Bear Grease - Ep. 69: Bear Grease [Render] - Possum Tattoos, The Bargain Barn, and Holt Collier

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

On this week's episode of the Bear Grease [Render], Clay and the gang circle up to talk about the  slave, soldier, and bearhunter, Holt Collier. But first: Brent gets sentimental with a good-luck charm that he carries with him everywhere. Misty clarifies her stance on tattoos. Isaac shows off his new boots. Gary extols the virtues of love above all else. Clay tells us about getting stuck in an apple tree wearing nothing but his Coon Light and a pair of drawers. And you're not going to want to miss special guest Jonathan Wilkins of Black Duck Revival, give us his perspective on the enigmatic Holt Collier. 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. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Did Isaac get new boots and what's happening to Brent's feet?

Wow. Let's start with Isaac. Are those new boots, Isaac? Oh, I'm new boot goofing. Those are different than the ones before? Look at those. Holy kid. Wow, they've got some kind of metallic,

kind of looks like mallard, metallic green. Well, I'll tell you what happened. I was at the Delta Waterfowel Expo and Little Rock, and I straight surfed across the bathroom floor. There was a layer of moisture that I hope was from a recent mopping. but I doubt and just stop myself by banging my shins right into the urinal. That you look like, go out of animal. I had leather sole boots on.

Right. So I went for the hybrid. Oh, he's a little rubber sole. A little bit. See, those are what we'd call rough out boots. Rough out boots. Would you've known that, Ms. Newcomb? No, sir.

Okay. So there's two sides to leather. There's the smooth finish side and there's the roughout. So those would be rough out. Nice. Nice, Isaac. Now, let's talk about Brent. I mean, what's happening?

What's happening? I want to hear what my crocs were. You didn't know where your crocs were? Yeah, no. I was trying to figure out why you own them. These are, somebody gave them to me. Those are very popular. Are they pretty sure that they say, hey dude.

Hey dude. They're hey dudes. I believe they are now owned by Crocs. So technically on brand for Brent Reeves. Hey, there you go. I don't know. They just, they have a funny look with your overalls. They're not. A funny look.

You know, just. We're wearing a pair of rubber boots. Not funny like funny. Let's try to make our commentary about other people a little. more diplomatic. Okay. All right. I am wearing muddy rubber boots.

I get my feelings hurt so easily. Welcome to the Bear Greas Render. This is a fantastic day. Yeah, I'm kind of just looking around at the footwear. Yeah, Brent definitely wins the kind of preppy guy in the overall award. Yeah. With those. No sucks.

We've got to skip over our guest, but he's got a nice, solid pair of Brogan type brown boots. Misty's wearing her extra tough rubber boots, which is great. Isaac with his roughouts. And Gary Newcomb with his Sportivas. Trail running shoes. Great to see everybody.

We have a fantastic podcast aligned. I would like to introduce my father, Gary Newcomb, to my right. Dad, how you been? Hey, great, great, great, great, maybe even better than great. Well, I hope you enjoyed this whole call your podcast and have some insight for us. Well, I didn't. And I don't. It was just a...

No, I'm kidding you. I liked it a lot. To your right, Isaac Neal. Yes, sir. assistant to the regional producer of the Bear Grease podcast. Glad you got to see me today. Good to see you, man. Isaac tells me today that he's got an appointment for a new tattoo.

You want to share with us what that tattoo is? And maybe give me a little bit of credit for it. Yeah, by all means. Misty's going to love this too because I had this idea. I like that there is some level of planning on this one. I had the idea yesterday morning during church and then I texted the tattoo artist. But I thought, I don't know. what about church inspired it, but I just popped into my head, you know.

I want to get a possum and a raccoon, so I think I'm going to get a big possum and a raccoon on the backs of my leg. That makes a lot of sound. But these are like the creatures that are the worst. Well, see, that's what's great. Possom and raccoon, they eat my chickens. This is a great example of how perspective informs someone. Like, now, a raccoon to me is one of the greatest beasts in North America.

I don't eat chickens, but that is why I like chickens is because raccoons, eat them. That's very interesting. Coons are here first. I don't know if it's appropriate. Well, Clay's got a good possum story if he feels up to sharing it. I forgot about that. Part two, I just because Isaac said Misty's going to love this, I want to make it clear.

I don't have a problem with Isaac getting tattoos. The thing that is really... Misty's a principle, so she feels like she could. Well, I'm going to say this one time, let Misty talk. Yeah, I know. Please stop saying that. But I think what makes me... me nervous is that Isaac gets tattoos

sometimes without a lot of premeditation. And from my perspective, these are... You're afraid he's going to run out of space? No, I'm concerned about... These are lifelong commitments to your skin. And it's just like how can you make a decision like that? I think he's so consequential. I think he is in. Yeah, I think he's... And we can come back to my possum story,

and I want to hear a little bit more about why the possum. But to your... We're going to skip over our guest, as we do. Brent Reeves, great to see you. Hello. And then to your left is my... friend Jonathan Wilkins. Jonathan, great to have you on the Bear Grues Render. Oh, thank you much. Nice shoes.

Now, talking about tattoos, I've always loved some of Jonathan's tattoos. You got a, is this, is okay? Yeah, let me see, let me see. He's got a beautiful rooster tail. The fish is pretty. And then a picture of your mom. Yep. How cool is that?

This dog with a mustache is pretty sporty. Got a dog with a big mustache. Let me see the dog with a mustache. Did you see the picture of his mom? It looks like, yeah. I saw that was one that he had that. That was like one of the first ones I ever saw in John. Yeah, that's like 20 years old.

Yeah. Wow. Jonathan, how much time? Did it capture your mom in like, I mean, I assume she's aged in the last 20 years? Yeah, she was not crazy about it at first. Not because she was upset about the tattoo, but because she had glasses on. Oh. And she had gotten LASIC.

Oh. But, you know, now this is what she looked like 20 years ago, so she's all about it. Just color it in like their sunglasses. What do you think? I know that LASIC. LASIC has developed a lot in the last few years. Do you think there's a potential for LASIC on tattoos? Do you think the tattoo can get LASIC surgery?

Oh. Correct to the eyesight. Yeah, I think that's a ridiculous question. Yeah. I was just curious how much forethought Jonathan put into his tattoos as a post-ar friend Isaac, who sometimes just... Are you still in the tattoo market, Jonathan? Yeah, I've got a few that I plan on getting once my buddy opens up his new shop.

Yeah, I think I've thought about all of them for a lot. long time and then I went I went seven years without getting one oh shoot I haven't gotten a tattoo in probably three years okay yeah I uh I'm cool with having weird tattoos I just you just want to think about it yeah I had some bad ideas when I was younger that I'm glad I didn't go with yeah I try and it feels like a real win when like 10 years later you're like I'm glad I didn't do that I mean it feels like you could look back on your past self and be kind of like proud of how wise you were even in the midst of a bad decision. Yeah.

Maybe there's some conversation to be had about the tattoos you didn't get. And now how that's like a credit to you. You can make that. That's pretty much the story of my life. It's just a constant restraint from tattoos. The tattoos I didn't get. Brent, do you have any tattoos? Be honest.

I have one. Do you really? Sinking ship. Yeah, I have seen, no way. It's sunk. I guess. I thought you got pumped. I thought you did have one.

Yeah. Oh. And it was an undercover tattoo. Let me see. It's Batman in the middle. Can you say it? No way. Did you really get that while you were undercover?

Yeah. And it's Batman, the bat symbol right there. So, wow, Brent. What a commitment. Undercover tattoo. For as good of friends as we are, Brent, I've never seen your arm up that high. Well, I don't like showing the white parts of me. Anyway.

Moving right along. Tattoos. Gary, you don't have tattoos. No. Gary, you want to go with me on Friday? No. The new person's kind of. Yeah, Matt.

You could get a possum and a cunties. Yeah, I'll get the posseman, you get the coon. He's a Black Panther man. You know, when I was, when I was young, we used to joke around about, you know, getting one tattoo, like, in a place where no one else would ever see it. And a few of my buddies did, but back then, tattoos, you know, people just didn't get them. Like the real rebels got tattoos? I didn't know anybody with tattoos, so I guess I didn't know any rebels.

When you was in the service. Yeah, that's what? No, I mean, you know, I didn't go around looking at people. Did Houston Millsap have tattoos? You know, the World War II guys had anchors and mom and stuff when they came back. Houston Millsaps is my grandfather on my mom's side. He had a tattoo. I didn't know about it.

Anybody was thinking tattoos, I wonder about their stability. There's two of us. Three prime examples. Now that I've alienated, one, two, three people in the room. Three on three here. It's really Newcomb's versus... Tattoos. Yeah.

Okay, let me... Well, okay, Isaac. Why the possum and coon? I just like the idea of the meso predators getting some love. So you're okay with a tattoo that has that little meaning to it.

What do you mean? Why do they have to have meaning? I mean, that's why I'm talking about. That's great. It's okay. I like a raccoon. I like a possum. I like a grunner.

Could we put some meaning on it that this period in your life while you were, you know... Yeah. For me, the tattoo will always... mean that at this point in my life I was thinking about getting a possum and a raccoon tattooed on me.

Is that enough meaning? You just want to remember that? Yeah. I don't know. I like, it feels very Ozarkian to me. So here's the possum story. I've told this twice this week. And it wasn't told it originally to be funny.

It was literally told as a means to explain the people in my house and the man that was staying in our barn why something happened that potentially they saw. And just to be just, Totally disclosing. It's not like we often have been just staying in our barn.

Like that's not a... Didn't find him out there. Yeah, we didn't find him out there. It was a friend of mine. We have a place for people to stay. Exactly. So the other night, I hear dogs barking. And I don't tolerate barking dogs.

And so they wake me up. And I think they're going to stop shortly. They don't stop. They continue to bark, bark. And it's Jed and Tim. Tim, the squirrel dog, Jed, the Coon Dog. They barks so much that finally I get up and I'm angry. And usually I just lift the window in the bedroom and, oh, you ought to hear me my dog's scolding voice.

It'd scare a child. Often the dogs don't wake me yet, but always the dog scolding does. Yeah. And so I wasn't, I was so fired up. I wasn't even going to just open the window. I was going to go downstairs and go on the front porch and scold the dogs. You know, just like, hash. And, but about halfway down the stairs, I realize they're not just joy.

barking, they're treeing something. Like I'm like, they're looking at something. Wait, can we pause this real quick? I got a question. Can we do a how to video on how to scold the dog in the middle of the night? Yes. Continue. Just log it. I'll make a note. There's a way to do it that works. Yep. And a dog and an

animal can read intent. Yeah. So I've got another story about that too. So I walk outside and I think, those dogs are treeed. And so I go from anger to a little bit of excitement. I wonder what's in the tree. So I walk out and Sure enough, I see Jed and Tim just treeing on one of our apple trees.

And I know that they're looking at something. And I'm like, what's in the tree? And I happen to be in my underwear and barefoot. And we happen to have a guest. Yeah, so there's a, my buddy is staying over in the barn. So the window of the barn looks right over the apple orchard. Well, I've got my coon light on. And I walk out in the grass, barefoot, in my underwear, and go and start circling this apple tree

looking for what's in the tree. Just want to pause so that everyone's got this. Coon hat, Coon light, drawers, no shoes. Yes. Okay. And so I look up in the tree and there's a possum about 12 foot up in the tree. And the dogs are just looking at it, just tree in this possum. Well, I decide that the only way I'm going to get rid of this possum.

And, you know, possums are bad news on this farm. So I was going to shake this possum out. I'll just be honest with it. That's what I was going to do. I shook the apple tree and nothing fell but apples. And so I think, man, if I can just crawl up this tree a little ways, I can grab that limb. Absolutely. Yeah.

I'll just shake that sucker down. And so there's a fork in the tree, and I reach up and grab the tree, and I go to climbing this apple tree. Now, remember, I'm in my underwear and I have my sunspot coon light, which are going to be for sale on the meat eater. com soon. For real, you can get a coon light just like me and Brent have. That's right. Best light in the world. I've got it on.

and I go to climbing this apple tree barefoot, and I get way up in the top of this apple tree, and the possum just disappears into the stars. Like, I don't know where he goes. This isn't a big apple tree. He's a flying posset. But by the time I get up there, I once heard someone tell his story about how,

that they, like a slick tree, like when a dog trees and there's nothing in the tree that, like, the animal escaped into the stars, and their dog was still their tree. And that's what happened. I get up at the top of the apple tree. tree, I cannot find the possum. I don't know what happened to it. Well, so I decide that I've got to get down from the tree and I don't have my contacts in and I'm barefoot. I don't know if you ever

climbed to apple tree barefoot, but my foot is crammed down in the crotch of this tree so deep that I can't get it out. And so I'm like hanging and I feel like I've got to like jump backwards just to land. And my foot is stuck in the crotch of this tree and I think I'm going to come out of out of this tree backwards, and my foot is going to stay in this tree, and I'm going to break my ankle in this apple tree. So basically I just have this big kerfuffle coming out of the tree. And I finally, I feel like I'm like eight foot off the ground,

and I finally just go, I'm just going to have to go up and then back and just like jump out. And when I go up and back and jump out, I was like six inches off the ground. And then I kind of shined up towards where the window, was where my buddy was staying to see if he was watching me. And he wasn't. And then I just walked back in the house. And the dogs were happy with that. They never saw the, you know, the possum didn't come down to my knowledge.

But the dogs were just like, yeah, that's good enough. After they saw the show. So you're telling me about this magic animal that can ride off into the stars and you're like, why would you get a tattoo of that creature? And I'm like, why wouldn't you get a tattoo of that creature? It smiles. Plus it smiles. Yeah, possums. Brent, I've got another story for you that I haven't told you.

I had to leave my dogs out overnight this week. Okay. Well, I went on a coon hunt, wasn't planning to go, didn't have everything charged up really great because it hadn't been in a while. And I plugged it in for the last hour before dark. And I went out and I took Fern, Jed, and Hoot, the pup hoot. And we went and treed, and they treed in a spot where I don't think they had the coon. I couldn't find the coon, but it was thick.

and buying me and could have been there and so we made a big loop and came around on another side of the property and the dogs Fern's collar went dead

Jed didn't have a collar because I only have two collars right now and Hoot stayed with me so Fern and Jed go off and Fern's collar dies and I'm up at the foot of this mountain and I hear like I can't hear the dogs

and finally I say there for like 45 minutes or an hour can't hear the dogs and I walked back back to the truck like half a mile and I can hear fern tree way back in there but I don't have the collar is dead yeah and uh he was old school in the man and then when I walked towards her when I got to the foot of the mountain I couldn't hear her and I can't course a dog because of a bad ear so three different times I tried to walk to her and never could like I would just

start walking to her and I would lose her and then I'd come back like the way the truck set you know I could hear and finally at 2 a.m. I just left and I left her treed. I could hear her treeing. I mean like a mile you know three quarters of a mile away I could not find her came back at daylight and she wasn't there and long story short about 10 o'clock they showed up at the farmer's house I was hunting on. So that's my story. I mean, if you were using the Leon Boyd technique, you would have never lost them. Stayed with them. Just take off sprinting.

Yep. Look like a falling side. Man, you just got to make it a habit. As soon as you get home, really, I don't care if it's 9 o'clock at night or 9 in the morning. As soon as you hit the house, you've got to put that stuff on the charge because I've been right there with you. I know it. And the whole deal is you go to that dog to get out there because you, she went and did what you wanted to do. Yeah.

And you got to go to her. Yeah. We're going to talk about Holt Collier. But before we do, Brent, Brent pulled something out of his pocket today that shocked me. Brent, what do you have in your pocket? What do you carry in your pocket? Tell the story behind it.

My whole, everything, or just this one item? Maybe two. Well, I took two pocket knives and chapstick and a bucky. and this bukeye I have had since the first meeting you and I had we went on top of a mountain on a bear hunt we were sightseating at that time and there was a bunch of buckeyes up there and I ask you if you knew about bug eyes being good luck for hunters and he said no you hadn't heard that story

oh now that's not true Gary I blame you for that now that is an outright lie that I reject because we carried buck eyes our whole you're the one that taught me that was a kid that part of the story's not true that part may have been true Anyway, I said the only way these can be good luck is if you 100 gives them to another. Now that I wouldn't have known. And you said, well, here. So I handed you one and you handed me one.

And this is the one that you gave me. And I've carried it in my pocket every day. We're everywhere. When I get it, if I leave the house with my breeches on, unlike, you know, the possum deal, I've got this buck eye in my pocket. Uniform, back when I wore a uniform, if I'm going to church, whatever. I've always got that. That's impressive.

That is impressive, yeah. Undercover. You were, that undercover was before that, wasn't it? Correct. But I had one then because my dad had given it to me.

And I had, we exchanged them my whole life back and forth and they were just absolutely turned to dust. Impressive. And then you have a quarter that your wife gave you.

It's a dollar. Okay. It's one of those, uh, was that sack of you a dollar? Okay. And she said, you know,

it would help me find my way back home. I always be able, if I'm in the woods, it would help me get home. So I carry that in my pocket too. Jonathan, would you have the wherewithal to keep up with something for like 10 years, a Buckeye? I wouldn't.

Probably not, no. So if I'd given you a Buckeye 10 years ago, you'd have probably lost it. Yeah, I'm not as romantic as. You threw it away. Luke, I've got a pretty good Buckeye story. Okay. So we, Clay wanted to plant all native plants out here when we first moved out here.

So we planted some Buckeyes. And the girls were really fascinated. If you've ever seen how a Buckeye grows, it's pretty interesting. Right now, they're all spiky and then they fall down. And we would just, our girls, even River came home last fall. And she just, like, instinctively just started collecting them all and put them in a vase in our living room. They just always would carry them around. River was a real funny girl.

We would go places, and Willow would always be focused on getting the job done. getting from point A to point B. River, you would turn around and she would be about a mile behind us, just picking things up, seeing all sorts of things that we missed along the way and putting them in her pockets. So every time I did her laundry, I had to empty out, you know, two pounds worth of interesting things. That's a river.

Well, she was real fascinated with those Buckeyes, and she would keep them in her pockets. And, you know, I don't know why people do this, but I get real testy around people who narrate the potential doom that could come that's really unlikely but could happen and someone said as we were putting river in the car hey don't let her swallow that it's poisonous and this is a buck eye the size of like half the size of a golf ball the poison may not be what kills her it's not really a swallow hazard it's not yeah but i was a young mom and i was like why would you even put that thought in my head and river was real

little and we we put her in the car and we drove off and we were going to meet clay was actually behind me. We had two cars and we were meeting somewhere. And I had River in the car. I had my mom in the car. I had Willow in the car. We're driving. And River's just playing. Every time I look back there, she's just playing with this Buckeye. And once I look back there and she doesn't have the Buckeye. And I said, hey, Riv, where's your Buckeye? And she looked and she got this like real... She's like three or four. Yeah, and River

talked real funny. She had some things going on with her adenoids, so she had a real deep voice. And she just got really, like, scared looking. And she looked at me and she said, I swallowed it. And I was like, no, you didn't swallow it. And she said, I swallowed it, mom, I did. And all of a sudden she started like panicking in the car. And of course, my mom and I are looking at each other.

And I called Clay. He was behind us. River swallowed a buck eye, the size of a golf ball. River may have just swallowed a buck eye. are they really poisonous? I mean, should I go straight to the ER? Do we have some time here? I didn't know, like, all that.

So we pull over and Clay walks over there and we sit what river up and everybody's looking in her mouth and looking and we sit her up. We set her up and boom, and her car seat is a big old buck guy. And she had just lost track of it and remembered that we had been warned. So she wasn't lying. She just thought, like, she was like, I've mapped it out. Where is the buck-eye? It's missing now.

I must have swallowed it. The danger was. And she looked out. Oh, there it is. That same thing will happen to you with boiled ochre. If you swallow it too fast. You forget it? No, it'll be in your chair when you stand up.

Hey, we have just a few more housekeeping things to do here. On the last Bear Greech render, I put my mule up for sale. And when I did this, I thought this was a great idea. to sell stuff on the bear grease render podcast. And so we're actually starting an official bear grease bargain barn section of the bear grease render. And this is for real. If you have something for sale,

now we're not guaranteeing that everybody that writes in is going to get their item put up for sale. We need premium items. I have a bow for sale. Okay. Well, that'll be the first one. but so basically every every week we're going to have the bear grease bargain barn where we're going to we're going to sell about three items and you can email your item to bear grease at the meat eater.com and i i will not be monitoring this email address but someone will and it's got to be for real because we're going to put your you have to have a social media handle because we don't want to put a phone number or an email we're not going to be playing matchmaker. That's right.

We're just, we're putting it out there. This is what's for sale. Yeah. So we're not involved in the sale. We're not involved with money. We take zero liability for, uh,

for anything that could possibly go wrong with this. Yeah. And, but we're looking for real stuff that needs to be sold that you think would be a benefit to our listeners. What do you think, Jonathan? You think it's going to work?

Uh, You know, I mean, I guess it could work. Like, what if you had a duck boat that you needed and sold? And you could get it in front of a bunch of bear grease podcast listeners. Or some eagle feet. Pop-belly stove. Well, I mean, one of those would be illegal, okay? Yeah, I mean, you've got a great listenership, so I'm sure that you could make a few shekels.

Well, I mean, it's not, we're not making money. We're not about us making. We're doing a public service. That's what you're saying right now. Okay. Okay. Like taking a, oh, you think we're going to move into like taking a cut? Well, I mean, how hard is it to start an Instagram account?

You know, someone named Blay Bukum. Yeah, that was selling raccoon baculums. There you go. There you go. Okay, okay. Well, this is, you're saying this is a way of fencing his ill-gotten gain. Well, maybe not ill-gotten. I don't think he's poaching coons.

Okay. I think there could be an illicit trade and bacculey. We finally get rid of all those bears. gallbladder we get stuck. Uh-oh, uh-oh. FBI is now. Have you told Bear about this? No.

No, I haven't. So this is for real. It's going to be called the Bear Greas Bargreens Bargain Barn. And there will be a short segment on the Bear Greas Shender. And so you can email what you have for sale to BearGreece at the Meat Eater.com. Yeah. And we're not, we can't read everybody's stuff, but stuff that we feel is appropriate. And, you know, tell us what it is.

Give us, give us the whole sales pitch. and be ready for some people to come knocking on your door. One of the things we'd like to see is in the subject line in email, bare grease, bargain barn, BGB, something like that. Yeah. And then really sell us on it. Yeah. Yeah.

It needs to be a good ad. We need some effort. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to facilitate a sale. Make it entertaining. Yeah. Like, let me just put it out here.

Broken clothes dryer. We putting that up? Probably not. No. Pontoon boat turned into a tiki bar. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a good example. Wood fire cook stove. Mm-hmm. Old gas tiller. For the garden. Yeah. How much we sell that for? I don't know.

We're getting it going now. So, yeah, we just kind of want to facilitate some stuff. Because I put my meal up for sale the other day. And I had a few, a few bites, few nibbles. But I'm actually... You kind of slandered the mule a lot. I didn't slander the mule.

That's why I can never be a mule trader because I'm too honest, Ms. Nukum. Okay. It's hard to sell a mule if you tell the truth every time. It's real hard. And so that's the reason I've decided to keep banjo. And I've got a guy, my friend Michael Lanier, my squirrel hunting mentor

and he was on Meat Eater Season 10 I think with Steve Rinella and me and we squirrel hunted and Michael has found me a guy here in Arkansas that will keep him for 30 days and basically ride him so that's a thing you do

if you have a mule Jonathan you could pay someone he's not training the mule because the mule has been trained to some degree It's kind of like send your kid to boarding school Yeah, it's just keeping them worked out. Right, and so, but what

Most guys that ride Mules for a living, listen, it's actually a pretty good business model. And if things don't work out for me in outdoor media, I would consider doing this. Is you charge, like, I'll just tell you, this guy is going to charge $650 to ride that mule for 30 days. And do the math, if you had even

let's say seven or eight mules for a month and you're getting paid $650 bucks you know that's several thousand dollars of income per month and all you would have to do and you don't ride it every day you ride it like five days a week so they'll guarantee you you know they're going to ride the meal like 24 times or something sure for like 30 minute segments not like they're going to ride it all day they're just going to saddle the animal work the animal ride it unsaddle it so if you woke up every day and you had to ride eight mules I mean, an hour, a mule would be eight hours.

It's a good honest mule man's work, day of work, you know. So I have backup plans for my career. I think that you could really kickstart your backup career by just going and riding people's mules and then invoicing them on the back end. That's a good idea. Don't wait for them to send you a mule, just find a pasture with a mule in it. hop on it. Send him a bill at the end of the month.

That's a good idea. Yeah, that's the mule story. That's the bear grease bargain barn story. We've covered a lot. 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.

Jonathan, Black Duck Revival. Jonathan is Black Duck Revival on Instagram and your business. Tell me about your... Jonathan is black duck revival. Is that not a good way to say it? It kind of sound like you said Jonathan is black duck revival. But that's funny. I don't know if I stuttered.

I think you did. You just kind of, you were slow and getting it out. And so it was like, what's Clay saying right now? It's not a true. It is. You're remaining honest. Well, tell me about, tell me about your waterfow outfit. Oh, it's a. And the classes and what you do.

Yeah, yeah. I've told this story it feels so many times lately. So some years ago, I bought an old church in a town called Brinkley, Arkansas, over in the opposite side of the state and the Delta, and refurbed it, turned it into a lodge, and then I started doing these kind of curated hunt experiences where folks come out.

We go hunting for a couple of days. do small groups. I cap the hunts at five people. And then we spend a couple days hunting and just going into depth about like whole bird processing. We look at like wax plucking, dry plucking, mechanically plucking birds. We do cooking classes and demos.

You know, I'm real big on like whole bird usage. So that's, you know, cooking the innards and using the feet and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, it's got a bunch of like southern heritage stuff wrapped into it. So, yeah, I've got a handful of spots left for this season on that. So it's during duck season and goose season. You have people come in and you host them at your lodge, you feed them,

and you take them duck hunting and goose hunting. Yeah. And then you teach them how to handle the ducks, handle the geese, cook them. And, I mean, it's like a, it's a class. An immersive experience, you call it. Yeah. Yeah. Would you be upset with me?

I basically copied your model for Coon and Squirrel hunting. Go for it, man. Squirreled, what we call it? Grey squirrel revival, I don't know. You'd have to secure large blocks of private land

because you can't guide for that stuff on public land in Arkansas. What about you can't, you can't guide for squirrel hunting in Arkansas on public land? It's fish only on public land. Really? So there's

no. public land guiding in Arkansas. As far as I understand it. Yeah, I've just never thought about it because no one guides for squirrel. Yeah, I mean, for a long time, you could do it. You do it for ducks, but they shut that. I thought they shut it down just for ducks because of the pressure that waterfowl areas have from outfitters and stuff. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I know that.

I'm just saying I did not know because I actually had if the outdoor media thing didn't work, and then the mule training thing didn't work. That was option three. What about a... What about flashy mule revival and then you train mule skinners? Man, I'm probably not that good. You don't have to be that good.

You just have to get good for a man. He was real good at it. He just got to be good once. Yeah. Get them in, get them out. So back to Jonathan's... I think part of the draw that's missing with a gray squirrel

is just how beautiful it is. When the videos you've gone, was it you and Bear or you and Shep? Yeah, I took the boys to your lodge. It's really a beautiful, neat place. Oh, thanks, man. And when you see the birds flying above you, I mean, that was kind of amazing. Just a really amazing, amazing experience to. It was.

I have two comments. Okay. One is, Gary just raised his hand. Give me, give me the $650 bucks and just keep your mule out here because it ain't going to work, okay? Number two. Oh, you don't. You don't think it's worth me sending it to the guy? That's a con job.

Yeah. Your buddy's turned on you. Okay. All right. All right. Now, and on Jonathan, didn't you do a podcast on him under Bear Hunting Magazine? Yeah. I'm going to tell you, Jonathan, you're my hero.

Oh, that's right. I was so impressed. If you have not heard that podcast, go back and find it. That was my favorite podcast ever. And I told Clay, I said, that guy right there is the stinking real. deal and I love him. And I'm telling you, I was so impressed we were at a family reunion. You remember that?

I do. And I go, man, you guys got to find this podcast. And, you know, you explained some stuff that I'd never heard before that made the world so much clearer for me. And I just want to say that you got it going on, brother. Oh, thanks. Big endorses. That's big endorses.

Yeah. Welcome to the bear group. Sorry to disappoint you You'd find out I'm a tattooed carnivore. No. You look around at the world today And if what I said is true, we're in big trouble

Because everybody's got tattoos. Yeah. No, yeah, Jonathan and I did a podcast A couple years ago. Yeah, on the front porch. That long house they used to live in, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, we basically just talked about race issues.

I don't know how we'd describe it. I don't remember what it was a... We talked about the book, Scott Giltner's book, Hunting and Fishing in the New South. That was what it was, but it kind of... We talked about how, well, the book you turned me on to it, and I read it, and it was a great book. And we actually interviewed Scott Giltner,

who is most likely going to be on some of the later episodes. Isaac interviewed him. But, yeah, that was a great podcast. We got a lot of good feedback from it. Isn't that where you found out about Holterner? Well, in the book. Yeah. Yeah.

In Scott's book. That's right. In Scott's book, he had just like a little small section about Hulk Collier was in Scott's book. Yeah, for sure. I also listened to that episode driving to interview Scott. And I was like, I should do a little bit of research, right? Because it was kind of a last minute thing. You're like, hey, can you drive up and interview him tomorrow?

Like, yeah. So I'm on the way there, four and a half hours. So it's like Google whatever, Scott Giltner interview, whatever. And then it just comes up with you two. Oh, for real. Serendipity, number one hit. So I listened to that. It was awesome.

Cool. Well, so if we thoroughly introduced Jonathan enough, talked about his, what he does. You're also a writer and an ambassador for some brands and the hunting space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You possess a. He that shall not be named. You possess a van that I'm envious of.

Yeah. got the van. I'm trying to spend as much time as possible in that thing. Nice. Got to stop making babies if I'm going to do that, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Married family man. You got two. I got two little girls and I got a boy coming in the middle of duck season. Oh. Right on. Timing. Whoa. That's the way it goes. The circle of life. A circle of life. Well, great. That's awesome. Well, okay. Let's talk about, Let's talk about Holt Collier. This, so this podcast has been in the works for a long time.

Yeah. I mean, I talked to you about this a year and a half ago, didn't I? Didn't we talked about it? Some time ago, yeah. Yeah, and it's just, it's like it's been in the docket. And, you know, kind of how this stuff rolls out is sometimes opportunistic, sometimes strategic. And it just like came up in the Rolodex, the Bear Greas Rolodex, like, Hulk Collier. It's time.

And so I contacted Jonathan. I contacted Minor Ferris Buchanan. I love his name. Like I wanted to say it over and over. How do you spell the minor? M-I-N-O-R. Like music. Okay.

M-I-N-O-R. I've got questions about his name. Mine first be kidding. Yeah. I'd like to know why. I like him a lot. And then Hank Berdine. So Jonathan, Hank

and Minor were the guests. And yeah, so like what was your what was your thoughts? Misty, we'll start with you. Yeah, I, it was such a good podcast. We were,

I was actually driving with our oldest daughter across the U.S., across the East Coast, trying to get her moved and we were listening to it and I mean it was just like every break I was sad that there was a break we kept really yeah it was it was so intriguing and I've heard a lot about it just as you've but I think what I've heard mostly has been about what the next podcast will be you know the next two because you never talked about the things that we've oh yeah yeah this was just the first 20 years of his life yeah this is the boring stuff yeah so I but I thought it was

so it was so interesting just his whole life which fascinating. What was most interesting? Well, I mean, I just think it was fascinating, just thinking about the time that he lived, like the era that he existed on this earth, and how, you know, who he became inside of that. And I just, I thought it was super interesting. Oddly, I thought it was also super interesting how Minor Ferris Buchanan the pathway to write in this book.

Yeah. That was super random, in my opinion. but that but it was just it was just really fascinating the whole just his whole life story was just so not what you'd expect yeah yeah dad what do you think i thought it was very good uh just a lot of a lot of thoughts uh let me ask this question if he was white with basically the same story tied him with the Heinz, 14 years old, went in the Civil War. I mean, would the story be any different? I mean, it would be.

I don't know that you would have paid attention to it had he been a white boy. Sure. So what's made this interesting to most people is that he was a black guy. Yeah. So why was he so special? And I think he revealed a lot of it. The depth of it was just amazing. it was almost as good as Jonathan's podcast.

Yeah. You know, it just revealed things where, I don't know, it's just a subject that I think educated a lot of people, you know, that... On this one?

This podcast just tells you that there's just great people everywhere, and this guy was one of them. And he was exceptional. I think because of his DNA and the environment he was in, just pulled everything together where he was a powerful person. And he couldn't help it. I mean, he was a magnet wherever he was.

When he walked into a room, I mean, you go like, here's this little shrimpy guy, but I mean, he just captivated everybody. And so racism almost was not even in the subject. I mean, in a way, I mean, it was big racism, but it was like, hey, we like this guy because who he is. We don't care what color he is. We want him to ride into cavalry. We want him to guide and bear hunt.

We want, you know, we want all this stuff because he's a stinking winner. And I want to be a little bit of it. I mean, that's what you feel like you see because everywhere he goes, he's, people are singling him out and just, just he was. And that, that's what I said inside of this is that, You know, I didn't, and I said this to Jonathan, I said it to everybody. I didn't want to turn this into a podcast just about race. I wanted to celebrate this guy's life.

But I think we owe it to Holt to look at it because that was the back, that was the, that was the hegemon. That was the dominating thing of his life was that he was a black guy in the South doing stuff that at the time, you know, just wasn't normal at all. but he made it it's like almost like he from the from the version of the stories we have like he made it kind of look easy and that's what Jonathan did so well was to say yeah this story's you know pretty easy to tell but it was it Holt lived a very complicated life

and it was it was a wild time and you know I thought Jonathan did a good job of bringing in just like hey, this story's not probably as simple as it sounds, you know. Let me ask you this. I feel like you said in this podcast that he had killed 3,000 bears by what age? Well, just in his life. In his life. That is wild, right?

I mean, that's exceptional. Yeah. I mean, I know it's like a whole different time period. Yes. Everybody in this room combined. Yeah. So that's exceptional. And I, yeah, that's because I think you might have actually heard the whole call.

your story, even if he wouldn't have been in the, in the context that he was in. But I, especially thinking about what is about to happen in the next, I'm like foreshadowing your next podcast. You can tell, we've already told everything that's going to happen. What are you talking about? Well, the Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. I mean, I think, him hunting with Teddy Roosevelt.

Yeah, him hunting with Teddy Roosevelt and then like a global icon and just having killed 3,000 bears. I mean, that's, when you said that, I thought that can't be, that cannot be true. Yeah. But it is true? Yeah. I mean, so what you'll learn, well, maybe we've already talked a lot about that, but he basically had a log where he had logged 2100 bears.

And these market hunters kept records not like we keep records today kind of as we hunt. They kept records like financial records. It's like taxes, you know. Okay. And so he had a log, I think when he was at some latter part of his life, but not finished bear hunting where he'd killed 2100 bears. and a house burned down and destroyed that log, but basically they really believe that he killed 3,000 bears in his lifetime.

And, I mean, that wouldn't be, it's not unheard of from the market hunting, the peak of the market hunting era. Name five. But at the, at the peak, no, I can't. I mean, I'm just saying it's not, there's people that have done that, but very few. And I mean, Boone, the thing, and I think John was. one who said it to me, maybe not on the air, but like Boone did some market bear hunting, but Boone didn't bear hunt for 30 years.

Okay. He market hunting for periods of his life. And there was a year when he killed 155 bears on the, on the little Sandy River in Kentucky. And that was, you know, if he'd done that for 30 years, he would have had, you know, more than that. But, like, you know, he had a long, whole. had a long and illustrious career as a market bear hunter and a good part of the world to be market bear hunting. Jonathan, what did you think overall podcast?

How'd it come off? Yeah, man, I thought, I told you on the phone, man. I thought it was well done. I was happy to be a part of it. Yeah, I mean, I do think that, you know, part of what's so compelling about the guy is that it's, I feel like his story is so extraordinarily multifaceted. that putting, you know, putting any sort of kind of parameters on him or trying to quantify

our understanding of his motivations or everything he was doing is, we're never going to get the full picture of it, right? And like I said, we've talked about on the phone, because we've talked about this a couple times on the phone the last few weeks. I think that we would know about, I think that his story would be worth telling if he wasn't black because I think that he did so many extraordinary things right I think I mean like we talked about before like every 10 years of this guy's life there's some fantastic story right and I do think that the relationships he had with the people around him are part of what's extraordinary

about him but I'm gonna I'm gonna actually disagree a little bit with you here Gary and say that I don't think that I don't think that it was I don't think it could fully that because of the time I don't think that you know him being black could ever be inconsequential to the way he interacted with people something I really thought about when I was listening back to that podcast was if you think about the two guys or possibly three but like the two guys that we know he killed right I I think that if he had killed Southern men of standing, I don't think he would have been acquitted. Made it through.

I think that it's the people that he took out, right? I mean, like, especially if you think about the Friedman's Bureau guy, right? I mean, that was a union guy. He was detested. in the community would have liked. Yeah, I mean, absolutely detested. I mean, even to the point that if you listen to that podcast, Hank Burdine used the word carpetbagger, right?

Which is a pejorative, right? It's a pejorative we hear here in the South still sometimes. But that's a holdover from, you know, 160 years ago, right? So I think that undoubtedly he was an extraordinary and exceptional outline human being. and we talked about it too. I think that he, it'd be hard for me to think that he didn't have close relationships with some of these people.

You know, some of these kind of wartime relationships, like people in a foxhole type thing. But I also think that he was really adept. And I know you got, you got schooled a little bit on mezzanine. I'll just make the, I'll make the admission that I said adapt.

in that podcast when I should have said adept. But I think he was really... If you talk a lot, you're going to mess something up. Absolutely. But I think he was really adept at negotiating his life. Yeah.

You know, and finding ways to be useful to the people around him that endeared himself to them. But yeah, I think that if he had... I think that he had just got... If he had gotten in a fight with Heinz, like old Heinz, and shot him,

I think his story would have ended very soon after that. Yeah. You know, but so I think, so I think that it's, like I said, man, it's so many different layers to it that it's such a rich story. And that's a thing, too, that makes a story worth telling, right? It's not just an adventure tale. I mean, this is a story that's like full of adventure, full of heroism, incredibly long.

Like these interactions almost like Forrest Gump like running into all these different historical figures and stuff, right? But then when we start to really try and investigate the nuance of it and put the real human perspective into it, it almost reaches like a point of being hard to believe. Yeah. Yeah. For sure, man. Yeah, it's, well, Hank,

Bradine said it in the beginning. He said, it's a story that you almost think couldn't have happened, but it did. And that's why it's such a great story. He had so many things that happened, but this, you know, where he was and who he was and this underlying thing was just so intriguing. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. 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. 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. It's kind of wild that we,

all don't know Holt's name. Now they know his name down there in Jefferson County, Mississippi. And we're going to unveil, not that it's a secret, it's not a secret at all, but there's a federal wildlife refuge named after Holt Collier. Yeah, the only one in the country that's named after an African American. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. And so we're going to talk about that. They have a big festival. There's a festival in October. I think that towards the end of October. that they have every year down there. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, that's a, that's probably something that happens with lots of people, right? Like the cloistered community around where some activity or some person was, they know about it. But, you know, the broader country or world doesn't find out about it. Yeah. But now we've got the internets. Yeah. Yeah.

He was, he was head and shoulders above. everybody almost. I mean, his DNA, his makeup, his little 10-year-old guy gets the attention of the owner, you know, Heinz, and he goes, wait a minute, this guy, this little kid's something special. I mean, he can't help it, man. This guy's a stinking genius. I mean, he might not have the IQ of a gene, but he's, he attracts people. He can do stuff. He makes things happen. Even as a little kid, they're going, what? Look at this little guy. So he is one in a big number of people that can do what he did. And because he was black, it makes the story really interesting to me.

Yeah. I mean, he is, I mean, you know, I've been around people like that. You know, you walk in a room with a professional athlete and you just wonder, I mean, he must come from a different planet. I mean, he's a different species. You know, they're big, strong, powerful. Most of them smart. And you're like, you know, just cow down. I can't wait for him to leave the room, man.

This guy's, and that's kind of the way this guy was. I mean, he might have been a little guy. He might have had a quiet voice, but he was a powerful man, very powerful. And anyway, I love this guy. That was definitely something throughout his entire life that was evocative for other people. people, right? I would say, though, too, that what I've been struck by is that I think if you really look at it and you go back to like when he was a little kid and he's kind of starting his

market hunting, right? Because that's really kind of like a form of market hunting. He was hunting for the plantation. I think one of the things that allowed him to really explore the extraordinary DNA, as you're referring to it, was that. I think he was really, I think he was really nuanced and really kind of hip to the fact that he made himself useful to the people around. Absolutely. Right.

And so, and that allowed him to avail himself to opportunities that other people of his station would not have. So, you know, kind of, to me, I guess if there's a sad part about his life is that, I don't know that he ever fully got to realize his potential for just himself, right? Like he had to be dexterous enough to always make it, make the society around him, like need him or want him. But, I mean, that's, you know, it's like if you ever seen Game of Thrones or something, I mean, that's like, that's, that's, I mean, that's like a political. game. Like, you know, this guy, I think, had the

dexterity of a politician, coupled with the fact that he was just consummate outdoorsman, right? He had to be incredibly tough. He had to be incredibly nuanced in all these things he did. And then still be able to circumvent the norms of the time to where I think kind of undoubtedly he had close relationships with people that you might not expect him to, right?

Yeah. You know, it was natural, though. He didn't have to go in and go, look, I can see this game we're playing. And if I get to be valuable, then I'm going to win this game. I think it was not, he wanted, I mean, he was just like, that was part of this thing that made him great is that, you know, he just, that was natural. And it just, you can portray it as having the political savvy to do all this stuff. but I think the guy was born with this stuff and that environment he was in,

accelerated it and magnified it, where he was just a powerful person by natural gift is the way I see it, more than a calculated thing. Now, he was smart enough to have calculated it and done a lot of great stuff, but I'm not sure you can, a 10-year-old can be smart enough to go,

man, if I can kill them a bunch of bear, you know I mean he wanted he wanted to be helpful he wanted and it just ended up being a great asset and that's probably the way I mean a lot of us are and a lot of different scenarios too you know just like find find how to in the context you're in be useful be valuable I think part of the endearing nature of the story is the loyalty aspect of it that his loyalty to the different people inside of his life even like going he heard that what doesn't even remember the guy's name the union officer what was his name well the guy the guy killed allegedly killed allegedly killed captain king he went after captain well allegedly went after captain king i'm no glad i think he did it

is that sugar cane for me oh the sugar cane the way they stack the cane just like that anyway so i think like you've got these stories but then you all also have a lot of different people being loyal back to him. The Texas night sitting out there waiting on him during the court trial. And you see those stories. And so I think that when I was listening to it, the thing that struck me was just this theme of loyalty, irrational, not common for that time type of loyalty, coming in all different directions.

And that's what everybody gave back to him. Like every relationship, you see that loyalty coming back. back to him, which is unusual, undoubtedly. I think there's an element of what you guys were talking about. I don't think that they're mutually exclusive, this idea that he was born with an uncanny gift, but also, like, when I think of a young kid, like an abuse survivor or whatever, do you see how that molds their behavior as soon as, like, oh, I've connected that X and Y equals Z.

so if I do this, I can, whatever. I don't think that everyone thrives in that scenario. So I think that there is a natural gift there, but I think that there is probably some also learned and calculated responses. I think what's really interesting about that is, going back to an earlier podcast, luck or Providence or whatever, he has some really huge strokes of luck, right? I'm not here to paint

Heinz as a empirically good man or a bad man or whatever. He was a slave owner, but he got pretty lucky to get a guy who could, it wasn't altruism that he directed towards Holt, but to have an owner

that might be open-minded enough to say like, I struggle for the semantics here. Well, there certainly could have been other alternatives for an owner to the way they treated their people. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm not trying to say that he was doing something empirically good by being less bad to Holt than another owner.

That's the language struggle that I'm having there. But, like, he was fortunate to have that. He was fortunate to, when he ran away to join him, like, to have found his master. Like, the story of him getting off, like, stowing away on a boat and then getting off, where were they in Memphis? Is that where they were mustering? I just remember the story of,

him like and then he showed up and it's like if i showed up in a big city like the odds of finding one person in that huge city maybe there was more to that story that i missed but there were like these moments of serendipity that followed him around i think it gets back at the idea of this like you can't remove any one leg of this table like he's an uncommonly gifted guy he's has uncommon experiences he you know the fact that he's black and that changes that paradigm like i don't know you're making man you're making some really astute points and i think i think i think what you said was well said man is that none of this stuff is mutually exclusive like i guess i feel a certain responsibility to push back against uh kind of a disnification of his life right but i i think

Everything that folks are picking up about this guy is there, which is why he's so fascinating, because he's extraordinary. You're right, he lived through extraordinary times, extraordinary, what do you call it, luck or Providence or whatever? I think he's super savvy. I think that, you know, he made the most of kind of extraordinary situations he found himself in. Yeah, it's, it really is. The more I think about it, the more I look into it, the more I work, you know, on research about this guy. It's, I don't think this is an overstatement. I really feel like it's one of the greatest American stories I've ever heard. He is an absolute shining example of perseverance if there ever was one. And taking it, I don't even know if taking it, you could accuse him or taking a, advantage of anything because of where he lived and when he lived.

But what he built out of that, I mean, we're talking about him today. How long was that been 160 years ago? How many people were in the Civil War? I mean, there was like up to 10,000, I think, that black people, African-Americans that that served on the Confederate side, and we're talking about this one guy. And this guy did a lot of good stuff. you know it was in some really unique places perseverance is what I took from it

I can't wait for the next what was your favorite part what was your favorite Holt story in this one yeah we can go around favorite Holt story you don't have to retell it necessarily but was there one that stood out to you yeah shooting that cat if the alleged shooting

of Captain King you know I mean that's being in law enforcement and having somebody Wait a minute You're the one That's all right now That's what I'm gonna say

Hold on now Hold on now Here's the thing As long as it's not a turkey Brent down here I see Having your fellows with you And you get in a tight spot

And somebody's got your back There's a lot to be said for that You know I mean you'd multiply that by times 10 Situation he was in Yeah But

Well and I haven't And he was just a perfect... We haven't told the third time that he... Like, on the next... On podcast two, we're going to talk about the other guy he straight up killed. I told about the guy he shot and wounded and told about Captain King. And we just, like, ran out of time. So, beginning of podcast three is the dude that he straight up killed.

And you'll see that maybe it was his fault. Maybe it wasn't. I'm going to just leave it there. Oh. So, self-defense. So you liked the idea that Holt was kind of, I mean,

we presume there was some, something of loyalty to his body. There's loyalty. He's like to be said for loyalty, regardless where it's at. Favorite story, Jonathan? In this podcast, you got to keep it to this one.

I love the idea of him being this little kid, you know, in just the thick pol meadow swamps, and he goes out there with some gun, you know, that I imagine is as tall as he is. And come, back with a bear. Yeah.

Yeah. The long gun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they didn't, I'm sure they didn't give him, you know, the best gun of the time. Right. So he's got some rough weapon and he just goes out there and he makes it happen. I just.

And also that's kind of, that's like kind of the beginning of the spark of this extraordinary life, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. You can see that those formative experiences. Gosh, I like so many of them. I like that he wore his hat

the same way his whole life. Oh, okay. I really, I don't know why, but that was like... Like the 9th, Texas. Yeah. Calvary. No. What's that about?

Cavillery. Oh, I even chatting about that. Calvary is like a biblical term. The world's coming down hard on me for mispronouncing words recently. Yeah. Real hard. The hat the whole life reminds me of back to the last podcast, Leon Boyd, wearing the Letterman jacket his whole life. Yeah.

I love that kind of stuff. So Holt wore a Confederate hat with a bill flipped up. How he wore the hat. And that there's all those pictures of him as an old man with that. Yeah. I don't know. It just really makes. You like that, huh?

I did when I heard it. I was like that. I love that. Not just that he had this thing from his youth that was like, this is where I fit. He took a lot of identity from that, it seems like. Yeah. The cab. I can't even say it.

It's all good. Moving on. You did a great job. Favorite, favorite part. Okay, this is going to seem a little bit out of left field, but I'm going to try to explain it. The story of him, like the kids wanting to hear stories from him and him being like, go get me an orange knee high and a plug at tobacco.

First of all, I don't partake in either of those, but I want to start now. Are those on the same moral playing with you? No, no, I just don't. Orange knee high. Honestly, hot take. I think that soda might be worse for you than tobacco. I'm saying it. I'm saying it. Surgeon General, come fight me.

But check this out. I love it because I think this gets back to something that is maybe a little bit of what you're talking about. And I'm pointing it, Gary, this idea of his indwelling, like innate understanding of his value. Like identity is one of the biggest struggles for people. And if you know your identity and your value, it is going to determine a lot of how your life goes. And for him to be like an old man and be like, I got something you want. You got something I want.

Go get your pennies together. Get me in orange soda and a plug of tobacco. And I will give you everything you want. And I don't know. I just love that. It's not it is not what we would necessarily expect or whatever. Uncle Holt, they called him. I don't know.

just like such an endearing like yeah that squares i'm in it that story of all the stories that mine are ferris be canton told it felt like he was most proud of that one because that wasn't written in an article that wasn't written down somewhere in some place on the internet like he he searched that one out when he met this guy from that had moved to los angeles yeah which was interesting of itself too this guy had moved to los angeles lived his whole lot of was an old man out there and was coming back to Greenville. And that's where Minor met the guy. And it's kind of, Holt seems so far back there.

Like when you think of someone being born before the Civil War, and to think that Minor Ferris Buchanan, this guy, I don't know, minor's probably in his 60s, talked to a guy that knew Hulk Collier, that sat on his porch in Greenville in the 1930. and Holt was cracking knee-high sodas. I mean, I guess they had glass bottles back then. Wouldn't have been an aluminum bottle, right? Correct.

It, you know, it's just like, wow, this really wasn't that long ago. And then when you realize that, you can say, wow, it wasn't that long ago that, you know, heck, all this wild stuff was happening in this country. But that's a great story. That was a favorite story of mine, too. Do we go further in depth to the Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Bear story in future episodes? You're the assistant producer of this podcast.

Shouldn't you know that? Of course we do. Okay. I'll hold my next question then. No, we go into a lot of detail. Okay. I didn't want to, like, if storytelling were up to me and just like everyone, like, if y'all are all in my living room and I was telling you the whole college story, I wouldn't have told the punchline at the very beginning but the bad thing about podcasts and people listening that don't have to listen to

you that's the reason i like misty so much yeah is she has to listen to me because you talk over the top she has to act like she's listening to you like i'm like misty look at me in the eye i'm gonna tell you and i would drop the punchline at the very end i would tell all this stuff about holt carer and that i'd go and then he got it teddy roosevelt but the way you have to do at this because steve ronella gave me some great advice early in bear grease as he said don't bury the hook too deep he really did yep don't bury the hook too deep so you kind of have to tell people what you're going to tell them early so later we will talk more about the teddy bear dad favorite favorite favorite whole car story before i did a favorite story you know i did not like the knee high chewing the

back of story because i have so much respect for this guy i'm thinking he was trying to teach these kids a lesson or something. He just wanted to chew tobacco. He had plenty of money. Why didn't he have chewing tobacco? Well, you're going to learn a lot about Holt Collier in the next couple of episodes. I was disappointed in that. Well, he wasn't a saint. Let me just put that way. Okay. All right. Well, you know, you can tell from what I said, you know, my appreciation has a lot of depth to it. And the depth is he pulled all the, and it might be contrary to what Jonathan thinks, which I respect his view more than mine, but those people loved him. I mean, I'm telling you, the Heinz loved this kid.

I mean, they went to a shootout with him. I mean, they got out and said, hey, you won't let the kid ride with this buggy. Let's duke it out. Isn't that true? That's right. I mean, he said, listen. I think so much of this kid, come on, he's riding. I'm going to whoop you fanny.

Then when he shoots that guy, I mean, he was protected. Hines, wasn't he? Right, that's right. So, I mean, this love was like father's son almost. I mean, he loved this kid. And this kid loved everybody. He loved his cavalry people. The cavalry people loved him.

I mean, I'm telling you, this guy was so deep and complicated, and it all came natural. I mean, this guy, once you say he's a criminal, it's kind of shooting a hole in my stuff. but I think, you know, he was smart enough to plot some of this stuff out, but his six buddies didn't come up there. Oh, yeah. No, keep going. You know, they didn't come up there for any other reason. They love this guy.

And see, and I'll speak for Jonathan and I have talked a lot. That's why this story is so complex and interesting. Because basically, and we don't even have to get into this, but I hear what you're saying, but what Jonathan, I think so skillfully did, and there's no solution. It's not like he's right and you're wrong.

Jonathan introduced the word to me binary. It's not black or white. But like, how can, you know, really, I don't even necessarily, we kind of got to close it down to some degree.

But you can say he loved him, but he also enslaved the guy. That was normal. I'm going to disagree with Jonathan. This deal is black and white to me. You got a stringly gifted kid that loves people and wants to help people, and people go, look at this kid, man, I love him. And I'm going to help him.

And so, I mean, wherever he went, people were on his side. He was on their side. I mean, he was on the wrong side of the war. And you know why? Because he loved those people around him. He didn't go, well, I'm going to evaluate this now. I'm thinking I need to be on the union side. He didn't do it.

He goes, man, I love you. I love you. I love you. You've taken care of me. I'm going to take care of you. Let's go to battle. Give me my M-16. We're going.

Yeah. You know, to me it's that simple. Yeah. Gifted, loving guy. I love the guy. I hear you. Stop it. Stop. Don't give Jonathan

Chas to come back. Clay, what was your favorite story? Favorite story? You can't have a favorite story? What? This is a ridiculous question. It is a ridiculous question. They were all great stories.

Okay. No, I like the Nehai Orange. I like, it's really hard for me because I know his whole life. But inside of this one, him getting in these big, gun fights was wild. The 9th Texas Calvary. If y'all would have done what I'm doing, I would have been like, nope, just pick one.

Yep. I guess it was the 9th Texas cavalry. There it is. That's really hard to say. You're doing great. Them being at the court house in Vicksburg. Man, that story, it feels like it has to be apocryphal, but it's so powerful. Like seven horses, six guys.

Like, that's the end of a movie, man. Yeah. And that's just the beginning of this movie. Oh my goodness. It is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was, to me, this story, what's intriguing about it and why you just couldn't, you didn't want to miss anything, it is complex.

There's no, it's, he is loyal. People are loyal to him. There's all sorts of subtext around that and why are they loyal and what's driving that? And is he actually free to be disloyal? I mean, there's all sorts of. of questions around it. But at the end of the day, you've got the Texas 9th Cavary showing up

and a slave master, you know, as in all those things, we have appropriately negative thoughts of, of these, but these things are still happening to this man and it does sound like it's a made-for-movie story. I mean,

it's almost unbelievable. Everything was so complex, and you can't understand it. I mean, this was an hour-long podcast, and I mean, most people, that's all they would know about the story. It was an hour in our,

in our commentary on it. But like there was just, there was so many complexities. Even when you, yeah, so many complexities. But no, I think,

I think, what Jonathan did good and what he said here today and what I wanted to do is not to, like basically this idea that this wasn't a Disney story and this guy was living in the midst of it.

There was a terrible time. And, and so it's easy sometimes to hear the story and just be like, oh, this guy had a great life. And, you know, and when you see some of the other aspects of Holt's life, and, I mean, we're going to tell him they're in the book.

I think it's going to be tough on Gary. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, he wasn't a criminal. But, I mean, he just... I'll never believe anything other than what I've said here today. Brent, closing thoughts? And then we've got to give Jonathan the closing thoughts. Gary's loyal to Gary.

Oh, I'm ready for the, I'm ready to get into the hunting part. Yeah. I think it's going to be really intriguing because, I mean, he started when he was 10. He's 20 at the end of this podcast. He ought to be ripping and rolling in the next one. I'm looking for. Yeah. It's cool.

Jonathan, thanks for coming up, man. Yeah, absolutely, man. Thanks for having. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate it. give them the social details real quick how do they find you oh just black duck revival you can google it you can instagram it black duck revival.com yeah that's the okay you got any duck hunts goose hunts this winter you're trying to get rid of yeah i mean got like three or four

spots on a hunt uh at the end of the year for specklebelly december yeah so it's i think it's like December 30th to January 1st. Yep, that's what's left. That's the prettiest one, I think. Those speckle bell of geese. Yeah, they're gorgeous. They taste the best. And the flight.

I mean, it's just so pretty to watch. Yeah, they're super, they're super communicative too, right? So, like, for anybody who's into bird hunting, that sounds more like a turkey. But, you know, I mean, like, if you're, if what you like about turkey hunting is that that talking to a bird, communicating with a bird, Specklebele geese are great for that because they talk back and forth to you all the way in.

Yep. I'd say, like, you know, closing thought, one, Gary, I still love you. But, and, you know, and I guess, you know, part of me is worried that I'll be labeled a contrarian of some sort, but at this point of my life, I might have already, I think I'm probably wearing that. Ship sale.

I'm wearing that badge fairly proudly. But, yeah, I would just, I would just reassert my thought that what makes the story so fascinating to me is that I think that there are aspects of what everybody in here is relating that are true, right? And that we got a squirrel tree down here. There you go. Go watch this. Dance, hush! Sorry, Jonathan. Right at the climax.

I took the stain out of it, buddy. And I heard that dog parking, and I thought, there's no way, Clay's going to let Jonathan finish his since. He cannot. He cannot. I wouldn't even hear what he said. Start over, Jonathan. So sorry.

There are elements to what everybody's saying. Yeah. But there's truth in all of this stuff, right? I think what we owe to the legacy of Hulk Collier is to allow him to be as multifaceted and nuanced as I think he was, allow his life and his story to exhibit those characteristics and to continue to talk about him, you know, and to talk about him and discuss him and think about him and look to his example with the nuance that I think he lived his life with.

And I mean, there's stuff for everybody to take something out of this man's story, right? And so that would be my closing thought. This is not a, again, this is not a binary story, right? This is not a binary discussion. This is a super complicated thing. And for me personally, those are the kind of people and those are the kind of stories that I feel drawn to. Perfect. Perfect.

Great conversation, guys. send your anything you are looking to sell that has to do with outdoor world to bear grease at the meteor.com. Include your social tag. Yeah.

Include your, yeah, your social handle. Bear grease, bargain bonanza. Bargan, barn. Yeah, bargain barnana. Excellent. Thanks, guys. Thanks for everybody that drove up here. Everybody.

Yeah, we're just like sitting three over here. Yeah. 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 bed. 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 backwards. 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.

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