Bear Grease - Ep. 3: The Shed Horn Buck of 1962

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

James Lawrence is a master public land whitetail hunter and his favorite tactic is called "still hunting." In this episode of Bear Grease, you'll hear James' family story and about the buck that altered the trajectory of his life. The story has many twists, turns, and some family drama. For many years, James has been an influential figure in Clay Newcomb's life and he explores why relationships are so valuable. You'll be entertained by a great story, learn some techniques for hunting, and you'll be challenged to build stronger relationships.Connect with Clay and MeatEaterClay on InstagramMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop Bear Grease Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee 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 in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. How they made to live and how they got by, I don't know. Yeah. You know, I can't imagine. I try not to complain about anything because they had all the right in the world

and I never heard him or my grandmother negative on anything. He's always positive. Had a lot of respect for him. On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, I want to introduce you to my friend and mentor James Lawrence. James is 72 years old, and he's a master whitetail hunter for the region he lives. James's life and hunting career was heavily influenced by one of the first deer he ever killed in 1962. It was a giant buck, and previous to him killing the buck, he'd found three years of matching sheds.

The story has many layers and some significant twists and turns. James' life has been a significant inspiration to me, and it has emboldened. impacted me on many levels. I want to explore how and why some relationships deeply impact our lives. You're going to enjoy a great whitetel story. You're going to learn how to still hunt, but I'm also going to explore how relationships help form our own identity. But before we start, I want to ask you a question. Who are the influential people in your life and why? My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Greece podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. James Lawrence's family homesteaded in a small rural community in the Washtal Mountains of Western Arkansas in the mid-1800s.

They weren't wealthy people, but common people. typical of the demographic of those migrating into the Arkansas Highlands. Most of these newcomers came by the way of the Appalachians and were of Scotch-Irish descent. In the mid-1800s, up to 50% of the migrants that were coming into the Ozarks came from Middle Tennessee. But James' family came directly out of Kentucky into the Washatals, which is a range of mountains south of the Ozarks. To this day, the culture of all these regions are almost mirror reflections of each other. All the history of James's family is held simply in what can be remembered by those still alive.

If they'd been wealthy or famous, perhaps some documentable history would have deemed their story worthy of remembrance. Today, weathered headstones of granite with the name Lawrence are their only literary house. hat tip. This is it right here. That's it. That's my folks and that's my grandparents. What was your, what was your grandmother's name? Edna. Edna Goldie. I feel like in order to understand the context of this story, we got to go way back. We're in a cemetery in western Arkansas, the Lawrence Family Cemetery. What do you know about your family history back in here? Well, the Lawrence has come here from the East, Kentucky.

My dad was James Lawrence. My granddad was James Dan Lawrence, and I'm James Edward Lawrence. Now, your grandma was a deer hunter, though. Oh, yeah, yeah. Now, was that unusual for a woman to be a pretty serious deer hunter, or a real serious deer hunter like she was? Was that unusual, or was that common?

Well, a little of both. A couple of her sisters were serious hunters, you know, Did they hunt because they loved it or were they hunting for meat? No, it was strictly for meat. You told me that your grandmother taught you how to shock poucher deer. Yeah, her and her brother, Raymond. Shock pouching is when you remove the lower leg bone from the four legs of a deer, leaving the dewclaws. Then you crisscross the legs, tying them together and effectively make backpack straps out of a deer

so that you can carry the deer out of the woods on your back. I actually made a video of this that's on the meat eater.com called shock pouching that you can see the whole thing that James taught me how to do. Do you have any idea where that came from? No. Just that's how they carried deer out. Did they do it on just about every deer? That's the way they, when you'd find them, and when they'd come out with them, that's the way they would be.

They'd have the legs head off of them, tied in the knot. And they'd carried them out physically. You know what's pretty interesting to think about, to think about the 1830s seems like so long ago. But if you think about it like this, you're 72, you knew people that were, your grandmother was born in 1909. So she would have, you know, her grandparents would have been, people that would have been here in the 1830s.

So you think about like your life, was influenced by people whose lives were directly influenced by people that had no technology, no cars, no phones, like totally almost like primitive life. And so when you think about it like that, like you're two steps away from the 1820s. I mean, it's like in the scale of human history for how long we've been here, that's like a blip. I grew up in the same part of Arkansas as James, but I didn't meet him until he was 62 years old, and I was around 30. His reputation preceded him, and I was told he was one of the best mountain deer hunters around. I got his address, drove to his house, and knocked on his door, cold turkey. I introduced myself to a warm,

humble, and rugged man who opened the door. I received immediate credibility because of the man who told me about him, a mutual friend of ours. James's response was predictable of the mountain people. If he's a friend of yours, then you're a friend of mine. I told him I was writing an article about deer hunting in the mountains of Arkansas. Our hunting culture has gradually moved to being dominated by deer feeders and sacks of corn. I'm not necessarily against feeding deer. I do it myself some, but it has undisputably degraded the level of knowledge about deer and deer hunting in the modern era.

I wanted to talk to an expert who hunted deer in the mountains on public land. Something immediately told me I'd found one. His face was worn with deep wrinkles that had clearly greeted the sun daily for decades. I'd learned that he used to be a smoker, but had quit for health reasons some years ago. In his early 30s, James was a game warden, but resigned after a series of incidents, one of which involved him ticketing a government official for a game violation, but he was then later told to rescind the citation in a backroom meeting with a supervisor. The injustice was too much for a man raised in the mountains who never heard of silver spoons or the advantages of political

hierarchy. James made his living as a carpenter, stone mason, and cattle farmer. He once built an entire complex of buildings in the 1970s. It was a mountain retreat center. and the job called for 400 tons of native stonework. James spent years gathering the rocks by hand and doing the work. In my mind, James is representative of the mountain people, hardworking, humble, independent, leery of outsiders, but quick to befriend you if friendship is offered. He doesn't seem to lose a grudge too quickly,

but to his friends he's deeply loyal and sacrificial. On that first meeting with James in 2000, I looked at a wall of white-tailed deer racks. The horns were screwed to the sheetrock wall in his garage, and they were all cut from the skull plate in the same way. I'd learned that his uncle showed him how to cut the skull plates so they sit flat on the wall, displaying the rack at a very particular and natural angle. His uncle taught him to tan the hide and put it back on the skull plate. Bucks that had been off the hoof for 50 years still had their original hair. They ranged in size from basket rack bucks to mature top-notch white tails for the region.

One rack stood out from the rest and the yellowed horns looked old. The hair on the skull plate was faded. Surely this deer had a story. I walked to the rack and touched its rough burrs and I asked him about the deer. I was amazed at the story that he began to tell me. But before you hear the story directly from James, you've got to understand the context. In the 1950s and 60s, deer numbers in Arkansas were low.

And for an even deeper look into the context, on December 18, 1907, President Teddy Roosevelt created the Wachita National Forest. And prior to that, the region had been logged at a landscape level, meaning almost everything was cut. With the trees went the wildlife in most of the other big game, including bears, but don't get me started on that. With the new management of the Forest Service, by the 1950s the forests were recovering.

But the primary method of deer hunting the low density population was with dogs. Using the dogs was a traditional and effective method for rousing deer out of their layers. But very few hunters at the time knew how to hunt deer on their natural patterns. So when you hear this story, I think you'll agree that it was an incredible feat, especially for a young boy. When I was with my uncle out here on weekends, when we lived in town at the time, spent all the weekends out here, he'd give me a 22 rifle and ammunition was cheap. And when I was out here, I was out wandering these fields and all of it was family owned. Right here where we're sitting. Right where we're sitting.

The first sheds was probably 150 yards from where we're sitting. I crossed the Cossastat, the headwaters of the Cossetot. And there they were just together touching each other. Just laid right on top of each other. Layed on top of each other. And I couldn't pick them up and run over here and show them quick enough. You would have been 11 years old. These first sheds you found right here would have been in like 1959.

Probably, yeah. Three years of sheds and then the buck. So 59. 60, 61, and 62 you killed the deer. So you found these sheds just right there. You pointed out to me a cedar tree that they were laying by. And that was during a time when there weren't deer in these mountains during that time. James' family would go off to deer camp, but James rarely went.

He'd stay home and wander around alone on his home place shooting squirrels and rabbits with his 22. These early solo hunts would set a track for his future hunting. But it also brings up the question, why wasn't he included in these family outings? I was one of the only ones that was out drashing through the woods and through the fields and the tickets for the rabbits, the squirrels. I was jumping deer. I couldn't explain it to them because I was jumping deer all the time, and they were going off dog hunting, and they're occasionally killing deer,

and the family wasn't seeing it. They wouldn't follow me around, and I would try to tell them what I seen. and I know it's hard to believe. They were all scattered out hunting and they're not seeing anything. Yeah. They come in and I've got these stories well, they wasn't interested in my stories.

I mean, really. Yeah. Here's the bigger question. Why weren't you hunting with them? I went with my granddad and sat on a stand, freeze the death. We'd build a little bitty fire if we'd just stay warm. And we was waiting on the dogs to run a deer by us.

Why would it choose us when there's standers everywhere? We would occasionally see deer, but I could stay home and I could just walk down the fence rows and I could see deer. So you started really learning from a young age how to hunt these deer. Well, it was just from being out. So you saw him. I saw him. I saw him twice. So you came back and told your family I saw a big buck.

And I know I had excitement. I was excited all over. After James found the first set of sheds, the next fall, He actually saw the buck hard horn. He shared the sighting with his family, but you can guess the response that he got. A little kid claiming to have seen a giant buck, he was dismissed. You know, I mean, it's hard to visualize that thing when I was a kid seeing the buck of that. Yeah. Standing broadside, nothing between me and it.

Me with the 22. I couldn't go any further. I had to come tell somebody, which was my uncle. and I don't know I would have got excited if 11 year old kids come up and told me what they'd just seen

in excitement it just didn't seem to matter they kind of dismissed you well it just didn't seem to matter that kind of hurt your feelings it hurt my feeling but I had proof you know

so that second year so you find these sheds and just to give people context that first year sheds I think I scored it in the high 140s, 150s. I mean, so this is not a small deer, and especially for the late 1950s in the Washington mountains.

I mean, this is like a major deer, so you come back with the sheds. The second year, how did you find the second set of sheds? Same way. Had my 22. And it was right over here. I was stumbling around. I was squirrel hunting up the road,

and I was going up that dark, I call it dark hollah. There's a holl. where the road makes a sharp bend, and I'd go up that holler. Yeah. On rocks, basically, where I could slip up and hear the squirrels barking. And I was on my way back, coming around. And basically, all but inside of where we're sitting right now.

Coming down the road. And so you pick up the second year sheds of this buck. Yeah. The third year. Tell me how you found those horns. Same way. I was out stumbling around. Where was that?

They were separate. Right. They were on up the head of Cossetot. The Cossetot is a fast-flowing, 89-mile-long river in western Arkansas that flows out of the southern Wachitas. Its headwaters basically start on the Lawrence family homestead. The word Cossetot is a Native American word

that roughly translates into skull crusher. It's known for its rapids further down the river. Hey, in the third set of sheds, I scored that deer, giving it the same spread credit as the actual deer, and that deer gross scored over 170 inches. Right. I mean, so this is in the, now we're into the early 1960s. And so, I mean, this is a gross 170 plus typical.

And you have found third year. And I want to say something, like people in the Midwest today in farm country, they'll have history with deer. You know, they'll find two or three years the sheds of a buck. Down here, in the 1950s and 60s, that was unheard of. Exactly. It was now the fall of 1962. James was now 13 years old, and he'd collected three years of giant sheds of a buck almost within sight of his house.

He'd been dismissed by many of the hunters and his family, but things were about to change. And so, tell me about that day. Wow. A typical deer season day. I'd been roaming around, jumping deer. As was typical, James stayed home and hunted while his family went off to deer camp. He had a stand at a deer crossing that he'd often go and sit most of the day. By stand, he didn't mean a tree stand. It was a stump that he sat on. Family loaded up and was going. I was out of school that day.

Family went over and they let me stay home because of I've been telling them what I'm seeing, you know. They were off hunting and that was what I did. I went up and sat on that stand because it was basically a crossing for deer. And this was with my new 30-30 Marlin. I sat till lunch time and I was at top of the hill eating lunch at our house where we lived. Looking down on the field and I seen the dough down in the field while I was taking a break. I hadn't seen anything.

Yeah. At that time, it was a big deal to see a deer. Yeah. Had my sandwich, walked back down the road. I got caught, and it was a local person. Asked me if I'd seen any dogs or picked up any dogs or heard any dogs or whatever. Standing there talking to them, they were in a pickup, and I looked across the hood of the truck. Out in that field, while we were talking, I could visualize.

eyes, and I could see horns up above sage grass. This is... You're looking across the hood of this vehicle. Exactly. Yeah. Well, talking to him. I was looking for that dough. I didn't tell him about the dough.

I didn't pass any information. Yeah. Anyway, I didn't say anything to them, but I kind of wanted them to go on, and they did. I went on around like I'd always do. You get in that stand, sitting up there in that little gap. I get up there and sitting down, and I started thinking about it.

about that there, did I really see? I get up and slip down, I had a fence across to get in that field. I slipped down there, and a doe jumped up. Man, it got me excited, and the dough went out in the middle of the field. And I seen the movement, and here was the shed buck. Just come up out of that sage grass and looked at him.

He was in his bed. He stood up out of the grass. And he was standing up, rare enough, to get up, shot the first time. And you hit him the first time? I hit him the first time. You jacked another shell in? I jacked another shell. Iron sights, bar than 30, 30, 30, hit him again. Disappeared. He went down. What did you feel like when you walked up to that buck? I don't know how to describe it. I still remember the excitement, but, you know, it was, I didn't know what to do.

James set and admired the shed buck for a while, but ended up going home to wait, on the return of his family from deer hunting. Take into consideration that this was the biggest buck anybody in the family would have ever seen. And if James could forecast in the future, he'd see that it would likely be the biggest buck he'd ever kill in his life. You'd think he'd get a good response.

And, you know, we talked about it before. I didn't get the response that I was, you know, they walked up on it. The deer was laying there. They field dress of deer. and we drug it out and, you know, I've got pictures of when I was a kid holding my dad's deer. There wasn't no picture taken. There wasn't no...

So they didn't celebrate with you? There wasn't a celebration. My uncle took the horns like I showed you different ones that he took. He cut the horns off and put the skin back around it and put it on a board. That was it. Hung it on the wall. And that would have been the biggest deer that any of these guys had ever seen. Oh, obviously.

You know, my dad kills several. They were little deer, but they were nothing. Because James, you've been hunting right in here since late 1950s. Yeah. So that's over 60 years. Yeah. And this is the biggest buck that you've killed to this day. Exactly.

And you've probably killed over 100 white tails since then. Yeah. Yeah. Well over that. Well over a hundred. Yeah. What I meant to say was that he's killed over 100 mature mountain bucks on public land. Without bait, most without trail.

cameras and the majority of them from the ground while still hunting. James would become a master at hunting the mountains of Arkansas. He hunted out of tree stands, but he loved to still hunt. 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 pool 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. The buck, I scored it. This dude. James, this is what I love about you, is that, You never had that deer scored. You never even cared what it scored.

No. And then I think in 2010, I saw the deer and I said, hey, we got to score that deer. And you were like, yeah, let's see what it scored. And I scored that deer, gross scored it right at 160 inches. Right. The buck was starting to go downhill. The prior year, he gross scored 170 inches. I can't express what an incredible feat this would be to,

kill a 160-inch deer at any time by anybody, but even more so in 1962 by a 13-year-old boy. I asked James how killing the buck affected the trajectory of his hunting. Two times before that, I went to the dog camp, the deer season. It was a camp house. It was a relative old home place. House was still standing. That was the camp. my granddad's brother

he was always off still hunting twice he invited me to go my uncle invited me to go with him and he started showing me we didn't the amazing part of him wasn't an oddball in the family just kind of done things different

than the rest of the boys did they had hunting dogs and he didn't have any he didn't go sit on the deer stand like the rest of them he would go off a different direction but the thing that really I tried all my life to do it he started hunting when he took the first step off the road and when he'd get inside the road he didn't quit hunting

when he stepped back in the road is when he quit hunting when he stepped in the woods he was hunting even in the first time we left across the road from the cabin or the house where the deer camp was at with all the barking dogs and the people in the excitement and stuff and we started hunting the minute we started stepped off the road across from the cabin. And he taught you how to track deer.

And the man could track a deer. Just go through the woods and find a track and could stay on it. And every time I went. This isn't like mud. This is like leaves. Leaves and rock piles. Right. Right.

And he's tracking deer. And he's tracking deer. And most of the time I had to step in the same tracks that he stepped as he slipped through. And, you know, sometimes, Clay, we wouldn't go 30 yards. And I swear it was 30 minutes. and then other times we would travel a little bit faster but I know the first time we went we was almost back inside of the hunting party

when we jumped the deer and we'd been on them for a while and he was, I don't know, just amazed me so I took two different times we did that and I took what he he showed me but he didn't really show me I just picked up on what we were doing

in the way he was doing it and so there was something appealing to you about your uncle. What was his name? Raymond Ashcraft. Raymond Ashcraft. And the way he hunted, and James to this day,

that's the way you prefer to hunt. Oh, yeah. And you'd call it still hunting. That's all that, I mean, that's what they called it then, and that's all I know how to call it. Yeah. It was still hunting.

Some people call it slip hunting. And I don't have the patience that I used to, but 15, 20 years ago, I'd spend a day and, I wouldn't go nowhere. I mean, you know, I had deer, I thought, pinpointed in the area they was in. And just amazed me how little travel I'd be doing. But, you know, a few steps or a tree.

And it's amazing how many deer will get up and start slipping out away from you that you pick up. Yeah. I got more specific with James about the details of the style of still hunting that he did. on a good November morning when you were still hunting like you would have done all those years. What kind of area were you going to? Why would you be going to that area? And then what would you do when you got there? When I'd go into the woods unless something caught me, I had to be back out.

This was a day that was set aside for me down. I didn't have to come back. I left that truck intentioning to coming back at dark. When I leave the woods the year before, I know that I'd left. deer in that area, so I didn't do any pre-scouting. I just would go back into the area where I know that I left good bucks a year before. I'd already learnt some trails, some saddles, some gaps. The areas on the mountain that I was finding more signs, so I would go into it. That way, I didn't disturb anything, and I would hunt from the time I left the road going into the woods

or the mountain, basically. And our mountains run east and west. Most of our winds coming out of the south, so I always... I could calculate which direction. I wanted to hunt on the mountains, and I think that helped more than anything than scouting, because the scouting I'd always disturbed deer.

These deer hadn't been disturbed. This area that I hunt, I know there's nobody been in there. So that's a big key right there, is you intentionally were going in on undisturbed deer. Still, honey, it didn't help me any by going in and trying to locate stuff. I would go in on something that was already familiar with from the year before. And I skipped around. I mean, I covered quite a bit of ground, but I'd pick out an area to go into without any knowledge.

So you'd know the wind and you would go in with a wind at your face or a crosswind. And then would you pick a certain kind of day? Did you need wet leaves so you could move quiet or could you go when it was dry? I didn't. I'd go when I could. It didn't matter. I didn't wait on a particular day. If it's dry, it just took you a little longer to still hunt in.

But in all reality, I didn't move any faster. I don't move any faster in wet ground than I do in dry. If you're setting up in a tree stand and you hear a deer coming, if you walk like that deer, you can walk up on a deer. A deer will walk and stop and walk and stop. And if you do the same thing, you can do the same thing to a deer. So you would just, you'd start hunting as soon as you left the road. Try to.

I really would. You'd just move, just slow, like how far would you travel in a given period of time? That's a hard question to answer, because sometimes I may not be 100 yards from where I was at an hour ago. Okay. Or hardly, I mean, 50 yards even. I guess you'd be encouraged by seeing, like, seeing rubs or seeing. Seeing a little sign, and squirrels will help you, birds will help you.

You know, if there's something moving out here, you hear a squirrel barking down here and knowing it's not barking at you. You know, I've sat there many, many, many times, and the squirrel will be barking at a coon or something else thinking it was a deer. Sometimes it's a deer. I could spend a half a day and not go 300 yards. What would you do? Would you lean up against the tree? Would you, like, find landmarks and you'd say, I'm going to try to get to there?

No, I didn't ever do that. Okay. No, as landmarks, I mean, I know what you're saying, but I would head to the landmark, but I wouldn't, you know, if I'm going to go this direction over that holler, I'd take my time getting to. hood and if I drop down and then coming over the next ridge or a sail, that's when I'd spend a lot of time easing up and covering all the ground on the next area ahead of me. How do you usually see deer? Like what are they doing, James? Are they moving? Are they bedded down? Anything from a twitch veneer, a tail, any kind of movement, just lock in on it and not move, you know? What about your shots? Are you having to take a lot of moving shots?

Just of all those deer on your wall, what would you say would be the most common shot? Just he's standing out there broadside and you shoot him? Well, you can't really do that in still hunting. You kind of have to take the shot when you get it. Walking, I mean, if you can catch one standing, of course you want a broadside shot. No, they probably wouldn't be 50% standing. They'd move in. Moving.

Not bull, bore. Not running, but moving. You got to shoot. And when they're traveling, even, you know, if you get behind the buck, I mean, between the doe and the buck trailing the doe, buck's coming through there but his head on the ground and he's already trailing one. You've got to plan ahead and pull out. So you'd be looking for a gap?

You'd kind of try to predict where he was going to be and you'd be there. What kind of, what was your go-to rifle? Started out with a 30-30 Marlin for many, many, many years. And later years, I got a 308 with a special. scope on it. Okay. And all you're stomping around out there, James, I know you would like you, you would, you would just learn where you would see a buck. You would?

Of all this terrain, where would you see bucks? Was there a trend? Most of them were close to two-thirds the way up the mountain, and a lot of these mountains have little, we call them saddles, little gaps, and most of the time they'd be on the upper side of those gaps, looking down on the gaps. I mean, they're covering their back, too. You wouldn't stay on top of the mountain, you'd be off the side. I'm not hunted a whole lot on top.

Really? Just over the turn, either on the north or on the south. For many years, I wouldn't hunt on the south, strictly the north. Really? We went in camping one day, a friend of mine was camping with me, and he liked the south side. We hunted the south side, and the big bucks is on the south side, too. If you could give me one key for still hunting these mountains, what would it be? patience is 99% of it.

And, you know, of course, the wind in your face. James, do you think that you have a, or a hunter has a six sense, like a sensing of a deer being somewhere? I do. Yeah, I do. How does that feel to you? That's a hard one to describe it. I mean, you feel like, you know, you feel like he's here.

Where is he, you know? And maybe there's no. real reason to No. But you just You just sense That he's here Where is he?

You don't move your head You move your eyes You don't move your body You know that deer You're right on top of him And many times You're right And most of the time

He bust you But I mean You'll finally give up And make a move And the deer It'd be Basically in plain sight Now that's

That's when The old heart Goes to thumpin When you get And you know he's there and many times clay they are you know yeah it's just like you know they are you feel that they are they are you know but that was the exciting part of hunting it's not the kill it's uh it's out smart and no buck there's one-on-one out there when you're still hunting now sitting in a tree i love that

pohunting um or gun hunting but the excitement that i got growing up was still hunting well see i think that you built your whole white teutton world going off where nobody else wants to go doing it alone for the most part you had a few close hunting buddies you took your wife sometimes with you right but you learned how to be a master woodsman for these mountains and that's that is what i always from the day i met you james was i valued your humility i valued your your skill and craft and the way you dedicated yourself to know these mountains and know these deer the way you do. And you just learned how to be successful in a really difficult place.

Scott Brown and I grew up together and share an appreciation for hunting these mountain bucks in our region. He has a good story that puts James' hunting into context. My dad grew up with a dad who believed the only way you could hunt a deer was to run dogs. You know, they were passionate dog hunters, and that was just the, you know, to them, the only way to hunt a deer. And so there was this thought that you didn't turn the dogs out until the frost melted off. So you'd get up in the morning, make some coffee, you'd sit around, let the sun come up, get the frost melted off. Then you'd load all your dogs up. Everybody'd go get on where they felt a deer was going to come running by, you know, and there was some art to that.

And anyway, they sat around there. This would have been probably in 67, 68. They're sitting around deer camping, and my grandpa says, well, we're going to go getting this gap. There was a certain gap there on a mountain where these deer liked if they headed south, they were going to go through this low gap in a mountain. And so they leave out. They walk out into this big low gap, real pretty. When they get up there, my grandpa says, come here, I want to show you something.

My grandpa goes, look at that right there, and there's a tree stamp. Just basically a platform built on it in a tree with some big old nail spikes. Tree spikes. Tree spikes. or railroad tie spikes or something. Just, you know, hammered into this tree and this stand, you know, he said it was probably 12 or 15 feet off the ground. You know, it was pretty high.

Back then. Well, Dad had never even seen a tree stand. It was the first one he'd ever seen in his life. My grandpa looks at that and he says, do you believe that somebody would do something like that? Dad said, no, I can't believe. It was just unheard of during that time for people to hunt out of tree stands. Yeah, and it was the first time my dad ever realized that you could actually

still hunt a deer. You know, he was raised that that wasn't an option. Right. It was kind of eye-opening him that you could, you know, you'd just sit in that tree until a deer walked by. Yeah. And it sounded like an insurmountable task, you know, to set in that stand, just waiting on a deer to happen by.

So anyway, my grandpa just kept on about it. He goes, I just can't believe anybody. It's sitting something like that. It's just stupid to sit in a stand when you could, you know, turn a dogs loose on something. You know, I mean, just a totally different frame of mind. And dad kind of said something, well, who's it? My grandpa said, well, it's that Lawrence boy.

And dad said, well, who's that? And so anyway, he got to, my grandpa kind of elaborated about James Lawrence back in the late 60s and said, nobody in this part of the world, at least, you know, in Southwest Arkansas was even doing anything like that, you know, so he was way ahead of his time. But yeah, James was doing, he was hunting low saddles and mountains and the stuff that I grew up 30 years later. 30 years later and understood that's what you had to do. You know, that's what you did hunt deer. Well, that wasn't that way. You know, people didn't really start understanding. There was kind of this revival, well, not a revival,

but a new understanding of how to deer hunt came in the 70, or mass distribution of knowledge about deer hunting in the 70s, 80s, and then in the 90s with outdoor television and just an increase of outdoor media. But a lot of these guys were kind of pioneers for how to pattern deer and do all this. You like to hunt, you like to hunt off horseback too, though. I like to hunt horseback, and I like to get his four away from roads and chicken houses, dogs, you know, and get his foreback as I can. So you would lead the horse in with a saddle pannard, which is basically you'd have a riding saddle, and then you'd put a panniered over it and carry all your stuff in, I mean, when you were camping. This started out from Army duffel bags, tying them, balancing them on a saddle until, you know, worked a way up to that, and then that was wonderful.

you know, go from backpacking in. Having that horse carry everything. Yeah. And then when you'd get to camp and unload it, then you could ride the horse. Right. Well, see, you taught me how to do that. That's the way, that's my favorite way to hunt today.

I miss that so much. There were, one time you told me you stayed nine days back in there by yourself. That's the longest I've ever stayed. And I just want to say that, like out west, like there's this big, vast country and, you know, people go back in on these long hunts. Around here, there was very few people

that were getting back in that deep and staying that long. I mean, you didn't know anybody around here doing that, did you? No, no. Nobody did. So I just, I kind of put that into context, you know, it's like for around here, that was like extreme white tail hunting and would be to this day. Yeah, I miss it, you know.

Well, you know, James, you have massively inspired me. And, I mean, since we've been good friends for a long time now. Yeah. I mean, I model a whole lot of what I do after you, you know. And that's my favorite way to hunt. And I'm not very good at it. I'm not as good at as you are. Yeah, you're good.

Oh, man. Mike Schultz is one of the leaders in our church, and he's also a master woodworker. He is also someone whose life has significantly impacted mine on many levels. I want to discuss with him why and how relationships affect us. Mike Schultz, I'm trying to understand why relationships are so unique and why some relationships impact us in certain ways. And it's interesting that you're the one sitting here, Mike, because as you know,

you're a man that I would consider someone who's been deeply influential in my life in many ways. I also have seen you be real intentional with the mentors and relationships in your life. Why do some relationships impact us? Well, that's a good question. I think relationships are how we gain an understanding of who we are. relationships can fulfill things inside of us that we're looking for. Ultimately, I think humans are designed to be relational. That's the starting point.

We need each other. I found that in my own life. Some relationships I knew were divine. I knew it very early on inside of the relationship that there was a connection that would be deep and that would be really heart-joining and heartfelt, and that they would be long-term. And to me, those are the ones that I know are divine. Those are the ones that I know that are orchestrated outside of myself.

They're relationships that, well, the Bible talks about iron, sharpening iron, where each person is growing. Each person is gaining understanding. Each person is developing as a human being. Mike, I've heard you talk about how the different relationships that you've had in your life have helped form personal. personal identity for you. Can you expound on that? Yeah, I think the best way I can talk about that is just through one example that comes to mind, a relationship with people that I've had on

learning new skills and watching someone who had a very high skill level in a particular area. And the area that I'm going to talk about is a friend of mine that was a very, very fine woodworker cabinet maker. I came to him and asked him if he would begin to mentor me or teach me in that area. He was very generous. And I watched him cut, hand-cut dovetails for drawers. And I was impressed by the skill of his hands. And when I first saw it, I thought, this is impossible to do. Seeing his hands and watching him and with his encouragement, it took me to a whole other level. And I discovered something about myself that I could do things beyond what I thought were possible. And you know what? He didn't just teach you a skill. Because I think some

could just say, well, he just taught you how to do something. You could have watched it on YouTube. I don't think so. Like he, he did teach you a skill, but he expanded you. Exactly. So there was like a technology that came into you about this high level of skill that you didn't know was possible and to stretch yourself and to grow. That wouldn't have came from a YouTube video. That's exactly right, Clay. And it was through a relationship too. It was through his encouragement. Right. That was the, that was the word that I keyed in on. Mike, I've seen you probably. prioritize relationships inside of your life. Why do you do that?

It's very easy to have a lot of friends. For somebody like you, it is, Mike, maybe. I think the important thing inside of relationship is that relationships can grow us or they can stunt us or they can slow us down in our development as a person. And it's important to know which relationships are the ones that are, are nourishing us. Personally, I want relationships. The deep ones are important to me.

Those ones where I become a better human being. Yeah, the uniqueness of who we are as an individual is deeply formed by the relationships that we form that nourish us. And there are aspects of who we are that actually come from different relationships that we have. We need a multitude of people around us for us to discover really the multifactivity.

fascinated nature of really who we are. I think about my life. I very clearly see that my life is a unique combination of all the people that I've been close to. And I have led in. And I believe that's part of the divine nature of life is that that understanding that I need others, that I cannot be an island unto myself. James built much of his life around deer hunting. He loved the fall, and wild places so much he decided he'd work hard for 10 months of the year and hunt the other two. Well, maybe it was nine and three. The wild thing is that for somebody so passionate, he never shared with many people about his success. Maybe he even kept it hidden just a little bit, or at least by modern standards hidden.

People in the community knew about James's hunting, but he wasn't one to brag on his accomplishments. I think it probably goes back to the initial response he got from the first. first deer he ever killed. Sharing things that are valuable to us make us vulnerable. James would learn to set his own standards and he'd celebrate his accomplishments with a few close friends. He was never bitter, but it made him humble about his deer hunting. And trust me, he's the guy you want around if you have a successful hunt. He's all about celebrating the success of others. I don't know that I've ever had a hunting buddy that convinced me with more certainty that they'd rather meet you. have success than them. So your hunting really shaped, shaped your life in a lot of ways. I mean,

you built your life kind of around deer hunting. That may be sad, but true. You said something to me one time, you said, I'd lose a crop for a good deer hunting. Yeah, yeah. I've used that since then. Well, because you know what, I've built my life sort of in the same way. We, we, like you've grown up out here in the mountains your whole life. To you, this is just normal life. But it's a pretty incredible privilege to be a backwoodsman in 2020. I can't imagine anything else, really. I mean, this is my life.

I mean, I was lucky enough this property I'm on, I've actually come up with shy 60 acres of the old homestead place where I grew up. I didn't dream of the situation growing up. I never thought about losing my family. my granddad and my uncles. It's special. It's pretty unique for this day and age. I'm blessed to be here, you know, to be able to do that.

What I've always noted about James, even from our first meeting, was his humility in the midst of notable accomplishments. He's never left his humble roots. James became a master, woodsman, and whitetail hunter and rarely got more than 10 miles from where he was born and raised. He's lived an incredible life of adventure and backcountry hunting that I'll say would rival any hunter that I've ever met. He didn't have to travel to exotic hunting destinations to experience the incredible bounty, both internal and external, that wild places offer. James' dedication to woodsman craft and a specific style of hunting is inspiring and challenging to me personally.

His humility is a standard to which I evaluate my own life. His story also causes me to reflect on the early encounters, both positive and negative that I had in hunting that steer me to this day. And this makes me want to be a positive voice in the story of the young hunters in my life. Relationships build the framework of our lives and affect its trajectory. James is one on a short list of people that have all. altered the shape of my life in a significant way. And sometimes it's hard for me to even understand why.

The unique shape that is our personal identity is a combination of the influential relationships in our life. I just can't get away from this idea. Yeah, we're hunters that love wild places, wild meat, and adventure. But I believe the thing that we're after that's of extreme value is the human relationships that we build throughout our life. And what we're passionate about connects us to people. It's like a bridge that connects us.

So for us, hunting is that connector. So then hunting becomes something really special. The cool thing is that we get to choose who we're impacted by. So choose wisely. No matter how technologically advanced hunting gets, I hope we never lose what James has shown me is still very much alive in North American hunting. a lifestyle dedicated to craft,

a pursuit of true woodsmanship for the region, and the nurturing of an ageless and adventurous spirit that does not lose its zeal. Hey, long live the beast, long live the hunt, and long live our timeless friendships. 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. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.