Bear Grease - Ep. 173: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Grits, Rhinos, Monkeys, and Ducks

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Grits, rhinos, monkeys, and ducks. That sounds like a game of Jumanji got out of hand down at the Cracker Barrel, but it's not. It's just another amalgamation of convoluted topics from a time in Brent's life that we think you'll find interesting, or at least entertaining. It's stories from the guide service this week on MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear 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 fieldwear gear at firstlight.

Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I've got a thing or two to teach you.

Stories from the Guide Service 26 years in the guiding business taught me a few things about people that hunt. The biggest thing was that they were all looking for something different and what some of them were hunting surprised me. They were from all over this great nation. They ate differently, they dressed differently, they certainly talked differently,

and about the only thing we all had in common was ducks. Or so I thought. I'm going to tell you all about it, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. We were all standing in the dark in the knee-deep water in a flooded timber of an unnamed Arkansas Wildlife Management Air. Me, my brother Tim, and six boys from New Jersey that had booked a four-day hunt with us. This was before it became illegal to guide on public land, and I'm not going to be any more specific about where we were south-southwest of Stuttgart. So the spot burner police don't issue a warrant for my arrest and start hounding me with hate mail because I named the most well-known 33,832 acre, about twice the size of Cleveland, Ohio, green tree reservoir on the planet. No, I'm not going to do that, Biomeda.

We were waiting on daylight and staying warm, drinking coffee, and anticipating the hunt. We'd absolutely smash the ducks in the timber the day before, but had to be it. to move to a different spot this morning because of the shift in the wind. Some of the boys had stayed up late into the night, celebrating the hunt by abusing their livers. They weren't as easy to roused out of bed that morning, but peer pressure prevailed and they made muster in time to ride over to the parking lot. Now, after a short half a mile walk and wade, we found ourselves in our current spot.

Decoy's out, trees assigned to each hunter as their spot to stand, and the first safety brief given all 30 minutes before shooting time. The second safety briefing would be right before we loaded up. Now, these Yankees were absolutely digging everything we were showing them. They were fish out of water about southern culture, food, local animals, and the way we talked. It was so much fun teaching them about all of it, and they in turn were telling us about how life was where they were from, and for the most part, it was eerily similar. Aside from the weird pronunciations of words, we were all pretty much alike.

Oddly, folks up north found it necessary to use all the letters when saying a word. I know, right? Ain't that weird. Anyway, these boys could put away the groceries, and if they were awake, they were eating. Now, we always vetted folks before they got there about food, and we told them the kinds of food that they'd be eating, which was home-cooked southern food. and they were looking forward to it, but they had one request. They said that they weren't going to eat okri. Now, I call it okri.

Some folks call it okra. I know, right? Ain't that weird. Anyway, however you say it, they drew the line at eating it. But 24 hours into their visit, and Tim had them eating pickled okri out of a jar, and my sister-in-law, Barbara Jean, had I'm eating cut-up ochre, she'd mealed and fried,

in a cast iron skillet. We'd broken the okra barrier. They trusted us. They had an open mind and were curious about things that they'd never seen before and relied on us to tell them the truth about what they were looking at. That was the first mistake.

Let's go back in time 24 hours as I drove them from the airport in Little Rock to our camp that sat on the bank with the mud lake bend on the Arkansas River. As soon as we hear, hit the gravel county road on the last leg of the ride from the Little Rock, we passed a cotton field that had been picked, but the stalks hadn't been mowed yet. If you're unfamiliar with what that looks like, imagine waist-high rows of little sapling trees with no leaves and bits

of white hanging off the limbs. Even with the most advanced machinery of today, there's always cotton that doesn't get picked. Passing by this field that was close to the camp, one of my passengers asked, what is that growing in that field? I saw him point to the cotton field and everyone was looking at it or looking at me waiting for an answer and I said, y'all don't know what that is. And I was a little surprised that they'd never seen a cotton patch before and then I realized they don't grow no cotton in New Jersey. Of course they hadn't seen one. So, being a compulsive liar, I said, those are grit bushes. Grits, he asked. Yeah man, grits, you know, like you eat for breakfast. He said, oh, yeah, I've heard of those.

We don't want to eat those back home. Well, I told him that he'd have the opportunity to eat them here because we have them every day. He asked me if that's what they'd be eating for breakfast. And I said, no, that's what you'll be eating with breakfast. I always wondered where those things came from, he said. They were all satisfied with my answer. Now, I could have told them the truth, but, you know, what's the fun in that? I bet some of you're saying right now, where'd do you?

two grits come from. But anyway, that was lie number one. Before we'd driven another half mile, we drove up on the Arkansas River levee, headed to where our camp was located, which was inside the levee.

Also inside the levee, where some old dikes had had been abandoned by the Army Corps engineers when in 1972 the McClellan-Curred navigation system cut a new path for the Arkansas River, taking the mud lake bend out of the channel.

The dikes were constructed of telephone pole-sized timbers and stacked like an A-frame or what's called a no-dig fence, and it's covered in large gray rock. Most of the big rocks had been salvaged from the dikes by the locals with permission for erosion control and different uses. But when the gray rocks were gone, you could see what looked like a telephone pole-sized fence about eight feet high. Someone else asked as we passed, what in the world is that fence for? Well, I saw them all looking at it just like the cotton patch back down the road and I said, oh, that fence? They used a raised rindostrums down here for the zoos. Someone else joined in.

Are there any more down here? Straight-faced, I told him. Well, they're not really sure. Five got out and killed one of the caretakers, trying to put them back in and That pretty well shut down the whole operation. Someone asked, did they catch him? I said, well, they shot three of them the next day down the river on a big farm. One was killed a week later after he rooted up 50 acres of grits. They never found, and they never found the fifth one. There was lots of folks grilling out that summer, though.

They were amazed at that story, and to tell you the truth, if I can, so was I. And that was lie number two. Fast forward to the morning of the hunt, and as I was making coffee that morning and getting ready before we left the camp, I noticed one fellow was already up before the rest of them. He was one of the six that had abstained from the liver-recking party and was fresh as a daisy bouncing around in that kitchen, fixing baloney sandwiches like it was his normal job. He had them all laid out and stacked together according to what he put on them. Half he put on mayonnaise, another half he put on. put on mustard. I followed him downstairs to go warm up my truck and saw him start handing out sandwiches like he was dealing cards in a casino and all his buddies who were preoccupied with

getting themselves ready. Manez or mustard, he asked. The other five all said it didn't matter, so he was just stuffing them in their blind bags. We eventually left. All right, now we're back into duck hunting hole in the darkness where the only light was from the occasional glow of a cigarette. Tim and I had been having a great time with these guys. They were one of our favorite groups of clients that would become more like friends and family after coming year after year. We still talk to them now, but that morning, they were still new and extremely gullible. As I mentioned way back when this story started going off the rails, it was day two and we were standing in a new spot in the dark, with everyone standing in the dark. With everyone standing in

in their assigned spot with everything you can imagine in their own personal blind bags, including the bologna sandwiches one of them had made for everyone. A screech owl cut loose less than 50 yards away. A six-man simultaneous chorus of, let me see, how can I say this? A profane inquiry of the source of that sound resonated through the flooded timor. my brother my brother tim said don't nobody move or turn on a light now his voice was seriously concerned i realized then these boys had never heard a screechow and even knowing what one is it'll make the hair stand up on your back of your neck but when everybody was quiet and listening and waiting for one of us to say something

It was then that I whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. Howler monkeys. You could have heard a pin drop. I saw two lit cigarettes almost simultaneously fall from their faces and disappear in the muddy water with an audible hiss. I don't think they took a breath. It was pitch black and you couldn't see an inch in front of your face. Tim whispered, during that whole rhino deal,

They had some monkeys down here too, and when they quit raising them rhinos, someone cut all the monkeys loose. They're attracted to light because the keepers fed them at night. And when they got loose, man, they took to these woods, and that's where they've lived ever since. There's only a few left, but we hear them out here occasionally coming to headlights looking for food. They den up in the daytime. You won't ever see them out then.

Now, there was my opportunity. I was positive no one had moved a muscle, not one person. And I'm sure they were praying for daylight, which was still like 20 minutes away, and wondered how they'd voluntarily paid to walk into a wild animal park. That's when I said, the problem is baloney. They fed them scraps from that baloney plant up river, and they could smell baloney from a long way off. Those jokers like baloney more than I do.

Good thing is they hate mayonnaise and they won't come near it. Y'all ain't got no baloney, do you? Tim waited about 10 seconds and then he turned on his headlight and all six of them were bug-eyed trying to see in the dark and silently checking their sandwiches to see which flavor they had. Tim and I couldn't hold it any longer and were busting the gut laughing at them. Now, I'm not sure. sure if they were laughing so hard because they thought it was funny or if they were so relieved

that a monkey wasn't going to drop out of the tree and beat them up over a bologna sandwich. We told them there weren't any monkeys running around and that was a screech owl they heard. And those boys hunted with us for several years and they could dish out the fun just as well as they could take it. And I miss those guys and I talked to a few of them every now and then, but As far as they know, there's one rhino from the Arkansas River rhinoceros farm that's still unaccounted for, and the grits crop is as strong as ever. And that's just how it happened.

Or how we told them it happened. 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 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 Felps. I think you'll be glad you did. And you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Stories from the Guide Service. I got to meet a lot of interesting and good people. I can't remember if we had anyone from any further west than Texas, but there ain't many states we didn't have hunters come from on the eastern half of the U.S. you could just about draw a line from West Texas to Canada.

Those were our people. Some were content just to be there. Some were happy if they just saw ducks. Some couldn't be satisfied regardless of the situation. And some folks, I wouldn't let pay me to hang out with them again. Those were few and far between. But after a quarter of a century of guiding, you could tell within the first ten minutes of meeting new clients,

how good or bad the next three days. were going to be. If they marveled at the landscape and wanted to talk about their families and were interested in Arkansas and that ecosystem that they were seeing for the first time, it was going to be good. If they started talking about the number of ducks that they were going to shoot and this is how we do it back home, you could get ready for a bumpy ride. There was a small percentage of them that came back just to get away from whatever it was they were dealing with back home. And some admitted they were coming back year after year to see if Tim and I were ever going to fistfight.

And some of them loved that hell-bent-for-leathered boat ride through the flooded timber. All this duck hunting I've been doing lately has put ducks on my brain again. I'm sorry, Alexis, not really. But it also reminded me of what I love and what I missed about it. Once I got over being burned out on the dreads, or guiding, my thoughts shifted back to why we started guiding in the first place, and that was to show others what we were seeing and let someone else pay for our duck hunting addiction.

It was essentially the same reason I started filming hunts and what set me off on this long and winding road of how I'm sitting here today talking to you, seeing people appreciate and being all these creatures that were gifted to us to enjoy the same way that Tim and I are is a rarely reached level of satisfaction. I'll tell you this story to show you what I mean. Tim and I were guiding four folks from a couple of neighboring states who were multiple KFC franchise owners. Now, these guys were very successful businessmen and they could have afforded to hunt with anyone they wanted to, and they chose us.

They were all country boys who had worked hard and made it big, but still appreciated the warmth and feel of a real hunting camp over a five-star amenities that could have got them at a higher-end private land hunting service. We were strictly the meat and taters guide service. We provided a clean, dry place to sleep, good home-cooked food, and we worked our tails off to give them the best opportunity to kill ducks. So on the evening that they got there, we discussed where we'd be hunting the next day, and it wasn't going to be a cakewalk, but it was going to be a build.

walk, but there wasn't going to be no cake at the end. There'd be a better chance of CPR because the ducks were using a spot that we had to walk to, and if we were being paid to give them the best opportunity to shoot ducks, this was where we were going and how we were going to get there. Now, their ages ranged from their late 50s to mid-60s, and they all seemed in relatively good health. When their host booked the hunt, we told them that the possibility of walking along distances existed.

If that was a deal breaker, we needed to know now before they paid their deposit, which, by the way, I don't think we ever really required. We trusted folks to do the right thing, and it always worked out except for one group of hunters, but that's my story for another day. With a thermos full of coffee, a sack of sausage biscuits, and a snake bite kit consistent of a half pint of peach snobs, Tim and I, along with four trusting individuals, headed out to the public shooting grounds for the 45-minute march to where we'd been tricking ducks all week. The parking lot was full when we got there, so the race was on,

and before the wheels stopped rolling on Tim's truck, I saw him bail out rolling towards our spot. I'd bring the rest of the decoys and the rest of our plunk. Close to an hour later, me and my four charges walked into the spot where we'd been hunting all week to find Tim still sweating from his run into the hole. Touchdown! The south wind was perfect, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Other groups of hunters that came close

were waved away with a flashlight, and that was the unwritten rule of hunting public land back then. It was truly first come, first served, and everyone played by that rule. We've had to change our plans on many occasions by someone else beating us to a particular spot, but on this morning we'd slid right in on the eggs. The hole in the timber wasn't big,

but it was nearly a perfect circle of trees. The water was between calf and knee-deep, and we could still see a few sprigs of brown grass poking up here and there with our lights as we put out the decoys. Now, the hole measured about 30 yards across, so we lined the edges with decoys, and Tim put one hen decoy right in the middle.

We all lined up on the south side of the, the hole me furthest to the right and Tim anchoring the other end. We kept our hunters between us for safety. Duck started flying before shooting light and Tim and I went over the safety briefing. I would be calling the shot that day. Don't shoot until you hear me say shoot. And no shooting below that limb you see on the other side of the hole. Tim and I'll shoot the cripples.

Remember, there's other folks out here and if we shoot someone and wound them, they might shoot back. The distance from me to Tim was no more than 15 yards, and we were all perfectly spaced beside oak trees in a semicircle. Now, normally when you hunt public land, you shoot at the first opportunity you have to shoot because someone else may shoot at different ducks, and the ones you were working get scared away.

Now, that's not a qualifier to shoot at ducks above the trees. I'm as anti-sky-busting as it gets. Folks that do that ought to be sentenced to six months in the electric chair. The reason we're out there is to experience and see the ducks working down in the timber. And when you see it for the first time, it's a magical thing. A shooting time arrived in the sky filled with ducks. We could hear folks calling all around us in different spots, but none close enough to consider too close.

That was another unwritten rule. If you were late to a spot and had to find another one, you walked until you were far enough away that you wouldn't ruin that person's hunt, which would in turn be bad for yours as well. But Doug started flying in every direction, and groups of fives and tens turned into 20s and 30s as they crisscross back and forth, some flaring to keep from running into each other. Tim and I called and our hunters remained motionless as instructed.

They were all leaned up against the trees with their face touching the bark and watching only what was happening in front of. them, which would be the direction the ducks would be coming into the hole from if we could get them in there before somebody else shot and spoked them all away. Now the number of ducks were too big to estimate, but it looked like every duck in Arkansas was trying to get in our spot, and the only reason they hadn't was the lack of air traffic control. We called and called and finally they all started getting in the same flight path. I want y'all to understand that these ducks weren't way up in the sky. They were just above the tree tops in easy shooting range,

and they were flying over several groups of other duck hunters, but they didn't shoot at them. They were working our hole, and that was the unwritten biggest rule of all. You didn't shoot someone else's ducks that were working to their calling and their spot. Those are called swing ducks, and to shoot at someone's swing ducks is a cardinal sin.

Now, I know there may be some folks thinking, that gum. There's a lot of unwritten rules that go along with public land duck hunting, and you'd be correct. There are. But when everyone followed them, public land duck hunting was a pleasure, not a pain. We respected each other's right to have a good hunt, and respect only works when it's mutual. This particular morning, it was working, and it was working well. I can't accurately didn't estimate the number of ducks that were trying to get together to come into the decoys, but about two passes before they did, five or six dropped into the hole and lit in the water. Clients never moved. I didn't call the shot because I wanted them all to come in.

Well, those ducks spooked and shot out of there, and I continued calling to the big group the circle. I looked over at Tim as the last duck that had landed flew away, and he mouthed the word to me, you messed up, except he used a different verb. And I kept calling, and so did he, hoping the whole time, that I had chosen wisely. The big group finally got all together, and after what had been, must have been two to three minutes of working ducks, they slipped in over the trees and poured into the hole by the hundreds. They fell up the middle and started hovering towards where we were standing, landing between me, landing between the guy beside me and all our hunters.

They were splashing water on me as they lit at our feet. One's wing slapped my coat sleeve as he hovered beside me and sat down behind me in the calf deep water. I yelled shoot, and Tim and I were the only two that stepped out from the hiding spot. I glanced at our hunters and they were frozen. Their eyes were bugged out of their heads and their mouths were wide open and all what they were seeing. Me yelling again in a shot from Tim when they came alive.

And man, we cut it loose. We killed multiple ducks each on that first group and were limited out after another group or two. And we walked all the way back to the parking lot laughing and reliving that hunt. And it didn't stop there either. That night at supper, the next day in the timber, and until they left, they talked about how they'd been hypnotized

by the beauty of the spectacle that they'd witnessed. And that's what I missed. That's what I love to share with others that see it as I do. A mesmerizing event that speaks to your soul when all you hear is the whistling and wing beats and the subtle quacks and sounds of a large group of ducks and settling in at your feet. Now, they'd have been just as satisfied by watching and not firing a shot,

and Tim and I have done that on occasions when it was just me and him. Brent, we got enough ducks in the freezer. Let's just look at them today. We did that. I finally cracked the case after a few years of taking folks to the woods and spending time with them out in creation. And I could tell what they were after. They just wanted to have fun and enjoy the sights and sounds of the common thing that we all loved and that was duck hunting. You've heard me say it on here before and this is kind of where it all came from. But share, Sharing a burden lightens the load and sharing a joy multiplies it. That's the good stuff.

Seeing it for what it is, and what it is is a beautiful gift for all of us to you. I'll see y'all after Christmas, and from Alexis, Bailey, and yours truly at Casa Day Reeves, we want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Get in here, girls. One, two, three. Merry Christmas! Until next week, this is. is Alexis Bailey and Brent Reeves signing off y'all be careful 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 in real use hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters no shortcuts just gear designed for the work that earns the seat

season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Lights new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.