Bear Grease - Ep. 250: Render - 2024 World Championship Squirrel Cook Off

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

On this episode of the Bear Grease Render, Clay Newcomb is filming live from the World Championship Squirrel Cook Off! He's joined by Brent Reaves, small game extraordinaire Kevin Murphy, the king of the cook off Joe Wilson, squirrel-skinning champ Clifton Jackson, and world-famous BBQ man Malcolm Reed. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on 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. Today we got like a deep fried squirrel burrito and uh...

Cromicellice is the side. Home-made squirrel chips on the side. Yeah, squirrel tilly chips. Yeah, sportilla chips. We're making a, uh, it's a campfire, a cumberland campfire pie. It's made with a cummaling sauce. Been around since the 1700s, five game sauce. Man, that makes me hungry just, just thinking about it.

Squirrel, boys, a squirrel. All right, we're both going to the ground. Yep. We're testing the fritters. The fritters. Fritters? Give it the ground. Is it hot?

Yeah. My grandpa, when he took a bite of something, you know he liked it if he said, you know what this tastes like? It tastes like more. That's good. We'll get you the full deal with everything on. That's good, man. Thank you. Look on a squirrel cook.

We found ourselves at the world championship. World Championship. Squirrel Cookoff. The big one. Springdale, Arkansas, Arkansas with a W. That's right. That's right. No, this is, we're in Springdale, Arkansas.

Man, the guests that I have in front of me, this is like the, this is like dream team, dream team, Bear Greas Rinder here. We got Brent Reeves right here working undercover, as usual. Wouldn't even know it's him. I mean, he's so good, we don't even care anymore. That's right. And we got, we got Kevin Murphy from Kentucky. Came with stuff.

He's got his squirrel dog. It looks like he's got a nine millimeter. on his side and he brought a Kentucky long rifle. Do you mind if I tell you this right quick? Yesterday when Kevin was unloading to get here, I've got a couple pet peeves in life and one of them is it's my socks. Okay.

A pair of socks will wreck your life. Kevin Murphy drives all the way from Kentucky with a hole in his sock to where the third knuckle on his big toe was showing through. Matter of fact, his ankle was almost through his sock. Now, why did you see his socks? Because I said, you got shoes on for the first time I ever seen you, and he pulls off his shoe, and he's got a hole all the way through his sock.

And I thought I could whip Kevin Murphy till I seen how tough he was, because there ain't no way I could drive from Kentucky to Arkansas, the hole in my sock like that. He's an efficient man. I was told not to go barefooted, so I had to let the big toe hang out. Do you go barefoot much? Hell no. My feet is tender as a baby's butt. Okay, okay, just checking.

Just checking. We've got Malcolm Reed from Mississippi. Where do you live in Mississippi, Malcolm? I live in Hernando, in DeSota County, just south of Memphis a little bit. Yeah. I'm not too far from the Arkansas line. Yeah. And man, Malcolm is a world-famous barbecue man.

You were on the podcast last year, and I've since been following you. He's like the evil-connevel of barbecue. Oh, yeah, for real. He breaks all the... He comes on, and he's got a huge... Huge following on TikTok and YouTube, like massive. And he comes on there, and it's like, guess what I'm going to do today, folks? And, man, it's always good.

Well, I just like to eat. So, you know, you can tell I hold back. Now, what were you doing here today? I came back for the squirrel cookoff. You know, I had such a good time last year here that when Joe asked us that we were willing to come back, I was like, absolutely. Did you cook? Yeah, I didn't cook at a contest, but we cooked Jambalai.

We cooked three rounds. jumbalai probably fed over about a thousand people today come wow we brought a thousand bowls and we ran out of bowls wow they were eating it out of the palm of their hand give me a hat full i'm gonna i'm gonna come to you last joe yeah we've got we've got clifton jackson why is everybody yelling did the razor backs win we just tied it up it's a tie game tied tied the game razorbacks are playing who we playing today uh some little old team from oklahoma i don't even know yeah i don't even know what they're called but we just tied up the game with like a few seconds that Clifton Jackson.

Man, this guy right here. He's glowing. We're amongst the world champions today. Oh, for real. World champion hillbilly. World champion barbecue, world champion squirrel skinner. Mez, good to have you. Hey, thanks for having me.

So at this event, the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff, we also have the World Championship Squirrel Skinning Contest. And you've won how many years, Clifton? Every year. Dominate. You know, humble. is a big part of this program. It ain't bragging if it's facts.

Yeah, yeah. Now, where do you live, Clemson? Sure would, Arkansas. And you work for the Game of Fish? I do, 25 years. Man, tell me what you do for the Arkansas Game of Fish. I'm a wildlife biologist. That's awesome.

I have several WMAs that I manage. Now, are you the squirrel biologist? Or is that just kind of like a... No, no, I guess I... I mean, I'm usually the go-to-person with squirrels, but no, no, we don't have a small game biologists anymore. Okay.

I was. You were the, that's what I remember. You were the small game biologist for the Arkansas Gaming Fish Commission. Man. So, do you, did you ever do any research on squirrels or anything? Were you just mainly involved in like management and stuff?

Well, mainly other things like rabbits and I had quail for a while too until they separated that to another one sole person. But not so much to do with squirrels per se for management. It's just getting people. to get out there and hunt them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not really like deer and turkey and bear

where we're like really trying to count numbers and understand management or like harvest and stuff. It's a little, it's different than that. Am I right? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And it's actually kind of when you say it's the inverse of deer hunting where it's like, you know, 95% participation rates amongst hunters.

Squirrel hunting used to be like that, but it just hasn't been like that anymore. And trying to get people back into the squirrel woods. is a challenge. Man, somebody was asking me today if I think that squirrel hunting and small game hunting is coming back. And I kind of gave him a little bit of a tour that probably everybody here would know. But the wildlife tour and history tour is that back when my grandfather, maybe your father,

were growing up in the 1930s, 20s, 40s, 40s, there wasn't much big game in Arkansas or anywhere to speak of in the southeast especially. I mean, white-tailed deer, bear, turkeys, all these things were very low numbers. And if you were a hunter, if you were trying to get game, you were a small game hunter. I mean, you were hunting quail, you're hunting squirrel, you're hunting rabbits. You're hunting rabbits. And then 50s, 60s, 70s, all these game, the big game just came back. I mean, like, big time with the reintroduction of wild turkeys and reintroduction of white-tailed deer.

and they just bear all of it. It just kind of took off. And so it's like the hunting community shifted more towards big game stuff. But this reporter asked me why I thought this was significant what we do here. And to me, it's like

it's a hat tip to our roots in poverty, really. It's like, because that's, you don't have, there was a time when you probably had to eat squirrel. Yeah. We don't have to eat squirrel today. We could have been celebrating brisket.

Absolutely. That would have been good. I don't know now. There's some of them squirrel dishes that'll give a brisket to run this way. And, you know, this event is fun. It's lighthearted. But it's just a hat tip to kind of our rural, humble roots in the squirrel world. You think that's about right?

Absolutely. I say it's very much a heritage thing, especially with me. And even when you think about conceptually the things that we eat, now like chicken i mean it wasn't i mean there that's that that's only i don't know maybe the past 70 80 years or something but before then right squirrel was the chicken yeah yeah still is brother still is i did i did it i did very much are you hunting with dogs or you like still hunting primarily yeah yeah yeah you know clinton or clifton has the jackson squirrel rifle named after you know about that no so it's uh cooper arms right yes sir

And what's cool is... This isn't a joke. No, this ain't no joke. Come on, I don't joke you. I hadn't even introduced you yet. Go ahead. I'm the silent guy over here in the corner, but there's a gun manufacturer called Cooper Arms.

They were out of Montana. Yeah. And here recently, the state of Arkansas is now Cooper Arms out of Barryville. Okay. Now that rifle, the most high dollar, accurate squirrel rifle you could buy, is called a Jackson squirrel rifle and it's named after this man sitting right next to me. I did not know that.

Yes, sir. That's excellent. I love it. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. Clifton's like, and I happen to have one right? Oh, that's cool.

When did they do that, Clifton? It's probably been about maybe 14, 15 years ago. And they just heard about you and your, I mean, just your reputation as a squirrel hunter, squirrel man? Well, actually, I met the owner of the company at the time, and he grew up squirrel hunting, but he moved to Montana where squirrel hunting isn't a big deal. And he said whenever, now this wasn't the original rifle, but whenever the rifle that I ordered would come in, he said he wanted to come in and go squirrel hunting with me.

I took him down to the White River bottoms, and we shot a squirrel, and he just loved it. And just he wanted to do something to kind of commemorate that. Oh, man. And flew me out there to the company and went through prototypes. And he gave me serial number one. Oh, wow, you got it. I do. Oh, that's really neat.

That's really neat. Thank you. Well, the only guess that I had introduced is Joe Wilson, the founder. Yes, sir. And the originator of this event. Joe, tell us, like, tell the world what's happened here today. Every year I'm more and more impressed. And, you know, you asked, I think we were kind of green rooming it at the time,

how many of the people standing around us? There's a hundred people plus standing around us. How many of them were from Arkansas? And we got about what, Brent, three, four clasps? Yeah. It wasn't many. It wasn't many. And to think that we bring people from, hey, we had folks come from England today.

And I'm not saying like Texas or someplace. England, England. Red coats, man. Come all the way across here. I've talked to folks from Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, all over this country. Every point of the compass from right here, you're going to shoot at somebody's house.

Yeah. That's coming. So what's impressive to me is we get people from so many places. And, you know, that we get 1,400 kids inside of a room shooting BB guns and pellet rifles. What's impressive is, is I could look around and inside this room right now there's some camouflage right but you see people who don't own any camouflage show up to this is right and so those are the people that I want to touch first

we've already got the people in camouflage we want to grab those people that don't know why we do what we do and me and Kevin Murphy we talk on the phone and we discuss how important it is that we get our youth, we get the unknowing involved in what we're doing. You can't go to sell the same truck to the same guy every day. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to market this to people that wonder why it is that we'll go out and get sugars and ticks, you know. And so this is the way to do it. Malcolm knows our way to get to people in any community events through their stomachs.

because if we could get through their stomachs, we could get to their soap. Absolutely. And we could start preaching what we're having. That needs to go on a shirt, Mark. That's a good. I only want four percent. If we could get through your stomach, we could get through your soul, man. And breaking bread is as old as time.

Yeah. And so today, Malcolm serving a thousand bowls of jambly, us cooking up one of the fish that nobody ever thinks they want to eat, an old Asian carp and serving it to thousands of people. All of this stuff that we done, rabbits, you know, rabbits have forgotten protein. And so that to me is important. And the fact that we know that today we made some more hunters. And we made some people that will never hunt a better supporter of what you preach every week on the show.

You know, so that's important to me. So tell me the structure. So we had usually between 30 and 40 teams that are competing for the world title. We always shoot for 40. And, you know, you mentioned brisket. If I ask for 40 teams to come brisket, that's no problem because you could go buy it. When I ask for 40 teams to cook squirrel, you got to go hunt it. And it ain't easy.

Yeah. I mean, me and you did a deal the other day. day at a circle K in the afternoon that we were looking over our shoulders. I donated some squirrels to this event that had in the freezer, Brent, you'd have liked it. I'd said, Joe, meet me at that gas station off the Johnson exit. And I pull up beside him in the truck, and he had a guy I didn't know with him. And the guy got out, and I said, this isn't a snitch, is it? And Joe was like, no, he's good.

And I'm like, okay. And then I reached in and got my stuff and put the frozen squirrels in his box. And I was like, oh, you hold on out of there. I'm vaguely familiar with that concept. Yeah, I hold on out of there. It's real tough. I mean, people will sign up, and then they'll figure out the labor behind it. Yeah.

And how many squirrels do you think each team is needing to compete? I don't know. I'd say, at a minimum, you probably need 10. Okay. You need 10 for the judges. That's to put a pile on there. But, you know, to do this, to feed these people, you need a pile of them. So every team's making like 10 plates for 10 judges or so.

Six entrees and six side dishes. And then they're encouraged to give food samples to the public. So that's kind of what people come to do is try all this squirrel. Yeah, let's hear from the crowd how many of them got to eat today. Yeah, did everybody get some squirrel today? Yeah. Did you try something about Malcolm? Absolutely.

Were you a judge? No, I didn't judge today because we were busy out there with the jumble. lie, but people would bring it by. And Joe, that's something special you have here, too, because all the barbecue contest I go to, they don't let you share with the general public. And so I think it hurts their event because people come out and they come out with this anticipation, hey, I'm going to try some barbecue. They come to the squirrel cookoff.

Guess what? All the teams are encouraged. They may have never tried squirrel, but they're curious. They come out and they get to try these dishes. And it's just amazing. You see what it's done. Yeah, you're right. Me and Malcolm's traveled the country.

going to big cookoffs, you know, barbecue and steak and all that. And we get 10 times more. We get a lot more crowd than they do. And the reason is, is we want you to be involved. Yeah. We want to feed you. Yeah. It's like going to a ballgame and getting to play.

Same deal. But for me, man, Kevin Murphy, you know, if you Google the name Kevin Murphy and put, say, squirrel or rabbit behind it. What's it say? The world's greatest small game hunter. Here, tag me in. I want to know from the crowd here, who didn't have an opportunity to eat some type of wild game today?

What's wrong with this guy? He must be vegan or something. What times do you get here? We just got here. So to be a wild, you know, to be a hunt. hunter. It's not for everybody. Look what's happening, Kenny. Oh, he got a swirl bag. Oh, man, Josh. All right. I'm going to ask this question again. How many people here today didn't have an opportunity to eat some type of wild game meat? Nobody. 100%. So your mission is complete. Yes, sir.

Not everyone is meant to be a hunter. We don't want everybody. We want that 10% of the best, the hearty people. Not everybody is meant to be a dog hunter. We want that 1%. Yeah, handling this dog for 365 days a year to maybe to go hunting 60 days, or if you're retired and work all through the summertime, you can go 100 days. And that's what's on my calendar this year. But to be a small game hunter, you can be a minimum. You just need a rifle or a shotgun, a box of shells, and you can go to the woods with a hunting license. Or if you're a youth, you wait for the free use day and go. But that's why you get a taste of hunting there, and that's where you learn your skills.

You start at the bottom, work your way to the top, and figure out, is this for me or is this not for me? And then you graduate to say, hey, I want to be a deer hunter, turkey hunter, rabbit hunter, out west hunter, or across the pond hunter. I'm going to Iceland in October to hunt tarmigan. So I've been very fortunate to be around everybody and see everybody. And, you know, on Tuesday I'll be 65 on the outside, and I'm still like 21, 22. on the inside. So, you know, hunting keeps me young. I go with a lot of young hunters.

I try to teach them, a bunch of pilgrims out there. Some of them got no skill whatsoever. We take a bunch of college kids every December from the BHA, take them out hunting. And this last year, we had a young girl that grew up with no farms in her house. Her mom was adamantly against farms. Had I just went along with her mom, and she went squirrel hunting with us,

got to kill her first squirrel, got her to skin a squirrel. And that's what it's about. It's about one small win at a time. And that's what we've all got a deck. Hey, if we would have forgot hunting if it wasn't for people passing it down to us. And we would forgot how to cook squirrel if there ain't those recipes out there, you know. And so it's our duty, everybody in this room to brag. I know you're humble, Clay.

I know you're humble. I'm not that humble. Anybody that had cheated a turkey called a guy guy. But you know what I mean? All of us have our duty to pass it on, whether it's to our children or somebody else's. And that's what's cool about watching Clifton

out there showing people how to skin these things. One of the biggest problems of small game hunting is the fact that you've got to clean them. And to show a Kevin Murphy, a Clifton, who's a master it at cleaning a squirrel, it becomes a lot easier to say you're going to go out and go squirrel. Yeah. So we learned a lot.

Yeah. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood. Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors.

Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen 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. Malcolm, did you do any squirrel hunting this year? I know last year you were telling me about hunting some on the Mississippi River with some friends. Did you get to do any of this winter?

So I had to go out and buy me a new rifle just for squirrel hunting. Did you really? I didn't go anything crazy, just a little 1022 and put me a decent, you know, a little loophole rimfire on it. Yeah. And I did. And we've had a, we've had a ball doing it. And my son enjoys it, you know, and we take something for granted that, you know,

a lot of times people in their neighborhood, they see squirrels. They don't realize that, you know, we're out in the woods and we're out, you know, trying to stalk these things or use a dog or whatever, but we, we have a big time squirrel hunting. I'm not crazy about the ticks and chiggers. I like it to be a little cool, but, man, there's, there's just some. something about that little animal that you never would realize is that it brings so much enjoyment to me of doing it. Yeah. And it's, you know, to me, squirrel hunt, you know, everybody can go sit in a deer stand or whatever, and you're by yourself. You don't want people to know the buck

you're after and all that. Squirrel hunting's a communal thing. I'll show you all the pictures I got of squirrels. You tell you right where they're at. That's right. Exactly. I mean, we've got so many of them. I mean, it's just, it's really fun and it's a great, it's a great way to spend time outdoors. And if you can take somebody along and teach a kid how to shoot a squirrel, how to properly, you know, clean the squirrel. All this is life lessons. Man, man, I just, I get behind it 100%. You got any killer squirrel recipes?

I mean, this guy. He puts mayonnaise on. If you don't watch some of his stuff, you got any of that. You know, that's on my list now, Clay, to do some squirrel recipes this fall because I have never done a video with one. You know, squirrel and gravy, that's the one we like to do, fried squirrels simmered down. Yeah. I don't get real, I've never really gotten too crazy with squirrel, but after coming to this contest

and seeing what these, I call them outdoor chefs because these jerks are coming up with recipes that are incredible. I mean, it's not just your standard stuff. You can do anything with that squirrel meat. What are some of the examples of stuff that people did today? Today. Empanadas was one. Well, today, I think we hit new highs.

And if I'm going to be honest, which I like to be, we may have hit a couple new luck. Oh, man. No offense to the cooks and the crowd. I mean, hey, you know, it was, we were lucky that early on we had the best representation of what a box should look like, and we had one that wasn't the best. Okay. And so it gave me the ability to kind of teach the judges, hey, y'all, this is what presentation should look like, and this is what it's showing it. But with that being said, there was, man, there was a squirrel pizza today.

that would knock your socks off with a fried ravioli. That was awesome. I ate a squirrel cookie. I swear I would rob a liquor store for it. There was a squirrel cookie. There was a squirrel ice cream showed up again today.

Oh, was it? I heard about that. I remember that from last year. Squirrel ice cream. Hey, Kevin Murphy, what's the one organ on the squirrel? They say it's probably like on a pair of boots or something bad for you in California.

Which part of the squirrel has been known to cause problems? The thinking part. The thinking part. We had a squirrel brain ice cream show up. Was anybody worried about eating it? I told everybody, hey, this is the part of the squirrel that could cause you harm. Yeah. Now go ahead and eat it if you want to.

What's the science behind that? Do you know that, Clifton? I mean, it's not been definitively linked to, you know, the Cresfield Jacobs disease, but I mean, I think there was somebody, you know, very isolated. I said something about it. I read an article about this not too long ago, and I talked about it on a podcast. It was a group of individuals over like a four or five year period. They were in a very small area in Kentucky that contracted the disease.

What's the name of the disease? It's Crestfield Jacobs. That's it. Jacob's. Mad cow disease. Yeah. It's like a CWD for humans. Yeah, and they had, they all, the only qualifier for all of them was they had all

eaten squirrel brains. We'll find out tomorrow. Yeah, I guess so. Do you eat squirrel brains? I have. I don't. Explain so much. Do you not like it or do you not eat it because you're afraid of?

There's a thing called a prion and you can put it in an autoclave and it will not kill it. It's a protein that gets in the brain. Do not eat. I recommend that you do not eat brain from anything. Back home, we had... But it's a traditional dish, though. Oh, yes. I mean, squirrel brains and eggs is something that I grew up hearing people talk about.

We call that Ozark Caviar. Yeah, there you go. But, yes, I've eat it. It's a delicacy. A lot of people, when they would go squirrel hunting, they wouldn't shoot them in the head with the 22 because they wanted to serve up. Yeah. fried squirrel brains in the skull, and then they would take, like, a butter knife, crack it open and open it up.

And that was the ultimate. We just lost half the listeners. So I've done a lot of research. Man, I'm a wastewater guy. You know, when I go to somewhere foreign country, next time I go see Steve out in Montana, I'm going to go to their wastewater plant because they've got the state of the art. You're a junkie. But we had a local architect. back where I live, and he came down with Crutchfield's Jacobs disease.

And the only thing they could think of was he was taking a vitamin that was made out of a, from Europe, made out of a cow pituitary gland. So that's the reason why I say, do not eat brain matter from any animal. Okay, I'm convinced. So that's what I highly recommend. So let's see if I can start another topic. Man, we also had plenty of egg rolls. we had a squirrel sushi show up.

I'll leave it at that. You've had squirrel sushi, didn't you? Yes. Yeah, we had squirrel sushi in the past. He had it about 15 minutes ago. Yeah. Did you see that? In the skin and contest.

Did you see that, Clay? What's that? Did you see Clifton in the skin and context? Oh, yeah. I videoed. Did you see the technique to win the championship this year? Yeah, tail method. Well, I mean, the teeth.

Oh, oh, no, no. No, I didn't see the first one. I actually saw him win the first heat. He had to go straight to the mouth and pull that skin off with his teeth to win. Is this true? Yeah. Yes. Why did you have to do that?

Well, I had an arm that had been shattered right there at the joint, and it was just, you know, and I had to pull that arm out. It was a bad pick. It was slick as an owl pellet trying to pull that meat out. So I couldn't, I just had to use my teeth. And you know what's even odd? Slick as an owl pellet. We'll be using that one. Oh, yeah.

We have to give you credit, but we're going to use it. What's odd is the second place in the world also went to the teeth. No way. I've been watching Clifton just dominate this event for years. Today was the tough as he had it.

I mean, it was neck and neck. So who's the other guy? What's his name? Mitch. Mitch. Mitch. Mitch. Mitch.

Mitch. Mitch the recruiter. Good job, Mitch. You got him right for his money. Mitch is in the service. He's an army recruiter. Hey, Mitch, just walk up here so we can get you on film just one second. Right?

Yeah. Where are you from, Mitch? I'm from Malvern. Do you know this guy? No, no. You don't know it? Last year. When he won't.

Okay. Well, I guess you better just practice a little more. Mitch is a... Get in the gym. I'll be back in the gym. Work out those arms. Mitch is in the service. He's an armor recruiter.

Oh, cool, man. That's good, though. It was good. That's good. That's good. Yeah, so they were neck and neck, got it all the way down. I bet you there was in what, two, three seconds in between the two of them. Oh, it was tight. It's tough.

That feels strange. He pushed me. He pushed you. You're going to train. Yeah, this is kind of like Jordan winning that, like, fifth title, kind of getting a little lazy. And then, you know. He's going to start trying baseball next. But we haven't announced the winner yet.

No. Who did the racerbacks win? I'm afraid they didn't. We just lost. Scratch that from the tape. Reba, can you take care of that? No, it's not that we lost, that they cheated.

Yeah, they cheated. I heard they cheated. So we have not announced a winner for this year yet, though. No, as soon as this show's over, we're going to go out and get on stage, and we're going to handle it. I got my buddy across from me. He helped me out on getting them case knives as our awards. Yeah.

Yeah, man. And we're going to present the winners, the world champion with K-snife, right? Yeah, yeah. It'll be good. Kevin, what's your, if you could hunt one thing the rest of your life, you only had one dog that did one thing and you got to hunt, and that's it. What would it be? Squirrel rabbit, falconry.

Kangaroo. Well, probably one of the most exciting hunts I've ever been. I answered the question. You sound like a politician. Yeah, yeah. He's like, well, let me tell you about my policy. Swamp rabbits. There you go.

Swamp rabbits. With beagles? Yes. Swamp rabbits with beagles. I'll be darn. Because, you know, to go get a squirrel, you got a good dog, that squirrel's going to be in that tree, or he's not going to be in the tree. You hit a swamp rabbit. Your dogs might run him back to you.

They might not. Those dudes are smart. They go in hoes. They swim rivers. Man, I've seen them do just amazing things. So they're a smart critiquette. like the thinking man small game. Yes.

Just the hillbillies tree and with squirrels and shoot them. The big game of small game. Big game. And I can go out. I can go out my... Put that on a shirt. The big game of small game.

And I can go out my door within a half mile and start hunting. You got swamp rabbits in Kentucky? Yes. Now, it's actually a different species of rabbit than a cottontail. Yes.

It's the largest cottontail rabbit. But it's a different species or it's just a big one? No, it's a different species. Okay. Do we have them here? They're in the drainage. I'm a little embarrassed to ask that.

I've hunted them down around the cotton patch. Okay. So I don't know exactly where that is from Wicks. I hang out with those deer dog hunter guys down there. Oh, okay. But it's along the drainage of the Mississippi River up to about St. Louis. Okay. And then as far north is probably not hardly Cincinnati and then all the way down to Louisiana.

But Bergman's rule is the further north that you go. go on a mammal, the bigger it goes. So what I want to do is drive up around St. Louis somewhere and try to find the extended range of it. The biggest one I have killed so far, or in our hunting party, is like six pounds, weighed with a turkey scale. So, you know, it's right on the money. And so I hope to go like two hours north and get a six and a half pound.

Be like a world record. Yes, that's what I'm going. Progressive. That's why you're the world's greatest small game hunter. you're thinking like a champion. I like that. Crock and pot. I like that.

Clifton, when will you start squirrel hunting? Have you already squirrel hunting some this fall? Or like typically, when would you start? Typically, I would have started last weekend. This will be the latest that I've ever started this year. Really? Yeah. I'll always go at least by September the 1st.

Now, okay, this is a good topic of conversation. I had somebody the other day tell me that the liberalization of squirrel hunting, which is a positive thing, like our squirrel season, is basically nine months long, or maybe even 10 months. Yeah, May to 15th till the end of February. Yeah. So it's off for three months.

It's not on for three months. Pretty much. March, April, May. Mm-hmm. The guy told me, he said that took away the prime season opener, which the season opener is just kind of this like hype that we all have, which used to be like September 1st. Absolutely.

And he was saying, man, when we were kids, we'd camp out. for, you know, days for the squirrel opener, but now that they've done us good, I mean, like, we can hunt anytime we, it's not a complaint, it was just interesting. He said people don't get it excited because the season opener is not, like, few people are hunting in May, and it's just,

you can hunt all the time. What do you think about that? I do miss it. You know, I miss that. It's a cultural thing. It is, very much. I mean, we still will have squirrel camp, and we do squirrel camp,

but that opener, even that, the season changed, you know, it used to be October 1, and then depending on the zones. I mean, it's like a, you know, a story past of those dates being like you're talking about, like the big opener, and now we've taken that away. And then the limit changed to 12. What was it before? It was 8 for most of my life. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. Now it's 12 per person per day. So I think that did take some of this thing. You know what I think, Clifton? What's that? I think that me and Kevin's talked about. I think me and you's talked about it.

squirrel hunting is a hard thing to market because we don't have a bunch of cool stuff to sell you to make you a better squirrel hunting. You could spray vanilla-flavored deodorant on and go kill a squirrel. You know, it don't matter. And so you could wear what we're all wearing right now and go squirrel hunt. So since it's so hard to market, it's real hard to put on TV. True. And so since we're not putting it on TV,

there's a whole bunch of people who never see it. And so one of the times you get to see the benefits of it is right here at this event. Now, you're a great marketer of small game hunting. I see you out on the mules doing it. You've done a phenomenal job. Kevin's done a phenomenal job. Clifton's done a phenomenal job. I've tried to catch up to you guys a little bit over the last dozen years.

but this is our biggest marketing day of the year for squirrel hunting. You see it on news all across the country overseas. People see this event. So I ain't saying we need to do one of these every week. I ain't got the time for that. But, you know, the industry itself and agencies and departments really need to start thinking about inflation. It's still cheap to go squirrel hunting.

You know, all of the stuff. If you're a father, a mother, and you want to get your kids in the outdoors, at least give this a shot first. Man, this has always been a good, it's always been traditionally anywhere you go. Folks, kids start out shooting squirrels before they start shooting deer and what an elk and whatever. And it's always a good introduction to what we all love to do. You know, and you can do it with dog. You can add a dog as an extra component.

Which will take you to, whether you're chasing coons like I do, or you're running coyotes or bobcats or whatever. You know, it's just a good introduction. I agree, Joe. That's good. I just think we need to do a better job of marketing it. And, you know, Kevin will tell you, well, we don't want everybody in it. You know, but really, Kevin may not feel that way.

I think if everybody would just give it a shot, it's a great time. You can talk while you're squirrel hunt. You can walk around and carry on a story and squirrel hunt. There's not really an age when it's not right. If you could walk, you could get out there and walk behind somebody and try to do it. And the benefits of it is at the end of the day, you might be able to make a squirrel pizza out of the deal, kept. I can remember in 1987, I had a board of collie, and had some people come in.

from Alaska that had been living there for a couple of years and hunting and stuff and I took them hunting and they said and this is the greatest hunt I've ever had in my entire life now one person was from ohio the others Illinois you know they're out there they do I said up you know you got on by just work off my license that's okay isn't it fishing game department so I said just work out my license I'll hand you the gun this was a long time ago so so I would give them a gun and then And then they would want to shoot, and they would want to like freehand. And I had a 22 magnum. I said, man, you really need to shoot them in the head because we're going to eat them

and clean them. And, you know, they just told me that. So this is the greatest hunt we've ever been. We've never had any more fun. And like Joe said, you can take kids out there. You can talk. You can have a good time in fellowship. I mean, like, every year we take 10 to 12 college students out there to go squirrel hunting

and have a big time. And you can fellowship. You only need to be quiet for like, okay. Now's the time to be quiet. We're going to shoot the squirrel, and it's your turn to shoot. You get a shot, and then you get a shot, and we rotate around, and then the shotgunner, don't let him get away because the pressure is on you when he's running. So who said that?

Somebody can say something? No. Hey, okay, I got a question for the squirrel masters here. What's your doctrine on shotguns versus 22s? Clifton. Do you have a doctrine? I'm a rimfire pierce. kind of. I just really like to.

Just tell a, like a rifle. I didn't take you for a rim fire purist. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's, usually they're a little more arrogant. It's just more mentally stimulating to me, you know, it's really me against me. He's taking the high intellectual ground. It's me against myself. I mean, I have a really, you know, really nice rifle. And, and I mean, I have that. A rifle named after you.

Clifton's playing golf. The wristos are just out of squirrel. He's playing chess. He's playing chess. We're playing checkers. Yeah, for real, man. It's really, I mean, it's days that I don't have any luck. I mean, I've gone out there and got scorned. I mean, and it's just kind of, I say, really mentally stimulating effort for me, just me against myself.

I enjoy the rifle more so than that. Okay, what if you were using dogs? Do you dog hunt much? I go, and I have had dogs over the years here and there. Is it different? Oh, no, yeah, I love it. I mean, it's more of a lot of a hunt. Well, I mean, I'm saying for the 22 versus.

Shotgun. I do like to have both. I do like to have both. Like you said, that shotgun is like the kicker. You know, if it gets past all of us, yeah. Don't let them get past you. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So I do enjoy that. How do they do it down in Mississippi? You see both. You know, most of the, you're going to see kids with shotguns. You know, some of the adults will take them, but most of the time you're going to have somebody with 22. Yeah.

And what I have seen here lately is usually when somebody's got a thermal, too. So you can see if that squirrels up in there, not on the rifle. Usually they're just handheld just to try to figure out where he is and then give the guy with the rifle a shot and then shotgun guy is a cleanup man. Don't point to me for shotgun. No, no, no. Okay, now you're a doctor. We'll let Joe have shotgun.

Joe, you're shotgun. Man, I tell you what, one day when I get a YouTube channel like you boys, I'll get me one of the thermal squirrel hunters too. But, you know, an old 870, like, we growed up with, that gun was designed to shoot any small game you could imagine. And I'll fess up and say a shotgun was a good way. It's a meat stick, man. It throws the meat inside there.

But like Clifton said, if you're going out to enjoy the hunt, a 22 is a way to go, in my opinion. I think it conserves the meat too, though. You're not going to damage that squirrel. That's right. You're right. It does conserve meat. You don't bring any home, Malcolm. No, you're right.

Good serves Swiss cheese. Okay, now here's the, like, if we were all, like, if there was an organization that was the 22 squirrel purest organization, this guy would probably be the president. Clifton would be maybe vice president. Give him a run for money for president. You're a squirt, 22 man. Yes. Like, without question. Well, it's like a moral issue for you.

I'm a Kentucky. I'm a rifleman. I'm a Kentuckyan. Okay. Okay. I got my long rifle, 32 caliber. But back when I was a killer, in my young running and gunned days, I had a 22 magnum over a 20 gauge. Nothing escaped me. Nothing. So if I couldn't get it with a magnum, if it was running, I could get it with a shotgun, killed quail flying with a shotgun. So that was the all-purpose. But to me, as like Sid, you know, if you're a dog hunter, you've got a couple people with a rifle, you give them a chance, and then the shotgun guy, he's got all the pressure on him,

because as my friend Steve Ronella, when I told him, took him squirrel out in the first time, I said, man, Steve, he's going to come out of there like a BMX missile out of this nest there, and he'd come out and he run, and he missed him. But I run and squirrel at full sting, I've got waterfowl buddies. They have trouble hitting them.

It's hard to get them. A lot of times what it is, you're shooting them at a limb, and the limb is kind of behind them. So you're only shooting. Yeah, you're just shooting at a third of that height of squirrel. So here's a pro tip. That's exactly why he needs a shotgun. Pro tip.

Here's the pro tip. You wait for that squirrel to run out to the end of that limb, and right as he gets ready to jump, he will stop. and so you know that and then he jumps and you shoot him in man, iron, and you can shoot the squirrel. Pro tip. We learned something.

It's a life hack. When my dad was buying my shelves, when my dad was buying my shelves, he would have loved to have taught me that a long time. That's right. 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 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. Self-control that it takes to actually pull that off, that's like high-level humans. psychology and discipline and training to when you got a gun in your hand and there's a squirrel runner across the limb

and you're waiting for him to get to the end of the limb it bounces bobs he jumps then you shoot that's high level Kevin's like old Danny Glover and lethal weapon he's getting his neck but Jedi level is when you can do it by horseback there you go yeah and I've reached that level I hear you so but yes

22 but whatever works for you you know just if he's up there I've got a lot of rabbit up buddies and they all use big 12 gauges and they either miss them or mush him. Because when the rabbit's running

they miss and when he's sitting still they go center mass on him. They don't hold up to his ears or whatever and do the same thing with the squirrel. Don't center mass that squirrel. Put it on its head. Know the pattern of your gun what it's going to do at 20 yards, 25 or 15

and hold it on his head. Hold off a little bit. Use some big shot. Number five is the best I have found. That is what I used. Number five, if I had one shotgun shell to go hunting with, number five shot. Yeah. Could I say there's another weapon?

And they're getting better every year. And that's going to be your air rifles. Oh, gosh, yeah. And a lot of states have made an air rifle small game, hell, even big game, right? I mean, there's big game caliber air rifles that you can go out and hunt with. I think we're that way in Arkansas now. You could deer hunt with an air rifle. Kentucky's same.

So they're making these air rifles that are as cheap as anything you could use out in the field. There is accurate. Some of these air rifles were using. You get 50, 60 shots out of them before you've got to fill that tank. And so we had a couple of those air rifle companies here, UmerX. I know they've been a part of your sponsorship. they make some fine quality stuff. And, you know, it's a cheap way to get into honey.

I've been using them shooting cones out of trees with it. Really? Oh, yeah. You think they're going to make one called the Reeves? Oh, I don't know. I'm not near the caliber that Clifton is. But, yeah, we shoot coons out with it. I was in Puerto Rico shooting them Puerto Rico squirrels, you know.

They go on us of leather squirrels. And I ain't going to start that cook-off. You're good. Yeah, I'm good. You know, eating a couple of them is all I needed. They weren't that good? Man. No, they weren't.

It's a lizard. They weren't. Yeah. Well, hearing y'all talk about your doctrine on 22 versus shotgun, I realize I'm, like, still in that stage of my squirrel herning journey that where, yeah, I'm playing checkers, you are playing chess. because me and my Jedi master, mule man, squirrel man, dog man, Michael Lanier.

Oh, yeah. We shoot them with shotguns because we just want to bring them home. Now, it is, we do live in a place that's tough for squirrel hunting. I mean, like if you were just grading territory of the United States, like we do with whitetail deer, like Iowa and Kansas and the Great Plains, it's just incredible deer hunting. And, you know, deer hunting's tough and here, here. and there, the Ozarks would be on the tougher side of the places.

We just don't have, the mountains just aren't as, aren't as quite as, uh, productive. Is that right from a management perspective is like the river bottoms? Because the guys over in the river bottoms can just kill the fire out of them. And what do you think? You think it's just better squirrel hunters over there. Yeah, I think that, you know, all the soils, you know, productivity is just better in the bottoms. I thought he was going to say, you don't they're way better over there.

Yeah, yeah, and the cavities, those old growth trees, you know, having better Ness and success, better habitat. Y'all are planting squirrel food plots over there and everything. Flying it in. Well, my point being, we're just happy to, we're trying to bring every squirrel home that our dog's tree and we get going, and we don't care if we get a few pellets. I won't shame you for that. Well, you have the right, too.

No, but I mean, you're exactly right because a squirrel, You know, you can't kill them out. You could have season all year long. They're dependent on the mass crop. And there might be hard mass, which is the acrean crop, walnuts, whatever, and then soft mast in the springtime. So they've got to have those two types of mass crop to survive. Springtime mass, the soft mulberries, elam buds, maple buds, whatever buds are out there.

They eat some mushrooms. You know, we had one of the largest local. Locust hatches this year in Kentucky. So we're going to have probably the biggest bumper crop of squirrels that I have seen since the seven. They will eat locusts. I have not physically seen them do that. But I have skint squirrels from locust years, and we had mass failures, and the squirrels were as fat as this pregnant dog. Squirrels will eat a squirrel.

Yeah. And a bird. I remember you're telling me your story. I was working at the capital, the state capital police, and I was sitting in a parking lot eating my lunch, and it was squirrel left over from supper the night before. And I was sitting there in this parking lot, and there's squirrels, you know, everywhere, especially all over the Little Rock. And I was sitting there eating and gnawing on this leg in the car, had the window roll down. I look in a great squirrel walked just right up beside the car over there. It was a pecan tree right there, and I thought, I'm going to heat him in the head with this leg, this bone.

I threw it out there and I missed him, but he jumped back and he looked at it and he picked it up and started gnawing on it and then run off with the leg. And I thought, my gosh, that was horrible. And I'm going to have a savage. I'm going to have a nightmare. I'm going to have a nightmare just thinking about it. Hey, Clay, could I ask a question of the two geniuses sitting around here? Sure. Me and Brenner, ready?

Yeah, go ahead. I hope it's math. You know, one of the things, there was a time I was the president of squirrels unlimited. You remember that, Clifton? Mm-hmm. And, yeah. We're amongst royalty. Well, you know, I'm around royalty.

But I'd get people to write to me all the time and ask about the squirrel migration. Ooh. You know about... Controversial. The great squirrel migration. When they were dipping them, no, he's stopping me. It's not a migration. There you go.

Lady Massey's question. It's a fire drill. Hey, Britt Rees, have you heard about where there were so many squirrels cross in the Mississippi? Across in the Mississippi, they were dip neting out of the river. That's not the one I heard, but I heard it was my great grandfather. There was a team and a wagon going through the woods, and they would have to stop the wagon for all the squirrels running across the road. So the great migration, there was a time, Kevin, yes, there was. It's not a migration.

Kevin, there was a time up in Pennsylvania where they were knocking down the cornfields, the squirrel. I heard they were riding on the back of the back of the water. American buffalo. These squirrels were knocking down. There was a bounty on the dang old squirrels. Now, what are you calling this? It's a dispersal. Because of migration, you go and you come back.

They just live for everything. It's a Jedi level here between me and Clifton. He's the biologist and I'm just a squirrel killer. But it's a dispersal. And I have witnessed it in 68. A lot of squirrels moving in the same direction. They're just, they're just, you've had a bumper crop, of mass in an area.

He wanted to say. He wanted to say they just migrate. Dispersal. I can't spell it, but somebody Google it for me. They got those all through Missouri. It's dispersal. Clifton, does the science back this? You know, I've never seen it documented.

I know it occurs, but I've never seen it. The scientist says it's not in the literature. He ain't reading what I'm reading. You bet you're right, Matt, Joe. Yeah, it happens. Joe was 100% right. Clifton needs to go and look at his cliff notes. Because it is documented.

And in Kentucky at one time, when you were 16 years old, you had to kill so many squirrels to be like. A Kentuckyan. Yeah. I mean, there was like a legal document there that they had to. They'd turn into a colonel. They would, they would like come through and devastate the corn crop. But like, is it, in 68? Oh, squirrels would.

That was probably the last. That's big squirrel dispersal down in the Carols in the edge of Tennessee, they had a mass failure down there. And those squirrels came up into Kentucky through LBL. They would be croppy fishermen out in the lake and with a dip net dipping them up. My dad would go, I remember, he would go squirrel hunting and come home. It's probably him and five or six guys hunting. But he would have what I call a West Virginia dog leash where you take a. sapling, bend it over and leave a limb cut like this right here, and then the main runner of the

tree, and you run them through the back of the squirrel leg. He'd come home and have like 16 on there. He said the dog would tree one squirrel, and then maybe three or four, two or three would come running through on the ground and he would shoot dogs. Just giving up. They were pushing. They were pushing up. I mean, it's documented, and I saw it. And, and Probably, let me think. I saw it on I-24 going to Nashville. I was taking my son and one of his friends down there, and I started seeing all these squirrels ran over between Paducah and Nashville.

And I counted like 50 squirrels on a four-lane highway, ran over. And then I took my son from Paducah to Cincinnati to watch a ball game, and I counted a hundred and something squirrels. run over. And I had friends that they said that had to take, there was a barrier wall or something and they got choked in and they took a back hole out there and scooped up the dead squirrels. Wow. They call that a dispersal, boys. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Hey, we need next year, Clifton, find us some literature on this so that we can put the barriery stamp of academic approval on this dispersal. I would love to see that. We,

you know, with the contemporary tracking devices that we have now, that's what I mean. Do they radio call it squirrels? I haven't seen. See, here's, I believe what you're saying. It can't happen anymore. We don't have those huge fans of hardwood forest. Yeah.

It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen anymore. It's too fresh. I mean, it could happen in like a little regional thing like I saw. I see. I mean, how many people's ever seen a squirrel run over on a four-lane highway? It's right. You've seen it?

I mean, you just don't see it. Right. You know, you see all the other dick. Of course, they're not going to last long because something's going to scoop in and pick them up. But I see what you're saying. Like, they would have to be really wanting to cross a big, you know, a hundred-year stretch. That's a quarter mile. Right, right.

Open ground. Yeah. So, maybe we need bridges. Squirrel crossing. Squirrel crossing. I think, you know, there was a vision of this great squirrel migration, and I always put the wildebeest and the crocodile into the deal. And I just thought they were crossing, and the crocodiles would be there just,

eating them up like wildebeest. That's not what took place, but there is tons of literature over the year, regardless of what you call it, of these squirrels pushing, and fire could be a big cause of it. It could be. You know, a stand of forest burns down.

There's nothing to eat. All the squirrels travel across. You buy it, Malcolm? I have never seen that Mississippi. That's, and y'all seen everything. And we've seen a lot. Hmm.

Well, hey, we're getting real close. We're going to have to bail out of this. We've got to initiate a world champion. Hey, it's a, we've been going for an hour, so I told them that's what we would do. Malcolm, where can we watch all your barbecue stuff? It's how to BBQ write on all the social channels, and you can go to how to barbecuWrite.com. We've got a lot of stuff on the website, too. I got one of your brines last year from Thanksgiving turkey.

Oh, I hope it turned out. Oh, man. It's really good. You send me a text, and I'll send you some more for this year. Oh, you're on. Awesome. Joe, anything, when are we doing this next year? Same time, same place?

Relatively close to the same time. Early September. It'll be here. It'll be about the same place. I guarantee that. Hey, you know, I've got a podcast called Cooking Up a Story. Yes. And we try to put faces on people and take a lot of pride in it.

And you've helped me a lot. as well. So same time, same place next year. Kevin Murphy will have shorter hair. I imagine he won't be trying to look like a Viking. I'm going to shave it all soon as I get back from Iceland. I could promise you we're going to bring at least a four-time world champion squirrel Skinner back. I hope he comes. Oh, you bet you. I'll be here. All right, we'll be, we'll be looking for some of that squirrel literature on the migration. All right. Brent?

Yes, sir. Anything you got to say? I am just so thankful that this episode was not about the Bear Greece latest episode because I hadn't had a chance to listen to it yet. Oh, Sterling Harjo. Yeah. Sterling's getting the short stick today. So sorry, Sterling, because we had to do this. But, yeah, it was a really neat episode. Sterling Hard Joe.

I actually just sent Sterling Hard Joe as a Seminole filmmaker. He's a member of the Seminole tribe in Oklahoma, really successful filmmaker. and on the podcast, this would be the one thing I say about it. He talked about how his people and a lot of indigenous Native Americans in America. I really mess that up. That's really. Keep going. They're terrified of owls.

Like in their culture, owls are a big deal. And so he talked about that for a long time on the podcast. And there's a taxidermyed owl in this building over here. And I sent him a video. I said Sterling, sorry, dude. And I showed him the owl. and he blurred it out and sent it back to me. He blurred out the owl and sent me a video back and he said,

here I fixed it. Sterley's a great guy. Kevin, thanks, man. Thanks for being here. Thank everybody for being here. Thanks, Joe. And thanks everybody for, I hope y'all, I hope you all had a good time watching the render.

And Riva, Reva from Montana. Riva is the one that builds all the Bear Grease podcast and this country life podcast. So she's actually the one, like working with us to on the edits, the music and everything. So she's as much a part of this as me and Brian. Iowa Farm Girl, now living in Bozeman, and she is down here soaking up to Arkansas Sunshine. That's right.

Yeah, thanks, Riva. Let's go crown the winner. So I got one short blurb to put in. We're doing a small game boot camp again in Paducah, Kentucky. Be the first weekend in June. We cook rabbit. Have fun. Everybody brings their hunting dog out.

So look forward to see everybody maybe come out and join us with that. When I was in Mongolia, the owl was a sacred animal. I was over there. I said, man, what's all these chicken feathers on your rearview mirror on your motorcycle? And they said, there's owl, sacred animal there. And then we hunted an owl when we were over there. Hunted them? Yes.

Wow. But thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. Thanks, all you guys, especially bringing your kids out and new people. I mean, it's just like, it just charges me up to be down here alone. With all you Arkansasans. It was a great time. Right on.

Thanks, everybody. Let's go crown a world camp. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God.

He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen 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. This is an IHeart podcast.

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