Bear Grease - Ep. 367: Render - Artist and Outdoorsman Duane Hada

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

In this episode of the Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb is joined by Bear Newcomb and Josh “Landbridge” Spielmaker for a conversation with renowned Arkansas artist and fly fisherman, Duane Hada. Together, they dive into Duane’s deep-rooted love for the natural world, his artistic journey, and his passion for chasing smallmouth bass in the wild waters of the Ozarks. 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. So we've got a few things that we've got to do, Dwayne, right off the top, that I usually always forget to the end. But welcome to the Bear Grues Render.

We are, there's a meat eater live tour that's coming up. A couple of housekeeping things we've got to talk about first. Meat eater live tour coming in December. Tickets go on sale next week. Oh, really? Yes, tickets go on sale next week. When do they announce the dates, do you know? Any insider trading info on that?

Next week, which would be in the 20s of September, whenever that week is. Okay. And we're going to Birmingham, Nashville, Tennessee, Birmingham, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee, Fayetteville, Arkansas, which Barry Newcomb's going to be one of our guests. And there's another secret guest that we're not going to. to say who's going to be there that I promise you you're going to be glad is there and uh Dallas Texas and Houston Austin Austin so seven seven cities seven nights in a row and if you go to the media dot com slash tour you can sign up for an email that will allow you to get first dibs at

the tickets that's the way this works so you know at some point they'll just go on sell to the general public and you can just go and buy them. But if you go to that Meteeter, the Meteor.com slash tour, put your email in there. They'll send you a deal where you can order them before. And I really think a lot of these shows are going to sell out. Yeah, I agree. So it's in the Meteor Live Tour, we've done it several years and it's really fun. Steve Renella, Yons Pettelis, myself.

Randall and Brent Reeves. Did I say Brent already? No. And every place has a special guest. And it's like a variety show. There's going to be music. There's going to be trivia. We're going to give away a bunch of stuff.

There's going to be storytelling. There's going to be audience participation and contests. It's a hoot. It's a hoot. We've done it all over the country. And it's a ton of fun. And they're all different. Everyone's different.

But I'm very, very much so believing that the South is going to come in strong. The South Horizon again. Strong. What's that? The South Horizon. again. I didn't say that, but the South will dominate the al-hooting contests that we have. Typically, we have an al-hooting contest.

I haven't heard that we're going to do that, so I'm speculating. Here's my question for you. What city is going to have the best al-hooters? I think Texas won't, but all the others will. Somewhere in Tennessee would be my guess. I'd say Alabama and Tennessee. Faddle Arkansas will be just It'll be at the lower tier of southern states

Wow It will, man I mean It's a real kick in the shin But it's just the truth I mean I'm I'm uh

Arkansas is I mean we're like We're like In this part of Arkansas Like pretty close to not being in the south I mean it's just the truth As much as I hate to say it It is true

It is true And And our turkey population For the last decade Almost a half generation Has been so low that I think fathers aren't teaching their kids out of Al Hoot. Wow.

It's hard. Now, I taught my son how to Al Hoot. That's right. Yep. So that's just my prediction. I mean, we're going to be way better. Like, we last year, we were in, like, San Diego, Sacramento, Portland, Boise. And I was at the show in California, in Anaheim.

Anaheim, California. And the Al-Hooting contest was pretty abysmal. I mean, listen. I love those people so much. And it's kind of like asking, it would kind of be like if somebody, you know, came to. No offense to the Anaheimers. This part of Arkansas and was like, who's really good at playing soccer?

And we were like, well, we don't really play a lot of soccer. Or, you know, my generation. And it would be like, well, kick this ball and let's see how you do it. And it's like, well, we don't really do that. That's kind of what it's like going out there asking them to Al-Hoot. You know? Right. But I would, I would, my prediction that the, that the worst Al Hooter at those places would

probably win in any of those cities out there. Yeah. But it's not their fault. It's not a character. It's not a character judgment. But so looking forward to the meat eater live tour. White Till we. A couple of, I'm going to, I can't wait to introduce my guests.

I'm hoping out. I'm afraid you're going to point at me and say, give you your best bar down. I'm over, I'm over here shaking. shaking like I have done them and I've been up whoa you talk about an introduction well okay we're going to get to that we're going to get to your bardal hoot Dwayne Heda um hey this white tail week is coming up at meat eater josh when is meat eater's white eater week September 29th through October 5th great I want to show you the new look at this man this is this is really cool this is this is the new and improved acorn grunner from Phelps.

I truly believe it's the best deer call ever made, but it's made out of Osage this year. Oh, for real. Yeah, yeah. So it's a, it's a dual call. It's a buck grunt and a dough bleed and one call, inhale, exhale. That's what I asked Jason to make three years ago. First year, we made them out of oak, which is the only year we're ever going to do it.

They'd be like, they're like. Collectors edition. Yeah, man. and the oak was a little bit unstable. Oh. And then we made one out of, uh, uh,

there was an acrylic model. We made one that was acrylic. And I really like the acrylic one. I mean, it's a lifetime call, but the sound was a little different. Yeah. This,

this year we went to Osage, burnt Osage. So it's, you know, they, they, they burn it and then it's got just a, like a matte finish on it.

But, uh, and so you can, that's slick. If you, if you blow, I mean, you know, there's one side where you blow grunt, suck for a bleat. You flip it around and it's opposite. Blow for a bleat, suck for a grunt.

And, you know, you can adjust the reeds and everything. Can you adjust the reeds on both? Yeah, yeah, you just take it apart. Check that out. And adjust the reeds. And, I mean, that's pretty common amongst deer calls there. But would you say that if you don't have that call, you probably won't kill a deer this year? No, no.

There's a lot of great calls out of that. there. I'm not even going to go that low. It's just like anything. It's just like duck hunting. It's just like turkey calls. I mean, a lot of grunt calls will call in a deer. This is just a cool call. One thing I just noticed about that call. Hold that up for a second. Is that you can put the lanyard on either side so it dangles so that it's a predictable when you pick it up. That's right. That's that's the idea. Good point, Josh, is that you, you basically, you basically, Basically, we thought about putting like a word on either side so you would know, but it was just a little complicated. You just make the call adjusted the way you want.

So if you want your lanyard on like the... So when you blow it... Blow grunt side, you know. But I use a doughbleed all the time. Like guys always talk about grunt calls. I've called him way more deer with a dough bleat. I personally have just the way that I'm hunting. And I'm also oftentimes in the early season trying to call in a dough to shoot her.

And so a buck grunt on October 1st to a dough is not most likely going to be that appealing to her. But, man, you, you bleated a dough out there at 50, 60 yards on October the 1st around here. Fair chance she's going to come check you out. I don't know if you know this, but October the 1st happens to fall during meat eaters, white-tail week. Are you sure? The burnt osage looks good on that. Doesn't that look good? It looks really nice.

Well, this is a great time to introduce our guest, Dwayne Haida, from. Yaleville, Arkansas. Sir, glad to be here. Yeah, it's nice to meet you. This is the first time that we've met, but you know my dad. I do, I do. From way back in my days of Mina. Okay.

Do we have this right? The right person and everything. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah. I taught school down to Mina down there and loved it and knew of your dad anyway. Okay. And then you've met Bear in recent years. Yes, I have.

What an introduction. You've got a fine young man there. I tell you, he's helped me with the boys that I do. do with my group and I love seeing youth that are on purpose and and got skills and easy my pleasure man well so give me give me a general introduction of what you do I know you have well I'm going to I'm going to let Josh do that Josh how would you introduce Dwayne Hayden to somebody that Dwayne Hayda is a fly fisherman, an artist, a mentor. I know his son-in-law, so he's a great father-in-law.

I mean, just a, he's a Renaissance man. He's an outdoor renaissance man. Traditional archer. Traditional archer. I love that. Traditional archer. Yeah, that's how I would introduce Dwayne Hayda. Just an incredible artist.

We have a beautiful rainbow trout license plate for the state of Arkansas. he made that piece of our work for our license. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything. So, yeah. So you're, but you live on the White River a couple hours. I actually live closer to the Buffalo River, but my, I have a business, which is Rivertown Gallery. That's my art studio, and I have a gallery.

It's open to the public, and that's in the mountain home area near the White River. Okay. But I'm very familiar with the White River and all, but my home is tucked out on what to call Pendleton Ridge, which is down near Rush, Arkansas. kind of going down Highway 14 south. Okay. It's a 35 mile drive to town every day, but I love it. Okay.

So town for you is Mountain Home? Yelville, really. Yeah, yeah. I'm closer to Yelville, but my business is in Mountain Home just because there's people in Mountain Home. There's not very many people. So what have you done, what have you done career-wise? You've told us your teacher.

I started off. I do have a degree in art education from UCA, and my first teaching position was in Meena, Arkansas, and I stayed there almost five years. What years were you there? 1981 to 85, I think, or something like that. Or 85, anyway, early, early age, yes. And loved it. That's a, if I didn't live where I live now, I'd probably live back down there.

I love it because it's so wild and access to the mountains and things that I love, anyway. But I got, you know, I've always been an outdoorsman, an angler, and fly fishing was something that was just big and, my life and loved it. And so I got an opportunity. I was teaching some fly fishing classes for Rich Mountain Community College of all things. And so these guys from Fort Smith were coming down, taking the class from me. And they were opening a business up here in Fort Smith, and they kind of dangled a carrot in front of me.

He said, how much do you want to teach the rest of your life? You want to do what you really love to do. And gave me an opportunity. And I have an understanding why. She said, I'll go anywhere that. that you feel God's leading you, but make sure. And so I jumped and took it, and it's all made a difference. And so I...

What was that business? The business was of actually being a fly fishing guide. I worked in Hebrew Springs, Arkansas. And then we'd go back and forth between Fort Smith, and I'd do a lot of work with that group there. And then eventually we came on up to the White River, and I guided heavily there for years anyway. about 32 years as a professional fly fishing guide.

But along the way, I always did my art. But it was kind of interesting how my guiding was here. My art was just kind of for a few clients and that type of thing. And then as I've gotten older and everything, the flyfish guiding business has kind of switched. And the art business has really taken off. And that's just been an amazing blessing for me to be able to make my living with what I love to do. And my son-in-law now is really taking over the guiding aspect. And he's young and he's energetic.

good at it. So it's been an amazing, couldn't have scripted it better for what I do anyway. But art and fly fishing, those two things as far as for the income. And, you know, but everybody always says, you know, the definition of a successful artist is an artist whose spouse has a good job. You know, so thank God my wife was teaching school and, you know,

because it's not easy. I mean, it's, you know, there, but I am blessed to, I think now, not that I've, arrived or anything, but at least it's making a good living for me, and I enjoy that, and I feel very blessed to it. Describe your art to us. Well, my art is my passion. So if you know me in the hunting and the fishing and being an Ozarks boy, and that's, you know, I had a professor in college, he said, never waste your time painting what you don't

have a passion for. And that makes a lot of sense, because I did a commission painting for somebody other day, and he wanted a duck hunting scene, and I'm like, I'm not duck hunting right now, and, you know, Now, if you told me in January to do it and everything, I'd probably have my full soul and passionate to it. So I paint for me. If I, like driving up here, I see these beautiful mountains. I got here early. I walked up down West Fork on the white and everything and just seeing the way the lights playing on the water and watching some small mouths swim around and various things.

So I start getting that building concept and inspiration within me. And I can't rest until I paint it out. So those are my best paintings is when it comes from truly, me. That's my artistic voice. My artistic voice, when you come in my gallery, it shouldn't take you long to figure out who Dwayne Hayde is. He likes Smallmouth Bass. He likes the Ozark Mountains. He likes

the birds and the deer and the wildlife and things like that. So I paint what I know because you're going to paint best what you know and what you have a passion for. You're going to put your soul into that. Would you say that the paintings that I've seen of yours, which I've certainly not seen all

of them, but they're big, they're color, They're at least your fish. Yeah. It feels like they're really zoomed in to like. I mean, you might have a, I've been painting a lot wide and have a like the whole image be of the fish.

Not like a fish jumping out of the water with the big landscape. I mean, maybe that's just a bias of what I've seen. And I kind of go through stages, I guess you might say. I've got everything from very small paintings to huge murals that I'm doing a lot of now on big buildings. So 60, 70 foot. by 20 foot, you know.

So, but as far as my hanging canvas is that type of thing, I've got one down at the restaurant in Cotter, Arkansas, they commissioned me to do that's an underwater scene and it's a white, basically if you just stuck your head under the water in the White River and looked around the logs and saw Big Brown kind of holding in his little place and some rainbows, and then we have, you know, cutthroat and a few brook trout and that type of thing. So it's kind of that grand slam of trout species in the White River, and it's just sort of a little cross-section of,

of in the field of water moving and there's crawdads and sculptons and all that living environment in there. So that's a, but a lot of my paintings are above the water too. You know, I love how the mist rises off the river in the mornings and just that lone angler out there in his world. I mean, there's nothing more peaceful than being out there and just the rhythm of casting and searching for fish and in the river and that type of thing. So I identify with that.

So I paint that and then thank God, you know, customers walk through like, wow, that's connect to it. You bet. So that's that's what's going on there. You know, I saw one of your paintings that I connected to immediately was, I can't remember the name of it's like Ozark Flush or Ozark Quail Hunt. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's two guys with their backs. You can see their backs and there's a dog pointing and there's a cubby rise. But what stood out to me was the chimney.

There's an old stone chimney in the background where the home has rotted away and only the chimney remained. The reason that's meaningful to me is those are my favorite places out in National Forest and when you're on just out in the mountains and you see an old standing chimney. And just to stand there and just think who lived here? The stories they can tell. The kids that were raised here. Why did they come here? Why did they leave? How hard was their life?

I mean, it just, it's like this cascade of questions that probably will never be answered. And I, Duane, before you leave, I'm going to have to show you, I built a rock chimney on the other side of my house that sets out from my house that acts as an outdoor fire pit. But it stands alone, and it was built to look like an old home place, essentially. It was just like a hat tip to the Ozarks. I'm all about that. I love it. Yeah. I know the place in that painting, and it's amazing because a guy that walked in, you know, I love this when, you know, I've got hundreds of paintings on the wall in the gallery, but when somebody comes in, just like a bird dog going on point, you know, and when that guy looked at that painting, just started walking to it, I knew I had him, you know. And it was that he connected. I mean, he just walked right to it, took it off the wall and just, I mean, didn't he, he just like looking at it, just mumbling to himself, walked to the cash ready and just, yeah.

Didn't need a sales pitch. No, the painting sold itself. Now, that was the chimney painting. Yes, yes. Do you have reprints of that or no? I did not. I don't, you know, I feel like an original is something, I will print some because I know the market and all that. And I've got a bear print that I've did for the National Bear Festival that they do over in North Carolina.

Okay. They had me come as to artists and I painted one. So I put that in print for longevity and more affordable pieces. And I do things, you know, the VRBO business and the White River lodges is boom. So I've got Trout. paintings, you know, all over in them and those are prints, you know. But I feel like when you buy a painting,

you want, it's like buying a homemade bow or something. You know, you want to re- You bet. That's surprising to me. Yeah. Because I was planning on trying to figure out how to buy a print at Ozark Covey Rise.

I can call that guy and try to get in his will. Now that I've said I like it, he'll jack the price up. Too late. Take that out. And let's get the number of that guy. Yeah. So anyway, but, I paint, you know, something has to, when it triggers me, that painting just starts building

into me and I just can't rest till I just, I just have to get in the studio and paint. Let me ask you a question. Yes, sir. There's, so art, art truly is a gifting in the very truest nature of what we conceive as a human gift, like, like personal capacity that isn't taught. It's just like either have it or you don't. but gifting can be sculpted over time and developed and grown. My question to you as how much have you progressed in your actual skill as a painter?

So how much of it is skill that was developed as a craft versus just the natural raw bone, God-given talent? I get asked that a lot and I struggle with that because I'm all about God's gifts, okay? And obviously he instilled something in my brain, my makeup, my uniqueness, that Dwayne is that five-year-old kid that couldn't leave a chalkboard alone, had to turn over his Sunday school bulletin and draw all over the back of it, had to, if it was a blank piece of paper, you know, I'd ever did coloring books. I don't know that I've ever colored in a coloring book as a kid. I always had to have a blank piece of paper to create. So there's something going on here that maybe is a little different from some of the other kids and that. Now, my mom still has some drawings I did at five or six years old, and for a five or six-year-old kid, they're pretty good, okay?

I'm a little better today, okay, because I have worked hard and I have strong passion, and I have surrounded myself with some other artists that I have fed off of to perfect my craft, okay? And all of us do that, I think. So to say, Dwayne is a prodigy born walking out, and I could paint this if I lived in a cave somewhere and never was exposed to other artists or so you do. And I'm seeing this right now. You know the young man that works with me, one of my CTO boys, Zach, an amazing artist. He never knew he could do that, okay?

But he's working with me and he's a very quiet young man, but he's always over my shoulder watching. And then one day he just like starts painting. And I'm not, whoa, and it's good. And then I start encouraging him. And so it can be taught. I feel like good drawing, realistic drawing, okay? Now, there's a lot of things out there called art today that, whatever that definition is.

But I'm into realism. I live in a real world and I feel like if you're going to paint a white-tailed deer, you'd better look like a white-tail deer, okay? Yeah, yeah. So you better know them and all those kind of things, put in the right environment and get the body and the, you know, white-tail's different than a mule deer than a black tail or heat deer and all that kind of thing. So if you're going to paint that, you need to know something about that.

And but your eye and your hand, okay, and this was what I have taught, because I taught even at ASU and Mountain Home, some drawing classes. And I'd get people come in, especially ladies that were older in life and they're like, you know, we used to always wanted to paint bad race family and all this or wanted to draw. So they'd come and take a class just as a hobby. And my goodness, suddenly it's just like putting gas to the flame. You know, it's within them. And I think there's a lot of people that is. And it's left brain, right brain function. Okay.

So if you can teach your hand to record what the eye sees, you can develop drawing technique. What you now do is you take your history, your passion, your creativeness, and put that in with it and no tell them what you can do. So it can be taught, but you've got to put that passion and soul in to really be a artist that shows his individual. you should be able to go in and look at somebody's sketchbook and immediately tell something about them. And when you come into my gallery, you're not going to see wild, weird abstracts and things like that. You're going to see Dwayne Hayda's soul out there for you to walk around in and see what I love. And I just, and I paint for myself, really. And I just hope that enough people come in that can identify that like that guy did on the quail painting of the chimney.

You know, he connected exactly just as you did. and thank goodness there's enough people out there. He just beat me to it. Yeah, he did, he did. I might could do another one. I don't know. It's hard. And people ask me, they say, well, just paint me another one.

I'm like, that's like kind of. You need a different. You need a different. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, that beautiful bow with that wood, you know, to duplicate that would, you know, because it had to be. Oh, I've got the perfect analogy, Dwayne, of what it's like. They say that a memory is actually just a recollection that. of the prior time you had that thought.

Wow. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm trying to. So you see an image, you have an experience. Right. The next time you tell that story, you're actually remembering the real thing. Wow.

But the next time you tell it, you know, there's some equation where you're actually just saying what you said before. Okay. Do you understand? I got it. And so by the time you're an old man, that's the reason stories.

get so distorted and why you might be talking to your grandpa and he tells you a story that he is adamant happened just this way and it didn't happen that way at all because because the story shifted over time yeah I mean for real that that is the genesis of many of the the myths and things that have happened is just the fallacy of our ability to recollect so painting trying to duplicate a painting would be like painting what you remembered of the painting my paintings is the moment. It's got to be an original. Yeah, I agree.

I agree. I understand. I like it. Good. Josh or Bear, do you all have any, you all know Dwayne better than me? I mean, there's plenty that we could talk about. But, but, uh, now, what were you doing with Dwayne? Bear just, bear is a grown man now.

Sure. So he, he just does stuff. He doesn't even talk to, he doesn't even tell me what he's doing anymore. He just, I just, I just see him show up and do stuff. What were you doing with Dwayne? I'm trying to think. I think, I think I was over there. with Kyle

Are you remembering the actual memory? No. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We weren't small mouth fishing that night and you were just. Yeah, we were night fishing with Kyle V with the Ozark podcast. Oh, okay, with the Ozark podcast.

So you met him to Ozark. Was that our first meeting? I think. Yeah. Fly fishing, I hope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We were night fishing. No spinning and sinning. I had a guy. I had a guy leave a comment this week on one of the podcasts and he said, he said, he said, um, he said, using a baking. castor or spinning rod is akin to your preacher telling you the gospel using a fly rod is like the lord jesus telling you about himself oh wow wow what an analogy you know 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 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. If you go back to my, I got a fly rober when I was nine years old, okay, living in Boone County, Arkansas, flyfish, Crooked Creek and Bear Creek all the time.

And I didn't know anybody that fly fish. There was one old man in our community that had done a little bit. But he also told me before spinning rods, that's how everybody in the Ozarks fished. If you go look at those old photos up at Bass Pro Shop and that type of thing in those old John boats, there are a lot of them fly rodding. And they used to have, there's some old Ozark lures for fly rods, like the Hillbrandt spinner with a pork rind on the back of a Holly Grove. That was an Ozark, you know, that was very effective. and the water hag.

Okay. Is it supposed to be a, the other one you said, was it supposed to be a crawdad? No, it's just a big, it's basically like what we use is spinner bait today. You know, it's just something that made vibration and noise and movement. Okay.

You know, they just hit it out of reflex more than anything. But down the Washtas, the old timers down there, that's where I came and learned what a water hag was. And it was, and the old float tubers, you know, down on the Costa Tott and Mountain Fork River. They all fish with a water hag,

or they'd use live grasshoppers, Now what is a water hag? A water hag is basically it was like a foam long bug with rubber bands sticking out the side of it. It's just basically a top water. Probably ate it for a big grasshopper or something like that. I'm going to name a mule that. Water hag. That would be good water hag.

Yeah. That was and people still use them anyway. But anyway, for me, so for fly fishing, you know, you, you know, river ran through it and all that. And, you know, and I worked in the fly fishing industry. and there's a whole, I guess I can say, it's sort of a yuppie crowd that, you know, wanted the image, the Orvis image or whatever, and that's great, more power to them,

and they're out there and they're doing their thing. I came at it totally as an artist, okay, because I remember in fifth grade sitting there looking at Field and Stream magazine or Outdoor Life it was back then and seeing these beautiful pictures of these Colorado mountains and everything catching these beautiful native cut throats and everything. And so I'd go down to Crooked Creek with a fly rod that I got for my ninth birthday.

My parents, like, they called an uncle of ours that lived up in Michigan, like, what the boy wants a fly rod, what's a fly rod, you know, and they found one and got it to me. me. And, of course, it came with no instruction. I beat the water to a froth in front of me and behind me and everything. But I was determined to fish that way because as an artist, you know, I'd pick up fox squirrels that I'd shot and my mom's chickens and wrap feathers and, you know, and it was cool to

me to make something to go out and trick a fish with it, you know. Now, I still fished with crawdeds and men of them. because I wanted to learn, and I had an older brother, and I had to beat him, you know. So there was some of a handicap, you know, somewhat with fly fishing. But as I got older, the confidence level and the skill levels, and as I got around other wonderful flyfishers, Dave Whitlock came into my life, and my goodness, what a mentor for me with his amazing skills and others. And just never wanting to not learn. Every time the river, every day, the river teaches you something.

if you let it. And so I just absorbed everything. But for me, fly fishing was just the art, kind of like traditional shooting at bow. It's just smooth. It's fun. It's pure. That's what fly fishing is for me.

So I don't come at it from a status. I come at at it from more of an artist and the satisfaction. Okay. I've caught fish every way you can imagine. Okay. From noodling to limb lines to snagging, whatever. Okay. and it's all fun and it all produces.

But there's nothing as satisfying as catching, at least for me. And a lot of people, that's why they identify with fly fishing. There's a certain piece about it, but there's also that satisfaction in coming with tricking a fish with an artificial, especially one that you made. And then the rods are just so vibrant. It's a visceral feeling. It is. There's something spiritual almost about it.

I don't know. It's just a different type of fishing. But you can gain and push your skill level. I've been very lucky. My fly fishing has allowed me. I had a business at one time where I was able to travel and put together. I have literally fished in a lot of places all around the world for a lot of different species, saltwater species and some of the famous places in Europe and even places like that.

It allowed me to coach the U.S. first youth fly fishing team. And I'm a silver medalist, you know, the first silver medalist anyway. In the U.S. Yes. In the Olympics? Yes. There's an Olympic fly fishing? Well, it's its own Olympics.

It's called the Phipps-Moosh fly-fishing world tournaments, anyway, that they hold in different countries. The first time that I did this, we were in the country of Wales, and then we went to Ireland. And it was amazing. So it's been... Now, is that what took you around the world, fly-fishing? Yes, yes. It was coaching this team. That was part of it in just working through businesses, anyway.

It's kind of a trip host. I advertise trips and go. I can't afford to do all that. So you get a group of people that can go, and that's how you get to go. So it's been awesome. I've been to Christmas Island a couple times, way almost to Australia,

I've fly fished in England and Wales and Ireland. Is there, okay, if you asked me this question as a hunter, I could come up with an answer, even though it wouldn't be perfect. if you could tell about one one fish you caught anywhere in the world, which one would you tell you? It's the only story you get for the rest of your life. I've got two.

I knew it. I knew he's going to do that too. And the reason, okay, one of them, I took some guys to Belize one time, and they have a rare genetic, it'd be like a piebald deer or a black squirrel or something like that. That's pretty rare. They have something that are called a golden bonefish, and they figure it's probably one in five thousand bone fish. And the lodge that I went through,

they would give you a free trip if you caught one. And I caught one. And it was amazing, okay? And it's like the normal bonefish, but it's like you dipped him in a champagne gold, orangish coloration. Wow. Really interesting.

Very unique. But they didn't give me a free trip because I was hosting that trip. And they said, well, your trip's already free. They wheeze a lot. They wheeze a lot of everywhere. could. But I went back again the next year and took some people. So that was kind of unique. Now, what country was that in? Belize. Belize. So it's an ocean fish. Yes, but it's in shallow water. That is the most

hunting of fishing because you are stalking. And if you step wrong and you make a wrong step, they're gone. I mean, they're in shallow water to avoid sharks and they're feeding with their tails up. So you're looking for, you can see a spot and stock. You would love it. Everything spot and stock and you've got to be a good caster, you've got to hit about a foot in front of them, and usually at some distance. So it's, it's a skill builder. And when you hook them, it's about like trying to stop a car out here on the freeway. My son-in-law is from Antigua, and I did some fishing in Antigua and hooked a couple of

them just couldn't get them to the boat. Well, they break your line. Yeah, they just take off and, I mean, they'll pull a boat. You know, they're about this big. But they're built for speed. Yeah. They have a big forked tail. Bonefish.

Bonefish. Yeah, basically. A non-melinous. Melan, or well. Reverse melanism, probably. What's that word? Albinistic or? There's a word for it anyway.

That's kind of unique when it lacks the melanism. Anyway, the other one is just, you know, good old home Buffalo River. I'm hoping. I actually said I hope his second one is something. It's always going to be the Buffalo River. Flip palette just passed away. And Dave Whitlock just passed away not too long ago. Great.

You're talking about the Mount Rushmore fly fishing. These are two chiseled faces. that will be there. And they were people, especially Dave Whitlock, very dear in my life anyway. And he wrote one time in Fly Fisherman magazine

that people asked him that question. And greatest, you know, and I don't want this to sound bragging or whatever, but he said his favorite fishing experience would be the lower Buffalo River

Wilderness area with a fly rod and having me paddle that canoe down there with him. Oh, wow. Wow. That's special. That is special. But so I got to do that

with my son-in-law and a dear friend of mine Ben Levin, who's a flypishing guide, who guided with me when he was 14 years old. And he's from over here in the Mulberry region, where he grew up. And great young man. And so we're together on this float trip. And this very first bend in the river down there. And I've got a fly that I tied and I've got it down deep around a boulder.

And all of a sudden it gets solid. And then I come up and I don't know what's a good. And that broad's just dancing around the front of the boat around. And I'm like, and all of a sudden it shoots up right in between our two canoes. and this mental picture of this 20-inch golden-brown, you know, I tried every way to make him four pounds, and he wouldn't. But he's, in my mind, he's four, but he's big. It's a big fish around here.

You bet. And when I got my hands on that thing, I just shook, like, holding a big buck, you know, by the horns. Because, I mean, that was my life right there, and to do that in front of two young men that they always want to catch one like that. And I did it, you know, I was the stud for that day. You know, and I got to look at that. And just to hold that fish.

And I thought, man, you're going to kill it if you don't. But just to look it in the eye and just think everything it took for that small amount to go from fried to, you know, that biologists tell me that fish was probably a minimum of 16 years old. You know, they live long lives. A lot of people don't understand them with smallmouth bass, how fragile. I'm really working with a gaming fish now trying to just let with the biologists and everything because they need to make regulations if we're going to. to have big small mouth in numbers. We kill them off faster than they can grow as the simple thing. So we need to be very protective.

So I eased him back in and what a great, I mean, my soul just went with that fish as he went down in the rocks. And I just pulled back and I said, I'm done. We got a three-day trip. I said, you boys, you know, I'll paddle the canoe. And no one else caught quite. That's great. They caught some 17 inches, but nobody came close on that whole trip.

Anyway, three-day lower buffalo. So that fish will always be etched in my. What year was that? It's been about five years ago. So, yeah, fairly recent. Yeah. Oh, that's a great, that's a great story. Yeah.

So of all the places I've been, I think, you know, they say there's no place like home. You can't take the Ozarks out of the boy, you know. And that's, to me, I think we have some of the beautiful, most beautiful and unique fishing, you know, that you can have probably anywhere right here in the Ozarks. So give me one last day, I'll probably, you know. stay home. I'll stay home. It's pretty good. Duane's also an incredible fly tire. I've got a story. I fish the the Odyssey. So there's a fly fishing tournament where it's an all-species tournament.

The goal is to catch the most number of species. And Dwayne hate it. It makes everyone look like a joke when he competes in this thing. Oh, yeah. I heard about it. I fished that. And then for my daughter's 16th birthday, we did a family trip to Hawaii. Oh, wow. And we went to Kauai. and I wanted to do some fly fishing out there. And so I called a guide and I said, I'd really like to go bone fishing. He said, well, the bone fishing's not real great right now, but we can go small mouth fishing.

And I said, small mouth fishing in Kauai? And he's like, sure. You can trout fish in Hawaii. I said it up. My wife and I had to go fly fish. Now mind you, this is like three days after the Odyssey. And we meet the guide, super nice guy. We trek through the jungle.

We're standing in front of this probably 120 foot waterfall in this deep pool. beautiful and he pulls out the fly rod and he hands it to me and he reaches in his fly box and he pulls out a fly and ties it on and I look at it and I said is that a Heda Creek crawler? Oh my goodness. And it goes yeah man this fly is awesome. I said I just fished with Dwayne Hayda three days ago. He's like are you kidding me? Would he have bought that from Dwayne or did he make it? It's a production fly. I sold the rights to that fly several years ago to I have a I have a royalty pattern out there that they I get a check every so often when they you know it's not a whole lot yeah so I'm in I'm in kawaii the guide's tying on a hay to creek crawler and I just hate a creek crawl that's a good name yeah you know

where that fly was first tied in the art classroom in mina high school with tim strother is that right he was one of my students he would come in during his lunch period and I kept a fly tying bench set up in there and I would use this an art instructional thing and I'd have boys that come in to eat their lunch and watch me tie flies and I would teach them there. And Tim Strother was one of those young men. But the very first ever Creek Crawler was designed right there in that. Wow. And it was your design.

Yes. Oh, yes. I've tied a few, I've tied a few myself that look horrible. I just wish they didn't take so long to tie one. They're very intricate. There's some guys out there. Keith Reeves. Keith Reeves.

He's the man. Someday I'll tie. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He ties him. Oh, yeah. He ties them. Brandon Bells and my son-in-law probably tie three of the best ones, you know, if you want an artistic one.

I mean, anybody can tell you one that'll catch a fish, you know, but, but they're, yeah, they take it to another level. Every time I hear the name Keith Reeves, which I've never actually met Keith Reeves, but he seems like a wonderful person. He is a wonderful person. Maybe he'll hear this. I feel bad, though, because one time I took a photograph of Bear Newcomb when he was just a little boy leading a mule across a stream. We were hunting. And Keith Reeves, we were kind of internet buddies, and he goes, hey, where did you take that? That looks like a good place to fish. I know you're not a big fisherman, Clay. And I wouldn't tell him where I would tell him there was.

That's good. Sorry, Keith. He would be there tomorrow. Well, no, no. I know Keith very well, and I have to keep some secrets too. I feel better. He will be there. I feel better.

I mean, I wouldn't have invited him fishing there. Like, we've never fished there one time of my life. but I was like, I'm going to have to keep that one on the down low. And if anybody understands that and respects that, he is Keith. He is a passionate voice. He has become the Ozark Small Mouth Bias Alliance spokesperson.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, he's got a great kind of where I don't want to say I've burned out because I haven't. But Keith has the technology time and all to keep that alive because we have to. There are a lot of people, if I can even get on any stump here at all, it would be the fact that small mouth bass in Ozark and Wachita streams. That's like the region from south of St. Louis all the way down into Oklahoma and down even into the Washhtaws. And I know you've done podcasts and everything on this, but there are definitely three distinct

subspecies of smallmouth bass that we have only in this region. That right there is worthy of protection. And we can't just keep treating them like skillet food. I love to eat fish. People like, oh, you're one of those. I'm like, no, no, no, no. we were eating gator tail and bass and catfish down Louisiana last week. So I love to eat fish.

And I'll eat you as you can see in any fish fry, okay? I'll belly up to the, and I'll get after it. So that's not what it is. It's about the fact if you want to continue to have them in numbers and quantity and size of any kind of sport fishery, you must have some conservation in there. And the way the current regulations are written, we will catch the, them out and we will kill them off faster than they can grow. They are so slow growing.

Why wouldn't the gaming fish be like instantly responsive to that? It's a, they're better than they were. Okay. I've served on the Smallmouth Bass Task Force back in the 90s and I helped write the regulations that we now have, which is a two fish, 14 inch minimum in blue ribbon streams. And we put one 18 inch trophy status on like the lower buffalo and I think part

of the Washington hall had that and, few other streams that will grow trophy size small mouth. There's more of us out there nowadays than there were then doing it. They still had what I think is a very archaic old regulation in the wash towel is you can keep outside the blue ribbon streams for 10 inch small mouth. Well, 10 inch small mouth. I mean, once you fillet that, you got a fish stick. They're worth more than that.

That fish alive part of the system, a spawner. you know if you want to fish a stream if you put a group of guys ahead of you men of fishing crawded fishing and keeping fish I'll guarantee you the damage they can do will take years to replace it will take years to replace I just wonder who you ever fished out stream okay I just came from your wonderful hole here in town yeah that probably has had pressure for hundreds of years yeah and I was so excited to see a few small mouse swimming around there but I'd love to run through there with some biologists and get an idea of just what is that fish count in there and what does the population look like?

I don't, it's, it had a feel that it's been pretty heavily used over years. And the only way it can ever recover, if it will, is through some very serious smallmouth bass do not respond to regs as fast as like bass largemouth in a lake or in a farm pond or anything. They're just too slow growing. There's too many factors against them. Like, just because they try to spawn. It's a smaller system. It's colder probably. They say only one and every three years do we get a successful recruitment of small mouth.

It's a successful spawn. And there's just so many of us out there. The boom of kayaking and fishing and then the game and fish is open up accesses on places that, you know, and then advent of all these VRBOs, all of them are on a beautiful stretch of Ozark and Washedaw waters. So everybody comes in. And so there's no secrets places anymore. Except that place I got. Oh, you hold that deer, man, and release cotton mouths in there, too.

Okay, that helps. Yeah, yeah. And that's where the Black Panther, that's the last place he lives. Man, hey, I am, I, it's, if there was a fish, I was passionate about fishing, it would be smallmouth. And, I mean, in the last 20 years, I haven't done a lot of them. But I grew up, I grew up smallmouth fishing. Yep. Oh, yeah.

And I have a ton of respect for that fish. And it's, now, I'm not. deep into that culture, but it's surprising to me that people would have any trouble just like turning back every small mouth they caught. And I would be like so for that because I understand it. I mean, if you just listen, you understand it. I take my grandson, my son-in-law, he is so passionate about small mouth now. And he's come to live back in this area. And I take him to places that I fish when I was a kid. And we'll see a few here and there. And I'm like, you don't realize how crazy good this used to be, you know, 50, 60, 100 fish days, you know.

Wow. And then like the canopy is gone because they've gravel-minded to death or they've over-cattled the pastures around it. Just all kinds of habitat destruction. Right. And there's a few small mouth here and there hanging on and they think it's still pretty good. And I'm like, you have no idea how good it was and how rapidly it declined. And then I've got my grandson.

And I'm like, what will he ever get to experience? Yeah. So that's the passion driving me there. Yeah. And it's in all types of wildlife. You know, we're consumers of wildlife. We hunt, you know, and everything. But we're the best conservationists, too.

We are because we have the passion for it and we want to see it survive, you know, definitely. Well, we need to talk about Ishi for a minute. Oh, man. So, yeah, on these bear grease renders, we typically take a little bit of time to talk about the podcast that just came out. And so last week, we came out with this podcast on Issue. We titled it The Last Stone Age Man. Yeah.

And this is also where I kind of give a behind the scenes from, you know, kind of like this polished podcast. But I want to say that when I first started, well, before I started Barry Grays, when I was asked by the company to write out 26 mock episodes. because we make 26 bear grease propers a year, right? Yep. Every other week. So 26. And they said,

okay, well, if you're going to do this podcast, write out 26 things you're going to do. Yeah. And the first five, I would say, was Ishi. Wow. I mean, so I've known about this story for a long time. Yet, it took me five years

to finally pull the trigger on the story. And part of that was just, there was no rhyme or reason. I just always knew that, like, At some point, I'm going to talk about Ishi at some point. But then it became, it was more difficult than we anticipated finding experts. Yeah, yeah. It really was.

Now, Gene Hopkins was incredible. Yeah. We typically like to have one or two expert guests. So you kind of get like two angles of the same story from maybe experts and different, just different viewpoints coming into it. But were you familiar with Ishi? I had read the book about him. I knew of him, and we owe everything in archery that we know today pretty much back to that. I think I do know a lot about issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's awesome. Josh, what stood out to you? Man, I think listening to Gene talk about, because I didn't know much about the history. You know, you told me about issue before, but knowing the history of about what he and the Yahoo people endured, living in the Mill Creek area there was just unbelievable.

And the fact that, you know, just the idea of them being hunted and the way they lived during the concealment, that, that blew my mind. Think of a guy who lived with three to four other family members hiding, walking on all fours to look like a bear, jumping from rock to rock, making small fires and living, you know, we, we got shows. you know, like a loan where people go out and they make it 80 days or 100 days. And we think they're one and a million. Yeah. And they've got, they've got 10 modern things with them. These people were Stone Age living out there, but also concealing themselves. So they were attempting to live as hunters and gatherers, but also as prey. And so just that what that had, what that did to his psyche. You know what I mean? the way that they had to live is a pretty

unbelievable situation. And yeah, it blew my mind. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because

it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinellillilli cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action you know what's what was i didn't really note it in the in the podcast

but most of the other tribes by that time well i mean this was this would have been the the the last of tribes that weren't on reservations or or hadn't you know people that had assimilated into kind of just American culture. I was surprised that they weren't influenced by the technology of just modern American civilization. Like they didn't have steel. Now, he did have, I mean, think about all the Eastern tribes that, I mean, even back in the 1600s were using steel points. And it might have been the 1700s by the time they were doing that. But I mean, like, these tribes were quickly inundated with some modern technologies.

But the Yahy were far enough west that, you know, that development just didn't get there until the mid-19th century. And then they were deep enough in a wild enough place that just people couldn't get to them. And so they just like stayed hyper-isolated. I thought that was the most unique thing because, you know, if they were hiding out, The more I learned the story and saw how they were just on the cusp of civilization, I mean, like, Ishi could see the trains down the valley. Like he would have run into people. You know, there were times when he was out in the woods and he would have met somebody, like those surveyors. And yet still, they didn't have any of the technologies other than Gene said that they were making stone points out of ceramics that they would find.

and then and then they were raiding people's they were raiding people's caches and and out farms and different things but they were pretty much just taking food and they probably had some degree of maybe some clothing or materials that they might have taken but like like they didn't take canned foods right which was really interesting like they would they would break in somewhere there'd be walls of canned food and they wouldn't take the canned food um But, no, I just thought that was interesting. Bear? Yeah, I thought, I've heard of Ishi a lot through, like, making bows and stone points. He comes up a lot because I think that he brought a lot of, like, primitive technology into, like, people's, like, he made stuff that people saw and, like, now people replicate a lot. like there's like a really specific style of arrow that they think came from him that he taught to to the people there and it's basically like you know it's like a two-piece arrow and the tip comes off it's like you can put like a spear fishing tip on there you can put a you know an

obsidian point on there but so i've heard a lot about issue just through a lot of the stuff like the primitive technology that he brought into the world but i'm with you it it was honestly it was kind of sad because it was just like it kind of brought to reality the actual like actually what the natives experienced whenever the Europeans came through and wiped them out yeah I mean like you always hear about like a mass genocide and you're like yeah that's terrible but whenever you actually like look at it down

to that specific of a level like to that all the way down to Ishi like he was just like this lone native like it's it's it's really sad yeah so yeah yeah yeah I thought it was an interesting interesting podcast I think that's a good analysis bear because like yeah we're all like pretty comfortable I mean just because it's the history of this country of of I mean there's no other word it's not like a harsh word to use it's just the accurate word to use a genocide I mean, you know, that word is thrown around a lot politically. Yeah. Sometimes as a thing to like, it's like the worst thing you could say.

So I'm not trying to do that, but I mean, that's just what it was. And but seeing the human, the man, not somebody that got killed that we don't know. That's just an abstract idea of a human. But like to actually see the man, Ishi. And in this next episode, we're going to see him even more. and you're going to like see how he interacted with people in his life for a very short time after he came here. Because spoiler alert, he only lived a few years after he came into San Francisco. And it's a tragic story, but it does, it puts a human.

And then the really, like the wildest part of the whole story. The wildest part of the whole story. And what this does is it humanizes the Native Americans, is that you see that this Stone Age man who would have fit perfectly in with people 10,000 years ago. I mean, he would have stepped in, me and you step into a camp 10,000 years ago in these Ozarks. Apparently people have been here for 10,000, 12,000 years. we would be pretty lost. I mean, just functionally, he would be able to do that.

But he stepped into essentially a modern society with cars, planes had flown in the air, electricity, modern vaccines. And he was a man just like us. I mean, he was, you know, I alluded to it in the final moments of the podcast where they said that he was generous and kind and relationships. and relational. He was very interested in other people. He was, everybody commented on just how kind this man was. And he wasn't embittered,

which is astonishing. Yeah. I mean, so it just, it, it, and that's what we've all, we always say,

like when you think about anthropology, and you look back into these deep stories of, of human antiquity, it's hard to imagine one of those guys being a pilot and flying a plane for Delta it's hard to imagine them coming to your house for dinner and like being your friend but they could have they were just like us yeah you know they were and and that's this like gap that's hard to span and she did that issue ishi tells that story and it'll be in the second episode it'll be like more more of that what stood out to you Duane just just in all of it if you

Well, it wasn't really that long ago. What were talking like 1911? Okay. My grandmother was born, you know, about that time. So in my mind, that makes a so, and then what I love is the fact that, you know, he, archery probably was going to die out. I mean, why would you hunt with a primitive bow and arrow when modern firearms were starting to make their advancement? The scoped rifle was starting to come in and hire. powered cartridges and the bold action rifle not too long after that and everything which is a much

more efficient way to take out a deer okay yes but yet he and saxon and you know uh like and that's why we bow hunt today you know i i much prefer even though it's a handicap in some ways i don't really think it is if you adapt your techniques and your skills to what the weapon will do but it brought about this whole rebirth or first time really for for I mean we owe so much to him for what we enjoyed to do today yeah and that's amazing to me and then it connects you I think that's what I love about traditional bow hunting it it just takes you raw back to somebody like Ishi and if he could do it maybe maybe I can none near as well but I'm gonna I'm gonna try hard you know and because they fed their families that way.

They fed, you know, as long as there was game. I mean, what I have read, you know, the books that were written on him, and they said his skills and, you know, we study gap shooting and various things. He just instinctively pulled back and knew where the arrow went and hit his mark. And then I think one of the things that I read was up until then, there wasn't a whole lot of knowledge of tracking an animal. You know, it's common today. if you strike a deer with a projectile, a bow,

and it's seldom going to just drop within sight. You know, you have a responsibility to blood trailing and tracking, and that was something that was taught, according to what I've read, you know, in the waiting period even, you know, and things like, you know, and reading there, or, you know, what kind of hit was made and those kind of things. Those are things, I think, that all go back to somebody who had that incredible knowledge and from his people for,

ever and we benefit from that today. We're carrying on a tradition, you know, and building on it. And I think that's why there's somewhat kind of a, I've never seen more of a revival. I think, Barry, you could probably talk more on this, maybe, but those two people wanting to get back into just simple, you know, draw back and let it fly, you know, with skill. And so we owe a lot to this man and his genius, you know.

and the fact that, you know, they, when they brought him in, when he came in, they found him in that, it was a cattle, sail barn type of thing or something. Yeah, yeah. Stockyard. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I guess technically he could be considered a savage entreated to such, you know, and yet somebody had compassion on him and, and, you know, and all in, and, you know, he didn't survive well. He did, but he didn't, you know, I mean, they weren't, they weren't, he was not. immune to a lot of our diseases and things.

I think that's in that what eventually overcame him and there was too much exposure to things that didn't they, didn't even travel to England at one time, or am I thinking something different? You know, I'm not sure yet. I think I read that in,

I'll hold off on that. That part hasn't been released yet. We don't know what's going to have. That was kind of celebrated him a little bit. You know, maybe I'm thinking Annie Oakley or somebody else and I don't know, but anyway, but anyway, I'm sure he was quite the,

you know, as he was put on display, you know. Yeah, he was definitely put on display. Yeah, but, yeah, what an anomaly that even showed up, you know, we'll talk about it more on this next episode, but like just the fact that, the fact that he even wandered into town was an anomaly for his tribe, his culture. I mean, there was a lot of fatalism inside of many of those tribes that they observed. and I mean

anthropologist well Crober this lady that Theodore Crober who wrote this really great book kind of the seminal book on Eish.

There's a lot of books on Ishi I think it's probably the one to read. She speculated that it was wild that he even came into town like the kind of the culture

of those people a lot of times would have been just to kind of curl up and I mean that's a pretty big projection on a culture but for him to come down

and to even be to try to get help from these people that his entire life aged 50 or so you know was trying to get help was a wild thing and then what he gave to us was yeah to be just an amazing person to be around i would love anything to you know all of us my biggest pet peeve when you know i talked a little bit earlier that you know i've put together a lot of travel trips to some pretty remote areas, Christmas Island, and I've been a few Central America fishing situations and stuff where primitive native people as our guides. And nothing is more gets on me than take clients who think of them as a second class servant guide. These men know, there is not a bird that flies, a track in the dirt that those guys,

they are such far superior to us on fishing and hunting skills in their, they're wild people, but yet they are so amazing and because they grew up in it, they had to do it. And they're there to teach you if you're smart enough to watch them and learn. And I love them. I've got great friendships. I keep up with people,

you know all over and you know they they have that wildness in them and that skills that are amazing so you know what would be interesting to know is how good ishi would have been in archery compared to everybody else because he's just yeah he's one data point out of a whole a whole a whole a whole tribe of people yeah was he just average yeah maybe what maybe they would be chuckling that he she was the one that taught us be like Ishi? Like, you should have seen, if you think Ishi was good, he couldn't hit him. You should have seen this guy.

Or if he was, I mean, you know, and per chance, maybe. I mean, the fact, I think maybe he was like the master of the greatest Yahi archer of all time is probably a stretch. He probably wasn't. He probably was somewhere in the middle. He probably was just average. So you think about that and how good he was, skilled he was at napping, making arrows, making bows, what he did. so stuff we'll never know because the language bearer that we had with him was strong enough that there was a lot they didn't get into but they had about four years with him and uh in those

four years were were you know used as documented pretty well for for the time period but well dwayne it's been a pleasure to meet you truly has thank you yeah great great to be here I feel among brothers. Yeah, well, it's great to finally meet you. And to finally talk about fly fishing. And finally talk about fly fishing. Yeah, this is the closest we've ever gotten to trout grease podcast. The Trout Greece podcast.

Well, Dwayne's sales pitch on fly fishing was compelling. A little more compelling. I will take you sometime. I think you would get hooked. Oh, you know what? I actually was thinking about that. I give these guys a hard time about wanting to talk about fly fishing on here. And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's, I've just, I've just,

I know what it is. It's a self-protection mechanism. You don't see another hobby. Because, yeah, because I made a decision when before Bear was born that I couldn't be a fisherman and a hunter and be successful. And so I just cut one off at the head and it was fishing. And so I have to, there may be a time when that changes, but right now I'm still in that mode. But no, I value anybody that's a master of their craft or just has a pat. They don't have to be a master, just have a passion for it, genuine love of it.

And it's not, I'm going to say this one time, boys, okay? I'm going to say it one time. I know fly fishing's really cool. I know it. I know it. You guys get that? I know it. I know it.

So I just like to give you all a hard time. So, no, pleasure, Dwayne. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having you guys. Yeah. 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 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. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.