Bear Grease - Ep. 200: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - New Saddle and Owl Hootin’

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

On this episode, Clay and the crew discuss his new custom saddle, trends in the owl hooting world, Moe’s great-grandfather being bushwhacked in the Civil War, and the latest Turkey Stories episode. He’s joined by viral owl hooter Demi Whittinghill, her husband John, Moe Shepherd, Misty Newcomb, and Josh “Landbridge” Speilmaker.  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. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Well, I'm very tempted to podcast out of my new saddle.

Oh, no. Very, very tempted. I didn't want to start off. So I have in my office, you guys were at the Black Bear Manza. Yes, sir. A man named Colt George. It's incredible. Custom Saddlemaker, third generation custom saddlemaker from Wyoming, who I had met one time in Wyoming.

Just shook his hand. He was like, hey, my name's. Colt George, I met him and his dad. He's a third generation saddlemaker. His dad makes saddles, his grandfather makes saddles. Colt's probably like, I don't know, his mid-20s, maybe late 20s. Yeah. He and his, when he saw me in Utah, he said, hey, Clay, I'm coming to the Black Bear Mananza.

And I was like, cool, man. And he said, I have something I want to give you. I was like, great, great, look forward to getting it. You know, people bring me books or just different stuff all the time. So I was grateful, but I didn't think too much about it. Did you know at the time he was a saddlemaker then? No, no, no. So then at the Black Bear Bonanza, I see him, and he's wearing a big cowboy hat, and I recognize him.

I'm like, hey, man, yeah, I met you. And he comes up to him, and he's like, hey, sometime today, you need to come out to my truck. And I was like, okay. And anyway, long story short, I went out to his truck at the very end. of the day and he pulls this saddle out. Oh no. Oh, no. Is this what you want to do?

This is how you want to play is now in the saddle. I'm in the saddle. And he gave me even this saddle stand. And this is what they call their hunting saddle. It's super, super pestim. It has on the saddle horn, it's got an acre and it's got four bear tracks. It's got a BG right here. It's got a barred owl feather.

Wow. And it's got. And on the back of the crowning jewel. The back it has, it has a plot hound, treeing. But anyway. It's pretty fancy. It's very fancy. I don't think any of us could take you podcasting out of it.

I think that would be too much for the room. I will probably do a lot of podcasting. He wants me to use it. He's like, Clay, this is a saddle that I want you to use. But it's just so pretty, it's just sitting here in the office. So that's that. We have a very great crew of people here today. I've got, to my right, my brand new saddle, to my brand new saddle's right, Josh Lambridge, Spillmaker, and very special guests who we've not had on here before.

We've got to skip them first. Skipping over the very special guest to another very special guest. To a less special guest. To a less special guest. To mildly the special guests. Mo Shepard. Everybody knows Mo is my go-to man for turkey stories, deer stories. All kinds of stories.

Ozark, hillbilly stuff. Yeah. Black Panther stories, mountain line stories, whatever you want. That you got it all. If I ain't got them, I'll make one. Misty, did you know that Mo's... Let me just tell this story, Mo. You correct me when it's wrong.

Moe's great-great-grandfather, who there is a mountain named after that's on like a topo map over here named after. Shepardom. She was killed by Union Bushwhackers under a bluff during the Civil War. Yeah. I don't know if they were Union Bushwackers, but they were Bushwackers. Most bushwhackers weren't for either side. They were just out to... Self-serving.

Rob, pilfer, and steal and get whatever they could get. Got it. Oh, wow. I did not know that. So he had gone to meet... His two sons that were on a furlough to come home for a few days. So I don't know where they'd been fighting, but they were on a furlough to come home for a few days.

And however they got their notes to each other by someone another, or however, they were going to meet at a bluff a few miles from where he was living at, where he had homesteaded up there. And he went and met them, took him some food and some more clothing and stuff. And they visited a while, and he got ready to leave and said, you know, we'll see you. When you get out of the war, when the war's over probably before I'll see you again, he walked out from under the bluff, walked up on top, and the bushwhackers shot him. Wow.

Oh, man. And run down and grabbed his stuff and took off with whatever he had left. And then his two sons got out and found him, and he was still alive. they took him to his wife and his daughter back by their house and they cared for him and the boys took out after the bushwhackers and found them both and killed them both so wow wow do you know exactly where that happened yeah i mean you know the bluff i mean most family i've got a picture of the bluff with my dad sitting under it really on my phone so mo is this mountain i mean shepherd mountain and uh Mo was raised up there and anyway, really unique history.

And him and his brother when they first came in in the, I think it was in the 1830s or something like that. The first place they settled was down on the Frog Bayou and they found a spring there. And that place is still called Shepard Springs. Yeah. There was a lake there. Now they combined that lake with Lake Fort Smith. But it still has a lot of stuff in the Lake Fort Smith State Park about the Shepherd Springs and my great-great-grandfather settling there with other people.

And then his brother stayed there and then he moved up into the mountains and homesteaded up there. And that's how it's got the name, Shepard Mountain. Yeah. Let's just say that you don't stumble on Moe Shepard's house accidentally. No, you don't. No. We're still on introductions, though. To Moes, right.

My lovely life, Dr. Misty Newcomb. So great to have you. Good to be here. Our special guest, though, John and Demi Whitting Hill. From Oklahoma. Welcome. I think that we should have them, you know, make a random animal sound just to... Oh, we're going to save that.

No, so I've met John and Jimmy a couple of times. Y'all came to the Warner Glen film premiere, and then I met you just recently at the Black Bear Bananza. I saw you again. Yeah. And, John, you work for Oklahoma... Is it the Game and Fish? Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. Okay.

Okay. But the real reason you're here is because of your wife. That's right. More famous than me. Demi, can you greet everyone? No, no, no. Just say hello. Oh, hi, everybody.

So Demi was, both of you guys were in the Al Hoot competition. Yes, sir. But there was a video of Demi that I put out that I got from one of your friends had taken that video, I think. Yeah, our pastor's wife, actually. She recorded it. She was there and sent it to me. So I put that video on my Instagram,

and it has 1.3 million views. Mo, I've never put a picture of video of you. No, you've got 1.3 million views. I don't know if you've ever put a picture of me on there or not. I got to thank you. You probably have to get you some long blonde hair before they. You know, for a long time, Mo Shepard, I don't know why, but his picture was Clay's screensaver.

It was Mo. And do you remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like Clay put it up when he was first doing Arkansas Black Bear stories. Black Bear stories and stuff, yeah. And he saved it to his, he probably didn't know, he probably did it on an accident and then never changed it. And so for years, the kids would be like, look, there's motion. Every time Clay would open up his laptop, they'd be like.

Yeah, it was a really good picture of you with a bear that you kill with a pistol. Yeah. There we go. Any presentations he did? No, so what do you do for the Department of Wildlife in Oklahoma, John? I'm an intern right now, so it's basically just kind of like interning for a technician role. So running tractor, you know, planting food plots, doing control burns, any kind of habitat manipulation, just stuff like that. So run a road grader.

He's got a real job. Yeah, it sounds like a real job. Do you want to be in, do you like working for? I mean, is it good job? It's great, man. Like I said, Demi and I and my family ran a business. business for about eight years that we had and that my dad left to us when he passed away and it's been a been a refreshing change you know to get out and just kind of be out and outside that's

where I like to be you know I always my mom handed me some papers you know a couple months ago and she said here these are from you know homeschooling way back in the day and you know I went through there and looking at them and stuff and it was like fish and wildlife biologist circled game warden circled you know just military circled you know and so I did the military thing, you know, coming out of high school and ended up getting hurt overseas. And then, you know, that kind of changed the trajectory of some of what I had planned. And so, you know, now 12 or 13 years later, I'm starting over and probably going back to school for wildlife biology. Oh, really? That's what you're going to.

Yeah, I'm going to give a shot, man. I'm not much of a school person. I'm more of a hands-on, you know, like working with my hands, you know, running machines. I did heavy equipment school, you know, when I went through Votech and stuff like that and run a bulldozer. I know everybody's a big fan of clay's bulldozer story. Yeah. He's called a big bulldozer guy. I've got one if you ever want to come around it. You have one yourself? I do, certainly. Wow. Do you like it? I do. Well, I wouldn't let him drive in. Okay. There we go. Funny story. I had a big rat up under the seat the other day and it about made me hit my head on the ceiling.

Coming up out of there, I sat down and he'd come out by my side and boy, I shot out of that thing pretty quick. So I didn't want that crawling in my lap, but yeah, anyhow. Where were you? You deployed in the military, if you don't mind me asking. Yeah, Afghanistan, so that was back in 2011. Really? Really? How long were you there? About six months. Six months.

I got six months in and came back from leave from my sister's wedding and stuff like that and hit an ID over there and kind of a big deal. You know, broke my back and collarbone shoulder, bust a few teeth. And a couple of my good friends died. well in that accident so I'm not an accident but you know wow an ID explosion wow so one guy got one other guy made it out you know yeah definitely at 19 that kind of shook my world a little bit yeah I didn't I didn't know that about you that's not something I really share a whole lot you know like said I'm

open to to sharing it obviously now everybody's gonna know about it but that's fine you know we can take it off if you want no no no that's fine like said I'm I'm an open book man anything anything you want to know just ask like said a I'm happy to share. You know, I just, I want people to, I don't want to be strutting around like I did something. I knew what I was signing up for, you know, when I volunteered. Nobody, nobody put a gun to my head to force me to go. You know, I wanted to, and I liked it.

And, you know, obviously those events, like I said, they still stick with you. But I'm working on trying to get, get that figured out. And, uh, Demi and I've had some, you know, issues as far as my, my stuff of being able to communicate what's going on inside my head, you know, um, I'm trying to be respectful of, you know, that and not share too, too much detail, but I've got some work I've got ahead of me still, you know, and this, I've been doing this for, you know, 12, 13 years now. This is back in 2011. Yeah. So, uh, it's a process. Yeah. But it's good, man. Life's good.

So I kind of like where I'm at right now. What a story, man. Yeah. No doubt. And did they discharge you after that? Did you get honorably discharged? Yes, ma'am. Yeah.

And came back. And then you took over the family business. Yes, ma'am. Were y'all married? No. When did you, how long have y'all been married? Six years. Six years.

Okay. So the Black Bear Bananza was actually our six-year anniversary. Okay. Pretty good way to spend an anniversary if you asked me. Yeah. And now, you guys are big. outdoorsman and women. Absolutely. Now, Demi, what's your favorite thing to hunt?

I've seen your Instagram and I see you turkey hunt some and deer hunt. Definitely turkeys. Really? Yeah. I've done a little bit of everything with him, but my first successful hunt was with turkeys, and I was hooked. Did you grow up hunting or did John take you? I didn't. But I always had a desire to.

It's kind of weird. My parents never really understood why. I always had a fascination for hunting. And I always wanted somebody to take me. And here comes John. Yeah. We had known each other since we were a little. Yeah.

And his sister actually saw a picture of me with a fish. I was bass fishing with my dad. And I said, yeah, now I just need somebody to teach me how to hunt. And she said, well, I know a guy. And she, you know, tagged him. He didn't say anything. It took a little. Yeah.

I'm a slow learner. I'm the subordinate gobbler off to the side. Yeah. It turns a lot. in the back door later on. You can strut right in. No, no. The strut and turkey

gets shot first. Yeah. So, yeah, it took a little while, but then, and I think at first, maybe he thought, and a lot of other people thought, oh, she's just doing this because they're dating or whatever.

I'm like, no, I'm really interested, and I'd really like to know, you know, the ins and outs of hunting. But, yeah, turkey hunting out of, I think turkey hunting and then duck hunting is probably my second favorite. Big water fowlers?

I am. I was ate up with it pretty bad. for a couple of years there. And I still am. Like I said, I love to go. It's the thrill of the hunt, man. It gets me. I like birds.

So, you know, I like shooting deer, but, you know, I don't shoot big deer. You know, I don't know how to kill big deer, but I know how to kill ducks and turkeys. Yeah. I'm just not picky, I guess. Did y'all grow up in the same community in Oklahoma? Kind of when we were little. Okay. Yeah, we, our families were connected at church.

And so, and I stayed in contact with his. sisters when my family, when I was a teenager, we moved to the East Coast. So we stayed in contact just through. I assume you mean the East Coast of Lake Worcester. No, the East Coast of the U.S. That was a joke. That was a joke. Come on, team.

That was funny. That was really, that was a micro geography joke. Yeah. The East Coast of Lake Worcester. It's over there where they live, sort of, close. The East Coast. Yeah. The East Coast of the U.S.

Yep. Okay. So that's how he stayed in contact. And then I remember his sister's wedding and him being there coming back from overseas. And he was just a wallflower. He just was on the side. And I'm out there dancing with his sisters and everything. But yeah.

He wasn't strutting. No. Just drumming, spitting and drumming. Our parents were friends. They came up for family vacations. We, you know, stayed in contact that way. But he never, I had a younger. brother and so he would run off with my brother and play you know when we were real little and I would go off

with his sisters so okay okay so you all kind of knew each other yeah that's cool we went to church I don't know if you said that or not went to church together when we were little kids at what point did you start impersonating animals great question there we go I mean I don't know in the industry we call it impersonating animals I would davell just because he would he would do it a lot And so I would try, you know, and I would even ask him like, does that sound okay? Does that sound good? And he'd be like, that's okay. I'm not the most encouraging word person.

Words of affirmation is not my strong suit. Okay. And it's mine. So, yeah, we're opposites in that area. And I'm learning that everybody has their own style. Yeah. And so just because it doesn't sound like mine doesn't mean it's bad, you know. Now, did, had you been out?

the woods enough to hear a barred owl? I had I had heard owls, but I don't know that I heard a bard owl. Like I just, I had heard them, you know, just out. And I've actually heard one laughing before, so I had heard one like that. So I'm like, okay, that's what that really sounds like. Have you heard her al-hoo yet? Yeah, I listened to the. Okay, your al-hood is so realistic.

Like, I figured you would have, like, listen to a lot. a natural owls. You're saying you didn't. No. Really? I blame it too on the fact that I studied music in school. Okay. Okay.

So maybe it's the ear, you know. Interesting. Yeah. You're a fiddle player. Okay. We won't. We won't. She brought her fiddle.

Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. What's the use of bringing in if you don't play it? All right. All right. No, for real. So I was a judge in the contest in the alho.

contest and we're blind judges we don't have our we're facing away so we can't see or we don't know who anyone is right and it was really funny because uh i remember somebody somebody sitting right in front of me that was watching said man she's good like she said she and i i just assumed it was all men you i think maybe you had said you were going to al-hoo but it didn't registered to me that you were up there. But unfortunately, the guy that won at Cam, not unfortunately. Cut that out. Riva.

Cam is like, he's incredible. One day I'll have him on here. He's really, really good. But you were like right there. So she ended up getting second place, which it's not an entirely fair contest. There's just three of us sitting up there listening and we're rating them, you know. Yeah. But no, I remember being surprised when somebody said,

she's really good because I just envisioned 10 men standing up there. I mean, am I right? Yeah, for sure, yeah. I mean, that's the way it's been in the last few years. You're right, but you probably shouldn't say that. That's right. I'm just being honest. Yeah, I told Cam the other day, I was talking to him the other day, and I told him, I said,

you just better consider yourself lucky. He said, why is that? I said, because I wasn't there. Yeah. You said, next year. I said, yeah, next year. If Mo was there, you know, we might not be sitting here right now. That's true.

Well, it would have been a good, I bet y'all might have been the top, top three. 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 calls. who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Now, you were in there too, John. You were up there in the top 10. Yeah, so I got into the top five. You made it into the top. See, I didn't even know who was up there.

Wow. You guys have enormous genetic potential. Your children. They're probably going to live in the trees. So we do live in the woods. So that's a possibility. Oh, that's funny. But yeah, so I got into the top five, but I think I was number five of five.

You know, you'd probably been six if I'd been there. I don't doubt it. You know, I lost to you once before, you know, so I wouldn't doubt it. So you were in the year before, but not did me? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I remember him being there. Okay. Well, okay.

I was shaking, you know, up there on stage because I don't like being in front of people, you know. So I was trying to hold it together. All right. Well, we need to hear some out. Yeah, who went, Mo, you should go first. You really think I should? You can stand up and you can do whatever you want. I can hoot laying down standing up.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Lay down on your back. I'm just kidding. You'll have to help me back up if I get down that far. I'm 63 years old, Missy. Yeah, let's hear it. Let's hear it.

What do you want a whole series or whatever? Here's what I've, as being a connoisseur of Al Hoots. Who, you? People, I'm a connoisseur. That doesn't mean I'm the best. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying. I'm saying, I'm sure what connoisseur means.

Conister means you just You know. You think you know, Steph. That's what conister is right. That's right. No, everybody, the real good people, or a lot of people have one thing that's real good. Like they have a real good laugh

or they have a real good tone or they have a real good sequence. A whole lot of it is timing. You can have somebody that does it good but their timing is slightly off. And so anyway, I'll be giving comment. Terry on what you guys are all good at. Okay.

Go ahead, Mo. You're ready to go, then. That's good. Very good. Very good. Mo has really good tone. Like, it doesn't sound like a human. It doesn't.

Like, I'm watching them, trying to figure out. But how are you doing that? Like, are you using your belly? Don't tell her, Mo. He's not using his throat. He'd have to kill you if he told you. She's going to try to end next year if you tell her. Yeah.

He's no vocal cords. Your vocal, that's it. All right, John, let's hear yours. All right. Beautiful. I can't do that. The laughing part, that's my Achilles heel, man. I'm letting all my competitors know out there.

Don't show them your weakness. That's right. I think in the woods, your al-Hoot would be really good because it's loud. Yeah. Yep. And you got, you got a good.

Oh, did you want me do a loud one? Oh, you're super competitive with this, man. He's here to win. He's here to win. I didn't know you weren't just

do it loud one. No, no, no, no. I'm just looking for positive things to say here, okay? No, no, that's good. All right, Demi, you ready? I guess so. I'm caught here.

This can't be, this can't be more nerve-wracking than Al-Hooten in front of, I don't know. A 1,200 p. Yeah, it might be more. I don't know, huh? I don't know.

Come on now. Okay. Good tone. Good tone. It does. So I think she learned that, you know, from Gomer Powell and Andy Griffiths show where he's eating that peanut butter sandwich outside and they're trying to warn Andy. Or when Andy's coming, you know, when they're all thinking they're getting married,

they said you've got to keep your cheeks all howler, you know. So I think that's where Demi learned that. Nice. Are we going to hear Josh's? Josh is musically trained. Come on. Come on. No, not even going to try.

Not even going to try. He could crack a whip probably pretty good with whipping that fly rod around, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clay was the first person. I did not know that people could. I was just not at all raised around outdoorsy people, like our hunters especially. Really? And, yeah, and I remember Clay and I were just friends, and he went out, we were out in the woods,

and he started doing that, and an owl called back to him. And it was like, hands down, the coolest thing I'd ever seen. and got you. That was the thing. So he called you. He called you in. I was like, that is super cool.

And I remember telling my friends, this guy can talk to animals. I didn't grow up hunting either. Clay's the one who taught me to hunt. And I remember hearing him owl hoot. Yeah. And me thinking like that's just something that owls do, but I'll never hear it.

And then going turkey hunting, it was like, oh wait, there's owls out there. And they sound like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's super cool if you've had no exposure to it. It's kind of like a different world that you're being introduced to. Well, that's how a lot of my friends that are not at all in the hunting realm,

they were like, okay, what is Al Hooting? What is this thing? After you had that a viral video? Yeah. I see the video, what is this about? That's funny. You know, the best practice that I've ever had is getting the Al coming in. I know you two have probably done it before and just getting calling with one,

just like that's sitting right above you. Have you ever had them do that, John? Try to mimic them. Oh, that's, that would, make some mad. You would probably, your game next year would probably be way better, Demi, if you, if you could either. I would love for that to happen. Or just like listen to one online and man, you can, because I've, like, for me to Alhu

right now, it would just be okay. but if I was out and listening to one and he was sitting on a limb above me like that's your best out of hooting and then you kind of remember it. That's what Bear said last year he went out in the woods and he said that just sitting there two got into a little call fest

and he recorded it and as soon as he said coming home he could immediately call better just from like being in the woods and just sitting underneath the tree while they were calling back and forth is pretty cool. Yeah. Mo you heard some turkeys the other day gobble

they're doing They're getting started a little bit up here in the mountains. Yeah. John, have you heard any gobble? I got something to gobble at me on the side of the road the other day. Yeah. We were driving to go do a little fly fishing and saw a group of, you know, about, or a flock of about 20 turkeys and saw some little cigar butt jakes in there and started yelping at them and they let loose. And I got my feel on that.

So that was the first gobble of the season for me. We were in Colorado last week on the way home. I looked over and I was like, is that what I think it is? and there were probably 60 turkeys out of this field. Really in Colorado? Yep. Where? Yeah.

Drop us a pin. Yeah, I'll send you a pin. Exactly. Yeah. I don't mind spot burn in the Colorado spot. Yeah. Are the turkey, is the turkey situation in Oklahoma better than it is here? A little bit.

That you would see him on the side of the road. Yeah, I would say so. So, I mean, when I was growing up, we used to have them come up in the yard. You know, there was a group, again, I see a group flock of, you know, a hunter turkeys. around our house and I mean you'd come out and we had like a little center like an oval driveway and I mean that whole patch of grass would just be covered with turkeys and uh we would see him too yeah it's definitely changed it's it's sad you know to see them see him go but I mean there's still a few around but it's not not the good old days I was I started hunting in Oklahoma and 82

yeah and I haven't hunted every year out there but I've hunted a lot of years out there and when I first started hunting out there, there was a lot of turkeys. I hunted in the southeastern part. I went kind of central part out towards Oak Mogi and I out there and hunted a little bit. Went plumb to the western part and hunted some. And I've seen it. It kind of stayed stable until about 2000.

Then it originally started to climb kind of like Arkansas did in the early 2000. Yeah. There's pockets of birds still. So, I mean, like I said, where I work, there's birds. you know, around home, you can find water and you can find the habitat, you can find the birds. So it's just, like I said, they're a little, you've got to look for them. Same way here. They're back in the 90s here.

You could go about out at any ridge or less it off at any holler and you'd hear a turkey. Now you have to really look for them to find them kind of like when I started hunting. He's in 76 here in Arkansas, and that's why it was in. you had to spend several days just finding turkeys. Once you found them, there was a pocket of you can hunt them. But you had to spend several days out just trying to find where the turkeys were. That's the kind of way it is now here in the northwest part of Arkansas anyway. I've heard some positive reports, though, coming from Arkansas,

about a few more birds than there's been the last few years, which is good. Yeah, that is good. I saw more young birds this fall, deer hunting and stuff out where I do a lot of deer hunting, turkey out and both, and I've seen in 25 years. as far as flocks of young birds with hens grouped up. That's good. That's good. I think knocking that season date back a little bit has helped.

And then, you know, obviously, Oklahoma used to be a three-bird state. Right. You know, and so they've knocked it back down to one now. And so I think that helps too. Yeah. And that's just my opinion. That's not anything from the Wildlife Department. You know, that's just me as a turkey hunter going out there

and I'm, you know, finding and seeing some more birds. Mm-hmm. So we started our turkey stories episodes. We're going to do probably one more. These are some of my favorite podcasts that we do because I get to travel around and meet all these people and hear their stories. It's really hard.

It's actually harder than it may seem, Ms. Newcomb, to go talk to somebody and get their best turkey story that translates good on... Josh will tell you, he was looking at while I was doing some editing today, I'll talk to somebody for 45 minutes and get one story. One, four, five minutes story. Yeah, yeah. But, Josh, of all the stories that were told today,

and we had a good sampling from, we went down to Mississippi and then to Alabama and then to Tennessee. So we did a three-state tour on this one. There were no, I don't think there were any Arkansas. You're in North Carolina, wasn't you? North Carolina. Well, I had a North Carolina storyteller, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm sorry. saying that the guy from North Carolina. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's right. So it's four states.

Good thing I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which, which story stood out to you, Josh? So there were two, and I'll tell you, one, one's quick, Macy's story, mainly because I like the end when she takes her, her turkey feathers and turns them into flies for flyfish. Oh, really? She's quite the fly fisher. I've seen her Instagram. So you knew of Macy Watkins. Yeah, because she, she posts a lot of flyfish and stuff. Did anybody else? Big, follow her? I follow her. Did you know her before? I had, I mean, I just followed her on social media, but yeah. Okay. Oh, that's cool. So I liked that, but honestly, the story that stood out to me the most was the old gentleman who got shot. Oh, really?

Because it reminded me of when we were turkey hunting and we got lost for a large number of hours. And when we got back to camp. Let's rephrase that, Josh. You were lost. No, no, not me. But we found a turkey nest. Do you remember? was quite a, we did get lost, but it was a lot of fun being out in the woods.

Was that with our kids or was that a separate time? No, that was just clayline. I was just clayline. Before onyx. Okay. Yeah. But when we got back, you remember they, a couple of guys had stopped by our camp because one of the guys that was hunting with us was a doctor. And one of Gary Newcomb's old friends, John Mescoe. And we had turkey camp. John Mescoe was there. Dad, me and Josh went off and got lost the whole day. Came back to camp and they tell. And they're like, the gentleman just came by because he had just gotten peppered by some, some Joker just saw the white, he was an old man, had white hair and just shot one off at him. And he took 17 pellets, almost in the same place, 17 pellets on the back of his ribs. Wow.

Wow. And, you know, there wasn't much they could do other than, you know, just let it, let it heal up. And, but that, I appreciated the, I appreciated the, the compassion with which the story was told in the podcast. Just the, the level of concern for the gentleman to help him get over that. I mean, that has a way of being pretty traumatic. Yeah, I would be. Yeah. And just the way they wanted to help him, but didn't push him, but created a really safe environment for him to, to,

to kind of get past that. I thought that was really neat. That really spoke to me. Yeah. So David Joy, he's the guy that told that story, David Joy. He is an award-winning novelist. Oh, really? And I love it when he talks, because you would never guess that.

He has a real, he has a real Appalachian, cool accent. But yeah, he just got off of European book tour. His books are really famous in France. I mean, they're famous here. He does well here, but he sells, I don't know this. He didn't tell me this, somehow I've read this, but in France, he has a huge following, so he just got back from France. But like I said, he's like as country as cornbread.

And anyway, David, he's a cool guy, but I have several of his books. This one's called When These Mountains Burn. They're a little dark. A little dark. Yeah, him telling that story, he sounded country. I mean, he sounded like an old country boy who was telling it. Yeah, yeah, but he's a neat guy, a neat guy. Which one stood out?

Who wants to go next? Demi, which one did you like? Yeah, I liked Jim's story. He just, I don't know, when I heard it, I'm like, oh, that's a tearjerker, you know, finding his dad's journal and, like, turning right to that. Russ Arthur's. Yeah, like, I just, I don't know. It actually made me tell John that, you know, I know for me, like, I've had a lot of first hunts, you know, just like doing all different types of hunting.

And I'm like, I really need to write these things down because, like, even in the moment, you know, it's so exciting. But then, you know, as years pass, you forget stories. And so I'm like, how cool would it be to have a journal and just have all your, you know, hunts and different things and then have your kids be able to read it and go back? And I feel like I'd be the same way as him. Like, I might start reading it and be like, okay, I need to save this. I need to emotionally prepare myself and get away and, you know, read it. But that was just really, yeah, it was definitely a teard tracker. I think he said there were 72.

72 books, yeah. Oh, wow. Really? Same making models. Oh, my goodness. Can you, and what stood out to me about that is that, I mean, his dad, like, Russ is probably in its 60s, Russ Arthur's in its 60s. 64 about what he said.

Did he say 60? Well, he said when he was born in 50. Yep, I was going to say probably mid-60s. I was born 60. I'm 63. So his dad probably would have been born in the early 40s or late 30s, something like that. I don't know when his dad was born. Point being some of that generation was pretty private's probably not the right word. But I can't imagine me having 72 full journal books and my family not knowing about it.

Yeah. It seems like something that might from that generation. have happened. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And Russ, holy cow, I'm going to do more stuff with Russ Arthur. He's a, he is a jewel of a man, truly is. But I met him. Did it make sense how I met him? I mean, if you follow Bear Greas, I did that story on Louis Del and Charlie Edwards for my hometown.

Yeah. It was so wild. But I was interviewing a law enforcement guy about Louis Del and Charlie, these two guys. And he said, hey, do you want to interview the undercover agent that tried to catch Louisdale? And I was like, yeah. Well, it was Russ Arthur. And he said, he lives in Tennessee. And so I remember we had built the episode and then I got this intel.

And like the next day, I like jumped in the truck and drove to meet Russ Arthur in Tennessee. And it was spooky because Louisville. Louis Del has passed away. Louis Del had told people that he had suspected all these years that this guy might have been an undercover agent. And he told people, he said, that guy was the best natural voice mouth caller ever heard. And then when I meet Russ Arthur,

one of the first things I said was, let me hear your owl, let me hear your Yelp, let me hear your gobble, and he did it all. and none of these people back in my hometown knew this guy. They didn't even know he was undercover. I mean, we kind of busted his cover, you know, 25 years later. It was okay.

But they didn't even know for sure that he was undercover. Louis Dale just always told him. He's like, I suspect that guy. It was just interesting. And Russ has some wild, wild undercover agent stories. Like, blow your mind kind of stuff. But the real Russ Arthur is, is like a very dedicated turkey hunter,

just a really good guy, really deeply embedded in Appalachia and that part of the world over there. And Russ actually hooked me up with the 92-year-old guy named Jack Hall who told the emu story. Yeah. And so, anyway, Russ, super cool guy.

But Russ is on the next episode too. He has a cool story on the next episode too. Awesome. Not to spoil the fun. foreshadowing. I was just going to say, I did listen to that story, and when he said he didn't read it, that is not something I would have ever done. Like, I thought that was, oh, yeah, I thought it was kind of wild.

And, like, when he said, I still haven't read it, I was like, hold on. I think I would have read it, too. I think I would have read it for sure. Like, I would have. It was 10 years ago. Yeah. He hasn't read anywhere. Really?

10 years. Okay, yeah, I wouldn't wait that long. Yeah. So you're saying that someone has, like, all those journals and. didn't, and his family didn't know it. I think that type of person would have a child who would know that there's a journal entry about, about his first time that he doesn't read. Like, I think there might be a family thing here.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of fascinating to me. Yeah. Maybe so. I think you kind of got to emotionally prepare for something like that too. And, I mean, you could hear it in his voice when he said, you know, forgive me if I get choked

up. Yeah. That's some of emotional stuff, man. You know, there's a bond there with your dad, you know, between his son and a dad that, uh, when they say something nice about you it kind of chokes you up a little bit you know so and I think but you don't care about words of affirmation

so no that matters to you right? I think that's maybe why I don't care about it sometimes because my dad was not that way with me so I kind of learned to live without it so yeah it definitely it needs to me sometimes you know when I think about stuff like that for sure

yeah last spring Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and Bill 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 Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Which story stood out to you, John? Honestly, I got two. I won't go too long because Josh kind of already hit on it, but that David's story, you know, about his friend getting shot,

again, John dumping his dirty laundry out here on the Bear Grays podcast. But I had a good friend of mine also that got shot and killed in a friendly fire accident right in front of me. In the military? Mm-hmm. Same deployment, same thing. Wow. And that's a scary thing to me, you know, to be around somebody. know with a firearm you know and it's not not that I'm scared of guns you know that I

carry him daily and you know they're tools and you know responsibly used there they're they're that's what they're intended for but yeah when anytime I get around you know a group of duck hunters a group of turkey hunters if a gun's sitting on table at turkey camp like I'm checking it I'm looking at it I'm making sure it's unloaded and I you know duck hunting I usually make sure everybody's I'll watch them shoot before I'll shoot. I got some hunting buddies that, you know, they're kind of like, why aren't you shooting? I'm like, I'm just watching here for a second, you know,

just to kind of make sure. But yeah, I appreciated the compassion and the understanding that the wife and the friend had by extending that to him and just being patient

to let that kind of wound heal. But I also thought about podcast 66, you know, with Leon Boyd, the Hicks from the Sticks, where he talks about... He even knew the number of the episode. I know. I've been... I wrote notes this morning.

He's kind of a big fan. Yeah. Yeah, I've been listening since day one, man. So back in the Bear Greas magazine days. Right on. So, yeah, the quote that he said, he said, I'd rather leave this whole world right here, Coon Hunting, as in the best hospital in the world. I enjoy these woods.

And I like to see youngings like Shepherd enjoy hunting. There's a lot of things in this world that ain't near clean of sport as Coon Hunt is. That's a high-level comment. He's taking something from episode 66 and weaving it in to episode 198. I don't know what episode is. Good job. Good job. I know what episode this is too, and I got a present for you all later that I'll mess out.

Beau, did you do anything like that? No. Did you do anything special? There we go. I got it up here. Yeah. So. Not trying to interrupt you, John.

No, you're good. You know, that David said, you know, that's good medicine to be in the woods. Right. And I resonated with that. You know, that's kind of where I'm going. It's to the woods, you know. And not sharing my feelings all the time and just kind of getting out there with yourself and God. And just sitting out there and being alone, you know, or, you know, with a friend or your wife or whatever like that.

and I'm at the stage of life where I kind of like watching my wife do stuff and enjoy the things that I like to do more than I like doing them now. And that kind of ties into my second one there with Billy Johnson and the Clay Matthews, man. I got chills when I heard that. That's kind of the life that I'm looking for these days. You know, man, living off the land, simple life, you know. I just thought it was incredible. again, it's woodsmanship, but, you know, knowing where the mulberry trees are to know where to find those turkeys,

you know, that's pretty neat watching the Hornet's nest to see how high they are off the ground until how bad the winter is, rubbing the squirrel hair. You know, that, I'd love to sit down with a fellow like that and drink a cup of coffee. I mean, like the stories that they could tell, you know, walking to sell his furs, you know, doing all that. And again, like I said, the blue yodeler story

was neat, you know, because like I said, you get that involvement, you know, with that animal, and it just it means so much to you. But it just, you know, at the end of the day, the animal's not, the killing of the animal is not the thing for me anymore. It's just the enjoyment of being out there. And I just, I can tell from that, how that guy talked about Clay Matthews that he just, he loved what he did, you know.

The world changed all around him, but he did. didn't know any different because he just kept on doing his thing that that says contentment to me that says you know that he's just okay being who he is and yeah that like I said I got I got kind of choked up thinking about that you know like that's yeah that's a pretty good way to live yeah I like that a lot so man that story was interesting to hear Billy Johnson tell because again it was it was kind of a there's always more than what we edit down yeah and he started it off the story like real quick by saying

there was this old man that lived on the river named Clay Matthews. He was a lamplighter and he starts telling me the story and then he starts talking about the blue yodler and I was confused. I was like what what about the guy on the river? Like that's

what I was thinking in my head as he was talking. And then he tells this turkey story and then he goes back to Clay Matthews and by the time he's done you you realize that he can't talk about turkey hunting without talking about Clay Matthews.

Clay Matthews had nothing to do with the blue yoddler. Yeah, it had nothing but in Billy's my, and Billy's the older guy, I don't know, Billy's probably in his 60s, too, maybe older than that, I don't know, but, but he, he had a real, he had an agenda,

like, in a good way, like when he started telling that story. Yeah. Like, the story was about Clay Matthews. Yes. There just happened to be his own personal little turkey story in there, you know. And yeah, I thought it was really cool. And the fact that we've done quite a bit of stuff on the Mississippi River, it was really cool here and about, he was a lamplighter on an island. So the Mississippi River is, they've marked the channels since the 1800s, maybe even the middle 1800s.

Oh, $30,000 to conservators. There we go. Hot dog. Yeah, is that, was that a microwave, John? Yeah. Microwave. No, you're supposed to tell them it's not. People think that it's a microwave.

People think we're cooking burritos. People think that I had a guy write me a, we can be back to Clay Matthews. I had a guy write me a very detailed instructions the other day of how to change the battery on my laptop. Oh, good. Because he thought it was a laptop. They thought it was a Garmin dog thing,

saying my dog was treed. Yeah. Anyway, I like it. I like it all so much. I'm just going to let it keep beeping. Yeah. It's part of the DNA, just like Clay Matthews and the blue yoddler. Yeah, it's part of the big story, the beeping, mysterious beeping.

They mark the channels on the river so that the boats, like the river might be a half mile wide, but maybe there's only, you know, 200-yard stretch where you could drive a big boat where it's deep. And so they had floating kerosene lanterns that somebody kept. like for like a thousand miles up the river and this guy Clay Matthews was a lamplighter on the Mississippi River. That's fascinating in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And lived on that island. It was cool. Yeah. We live on the Arkansas and so we got big barges coming up and down all the time. You can see the river from your house? Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So it's fascinating to me.

I mean, I can't see the bank with a nice duck light, you know, let alone a kerosene lantern. You imagine that? God. I mean, that'd be wild. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good story. Man, that was a, I love that, I love that story.

Yeah, and he did a good job, too, of describing how he woke up the next day and was kind of sad that he couldn't chase that turkey. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. Mo, which ones do you like? I really like the one you all were just talking about, Billy Johnson and the Clay Matthews deal. All that went together when you finally got to the end of it. Then you realized how all that, like you said, tied together. Yeah, yeah.

How Billy Johnson tied all, everything he talked about, turkey, and anything, he related to Clay Matthews because that was his life. You know, that's, he, he learned so much and picked up so much stuff from him there on the Mississippi and doing that. And then the other story I like was, shoot, I just forgot the guy's name. Roy Stubbs, Russ Arthur. Roy, the one, it was the next last story, I think it was. Roy Stubbs, the older guy.

The work for the gas company in Mississippi. Yeah. I really liked his story because I relate to that a lot for all the years. I've been turkey hunting. Missing. Some of my fondest memories missing or not getting a shot of turkey getting away. Yeah. I've had some really good hunts that it ended in either missing a shot or not getting a shot at a turkey.

And it's the same way with deer hunting too, but especially. on turkeys, it seems like that you remember that stuff when it goes like you don't plan for it to go, but it still sticks in your mind and it's a great hunt because of everything that happened through the whole episode of the hunt and everything. So those two stories I really like, I mean, they were all pretty good. Oh, yeah. If I picked two out, it would be those two right there. Yeah.

And that Roy Stubbs gentleman, I had never met him before that day, didn't know anything about him. I'd called Billy Johnson, who runs that museum. and if you're ever near Leland, Mississippi, you really should go there. It's top-notch for what it is. And I just said, Billy, I need turkey stories. And he said, be here at 9 o'clock on this day. And I show up and he's got three guys there. And one of them is Roy Stubbs.

So, I mean, I didn't know this guy from Adam. Wow. Sat down with him. And it became clear real quick. Like, people just carry something. And everybody has something intangible that they bring to a conversation or when they're talking about something, they just bring something. And he just had incredible respect for the turkey.

Yeah. You know, like he, in his little preamble, I kind of asked these guys, like, give me a little bit of history about yourself and you're hunting. And he told about when he got started and there weren't many turkeys. And then there were a lot of turkeys. And but then he said, and he said, turkeys are really special. And if you get to hunt one, you should, you should thank the Lord. It was just like super genuine.

Yeah. Like a lot of people say stuff like that, but when he said it, it was like, I think this guy really means it. Yeah. And then I thought it was really funny when at the end he said he was sure that that turkey was in Turkey heaven. That was funny. He said it as a joke. He knew he was joking. But he said it, it was funny the way he said it, but he was a neat, he was a neat old guy.

That sounds like it sounds like to be. Yeah, he seemed like he had a lot of respect for the wild turkey. I mean, just as a game bird and out there because this way he talked about the whole episode. They talked through until the end when he was laying on his belly and when he shot and didn't have his head down on his gun, good. He figured what happened. And when the turkey flew over his head, it was like, this is, this is, this is. don't get no better than this. Yeah.

That's neat. Yeah. You know, I think to me, they were all special. I liked that the old man, 92-year-old Jack Hall, when he had one turkey story to tell. And he actually told me a couple.

I whittled through him. But he's killed hundreds of turkeys. He really has. There was an article about him in the National Wild Turkey Federation magazine that I read before I just kind of saw before I interviewed him. He was

Russ Arthur's friend. But the story that he wanted to tell was about when he tricked his old buddy. Brought in some... Yeah, I just thought it was a... I thought that was a good story. Oh, yeah. All those... On this episode, there were

quite a few older fellas other than Macy Watkins who was... who's young and... Yeah. But all the old guys started, I actually had to cut it out because it, you know, when you're building an episode, you don't want it to be too repetitive. But almost every one of them told me the same story. There used to not be any turkeys and then there were. And they would talk about how their dads didn't turkey hunt because there weren't any turkeys. And then when they kind of came of

age in the 50s and 60s, they started being turkeys. That's interesting. And then, and I kind of alluded to it in the podcast and some of when I was talking, but it's, uh, it's interesting now to be a part of a turkey decline. And, uh, and Mo, there's, everybody's hit a little bit different. Like, the turkey decline in Arkansas, uh, pretty much shut me down for 10 years. Like, uh, turkey hunting was not, like, my number one focus for, uh, turkey hunting was not, like, my number one focus for, in hunting, like I was probably more focused on bear and deer, but always turkey hunted. And if turkey hunted every year of my life since I started turkey hunting. But like the turkey, the point of this, what I'm saying here is that wildlife numbers declining

actually affect people. Point being, for the last 10 years, I've kind of opted out of being very serious about turkeys just because the places I used to go don't have them anymore. And so my sons and daughters, they have not grown up with a real rich turkey story, even though we've done some pretty good youth hunting. Mo's been with us on some of them. But it just makes you appreciate having wildlife. Yes.

Like you don't realize, I don't realize sometimes how special it is what we have in North America. I mean, we just wake up and it's like what we have. You're in rural America. Yeah. And you want to hunt. You've got access. but for me, turkey hunting decline in Arkansas as deep a dive as our turkeys took and hopefully they're coming back. I mean, it kind of takes the fire out of you.

Yeah. And like I said earlier, when I first started in 76, there was turkeys, but there wasn't a lot of turkeys. I mean, up in this area, I heard people talk about in the wash taas. There was a lot more mountains back then in the 60s and through the 70s. but in the in the in when I started in the in the in the mid 70s like I said you you would go out our season was a month long it was the full month of April it went from April 1st to the end of April and whatever days you got to go hunt it it it and even before season scouting you didn't hear much but when you found a pocket of turkeys you'd hear some goblin you could go hunt them and there wasn't near as many hunters back then yeah I'd say there was probably a fifth of the hunters back when I first started as there is now as far as hunters but in the last what you said a minute ago Clay in the last 10 years I've seen those same turkey hunting hunter numbers seem like they've declined just because the turkey population has shrunk

yeah here in Arkansas and a lot of people say well I you know I ain't going to go turkey hunting here in Arkansas because they're hard to find and I'm just going to go fishing or I'm going to do this or do that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, ignorant, hardcore people like me, I spend the whole month to chase them around whether there's any out there or not, because I love to do it. I love to turkey on it.

But I'll see them. You usually find some. Yeah, I usually do. Yeah. But there's a lot of miles going to these old boots and feet in that time to find them, too. So many people got spoiled, like I said, in the 90s and early 2000s. They didn't have to go scouting up and just go out two or three days for the season. and find a few turkeys here, I'm goblin.

Last few years, I've killed a couple of big turkeys that I never heard gobble before the season or anything. I killed one that I've got mounted, the only turkey I've ever mounted. And the only reason I went in there is because I was deer hunting in there in the fall before, and I found a big old huge track on an old logging road in there. And I didn't even go back there before the season or anything. And I hadn't had no luck. I hadn't killed a bird all season.

And I told my wife, I said, I'm going to go back. over there where I was deer hunting. I saw a turkey track. Where I saw a big turkey track and she kind of laughed at me. And until I come home that day with that big old bird that I've got mounted now. There we go. Right on. But the challenge I feel like makes it more exciting.

I mean, for me at least, because I know the first two seasons I hunted with John, I didn't get on a bird. And I think the second year, actually, I wasn't able to go hunting. But the third year, I've spent, and then the one story about how he said, I don't know what I'm going to do now. I hunted for, what, 24 days? I forgot what I said? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 21 days.

Okay, so I didn't hunt that long on my first turkey, but the first one that I got was like five or six days straight. And I was like so bound and determined by the end of it. And that was the other thing when Macy was talking about being just like, just done and like, you know, it was raining and everything. It was just the same kind of thing. But I remember, like, after I got that first one, I was like, wow, like that was. but you know there was so much build-up to that point.

Yeah, and it was just like, oh wow, now that it's done, it's like, you know, it was kind of fun when it was, you know. The chase. Yeah, the cat and mouse thing there for a while. But, yeah, it kind of makes it more exciting, though, when it's not so easy. Yeah. 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. 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 Phelps game calls.com.

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. Do you call? Do you turkey call? Yeah, but I use a box call usually. Box call. I'm going to use my slate call from Brent that he gave me.

Oh, yeah. He gave you one? Yeah, he did. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Will y'all go hunt anywhere other than Oklahoma? Yeah, so we've had a camp, or my family has had a camp in Missouri.

My great-grandfather bought a place up there, I think maybe back in the 30s, something like that. And so it's been in the family for a long time. And so back in the, I mean, when I was a little kid, you know, probably back in 96, 97 or so, we started going up there, you know, in Suburban's. you know, camping in tents and stuff, and we had, you know, two-by-fourers nailed to the trees for shelves and stuff like that. We'd always drive past this little cabin up there and, uh, busted out when those floor sagging, you know, my great-grandfather built it for his ranch hand, you know, years and years ago. And so one year we went up there and, I mean, it rained for five days straight and everything was sop and wet, you know, our tents were soaked, you know, all clothes were soaked.

And I'm like, why, why are we not sleeping up in that cabin? You know, we had a guy from Kentucky that was hunting with us and said, I ain't sleeping up in that cabin. There's ghosts in there. I can hear those chains rattling up there right now. His name is old Larry Moore. So, anyhow, long story short, we redid the cabin. And so we got a little camp up there now.

And we go up there, at least for a week. Every year, it's very sentimental. Yeah. Yeah, I love going there. That was, yeah, the first time I went out, it was just like, wow, it's so peaceful out here. I mean, you can hear them gobbling all around, and that was my first, like, experience of turkey hunting,

but it's pretty neat. We actually have plans to go hunt with Cam, the winner of the Alhout competition. Yeah, we just exchanged the numbers there, and I think we're going to go hit that first week of season. Oh, that's cool. That's awesome. If we get our butts kicked, we'll go to the place in Missouri on private and try to get him a bird there.

Cool, cool. Well, Cam has two of Josh Spillmakers. I know. Handmade. I'm jealous man. Raccoon skin, hats. I don't know if I got what it takes

to win them, but Demi might. Demi, for real. I've had my eye on it. You need to train. Her head's itching. She can feel it.

I want to hear like your regiment for like how many Al Hoots a day. Yeah. 10,000 hours. Yeah, there we go. And like listening to recordings. I'll keep a journal. You know what?

When I did that, one of the first couple of of Bear Greece episodes was about I think, I can't remember the name of it the thing about

The thing about Al Hooters The thing about Al Hooters And I and it was about I remembered that stuff Did you Al Hoot on it? Yeah, you called me and said You wanted me to be on it

Okay, yeah yeah Yeah, yeah Well, no, I met with a voice coach I interviewed a voice guy that trains actors and singers And

Really? The rain in Spain I don't have to listen to Listen to that episode. Listen to that episode. I've listened to it before. I have. Yeah.

I think it's episode two or three. I didn't. Episode two or three. Yeah, it was two. Anyway, the guy, I interviewed it. It was online and he said, let me hear you, Al Hoot. And so I awed at him, and he said, he watched me, and he gave me instruction to what to do, and it actually helped. He said, you need to keep your tongue lower.

He was from New York City. He didn't know a thing about what an owl sounded like. Yeah. Pace Bacconi. Yeah. Anyway, so you could take this serious to me. This is how Clay talks to our kids. Like, when I see potential.

He's having Shep right now. He's like, Shep, you got to work out. You got to, like, he's constantly telling Shep what he's got to do. So he basically sees potential for you to be, you know, a legendary. Yeah. Well, I'm going to do it. I'm going to put in the work next year. She got a taste.

She's got your homework assignments. Nah. You got, you think you got her? I told you when I was planning on going up there that I had a couple of secrets I'd been working on. I didn't show them while ago. You didn't show them today. You've been working too. Okay.

Okay. I was planning on winning this year. There we go. Oh, man. All I'll say is that it took me a while to figure it out, but when you can sound like two or three owls at the same time. Yeah. Ventriloquist. Okay.

Hey, let me tell you this, hot tip. And I don't know if I'll be a judge next year. If we start getting real serious with it, I don't know that I'll be a judge. But I think it's a trend to start with a screech. Yeah, that's definitely. I don't know that that's the way to go. See, that's something I can't do.

I've tried and tried, and I can't get that high sound out of my throat. It's kind of hard to do. I think if Cam were here, the winner, who's an incredible Al Hooter. Absolutely. I would say I'm more interested in the basics. I would like to hear a laugh and all that as a, as like an afterthought. Oh. Because the basic, even like three-note, four-note hoot being real tight to me is what makes it.

The trill does it for me at the end. Well, that's what I was going to ask. Is that that important? It is. Because for me, it's hit or miss. I can't seem to. Can you do it sometimes, though? Yes, sometimes I can.

Well, then keep practicing. That's what gets me every time when I hear that. No, that is something that as a judge I'm listening for. If somebody can trill, it's like, yep, mm-hmm. Yeah. I like that. That sounds good. I can't do a trill.

I know. Some guys can go. Yeah. And there's times I will get it like that and when I'm not trying. It just comes out. See, you got the potential, though. Yeah.

So you got to keep working. I think it's good to know how to roll your R's. Like, if you can roll your R's, then... Like in Spanish. So I use my uvula when I trill. Can you, can you trill? Yeah. Oh.

Yeah, I can't... I need a drink of water here. Hang on now. Pretty good. Pretty good. This is what it's like, just like waking up. in April at our house. Yeah, there we go.

It's super stressful if you're not a morning person. Lay and bear going back and forth. There we go. I feel that. I'm not a morning person, which is funny because he always would make fun of me saying that I was a night owl. Or like, you know, it would be when we were first married, like, I'd be wanting to have a conversation late at night. He's not a night owl.

He's a morning person. So he would joke and say, 10 o'clock, time to talk. I was just like that. And I'm like, sorry. My mind is like full throttle. Deep conversations at 10 o'clock. Can we do this in the morning at 5 a.m. When I'm ready, I'm ready to go at 5.

I think I'm ready to talk anytime. Right, Misty? Well, I mean, Clay falls asleep in like 30 seconds. And I'll be like, hey, by the way, I mean, to me, we haven't disengaged from our last conversation and he'll be asleep. And I'll say, hey, by the way, and he's like, oh, my gosh, you just woke me up from a dead sleep. And I'm like, there's no possible way.

I could be in a mild sleep, much less a dead sleep at that time. Hey, I've got a funny story for Josh because he was talking about Macy with her flies. Bear told me this week, he said, I need to go to work making some flies. And I said, yeah, he said, I'm wanting to put in some special edition Tim flies. Tim is our squirrel dog. And he plucks hair from Tim to make flies. Live animal, like there's an animal still alive. And he's like, I need to make sure I have three of those.

Special edition. He's getting bald patches on him. So if you see that, we'll know, it seems okay. Just bears been flying ties. Flying ties. Tie and flies. There we go. My wife can't ever say it right the first time.

Show says, oh, you're going to go fly some ties? Yeah, baby. So go fly some ties. It took me a second. It didn't realize I did it. Yeah, that does sound like a t-shirt. Well, I, I'm going to Mississippi next week, Turkey Hinton.

Awesome. Yeah. How's the Mississippi turkey population? Way better than here. It's better. Okay. It's better. Hey, if this is for all the folks out there, if you are, well, if you live anywhere in the world,

you could come to the Meat Eat Eater Live tour. Oh, yeah. Which starts on April the 23rd and runs through MAP. May the 5th, but we'll be out west. And man, it's wild that meat eaters never come to the south for a live tour or the Midwest. They've been to Dallas. On a live tour? No.

I think so before COVID. Kansas City. Yeah. Okay. I thought they were in Dallas. Pre-Code. But they're going to, they're going to, we're going to be in Arizona, California, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah. How long is the drive to Washington?

I'll come see you. Long ways. But Steve said they're going to go. You can buy tickets to the Meteeter Live Tour right now. And it's going to be a lot of fun. So don't you think they should go, Josh? I think they should. Yeah, just if they're, you know, if you're within,

I would say if you're within 15 hours drive of there, you should go. Absolutely. No question. That's a joke. That's a joke. Misty. Yeah, Meteor Live Tour. The other thing that you can check out is Brett and I's Mississippi Reefee.

River Expedition film. I have not watched you yet, Josh. I know, I'm sorry. I've been on vacation. Oh, wow. I immensely enjoyed that. That was good. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah. It really didn't. 250 miles in a boat. 250 miles. That's impressive. I needed a vacation from Paris. Come on, Josh. You look like you're looking for something.

They were in Dallas. Oh, wow. In 2019. She's proven you wrong. Okay. That's all. I'm just doing some research. In 2019, they were in Dallas.

Just doing some research. Don't go toe to toe with Dr. Newcomb. Demi. Do you want to hit this with a fiddle tune? Oh, yes. I mean, absolutely. I got to follow the leader of your husband here. He's saying you should do it.

Uh-huh. She's good at it. Let's hear it. Yeah. This is very normal for Barry Gris. Can you get it for a draw? I'd love to. We need some music.

We've not had any in a while. Now what kind of I wish I wasn't alone in this You played the fiddle Not the violin Well Both I was classically trained But I had a friend in high school

That actually he approached me He handed me a CD He was real introverted But And real smart He just started playing the banjo one day And he handed me a CD of like 50 songs And he said

You need to listen to these And learn them Because we're going to start a bluegrass band Okay And I said I don't know about that I'm not I don't I don't really play.

He's like, well, you're going to love it. It's going to be great. And so we did. We had a Bluegrass fan and Deer Creek Redemption. I loved it. It was the most fun, actually, that I played music. So I don't know if this is even in tune. Close.

Close enough. You can take your time. We can edit it out if you need a minute. So what is the, I think I know the answer to this, but maybe not everybody does. Okay. Tell us the difference between. classical violin and fiddle? It really comes down to style mostly.

But there are things that you can do to adjust the instrument to kind of make it more, you know, lean more towards, like, that style. So there's something you can do to the instrument? Yeah. It's the cadence and the style of play, the type of music. And how you're holding it and just like, yeah. Did you say the bridge has something to do with it too? Yeah, sometimes people will have different,

levels of the bridge. And then also a lot of fiddle players that I've talked to have like steel strings. Okay. Interesting. So, but for the most part, I mean, it's basically the same instrument. Okay. Man, just think if we'd all practice a song together, we could play.

It'd be meaningful. You know, Misty's a banjo player. I don't know. Yeah, I know. Yeah, we should have, we should have talked. We should have. We should have planned. Next time.

public tuning is what are you going to play unbearable to me I don't know I might play a little you don't know old slewfoot do you that song I don't okay don't worry about it trying to think of something that I could just play by heart that's song we all right yeah she's good

she didn't need to be I don't want to bring that she's a pro yeah I'm not embarrassed myself I don't want to owl hoot I'm very rusty I play for a long time and then I put it down and didn't play it for a long, long time. Right on. That's awesome.

Very cool. Very good. Very good. You got another one? I don't know. I don't know if I can come up with another one. You can't go up with another one? Yeah. That's great. I could come up with one, but I don't.

Do you play anything, John? I don't. Duck calls. He did. Turkey calls. He played mandolin for a little bit. Yeah, it was kind of one of those deals. He wanted to play banjo.

Yeah. Sorry, Mama, if you're listening to this, I doubt it. But, you know, it was kind of one of those deals that was pushed on me when I wasn't ready for it. Yeah. And I just kind of didn't like it too much. But I wish I could play the guitar. Yeah. I really, I like to sing and, you know, make up my own words to stuff, you know, and tunes and stuff like that.

So that's pretty neat. That's all I like, oh, hawk and horse. I needed that Arkansas mule. Yeah. Yeah. I think he released it today. Well, he was releasing it on April 19th. Okay, I've got something.

Yeah. Well, thank you for, thank you for playing. That was awesome. That was awesome. Thank you guys so much for coming. Yeah. Hey, we got some gifts for you too before we didn't say anything, but, uh,

turn with, it's kind of waiting around here. Do you want to? This is for Misty. Oh, that's for me. Mo, did you bring us any gifts? Yeah, Mo. Come on, me.

Yeah, I brought you myself. Yeah. Gift enough in itself. You have to save me. All right. I got one of these for each of all. And I got one extra one. They're all unique.

For render boy Brent. Since he didn't show up. He didn't show today. Now, is this the one that incorporates the number? This is. It's wrapped in tape. Take a guess of what you think it is. I can tell you what it is because I've made them.

Oh. Have you made these stuff? Holy cow. Have you made... What is it? It's pretty sure it is a... Wingbone call. Holy smokes.

That's awesome. Very cool. Episode. Oh, look. Dad, gum. Hand-painted. Hand-painted. Yeah.

I know this. I brought one of my own. There we go. Okay. And now, so look on the other side of that. It says. BP3. How many Black Panthers if you see?

That's the, that's the Yelp. No, Yelp's game called BP3. Misty, that's a ton of work. That sounds good. Oh, it does sound good. That sounds really good. Man, that's a lot of work on. Thank you so much.

This is awesome, man. Misty open yours. Yeah, mine is different Well, you'll yell while you do it. Mine is different. Dude, that's going to hang here in the office, man. It's beautiful paper. Did you wrap this in?

You did good. Thank you. I may have made too much. I don't even know what to expect on this. Yeah. It's kind of hard to get that. It's hard to get that cluck down, isn't it? You might have to cut it.

I'm not as good with the... I got pocket knife here if you need that. It's probably not as hard as I'm making. make these back in the 70s. That's needed. I started doing them about five years ago. Those are beautiful. And so those are off of our...

Oh, sweet. What do we got? Oh, earring. Turkey feather earrings. Yeah. Did you make this? Oh, wow. That's awesome.

Those are beautiful. Oh, my goodness, Josh. So that's the tail feathers of a mallard duck. I had to stick with the thing. With the turkey, but then I had to throw in some. Oh, man. That's awesome. Some mallard curls in there.

I'll kill a long beard with this this year. But if you would, if you would, I'd appreciate it. them right out in front of you. I'd be real happy for you if you did. I'd be happy for you anyways if you didn't use it. Those are awesome to me. If you want to use those calls. So you made these yourself.

So you guys are just really crafty. In addition to being incredible. Al Hooter, you're very good at this kind of stuff. This is pretty awesome. Look, John, this call right here is my dad's old call. That's neat. Ever since I was a little kid, my dad always had that one. And he showed us how to use it and everything.

And I'd nabbed it from him a few. years ago and said that's going in the museum yeah so that it's a different sound in the woods you know something I was going to say uh when you were talking about that al-huton episode I remember staying up late late when David Letterman was on TV and listening to Preston Pittman yeah and like two other guys he had on there doing the goblin and stuff and I remember thinking like I can do that yeah and so it's it's neat I just kind of a great story so well yeah Thank you guys for coming. Thanks everybody for listening.

And we will see you next week. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and 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 Ronella 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.