Bear Grease - Ep. 52: Genuine Outlaws - Louie Dale and Charley Edwards, Part 1

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast we’re telling a story that’s never been written in a book or seen on a film. You’ll be introduced to two brothers who were some of the most notorious turkey hunting outlaws to ever to trapse the hills of Arkansas – their names were Louie Dale and Charley Edwards. But in an ironic twist, they were deeply respected in their community for their forthrightness, genuine nature, and generosity. This story is about bar fights, evading game wardens, making whiskey - all interwoven into a story about character and identity…we weren’t wasn’t expecting it either. Clay is in search of learning something about human nature – something about myself. I’ve committed to resolving a life-long position of inner conflict of revering these men, but also disdaining wanton disregard of the law. On this first podcast we’re going to get to know the brothers through the voice of a son, men who hunted with them, and the game warden that chased them for thirty years…Though the brothers are both gone from this earth, in later episodes we’ll dissect their lives with the experts to learn why we loved them – and why we love outlaws. Well….you’ll get to decide if you do or if you don’t. I really doubt you’re going to want to miss this one….Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. Kenneth had stopped Uncle Oudel and chewed on him about having dogs in the game refuge. Uncle Ludo said, I ain't got no dogs in game refuge. Kenneth, he just looked at Uncle Lill

and he went to pull his pistol. He said, we'll find out whose dog it is. And Uncle L cocked his rifle and said, that dog dies, so do you. On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we're telling a story that's never been written in a book or seen on a film. It's a story that's close to me.

It's from my hometown. I want to introduce you to two brothers, who were some of the most notorious turkey hunting outlaws to ever traips the hills of Arkansas. Their names were Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards. But in an ironic twist, they were deeply respected in our community for their forthrightness, genuine nature, and generosity.

This story is about bar fights evading game wardens and making whiskey all interwoven into a story about character and identity. I wasn't expecting that either. I'm in search of learning something about human nature, something about myself. I've committed to resolving a lifelong position of inner conflict of revering these men, but also disdaining wanton disregard of the law. On this first podcast, we're going to get to know the brothers through the voice of a son, men who hunted with them and the game warden that chased them for 30 years. Though the brothers are both gone from this earth,

in later episodes will dissect their lives with the experts to learn why we love them and why we love outlaws. Well, I guess you get to decide if you like them or not. I really doubt you're going to want to miss this one. He said, if you plan on catching me, you better put your four-old drive tennis shoes. zone. And he just turned walked out.

You know, the meeting was pretty well over then. That kind of busted things up, you know. 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. Presented by FHF Gear, American Mail. purpose-built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore.

When I first started with the commission, the first thing my supervisor did was tell us that there's a standing offer of a steak dinner for the officer and his wife. If they can catch Louisdale and Charlie Edwards, illegal turkey hunting. And that would be the best steak dinner anywhere in the state. And that stood for a long time, but it never got filled. Wow. Nobody, he never had to pay it up because nobody ever caught him. Nobody ever caught him.

We had state police undercover agents come in. We had federal fishing wildlife undercover come in and they hunted with Charlie. But he never, ever, and Louisville, they never hunted illegally. They come close, but these officers never could get enough to catch them. That was retired Arkansas Game and Fish Game Warden Jimmy Martin. He worked in Polk in Montgomery County, Arkansas, in the Washington. Washatals, which are the only mountain range between the Rockies and Appalachians that run east and west. At one time, there was snow-capped and soared 10,000 feet tall.

Today, the highest peaks are in the 3,000-foot range, eroded by wind, water, and ice, so deep in time, the gaps are filled only with speculation. Time also erodes human stories, but much faster. Aldo Leopold alluded to the fact that individual cultures of the world reflect the wilderness from which they were hewn. This is a big story, hewn by wilderness and hardship. And it's unusually personal for me. You see, I grew up in Mina, Arkansas, in the western Washtals. This was basically the hometown of Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards, though they lived in a smaller community about 15 miles east of town.

I grew up immersed into stories of their exploits, and like a shadow over our community, it was impossible to escape their lore, their influence. Charlie was born in 1941 and passed away in 2014 at the age of 73. Louis-Dell, the younger brother, was born in 1945 and passed away just last year in April of 2021 at the age of 76. These were modern men. And I want to level with you. For years, I've wanted to talk about them, but I couldn't figure out how to get around two things. The first being the risk of glamorizing outlawed.

We're going to talk about some potion on this podcast. But don't blame me if by the end of this, you find yourself endeared to these men. Deep in the American psyche is a fascination with people who push against the system. You can't turn on a television without hearing stories of lawbreakers. I didn't start this fire, boys. And though it's just under the surface, in many ways Americans are deeply insecure people.

And we're often enamored with people that have enough fortitude to stand against systems of power. We glean identity from these outliers and aspire to be like them, though the vast majority of us aren't. We're a society deeply fixated on obeying laws, and that's why we like the guys that don't. Our law-abiding fixation is what has made America a successful nation of law and order, which I like, and so do you. In the second part of this series, and yep, I said this is going to be a series, we're going to dive deep into history, human psychology, and talk with more law enforcement guys to learn why we love outlaws

like Doc Holliday and Bonnie and Clyde will learn while we've created endearing fables like Robin Hood and the Dukes a Hazard. The answers blew my mind as the experts laid out a clear roadmap to why we are the way we are. Their origins

will shock you and it might even have something to do with Carl Marx. How's that for foreshadowing? This is the voice of Neal Taylor, a longtime friend of the Edwards brothers. This will give you a scope of the operation these brothers had with turkey hunting. Well, there was one year that Charlie and Louie and B.

Had a bet going on who could kill the most turkeys. Now, this was back when he pulled out there in the woods and you had hoot. The only decision you had to make was which gobbler you was going to go after. I mean, seeing 80 gobbler is in a little. flock was quite common. They had a contest, and I may be a couple birds off one way or another, but I'm right there. And these turkeys wasn't ambushed. They was called up and killed.

I think Louis killed 36. I think Charlie killed, he was either 32 or 34, and was either 26 or 28. That was all in one season, their best year. But mind you, they did this for decades. The seasonal numbers vary with who you talk to in the community, but undoubtedly in their prime, and when turkey populations were extremely good, Louis-Dell and Charlie killed more turkeys in a season

than the average turkey hunter would in a lifetime, though they didn't play by the rules that everybody else had to play by. Louis-Dell was a, you know, he was, I never got, in fact, I never went turkey hunting with Loddell, one time in my life, but he was about as good on slate calls he may have heard. He knew how he knew how to work one. And it was obviously he killed. He killed as many turkeys as anybody in the world. That was Andy Brown, and that's a big statement, as many turkeys as anybody in the world.

But having known these guys my whole life and my own dad having hunted with him one time, you'll hear about that in episode two. I stand by Andy's statement, though it's only. conjecture. I want to tell you my second hesitation in telling the story. Remember, I said there were two, and it's a result of growing up in a tight-knit community. I didn't read these stories. I knew these men and their families, which are still here.

I didn't want to tarnish the reputation of the family by broadcasting their story on a national platform. But the Edwards boys themselves didn't seem to care much about that. And I decided the way I'd remedy the situation was go directly to the family and get their blessing to tell this story, which I did. Little did I know what I was getting into. Here's Mr. Jimmy, Gay Morden, giving us a head start nugget on understanding the Edwards and the context of their story. When did you start with the Arkansas Game and Fish? Started with 1988, June of 88.

Back in about the first five years, it was like the Wild West. As far as turkey poaching, deer poaching, the night hunting, net and fish on the Waushtaw River. It was like I said, it was like the wild, wild west that we still had the old-time poachers. I was initially assigned to Montgomery County. And then I moved back to Polk County, I think it was in 1994. They're old-time poachers.

They grew up in hard times. Most of them did. The ones that I ran across the hardcore netters that used nets in the rivers and on the lakes, a hard time night hunters for deer, you know, the bad turkey poachers and a bad daytime deer hunters. They were all from old times when times was tough, meat was hard to come by, and outlawed was just a way of life. Most of old hard, hard, hardcore poachers came from moonshiner families. Old-time poachers and moonshiner's, remember those two things.

The first family member that I went to when I got permission was Stony Edwards, the son of Charlie. I drove out to the Big Fork community and found him at the Big Fork Mall, which is a small gas station that he and his wife run. I told him I wanted to. tell the whole story his dad and uncle and he agreed he began by showing me a story from 1926 that's an interesting puzzle piece tragedy literally struck the Edwards family I'm reading from a laminated newspaper clipping bound in a three-ring binder so this is 1926 and it says officers shoot Carl Edwards right right in Polk County Carl Edwards was killed in McGubley

Montgomery County Sunday afternoon by a bullet fired by some member of a posse that had just arrested two alleged mood shiders and probably were searching for more or for anyone connected with the illicit traffic. Edwards, 23-year-old resident of Heath Valley, which is right where we're at. In Polk County was shot and instantly killed as he drove his Ford car homered from a hunting trip in Montgomery County. A single bullet fired by one of the posse of six officers that said to have wounded Edward's brother, killed a dog, and then given him. in Carl Edwards' immortal wound as he sat at the steering wheel. The tragedy occurred. The government rode between Big Fork and Norman. So who was Carl Edwards to you?

He would have been my dad's uncle. Okay. My grandfather's brother. So what were they doing? They were trying to get away from... No. In all actuality, Uncle Andy was only... I think he was only like 10.

They had been coon hunting. They had coon dog in the car, and Uncle Andy was in the... the car and they were coming back and the officers hollered for him to stop and car hollered i will at the bottom of the hill car didn't have him brakes but you got to take the previous history into account because they've been trying to catch him for years and hadn't been able to so when he didn't stop on command they opened fire and of course this ad came from the newspaper which i'm going to say is bias towards law enforcement at the time.

It wasn't a, because those men loaded my uncle up, drove him to my great-grandparents' house and dropped him on the porch. When he was shot? Dead, yeah. They left him dead on the front porch. Wow. Uncle Andy was shot through the ear. He was just a kid.

He was 10 years old. He was shot through the ear. And, of course, it killed the dog. So is the dad and his son in the car with a coon dog? No, it was two brothers. Two brothers. Yeah, they were 13 years apart. Oh, I see, I see.

And the coon dog in the car. Was the coon dog okay? No, killed the dog. Oh, it did. It did say it killed the dog. It killed the dog, killed Carl and wounded animals. So Carl was a known moonshiner, and they'd been trying to catch him. Well, you've got to consider his dad went to Levinworth Prison for Moonshine, and so basically the whole family was in the business.

There's no way around it. Yeah. My great-grandfather had seven sons. And they all lived out here. the valley. Yeah, right over there where I live now. We're still on the original Edwards home place. The whole family was, quote, in the business of moonshining. And the killing of Carl Edwards and his coon dog in 1926 was a tough pill for the family to swallow. And Uncle Andy, who was just a child at the time, had a partly shot off ears whole life. A week after the shooting, the six

officers involved would be charged with murder. Carl Edwards was Louis Dell and Charlie's uncle, though he died before they were ever born. This is another newspaper clipping. Charges of murder have been made against six officers who were in the posse that caused the death of Carl Edwards in Montgomery County last Sunday afternoon. The six were Sheriff George Howe, it names all their names. Ruben Edwards, a brother of the man killed, was in Mina Tuesday and stated that the accused officers had been summoned to court. I just wanted to say, this was a murder case. And I mean, that in and of itself could lead to a family having some bad taste in their

mouth for the law. If it hadn't been for Rube at that time, the other brothers would have killed all six officers. Rube stopped it and said that it would go to court. It'd be better off taking them to court than killing them. But the brothers would have killed them. And they're lucky that they didn't like. you're on. Lucky is probably a good descriptor because all six officers would be acquitted of the

murdered charges. They got off. None of them were convicted, nor was there any recompensed for the coon dog. This isn't the best way to gain the trust of the government's law men. We've learned an important component of the Edward's story. Mr. Jimmy tipped us off to it. They were moonshiner's And let me tell you, that stuff doesn't die easy. Have you ever heard of a community whiskey still? The plot thickens. There were Heaths, Davises, Edwards, and Putmans all lived in that area in there. And all of them were, the steel's name was Old Jesus.

Okay. The way Dad explained it was when you took a sip of that, that was the first thing out of your mouth, was, oh, Jesus. So they named the steel that. Yeah, but it was run off 100 gallons of mash at a time. So it was a big steel? It was huge, yeah. I mean, they were making... So there was multiple families using kind of in cahoots using this one still?

They all put their stuff together to make the whiskey, get it to market, get it. Once they got it sold, then they'd split the money accordingly among the families. And that was their living. I mean, that was their cash money. So all their fields and stuff was planted in corn, and the corn was used to feed animals and to make whiskey. That was their easiest way to get it to market. You know, this isn't a giant agricultural area, so people did what they had to do. People did what they had to do.

That's an important phrase to remember if you're studying the actions of humans. The ideologies and character developed when living under pressure are hard things to get rid of. even with the passing of time and the pressure. Carl Edwards was killed in 1926, and Stoney's great-grandfather went to Leavenworth Prison in Kansas before that for moonshine during the prohibition era. But the Edwards history goes even deeper. We're laying a foundation to understand Louis-Dell and Charlie Edwards.

People just show up on the earth, but they're always connected to something behind them, for better or worse. The Edwards family came here in 1883, I think, that we actually settled here. This entire community was settled from one wagon train that came from Georgia to right here. I'll be darned. And I guess in a way you could put it up kind of like a mafia family. Yeah.

Well, and they took care of each other. You know, all the families around, it wasn't like it is today. You know, there's neighborhoods. People were really connected. There's neighborhoods. Well, you had to have other people to survive. I mean, you had to have strong allies to survive. Yeah, nowadays everybody gets up and goes to work.

There's people that live in neighborhoods that don't know who live two houses down. They never met them, never talked to them, never, and in some cases, never seen them. These people lived and worked together day in and day out for the same goal. And I think that built stronger ties to the community. Is it easy for you to look back at that history and see your dad and your Uncle Louisdale and the way they were? and connect it back to those times? I mean, it's like not a very far jump, is it? No.

They retained their youth until they died. The way they were brought up, that was the way they lived. I mean, right up until then, you know, strong work ethic. They weren't real religious men. They believed in God, believe me. Uncle O'Dell, we were at the hunting cabin one time, and my uncle never spoke of God a whole lot, but he'd come in from turkey hunting that morning,

and he said, there's no way that man can sit up there where I was at this morning and not knows that there's not a higher power. They had their own moral compass. It's right and it's wrong, and there ain't no in between, and there wasn't no changing it. Where did that come from? Was their dad like that, like your grandfather?

Exactly like that. And I never met my great-grandfather, but I'm positive that he was that way. You take a man that raised seven sons on the land in here, he's got to be a pretty strong feller. First of all, to put up with seven sons, I've got three, and I wanted to kill him. My grandfather, he worked at the pole yard in town. My grandpa only had one hand. He lost it to an axe.

Got it chopped off with an axe when he was 18, and they were splitting stave bolts. Wow. But he had went to wipe a chopping block off, knocked the chips off. knocked the chips off, and the other guy wasn't paying attention, thought he'd set another deal up there, and he took it off with an axe. It seems the Edward family has been sculpted by hardship, and they were outliers with an unusually distinct value system. Here's Neil Taylor describing Louis Dell and Charlie.

Them two boys, some people ignorantly may disagree with me, but they had their own set of morals and principles. Now, they may not have been mine principles or your principles, but they was there, and they pretty much lived by them, you know. Even if they didn't like you, if they come across you and you needed help, they'd help you. Now, everybody knows that they was turkey murdering son of a guns, you know. They were undoubtedly the best turkey hunters in this country

and probably any other country. Yeah. In the United States. You know, they fed their families. That's the way they were raised up in their grandparents, you know. They had poor people back in times of the depression and even further back than that. It was a way of life. You had to, back in the day, you had to do what you had to do to survive.

I heard this consistently. The Edwards brothers had a moral code that they stuck with no matter why. But here's the game warden Jimmy Martin, revealing an interesting dynamic of this story and talking about the brothers as kids. Interesting point. You grew up with Louis-Dell and Charlie. Yes, they were about five years older than I was, and then kind of like big brothers. And I don't mean that, you know, if my mother was violating game fish regulation or law, I'm going to ride her a ticket. It doesn't matter if I grew up with Louis-Dill Edwards or Charlie or not.

that's just the way I work. And they knew that, that the brotherhood or whatever we had growing up as kids that went out the window when I got my job. And they expected it. And they wouldn't want anything else but that. What were they like as kids? Just wild, crazy.

You know, we all were back then. I mean, what did we have for entertainment? But out here in the woods, we're out here in the woods now. There's people. But when I was growing up, things were just different back then. You rode a horse. I had horses.

You might take off from the house to be gone for two days, and your parents never, they weren't worried about it because they knew you was okay out there in the woods. It wasn't nothing to ride from here to big fort all over those mountains back there. Times were different. This is another statement I consistently heard when talking about the brothers, but they had a unique way of making time linger. You heard Andy Brown on the last podcast telling a turkey story about when

Doc Ryburn wrenched up under a log to grab a turkey. Well, Andy knew the Edwards brothers well. Here he'll begin to give us an introduction to the brothers, the first time he ever met him. The first time I ever met Louedale, in fact, I knew his dad, Mac, before I ever knew Louedale. I'd made me a little stint out west back in the late 70s and was out there about three years,

and I moved back here in 1980. And when I did, me and my brother-in-law, we liked to hunt. And one fall, we were east at Big Fork. We were hunting. And Louie Dell, he was a dogman. He loved to run his dogs. And in those days, October 1st, that's when the dogs got turned loose. That's just the way it was.

I mean, that's just the way it happened. Mm-hmm. The implication is that on October 1st, it wasn't legal to run dogs or hunt deer. But anyway, Doug and I, it was middle October. Turkey season was open, and I was eat up with fall turkey hunting. And anyway, I got out there and got a little bunch of young turkeys and got them busted up and called one back in and killed it. And I was proud of that. And Doug, of course, we were squirrel hunting too.

But anyway, he shot and shot and shot and shot and shot. So anyway, when I come back out, I walk back off and what, you know, and still call that Lewis Gap. And there stood a guy. And I'd never seen before in my life. But he was standing there, backed up against a tree. I'll never forget this. He had a brownie automatic shotgun, 32 inch full choke. And he said, good morning.

I said, good morning. And he said, killed your little gobber there, hun. I said, yeah, I got lucky. He said, oh, he said, I'm just up here a squirrel hunt. He said, I don't know what it is. You just know that you know. And I knew that that was Charlie. And to describe Charlie, Waylon Jennings, that's, that's the look.

So you had heard of Charlie before? Yeah, I heard Charlie and Louielle both. And so you knew this was that man. Well, and I knew what they were doing, you know. What Andy knew but didn't say is that Charlie was deer hunting out of season. You just know that you know. I didn't ask him, but I knew in my mind it was Charlie because he looked a lot like Waylon Jennings. He had was dark hair and the mustache and the beard and really nice guy.

But he was, Charlie was a tough guy. I mean, he was raw-boned and he was tough. So I said, well, I better go. So I walked back off the mountain and walked back up to the Doug's car. We were a little old Chevrolet Chvette. He had six squirrels laying there in the back of the chavet. And I said, is that all you have got to show for all the shooting you've done? And now, I understand I'm, at that time, well, I would have turned 23.

I was 23 years old at the time. Anyway, he says, do you know somebody? I have the name of Louis Del Edwards. And I said, well, I've heard a lot about Louis Dale. Don't know him personally, but I've heard a lot about him. He said, well, I shot a deer in front of his dogs up there. What have you done? On the north side of Missouri Mountain.

So he said, it's up there on the high line. And I said, well, we better go get it and try to get out here. As we turned around and pulled out, we didn't go, we didn't go 20 yards. And the sky just steps right out in the middle of the high. road right in front of us. I mean, ain't no going around him. I mean, he's in the middle of the road. And so he's on my side. He said, good morning. Y'all done good. And I just looked at him and I said, are you, Louie Dale? He said, yeah, he said, who isn't the heck are you? You know? And I said, well, I told him who it was. And I said, he said, where y'all had it? And I said, well, I said,

I'm not going to lie to you, Liddale. I said, Doug, a shot of deer in front of the, and I said, he said, of your dogs and it's up there in the high line. And he was as tickled as anybody I've ever seen in my life. And from that day forth, it was kind of neat because he liked, he liked me. Do you think he liked you because you were honest with him? You just up front with him from the very beginning? Absolutely. He was an upfront guy.

You know, he wasn't going to, Louis-Dill Edwards didn't beat around the bush about nothing. It's just the way he was. And I don't know what it is about people in my life. That's the people that I think I'm more. attracted to is the people that you don't have to guess what they're thinking. Louis-Dell and Charlie had detected some new blood in their domain, and they went and checked in on these squirrel turkey and deer hunters. One could surmise that if Andy had made a bad impression,

things might have not gone as well. But Louis-Dell extended the right hand of fellowship to Andy for life. It was kind of the deal. I mean, if you killed a deer in front of a man's dogs, he was entitled to half the deer, period. That's just the way it was. Right. He says, you guys take me up there and drop me off, and he said, I'll get that deer and take it over to the house. And he said, y'all come back this afternoon and get it.

And he said, I'll have it, I'll have the half for you. So we left, went home, me and Doug and my sister and my wife. We all went back over to their house that afternoon. And he had that deer split right down the middle, front shoulder, rib cage, hind quarter, tenderloin, and give that to us. From that day forth, and that's been 42 years nearly since that happened, Liddell and I were friends, and so were Charlie. Louis-Dell and Charlie had a very clear value system that they functionalized in a consistent way throughout their life. Here's Neal with an example. You said they were genuine.

Like, what does that mean to you? What you see is what you get. They had their ways, and they didn't care if you agreed with them or disagreed with them. They was going to do what they was going to do what they was going to. do and what they thought was okay. And they didn't seem to have any problem hiding the good and the bad. I mean, everybody knew kind of what they were doing and what they were about. It's not like they had a dual life.

Like everybody knew what was going on. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, he didn't make no bones about it to the game wardens. You know, he might not tell them what they want to know, you know, admit to anything. But, I mean, he didn't hide it neither. Back in the, I don't know, his late 70s, I think. They was trying to do away with hunting dogs, all except, you know, little, you had to be a certain size or something. They had a meeting up there at the lime tree, and they was in there, and they was arguing back and forth.

After all, old Lou, he stood up, and he said, well, I'll tell you fellas what. You just do whatever in the shit you want to do, because that's what I'm going to do. And he said, if you plan on catching me, you better put your four-wheel drive tennis shoes on. And he just turned, walked out. You know, the meeting was pretty well over then. That kind of busted things up, you know. Four-wheel drive tennis shoes. Louisville was known for having a unique command of the English language.

So what's so interesting to me is how everybody was kind of intrigued with those guys, even if they didn't. Well, because they didn't put, they didn't try to make believe that they was something that they wasn't. He didn't try to make people think he as better than he was. He didn't make people worse than he was. They didn't dress up in suits to go to this or that. They was old country boys. That's not only what they was, it was who they was. Yeah.

They was just genuine. They were satisfied with themselves and content of what they was. You know, most people are not like that. Yeah. Tell me why aren't most people like that? If I knew the question, answer to that, I'd be a pretty smart man. I don't know. People always want some people to think that they're better than they are.

They're smarter than they are. They don't have maybe confidence in themselves. Maybe they wanted to be something more in life. I don't know. Well, you know, you take a lot of people, and you can see this a lot of people. People take somebody that wins the lottery. You know, country boy like me or Louie or Charlie. They win $30, 40 million.

All of a sudden they're driving where they drove a pickup all their life, maybe even an ice truck. You know, all of a sudden they're driving sports cars and wanting to dress in suits and move to a nice neighborhood. And they're wanting to be something that they're not. Yeah. And Louie and Charlie wasn't like that. Like I said, they was perfect looking content and happy

with what they was, and they didn't want to be anything else. You know, now, both of them was hillbillies, so to speak. But them boys wasn't dumb by any means. They wasn't ignorant. Old Louis, he may have looked like a hillbilly, but you start trading with him or trying to out-thinking, you better be good. Louis made a lot of money in his life.

There's a lot of well-educated college people. never made the money Louis did he was a hard worker he could see opportunities and buy and sale last spring Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building

each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts now I'm going to tell you I love mine because it's easy to use I'm not going to go I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest it's just not going to happen but when I run this call I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for I have a great turkey hunting track record.

If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did,

and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning calls. who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. No matter who you talk to, they'll tell you what a hard worker Louisdale was and that he was good at anything he did. Here's Andy with some insight. You know what people don't understand about Ludell was he worked hard. You know, you think you hear stories about people like that and you think about them being, you know, they get the picture of this country bumpkin that's.

a sluggard and you know he don't want to work he don't want to do anything that guy worked hard and he maintained a farm he built birth to a chicken house for them to grow eggs in but he had cattle you know he cut hay and you know what a lot of people don't know is louisdell he had a contract at one time with walmart stores putting in drop ceilons he raised catfish so catfish for a living uh he owns some uh property down in taylor arkansas where they had a catfish farm down there. And yes, I mean, he didn't do everything right in life, but he did a lot of things right. And, you know, he had a huge heart for his community.

I don't know, probably 25 years ago or 30, maybe 30 years ago. There was some people, it was a man and his wife, and they were raising kids and grandkids, and they lost their home. And a lot of people don't know this, but Louie Dell, it wasn't just Louie Dale, but he ran rodded it, they put together money and they bought them a mobile home and put back in there so they'd have a place to live. But the thing about Louisdale was, is you got exactly what you saw. Why is it so intriguing when someone is exactly what you see? Isn't that what we're all striving to display? But he wasn't just like this with his friends. He was like this with the law too.

The saga of Louisdale and Charlie is defined by an aversion to the law. to the man, but a deep devotion to those they called friends. Ironically, the lawmen even respected them. Here's Mr. Jimmy, and in this story you're going to hear the name Bertha, which is Louis Dale's wife of 54 years. So with your patrolling, tell me kind of the cat and mouse game that you had with them, just your whole career pretty much. Ludale, it started off with one day I was following Lou Dale's truck.

And I had followed that truck for hours. And finally, because I was shadowing, you know, if you ever ever try to follow a truck on a Forest Service road, you try to stay way back, but you know, somebody's going to see you. Eventually, I ran at a corner, the truck was dead in the middle of the road. And I never had really lost sight of it because I know that Charlie or Loudale hadn't been in it because nobody jumped out of the truck when it stopped. I used on up to the pickup, got out, walked up to it. Bertha was behind the wheel.

She was sitting there laughing. I said, ma'am, what's wrong? She said, Jimmy Martin, don't you know they hadn't been in this truck all day long? So I've been following that truck all day. And she was just a lure, you know, and they put it on my bad because, like I said, I've been following her all that morning. Nobody in it. They're smart.

But there was many a time I would find Louie Dale coming out of the woods. How he knew, I would stop, be listening for turkeys, and I'd hear something crashing coming down the side of the mountain. It'd be Louie Dale. He'd come over the truck. Hey, Jimmy, how you doing? Never, never called him with a gun. I would even call him back when we had, right after we had dogs, dog teams in the state.

We'd have the dogs go up, try the way that he'd come down from the mountain. So you'd, he'd popped out on the road before season? Yes. Oh, yes. Before season, he's in Cammo. Just coming out of nowhere. I never could understand how he did it. And so, but y'all called dogs in to try to back trail him to where he stats, you thought he'd stashed a shotgun.

We always heard that he had a shotgun in a, in a hall of tree. Well, if he did, we never did find it. He may not have had a gun in a tree, maybe. So how many times did you trail him with a dog? Oh, we only, we only did that twice because at that point, we're giving up because we, if we don't catch him, you know, with a gun coming out of the woods, you might as well forget it. Because when we brought the dog over two times, we just knew we was going to have him. He'd come out of the woods. We knew the spot.

He'd come out of the woods. The dog would traggling back. But the dog just kept trailing, trailing and trailing for miles. And he never would stop or hit on where there might be a gun. So was a dog trained to find a gun? Oh, he'd trained to find a gun. He was trained to find a shell. The dog could even find a 22 case.

I mean, they were that good. What did Louis Dale act like when you guys said, you're going to get a dog? He didn't bother him at all. There's no sweat. He just laughed. Really? Yeah. It wasn't, it didn't shake him.

How did he? How did he treat you? Was he hostile? Oh, no. He was just straight up with me as he could be. We'd laugh and joke and carry on. You know, if I caught him fine, but he says, you're not ever going to catch me, Jimmy.

He said that to you. Oh, yeah, several times. And I never did. And it wasn't for one of trying because I wanted that steak dinner. I caught a lot of preseason turkey hunters, but never did catch Louisdale or Charlie. So what do you think he was doing? How was he doing it?

I thought, and I never could prove it, that, you know, Bertha would take him out, drop him off, and he'd walk back home. And I'm sure he did that because she would take him deep in the forest, and I might catch him on a road in between walking back, but he never had a firearm. So I know he didn't walk that far over there, and then back, well, he may have, but he grew up in those woods and he knew them. So he just had probably stashes of guns in different places? That was theorized, but we never knew.

I may have took it with him when he left this earth, but he was good. He was real good. Hmm. I thought this would be an interesting question to ask Stoney about how they evaded the law. I wasn't certain how he'd respond. How did they evade the law so well? I've heard several stories of how they did things. They, uh, specifically with turkey hunting.

And if you don't want to talk about it. Can we get dropped off? I'm not doing anything illegal as far as what you can see. But if you sit there and wait on me, you're not going to see me again. Because that ain't where I'm coming out. And you don't know where my gun's at. So they had guns hidden in the woods. I'm not sure that there's not some still hid in the woods, and I don't know where they're at.

That was their secret is they had people drop them off, and they had guns hid in the woods. Most of the time, yeah. Here's Andy with some more intel on one of their tricks. It was a game, Clay. And, you know, and I don't mean this bad, but Louis Dill, he lived for that. He lived for that challenge. Yeah. He lived for that, I'll beat you at your game deal.

You know, I know, I know this for a fact. He would take his, he'd take his little Toyota pickup over there, have birth of all, and drop it off and park it right on the side of the road, because he knew they'd be sitting on it, and he'd be 10 miles from there to turkey hunting. You know, because, I mean, they're going to set on it, you know. Yeah, yeah. And he'd be, he'd be someplace completely out of the country, someplace else. Yeah.

Yeah. And the thing of, and that's the reason it goes back to, you know, to Bertha. Bless her heart. She got to drop him off a lot. Yeah. And she'd drop him off here and he'd say, you pick me up there at noon. He kind of put it in the Game Warden's faces, though, that he was. an outlaw. Yes, with Louisdale's the gate, there was no real ill intent, at least not the way I

interpreted Louisdale. A lot of people, a lot of wardens, a lot of law enforcement officers, they took it very personal that supposedly here's this man, he's out here, just slaughtering the turkeys left and right and flunking it in our face. But Louisdale, he never hurt my feelings. It was a game to him. You know, catch me if you can. And he best of the best of us, and we never caught him. Why do you think he was like that? That's just Louisdale. Turns out Jimmy and Louisdale both like coffee.

Here's an interesting story. Well, every pre-season, and we'd start like in March, late February, or in March, we'd be out working pre-seasoned turkey hunt. And every now and then I'd run into Louisdale. He'd always say, hey, Jimmy, you got any coffee. I'm sure he was thirsty. Here he is out there. Never caught him with a gun, but he'd be coming in out of the woods.

But it got to the point where I was beating him, finding him so frequent, I wound up making an extra pot of thermos of coffee to go with me. So I had mine in me and Louadale, we might sit there and drink half a thermos of coffee between us. In the latter part of when I was working, he got to where he was kind of hard hearing. And can you hear that bird, Jimmy? And he was using me, I guess, for the sound. boards and trying to spot turkey for him. So you're sitting there drinking coffee with him, and you're hearing birds.

We're at in the woods. And he's asking you if you heard it so he can get a bead on it. Right. Now that's classic. What did you talk about with him when you're sitting there and you're, you know that he's doing something illegal? Well, we didn't dwell on the illegal hunting part. I mean, he knew if I called him fair and square, he's going to get a ticket. And he knew in his own.

that I wasn't going to catch him because he doesn't told me that. And if he tells you, he's going to do it. But we talked about a lot of stuff, how things used to be back when we was growing up, kids and grandkids and just life. We've solved all the world's problems back there on those country roads. Did you enjoy seeing him if you saw Louisdale walking down the road? Oh, I have no problem at all. It's like a home week.

So, I mean, you would have enjoyed that. I had to. I mean, I knew the man. He wasn't the enemy. Not at all. It's just, it's just ludic. I grew up with him and all the Edwards. Now, could that have clouded your ability to catch them?

I don't think, I don't see how it could because, uh, I mean, I'm not saying you would have let them off if you knew something, but do you think that was part of their stick into getting away was just kind of being likable and, and befriending some of the people that were after them? I don't think so. I don't see how that really how that would have affected it because I try to, I really wanted that steak dinner. We'll learn that the Edwards brothers could be intimidating and downright rough in some situations.

I asked him, though, if he ever felt intimidated by him. You know, it's like if I wrote Lourdale a ticket, he's not going to try to get back at me for that. Now, if I had written him a ticket and it was uncalled for a chicken manure ticket, then, you know, he's going to, he might go out and kill double. the amount of turkeys. You didn't do Charlie or Louisville wrong, but you didn't, I wasn't afraid of them, and they're the kind that you don't mess with in the wrong, wrong way. You don't wrong them.

Yeah. I can't say it in a nice way on radio. Say it anyway. You gotta say it. No, it's just crap on them. They're going to crap on you. Yeah. You treat them right, and they're going to treat them.

Even if you're writing them a ticket, if you treat them in the right way, everything's going going to go down just great. They weren't that intense. intimidating. They're not, they didn't try to force their way out of a situation. You know, this quit following me as a game warden or we're going to get even with you.

None of that would ever happen. They, they don't do people that way. You know, Charlie and Lou Duff, if I told them I needed anything at all, they would do it, whether I'm law enforcement or not.

That's just the way they work. They were good people. They really were. Yeah. That's the, that's the interesting part. of this whole story is that they were these pretty notorious outlaws but then they were also like I had I had a hard time finding people that were willing to talk about them because they were afraid it was

going to make them look bad you know it's like wait a minute these guys you know why are you defending the character of these you know these these these poachers that's this that's the that's the that's the way a lot of people were why do you think people were so loyal to them well they're not Claude Dallas, if you know that name from Out West. I don't. He, the one that killed two game wardens out, and I think it was Idaho. Okay. Louisville and Charter, they're not going to be violent against you.

There was a romanticism for some folks. When I started on as a game fish officer, you lose most of your friends. The people that I grew up with, hunted and fished with, that's the last thing they wanted to see was me coming up their driveway, especially in that game and fish truck. Louis and Charlie, they weren't like that. I'd have gone to their house many times on complaints. People had filed a complaint on them for one reason or another, and I would just pull it up in the driveway, and we'd sit on the front porch and talk about it

and me trying to get down to the bottom of the situation as to what the facts were on it. I was never intimidated having to drive up their driveway, whereas some of the kids I went to school with might be a little bit different. I didn't have to worry about them. Yeah. And I didn't have to walk backwards to my truck.

I could always turn around when I left their house and just walk back to my truck normally because I knew nothing was going to happen to you. Yeah, I think I see what you're saying. And I guess you chased some guys that you wouldn't have done that with. I mean, you chased some guys that were straight up criminals that would cut your tires or shoot you. Well, worse than that. But Charlie and Ludale, they were down to the earth folks. They worked for when they worked, they worked hard.

When they played, they played hard. And a lot of people respected them for that. Louis Dale liked Jimmy and treated him with respect. Interestingly, in the 1980s, while Jimmy Martin was working as a police officer, he was shot three times in a DUI traffic stop. He had reason not to trust folks, but he trusted the Edwards. However, if you crossed them or if for some reason they didn't like you, anything was on the table.

Here's Stony with a story of an interaction with the game warden that Louis Dale didn't get along with. It's important to know that it is legal to run dogs for deer in many parts of Arkansas. Well, we were running dogs, which, you know, we're right on the game refuge line here, and we had dogs over in the game refuge. Well, Uncle Liddell's over trying to catch them, and he's got his rifle. He ain't going to leave it laying. And Sam was the one of Uncle O'Dell's good deer dogs, but nobody could catch him but Uncle O'Dell. That's it.

Any strangers around, that dog would stay out there at 30, 40 yards. Nobody's going to get close. And Kenneth had stopped Uncle O'Dell and looked at his license and chewed on him about having dogs in game refuge. Uncle Lidl said, I ain't got no dogs in game refuge. Well, whose dog is that? Uncle O'clock said, I don't know. It ain't mine. And it had his collar on it.

I mean, he knew it was his dog. He was over there to get him. But he knew Kenneth couldn't catch him. Of course, Uncle Ludow and Kenneth didn't get along, I mean, just personality clash. They wouldn't have got along if they had been met somewhere else. Right. But Kenneth, he just looked at Uncle Edel and he went to pull his pistol. And he said, well, find out whose dog it is.

And Uncle O'Odo cocked his rifle and pointed to Nick. Oh, he was going to shoot the dog. He was going to kill the dog. Oh, man. look at the collar and Uncle Lodil just tilted his rifle up there and cocked memory he said that dog dies so do you and Kenneth said well I thought it wasn't your dog and he said I don't give a d'n't you ain't killing a dog in front of me and it all ended right there Kenneth and then went got in their truck left and Uncle Lode a loaded dog up and went home wow I got another one how does

how does the law respond to that because I think maybe it was just from a different time because today you point your gun a law enforcement guy, you're either going to get shot or you're going to go to jail. Right, but let me ask you this. If the law enforcement guy is breaking the law, who's in the right? Right. Because

by today's law, him shooting that dog would be a felony. So it's almost like there was some backwoods justice going on there between both of them. Right. I mean, it's, you're just not going to do it, you know? And so nothing was ever said about it.

No. Man, see, that's interesting because, and I think that does show you kind of the, I mean, it's like Bo and Luke Duke, you know, I fought the law and the law lost. That's a pretty wild interaction. And I realize that that's just one side of that story. But we do know for sure it was a different time. If that happened today, things probably would have been different. Probably.

There's been several statements about them evading the law. law, but that actually didn't always happen. Jimmy never caught him. But as you'll see in the next podcast, we'll learn they actually got caught a couple of times, a long time before Jimmy. Here's one time when Louis Dale caught himself. We were over on the head of board camp, and of course, me and Uncle O'Dill is coming back into camp, and Terry Lunsford was parked in the road. Forest Service law enforcement. For service law enforcement. And Joel, Isles was game warden anyway and i like both men but anyway uncle udell being uncle he gets out and we're talking to terry and uncle odil said well i guess you better check our

license and terry said no this is at your deer camp no this is on the hood of terry's truck so just y'all y'all are just coming back saw him parked in the road okay so it was like a roadblock right well it wasn't really a roadblock terry was just pulled over and we pulled up to talk to him okay and we got out and everybody's leaning on the hood you know talking. Yeah. There's four guys standing there talking, and then Joe Liles pulled up, so all five of us is talking, and Uncle Liddell stayed on Terry.

Oh, you're going to check license. He said, and I didn't buy these things for nothing. And he's pulling his bill fold out, and Terry's like, well, I don't need to see your license. I know, you know, well, Uncle Oudell don't have one. All the rest of us has got ours out there, and he turned bright red. I mean bright red And went to cussing And then the first thing

The next thing popped out of his mouth was I can't believe Berta didn't buy that Blame to throw Bertha right under the bus And Then Terry just looked at Joe And he said I ain't right in this ticket Because neither one of them

Wanted to have to deal with the aftermath You know It wasn't that he was going to get revenge But he was going to be mad at whoever wrote that ticket forever. You wrote me a ticket. And I think Joe finally wrote the ticket. And of course, Uncle Lloyd O'Leager said,

that was the only damn way he was ever going to catch me. After doing some checking, it was actually Terry Lunsford that wrote the ticket. Here's Jimmy with his honest thoughts on the Edwards' reputation. But a lot of Louisdale was bravado. You'd see him in a restaurant. and people would get to talk about turkey hunting,

who they'd like to brag. And he, you know, he might not have killed near as many turkeys as people as he put out to be doing. I don't think he did. At one time, he had a big ring of turkey beards, but we don't know how long it'd been collecting those beards. Yeah. A lot of it was bravado.

The turkey beard thing came from back when he was arrested for moonshining. Moonshining? Did he just say that Louis Dale got caught for moonshining? Man, there is not enough time in a single bear grease episode to even scratch the surface with these Edwards boys. You'll have to wait for part two of this podcast to hear the moonshining story, and it's a good one. If they killed half of what they got credit for,

there wouldn't be any game left in Polk County. So you think a lot of their reputation... Oh, I just got... I'm sure they did kill. more than their share. But it just got blown plum out of proportionate. The myth, it created a myth, and it just carried on and on and on. Louis Del Charlie, they, you know, you're talking about the numbers of the killing 30 and 40

birds in a season. They did not waste any meat. So if they killed 30 birds, either their freezer was plum full of turkey. They gave away a lot because, you know, there's no way one family is going to eat 30 turkey. And if they did give away that many, then the word would have gotten out. But if they did kill that, many, they surely didn't waste it. What makes you say that? How do you know that?

Because I know them. I know how they were raised and how they grew up and how they taught their kids. Yeah. It's just the way it was when we grew up. You didn't waste that meat. Back then, it was precious. Yeah. They were good folks.

Yeah. I don't care how many times I got to say it. I'll chase them. I'd ride them today if they were still, you know, if we were still back in that situation. and they would know it, but they're don't. Yeah. Here's Stony on the big picture of his dad and uncle being outlaws. How do you feel about your dad and uncle being outlaws like that?

And how would you be today? You got to look at it this way. There's very few deer when they're younger. You're not allowed to kill a doe. Right. By putting that restriction on them, their chances of seeing one period were nearly void. anyway. Yeah.

And then you see one, oh, that's a dough, I can't shoot it. Well, that was a hard rule to follow. It was an impossible rule to follow. When you know you've got family at home that need that meat. You know, you've heard Old West stories. The guy went and killed somebody's cow and took it home. That was the only way he had to feed his family at the time. So he did it.

Nowadays, I can't hold with a whole lot of it. And my uncle couldn't either. My dad couldn't either at the last. there's a point where we have enough. So you saw that inside of them? I mean, there was a time, I mean,

when they were killing that many turkeys kind of in their prime, I mean, they weren't, they had plenty of money. I mean, they weren't wealthy, but they, so they weren't killing turkeys just to feed the,

it was kind of a remnant of a time past, but then they got in their old age where they weren't killing as much stuff. I'm not going to say that, because, you know, when they were in their mid-30s, The only Christmas we had is from what they killed Coon Hunt.

Their Coon Hides, Dad and Uncle Ludo made 3,500 in one month, coon hunting. Wow. Of course, hides were at $25 and $35 a piece, but they weren't working in the day at all. They got up in the evening, went hunting, came home, went to bed, got up and went hunting every single night, seven days a week, all winter long. If they were still up the next morning, you know, they'd get up and they'd go target hunting, or they'd go kill a deer. Or they may have killed a deer that night while they were cun hunting. I mean, the work was very scarce that they were doing, and that was it.

I guess it was later in their life that they kind of did pretty well for themselves. I mean, Louie Dell. Uncle Loydell, he did pretty well all the way through. Dad, Uncle Lidale, married one woman. and was married to her for 50-something years. Mm-hmm. Dad married six. Okay, I didn't know that.

Okay, so Charlie had six wives. Right. I'll be darned. I didn't know that. Dad made little fortunes and lost them all along the way. Uncle Ed, I married one, and made a fortune and managed to build it up. As far as their thinking went, if they needed it, they were going to go get it. And I would be the same way today.

but I can't see a scenario where I would need it. Here's Andy telling why he misses Charlie and Louisdale. Those great folks. I mean, I miss them. I mean, you just got to miss people like that because they're just so, they're just so, I mean, pure. I mean, you're going to get the same thing every time. I mean, you're not going to get any.

And Blue Dale was loud, God, he'd come in up there at the office, and I'd shut my door. And, of course, everybody in the office heard it, you know. He'd come in up there. I mean, this might be the 15th of March. He had two beards in his pocket. He'll be able to do him, bitch. I'm in the mornings.

And, you know, he'd leave there, go to the Holland House, and tell him the same thing. I mean, it didn't, I mean, it did not bother him. It's just unbelievable. Isn't it ironic that these notorious outlaws were such respected and beloved people? Obviously, they had enemies too, and I'm certain there are unflattering stories about them, like there would be about all of us. Me telling the story of the Edwards brothers is clearly not condoning breaking game loss,

And let me say, whoever is without sin, let him cast the first stone. Times have changed for the better. Today, obeying game laws is the norm, and if you break them, you will be caught and severely punished. Game laws keep wildlife populations healthy. We love game laws. Today, the cool kids obey game laws. That's just the way it is. The prime of these guys' operation was simply a different thing.

time. It was a different mentality. So why did I tell the story? In a day of extreme polarization of things either being black or white, someone is either a criminal or a saint. You've either been accepted or you've been canceled. It seems to me like we could judge people with a little more nuance. If we were all judged by our worst day, we'd all be in trouble. The Edward's story is extremely intriguing and complex. And my personal take home for Clay Newcomb has to do with the certainty of the Edwards Brothers identity. They could have taught a master class on functionalizing a strong identity.

And I'm not saying it was healthy or constructive, but they didn't take cues about themselves from sources deemed irrelevant. And therein lies the issue with many of us. It was noteworthy to me that over and over and over. people said they were genuine. Well, aren't we all trying to be genuine? Or have most of us taken on an identity that's a facade? Wouldn't it be wild if it took a couple of outlaws from Arkansas

to help us see what it means to be a genuine human? It's just a thought. It's just something to think about. On the next episode, we're going to continue to hear stories about Louisdale and Charlie. there just isn't enough time in this thing. And we're going to tell about the time they got busted for making illegal moonshine and how earlier in their lives they actually did get busted by the game and fish. Man, it's going to be good.

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