Bear Grease - Ep. 431: This Country Life - From Corner to Corner

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

It’s a celebration of stories featuring ladies from both sides of the nation. One culminating in a single turkey season with her father and the other one taking a little bit longer. Brent thinks you’ll like them both and we do too.  Thank you to our sponsors, Case Knives and Stor-Mor. 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 Light's 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.com.

Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves, from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives 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. From corner to corner. It's Girl Week here on this country life or what my wife Alexis and daughter Bailey called just another week. But we're celebrating some stories featuring gals from Washington to Maine. We're going corner to corner and there's no better time to start than right now. This story comes in from Washington State's very own Tyler Grozley and Tyler's very own little girl named Annie.

Y'all know I have twice as much. many girls as I do boys in my begettons, and I'm always a little partial to talking about girl power. I'm surrounded by strong women in this house and at work, and I struggle just to get them to do what I say, and by struggle, I mean, I don't even try. Anyway, Tyler's been putting folks in new cars up and over there in Yakima for many moons, and a little over nine years ago, the Groslis were blessed with little Annie, who acquired the nickname, Who acquired the nickname hoot on the day the stork dropped her off. I'm going to let her daddy tell you the rest of that.

So in Tyler's words and my voice, here we go. It's my daughter Annie. She's eight years old. She was given the nickname hoot on the day she was born because of the adorable little hoot and snores that she made while she was sleeping. She has been raised in the woods and I've carried her in a backpack on pheasant and quail hunts, fishing, backpacking overnight, shooting boats, in the yard and literally a hundred miles one summer when I signed up for the back country

hunters and anglers hike to hunt challenge. She has been my constant companion, my little outdoor sidekick. I'm semi-ashamed of how many packs of ramen she's eating that I cooked in a jetball on the trail or to the tailgate of my truck. I'm not going to say she throws a fit when I leave for a multi-day hunt, but I'll say she sure does. about it for her there so she has been itching to go. My hunting stories and tales of camp and helping me cut and wrap meat have always given her a case of the FOMOs. So I decided this year that eight years old was old enough for her hunter safety course. We signed her up for Washington's online hunter's education in January. She worked her little tail off getting through

the course one piece at a time. 13 different segments and tests a bit too much for kids, if you ask me, but by mid-March, we were ready to get her into a firearm field test. And luckily, a friend of a friend is an instructor, and he had us out to his home and issued the test. Two weeks before the start of youth turkey season, we went to the local game office to get her very first official big game license. I wish I would have thought to take a picture of her walking out with a satisfied grin on her face, holding the tag and her license. On the way home, I ask her my only burning question, hoot, do you want to hunt easy out of the trailer in a place with lots of turkeys? Or do you want to pack in and sleep on the ground and hunt turkeys that if we bump them, they'll run off and we may not see them again for a day or two?

She's a dad. I want to hunt them hard like you do. That's my girl. The spot I had picked out is about three miles from the truck. Big rolling sage brush-covered hills and rock escarpments with a tiny little trickle of a creek in the bottom and the only trees for at least a mile and a half in all directions. My lab puppy and I met face-to-face with a lion on a fresh deer kill

while I was scouting the area a week before her season. Now, I shared that story with Hoot, which made her a tiny bit nervous about our plan to hike in and camp. Luckily, for her, it rained like the Dickens the day we headed out. My tent being floorless, we opted to sleep in the truck and head out in the dark. We hiked and sat and called and hiked and sat and called some more, not a peep, not even a glimpse of a bird. Just under eight miles underfoot that day was nothing. but some elk ivories off a carcass and memories. And so it went for the next three days.

I think Hoot was beginning to doubt that wild turkeys existed, and I didn't have the ability to produce one, and frankly, so was I. I let her take the first three days of youth season off from school, and I think she was glad to go back. We had another two-day hunt plan the coming weekend, and buddy, I was panicked. I was digging around on on X,

and calling the game department, friends, and asking anyone I could find for permission to hunt their property. I felt like if I couldn't get a gobbler in front of or at least get her to hear a gobble, I'd lose her on future hunts forever. I had to get her a bird, and it was getting time to hit the easy button for her. Then, Lightning Head, Uncle Jerry, good old Uncle Jerry.

Not really my uncle, but one of my dad's childhood friends. He's got a tiny piece of property right in the middle of prime turkey territory. I called him up. Well, yes, you can take Annie down to hunt a turkey. Fast forward two days later, and I'm waking Hoot up at 4 a.m. We walk out into the dark, and I owled right from the trailer. Nothing. Walk a two-mile loop up and down the hills creeping through the trees again, not a peep.

Hoot's turkey enthusiasm meter had taken a nose, die from 10 to about a 4. Her little boots are dragging a little more with the weight of defeat. I'm internally weighing options. Jumping the truck. Should we drive 40 minutes and get into the trees in another

spot and set up the decoys? Hope for the best? I just, I don't know. Then I look down at my little trooper and I can see the weirdness in her eyes. She's getting that too much fun on the Ferris wheel, though. Anyone that has taken the kid

fishing and I produced a fish in 15 minutes knows what I'm talking about. Now, she hadn't complained once in all our days out. She's even held my hand while we walked and thanked me for taking her and including her. I just don't know how much more she can take. I really have no ideas left. My own hopes are burning love. So I decided that maybe it's best to save her legs for the next day and stake out a spot in the oak grove set up the decoys, do some blind calling, and wait the morning until breakfast.

We picked a spot in front of a cluster of scrub oaks with a pretty good view, and I set up my little blind, and I crawled out 15 yards and set up the decoys. Crawling back to Hoot, we started to get her settled behind her 410 on my lap, and we were rustling around a bit when she stops me. Damn, did you hear that? I'm deaf in my right ear, and I say, no, what did you hear? I think I heard a gobble, she whispered back. I have my doubts.

I ask which way, and she points out across the flat to the east, exactly where I would not want a tom to come from, uphill to us. And across the road to boot, Lord, please don't let him be there. Well, I gave a couple of soft clucks on my reed and, pah, gobble. Far off, my heart does a back flip in my chest. She turns up and looks at me from my lap. I can't put the words to the gleam and the spark I saw in her eye.

I could not pinpoint the Tom's gobbles because the sound was bouncing all around off the little knobs and hills. And finally, he shows himself and came in from the west right in front of us 100 yards away and all he ended up. He slow-played us for over an hour, and I slow-plated him right back. soft clucks and purrs and scratching in the leaves he strutted he spit and he drummed the whole show over and over stepping an inch in our direction at a time the whole time i could feel hoot's excitement she was wrapped into his every move smoothly falling with a barrel of her gun and vibrating in my lap with anticipation and then finally he made up his mind to come in I whispered to Hout that the green light to take the shot was when he hit the end of a downed log 25 yards away. He never made it there.

At 30, he cut to our left and started this whole show again, over by the tree line, 50 yards out, bobbing in and out of trees never given her a clear shot. Finally, I got him to turn back our way, and he hit a clear spot, and I said, take him, and I could feel the pounding of her little heart against my chest, and she hesitated a little longer than my over-anxious self could handle. Take him, hoot. We're going to lose him. Boom!

That time commenced the flop, and she jumped off my lap. I stood up, and I grabbed her in a huge hug, tears welling up in my eyes, and we both ran to the down turkey. No need to stand on his neck. The TSS had done its job. My wife heard the shooting and the shouting and called from the camp and we signaled where we were and she made her way over to join us. Annie kneeled down next to her turkey and placed a hand on him and stroked his feathers. My wife and I stood quietly and we just let her take it all in.

Finally I knelt down beside her and we all held hands and thanked God for the hunt and the turkey for his bravery and his life. we carried him back to the blind. He took some great photos and we high-fived and we hugged some more. Hoot is very proud of that turkey. Its beard is two inches longer than my personal best at 10 and 3 quarters. She's proud to have provided food for our family and to help cook the schnitzel that she loves. I look back on that hunt fondly and I think about the relief and the lace. of that moment of the shot in the first gobble.

Mostly, though, I think about who, in her drive, and her effort, and her pluck. She put nearly 14 miles under her little boots for that moment. She suffered cold and silent, fruitless days, rain, early mornings and late nights, walking off steep rock faces in the dark and braving a pitch-black ridge line

that she knew held a line just a week before. Weeks. hours in front of the screen studying what the state requires her to be a licensed hunter. I'm very proud to have been able to give that hunt to her. And I'm more proud of her sense of accomplishment, the confidence she earned in those days that she will carry with her throughout her life, her will to keep going, even when it was awful. Her desire to work hard to stick it out and fight for them.

Those things I know are the real trophies that she claimed on that oak flat. And when I look at her smile in the pictures of that day, I can see them all. Well, Tyler Grozley of Yakima, Washington, you ain't the only fellow that's proud of her. As a matter of fact, there's two down here in Arkansas that have been smiling since we first read that story. And that's me and old way. Thank you for sending it in. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts.

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

I also hunt with Phelps's cut and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.

We've got Skip Bushey to thank for this one. Skip's making tracks all over Buckfield, Maine. Buckfield, a town almost 2,000 folks. It was settled in 1776 by a fur trapper named Benjamin Spaldon. Dalfel old Benjamin would have had any idea that 250 years later, last Tuesday, March the 3rd, that the town office would be closed for the installation of some much-needed new windows. They made up for it, though. I stayed open until 9 p.m. on March the 5th.

I learned that from their website. Nice job, Buckfield. Anyway, I got some friends up in Maine like Andrew McLean and John Lamarca, and I'm adding to that list as we go along like Skip and his crew. This is a good one. And then Skip's words in my voice, here we go. Years ago, my son Ryan and I were lucky enough to get drawn for a fall moose hunt in our home state of Maine.

Out of the 20 wildlife management districts, we were both chosen for Zone 5. Brian's permit was for a bull in late September, while my permit was for a cow in early November. Hitting the Moose Lottery is a life event. It is months of anticipation, preparation, scouting, and making memories. And a lot of research and talking with friends familiar with the zone, we reserve lodging with the local bear hunting guide. The camp was perfect for our needs.

Bunk houses were modest, but everything we needed. The main lodge is where we shared a kitchen, dining, and living room, and facilities, and we were surprised to find there was only one other moose hunting party that would be sharing the camp with us. We had a small group, just my son, my wife, my mother-in-law, who was doing the camp cooking, and I also had a friend join us for a couple days. The other hunting party consisted of a teenage girl. Amanda and her dad and a grandpa and an uncle filling out their crew. The season started Monday morning with unseasonably warm temperatures,

and we hunted in the north woods of Maine from the crack of dawn to dark. No moose sightings by either hunting party on the first day, but hopes were still high as we shared our stories of the day with the other family over dinner. The weather continued to test our patience as temperatures hit 80 degrees. The moose were hunkered down and not moving. As days go by, the thought of the long ride home with an empty truck bed starts to weigh on your mind. And by Thursday morning, you could cut the tension with a knife as we traveled the dirt roads and glassed cuttings and called from the perimeter of swamps.

It was late morning when we heard the faint grunt of a responding bull. As the bull approached, we caught a glimpse of his massive antlers as he worked his way through 12. foot-high fir trees. Grunting every step, the bull turned about 100 yards from where he would have presented us from the shot. And all we could do was watch as he circled downwind in the cover of the planted trees never showing us his body. He proceeded a couple hundred yards downwind and then stepped out into the road.

Unfortunately, we couldn't see him. Ironically, the point he decided to show off his massive body was six feet from where we had parked the truck and where my wife had decided to stay and read a book. Elaine admired the Northwoods giant. She assumed we had no idea that he had responded to our calling. Now hindsight, it would have been handy to have two-way radios, but we didn't. So my wife rolled the window down while the moose watched, unscared of her actions. She then screamed to the top of her lungs,

Skip! Moose! We had decided to stay put and hope that he would make his way down the road in search of the cow that had been serenating him for the last 30 minutes. My wife's clear communication still echoing from the surrounding mountains had the bull frozen just feet from the truck. I'll never forget the look in my son's eyes as he asked.

Now what? I wish I could go back and react differently, At the time I felt our only option was to go to the edge of the road and see what was going on as we could not see the truck or the moose from where we were sitting. What we saw is burned into my memory. 150 yards up the road was a very nice, 50-inch plus moose. Standing behind my truck, but looking toward us over the hood, his eyes huge and staring. My wife in the back seat went down, camera in hand, eyes is huge.

as the bulls, pointing at the moose like we couldn't see that humongous animal tipping his antlers at us. Now, if I could go back, I would have become a moose and challenged the moose to come to us, but we were shocked at what was happening and tried slowly walking up the road. We watched as the big bull turned and walked out of our lives. I think we both knew that that was most likely the only chance we were going to have that week. It was a very quiet ride back to camp that Thursday evening. Two days left to hunt. Would we have another chance to close the deal?

What can you say to a 15-year-old that has been dreaming of this hunt for four months? By Thursday, the anticipation and excitement had turned into anxiety and depression. I wondered to myself how he would share the story that night with the other hunting party. I didn't think that they could get much worse for him until we pulled into the camp to find truck headlights lighting up the biggest bull moose any of us had ever seen.

A massive 60-inch rack mesmerizing all of us. The 16-year-old girl we had shared dinners and stories with had put the smackdown on a Northwood monster. After congratulation, and Amanda and her family and wishing them well as they packed up and pulled out of camp, we quietly made our way to the lodge for a quick dinner. It was on the dining table where my son found a letter left for him from the guide. Amanda's dad had hired to do some scouting for him.

He left detailed locations of his plan for the last two days of the hunt. He was already gone, but his letter to my son was heartfelt and sincere, wishing him good luck. getting his first moose. I was extremely proud of my son as he kept a positive attitude over the next two days. He was the first to be out of bed, packing for the day and never, ever thought about giving up. We never saw another moose that week. Six weeks later, we were back in the same bunkhouse. We were all alone at the camp in the first morning of the cow moose hunt.

Ryan shot a beautiful Northwood's bunk. We didn't see a moose that Monday, but we had a nice buck hanging on the game pole. The next morning, Ryan was able to harvest a very nice 600-pound cow moose, redemption to some point. Over the next several years, Ryan and Amanda, the girl who killed the huge moose, kept in contact, it would send each other their hunting successes. I'm pretty sure my son was still looking for redemption. He was fortunate to connect with many nice bucks, but inevitably. that young lady Amanda would usually send them back similar trophies.

I look back on that hunting season with many, many fond memories, meeting a great group of people and spending time in the North Woods and watching my son harvest a deer and a moose two days in a row. Most importantly, I had a glimpse into the man that my son would be, positive, determined, and a never-quit attitude. That season provided. me with my second favorite hunt that I ever had. That hunt is second only to a hunt I had in 2024.

I was lucky enough to be present on my seven-year-old grandson's first deer hunt. Jackson harvested a nice white tail while I sat behind him into blind. My son's sitting by his side, and we were overlooking the food plot my son and his wife had planted the first year they bought this hundred acres of prime. hunting land. I'm so thankful Ryan's wife gave up her seat to me so I could be there to see Jackson's first hunt. Now, I'll take this opportunity to publicly thank her for her thoughtfulness.

Amanda, thank you, that moose hunt from over a decade and a half ago has provided so much more than meat and fond memories. It produced a marriage. Two sons and Jackson and his little brother Kay. a happy existence where hunting remains an important way of life. As for that 60-inch bull, it now hangs in Ryan and Amanda's living room in the house they built on that 100-acre hut in paradise. And according to Skip Bushey of Buckfield, Maine, that's just how that happened.

Well, Skip, why you didn't send this story in for Valentine's Day is an absolute mystery to me, my friend, but good night nurse. What a story. Ryan, Amanda may have got the monster moved 16 years ago, but you've got the better end of this deal, pal. Two families joined together, initially through the love of the outdoors

and finally through the love of each other. Good folks up there in Maine. Girls are killing it this week. And every. I appreciate you so much for listening, especially the folks and the 366 civil engineer squadron explosive orders disposal unit out of Mountain Home Air Force Base and Idaho, and wherever they happen to be deployed all over the globe.

Until next week, this is Brent Reeves, 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, 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 fieldware gear at firstlight.