Bear Grease - Ep. 154: Deer Stories - Gruntin’, Missin’, Buckin’ & Tradbow Bucks (Part 2)

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

This week on Bear Grease, Clay Newcomb again hears from several whitetail deer hunters as hardcore as they are diverse in their methods. Gary "Believer" Newcomb tells about the one who got away when he left his decoy at home. Andy Brown tells about calling in deer, sealing the deal, and missing by a mile. John Harrison tells the story of a buck with questionable ownership and how the answer came out in the frying pan. Tony Peterson tells the story of a hunt where the adrenaline got the best of him and he got the best of the best buck of his career. Dale Craig and Travis Ross tell a story of a perfect deer hunt on horseback…until it wasn’t. Stoney Edwards discusses running dogs on whitetails and Louie Dale Edwards' last good buck. David Albright tells about killing a great buck with his traditional bow over white oak acorns. We hope you get out into the wild this week, chase a deer and remember, we’re living in the heyday of whitetail deer hunting.  We really doubt you’re gonna wanna 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.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. He's fixing to come out, and he did. He just come right on around that tree right there. And Clay, he just walked out there. It's like shooting down that floor right there.

They ain't even a huckleberry bush between me and him. We found ourselves in the heartwood dates of mid-October. With every sunset, the earth is tilting north, making the day shorter, the shadows longer, and the whitet bucks are on their feet more. Deer hunters, this is the absolute best time of year. And if you're not one, it might be hard to understand this deep, almost DNA-level desire to be in the woods during this ephemeral window of opportunity.

This is the second episode in our 2023 Deer Story series. We've got some voices you'll recognize and some new ones that you won't. These seven storytellers represent a vast swath of the diverse ways in which people, love to hunt white-tailed deer. We've got bow hunts, musloader hunts, running deer with dog hunts, hunts with bucking horses, and a traditional archery giant

on public land. Actually, a couple of giants on public land. As a matter of fact, every story on this podcast is from public land. This, my brothers and sisters, is a celebration of North America's greatest pageant,

the white-tail deer season. I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. And hey, Meat Eaters Season 12 is up on Meat Eaters YouTube channel. That's right. You can watch Stephen Runella's Meat Eater, the original episodes on Meat Eaters YouTube channel. And right now, you can watch my Alaskan Black Bear hunt where I killed a bear by swimming up on it in a wetsuit. And it's not too late to get stocked up on the best white tail gear in the industry at First Light. A percentage of all sales of our Spectre Camo.

that's First Light's tree stand white tail camo, which I believe is the best tree stand camo made goes to the National Deer Association. We gutted that old deer and went back and got the horses. That's probably the first time we ever put a deer behind the canals out. I don't know why we done that, but we put it behind the kennel. That was the first and the last time where we got the camp.

That's when everything went south on us. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight and 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. Our first storyteller is my dad, Gary Believer Newcomb. There are no Black Panthers in this one, but a year hasn't gone by since 1997 that I haven't thought about this hunt or heard dad tell it. Some stories are just iconic. They seem to brand the hunter in a sphere of influence for life.

The brand can be a celebration of success. Other times, it's a reminder of failure and what not to do. but sometimes a story becomes almost mythical like a supernatural encounter. This one is like that. And you can't fake one of these or try to make one happen. They happen on their own. Here's the believer. One of my favorite deer stories, I guess because it took so much effort to get to this deer,

or these deer, I didn't know this particular deer was there. I just knew there was big deer there. I found only one real big rub. A lot of deer sign in just one little compact area. And this place was hard to get to. And I was so serious about this area that I bought two decoys. I bought a big buck and I bought a bedded dough. My theory was to call the deer in and have it come to that decoy

and then I'd be taking it home with me. I'd been up there a lot, or I've been in that area a whole lot, and I knew a lot about it. But I wasn't sure how long it would take to get back in there. So I left one morning at about 11 o'clock. My objective was to time it and go, okay, I'm going to have to leave my pickup two hours early, an hour and a half early, three hours, whatever it took. And so I treated it exactly like a hunt, except I didn't take a decoy with me. which was a mistake. But I had clean clothes.

If you know some of my other hunts, I'm not like clay. I felt like I put so much energy into it. I didn't want any of my, you know, I didn't want something that I had a little control of to give me up. So I had my scent lock stuff in a bag, but I had it clean clothes in a trash bag

that had been aired out. I went into the area. Yeah, it was a two and a half hour trip for me. to go in there. I got within a distance where I knew it wouldn't affect the stand and I took all my clothes off, sprayed down, even put clean boots on. I mean, I did everything. I did just about everything you could do to be as scent free as possible. Then I slowly moved into my stand and I already had my stand up and it was an old ambusher, which is 14 feet high. And all, you know, there just wasn't a good place to put it.

It was real hard to find a tree in the right spot. And the tree I found had a V in it. So my back, instead of leaning up against a tree, had a V to my back opening. The reason I was there, there was isolated sign in this one little spot. You could walk a mile to the left, a mile to the right,

a half a mile, just, you know, any direction. and this spot had tremendous sign. So anyway, I was timing all this stuff, and I got up in my stand, and when I got up in my stand, it was 3 o'clock. So if I left the house at 11, I'm in my stand at 3.

I mean, that's a four-hour trip. So, I mean, I'm figuring I'm going to get up at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning to go hunt this deer. So I get up in the stand, and I had my rattling, horns and I had my grunt call and I've never been able to duplicate this. I tried over and over and over again, never could. But I started calling and I started rattling and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I mean, I was so into it that I never could replicate it. It was just something about the

environment, knowing where I was, all this hot sign, and there was probably a deer within hearing distance. And so I was just banging my horns just as hard as I could. And I had a call that I've never heard anybody except one guy ever mentioned it. The call has been good to me. And the call is, well, I get in stand me. And I mean, I, I mean, I, I, well, I didn't stand me. And I mean, I, I'm pumped, man. I mean, I am red alert in the zone, but I got to have a deer in front of me or beside me. I can't stand up and turn.

You know, I'm going to tell you, I had something happened to me when I was young, and it just heights just scared me to death. So I knew I wouldn't be able to stand up and turn and shoot through that V. And so all of a sudden, I hear a deer coming. And I'm thinking, I thought specifically, that is a six-point buck, and I am not going to shoot it. And he was making, guess what?

The exact call I was making, except he was just a little shorter. He was going, and I was going, you know. I mean, it's just a note or two off. So finally, he had come from a long ways. I mean, he started grunting way off. And when he finally came in to my backside, I could tell when it was already too late to try to get myself situated to shoot, that it was going to be a big one. And when he stepped in at about 35 or 40 yards, his ears were laying straight back. His hair was standing straight out.

And he was ready to kill something. And if I'd had a decoy out there, I feel sure it'd be one like you see on YouTube where they just take that sucker down. And so when he pulls up and he doesn't see anything, he pulls in right behind me. Instead of coming around, he's like he stops, kind of cools off a little bit, thinking, what? And he comes exactly behind me. I could see his antlers were up in the short trees. You know, you could see his body, but you couldn't see his horns, even though I'd seen his horns. His horns were real tall and narrow, you know, maybe a 16, 17-inch spread, maybe 15, but they were tall with a lot of points.

And all of a sudden, he was just gone, you know. He slipped out there. I didn't hear him leave. Didn't see him leave. The unique thing about the hunt to me was that call and the fall. and the fact that I was in such a frenzy myself. I mean, I started to get down and charge you. So it was just to me, it was just that the environment I was in, I think, had a lot to do with my emotions.

Because when you looked around, you just don't see stuff like I was seeing. I mean, the woods were different. The woods were different. And you just knew you were in a special place and at a special time and that there was a chance a really big buck was going to come in. As my dad has told this story through the years, it was clear his encounter with this giant buck while bow hunting on public land marked him. And honestly, it marked me too. I've been chasing this exact hunt trying to have one just like it in the same spot for over a decade and it hasn't happened yet. Dad and I talk about this buck all the time. You got to remember that in 1997, outdoor TV had really just started, and people just didn't rattle in that many bucks outside the Midwest. And that story plays in my mind like a real memory, almost like it happened to me. It's pretty great to have your own podcast so you can cherry pick the stories you want to tell. But I'm sure you've got stories like this in your family from the people that have influenced you. Hopefully, this will be.

remind you to keep them alive. One of the best parts of the last several falls for me has been going to Andy Brown's house to hear deer stories. Last episode, he told the legendary story about his father in that 1956 Chevy with the gray door. After that, I asked him if he had any good dear calling stories. Here's two that he rattled off in short order. One great story with that was me and Steve.

Steve Phillips and Wayne Pate, we went in on top of B. It was opening day of Musilode. And we got in there. Of course, it's a long ways in there where you got to go. We'd go all the way top of the mountain and then we'd split up and I'd go east and them boys go west. Anyway, we pulled up there and we got out and they went piddled around, getting their stuff good. And I said, boys, I'm out of here. And so I just took off out of game trail going kind of over on the south side of the mountain. And I got maybe 50 yards from camp, and I went into my sneak mode,

and I'd just take two or three steps, and it was still. I'd just take two or three steps, and I'd grunt, and I'd listen, I'd stand. I might stand three or four minutes, and I'd just two or three deliberate steps out through there. Anyway, I had probably made it 100 yards. And I pulled up there,

and there's kind of a flat holly. really it runs off the south side of the mountain there and I pulled up there and I grunted and when I did I heard that deer get up and I just stood there and I grunted again and all of a sudden just snap pop and I looked and here he come and it was a really good eight point he had those ears laid back and he was just stifling it and just walked right up there and when I shot Stephen Wayne went oh they're still at the truck they ain't even got I didn't even left the truck you know Anyway, but I had to be a deer killed there within 15 minutes right there, you know. But I did the same thing one time I was over on...

And Steve was with me that morning. We went in there at the food pot, at the divide up there, and kind of went back west, and I don't know if you've ever been in there, but there's four or five virgin pines right there on the side of the mountain. Everybody ought to go look at them because they're the big, I mean, that they left, you know. But anyway, I pulled right in on top of the mountain. And when you get in there kind of back west, it gets legy.

There's a lot of rocks in there on top. At that time, I had an old hawk as buzz loader that my brother-in-law had put together. That thing shot round balls. I mean, you could shoot squirrels with round balls, but no, no, that wasn't good enough for Andy. I had to give me some buffalo balls for that dude, you know. And so I bought me some, that's a new thing out, them 400-grain buffalo balls, you know, so I get them, take them up there on, we'll live on a racetrack road.

This is back in the 80s, mid-80s. And so didn't even get to shoot it. So I took it out up there above the house, threw out, I think it was a milk jug out in the shell pit up there after dark, in the headlights and shot at it with the, to see if it would hit, you know. But anyway, anyway, I get up there and I did the same thing. William was right in my face coming out of the west.

And I just started easing out the side of the mountain there, just grunting. And you can see it was pretty, you know, it was leggy, and you can see good. I got out there probably 100 yards out the top there And a deer went to blowing at me back west And I thought well that deer ain't it's not blowing at me You can't smell me the wind's right in my face you know And so I just kind of sat down there

It wasn't real comfortable It's pretty steep And I just sat down and kind of back up against the rock there I'd run into time between that woodwise And I was sitting there and I thought I'm going to ease just a little further right there A little better spot, a little flatter I just got up and just walked out there not much further than where you're sitting there.

And I grunted again, and when I did right on top of the mountain right there just right above me, right through the rocks, that buck deer was standing where I was sitting. And of course, there I am, gun this way. The deer's not, he come right out through the rocks, right? I mean, he was standing where I had just left. And I thought, oh, crap. So he just standing there and he was looking for me. And about that time, he just started off.

And there was a, I'd say it was a spotted oak, blowed down on the side of the mountain there. He just went right in around that thing and just went to walk in front of me. And, of course, he's fixing to come out. And he did. That dude, he just come right on around that tree right there. And Clay, he just walked out there.

It's like shooting down that floor right there. They ain't even a huckleberry. bush between me and him. I mean, just right there, you know. And I just raise up and I said, oh boy, you have had it this time, you know, and I just pulled it there. And when I touched the trigger, when the smoke cleared, that old deer still standing there looking just like that. That dude, he ain't even budged, you know. He just standing there looking and I'm going, oh, crap, so I get my stuff, you know, and you're shaking like a leaf and you're trying to, you know, I had powder, you know, and I've tried to get the powder.

And that dude stood there until I got my ramrod on my ball. And he just wheeled and right off the mountain he went. And the rest is history. He's still going north. But I mean a big buck deer. I mean a bigot deer. So I get back down to the truck. And Steve said, was that you shot?

And I said, yeah. And he said, well, shooting that. I said, man, I was shooting it. A big buck deer up there. And I said, I mean, I don't know how I missed that. dude. I mean, he's a little downhill, you know. So I had a piece of just paper in the, in the truck. I went out there and I stuck it on a bush. And I backed up what I thought was about ride, about 30 yards. And when I touched the trigger, about a foot high and about 16 inches

to the ride, I blowed a limb off that bush. I shot over the course. I do I shot over him because he was shoot under if they're going to leave, you know. But that's the way hunting goes. Those are good stories, Andy. There are few. A few things as exciting as grunting and having a big buck respond, and few things as crushing as missing a buck you know that you should have hit. I'm not sure how someone can claim to have lived a full human life unless they've missed a big white tail they should have killed. Now, that's not true. That's a blanket, hyperbolic, and inaccurate statement, but you get the point. It's irrationally crushing to miss a big deer.

And Andy told me that the feeling doesn't get any better over the years. Most things heal with time, but Miss Bucks just don't. 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 day 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, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next story is told by my new friend John Harrison. He's 80 years old and he lives in northwest Arkansas. When I was getting my truck worked on the other day, he told me this. story. And then he took me into his house and showed me the sun-fated mount of a handsome eight-point buck

on the wall. It sure wasn't his biggest buck, but it's the one he wanted to talk about. He's kept a written record of every hunt he's been on since 1980. He showed me the three-ring binder. I told him that his story about that eight-point was a bare-grease-style story. And though he'd never heard of a podcast. I told him I wanted to record it, and so we did. Here's a short one, but a good one for Mr. John Harrison. Okay, my name is John Harrison. I was born and raised in the Boston Mountains. I have a deer story. It's not a huge deer, but it was happening me and my brother-in-law had got up one morning and went hunting. I was down on one bench.

He was up on the next bench. And we jumped this deer off of the bench he was on, and it came down by me, but he was shooting at it. And he knew where I was, so he wasn't shooting toward me because I knew where he was. And this deer came down, and when it saw me, it turned and went back toward him. And I began shooting, and the deer,

just run little ways and dropped. So we both congregated around the deer, looked it over. Well, it looked like I had shot it because it was shot in the left side instead of the right side. But he thought he killed it, and I said, okay, fine with me. I didn't really care who killed the deer.

And so we got the deer out, and he took it and had it processed. He had the horns mounted. It was the first deer we'd ever killed at our cabin. And about long, that same, not that winter, but the next following year winter. He called me one night, and he said, John, come and get you deer. I said, what do you mean come and get my deer? Says, my wife threw a steak in a skillet, and the bullet fell out in the skilis.

and I looked at it and it was your bullet. So it's your deer, you can come and get it. And so I said, okay, and he had it completely already mounted and everything. So I went and got it and brought it home and hung it on the wall. And that's where it's been ever since about 1972, I believe. Got a free mount out of the deal. I let him keep the meat and I took the mounted head. Now, that was a good story, Mr. John.

I appreciate how easily you were able to let go of a buck you honestly thought was yours, but how quickly you took it back when the truth came out in the skillet. That's the way things work in the backwoods. That's good one. Our next story is meat eater's own Tony Peterson with the Wired to Hunt podcast. There are a few people in the country as well-traveled or more successful on public land for white tails than Tony. I have a lot of respect for him as a white-tail hunter. Tony's from Wisconsin, which is a serious deer hunting state,

and this wild hunt takes place on some crowded public land in Nebraska. Here's Tony. Man, it was kind of like a scene out of a movie. My hunting partner and I were standing there in our camo, beside our tents, drinking some instant coffee, eating a donut when the cavalry arrived. I mean, truck after truck started to pull into the... the campground. And we were pretty surprised, even though we probably shouldn't have been, because it was November 7th. But seeing all those hunters driving in made us just scramble to load up

our packs and start hiking up a bluff toward a ridge top. It's just covered in, you know, CRP grass and kind of dotted with islands of cedars. And we knew that the pressure in the creek bottom from all the new arrivals would be intense. So we figured we'd outwork our competition and go hunt above them. And when we got to the top, we were sweaty and winded, but we could also see headlamps kind of just bobbing their way through the bottom way below us. We also sell one headlamp following us, so we decided to wait and chat with him. We never caught this dude's name, but he was from Michigan, super nice, and happened to be hunting a spot right between where my hunting partner was going to set up and where I was going to set up. So essentially any buck running

the ridge was going to have to dodge some arrows. It wasn't ideal, but it was public land hunting during the rut. And I hung my stand in the dark in a barely big enough cedar, and I settled in way before first light. And when it finally got light enough to look around, the view was incredible, except for the fact that I couldn't see any deer, and I could see a hell of a lot of the Nebraska countryside.

I figured it was just due to the influx of hunters, the presence of so many people that had pushed the deer out. Still, it was prime time. The weather was cold. It was overcast. It was relatively still. And I kept thinking, you know, something's going to work its way through

from the neighboring private fields to go bed on public. What I didn't expect was to go from daydreaming about deer activity to hearing an extremely loud and awful close grunt. It caught me totally off guard. Like so much so that I stood straight up

and I looked to my left where standing, I don't know, like maybe 60 yards away was a doe. And that old girl had me pegged. I mean, she was just on me. which isn't so bad in and of itself, but I could also see three stark white racks in the brush around her, so it wasn't a great feeling.

And they weren't little racks either. So when I say, you know, in that moment I felt dumb, imagine, you know, any time in your life where you felt dumb and then multiply that by like a million, to have a hot dough that close with three bucks on her tail and to get busted by such a rookie move, it was so frustrating. And the dough and I, we had a staring contest, for what I don't know felt like forever but was probably only half of a minute or so and what broke the spell and was absolute music to my ears was a grunt and as soon as that first buck grunted because he couldn't take it anymore the second one grunted and then it was like a carousel of white antlers going around that dough and she shook her ears looked toward the edge of the bluff and took off and as soon as she did it was pure chaos the first buck to follow her

was, I don't know, all of 140 inches. And while I got him to stop long enough for me to shoot, I didn't aim at all. I mean, I just lost it. I was so keyed up with buck fever that I stopped that buck and I just drew and shot. And that arrow went way over his back. And she dropped below the ridge, he followed, and I reloaded.

The second buck was, I don't know, probably 120 inches. So not as big as the first one, but definitely no slouch on public land. I drew on that deer And I gave him my most desperate MIRP and just watched as he trotted right through and dropped out of my life He never stopped And that meant two-thirds of the bucks around me Were well out of range and not likely to return anytime soon

But that's also when I heard of rustling in the grass And saw the last buck making a potentially fatal mistake Instead of following the rest of the deer down the trail He cut out and around Which brought him right past my stand When I say things happen fast, I mean it. The whole thing was a blur of activity that was about to culminate in a close shot

on a really, really good deer if I could get him to stop. So when that 10-pointer trotted past the base of my tree, I murped him too, and he did stop at like seven yards while standing quartering away. And I'd like to say that I took my time and I settled my pin and executed a perfect shot. But the truth is, I have no eye.

idea what I did. I was on the edge of even being in the same world as that buck by that point. And all I know is that everything felt really good, even though it unfolded so fast. So when he took off after that shot, I thought I saw him go over Applecard on the edge of the bluff, but almost immediately the second guessing settled in. I tried to sit down, I tried to settle down, but I was shaking so bad I couldn't. I couldn't do anything, but hold on to my bow and the tree, just try to remember how it had gone down, try to fill in the blanks. And after a while, I finally got to the point where I could glass my arrow in the grass, and the magnified view made me feel so much better. I could see red swaths of blood covering the yellow grass,

and it looked like the shot was as good as I hoped. So I texted my hunting partner that I thought we were in for a drag, and he responded that I could just make that a double, since he had arrowed an eight-pointer about the same time I had shot my buck. And while recovering my deer, a buck that scored just under 160. It has just cool palmation through his main beams. It took about 30 seconds. My hunting partner shot was less than ideal. But we managed to get my buck back to camp

and then sort out his blood trail to get his deer as well. And then later, as we were butchering both of them in camp, that Michigan hunter from the morning came trudging down the hill with a great eight-pointer on a deer cart. So we went three for three on one ridge. in one morning on public land. It was honestly one of the wildest and most memorable hunts of my life

and not just because I killed the biggest deer in my career. Those are the kind of mornings you never forget and we chase those kinds of moments every year but they're extremely rare. That was a good story, Tony. Our next storytellers, you'll recognize their voices

if you listen to the last episode. It's Dale Craig and Travis Ross. You may remember Dale Craig's Apple Rowland story and then Travis killing a buck in front of Louis Dale and Charlie Edwards' dogs. These guys are from Western Arkansas and they're about as good of hunters as there are. They're going to tag team this story about a horseback deer hunt

that went really well until right at the end. We left out that morning and way before daylight. It was the first morning, the gun season, first morning, frosty one of them good mornings we ride in there about four miles tie the horses up I headed up there to what we call the double gaps I climbed the mountain I get up there and I'm propped up against the tree I did I mean I had just got there and I heard this these deer coming from down in it it's a deep deep canyon and it was something you wouldn't you wouldn't believe a deer would even go go off and come up

It was so steep and rough. And there's not even any big trees growing in there. They're just, it's just blackjack in rocks. And the little blackjacks, you know, they don't get six, eight inches thick, you know. But one of them deer running through that junk like that, they make ten times more noise. It sounded like a whole herded ear coming up. And they run, and it was a big old doe come out first. She run right up 30 feet from me.

And just, I mean, saw me and just locked up and was looking. at me and I the buck was oh probably 50 yards behind her and then about that time he shows up he just he didn't know anything was going on he was zeroed in on that old dough he ran up right up to that dough and you know when an old buck knows there's something going on if you've ever watched them they'll they just all of a sudden they'll just kind of hump up a little bit their old tails starts fuzzing out and he started doing that I already had my gun up but I just I put the crosshairs right behind his shoulder just a few inches behind and I squeezed that gun and when I did I mean that both those deer took off up the side of the mountain and I thought I missed that deer and I

bolted another shell in there right quick and shot and that time he didn't go three steps and he went down and a little bit Travis he shows up over there. You didn't even think it was me shooting because I usually don't shoot twice. No, because you shot twice. You never shoot twice. We got it that old deer and we got the horses. We walked back and got the horses, rode back up there. Rote back to the top of the mountain. That's probably the first time we ever put a deer behind the can. Yeah, I don't know why we done that, but we put it behind the kennel, stood up in the front. And it worked real good until we got the camp. Well, I think one reason we did that because it was

up on top of that mountain. It's steep going off there. You got to, if you got them in front of the saddle, you've got to hold on to them. Even if they're tied, you've got to kind of hold them. And, you know, you're going off. And, you know, it's pretty tough sometimes getting off the side of a big old mountain like that. So we put that one behind us. Behind it. Yeah.

That was the first and the last time because when we got to camp, that's when everything went south on us. Yeah, we got back there, and we all putting our horses away as me and my brother was with us. I know my boy was there He's probably riding with one of us Anyway Dale stepped off old big Cody We had horses tied around there And this and that unsaddling He took his knife

Cut one side of them strings Holding that deer around Well he just, that deer just went Whop and just hit on the ground Yeah I cut him loose on that one side And I wouldn't expect him He just fell off and Flopped over so Cody

He's got a deer hit the ground Beside him tied to him By a back leg or both back legs and the way he goes. Well, he stepped over to see what was going on, and he wasn't a bronchie horse, but he just stepped over to see what was going on, and it started pulling, and it was falling him,

and then he thought, uh-oh. The further he went, the more of that old buck was chasing him, and it was just around and around, and we had horses upside down and backers and underneath horse trailer, goose necks, and everywhere which way was just throwing a fit. So I told my boy, I said, run.

I said, get out of here. All of a sudden, he just took off, like this little cotton top running off the hill. He's about five years old. He was cutting for Tulsa, getting away from all that mess. Finally, I just jumped on that deer and I cut it loose. As soon as we got the deer cut loose running, everything was all right. It's a wonder somebody hadn't had to run over and stomp. Oh, yeah.

That sounds like a rodeo. And if you've never been in the midst of a horse fit, as Travis described it, the power, energy, and the flight response felt. by most is a wild sensation. It's kind of a sense of helplessness. But a good hand keeps a level head and knows what to do to calm the situation down.

But I don't think these guys cared much because they killed a big buck that morning. Our next story is told by Stoney Edwards. Does that name ring a bell? Stony is the son of Charlie Edwards and the nephew of Louisdale Edwards. Stoney was on the

genuine outlaw series talking about his dad and uncle. This story would mean more to you if you listen to those episodes starting at episode 51. This is a little more history about their deer camp and Louisdale Edwards last buck. Here's Stony Edwards. Well, I'm Stony Edwards. Charlie Edwards was my dad. Louis was my uncle. we've been running dogs in the same exact woods my family has for a hundred years a lot of people probably don't understand running dogs and we do it different than others do we all meet up at camp or we're at camp everybody spreads out and they go get in the gaps in the mountains and i mean we walk wherever we've got to to get to a gap we think the dogs are going to run through

One of my favorite things in the world, I make the deer drives. I go with the dogs. Sometimes I'll average three or four miles every morning, just on foot in the mountains. I know where the stands are. I can turn loose just about anywhere, and I can walk straight to wherever you said you was going that morning. But I've been doing this since I was six years old. Some of those stands are, for our older members, are not too far off the road. For the young ones, they get to go that two miles to get in there to a game.

gap, that's usually where you kill best deer's in there two miles. Nobody wants them stands. It's a long ways to drag one out. But we'll go in there and we'll sit till 11, 30, 12 o'clock, and everybody will come out and we'll move our operation to another spot. The road hunting thing for years at our camp was, I mean, it was taboo. Boy, you shoot one off the road, you're in trouble. and I say this with all the lawless things that I know have been done over the year that one seemed like one of the most minor ones but it would sure get you a butt chewing from dad or Uncle O'Dill up there camp I mean between Uncle Oudill and dad and me when we get to camp we probably averaged about 40 to 50 dogs we could keep them fresh that way

dad almost always had some mutts these dogs could be in anything from Cattahoole Curs to part of Australian, Shepherd Walker, Beagle Mix. I mean, and somehow or another, one of them dogs would always outrun the good ones. And I usually turn four to five dogs loose at a time. It makes the sound prettier when they're running. I mean, I can get a race with two dogs.

Some of them I can get a race with one dog. But a lot of times, if you've got four or five dogs, you'll hear them split. They've jumped a couple of deer or they've jumped the whole herd that's running and a buck will split off a lot of times. Them dogs, if you hear them split, if you'll remember I talked about my little lemon drop dog. A lot of people talk about a dog that'll only run a buck. I ain't going to say she'll only run a buck, but if he splits off, she's going to be on it. And of course the smell's different.

She did it. I know she did it three times last year. I don't know. If a person that's never hunted with dogs, it's hard to describe. I know a lot of them have turkey hunted and the adrenaline rush you get when you're turkey hunting. It's a lot of the same rush. You hear them dogs coming. You don't know where the deer's going to come from.

Somewhere the direction the dogs are, but if you're in these mountains, everything echoes so bad. You can't tell if they're coming up out of this holler or they're coming up out of this holler. what they're going to do next. And you don't never know how far ahead of the dogs them, there is. Here's Stony's story of Louis Delle's last buck. We're sitting at the family's cafe in Big Fork, Arkansas. There's bucks all over the walls. But there's one big mainframe eight point that's hanging directly across from me.

And it's the buck that we're about to talk about. You know, me and Uncle Lidale, we're standing there today he killed this buck. We'd heard them dogs, well, we're standing looking at and from where we're standing, you can see nearly the whole length of it. We're listening to the dogs way back into the east of us, and he told me right then, he said that deer will come out at the corral down there. Well, that corral is 400 yards west of us down there. Neither one of us have a gun that will shoot that far.

And we stood there for a long time watching, listening to the dogs run, and we were pretty much done for the day. That's 11 o'clock in morning. Everybody's coming off their stands. We kept listening to them. And directly, we seen that buck pop out down there to the trail, right where he said it would. And he told me that a million times.

That was the first deer I ever seen come out of there. But that deer come out, and it turned and run right straight at us. Well, I'm not exaggerating on the 400 yards, and I know that deer run over 200 yards of it back to us and us standing there. Well, we had grabbed guns, and I had a 30-30. That deer wasn't going to get close enough for me to even aim at it good.

And he had a little old 6mm. He had started shooting, but we're listening to them dogs, and they were still only about halfway out the mountain. He had laid down and took rest, and that deer ran in there and turned broadside. And he shot. And it didn't kick, it didn't flinch.

I thought he missed it, you know. And he's hollering at me, shoot that thing. I said, I got a 30-30. Well, shoot it anyway. And I raised up there and I shot. I seen where my bullet hit, and it didn't even make it to the deer. And he wouldn't shoot again. I kept telling him to shoot again.

Directly that deer just started going weak in the knees and dropped right there. I don't know if it was that little bitty bullet. Didn't affect him that much. You know, I'm used to when I hit them, they're going to go down a little bit. Anyway, he said, well, let's go get it. And I said, no, wait a minute. Well, them dogs, three of them's pups. They're July and Walker Mixed dogs, and their mama was with them.

I had four dogs coming out, and we sat there and listened to them in 20 minutes after we shot that deer. I see the dogs pop out down there to corral. I mean, they're that far behind that deer. And they turn, boy, they come right straight to him. I said, okay, let's go get him. By the time we got over there, they had each had a corner of him, and I got them leached up. Uncle Odell said, that was one of the prettiest races I ever heard.

And I said, oh, that's just because you killed the deer, you know. And he's like, oh, I think you hit that deer. I know I didn't hit the deer. I said, you hit him that first shot. Anyway, I got the dogs leashed up and he was a hold of them and I gutted it, fed them some liver. We got it loaded and he was so proud of it. And by this time he already had dementia. So I was worried more about how many more years of this have we got before, you know, he can't do it anymore.

I told him, I said, you need to get that one mounted up. I said, it might be the last good and you'd kill and I'd like to have it. and we sent it off and got it founded, but it turns out it was the last one and killed. That was a good story, Stony, and continues to put some perspective around running deer with dogs. If you're in western Arkansas, go eat at Stony's Cafe. It's called the Big Fork Mall. You won't be able to miss it, trust me. And the food is top-notch, no joke.

There's a Louis-Dell and Charlie Wall with a bare-grease podcast plaque on it hanging in the restaurant. Let me know if you swing by over there. 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 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. Know 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.

Like I said before, there aren't that many places left in the country where you can still run deer with hounds. And as long as I'm still breathing, I'll be standing for those areas to remain open to it. Some of y'all may remember that on the ceiling of my office, the ceiling, hangs a painting of an 8.5.5. 1800s English fox hunt. There are men wearing fancy red jackets riding white horses, and the ground is crawling with Walker foxhounds. Women and children are picnicking in the background. It's a beautiful scene.

The reason the painting hangs on the ceiling is because, for all practical purposes, real English fox hunts are pretty much gone, or at least extremely rare. That thing no longer exists. on the earth. That's why it's on the ceiling. That society let the prevailing trends of culture and power take it away. It just went out of style. And again, this isn't about if you like using dogs or not. It's about traditional use practices and not letting the shifting baseline of societal norms

affect something as primitive as humans hunting with hounds in a very regulated, highly managed system. I do not run deer with dogs and I'll never own a deer dog. I just feel like we need to stand up for our fellow hunters, even if they hunt differently than us. I just really love the diverse ways that we can hunt deer. And speaking of diversity, this next story is on the opposite end of the spectrum from running deer with dogs. I've been influenced by a wide variety of deer hunters. The old believer was a public land compound bow hunter fixated on final and White Oak Acorns with deer droppings underneath the canopy. That was his specialty.

I was close friends with a family of dog hunters and killed some deer in front of dogs with guns. But when I was in my early 20s, I was introduced to a man named David Albright. I'd never met anybody quite like David. He was a traditional archer and a bowier. He made his own bows. And he was driven by a pace, frequency,

and dedication to process that was foreign to me. I was compelled and challenged by his descriptions of shooting a bow instinctively. David killed his limit of deer each year on some rough, tough, mountainous public land with long bows. He made himself. Not only was he an excellent hunter, he was a craftsman. As a young man, I remember thinking, now that's the way to kill a white-tail deer. David was inspirational to me, and the self-imposed limitations that he placed on himself seemed so high it was almost like an unachievable feat. He gave me my first long bow and lessons

on instinctive shooting. I was never as dedicated or as successful as David, but his influence set me on a journey with traditional archery that I'm still on to this day. David's now 72 years old, and honestly, he's hunting about as hard as he ever did. I'm very proud to introduce you to David Albright. Okay, my name is David Albright. I came to Arkansas 42 years ago from Chicago, which is not where I grew up. I grew up in Indiana. Went to Chicago when the economy got poured to work construction. Hung in for six years, couldn't take it any longer, and moved to Arkansas. And from there, life was life. I started to Deer hunting here in Arkansas.

I'd never hunted deer in Indiana or Illinois. I really, really got to like it. Started out gun hunting, started muzzleload hunting. That was a lot better. And then started bow hunting. And that's when I really started learning about deer. You got to watch him. You had to watch him. Gun hunting, you'd see a deer for a minute or two and shoot it.

Bo hunting, you may watch it for a minute or two and shoot it. watch it for an hour and it walks away. So that was a good deal, getting into bow hunting. And I had one compound bow and hated it. I killed my first deer with the bow with it. So I dug out an old recurve I had bought when I was 18, started shooting it, and had a buddy that had a long bow. So I played with it a little bit and bought one for myself, shot it for a couple of years.

shot it for a couple years and wanted something else and started reading about building long bows. David started building his own long bows in 1991. I asked him why he loved traditional archery so much. I guess gun hunting, it was a great way to start hunting and learn the basics, but it was just over so fast that when I started bow hunting, everything's, slowed down. You know, I would see deer that if I had been rifle hunting would be dead, I'd have it gutted back at the house, butchering it. But instead, bow hunting, I'm still sitting in the tree watching that deer, learning what it's doing. And that's basically it. I mean, it was just more fulfilling for me to be forced to learn to hunt so close to the animal. that I could kill it with a primitive weapon.

The average deer that I've killed over the years, my average distance is probably 15 yards. 28 yards was the longest, and 8 yards was the closest. And that's real exciting to me to try and be quiet enough and not screw up anything you're doing. And when they're that close, you can't do anything wrong. I mean, if you turn your shoe and it squeaks, they look up at you immediately. They pinpoint you.

So I've made all those mistakes and learned from them. But it's just really fulfilling to get that close and to pull off the shot and make the shot without screwing up. I came to David's shop with one story on my mind. There's a rack, Euro-mounted, laying on the stone fireplace mantel. It's got G2s over 13 inches long, and G3s over 10. It would be an incredible deer anywhere in the country, but for mountainous public land in the south, killed with a bow he made himself, it's a lifetime achievement. I wanted to hear that story. This was on the river, and the reason I was hunting there that year, it's kind of like this year.

There weren't a lot of acres anywhere else. And along the river, you know, it's more moist and trees do better. And there were acres there. And I went to a spot. I've walked within 75 yards of 100 times and never walked into that little strip of woods. It's real thick, and it just never crossed my mind that that would be a place to hunt. But I decided to walk it out anyway. And I found a real distinct deer trail.

going through it. I found some big tracks and some big buck droppings. And a lot of dough track, dough droppings. And I just, I started looking around. All the trees were small. And I had just about give it up. And I saw this one tree that was probably not quite 12 inches in diameter. Not a very big tree. So anyway, I set up on this tree, got up in it. and looked around and it's so thick there, I just had a three-foot diameter hole to shoot to the trail here, maybe a two-foot hole here. And then over here there was about maybe a six or seven-foot-long strip of the trail open.

David had hunted in there a few days before and saw some doze feeding on acorns, which he would have shot if they'd have been closer. He was encouraged and decided to go back. back and sit again on this rainy morning. That hunt almost didn't happen. I got up that morning and it was raining. So I turned the weather channel on, watched and you could see that it was just about past us. My man, we were right on the, right on the verge. So I went ahead and got all my stuff together, took my time. I got to stand probably an hour and minute.

later than I would have had it not rained. And when I got stand still water dripping out of the trees, I mean the kind of day you really wonder if you should be bow hunting or not, probably hadn't been on stand 30 minutes and two does came in. They weren't on the trail. There were beyond it, probably 30 yards from me. They were feeding on the opposite side of this big oak tree. And I kept watching them. And I stood up and got situated and ready to make a shot, but they were just too far. But they were feeding my way. And they got maybe to about 20, 22 yards, and both of them at the same times, heads bobbed up and turned to my right. I didn't know what was going on, but I turned my head and looked, and here came this huge buck, just slowly meandering,

on the trail right towards me. And I just, I nearly passed out. I just, I couldn't believe it. And I had no time. I mean, he was 20 yards from me and just a steady, slow walk. And he was looking at the does. And when he got to about, oh, 10 yards, he was behind cover. You know, I kind of woke up and realized I needed to turn.

And I did, and as he was behind that cover, I got the bow up and ready. When his nose come out, I drew the bow. And as he cleared the cover, I looked at the spot behind his shoulder and let it go. And it drilled him perfect. There was a little bit of the fletching sticking out, the entry side, and he bolted right away. I heard the arrow snap, another 10 yards. I heard another snap. But anyway, he runs, makes a curve and goes out of sight.

I thought I could hear a crash, but I wasn't certain. The woods was pretty quiet because it was so wet. And a squirrel started raising cane in the same spot. And just went on and on for about five minutes. He never stopped, just chatter, chatter, chatter. So I thought, man, I hope that means that deer's down over there. After I got control of myself where I thought I could climb down without falling, I eased down the ladder. I mean, it was a great hit on my side, and at eight yards, and I was 14 feet to my foot platform, pretty good angle.

I figured it came out low on the opposite side, so I expected a really, really good hit in a lot of blood. So I continued around following his tracks and a little bits of blood, but like I say, nothing like I expected. I expected a lot of blood. And I got around pretty close to where I had heard the squirrel, and I could see one antler sticking up. And I was just like, oh, my gosh. I mean, it seemed like it was knee high, you know, sticking up out of the scrub. So I walked up to it and looked at it, knelt down, gave thanks for it, and I just, I was dumbfounded. I mean, I never expected to kill that big a deer.

I mean, from stand, I have never seen that big a deer until that day. The deer was a mainframe nine point that I scored myself at 155 and 58s. It's just a magnificent buck. It's got an 18-inch spread, 24-inch plus main beams, and 13-inch G-2s. The best part of the story is that it couldn't have gone to a more deserving and appreciative hunter. I hope you're taking note of the diversity of stories on this series. Inside the spectrum of hunting, dog hunter who runs deer with dogs and shoots them with a rifle couldn't be much further in terms of strategy from a traditional archer,

making his own bows and hunting out of a tree stand. However, I believe that they're a lot more alike than they are different. They're both dedicated, live, eat, and breathe white-tailed deer. But their biggest similarity is their passion for a specific way of doing it. In the grand scheme of mankind and the incredible, diverse possibilities of interests that a person might have on planet earth, these guys, a dog hunter and a traditional archer, are basically fraternal. twins. In today's world, it's so powerful for us to put aside our differences and cling to what

unites us. In this case, it's the love of the white-tail deer. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. These stories series are some of my favorite. I really enjoy going out and sitting with these people face to face and hearing their stories. I love it. If you're looking for the best white-tail gear in the industry. Check out First Life. And if you're near a shield store, you can go and try on all our gear at their stores. I hope you get out into the wild this week and chase a deer.

Remember, we're living in the heyday of whitetail deer, honey. Have a great week. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for.

I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did. And you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.