Bear Grease - Ep. 312: Render - Market Hunting in Arkansas with Dr. Buckley Foster

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

In this episode of the Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb along with Bear Newcomb and Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker are joined by historian and author of the book "So Great Was the Slaughter," Dr. Buckley Foster of the University of Central Arkansas. Dr. Foster educates the Crew on the history of market hunting in the state of Arkansas continuing on into the cultural shift of more modern conservation practices from the early days of State Game Wardens and the the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Check out the new Bear Grease Merch! If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee 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 and 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. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Did you know that one of our friends just got struck by lightning?

Crazy. He's been on the podcast. Yeah. Well, I'm not open to violate HIPAA rules of, like, giving out medical advice here. So I won't tell you who got struck by lightning, Josh. But, yeah, one of our friends just got struck by lightning. It's like thundering, raining. I was checking all the drainage on my property today.

tests like lots of stress points. If it rained a little bit more, I probably would have got a little water in my house. That's what you have to do when you're an adult. You have like a normal haircut. As you, when it rains, I learned this from a guy that was like a better dad,

father, landowner, patriarch than me. We were the same age. But one time we were here at my house and it was raining. And he said, he was like,

where's your shovel at? And I was like, a shovel? And he was like, Yeah, this is when you need to get out in your yard and start digging trenches and see how the water flows. And I was like, man, this is some next level stuff. Yeah, no doubt. And it was my friend Josh Barger.

I will call his name. He's never been struck by lightning. He's never been struck by lightning, and I guarantee he's got no drainage issues at his house. None. Wow. None. But so that's what you did. So that's what I did this morning.

I put on all my rain gear and I went outside and was standing in the water watching it. And, man, I got big ideas for you. You and me this year, Bear, on drainage out here. I bet. Welcome to the Bear Greas Render. I'm very excited about today. We're going to talk about some of these turkey stories, but mainly we're going to talk to Buck Foster, who's here with us.

Dr. Buck Foster. Dr. Buckley T. Foster. Yes, that's me. And I'm a kind of doctor that don't do folks no good, as my grandmother would say. Don't do folks no good. That's correct. Okay. That's what she said because her grandfather was an MD.

And on the other side of the family, we had a great grandfather that was an MD. And I was the last, I was the youngest of the grandchildren. And she said, I want you to become a doctor. And I finally became a Ph.D. And came in. And I said, look, I'm finally a doctor. And that's what she came back with. You're the kind of doctor that don't do folks no good.

Well, I think doctors like you do people a lot of good, and that's why you're here. But if we're looking for medical advice for our buddy that just got struck by lightning, maybe we would go elsewhere. That's probably a good idea. But, yeah, so we're going to, we're going to be talking about a book that you wrote called So Great Was a Slaughter. And it's about market hunting specifically in Arkansas, but I think we can extrapolate it out. I mean, really, a lot of the trends that probably happened here were happening in a lot of parts of the country. That's correct. Actually, we're one of the kind of the late to the party because we remain wild much longer than our neighboring states. So they thin out their wildlife and then they come looking for hours.

Wow. That sounds exciting. I can't wait to talk about it. Turkey season is in full swing. Full swing and beard. Oh, look at that. I was just in Mississippi this week. So I killed a turkey two days ago in Mississippi with Lake Pickle.

And I can attest it was delicious. Yeah, we ate some of it yesterday. I ate some of it this morning. Made an omlet, put a little hot sauce on there, that Alaskan hot sauce. Yeah, it was good. And I thought it was going to be about, like, Tabasco or something. And so I, like, drenched it, and it, like, overtook me. What I did is I took the drumsticks and the thighs off.

a wild turkey, which a lot of people used to throw away. I mean, for real, 20 years ago, people breasted turkeys, and they were like, that dark meat's no good. Man, that is done. Like, people don't do that anymore. We keep the thighs and the drumsticks. And all I did yesterday morning was put them in a crock pot, diced up an onion, and put barbecue sauce on them, and turned it on low.

And about seven hours later, you know, you could just pull that meat off with a fork. Sure. and the tendons came right out. Yeah, you pulled a little, man, a wild turkey has some serious tendons, like seven or eight big, you know, cartilaginous tendons, that hard tendons that go down to the feet and pull those out, and then I just chopped it up, and it was good. It was super good.

But so we did this Turkey Stories episode. Were you able to listen to it, Bear? Yep. Yeah? You were on there. Yep. I forgot about that. Featured guests.

Yeah. What did it feel like? The Bushwhacker. About the same as the first one. Oh, yeah. The first? What do you mean the first? The first time I was on the Bear Gehry's podcast.

Okay. Felt like that. What was, were you able to listen to it? I did. I said, he's a Bushwacker. Yeah, yeah. You know, this episode, the turkey hunting purist, which I mean, I want to be in that group of people, there's always a spectrum of people.

that hunt you know and and there's the guys that just kind of dabble in something and and then there's the guys that really take it serious and oftentimes might carry a little bit of a hint of of uh elidism on their shoulder in the way that things are done i could be that guy i'm in that camp i want i want things to be done this one had a little bit of kind of redneckery in it yeah in that's a little raw like like wing shooting turkeys uh Trent Ellis shooting a turkey at 60 yards. Like, you know, you get in trouble for that these days. Yep. And I get it.

I get it. And then Johnny Johnston teaching us how to shoot a flying turkey. Johnny Johnson, he told me multiple stories, and two of them involved him intentionally spooking a turkey so it flew so he could shoot it. And I was like, what do you mean he wanted it to fly? And he said, there's thick brush. couldn't see him. If he runs, he gets away.

If you make him fly, these eastern turkeys fly straight up, and you shoot them. I mean, it's like, if you want to get a turkey, that's what you do. So there was a little bit of that, so there could be some criticism. And then bushwhacking, there are people that are like, you shouldn't shoot a turkey unless you call it up and it's goblin. And that's probably pretty extreme. I mean, but I, you know, to me, if you're, if you're hunting inside the boundaries of the law, you know. Basically, you're trying to outwit a turkey. So if you're calling them, you're trying to outwit them, make them think your hen.

Bear just went about outwitting in a different way. Yeah, I think it's like you kind of come into the world and there's like a set way to kill a turkey. But like, you know, that's pretty small box. Yeah, yeah. Bear nuke them, breaking all the rules. Well, and the thing about what Bear's situation was is that, I mean, you're probably not going to just call those turkeys up like me and Lake did on this piece of private land that we were hunting in Mississippi. You know, that's not getting a lot of pressure. And these birds, I mean, it's just different worlds.

I mean, he's hunting over here in a place. I mean, these birds, they're just getting pressured so much. It's like if you want to play the game, you try to, you play the game that you're dealt, you know? Yep, yeah. But it was an exciting, oh, and Andy Brown's shooting that Jake. You know, that would get some, could get, nobody's going to get fired up about that. I mean, anybody that's turgander for more than 20 years has killed Jake. And there's nothing, you know, where it's legal, there's nothing wrong with that.

Right. But it was a great, it was a great series. It was great stories. Isn't the mark of a good hunter to overcome and adapt to the situation? Right. So if you've got high-pressure birds that won't come to a call, you figure out what works, right? Just like you would with any other pursuit. Exactly.

You figure out what's going on. To me, it's not, yes, it'd be great to go out there and sit down and, you know, you scout, you sit, you watch, and then you call them up and you kill it. I mean, yes, that's the way they did it. They've done it all that way, but it doesn't mean you have to do it. Yeah. If you can't, if that's not the way the situation, you know, you can't. If that's not the way the situation. situation unfolds, then you go, I mean, when I was growing up, stalking was new. Go stalk a deer.

Nobody did that. You know, I grew up in South Logan County and basically, you hunted with dogs. Right. You know, dog hunting. And if you weren't a dog hunter, if anybody got up in a tree, we laughed at them. You know, that's not the way. And then, of course, I have other family members that are with both. and this is the only way to hunt. This is, you know, you guys are breaking all the rules and, you know, what rules? There are no rules. There's no right and wrong way to hunt unless it's illegal. Right.

So I've always, I thought that was interesting. So I appreciated Bear's story. Yeah. Did any of the stories stand out to you? Like you were like, that was, that was funny or I enjoyed that? Well, I mean, all of them had a little bit, obviously everybody's after turkey. So the big one that I always, because I'm not a turkey hunter, as I said before the podcast, my father was a fierce turkey hunter. So I was familiar with turkey hunting and the pursuit and know about the repopulation efforts here in Arkansas and when all that occurred and things like that.

But the thing that I guess hit home with me is the story of getting out there and having stomach issues. because if you spend any time whatsoever in the woods, you're going to be there sooner or later and sometimes much sooner than you expect. And it's, again, being out like in the duck woods, you've got waiters to contend with. You've got ice and a lot of times you have ice, not so much this year, but you have ice and snow

and all kinds of different things to contend with and water because you're, you know, a lot of times you find yourself in waste deep water, you know. Not all of us have private land and private blinds and things like that. So we basically just set up wherever we can. So there's a whole lot of pre-planning that goes in my, as I have become older, I have known that the best, it's best to pre-plan. Pre-plan. Yes. Just make, it's going to happen. Yeah. This episode did have a shocking number of stories of people's pants down. It did. You know what's funny is we don't really, I wish I could say we planned this. We really didn't plan it that way. But the, you know,

the first two stories had to do with going to the bathroom in the woods. And then Med Palmer had to do, you know, he had to take his pants off and cross. Skinning off. And he kept saying it was super cold. Yeah. Yeah. But he never came, he never circled back to it because I thought, oh, my Lord, he's, you know, he was saying it was so cold. He couldn't even hardly see the. beat on the end of his barrel. Yeah. And I was like, and you just skinned off and went into water? Yeah, yeah.

He's hardcore. When it comes to turkey hunting, that guy is hardcore. Yeah. I would have to say, Med's story just kept compounding and difficulty. Yeah. You know, it was, in med, he has that southern Mississippi accent, and, you know, he's just kind of funny. But when he started telling about crossing that river on that inflatable,

mattress. I envisioned a river you know a little little river you know 30 yards across he said it was like 250 yards across it's like a huge river and I would imagine it was kind of like a he said it was shallow for a long ways so

you know he's just like wading in the water but finally in the main channel he gets out there and off he goes and it's cold and and then gets over there and gets his turkey but he did talk about how the wind blew him over to that bank.

I was just curious about how he got back. Me too. That's exactly what I thought. Yeah, yeah. I guess after you got your turkey, you just weren't really that worried about it didn't matter. What happened. Josh, which story stood out to you? It's a tough one because they were good stories this year.

I really like Trent's story because I just think Trent is funny. Yeah, he's funny. But having got to meet the Clarks, I mean, just They're the best kind of people Like they're the kind of people you want to know And they're custom call makers I had them make me a beautiful

Custom box call But I think just knowing them Them telling their stories about Her being taught by him How to hunt She loves to go out there and kill turkeys Man, she is a turkey killing machine She probably undersold herself

Because as she talks she's like my husband had just taught me how to turkey hunt. Yeah. But I mean, she's killed a lot of turkeys. When I was at their house, they showed me a string of beards that they'd killed in, I think he said, the last nine or ten years, and they travel all over the country and not just killing these turkeys at home. But I bet there were 60 beards on that thing.

And they just kill turkeys together. And the neat thing about them is they're there and their. I think they said they were 72. They've been married since 1971, and they are just the best of friends. They just love doing things together. So I really enjoyed their stories. Yeah. Yeah, I thought they were really good, too.

I'd have to say, man, they were all good. I like Johnny Johnson's story of getting bitten the nose by turkey. I mean, it's just like, what were you doing, Johnny? And you'd have to know Johnny to kind of know his sense of humor. He'd killed this turkey, and he was playing with it. Yeah. I mean, which, you know, I don't know. He's celebrating this turkey's life.

Right. But he's just kind of like pretending like the turkey's talking. And if you knew Johnny, I don't think that's that surprising. And then the thing reaches over and bites him in the nose so hard that it basically makes him bleed, you know. Yeah. That was funny. Yeah, that had to be my favorite story. Oh, was it really?

Did it kind of surprise you? Yeah, I mean, getting bit on the nose by a turkey. I mean, it's like you almost couldn't, you know, like think of a way that that could even happen. Yeah. Yeah. And I love hearing the way that people talk and the phrases they use. And he used that phrase. We went to him like a biting sow.

Yeah. And when he said it, I just like checked it off in my mind. It was like, that's good. I mean, I have to use that again. I mean, something's coming at you like a bite and sow. You're backing up and running, you know. And then I asked him about it at the end. I said, I've never heard that before.

And he said, that's some serious advance. He said, coming at you like a bout and sow is serious advance. And I love that. I love that. But that was a good one. And then hearing Andy Brown laugh. Yeah. He's got a great laugh.

So the guy on the story there, he was the third story, Andy Brown. He told about the turkey that gobbled real low, he said, and he threw a pine knot at a fox. Right, the fox was coming in. And then he shoots the bird. He thanks the big one, and it's a Jake. And then he just cackled. He just laughed.

Man, Andy is a, he's been on almost every turkey stories episode. And he just is a great. great storyteller. And like that was, I've said this before, most really good turkey hunters have two or three stories that are really good.

Like that, that they just want to tell you. Sure. That just something wild happened and there was, it was funny or it was a bird did something just extraordinary. That was probably Andy's like,

like, S story. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, QR S. He's on S. I mean, like, he just, he's hunted so much and he's just a good, and he can make any story fun to listen to, just with details, like the fox and how low the turkey gobbled. And, and when he was telling the story to me in person, he had, he had his arms out like he was set up this way. And he said, and the turkey appeared over here. And I have no idea how it got there. You know, he's just kind of, he's just a good story. I always like. storytellers. Best storytellers have it and you can visualize it in your head. Yeah. Exactly what's going on. I saw that fox sneaking in. Yeah.

When he was telling the story, I was like, what are you going to do? Because I thought it was going to lead to him shooting the turkey and the fox running off with the turkey or something like that. I was waiting, anticipating that was what was going to happen. Yeah. And I still, it's always been amazing. Well, just like the bushwhack, I mean, turkeys with their amazing eyesight. Yeah. You know, one of the things I remember from my dad telling me the story is like, you cannot move.

And he would come home with these whelps across his face where the Nats, Buffalo Nats would bite him. And he wouldn't, you know, he wouldn't move. He wouldn't swat him. And he didn't have a screen, he didn't have a, you know anything to mask or anything? Yeah. Like, no, he just went out there. Because he smoked all the time. And he thought he was like, the smoke is going to keep him away from me.

But it didn't. Last spring, Clay Nucle. 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 goblers 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 callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Hey, show me your dad's turkey call. All right. So you brought, so your dad was a turkey hunter. My dad was a turkey hunter and evidently known quite widely. This was when I was really young.

This is an early box call of his and it says on the bottom, J.L. Foster, his name's James Foster, April, 1965. So this was a made, he didn't make it, a fellow made it for him. Yeah, look at that. I already checked that out, Bear. See if you can make it. And he always carried a piece of chalk on the inside of it, and it rattled around. That's all I can remember. And, of course, you can see his, that was a rubber band once, and it's all rotted off of there.

Now, I've never seen one quite like this. Now, this is his slate call. Of course, it's homemade, and he didn't make this pouch. I don't know who made the pouch for him, I'm sure. It's literally. But it's literally a piece of slate. A slab of slate. That's right.

And then his striker is a cone. with a screw through the end of it. Wow. Check that out. That is cool. So it's like a, it's hard to describe. It's a piece of wood that's been drilled out almost like a funnel.

Right. Like about two and a half, three inches in diameter. It has a screw. And then there's literally a flat, quarter inch thick piece of slayed by as big as the palm of your hand. And it's got a thumb, thumb spot for you.

Right there. Right. And let me see, have you ever... Oh, yeah, go ahead. Can you make it make sense? It'll make... The best thing I think it can make is a purr. Or a turp or whatever you call it.

Now, put that thing... Here, you... Like I said, I'm not a turkey hunter, so here's the thing. Put it like this. And by making the cone in your hand bigger, it'll be different. It'll change tone. That's the only thing I do know. Probably got to find it.

You do? Because this is, this screw is a, you know, It's old, basically worn out on each side. I mean, I can see how you can make sounds with that, especially if you got good at it. There you go. That's the one I can. That's the only thing I can do.

But he also greased that. Well, what I was going to say was going to say was a lot of times, like if this were a slate call that I had, I would sand it. Sometimes he spit on it. Yeah. This brings up an interesting point for turkey hunters. the phrase now that people use to describe a circular call with a striker is they call them pot calls i've never i'd never even heard it called a pot call until i started working at meat eater

and it i don't know i somehow entered my vocabulary at that time i would have called every single friction call a slate call Yeah. Even if it had a glass, because they use a lot of different types. There's some that are actually slate. Some that are glass, some that are aluminum, and some that are, you know, like some kind of acrylic or something. But anyway, I want to call every single friction call that I have a slate call.

Slate call. But this is where it came from. That's really cool, man. I've never seen that. Yeah. Yep. Put it back in the rest. How cool is that?

Yeah. Man, it just shows the. ingenuity of people. Have you ever seen anything like that? No, I never have. I've actually never seen one like that. Do you know if he got that idea from someone or did he do that on his own? It was what, you know, existed way before me. Wow. This is, I would bet that this is probably 60 or 70 years old. Wow. And of course that one was in 1965. So and in 1965, there were hardly any turkeys. Yeah. So he was going, you know.

Well, the progression of turkey hunting in America, you know, they market hunted turkeys and were shooting them with shotguns or, I mean, rifles. And there were very few people that were calling spring turkeys like in the 1800s. By like, as I understand it, you may know this more than me. But like by the, I think Lynch box call company came around in the 1930s, 1940s, which was a, which was a commercial box call that you could buy. And so clearly people know that you can call these birds. But people were hunting them in the fall about as much as they hunted them in the spring.

Because in the fall, you can bust up fall flocks and call them back in with the Kiki Run and lost hen call and different things. And a lot of people were fall hunting them. And then basically in 1970, Ben Rogers Lee started a call company that, I'm not going to say it was the first call company because it wasn't, but he was kind of considered one of the first modern,

kind of modern style spring turkey hunters. And then Will Primo started in 1976, and after that it was just a flurry. And there were a bunch of smaller guys that never made big national status that these guys were learning from. So it's not like it all started in 1970, but that's when mainstream spring turkey hunting started. It really, you know,

And it also coincided with when we started having turkeys. Right. You know, it's like turkeys started to come up, and so people started to learn how to hunt. They made diaphragm calls, and people started learning. But before that, people were calling on stuff like literally a slab of slate. They could work. Yeah.

A lot of people, I don't have one. My dad didn't use one, but I have a couple of friends, and they were talking about. They had turkey feather calls where they hollow them out. and make them into... Oh, like a... Wing bone. Yeah, like a wingbone call. Yeah, he said...

One of my friends said his dad had a couple of them. Oh, I had a guy send me this week from Georgia a pipe call. Oh, really? Oh, my gosh. I need to go get it. Is it like a trumpet call? It's a trumpet call, but it's actually a functional pipe. Oh, really?

You could sweet. You could smoke with it. That's what I understood. If you were someone else. Yeah. if you were into voodoo. Yeah. But it sounds really good, and it's a real work of art.

I'm going to get it at the end of the show. Sure. I want to show the people. But so when did you tell me about like your academic, academic ascension. Like how do you become a college professor and like what's your specialty? Well, you go to school forever. That's one thing. I ended up with two degrees from the University of Arkansas,

a bachelor's and master's degree in American history. And then for my Ph.D., I went down to Mississippi State and Starkville. And my mentor there is John Marzileck, who is actually a biographer of William T. Sherman, Civil War. Anyway, I am from Arkansas, born and raised in Arkansas. I always wanted to come back to Arkansas. and so I found an opportunity to do that and ended up at the University of Central Arkansas 17 years ago.

I worked on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for five years just in time for Katrina. Okay. Yeah, it was good times. But got back here, and I was, my specialty's 19th century south, and again, pretty much, I mean, we're in Arkansas grade school

required to take Arkansas history. you did it in seventh grade did it in 12th grade um had a mentor at university of arkansas who was the arkansas historian there took classes there um and that was genie wang that was dr jenny wang that's correct and and dr daniel sutherland both um so basically i was directed to that so 19th century south and arkansas kind of came together I hunt and grew up on a hunting family. And so when I had the opportunity, I decided to do more research. So a lot of people ask, okay, why this particular subject or what turned you on this exactly?

I, about a decade ago, I guess, yeah, it was about 10 or 12 years ago. I read an article about a war. And it was not a war between soldiers on some distance battle, distant battlefield, but it was a war between Americans. It was a war between market hunters and sportsmen. And the war happened on a 10,000-acre lake in northeast Arkansas called Big Lake, which was created during the New Madrid earthquake in 1812. So I began to dig more into that.

This is not a metaphorical war, literally. No, it was a war. I mean, they shoot at each other. Well, it's more of the market hunter shooting at the sportsmen. Or actually the people who work for the sportsmen, because we have a fellow named Joseph Acklin, who actually happens to be the Tennessee Game Warden, state Tennessee game warden,

also a millionaire, very wealthy, also an attorney, who is a crack shot, wins all kinds of, shotgun competitions. That was a big thing back then, doing shooting competitions, and he would shoot 100 glass balls thrown into the air, you know, that sort of thing. And a bunch of his friends, as again, I mentioned before, as our neighboring states begin to run out of things to shoot wildlife, they begin to look for places to go. And Arkansas was one of those places. And so Joseph Ackland and his friends, investors and whatnot,

approach a timber company who owned, which timber companies owned quite a lot, because we're talking about the same time when timber's big, mining's big. Basically, Arkansas's first industries are those that can take her natural resources. Yeah. So it's coal mining and timber and that sort of thing.

Those were the resources. And what happens is, is wild life becomes a resource. It's a resource that is also pursued by the market hunters. So Joseph Ackland and his buddies, they formed a big lake shooting club, and they buy a 10 feet strip around the lake, 10,000 acres, and they claim the lake under riparian rights, which is basically rights.

Nobody can be on it because they call it non-navicable. So they basically say, now this 10,000-acre lake is ours. Right. And all the ground. And they build clubhouses, which market hunters end up burning to the ground twice. Really? Mm-hmm. And they hire a bunch of people, and there's caretakers, and there's pushers, the people that go out and push the boats.

And they have live decoys. I mean, basically everything you would think of anywhere, but they do it. All these people are from Nashville or the surrounding area in Tennessee, and they own this huge hunting club. The rich guys that own land were from Nashville. That's correct. And the locals, of course, a lot of them lived right there on the lake. A lot of the market hunters, I should say. market hunting ducks market hunting any kind of waterfowl whatsoever remember is a big market also in plumes plumage

what year was this specific when they come well the war lasts over 20 years because it's um not only uh like what we think of where they're burning things and things like that but they go to they go to court okay uh there's an injunction put forth by a judge that says uh the locals can't can't be out there and so They get even more angry. The locals get lawyers, and it just goes on court cases. So what was that time period? Basically 1885-ish until the very last part, what ends the war that we could get to, what ends the war in 1915, is that the Big Lake Shooting Club gives the land to the federal government.

Really? And so that is why it is a national wildlife refuge today. It was a preserve at that time. Wow. And so that's what they turned it into. And so the war against the market hunters moves from the Tennessee sportsmen and goes to the U.S. biological survey. They take over the war. Well, they have game wardens there.

I read in your book that this was kind of like just an astonishing figure that puts a number on the volume of market hunting. but, or market hunting, but in 1911, half a million ducks were shipped out of Arkansas from three counties in October and November 1912. And on one October day in 1911, 90,600 ducks shipped in one order. 90,000 ducks in a single day. That's correct. And now, where were those ducks going? They were going to markets in big cities.

those were probably have to look it up those particular ones, but they're probably going to Chicago. Because remember, this is the exact same time when all the cattle drives are happening out west. Chicago's becoming the slaughterhouse capital of the nation. And so that is primarily where all those go. And they may be sent on further by rail or they may be used to feed the Chicago population. But we sell, Mark and Hunter sell game to the big cities around us. Memphis is the closest St. Louis, New Orleans

and Chicago. Chicago's one of the big ones. Who's eating that many ducks? We don't eat that many ducks today. That's true. One of the big things that you have to think about is that even though we have you know, beef and pork and that sort of thing

that is available, especially if you're wealthy, you want to serve your guests these exotic things. So Wild Game was exotic? It wasn't about the poor folks. Not necessarily, but poor folks could get it too because it was so cheap. So you kind of have both together.

But see, the canvas backs were the ones that were the most pursued because they ate while celery much of the time, and their meat took on that wild celery taste. And so they cans brought more than mallards, which brought more than teal. And that was based upon taste, the volume of meat, like the size of the bird. Correct.

Big time. Big Lake, one day shipped out 10,000. 10,000. And these guys are killing them with punt guns at night, stuff like that? No, no. It's one of the things that's very interesting is that punt guns primarily, that at least I've researched, I've seen one example of a punt gun in Arkansas. Really?

The story of a punk gun. Yep. How are they killed them? They're basically shotguning them. I mean, like calling them in? No. They don't have to. They're just coming in.

One of the most, I guess you could say, the one that, that, the, one way that they did it the most that probably kill the most is killing them on the roost. They catch them, they go back in the trees and there would be a big open area in there. There might be 10,000, 20,000 waterfowl in there, and they go in there in the night and just blast them. So they're doing it at night. Yes. And another thing is you've got to remember you're talking about turkey hunting with spring hunting and things like that. They were killing them both ways on the migration.

Yeah. They kill them. They have spring. They spring shoot, which is one of the things that, one of the first things that they attempt as far as lawmakers go is to stop spring shooting. Because that's when they're pairing up and, you know, trying to go back and have babies. Wow. Hatch. Wow.

But yes, the number is incredible. And let me tell you something about that number that can be potentially misleading. It's like, you know, not all those ducks were killed in that county or those three counties. They were just sold. They were shipped out from there. because there is a bill that is passed. Because when Arkansas starts trying to pass game laws, they're doing it piecemeal.

They don't have a general game law per se. Right. And so they'll do something that covers maybe two counties or three counties or half of counties or whatever. And if the representative from that county didn't want that law, they would get it exempt from their county. Okay, so one of the biggest, I guess

counties that's most guilty of flaunting all game laws and saying we want to be exempt was the county that Big Lake was in. And so, and I knew you'd say that and it just left me. It's not, is that in Northeast Arkansas? It is, yes, northeast Arkansas.

Craighead. No, no, not Craighead. I'll think of in a minute. The man, I can remember the representative was named little. I do remember that. Yeah.

I think of an minute. Anyway, they exempted themselves. Well, that was kind of the not only, and one of the reason they did that is because the market hunters pressured. It was money. It was a bunch of money involved. And so he made sure that they were exempt. So if anybody wanted, if any market hunter in any other part of the state wanted to ship

out of the state, they sent it there. And so they piled them on, put them on trains and sent them up. Because there was, the laws were different. in that county. In that county, that's right. So, okay, if you were, if you were given just like a high-level overview of the animals that were, that were market-hunted in Arkansas, what was the biggest thing? What was the prime animal?

Depends on the time. Okay. It depends on the time period. Because, of course, we have had market hunters or some semblance thereof market hunting since Arkansas, since Europeans came to Arkansas. That's why Arkansas Post was established was to make trade with the Native Americans

and bring fur to them. And so Arkansas, Arkansas Post is a town at the confluence of the Arkansas White Mississippi River. That's correct. And it was established in like the mid-1600s. It was at the time, it was the furthest west.

I didn't realize it went that far back. Yes, it was the very first. It was like the furthest west European outpost on the continent at the time. Yes, and the man who established it was Henri de Tanti. And he basically set up, he was given what's called a seniorie, which LaSalle was his boss, and he gave him this land. And so he's going to make his fortune, so he sets up this post. And we've got a town named after him just right up here, Tanti Town.

There you go. So he sets this up, and that's what they're doing. So you could say the first real occupation in Arkansas hunting. Yeah. I mean, it truly is. Yeah. The Spanish do it. Primarily, it's the French that come in and do it.

So it doesn't really matter whether it's under the French colonial system or the Spanish colonial system. The French don't leave when the Spanish take over. The French hunters are still hunting and doing all their operations around. And so to get back to your question, thereafter the fur. So whatever fur-bearing animal you want to think of with primarily Beaver, though. Beaver's a big one for that because there's such a demand. And that would have been, I mean, the 1600s, I mean, there were just so few Europeans in the trade network was not as strong. But by the 1700s, it was rocking and rolling.

Yes, it is. And there actually is a great study by lady by the name of a. professor, sorry, by the name of Kathleen Duvall, who explores the hunting war that happens in the Arkansas River Valley between the Osage, Kwa'pa, the Cherokee, the French, the Spanish, and the Americans. It's basically a war over fur in the Arkansas River Valley through the 1700s, where the Osage are the dominant. Now, everybody else tries to team up to drive the Osage out. Wow. Because they claim Arkansas, a good majority of Arkansas is their hunting ground, but they don't live here full-time. That's like their area. Like non-resident

hunts. Yes. And even after the first treaty between the Osage and the United States, they seed 50 million acres over the United States. But, and so here this chunk of land is, and so they decide, the American government decides, let's send some Cherokee over. You're driving the Eastern Indians over to the West. And so the Cherokee come over and settle on some of that. old old sage hunting ground and the osage say whoa whoa we gave you the land but we didn't give you the hunting rights oh and so we don't like the Cherokee hunting this this is still our game they can live here but they can't hunt our game and so it become like I said he then by that time the Cherokees jump in on the the fight that's been going on between the coopal and the French and then

the Osage so they're another player in the game so it's a long drawn out I'd probably do the same thing. I'd be like, you can have the land, but we're going to hunt 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 Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to see. start making good turkey noises and getting action. Wow. So that early Arkansas post stuff, that was when they were after fur. That's right. That's what they're after fur.

Would the progression be that as civilization, as larger European-based cities began to form closer to the Mississippi River, there were these big cities that needed meat? I mean, because it switches from fur to meat. Correct, correct. And then they're probably still shipping some furs through the 1800s. It basically becomes an opportunity, a target of opportunity when you do the fur. And that continues, of course, all the way until 1900s and beyond. But yes, it makes a transition.

So those early guys are after fur. And like I said, beaver's a big one. But they're also hunting bear and selling bear meat, bear grease, bear oil. The bison are killed out by then. We have our last reported... By when? The last reported bison that I have found. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm the expert on the bison, because that was not my area.

But the last ones I found were in a cane break on the White River in 1835. That was a last recorded report that I found. And it was just a small number. Very small number. So you could probably argue that most of the bison were killed out before 1800 for the majority. I mean, what about Gerstocker? Gerstocker killed a bison when he was in Arkansas.

It's possible, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are limited locations, but it's not like you can make a living by killing bison by then, that's what I'm saying. You got to have a, there's a transition that goes through as the bisonly. Those are truly making living by bison. When the bison are killed out, they move. It's like many of the most professional market hunters keep moving or change their quarry, one of the other. So the big game begins to be killed out very, very early because there's a market for it. Beers, of course, go.

And then as we go and begin to transition post-Civil War, that's when industrialization, urbanization, immigration, more numbers, and there's more, and then the fairbearers are beginning to be gone. And so it changes over to where a true market hunter is not after furs per se. They're instead after meat, and it's various meats that you can. killing deer deer as much as they can the bear continued to be killed out

the deer which had been killed out they continued to be killed out kind of putting a I don't know what you'd call final nail in the coffin to use something and then they go after they begin to go after birds one of the first

really I guess the species that you would see that disappears the first that's that's not I mean passing your pigeon We've always heard the story of the pasture pigeon. Right across the border in Oklahoma was what they call a stool, a giant stool,

which basically they said that there were upwards millions of birds that would roost there. And there were people from Arkansas that would go over there, and they'd catch them at night. They're all up in the roost and the trees. They'd set fires underneath them, smoke them out, and they'd just hit the ground, and they just pick them up in baskets. by the thousands. So that's one of the things that's pursued very early for food.

Another is, and the first one that really catches the attention of Arkansas lawmakers, actually, is the prairie chicken or the panaded grouse. Which we don't even have here anymore. There's a reason for that, because they were all killed out back then. Yeah. They were completely killed out. And they even, that was really the first, I would say, other than fish. Now fish is kind of the first where we see our first transition of any kind of laws whatsoever

Because everybody was fishing every single person was fishing it wasn't just marking hunters or or sportsmen or things like that Everybody was fishing so they could see those effects the earliest But as far as the pen native grouse goes They're the very first species that gets a species specific game law on a five-year moratorium you couldn't shoot them for five years and that like took it was too late. I mean, there wasn't a sustainable population. So when it came back in, five years later, nobody killed anything because they were already gone.

They're already gone. And what time frame was that? That's very early. That's like 1880. Okay. Compared to the study, and I shouldn't say very early. How do you say that, grouse? Panaded grouse.

Panaded grouse. Is that a woodland grouse? It's, you know, like a prairie. I mean, so. About West Arkansas. Yeah, and now East Arkansas is where we would have had like prairie though. That's true, but there's a lot. There's actually, I just saw a presentation the other day about how many thousands of acres.

It's a lot more than you think there were prairies all over the place. But yes, I mean, the Grand Prairie, of course, is the one that we think of when we think about around Stuttgart and that area. But there are other pockets of prairies for sure. And where we are on the west as well, there's some. over there too. Yeah. There were some over there too. You know what?

Surprise me inside of this is how much talk there is of squirrels in market hunting. Huge. I mean, describe who is Josh and Bear, like, they're like talking, like putting specific regulations and like shipping huge quantities of squirrels out of Arkansas. Who's eating squirrels? Okay. So again, we have to look back at our time and not think about it as. food because local folks eat the squirrels but the market hunters are killing squirrels for tails

because this is the birth of sports fishing and they want they want the they want the tails for fishing when you were growing up you didn't look in the back of the magazines and they would like MEPs would buy squirrel tails from them yeah yeah yeah well that's what it was back then oh so they're not shipping meat out no no that had me no I mean I was going to be so pumped if people and like St. Louis were eating squirrel. Now, does that say that they didn't ever do that? They ever shipped meat? I'm sure they shipped some squirrel meat,

but it would probably been across the river because it wouldn't have been worth the time and the effort to deal with them. That makes sense. Kind of like why would you kill herring? You know, why would you kill the, sorry, the blue heron? Why would you kill the heron? It's because they're not eating the heron.

They're after the plumage, you know, because that's also coinciding at the time. time when all the women are wearing the big hats giant hats with the big plumes on them right that's what it is they we had one of our very first um wildlife refuges preserves what it was called in it was called walker walker lake and it was over in east arkansas and it was a nationally protected heron rookery really and mark and hunter snuck in there and killed them all out till they here and they they removed Walker Lake from the preserve because they were all gone wow wow killed them all wow yeah it's pretty it's just uh there's so many things again digging through this so i'll go circle

back around to the original thing and so i went into big lake trying them i wanted to write a book-length story of big oh this is going back to the origins of why you were interested in this and so when i began to dig, I begin to realize there's nothing out there that has been published that I can piggyback on to talk about Big Lake until I build this big contextual story. There has to be placed in

context. And all the stories that you read in that book, the whole fight about the Arkansas Game of Fish Commission, there are some little small articles here and there about market hunting in Arkansas and that sort of thing. But this is all, for the most part,

really, because I tried to stay Arkansas specific as much as possible, but put it in a state, a regional, and a national context around it. What's happening? All that sort of thing. And so I knew I had to write this book before I could tackle Big League. So you got another book coming out? The next book actually coming out for me in this area is the federal side. Really? This is all state. I'm going to talk about the federal side next book, which Big Lake's going to be. prominent in it. So like a, when you say federal, you mean like, no, federal efforts in Arkansas. In Arkansas.

Correct. I got you. Because, interestingly enough, we had the very first Jewish federal court judge named Traber. And he will, the very first national bird law is passed, migratory bird law, not the migratory bird act, but the mandatory bird law. And it was passed. in Trayber's courtroom in Arkansas, he declared it unconstitutional. And it was struck down in Arkansas, a national law. Tell me why that's significant.

It's significant in that it forced the United States to go back and create the migratory bird treaty. Oh. Because you cannot strike down a treaty because of unconstitutional grounds. Now, I'm really starting to get outside my area of expertise here. But let me say this. when states join the United States, they give up their ability to make deals or negotiate with other countries. Understood. Therefore, the United States can.

So when it makes a deal with another country, it cannot be declared unconstitutional because the Constitution dictates the state power. So did this judge here in Arkansas be like, hey, we can't regulate these birds because they don't live here all the time? Is that what you're saying? Like, interpret for me. I don't fully understand. And maybe it's not worth going into. Right. He just said that the federal government was overstepping its powers.

Okay. That it didn't have the ability to do what it was trying to do. And so it was struck down there. And like I said, it forced them to go back in. And this is some stuff that I haven't had a chance to research fully either. Yeah. But that's what I want to do in the next book. And the thing was is Trayber was an incredible early conservationist.

Okay. But he was following what he thought was a letter of the law. Yeah. And he was the one, when you broke federal law, I told you Big Lake became a preserve. When they went in there and broke the law, he was the one many times that the poachers ended up in front of. And he would, you know, hammer them because he thought that was the right thing to do. Yeah. So that was one of the steps that I want to look into.

And there's a lot of other players that get involved. And our buddy, Vizert, who is kind of – he has a chapter of his own. Arkansas's first game. Arkansas's first game ward, not Arkansas's first, well, he covered the whole state, but he was not hired by the state. He was hired by a sportsman's association. Really? That's right. They saved money, and they were like, the state's not going to do anything about it, and so we're going to hire this guy to be enforced the game laws that exist. But he couldn't arrest people.

He couldn't give him tickets, and he didn't really have any power. He'd just kind of be like, kind of like me shaming people for shooting turkeys behind. podcast. He had to go get a local deputy. Oh, really? Yes. He had to go get a local deputy. So he basically went around and gathered information and turned it over the local deputy and the deputy would handle it. But he was a real hero though. He really was. What was his full name? Ernest Vivian Vizert. And he was from like 1906 to 1915 or something? He was yes because he becomes a federal warden. So he actually gets the job for the federal warden and the very first enforcing migratory bird law. And so he ends up back in Arkansas doing enforcement for the feds.

This is a picture of him. But he actually had quite a bit of philosophy for, it felt like he did. I mean, just like he kind of cast vision for why people, why it was advantageous for people to preserve game and why we wanted them. And if we, if we, if we just, just obey the laws. There's going to be more game. I mean, he was a pretty, he was kind of a visionary guy. He really trying to do the best he could with what he had,

which wasn't much. He was very much underfunded. And if you read the chapter where he is, it's called The Prince and the Popper, which is when he's a relationship with Tabasco Air McElhenney. Yeah. You have the millionaire, and then he's basically on the,

before it's all over with, he has sold his furniture. Wizard has, trying to continue to fight and make pamphlets and all that sort of thing. And he's begging McElhenney for a job or anything. And McElhenney suggests he starts selling magazines, sporting magazines, door to door. Really? As he goes around the state to enforce laws, he's like, why don't you just, you've got a captive audience,

why don't you sell magazine subscriptions? Wow. So he does that for a while. While he's still the state game warden. But yes, he has no power. And here's the kicker. And I'll even get you. I'm going to read, you tell me.

Well, I was just going to say I'll tie it in even more. When the Game and Fish Commission finally is established and we finally have wardens, number one, we only have eight wardens for the entire state, and they won't let them have any more. But there will be a time when you look at the last few chapters where there's a fight against it to destroy it, they take the arrest powers away from the wardens. Oh, interesting. I want to read the quote that you opened up this chapter 6 with, and this is Ernest v. V. Vissert in 1910, Arkansas's first game warden hired by this private company.

Arkansas State Sportsman's Association. And he writes, I will guarantee that if the good farmers of the country will assist in securing the passage of a bill that will protect the game and fish of the state, as they have assisted in the enforcement of our present laws for the past six months, that within five years our fields will swarm with pheasants and other game birds that will, aid them in the destruction of insect life. There was a big deal about birds killing insects. Big one in a bowievel was the big pursuit for quail.

And so they were leaning on farmers. And he says, Our streams will be filled with the choice as fish, and their children may enjoy a few hours of sport with hook and line as like their forefathers did a few years ago. So, I mean, he was kind of like a, he was cast in vision. And just an interesting guy for no doubt. And what's even more interesting is he has no background.

He's not a biology. He's not a scientist. He's not anything as in that area. He's a failed businessman, basically. His father was a doctor from Arkansas County, that's Stuck Art, over by Stuck Art, who evidently was well known for his malaria treatments. And his father, that would be his visitor's grandfather, was an exile from bed.

Belgium, and he was a part of the aristocratic class over there, and evidently there was a scandal where there was an assassination, and the Vizert family became kind of soiled. And so he picked up and left and came to all places. Arkansas County and started a cow farm, cattle farm. Wow. Let me back up a little bit and give me a maybe a little bit of an overview. It's kind of tough. An overview of, well, I guess we've kind of already done it. I'm trying to think of the best way to describe. Arkansas would have the first game laws that would start after the Civil War. Is that about right? When were the first game laws started? The very first that wasn't like a local.

but a statewide was 1875, and it was a non-resident license law. We were the first state in the nation to require non-residents to purchase a license. Really? And it was not enforced. But that was because all the states around this, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, had depleted a lot of their resources in Arkansas was this destination. Correct. It's so interesting.

book, he talks about how the rail companies in St. Louis and Memphis in different places, they were advertising hunting packages, like trips, like round trip, like leave tonight, be in Arkansas shooting ducks in the morning. And basically, they had this package deal where you would buy a ticket on the train and you could carry 100. So many 100 pounds of 200 pounds of gear. And your dogs. And your dogs. And they would take you to Arkansas and kick you out for a week or two weeks or a month.

However long you wanted. And so what was happening was the people were coming here for recreation. People were buying land from out of state. That's right. And because Arkansas was just this like no man's land in a way. I mean, it was just this underdeveloped, non-progressive, didn't have real strong government at the time, probably crippled up from the civil war and infrastructure, but it was this wild place that had yet to be really logged out.

Much of much around us because of the massive swamps and the mountains. A lot of Arkansas wasn't heavily lost. I mean, it was starting to be for sure. Right, right. It's happening at the same time this is happening. All of our resources are going out of the state. Well, and it's because of these railroads. That's right.

Railroads is a big one. Railroads are bringing out lumber and goods and game, but also bringing in sport hunters. Right. So basically everything that we could export we were. That's right. But we were other people from other places were saying come to Arkansas and hunt. Yes. And the railroads were advertising those packages, but then they had pamphlets that they would publish and it would say,

what is your game pursuit? And it would say, well, I want to go after, you know, quail. And it would say, well, this is the three stations you need to stop at. And then it would say, you need to hire Mr. Jones for his wagon. Mr. Jones will carry you four miles away this direction and bring outfits to camp for a week. And so it's a total guide on how to exploit the resources, wildlife resources of Arkansas. And they were making bank, you know, because they would then haul them back.

But on the backside of that, you know, you've got the market hunters that are also being brought by train. There is a man in Chicago that becomes kind of the meat man of the day. He is the meat king. And he hires 100 market hunters, hires a private train, puts the market hunters on the Canadian border, and they follow the migration down on the train with 100 hunters. And he sends rail cars down with ammunition supplies. and empty boxes of ice. They pack up the goods.

They send it back. And it comes just basically, and they follow it all, the migration all the way down. Holy cow. Kill, kill, kill, kill. Wow. Ducks.

Ducks and geese. Wow. Anything that flies. Plover. Anything. Wow. All the way up and down. And that's just one example.

I mean, this is an example of what's happening in many places that had already happened. Yeah. You know, we're really, as far as, now, obviously, if you go far west, that happens post, you know, in time, post-1900. But as far as the east goes, this had already done it. This has already happened. So we're like the last holdout in the east. We truly are.

I mean, we're on the edge. That right budding up against the Mississippi River, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Oklahoma. Oklahoma is pretty much with us because if you take a snapshot at like 1820, Arkansas Territory includes Oklahoma. And so they talk about, well, as these animals begin to kind of disappear, a lot of people begin to talk about,

let's go to Indian territory instead. And so that really, to me, is the last vestige unless you go way out west. Yeah. What we would consider West today. Remember, we're west at the, the time. Yeah, yeah.

We're considered the West. Yeah, Gary, it always, it took me a long time to, like, wrap my mind around, but my favorite book, this book by Frederick Gerstocker. Yeah. He, you know, his book was called Wild Sports of the Far West. Yes, that's right. And you don't think of Arkansas as the far west, but in the 1830s, it was. Yes, and people thought when they jumped the Mississippi River, they were separated from

the east. So one of the great things, when you're talking about, Gairstacker and all the those early travelers to Arkansas. There's a family called the Billingsleys, and they come very early to Arkansas, and they come down to Cadron, which is Conway, modern-day Conway. And they run into two families that have two patriarchs who are, they feed their families from the woods exclusively. They don't hoe a row.

They don't do any kind of agriculture whatsoever. And one of them's called Flanagan, one of them's called Mass. Gil. Well, I began to, I thought that, those guys are pretty interesting. Let me find out more about them. Each of them had two wives, and they had both had sacks full of kids. They were Tories. They were loyalists in the American Revolution.

And when they lost, when the Brits lost, they ran, instead of going to Canada or going, you know, back somewhere else, they ran and jumped the Mississippi River and got to our lives. Of course, they were outside of the United States. and thought they were safe. And that's what put them here. Interesting. They were Tories. Conway Arkansas ran off from the post-American Revolution and came all the way here. Wow.

And I have been told by some of my folks from Conway that those families are still there. Is that right? That's right. That name is the Flanagan's in Mass and Gills. And there's a couple of others. They're still known in Conway. That is interesting. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason.

and 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 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 callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.

When we did our series on the Bear State, and we kind of did this Arkansas, We did two podcasts on Arkansas several, a couple of years ago on Bear Greece. And I mean, yeah, you started to see the immigration patterns into Arkansas. Usually it was people that were running from something, were impoverished. This was like not the place you wanted to go. And that explains, though, in a functional way why wildness and wild game populations kind of held out for an eastern region because I mean there just weren't a lot of people here I mean I think by I think in 1820

I mean they were like I want to say there were like 30,000 people in Arkansas or something I could be wrong about that in 1810 there's 10 164 wow okay so I think I'm right then by 1820 it was like 1820 it had gone up considerably but there was only that's an astonishingly low number it is of people well you know one of the big things for Arkansas is our geography is a problem because if you're let's say depending on the time let's just use the goal rush minor 49er all right when people are going and they want to go farther west they're going to come across and if you look at a map the correct map from the time let's let's say an 1820 map then they're literally on the map it says the great swamp on the eastern side of Arkansas.

Is that right? So if you're going to go to Oregon, California, you know, all that sort of thing, do you want to go through the great swamp? Well, no. You're either going to go north of that or you're going to go south of that. Well, how many times do these people actually make it to their destination way out wherever? Then they can go along and all of a sudden you go along your trip and Paul dies. We need to set down roots right here. We need to be right here.

Well, if you've gone there, you're setting up roots in Missouri. If you've gone down here, you're setting roots in Louisiana. You don't have a chance to set up roots in Arkansas because you never went there. You never, you were turned off by the – so truly for a long period of time, if you're in Arkansas, you wanted to be in Arkansas. You had – you wanted to come to Arkansas. Essentially what you're saying is that the Delta region of Arkansas, the swamp made a barrier to entry. So people were going north of it. or south.

Correct. And then when Indian territory is set up, who wants, you know, you hear all the terrible stories, those people with terrible stories will be killed by Indians, will be killed by natives, Native Americans over there. And so we're not even going to take a chance because that's on the other side of the Great Swamp even. If we even get through the Great Swamp, we're not going to go through Indian territory, we'll be murdered.

Yeah. And so there's a double, I think there was a historian, I'm pretty sure there was a historian, basically call it, basically call it a Mill Pond effect. Yeah. You know, it's basically what it was. And that's one of the reasons our population was so well. Now, I've heard that. I agreed with you and said, yeah, Mill Pond.

I guess I don't really even know what that means, though. It's basically a buildup word, just stagnated place. Just stagnated place. But that caused us, I mean, for wildlife, that was good. It was. We held out. But then we became this destination hunting place. And so your book deals a lot with this conflict between market hunters and sport hunters, right?

at the at the at the turn of the century that's correct and and when when and it's such a an interesting time for those of us interested in wildlife today because so many of the modern ideas about wildlife conservation were being forged you know with the boon and cricket club and teddy roosevelt and all these great patriarchs of the conservation movement who were you know kind of rewriting the way that people thought about wild game and and so there was this like 50 years of I mean, I don't know if it's 50 years, but probably, of just conflict between people that would have viewed wildlife in a certain way as a commodity, not as a resource, not as something to be protected intentionally. And then you had these guys like Roosevelt that were that were sportsmen that wanted fair chase, that wanted to have an experience with the wild and go hunt. And it meant more than just getting game.

it meant, you know, some kind of quest in a way. And so it was like this, and that's a lot of what your book talks about. And the legislation around quantifying those ideas. Yes. And you remember, this is also a time when the government's trying to get you to dip your cattle. And so there's, you know, all these sort of governmental regulations and trying to, you know, I do a lot of change and there's a lot of pushback. A lot of pushback.

From a variety of different reasons, there's politicians that are actually making money from the market, selling game and fish. And there's folks, of course, and if you're from Arkansas, you can relate with this statement. There are people, common folk in Arkansas believe that if they're grandfather hunted and this time a year and this game then by golly ought to be able to do it and no regulation's going to stop me yes you know that still happens today that's right and so that's that

mentality and that's one of the things when you talk about visor trying that was like a newspaper article he's basically trying to convince everybody he can on the benefits yeah of doing that and that's also what a lot of our new organizations there's a women's organization And what they do is, see, visitors trying to convince adults. And the smaller women's organizations, they're about songbirds and things like that, they're educating children in schools. They're putting out pamphlets about the benefits of the robin, the benefits of the songbirds, because most of those are migratory birds too. And so there's a big effort basically to educate the public on a lot of different levels. And, of course, some refuse to accept it.

You know, to this day, I'm amazed at the lingering ideology of families, of just groups of people that lasts so long. I mean, I'll foreshadow a touch on the podcast that's going to come out next week on Bear Grease. It's a podcast about a particular man's engagement and views on wildlife law, essentially. It's about a modern guy that basically was a pretty bad turkey outlaw. The guy's still alive. And we interviewed him. And he's not a turkey outlaw anymore. And that's kind of why we talked about him.

It's kind of a human interest story more than anything. Evolution of a man. Yeah. And I made a statement when I was writing that podcast, the part that I write, is I said it feels like people, like when I was. look back on people that I know and I engage with, it feels like people that were adults by the 1960s, typically, or there's a group of them that can have a very different view on game laws than people born later. I mean, like, game laws are kind of just a suggestion.

And it's, and it's interesting because as I'm reading your book and talking to you today after I wrote that, it's like, we were having games. law in the 1870s. I mean, it's not like this guy's granddad was a market hunter. Well, I guess he could have been. Maybe that proves my point. Is that that it feels like something, it feels like you just be able to wake up and be like,

all right, guys, hey, we can't shoot 90,000 ducks and ship them to Chicago anymore, okay? Right. We're going to become sport hunters. We're going to go out and obey the laws, and you're each going to kill six, but only for 90 days a year. And it's like, oh, okay, that's great. let's do that.

Yeah. No, man. I mean, there guys. There's some significant pushback against that. Yes. I mean, remember, that's their job. That's how they're making live and feeding their families and things like that. And so that's the attitude.

You're basically saying you're taking my job away. I have to change what I may have done for 20 years. And so you're saying that I can't do that anymore and I'm not, you know, it's not going to work. Man, I like, it's really easy on this side of it to be like, I know exactly where I would have stood. I would have, I would have said. game laws and but man I would have might have had a hard time not standing with the people that it probably would have mattered who I loved yeah like if my I mean I I find I'm really empathetic towards people that I that I that I love and I'm connected to and it's like at that time it really

wasn't a moral maybe maybe they were starting to make it kind of a moral issue but it was more like a maybe almost like a business issue you know definitely economics involved of course um one of those interesting things is uh there it depends just like you said depends on where you stand and who you're with but if let's say uh your grandfather was a timber man and had done timber all his life and all of a sudden they said no more timber cutting ever or you can only cut so much timber but it's not enough to make a living from then that's the pushback you have to think of wildlife as a natural as a resource as a commodity like coal and timber and now this and so that's the mentality of the marketer so when there's rumblings of possible game

law to slow that down they kill even more yeah because they think it's going to go away so or or not even game law they're disappearing like the grouse It's like, let's stop, not let's stop. It's kill all we can before they go away. Yeah. Isn't that wild? It's two totally different things, you know, because the sportsman's like, oh, no, we must pass these laws,

but the marking hunters are going to kill them all before they're gone. Yeah, we better get them before they're gone. And that was the whole deal. That was one of the big push, you know, big pushbacks is they're simply not going to stop. And what was interesting is even after the biological survey took over places like Biggill, They kept showing up and kept shooting illegally. Wow. You know, and the big, one of the things I said that fishing was kind of the first place where they started,

and that was nationally too. During the colonial, American colonial period, they were passing laws on the East Coast about fishing because they were fishing out the streams and salmon runs. That was very early as where they started was fishing. And it's one of the places they started with Arkansas because, remember, remember, like I said, we're talking about the same time. So they're building infrastructure, trying to build infrastructure. at the same time, right?

One of the big infrastructure pushes, of course, is roads. Well, you build a road up here in the Ozarks and the Washhtaws. What's the number one tool to build roads before mechanization? Dynamite. So every shack along a road, stretch of road, had dynamite in it. So it was everybody, and back then you could go buy a dynamite. So you could steal it or buy it. And they just, let's go fishing.

We went fishing with it. Absolutely. And that was one of the big things. that was I saw over and over and over again as some of the very first trying to make statewide game laws was against dynamite fishing because they were destroying completely destroying rivers wow with dynamite and they finally make it a felony to use dynamite really yep they make it a felony and then they realize it's a mistake what would have been that time period that probably would have been oh, if I

wouldn't know off top of my head, but it would be probably around 1890. Okay. Give or take. There's a man that kills another fella in World War I. During World War I, two soldiers get a hold of some dynamite and they're out

on like leave or whatever. And he thought he had a regular fuse. He was unfamiliar with dynamite and he had a fast fuse and it blew him up and killed a guy next to him. But he was going to get trashed. for murder. But that was a big one. They tried to do that.

Then they realized it was a mistake to make it a felony. Because no jury would send a man to prison for catching blowing up fish. So juries wouldn't convict because they would not send them. It was mandatory one year in prison for a felony. So they're like, we have to change that back and lessen the penalty. Oh, wow. Because a man would stand up and he would be like, his lawyer would be like, hey, this guy was trying to feed his family.

That's right. You're going to send him into prison for trying to feed his family? That's exactly right. Whether it would be true or not. Right. Wow. Fascinating stuff, man. Game laws, to me, are so interesting.

And because we're so focused on conservation and hunting, this is a thing that we've dedicated a big chunk of our lives to, that we love wildlife. We view it as, like, essential for us to have the quality of life that we want to have. I mean, wildlife to a lot of people that are listening to this is like really important. But the truth is, I mean, it's not existential in a way. I mean, like I'm thinking about a jury that's going to convict a guy for dynamiting when probably the week before they were trying a guy for murder or for robbing a bank

or for something even worse, maybe. And it's like... Game laws just didn't seem very egregious. Well, I mean, yeah, but it's like, today, I mean, I'm like, send them to jail, you know. Teach you a lesson. Yeah. But it's kind of sometimes you have to, I mean, I'm not suggesting we should have lesser game laws. I think sometimes they're way too light, but I think that, so it's why it's interesting.

Yeah. It's, it's, these things are so important. And guys, guys commit their lives to wildlife. management and so you kind of and today I mean there's people whose careers are involved around wildlife management and so somebody that doesn't take the laws seriously

that's breaking the law like he's violating more than just killing an extra turkey he's messing with people's lives you know that's the way one way to think about it so like the punishment should be pretty severe you know oh man I can't wait

till next week when we we're coming out with an episode next week that tried me as a podcaster in a way and Josh helped me quite a bit with it and because it's it's a really interesting story with it with a man that I actually really have a lot of respect for but it's a it's it's it's an interesting story it's about game law violations I look forward to it yeah how long I have no this has been so interesting hour 21 minutes we've had zero concept of how long we've been talking yeah man this This, we didn't even scratch the surface of your book.

You know, I'm, I think one of the, if you take a look at the, I think it's the very first blurb on the back. I think that gives me the most pride. Is it, is it the one? Which one is? I'll read it. That's it, yeah. It says, Foster's Passion for Arkansas Wildlife and Conservation shines through in this book.

His research in primary materials is simply outstanding. I doubt anyone has read and assembled more material in Arkansas hunting, fishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yeah, and I think that's the thing I'm most proud about because I truly tried to search every single source that you could potentially reach. And I'm sure I miss them, but I was in Maryland at the National Archives for two weeks and just gathering information on the federal side. And these records had never been touched.

since they had been placed there in the 19, teens, 20s, and 30s. They had never been open. The reason I knew that is because they were all stapled together, and you can't use the staple materials, so you have to take them up. You can't remove them yourself. So you have to take them up there. Well, the first week, all I did was stand in line

to get the staples removed. And it was very interesting because they were gaming fish. There were some Arkansas game and fish stuff, too. U.S. biological survey primarily is what I was looking at, the management of Big Lake and that sort of thing. And there was a turkey feather. There was a vendor who was a propagation guy who was basically raising turkeys that wanted to bring them to Arkansas. And so it was like his calling, it was a paper and it was his calling card and had a turkey feather stuck in it.

Wow. And I pulled it out and it was like I had just pulled out a nuclear bomb. They had people coming from underneath the basements with lab coats on and all kinds of stuff. It's like biological material must be whatever. and they had gloves on and it was so interesting. They didn't know it was there? They didn't know it was there because it had never been undone. Wow.

None of these things had been done. They had been there over 100 years, that turkey feather. Wow. That's cool. And so that was interesting. Went to Fort Worth to the National Archives down there. There are different branches. That was lawbreakers who broke federal law.

The court records were down there. Been to just lots and lots and lots of places. I tried to go to every, I tried to go to every single. county historical society that had any kind of archives whatsoever about any sort of thing. I think we've got our new friends. Yeah, no doubt. For real. We need you back on the Bergerie's pot, the render, just as a guest.

Well, I've dug a lot of places. And like I said earlier, this book's about 57,000, 58,000 words. And I removed 70,000 at the request simply because it was just too much for an academic study. You know what's serious when it's too much. for an academic study. They're like, dial it back a little. Don it down a little bit. Dr. Foster.

Yeah. So like I said, that's one of the things that I really have tried to work on is finding. And if you look at some of those people, they're really identified. They're not just like this guy was a judge. I'll try to say what he did for his whole career, what he did for living, where he was at at the time, all different pieces and aspects to really give. You know, again, I'm an Arkansaser. And I'm trying to, I mean, I was looking at myself as an Arkansas hunter who would want to read this book and I'd want to know everything. Whatever happened to that guy?

Yeah, I want to look in the notes and say, what happened to that guy? Yeah. You know, the Vizert becomes my hero. I mean, I guess I'm a defender of Vizert. He has his bad side too. But he really, if you had to point to one person during that period, he would be the guy. He'd be the guy. He would be the guy.

And I'll tell you another piece of information that people, I guarantee you no very, very few. people know about this. So Tabasco Air McElhenney, right? He is a bird. He is a bird conservationist. His, he is the island, Avery Island down there. He turns it into a bird refuge. And he connects with a couple of wealthy, one's a widow, railroad, widow, tycoons widow. And then another person, they're both, they're all, all three these conservationists. McElhenney's dream is to have bird refuges all up the Mississippi flyway from Canada all the way down. And so they'll have places to rest and live. Okay, he connects with visit.

They get together. And McElheny says, if Arkansas will pass meaningful game legislation to protect the birds, I will give them 100,000 acres. I will purchase the acreage in Arkansas and give it to the state. if they'll pass laws to protect it. Wow. And Arkansas doesn't do it. Wow.

And so he does it for Mississippi. Hmm. And what land is that today in Mississippi? I do not know. Okay. Wow. It would probably be either a reserve, preserve, or a forest. It's probably split up too.

Yeah, it's probably not like them. Yeah, it's probably in pieces and parts. That's correct. It would be hard to get 100,000 inches. Well, at least he did it somewhere on the flyway. He did, and they did it down there in Louisiana, too. much of the state land down there in Louisiana is old McElhany ground. Old Tobasco.

If it's around the Mississippi, yeah. Bear, don't buy that Alaska hot sauce you were using on the turkey thighs. Let's go back to Tobasco. Yep, conservationists. He came to Arkansas several times. He had a little traveling slideshow and he would, the glass slides and he had a projector that would project them up and he would do, you know, conserve the animals, conserve the birds.

He was a big bird guy. conserved the birds and he had all these different birds on these slides and I'm sure the probably I bet Tabasco archives there's a great historian down there and he helped me a lot on the on some of the conversations they were letters lots and lots of letters between Vizert and McElheny and he helped me find some letters and things like that sent them to me I bet they still have some of those slides wow I would bet you they do wow well hey this has been fantastic you can if you can check out this book so great was the slaughter market hunters sportsmen Wildlife Conservation in Arkansas, Buckley T. Foster.

I can order that probably just by anywhere. Amazon, University of Alabama Press, Barnes & Noble, all of them. Yeah. Or, you know, I'm going across the state one venue at a time doing book talks and signings. So they can book you. And they can contact me. My website is Arkansas Wildlife History.com. You can contact me through there.

and also has a Facebook page, same thing. And yes, you can contact me through there. One last thing before we wrap it up. We get to 1925, and it's one of the reasons I ended my book in 1925, when you take a snapshot in 1925. And again, I'm going to go back to say, when I say there are none, I don't mean zero, but I mean not enough to do anything with.

We get to 1925, bearer gone, bisoner gone, We have 2,000 deer left in the entire state. There's over a million now. Turkey are gone. Quail are basically gone. Panaded grouse is extinct for the most part. The only thing really we have left are squirrels and rabbits. That's it.

And of course, migratory. Anything migratory, we still have access to that. I'm talking about animals that were here. Yeah. all that's gone. So if it wasn't for the efforts, and I don't want to sound like a game and fish, Arkansas game and fish,

hurrah, but really during this time, and what follows after, if it wasn't for the Arkansas game and fish propagation efforts in the 30s, 40s, and beyond, there would be no game here to hunt or get after. Yeah.

They just wouldn't be here. They're gone. They're gone by 25. And people don't. A hundred, A hundred years ago. That's right. They were all gone.

And see, we, you know, you get on social media message boards, there's a lot of bashing against our game and fish commissions all over the place like that. And I'm not talking about modern. But if it wasn't for the efforts of the early gaming fish, there would be no game to hunt. I mean, that's a bottom line. Yeah. They did it. Yeah.

They brought back turkeys in the 70s. It brought back Black Bear. Yep. I mentioned in the book, my dad was born in 36. He never saw a lot. And he was all over the Washtas. His grandpa ran feral hogs. And so they were all over chasing feral hogs in the Washtas

and he never saw a bear in the woods until he was 70 years old. Yeah. Because they weren't here. Yeah. Yeah. Man, it's astonishing when you understand the context of what we've got today that we can walk out of these doors. And there's probably a deer within 200 yards of us right now, you know.

Anyway, I appreciate you having me. Yeah, it's a true pleasure. and I'm glad we finally connected. And it won't be the last time, for real. I thought you were further away. I really did. Yeah, it's an hour and 15 minutes to your door from my door. Yeah, man.

Well, hey, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Before we go, everybody needs to check out the meat eater store. We've got new bear grease merch hitting the scene. What kind of stuff do we have? Hats, shirts, all kinds of stuff. So definitely check it out. That'll be going live Monday before this podcast comes.

out. So new bear grease merch. Yep. Excellent. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag.

And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen 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. This is an IHeart podcast.

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