Bear Grease - Ep. 510: Deer Stories - Buck Attack and The House Fires that Forged a Legend

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

It’s fall, and that means it’s time for Deer Stories. This year’s collection has it all: giant bucks, exploding pork and beans, yellowjackets, close calls, and a deer-hunting accident that nearly cost a man his life. We hear from hunters across Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas, including the story of Teddy Villines and a Boone & Crockett class typical buck whose rack was given up in the name of friendship. William McKinley tells the story of an unforgettable archery hunt that goes spectacularly wrong. Clay Chapman recounts the terrifying boating accident that nearly ended his life, and the buck that brought him back to the woods a year later. Lane Weaver shares how a deer nearly killed him—and ultimately taught him a lesson that may have saved his life years later. Cody Villines delivers one of the funniest deer-camp stories you'll ever hear, involving a can of pork and beans and a nest of yellowjackets. And Jason Caylor closes things out with a 166-inch anniversary buck taken under some decidedly unconventional circumstances. These aren't just stories about deer hunting, but more than that, they're stories about friendship, family, perseverance, and the incredible privilege of experiencing another fall in the woods. Thank you to our sponsor, Tecovas. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. The hard rock bet casino app is here, Ontario. It's safe, secure, and crystal clear with fast payouts and 24-7 local support. You can play over 3,000 games right here, including hard rock bet casino exclusives. The hard rock bet casino app is here, Ontario. Roll with us. Must be 19 years of age or older to play.

Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling or that of someone close to you? Visit connectsonterio.ca. Medeater and bestselling author Brian Burrow present Gunfighters, a new podcast series about the American West and the violence that made its most legendary figures infamous.

Davis Tutts staggered forward, shouted, boys, I'm killed. Healed over dead. Listen to Gunfighters, starting on September 15th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we get there, cooks and tiger's cook and we're sitting there eating and we get her belly full and we kick back

and no doubt farmers probably telling a big wild tail of some kind we're sitting there talking and all of a sudden it's like a bomb goes off i'm talking about like blue flames shoot up in the air and we go three different directions i mean we just peel off from that far and nobody knows what's going there's stuff falling out of the sky i feel my arm there's something running down my arm And I thought, what in the world? And about that time, farmer said, them beans. It's been a long, hot summer. The days are getting shorter.

The shadows longer. The coats of the deer have turned from burnt red to a shade of brown, mimicking a handful of dirt and sticks. Leaves are moving into their final glamorous display of color. It is fall. And this is our beloved deer stories episode. And on it, we've got stories involving such things as house fires, bucks nearly gore and folks, a near-death experience, folks just missing deer over and over,

and pork and beans and yellow jackets. Our storytellers come from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi. This one is full of surprises. But I want to bring it back to the foundation of why we're all here. In an interview in 1851, Nathan Boone, the son of Daniel Boone, said his father was, quote, as naturally inclined each fall to go hunting and trapping as a farmer is in the spring to set about putting his crops in. I'd say that descriptor fits many of us. We're here to celebrate deer hunting.

What an incredible privilege to experience another fall. I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Brought to you by Tukovas boots. I'm a cowboy boot man, and I've been wearing Tocovas for years. They're the most comfortable boot I've ever put on. Good boots for good times. I'd like to start us off reading from a hallowed passage from the book, My Father Daniel Boone.

These are the words of Nathan Boone, Dan's youngest son, 30 years after his father's death, when Nathan, the son, was 70 years old. It's about his first buck. In the fall of 1794, Father and I were out hunting. We camped on the northern bank of the Ohio River, some two or three miles above the mouth of Campaign Creek. which was 10 or 12 miles above Point Pleasant. It was frosty weather and leaves were falling. About the second morning, a foggy morning, my father went off, leaving me alone at camp.

A large, fine buck came within 20 or 25 steps of camp, and I seized my small rifle. This was not my little bird rifle, which used a ball about the size of a buckshot. That one I used to kill birds and squirrels near Crooked Creek back of Point Pleasant. This larger rifle was made, by my father and William Arbuckle, a gunsmith.

I arrested his gun against one of the camp posts and fired, but the deer ran off. Father heard the shot and returned to camp. He asked me to point out where the deer had stood. He found hair which the ball had cut off. He then followed the trail, found blood, and 60 or 80 yards further, he found the deer dead. This was the first deer I ever killed. But my father didn't leave me at camp anymore. He took me with him two or three times, pointed out deer, and showed me how to manage to get off shots.

I was not to move or attempt to steal up on the deer when his head was up chewing and he was looking around, but to do so when his head was down, feeding, and he could not so well see me. Following this advice, I killed one or two other deer during this hunt. While we were together, my father shot a bear and one or two others when he was alone the first day. From these two or three bear, we saved all the meat, and of the 10 or 15 deer, we saved the best hindquarters. That night, they'd hear Indians chopping wood across the river and would narrowly escape the next morning in a canoe with a hovering fog covering their escape. Whether we realize it or not, Boone scripted the narrative of the American deer hunter that's still alive today. It's just in a new form.

That's why I wanted this first story to come from the boons. But our first storyteller that's very much alive today is none other than Teddy Valines from Newton County, Arkansas, in the Ozarks. You might recognize Teddy from our American Logger series, episodes 420 and 425. I heard him tell this dear story earlier this year, and it intrigued me for three reasons, maybe four, which we're going to discuss directly.

But this story involves a touch of human conflict, a giant deer, and fire. The story took place in 1975. Let me know what stands out to you. So you want to hear a deer story? I do. Well, I'm going to start out with a gun. My dad gave me. I guess he'd give it to me, or either I just used it so much I took it over.

It was an old Springfield shotgun dad bought brand new. Well, back then we supported. You couldn't afford guns. But man, that thing was pretty. It was light-colored stock. Man, it just fit my hand like a glove. And that thing, double-off buckshot, and it didn't shoot a pattern, close pattern. It would roll them up and down.

And if you pull, like, on one shoulder, you was going to put three or four in him at least because it just rode him up and down. But that's what I was packing. and it was a new country that we had never hunted, and he had permission to hunt it. I had a pair of young hounds I was raising, Cindy and Foxy, which we run with hounds back then. And we went over, and he told me,

and he said, if you'll take that pair of young hounds, take them down that old log road off in that canyon, we might run something out there. Well, I hit him down that road, and they just left me. So I just turned around and went back to the truck with him, And he just lodges up in his truck, and we drove around about a mile or two down on the creek. Well, he put me on a place, the old road there. There's a big high bank here, the road, and there's a big old rough ditch that runs up to the road, brushy.

It didn't look like any place for a deer would want to cross. Well, I was standing there, and he took my buddy on up the road just a little ways. We all used shotguns, so we wasn't that for a part. It wasn't long. I heard them young hounds. They jumped, and here they come, and man, I was so proud. You talk about driving the deer.

Anyway, that canyon, there's a big ridge run down. They come up around in that point. The far side of it, probably 300 yards, 400 yards. All this deer I'd ever seen in my life come around through there, and all I could see was, well, I hadn't ever seen it. look like that. And there I had a shotgun, and them hounds was about 100 yards,

50 to 100 yards right behind it. And I just had to watch him. He went, well, I'm out of sight through that big field. He went south. Dogs went out of here. And directly, I heard the dog, and about that time, my buddy, that was right up the road from me,

here he came down to where I was at, standing there, instead of standing on his stand. And we're standing there talking, and I heard the racket, and I just turned my head, and that big buck had come right up that little old hauler was right there behind us, I'd say, 30, 40 feet. And he's seen us.

And he just ducked and come out and hit that old road. And, of course, I just whirled. Was that 12-gauge? He wouldn't. I'm about 20, 30 yards. and I just pulled the trigger which I'd used that shotgun and I could use it.

I pumped fast. And when I shot, I mean, he just went down and I pumped me another than fast I could. I jammed it. Never had jammed that gun in my life. Never jammed it since. I worked it fast. I hung that hole.

Well, the deer went down in the road but he's trying to get up and he was just on his front feet to know how they drag. broke his back. He was trying to drag up the road, and my buddy just throwed up and shot him. Of course, he just fell to the ground, shot him in the same side. But anyway, we got him and loaded him up. His old horns and a chivalet pickup would stick up over the bed. He was 13 point. I think he was typical six on each side, and one big sticker

come up off his base. He's 21 inches wide, and I think the back was 13 inches tall. And we never measured rest. I mean, they was tall. But back then, you didn't measure horns. You didn't score them. Nobody knew how or even thought about it.

Of course, we drove down to Ponca. Anyway, I tagged him, and my buddy, he claimed he killed him or finished and save a good friendship. Well, I didn't argue. A friendship. And all, a deer's not worth it to me. We took it out there and scanned it

and looked at the buckshot hole where we'd shot it. And any one of them would have killed him, mine or his. So he finished the deer's, and we both claimed him. So anyway, we took pictures, and he took the rack home.

I don't remember if he mounted him or just had the horns. back then we just usually cut the horns off. We had meat. That's the reason we hunted. But a big buck trophy like that, well, that was just, you know, once in a lifetime for me. In all honesty, over the years, I kind of dwelt on it,

and it did bother me more. But there's the end of that story, too. Anyway, years went on. I had never even seen the wreck again. and he had a house far and burned up everything he had the rack. If he had any pictures, he'd burn all his up. Well, I still had the pictures of it, but I had a house far in 2013, 2011, 13, and burn up everything I had, lost everything, burnt the pictures up,

so there is no proof. There is no record. this deer ever been killed you'll either have to take my word for it cody's seen the pictures but there are about two or three guys still alive that was there convows for how big it was that can bouts for how big this deer was never scored him but i don't i don't have no idea what he was scored but i will never in my lifetime kill another deer like that well your your son cody who we know who's handled a lot of deer and nose deer. He feels real confident it was a 170 inch typical. You know, later years I got thinking about it. I thought, you know, I don't think that deer would have got out of way. I could have

probably laid claim. Like I say, friendship, it's a way more than a deer, way more important. There's lots of deer. And I sure couldn't eat the horns. And back then, we hunted for meat. But he was tough. I'll tell you that. Either my wife couldn't cook very good. He was tough. I have a feeling Teddy's wife is a good cook, but this story intrigues me because, I told you I was going to tell you, number one, they were running dogs.

That's interesting. Number two, based on what I know of, scoring white tails, a mainframe six by six, 21 inches wide has very long beams. And we know that the deer had exceptionally long tines. He had 13-inch G-2s. I have no trouble believing this buck could have scored over 170 inches as a typical, maybe more.

My third thing of interest is obvious. Teddy gave up the rack to save a friendship. This story reminds me of Johnny Johnson and his son-in-law given away a once-in-a-lifetime buck to an old man that they knew didn't kill the deer, but they gave it to him anyway. That was episode 379. They led him to believe that he had killed the deer. but I have two thoughts, maybe three, on Teddy's buck.

In hunting, first blood drawn is typically regarded of higher rank than last blood. Period. It's just that simple. If you draw blood on a buck and that buck dies, it's the first blood drawer's buck. Second, the buddy moved from his spot to Teddy's spot. If he'd stuck with the plan, he wouldn't have even been there, and Teddy would have eventually got a follow-up shot. Thirdly, Teddy checked the buck, clearly stating legal claim in agreement with his buddy. But this is water under the bridge. I'm not trying to stir up the question of why they did it.

I only bring this stuff up to maybe help someone in the future, but this high road act speaks volumes of Teddy's character. He didn't want to cause a stink over a set of horns with a friend. And then two separate house fires wipe out. all evidence of the buck. That's interesting. Man house fires are bad. Thank you, Teddy, for sharing that story.

And I'd just like to say, if you recall, at the end of American Loggers Part 2, we learned that Teddy had been diagnosed with cancer. At the end of this episode, Teddy's going to give us an update. But onward we go, gentlemen and gentlewomen, to French Camp, Mississippi, to our storyteller William McKinley. But do not be confused.

This is not the former president of the United States who was assassinated in 1901, whose young vice president, the then 42-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, filled in for. This William McKinley, our William McKinley, however, holds a high noble office as well as the deer biologist for the state of Mississippi.

What an honor to have him on Bear Greece. He not only studies deer, He's a lifelong deer hunter with a good early season story. You know, opening a bow season, I always look forward to because one of my favorite ways to hunt is I like to grab a fawn bleat and get a buddy or two and we get out in the woods and we'll pick an afternoon or morning just after sun up and go out and start trying to call up a dough. Now, I know when we do this, we stand virtually no chance of killing a buck. But that's okay. Oh, we're going out, and it's an exciting hunt. And for those folks, if you've never done it, I tell you, it's a lot of fun.

And when I first introduced people to this, they always look at me like I'm crazy. And I'm standing there squalling on this thing, and they're like, there ain't nothing coming. And about that time, there's a dough at 15 yards, and they're like, oh, think this does work. So early on, public land opened near my house, and two of my buddies, land and Phillip, Phillip didn't have a bow, land did have a bow. I had my bow, and we decided to go into this public area and go and give it a trifone bleeding. Mid afternoon, cool afternoon, early October. We're walking with first stop.

We call a deer up, and it's just too far. We don't get it quite in range. Next stop was nothing, the third stop. We get in this thicket, and it's a lot of mid-story stuff, sapling-type stuff. that is 10 to 15 feet high, a lot of vines. Looking back, it was a very bad spot to try to call a deer in because you couldn't get a shot in it. But once again, we're just trying it and like, hey, this looks like a good spot.

Walk over there, walk over there, and I'm blowing the foam bleat. So I remember I was wearing just a long-sleeved t-shirt. Didn't have a pocket on it. This little wooden call on a lanyard on my neck, and I start blowing this thing. and 20 seconds, 30 seconds in, we see her coming. She's tipping. She's high stepping coming through, going around, and I whispered a land. He's five steps from me.

I'm like, take the shot when you get, take the shot. She stops at like 18 steps. He releases the era, and you can just hear that aluminum era, hitting wood as it went through, ting, ting, ting, complete miss. She runs. I start blowing the phone bleed and she runs right back. She had ran off to 50 runs right back,

stops in the same spot, but I have a good opening on the deer. He doesn't have an aeronocked again yet. I've got a good opening on her. I've drawn back on her when she's coming in. So imagine me standing there with this call in my mouth and I've drawn my bow

shooting fingers, shooting that old compound instinctive with fingers. I had an old glove I used. I'm anchored back, and I suddenly realized the call is, I can't get anchored properly because the call's in my mouth. So I just spit the call out. Well, it's on a lanyard, and I don't think of what that might mean when I let go. I release string.

I mean, I've got her dead to right. She's 14 yards. I'm about to shoot this dough. I let go, and that string catches the lanyard and just rips it off my. neck. The call goes flying out through the woods. The air, I still don't know where the air went. To this day, I see the call laying there. I've got rope burned. Luckily, it wasn't a strong lanyard. And it didn't damage my bow. I run up and grabs the do's running off. I grab the call. I come, land runs up to me like, are you okay? What happened? I'm like, I about choke myself to

death, man. The call, the stream caught the lanyard of the call when I let go and I start blowing it. Would you believe that deer came back? She ran right back up and land missed her again. And with that, we decided to lick our wounds and go on back to the truck. So, but that's phone bleeding that. Were you expecting three archery misses on a doe deer? I sure wasn't. The best stories are unpredictable, and William's passion is hard to hide. Thanks for what you're doing down there in Mississippi, William. Hard Rock Bet Casino app is here, Ontario. It's safe, secure, and crystal clear with fast payouts and 24-7 local support.

You can play over 3,000 games right here, including Hard Rock Bet Casino exclusives. The Hard Rock Bet Casino app is here, Ontario. Roll with us. Must be 19 years of age or older to play. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling or that of someone close to you, visit connectsonterio.ca. All right folks, if you are a whitetail hunter, you're going to want to hear this. Right now, we are running the ultimate white tail giveaway,

and it's packed with over $23,000 in prizes, including the new Zulu 6 binoculars from Sig, a 6-5 creedmore from Sig, Moultry Edge 3 cameras, case knives, an arc 30 bow from Matthews, and a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and their new whisper-down jacket and pant, and a whole other pile of gear from other partner brands. And that's not all. You can also win a chance to join me, Mark Kenyon, for a fully guided muzzleloader White Tail Hunt at running water hunting, hosted by outfitter Jordan Budd. This is a five-day, four-night December hunt during the muzzleloader season. one of the most exciting times to be in a white-tail stand.

Lodging in meals are fully included. And the more you spend during the giveaway at First Light, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at firstlight.com. Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember, for every $25 spent, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the entire prize pack.

But don't wait around. The giveaway ends Monday, October 12, 2026 at 1159 p.m. If we had to travel by boat from French Camp Mississippi to where our next storyteller lives, you'd drop in the big black river just west of town, west of French camp, on Highway 407, the boat ramp there, and float 300 miles southwest to where the big black flows in to the big Mississippi, just south of Vicksburg. Then you'd hang a hard right, head north on the big muddy, traveling 170 miles to the mouth of the Arkansas River, hang a lefty-loosty, and start your over 350-mile journey through the Bear State before crossing into Oklahoma on the Arkansas River, going through Kerr Lake,

and then hang in a south, a left, where the Canadian River enters the mighty Arkansas, where you'd go an easy 25 miles into Lake Ufala, where Clay Chapman lives at a place called Carlton-Lay. Landing, Oklahoma. I'm not saying that boat ride would be easy. It would be easier to drive or fly. But this next story is no joke. Clay is deer hunting using a boat to access a hunting spot on November 6, 2024. But an accident on the water could have cost him his life.

So it was the first week of November. it was the first good and chilly morning, you know, and I was super excited to get out there. And I told my wife, you know, I might not be back till dark. And I was heading out, you know, dark 30 in the morning. So I got out, got across the lake, got to my blind, hunted the spot until about noon. and there had been a spot further up the creek that I hadn't been able to get to yet that season because the lake had gotten low and I was having to cross these mud flats. And it was just too low to get across.

But we'd recently had some rain. And I thought, you know, I think I could get across there. I want to go check on that. I want to go check on that blind, just see if I can get over there, see if it was viable for me to maybe think about hunting there another day. My boat is a it's this great little skiff. It's about a 15 foot. It's a flat bottom John boat. I had it built.

And 25 horsepower Yamaha. And it's kind of a skinny water boat. You can really get in tight places and got out to the flats. And it was it was still too shallow to get across. So I got out of the boat and pushed the boat across the flat, maybe two or three hundred yards, you know. and I was going to journey out to check out this spot. And I got out there, everything was cool. Then on the way back, as I get back to those flats, there's a wind at my back.

And I'm thinking, maybe I can just pole across this and not have to get back out of the boat. And so I start polling. And I'm almost there. I'm almost to where I can drop that motor. And I'm starting to sweat. and my first thought is I don't want to sweat I don't want to I don't want to smell but I've still got I'm starting to sweat right then I'm still I've still got a ways to go and I don't want my clothes to get sweaty so I get out of my clothes I'm in the middle of nowhere real remote area so I'm okay polling my boat naked across the flats and and I get it into deep enough water where I can drop that motor and get going and just before I get to my spot the water's good and deep and I'm going to jump in and um and um you know, rinse myself all off and getting a good spot scent-wise. I'm almost to my spot.

I'm almost there. And I don't know if you've been out in the lake and hit something before or not, but when the prop comes up out of the water, it really kind of screams at you for a minute, then it drops back in the water. But that prop came out of the water screaming, and it didn't stop. And I just watched my entire motor skip out across the lake in front of me. It's a 150-pound motor.

Just end over in. It hit the front bench seat, knocked off a chunk of wood as it passed over the bow of the boat. We're going to have to pause to clarify. He is going about 20 miles an hour in his boat and hits a submerged stump. The motor does something completely unpredictable and hard to even fathom how it did it.

I wasn't expecting this kind of drama. And I'm just thinking what just happened? and I look down in my leg and just bones are hanging out of my leg and there's flesh all over the boat. And that motor has come in and over in and the prop has gotten me twice. And then it kept going and bounced off of just below my knee on its way out into the front of the boat. So I looked down and just saw a mess of my leg. I absolutely thought, I don't know how long it's going to take for someone to find me. I'm bleeding a lot.

I may have hit an artery. It just very quickly became a logistics challenge. And just a, you know, a calm comes over you and I get my leg up on the bench seat. I get down, I've got the belt on. There's no way for me to secure the belt. So I'm manning that tourniquet. I do think as I'm manning that tourniquet, okay, man, you can't pass out

because you won't be able to hold that tourniquet. So, you know, I'm scrambling for my phone and my phone is soaking wet because when the motor came over the boat, I'm just, the whole boat is just covered in water and blood and parts.

I finally get the phone dried off a little bit and use my nose to kind of activate the screen. And I'm in a spot where I could easily not have service. I happened to have, it was a clear day,

and I happened to have decent service. So I get a call out to my wife, and I just tell her, I'm hurt bad. She said, who are you going to call? And I said, well, I'm going to call. Darrell's a fellow builder here in Carlton Landing. And I knew that he had a sea do on the nearest dock. And I knew that I couldn't be transferred from boat to boat

and out in that water. I was going to have to be towed. And I called Daryl, and I said, go get Stoddy. Stoddy's my oldest son. He's the only one who knew who I could communicate where I was. And they got together and Daryl came out there on the CD. Meanwhile, I've done everything that I could do. I'm out there waiting for about an hour.

It's a beautiful day, just watching the clouds go by. The boat's adrift. There's no motor. I'm just drifting along in a body of water that's more than a mile wide. By the time we got back to Carlton Landing, there was a helicopter there ready to life flight me out. When they got me in the hospital and they started working on me, and they were putting plates and screws, and it all went well. But a few weeks later, a cavity formed over that main wound. So I had to go back and get another surgery, a flap surgery.

What they do there, they cut one end of my cap, about. a quarter of my calf muscles and pulled it out and wrapped that calf muscle into my wound and rebuilt that muscle mass using about a quarter of my calf muscle and then put it back together. Well, that's when the trouble actually really started because that affected my lymphatic system. It affected my nerves. I had drop foot. There was about a year-long window for that drop foot to resolve itself. And the difference between that and between not being able to lift your foot and lifting your foot is that your handicap, you know. And then, you know, I was just kind of set up by the fire all winter long, you know, I missed the whole season. You know, I was literally at a point where I didn't know if I'd be able to get back in the woods anymore.

And that was just heartbreaking, you know. And we were nine months in and no hint of it coming back. And a little bit after nine months, I was in bed one evening. No, it was in the morning. I woke up and I thought, wait, and I got my wife. I was like, hey, Katie, look, look, am I moving there? And slowly, but surely, it came back. And I lost a lot of my cap.

So I'm about 80% what I used to could do. But this healed up and the season started getting closer and closer. So I got out there and I started freshening up some blinds and getting ready, stumbling around in the woods, falling quite a lot. But, you know, encouraged and hopeful. And yeah, I was able to get back out there. So I had my boating accident, November 6th of 2024. And November 7th of 20, 25 rolls around, and I find myself that morning in the dark going out in my boat.

Again, it was a year and a day since I had been hurt. And it was a beautiful morning, got out there, pulled up on a rock shore. I always set up a game cam on my boat while I'm gone just to keep an eye on things. I make my way out to the blind. I'm not there long. About daylight, a good-sized coon comes up in front of me. I mean, it's big enough where I'm thinking about shooting that coon. But I wanted to wait on my thought, that could be a good decoy.

I'll just leave that coon alone. In these brush blinds, I'll sit down, and then I'll have these little apple-sized portals that I'll stand up and look out of, and I shoot out of a small hole, about a half hour or so goes by. I'm wondering if the coon is still there. So I get up and I see that he's still there. And while I'm looking at him,

something gets his attention. He jerks his head around really quick. And he immediately jumps up on the side of a tree. I'm like, well, if there's ever any kind of nocturnal animal out there, they hear better than you can co-op with that animal. know, and he jumped up on the side of the tree, and I'm looking through this little hole, and all of a sudden, these horns come into view. I mean, I see horns before I see deer. And I just immediately drop down and grab my bow and pull back. I get behind the hole,

and I just lean half an eye in, you know. That deer has come around there. He's about 15 yards from me, and his body is oriented straight at me. And as I, he's around there, he's looking, right at me, right at me from 15 yards away, and I'm full draw, and I'm waiting. He won't look away so that I can drop the bow down. Of course, the whole time that I'm full draw on this deer, I'm telling myself, I'm never getting this deer. I keep telling him, this is not, this is never going to happen. No way this deer is going to let me shoot him. So he pulls back around and, and I drop down really quick to rest, and then he comes back, brought him. side to me and gets about a four-inch oak between me and his eye. And that I pull back. I see my

opportunity and I'm able to let it fly. And then I get up and I watch and I see his tail. I see it. I lose it. I see it. Lose it. And then I saw that tail just fall over. It's about 100 yards away. I just happened to be able to see all the way through the woods and see where he fell. And yeah. The buck, you know, I've never scored it. I'm guessing that. 140, 150. It's the biggest deer I've ever gotten, so by far. So I was pretty stoked. So yeah, and then as I'm pulling this animal back to the boat,

the game cam that's watching the boat gets me coming into frame, pulling this buck back to the boat, and it turned out to be a really, really cool shot. What a wild, terrifying, redemptive story. Can you imagine a 150 pound chunk of metal rotating like a Chinese throwing star with a full throttle propeller on one end, flying past you nearly cutting off your leg while you're headed out to deer hunt? Thank you, Clay, for sharing your story. Congratulations on the buck. Our next story is told by a new friend of mine.

Veteran Deer Hunter killed a lot of good deer. Lane Weaver from the Ozarks of Arkansas. Lane story has some drama too, but it's a different kind of drama, but it gets wild. So this is a story about a deer that I thought had killed me, but really ended up saving my life several years later. I was young, thought I knew a lot, but didn't. And I had an old hammer, muzzleloader.

My dad had bought for me for Christmas and a kit, and we didn't blew the barrel. bronzed it and it was a beautiful gun had the double trigger on it and uh i shot the old patching ball you know for a long time and then this maxi ball thing come out and i thought boy that right there 3995 grain that will knock them down so loaded 120 grains of triple f black powder in that thing had the old number 11 cap and we got that thing sided in with that big old maxi ball and and then here i was hunting before i got married i was eight you know i was 20 21, something like that.

Still a kid. And old buck come out in the field, way across the field there from me. And I thought, I can kill that deer at this thing. And that deer was a long ways. So I set that old trigger there and it got me arrest. And the old gun went off. Of course, that black powder, that smoke was all out there. Boy, I seen, he just sat down and was over there and just fell over there.

And I thought, son of a gun, I'm a shooter. well I just started off over to him you know and he was quite away he's probably 150 yards or so and I got over there to him and looked him he was just an eight back then to me it was an eight point my gosh you know that's awesome and grabbed him by the horns and took off dragging that deer I was going drag him out of that field and it was a four-strand barbed wire fence over there and I thought I'll drag him out of that field and I will take care of him over there well I got to that fence and didn't have a, didn't load my gun back. That was stupid.

Didn't have a knife and didn't have nothing. So I propped him up, prop my old gun up there on that tee post in between it and a barb. And went through the fence and grabbed that deer by the horns and drug him underneath that, I mean, jerked on him, you know, to get him through that fence. I didn't know to look at his eyes. I didn't know to, no, I didn't know. I'd made fun of people for years on them old hunting shows, walk up there and poke a deer. There ain't no sense in poking that deer. He's dead.

So I jerked on him there a couple times and got him through that fence. And I gave him a big old jerk there and that thing let out a bell or a bra. And I let go of him and looked and he already had his back end up. But his front end, well, back to where I hit him right in the side of the neck right there is where I'd hit him. I could see the hole. They wasn't just one or two drops of blood, but I'd hit him right in the neck. and well he let out that big I let go of him and look

and his back end was up but his front end was down but I knew that he was going to get up I knew that was going to happen so I thought I have got to get back to that fence so in order to do that I had to go past that deer well I turned to go past

I will never forget his eyes his eyes was rolled back and huge there and I looked at him like that and it's like we met right there And I turned to go and in my excitement, I tripped over my own feet and I got down. And I thought I have got to get to that fence. And I was about to push myself up like this and he hit me in this hip right here. He did not with his horns.

He didn't gouge me. The only thing I can figure is he hit me with his shoulders. It's the only thing I can figure. I don't think he kicked me because I wasn't bruised or anything. But I think he just hit me with his shoulders getting up there. and I was already down like this, and when he hit me, I went in between the bottom barb and the next barb there. Went right between him and hung my feet on that bottom barb. And then I was trying to get through that jerking my feet, and he cut my arm here and cut my arm there.

And I got through that fence, and when I did, I sprinted about just a few feet there and turned and looked back. And that deer was just laying there, facing back towards where I was at, but just laying there. Just like that. I let out, I was just, I was, oh, I got sick at my stomach, you know, I was like, what in the world? So I felt something here on my throat. I grabbed my throat like that and looked, and it was blood in my hand. And I panicked. I thought that he had cut my throat on that barb.

So I grabbed my throat as tight as I could grab it and grab my gun with my left hand and took off running to the truck. I mean, I was hysterical. and I run back to about where I shot him and I thought I shouldn't have made it this far and I took my hand off my throat and they wouldn't just a little bit more blood there in my hand I thought what that he's not cut my throat and then then I was mad at myself

I was like godly what an idiot what am I doing here so I got my gun I thought I'll go back and get my little brother and dad and come back and get him so we went to the house told him the story they laughed and hoorod you know like so we went and got to pick up went back out there The deer's gone. No height, no nothing.

They was a spot of blood about a half a dollar there where that deer was laying and that was it. Gone. Vanished. There was nothing. About two weeks later, I'm driving down the road and that's some gun jumps out in front of me. The hole was right here and his neck right there. It was just shining. And I told Dad and him, I said, that deer's still alive.

They could not believe. Back then we didn't know. We thought if you shot a deer in the neck and they know they was going to die. But I knew then that taught me a lesson about deer and how tough they were. were you know and but i just stunned him you know well fast forward several years there and uh me and my mom and dad were up at her family farm and my buddy robbie and my cousin ken and uh there's a couple of pretty nice bucks up there and we've hunted that morning and then uh we decided to make some drives so i'm making drives from my mom and dad and them you know and we make some drives and

up on top of this mountain and there's some bluffs on their all that whole mountains covering and blous in there's gaps and that and i told them we was fixing the leave and i said i've got a camera up down here and that's back when you had the 36 exposure you know the old that you had to film cameras film cameras you had to go pull that and then lo and behold you'd have 36 pictures of an armadilla or you know you didn't know so you so i went to pick up that camera and i said i'm going to go down that gap and then i'm going to get on that old bench there and you all strang out down that mountain and i'll make a zigzag push to you okay so i gave them about that an hour to get out there and I took off down that gap and I had my old seven mag browning bar you know

back then everybody hung with automatic so I had a seven mag and it held three in the clip one the chamber and always carried one extra in my pocket I had five and got down just below I picked up that camera took off down through there and got right below the bluff and an old buck stood up down there below me on the next bench I seen him stand up and that year 2005 I'm pretty sure that you only use allowed one buck in Arkansas that's when they gave you the one one one buck tag. And I seen him stand up. I threw him old gun up on him there.

It had that camera in this hand, and so it was dangling from the strap. And I threw my old gun up there on him, and I could see the left side of his face here, and that beam come out. And then I could see his rear end and a piece of neck right here is all I could see. And that deer was standing there. Most of us just stood there. And I did too for a long time. And I thought, should I waste my tag on that one buck?

I don't know exactly what he is. You know, I could tell he was mature. He had a big old, by then, I'd gained a little bit of knowledge and experience and stuff, you know, and I wasn't just shooting any buck. I was waiting on a pretty mature deer. And I could tell by his body and that side of his face, you can tell them old bucks, you know, they got that gray around their eye and they got the old red. And I knew that he had a heavy base.

And I knew that he was a mature buck. And finally I thought, I'm going to tag out on that deer. And I was confident with that seven mag. I mean, I knew he wasn't but about 70, 80 yards down over the hill there. and I pull in on that sliver of neck right there. Woo! Just dropped. He just sat down just like this.

Front feet just like that, neck stretched out, just like that. Ham's legs right underneath him. Just sit there like that. Walking down there to him and I hollered at my dad on the radio and I said, hey, I've shot a pretty nice buck. It's going to be a little while before I get around there. He said, okay, we'll wait on you. And I'm walking down there to that deer.

And I'm getting pretty close to him. And then I get excited because. I can see he's a he's a nice deer for me yeah that's a nice buck so I get on radio and I tell dad I said dad I've killed good I said this nice buck he said all right good deal so I'm getting on closer to him and I'm like here I'm sorry but here's the deer right here just like this all right I've got that gun in my right hand just carrying it just like that and that camera's there and I'm getting right there close to that deer and I'm just about you know reach down there to go for them horns and I thought no no I've seen this before so I stood there just like that and I had that gun

and that camera and his ham is right there and as soon as that muzzle touches hair he explodes just muh-crum comes up boom I shoot just instantly pull the trigger boom shoot dirt stuff flies up he's taking off I come up from the hip boom shoot again he's leaving out and I know I've got one left and the gun so i jump out in that road there and he's running full tilts and he's leaving i pull in on him boom and shoot and the first thing i see is a white belly his butt in comes up just like this his horns and face hitting the dirt and he just does somersaults out that road just end over teakill now the holly smooks what in the world so i get up there to him and i put my one in slam her forward take off up

up her to him and get up her to him and pick up a rock and throw over at that deer he don't move throw another rock he don't move so I get up her to him and that bullet has hit that deer in the back of the head right there that last one but that first bullet from that seven mag after I got to looking at him there had hit that neck and never went through

and when I skinned him out and took care of him that bullet was barely deformed like it didn't like it just hit there and stopped in that neck I've never seen anything like that And people, they looked at that, that's back when you went to a check-in station, you know. Yeah, everybody gathered around the truck. Yeah, yeah.

And they were looking at that deer, said, what did you shoot that thing? So I shot him to the 7-Mag. They said, a 7-Mag? It didn't go through his neck. I said, no, it didn't go through his neck. That's what I can't understand. So when I took care of him, that bullet, I don't know if it was a deep, I don't, I don't know. But that bullet did not go through it.

But the buck, that little ape horn with that muzzleload, if I had not done that, had that experienced, I would have grabbed a hold of that deer's horns, and I have no doubt that deer would have goored me right there on that, because I'd have grabbed the hold of them horns. And the first thing he would have done was just run slick. Just run slick. That's 175 pounds of fury. Yes.

His explosiveness, when he come up out of there when that muzzle, I mean, as soon as that muzzle touched hair, it was instant. He was up. And by the time I shot, that deer was already. Now, did you hit him? No, I didn't hit him. This shot and that shot, I didn't know where they went. Okay.

The last, the first shot in the neck and the last shot in the back of the head. The other one was, no. Who knows? Okay. The shot here, I'm telling you, he was already out there. But I closed, I mean, I just, it was just instinct, just to shoot for me. Yeah, yeah. And then the second was from the hip.

I mean, that had no chance. That story should remind us that all deer can be dangerous. Thank you, Lane, for sharing that with us. and I'm anxious for y'all to hear the next story that he tells us, which also involves some wild stuff with the deer. Heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHare 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. 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 IHRRadio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. All right, folks, if you are a whitetail hunter, you're going to want to hear this. Right now, we are running the ultimate white tail giveaway, and it's packed with over $23,000 in prizes, including the new Zulu 6 binoculars from Sig, a 6-5 creed more from Sig, multery edge 3 cameras, case knives, an arc 30 bow from Matthews, and a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and their new whisper-down jacket and pant and a whole other pile of gear from other partner brands.

And that's not all. You can also win a chance to join me, Mark Kenyon, for a fully guided muzzleloader white tail hunt at running water hunting, hosted by outfitter Jordan Budd. This is a five-day, four-night December hunt during the muzzleloader season, one of the most exciting times to be in a whitetail stand. Lodging in meals are fully included. And the more you spend during the giveaway at First Light, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package.

Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at Firstlight.com. Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember, for every $25 spent, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the entire prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends Monday, October 12, 2026 at 1150. Speaking of wild, you'll probably remember Cody Belize.

He's Teddy Valines son, owner of Valines Logging Company that we featured in that American Logger series. Cody always has a great story. This one involves pork and beans. I've been pretty fortunate, I guess you'd say, to have hunted with the same group of guys for a long time. camped were the same group of guys for a long time but this is a story about one of our first

the first times that we went in camped and hunted me and james house james hollywood house and gary farmer we decided we were going to ride back in way back in this place and this and deer hunting

it was mudloading season kind of the spur of the moment deal we didn't go town to buy any supplies we just gathered up some stuff around the house somebody we had to do some deer meat and probably throwed in some taters and somebody came up with this can of pork and beans and it wasn't like a little can of pork and beans this was like the family size can of pork and beans shoved that down in their saddlebags and anyway we ride back in there riding mules yep just the three

of us an old pack mule we ride back in there farmer he knows where we're going to get a spot to camp So we ride back in there and get rigged up there and build us up a little fire pit. And then it gets dark and we builds up a fire and cook deer meat and taters and all that. But we set this canned of pork and beans on a big old flat rock there on the edge of the fire. We was going to warm our porking beans up. So we get deer meat cooks, taters cooked, and we're sitting there eating, and we get her belly full and we kick back. No doubt farmers probably telling a big wild tail of some kind.

we're sitting there talking and all of a sudden, it's like a bomb goes off in the middle of that fire. I'm talking about like blue flames shoot up in the air. And we go three different directions. I mean, we just peel off from that fire. And nobody knows what's going, there's stuff falling out of the sky. I feel my arm, there's something running down my arm.

And I thought, what in the world? And about that time, farmers said, them beans we had forgot about the pork and beans and we left them sitting down on that fire and they blowed up that's pork and beans everywhere we spend all night there

and we get up the next morning and farmer he knows where he's going he's going to the gap in the bluff and he takes off and I know I can tell you exactly what he said he'll say the same thing this year at deer camp when he walked off he said boys if you hear me shoot

you know it's a biggin. He went his way and I ain't got a clue where I'm going. But I take off back the point there. It's getting daylight and I'm easing down to there. And I see a doe coming. And I'm talking about she skimp back. I mean running right at me.

And I pretty well know what's coming. Sure enough, here comes a buck. And I mean, it's like a seven point. It ain't no big one. But it didn't matter. He runs up there and I can bong with that muzzleloader. And over the hill it goes, and I know I hit him. I stand down there a little bit, wait a little bit, and I take off down there.

Sure enough, blood, blood, blood, and he's bleeding good. But I know if he goes very much further down through there, he's going over the bluff through the gap. And sure enough, I track him down to where I can see, he's probably going to make it over the bluff. I thought, well, I'm going to have to have a mule. So I'll walk back to camp, and Jamie is at camp. I said, get your mule and come with me. I shot one. probably that has some help.

We ride back down there to where I quit tracking. Tied the mules up and over the hill we went. Sure enough, the deer, he went over the gap. But he didn't go. When he got to the gap, he didn't make it too far. And he's laying there dead. So we walked down there where the deer was out, and he said, how are we going to get this thing out here?

I said, we'll have to butcher it right here. So we quartered it up, worked it up. I carried some bags in my saddle bags on a mule. And I walked back up there and got them. We bagged all the meat up. So we made like, the deer went down through there. We went down there once. I walked back to the mule, got some stuff.

Walk back down there. Now we get all gathered up, and they're heading back up through there again. This is the fourth or fifth trip that somebody or something has made up and down that hill. I get halfway up that hill back to my mule. I got in the biggest jealous jacket's nest you have ever seen. And I take off running. It's uphill. Here I am carrying all this deer meat and a gun and all this other stuff.

I can't run very far. Well, I see I can't outrun them. So I just stopped. I throw deer meat, gun, everything down. I just went to fight knocking and banging. And it's pretty cool for October. I mean, I know I had on a hoodie and a hunting vest and maybe a long-sleeved shirt. And my hair was growled out.

My hair was actually pretty long then. I'd take off one layer, and there was yellow jackets than the next layer. my hair they was all wadded up in my hair and I'm just knocking and banging fighting yellow jackets and I look over there at Hollywood and he's standing there looking at me like what are you doing they ain't bothered him a time he ain't got one yellow jacket around him nothing well I finally get them all whooped out and he said I ain't never seen anything like that he never even got stung but anyway back to camp we went and I believe that's the only deer we killed I think we came home after that, but

yellow jackets and pork and beans. Pork and beans, yellow jackets, and a seven point. That's on point for Cody Velines. Thank you for the story. Our final story is from my friend Jason Kaler,

a well-known big buck killer from Telephone, Texas. So, my anniversary is on October the 16th, and my wonderful wife allows me to hunt and fish some on our anniversary and give and take you know how it is being married and one anniversary it was like 93 or 4 degrees it was hot and I told her I said

we should have went and done something else for our anniversary and she's like well you better kill a big deer it's our anniversary she said if we ain't out doing something going out to eat and you're going to be at deer camp well you better kill a big deer so I absolutely go out in a pair of, at the time, I think they were probably spary shoes. They, hey dudes took their place. But anyways, I had on a pair of slip-on shoes, shorts, and a t-shirt. And it was so hot and I was sweating so bad that I had to take my t-shirt off and wring the sweat out of. Its sun was right in my face. This is the same tree I shot that 170-inch deer out of. And, I was sitting there and I thought my feet was sweating.

I just had sweat running all off of me and I thought, these are the worst shoes in the whole wide world. They're so hot. They're leather. They're hot. So I took my shoes off and my stand has armrests on it. And I hung my shoes over the end of my stand. And when I look down, there's a big deer standing there.

And he's got a great big old drooping horn off the end. And he's standing there and he's staring out into the field. And I was like, holy smokes, I ain't got no shoes. on, I'm sitting there in my socks, I'm sitting there in shorts, my shoes are stuck on the end of my... What about your shirt? No, my shirt, I'd wrung the sweat out of it, and I hadn't put it back on yet. I don't have my bow in my hand or nothing. And I reach and I get my bow, and he takes off walking.

Well, I don't want to stop him until I'm ready, because he's going to pinpoint me. Well, when I stop him, he's at 50 yards. Well, I was shooting an old bow, and it's real slow. Anyways, I had a 60-yard pen. He takes another step when I stop him, and he takes another step, and he turns, and he's kind of in that wadded up. He's broadside, but he's kind of in that wadded-up position. So I sink my pen in on him, and I think, well, I'm just going to shoot my 60-yard pen because he took another step or two. Well, it was a touch high.

I shoot, and the lob of my arrow, the trajectory of my arrow was so high that it hit that. deer and it spined him and lunged him and stuck out the bottom side of him and when he fell to the ground he fell and he bled out right there and the pictures I have of him my wife come to take pictures of me I still in my shorts I put my shirt back on it was all wrinkled up but the air sticking straight up in the air like just like I'd shot him from straight down but I shot him at like 53 yards or something anyways after that step but that that was our animal anniversary buck and that deer ended up scoring 166.

I wouldn't suggest going deer hunting on your anniversary, but it sounds like it worked out for Jason. What a great story. There are some guys that just figure out how to get it done on big deer and Jason seems to be one of those guys. And that's the last deer story. So if you've got to go, I understand. But I said I wanted to give Teddy an opportunity to update us on his health. At the end of the American Logger series, he let us know that he'd been diagnosed with cancer. I don't think I even understood how serious that it was.

But if you remember, we asked everyone to pray for him. This is what Teddy shared with me just the other day. He was in a hurry? I told you how you started talking. No, we're not in a hurry. Are you recording this? Yes, sir. Would you rather it's not?

No, sir. I don't care. Okay. Well, I like to think. God was what he's done. But no, I was down helpless. They wrote me off. And I guess I admitted that, you know, I probably, I didn't think I was going to die.

But when the doctor told me, he prayed for me first. I don't know if I wanted to pray. I said, yes, I do. I asked him, do you believe? He said, yes, I do. And I just felt the Lord that he wanted me to go with that doctor. I told him, he said, there is no hope. He said, there's no cure.

I said, so only God can do this. He said, yes, sir, he said, and I ain't God. He said, he can take care of it. He said, all I can do, he said, give you the two strongest treatments that we've got. He said, if they work, might get you two or three years. He said, if they don't, two or three months is all you got. I said, I'll stick with you just as long as I can. and that's actually went out from there.

How long ago is that? Well, deer camp, when it hit me when I got so bad. I couldn't drink coffee. So a year ago, November? Deer season. Yeah, that's when they found it. And you've been working all summer? Yeah.

In the logwoods. In the logwoods. Run the skitter every day. Every once in the wall, I sneak off, chainsaw, and get the cat two or three, four. I told Cahlin, Cately's cutting. And one day, we got down to the landing,

right around the landing, and I told him, I said, which there to be four, I tried to get him let me cut. Why, no, he said, he got to take care of you, you ain't cutting. Well, I told him that day,

I said, let me cut these around the landing, which you had to pull them, keep him falling on, the loader, and this and that and the other. Me, I just want him to see if I still could. He said, have at it. I said, well, that's a different attitude the other day.

You told me you wouldn't let me. He said, you're the boss. He said, you better use my saw. So I cut all them around the landing. And when I got done, I said, Kaelan, I said, you have no idea how that makes me feel. I said, it almost makes me feel like shouting, praising the Lord. Timber cutting, I've loved it my whole life. and to get back in the shape to do that,

it amazes me. So I'll quit talking about that. I'm just thankful. Keep praying for Teddy Valines. I can't thank all of these guys enough for sharing their dear stories with us. I hope that you have a great fall. And as always, I just thank you so much

for listening to Bear Gries. Please share our podcast with a friend. Leave a review for us. Thanks for listening to Brent's Country Life and Lake Pickles Backwoods University. Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live. Meat eater and bestselling author Brian Burrow present Gunfighters, a new podcast series about the American West and the violence that made its most legendary figures infamous. Davis Tutts staggered forward, shouted, boys, I'm killed.

I'm killed over dead. Listen to gunfighters, starting on. September 15th on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.