Bear Grease - Ep. 409: This Country Life - Who's Helping Who

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Everyone needs help from time to time, and it's human nature to offer to do so. There are many ways to do it and this week, Brent's talking about how a conversation he had years ago with an unknown mentor continues to help him today. He's also issuing a challenge to help an organization that's helping people with disabilities enjoy the outdoors. Hands of a Sportsman non-profit: http://www.handsofasportsman.org/ 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, and 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 podcasts that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Who's helping who?

Help can come in the form of just about anything. It can be in the traditional sense of assisting someone in need, or just by offering a place to feel at ease, safe, and relax with a familiar voice. I'm going to talk about both of them today, and I'm going to start with the most obvious of the two in this story. But pay attention. Sometimes the helpee comes to help her. This one was sent in by Andrew Moody.

Andrew is what I'd call a jackpot winner. He did what all our dads told us to do, marry the farmer's daughter. Andrew did that, and now he gets to hunt the whole farm, have a beautiful wife and a beautiful little girl. Andrew is making tracks on the family farm near China Grove, North Carolina. Now, I looked it up, and if you were looking at the state of North Carolina and needed to know where China Grove is, picture this in your cranium. Representing North Carolina is a white-tailed deer broadside and facing to the right.

China Grove would be smack dab in the middle of a liver shot. Now, that ain't going to help you find it by telling Siri give me directions to liver shot, North Carolina. but maybe you get the idea of where it is. It makes perfect sense to me. Anyway, this is good stuff. And in Andrew's words and my voice, here we go. The 20-25 hunting season has been rough. Turkey season was a bust.

It was strikeout after strikeout. I'd licked my wounds, and by the time deer season got here, I felt more confident. I had some good deer on camera, and I felt like I had finally started figuring things out after having good success the year before. My ego was quickly humbled after spending a week in Missouri camping and hunting in the rain. When the weather finally cleared up and we started to see some deer, it was time to make that 13-hour trek back east with our tails, tucked firmly between our legs. Getting back home, I felt like I had a good chance to get on some deer,

and then I missed a nice buck with my boat. The following weekend was a rifle opener, and I broke the ice with a big old freezer queen. Two weeks later, I still hadn't connected with one of my target bucks, and the trigger finger was getting itchy. So I elected to take another big dough. In a couple minutes after I shot, I checked the camera app on my phone only to find that my target buck, a big ten point that would be my biggest to date, was standing in the woods just 40 yards off the field when I shot. Man, I was sick.

Knowing that he was so close and I blew it was a tough pill for me to swallow. I had a pity party after that hunting, and I started losing my motivation to get up and go to the woods. Then this past week, I got a call for my brother-in-law, letting me know he had been contacted by a local non-profit organization called Hands of a Sportsman. Now, they were looking for a spot to help a disabled teenage boy get his first deer. Now, I knew about this organization, and I had been wanting to get involved, but never set

aside the time to do so. Now was my chance, and I could not wait to get to work. We met the guys out at our farm and looked over a couple of spots where we could put out some blinds. I set one up on the field behind my house where I felt like we had the best chance. This is the same spot where just two and a half weeks before I had lost the joy of the hunt over missing that opportunity on that target buck. My wife and a year-and-a-half old dear obsessed daughter helped and I just knew this was going to be the spot where we made it happen. Fast forward six days to Sunday evening, December 21st. Chad and David with hands of a sportsman and our hunter, Tyler,

and his dad, Timothy Kaiser, were at my house, and we were all getting ready for the hunt. Tyler has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair, and he was so fired up about having the opportunity to hunt. Now, including me, that tallied four men, and Tyler crammed inside a ground, blind and what a sight that was. Chad had the rifle

set up with the scope attached to a screen so that Tyler could see the crosshairs inside the scope and a button that he could push when he was ready to take the shot. We went over the process to make sure we all understood. Chad would power on the device and aim the rifle.

Tyler would make sure he could see the screen clearly and Chad would press the safety override button and tell Tyler to shoot. Then Tyler, at his discretion, would press the trigger button. Now, it's amazing to see the technology we are blessed with these days to make something like this happen for someone with these type of challenges. It was a humbling experience for me.

It had taken my ability to do this for granted. Now, as the minutes clicked by, we whispered stories and made sure Tyler was warm and having fun. He would smile and give us the thought. thumbs up and take a swig of sweet tea. Man, I had been saying prayers under my breath that we would see some deer, and at 4.49 that afternoon, I sent out a text to the Southern Collective Digital Deer Camp Group for some prayers that we would be able to get Tyler his first deer that night. Two minutes later, David, who was filming the hunt, said, deer.

And sure enough, we had a deer going right where we wanted him. We went through our practice procedures, and once that deer stopped, giving us a perfect broadside shot, Chad gave Tyler the go-ahead. Tyler matched that button like his life depended on it. Bam! There was a very short pause, and all at once, I think the three of us said, dropped him at the same time. Tyler smoked him, and the five of us commenced the celebration. Tyler was coming unglued and I have never seen more joy in someone's life than right there in that moment. I was humbled once again.

The rest of the group didn't know about the text I had sent out so I showed them. There was exactly four minutes between the text asking for prayers and that deer being on the ground. If you don't believe in the power of prayer, buddy, you better. We spent the next hour taking pictures Getting Tyler his ceremonial first deer war paint And letting him call as many family members as he could To cap off an already amazing hunt That deer Tyler shot was a piebald spike

As any hunter knows, a pieball deer or rare One of a kind Just like Tyler I've had cameras up and hunted these deer all year and this is the first time I have laid eyes on this. Coincidence? I think not. My joy or honey is back.

I have a whole new outlook on life thanks to Tyler. At Christmas Eve, I dropped off a little present for Tyler. I was able to snag that empty rifle shell after he shot his deer, and I took it to work to have it laser engraved with his name, date, and first deer. I paired that with a beautiful red-boned case mini-trapper in a display box so that he will have something he can hang on to for a lifetime and always remember that hunt. He gave me a big old hug and I told him I couldn't wait to do it again next year. And according to Andrew, that's just how that happened. Well, Andrew Moody of China Grove or better yet liver shot in North Carolina, I'm not sure who helped who the most.

My money is on Tyler. Reva's going to post a link in the show description of this wonderful organization that helped Tyler with his hunt. Hands of a sportsman is something we can all support, and I'm challenging you to join me in doing so. 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 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's been well over a hundred weekly visits where you folks have been kind enough to invite me into your lives. Our one-sided conversations are something that I look forward to. I enjoy sitting down and sharing my experiences, my stories, and my observations, and your stories as well.

Like I always say, and I firmly believe everyone has a story and they all deserve to be heard. I've been accused of running out of stories and using the ones from listeners as time fillers that I've dipped my bucket in the memory well so many times that it's finally run dry. On the contrary, I haven't gotten deep enough in there to get past the wiggle tails. I can assure all the naysayers that there is plenty to come. And I'm making more of them every day. I want our visits to be more like a conversation instead of just my testimony.

Unfortunately, the format of my show nine times out of ten has me waxing poetic into the mic in my studio with only myself and a coonhound that can't talk. Now, that's where your stories come in. And y'all have really sent in some good ones. Reading them is one thing. Listening to you tell them in person, well, that's quite another.

I wish you could see be talking into this mic when I'm telling the story. On second thought, it might be better that you can't. I'm as animated as I can be. I'm waving my arms in exaggerated motions, much to the dismay of my gal-pal and sound engineer to the stars, Reva Hanson, who has to take all the collateral racket out of my recordings each week in an attempt to make me sound as professional as she can. I promise you, you don't want that job.

It's a wonder she ain't snatched herself baldheaded trying to fix this conglomeration of run-on sentences, mispronunciations, and do-overs I send her each week. But that's the way I learned to tell a tale. I've watched my dad tell a story and aim an imaginary 22 at a running squirrel or an A-5 at a rise in cubby of Bob White's or jerk his arm up like he was holding a fly rod with a potential world record Bluebill on the other end.

corkscrewing his way to the surface, only to see a big old flathead on a number eight brim hook. Stories to me are as much visionary as they are auditory, and the good ones play like a movie when someone tells them. With my limited vocabulary and penchant for buffoonery, I rely on facial expressions and descriptive movements to help sell the story. That's why I try to be as animated as I can with my voice in an attempt to convey in your head what I'm doing while I'm talking into this microphone. I have a picture of my dad that hangs on the wall. Now, in this photo, he's sitting in his chair wearing a white V-neck t-shirt and overalls.

He's laughing like I've seen him do countless times while telling the story or listening to a good one from someone else. It's him I'm talking to every time I push record on this computer. Him in that picture is the standard by which I operate. Now, he loved to make people laugh, to make them feel good. And I'm reminded of how good he was at that whenever I think about a man I met at his funeral. I've shared it on here before, but I think it bears repeating occasionally when appropriate, and there's no more better time than today.

After the service, I was shaking hands and hugging folks who were. they're out of respect and love for what my dad and my family meant to them, and I saw a man standing back patiently waiting for his turn to talk to me. I didn't recognize him, but he looked to be in the age range of my dad, so I knew he was either a farmer or a hunting acquaintance. The sheer number of people there had caught me off guard, and I was struggling to remember all the names of the people I hadn't seen recently, all of which who knew exactly who I was. I was just going to have to apologize for not knowing his name when it came to be his turn to talk to me. It wasn't the first time that day I'd had to do that.

He wore a starched pair of Levi's, cowboy boots, and a dark green-colored western shirt with pearl snaps and a black leather vest. Something about him stood out to me since the first time I'd noticed him in line. He was a grandpa right out of central casting, but appeared to be alone. not talking to anyone else around him and biting his time until his opportunity came to speak to me. And when it did, that man's words changed my life. I'd given up trying to guess his name or where I knew him from and was relieved when he stuck out his hand and said, You don't know me, but me and your dad hunted together many times

where I live in Louisiana and here in Arkansas. He put the callous tanned and sun-weathered hand he'd just shaking mine with on my left shoulder. And he turned me back toward the mass of people who were all busy talking to one another and said, Son, you look at that. There are at least 350 to 400 people here, and all of them share one thing between them. Well, I turned to see old folks and young folks and people I knew, people I didn't, in every descriptor and category of people who'd come to pay their respects. And outside of knowing my dad and my family, which I thought was too obvious of an answer,

I was having trouble following what he meant. He turned me back around from that crowd to face him with no other distractions. And he looked me dead in the eyes and he said, every one of them people, every last one of them think they were your daddy's best friend. And if you only learn one thing from him, you take how he treated folks to heart. I couldn't speak. Even though I tried my heartless, I nodded my head and I tried to get out of, yes, sir. But it didn't sound like one.

And then he just smiled and he patted on my shoulder. And he walked away. I have no idea what his name was. And I couldn't swear in court if he even told him. for what he said resonated with me, and I've tried to live up to what he said every day since. Now, that was a long and widened road to get to where I'm going, but what that man said that day is come home to roost more than once.

When the Meat Eat Eaters Live tour was being planned, we were all running through the format of what we would do, the stories we'd tell, the games we'd play, and who'd be the special guest in each town? It was an ever-morphin and fluid format that would change right up until we all met for the first one in Birmingham, Alabama. And then it would change in some manner a little each night. By the time we hit Austin, Texas, the last show of the tour, we had it pretty well dialed into where we wanted it. But one thing that was constant from the start was the meet and greet before the show.

It was by far my favorite. I finally got to have a two-sided conversation with the folks who listened. to this show and all the others. The theme was pretty consistent of what people said. They enjoyed the humor, the nostalgia, the family, and the stories about growing up in the country. Even the folks who didn't grow up that way enjoyed hearing about it. It wasn't an ego thing.

It was more of a validation that I'm putting out content that people enjoy. And folks were quoting things back to me that I'd said, and it made me realize once again and how impactful anyone can be when talking to others. Not just me or someone with a media platform, but anyone. However, what happened one evening was on a whole new level of awareness. Let me preface this with the following. Not long into this very unique job I have, I received a direct message on Instagram from a lady whose husband was deployed in the service,

and apparently he had been listening to this country life with his three-year-old daughter at one time or another before receiving his orders to leave. The lady said her daughter asked to play my show at bedtime, and it helped her to relax. I just her daddy being gone and go to sleep. Now, I'm not 100% sure that's a rousing review and testament to my voice or the boring content that helped that baby girl go to sleep, but it doesn't matter. It worked, and the note I got from that self-described tired mama, said thanks for helping in a way you probably didn't know you could. She was right.

I had no idea. That was back in 2023, and I'm happy to report that her daddy's been home for over a year now. In 2024, I got word that a couple in the northeastern U.S. had listened to multiple episodes while his wife was in labor. I could see that being painful on both ends, but we never know how what we say will affect other folks. In the spring of 2025, I had an occasion to meet a couple that were dealing with some medical issues and spent an evening with them. They said the trips back and forth to the hospital were made easier by listening to this

country life. I've gotten a bunch of messages since this show started, and some of it was even to keep doing them. No, the positive has far outweighed the negative. And then one night at the Memphis show, the third event of the tour, I met a couple in line who'd been patiently waiting to talk. As the lady and her husband approached, she stuck out her hand and she said, hi, Brent. My name's Kat. And you helped me through chemo.

I'm not 100% clear yet, but I'm working on it. In a flash, my mind shot back to September the 10th, 2011 at the Reve Cemetery, to that conversation I had with that old man that I'd never met. A conversation that took place in the shadows of my family's ancestral home in a stone's throw from where my father's remains will lie for eternity. I gathered my composure and thoughts as best I could and we visited for not nearly long enough before they moved along to make room for the next one's in line. I keep hearing about the impact this weekly struggle of mine has had on the people who

listen, but no one knows the impact you, all have had on me. Think about a lot of you all the time. The differences we make in other people's lives most of the time go unnoticed and certainly unpublished. I share them here only to show how we never really know what our effect is on the people within earshot. Ripple our words and actions making the water around us as far-reaching with or without a podcast. and the negative ones, they go just as far as the positive. Cause all of you, I'm a different person and hopefully a better one. Three decades of seeing the worst than people, even the good ones, can take a toll on a person's view of the world.

And that was no exception. This opportunity I've been afforded has been a blessing and given me the platform to try to do what that old man told me to do 14 years ago. I'm trying, sir. I'm trying. Thank you all so much for listening. Try to make a difference in someone's life today. You'll get the better end there. I promise.

Until next week, this is Brent Reeve. Signing off. Y'all be careful. 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 in real use. 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

Lights new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.