Bear Grease - Ep. 488: This Country Life - Coon Claw Jake and Philip Worm

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Brent’s got a couple survival stories this week. Not so much as in life and death survival, but situational. One's from a young teen who had a prolonged stay beyond a planned trip. The other is from an adult who adapted to take care of his family. You’re gonna like this one for sure. It’s time for MeatEater’s This Country Life podcast. 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.

Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hutton to Trotlining and Just General Country Living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons.

This Country Life is presented by Casey's, knives from the store more 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 coon clawed jake and philip worm we're living off the land this week two similarly themed stories that highlight the willingness to make go of it in the wild One of them for a few days, and the other for a lifetime. I think you'll like them both. Join me at the fire.

Let's get started. This story comes from this country life listener Jacob Clark. Jacob's a fellow Arkansas native and making tracks with his family up around Ash Flat, the Seoul County seat of government in Sharp County since 1967, with a portion of it poking over into full. County. It is one of 18 cities to reside in more than one county. I learned that today. Anyway, Jacob shared the following, and here it is. I grew up with a deep love and respect for the outdoors, particularly the Ozarks. My forefathers hunted and trapped to feed their families. Lucky for me, my father could afford a few extra groceries to go with our deer meat over the years.

we still needed to meet and often hunted just to stock up on protein in the freezer. But I was blessed to grow up with a different perspective than my grandfather's, which was surviving. I was just able to enjoy the many aspects of hunting and enjoy it all with my father, my grandpa, and my uncles. Many years ago, some friends from up north came down to hunt with my dad and I. I was 12. One of them, Yupor, was his nickname. he was a bona fide North Woods trapper.

He took me under his wing and told the wildest trap line stories. I had used dogproof traps before on the farm, but never anything like what Yupor talked about. And that fall, I dug out some old night of Victor one and a half coal springs that belonged to my great-grandfather, and I started trapping. Fast forward about two years, and I was running my own trap line. Being homeschooled, allowed me, some flexibility with my schedule.

I was getting up at daylight, walking a mile to the Strawberry River, and running a dozen or so sets targeting Red Fox. We also had a 400-acre farm in southern Missouri that my grandpa had built a cabin on. I wanted to go trap on that farm so bad. And finally, he'd let me do it. The plan was foolproof. My dad would drop me off after church on Sunday morning

and come get me before church Wednesday afternoon. I had three cold mornings to catch as many coons and coyotes as possible. We lived about two hours from the farm. I didn't have a driver's license. Just my uncle's old side-by-side he left there for deer hunting. Dad made it clear that I was to keep that thing on the farm. I have no idea who preached that Sunday or what they preached about. I was mentally already in the woods.

woods. After church, I went and I got a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs and some bacon to get me by. Plus, I had a little deer meat to fry if I wanted a fancy dinner. This was going to be awesome, easy, just three days. Or so I thought. That Sunday evening, I set a few traps, even though I didn't have a lot of time before dark and I used a flashlight to set the last one. I had my 22 and my favorite skinny knife, and let me tell you, Had the boogeyman so much as sneezed, I was sending everything I had in whatever direction he was. And once the last one was set, I was skedaddling it back to the cabin as fast as my legs would go. I made eggs and toast and put on one of my favorite John Wayne movies.

I was in high cotton. Once it came time to go to bed, though, the cabin started making some strange noises. Did the Booker Man make it back with me? I wasn't sure, but my 22 slipped in bed right next to me just in case. Monday morning I stepped out and took in a long breath of fresh Ozark air. That was it, man. I was pretty much an Ozark version of Bear Claw Chris Lap from Jeremiah Johnson. I only caught two coons that day, but I was able to set the rest of my traps.

I got done before lunch, and I went out to cut some hickory sticks that afternoon. A five-foot hickory stick sold for 60 cents at our local cane factory, and I had to save up for a truck, and it was a good way to pass the time until dark and make a little money while I was doing it. That night it was another simple meal with John Wayne movie and lights out. I slept a little better, just a little. On Tuesday morning, the trap line yielded nothing. I was discouraged, but I persevered nonetheless. I changed up a couple of my dirt hole sets and I cut some more sticks.

And that afternoon, I called my dad to give him an update. He encouraged me to continue on and remind me of how blessed I was to be able to get out there and do it. So many grown men would have given so much to be doing what I was doing. It's all about perspective. Now, Dad informed me that my mother and both of my sisters had come down with some kind of bug and were pretty sick. I prayed for them and I went on about the day. I looking forward to mom's cooking the next night. But that night, it was just another simple meal, another John Wayne movie, another day done.

The Bougar Man never even crossed my mind. At least no more than once. Wednesday was my last day out in the wild, my last day fending for myself. I checked the trap line. I caught three more coons, and that was it. I got to the end and loafed around a while waiting for the daily call from dad. He called and said, son, the girls are pretty sick. And I don't feel comfortable leaving them. I'll have to try and get up there tomorrow if that's all right.

Of course, I was Coon clawed Jake Clark after all. Thankfully, I didn't pull any of my traps. I had reset the ones that had coons in them, and I went back to the cabin. I had a few pieces of bread, a couple eggs, and a glass or two of milk that was left. And after that, there was a couple of packages of peanut butter crackers and maybe some cans of viny sausages in the cabin pantry. I killed a couple squirrels, and I had them for supper that night. I went to bed, and I slept pretty good, confident that I would be in my house.

my own bed the following night. Thursday I got up and I felt well rested. I down some cold water and I stepped outside to relieve myself. And I walked around the corner of the cabin half awake and ran right smack dab into the Bougar Man. The neighbor's old dog had wandered over a mile to the cabin and thought he was as alone as I thought I was. We both jumped about a foot high, let out a high-pitched yep, and we both went our separate

ways. I no longer had to pee, and I would guess that he probably didn't either. I think I'm ready for Dad to come get me. And he called and said that girls were still sick, and there wasn't much hope of being picked up today. I reassured him that I was good on groceries, and I left to go check my sets. I planned to kill another couple squirrels and stretch what I could out until tomorrow. And on the very last trap, I couldn't believe my eyes. I caught an old bobcat. My first one ever, and man, was I excited. His pelt was worth $80 to my local buyer, and I couldn't wait to tell everyone about it. Made my way back to the cabin in time for lunch. Only, I didn't have much to choose from, and I was about to get flat out hungry. I went to skinning that bobcat, and right

about the time I was done, I realized he had some decent-sized backstraps, and they looked like normal meat to me. I had some flour and grease left from frying deer, and I yanked those backstrap off that bobcat, and I hid it inside. Mama taught me how to cook a lot of things, and I treated this meat like everything else, a little bit of seasoning, a little bit of flyer, fried it on a cast iron skillet. And I took a seat at the table and dug in, and he was a little bit of the meat. And was amazing. Who would have thought? All I know is I had a full belly the rest of the day and went to bed confident that I could do this for as long as I needed to.

I just didn't want to do it much longer. The next day was Friday, and my belly was on empty when I got up. I gathered myself. I ate an egg, and I peaked outside to make sure no hounds were scavenging around, and I hit the woods. Nothing was lighthearted that. morning. I was dead serious about everything and starting to feel lonely. I'd been gone long enough that I wasn't sure mom and the girls would recognize the grisly-looking woodsman that replaced their son and brother. Mama had said farewell to her baby boy last Sunday. I was a different man now.

I might as well sell all my possessions and head west for the Rocky Mountains. I was no longer a 14-year-old boy. I was a 14-year-old boy. I was a 14-year-old. mountain man. Dad called, and he said the girls were better, and he would update me after lunch. Hallelujah. That was the best news I could have heard at that point. This mountain man was ready for Mama's cooking, and I checked the trap line, and I had another coon, and I couldn't believe it, but another bobcat.

Only this time, I wasn't thinking about the $80 in the Bragging rights. I was already smelling those. backstraps being fried up for supper. Dad called that afternoon. It wasn't too sure about leaving the girls yet, but was also worried about me. Me? I'm doing great now. I got my supper, a huge boost in morale, and I'm doing just fine.

Just come tomorrow. That night, I slept better than ever. So good, I left my 22 in the other room. The next morning I didn't catch anything, and I pulled all my two. traps. I had two bobcat pelts, a few coon pelts, and a pile of hickory sticks, and a couple pieces of fried bobcat left over. Eventually, I heard his truck coming through the woods, and when he pulled up, all I could think to say was, Dad, you're the first human being I've seen in a week. He really got a kick out of that, but I was serious when saying it. I showed him to

hides and offered up the leftover fried cat. He wasn't a fan, but also, he was a kid. But also, So more well-nourced than I was going into the trying it. I talked his ear off all the way home. I was proud, and I could tell that he was proud of me. I'm a firm believer that I created designed the heart of a man to be wild and dangerous. In that week, my heart changed. I found the wild in it.

I came out with some confidence that I can be dangerous for what I need to be. I tell both of my little boys every day that they are strong. They are wild and they are dangerous. That week in the southern Missouri Ozarks, it made a lifelong impact on me and would later influence how I lead my family. Someday I hope my boys have the same desire I did to be outdoors and I hope I can give them the same opportunity that my folks gave me. Only I won't leave them for too long.

long. Or maybe I will. We'll just have to see how my wife feels that week. And according to Jacob Clark, the Ashflat Flash, that's just how that happened. Well, Jacob, I appreciate you sending that in and sharing it with the rest of us. You learned at an early age that you can be self-sufficient when you want to be. But being put in a position to do it when you have to be, Now that's a whole other level of satisfaction.

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I have collaborated with First Light to build the 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. In 1959, Philip Henry Worm went to work welding bumpers on buses at the Ward Body Works Company in Conway, Arkansas.

He was earning a dollar an hour. and was promised a 10-cent raise after his first three months. It was an agreement between his supervisor and Philip. Philip being a man of his word, expected his boss to be the same. He was 18 years old, and he and his new wife, Pat, he calls her Patsy, were determined to make it on their own. Philip was born in 1941. His father was a truck driver serving overseas in World War II,

as were all of his uncles and relatives who were of age, all of whom would come home to Conway after surviving the conflict that ended in the fourth year of his life. In 1959, 14 years following that grand homecoming, Conway's population had added 2,900 Arkansasans, tallying to a little over 8,600 folks, and Philip Worm was three months into a job banking on a promise of a superiors. Supervisor's word. In the week leading up to the Providence Tencent and I raise, he reminded his supervisor of the agreement they had made.

When he collected his check on Friday and that raise wasn't there, Philip went home and he never looked back. I sat on the couch with him a few weeks ago, Miss Pat and his son Terry and we talked about his life and what he did next. He said, I came home and I told my wife I didn't get that raise. And she said, you quit, didn't you? And I told her I did. She asked me what I was going to do, and I told her I didn't know. But I'd have it figured out by Monday. Philip took two days to think and map out his plan on how he was going to support his brand-new family.

During the time of his youth, he became quite adept at playing marbles and hunting rabbits with a sling shot. two skills that helped keep his pockets full of ammo and Mama's Kitchen full of meat. Like most folks of the time and place, they raised nearly everything they ate, depended very little on others, and worked for all that they had. He also called rabbits with a trap known as a rabbit gum. What's a rabbit gum? Well, I'm glad you asked. The name comes from the traditional hollowed-out black gum log that the traps were made from.

They naturally hollow out due to a condition called heart rot, which is a fungus that causes the center to rot away, and it leaves a wooden pipe of sorts. The outside is still solid, and all that was needed to complete the trap was a back wall on one end and a triggered trap door on the other. The name stuck, and now, at least here where I'm from, every trap of that type, even the ones built out of lumber, are called rabbit gums. But back to that weekend in 1959, sometime between Friday night and Sunday night, Philip Worm made his decision. On Monday morning, after breakfast, he left the house and headed for the northeast corner of Oak and Chestnut Street and Conway, where the store entrance tile still reads, Grummer Hardware Company.

A local concern originally operated as John Grummer's hardware store starting around 1905. Walter Massey took over the stock and name in October of 1942. And on that day in 1959, the protagonist of our story walked inside and purchased a spool of nylon line in a box of fish hooks. There was a popular local saying that if you can't find it at masses, they don't make it. They sold everything from farm tools, guns, and ammo to fishing gear and cannon supplies. and hard-to-find engine parts. Philip Worm walked into that store unemployed, but singular focused with a desire to depend on only himself to provide for his family.

He walked out a commercial fisherman with Lake Conway the first place he planned to start working. Lake Conway was formed when a dam was placed across Pallarm Creek, forming a 6,700-acre reservoir in central Arkansas just south of Conway. built in 1948 by the Arkansas Gaming Fish Commission as the largest lake constructed by a state wildlife commission. It was there that Phillips started fishing out of a wooden boat that he'd made in high school. And while doing so, he met the man who would become his partner for many years afterward. He learned to tie gill nets and hand-wove them from linen, using a net needle and a sheet bend or a weaver knot. Mr. Phil.

have made his linen gill nets in the backyard of his home. There wasn't any locally available nylon small enough to use back then, and nets would be made from linen and cotton before the introduction locally a monofilment small enough to use later in the decade. Using gill nets to catch and sell buffalo on the wholesale markets for seven cents a pound or retail at 15, catfish were more than double that, So it's an easy formula comparing commercial fishing to welding bumpers as to which one was more lucrative. It's also an easy summation as to which one was harder.

Fishing was every day, and you didn't get rained out. You just got rained on. A simple formula for a young entrepreneur. You can't sell fish if you hadn't caught him. So that's what Mr. Philip did. He fished. He first started out in Lake Conway, and then he moved to the Arkansas River, adding the Mississippi as his business expanded. He leased to private lakes from landowners and netted buffalo by the boatloads all through the cold winter months.

Netting season opened in January on the Mississippi, and on one occasion, Mr. Phillip and his fishing partner were prepping a hundred fiddler nets to drop up and down the big muddy. Once they were set, he said it would take them two solid days from days. light to dark to run them. He built a portable fish box that could hold a ton of fish and traveled with a camper in an ice machine. Garfish, he sold right

alongside buffalo and catfish. I've eaten them myself and they're good. He had a good market for all three, but winter fishing is hard and not just because of the environment, a catfish and buffalo fish's metabolism slows down in cold water, and so does the catch.

They become sluggish, they don't move as much, and if they ain't swimming, they ain't getting in the net. If they ain't getting in the net, the fisherman doesn't get paid. Fortunately, for the growing number of children being added to the stringer at the worm home, the height of the fur boom was just getting underway. Add trapper to Mr. Phillips' resume, and you'll have two-thirds of the skill sets that kept the lights on at his house over the last 60 years or so. He trapped here in Arkansas and out west for weeks at a time.

Traps were about a dollar each when he started out. And we walked outside to a shed behind his house, and traps by the dozen sat orderly in boxes and stacked ready to be prepped for the upcoming season, although they appeared to have been sitting there for several seasons now. $300 bobcats, top-priced coyote and coon hides from Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming were what he talked about with the most excited. Each year from October to December, he stayed in campers and cabins in those states and ran his trap lines, much like the fur trappers did.

They were the first Europeans to see those places many years before. The pictures his daughter Tammy shared with me I'm referring to now will be on my social media channels. They're really impressive and a big tip of the hat as proof positive to someone who relied on his knowledge of the environment. and how the animals he was after interacted in it. He wasn't just posing with a pile of furs in those shots. He and his family were sitting amongst the car pavement, school clothes, Christmas presents, groceries, light bill, and every other item required to raise a family and live a comfortable life.

Comfort or a lack of it was the only thing that interrupted his trap lines. When the snow got too deep, Mr. Philip went home. Now, if that ain't enough, get a load of this. At one time in Arkansas, there were six turtle farm permits issued. That's right. Turtle farm permits. Guess who had one of them? Correct again.

Mr. Philip. For decades, Arkansas allowed heavy commercial collection of turtles alongside pond bread and raised ones. Between 2004 and 2017, 1.3. Three million turtles were harvested in Arkansas, leading to concerns of the sustainability of taking such slow, maturing wild reptiles. Commercial turtle ponds, like Mr. Phillips, filled the void in a market that didn't take from the wild population. He raised them himself, as many as $25,000 a year from three small ponds on his property annually.

Ponds were inspected and kept a code as regulated by the state's game commission. And for nearly 20 years, turtle farming counted as a third of three, sometimes simultaneous careers they provided for the worm family. They sold turtles commercially, most of which went overseas and locally as well. Now, what I'm about to play for you now is a story told by Mr. Philip about his longtime fishing and hunting partner, the late Bobby Alverson. This tale is introduced by Mr. Phillips' wall. wife, Miss Pat.

Here it is. Here's the story. Those ladies stopped and wanted a turtle, about a 25, 30-pound turtle. And Bobby went and got the turtle, and he wasn't paying close enough attention. And the turtle turned and bit the end of his pangor off right about the top of the, right about the joint. And he sacked the turtle up and collected the money, and then he went to the doctor, and they sewed the end of it up. And when I got down there Monday morning to go run nets,

he was telling me about it, and he brought out this jar that was filled up with, I don't know what he had, alcohol, I guess. Anyway, he had the end of that pangar in that jar, so I got it up looking at it. I said, my gosh, Bobby, you're the least cleaned that fingernail a lot before you stuck it in that jar. That's about the end of the story, all right. He laughed at me. It's a tough community of folks who run around in the commercial fishing and turtle business.

Not a lot of sympathy passed around. The hazards of the job were just the things you dealt with because the job had to be done. I got a good friend who was a commercial fisherman, and he, just like Mr. Philip and Mr. Bobby, didn't complain about the work or how hard it was. Work is work, and it's refreshing to see someone like my friend who does it now

keeping this way of life alive in the wake of the mountain regulatory costs and the sport fishing lobbyist. I've spoken with the Arkansas fisheries biologists and have been assured the catfish population in the Arkansas River can easily withstand the amount of commercial fishing pressure it's receiving. Catfish of every species are thriving, and the regulations put in place will ensure that they remain that way. The big ones, the trophy class fish, are the ones that get the most attention. But they, while legal to harvest, are almost always released by the self-policing commercial

fishermen. Those are the females that keep the fishery stocked. River sampling, by the state's fisheries teams report that the natural mortality of older fish far exceeds any impact brought on by commercial fishing. The smaller, more numerous-sized catfish, the kind you see laying on your plate in restaurants, those are the money fish. And there's not a commercial fisherman I know or have ever talked to that wouldn't rather have 25 two-pound fish over one that weighed 50. Philip Henry Worm commercial fished for 62 years while trapping and farming turtles.

A lifetime of stewardship and regulated harvest, which is in its truest working sense, the very definition of conservation. Thank you all so much for listening to Clay Lake and myself here on the Bear Grays Channel. That's going to do it for me for this week. So until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing all. Y'all be careful.