Bear Grease - Ep. 383: This Country Life - Two Bucks, A Broken Bus, and Jeremy's Dad

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

This week, Brent's sharing some listener-submitted stories he's enjoyed: an unexpected encounter with an angry buck, a country-boy skillset coming in handy, and a young boy's "first" deer. It’s listener appreciation day on MeatEater’s “This Country Life” podcast. Shop This Country Life Merch Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear 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 in 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 fieldwear gear at firstlight.

Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves, from Coon Hunting to Trotlining and just general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives from the Storemore Studio on Meat Eat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Two bucks, a broken bus, and Jeremy's dad. Everyone has a story and every story deserves to be heard. I truly believe that. And that's what prompted my initial invitation to all of you to send your stories in. Now, obviously, I can't read them all on the show, but I do read all of them.

Some are sent not meaning to be broadcast and some folks just want to share them with me. And that takes courage on the senders part. I held the vast majority of the ones I've told on here Like they were items that I could I could lose if I shared them The value I placed on those memories was what eventually made me share them And how could I be the only one who felt that way? Turns out I wouldn't I wasn't the only one by a long shot

And it's that time of year when folks gather around campfires Where new and old stories are shared and written So in keeping with that tradition of occasionally turning the reins over to my friends who gather at our virtual fire on a regular basis, this week I'm giving you all the floor. I hope you enjoy hearing these stories from our listeners as much as I did read them. Here we go. Jake Miller lives up in Butler, Ohio. He's one of a handful of folks that do.

Jake is sharing a crazy deer hunt that took place just a little over two years ago. and he's reminded of it every time he looks at the scar. That's right. Jake got a boo-boo from that day. So in Jake's words and my voice, here's how he got it. October the 26th, 2020, 23 is a day in a hunt I won't soon forget.

A cold front had blown in, and of course, I was stuck at work. Around noon, the snow started, and my attention had completely left what I was getting paid to do and shifted to what I wanted to do, which was to get home as soon as I could grab my gear and head to the woods. Snow in October is rare in our part of Ohio, and there was absolutely no way I was going to pass up this opportunity. I kept watching the clock and minutes felt like days,

and finally, 3.30 hit, and I was out of there like a rocket. Luckily, the job site was only 20 minutes from my house and not the usual 45. I pulled in the driveway and I'm certain the engine wasn't completely off by the time I hit the garage. I ran around like a madman trying to get into my camo and grab my bow, my climbing stand, and all the stuff I needed for the hunt. I gave a quick run by and gave my wife a kiss and said goodbye to the kids, and I can still remember hearing my oldest boy say, Good luck, Daddy, get a biggin as I shut the door and headed for the truck.

I got to my spot and parked. I threw everything on and by this time it was around 4.15. The snow had stopped and everything was quiet. I made the decision that I was just going to grab my boat, my backpack, and my binoculars and find a good spot to set up on the ground instead of making a rush decision to get up in a tree. I slowed down and I crept my way down the tree line as quiet as I could. It's a 200-yard walk, so it took a little time. I was hunting the second that my foot hit that field anyway,

so it didn't bother me to take my time. I finally got to the trail I had cut the summer before and slowly walked my path, stopping every 10 yards or so in glassing to be sure I didn't kick any deer out when something caught my eye. I kept looking and finally realized it was a, white belly of a deer. I took a couple more steps and realized that deer had what looked like to be a nice rack.

Game on. I had to make some move since there was some briar bushes and tree chops between me and this deer. I crept around without making a sound. I pulled my binoculars up again and saw something. It was a little funny. To my surprise, it was two bucks locked together. I kept looking and watching. and didn't see any movement from either deer.

So I walked closer and closer, only realizing that they had paracord wrapped up in their antlers and that one of the bucks was dead. But the other was very much alive. Oh, boy, I had to come up with a plan quick. I was trying to do the right thing and get the two bucks separated, or they were both going to be dead. Now, in my hurry to get to my spree, spot that day, I left my skinning knife in my truck. All I had with me was my pocket knife

with like a three-inch blade. I set my bow, my backpack, and my binoculars down before walking over and getting a better look to see how I could separate them. I had switched from Hunter to rescue her, and by this time the bigger buck had stood up and was a little discombobulated, as you could tell, just by looking at him. I carefully took my knife out and I started cutting the way the paracord, one strand after another. How it got there, I have no idea, but it was a tangled mist, and I finally got to the last strand and I cut him free and started backing up, expecting he would run off into the thicket. Then the buck, realizing he was free, picked his head up, and instead of going into the

thicket like I thought he would, he charged me. His antlers hit me right below my waist and knock me over. He wasn't trying to get away. It seemed like he was trying to finish what he'd started out with the other buck. I grabbed his antlers and Gator rode him to my right and frantically looked for anything I could find to protect myself while he tried to finish the fight. This wasn't going to end well if I didn't do something quick. My hand landed on a large limb that was laying on the ground and I grabbed it and I swung it

like the bases were loaded and we were down three runs. the bottom of the night. I connected with the side of his head as hard as I could, and it was enough to stop him long enough for me to grab my stuff and back away. I stood and watched this. He stayed in the same place for ten minutes just staring at me with his head tilted sideways like a dog does when they hear a funny noise. By this time, there was a half hour left of daylight, and I'd fought off a buck in the blood on my freshly torn hunting panty. was mine. I made the walk back to the truck, and I sat there for 20 minutes just thinking and replaying

everything in my head as in that really just happened. I ended up seeing that same buck the following year in the same woods, and I didn't end up getting a shot at him, but if I had, that would have been a much better ending to the Jake Miller versus Buck Norris saga. and according to the pride of Butler, Ohio, that's just how that happened. Well, Jake, you exercised great restraint and not maneuvering around and poking a hole in that bully of a buck, and I'm proud of you. I'm reminded of an episode of Andy Griffith when Barney Fife introduced me to Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice,

when he said, the quality of mercy is not strange. It dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven. Nice job, Jake. Sorry about your breeches. 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 day.

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 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th.

Follow now on Apple, I-Heart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, this next one is from this country life listener, Brant Taylor. And that's spelled B-R-A-N-D-T. Brant grew up in a place called Syracuse, Utah. And when he wasn't bobbing around like a cork out, out in the Great Salt Lake. He was busy growing up in the home. His father was raised in a generation before,

and I love that kind of family legacy. Brant's story contains zero animals or fish, no bullets, arrows, or hooks. Just a testament to the resourcefulness of the country folks being thrust into situations where they're raising came in handy. I think you'll like it. So with no further ado,

here's Brant's story and Brent's voice. My father's family moved to Syracuse in the 1960s. It's a small farmer community with a little over a thousand people, and by the time I was born, it turned into 8,000 people. But it was still considered a very rural place to live. You could drive down the main roads, and there were ditches on both sides with pheasants and deer in the farmer's fields. I have fond memories of drows.

driving around our town with my dad telling me all the places he used to trap bus crats and how he could grab a shotgun and go walking straight from our house and shoot pheasins. I fast forward a few years and things had changed quite a bit in our little city. Syracuse population had blossomed into almost 30,000 folks and fields that used to grow hay and onions were now growing houses at an unfathomable rate. I went to a brand new high school with almost a thousand kids in my graduating class. I worked part-time at the local feed store, and I watched as the salt of the earth farmers and ranchers were all slowly selling out and moving because they couldn't afford to farm anymore

or were getting kicked out because a subdivision was built too close to their farm, and the HOA's complained about the smell or the dust. It was like I was a country boy stuck going to school with a bunch of city kids that didn't know the difference between a cow and a bull. I took shop and agriac classes, but I was also in the band where I played the tuba. I enjoyed playing in band through middle school and high school, but my senior year, I had mostly checked out focusing my attention on my intended career as a diesel mechanic.

One day my band teacher, Mr. Weyman, He stood up in class and announced the annual band trip and that we would be joined by the choir and the orchestra. Now, I liked to play the tuba, and I enjoyed band. I did not really get along with most of the other students that took those classes. This, accompanied with my feigning interest, made me decided I wasn't going. They were going to San Francisco, and I had no desire to go visit that place, and by not going, I would save myself 600 hard-earned dollars of having to pay my own way. A word got out that I wasn't planning to go, and a couple of weeks later,

Mr. Weyman stood in front of the class and said, So I hear that a certain tuba player, he made direct and obvious eye contact with me, is not planning on going to our trip to San Francisco. He continued with, that's all fine. No one is required to go, but I figured that I would let everyone know that if Brand does not go on this trip, no one in the band will be going on this trip. The class turned into an uproar and lots of faces stared accusingly at me. I could feel the pressure and the feelings toward me, but I wasn't going to break.

I knew there was no way he could keep the whole band from going. I was going to call his bluff. There was one thing I didn't count on, and I'm sure Mr. Weyman was. And that was my weakness towards a certain flute player with blonde hair. After the class, she and I talked as we walked to lunch. We were friends, and we would often walk together. But I knew she was interested in another boy,

so even though I liked her a lot, I didn't push too hard, but I'm sure she knew. about my feelings toward her. That's when she laid it all on me, telling me how I should go, that we could hang out while in San Francisco and sit next to each other on the bus, how it was going to be a great time if I went. Well, I wouldn't be the first fool that fell for a pair of fluttering eyelashes.

A few months later, I found myself sitting on an empty bench near the front of the tour bus, one of three buses taking all the music kids to California. Then I see the blonde-haired siren herself, entering the bus, and I watch as she walked right past me. A little confused, I turned around to see her sit next to the boy she liked only to remember then that that buffoon was in the choir. My only saving grace was that my oldest sister, My senior of seven years, and one of my best friends, was on the trip as a chaperone,

and for that I'm very grateful. She made the week more fun and bearable. And we were on our way back home to Utah, and my sister and I had a good time, and we saw a lot of cool things, and we were both ready to get back home. The buses were scheduled to drive all through the night and arrive in Utah the next day. Around 10 o'clock that night, we reached Donner's Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mousin. Now, if you don't know the historical significance of that place, you need to look it up. The weather had turned ugly and there was snow flying in the air when the bus driver had to pull over to install the chains on the tires.

Since I was sitting close to the front, he asked me if I could help, and I did. The snowfall in heavier all the while. soon we were back on the road and headed up into the mountains and into the worsening storm. We were about halfway up when some kids started yelling from the back that there was a loud noise and a grinding coming from underneath the bus. I got out with the driver and we headed toward the back driver's side of the bus and I could instantly see the problem and so could heat. The bus had two drive axles and a mud flap in the middle. chain on one of the tires that broke and flipped up into the

wheel well. Now, when that happened, it caught the bracket that held the mud flat between the two axles, and it mangled it all up tight into the wheel well. Now, there was a sharp piece of angle iron rubbing against one of the tires, and we were stuck

unless we wanted to risk hopping a tire. After looking at the situation, I knew what I needed to do, and turning to the bus driver, I asked what kind of tools do you have on this bus. He took me back inside and showed me the small bag of tools he kept in there. And looking inside, I thought, well, this is going to be a lot of fun.

I then grabbed the baritone player to bring a flashlight and the vice principal he joined us. For the next hour, I worked away with a pair of pliers and a crescent ranch and a ball peen hammer so small look like it belonged in a dollhouse. It was freezing cold, and every time a semi-truck drove past, it would spray us with ice and slush that was quickly piling up on the road. I finally got the bracket unbolted

and was trying to pry it out with the tire iron and I found in a compartment under the bus. Fiberglass fender was in the way, and in my haste to get back inside the bus and warm up, I grabbed the hold of it and yanked it off. allowing me to get some better leverage. Finally, we got back on the bus, victorious, and I was able to put on some dry clothes.

As I headed to the bathroom at the back end of the bus, some kids thanked me and made jokes about if we had been stranded any longer, we would have had to resort to the same measures that the Donner Party did back at 1846, and we were going to start with the sophomores. Now, other kids didn't even seem to care, Not realizing that if we couldn't fix it, we'd have been stranded there another eight to ten hours waiting on them to send us another bus.

And I appreciated the praise, but that's not what I did it for. I simply saw a need, a job that needed to get done, and I had to know how to do it. I will always remember that night and appreciate that I was there on that bus. And according to Brand Taylor, fixer of all things from one end of the bus to the other, that's just how that happened. Job well done, Brent. Those choir boys may get the girls sometimes, but the tuba players always steal the show.

Choir boy, give me a break. To close out, I want to share this jewel from Jeremy Moody. Jeremy's living it up over in Conway, Arkansas. Conway's known as the city of colleges with three universities within the friendly confines of its city limits. plus old Jeremy, whose dad taught him and everyone who hears the story, a lesson in giving and a father's love. And Jeremy's words of my voice, here we go.

This story takes place in the mid-1990s at a deer camp in South Arkansas. My dad worked hard, real hard, providing for his family. He was a full-time law enforcement officer, a part-time painter, and an active reservist in the Army. Dad stayed busy serving his community, but he always prioritized time with his family. When the opportunity came along to join a deer camp with some close friends, Dad secured our spot and kicked started my brother-in-eye's passion for hunting. This deer camp was like many in the area.

There was no cook shack or bunkhouse. Instead, all the members stayed in old camper trailers. It wasn't fancy, but it was the only place my brother and I wanted to be most of the the year, especially during deer season. Growing up in a rural town in central Arkansas, every Friday afternoon during deer season, you could count on dad to be in the school pickup line with our trailer loaded down and ready to head south. It was something we did every weekend pretty much without fail.

This story is about my first deer. And on this cold November morning, Dad and I chose to hunt a homemade stand called the Oregon trail. It was nothing more than an old pallet nailed to the top of some 14-foot-tube-fors, but it was in a dynamite location along the edge of a young pine thicket. With just enough room for two five-gallon buckets to rest semi-cuffefortly up top, Dad and I watched our respective directions. Less than an hour into the hunt, I heard what I was confident was a deer coming off the ridge to my left. I nudged my dad who was on the right side of me and then shoulder to bar a 20-gauge rimmed in 1100, loaded with buckshot.

Then the most beautiful basket rack eight points stepped into view, and I don't remember the exact discussion that took place, but I do remember firing that shotgun and watching that buck drop. Immediately I began to hoop and holler, just like I'd seen T.K. and Mike do in their questionably educational videos. I was beyond ecstatic. As I began sharing my excitement with my hunting partner, I remember seeing him a little bit confused, kind of a confused look on his face. Unbeknownst to the other, we'd both shot at that deer at the same time.

Dad convinced me that he must have missed it with his 223, and I must have been the one who killed it. We climbed down to claim our trophy. When we approached the buck, my dad pointed to the single through and through, hole right through the deer's vials and said, good job, buddy, you got him. I had a smile going from ear to ear, and we loaded that buck up on our old ATV, and we headed toward the camp.

I was still cheeszing when we pulled up to the skinny pole, my proud dad right behind me. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and everyone gathered around as I told the story. I told how the buck slipped off the ridge and then into my sights. I didn't leave out the part about Dad telling me that he had shot at the deer alongside me, but he reckoned that he had missed. During this time, my dad was explaining to my brother how the story would be told without my knowledge. He was two and a half years older than I was.

He was pretty much a master hunter and had killed his fair share of whitetails. I don't know how much it cost my dad. to convince my brother to go along with the story, but I reckon he paid it. As we skinned that deer, that single bullet hole in the vitals was plain as day, and Dad quickly stepped up and said, See, son, it only took one of those 20-gauge buckshot pellets to take this old deer down. And from that moment, I was hooked. I don't know exactly when it was that I finally realized that single bullet hole in my first deer

was a result of my dad's rifle instead of my shotgun. But to this day, when he tells that story, he tells that story, just like I told that story that day. And he is smiling from ear to ear. For years, I wondered why he would let me claim that kill was my own until I had my own kids. Now, I know. and I hope this story brings a smile to others like it does me. According to the Faulkner County Flash, Jeremy Moody, that's just how that happened. Well, Jeremy, old pal, I promise you, that story brought a smile to my face,

thinking about the day that I figured out how much my dad loved me. And that was the day that my first child was born. Then and only then did I really then. remotely have a clue. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. It's Halloween, kids. While all you ghosts and goblins are out pillaging the neighborhoods for candy,

remember the dad tax will be paid after you go to bed. You better hide the good stuff early. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Call 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 Phelps Game Calls.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.