Bear Grease - Ep. 417: Backwoods University - Lost Stories

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

It's officially February. During this month I know a lot of outdoors folks that find themselves wondering what to do. We're here to help! In this episode of Backwoods University, we're going back thro...ugh some of the fascinating guests we've met along the way so far! From Grizzly specialists to marine biologist- from botanists to beekeepers, we've met a wide spectrum! On this episode we'll here about a bison charging a man, a man charging a grizzly, an age old debate about what kinds of ducks are edible, and here a great conversation story that will set us up for the next episode! Connect with Lake Pickle and MeatEater Lake Pickle on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:31 Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. Big shout out to Onyx Hunt for their support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. And we are officially in February now. And I don't know about y'all, but for us here in Mississippi, February was always this kind of month where you would catch yourself looking around and wondering what to do. You can't deer hunt. That's over. You can't duck hunt.
Starting point is 00:00:59 That ended in January, too. I suppose you could dream about spring turkey season, but that unstart until March, well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Over these past few months, you and I have had the privilege of listening to some pretty incredible and fascinating folks, grizzly bear specialist and marine biologists, botanist, botanist and beekeepers. We have heard from a wide spectrum. And that's one of the things that I've come to love about doing this show.
Starting point is 00:01:24 One drawback that I have found, however, is that if you haven't noticed, Backwoods University is a pretty stick-to-the-point kind of show. We don't really go down any rabbit holes, which I think is overall good. But sometimes in these interviews, I will hear a real hum-dinger of a story. But it's just slightly off topic, and I'm left scratching my head wondering what to do with this incredible piece of content. Well, I found the solution. In this episode, we're going to go through some of the interviews from past BU episodes and hear some pretty awesome tales that didn't quite make the original episode.
Starting point is 00:02:00 I am supremely confident that you'll be glad we found somewhere to put these. Let's dive in. Our first story is going to set the tone for this whole episode. From the time that I first heard it sitting across from Tom Parker in his cabin in western Montana, I knew I had to find a way to share it. It's simply too good. Y'all will remember Tom from the Grizzly episode, and his stories about getting run up a tree by an angry grizzly bear
Starting point is 00:02:33 and his decades spent guiding in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Mission Mountains. I still maintain the opinion that Tom is one of the most interesting humans I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Well, in the midst of that grizzly conversation, Tom also mentioned that he once was charged by a bull bison while he was working on a mountain line research project in Yellowstone. I told you, this guy is interesting. Well, anyway, I was so intrigued that I asked Tom to share the story, and luckily for me and for y'all, I was still recording when he did.
Starting point is 00:03:04 Going back to the bison and Yellowstone, most people do get to enjoy all those experiences, seeing those big animals on the landscape, but there are some people that have what I'm going to call an inappropriate and ill-informed perspective about, you know, they're just kind of act like cows. I mean, they must be fairly safe to be around them. I'm here to tell you that the closest calls of my career have been with bison and in yellowstone you know i work there on on research projects and uh i'm here to tell you that a rogue bull bison uh surprised at close range they're coming for you would you mind telling those stories yeah there was uh this was in 90 i want to say 99 i was working on the lion study in Yellowstone, and we were doing what's called a predation sequence,
Starting point is 00:04:06 which is where we follow a known lion, one that's marked, you know, we've caught it, it's got a collar on it, and we're following that thing through the landscape, wherever it takes us, and what you do is you don't get close enough to this animal that you impact or affect its behavior. In other words, you gauge your distance, you know, out of sight, out of sound, stay far enough back on the track, but you follow it through three large prey kills and whatever small prey kills may occur in that time. And I was following a female that had been injured by a cow elk. And she had two offspring. And they were 40, 50 pound offspring with them.
Starting point is 00:05:02 And, you know, we often spell each other on those predation sequence work because, you know, it's a lot, a long distance, and you're on snow in the mountains. And my field partner, Mike, had said, you know, the other day I was tracking this cat, and she went down into the sage, it looked like she had, you know, stocked close enough to make what we call the rush and take down on some elk. And actually, there weren't many deer in that country, but there had been a deer there.
Starting point is 00:05:40 And he said, she just seemed to, like, change your mind and not try to take any prey. And she hadn't killed prey in quite a while. But he said, you know, there was the remains of a coyote in there that she went in and investigated, which I found very strange. She could have killed that coyote. You never know if she's desperate. So I'm following this cat a few days later. I went way up on a ridge we called Mom's Ridge. And it's a big, you know, fairly steep ridge full of big boulders that are some the size
Starting point is 00:06:18 of this room, many of them the size of the truck or smaller, the size of a Volkswagen. but a lot of them roughly bison-sized. And this is up, you know, a steep mountain slope. I hadn't seen a bison track in a mile. You know, and there was some bison down in the bottom. And that we'd had a storm and the wind had blown off this ridge for this lion that I was tracking from way up on top that mountain where she was hunting the day before.
Starting point is 00:06:51 She had started down that ridge. and you know you're supposed to stay with that track or at least try to piece it together where it's blown out so that you don't miss some prey kill that you're going to document and so i was really having trouble in this one area and all the boulders you know there's quite a quite a few of them with snow particularly i was on what i'm going to call the leeward side of the boulders so i was on a fairly narrowly ledge on this ridge contouring, trying to pick up where this cat had crossed so that I could verify its track.
Starting point is 00:07:36 And it was headed down. Right ahead of me on this ledge, this boulder was a snowed under rogue bull bison. And this, what happens is these bulls that are injured, old, not breeding anymore, they tend
Starting point is 00:07:53 to go off from the other bison herds and groups and will go off up fairly high in the mountains to kind of die and be by themselves. And these old bull elk, I've seen him do the same thing. I thought about it when you said that. It sounds like an old bull elk that just kind of get off. They do. They don't want to be around the others. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:14 And what I thought is a boulder on this ledge I'm on, and it's a fairly steep drop off about 10, 12 feet to the earth. below me off this ledge, all of a sudden there's an explosion of snow and it isn't much further than the corner of the room. Oh, goodness. Oh, yeah. And a bison, I mean, they're like a rocket. Yeah, they're fast.
Starting point is 00:08:39 They're deceivingly fast. Deceivingly fast. And this is a big bull. And here's this explosion. And I realize I'm like, this bison's going to take me out. I just jumped right off that ledge. Oh, gosh. Oh, I did.
Starting point is 00:08:52 and I land, you know, I know how to land, and I landed, and I rolled quite a ways. And I didn't hit any rocks or trees on the way down. And he couldn't come down there for me. It was quite the drop-off. Yeah. And he ran out on the contour there. And it was as close to dying as I've ever come. Right there.
Starting point is 00:09:16 More so than any gris encounter. Oh, yeah. Let's think about that last statement for a bit. Tom has been guiding the Bob Marshall Wilderness in the Mission Mountains since the 1970s, and he has spent the better part of his life in grizzly bear country. And yet the closest he ever came to dying was during an encounter with a rogue bull bison in Yellowstone. Huh, wild. I guess, think twice before you go trying to pet one of those things.
Starting point is 00:09:43 I know Tom would advise against. For our next story, we're going to have to go way back. Back to the very beginning. Y'all may remember the first ever episode of Backwoods University. We studied the history of bison in the eastern United States. And in that episode, you heard myself and Jeremy French from the Southeastern Grassland Institute hiked down to see a still very visible remnant of a bison trail that crossed a river. This conversation picks up while we're still standing at that river in bison trail.
Starting point is 00:10:20 And at that time, Jeremy shared with me a fascinating piece of American history. This story is short, but it's definitely worth sharing. There's actually a really cool historical story here too. Of this creek is called Caleb's Creek. And Caleb was the son of one of the early settlers in Nashville. And they came up, these waterways, and I can't remember which settler was. And they found this area, and they picked this area. And they were like, hey, Caleb, you know, I don't know if you're a parent,
Starting point is 00:10:54 but I always say I think about this when I become a parent. We like this area. We want to settle this, but we need to go back south to go pick up supplies. Why don't you live in this cave until we come back? And they don't come back for like a year. And this is free settlement, right? So this is like the wilderness, there's tribes here. There's like, you know, probably still bison extant.
Starting point is 00:11:18 And he goes and he lives in this cave that's just that way. If the water wasn't so high, sometimes it's pretty low and you can just hop rock across it. But, and he lives in this cave for like a year until his group comes back and gets him. He's got to hunt all his own food. He's got to avoid getting murdered, like 16 maybe. There's not a lot of details to go along with this story. But what is known other than what Jeremy shared with us can be found through researching the history of the Westington plantation. The boy's name was Caleb Winters, and he was known as one of Robertson County, Tennessee's earliest settlers.
Starting point is 00:12:00 And to give this some context, Robertson County is just north of Nashville. And this took place back in the late 1700s, back when there was still a few bison roaming around, and the entire place was truly wild. As Jeremy stated, Caleb spent about a year's time living in a small cave. It was said that he was an outstanding hunter, and he lived the entire year off of Wild Game. After his family returned, they built a cabin. It was just across the creek from the entrance of the very cave that he lived in. In his honor, they named the creek, Caleb's Creek, as well as the cave, Winter's Cave.
Starting point is 00:12:36 I don't know about y'all, but if my parents left me to survive in a cave in the wild for a year, I would be telling them that naming a creek in a cave after me was the least they can do. Just imagine what all kind of wild stuff that boy saw during the year spent, living in that cave. I would wager he saw that bison trail in action. Heck, maybe he even hunted a bison there. Who knows? What I can tell you is it was pretty crazy to hear that story as I was standing there looking at the entrance of that cave. Wild. Random fun fact before we move on. Did y'all know that several of the roads that run through Nashville as well as other roads in North Tennessee were originally bison trails? Crazy, right? Use that one next time you need a
Starting point is 00:13:21 conversation starter. Moving on. For our next story, we're going to keep the action level high as we turn our attention back to Great Big and Wild Animals. Y'all will probably remember Casey Anderson from the second Grizzly episode that we did. Casey's a lifelong outdoorsman. He's a naturalist, a hunter, and he's a person who has spent his career explaining nature to the world. We heard all kinds of wild tales from Casey in that episode, and he told me several more, including this one about an experience he had on the Catmite Coast that I've not been able to stop thinking about. First off, the historic relationship with humans. So the Bears on the Catmite Coast almost have never been hunted. They see very few people. So they haven't learned to fear people at all. In fact, it's actually
Starting point is 00:14:08 one of those things like, is it that they haven't learned to fear people or isn't that they haven't learned to do anything with people? Like, you know, they have no feeling for people at some level. In fact, It's so bizarre sometimes I'll be standing there and they'll walk right by me and they won't even look at you. Like you're a rock. Like you're just not on their radar. They just don't care. They treat you the same way they would have fox or a rock, you know, literally a rock, you know? The thing that stuck out to me is in one of those videos at Katmai, like you're observing this mother and two cubs.
Starting point is 00:14:40 And like at home, you're taught like that's code red. That is what you don't want to see. Like mother and cubs, like get away. That's the one that's going to charge you. Like how do you even learn to assess that situation to know like I can go watch her and I'll As long as I keep my distance or whatever it is you do like we'll be fine. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard and especially a flip-flop between the two ecosystems. Sure, sure. You are dealing with what looks like the same animal, but Completely different mindset. It happened. It wasn't something that I went and did an experiment with. It was actually the other way around. I put myself in the position of being there and had mothers with cubs bringing their cubs over to me. This sounds ridiculous.
Starting point is 00:15:20 Again, and I'm going to just add this on here because there's, you know, movies like Grizzly Man and stuff like that is. One thing you can never do is forget that no matter where the bear is, it's capable of killing you. And those cubs and mom, you know, the mom with cubs in Alaska are certainly capable of killing you. But what they'll do sometimes is they'll bring those cubs over close to you on purpose because they've realized that people, kind of active, kind of like, kind of like the safety net. Because there's other bears, particular males, who are a little less apt to be comfortable around people. So if the cubs are close to you, then the males less apt to come near them.
Starting point is 00:16:03 And so they start using you. And it's so strange. Yeah. And it's very uncomfortable in the beginning. I would, like, man, trying to put myself in that situation, like, if I saw a mother and two cubs approaching, I'd be like, I need to go. Right. And most people would.
Starting point is 00:16:17 I mean, and I think that that'd be the right feeling to have on your instinct. Yeah. But the other good thing is that I've spent so much time around bears and understand their body language is that you know when there's ill intent on a bear's face, basically. I mean, it is a billboard telling you, like, I'm uncomfortable. And if not, it's vocalizing, it's chomping its jaws, it's hoofing at you, it's doing something. Sure. And when they come over and their ears are just flat, relaxed, and their body language is really tense, and you just see this, like, that they are actually getting more comfortable as they get closer to you, it's so. so strange. But it's true.
Starting point is 00:16:50 Yeah. And so at the same time, you just realize it's a unique opportunity and it is a little intoxicating when you're there next to these animals that are 1,000 pounds and you can just go sit there amongst them and they just don't care if you're doing the right thing. I mean, I think it's a two-way street too. I mean, if you go in there with bad energy and you're all uptight, you're a billboard too, you know, you're just showing your intention. But if you can go in there and just kind of relax yourself and realize that they're at a safe distance in some level and doing the right thing. It's just so cool to be part of that world. I can't explain it, man. Yeah, I mean, it sounds so crazy. It does. And it's why, you know, there's so many times
Starting point is 00:17:30 I'm like, I just got to, I wish I could take people there and have them experience this, but at the same time, it's like, is that the right thing to do, too? Yeah. Well, the thing is, it's like, you're able to do that because you spent so many hours around these animals that you, It's like some of the best archery hunters I know. They spent so much time because like bow hunting, you gotta be close, right? Yeah. So they spent a lot of time being close to that animal. And they can just read that animal's body language so well.
Starting point is 00:17:58 Like they know when they're coming in and relax. They know when they're tense. They know like I can draw back now. Like this animal's about spook. This animal's chilled out. Like they just spent so much time close to them. They can pick up on that. And you've spent so much time around these bears
Starting point is 00:18:12 that you're just able to read that so well. what's going on, you know? No, I mean, definitely. There's no doubt about it. And, you know, and I've had so many close encounters, and I've had some that are obviously not been positive. You can see it coming, right? How so?
Starting point is 00:18:31 Just the way they start reacting. Their body language starts to change. You're always paying attention to the wind. It's just like anything. Just like you said, White Tail Buck, if you know White Tail Bucks, you've been around all the time, you get honed into these little times. tiny things. Sometimes you don't even know why you're doing what you're doing, but there are these
Starting point is 00:18:48 little subtle hints that they're giving you, and you don't even know. It's almost instinctual, and you just start doing these same things that counter the moment. And with bears, man, it's the same. I mean, you just, you get, I've been in such, 10 situations where a bear is looking at me, and I know that I need to back off slowly and pull my eyes away from it, and then, and that'll be the right thing to do. But I've also had time where bears are being aggressive towards me. And I looked at that bear, I don't even know why. And I've, and I've, I've locked eyes with it and I've charged at it and ran it away. And it's, and I don't even know why, but I know that I see something in that bear it's insecure and maybe it's, it's thinking about it and I just went, you know what?
Starting point is 00:19:26 No, I'm the boss today and I'm going to show you that I am. Sounds ridiculous, but it is this like subtle game of body language poker that you're playing out there with all animals. And it sounds probably the most crazy because I'm playing it with an animal that can kill you. I feel like this needs to be said. Casey is a professional, and he's been dealing with bears for a long, long time. So all the stuff that he talked about doing, don't try that at home. And think what you will about me, but I don't imagine I would be holding my ground if I saw a mama gris and cubs walking my direction, and I certainly wouldn't charge it one.
Starting point is 00:20:05 Thanks for the wild tales, Casey. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors.
Starting point is 00:20:30 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.
Starting point is 00:21:08 I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever. you get your podcasts. For our next story, we're going to a very recent guest, Mr. Jim Cruz, the lifelong duck hunter. In this story,
Starting point is 00:21:29 Jim tackles two very common pieces of duck hunter lore. Video is very telling. Yeah. I was looking at one that my wife did last weekend. There were four of us shooting. She was standing behind us
Starting point is 00:21:43 working the dog. And a flight of teal came in, right to left. I was on the left in. My song was on the right end. The two guests were in the middle of the line. And it was like we had choreographed it. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Down the line, this is the till came across. And of course, when you're shooting like that, you don't realize it. But that's exactly how it was. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. One, three, four. And three teal fell.
Starting point is 00:22:15 And then I guess there were two ducks left in the flock when they got on my end. One of them was a big white shovel. Well, I picked him out at a heartbeat. I couldn't pass him up, so I shot that one. But it just, looking back at the video, wasn't nearly like I remembered it because it just happened so quickly. Oh, yeah. Yeah. See, now I've got to ask you another question, because you said something there that I want to ask you about. I shouldn't say I know a lot of folks that do it.
Starting point is 00:22:43 I know a lot of folks that say that they won't shoot a shovel. I hadn't met any yet. I know a lot who say they won't back. But you've heard the, like, I don't know if there's, I don't know. So I was wondering about that too. I was wondering how long that's been going on. I think the northern shoveler might be the most widely maligned duck. And I've never been able to figure out why.
Starting point is 00:23:09 I'll let the hens pass. Sure. I let those brown shovelers pass. But a big drake, he doesn't pass. They're pretty ducks. They're beautiful. Why do you think they get such? a bad rap. It's just people having something to talk about. That's all I can figure. They decoy well.
Starting point is 00:23:31 They're pretty colored. What's not to like about? I don't know. I like the variety. I do too. If you've been around duck hunting culture for any length of time, especially down here in the southeast, then you probably know that the northern shoveler getting looked down upon is a tale is always time. and frankly, I've never understood it. And apparently, Jim doesn't either. So that is common duck lord number one. In the next part of Jim's story, we're going to tackle another commonly heard duck hunting myth. Probably 25 years ago, my father invited the then CEO of Ducks Unlimited
Starting point is 00:24:08 and their chief biologists to go come down and duck hunt with us. we were in the process at that time putting our property under conservation easement. So we were in contact with D.U. Negotiating all that. Anyway, invited them to come down and had a real good hunt. And we had shot mallards and gadwalls,
Starting point is 00:24:32 but also six or seven ringnecks over the course of two days. And I think we had held the ducks. We shot the first day and decided we're going to clean them all the second day. Well, the D.U's biologist guy named Bruce Bat at the time kind of eased up to me. He said, hey, let me ask you something. I said, what is that? Bruce is a Canadian guy, a really good guy, very knowledgeable.
Starting point is 00:24:58 He said, would you mind if I took all these ringnecks? I said, no, of course. You're welcome to them and whatever. I said, I don't think I've ever had anybody asked me that before. And he said, well, in my opinion, they had the best flavor of any duck. I said, well, help yourself. And I was kind of, had been educated that they're not your top duck to eat.
Starting point is 00:25:27 Oh, yeah. Well, they really are surprising. My wife likes to cook ducks a lot. Sure. And she likes to smoke them particularly. In her opinion, Ringneck is the best one there is on the smoker. No kidding. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:42 Yeah. See, I think that too. I think folks hear certain things their whole lives, and they just get told that ringnecks are bad to eat. Shovelers are bad to eat. Again, don't get me wrong. I still love the mallards and the pintails and the big ducks all the best. But I think some of those so-called less desirable species take an undeserved hit. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:06 I like them just fine. We get into the tale-telling stage now. I went out on New Year's Eve last week by myself. My wife was sick. She didn't want to go. I said, well, I'm going to go ahead anyway if you're okay. And she said, oh, yeah, go ahead. So we had a decent flight that morning.
Starting point is 00:26:26 It was a pretty day. And I can't remember what order I shot them in, but I had to wind up with a wood duck and a mallard and a ringneck and a gadwall and a whiggin. So that's five. All drakes. And I looked at that and I said, well, I'm going to try to get six drakes, but I'm going to try to get number six different species from what I already have. So I get this pair of pentails to come in.
Starting point is 00:26:57 And I'm in my mind looking at that big old Drake, I can see his feet and that long sprig sticking out. And he's at about 25 yards. And I missed him clean. I said, how in the world did I do that? But I went, well, well, you know, maybe something else will come along. Fifteen minutes later, a Drake greenwing teal comes by, and I didn't miss him. My dog brings him in, climbs up the ladder onto the boat, and I see that flash you don't see very often. It's a banded green wing teal.
Starting point is 00:27:30 So I'd never shot a banded teal before, so that was kind of a big deal. Yeah. But also on a day when I got a royal flush on ducks. Yeah. So that was a big time. These ducks, you ought to appreciate every one of them for some reason. Whether it's how they look or how they fly or how they decor or how they taste, whatever it is, they all have special attributes that we need to revere.
Starting point is 00:27:57 Going back to duck hunting culture, if you've been around it, you've probably heard people list off certain species of ducks as being not fit to eat. And a ringneck is commonly on that list. And how ironic and funny is it that a duck biologist said that not only were they fit to eat, but it was his favorite duck to eat. I don't know. It just makes you wonder if half the folks that make these claims have ever actually tried cooking and eating these ducks to begin with.
Starting point is 00:28:24 And how about Jim killing a royal flush of ducks for his limit one day and that last one being banded? I bet that's the only time he's ever been glad he missed a pintel. For our final story of this episode, we're returning to my personal favorite topic that we have ever covered. The life work of Fannie Cook. That was episode four of this show, and I would highly encourage you to go listen to it if you haven't yet.
Starting point is 00:28:47 This story comes from an incredible woman named Miss Kathy Shropshire. You heard her referenced in that episode a couple of times. Pay close attention to this final story, because for one, I find it inspiring. And two, it's actually going to set us up for the next episode as we move towards the spring. To my knowledge, you're the only person that's played Fannie Cook in a film. I think so.
Starting point is 00:29:10 Yes. I believe so. How did that happen? Well, a friend of mine, Robbie Fisher, was working on that film. That was the Gulf Islands National Seashore film that they were doing in relation to the 100th anniversary of the National Parks. And because Ms. Cook had been involved with letter writing and support and getting that done, Robbie wanted to have her featured as, you know, somebody who was involved. well, she asked me if I'd do it.
Starting point is 00:29:38 And people ask me if I'll do things. And I usually say yes before I think through it clearly. I got you to come do this interview. Right, right. Yeah, right. What am I thinking? But it didn't require that I say anything. So we did film that.
Starting point is 00:29:55 There's a small segment in there about Ms. Cook and writing the letters in support of the Gulf Island Sea Shore. So, yeah, as far as I know, I'm the only person. On a personal level, obviously. Fannie Cook means something to you. Why is she so important to you? Well, you know, she didn't tell her own horn. She had a mission when she decided
Starting point is 00:30:18 she wanted to develop the Mr. Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks or Gaming Fish Commission at the time. It wasn't about her. It was about getting that done and then getting a museum and providing education. And so she was not one of those people
Starting point is 00:30:30 who was out there waving the flag and saying, look at me. Which is not something that you hear a lot of this day and age. Right, right. Everybody wants credit for everything. Yeah, it's true. Well, I just think it's one person can make a difference. And, you know, maybe that difference isn't that you'll be a fanny cook or that you'll be a
Starting point is 00:30:50 Rachel Carson or that you'll be something else. But if you as an individual can reach the person who then is the fanny cook or is the Rachel Carson, just follow your passion and be open and do what you can't. I guess. I'm not going to be Jane Goodall. I am not going to be Rachel Carson, but maybe I've exposed somebody to those agendas that then will be that person who takes that step. I'd like to think that. That's a, it's a good thought too. I mean, because again, you pick up, especially in that book, like all these influences that Fannie had at a young age, you know, from the people at the Smithsonian or father. I mean, it lists several of them. Yes. To your point, it's
Starting point is 00:31:35 you know, when her father was telling her about passenger pigeons that she was younger, there's no way he could have known that she could turn out, you know, but it didn't matter. You know, he was investing those principles into his daughter. And look how important that was down the road. One person can make a difference. If there was ever a person that was living proof of that, it's Fannie Cook. Heck, if it wasn't for her, we might not have any game animals to hunt here in Mississippi. And I don't know what I would do with myself if we didn't.
Starting point is 00:32:05 I didn't have that. I also thought so much about Miss Kathy's perspective on her own impacts. Not all of us are going to be the Fannie Cooks or Auto Loopholes of the world. And that's okay. Not all of us are going to get credit for the work that we do. And you know what? That's okay too. What's important is that we do what's right. We follow our passions and maybe we'll inspire other people around us. I catch myself thinking all the time what my life would look like had my dad never taken me deer hunting or if my friend, Keith never took me turkey hunting. Your impact matters, whether you realize it or not. And speaking of impacts that matter, I said that this last story would tee us up for the next episode. So, this is your homework until then. Think about what or who got you interested in wildlife and wildlife conservation, because in the next episode, we're going to be learning about some life-altering conservation work, how it started, how it was carried out, and how still benefiting us to this very day. I want to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University, as well as Bear
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