Bear Grease - Ep. 485: This Country Life - Bank Poles, Flatheads, and Bradley Smith

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Brent's heading to Louisiana to fish the Ouachita River with Bradley Smith, a lifelong outdoorsman who's keeping the old ways alive. From hoop nets to bank poles baited for flathead catfish, the trip becomes more than a night on the river. Included is a lesson on tradition and the details that separate a likely spot from the right one. We're talking family, friendship, and the importance of passing down tradition before they disappear. God's Country Hunting and Fishing YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEP0Z4BjEpgIn5uVbwRZZRA Opelousas Bank Poles: https://opelousasbankpoles.com/ 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 MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the seasons are on, the work doesn't stop. You're still scouting, still adjusting, still putting in early mornings and long days. That's no off-season. First Light fieldware is built for real use in season and beyond. No shortcuts. Check out First Light's new fieldware collection at firstlight.com. 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 while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives from the Storemore Studio on Meat 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. Bank poles, flatheads, and Bradley Smith. This week I'm headed to Louisiana with my friend Bradley.

Smith, a generational outdoorsman who's keeping the old ways alive, poop nets, bank poles, and the kind of hard-earned knowledge that only comes from time spent on the water. This episode is about friendship, it's about tradition, and learning the details of where and why. Join me at the fire. Let's get started. It was an email link from my brother Tim. He called me before I had a chance to look at it and said, did you see the that email I sent you. No. Well, look at it and call me back. Good day. And he hung up. I don't remember what I was in the middle of, but before I could finish whatever it was, he called me back. You watch it yet? Tim. I'm busy. Watch it ASAP. Good day. He hung up again.

The love of humanity. What could this video be? I figured it wasn't some average link to someone's moronic self-induced buffoonery, the kind we normally send back and forth. So whatever I was working on, I stopped and I checked my email. Three minutes into the footage from the link he sent me, I could see this was about to cost me some money. I didn't know how much, but I couldn't wait to get it unstove. Bradley Smith started filming his outdoor pursuits for YouTube around 2020. at the encouragement of family and friends. He'd been at it and posting them for the world to witness for four years when Tim ran across the content he sent me.

Reva's going to provide you with a link in the show description to take you right to his channel. But Bradley was fishing in North Louisiana, using the type of net that neither of us were familiar with. The hoop net fishing where we grew up wasn't uncommon by any means. While the numbers have declined over the years, I couldn't name all the folks who were doing it when I graduated from high school in 1984, and that was from a town of barely 7,000 people. That year in Arkansas, there were over 3,800 commercial licenses sold. There are only 102 commercial licenses that are active now in the natural state as of the latest data. It is a disappearing way of life in a lot of places. Places where catfish and buffalo markets rule supreme.

And that way of life was as common in the Delta and Gulf Coastal Plain where I'm from as farming or working construction. For some it was a way of life. For others it was a way to supplement their income. For me and Tim, it is just another way to experience the outdoors the way our family did as my daughter Bailey calls it back then. Coincidentally, she also refers to the time period of my birth in the same style, but adds an emphasis to the word way before the back then, and her poorly veiled adverbial phrase modifying when I was born while throwing shade on me. See, I can talk cool.

Anyway, I have my great-grandfather's net needle. It's hand-carred from a single piece of hickory, A tool used to tie knots entwine and fashion it into a net. I am a show-nuff rookie at it, but I bet he wouldn't. And I know my good friend Bradley ain't. I've watched him tie them on his channel more than once. As a matter of fact, I learned to tie that net knot by watching him. My great-grandfather passed away before I was born, and had it not been for Tim stumbling upon Bradley's YouTube channel,

that skill could have been lost on our generation. I reached out to Bradley, the way folks do these days, through his Facebook page, and I carpet bombed his inbox with question after question, all of which he dutifully answered. It is a goal of mine to build and tie my own net with my grandpa's needle, but that's a project for another day. But I needed to know where to get those nets that he was using.

I needed to know quick, fast, and in a hurry. Bradley gave me the info, and in a matter of a few weeks, Mr. Stan Smith down near Farmable, Louisiana, had made Tim and I three wire nets. It was June of 20, 24, when we rolled into Mr. Stan's yard, just a couple boys from Arkansas. But when we left, we were commercial friends. fisher. Not really, but we had the nets and the licenses. The only thing we needed to add was

fish to the nets. And we did literally on the first set we ever made a few days later. We set our nets out in the areas where we knew catfish to feed, small eddies of current that naturally gathered food and all the goodies that catfish liked to gnaw on. Then we left. And we left them to sit on the of the Arkansas River. After a few sleepless nights, we returned to check our nets and were astonished at how many fish we'd caught on our very first attempt. All three nets were heavy with channeled catfish, which is the most abundant and widespread catfish in the Arkansas River.

Our first attempt had us hooked, pun intended. I sent Bradley pictures in a couple of videos of our hall as soon as we got back home and he invited us to come go fishing with him and we vowed to set up a time it only took two years for it all to come together it was early june of this year when we got serious about planning the trip we'd kept up communicating through texts and social media since i first started harassing him back in late may of 2024 i was also watching bradley's weekly sunday morning drops on his and his wife Danielle's God's country hunting and fishing YouTube channel. Daniel is the real star of that show and Bradley will be the first to tell you.

But don't take my word for it by itself. Go watch it. There's a video on there now of mine and Bradley's trip. I kind of behind the scenes look into my trip with him showing Danielle and my friend and cameraman David McDaniels who was filming some bonus content for this country life. Bradley had some regular hootnets already soaking in the tepid waters of the Washington River. Where he lives and grew up fishing in Louisiana isn't that far from where I did. On On X, I ran a line from my dad's boat ramp on the Saline River to the one we'd be using

that Bradley frequents near his home, and it was less than 68 miles as the crow flies from my spot to his. To draw the similarities even closer, the Saline and Washington rivers converge in Arkansas north of the state line. We were more or less growing up on the same water, albeit the decades in which we were first introduced to it, we're a little different. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello! My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free I-HIR radio app. Gets the blood going up.

Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building to ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHR radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. Before we get back into it, I want to tell you about the new First Light, Bear Grease, Bibs.

I have collaborated with First Light to build the purpose. perfect backcountry utility bib overall. And these might be new to the world, but they're not new to me. In 2019, almost seven years ago, I sketched out the first drawing, and I wanted these bibs to have a chapped front, to make them briar-proof. I wanted them to be breathable. I wanted them to have kind of an athletic fit. I wanted them to have a weatherproof pocket on the front for your cell phone.

If you fell in the river, they've got lots of big pockets, lots of ventilation. They're tough, they're durable. They're made for small game hunting. They're made for working on the farm. And they're the bear grease bibs, man. They're now for sale at the meat eater.com slash bibbs. I made the drive down on the first afternoon and met Bradley at his new river camp location. This would be our headquarters for the next two nights of fishing.

We were targeting flathead catfish, but not with nets. Our plan was to catch them using. bank poles. Now, I've talked about them before on here, but if you're not familiar with them, the easiest way to describe it is, is taking a fishing pole that you just job one end of it in the bank and tie a hook to the other end, bait it and drop it into water. And there's obviously more to it than that, but that will put a picture in your mind of what we were doing. Targeting flatheads is way more involved than just chunking bait out in the water. Now, I've talked about catching them before, so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail this time, but I will say they prefer live

bait. Blue Gild brim is a favorite of theirs. Blue Gild brim is a favorite of mine. It is the favorite of mine. Following behind is everything else that swims, walks, or flies, everything. Everything. So why would I bait a hook with something that tastes great to catch something that taste good. That is a question I kept asking myself and stating out loud to Bradley and anyone with an earshot as he ran a 10-0 must-add circle hook through the tended loins of Lopomis, macropyrus. That's the scientific name for what I can only imagine would be what an angel tasted

like should I ever have the opportunity to take a bite out of one as it flew by. But after he hooked that bait fish just below the dorsal fin and turned it loose to swim near the bottom of the river, my excitement level started to build as I thought about the possibilities of what we could catch. I've watched several videos with Bradley on his channel and using these bank poles. One of them is with a longtime friend of mine and his son from back home. Jeff Jester and his son Dusty are no strangers to catching fish or catching big fish. or catching big fish. When I heard they'd started

Opelousis bank poles, I wasn't surprised. I also just talked to Dusty, and he reported that they'd just sold out of all the inventory they had, and they're looking to be back in stock this winter, which is in plenty of time to get ready for primetime bankpole fish

at next spring. Jeff is a national champion bow fisherman, and a highly decorated veteran of gathering his vittles from the Good Lord's grocery store. store. Makes it easy to see how his son Dusty got so good at it. Anyway, they have a website where you can order the same poles we were using, and Bradley's are just like the ones I got from them a couple years ago. Riva's going to put a link in the show description for that too,

so be sure to save it and check it out later this year. Now Bradley had fish for about an hour and had an ice chest full of big old brim when we got there. Bradley's an industrial electrician by trade, but folks like him are hard to put in a single category. He's smart. Really smart. Bradley first saw the light of day in 1978. When the average gallon of gas would cost you 65 cents,

a case mini-trapper would set you back $15. And the number one song for the whole year, was Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys by Whalen and Willie. And I could go for another dose of all of that right about now. But down in Farm of Louisiana, the Smiths welcomed baby Bradley into the fold. A self-described family of folks living on the edge of the law, just doing what they needed to do to survive, just like everyone else. Now, Bradley is a stickler for abiding by game laws

and watched me like a hawk, not that I'm prone to intentionally messing up by any means. But being a non-resident makes it easier if you're not paying attention to any differences there may be between state game laws, regardless of how similar the activity may be. The first evening, we baited up 16 bank poles from a live well. Bradley had built leaving us 24 brim to rebate through the night should we happen to catch any fish. Bradley's live well consisted of an oxygen bottle, a regulator hose, and a stone buggler that works way better than anything I've purchased ready-made to do the same thing. Bate is the critical component of the operation, and as water temperatures start to rise later in the summer, it gets more difficult to keep them alive. That's why Bradley had a $300 bottle of oxygen fixed up to pump air into the rotol-molded ice chest heat converted into a live well.

ideally catching brim from the same water you're chasing flatheads is as what you want to do but everyone i've talked to has had a slower year than normal trying to find their brim beds in the river back home and bradley said they've had to deal with this as well on the washton so he and his son dillon fished for less than an hour to both the 40 that we were about to use from over on Lake Darbone less than 20 miles away. For all you folks that just sat back and gaffes that I'd use the name of the lake where Bradley was fishing, get your drawers out of a knot and realize he's showing video and naming that lake in his content that has literally millions of views. Also, I specifically ask him how much he wanted me to share.

That lake is 15 miles long and three miles wide at its widest point, so look for something else to be mad about. Anyway, keeping those bait fish alive is priority numero uno, and we couldn't have done that without the investment of equipment and trial and error experience Bradley's been collecting data on all his life. Being the son of a commercial fisherman teaches you more than how to catch fish. you learn the best ways to utilize the resource with as little waste as possible. If you're wasting the resource, you're losing money which defeats the reason you're out there to begin with.

But not only that, when you're raised to protect and cherish the things that the good Lord has given you to provide for your family, it takes on a whole other level of importance. Wasting any of it is not an option. The poles were all baited an hour after dark and we pulled up on a sandbar and turned out the lights and visited for a while. The dichotomy between the river I'd been on a couple of weeks before in northern Saskatchewan

and the Washetal River in northern Louisiana was a sharp contrast, mostly in insects. And for whatever reason, the mosquitoes were way worse in Canada than they were in Louisiana. And I'd have lost money on that. that bet. Regardless, after 30 minutes or so, we decided to go back down the river. Two miles where we placed the first pole before we worked our way up river, checking the rest. The excitement

of seeing that first pole start to bob up and down as the fish on the other end of the line reacted to the sound of the motor was beyond measurable. The first one was a big flathead, and we would repeat that scenario nine more times until we called it a night. and climbed into our bucks in Bradley's camper around 2 a.m. After rebating the lines and icing down a hundred and twenty-five-quered ice chest full of fish. Three big blue cats had been hooked along with the flatheads, but they were all released back into the river. We were up early and paused only long enough to get some coffee made before we went back to the river to check the lines. Four more flatheads and some blue cats were tallied.

All the blues were released except for one that had swallowed the hook. He got a ride back to Arkansas. Later that day after cleaning fish, we ran both hoop nets. Bradley had set before I got there. A few catfish were caught and released. But the star of that show for me was the buffalo. I dearly love buffalo ribs. I've talked about them before, but I haven't conquered the challenge of catching them consistently.

Actually, Tim and I have only had one. catch of buffalo on the only time we put our hoop nets out in the river. And we only caught three or four when we did. After that, we concentrated on the smaller wire nets and having fished the hoop net since. But I bought some new tags, renewed my commercial fishing license, and we're looking forward to making another run at them when this firing and brimstone weather breaks later this summer. I learned quite a bit about net fishing and flatheads while watching and talking to Bradley. Little things I should be paying closer attention to like the subtle changes and the current around the smallest of points along the bank, things that I've always overlooked trying to find a bigger

one. I thought the difference wasn't big enough to matter on such a small scale. Then I saw one hook that was placed perfectly in a spot, catch multiple fish while one right beside it, less than a yard away just beyond that zone didn't get a bite. That's the attention to detail that comes from an analytical way of thinking. I watched Bradley set those hooks, but I didn't see how he caught those fish until he explained to me why he was setting them where he was. And that's how you learn. The details of where and why are what matter.

Until that day, I was looking for a likely spot. but by paying attention I started looking for a specific spot. I can think of a million places right now that I'm going to start setting those bank poles as soon as it gets below a thousand degrees outside.

Something else I learned by watching and talk to Bradley and his wife, Danielle. The older ways are in good hands. There are more of us who rely on the tried and trusted ways of doing things out there than I thought.

People enjoying are hungry for the kind of content that they produced. Simple, close to the land, wholesome content that demonstrates a hard work and big reward ethic. Providing the majority of the food for your family from nature isn't easy. I can testify of that because most of the meat and all the fish consumed in my home doesn't come from the grocery store. Prepared and packaging food to be put away properly is as big a part of the process as the hunting and fishing trips are, maybe even more so. What the Smiths are doing is not just entertainment to be enjoyed.

It should be commended with their efforts and allowing the rest of us to watch and learn from the lifestyle that they live. The older ways may be getting harder to find, but folks like Bradley and Danielle Smith are keeping those traditions alive and they're far, far from gone. If you enjoy simple, close to the land, honest to goodness, good content, check out God's Country Hunting and Fishing on their YouTube channel. I think you'll enjoy it. And be sure to wait and watch for some bonus content that'll drop on from my trip down there.

I think you'll enjoy it. Thank y'all so much for listening. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful. When the seasons are on, the work doesn't stop. You're still scouting, still adjusting, still pushing. putting in early mornings and long days.

That's no off-season. First Light fieldware is built for real use in-season and beyond. No shortcuts. Check out First Light's new fieldware collection at firstlight.com.