Bear Grease - Ep. 309: This Country Life - Escaping the Bubble and Turkey Number One

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

If you've never hunted under the bubble or experienced its effects, consider yourself lucky. Major Leaguers call it a slump and sales people call it a dry spell. Regardless of what you call it, when it happens to a hunter there's only one sure way to get through it-- you'll have to get some help. Brent's explaining how his brother Tim hunted his way out of it once with the help of their turkey hunting mentor. Brent's also sharing the details of April 18, 1985, a date for him that lives in acclamation. You're gonna like this one. 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 Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. escaping the bubble and turkey number one. Turkey season is upon us and I couldn't be happier. It's the only hunting season I ever threatened to quit a job over and now it's part of my job. Sweet Mother of Pearl, it's Turkey Week here at Meat Eater and all week long it's been a virtual turkey palusa.

Steve's podcast and cows are turkey theme. I was a guest on a true crime special episode hosted by our very own Jordan Sillers. Jordan put this unsolved, intriguing mystery together that I hope you adults will listen to. Who knows? You may know something that could help bring this case to a close. They're all on the Meat Eater podcast channels and not hard to find. My friends Gary Stanton and Charlie Moncaster of Muscatine Bloodline are talking turkeys over at God's country. Then you've got Spencer's turkey trivia, The Render, and yours truly was on cutting the distance just yesterday with the

Dirk Durham over at Phelps game calls. Turkeys in the morning, turkeys in the evening, turkeys at supper time. We're off and running, and now I'm going to tell you a story. For eight years in a row from when he first started turkey hunting, my brother Tim would get his limb of birds. In Arkansas, then, you could kill two male turkeys, only one of which had to be an adult. In other words, you could kill a Jake. A juvenile male turkey.

that historically had been reserved for kids and first-time or inexperienced hunters. It was perfectly legal, but so was shooting mallard hens. But just because you could do something doesn't mean you should. It was frowned upon and seen as not being as much of a challenge as older, more wary turkeys. They tasted the same. I know this because desperate times have called for desperate measures, and while I wouldn't shoot one now, there were times. about a hundred turkeys or so ago when I would throw punch the occasional Jake towards

the end of the season when I hadn't had any luck so far. It's the old any port in a storm is good theory. I'm not proud of it, but I ain't ashamed of it either. I only had two or three places to hunt within driving distance of my house. My opportunities were very limited, and I had to take advantage of him when I had the chance. Tim was the same way when he started out, but now he was slipping up on being a 10-year veteran. Jakes weren't on his hit list, but he had a problem. The rest of us were smashing turkeys with reckless abandon and he couldn't have hemmed one up in a phone booth. It just wasn't working out for him. Everything he did backfired on him. On top of that, the rest of us could do no wrong. I was tagged down. I was tagged down.

Joe Bryant, Tim's brother-in-law, who I've talked about before on here as being an additional brother to all of us, he tagged out. Mr. Bryant, Joe's father, Tim's father-in-law, and a turkey-hunting mentor like no other, had tagged out. And there, little Timmy said, with a pocket full of turkey tags when the rest of us had none. But did we make fun of him or ridicule him? Did we question his outdoor abilities and even that of him being a real man? Man, of course we did. That's what families do. We did it until mercifully,

Mr. Brian had decided Tim and had enough, and if we didn't do something to help him, he was going to jump off of Saline River Bridge. Everyone usually gathered mid-morning at the store to grab a cup of coffee or a cold drink, visit and check the turkey check sheet. Back then, there was no online checking of turkeys because there was no online.

You brought your turkey to a checkstack. which was set up in country stores, and they took down your name and measured the beard and the spurs and weighed it and recorded all the harvest data for the gaming fish to collect at the end of the season. Tim was starting to skip our mid-morning rendezvous either going straight home or staying all day in the woods. Joe diagnosed his problem and told him he was hunting under the bubble, meaning he had to do something to break through

or nothing he would do would work and he couldn't do it alone. It was desperate times, and it called for desperate measures. He needed help. Mr. Bryan told him one evening after another fruitless day of hunting that he would be taken to him the next morning, and he was not to bring a call. He would do everything he told him,

and just like he told him, no deviation, and Tim agreed. Another sleepless night, followed by meeting Mr. Brian at his house for the short drive to a spot he had picked out for Tim to bust through the bubble. He only had to do one thing. Follow Mr. Bryant's instructions to the letter and shoot the first legal turkey that walked close enough to shoot. Tim agreed, even though he didn't want to. He didn't like not being able to call. That was the strongest part of the allure of turkey hunting to begin with.

Communicating with a wild animal and luring it into rain. for a shot which you folks should know if you didn't already is not the order of how it works in nature. Gobblers gobble and hens come to them, not the other way around. They arrived at the spot right on cue and also right on cue. Mr. Bryant's morning coffee had worked its cleansing magic and began to rumble around in his belly. With the time for that morning ritual were already figured into the timeline. Off he trotted for a comfortable and private place to let gravity do the rest. Tim waited in the pre-doned darkness for a turkey to gobble and Mr. Bryant to return minus what the coffee had been stirring up. Tim said upon his return he looked happier and more energetic.

Then what they'd been waiting on more than anything else, a turkey gobble. They moved off the road and said, up a little over 100 yards away from the roosted birds. The gobbels were for more than one turkey and Tim was fired up. Mr. Bryant set him down and sat down a few trees behind him. His last instructions before setting up to call was, Don't you call one lick and shoot the first legal turkey that walks in. Turkeys hit the ground gobbling out in front of where they were set up

and they hadn't seen or heard a hen. Mr. Bryant started calling, and in short order, a line of turkeys was headed to where they waited. Tim said I knew it was Jake's when I saw him coming, but I was hoping against hope that a big turkey was in the line somewhere. I don't want to shoot a Jake, but Joe and Mr. Brian both told me if I wanted to get out from under this bubble, I had to take the first opportunity. One by one, they passed in front of Tim as if they were on a string coming to Mr. Bryant's call. The first opportunity was walking point for a squad of juvenile delinquents 20 steps away, Tim didn't shoot him. He said he was too little.

That wasn't what Mr. Bryant told him to do. He told him to shoot the first legal turkey that gets close enough. That was the first one that just walked by, although he was only sporting a three-inch beard. He was the first one. The first three that passed were all carbon copies of, each other. The fourth, not much bigger, but the fifth one, the fifth one in the conga line of seven, had a beard about five inches long. Tim said I picked him out and let him have it. Right in the kisser. Tim walked over and fetched his turkey and Mr. Brian congratulated.

Tim said, I know he was aggravated at me for not shooting the first one, but he didn't have the biggest beard. On the way back to the truck, Tim talked about how now the bubble should be broken, and he ought to be free of whatever powers that befell him in the first place that put him under that dismal umbrella of turkiless hunts. He said he didn't think our mentor, his father-in-law, was so sure it was done since he didn't do exactly what he was told, but he never said that, and it was just a feeling he got. That feeling was amplified as they approached the section of woods where they had taken off through the woods after hearing the turkeys gobble that morning, and Tim stepped up.

in something that wasn't meant to be stepped in. Mr. Bryant looked back and laughed. Hmm. I guess he should have shot that first turkey. But now there's a postscript on this story. After Tim washed his boot off in the creek, they went to the store to check in his turkey. He was glad to hopefully have this whole embarrassing and literal mess behind him.

Then the lady at the store measured that stubby beard and laid his turkey on the scales. While she recorded his name in the measurement of his cigar-length beard, Tim said he looked at the scale and saw it said that turkey weighed 11 pounds, and he wanted to cry. Knowing everyone from then after would see that he killed what amounted to a big chicken, he said, I put my finger on that scale opposite of the way. where she was standing and got him up to 13 pounds before she took him off. And next week, my brother killed a big gobbler with one-inch spurs.

And according to my brother, Tim, that's just how that happened. 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 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 Felps. 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 get asked all the time what type of hunting I like best. And it's always an inner struggle for me to answer. Then after arguing with myself and talking about all the different kinds I like, I always wind up saying turkey hunting, every time. I don't know why I can't just say it that way from the beginning.

It's like I'm throwing shade on duck hunting or squirrel hunting or coon hunting, but they're all so different that it's hard to compare. I'm thinking about it now and second guessing myself while I'm saying this, and it's what I'd planned to say when I sat down to record it. There's so many things to say about coon hunting. I'm never alone when I'm doing that, even if nobody's with me, because I got my dog. Whaling.

He's my coon hunting partner every time I go regardless of who else is there. But turkey hunting, man, there's just something about it that supersedes any and everything else besides my family. From the first time I've ever killed one, I've had an issue with him. I talked about it with Dirk Durham on Phelps Cut in the Distance podcast that came out yesterday. We had a good conversation. I'll slip over there and check it out. out when you get a chance. But while we were talking, he asked me if I remembered when I killed my first turkey. And without hesitation, I said, I sure do. It was April 18th, 1985. And he laughed at how quick

my response was. I told him a little bit about that hunt, more or less the bullet points of how it all went down, but I remember every detail of it. The year before, I was still hunting for squirrels over near what we called the woodlot, and that was a scope of woods on the west side of our farm and just south of my maternal great-grandfather's house. I found a turkey feather while I was doing my best to thin the squirrel population and decided right then that there was a turkey hunter hidden inside me that was begging to come out. Next spring, I went to Carl's one-stop on the edge of town and warned out past the Bradley Lumbermill. It was the mecca for all.

all outdoorsman in the area and the only place I knew of that you could buy turkey calls without having to order them through the mail. I went in there for a box call and left with a Lynch's world champion call and a diaphragm mouth call made by a new guy from Mississippi that was getting in the call making business, they said. His name was Will Primos. I should have got Mr. Will to come with him because I had no idea how to use it and I just stuck with the box. The five or six times that I went hunting at the woodlot, never seeing or even hearing a turkey that spring. That may have been what triggered my obsession, total and utter failure from the start.

Pretty sure Jesus was trying to spare me from all the sleepless nights and weeks that would follow by letting me see how most of my hunts would wind up, walking back to the truck with exactly what I'd taken in with me, nothing extra. The next spring I was what I like to refer to as being semi-enrolled in college. I went when it was convenient, like when the fish weren't biting, the deer weren't moving, and the ducks weren't flying. I narrowed down my attendance to a pretty slim portion of the calendar, which coincidentally was in spring. Then I got invited to go turkey hunting by a turkey hunter.

Anyone who'd killed at least one turkey by themselves was a turkey hunting. in my book and this guy had killed several. We drove 30 miles west from Warren right before daylight. We were a quarter of a mile deep in the woods standing at the edge of a three-year-old clear cut. The woods we were waiting on daylight in were open enough to see down through without any trouble. The clear cut I was looking at was a different story.

The rabbit would have had to tote it a hatchet with him to get through it. Turkey gobbled and the fellow I was hunting with said, get over there. by that tree. I'm going to sit back here and call. I said, that ain't no turkey. That's someone shaking a box call. He laughed and he said, no, it ain't. Sit down and be still. He's still on the roost, but he's not that far. Now, it was my first lesson in not guiding the guide. This guy had killed multiple turkeys, brought me to his hunting spot during the first week of the season, and I was telling him what he was hearing was not what we were here. hearing, even though I had never heard what we were both hearing.

Don't guide the guide. He called to him with a box calling, and the turkey answered him immediately. I looked back at him, and he pointed down at the ground. I looked down at the ground and I was laying on like a green plastic army soldier. The absolute worst position I could have taken to shoot my first turkey, or any turkey, for that matter. I didn't know what that meant, but the turkey sounded different. Now what he was trying to tell me was the turkey was on the ground.

That's why he sounded different. I still couldn't believe he didn't know it was someone shaking a box call at us. Did I mention the mosquitoes? Oh, yeah. The mosquitoes. About the time he told me to get over there by that tree and sat down, and I chose to lay down like Sergeant York, the mosquitoes reached their zenith.

They were feasting on my prone person with impunity. I was wiggling all over the place trying to get them off of me all while the guy behind me with the box car whispered for me to be still and the guy shaking the box call out in front of me

kept getting closer. There's no way that's a real turkey and I'm getting to the literal life sucked out of me by waiting on another turkey hunter to walk up on us. He gobbled again just out of sight and I turned back to look at my guy

and again, mouthing the words that ain't no turkey. I could only see about a third of his face right around his eyes that were exposed by his mask. But I knew exactly what he meant when his eyes seemed to jump out of his skull and then narrowed down to slits. His eyebrows furrowing with fury. Whatever, dude. I turned back around and shoulder my shotgun and watched what would be in a few minutes. Gobbler Noono.

Step out into the opening. Up the little rise I was arching my back as best. I could to aim at his head. He was close, and I was out of position. I was pointed at 12, and he was standing at 10. The dude that had been shaking a box call at us since before good daylight had just turned into a real turkey. Shoot him, was what I heard him whispered, several times over.

Of all the instructions he had given me that morning, that one seemed the most obvious. But I'd already decided to do that. I just wasn't able to because I'd lay down instead of sitting against the tree. A lesson I learned that on day one and would never, ever forget. After what it seemed forever, the turkey stepped back toward the way he came, preparing to get out of Dodge, literally where my shotgun was pointing, and I pulled the trigger.

He went down like a one-egg pudding, and I had my first turkey. Thursday was six hours and ten minutes. minutes old when I held in my hand the first wild turkey I'd ever heard gobble. It would be the start of something big for me, a seemingly uncontrollable urge each spring from that day forward to try and out with a turkey. A wild animal with eyes and hearing so fine-tuned, it's been said they can hear you thinking and see you change your mind. For 40 years, I have never missed a season, and now I get to travel and do it as part of my job.

Who'd have ever thought my life would lead to this? I could go turkey hunting just about anywhere there's turkeys to be hunted. But now, when the first time the spring starts showing up, I get more excited about the people I'm going to see than the turkeys I'm hoping to get. From Mississippi to Alabama, Missouri, and Arkansas, and who knows where else, it's the people and families I've gotten to know over the last four decades

and the ones I haven't met yet that mean more than any turkey ever could. They say the quality of your life is measured by the quality of your relationships. If that's true, then I believe it is. Turkey season has filled my soul far beyond it has my freezer. I hope y'all like turkey tales because I'm hoping to have some more stories from this year's struggle in the next few weeks if I can avoid the bubble. Good luck this spring and watch where you step.

Until next time, this is Brent Reeve. Sign it all. 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 did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning calls. callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.