Bear Grease - Ep. 303: This Country Life - Saying Yes to Clay and the Black Bear Bonanza

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Brent's back home from the most recent Black Bear Bonanza event and talking about how he got invited to the first one that never happened. He's also highlighting the path his life has taken since being so agreeable to go any place Clay Newcomb's asked him to go. The situations he's found himself in because of it might make a more prudent person take some of those invitations under advisement. He's also sharing a listener story about how a Canadian walleye got the best of a "Yinzer" from Pittsburgh. 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 Eaters 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.

Saying yes to Clay, and the Black Bear Bonanza. It's Black Bear Bonanza 20-25 time, and instead of giving a play-by-play of that wonderful event this year, I'm going to talk about how agreeing to go to the first one over five years ago that actually never happened has helped set a course for my life and where I am right now. Confused already, well, welcome to the party, pal.

That's what I call Tuesday. I'm going to clear it all up for you in the next little bit, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. This week's story comes from Pennsylvania zone, Beau Jones, a resident of Pittsburgh, which is 155 miles southwest of my favorite town in all of PA, Bradford. Ground Zero for Zippo lighters, and that's right, say it with me, kids, case knives. Boasted at this one back in October, and it had a few elements that coincided with today's episode of

talking about Canadians and bear guides, plus the added spice of someone getting slapped. How could it get any better? So in Bow's words and my voice, here we go. Like any good story, this was started when I was a kid. My dad and I used to take an annual fishing trip up to Ontario with a few buddies of his and I fell in love with walleye fishing. That passion would carry with me the rest of my life. And when I eventually had my own boys, I started the same tradition with them. But since it had been a long time since I actually fished in Canada, I didn't know where to begin to find a place to go.

The lodge we used to stay at was only accessible by boat, and I didn't have one. But I did have an old pop-up camper, so I found a campsite on a large lake in a remote area that rendered 12-foot aluminum. boats. Perfect. I booked a site and a boat for Memorial Day weekend and we'll have four days of the best Canadian fishing we'd ever seen. Now, what I didn't think about was Memorial Day in the States is more of a summertime vibe. I remember going to the Indy 500 on Memorial Day and it was brutally hot. We showed up at the campground up north and had to dig the utility pole out of the snow. That's right, snow. It was 28 degrees Fahrenheit when we got there and didn't catch a dang

fish in four days. Didn't even get a bite. The following year, we backed up our plans to July and let it warm up. This definitely made for a better fishing experience, except for the catching. We put one walleye in the boat in four days. Needless to say, I was frustrated, but had a fortunate thing happened when we were checking out. I need to describe the campground a little here. It's a family-run campground with about 20 spots right on the lake. Plenty dock space for people who bring their own boat, very friendly people. He's a bear outfitter as well and has clients that come in for bear hunts from Pittsburgh

where I'm from. He likes to hunt and fish and do a host of other outdoor activities. So as I'm checking out and swallowing my pride as a fisherman, I noticed the unmistakable blue star of the Dallas Cowboys logo right behind the counter. I simply asked, Cowboys fan? And he responded, not really, but my wife is a huge fan. Now, my family has season tickets to the Steelers, and back in the 70s, both the Steelers and the Cowboys were fighting for NFL dominance,

and started a pretty good football rivalry that has since faded, but it still lingers. And it just so happened that the Cowboys were playing in Pittsburgh a few months later. So I said, well, if you can get to Pittsburgh, I can take you guys to the Dallas game. My family has season tickets. Now, his wife shot out of the other room as if I had just said the Pope pulled into the parking lot. She said she had never been. been to a Cowboys game before, and it was on her bucket list. So we exchanged phone numbers and made some rough plans for them to come down. I'm not the world's greatest entertainer,

but I know how to have a good time, and I made sure that they did too. That's how I was raised. Make sure your guests have a great time, so I did. I got a fraternity brother who also has seasoned tickets, and his are way better than ours, so I upgraded our seats. These seats were so good, we can hear the players having conversations on the field. I also arranged another friend to host a big tailgate for us right there outside the stadium. Everything went off without a hitch. The Steelers even did their part by letting Dallas win. They had such a great time, in fact, that at the end of the day,

they both asked how they could ever repay us for the great time they had. All I could think of his payment was, show me where the fish are. So the next year, he took me and my boys out fishing and we slayed them. We were putting our lines in and catching fish before we could set the bell. We were on the eggs. This is how I remember fishing in Canada. Finally. As the evening fish of war on, we were catching them so fast we couldn't net all of them.

So the smaller ones we caught, we just tossed them back like they were panfish. If it flips off the hook, no big deal, we were tossing it back anyway. I hooked them to a 12-inch walleye, big enough to have some weight but not a keeper. As I had done numerous times that day, and many days before, I had my pole in my right hand and was swinging the fish toward me to grab with my left hand and unhook him, kind of like a record ball at the end of a chain as it slowly swinging. towards you. I don't know if I broke concentration or just mistimed it. As that fish was slowly swinging toward me, it kicked as I reached out to grab it and it

flipped around behind my hand. I hurriedly tried to grab it again and it bucked again, and this time right in my face and made a very audible slap. Now that would have been embarrassing enough, but I still didn't have a hold of the fish. During this melee, the fish was still between my hand and my face. We are literally eye to eye in this situation, and the only thing I could think to do was to press him against my face for leverage and get a hold of him. This didn't happen instantaneously,

and the wet, scaly wrecking ball, got a few more slaps in before I could get my hands on him. This all happened so fast I didn't even see what was happening in the boat. Our guide and my boys are looking at me with their jaws open wide and their eyes popping out of their head, just staring at me for a split second, and then proceeded to laugh uncontrollably for the next three days. You know the kind of laughter where you can't breathe, and it hurts a little, that kind. Our guiding host Paul invited us to a fish fry that evening,

and my story was repeated and recounted from all parties involved. I refer to him as Paul now because this is the moment that we became friends. Paul has since introduced me to everyone as this is the guy who was slept by a fish. We text each other every so often, even though he is over a thousand miles away. We share our photos of successful hunt since that day we have caught our limit of walleye in two days on every trip. All because I had to get fish slapped for success. And according to my favorite yinzer, Bo Jones, That's just how that happened.

Thanks for sending that in, Bo, and I hope your pals appreciated your unintentional folly that led to their years of success. Thanks, buddy. 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 the, 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 Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the steams. Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Five years ago, Clay Newcomb asked me to go with him on what would be the first black bear bananza event. And I agreed.

I don't remember if I ever told him no to a, hey, I'm going to such and such and I want you to go with me. Can you go? Yep, that was my standard answer. to everything anytime he asked and has been for the past 11 years. I've been going places with him, mostly sitting behind the camera and filming him doing dangerously dumb things that I was going to have to testify under oath about so his wife Misty could collect the insurance money. Like the time in Saskatchewan when we had bears at a bait site that we'd been sitting at

for almost a week. We'd watch bears every day from the time we'd got there until the last light laying in the bait, fighting other bears over what they were eating, and having to throw sticks at them to keep them out of the brush blind that we'd bit while we sat on the ground, making coffee with a jetball, and eating the snacks we'd brought with us. Bears are like me when it comes to food. They tend to be a little stingy. Anyone that knows anything about bears knows that there's three times when you're most susceptible to getting in a boxing match with one. Getting between them and food.

is one way. Here's an example. Now long after we had the coffee drink and that brush blind we built in Saskatchewan, I filmed clay poke a hole in a nice color-faced bear. We waited to prescribe 30 minutes, probably more like 15, probably closer to 10, really, before walking out to where he'd shot the bear to see what kind of blood trail that we were going to be dealing with. At that time, during the shot, there were two bears, on the bait, one black and the color face bear that he shot.

They had already been duping it out for who the groceries belonged to when Clay decided to let the air out of the biggest one. Now, this had been taking place 25 yards in front of us all evening with those bears. I filmed them slugging it out to the point that their fight had become background noise while we waited for a giant to come in. I remember one time Clay and I were watching it and I wasn't filming it, and they'd been going on for so long, he turned around and looked at me, and I just said, Boring. And that was to an amazing bear fight that was going on in front of us. But since a bicker bore didn't materialize, Claybo decided he'd be happy with this one

that we'd been watching all week. So he picked up his stickbow and took his shot. That bear left with the arrow, and the black bear that wasn't targeted claimed the bait sight as his, unbeknownst of the coup Clay had orchestrated on his behalf that had just taken place. Now, looking back, one would assume the bear that stayed had figured he'd finally scared the bigger bear off. Ten minutes later, we challenged his right to the bait by ignoring his presence and walking over to where the bear that Clay had shot had been standing when he did it. It was like we thought he was on our team, like we'd all been in on this from the beginning,

and that the black bear was distracting the color face bear so we could just job a hole in him and towed him back to Arkansas. Now, we may have thought that, or acted like that, but we forgot to include the bear in on that message thread. We stood there in the middle of that bait that was scattered all over the ground, looking for the arrow in the blood sign,

while our amigo continued to stuff his face with oats, simultaneously staring at the table. two of us from less than five yards away. Finally, after several minutes, the fog of focus began to fade from filming the moment of adrenaline that follows a bow shot on a large predator, and Clay said, maybe we should give that bear a little more room. I forgot about it. I took my attention away from the camera I looked over at him and realized for the first time

in a week of watching them chew, fight, and chew that El Osso had stopped chewing. It was just glaring at the two of us like we'd finally gathered enough gumption to crash his party, a party that he'd spent all evening and tried to win for himself. We moved away, and he said thanks of not killing us in the Canadian North. We appreciated that. I was there and living on the verge of being able to write my own, this happened to me, calling for Outdoor Life magazine, assuming I lived through it. Otherwise, it would have been a, this happened to him article written by someone else,

maybe the bear. And I was there because I had said yes when Clay asked me if I could go with him to film a bear hunt in Saskatchewan. Surprising him and getting too close to a sound cubs is another way to get on the business end of a bear's pause. Check this one out. He asked me to go with him to film a hunt in British Columbia. and without hesitation, once again, I said yes.

This one was going to be a bit different, though. We were still hunting black bears, but we would be taking bait out of the process. And in that empty space, we'd be adding the presence of grizzly bears. Not to hunt, mind you, we were strictly after black bears. We just happened to be doing it in the prime country where grizzly bears and black bear habitats overlap.

Now, I've heard folks say that if you find black bears in grizzly country, old gris won't be there because they don't live well together. My own personal research has proven that to be none percent true. I saw both brands of bears in the same fields separated only by ankle-deep grass that they were both munching on to the tune of a bada beale of hay each. First afternoon we were there. We walked up within 50 yards of a sowed grizzly feeding and two cubs that were playing on the edge of a big open pasture that was surrounded by thick aspen trees and brush that we didn't see

until we stepped out into the opening. Three of us stood there in the bawled open a guide, a hunter, and me holding a tripod and the camera on my shoulder like a whole boat carries his bender. Surprise, bears, it's us, the humans with only a stick and a string between us and your next pile of scat. Fortunately, our guide had left his bear rifle 150 yards way back in the truck. Wouldn't have wanted it to get too loud around there. And all because I said yes to the question Clayed asked me a few weeks before when he said,

British Columbia. And I immediately romanticized about the possibility of actually seeing my first grisly through binoculars at a great distance. Never thinking I'd be looking at one the way my deal. Dennis sees me mouth wide open and pearly whites exposed all the way back to my goozle at my yearly checkup. Now, that's how I didn't do that, but I was expected at any moment. The Cubs spooked and ran away, and after a momentary stare-down, it seemed like it lasted for a couple days, but in reality was only for a few seconds. The Sal stomped and ran off after her Cubs, and I was there, all because I'd said yes to Clay.

Now, at this point, you'd have thought I'd learn my lesson, but no, I've done it many times since, and believe it or not, it's all worked out, most of the times, my advantage. Remember way back when I started talking about how he'd asked me to go with him to the first Black Bear Bonanza? Well, it wasn't really the Black Bear Bonanza. Not yet, anyway. It was more of a celebration of the American Black Bear, and folks were going to gather. gather up, visit, and tell stories about bears.

Would they want me to tell a story, too, like in front of a bunch of people? I thought of doing that in front of a bunch of people I didn't know made me a little nervous. The inaugural event was scheduled to take place in March of 2020. Yep, that's right. Canceled because of COVID. I was actually a little relieved. Maybe they wouldn't do it again. A one and done in.

or more like a none and done event. But wouldn't you know it? The ladies and gentlemen at backcountry hunters and anglers kept beating the drum, and when 20 and 22 rolled around, the event became the first black bear bonanza. I served as a judge for the Al Houton contest, and me and Clay demonstrated how to render some bear fat.

And we talked with folks, folks from everywhere. All day. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. People have followed Clay's work in my minor contributions to his endeavors, starting before me there was either of our employer. Then when Clay went to work in a few years later, they offered me a spot we'd already built an organic group of people that I look forward to seeing every year, folks from all over the United States and Canada.

Speaking of Canada, in a roundabout way, through my association with folks from the Bonanza, namely my good friend David McDaniels, who coincidentally I invited to the second event. And by the time the third event rolled around, he was helping our friend, Kobe Moorhead, who owns Bear Hunting Magazine, working his booth and writing articles from magazine and gathering video content as well. Now, through that friendship, I met the McCarthy's from Manitoba, Canada. The ones I told you about back in episode 29, entitled Canadian Chocolate. It's about that big 440-pound color-faced bear I got with my bow while hunting with him back in 2024.

David had hunted with him the year before and created some content for the magazine and had such a good time. They invited him back and I went with him. If you hadn't heard the details about them, their family and their business and that bear, I suggest you go listen. I think you'll like it. But they were a long way from the snowdrift. and cheese curds of their homeland north of the border.

They'd ported their frozen noses south and followed them all the way down to Arkansas by way of Texas. And when they got here, they had David and his son, Benai, and tow. My friend Michael Roseman and I took them to coon hunting, and we stayed at my friend Randall and Wade Whitmore's Cache Bayou Hunting Club, what most of us call Coon Camp. It was a treat for Michael of me to take a group of folks who'd never been a coon hunting before,

and there were a lot of first that night, most notably eight-year-old Benin knocking his first coon out of a tree on his very first hunt. All those folks, every single one of them, I owe to knowing in one fashion or another to the Black Bear Bonanza, and it's not limited to just them either. People I met and keep up with through the year that I may not talk too often, maybe only at that event, but I watch them and their kids on their social media posts

and I see how they've grown and the milestones that they've had and the losses they've suffered over the past few years. I've been hunting with some of them, been to some of their kids' ball games, and they've gotten to know some of them so well that it's kind of like I've always known them. I never give it a passing thought that we met at an event I was initially nervous about attending and relieved when it was postponed. not only that, but I've obviously gotten over the,

I wonder if they're going to make me talk to a big group of people syndrome. Now I'm worried they won't let me. I started going to that gathering before this show was ever a passing thought, and through this show, that crowd of familiar folks gets bigger and better every year. I think of all the wonderful people I met, places I've gotten to go and experiences I've gotten to share, all because of a casual invitation to ride shotgun to a meeting celebrating of all things, fairs, all of us, every cotton-picking one of us has a similar convoluted pathway to where we are now good or bad.

It shows the impact of a seemingly inconsequential act that can have a life-changing effect on us and influence those around us. For me, that's been a good thing and a blessing to my family. I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend the Mealskinner for that initial invitation. And for all of you as well, for checking in each week to see where that invitation is leading me next. Thank you all so much for listening to me and Clay. Hey, if you get a chance, the nerds back at the lab would appreciate you posting a review on whatever platform you listen to us on. really helps get the word out to others who might like to hear it too. Don't ask me how it works.

Just do it. Until next week, this is Brett Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful. 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 Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you do. did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.