Bear Grease - Ep. 319: This Country Life - Down in the South and Up on a Mountain

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

The roller coaster of turkey season can sometimes literally go up and down. Brent’s got two prime examples of that this week when a self-proclaimed Yankee finds himself between a Southern local and gobbling turkeys. Not to be outdone, Brent’s climbing the hills with one of his good friends in search of their very first turkey--a memorable hunt indeed! It’s time for MeatEater’s “This Country Life” podcast.  Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eat Eater's Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Down in the south and up on a mountain.

Turkeys in the morning, turkeys in the evening, turkeys at supper time. I got turkeys on the brain and I hope y'all are out getting after them y'own self. This time of year I can't think about much else, so let's get to it with a listener story that I think y'all are really going to enjoy

followed by my favorite kind of turkey story, a first-timers turkey. This story is from Toe-Tomer's, Tobin Mites. Tobin is from the great state of Michigan, home to several of my good friends that I work with here at Meat Eater. Tobin has a story about accents, and since the folks I know from Michigan all have them, I figured Tobin's story was worthy of a share. So in Tobin's words and my voice, here we go. Before we get to the hunt, I'd like to set the tone with a little backstory. In 2017, my wife and I, relocated from Michigan to a little town in the mountains of North Georgia called

Ella J. She had been awarded a new field service position for her medical equipment company, and we soon found ourselves hundreds of miles from home, family, and friends. I worked from home most of the time except for when I was traveling and it was a struggle. Even though the people we met were very gracious, I still felt very out of place. On one occasion, a woman asked me where I was. was from and I replied, Ella J. She paused for a moment and finally responded, no, further north. Well, I laughed and I proudly responded. We just moved here from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Birthplace of Gibson guitars and Shakespeare fishing. We both had a good laugh. Weeks went by and I was starting to feel more at home. I could make it around town through the winding mountain roads without getting lost and had made a few acquaintances that made life more interesting. I was feeling particularly good about myself one day and decided to go to the local hardware store. Our house had very tall ceilings and I needed a way to get to the light fixtures to change the bulbs. I walked inside and was promptly greeted by an older gray hair gentleman. Can I help y'all find something he inquired? Yes, sir, where do you keep your ladders?

They're right over here. I know just what you need. Follow me. The man grinned and he motioned for me to fall in step behind him. I'd never been to this store before, but as we passed the aisle where the step ladders were neatly displayed, I got confused. My guide was very excited to be helping me, and we were moving quickly. My mind couldn't quite put the clues together fast enough to formulate the question that needed to be asked, and we rounded the next corner, and before I could speak, he said, Here they are, sir, right next to the numbers.

You got all the ladders of the alphabet, A through Z. And I was laughing hysterically inside, but I didn't want to embarrass either one of us. My accent had failed me again, and I was mortified. Is there anything else I can help you with, he asked? He was so excited to have helped me that I couldn't break his bubble. No, sir, that's fine. Thank you so much. As he walked away and rounded the corner, I contemplated what to do next.

After some deliberation, I did what any self-respected Yankee would do in this situation. I bought a package of three-inch mailbox letters, and I headed home. When I wasn't changing light, bubs, I liked to hike the nearby WMAs looking for good spots to try deer hunting or some other type of adventure. And thanks to the good folks at Onex, I found plenty of places to explore. The previous fall I had found a spot that had more turkey sign than deer sign, so I decided to break out the old turkey vest and give it a whirl. I killed a few back home in Michigan, but springtime was usually spent fishing more than hunting. An opening morning of the 2018 turkey season found me headed out making the 45-minute run to the spot I had marked the previous year.

I'd been out of town and I hadn't had much time to do any spring scouting, and I figured there was no time like the present and no better way to learn than to get my boots on the ground. I parked the truck in the corner of a dirt road that transected the section of the WMA. I'd passed a few others in parking spots, but all in all, there didn't seem to be many hunters out this morning. I walked the three-quarters of a mile back to the clearing in the woods near a small, pond and I sat down and I waited patiently for the sun and hopefully old Tom Turkey to show himself. Sunrise came and went and the wood seemed pretty quiet. I ain't heard much at all and no gobbles for sure. I decided to give a few soft yelps on my mouth call and to my surprise I was answered by a pair of Tom's a few hundred yards away. I called and waited and they'd reply but they seemed to be moving off.

Not directly away, but certainly not coming towards me. It seemed like they were headed back towards my truck. As I listened to their gobbles get further away from, and closer to where I figured the truck was, I decided to make a move. I headed back in that direction as quietly and quickly as I could. I tried setting up two more times, and each time the birds just passed a hundred yards or so

still heading toward the truck. I was trying to get ahead of them. I wasn't sure what I was. was going to do or if I was able to pull it off but I figured I'd cross that road when I got there and as I crested the next ridge I could see the road it was the service road for the logging trucks so you didn't have to worry about the safety zone or any traffic but there was another problem 200 yards the other side of that road was the boundary between public and private land and I knew then those gobblers were headed for a horse pasture to do some mid-morning strutting out of

in the sun, so it was now or never. I hoped it across that old dirt two-track and found a small clearing on top of ridge about a hundred yards in. I got set down next to a medium-sized oak tree that struggled to conceal my shape. A few soft clucks on the reed and it was confirmed. They were coming and right now. Then something happened that caused my stomach to turn sideways and Not the usual. I'm about to lay the smack down on that old Tom turning sideways. No, the turning sideways you feel when you hear the cracking of a limb underneath your feet when you're climbing a tree. I glanced over my shoulder, and I could see the road back about 100 yards. Down that road came a red pickup truck.

The engine had been turned off and the driver was coasting the vehicle slowly and silently into another parking spot on the other side of the road from where my truck had been. Dear Lord, please don't let this guy spook. These turkeys, I prayed, just a few more seconds. Then, as if he was the second in my two-man turkey team, he reaches outside window and scratch down a few yups on his pot call. When those tombs heard that, they thundered off with a set of triple gobbels that made my hair stand up. And as the last of the gobble faded away, the first bird crested the ridge and walked right in front of where I was sitting.

And pow! He met his maker. I hopped up to make sure there were no questions as to his demise. And I collected my prize and I walked a hundred yards or so back to my truck. And as I was opening the back, the little red truck rounded the corner and coasted to a stop next to mine with his engine running this time. I sure am sorry, said the driver, I had no idea you were there. I was around the corner and I couldn't see your truck. I hope I didn't mess you up.

Absolutely not, I grinned. Your timing could not have been any better. I've been chasing those birds for two hours and you're calling help bring them in right to my lap. We shook hands and he helped me take a few pictures before we went our separate ways. I'm not sure if I could have closed that deal without his help. it seems that even my turkey calling comes with a northern accent. Now, as fate would have it, six years or so later, life brought me back to my home state of Michigan,

and that was the only hunt where I was able to bring something home in Georgia. Thanks to a little help from an unwary hunting partner who seemed genuinely happy that things worked out. And according to Tobin, that's just how that happened. Well, Tobin Mites, repatriated resident of the Great Lake State, I want to thank you for sharing a great story and another fine example of southern hospitality. I also want you to know that you're the kind of Yankee all of us down south like more than any other, the ones that visit and then go back home. I'm kidding. Not really. Kidding. Not kidding. Stop it, Brent.

Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right?

That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at 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. Two years ago, my friend Michael Roseman, my coon hunting compadre, and CEO of Sun Spot Hunting Lights, solicited my turkey calling services to allow him to shoot his first turkey. Michael hunts in the Boston Mountains of Arkansas, and if you know anything about me or have paid attention, even remote attention, you'll know that I'm a flatlander by grace and by preference. The mountains are pretty to look at. However, given a choice, I usually lean toward not gallivanting around in them. Unfortunately, there's a lot of good hunting in them, and bears and turkeys are just two examples.

So when Mikey invited me, I agreed because if there's nothing better than shooting a turkey myself, it's calling the first one up for a friend or a youngan, or in this case, a friend that acts like a youngan. Rhonda, Michael's wife, will back me up on that one. Anyway, after stomping around and followed up and down the non-flat topography of Michael's turkey woods, we finally got in front of a gobbler, only to have him cruise through and strut mode just out of range of Michael's shotgun. Two years later, as I sit here reliving that hunt while telling the story, I realize I may have erred on the side of caution. I actually thought about it when that turkey walked off and I stepped it off to where he passed us, but being a terrible friend I am, I never fessed up until now.

Sorry, Mikey, but you should have shot that turkey. But hey, who's really a fault here? He was the one holding the shotgun. Fast forward to last year. We talked about it all year leading up to a turkey season, and then about a month before season started, I had to abandon my old pal for work and film a hunt out of state, leaving him to fend for himself.

He zeroed, But while he was doing that, I was off in Turkey Heaven, calling up three turkeys for three different folks in an 18-hour period, rubbing salt in the wound of my old coon hunting buddy and mentor who was striking out. We made plans again all summer, fall and winter for us to hunt the hills and hollers at his camp, and this time I was going to do my dead level best to be there for my old podna. opening day of Arkansas's 2025 spring season had me driving to Claibos to record a podcast while Michael soloed yet again in search of his first turkey. Some friend I am. To add even more calamity, it would be Thursday of the first week

before I could even go due to deadlines and other podcast-related activity. During that time, Michael had gone every day and had a lot of luck, but none of it had been good. The turkeys just weren't doing much, so with low expectations already simmered in the back of my mind, I crawled out of his side by side at our jumping-off point on the fourth day of the season, 45 minutes before daylight.

It was hot and muggy, and mosquitoes buzzed my ears. In the mountains. Now, that's not how that works. They're supposed to be in the lowlands. Whatever. this is going to be terrible, but who knows? It was my first hunt of the season in Arkansas, and I owed it to my friend to try,

regardless of how futile I thought it was going to be. We went to a new spot and split up to listen on different ridges with the plan of meeting back in the middle. We heard one and discussed where we'd heard it and come up with a plan of attacking how to really put it together to get after that turkey. Perfect plan, if a turkey goes. gobbles. It did not. I covered the 200 yards pretty quietly walking down a dozed road that

followed along the top of the ridge to where Michael was listening from and hearing nothing as well. Michael asked, well, what do you do when you don't hear anything right off? I said, well, the only thing we can do is walk and call a little bit here and there and hope to fire one up. But man, I'm telling you, I'm not seeing any turkey sign, and I didn't. But hey, I wasn't leaving any tracks either. But the lack of scratching is what I'm. had me feeling like we'd gar-hold ourselves. We were pretty much limited to where we were because our buddy Josh was hunting the spot where we'd hunted two years ago,

which was the only spot I'd ever turkey hunted with Michael on, and the one I thought we were going to this morning. And when we didn't, I assume that was just another nail in the coffin of this hunt that I'd buried really before it had time to get started good. We walked and called a couple times and had no response. The air was thick and muggy and still, and you really couldn't hear that far away. We were a quarter of a mile from where we'd started, and Michael said, I'm going to owl and just see what happens.

He did. And what happened was a turkey gobble back at him no more than 150 yards away. Now, there was no one in the Boston Mountains on April the 24th of 2025 any more surprised to hear a turkey gobble than my dad's baby boy. That's the great thing about turkey hunting. Expectations that can go from famine to feast in a matter of moments. And we were plenty close to call to him, and the woods were pretty open, meaning we needed to get sat down pretty quick and get ready.

This might not take long. The biggest red oak I think I've ever seen in the hills was right in front of us. I put Michael on the 12 o'clock side facing the turkey, and I sat down on the 9 o'clock side. Now, believe it or not, kids, watches, you see. to have hands on them that pointed at numbers and people could call out positions of things they wanted others to see by imagining the face of a clock and then referencing the numbers as to the direction they were talking about. Something straight ahead was at 12. Over to the right was

three. Straight behind us was six and to the left it was nine. It was simple and very effective. Michael got comfortable and propped his shotgun up on his knee. I grabbed my son. I grabbed my slate and let out the most seductive soft yelps and clucks I may have ever done not to get any response. I wasn't expected that. But this is turkey hunting and anyone that's done it knows there are a number of things that can happen when you call it a goblin turkey and only one of them is good. It's like Vince Lombardi, the Hall of Fame football coach at the Green Bay Packers talking about football, by passing a football. He said there's three things that can happen when you throw the ball, and two of them are bad. Well, the same thing kind of applies to throwing calls at

turkeys, and in our case, nothing happened. As far as we knew nothing happened, because he didn't answer, and after 10 minutes, we didn't see him walking up towards us. Now, Michael isn't known for patience. As a matter of fact, he's famous for not having any. He ain't coming, I heard him whisper, shut up. You don't know that. But after another 15 minutes, another series of calls chunked in his general direction, I was thinking to myself, he ain't coming. But I was trying to keep Mikey in the game by not getting discouraged. Patience is a virtue, Mikey. Either he didn't hear me or he chose to ignore me, something that he ain't vaccinated against for sure. If he'd only listen to me, there's no telling how smart he'd be by now. But anyway, I had to be. I had to

to come up with a plan. So I told him I was going to slip back behind us away from the turkey and see if I could get a gobble out of him to kind of see where he was. That joker wouldn't even give us a courtesy gobble. I needed to move anyway. I know a lot of people that have talent. My wife, for instance, has a beautiful singing voice. Reed Bargeneer could show Billy Joel a thing or two on the piano. Kelsey Morris can out paint Rembrandt. And me, my talent is my legs going to sleep and finding sharp rocks with my behind when I'm turkey hunting. I challenge anyone. I started to get up but had to wait for the sparkly outgies as they're known at our home to leave and some motor control to return to my right leg. And while I sat there waiting for that

to happen, I look back to pick out a spot where I was going to call from back behind me. And that's where I saw the Jake step out into the road 75 yards away. Don't move, Michael. Jake at six o'clock standing in the road. He was looking directly at me. I hadn't called it over 50 minutes, but that rascal knew exactly where that call had come from. And then a gobbler stepped out behind him. Gobbler standing with him now, Michael. I could only assume Michael was hearing me.

I'm not sure he and I could have reached around that tree we were sitting beside. It was that big. I was facing away from him and trying not to spook the turkeys that were looking. directly at me. So I was talking extra quiet. I just kept repeating myself, hoping he'd hear me. They started straight force coming down that road just like we had and stopped at 35 yards. My shotgun was laying in my lap.

Sorry, Michael, but as soon as that Joker gives me an opportunity, I'm going to karate chop him with this double barrel because this is fixing to get real Western here in just a minute. The Jake was leading the stroll and at the last moment they angled off to the right which if they kept that same track would bring them directly in front of me but better yet they'd pass behind a fallen tree and I'd be able to get Michael lined up on them Michael they're moving around in front get your gun ready they're going to be right in front of me I got my finger in my ear and you'll be shooting safe but you've got to move right now I can see Michael getting ready out of the corner of my eye he's was pointed just right and I could easily see it was going to be plenty safe for him to shoot. The turkeys took forever to come out from behind that log and when they did, they were still in the same order, the Jake first and then the gobbler. Shoot the one on the left. The one on

the left? Yes, the first was the Jake. Shoot the last one. Even though they kept coming, they were starting to skirt us a little bit and I'm sure due to the fact that they couldn't see the hen that was supposed to be there. The Jake fired him. finally stopped and clucked a couple times and his body language suggested he was about to blow out of there. I started purring with my mouth called and they both stretched their necks out looking like they'd just seen behind the curtain as to how the magician was doing the trick and bam! Michael turned the lights out at Casa de Gobler. It was a pretty good poke too, but that joker never flopped. Michael was standing on his head in a matter of moments, but his rush to pin him.

down was unnecessary. I took out my range finder and measured from where I stood to where Michael was eyeballing the first wild turkey he'd ever sent across the river Jordan, 51.2 yards with a 4-10. I wouldn't have believed it, but I saw it with my own peepers. Michael had patterned that shotgun multiple times and knew the limitations of what it could and couldn't do. That was turkey, numerals. Ouno for my old buddy.

But it probably should have been number two. He was to open a 12 gauge two years ago and that turkey wasn't near as far as this one. Well, now you know, Mikey. I'm off from Missouri and hopefully

we'll have another turkey story or two to tell you when I get back. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a 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 backwards. 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 two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.