Bear Grease - Ep. 62: The Unusual Whitetail Streak of Ora Lee Provence

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast we’re talking about two giant, public-land whitetails killed by the same man on the same year, all the while exploring a universal and ancient idea. It’s one that has not escaped any culture - it’s homogenous across time, oceans, and peoples. It’s the idea of a “streak of luck”. All can agree that beneficial things do happen that are far beyond human control, but the catalyst or origin of this favor are where the ideologies diverge. I want to introduce you, posthumously, to an incredible man by the name of Ora Lee Provence, who Clay Newcomb interviewed in 2019, just one month prior to his passing at the age of 91 – Mr. Oree, as he was called, killed two non-typical deer in the fall of 1965 on public land in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. This was as unlikely as being struck by lightning -  twice. We’ll hear from Mr. Oree himself and meet his son, we’ll also hear from Whitetail wackos Mark Kenyon and Tony Peterson from MeatEater’s Wired To Hunt Podcast, and we’ll talk with one of the best Ozark Mountain deer hunters I know, Moe Shepherd, about streaks of luck.  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.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. I love the fact that something like that is possible. If everything in deer hunting had to be by the books, predictable, due only to those who put in the work who had this plan or who did all the homework, whatever it was,

if that was the only way that you could have these storybook endings, it'd be a little bit boring. On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we're talking about two giant public land white tales. killed by the same man on the same year, all the while exploring a universal and ancient idea. It's one that has not escaped any culture. It's homogenous across time, oceans, and peoples. It's the idea of a streak of luck. All can agree that beneficial things do happen that are far beyond human control. But the catalyst or origin of this favor are where the ideologies diver.

I want to introduce you posthumously to an incredible man by the name of Oara Lee province, or as they called him Ori, who I interviewed in 2019 just a month prior to his passing at the age of 91. Mr. Ory killed two nontimical deer in the fall of 1965 on public land in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. This was as unlikely as being struck by lightning twice. We'll hear from Mr. Ori himself and meet his son. We'll also hear from White Tail Wackos, Mark Kenyon, and Tony Peterson from Meat Eat Eater's Wired to Hunt podcast. And we'll talk with one of the best Ozark Mountain Deer Hunters that I know Mo

Shepard about streaks of luck. I doubt you're going to want to miss this one. I think that's like sort of the secret sauce to hunting is the possibility of that stuff just falling together and having an amazing year or a once-in-a-lifetime encounter. I don't know. I think it's so cool. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear

that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Hey, Rusty, just looking at that deer, and I know you guys don't like to do this, but what do you think that deer's going to score? Because we're about to do the math to find out. If you just walked up and saw that deer, howdy? I'm going to say he's going to be really close to 170.

I'm going to say upper 160s. Okay. That's just a wild guess. I've recruited official scorer Rusty Johnson to go with me to Winslow, Arkansas, to score the first of the two bucks that Mr. Ori killed in 1965. As we're finishing up, Ori's son, Eugene, who's now in his 70s, walks up. Mr. Eugene, how you doing? Clay Newcomb.

Yeah, good to see you. Rusty Johnson. What was the name? Rusty Johnson. Rusty Johnson. Nice to meet you. You too. Mr. Eugene.

looks at the rack of his father's 26 point buck in the back of the side by side where we've been measuring the rack. We're almost finished. Eugene was just a kid, but he was there when this buck was killed. Oh, that was something else now. You were, you weren't standing beside him when he killed this deer, but you were with him on that hunt. I was with him on that hunt. What do you, what do you remember about that day? What are you doing here now? Can I record you? Is that right? I don't care. Well, I remember on that day, I remember it was a long, hard day who was getting him out. Yeah.

You know, he had tucked me and set me down, and he's always one of these that just slip along, you know, and do his hunting. And so he come back to me and said, I've shot one. I need you go help me track it. So he got me down there and put me on the blood trail. He said, you'd follow this, and I would try to go get in front of it. So when I went out there a few hundred feet or yards where that lady, he had it all covered up. He just pulled one on me. Oh, so he wanted you to find him.

Yeah, he would be surprised on it. How old were you? I think I was 14. So you would have hunted enough to have known that was an incredible deer. Oh, yeah. This story gives us our first glimpse into Ori Province. He was of good humor and wanted to involve his son in the seemingly once-in-a-lifetime track job.

The horns of the buck are now yellowed and dusty. They're mounted atop a white tithe. mannequin that scarcely reflects the anatomical features of a real buck. The hair is faded and ghostly. To someone who loves white tails, this is a beautiful sight. And I'll have you know, this is the smaller of the two bucks killed that season on public land by Mr. Ory. Man, what an unlikely place.

How many points does this thing have? 27 or 28. Yeah, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I described this buck as a tight-racked, heavy horned for the region mainframe 10 point with 16 kicker points. On the right side, the brow-tine clusters into what looks like a webbed beaver track. The second time the G2 flares into a cluster of five non-typical points, including a big flyer arching towards the limestone beneath our feet. Mark Kenyon would faint if he saw this deer from a tree stand. I wanted to ask Mr. Eugene the question that I'm going to ask everyone else on this episode.

And his answer is what you might expect from a son. What do you make of a guy that we calculated up that he hunted probably 80 years? I mean, so 80 years of hunting. Every bit, I mean. And one year, in one week, he kills just two incredible deer. What are you making that? What do I make of that? I mean, like, whoa.

It's an incredible hunter. Yeah. I mean, you know, I guess there might be some, I don't know if there'd be any luck in it, but I mean, when you come up for something like that, that close, you know, I've not done that yet. I want to make some definitions clear so that we're all talking about the same thing. I would describe luck simply as fortuitous circumstances that come about seemingly by chance rather than the result of someone's actions. The second word we're going to use is streak.

And by that, I mean when something happens more than once, you're on a streak. We'll combine these two into the phrase, lucky streak, when good stuff starts happening all in a row. It's hard to argue with the fact that Mr. Ory was a seasoned, decorated, and skilled hunter. There's no argument at all. He had a unique style of slip hunting the rocky bluffs where he lived, and he was born and bred in these mountains. He knew deer, and he killed lots of big deer in his life. But none near as big as these two, killed on the same year when he was 38 years old.

It's clear that it wasn't all luck or just undeserved favored. But I think there is more to this story than skill alone. He tapped into a streak of good luck. but we still don't know how big the smaller deer is, which this one is smaller. 12, 16, 2. So that deer grows scores 171 inches. So I missed it by one inch.

Good job, man. I told you pushing 170. Good job. On a quick porch score job in 2011, I scored this 26 point buck almost 10 inches under. It's true. gross score of 171. Old Rusty doesn't miss very much.

However, the second and clearly bigger buck had less judgment calls, and when I scored the buck in 2011, it had an incredible 186 gross inches. And to put that into perspective, I mean 170-inch deer, the vast majority of deer hunters will never kill a buck that big, guys who've even dedicated their lives to deer hunting. But the 186 is even bigger, and it carries two drop tines in an almost shot through horn where one of Mr. Orie's stray bullets almost shattered the main beam. This, my friends, in this part of the world, is like getting struck by lightning twice. A 171 and a 186. There are lots of ideas around luck, and they can basically be broken into two broad categories.

The first would be the naturalistic interpretation of luck. which would be positive and negative events can happen at any time, both due to random natural processes and even improbable events can happen by random chance. The second idea would be a supernatural interpretation of luck. Basically, forces outside of this natural realm govern at will the events of the earth. But I'd like to invite you to step out of the Western culture worldview that blindly dominantly dominion. most of us into a black and white railroad track ideology saying that you have to pick one or the other. Perhaps they could both be operating at the same time.

We're trying to answer the question of how much human success is skill and hard work and how much is seemingly luck. The answer to this has big implications for how you live your life. And at the end of this podcast, I'm going to tell you about a vivid and specific dream that I had about a white-tailed buck and how it changed my life. So stick around. The next part of this story creates in me a wide range of emotions. We're going to go back to March of 2019 and meet Mr. Ory and his wife Mary. That day, he was spry, mentally sharp, in great spirits and good health for a 91-year-old man. But one month after our interview, Mr. Ory passed away. Ending our conversation that day, after he had told me he'd lived in the mountains for 90 years,

I jokingly said, he's got no plans to leave now. He interrupted me and said, only up. Mr. Ori was an honorable man, posthumous fist bump to Mr. Ori. Every generation has had old-timers like Ori. When Daniel Boone was alive, he would have looked back at the real old-timers and recognized the same thing that we recognize today when we talk to really old people that planet Earth and the

humans that are on it are in a constant state of unstoppable change. When you see human history, you see a trajectory that seems to be leading us someplace. My interest in history in old stories isn't to stop the change or nostalgically

revel in the past, but I want to track the change and be prepared for the future. And doggone at the ruthless pace of Time is trying to leave behind some stuff that I'm not ready to give up. Now I want to take you deep into the Ozarks to meet a human relic, hanging on the edge of his time on earth. Mr. Ory and his wife live about as far back in the mountains as you can live in this state.

Here's Mr. Ory. Out here. Hey, how you doing? Oh, I'm doing fire, I guess. Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you. Hello, Miss Mary. How are you?

Hi. Hi. This is my youngest son, Shepherd. I don't think he's ever been over here before. No, I don't ever have seen him before anymore. Come around and have a seat here. How are you all doing? Good, pretty good.

Excuse the floor. I was in the middle of vacuuming, but I ain't got all done, so don't worry about the house. Oh, this is great. The house was quaint and comfortable with knick-knacks and photos of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren on the walls. Through the back window, you can see a deep Ozark drawl, a non-functioning school bus in an oak barn.

The mounted bucks from 1965 hung in two different rooms, one in a front bedroom and one in the back. By permission, I went and got both bucks off the wall and leaned them against the couch for us to gander at while we talked. For me, hunting has always been synchronized with the rest of my life, and I think it helps to put these two bucks and Mr. Ori's streak into context by learning something about his life. Here's Miss Mary talking about the new computer their kids bought them, which is pretty high-tech. We got this one because he loves Bill Monroe. Okay.

And so he can pull up Bill Monroe, Lester Flat, Carter family, and then he hears all different kinds. Oh, he'll stumble on to somebody. Here, come here, this and these are so good, you know. And I found a little girl last night. They come on, some of them does. Carter family come on. They made their first record in 1927.

Yeah. That's your house barn. Oh, okay. And Monroe's, they'd come on in 36. Okay. I'll tell you what my story was. Dad always had me to, there's 11 of us children. But everybody had a job.

Some of them milked the cow, some feed the hogs and some done this and that. My job was get up at 4 o'clock a morning, be able to fire, go feed the mule and hornets. Is that right? Yeah. That was your job. Had my job, and I wasn't very big.

I'd have to climb up on the manger, you know, to get up there and put that collar on the buck around the back of them old mule. Of course, they're jealous dogs. Here's more for Mr. Ory, starting us into his life story. Well, I was born June the 10th, 1927. And I grew up, and we moved from the mountain down to cross the holiday where I live in 29. And then I went to school two weeks at Winfrey.

Now, you were born right here close somewhere? I was born up on the mountain here about a mile and a half from where I'm at. So you weren't born in a hospital? No, no. No, they weren't one of us living children born in the hospital. Yeah. And so you were born up here and then? We moved down here in 29.

Then we moved back to the mountain. I went to school down here. Went for two weeks and we went back to the old home place. That was my mother's dad's place. He homesteaded it from the United States government. And I still got the deed. The Highland Country of Arkansas was not valuable or profitable land to homes. homestead. The rocky ground wasn't fertile compared to many regions of the country, and it was hard

to till. Most people that came here were poor and just happy to have land, and some were running from something, like debt or even the law, but hard times produce hard people. In the 1830s, when Davy Crockett, yep, the real David Crockett, passed through Arkansas, he said in a public speech he gave in Little Rock, quote, If I could rest anywhere, it would be Arkansas, where the men are the real half horse, half alligator breed, such as grow nowhere else on the face of the universal earth, but just around the backbone of North America. End of quote.

I suspect the provinces were of such type. So how many brothers and sisters did you have? I had five brothers and five sisters. So 11 kids. And the oldest one died, but that would have made 12, three young than me. Okay. In 1936, I was nine years old, 1936, we got our first radio. I listened to the old Red and Ricardo family and Bill Monroe and Charlie Monroe there's together back then.

Yeah. That was a big deal listening to those old radio programs. They was good. They was good. Yeah. I like to listen out of me yet. I asked Mr. Ory what kind of work his father did, which created the backdrop of his childhood.

We worked in timber. That's how we made her. Worked in timber. We worked in timber and farmed a little. Okay. We had separated 10 cows. So he was hauling logs off the mountain with these mules? Oh, yeah.

Right. Skidding them and everything. So you grew up doing that. That's what I've done it all in my life, just about it. Now when did y'all start getting more? modern logging equipment. Like you were a logger most of your life. Well, that is up in about 60. In the 1960s, you started using mechanized equipment for hauling logs.

Yeah, right. Really? Trucks and things, you know. So you were using mules and horses and everything until the 1960s. I sked a man in a log with the horse and mules. What kind of saws did you use? Like the two-man... Cross-cut saws.

Cross-cut saws. Do you have any of that old stuff? stuff still laying around. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Ori is going to describe a difficult and unstable period in his life in the 1940s when he was just a teenager. Crisis struck their family by the early and unexpected death of his father from a stroke.

And a World War broke out. Well, my dad died in 44, but in 41, while the World War II broke out. And my brothers, three of them, waiting service. Okay. And I was the oldest one left at home. Okay. I took care of my mother and my nephew and two sisters and her brother.

So you were just a few years too young to be drafted into the war? I was. When my dad died of 16, and when I become 18, the day I was 18, the day after I was 18. my birthday come on Sunday that year on Monday I registered and I went down and passed examination. Eight days July got my call

for examination. Went down and passed and eight day of August got my call for service and a minister's out here and I had a big tomato drop out about 10 acres of tomatoes and me and the family did we had to have something

to live on. But Anyway, why there's a minister out there, he said this boy, they'd just take care of his mother and these children. And so he wrote, I got deferred until locked over the 15th. In other words, so the crop was over. Yeah. Then I still got my 1A classification, but the war was over at that time. Wow. So you would have gone if the war would have?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, the boys that I went school. with some of them. They was in there. They went Germany. It was clear that Mr. Ory was proud of his 1A classification, which meant he was eligible for military service

and was ready to roll when the tomato crop was put up. But by the regional frost date of October 15th, the Great World War was over. His brothers came home, and stability returned to his family. Here's Mr. Ory talking about his work after the war ended, and he'll give us some insight into the life philosophy of the province family. Man, my brother, he never did have to go to war.

And so when he went and cut timber and logged it. I hold it on a wagon. He skidded it out, and I went to halt it, dumped it off at the mail. And that was in the late 40s anyway. Now, the Great Depression, you were just a kid during the great group. These hills weren't really, I mean, they were affected by the Great Depression, but people were already poor. Yeah. I mean, there wasn't much you could do to somebody that was just living off the land, basically, when it comes to economic stress.

That's right, yeah. But we lived off the land. Yeah. In 1936, that was a dry year, you know. Okay. And we had a tomato crop, and we hauled water and set them out, and they got up and just the blooming and everything, turned off. dry, we never got a tomato. But we,

we worked in a timber. You know, the people back then, they finally got, where they brought out food stamps and things, but we never got any. My dad just wouldn't have nothing to do with that. Really? Just by principle. He didn't need any help.

But we made it. We made it without it. We worked and never made it. Yeah. What would have been a normal meal for your family back then when you were a kid? Oh, I had plenty to eat. Had plenty to eat. I guess you raised hogs and canned vegetables.

Yeah. Had a garden. I know you still have a garden, don't you? Well, yeah. Yeah, we made it fine. I had about 30 swarms of bees back during the war while you couldn't get sugar. Food is all rationed. You couldn't buy nothing.

Everybody's out of sugar, and I had bees, and we got to permit to feed the bees, you know, because it used the honey. some way another in guns. The World War interfered with the United States ability to import sugar, so honey was used as a sugar substitute at home and sent to the troops abroad. But primarily, beeswax had over 350 uses in wartime military operations. It was used to coat airplanes, coat canvas tents, lubricate all types of machinery, and was used on ammunition.

The average war machine, Whether a plane or tank was said to have 10 pounds of beeswax on it, beeswax didn't expand in heat or crack into cold. The American Bee Journal in the 1940s had a slogan, quote, Let the bees wax the way to victory. End of quote. Who do? I sure didn't.

Here's Mr. Ory giving us some geographical data points of his life. And hey, don't forget about the dream that I'm going to tell you about at the end. How would you describe these mountains? Well, they're rough. Yeah. Yeah. But they're beautiful.

I've never been nowhere else. Four west of us have been, is Shamrock, Texas. And for south, there's been down around Warren, Arkansas. And for north, there's been as Kansas. And four north has been in which you'd have to go. Little Rock.

By today's standards, that's a small home range. Remember, this is all giving us a context for his incredible whitetail streak of 1965. And man, if 60 years from now they're making media about your whitetail streak, you must be some kind of a boss. Man, I'd rather like during the war, you know.

Well, they weren't no money much. Cross ties are selling 25 and 30 and 35 cents a piece. And you just couldn't make much of the timbre. So when the season opened, we'd go hunting. We'd make more hunting, catching possums and coons. We'd even skin a skunk. Anything that we could get dollar out of. Selling the hides?

Selling the hides, yeah. Oh. Yeah. So you had tree dogs. Oh, yeah. Right, yeah. Yeah. So you were making money selling hides back during?

during that time. Well, making more than you could make at the sawmill. Right. So you did that as a kid. Now, there weren't many deer though back when you were a kid. No deer at all. None at all. No, hardly ever.

You never, I never seen a deer till I was, oh, 16. They had a game refuge over here they had. We had to hunt around there. They couldn't hunt there. They were trying to reintroduce deer. That's right. So they brought in some deer. Oh yeah, yeah.

They brought her in it. And they was getting where they kind of scattered out, scattered out, then they open the season on it. What he's referring to is the reintroduction of white-tailed deer into the Black Mountain region of the Ozarks. According to the records, it started in 1926 with, quote, several deer brought in from Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Texas. Then in 1928, they released five deer.

In 1930, four deer. In 1938, 14 deer. And then the restocking stopped in the 1950s when it was believed that some of the areas in the Ozarks had deer populations as high as 30 deer per square mile, which is actually a decent amount of deer. It was said that the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission was even buying pet deer from people and releasing them into many of the refuges. And to look at the bigger picture of what was going on in North America, this was a golden era of conservation efforts for many big game species. There was widespread habitat protection going on. The passing

of the Pittman-Robertson Act in 1937 was huge and the general acceptance of game laws and seasons put to bed the old market hunting ideologies. That stuff started to fade away. Today as hunters and conservationists were standing on the wildlife and habitat decisions made during this period. Here's Mr. Ory on how he liked to hunt.

But you, so I remember the story that I wrote about you years ago I called it the bluff hunter. Yeah. Because you used to like to stay on the top of these bluffs and you can kind of look down and see these flats. Yeah. And that's where these deer would be, but if you were up on the bluff,

you'd kind of be hid from them. Is that right? Right. They can't smay you above them. They don't, so that way you can get a, I've killed several laying down. Okay, so you would just creep along the top of the bluff and you'd see them bedded.

Yeah, right. I remember you used to throw rocks off a bluff too sometimes. You know, sometimes you'd wake them up. If you couldn't see, why you'd throw something down there to kind of make a noise. There's wondering what it was and maybe they didn't move where you could see them, if there's any there. Yeah. I'd walk 20, 25 mile a day. Wow.

Hunting on bluffs. I hunt the blus and roughest places as it was. Mr. Ory's scent control was to stay up above the deer on the bluff. Too bad he didn't have modern scent control products. Then he could have got right down there with him and have. had a good hunt and he wouldn't have had to have clumb those bluffs. That's a joke for Mark Kenyon. Me and Mr. Orr used the science approved method.

Play the wind like a man, you dirty hillbillies. I do love soapboxes. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in 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 you. 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 Fetop. Helps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did,

and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. I asked Mr. Orie to tell me the story of his big bucks. Here he goes.

Well, I was, man, my boy, he was 14 years old, and we went across over here and across some torch down the point and got down

down on the point where I left him on top the hill and I said I'm going down the other where them

pines at and all that bluzz they're at and I said if I can jump up something and I was

going to climbing over a bluff and I scared four deer out of a bed down blow me you know

they run off and so I just teased on down the bluff got down down and went on down and found their beds, went right through by it, went on down about 65, 100, about 90 yards the other side of it.

And I heard a racket behind me. And I looked around and I saw this 28 point bucket coming. All I could see is this, you could kill one without, I think, a spike or... He just needed to have horns. I could see them horns. I saw you have horns. had enough horns he's legal to shoot, so I couldn't see nothing but just a spot between two trees.

So I shot him in the flanks. And I thought, well, I crippled him. And so I shot him, and he come right through by him and run about, I think it's 93 yards. And he fell dead right over from me. I'll be darned. What did you think when you walked up to him and started counting those points? What do you think? Yeah.

But I couldn't, I just left him around. and went and got my boy. He's 14 years old. Now, how'd you get him out of there? I know about where that did. Well, we dug him to the creek, on down the creek and tuck him up the creek, because we couldn't take him back up the bluff where I'd come from. Okay.

No way it's doing to him. And her rig was sitting on top of the mountain, so I had to go back up there and get it. But I went and we took him around the creek and took him up the creek and we run on to some hunters there and a boy that he had a Volkswagen. He took us back to our rigs and hauled it up to where we could get it. I'll be darned. And then you killed another one. Now, was it a few years later?

When did you kill that? Two weeks later. Two weeks later. I'll be darned. Same area? No, no. It was back north here. Okay.

So what about this second deer? How did that happen? I was checking a man's cattle. And up the creek here, and he's from Lake, Texas. And I went up there and, of course, the deer's. this evening you know I had my gun with him so he had a big pond built on and I just I don't remember I was just what I was doing anyway this deer was just up and a ticket there above that running out through there huh and I saw them big horns and I started shooting a shot I think he's nine times at it whatever it takes and the last shot a shot well he fell right backwards he's running fast I'll be done he fell back yeah he's 18 points One of those nine bullets hit the left main beam of the buck and almost broken in half.

How he reloaded and shot that many times, I do not know. But regardless, 186-inch mainframe 10-point with long curved brow tines and an inner set of matching G3 tines that lean into the rack with a striking pair of 7-inch drop tines, hit the dirt, creating an unmatchable white-tail streak for the track for the line. old bluff hunter. Being a partaker of a white-tail streak of luck doesn't mean that the streaker didn't utilize skill and hard work. As a matter of fact, most streaks are highly correlated to these things, but sometimes stuff happens that is far beyond the control or the work ethic of the streaker. And it's a beautiful thing when someone ready intersects with fate.

I actually think that deep down humans bank on streaks of good favor and even plan for them, like it's coded in our DNA. For the most part, we know that the work we put into our lives will yield a standard return. We learn to live off this percentage yield, and we know that at any time a streak or some kind of unusual favor, far beyond our control, could be coming. And when it does, we get ahead. we build our lives off the benefits of the lucky streak. The norm of life is only calibrated and understood by the outlying data points,

like 270-inch-plus bucks in the same year. Mark Kenyon of Meat Eaters Wired to Hunt podcast is one of the most dedicated and meticulous whitetail hunters that I know. He's intelligent with an analytical mind and a monster scrape-sized work ethic. He hunted with me last year on public land and archival. saw and killed a buck. You'll be able to watch that hunt this fall on meter's YouTube channel. I wanted to ask Mark what he thinks about Ori's streak. Well, the first thing I think is just that I love it. I love the fact that something like that

is possible. You know, if everything in life or in deer hunting in particular, if everything in deer hunting had to be by the books predictable due only to those who put in the work who had this plan or who did all the homework, whatever it was, if that was the only way that you could have these storybook endings, it'd be a little bit boring. I love the fact that there is this serendipity in the world and this crazy, these crazy opportunities that can come from above and just drop in your lap. I mean, that makes every day in the field, for me at least, kind of magical. Here's Mark on how the mystery of deer hunting in some ways has disappeared in my modern times.

And you know what's funny, like these days, with the way white tail hunting is gone, with trail cameras everywhere and cell cameras and the way a lot of folks, myself included, sometimes study these deer obsessively, you know, some of that mystery is disappearing from deer hunting, right? We know every deer on the property. We know every deer we can expect. We've already figured out, well, I'd shoot this one. I wouldn't shoot that one.

I kind of, I miss that mystery sometimes. and I'm glad, and I need to remind myself, this story is a great example of the fact that the unpredictable is still possible. Like, that unknown deer from 100 miles away could show up, and you might have the luckiest day of your life. And I think we sometimes get stuck in the silo, I guess, like the tunnel vision.

We get tunnel vision, I think, as hunters, especially whitetail hunters, because we operate on these smaller playing fields that we study obsessively. and it's really important and encouraging to remember that, man, tomorrow or today, the next minute, everything can change. I mean, when we were on our one week of November hunt last year, Clay, I remember both you and I were having a tough week, right?

It was mostly long days on stand. And I remember sitting there thinking, man, nothing is going right. But any second now, just the flip of a light switch, it could all change. That lucky street could land in my. lap and for you it did right i mean the last minute of the last hour basically of the last day there it is and and i almost had the same thing too so i think ori's story is just a great reminder for anyone who's having a tough spell or anyone who's having a bad day or bad season that uh man you can hit that streak you know i think i think that's why we love deer hunting it really is

almost like gambling like you literally wake up in the morning and you do you do you not know what's going to happen. Most likely it's going to be an uneventful day in the field, aside from being in the woods and being immersed in a natural system, most of the time you're not going to win. But man, it's like you're rolling a dice, which day, when's it going to happen? And is it going to be a surprise? And man, that is what I love. And deep down, I think deer hunters are really just gamblers. That anticipation, I don't know if you ever heard of anticipatory joy. Have you ever heard about that claim. But the idea of anticipatory joy is the fact that just the excitement and the anticipation looking forward to that moment sometimes is better than everything else.

I asked Mark if he ever had a lucky streak. Here's what he said. So when it comes to lucky streaks, it's something when I look back over the course of my lifetime that at least within the world of hunting, nothing pops off the charts. I can think back to certain. days like oh man that was luckier i can think about certain hunts that a certain thing tipped my way and you could say that was lucky or not but i don't have that ory hunting streak where two giants fell into my lap i don't have that kind of thing but what i do have is more of a a lucky streak in life that has an interesting relationship to hunting so my lucky streak happened geez i was in college And at this time, there were three things I was interested in life.

Girls getting a full-time job. And then I was interested in hunting as much as I could too. So it's November 14th, 2008. And at this point, I was trying to get a job with big tech company at the time. Business degree was what I was shooting for. And I had an opportunity. And I got a job offer for this big tech company. I was very, very excited about it.

This seemed like a very lucky, huge opportunity. opportunity and it happened. I got the job. So that's point number one on this special weekend. This happens to me. I'm feeling pretty good about things. The second thing that happens is that night, I head up north to our family deer camp up in northern Michigan. And this spot is a incredible place. This is where I learned to deer hunt. This is where I learned to love the outdoors, shoot a gun, all that kind of stuff. But it is a tough spot to deer hunt. It's been in decline for about three decades now. the deer populations have been going down, down, down, down, down. And at this point in my life, in 2008, nobody had killed a deer at our deer camp.

And I think seven years maybe, zero deer had been killed. And I had never killed a deer at our deer camp. On this given year, though, it's opening day, November 15th. I head out there for the evening hunt. I walk way back out in this peninsula heading into a swamp. My grandpa was hunting his old box blind that he always hunted. We walked out there together. and I walked down the peninsula, climbed up into an old ladder stand that my grandpa had set probably

10 years prior. I really had no good reason to be there other than that it was on the edge of the swamp in what should be a good place. But, you know, given the fact there's no deer that live here, it hadn't been historically. But I felt it could happen. And to make a long story short, about an hour before dark, I spot movement back in the cat tails, pull up my binoes, I see it's a buck. One of the first bucks I've ever seen hunting on this. property. I do a little can call, that little, and that deer spins around, walks right back to me. I dropped him in his tracks. My first buck I'd ever killed on this property, the first buck anyone in our family had killed in, like I said, seven or so years. And now I'm two for two.

The day before I get the job, now today I get my first buck at deer camp. I'm feeling very lucky. And this led me to what happened the following Monday. What I haven't mentioned to you is that I was in love. I was in love with an older woman and an older woman who just so happened to be my boss at my job at the time. So she had graduated from college the year prior to me and was now my manager at the job I was working while in school. But I didn't think there was any way she would ever go out with me, especially her student worker. But I got the job on Friday. I got the buck on Saturday.

It felt like I was awfully lucky. So Monday, I thought I would test the waters, see if my luck would hold. I walked into her office while we were both working, closed the door, and I asked her out for dinner. She said yes, my luck held. And now 15 years later, I'm married to her, and we've got two kids. So that there was my luckiest streak. Life, love, business, and deer. I don't think you can get much better than that.

Now that's a good streak. A job, a buck, and a wife. Tony Peterson works closely with Mark on the Wired to Hunt podcast. Tony would sooner kill a buck with his bow on public land than look in the eye. He is a great bow hunter. I wanted to see what he thought about Ori's streak, too. Tony, I'm really intrigued by this idea of luck, coincidence, good favor, divine intervention.

Like, whatever flavor you want to put on it, there's something undeniable in the human existence is that sometimes, sometimes stuff just happens that's seemingly unexplainable, wild good stuff happens. And I think we all kind of calculate for that sometimes. lives. So you've heard ORI Province the story is incredible year in 1965. Crazy. What do you make of it? What do you make it? What are your thoughts? Man, I think sometimes we do just get lucky, but I also think, you know, I'm a big believer in sort of attitude and optimism. Like I think we go negative a lot, and I think that's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I think sometimes you just get into the right place and good stuff

happens. And, you know, his story is wild, wild. But it's like a, That's a good thing for hunters to pay attention to because that can happen. That happened to him. And I'm sure he didn't expect it, you know, but it's out there. And I think that's like sort of the secret sauce to hunting is the possibility of that stuff just falling together and having an amazing year or a once-in-a-lifetime encounter. I don't know. I think it's so cool.

So what do you think about this idea of luck? Because that's certainly a term that we toss around all the time in hunting. I love it that we're involved in something that is so untrackable with logic and science that we still are operating inside of something that we don't know what's going to happen when we step into the woods. We just don't know. There's so many variables, so complex, so much going on that we're really not that far in a lot of ways from like the Native Americans who really saw each hunt as this spiritual, experience and there was a lot of ritual, a lot of different stuff going into the, to the hunt. And they would have absolutely believed in a higher power that would be orchestrating things on earth, which I absolutely believe as well. But what are your thoughts on hunters and this

idea of luck? You know, you can look at that like with the Native Americans and, you know, some of the traditions and stuff like pre-hunt. And you can look at it different ways, right? Like, you know, you're saying that they're and you're right you know they were looking at like a higher calling or or something in control some kind of interventionist situation there but you can also look at it and go man they were just psyching themselves up for a good hunt like they they were doing something mentally that matters and you know when you talk about like attitude and hunters like I do believe to some extent you make your own luck right like I mean there's something going on where if you encounter 186 inch or and 167 incher in the same year and you kill them both like

that's pretty wild or whatever caliber. But I also think if you go out there and you're negative, listen, you're not going to have a hot streak. It's just not going to, if you have a bad attitude, but if you go out there and you believe, you know, things could really line up for me or I've put in some work and it feels like there's a jackpot at the end of this, man, a lot of times it comes. And if it doesn't, you still feel pretty good about what you did. Do you think that having that positive attitude, though, translates into functional effort that you wouldn't have given if you'd had a bad attitude? So, you know, absolutely. So that would be where the rubber meets the road is that you're excited, you're optimistic, and that energy and optimism created from that makes you scout a little bit longer, take a little bit extra step in terms of getting your tree stand set. It makes you sit longer.

It makes you go on a day when, maybe. Maybe you weren't going to go, but that optimism was like, man, I got to go. I mean, so there's some real teeth to this idea. Oh, it's huge. I mean, just think about, you know, for it to come together, say you go out in the mountains down in Arkansas and for you to kill a good buck down there, think about how many decisions you made to get to that point. You know what I mean?

And those decisions are influenced by how you feel. They're how you felt six months ago when you were scouting. They're how you felt this morning when you got up. everything that we do in this space is influenced by how we feel and what we believe is going to happen. You know, if we don't think anything good is going to happen out there, there's no way you're putting in the right effort. It's really something that you see like on the public land whitetail side where, you know, some of these people out there, they kill consistently everywhere they go. And it's not because they don't believe, you know, they're going to crash and burn. Like they believe they're going to go out there and find that good buck and they go do it over and over.

And so you can assign luck to that, but like, man, why would somebody be that lucky? Like, why are there just a couple of select few out there who are just lucky everywhere they go? Like, it's not luck anymore. Like, maybe there's some life circumstances that slipped in there that are pretty lucky. And that's like certainly a thing. But they've got something going on mentally that's a huge benefit over a lot of people, I think. Yeah. Mo Shepherd was Ori's neighbor, but he was only five years old when Ori killed those big bucks in 1965.

He remembers his dad taking him down to the provinces to see the giant racks. Living in a community that placed value on hunting certainly helped Moe in becoming one of the best bigwoods mountain deer hunters that I know. I wanted to ask Mo about his best streak in hunting. And I'd like to say that Moe is a good one of the best. the one who introduced me to Mr. Ory back in 2011. Here's Mo. Yeah, I think there's a lot of streaks in hunting deer, and especially in the mountains, and there's good streaks, and then there's bad streaks. I had a pretty long period of a bad streak as far as killing big deer. I killed a few deer, but they were just your normal average, smaller deer, just to put it in the

freezer. And then in about 2014, I hadn't killed. killed any good deer in several years. And I found some sign that looked good. I decided to go in there and weather wasn't very good, a lot of high winds, cold winds. And I went in this area two or three days, slip hunting, killed a really nice big wide rack deer in there. And then from that year, I think that was 2014 to 2020, it was kind of the same scenario. I would find sign either late in the year or the year before or early in the season and I'd go to hunting it and it was just like somebody was pushing me to where I needed to go. I would go in there and set and stand some. Sometimes I would slip hunt again, but in that six year span I killed eight big bucks. I mean dandy bucks for the

mountains and the last one I killed was in 2020 and he was almost 22 inches wide inside. Had 13 points, just a massive big old mountain deer. I don't know if it's if it's any skill. involved in it that much or if you're just in the right place at the right time. But I've had bad streaks, but that's the best streak I've ever had of hunting deer was from 2014 to 2020. That's a good streak of hunting, Moe, and I like that you expanded the time-defined parameters of a streak to potentially encompassing years. If I asked you about your best streak, what would come to mind? Don't forget it or minimize it, because I think these streaks can be definers in our hunt. hunting career. And the good news is that any streak can be broken. We've just got to keep

hoping and working. I had a pointed question I wanted to ask Moe, and he had a pointed answer. If you're talking about streaks, how much of it is out of your control and how much of it is in your control? I say about half and half. I mean, like I said, I think you can get yourself in the right places at the right times, but then that don't mean that deer's going to come through there. They don't mean he's going to come through where you can get a shot or anything like that. And it doesn't mean that it's going to be a big one. No, it doesn't. It may just be a nice deer, you know.

Yeah. And I guess that's a funny part. I use some trail cameras, but out of those big eight deer that I told you about, I think I've had one of those on a camera. That's some good hunting to kill those deer simply on sign terrain features and burning the butt leather sitting in a stand. Butt leather? That's some coarse language. for this podcast. Sorry, Juju. Here's Mo and I talking about things that are out of our control. This idea is so interesting because we're all trying to figure out what to do to be more successful.

And so you're kind of trying to understand just what can I do in the woods that's going to make me more successful. But there's always this component that's out of our control that is just what nature gives you. What happens that's beyond your control? Yeah, weather, the size of deer, deer movement, just how many deer are there? You might kill a deer one year that's an exceptional buck, and maybe it was because of the weather that spring in the previous year that made him have really great antler growth. The same big deer feed had struggled the year before through that winter to eat and survive

because there wasn't no mass crop. He wasn't going to put near as much of that growth into them horns that he would keep in his body up. So there's all these factors that we can't control. Like, ORI's year. Like, it would be neat to go back. And be able to tell what the weather was before that. And look at the weather patterns in 1965 and the Ozarks to see if it was a really wet spring or a really mild winter the year before. You know, because those deer could have just kind of popped up of not been as magnificent as they were.

Yeah. Let's talk about if we can depend on luck. I think we're all trying to decide how much human effort should go into the, this and then how much we can depend on luck we can depend on good favor that's beyond our control because the one thing that's for sure is that you're not going to get lucky you're not going to have favor if you're not there you're not going to get lucky if you can't shoot your bow good and you're not accurate with your weapon you're not going to get lucky like when you kill a deer at 1145 going in and planning to sit all day yeah i mean it's like a little bit of luck in that it was a huge

buck that came through that gap in the bluff. But there was a lot of Mo Shepherd being a good hunter and sitting there, and there were a lot of people back home eating lunch. Yeah. And so, you know, it's like, it's hard to not say that luck finds those who are doing a lot of work. But there's also the component of if Oria had just killed two really high caliber deer for the Ozarks, you know, just big eight points, you know, 140, 150 inch deer, we probably wouldn't be talking about him today because that would sort of be normal. Yeah. But when you have like

lightning strike and you have just two like things that are just like off the charts, it's kind of wild. And you've realized that it really was something beyond a lifetime beyond his control. Yeah. I really like what all the guys have said. Undeserved favor most often finds those who are prepared. And I like the half luck, half skill equation. I think that's a pretty humble answer. The more times you roll the dice, the better the odds are that you're going to get lucky. Or he spent his life in the woods, and the hunters who simply go are usually the ones who find luck.

The older I get, the more grateful I am when I successfully harvest an animal. I think it's because I'm aware of the incredible amount of things that could have gone wrong that didn't, that were beyond by control. And in closing, I absolutely do believe that some things were just meant to be. Yes, literally scripted into our lives by divine choice and for reasons beyond our understanding. Could a deer be scripted into your life? That sounds kind of wild. It's probably not normal, but I'd have to say yes.

You may have heard me tell the story, but in July of 2007, I had a dream that I killed a 24-point buck. The dream was so vivid and strong, I woke up and sketched a picture of the rack and dated it. And then, on October 18, 2007, I killed a 169-inch buck with my bow, the biggest buck I'd ever seen. The deer had 21 scoreable points per the rules of the scoring system, but it had 24 points that you could hang a ring on. It's not a joke. This buck opened the door for me to get into the outdoor industry after I had my first three articles ever published about the deer. I'd never considered working in the outdoor industry, but it was a stair step, long-term thing. and now, 15 years later, I'm working for meat eater.

This is a true story. The devil draped in sparkling light driving a candy, apple red Cadillac couldn't convince me that this was a coincidence. But was it luck? I'd say by our prior definition, yes, it was. But it was much more than luck. I hunted 15 mornings for the buck, employed a solid strategy, but killing the deer and the doors it opened were,

far beyond my control. But I would undeniably say that it was supernatural. The highlight of the last 45 minutes has been introducing you all to Orly Province. When I met him in 2011, I recognized he was a relic Ozark man who had lived a humble, joyful life of subsistence, hard work, and faith. I like to give honor to men like this, men who didn't ask for attention and never expected to get any. The beauty and intrigue of life is that fantastic stories and people surround us. And when someone lives into their 90s,

it's a special thing. It has the possibility of a unique overlap of lives. I took with me that day when I went to see him that last time, my son Shepard, who was 11 years old at the time. And when Shepard is an old man, should the earth persist, he will have literally shook hands and engaged with a man who was born in 1927. This is kind of wild to do this kind of math, but if Shepard lived to his 91st birthday,

which would be in the year 299, from 1927 to 299 is the span of 172 years. If you do the same math with Mr. Ory, who passed away in 2019, he could have been have interfaced with a man born in 1836. That's the year Davy Crockett died and the year that Arkansas became a state. Time is moving faster than it feels like and it's a fraudulent master. And all we can do is steward the time well that we've got. And man, I'm going to be looking for a streak and I know where they come from. Thanks so much for listening to Bear Grease. Please do me a favor by sharing our podcast with your friends and family.

And I really do appreciate all the iTunes reviews. Even the guy that tried to talk Arkansas Mountain Orogeny with me, mountain building. And hey, if you're looking for some killer nuts and bolts, deep dives into whitetail strategy, check out Mark and Tony's Wired to Hunt podcast. And I'm sure looking forward to talking with everyone on the Render crew about this podcast next week. See you then. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is. unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't.

This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers.

Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.