Bear Grease - Ep. 244: This Country Life - Safety First, Usually

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Brent's talking about safety and the lack thereof on this episode. He's sharing some examples of how the progression of time and technology has helped him make better decisions compared to his "back in the day" era. Lessons on what not to do are the focus this week on MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.

Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.

Safety first. usually. Safety is said to be everyone's job. I believe that to be true because nothing can ruin a grand adventure quicker than someone getting hurt. Being in the outdoors enhances the risk of accidents and injury, but there are things we can do to put the odds on our side. I'm going to tell you about something I think you should know, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. Now that it's starting to cool off somewhat, a few days ago, it was only 100 here in Arkansas. but I catch myself reminiscent and longing for time spent in cooler temperatures. I was also putting together an outline for this week's podcast about safety

and thought which misadventures should be a good way to start the show. Well, with a seemingly endless catalog of calamity and near misses that grows bigger nearly every time I get out of bed, I settled on this one and happened during a particularly bitter cold front back around 1995. Tim and I were just, getting neck deep in the duck guiding business and had a group of hunters from North Carolina on their first of what would be several years, majority of them would book hunts with us. The big cold front had pushed in with their arrival in hunting in the woods was going to be hard to do with everything freezing up.

For those that don't know, ducks prefer open water to roost and rest in, and when the flooded timber and fields lock up due to the water not moving to stay open, it was one place you could count on going. The Arkansas River, and it was right out the back door. We had a place that we hunted a lot that was open to the public, just like hunting on wildlife management area land. Whoever got there first claimed the spot. And with that in mind, somebody had to go early to claim it for us.

Tim volunteered and a pair of North Carolinians would go with him. Tim and his charges hit the river that morning a couple hours ahead of when I would be bringing the rest of the crew, and there was nine of us total, seven hunters, and me and Tim. Tim took all the decoys in his boat and would meet me back at the boat ramp when I arrived to help haul everyone else, three hunters in his boat and the other two with me. Now, there was no way to safely haul them all in all the decoys and two boats in one trip, so we knew the seven-mile round trip would take a little bit, but it would be worth it to be on the safe side. It was in the pitch black dark and in the high 20s when Tim got to the point of

land that stuck out of the backwater slew that we hunted. It was off the main channel, nearly a mile, and had we been hunting deer there, you would have called this place a pinch point. Now, beyond that pinch point of land, it opened back up into a big backwater bay. And depending on the river level, it could be as much as 20 acres or more of water that was perfect for resting ducks. And I can't tell you how many times we watched ducks light out in the middle of that big open water when there wasn't any wind or ice. The first group of 20 or more of a morning would sit down out there in relative safety,

and then we'd be in for a day of just seeing all the rest of them follow suit until it was time for us to head back to camp. Now, we'd scrap out some here and there that buzz the decoys, but if the wind wasn't blowing, you could just about bet the hunting wouldn't be nearly as good. as the scenery. It's like watching the National Geographic Channel before there was such a thing. But if you had wind of any speed and in any direction, you could hunt it just fine. There was literally no wind direction that we couldn't set up for by moving around to different locations in that bay. But wind direction that day wouldn't play a factor on how the ducks worked into the decoys.

It would, however, play into how we got back home. An hour before shooting ours, we were at the boat ramp back in the boat in. Before I could get the truck in trailer park, Tim pulled up, having left his two hunters at the hunting spot. We got the spot, he said, but it's full of ice. The hole is froze up, so we're going to have to break it open. No problem. We done that before in breaking ice and pushing it out with a boat a simple enough task. Tim's boat had a semi-vehull.

That means the front of the boat comes to a point, and instead of having a square front. The V-hole is great for cutting waves and makes for a smoother ride, but when opening a frozen hole for shooting ducks, the flat nose on my boat was way more efficient, and here's why. I made circle after circle breaking up the ice where we wanted to sit out the decoys. I made a hole in the ice about 40 yards across. Then I pulled my boat to the bank and parked it with the nose of the boat against a tree.

I kicked the outboard into shallow water drive, put it in gear and just let it idle. It takes two trees for a semi-V boat to stay in one spot. You just got to poke the nose in between them. But there wasn't two trees available where we needed one. Mine fit perfectly. The small amount of current was pulling the broken ice downstream and the thrust of the island motor was pushing all the broken ice out to where the flow was.

It was also mudding up the water like ducks had been feeding in it and keeping it open. If any ducks flew that day, we should be right on the X. There would be no sitting out in the middle of the bay that day. It was a solid sheet of ice, and we were the only game in town. We put out two dozen decoys, stood our hunters beside the trees on the bank just a few feet away from the edge of the water. They were hid, and Tim and I anchored each end so we could call and watch for ducks,

keep control of the hunters and call the shot. A 10 to 15 minutes of idling the boat motor, and we had the only spot that was sheltered off the main channel and away from the strong current that wasn't frozen. Ducks started bombing in a few minutes before daylight, and the way the breeze funneled up that slew, it put them right in our face. We made everyone keep their guns unloaded until less than a minute before shooting hours open. it was just to keep the boys on the leash.

The mallards were hovering within a boat paddling to the bank and hitting the water like they were crashing, hoping to secure a spot in our hole that was filling up with ducks. This was fixing to get pretty sporty. We rang the bell and it was an absolute feeding frenzy and the worst display of shooting I believe I've ever been a witness to. There was one cat shooting a 10-gauge that was running it to the place, lug on every volley.

It was like being in London during the blitz. Nine folks shooting ducks all at once and then boom, boom, boom, that 10 gauge that never cut a feather. He was so shook up by what was happening. I'm not sure he could have fell off a bucket and hit the ground. He was even talking about one of us taking him to Walmart to buy more shells up in the morning after his second box ran dry. That's 50 shells of shooting at ducks less than 30 yards away that were more or less stationary as they hovered looking for a spot to light. It was brutal to

witness. We finally got him and the rest of them calm down to agree, and with a barred shotgun and shells, he started working on his limit. Now, everyone was settled into the once-in-a-lifetime event. I know folks that have hunted all their lives here in Arkansas and never seen what we saw that day. I promise you, every last one of them that was there remembers it just as well as Tim and I do. We had to choke them off the trough, though, before we shot all our limits. Those cats were just shooting ducks and not picking out the drakes. We warned them several times that they were getting close to the hind limit, and if they kept shooting them, we were going to have to pull a plug on the hunt, regardless if we had our total limit or not.

Now, we weren't about to risk violating the law by shooting over the limit. Tim and I both were in law enforcement and getting a ticket like that could have been the end of our careers. It also didn't look good to be in the guiding business and breaking the law. The biggest reason is it just wasn't right to begin with, and we weren't about to let that happen even on accident. So if it meant erring on the side of caution, that's what we were going to do. The same caution didn't apply to navigating the river in a big wind, but it would from that day on. But the lasting lessons, the good ones, come with a high price,

and we were about to run our credit to the limit. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag, and there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a 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. The way we were positioned on the point of land facing the ducco had our backs to a narrow shoot that you can. could see out toward the area that led out to the main channel. Now, twice, just before we had the end to hunt because of the hen count, Tim called me over to look at the waves that were now moving in the opposite direction from how they'd been moving

when we got there. The wind was still blowing in the same direction, although it was much harder now, but I assumed it was because of how it was funneling up that big slew that we were hunting on, not because it had totally switched directions out in the main channel. channel. On the section of the river where we were, a west or north wind of any magnitude was all good. It could have blown 40 miles an hour down the river, no problem. But anything stout enough to fly a kite out of the south or the east or any combination thereof was no Bueno. And this wind was now kicking hard enough to fly a coffee table. The problem with wind in that direction is that it's blowing against the downward current of the river.

The wind was pushing big waves against the tide. We could see that the ride back to the boat ramp was going to be cold, wet, and dangerous. Both of our boats were 16 feet long and 48 inches wide, mine with a 25-horsepower tiller handle, and Tim Sport and a console steering with a 40 horse. They were dependable, just not big enough for what we were asking them to do that, Neither one of us would forget that day, and a bigger boat for hunting to Arkansas was our next purchase. Tim started the first leg of what would be his round trip with four hunters laying in the bottom of the boat, life jackets, buckled up,

and looking like sardines packed in a can from above. The ways were two and three foot high, making it slow going as we convoyed down the river. The three hunters I had with me riding the same way. And the two guys we left on the bank had no eye. bank had no idea what was in store for them as the wind grew with intensity out of sight from where they waited at the duck hole where hundreds of ducks were still falling in. The three and a half miles down river was some of the roughest water I've ever been on. Waves and spray coming over the front and the sides of the boat had my hunters soaked and freezing.

The front of my coat and waiters was a solid sheet of ice. We finally made it back to the boat ramp and a couple of them. said they would have kissed the ground that they could have been over in the frozen clothes to do it. We unloaded everything, and everyone from Tim's boat, pulled it out and drained the water, checked his gas, then put it back in the river. He headed back up the river into a gale that was blowing so hard now

that even the slack water, just up from the boat ramp, was whitecapping. It seemed like it took forever for them to come back, and I had my boat drained ready to go, and it already made a plan how I was going to go check on them when we saw them heading our way. The boat coming almost out of the water at times as they ramped from one big swell to the next. They pulled on to the trailer and both of Tim's passengers

slowly crawled out of that boat and into the truck. One of them tried to sit on the front deck as they pulled away from our hunting spot after Tim told them both, better lay down in the bottom of the boat. He was setting up front facing Tim, and after the first two or three small waves, he grabbed a rope in his hand and started spurring the air like he was coming out of a buck and shoot on a bronch at a rodeo. Tim said all the color drained out of his face when they hit the next series of waves that pitched him a foot or so off the deck. And before he had time to regain his seat, the boat dropped a couple feet, and old cowboy Bob hit the deck flat of his breeches so hard. he said he thought he chipped a tooth.

That was how the whole ride back to the boat ramp went. And for a little extra spice, the throttle cable froze and broke on Tim's motor not long after they got in the main channel. They bobbed around out in the current at the mercy of the elements until he rigged up a leather duct tote to the throttle on the outboard

and had it over his shoulder controlling the gas while he drove one-handed back to camp. His passengers rattled around in the bottom of that boat like two beans and a coffee can. Now, we still talk about that day, and that day was over 25 years ago. We still talk about it with the two guys that were in the boat that day with Tim. And we never mentioned one without the other. Remember that day we all nearly died on the river? I mean the day that we killed all those ducks?

Yeah, I remember. And I will never forget it. And that's just how that happened. Use enough boat. That's what we learned from the story I just told y'all. And that's a veiled reference to a book Mr. Robert Ruehark wrote about big game hunting. He was talking about if you're hunting dangerous game, you better have a gun big enough to do the job. Well, the same applies for boats on the Arkansas River.

My maternal grandfather, finest lie to those who knew him, and papal to a wagon load of grandkids and several close friends of mine, believe that if two nails would hold an item in place, that six would be three times as good. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but to anyone that knew him, they know it ain't an exaggeration by much. I got some folks working on a boat for me down in southeast Arkansas, and it's going to be wide enough that the Arkansas River will have to

work extra hard to get inside it like the old one I had in the story I just told y'all. Also, with the information that I can get off my phone and at any given time regarding weather, the river ain't going to get a chance. I'll either leave before he gets bad where I'm hunting. I'll wait for it to pass, or I just won't go because of it. Live to hunt and fish another day. It took years for me to actually put my priorities in place regarding when the weather was too bad to hunt. My drive to get a turkey had me and a friend of mine hunting through a tornado that blew up in the most inopportune time.

That turkey was on the ground, gobbling his brains out and slowly strutting towards us at 150 yards away. I told that story on our newest edition of Meteor Campfire stories about close calls. A accurate on-demand weather forecasting would have kept me from putting myself in that situation to begin with. Unfortunately, that technology was still years of poor decisions away from reality. And maybe even then it wouldn't have mattered. There's a calming and a maturity that comes with stacking birthdays up in a pile.

For most, it's wisdom from lessons learned. In my case, it's more like wonder, like, I wonder how in the world I managed to make it this long without falling off a cliff or ziggin when I should have been zagging. I can only chalk it up to divine intervention. and having not yet fulfilled my duties here on this side of the River Jordan. I'm thankful to still be stumbling around out here and doing my dead level best to figure out what my purpose is. Financial support system for a 12-year-old competition dancer may be it, who knows.

But putting yourself in positions to fail will always increase the risk. You don't lay down on the highway at night to look at the heavens unless you're a total boat. the same way you don't drive down a long straight stretch of deserted highway with your lights off because the moon is so bright you can see without them. Now who does that? No one does that. I mean besides me, who is dumb enough to do that? My partner. My partner and I were working the graveyard shift and had been patrolling all over the county. Nothing was going on and no one was out. it was the middle of the week and the middle of the night. Spring was in full swing and the nights were still cool enough to wear a jacket.

We'd stopped to check an old church beside the highway and I walked out to the pavement for nothing better to do and the night was bright and clear and the moon was crystal clear and bright. I sat down on the edge of the asphalt and within a minute I was laying flat on my back watching the moon like it was a TV. The pavement was still holding some heat from the sun and it felt good. I could feel it radiating up through my jacket. My crime-fighting comrade joined me. We talked about what it must have been like to walk on the moon,

and my friend said, hey, you hear that? And we both sat up strained into here, and what he said sounded like a car way off. We could see for nearly a mile in both directions. Neither one of us saw any lights. We each laid back down, but this time after a moment I thought I heard something. About the time he said,

I hear a car. We sat up, each looking up and down the highway and seeing nothing, but I could hear the unmistakable sound of an eight-cylinder engine shifting into overdrive, getting louder, closer. We both stood up and stepped away from the highway in time to feel the wind rushed by us as a black Chevy Nova blew by us at Mach 2 with no headlight. The moonlight silhouating the unmistakable shape of that car

as I tried to remind myself I wasn't wearing a dog, diaper. Now, we looked at each other both full of adrenaline and happy to be alive as we put as much distance as we could between us and the highway. A fool was driving a hundred miles an hour with his lights off. Do we need to go get him? Do you really want to put in the report that we were laying in the highway when this happened? Hmm, we decided to let him go. The reality of all three principal players in those two scenarios, the Doug was. The double. The guides whose boats were moderately up to the tasks they were asked to perform, the deputies that put themselves at risk by laying down on a highway, and the nameless driver who tempted fate

by driving only with the moonlight needlessly put themselves in a position to fail. Laugh at those events now because we lucked out. We didn't sink a boat. No one got run over, and as far as I know, that guy driving in the dark didn't have an accident, not in our county anyway. There are a lot more examples of these calamities, and so many, in fact, I think we'll talk about some more next week. I got a couple of stories that I still have flashbacks about. Hmm, scary, Tim, too. Let's continue this series and talk about things that we did and folks shouldn't. Thank y'all so much for listening to the...

this country life and my goat smashing homie clobo nukem and bear grease i got to get me one of those goat hats but until next week this is brent reeves signing off i'll be careful first lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends products built for early mornings full days in real use hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters no shortcuts just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out.

First Light's new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.