appreciate you sharing that with us. What a great example of love given in mentorship from one generation to the next. Here is another one. I don't remember exactly, but I'm gonna guess. It was around nineteen ninety. It was spring in Cleveland County, Arkansas, and that means turkey season. My brother Tim had killed the turkey. His brother in law, Joe Brian had killed the turkey. But I hadn't, and neither had mister Billy Bryan. Mister Brian was Tim's father in law, Joe's father, and my nothing as far as the Reeve's family tree went. But in my heart he was a dad of sorts to me as well. Tim married Barbaraging mister Brian's daughter in nineteen seventy seven, when I was eleven years old. Tim didn't make a lot of tracks back then that I wasn't trying to put my own shoes in, So when the Brian's got Tim, they got me too. We all didn't live that far apart, and a lot of our hunting was done on Bryan family land and Timber company land near them that was designated as our territory. We hunted together, attended church activities together, went to each other's family gatherings and reunions. We were close. That season had been a rough one on me, and I hadn't heard a turke at Gobble in a week. So at the evening gathering that mister Bride's house discussed how mine, Tim's Joe and his hunt had played out during the day, Mister Bride told me I should just go with him in the morning. Brent, you just go with me in the morning. I heard a turk at the end of the Spur road today. I need some help calling him up. My joker wouldn't do nothing for me this morning. I told him, Yes, sir, I'll be glad to go just to hear one. Well. The first thing y'all need to know is this, he didn't need any help with anything I ever saw him do anything. Sure didn't need any help calling up a turkey, especially from someone who he taught how to do it. Coffee was ready when I got to his house the next morning. We had a small cup before we headed out the door by the Crooked County and Timber Company Road. There was an eight mile trip from his house to where we were hunting. A crow would only have to fly for We waited on daylight after slipping down to the edge of the bottoms in the dark, this is where we listened from and devised a plan to hunt him. If he gobbled out and we listened to it echoed down through the hardwoods and the cypress slughs, but it was too early, more wishful thinking than anything else, so we waited. After a few more minutes, mister Brian said, that's right where that joker was yesterday. Come on, we're gonna ease right down here. I followed him like a little puppy, matching his every step and stopping with one foot off the ground each time he paused to listen. On our way, he pointed at a big slick pinoak and I hustled over to sit down. Then he sat down next to me, and I thought that was odd. I was gonna help call that turkey to him. He needed to be out in front of me. I didn't know why he sat there instead of out front where he should have. But a lifetime of respecting my elders and not questioning what they were doing had my jaws wired shut. I wasn't saying nothing. That turkey was gobbling his brains out on the limb, and mister Brian said, if he does what he did yesterday, he's gonna stand right out yonder after he flies down and gobble till the hen comes to him, and then he's going to walk off down in the bottoms. Well, I knew we wouldn't be following him in there. Those woods were way too open for us to chase him. He'd see us for sure, And when he flew down, we heard him hit the ground. His feet hadn't had time to get muddy when he gobbled. Mister Bryan slipped the wingbone cold out of his pocket he made and he clucked it. He double gobbled in response. I raised up my shotgun and I propped it on my knee, getting ready for him to come strutting to us, and I would only shoot if he slipped in from the right side. Mister Brian just sat there with his old one Chester Model twelve laying across his lap. Oh the stories that shotgun could tell. The old finished stocking forearm or dark brown, and the blue and on the barrel, and the receiver was thin in places, but you wouldn't find any rust on it beside. I had that shotgun as it lay in his lap and fought the urge to call it that turkey who'd already answered my mentor and was no more than one hundred yards away three yepso, and laid it down. Was how he killed turkeys, And he killed a bunch of them before we sat down together under that pennel, and he would kill a bunch more after we got up from there. But this turkey was still very much alive. After listening to him strutting and gobbling in the same spot for fifteen minutes, we both knew he wasn't coming in. He did just like mister Brian said, he was going through the same thing he did the day before. I still had that shotgun propped up on my knee. Oh, the barrel was now pointing towards the clouds. Mister Brian leaned over and whispered, going out there and kill him, sir, You going out there and kill that turkey. No, sir, that's your turkey. I come to help you kill him. That turkey gobbled again, and I turned my head in his direction when he did. When I looked back, mister Brian was still looking at me. Gone, son, go out there and kill him, Yes, sir. I slipped out away from where we were sitting, and creeping forward between bushes and stepping over limbs. I didn't go much more than twenty five yards. When that turkey gobbled again and I sat down. I looked back at mister Brian. He was still there, just as I had left him, that old winchester still in his lap, but he had that wingbone in his hand. He yeped on it, and it was so good. Had I not just seen him getting ready to call on it? I had and swore it was a hen. A turkey double gabbled again, and in a matter of seconds I heard him drumming so loud. I knew he was getting closer. After what seemed like forever in reality could have only been a couple of minutes. I yeped at him, and when I did, he stood up just behind the buckeye bush, and I shot him, stone cold dead at twenty yards Before he started wiggling good, I was standing on his neck, and not long after, mister Brian was standing there beside me, smiling bigger than I was. You got him, son, Yes, sir, thank you. I hugged him and he hugged me back. That was the only time we ever sat down to hunt a turkey together. He made me a wingbone call, just like the one he had one time. Wingbone he attached to a cone shaped trumpet piece of wood that he'd whittled out of a sumac limb. It's sitting over here on my shelf. He also made me a box call when he was sixty seven years old. That was twenty five years ago. I've never taken it hunting. It's as precious to me as anything I have, because I know the man that made it gave it to me because he loved me, the same reason he gave me that turkey almost forty years ago. The turkey he could have killed that morning, but he gave that opportunity to me for the same reason he loved me. Mister Bright passed away peacefully in his sleep on April the second of this year. He was ninety two, and because I loved him so much, I'm taking that call with me for the rest of this season. It was a great influence on me as a turkey hunter, and a shining example to all that knew him of a great man. We buried him in a light rain on Saturday morning, and as the breeze blew the drops on my face, I thought it convenient for the folks that wanted to hide their tears of loss and sadness until they could be replaced by smiles and tears of joy. Joy and a good life lived, and the blessings of being a part of a good man's life. There's three examples of good fatherly men, men who took the time to share something they valued with people they valued more. I thank you so much for listening. It is my absolute pleasure and privilege to bring this to you every week, and I appreciate the time that you give me. This is the box call that mister Briant made for me and the one that I'm I'm taking on the road with me this Turkey season. Pretty cool until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Don'll be careful.