Bear Grease - Ep. 100: Spring Turkey Stories 2023 (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

This week on Bear Grease, Clay Newcomb hosts another all-star cast of sure 'nuff dyed in the wool, turkey hunting storytellers. Gobbling turkeys create a rare intoxication for man. It’s exhilarating to call, get a response, and watch a long beard work into shotgun range. Each spring, the turkey hunter has the opportunity to step into a world he does not fully understand and participate in it for short windows of time… it’s a rare experience. On this episode we’ve got eight storytellers that'll help you get a glimpse of that rare experience. We have North Carolina novelist David Joy, Jimbo Ronquest tells a story of a Missouri turkey hunt with his father, and a couple great Mississippi stories from Billy Johnson and David Hitt Neill. We also have some old favorites: Gary “Believer” Newcomb, Brent Reaves and Andy Brown.…I really doubt you’re going to want to miss this one… Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. And all of a sudden, boom! And as soon as she shot, I jumped up, and one of the birds was flying off,

and the other one had his head up, and he was just turning his head. One eyeball turned another. One eyeball turned another. I just trying to figure out what's going on. And I start screaming, reload, reload, reload. Because she's shooting this old single-shot shotgun, and she ain't got but one shot,

and she's looking at me like, oh, no, what in the world did I do? do. We've found ourselves on the rising tide of spring turkey hunting. It's time. It's early April and surely every gobbler in America is sounding off in the pre-dawn darkness doing the limb strut and drum tight rope walk dance every morning, pitching down with the business of love on their mind. The biology of turkey breeding is complex yet simple. We understand more than we ever have, but much is still a mystery. It's fundamental in its purpose, pro-creation, but to a human, the spring turkey woods can be poetic, even symbolic. A proud, beautiful bird,

strutting his iridescent feathers to the ladies, literally puffed up, presenting his best self to the world, hoping to be appealing, maybe start a family. Isn't that the story of mankind? A gobble is an excited, hopeful sound fitting for the spring. And I do not know whether the sound of a gobble was made for the spring or if the spring was made for it. But goblin turkeys create a rare intoxication for many. It's exhilarating to call, get a response, and watch a turkey work into shotgun range. And to partake of this ancient ritual. The turkey hunter has the opportunity to step into the world.

he does not fully understand and participate in it for short windows of time. It's a rare experience. On this episode, we've got eight storytellers, one of which is North Carolina novelist David Joy. Jim Ron Quest also tells us a Missouri turkey hunting story, and we've got a couple of great Mississippi stories again, but also we've got some old favorite storytellers in Gary Believer Newcomb, Brent Reeves, and Andy Brown.

I really doubt. You're going to want to miss this second Turkey Stories episode. God, they're just so pretty. You know, some was coming up and kind of backlit through that tail fan. It's just so pretty. I can see it like it was yesterday, and this has probably been, gosh dang, 40 years ago. Holy smokes, that just kind of did the math in my head. That's been a minute.

My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Just this week I killed a gobbler in Mississippi while hunting with two sure enough bona fide turkey hunters. You'll meet them next week on the Bear Grease Render. We all three witnessed the same event from slightly different angles, and after the turkey was done flopping,

we all had three different but very true stories. What we all agreed on was the Dern thing had an 11.5 inch beard. I ain't even lying. Hearing the interpretation of the events of life through the eyes of another is extremely important. It's like using triangulation and navigation to find an exact location. He saw this. The other person saw that, and I know for sure what I saw, and you take all that and do some mental

trigonometry, and you can come away with the clearer picture of life on this planet. I'm not just talking about turkey stories either, but really the importance of stories in our human existence. Stories are entertaining, fun, and we learn stuff, but I believe this sense of entertainment, intrigue, or interest in listening to stories gives us a biological reward. The enjoyment of a story functionally. What actually makes you like it is the dopamine release in the brain causing us to feel happiness and satisfaction. Something deep in our DNA is scripted to reward us for listening.

Think about that. And to nerd out, just to touch more, just hang on, boys, and further convinces of how we're all addicted to stories, Netflix, sitcoms, the news, podcasts, YouTube, it's all stories. human life could almost be broken into two categories, the stuff we do ourselves, and then the stories we're told about what others are doing. The good news, though, is that this podcast we're about to listen to has some very important stories, turkey stories. And I'd like to invite you to sit back, relax, pay attention, and listen for distant gobbles and drumming. These are good stories.

a big gobbler pitching down from the limb. Our first storyteller is none other than my dad, Gary Believer, Newcomb. It's one of those unique hunts when things work out precisely, and I mean precisely, as he predicted. And he has two very unusual guests witnessed the hunt. Here's Gary. Years ago, and I don't know how many years ago, I went to a kind of a new spot. We all knew about it, but very few people hunted in there.

and you parked right on the side of the highway and you walk up an old road. Keep getting higher and higher up on this mountain. One of the highest places in that part of the county. And I got up in there, sure enough, got a bird working. And I had my bow, and I sat down. I was on the bird. Things were going good, and all of a sudden somebody starts calling.

And, you know, got my bow. So I put a lot of time into this. I found a place I could sit where, you know, I had a shot. If he came in, and so a lot of work put into it. And all of a sudden, this guy below me starts calling. And the way this road is laid out, you can hear birds from way off. You know, I mean, the road's going up, everything down in this little canyon-type deal. You can hear birds.

So I'm working the bird. He starts calling, bird leaves. Never heard the bird again. Go back to the truck. And here he's parked probably five feet from my truck, parked right beside it. And he came up the same road. So anyway, I wasn't too happy about that, but I mean, you know, it just happens. He might have never thought anything about it.

So I looked his truck over and got his license number. I wasn't going to do anything about it. I just kind of like to know who he was. And I found him, found out where he worked, and I never said anything to him because, I mean, you know, maybe I've done somebody like that. I don't know. I surely hadn't. But so anyway, in the process, I find this strutting. zone and it's probably where I was setting up you know once the bird was gone I just got up

and started walking around and I go holy smokes this is a major deal right here so I go home and have lunch and piddle around for a while and I tell Judy I said I'm going to walk back up there why won't you go with me it's about I'm going to guess a half a mile to a mile walk on old road pretty easy walk and I said we'll get our exercise I'll kill this turkey and get my lab some exercise. We'll take Gracie with us. Gracie, you could take her to church and just go Gracie, sit, stay. You know, you could park her at Walmart parking line and go sit and stay in a parking spot, and she'd be there when you got back. So Gracie, Judy, and myself, Juju, took off. So we just walked up that old road. And when we got just to the point where I knew that strutton zone

was, I'd go, Gracie sit and Judy, you know, you guys get comfortable because this could take five minutes. So I ducked down as low as I could and started walking with my gun ready. And I probably walked 30 yards, 40 at the most. And I squatted down. And as soon as I got to where I could almost hear him drumming and stuff. Well, I could, I'm sure. You know, I just stood up and there he was. And, you know, I had a 30-yard shot. And that sucker, he was up there strutting. He wasn't goblin but he was strutting and so it's soon as I got to where I could see him I just stood up he saw me and I shot him he was a big bird you know he was a good bird it was one of those deals where you're pretty sure you can pull this off but it never works the way you want it to

something always goes haywire and there's so many things that could go haywire you know this is a wild bird I don't know I don't even think I was all that shocked I just for some reason I could just tell by the sign that bird he wanted to be there. So we threw him over my shoulder. Juju thought I was Superman and walked out. I loved the audacity of bringing your wife and a Labrador Retriever and having them sit less than 70 yards from where you think a turkey's going to be and simply walking up and killing it. Dad strutted out of there with that jelly head thumping on his thigh while Juju and Gracie must have thought he was the best turkey hunter in Arkansas. That's a good story.

Our next story is told inside of the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum in Leland, Mississippi, by the curator, Billy Johnson. Billy has just got back from a hunt, and he's wearing some faded, mismatched camo, muck boots, and he's sporting a dash and foo man chew mustache to have melt the grin off a possum. He's got a story that will take us deep into Mississippi turkey hunting history. All right, we're in the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage. Museum this morning and it's in a converted 100-year-old two-story hardware store building and I'm 68 years old and when I was 17 before there were Walmarts and and all these Cabellas and Bass Pro all over the

South hunters and fishermen would go to their local hardware stores to buy whatever they needed clothing ammunition guns and I was in here happened to be in here one day and a man named E.O. Mitchell walked in and he sold turkey calls here. Mr. Mitchell and his turkey hunting friend Henry Milner were telegraph operators for the railroad. And they became interested in turkey hunting and there was a country store out on Highway 51 between Vaden and Winona, Mississippi. and a widow lady had the store. And in that store, she had a turkey call that came from Montgomery Ward. And Mr. Milner would go out there and play the call and this and that.

And as time moved forward, telephone lines took the place of the old telegraph lines. Well, when they took the telegraph lines down, they were on a hundred-year-old cedar poles. and Mr. Milner and Mr. Mitchell, they got a lot of those old poles, and through the next 60 years, they made hundreds of turkey calls using the Montgomery Ward pattern and using the old cedar poles. In those days, people like Mr. Mitchell that sold calls would go out through the country to different hardware stores. and the day that I was fortunate enough to run into him,

he pulled an old Polaroid picture out of his pocket. And those Polaroid pictures had that old black plastic stuff on the back, and it was all cracked and gone, and it was a picture of a mostly white turkey. And I asked him, I said, I got to hear this story. Well, come to find out he was in Startville, Mississippi. He had a hardware store, and they had some rocking chairs set up.

People would come in, old retired guys would come in, and they would whittle, sharpen their knives, and spit tobacco and tell stories. Well, the story was they told him about this white turkey that couldn't be killed, and that all of these 15 or 20 people had been out there and tried to call the turkey up and couldn't call it and couldn't be killed.

And he said, well, if his turkey can't be killed, then you fellas probably wouldn't have a problem with me hunting it. So one of them took him out there and showed him the ridge where the turkey roosted and showed him the bottom where he flew down. So he surmised that Colin wasn't the way to kill the turkey. So he sat down the next morning in the bottom. And sure enough, the old turkey started sounding off. So he refrained and waited.

until fly-down time. And once fly-down time came, he took his cap. And he went like a hen flying down. And he waited a minute or two, and he got a stick and started scratching in the leaves. When lo and behold, the big turkey pitched down and landed within 20 yards of it, he killed a turkey. The time he got the turkey loaded up, got back to his truck and got the turkey loaded up and got the turkey loaded up and got back to town, the hardware store had opened. And those old guys were in there.

And he goes in there, and he said, well, you boys want to first-hand look at this turkey, y'all said, couldn't be killed. Come on, I got him out here in my truck. And those guys couldn't believe it, you know, and one of them spit his tobacco. He said, Mr. I tell you what, this is 50 years ago. He said, I give you $100 for the call to. you used to call this turkey up. He took his cap off his head.

He said, here it is. So, you know, less than 30 feet from where he showed me the picture of that turkey, we now have the turkey mounted here in the Mississippi Wildlife Head Museum. Those old call makers, I mean, E.O. Mitchell's calls are in the Smithsonian. E.O. Mitchell's mounted white turkey is in the Mew. museum along with several of his famous calls. I was really impressed by the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. If you're traveling near Greenville or Leland, you ought to stop in. It's full of big white tails, mounts of all kinds, lots of waterfowl stuff, unique displays from

old callmakers, several turkey beard collections, and incredible photos. It's a template of what every state ought to be doing to document their hunting heritage. Our next storyteller is one of my favorites. It's Andy Brown of Arkansas. I'd say for certain this is a one and a million hunt. One time I was having to work, and we always had a turkey camp in April. And I mean, we had a big time. And I wasn't able to get off early enough that evening. It was the day before season to go roosted turkey. So when I get to camp, my buddy Wayne says, I've got you a turkey roosted. And he said, he gobbled his tail off at seven. And I said, really? I said, I know right where he's at.

He said, we'll go up right in the morning. So anyway, next morning we got up double early. Or I pulled the mountain, got right at on top. And he said he's just over on the south side right here. And sure does. Just a minute he put in. And he was just, he wasn't, I don't think he was over 75 yards off the top. But all the gobbling he done, he gobbled a hundred times on the roof.

And right there where we were at on the end of that mountain, There wasn't nothing. I mean, it was open. At the end of that, right on the end of it, it was just open in there. And there wasn't a place to get. You know, I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to get and how to do all this. So I finally get over on the north side, about 50 yards down on the north side. Got in a big old brush top.

And in a minute, I could tell he hit the ground because he, you know, how they do, he couldn't hear him as well. I never liked to call a turkey on the roof until they dump off because you never, they'll sit there on you a lot of times. But anyway, he hit the ground, and I hammered me right back at me. And you can tell, here he come. And he come right up over the top, just like he's supposed to, and he got out there. He's in full strut, which I just never did like shooting one full strut, neither.

But all the doing around up there, he'd done, and back and forth and back and forth. I couldn't get him to come out of strut. I'd cut at him. He'd just stay in strut and just back and forth. And I got a little antsy probably, and I thought, well, I can kill you, you know. So anyway, I pulled the trigger. I shot an 870 pump at those days. Two and three quarter, Super X number sixes, you know.

I mean, that's all you could get back in the day. I cut drive at that dude, and he took off running, and I shot at him again. When he pitched a fly, there was a big canyon that laid west, and I'm talking about a quarter and a half mile wide, maybe a half a mile wide. And I stood there, and I watched that turkey sail all the way across that canyon. and he sailed over there and he just flew in there on the thing and lit. So Wayne, he gets up. He said, out of the world, you miss that turkey?

I said, there's a lot of air around them. It was all like that, you know, but I said, no, I's been out of shape. And shaking my head, and back in those days, I smoked. And so I got me a cigarette at, and I was just shaking my head and sitting there. And we're looking across the canyon there, and all of a sudden that turkey, he just pitches out like he flew in, and he sailed right down that canyon south, around down there.

He flew a quarter, and flew right into the side of the mountain there and just, you know, you just hear him fly in there. So, Wayne says, if you didn't hit him, we'll give him about 30, 45 minutes the way that and go over and kill him. He'll put in a goblin again. So off the mountain, we went, and we went down there,

and we hit a four-hiver trail. We went around there, there about where we thought he flew in and walked up on the side of the mountain there, dug in, and we probably lay there 45 minutes, nothing, nothing, beautiful morning. And I told Wayne, I said, before we leave, I said, let's just walk up here on the side of the mountain. I said, that turkey, it didn't sound quite right, the way that turkey flew in to the mountain there. And we walked up there, we didn't walk 75 yards, and I laid that gobler dead.

I never forget, it had red ants on his head where the blood was coming, just hitting him at two three shot, but that dude had flown. The turkey was. He was a half a mile from where I shot him. We found him dead laying there just perfect. You just don't do that, you know, but we got him. Good three-year-old. I mean, a good... That is a wild story. What are the chances of finding that turkey a half mile from where they shot it after watching it fly across the canyon twice? Only Andy could have pulled that off. Our next storytelling, is currently working as an undercover wildlife agent, posing as my dear friend trying to catch me doing crimes

that I am completely unaware of. He seems to have really dug in because he's been at this with me for over a decade. He's always available, always ready to hunt, and always has an unbelievable alibi and ridiculous backstory when he can't. Britt Reves is a bear-grease favorite, and he's got a good one from the same.

Saline River Bottoms of Arkansas with his brother Tim. You'll laugh and scratch your head on this one. This story takes place in the Saline River Bottoms where a bunch of my brother Tim and I's adventures started and stopped. Turkey season was the one season that we didn't hunt together a lot. Probably about 60% of the time during turkey season we hunted alone because 100% of the time that we hunted together, there was some kind of calamity. that ensued.

Something happened. On this particular time, it was my turn to kill a turkey, and we had gone way down in the river bottoms before we ever heard the first turkey. We walked in way before daylight. We got in there, and we waited and waited and waited,

and finally turkey gobbled, and he was long ways off. I mean, it was about as far as you could hear, and we both coursed him pretty good, knew the area well. My family had been hunting this land down here for generations. We got there.

We took off from, that turkey. We get about halfway to him and he's a quick goblin. We don't hear anything. We happened to stop at this big old deer stand. And at that time, we didn't have any big tower stands on our, where we deer hunted. It was all individual stuff, just lean up stands or we'd sit on a bucket or something. But this stand was big enough for two people to get in. And we were marveling at how much room that guy had up there. And we thought, you know, if we had one like that, we could sit together and make enough racket that we wouldn't kill a deer. but we could still be out there hunting

and not have to worry about skinny one. But while we were sitting there marveling at this wonderful tower stand, this guy had a turkey gobbled 50 yards from where we were and both of us hit the ground. Like, oh my gosh, we're caught in the ball open. But there was a thicket right behind that deer stand and where that turkey gobbled

and I yelped twice on a call and that turkey gobbled and came straight to me. And I'm looking through this thicket and my brother's sitting right there. We're leaned up. against each other because we're not, we're in the bald open, not against the tree, nothing. I'm leaning against him. He's leaning against me.

And I'm looking through this thicket and I can see a hole and I can see that turkey coming. And when he gets to that 25 yards, I guess, to the edge of that thicket, I said, I see him. Boom. And I cut it loose and the turkey started flopping and then the turkey started running. And I got up and took off running after him and I got hung up and all them briars and stuff. And I was fighting through that thing like a buzz. all and finally got on the other side and leaped and jumped on that turkey and caught him and my brother knocked him in the head with a pine knot and we always called that the story of the time that

I shot a turkey but Tim killed it so we were congratulating each other and talking about this big fantastic hunt that it just happened and how surprised we were and we heard that turkey gobble that we had heard originally and he was right where we had said he was and we were about a half a mile from So with one turkey dead, I threw that one over my shoulder and me and my brother take off. It's going to be his time. We get within less than a quarter of a mile of turkey gobbels again. And we got up to the edge of this big old flat, big old oak flat. And it usually had a lot of water in the springtime, but this time it didn't.

And it was wide open bottom land. There was nothing but huge oak trees. And grass had grown in there. It absolutely looked like a park. and across this way here this thing was probably 150 to 200 yards across and on the other side of that

slew just as this flat when we sat down turkey goblin he was just out of sight so where this thing was at the land went down like three feet into this flat there was no place for me to hide other than there was an old stump right there

behind where my brother was going to sit down and I laid down beside it laid that turkey down beside me and Tim went right over the edge of that flat so he had that high bank behind him and he was six feet in front of me he called to him the turkey answered and immediately popped up on the other side now he's 150 yards away in full strut he starts walking towards us light was shining in there like a spotlight on a stage it was like this turkey was on Broadway and we had the best seats in the house and i'm right over

my brother's left shoulder that turkey would take five or six steps stopped, strut, and gobble. And he did this till he got to 80 yards. And it took him three or four minutes to go that far. He was the boss. He wasn't worried. He wasn't in no hurry. He was running this whole show. And at 80 yards, he stopped and gobbled. And when he come out of strut, it started to take a step, I heard my brother click his safety off. And I thought, well, that's a little premature. And about that time, boom, he let that 870 go. That turkey jump. That turkey jump. about 15 feet off the ground, hit the ground, gobbled, turned around, and strutted and gobbled plum out of sight. Why my brother did that, I don't know why he shot at him at 80 yards

when he was coming to us on a string. I mean, it was like he was on a rail and coming straight to us. And why he did that, I don't know. He never turned around. He didn't say anything. He took a cigarette out of his pocket. As he began to light it, I said, hey, and he held his hand up. He never turned around looked at me, he said, give me a minute. So I just sat back there reliving everything that was going on while he smoked half his cigarette. He wouldn't ever smoke the whole thing because he said he saw a commercial when he was like 15 years old. And Tony Curtis was talking, was advertising some kind of cigarettes. And he said, only smoke half because the laughed half is the part that kills you. So my brother, at that time when he smoked, he would only smoke half a cigarette. So I knew it wouldn't

be long and I would get an explanation on what had happened. So when he got half of that cigarette smoked, I saw him look down beside him and there was a crawfish hole there, and he poked that lit cigarette down in that hole and covered it up. He stood up and he said, let's go. So I picked that turkey up and we started walking back to the truck. And we were a mile from the truck and we walked half of that distance and nobody had said a word. We were walking side by side. And I was toting that turkey and he was just walking. And at a half a mile, he looked over at me, he said, hey, you want me to tote that turkey?

It's bound to be getting heavy. And I took two or three steps, and I said, no, Tim, it ain't near as heavy as that load you're toting. And he started laughing and I started laughing. We never did figure out why he shot at that turkey when it was so far away. And as far as I know, that turkey's still living. And that's just how it happened.

It ain't near as heavy. as the load you're toting. That's good, Brant. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag.

And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't.

This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, I Heart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next story is told by Mississippi author Robert Hittnill Jr. He wrote a very successful book in 1990 called The Jakes. It's about a young boy growing up in the South and it involves some turkey hunting. On the last episode, Mr. Neal told us about the flaming turkey.

hunter. He'll now tell us about his first turkey hunt on the Mississippi River that involves some lightning and a skunk. I'm going to tell you about my first turkey that I killed was on Montgomery Island 65 years ago. I was 15 years old and Montgomery is where the White River splits around Montgomery Island coming into the Mississippi River. That's where we would go and there was a big hunting club up there. My daddy was in it, and Oxalm. And we had turkeys on that island when hardly anybody else had turkeys.

We got up real early and Montgomery's two islands. But my daddy and Curry Holland were going over to the big island and I wanted to hunt the little island, 15 years old and so they had a longer trip than I did. So we left the cabin and they dropped me off into flat black dark. And when they let me out of the Jeep, you could see lightning flashes back in the west. And Curry said, I've always heard that turkeys will gobble when it thunders. So you listen for that. But okay.

So I walked on off and they took off in the Jeep. So went down there and got situated and I like to stick a few little pop-all branches or something up in front of them and break the out line, you know, the base of a tree, sitting below a big pecan tree, and the lightning got closer, and you started to hear a little bit of rumble of thunder, and it's just black, dark, and I sniffed something that, and then the lightning flash hit, and there was a skunk that was about ten steps in the way. front of me that was monkeying around in a little brush pile there. He hadn't released his scent, but you can smell a skunk if he's around. So I just be real still and hoped he'd move

on off before it got daylight, and I was going to turkey call and all that kind of stuff. And the storm got closer, and the lightning flashes came more frequently, and I could see the skunk right there in front of me. And then the storm got close enough to where all of a sudden there was this tremendous clap of thunder and lightning and a turkey gobbled right there in the next tree over. Another big pecan tree. Of course, it's dark except for the lightning flashes. I can't see the turkey, but every time it would thunder, he would gobble right there over me. And there's a skunk right there in front of me between me and the turkey.

And so as it got a little bit more lighter, still hadn't rained yet, the storm still hadn't broken, still lightning and still thundering. I can see the turkey. And he's strutting on this limb. Nobody's called yet or anything because it's not even light enough to really see well. And the turkey's just, you know, pop into a strut and walk a few steps on the big limb. And he'd look over and the skunk was still right there in front of me. I'm shooting a model 31 Remington shotgun with a 32-inch, full-choked barrel on it. I got my gun up and the 32-inch barrel is almost over the skunk.

He's still rooting around in the brush top. And the next time it lightened good, the turkey's there. I boom! And the shot, the turkey fell. I jumped up and jumped over the skunk, and he flooded the woods behind where I'd been sitting and missed me. And so I got to the turkey. He was dead as a hammer. He had like a 12-inch beard, huge goblin, one of the largest I've ever killed. And the skunk left, deaf probably, and the turkey was just beautiful. And then here came the rain. But I had my rain suit rolled up there, and I took the rain suit out, shook it out, and I wrapped that beautiful gobbler up in my rain suit,

and I walked back to the cabin three-quarters of a mile in the pouring rain without a rain suit on, but that turkey didn't get a feather wet on him. That turkey didn't get a feather wet. Now that's a good story. And I don't blame a 15-year-old in the mid-1950s, in the least, for shooting a turkey in a tree when lightning flashed. Actually, in many states, there's no law against shooting in the roost as long as it's past legal shooting light.

And I'm certain, with a thunderstorm rolling in, it made shooting light exceptionally dark. Our next storyteller is very well known in the, the waterfowl world. And even in the bear grease world, because he's been on here several times, but he loves turkey hunting about as much as he loves mallard ducks. I've noticed that people only say good things about Jimbo Ron Quest. Here he goes with the Missouri turkey story about him, his dad, a fine spring morning,

and another skunk. My dad was my favorite turkey hunting buddy for years and years. I grew up hunting turkey hunting with dad. Dad was a really good woodsman. Oh, that's a picture of him right there behind me. And that's how he liked to be, too, carrying a dead turkey with his camouflaged cover-offs on. So we had been hunting some. We had a place up Missouri.

We loved to hunt. Of course, I know you spend a lot of time in the woods in the dark, and you get used to seeing things. You get used to your surroundings. I'm sure if you're walking up an old road, if there's something that wasn't there yesterday, you probably recognize that. And Dad wouldn't let you wear, you know, no kind of flashlight. You might have a little pin light that you'd have to shine through your fingers, you know, so you can see. So we're easing up this road and it's one of them perfect April mornings, you know, it's clear, it's cool. Turkey's hadn't started goblin yet, and we're going down this road.

I look up there and I see something in the road. I'm like, what the heck is that? And we step a little bit more. And about that time, my dad's shoving me out of the way. And dad's pretty good size, felt. And at that time, I was a lot rounder than what I was. I am now, and he's shoving me out of the way. And about that time, I could smell skunk. And I started laughing when I realized that he got sprayed all over his left side. And I kind of seen those skunk

throw its tail up and take off. They're like, oh, man. And I was laughing and puking and gagging. Dad in this incident had kind of blocked me. So that helped a whole lot, but I still got a pretty good dose of it. So backing up, we get rid of the skunk, but things settled down, and we hear a turkey goblin. Dad always said you needed to be where you wanted to listen from an hour before daylight. And we were pretty early, you know, but it was starting to get light, so we had to get up, crawled under a fence. So we eased up there, and Dad's holding the fence, and I'm trying to crawl through it, and my best hung at bottom strand of bobwired. And I'm hung up, and the fence made a bunch of racking.

I'm like, oh, God, dang, we're going to spoke this turkey before we get to him. Well, I kind of give it. He gets me unhooked, and I grabbed the fence. Dad gets underneath it, and we ease down there, and we finally get set. It's still dark. Turkeys ain't flew down yet, but they're goblin good. So we get set. You hear old turkey from him.

I got to look, and I could say it old whitehead. He's like, we need the chips here now, but. Old turkey finally gipped at him just barely on the tree, got him thinking our direction. Sucker flew down and he flew down and kind of hit lit underneath the ridge there's old old damn road right there. I knew he said he hit the ground you can hear him shuffling leaves and drumming gobre hard bow bones okay and I not quite got shakes but I know he's coming you know I got my gun on my knee he's up there and full strut and just god they're just so pretty you know some's coming up and kind of backlit through that tail fan it just so per I can see it.

like it was yesterday and this is probably been gosh dang 40 years ago holy smokes that just kind did the math in my head that's that's been a minute anyway he finally stuck his head up ka-pam shout it was a cool deal he flopped out man we high-five not again like I told you dad and I loved hunting together it was a big time so we'd snatch him up I told dad did he smell like skunk and he stunk bad and he's all right let's go find another one so we hung that one up at a tree because we was going on a pretty good hookup from here they had like to walk but we'd heard other turkeys way down so we went and made another set and struck another turkey and got set to him and just one you know mid-morning 730 hunts you know got and yapping at him here he comes and

old turkey would stop and strut and stop and strut and you know decoys and nothing you just try to get in the woods and hide somewhere were made that gobbler look for the hen you know i think a lot of lot of people have lost that nowadays. We've gotten used to using decoys or hunting fields or pastures. If you think about when you set up in the woods, set up where that gobber's got to come look for that hen, that he just can't see her from wherever he's at in open woods. And dad was good about that. So another fantastic hunt, just the kind of morning you live for. Over turkey's drumming and it's, oh, dad, there he is. There he is. And he was just milking it, you know. And I'm antsy. Dad shoots the turkey. So we've killed two longbeards.

this morning. So we high-five and do all that stuff. And I'm tooting the turkey because I'm the kid. So I told the turkey, we go find my turkey, go get the truck. We get in the truck. We get there. And at that time in my life, I tried to keep my truck pretty clean. I was a kid. And I had the inside all clean. I said, Dad, you can't wear them cover-offs up in my truck. I can't be having inside of my truck, smell like scum. So he'd throwed him in the toolbox. And at that time, we, you know, in Missouri you had to go to a check station and physically go take the bird and check it in and get somebody. So we're thinking, man, have a honey bun and a cup of coffee or something or Coke be good.

We walk in this door, and this lady worked behind the counter. We no more walked in. I mean, we didn't look around. She didn't say, can I help you? Do you need to check a turkey? She's throwed her head up like somebody put a spotlight on her. She said, I don't know which one of you two got to. that skunk piss on, but get the hell out of my store. So that was one I will always remember.

She did check the turkeys, but she said, y'all stay outside. I'll come out there. And we lost that in March of 2020. And I remember we was watching turkey hunting videos or something, and he'd always want to talk about that. That's a good story, Jimbo. Love it. Our next storyteller you'll be familiar with, because it's old Mo Shepherd. I always learned something listening to Mo talk about these Ozark public land turkeys, even if he won't tell me where he hunts. Here's Mo. Well, I've got a pretty good turkey story,

and all I'll say is perseverance and don't give up. That'll kill you more turkeys than a lot of fancy calls or anything else. Just stay after them. This story begins on an evening in about 2012. I was hunting in the Ozark Mountains again on public land. I'd hunted several days, but I hadn't had any luck. I mean, I'd heard a few birds, but I don't think I'd even call one in gun range of me. That season that year ended on a Tuesday, I hunted that weekend and it didn't even hear a bird.

But I said, well, you can't give up. I've got vacation I'm taking. I'm going to take the last two days and hunt. Well, I get up that Monday morning, the temperature's dropped about 40 degrees. It's about 35 degrees, and this is like the... second or third or fourth day of May and the wind is blowing well I go to a place where I'd heard some turkeys back earlier in the season hunting there all morning don't hear a thing thought boy I've wasted my vacation birds ain't goblin I thought well I'm out here I just

well stay after it so I ate me a little lunch I thought well I know a place I'm going to go I hadn't even been in here this year but I've killed turkeys in here in the past it's a long walk from where you can park and and get to it's a big long mountain it's got a big saddle on it and two knobs on each side of that saddle and it's got finger ridges runs off of that each of those knobs. It's a great place to turkey hunt. I'm not going to tell you where that's at. That's one of my secrets. Anyway, I decided to go up there that afternoon.

So I took off walking, started walking up a long finger ridge to one of those knobs. I thought, well, I'll make my way up. This long ridge, through the saddle, up on the second knob, and then come back off of it on a long ridge, and that'll make a good evening hunt. Well, I went all up this long ridge. It took me probably an hour and a half or so to get up. in there up on top of that knob. Hadn't heard nothing. The wind's still a howling and the blowing. So I'm calling a little louder and more frequent than I like to, but sometimes you have to do that

when the wind's blowing. And, well, I still hadn't heard anything. I thought, well, I'm going to go through this saddle. Maybe the wind will be a little calmer in that saddle. So I got in that saddle. While I was wrong about that, the wind was worse than the saddle. It was whipping around those knobs and just whistling. I thought, well, this ain't no good. I thought I'm not going to get up on that knob. I'm going to go around the side of that knob and get on that finger ridge over there. I made my way around over there, called a few times. Didn't hear anything. Got on that ridge there, and it really looked pretty nervous some fresh scratchings in there i thought these turkeys in here they just ain't say anything so i'm just going to sit down here so i got situated in there against a big old tree and

started calling and i don't know i probably sat there 30 40 minutes and i just fixing to get up and i thought i believe i heard a gobble down below me in the holler right below me there so i settled a bit and i called again it sure enough it was i heard a turkey gobble so i called again didn't hear nothing called again after five or six minutes didn't hear anything thought well maybe it can't hear me, you know, because this wind's a howling. So I don't matter if I could or cackled or this yep loud or what I did and right over the break from me just, I mean, got after it. So I got all exciting and got ready and I looked and here comes two big red heads. It was two gobblers, two big mature goblers. And here in Arkansas, we're only allowed one per day.

Anyway, I just called and messed around and finally one of them got in a good place down where I could shoot and I shot and took him down and the other and flew off down the canyon just out of sight. This was about probably 5, 5.30 in the afternoon. I was tickled to death. I went down there and looked at my gobbler and thought, man, it paid off to come back in here and hunt, even though I hadn't been in it this year because this has already been a good spot for me. And I took vacation his last, next last day of season. Now I got thinking, there's one more day of turkey season. I thought, why would I want to go anywhere else? I may have spooked him by shooting. But so what?

I know there's a gobbler in here. If I can interest him next morning, maybe I can get him. So I carried my turkey out, got back in my truck, went home, slept what little I could during the night. Got up the next morning. It was the same way. Cold, wind blowing. I thought, that turkey's up there somewhere off that long ridge down in there. Got about halfway up to that knob up there.

And I hooted, and that dude gobbling. He was right on top of that knob up there and all that wind. So I made my way up there within, I wasn't at the same tree. I was probably within 30, 40 yards of where I killed that one the evening before. and it was starting to break light. He'd gobble several times while I was walking up that way. He was still up on the hill above me. I thought, I'm going to set up right here,

even though if that's the one that was here yesterday evening, he thought there was a hen up here because they were coming. So I sat down there and wait a little bit. I heard him gobble again. It was getting light. I made a few soft yelps, tree yelps, and a couple of clucks. He answered me back. I just shut up and just got my gun ready and sat there.

And the wind was blowing, so I never heard him fly down. Probably 10 minutes I looked, and I seen the tail fan right. out there right above me on the hillside there. I just got ready and he just straighted his way right down about 25 yards from me before I got it opening to shoot at him and took him down. Another nice big old material long-bearded gobbler. And I guess part of the moral of that story is that I'd hunted all season, hadn't heard many turkeys or anything, but I loved the turkey hunt and I decided to take off and hunt those last two days. Patience and persistence will bid you a lot of turkeys out in those woods.

It's hard to beat a guy that just won't give up. We've all had bad years. The fact that the last two days were cold and windy and he went anyway is inspirational because that would have been a great excuse not to go. Our last storyteller is new to the Bear Grease podcast. David Joy is a novelist from Western North Carolina. He's won a lot of prestigious awards for his books.

He's written for Garden and Gun, Time Magazine and New York Times, and his novel, where all light tends to go, is being made into a film. And they tell me, listen to this, that he's got a big following of people in Europe, as well as here in America. As fancy as all that sounds about Mr. Joy, I bet you'll be surprised when you hear him talk. He's one of us. He's a turkey hunter. Here's our last story. Meet David Joy.

So I'm really fortunate in that the woman that I fell in love with understands and has somewhat adopted my obsession with turkeys. But the difference between us is that she works like a real job and I'm 40 years old and I really hadn't struck a lick at anything yet. So because she works though, she might get two to three days to hunt every year. So this was probably her second season and I'd gotten, and she'd still never even taken a shot at a bird. But I'd gotten his permission on a buddy of mine's farm.

And the way that this land lays out, it's kind of like you're in a big bowl. And at the bottom, it's probably like 2,500 feet somewhere around there. And the ridge line is probably 4,000 feet. And he owns all of it. But the house and the majority of the pasture is in the bottom of that. And when you sit down there of a morning, and you'll usually hear four or five turkeys goblin.

And the way that those turkeys use that landscape is they tend to roost high and then they pitch low. And then they land in them fields at the bottom and then throughout the day they slowly worked their way back up high. And so we were hunting this place. We'd spent all morning trying to get on birds and hadn't really gotten on anything. And it was just about time that she was about to give up

and we were going to call it quits. and I thought, well, we'll just kind of throw the bag at them and see if we can't get something to happen. And a lot of times I like to run two calls at once just to try to sound like a couple of different hens. But the idea is like you've got these two hens that are bickering back and forth. And so I'm doing that, and all of a sudden this bird just hammers just,

pow! Both of us, you know, are just look at each other and it's like game on. And where this bird is, I can tell that he's, maybe two pastures over. So we start looking around on where we might get set up and whatnot. Still don't know if the birds coming at this point, but kind of get to an area where I know we can set up. I do the same calling sequence again, and he's just, pah! And this time he's cut the distance in half. And I can tell that he's in that very next pasture. And I told her,

I said, I said, this bird's doing everything, everything just right. I said, well, get up. here. I said, and we'll get set up in this timber. And I said that bird should just pop into this pasture and he'll work his way up the edge towards us. And as turkeys are wont to do, this bird doesn't follow the script. You know, we're sitting there and we're set up looking down this pasture. The next time this bird gobbles, he's above us. And we're, we're pinned down. Like there is no getting up moving, nothing. And Ashley's set up below. below me. And I kind of peek over my shoulder and I see this bird and he's basically set up a strut zone up there and he's working back and forth. Just pop. And I call to him and he

answers but he's not coming. And I start making hand signals at Ashley and I tell her that we need to switch spots and she she understands and she gets set up on that tree and I start belly crawling down the hill and I start just doing some real light hen calling like a like a just a feeding hen some purrs and you know real light clucks just wines whistles real soft stuff leaf scratching and the idea I had was that I was going to try to make this bird believe that I was a feeding hen that didn't want nothing to do with him and I was just feeding my way on out of there and so that's what I did well the bird's still answering next thing I know that that bird's coming.

And so at that point, I'm not, I'm kind of out in the open. And so I'm laying on my stomach. And I've just got my face down buried in my arms so that I hopefully will just look like the ground. And Ashley's up there with her gun pointed in the pasture. And I hear this bird answer. And I lifted my head and I'll never forget this. There was two goblers and there may be 30 yards above her.

Coming down this pasture in full strut, both of their heads just drained like hourglasses. I mean, just white heads. And I thought, oh, my God, they're on top of her. And I just dipped my head. And I mean, the whole time I'm thinking, she's about to shoot, she's about to shoot, she's about to shoot. And this goes on. It feels like, you know, forever, it feels like I'm laying there for an hour. And all of a sudden just, boom.

And as soon as she shot, I jumped up. and one of the birds was flying off and the other one had his head up and he was just turning his head one eyeball turned another one eyeball turned another I just trying to figure out what's going on and I start screaming reload reload reload

because she's shooting this old single shot shotgun and she ain't got but one shot and she's looking at me like oh no what in the world do I do and next thing you know that bird puts cackles he's out of there sets them wings and you know just paraglider on across the mountain. What had happened was when that bird come down, she got so excited at looking at that

turkey that she got off the gun. And when that happens, the tendency is you're going to adjust the bead and nine times out of ten, you're going to shoot high. It's like me and a buddy was hunting one time, and I missed, and I missed on a bird, and I told him, I said, I think I shot high and him being a lot older and a lot more experienced, he told me, he said, David in all my years, I ain't ever seen nobody shoot the feet off one. And his point was that you inevitably shoot high. And that's what had happened there was that she got off the gun and she shot high. So she's just absolutely heartbroken. And it winds up being the last chance she gets to hunt that year. And so this literally eats her up for like a year. And she's just wanting her next shot.

Jump forward that next year and we're in that very same pasture. Kind of the same situation. Didn't get on any birds early. It's starting to get midday. It's almost quitting time. And all of a sudden one fires up just, and we're like midway in the pasture. The bird is coming.

The birds are coming from the bottom of the pasture up. We don't have a set up. We don't have time. And I just see this old scraggly locusts that's got briars and everything all around it, and I thought I'm going to put her in that. And I went just over the lip in this pasture, and just, I didn't have anywhere to get. I just laid down on the ground. We start calling to these birds and they're answering.

I can't see anything that's going on down there. You know, I can't see the turkeys. I can't see her. I can't see anything. And all of a sudden, I hear this, boom! And once again, I jump up, and it's the same situation. a bird taking off and there's another bird standing over there with his head up and he's turning his eye looking one way looking at the other turn away and I'm screaming reload reload

reload and uh ashley turns around and she looks at me and she's just like what are you talking about I said you missed and she said I didn't miss and I look and there's a bird flopping down there and what had happened was there was four birds come in and I didn't see none of them and I thought she'd missed again, but she'd finally killed her first turkey. One of the reasons that story sticks out to me is just, it was one of the proudest moments I'd ever seen in her, and it was because of how hard she worked to get it. You know, she'd hunted three seasons, and, you know, two seasons before she got her first shot, three seasons before she finally killed her first bird. You know, and I just remember that old Tom Kelly line where Tom said, he said, we pay for every turkey

we kill. And the coin that we pay with is time. That was a good story, David. Did she ever forgive you, though, for thinking that she missed again? Turkey stories are unique, complex, and give us the opportunity to reflect on what actually happens in the spring woods. I find a lot of clarity in sharing my stories with people. Reliving these moments is powerful for both the storyteller and the listener. Telling and listening to stories isn't a periphery human activity, but it's core. And having a friend that will attentively listen, empathize, get excited, be let down, and relive

the moment with you is incredibly important. It's why we love people. It's why we have friends. It's why we have family. And it's essential to having a healthy whole life. I think this year I'm going to focus on listening more closely to other people's stories. And maybe if I do that, they'll listen to mine. And we'll all be able to triangulate the data and we'll be some turkey hunting suckers.

Man, I hope you all have a great spring turkey season. In 2023, let's do some stuff for turkeys. Let's do some control burns, trap some predators, and make some timber stand improvements to help those goblers. As we know, some of them are struggling. Hey, have a great spring. Thank you so much for listening to Bear Grids. I look forward to talking with all the folks on the render next week. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, And the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't.

This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.