Bear Grease - Ep. 283: This Country Life - First Impressions

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

People put a lot of stock into a first impression. You can never make a second one, but as observers, we shouldn't be so quick to file the initial impression as the final one. There are lessons in this one that you can apply to just about every interaction you have and a realization that the most lasting impression, regardless of when it happens, can be the most important. It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Hurricane Relief: https://www.redcross.org/donate/cm/onxmeateater-pub.html/ 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 trotlining 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 the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.

First Impression. There's not a lot of things more impactful or long-lasting than a first impression. It is, after all, what we use as an initial reference for anything we remain in contact with over a period of time. There's no lead story this week. The whole episode is a story, and it's about a dog. Some friends of mine have that just recently reinforced my need for patience and maybe even a little fake. First impressions. We all have first in our lives, and the experiences can be as much philosophical and emotional as they are physical.

First impressions we get from an experience form the basis of how that activity, person, or place, is perceived for the rest of our lives. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people who found out I was a duck hunter, only to hear you're crazy. There's no way I'd go out in the freezing weather and wait around. in the water for something that tastes like liver. I used to try to convince them that, first, if they were eating a duck that tasted like liver, they wasn't cooking it right. And second, if I was only out there to get a duck to eat, I could raise my own, or easier still, go to the store and buy one already skint.

But that wasn't a deal. I wasn't grocery shopping. I can do that a lot more comfortably pushing a buggy around Kroger while the store radio serenades me with the Marshall Tucker band as I negotiate the traffic down the aisles. But nine times out of ten, the person telling me how they wouldn't do any of that has done it at least once. And the experience biased their judgment forever on how their next hunt would be. The percentage of people who tell me they wound up getting soaked from tripping and falling in the water or because of an unknown leak in their waiters would be high in the majority.

At least they tried it, but did they really give it a chance? Not many people who tried baseball got a hit the first time they stepped in the batters box, and even then over the course of their career, they only have to get a hit three out of ten times to be considered above average. It'd be hard to imagine applying that same standard to land in an airplane or crossing bobwire fences unscathed. I say all of that to say this. keep an open mind when it comes to new things and first times.

It's easy for us to go into a situation with preconceived notions of how it's going to turn out. If we expect to have a bad time, odds are we probably will. We're not willing the bad times to occur, just only seeing what we thought would happen and when it does, confirming in our minds that what took place was destined to turn out that way. Oh, how wrong that could happen. can be, and usually is. You've heard me talk about my friends at the Cash Biohunting Club,

Randall Whitmore, his brother Wade, and their lifelong friend, Brad Clark. Wade lives in Houston, Texas now, and doesn't get to visit as much as Randall and Brad do, who live just east of Old Man River in Tennessee and Mississippi. But the Whitmore brothers are direct descendants of what many consider to be one of the most knowledgeable and influential coon hunters of the region, the late Mr. Dick Whitmore. Mr. Whitmore had a successful career in the advertising business and new dogs inside and out. He had some great dogs and a good friend and mentor of mine, Rex Whiting, used to hunt dogs for him in competition hunts. Mr. Whitmore bought and sold dogs like most folks do, trying one until they get a

good idea of what they think that dog's abilities are, and if there's a better than ever, average chance the dog will make a good one, he gets to stay. And if not, he gets traded to someone else. One man's trash is another man's treasure is no truer anywhere than in the hound hunting circles. They're all different, just like people. They all learn at a different rate, just like people. They all have their own personalities and idiosyncrasies just like people. So when a dog is chosen to join the partnership, a partnership that some say goes back 15,000 years, they both need a chance to conform to each other. After all, the human isn't the only one getting a first impression in this deal.

I say all that to say this. After Mr. Whitmore passed away in 2017, the only coon hunting that was done out of the cash biohunt club was by guests when Randall, Wade, and Brad weren't there. They missed the lifestyle. and the camaraderie of hunting together and enjoyed hearing about our hunts. And finally, a couple of years ago, Randall and Brad decided they'd go in on a dog together. They, along with Wade, had grown up coon hunting and had a strong desire to get back in it as

participants rather than just observers. My friends, Michael Roseman and Rex Whitey and I would go hunting area near their camp, and Brad and Randall expressed interest in having their own dog on the first trip they went with us after a long hiatus. That invited hunt they accompanied us on wasn't their first impression by any means into chasing the mass bandito, but it would be their first since the passing of Mr. Whitmore. So the search began for just the right dog. They found one.

A nicely bloodline hound from Louisiana that belonged to a friend of mine. He was only starting to realize his purpose in life when they acquired him. They knew what they were getting and what they were getting was a very young dog that was the human equivalent of a toddler in his experience for tree and coons. My first impressions with him were good. He's a pretty dog and what seemed to be a good personality and when he barked, you could hear him for a long wait. They bought the dog and as it should be, one of them was designated as the handler and Brad drew the duty. For almost all the two years and sometimes multiple times, a week, I'd talk with Brad whenever he had a question in training for his and Randall's dog

Cash, named after the area and placed Mr. Whitmore enjoyed the most around the Cache River here in Arkansas. It would be past 10 p.m., and I'd be sitting on the couch after the rest of Casa Day Reeves had retired for the evening, and I'd be talking to Brad while he was in the woods with his dog, trying to help him get an accurate idea of what the dog's potential was going to be. I tell you, I had mixed feelings about him after hunting with him multiple times over several months. I just didn't think he had what it took to be a dog you could cut loose and have the confidence that if a coon is out there, that he'd find him.

Now, I have that with my dog Whaling, but I didn't always. When he was first starting at nine months of age, I also wasn't expecting him to do anything, even though I secretly wished he would. I was happy if he just went out and explored. And I'd watch Cash sometimes just hang around us when we were all hunting together, not really doing much of anything. Sometimes he'd slick tree just out of sight, which means he'd just pick a random tree and go to treeing on it like there was a coon in it,

even though there wasn't. That's making a boo-boot. In the coon hunting world, this is a big deal on the negative side. All dogs do it, some not as much as other, and we can never really truly know the reasons why they do. We only have an educated guess until we can teach a dog to talk or they can teach us to bark.

We're never going to know for sure what causes them to do it. All you houndsmen out there that just started hollering at your radio saying, I know why they do it, you embecile? No, you don't. You're only guessing. You're probably right, but can we say 100%? No, we can't.

So we have to use that and all the other clues we learn from watching the dog do his thing and stir them up in a bowl like ingredients in a recipe, stick it in the oven, and let it cook several months to see if this thing is going to be worth eating. If you allow me to continue the cooking analogy for all the non-hound people who listen, I was hoping against hope that what I was seeing out of Randall and Brad's dog's cash was going to taste better when it was done than what it smelled like when it was cooking. More times than I can count, Brad would say, Be honest with me now, is this dog worth keeping?

And my gut always said probably not after the first six months with little to no progress, but my heart just wouldn't give in to it. Folks need to understand that while the concept of having a dog that you can turn loose that will focus only on a scent of one animal, by passing all others along the way and find it and make sure it's in the tree they think it is and then stay there and bark until their master arrives seems like what a dog would naturally do.

That's just what they've been developed and bred to do, but it dang sure ain't no guarantee that they will or can do it. 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. I wrestled with how to tell them with a football analogy. Look, it's 4th and 40, and we're getting clobbered. Let's punt. Forget this season and hope we can pick up a new quarterback in the transfer portal next year. Now, being a Razorback fan these past few years,

you think I'd know when and how to say that. But I just couldn't pull the trigger on it until last summer. We were hunting one particular night when the conditions were more in tune with bacon bread than trying to tree a coon. It was hot. We'd all gathered at the usual spot, Brad, Randall, and me and Michael. We cut loose and treat a handful of coons.

Heck, treat the majority, whaling next, and cash with none. Again. In the two years I've been hunting around him, I'd never seen him make a tree with a coon that we could find in the tree. We used thermals and squalled at the tree and trying to get one to look. We did everything but climb at ourselves and go from limb to limb looking for him. As we were parting from the hunt, Brad asked us both to think about whether he should keep cash

or talk to Randall about getting rid of him. on the ride home that night Michael and I were in the truck together and we agreed to tell Brad to find another dog. Cash just wasn't making any progress and he'd had plenty of opportunities to do so. Brad started looking

and a short while later Brad was on the list for a new puppy and I was on that same list too. But the union didn't take and no puppies were going to be made for that cycle. Brad said, it looks like I'm stuck with hunting cash this winter. I like this day. dog anyway. I told him it only had to please him and it didn't matter what I or anybody else thought.

I still want to find me a good puppy, but I kind of like this old dog, he said. Well, it's easy to see why all through the summer when I was sitting in the cool of my living room, Brad and Cash were out trying to get better. Night after night, he fought the heat, mosquitoes, and the feeling of dread that when Cash treed, he may or may not have a coon. He got him close to 60 Coons by now, but he never treeed one when Michael and I were there. I believed Brad. He sent me pictures and videos of treeing and having Coons. The issue wasn't whether or not he could do it.

He just wasn't doing it with enough consistency that would leave you to believe that he had the desire to strike a track and finish it at the tree and stay there until Brad got there to find it. Spend that much time with someone you enjoy being in. around and you look over some things that you don't approve of like Alexis does with these hats I have strategically placed all around our home then a few nights ago Michael Brad and I took our dogs heck cash and whaling we went hunting all three bait a coon in a big brush top to start then whalen bait another one in another big brush top then heck treed one at the same time cash fell treeed 400 yards away in a different spot. Heck had a coon, and believe it or not,

15 other ones sitting in four trees around the one he was barking in. I assumed it was just going to be another close but no cigar with cash, and I went with Michael to get Heck while I kept wailing on his leash. We had to come back this way to get to the truck, so Brad would be coming back as soon as he went and leased up cash, who was barking at only cash. New. Brad eventually came back with a video on his phone and cash on a leash. He said, I knew he was going to have one when y'all didn't come with me. He showed me the video,

and sure enough, there was the mass bandit himself, safe and secure in the back of a hollow log. The only threat to his wellness being the trained ball of Cash's barking echoing through that log. Now, you sure that's a coon, Bradley? Kind of looks like a possum. It was a coon, but I had to aggravate him. It's my job. And even though I didn't witness it firsthand, I was proud of cash and happy for Brad. On all the trips that we'd been together on, this was the first time he'd cut his hound loose and retrieved him from a coon he'd found all on his own.

I was sorry I didn't see it myself. The next night, Michael went off to a competition hunt with Heck and a couple hours away, and he won it. Hex now qualified for the UKC tournament of champion. congratulations boys. Brad Randall and I went together, and the hunting conditions where we were couldn't have been much worse. It was warm.

It was foggy, and it was shire, and off and on, not the exact conditions you draw up for running dogs. And yet there we were, meeting up at a predetermined spot to decide on where we were going to go. I was trying to decide if I even wanted to cut weight and loose during our truck window, the truck when the powwow that we were having while the heavens soaked my left arm. Brad let me off the hook when he said, if you just want to listen to Cash bump around the woods from your truck,

that suits me. I just need to turn him loose for a while. Perfect, because I was going home after the hunt anyway, and by not turning Whalen loose in what was surely to be an exercise in wet and muddy futility, whelan and I could both just roll right up in the house as soon as we got home, bypassing the garage washing and drying that would get him in the neighborhood of being clean enough for Mama's house. Brad collared cash up and turned him loose, and I smiled to myself knowing that even though I was

going to stay, regardless of the outcome, Brent and Whalen could light a shuck for home whenever we took the notion. We stood in the mist and rain and talked about how dumb it was that we'd even driven over there to hunt on a night like that to begin with, much less. cut one of the dogs loose. It wasn't like it was the only night we had to hunt. We were laughing at our own folly when Cash opened up less than three minutes

after he hit the ground. I didn't think anything about it until he kept up the barking. We all stopped talking and started listening and looking at the garment handhelds that we were using to track the dog with. He was right on the bank of the creek less than 200 yards away and bam, he fell tree.

His long, unmistakable locate ball followed by a series of chopper boxman, he was convinced that when we got there, we'd be looking at coom. We went to him, and lobehold, he wasn't kidding. There he was, on the leafless limb staring back at us. Nicely done, Cash. But high-fives all around. Cash took off on another cast and opened up again,

working a track hard in the worst conditions around with them getting worse with every drop of, rain fell. Ten minutes later, and he treeed again. Now, we all looked at one another and took off after him. Randall handled cash at the tree while Brad and I looked skyward for the coon in an ever-increasing glasses coat and rain. I got him. The most anticipated three words of any coon hunt when your dog is the one bellied up to a tree telling the world there's a coon up there, and I saw him in a big old fork. Outstanding. We called it a night after less than 30 minutes of hunting.

We went and had supper, reliving the night's events and talking about how much he'd improved from earlier hunts. The next night, I was home, and Brad and Randall went again. Cache Tree three that night, and they sent me the picks to prove it. Here's where mine and other dogs differ from Michaels. While I've entered Whalen in and won hunting competitions, I get more enjoyment out of just pleasure hunting. I fully support competition hunting

and keep up with who's who to some degree, but it just ain't my thing. Brad and Randall are the same. My first impression of that dog was good, even though I had nothing to qualify. My second wasn't as flattering hadn't seen the struggle and the aggravation that Brad and Randall went through

for over a year of dogged effort. But if there's ever been a dog that was willed, make such a drastic turnaround of improvement as a reward for the effort of his handler. It was the Coonhound, known to the UKC Registry as Whitmore and Clark's Cash Money. I texted Randall earlier today to get some details for this podcast. I said, how old is Cash? Randall's response caught me off guard a little bit, and it caused me to reflect in a flash on two years of interactions with that dog and those men.

maybe if you believe in the things that I believe in, a sweet coincidence or something much bigger. Vandal texted back, and I quote, he turned three on November 3rd, my dad's birthday. Thank you so much for listening to me in Old Claibault on the Bear Grease Channel. I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas and visit with the ones that matter most. Next week, this is Brent Reeves.

Signing off. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because

it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right?

That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at 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.