Bear Grease - Ep. 74: Whitetail Stories - Bristlin', Gruntin', and Clickin' Bucks (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast we’re talking whitetailed deer, but this isn’t the typical tips, tactics and biology that we hear so much about.  That stuff is useful, and we love it, but the foundation of why that knowledge is even desirable is found in the onion a layer deeper. We want the knowledge because of how valuable whitetails are to us. Whitetail deer hunting culture in this country is uniquely Americana, there’s nothing else like in the world. The sheer number of whitetails, their wide geographic distribution, the liberal seasons coupled with the rich and unique heritage we have is unapparelled.  We’ve got a compilation of storytellers on this episode, many are familiar voices in the Bear Grease stratosphere and a few are new. We'll hear stories from Gary "Believer" Newcomb, Andy Brown, Steve Rinella, James Lawrence, Mark Kenyon of the Wired to Hunt Podcast and Tony Peterson. We’ve got big bucks, little bucks, missed bucks, bristled gruntin’-runnin’ bucks, clickin’ bucks and bucks falling in holes, but one thing is for sure you’re not going to want to miss this one. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 in 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. And so I get to looking at the direction she's coming and I see big old horns coming. They look like those Texas bucks that go straight out with big tines going up. I mean, he was the biggest deer, I guess I've ever seen on hoof. Half hour into the hunt I looked up and here's this buck standing, not that far away,

coming right down the middle of this strip of beans. And the strip of beans only like 50 yards wide. And I thought, holy cow, that's one of the biggest bucks I've ever seen. On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we're talking about white-tailed deer. But this isn't the typical tips, tactics, and biology that we hear so much. That's useful stuff, and I love it. But the foundation of why that knowledge is even desirable is found in the onion a layer deeper. We want the knowledge because of how valuable white tails are to us.

White-tail-deer hunting culture in this country is uniquely American. There's nothing else like it in the world. The sheer numbers of white tails, their wide geographic distribution, and the liberal seasons coupled with the rich and unique heritage we have is unparalleled. When you factor in fried backstrap with gravy and biscuits on a cool fall evening, you might start to understand the American Revolution. It wasn't about taxation and representation or tea. It was about some hillbillies not wanting.

to share their backstrap with the king. Brothers, we found ourselves in the ditch, and we're only on the intro. Anyhow, my first love was undoubtedly whitetail hunting with Coon hunting rolling in tight on the dewclaws. And we've got a compilation of storytellers on this episode, many of which are familiar voices in the Barry Stratosphere, and a few are new.

We've got big bucks, little bucks, missed bucks, bristling grutting running bucks clicking bucks and bucks falling in holes but one things for sure you're not gonna want to miss this one and I'll corner my eye I see movement again and that's when one of the biggest bucks that I've ever seen by hunting walks out just a big body eight-point buck walks out I walked under the deer and I'll never forget this I said this out loud I said wow I never killed one like that my name is Clay Newcomb and this is the Bear Greece 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 storytelling is the sacred thing and foundational

to human life. Our ancestors, not that far back, didn't have written language. And so oral storytelling was the medium and conduit of human culture for way longer than it hasn't been. Clay, quit being so dramatic. I'm not. I'm being serious. The earliest forms of writing appeared around 5,500 years ago on planet Earth, which in the big picture of the human story is equivalent to a a single page in a book as thick as a car. The Folsom Man, the bros in New Mexico that killed the 32 Bison with unique stone points, were alive 5,000 years too early for books. So for them, storytelling was the architecture of their world.

It carried their values, their worldview, their thoughts on divine power, their practical knowledge for how to live, how to make a fire, how to nap stone, where to camp, what to eat, when to run, when to fight. Humans physically talking to humans carried our culture for a long time. A long time. And this culture that I speak of is the platter on which the very thing that makes us humans sits upon. We deeply value the wild beasts, but our differences from them are so steep,

it's clear that we're different than the beast. We're separate from him. deep cognition of our surroundings and awareness of the past, a deep longing to understand the future, making tools, recognition of beauty and art, and altruism. All these things are diagnostic of humanity. Storytelling isn't just about relaying the natural events of a moment, though we gain relevant information from stories, lots of it,

but they carry a sediment load full of meaning. These stories tell us. who we are. They give us identity. They tell us what's valuable. They highlight what's honorable and what's detestable. They give us instruction, advice, and warning. They entertain us. And storytelling highlights leaders inside of communities and tribes. It was very much that way with the Native Americans, and really is still that way today in most places in the earth. Part of being a chief was being able to talk the big talk. They honored those whose stories, people. Stories are everything to us, and they still are today. Even deer stories.

This collection of white-tailed deer hunting stories is so ridiculously rich in value. I struggle to find the words. Every one of these men that tell a story emit a frequency that is part of the sound of my life. So this stuff didn't happen to me, but these stories are personal to me. Some of these guys I've known my whole life and others are relatively new friends, but I love them all. This first story comes from my friend from Western Arkansas, Randy Long-Legged Step. I've known Randy since grade school, and we were the founding members of an elite invitation-only club in our high school we called the Timber Scouts. Basically all we did was go camping. Never any alcohol, just good clean fun. Randy's hunt took place on public land.

in Arkansas, and I think you'll be surprised how it ends. So a lot of your hunt stories are probably going to be about really great hunters that put a lot of preparation into their hunt and really go after a deer they've seen on camera or seen. My story is not that at all. To put some context in my story, it kind of starts with work. I work retail and work a lot of hours in the fall, especially toward holiday season. and this particular year, I think it was 2015, we had inventory in the middle of October, so it really cut down my ability to go scout for good hunting places,

or even really to go archery hunting. Muzzolodin season was right in the middle of inventory week, and I just decided I needed some relief from work, needed to get out, and just kind of enjoy a day off after working for so many weeks and days in a row. and I mentioned it to Scott Brown, who I worked for at the time, who I consider to be one of the best hunters around. And he thought about it for a while. I didn't ask for a place to go, but he just suggested,

hey, I know where you should go. There's this great place that usually produces good bucks, and you should know how to get there, because we'd gone the previous turkey season and listened for turkeys up in this saddle. I said, you know what? I think that's a good idea. I don't have anywhere else to go, so I'll go give that a try.

So when day was over, I got off at like 8 o'clock at night and got home and rushed to put all my hunting gear together. And I'm usually real meticulous about having everything planned out and ready. I grabbed my powder, my extra powder, and my slugs, and I keep them in those little pyrodex tubes. And I went to bed. I got up early the next morning with what I thought was enough time to get out there, get in the top of this saddle on the mountain. When I got out there, I'd forgotten that there was a bunch of down pine trees everywhere, that you had to kind of snake your way through to get to the spot where you start to climb up the ridge. And the ridge was very, very steep.

So I kind of slowly made my way up it because it was really warm that morning too. So I realized how out of shape that I was also climbing up that. And I started realizing that I could start to see the first little crack of daylight coming, and I wasn't in that low spot yet. And I wasn't going to make it because I didn't know exactly where it was with a headlamp on and I was going to pick a tree

and do all that stuff in the dark and I said, you know what, I need to make something happen right now. So I kind of stopped where I was, looked around, and I noticed a really defined game trail. I mean, you could ride a mountain bike through this trail as much as it was getting used.

I thought, okay, let me check the wind. So I checked the wind. I was like, okay, perfect. I can get above this trail a little higher up the hill and watch the trail. And that trail is headed to that low gap I was going to get to. And this will just have to work. And I'll just have to pray that I've got a good enough view when the sun comes up

that I could get a clean shot off. But I know I can at least hunt that trail. So I did all the work getting up in the tree and getting on my stuff. And then once I got up there, I think I was smart enough to actually bring an extra shirt to change into. And then I pulled the Gary Nukem and sprayed myself down. with the scent cover. And then I sat there for a few minutes.

And as I sat there, the sun started come up. And I kind of got mad at myself. I was like, you know, I've ruined this hunt already. I'm sweaty. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I don't even know if I might have a good shot. This is going to be a waste of my time. But I'm here, so let me just, I'll just enjoy being outside.

And I sat there for about two hours with nothing. Didn't hear nothing. I thought, you know, I'm going to give it one more hour. And then it'll take me about 45 minutes to climb. I'm out and then I'll go home. It's like, this is just going to be a bust. I just probably would have killed one if I'd have been in the saddle is what I thought. And not more than five minutes later, I heard the loudest, what I would call a growl,

but it wasn't really a growl. It was just a loud noise, and I had no idea what kind of animal did it. My first thought was, all right, there's about to be a bear walk down this trail. It's going to go from a deer hunt to a bear hunt. So I turned, aimed my gun, started looking down the trail, and out of the corner of my eye, I start to see three doves kind of walking the top of the ridge right above me, just grazing their way around and kind of easing through. And I watched them until I had to swing around the other side of the tree and watch them

until they went completely out of sight. And they never winded me, which is they should have, but they didn't. So I thought, well, that's pretty good. But I need to focus my tension back on this bear that's going to come down the trail because there's still something down there. I don't know what it is. So I turn my gun around and I'm watching. And I'll corner my eye, I see movement again.

And that's when one of the biggest bucks that I've ever seen by hunting walks out. Just a big-bodied eight-point buck walks out. I'm like, oh, this is great. Like I'm on him. I already know where those dough went. So I moved my gun right to where he should have went. He walks right into it. I squeezed the trigger and nothing happens.

I forgot it was a double safety gun and I hadn't undone the other safety. I quickly undo the other safety. He's moved by that point so I have to swing around the other side of the tree. I've got one more chance to shoot this buck. I point the gun where those doze had gone and he walks right into the perfect spot and I pull the trigger. When you hunt with the mosa loader, you never know what you're going to get when the smoke clears. When the smoke cleared, he was down on the ground, doing his final kicks, and I was like, oh, I got him. And then he quit kicking.

I thought, he's down. I've killed this big A-point, it's the biggest one I've ever killed. So I texted two people immediately. I texted Clay Newcomb and Scott Brown and told him that I've killed this big buck on this mountain. Well, while I'm texting Scott, that deer starts to kick just a little bit. And when he does, he's on such a steep slope, he starts sliding a little. And then he would stop. And I'm texting this to Scott, and he's like, well, you better go ahead and reload

just in case you need to put another shot in him just to finish him off. That's whenever I made a realization that I made a huge mistake. I had grabbed two tubes of slugs and no powder. So I had nothing that I could finally dispatch this deer with. And then I'm starting to panic because as he kicks a little bit, he slides further down the mountain. At this point, he's even with my tree stand. He's under my tree stand.

And I'm convinced that it's a fatal shot. He's going to die, but the humane thing to do is to put him down while you see him. So I call Scott, and I'm like, hey, you know where I'm at. I need some more powder. You're going to have to bring me some powder. And he informs me, well, let that deer get down the hill away from you,

climb out of your stands, stay a good distance away from him, but don't lose sight of him. I'll find you in the woods and then we'll take care of it. No sooner than I hang up the phone he makes one more kick and just really start sliding off down the hill.

It's almost like he's on a sled. And then all of a sudden, he just disappeared. And I'm dumbfounded because I can see further down the mountain. But this deer all of a sudden just fell off a cliff and disappeared. And then I heard a water splash echo, like if you dropped a rock and a well and I thought what in the heck is going I'm on top of a mountain

there's not even any water up here so I climbed down and I walk over to where I'd last seen him and I realize there's a mine shaft right there and he had slid off when he gained momentum and slid down he'd fell 15 to 20 feet down into a mine shaft hole

and landed in just a little bit of water in the bottom luckily he was expired at this time. So I called Scott back. It's like, well, we don't need any powder at this point, but we got us a problem because I don't know how we're going to get him out. About an hour later, Scott showed up and he brought some rope and some other stuff. We didn't know if we're going to have to call more people or get a come along or what we're going to have to do. We had to figure out how to get him out. So Scott was able to lasso one side of his antlers, and we both grabbed onto the rope and started pulling. And as we did, it kind of cranked his head to the side

and his antlers were hitting the rock at rock edges and we chipped just a little bit of his main beam off and realized we can't do that we're going to totally snap off an antler if we do that so we drop him back down then we decide if we lasso him on both sides of the antlers we can pull in opposite directions and hoist him straight out the middle when he won't touch anything so we kind of wrap the ropes around trees we pulled in opposite directions took everything we had because this is this is a big potty deer once he got to the edge I wrapped my rope around tied it real quick and I ran over and grabbed his antlers and just kind of anchored myself in until Scott could get over there to grab also because we didn't want to fall in the hole with him because if we did I don't know if anybody else besides

clay knew that we were out there dealing with a deer in a in a mine shaft we heaved that thing out of there and when it did we were just totally exhausted it took everything we had to get him out of that hole that's when the work began getting him down off that mountain around all those trees so later i did some research and realized that throughout the mountains there are a lot of mine shafts and test mines and i believe what they were looking for was manganese there was a time when they thought that there was manganese here and that they really went after it for a short period of time so one crazy thing about that mine shaft is I took my kids hiking up there just a couple years ago in the springtime and that mine shaft was completely full of water and there was a fish swimming in it.

So nature's crazy. A fish in a mine shaft that was completely unconnected from any other body of water? Incredible. And that's a great deer story. This next voice that you're going to hear, you will for sure recognize. because it's none other than my friend Stephen Rinella. This story was told by his father to him. In just a little background, Steve was born in Michigan relatively late in his dad's life.

Frank Rinella was a World War II vet and was often looking for lessons to teach young Steve. This was one of them. This is a dear story that didn't happen to me and it didn't happen to my dad. However, my dad would tell it all the time, and it was a dear story that he would tell and what it was meant to be, it was meant to be a don't give up story. He had, my dad used to have a, yeah, he had a lot of stories he would tell that were all had served a purpose. For instance, if he was trying to explain an optimist and a pessimist, or at times, it would be the difference between a rich kid and a poor kid. I'll tell the rich kid poor kid version real quick. He would say that if you took a rich kid and put him in a room full of manure,

he's just going to sit there and cry. But if you take a poor kid and put him in a room full of manure, he's going to start digging because he'll be thinking, with all this manure, there's got to be a pony in here somewhere. Now, heroes is don't give up deer story. And this happened to a buddy of his. This is the guy he used to talk about all the time. And my dad started, you know, like bow hunting is old, right?

I mean, bo-hunting, you know, on this continent, people have been hunting with bows four or five thousand years. Interestingly, bow technology spread from the north, southward. The people that came over much later than, you know, much later than the Athabaskins, the hunters that came over that became Eskimo and Inuit hunters, who came over much later than other Native American and Native Alaskan groups, they probably carried some kind of archery technology that eventually spread southward. So people went bo-hunting a long time.

But then there was like a long, long, long, long time when people didn't bow hunt. And modern-day bow-hunting kind of became a thing in the 40s and 50s. And my dad was a very avid archer back in those days. This is when people were hunting with long boats and recurves, but it wasn't called trad archery. It was just archery.

my dad's buddy is driving home from work and he sees a deer out in this field where he's been seeing deer lately and he decides he's going to try to sneak up on this deer and get a shot at with his boat so he takes his shoes off right down to his socks my dad always like to point out they're white socks and he does his stalk

up to the through the woods up to the field edge and launches an arrow out there and he can't tell if he got a hit or not. And looks and looks and looks can't find his arrow. So he decides to start looking for blood in the waning light.

It's getting dark out. But he convinces himself that he missed and he starts cutting little half circles just to check for blood and doesn't find any blood and eventually goes back to his car, puts his shoes on, drives home.

Well, as my dad Like to tell the story. That night, the guy's getting ready for bed. Takes his shoes off. Takes his sock off. And what does he see on his sock? A couple little blood stains

on his sock. And it wasn't from cutting his foot. And he rushes back out there. Finds his deer. What do you think about that? Clay new comb. Never give up. Mr. Rinella,

we have all taken note of the core message of this story, and we thank you for it. Never give up. 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 use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts.

Check out prime cuts at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning calls. who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. The next voice you might also recognize if you're a bear grease regular. Andy Brown was on our Turkey Story episode and our genuine outlaw series about Louisdale and Charlie Edwards. You might remember Andy's laugh.

If you haven't listened to that series, it's probably one of the best stories we've ever told. Andy is from the mountains of Western Arkansas and is a heck of a deer hunter. and Woodsman. This is a tour through Andy's fall of 2016 on public land, and it ends with a non-typical surprise. This is probably 2015 or 16. I had an area that I really wanted to go look at. It was right before muzzle-loading season,

and just look for deer sign and really see if there was any acres that made on the north side of the mountain. And so I call my oldest son. He was working and I said, look, when you get off work today, I said, if you don't mind, pick me up on the highway north. And he said, where? And I told him, he said, I'll be there. Anyway, so I drive up on the top of the mountain and went off wrong.

I wanted to go off on this big leg that goes off the mountain, but I went off wrong and I got in the holler. And where I went off, it was just straight up and down. I had to side hill it out through the side going west and one foot up. up and two feet pack and grabbing a hold of trees, try to hold on two. And finally hit the leg and started off the mountain and didn't go 100 yards until I jumped a really nice buck deer. Of course, at that time, when I went off, all I had was pocket off.

I didn't have a gun, didn't have a bow, didn't even take a 22 with me, kill any squirrels with. I just, I was on a mission to try to make it out before dark where I wanted to go. So anyway, jumped a real nice eight-point buck in one of the three. them that you know how they are when you don't have a gun or tame and so I fell off the leg and there's a I think the prettiest saddle that there is in the world when I got into the saddle there wasn't a lot of deer sign but the spotted oak acres it was just raining acres in there and course you know what that means the bear there's a lot of that's a lot of bear sign right there

where I was at so anyway I just kept on plugging I fell north went up through some rocks and fell off on the backside and the white oaks that year really hadn't made at all. But anyway, I fell off the mountain and I just kept walking and looking and just wasn't finding any deer sign at all. And it's a long ways. And on the low end of it, there's a couple more little saddles in there that I wanted to look at and just before I bottomed out, I did have my binoculars and I'm looking at trees and, you know, I like to look at see what kind of acres they got. Of course, you didn't have to look. They were trying to knock you in the head going off there. But anyway, that particular year, it was really dry, just like it's been this fall.

I mean, there wasn't no water anywhere. And there was a pond, there was a game pond, that I really wanted to get to because I figured that everything in the world would be watered there. Bear, deer, everything. And just so happened. When I fell off, I hit it just right. I just crossed the bottom, pulled it on the top of another little old ridge, and just walked right out to this pond. At that time, it was real open in there. And since then, some of the old spotted oaks have fell, and it's opened up the canopy,

and it's just a jungle. But anyway, I walk off down to the pond. I could look on the kind of the northwest side of it, and I could just see a trail coming into it. And when I walked around there, I guess every deer in the country was using that pond. They just had it muddy where they were, the old white mud where they were leaving on that one side. And, of course, I was walking all the way around it. One of the biggest cotton mouse I ever seen, I seen right there that day.

I mean, one of them double beggins. I mean, that you hate to leave and don't kill. You know what I mean? It's one of those deals. But anyway, when I walked around the pond, there was a butt crack in the mud. And I took my pocket knife, and I laid my pocket knife down beside it and took a picture of it so I could show Scott how big a track this deer had. It's one of the biggest tracks I ever saw.

And walked on out, Scott was waiting on me. And I told Scott, I said, every deer in the country is using that. we need to hunt that. Now, this is the week before muzzleloader. My intentions was I was going to hunt it one day muzzleloading. Well, you know how it is. Musiloden gets here and you've got another plans and you go someplace else and you hunt. Well, we let muzzleloading pass.

We didn't hunt it. Okay. But I did take a tree stand up there and hang on the tree. A climber. And left it. Anyway, muzzle loading gets there. It passes. We didn't hunt.

Gun season comes. the first week, first two weeks of gun season, we didn't hunt. Well, it gets Thanksgiving. I decided I'm going to walk in there. We need to see before Thanksgiving. So I walk in there and it's just raining acre and jerk that pond and the deer tracks are still there. And check my stand. Of course, the bear's got my stand and tore the seat out of my stand, you know,

and I had to fix all that as upside day, you know, how they do. But anyway, so I call Scott. He works a lot. And I thought, well, it's tomorrow's Thanksgiving. and he may be off. I called him and asked him if he wanted. I said, you need to go hunt that stand. And he said, man, he said, I have got to go in to work in the morning.

There's no way out of it. So the next morning, I get up. I walk in there. It was cool. In fact, I think it was a pretty good frost that morning. And I'm going to say, I think we all agreed yesterday, because I went back to that spot yesterday. We agreed it's a big mile.

But anyway, I got in there early. And it was on Thanksgiving morning. And the way it works out with me is, of course, we have kids and they have families, and we have grandkids. And usually we have our Thanksgiving the weekend before with a family. And so usually on Thanksgiving, it's just Tina and I, so there's not really nothing going on. And I'm a little selfish, but I kind of like it that way, you know, because I think Thanksgiving Day is a heck for the day to hunt.

It has been for me over the years. Anyway, I walk in there and get up and stand, and it's the final morning as God ever made. I mean, there's just a what little bit of breeze there is out of the northwest, and it's just enough just to shake the leaves just a little bit. I sit up there, and I don't know, it's just something about it. The leaves, you know, Thanksgiving week, the leaves are falling, you know. They're starting to fall off the tree, especially when the sun gets up. It seems like they just fall off on frosty mornings.

And everything was, it was just perfect. And after a while, probably about 8.30, Right in behind me on this ridge, this ridge runs north and south that goes in there. Just a leg it makes off. And I heard a big calamity behind me, but it sounded me like a buck chasing the doe. And it kind of quieting down there a little bit. And after a while, right out from this pond, there's a saddle. And I caught a little motion.

I look, and here come a seven-point buck. And he'd come off down there. He's probably a two-and-half-year-old little deer. And he come down and all the doing around and smelling. And he'd go up the ridge and off in the hot. and back up, and he messed around there for 15 minutes probably right there out in front of me. In a little bit, he just walked off, walked off, went west. So it kind of got quiet again, you know, and in a minute.

I just got to hear something. I could hear a deer just coming right in behind me, just on a mission. Snap, crutch, pal, you know, just coming right down the ridge. And I'm up. I like to get pretty high. I'm probably 23, 24, maybe 25 foot high. And it just kept a coming. I wouldn't move.

And about that time, I just looked to my left there, and it was a little nubbed buck. I said, uh-huh. That's exactly what's mama's off catting around, and you're out here by yourself. And anyway, he messed around there a little bit, and he turned, and went right back down the top of the ridge. And about 1030, probably, I sat there and soaking it all up. I mean, it's a fine morning. Had a lot of confidence. You know, that makes a whole, that makes a big difference. I think confidence is everything. And, you know, I had an uncle back when I was in my 20s and 30s that when he would take you hunting, you packed you a lunch

because it wasn't one of those where you go hunt to 8 o'clock and then come in and drink coffee and eat breakfast. And, you know, he'd always say, pack you a sandwich. And anything he taught me was patience. So I'm a type of guy that I can go set a half a day as good as anybody. I mean, I can get there double early. And I've killed a lot of deer between 10 and noon. Just because of that, everything kind of calamity, everything quietens down.

But anyway, I'm sitting there, and so I get out my grunt call, and I grunt a time or two, and it's still quiet. But the wind has shifted, and it had switched over to northeast. It was hitting me right in the right cheek. And probably, you know how it is, 10, 30, 11 o'clock, the wind, it picks up a little bit, but the leaves were crackling, you know, when they were dry, and over the leaves, I was sitting there, and I just got to hearing something. But I couldn't tell where it was at.

And then I could tell it was a deer. I could tell there was a deer coming. I got to look and about that time I just looked over my left shoulder and I seen him come off the mountain to my left. You know how it is with a big buck. When you see a big buck, you don't have to guess if he's legal. You don't have to guess anything with him. I said, look you here, you know. And when he come off, Clay, he was just, he was on a mission.

I mean, he was just, here he come. and he had to drop off the mountain and come up to me. And when he dropped off, the wind, I'm scared to death. He's going to win me because what little there was now then was going right to him. But there was two or three of them big old bull pines there on the side of the ridge I'm on. And he got them dudes between me and him. And I could just see glimpses of him coming up there. And I'm thinking, this guy's going to get in my lap and he's going to win me and I'm going to let this deer get away from me.

And about that time, he just walked out from behind the tree. And, you know, a lot of people don't like to take a frontal shot. I've never had any issue with it, especially one shooting between the front shoulder and the chest. I killed him dead in his tracks. I mean, he never wiggled. But he was only about 15 steps. I mean, he's way too close. I mean, I just smoked him.

I said, wow. And I can see the big, I can see the big. Big G2 on the left sticking up there, and I said, man, that's a good buck deer, you know. And by this time, it's 1045, something like that. I'm in there by myself, a ball, and there by myself. And so I shenny down, and I walk down under the deer. And I'll never forget this. I said this out loud.

I said, wow, I never killed one like that. I don't really know how many points he is. He's got all kinds of junk on the end. I think he's about a 19 or 21, however you want to count. You know how us arcies are. If you hang a ring on them, you can count them as a point, you know. But he's a mainframe 10. We weighed him.

We were able to weigh him with a guts in him. He weighed 189 pounds. And that's a big buck for down here. I mean, I know they get bigger than that, but I don't see a lot of them over 200 pounds. I said all that to say this, and what's kind of funny about this is I went in there hunting a deer with a foot big as a pocket knife. And I killed a deer that that wasn't the same deer. the same deer because his foot wasn't near as big as the one that I'd taken the picture of at the pocket knife.

I love the comprehensive way Andy tells the story. And what an incredible deer. Killing a buck in these mountains is an accomplishment. And I tip my hat to anyone who can do it consistently. This next story comes from a guy who lives in Minnesota, approximately 810 miles due north of Andy Brown. Tony Peterson works for meat eaters wired to hunt whitetail brand and is a veteran whitetail bohunting Yankee. And I love this guy.

This is the story of his first big buck in his home state of Minnesota, the 14 point in the beans. Man, I got to set the stage for this because up until 2006 in my boe hunting career. So I started when I was 12 years old. So I started bo hunting deer in 1992. And I had, you know, I went through the typical progression, you know, killing, killing young ones, killing doze, finally killing a few bucks, moving up to the two and a half year olds. But I got just plateaued on the two and a half year olds. Like I couldn't, I could not kill a bigger buck. And what it did to me is I started to get buck fever insanely bad.

I mean, I always had it. I still have it to this day, but I always had it. But when it came to, you know, even a deer that was like 120, 125 inches, it was like, Like, I was never going to make that shot correctly. And in 2005, I had already gotten a few shots at big ones and blown it. And I had a hunt in 2005 where I had two really big bucks come in within 10 minutes of each other, and I missed them both. And I just, in my head, I was like, this is never going to happen.

You're never going to be able to do this. So fast forward to 2006, and this is the first year of my life that I couldn't hunt the opening weekend in Minnesota. You know, it's always kind of a tradition with my dad and now. and, you know, something that meant a lot to me, but I had just got married. I'd moved to the suburbs of the Twin Cities, so I was miserable there, especially coming from a little dairy farming community in southern Minnesota. It was a culture shock for me to have a million people in my backyard and not have the places to hunt that I was, you know, used to from growing up. And then on top of that, one of my wife's friends, who I don't even really know that well, got married on Bow Opener and I had to go. And so the whole opening weekend, I was kind of ticked off, but, whatever. I had a bad attitude at that time because I knew my season was going to be rough. I wasn't going to get that much time. I had a job I hated that I would only get one day off a week typically. And so, you know, to make the two-hour drive down to hunt was just not that feasible most of the time. So anyway, bad attitude, bad job. Everything, my world was kind of turned upside down.

And I was just setting this mindset that I was like, I'm not going to kill a big one ever. Like, it's just never going to happen for you. You're going to be a scrapper shooter your entire life. But on the second weekend of the season, I ended up working Saturday morning and having a chance, I figured if I, if I finished work, I could hop right in my truck, grab my brand new golden retriever puppy, drive down to southern Minnesota, hand the puppy off to my buddy's girlfriend, scramble out to the woods and I could get an evening hunt Saturday night and then hunt Sunday and then go home. So I, I flew out of there, grabbed that puppy, drove way too fast down there, just knocked on the door, handed Amy my little,

retriever pup and drove right out to the woods. And it happened to be one of those nights where it was kind of like drizzly and, you know, not really raining hard, but kind of wet, just a little bit falling here and there, gray skies, like a perfect day to sit on the beans. And, you know, it was September. So I figured this is kind of a no-brainer. This is what I'm going to do. But I was almost out of time. And so I ran from my truck all the way back to this stand, which is maybe, I don't know, half a mile, three-quarters of a mile, climbed up in there. And I remember just, just the time, and I remember just like setting up and getting my release on and thinking there's no way like there's no way you're going to get a deer tonight you're in here way too late you probably blew the field out

it's like i kind of was just sitting there wallowing in myself pity and you know half hour into the hunt i looked up and here's this buck stand in not that far away coming right down the middle of this strip of beans and the strip of beans only like 50 yards wide and i thought holy cow that's one of the biggest bucks i've ever seen and he's on his way toward me And I just could not believe you was not only there, but he was the only deer in that field. First one to come out. And as I'm watching this deer, I'm thinking,

okay, he's going to keep following that row and maybe pass by it like 25 yards. Well, this deer never looks up at me and ends up just for some reason crossing a bunch of the rows and browsing right at me. And so he gets to like 10 yards broadside. And I mean up to this point, every big buck in my orbit had got away.

Like I had buck fever so bad. I'd shoot over them. I'd rush it. And this deer's standing there a gift. And I draw back and shoot. And it's all a blur, you know, like it's one of those things where you're like filling in the details afterwards. But he runs and stops in the field. Then he takes off. And I remember thinking, gosh, I think I saw blood coming out of his side. And I thought I saw my fletchings disappear right behind his shoulder. And at that point, I'm not very patient now, but at that point, I was really not that patient. And I couldn't take it. So I got. I got down and went over to where I thought I hit him, and there's just blood all over the beans.

And it's like this surreal moment where you're like, I think I might have finally killed a big one. And I thought he was just like a 125-inch eight-pointer. I didn't really know what he was other than big, mature. So I started following the blood trail, and 100 yards away at the edge of the woods, he's piled up. And I just remember walking up to him. And not only was he's a mainframe eight-pointer, but he had six stickers. ended up scoring, I think, 146 inches or something. Just this otherworldly deer to me.

And it was such a lesson because I had such a bad attitude going into that hunt. I was throwing that little pity party for not being able to hunt the opening weekend and getting down there late and being so limited. I was just in my head, I'm like, you just, you don't have a chance, dude. And it was like such an easy way to feel bad for myself. Plus, I just never thought I was going to kill a big one. and that deer laying there was like, it was like another world opened up for me as a deer hunter.

It was like, you can kill these deer. Like they will make mistakes. Big bucks will screw up if you keep going out there and keep doing your thing. And it just, I think about that deer all the time when I'm hunting now because if I get a bad attitude or I screw up or I bump one or miss one, it's so easy to slide into that negative mindset. And I always think about that 14-pointer and the beans

just making every bad decision. possible and just offering himself up to me. And it always keeps me going. It always makes me feel good because that deer just showed me what was possible with this stuff. And I just, I love, I love that hunt and that experience for it because it literally changed the arc of my, not my hunting career, but also my work career. It just, it was something so special to me. Love it, Tony. Great hunt, brother. This next voice you'll recognize for sure. James Lawrence is my Arkansas backwoodsman, Saul-Millin, rock-land, horse riding, big woods, white-tail hunting mentor.

He's a member of the Bear Grease Hall of Fame. And if you remember, the third episode of Bear Grease was called the Shedhorn Buck of 1962, which was all about James. This is a short story, but it's one of his favorites. It's probably mid-80s. And most of those years, I hunted by myself. 90% of time I don't do a whole lot of setting I usually just still hunt slipping through the woods and I like the wind has to be right to hunt a certain area wind was good that morning

I left my truck across the river and started in and the direction I was going the wind was perfect for me I started up the hollow there's a big mountain on my left and there was a ridge on my right heads and turns into the mountain, so this is the easiest access the way the wind was blowing. I eased up this hollering, and to go back a little bit, in the past when I would kill a deer, I would always skin the hawks off. Put them in a baggie, take them home, and freeze them for scent. If I killed a dough with the archery, a lot of times if I could, I'd say the bladder, and use the natural scent, and that's what I'd done this day. I get in the area where I was hunting, I stopped, sit down, I tied those buckhawks, one on each foot, on my heels, my boot.

Started up, coming around a big holly tree, just a few yards from where I'd put the hawks on in there with the fresh scrape. And what I mean, fresh, fresh, fresh, till, I mean, he dug it out. Eased on around that, dragging those buckhawks. I get up a little ways, and I was going up this holler to my right, and I was walking in the holler, just stepping on rocks, trying not to make any noise.

When I could see the top of the ridge, I decided to get up on top of the ridge, get out of the holler and get up on the ridge. Easing along, stopping, leaning up against the tree, watching up ahead of me. Wind was still good in my favor. I hear something behind me. And like I said, I just left the holler. I probably, I don't know, 15200 yards up it. And I heard something coming off the mountain behind me before I'd come down in the holler. And by this time, I didn't know what it was.

And then I turned and hear this nice buck was coming up the mountain. His mouth was open. He was making every time his feet hit the ground, it was un-on-h-h-h-h-h-n't. Never heard that. It wasn't a grunt. It wasn't a grout. Wasn't a snort. His mouth was open.

The hair on his neck was standing out, which made him look a lot bigger. Hair running down his back was standing up. And before I could get on him, got my rifle up, and it was a nice buck, and I couldn't get on him. And he went out of sight. well when he went out of sight I knew that I could see the end of the holler where it tied on to the ridge

he didn't come out everything got quiet and a little bit I heard him again coming down the bridge got on my trail and here he come same way mouth open hair on his neck

which I'd never seen before and I mean he was seriously mad and I got my rifle up him running I got on him and I squeezed it off around throw another one in, he come on around and that shot put him down and then everything come.

And I never get scared in the wood, never get bothered in the woods. I always, I'd never, ever, ever experienced anything like that and he went down. Then I realized it was following the scent that I'd put on and I used the sin after that but I didn't, I don't use it like I did that done. A person could get in a bad position with a buck with fresh deer hawks tied on it and going through the woods and having a buck. You get in his area. It's scary. Bothered me. Killed a lot of deer and I've never been bothered like that. How'd you get that deer out of the woods? I done like I always do. I feel dressed him and then I've done the shock pouched tied his feet together and it was all downhill so I didn't have a problem getting him out. I was back in a pretty good

pretty good ways from the truck. Tell me how you shock pouch one. You get it like you always do, feel dress it. I peel to go around the dew claws on the deer and skin it down to his first joint, the knee joint. And I popped that joint off, do all four legs that way,

and leave the dew claws on. That makes the deaser, and then you just take the right front foot to the left hind foot, tie them together just as tight as you can and do the same to the other. So down and run your arms to them and then lean forward

and get up and got your rifle in one hand and got horns in the other. Carry them out on your back. Carry them out on my back. Yeah, I carry that one out. It's a whole lot easier than dragging one. How long would it take you to shock pouch one? It's the time to gut it and shock pout it.

Just a few minutes. Who taught you how to do that? Basically my grandmother and my grandmother's brother. Love it, James. If you want to see a video of how James taught me to shock pouch a deer, go to the meat eater.com. and search for shock pouch of deer, and you'll find it. 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 know 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. My, oh my, boys, you're in for a treat now. The voice, cadence, worldview, and frequency of this next storyteller is core to the energy of bear grease. Because it's none other than my own sweet dad, Gary Believer, Nucroof. him. Dad showed me how to be passionate to live by a value system, to have confidence in my identity, and to work hard. But maybe most relevant to this story, he taught me how to look for them acres. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this Arkansas public land story, but every time

I'm on the edge of my seat, this is the story of the clicking buck. You know, I've hunted since 76, and, you know, I really didn't know how to deer hunt. I kind of taught myself. I don't have a lot of patience, so I don't kill a lot of big bucks, but I kill a lot of little deer. But every now that I run into a big buck. And I found this big buck because there was a huge area in a sawdust pile where they had logged. And there was a huge. It looked like a 15 or 20 foot scrape.

10-foot scrape. And so I got to scout and I started seeing four-inch rubs and started seeing normal scrapes, big ones. And then, you know, I went to my M.O. like I always did and found a place where the acres. And I put my best setup. You know, I put a lock-on stand 25 feet. Next day, I can't hunt very long. Only a couple of hours. And I climb up in that stand, a dough comes in. And typically, I would have shot that doe in a New York second, but I thought I ain't going to do it this time. I know the buck's in here. And so I got to watching her, and she kind of acted like she was in heat. And I don't remember what I, twitching her tail doing things that was a little different than other does. It's 23rd, I'm going to say 23rd of October.

And ends up, she was in heat, probably the only deer coming in. She wasn't in. And so I'm sitting there looking around Watching her feed And all of a sudden I hear big steps coming I mean this sucker sounded like a gorilla coming in You know I get my bow already And this buck all of a sudden starts going I call it the clicking buck

I would not have even known what that was But a friend of mine had just bought a clicking call It was kind of silly It was a wheel that had little notches in it And you'd spin it It did go click, click, click, click. So I knew what it was. And I go, that's a stinking click and buck.

So I sit there and I had a real thick pine thicket behind me that deer could move through, but you couldn't see. And then I had this big white oak out here. And then just normal woods around with a few thickets. And so I'm sitting there and I'm turning the best I could to see if that deer's there. It never shows itself. And then I hear it turn, walk off. Well, about 10 minutes later, a real nice 10 point, you know, 120 class probably maybe better, maybe not. But a good 10 point came up, and he came up almost under my stand.

I mean, he's five yards. If you were to step it, it'd have been five or six yards to my shooting side. And back then, and for 30 years, I mean, if it came on on my left side, I wouldn't even shoot at him. I sat down. Freida Heights And so he's right there, man. And about that time, loops got real popular to put on your strings. And I had a loop on mine.

And something happened, had to change string. And I just thought, I don't need that sissy stuff. So I didn't put a loop on my bow. And so finally, I sat there and watch him for, it seemed like an hour, but it's probably five minutes. And he never moved. And he had a big tree in front of him, not real big, 10 inches. eight inches. And so I kept watching him and he kept staring at that dough. And so finally he moved just a little bit and I pulled my bow back and I was just getting ready to shoot him and my arrow fell out.

So he takes off and the dough take off. Well, so I think, well, that's all the action we're going to have today. And I needed to get back to town. I guess I'd better get down. And I was about halfway down my ladder and a eight point, good eight point came in. Of course, that spooked him. So I went the next Saturday, only hunting on Saturdays, basically. Well, on the way home, instead of coming by Blacktop, I went through the mountains. I knew a camp there where these guys were like trophy hunter type guys. I pulled into their camp late that night,

and I said, told them what happened with that clicking bug? And I said, what the heck was that? And this guy said, I can tell you exactly. And I've told a lot of people, and I'm telling you, I don't know of anybody that knew what this clicking buck was all about. out. But these guys acted like they knew. And what they told me ended up, I think, being exactly right. They said, I can tell you exactly what it is. That is the absolute dominant buck in the area. And he's not going to waste his time chasing the dough that's not completely in heat. He said in two or three days, he'll be with that dough like glue.

So he came in, he sent Checkter, he left. Ten Point came in, he's going to follow her. You know, he's going to stay with her. Click and Buck leaves. So I come back the next Saturday, climb up in the same stand, and she came in straight to my shooting lane to the left. And I could see her coming from, you know, 40 yards. So she comes in, same thing, acting kind of crazy.

eating acres. And so I get to looking at the direction she's coming and I see big old horns coming. They look like those Texas bucks that go straight out with big tines going up. I mean, he was the biggest deer, I guess I've ever seen on hoof. At the time, I said he was 140, but as I get older and think back and learn more about deer, I'm telling he was 150 plus, maybe 160. I mean, he was big. And so he pulls up broadside, big huge animal, easy shot. 32 steps, but I didn't know it. I mean, I figured he was 30, but I didn't, you know, I stepped it off and he was 32 step. And so he's watching this dough feed.

Well, I'm 25 feet up and I'm getting away with everything. I mean, I could move, I could do whatever I want. He had no idea. I was there. Of course, I did my scent stuff, not like I told Bear, but I mean, I just was clean. And so I get to doing this, bending over down to my knees and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, I wouldn't stand up. And I kept looking, I couldn't find a hole to shoot him.

There was a hickory tree with yellow leaves. That tells you the time of the year it was. Had yellow leaves. And the limbs coming off of it low were only about 10 inches long, but they all had leaves on them. And so I'd move up on the edge of my seat, and I'd been way over. And finally I saw a hole.

But it took me so long to find that hole that by that time, distance wasn't an issue. I mean, I didn't even think about distance. I just pulled down, put my 20 pin on him, and shot right under it. And, you know, now the bows I shoot now, I wouldn't have made any difference. I would have, you know, I mean, they shoot flat, pretty flat.

But back then, you had to know 20, 25, and 30. I mean, I just shot under that buck. But it was a thrilling morning. And I had a couple other mornings that were just about as thrilling, but that would probably be the second most exciting hunt I was ever on. The other one was when I was really a rookie, and I had 11 does come in at different times. And it was pretty thrilling.

And what's kind of interesting to me, our own inner makings and hidden mechanisms, is that the longer I get away from that date, The more I regret not clicking my brain in and shooting that deer at 30 yards. I mean, it really, I mean, he would be a wallhanger deluxe. I think these stories of failure stand out in our minds for a very specific reason. A father's story of missed opportunity is supposed to equip the son not to miss. The story still stings me 25 years later, but the clicking buck won't be lost.

lost in Newcomb lore for generations. This last whitetail hunter needs no introduction. Mark Kenyon is my friend and colleague at Meat Eater, and he heads up the Wired to Hunt podcast, which is a diehard Nuts and Bolt's podcast about whitetail deer hunting, and you ought to be listening to it if you're a whitetail man. Mark is a meticulous, hard-hunting dude, and he came to Arkansas last year with me and James Lawrence and kill the buck on public land. And you can watch that hunt on the meterer YouTube channel

on Mark's new series, Deer Country, which is very cool. This is the story of Mark's first buck on his family's land in Michigan. It was mid-November, and we were in northern Michigan at my family deer camp, my favorite place in the world. And it was one of those days where the air was crisp, the leaves, crackled, snow was just starting to fall. It was one of those perfect days that you dream of

as a deer hunter. And I was a young man, still a teenager, heading out for the first evening hunt of gun season. And I was walking out to my tree stand with my grandpa. GP, as I called him, set off from the cabin. We walked across the first little field. We had across the bridge. We get to the second little field and this is where GPs blind was, the place where seemingly in my mind legends were made. All of these stories he told me took place in the second field. He walked to the edge of it and this is where we were going to part ways. And as we set off, Grandpa looked at me and GP said, all right Mark, good luck. You can do it. And he went off his way and I went off my way. and I set off along the creek, heading back along what we would call the peninsula.

At the end of a point, it was an old ladder stand. And I suppose before we go any further, I should tell you a little bit about JP and about why he factors into this story so much. Because Grandpa, he was like another father to me. He was this legendary figure in my life who was always the hero of these stories that heard growing up. And he was the one who took me up to go fishing. and took me up to go hunting and took me out into the woods and taught me how to move through the swamp and taught me how to hold still. He was there when I first had my first close encounter

with a deer. He was there when I caught my first big fish. And he was always there with these lessons and these rules and these reminders of the right way to do things. And this was true with my dad as well, but really, Grandpa was the one who set these rules and stone, this commandments. And I remember the line was drawn in the sand and you didn't cross. It was more important how you did something than what you did. And I remember one example of this very well. I remember being up at deer camp as a young child and there were some other folks, some friends of my other relatives who were up at deer camp for the first time and they did not necessarily do things the way that we did things we would come to find out and there was a buck that went running across the field in front

of the cabin and one of these friends ran out and grabbed his gun and started taking shots of this deer as it ran across in front. And I remember my grandpa was furious, absolutely furious, told him he was going to have to leave if he would ever do something like that again because we didn't ever risk wounding an animal like that. You would never take a shot at a moving animal. You would never take a shot unless it was just right to make sure it was as quick a little. and ethical as possible. You had to do things the right way. And that stuck with me throughout all of my years leading up as a hunter.

And as I'm heading out and this night, I'm 18 or 19 years old, whatever it was, and I'm slipping into that tree stand. I get there. I'm like, I've got to do it. I got to get it right this year. I had not gotten a buck at our cabin yet. There was not a lot of deer up there, but a really special place. I remember getting to that ladder stand and slowly going up, up,

up trying not to make a creek, got to the top of the stand, and I remember thinking, where are all the different places a buck might come through here? Could they come from my left, could they come from my right? I remember knowing that there was a trail that paralleled that creek off to my right side, and so I tried to move and get a good shot,

see if I could get a good shot from that direction, and I couldn't really turn very well in the stand. So I remember standing up and thinking, okay, if a buck were to come from that direction, what would I do? And so I practiced slowly standing up in the ladder stand, slowly spinning and having to get down on one knee and rest my gun on the armrest of this stand and thinking through, all right, if a buck came through there, I'll make this move ever so slowly and quietly, and then I could get it. So I practiced that in all different directions. Finally, I settled in, sat down, and waited to see what the night would bring along.

I remember it was a slow night, and I remember in my mind thinking, well, This is just going to be like every other hunt. This is just going to be another hunt out here where we see nothing. Maybe I'll have some birds come through. Maybe I'll see a partridge. Now, maybe you'll hear coyote off in the distance, but not too likely we're going to see anything. I'd seen, geez, fewer bucks than you could count on one or two hands. And all of my ears up there, tonight was going to be different.

And as light started to fade, it's down to the last half hour of daylight probably, and I see something off in the cat tails. and I pulled my binoculars and I see antlers. And I knew at this point any buck was a buck I wanted to take a crack at. So I wanted to get this buck back into view. He was straight away into the cat tail as I lost him. But I had one of those little can calls, that little dough bleat can that if you tip over, it makes that sound. I reached for that in my backpack and the first thing I went, turned it over and meh.

Did one more time. And then I waited. I don't know if I breathed. I was hoping so, so badly for this deer to turn around and then there he was. That buck had spun 180 degrees and was walking right back towards me. I could just see his head. You couldn't see his vitals yet. I'm holding my gun.

My heart's beating a million miles a minute. I'd not shot a buck up here at our cabin before. This was something that I'd never experienced here. But now he turns. And he turns back into the cat tails and he starts paralleling me. and now I realize he's going to move off to my right side to that side that I would have a hard time shooting if I didn't do this kind of complicated maneuver

I'd practiced earlier, but now I had to do it and I could see him moving through the cat tails and I thought to myself I could probably shoot him through there but no, I gotta wait and I don't know how long it took it felt like a year but finally I saw him approaching the one clear lane I had and as he stepped into that I squeezed the trigger and he dropped right there. Perfect.

And I don't even know how to describe my reaction. It was just disbelief. I'd actually done it. I'd actually joined the legends of my family here. I'd entered my story into the record books here at our family cabin, this place that I had grown up, where I had been taught so much, where I had kind of marveled under these adults who had come before me

and taught me how to hunt and fish and be an outdoorsman. And finally, I had secured my place at that table. I would finally have a buck on the buckhole. Man, do I love some white-tale stories. We're truly fortunate in this country to live in the heyday of whitetail hunting. We've got some challenges with CWD, land access, some overcrowding. But goodness, it's hard to complain. With a little work, anybody in this country can do the stuff that you've heard all these guys talk about.

These deer live in our backyards, an adventure awaits those willing to grind and go. We haven't heard about any 200-inchers, and we haven't heard from any chest-banging killers, but we've heard from men of common means that I believe are all extraordinary hunters in their own sphere. And they're extraordinary not because of the bucks on. the wall, though they've got them, but because of how much they love white tails and hunting them. They just love being in whitetail country. I can't thank you enough for listening to the Fair Greece podcast. We put our heart and soul into this thing, and its energy is birthed from a love of wild places, wild beasts, and wildhearted people.

Do me a favor this week and share our podcast with your bros and foes. and have a great week, and I look forward to talking to everyone on the Render next week. 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 use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts.

Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.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 calls. who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.