Bear Grease - Ep. 257: This Country Life - Buck’s Mama and Brent’s Bucks

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Brent followed his father’s footsteps in a lot of the Reaves family hunting traditions. Deer hunting however, wasn’t one of them. Brent’s dad was not a deer hunter but had some encounters that Brent’s gonna tell you about. You’ll also hear a listener story about another parent and son deer hunting tradition that’s not so traditional. It’s time for 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.

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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 Eat Eater's Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Bucks Mama.

and Brent's bucks. Deer season is upon us, and I can't wait for the mosquitoes to thin out a bit so I can climb a tree down in the river bottoms. Unlike hunting with dogs, which was passed down to me from my dad and my brothers and I were on our own when it came to deer. I'm going to tell you why, along with some other stuff, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. The story this week is a listener story from a family that lived 22, minutes for where my wife Alexis grew up in the big city of Tyler. Lendale, Texas is a small town with just over 6,000 people according to the 2020 census. And if you look it up on the internet,

you'll see a list of quote-unquote notable people from Lendale, pro athletes, successful singers, composer, even the director for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. But a name you won't see on that list is Julie Thompson. A lady whose career for the last 30 years has been in education. She's the wife of DeWain and mother to a son named Buck. And it's Buck's story that I'm sharing with you today. So in Buck Thompson's words and my voice, here we go. My name is Buck Thompson.

I live in Northeast Texas in the small but growing town of Lindale. I grew up deer hunting and fishing and my mom. My mom was always a big part of that. I don't remember a time when she wasn't. Most of the time she killed bigger and more deer than all the guys on the lease. I didn't grow up in a culture of men-only camps. My mom was always there and a part in and accepted into the man-dominated world. Some of my greatest memories are hunting with my mama.

She really taught me how to hunt. When I would go hunting with daddy, we always had to be. had a good time. There was always going to be plenty of snacks and some sort of adventure, but my mama, she took it seriously, and bringing home the meat was the name of the game. It was nothing for her to sit all day with a scoped Marlin 30-30 waiting for a deer to cross a small, narrow shooting lane where she hunted. Now, once she sat motionless for hours waiting for the opportunity and right at dark, deer started crossing the lane one after the other.

She timed them crossing perfectly, and when the next shadow started to cross, boom! That Marlin notched another white tail, and it was a buck. But the most special thing Mama did was take me hunting. My dad had to work one weekend, and we loaded up and headed to Marion County, Texas for my first deer. The year was 1999. and I was nine years old.

I was in love with hunting. I remember staring out the kitchen window, waiting for the mailman to deliver the newest deer hunting VHS tapes, and I watched them until they broke. I had it all figured out, at least I thought I did. I'd had a few opportunities to kill my first deer, but none ever panned out, and I was getting antsy to have my picture taken with that old gray ghost

at the East Texas Woods. Finally, Mama and I got to the lease, and we were hunting. We sat in my favorite hunting place we called the Hickory Nut Stand. It was a homemade tripod stand with camo hanging from the shooting rail and built for two hunters. It only stood about eight feet off the ground because the pines that were surrounding it were only about eight or ten years old. And deer would literally walk right by you and never know you were there. Now, we got there before daylight, and as dawn grew in today, the deer movement was zero, and I got frustrated, impatient.

I dreamed all summer about getting my first deer and was certain I should have already filled my tag and be telling tales of the hunt around the campfire. But there we said, me and my mom for what seemed like years, until she finally gave in to my complaints, and we left to go get something to eat. Now, after lunch, I was ready to go home, convinced there were no deer for me that day. But my mama was confident we'd have better luck that evening. Another member, Mr. Dennis, he showed up to hunt that afternoon and decided he'd hunt within earshot of us, should we have any luck?

And not long after, Mama and I were back in the hickory nut stand. Now, you remember how intense I told you my mom hunts? Well, when you sat with her, that's how you're expected to hunt, too. An hour, an agonizing hour of motionless staring into the woods was about all I was good for. And after an afternoon of side-eye looks and threats, she said, look, we've only got 20 more minutes. Set still, one will come out right at dark. My eyes rolled in a quiet sigh left my lips as I lowered my chin back on the woodstock of that single-shot rifle that was secured on the shooting rail. Light was leaving the pines and shadows moved across the gray landscape and just at the last bit of light, an image of a dope emerged from the pines coming from right to left.

Mama's hand patted my leg and whispered, there she is. When you get it on your shoulder, squeeze the boom! Because of my mother's teaching, I already had my gun ready. And because of her lectures on shot placement, I knew where to settle the crosshair. The image of that old mule kicking straight up and down still is ingrained in my memory, and she tore off and made a big loop in the short pines. We found her with the help of Mr. Dennis. And me and my dad have had a lot of great memories in the woods,

and I've hunted mule deer and elk in the rocky mountains, experienced thousands of ducks in migration. I ran up and down the river running throw lines for big flathead catfish. but until my own children and I get to experience what me and my mama did that November morning, it will forever be my favorite hunting member. Don't ever take for granted the love of your mama and what she's willing to do to help you make your dreams come true. Even if it's taken her only son by herself hunting all day not expecting to have any help, but because she knew how much he loved to hunt. and how bad he wanted to go get his first deer.

Taking my wife and getting her into hunting as well as my little girl has been one of the most rewarding things I've done. I believe a lot of us out there are missing out on amazing opportunities either because of a male-only stigmatism or we are too wrapped up in our own wants and wishes. We miss the forest for the trees. How much joy we would have sharing our love of the outdoors with those who may do. never consider themselves an outdoorsman or an outdoors woman. Thank you, Mama, so much for loving the outdoors and not giving up on your desire to

hunting fish just because you weren't always invited because you're a girl. And thanks to my great, great Uncle George for taking my mama squirrel hunting when it wasn't the cool thing for a little blonde-headed tag-along to be following you through the woods. One person's decision can shape a whole generation's outcome. And according to Buck Thompson of Lindale, Texas, that's just how that happened. Thanks for sharing that, Buck. It's a wonderful sentiment, a wonderful tribute to your mama.

The love of a good mama just can't be beat. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record.

If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at 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. Deer hunting is a big tradition in my family. Any and all game that was available was on the menu and supplemented the family on both sides with my lineage.

My maternal grandfather, Finan Sly, who grew up during the Great Depression, told me about catching possums and keeping them in a cage and feeding them out for weeks at a time with table scraps to clean out their systems before they knocked them in the head, cleaned them, and ate them, and then sold the hides, of course. But that side of my family was comprised mostly of subsistence farmers and sawmill workers who didn't have the time or the desire to hunt. My paternal side was a polar opposite. If it crawled, walked, flew, climbed, or swam in the outdoors, it was fair game. In stark contrast to the other side of my family, there were no possum-eating stories from the Depression era. And I ain't saying they didn't eat them, but if they did, they didn't tell nobody about it. And I assume they didn't have to because of all the wild game that supplemented the livestock that was consumed. squirrels, rabbits, and deer, just to name a few.

I have a picture of my great-grandfather, Lovett Reeves, and a buck deer he killed in the 1950s. There weren't a lot of deer back then in Arkansas, not in our part anyway, and if I was a betting man, I'd guess that buck was probably in the wrong place at the right time and crossed past with my grandpa on a squirrel hunt. It'd be pretty easy to hit the magazine cutoff on his Brown and A-5

and slide the boat back and exchange the squirrel load for some buckshot if the opportunity arose. Who knows? He could have been a stander on a deer drive and smashed that rascal when the hounds pushed him by his location. What was for sure was he was a hunter and a good one. But the deer hunting jean skipped a generation with my dad. He hated deer with a passion and coined a phrase that I and others still use, interjecting our own nouns into the statement when talking about fire ants, feral hogs, or redwaltz. Here's the quote for my dad about the white-tailed deer here in the natural state. If I could mash a button and kill every deer in Arkansas, I'd mash it twice to make sure I got

them all. Now, my father's deep-seated hatred for deer came from two places. Number one, they ate his garden. And number two, his old coyote dogs would, on occasion, chase them instead of coyotes. A trait very unbecoming of a hound that was supposed to be broke from chasing deer and on to chasing coyotes only. My dad killed a lot of deer, but he ate only a few himself. They were given away the folks that needed meat or my brother and I would split them.

Wasting them wasn't an option, but he cared nothing about antlers. He'd be proud of us if we killed a buck, but as far as horns go, he cared nothing about it. And in my office is a set of deer antlers from a buck that my father killed. A friend and a coworker of my dad saw the antlers laying in the back of his truck, having been freshly harvested and removed from the deer. He said, buddy, where did you get that rack of horns? but dad said, I killed him over in front of the house. I gave the meat away and told the man that I gave it to, I wanted the horns back.

I'm going to give it to one of the boys if they wanted. He said, well, let me mount it on a plaque for you to give them. And with that, our friend of 40 years, Jackie Bethay, co-worker of my dad, mounted the antlers, and gave it back to him. A few weeks later, he's like, here's your horns, buddy. So you never told me how that hunt went. He said, Dad looked at him and said, well, it's probably one of the best shots I ever made. I didn't really have time to react, and I got him just before he got out of sight. Jackie's a deer hunter, and there's always been one, and he was intrigued by the story, and he said,

well, was he about to run in the woods on you? Dad said, no, he's about to jump out of the headlights. He had a mouth full of my peas when I shot him about midnight. Now, that was about the... the extent of my dad's deer hunting. Everything on the outside of the hot wire around his peepatch was free, but everything on the inside deer had to pay for. There's one more incident that I can tell you about my dad and deer.

My brother Tim and I were talking about the other day, and he reminded me where we got the inspiration to rope the deer that I talked about back on episode 231 of this country life. My dad had been out running his hounds one night, and on the way back home, he rounded a 90-degree curve on a gravel timber company road and standing in the middle of the road staring at the headlights was a huge buck deer. Now, the deer just stood there, staring at the truck. Dad honked at him. He didn't budge. He inch closer to him.

He didn't budge. He stood and stared so long that dad thought there was something wrong with him. Now, if you got the impression from the P-PAT story that my dad was a deer-hating poacher, well, here's the evidence that should knock that silly thought right out of your noggin. This encounter was in the middle of nowhere. Well past midnight, had he chosen to, he could have just driven on by or shot him out the window, the latter being what a deer-hating poacher would have done, but that's not what he did. He decided to see if he was injured, and if need be, render aid, or,

put him out of his misery. Both things that are heavily discouraged these days, but this was a different time. Moving on. He grabbed a brand new lariat rope from behind the seat, walked out in front of his truck, and threw a beautiful loop about 15 yards that landed, as he said, like an angel,

had placed it around his antlers. He popped the rope to tighten the cinch, and that's when the buck came to life. Apparently, the deer was none the worst for wear and only blinded by the truck lights because as that buck ran into the darkness, it took most of the hide from his palms and all his fingerprints, and a brand new rope with it. Now, he found that rope about 60 yards off the road two days later

where it had unceremoniously caught on a limb after that deer hit Mock 2 shortly after takeoff. Thinking about that story makes me realize that apples really don't fall far. the tree. My brothers and I, along with most of our friends and relations, love to deer hunt. I've been hunting surrounding states and been successful on many occasions. Nothing earth-shattering, as in antler size, but good mature deer just the same and trophies to me for sure. But it's the ones that got away, the ones that I let slip through my fingers that caused me to pause and reflect on what I did to mess it up, or sometimes resigned to the fact that some things just aren't meant to be.

I was hunted with Jacob Wood, a good friend of mine on family property that he'd been hunting on forever. We're good friends. He's very good friends. He's like a brother and a son all in one to me. Both of us loved a deer hunt. And I filmed him smash a great buck

back when I was just filming for the experience and trying to learn how. I made him pass on that buck with his bow at 25 yards one evening because the camera light was bad. The next day we left for New Mexico, where we chased elk for almost two weeks, all over creation to no avail, regretting the deer that we let walk away for that stupid camera back home. That 16-hour drive back to Arkansas was mostly in discussion on how we were going to rest for a couple of days, then try to get that buck hemmed up with his muzzle odor. We got home, well after daylight, exhausted and beat down from the butt-kicking weed.

received in New Mexico. He crashed at his house and I crashed at mine. Three hours later, I was picking up my phone to text him to see if he was awake when my phone buzzed. I'm going after him this afternoon, he texted. I texted back. Pick me up on your way through. Three hours later, we were standing over a 156-inch white tail that walked out in the golden hour of light like he'd read the script we discussed all the way back home from that unsuccessful elk hunt. Feast to famine to feast. Sometimes it just works out. What seemed like a sure thing went sour fast because of no camera light on the first opportunity,

and then a couple weeks of self-doubt, and then bingo, we got him. Then there's the times when all looks perfect and fate hands you an oatmeal-raising cookie you thought was chocolate chip. can there be a bigger betrayal? I think not. I was bo-hunting the back of the property where my friend Jacob had named this buck highbeams because of his tall antlers. I called him a deer because I don't think animals outside of dogs

and horses should really have names, and that includes cats. Sorry, Reva, but I said what I said. Anyway, this great specimen of a white-tail buck was notoriously nocturnal, and Jacob had been watching his, him for coming on to four years. We had pictures of him mostly at night, but on a whim, I went to the back where he hung out just to sit on a food plot and see what I could see.

I was facing north and staring out across a half-acre plot about lost in thought when I caught movement out of the right side of my vision. A doe was walking from the east edge of the woods, making her way steadily toward the center of the opening. As I watched her walking, tracking her smooth gait with my eyes, I looked past her, and there 70 yards away was the mystical buck, old high beams, halfway sticking out of the brush on the north side of the food plant. He walked out and followed her lead, pausing along to grab a bite of vegan food, as he made his way closer with every step. At 25 yards and broadside, I punched a hole just behind his left front shoulder. The mechanical broadhead stopped when it hit the other side. The shot was as

easy as falling out of the bed. He wheeled 90 degrees and smoked it out of orbit heading northwest with about a foot of air poking out of the entry hole. And that was the last I ever saw of him. We never found a drop of blood or him. Trust me, when I say I looked and we looked. We looked for days and I looked for weeks. I crawled in and out of more treetops and thickets so thick with briars that a rabbit would have to tow to hatchet to get through them. And I never found so much as a hair. That was eight years ago, and I killed a lot of deer since, but I will never get over, not getting that one.

And I don't get mad because his head didn't hang it on my wall. I'm disappointed. But all the effort my friend put into passing him year after year, allowing that Joker to reach his full potential was seemingly wasted. I didn't get to have his antlers hanging on my wall Now that was a big deal, don't get me wrong But most importantly, that deer meat was lost And that would have fed my family and my friends

And we can kill six deer in Arkansas It's taking another deer for the freezer Wouldn't be a problem, but that one would go to waste and waste and game. That's no wano. Now fast forward two years later And on the opposite side of that property, I shot a good deer with a very familiar

looking set of antlers. Now, the story of all stories would be that I cleaned them and found my error from two years before, but this ain't Hollywood. But standing there looking at the characteristics of the antlers in my hand and comparing them to the pictures I had in my mind

of the one that got away, you know, Oh, Highbeam, I'd say they were closely related. Who knows? But I'll post pictures of them both, and you can see what I'm talking about and decide for yourself. Now, that doesn't make up for the one that was lost by any means. Nothing will replace the loss because no portion of that deer that I shot was ever utilized.

But it does speak for wildlife management, and the plan Jacob had going on that property allowing the game to grow and reproduce with the strongest genes winning out. A great and hard lesson in conservation all in one. and anything I can take a lesson away from good or bad that will help me in the future is a lesson learned. White Tail Week is going on until the 6th of October, and if you're in the market for some new first light,

the savings set up this year is pretty unique. And the more that you spend, the bigger the savings. Now, if you don't spend anything, you save at all, but you also don't get any new cool deer smashing threads and the systems they put together this year really cool. Check out all the details. over at the meat eater.com. Thank you all so much for listening.

Remember our folks that have been affected by the devastation brought on by Hurricane Helene and do what you can to help. Be sure if you're sending money that is to a legitimate organization. Until next week, this is Brent Reeve, signing off. Y'all be careful. 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 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 backwards.

woods. 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 two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.