Bear Grease - Ep. 213: This Country Life - When it all Falls Apart

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

You knew it was coming. After two consecutive weeks of bagging turkeys like he's picking peas, the mighty hunter has stumbled. That he encountered turbulence might be a more fitting description. Brent's tales of woe aren't confined to turkey hunting either, but you probably knew that already. It's time for some humble pie on this week's episode of 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.

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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 got a thing or two to teach you.

When It All Falls Apart. John Prine released a song in May of 1978 titled, That's the Way That the World Goes Round. Here's the chorus. That's the way that the world goes round. You're up one day, the next year down. It's a half an inch of water and you think you're going to drown. That's the way that the world goes round.

Now, if you can find a better analogy for my turkey season, I want to hear it. You'll find out why in a minute. But first, I'm going to tell you a story. Two days before my birthday in 2020, I brought home a coon. That's a whole story in itself, but all the context you need for this one is a new dog and taking up residence with us just a few days prior to the world coming unraveled. It was a very opportune time for my family to have something good to focus on while we navigated through the new place we all felt lost in.

Not knowing what we were supposed to do about all the changes and restrictions we faced in our jobs and daily routines, we focused our energies on our faith, each other, and a clumsy, four-legged tree and walker pup named Whalen. It was love at first sight from my youngest daughter Bailey and my wife, Alexis, as they each introduced themselves to that big-eared joker who instantly returned the affectionate. and unlike any other hound I'd ever owned. He had a lot to learn if he was going to be a coon dog. I had a lot to learn if I was going to help train him, and the thought of him not making it really never crossed my mind.

I already knew he wouldn't be leaving because of how the girls felt about him. Hound hunters, my dad being a prime example, can go through dogs like grass goes through a goose. Get one, keep him a while, find the fault or mannerism you don't like, and send him on down the road to the next guy. Then he'd get another one and start the whole process over again. I remember many times when dad and I'd be out at the dog pen, I'd ask, where's old so-and-so?

He'd say, oh, I sold him, or I traded him for this one. Hounds came and went. It was the nature of the community and the process and developing a pack of running dogs that worked well together. Hounds men and women have preferred styles of how dogs hunt, how they sound. how they look and how they act. When you're feeding multiple dogs like my dad did,

you're always looking for the next one that'll give you the advantage in helping your pack outrun everyone else's. Now, I say all that to say this, when you have two other people in the house and they love dogs more than anything, and not this type of dog or that type of dog, but dogs, period,

getting rid of one that doesn't suit your fancy can be harder than it should be. As long as it isn't biting the neighbors chewing up the Birkenstocks or the Lulu Lemon, that rascal will have two strong advocates in his corner when the conversation comes up that maybe he just isn't working out and hunting the way I want him to.

I tried it out a month after we got him. Don't get me wrong. I had no intention whatsoever of getting rid of my new coup now than what I said. I don't think this dog is. working out. Alexis and Bailey both looked at me and, and I'm paraphrasing here, but the gist of their responses were, so what?

He ain't leaving. A month into it and I knew this dog better work because it appeared that they would sanction my dismissal before they would his. Coondock School was in session, five, six, and seven nights a week. I'd be in the woods with Whaling after the girls are gone to bed. Sometimes Bailey would go with me and that was. back before getting muddy was a bad thing. She hunted a lot with me and was there from beginning in Whalen's progression

from just a dog wandering around in the woods to hunting with a purpose. Now, whether Bailey win or not, Wailing and I were, and through the hot summer we win. I'm blessed to have friends who have land near where I live and the abundance of public land available in Arkansas is huge. So for the first year, I hunted like a man possessed. It was a routine. I worked during the day, came home, spent time with the family until the girls went to bed,

and then me and Whalen went to work every night with few exceptions. It's the best way to do that I've found by exposing your dog to places where Coons frequent, you're going to find out pretty quick what you're dealing with and the natural ability of the hound and what you'll have to work on to get him focused on how you want him to hunt. It's a process and the best process is repetition. Doing everything the same over and over again. The way you load him up at the house in your truck, the way you put his collar on him and unload him when you get there,

the way you unsnap him off the lead, how you talk to him before you turn him loose, and what you say is all important. If you do everything the same every time, you'll notice anything he does different. And that's how you see his tendencies. That's how you gather the data for how good or bad he's doing. When everything is equal, the anomalies stand out.

That's how it works. Now, believe it or not, that dog is watching you too. They're creatures of habit just like we are, and they're training us at the same time we're training them. Consistently doing the same thing over and over is comforting, and soon I found Whelan standing at the back door looking inside. Now, anytime around dark, if he saw me walk towards the garage door, he'd go stand by the backyard garage entrance. If I stepped into the backyard with his lead in my hand, he'd stand motionless for me to snap it on him, and then he would pull me to the truck to load up.

I let him get away with pulling me so often that I've had to retrain him on healing, so he doesn't pull me down. Michael Roseman would tell you that I have done a terrible job of correcting that, and he'd be right. But the dog is smart and he'll do what I tell him, so I really don't mind it. In fact, it kind of comes in handy sometimes when I'm going up a creek bank and I need a little help for my four-legged friend to get to the top. The first summer was like clockwork. We were a well-old machine of routine. Kiss the girls goodbye, load my boots, light and vest in the truck,

walk to the back door with my lead, snap it on the dog that was standing at attention, him load him in the dog box, drive 15 minutes to the hunting spot, put my lighten boots on, put his collar on him while he stood on the tailgate, walked to the release spot, standing straddle of him, holding his collar, now patting his ribs and releasing him while saying, let's go. Every step of that was done exactly the same way every time, no deviation whatsoever. He started catching on pretty quickly. That dude possesses a lot of natural ability, and,

By repetitively keeping him in the woods, I was taking advantage of that and only having to correct a few minor issues I found undesirable. With all that was going on at the time, I'd become concerned about a jillion things that was going on around us, just in life. Alexis was working remotely most of the time. Bailey was doing the online school thing, and we were all three trying to get used to the new abnormal being normal. The only constant that was constant.

was mine and Wayland's routine through all of that mayhem. After months and months of repeating the step-by-step process of leaving the house just as I detailed to you and hunting the same spot over and over, I decided to go to a new spot. Now, this one was almost two hours away, and I decided that we both needed a new set of woods to look at. Waylon was treated on his own now, and our routine had become more like a rut, not in a bad way, but just in the mindless autopilot of day after day of the same thing at the same place.

I was spicing it up now. It was going to be good for the both of us. I was going to see how he did out of his comfort zone, and I was looking forward to adding that data to what he'd been doing on familiar ground. We were going to a big expanse of public ground, and I'd have been struggling over where to cut him loose. I had four or five places in mine to cash from, and my first. first choices already had someone hunting there. I'd been all over the map of the area,

picking out spots to go, downloading the offline maps to my tracker so I'd know where I was and where whaling was in relation to me. I'd have to leave earlier and to get there right at dark. There was a lot of water in that area, so I took some dry clothes in case I got wet from waiting to him should he tree across the slew that was over my boots. I didn't want to drive home with a wet pair of britches. All the way to the spot for nearly two hours, I thought about where to go first and changed my mind several times en route

until I got there, and then I just went to the closest place I could find that wasn't even on my list. I was excited to look at some new country. I was excited to see what my dog would do and a spot he had never been to and how he'd react to the new area was the focus of my mission.

I thought about it all day. that and all the other things that were going on at that time. And the two-hour drive seemed to take forever. Time usually passes quickly when I'm preoccupied with something, but when the preoccupation is with getting to the starting point, the road there seems to go on forever. But finally, I was there. I stepped out of my truck and I put on my light.

I changed it to my boots and I fired up the tracking collar. All of that was the same as always, it was my pregame routine at the parking spot before getting whaling ready to cut loose. I've already told you that. There's a routine inside this story about routines. The only difference this time was the time it took to travel to the new spot. Whelan didn't bark from the inside of the dog box when the collar beeped after I turned it on. He always did that. Every time, like it was ingrained in him. I attributed it to his excitement for the upcoming hunt.

after all, every time he'd heard it beep over the last few months, he was turned loose to chase bandito shortly afterwards, except this time. Now, me and questions were running through my mind, was the ride too far? Did he get car sick and puke everywhere? Oh, Lord, did I make a mistake and taking him to a different spot too soon? When I dropped the tailgate and looked inside the dog box, I knew immediately what had happened. The ride wasn't too long for him. He didn't get car sick.

and I hadn't made a mistake by taking him to a new spot. I hadn't done any of that. The mistake I made was not loading him up at the house before I left. He was still at home. I was Coonh without a Coon dog. And that's just how that happened. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a head. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence.

Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness, and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras,

just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For two episodes, I talked about how 24 hours

in Missouri all fell into place this spring. I was zigging when I should have been ziggin, and I was zagging when I should have been zagging. At every turn, I was guessing right, and making the right moves or not moving, and it was all paying off in flopping turkeys. But I don't want you to get the wrong impression about my luck or how the majority of my adventures play out. No chance of that if you listen to more than the last two episodes of this show. My life is a highlight reel of calamity, a literal step-by-step storyboard of lessons on things you shouldn't do. You folks that have been here a while slide over and let the newbies have a seat. Follies to follow.

Here's one that's so fresh that at this door was a gallon of milk, it wouldn't have had time to go bad since it happened. Guess where it occurred? Yep, Missouri. Remember the three stories I told you about three turkeys that met their fate on the opening week this year. Remember me beating the feathers off of that dead turkey? See where I substituted a dead horse with a dead turkey and still continued to beat a dead horse by continuing to talk about the opening day turkey hunt by using a different dead animal?

I'm out of control. Well, I went back to Missouri the following Monday, a scant seven days from the zenith of my personal best 24 hours of turkey smashing. I owned Missouri turkeys. I was in the zone. I had something to prove. I'd recently placed third in the meat eater online turkey calling contest behind the show-nuff deer killer Mark Kenyon of our very own Wired to Hunt podcast

and some other bozo named Clud, Clay, Mud, or some other soap opera names that I can't think of right now that has a podcast on this very feed. If I ever get bored enough, I'll listen to it. doubtful. But anyway, after that rig contest, I had some bones to pick with goblin turkeys. Now, those are the votes that really count, and I count those one beard at a time. Not like Clod does with a sweatshop full of mule skinners, rubbing blisters on their thumbs, voting online like the room and board depended on it, which I'm sure it did. Who cares? I'm a turkey killer, and I had two days to run back up there and show,

Clod and Mark, the deer guy, and everyone else that in the turkey woods, I'm as dangerous as a drunk monkey with a box cutter. I couldn't wait to get there. Now, these things that usually have a way of evening out are really ending up in nature's favor. Mother Nature is like a casino. She'll let you win a little, and you may even win a lot, but in the end, the house always comes out on top. Neither one of them are in the business to let you win for lots.

They each like to love you into a false sense of security. Then whammo, you lose. I would be reminded of that very soon. I don't know why it surprised me, and in the end, I don't think it really did. I was just on a roll, and I had time for one more throw of the dice because Daddy was feeling lucky and baby needed a new pair of shoes. I hunted all day where I called up the two turkeys on the opening Monday. one for me and one for my host daughter the turkey I was on at daylight answering every call I made to him

had a hen with him he walked away no problem go find another one and I did I found him strutting in a field I made a big loop after making the perfect plan to get in there and set up on it I miscalculated where I thought he'd be and I spooked him onto another property with the Afternoon hunt ruined, I decided to pack it in early, so I didn't do any further damage. Actually, come to find out, I didn't spook him at all. I'd spooked a turkey that I didn't even know was there. Where I'd planned to set that afternoon and jump that gobbler before getting there, there was another gobbler, gobbling in that spot the next morning.

I wouldn't learn that until I decided to go to a different spot in my hope. texted me with the good news he heard him from the back porch oh well it didn't matter the next morning I was on a different piece of property and listening to several turkeys gobbling it would only be a matter of time remember I'm a turkey killer the first turkey I set up on that morning was doing his best to gobble the world awake until he hit the ground after that he shut his yep and didn't say a word I called the hen in expecting to have her boyfriend roll in behind her, but alas, she was single. No problem.

Go find another one. I did. He's back to where another one had been gobbling that morning, and there he stood almost a half a mile away, blowed up like a big black trash bag in the edge of an open field. Field turkeys. They're tough nuts to crack sometimes. Sometimes they're really easy. or so I've heard from me.

There was a long treeline fence road that ran along the south end of that field for nearly half a mile, and I was at the east corner. He was at the west. There was a lot of ground between us, and I had a drop dead time of 12 p.m. to get out of there to make the long trip back home to catch a plane the next afternoon in Little Rock. A good, bad, or indifferent come 12 o'clock. I had to be making tracks for the coffee. Sadae Reeves.

I watched him strutting and walking, strutting and walking and realized, hey, he was making his way toward me and he was following a hen. Now, at the time, they were moving pretty good, so I just sat down where I was at the east corner of the field. Last time I saw him, he was about 50 yards north of the edge making his way straight toward me. A slight rise in elevation of the field kept me from seeing him when I sat down. I just had to be patient and trust.

the science of what I was doing. I'd killed a sack full of turkeys just a week ago. One, I'd literally pulled the trigger on the other two died of the trickery of my calling. This dude was more or less giving up by walking straight towards me. I guess he'd heard about me and figured it'd be easier just to come on in and get it over with. Forty minutes later, I was starting to think he wasn't coming. Deggum, I could have pelt the tricycle down there in about. in that length of time.

Well, I slowly stood up, shotgun at the ready, and there he was. Back in the original place, I'd seen him over 700 yards away. This was only going to prolong his life for a few more minutes. I crossed the fence on the opposite side of the wood line and made my way west just inside a headed out wheat field. If he stayed where he was right now, he was a dead man walking. The timber at that end of the field was bigger and would allow me, we'd slip in there close enough to bust a cap.

If he decided to retrace his steps, I was close enough to the edge of the field that all I had to do was standing in the shadows and send him one when he got close enough. Either way, he might as well been at Martha White's getting custom fitted with the batter bathing suit he was going to be wearing while swimming in my deep fire. The wind had picked up pretty good now,

and it was blowing from north to south. Any noise I made would be pushed away from him, and the leaves had come on a lot since the week before. That was going to hide my movement when I got down to where he was or allowed me to slip unseen up to the fence row. I cut the distance in half and peeked down to where I could see him. He'd have that distance himself and was walking back toward me. This was going to be easy.

He'd already walked this route and felt safe while doing it. Turkey pot pie or just plain old fried turkey. Hmm. I couldn't decide which one I was going to cook first. I sat down on the fence row. He didn't know I was on the planet. He was walking toward me. It was now at 150 yards.

But this time there was no strutton, no hesitation, no following the hen. He was on a beeline for the hen he'd heard earlier that sounded good and looked a whole lot like me. I eased my double barrel up to my shoulder and rested my thumb on the safety, waiting. to slide it forward. My index finger just outside the trigger guard waiting patiently. I glanced down at my phone screen, 1144 a.m. I had 16 minutes left. At a little over 100 yards, I slid the safety off and began sighting his red, white, and blue

head down the barrel. The bead covering less and less of his head and neck as he got closer with each purposeful step. I picked out a spot at 30 yards to send him a smoking teaspoon full of nastiness. He's at 80 yards now, and he's showing no signs of slowing down. This cat only has a few more seconds to live. And in the blink of an eye, he ducked his head flying and running back the way he came as fast as his wings and feet would tow him.

I put my shotgun on safe and raised my cheek from the stock, wondering what in the world had just happened. when a crop duster nearly drug his wheels through the top of the tree I was sitting under as he made a big loud pass right above me. Had I had wings, I believed I'd have picked up and flew with him. It scared me as bad as it did the turkey. I found it humorous, eventually, and I watched that pilot making pass after pass as I walked back toward my truck, shotgun broken down and resting across my shoulder. I was nearly back when he passed right over the top of me while banking back toward the wheat field he was spraying.

He was low and I could see him clearly in the cockpit looking at me. He was closer to me than the turkey ever got. I gave him a thumbs up and he puffed a ball of marker smoke back at me. They do this by squirt and a shot of oil onto the exhaust and the white smoke is easy for him to see it and helps them determine which way the wind is blowing. but that day I think it was more of a sorry friend I've been humbled by Mother Nature more times than I can remember my own ineptitude has sent me back to the house singing the blues even more

but getting my ego put in check by a crop duster man that's a new one even for me I thank y'all for listening and if you are the pilot that was flying that day if you can prove it was you by telling me where this happened, I'll send you a meat eater t-shirt. I was just playing that day. You were working and I ain't mad at you. Send your stories into me and Riva at my TCL story at the meat eater.com.

Check out Mark Kenyon over at Wired to Hunt and Old Clud over at the Bear Grieves. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful. 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.