Bear Grease - Ep. 79: Bear Grease [Render] - Oklahoma Sheriff, a Farrier, and Undercover Debrief

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

On this episode, Clay is down in Oklahoma chasing whitetails in the heat of the rut, but finds some time to sit down with Bryan Jump, Sherry and Alvin Grigg, Dave Gardner, & Brian Ringles. They discuss the most recent episode, "Secret Agent Man," following real life undercover game warden R.T. Stewart. The crew also finds time to discuss people's strong opinions on equine hoof care, the finer points of hog hunting and plott hounds, and why law enforcement officers ask you to come sit in their car. This episode will have you asking for more, you're not going to want to miss those episode 2 spoilers that Clay can't keep himself from dropping.  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. Put your phone on silent, Alvin.

Yes, ma'am. Because you know it'll go off. Alvin, what kind of wood are we burning there? That right there, I think that's some hackberry. Hackberry. That bigger stump right there. So we're sitting around a hackberry fire. It's November the 3rd, and we're in southeast Oklahoma.

And you may have heard of one week in November, which is meat eaters white-tail show. We're down here, whitetail hunting. And I've got a very acclimate. group of guests that I'm going to introduce individually. Sherry, do you know that typically the Bear Greece render, which that's what this is, this is the render. So Bear Grease podcast is where we have a documentary style, big, robust story. The render is where we just gather up a group of people that talk about it.

Typically, there's one group of people, which is my wife, Brent Reeves, who now we all No, it was undercover. We're curious of his reasons for being my friend. My dad, Josh Spillmaker, Misty Newcomb, my lovely wife, and then a six person that bounces around from a lot of different people. For the last several weeks, I've been on the road, and so I've been having renders with all kinds of different people. And you get really, people like that, but they're, they also like the regular, crew. So anyway, it's, it's good to be in southeast Oklahoma. I'm being really hosted here by Alvin and Sherry Grigg. Man, Alvin, I was trying to think we met, I actually, I almost know

exactly how long ago it was, seven years ago, because Fern, my Plot Coonhound, is eight years, well, she'll be eight on November 11th. And she was about a year old. And I, she was a year and a half old. No? You're shaking her head. I'm younger than that. She was, she was, he hadn't really even started in the woods yet. Really? Yeah, you called me because I had some, uh, Steve Hurd's bloodline in Bluff Creek. You didn't. And, and actually, actually the one we had was Sherry's dog.

But anyways, and Steve would give you my number. And I remember she wasn't really, I mean, I'm going to say she was six or eight months old. You know, you'd started fooling with her, but I don't think you'd actually been. I remember her first coon she had treed. And you remember telling me, I remember you telling me about that. Yeah. Well, I want to come back to that. I'm going to introduce everybody, but.

That's a big story, and I want to tell it. Alvin and Sherry Grigg. Sherry, say hi to everybody. Hello. Great. Sherry, this is going to be fun having you on here. So there to my right, directly to their left, is big, dirty Dave Gardner. Dave, good to see you, man.

Good to be here. Say ye. This is your first time on the render, right? Yeah, first time caller, long time listener. Everybody here thinks Dave looks like Dale Brisby, so. Oh, Sean. stash and pretty much just being the hair yeah so Dave tell us what you do uh I'm a photographer and camera guy yeah me and Dave have been we were counting today we've been on five

shoots together so you know shoots that like last over a week usually so we've spent a lot of time like standing like uncomfortably close together in a tree staring at each other guys yep right uh well we're going to get back to you Dave to my I left, Brian Ringles, also known as Rhino. Man, you're the first official ferrier, real live ferrier that we've had on the podcast, and I got some questions for you. All right, I got some answers. Good.

Ferriers have a lot of answers. I found that it may not be ferriers that are passionate people, but people that are around ferriers and equine people, man, they see you doing anything on a horse or mule hoof. You get a lot of opinions, don't you? Yes, sir, very money. So how long you've been chewing horses? I've been full-time eight years in this coming February. Eight years?

Yeah. Is that a good profession to be in? It's been good to me. Really? I wish I would have started it when I was 25 instead of 35 or 40. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, yes, it's been real good to me.

Yeah. Do you shoe Alvin's horses? I have in the past, yes. Do you shoe your own horses, Alvin? No, I tried one time I was going to shoot my own, and all he got was fronts. All he got was fronts? Yeah. As far as I made it.

Well, we're going to have to come back to the horseshooting thing, all right, because I got some questions. But I got to finish my introduction. To your left is Brian Jumpy. Yep. Brian, tell us what you do. I'm the Coal County Sheriff. Cole County, Oklahoma. Yes, sir.

You're the sheriff. Yes. We called in the. law for this man right well outlaw called in outlaw well we had to we had to call in the law to talk about the outlaws how long you've been sheriff over here uh 10 years been sheriff 10 years and uh been law enforcement 17 okay total and so being a sheriff is in elected position yes so you you got to be a politician uh i'm not too good of a politician but good enough to win the election You know, this is like, I'm a grown man and know this, but I've never really heard anybody explain it.

You have city police departments that have jurisdiction inside of cities. Right. And then sheriff departments have jurisdiction inside of counties. Right. And so they're taking care of rural issues and rural people that aren't, don't have a specific assignment to a city. Is that right? Right. We also work the city, too.

We have jurisdiction in the whole county. Okay. Is there anything that specific that a sheriff would do that just like a city police officer wouldn't do? Like types of crimes or is it? No, it's all about the same. Just all about the same. Yeah. What would you say you spend most of your time doing as sheriff?

Paperwork, office work, budget meetings. Really? Don't spend a lot of time on the street no more. So you're managing people. managing the whole outfit. Yes. Is that good or bad? It's got us good days and bad days.

A lot of bad days on it. But you're either on top of the world or on bottom. Yeah. Yeah. There's no in between. Yeah. Either going really good or really bad. Alvin, how long have you known, Brian?

No. They call him jumpy. I hesitated jumping. I've known him my entire life. And we've been great friends for probably 95, 6, about 95, 96. We've been really close friends since then. But I've known him when I was a little baby kid, you know, I knew him.

Yeah. Hey, you were going to, you told me you had an interesting entry point into law enforcement. How did you get into it? That's kind of a long story. I don't know if you got time. We hear all of it. Yeah, we do. But I never got along good with law enforcement my whole life.

And when I was about 34 years old, I had a buddy. that was in law enforcement, and he come knocking on my door one day and I opened a door and seen my buddy, he was standing there in uniform. I thought, oh, this can't be good, you know. And I said, what are you doing here, Jerry? He tells me, he said, well, we got a job opening down here to see you police and thought you got the right temperament to make a good cop, want you put your application in. He said, no, said, Jerry, I don't even like cops.

He said, I don't think I want to be one. He goes, well, just come out and ride with us a couple weekends and see if you like it. I got to riding with him on the weekends, well, I got to liking it. I thought back in, we was all hog hunting a lot. I thought, the heck, this is a whole lot like hog hunting. You go catch a bad guy, tie him up, and throw him in a pen, like we'd catch a hog tie up and throw a hog in a pen, keep him. Then I eventually got hired on.

Took a while I got hired on about a year later. That's 35. as well like RT. Yeah. And I thought, man, that's going to be the best job ever. I'd be able to work, evening and shift. And after work, I can coon hunt all night. And I'll coon hunt all night, and I can sleep the biggest part of day,

and get up and go to work and catch the bad guys and go coon hunting again. Sounds like a good plan. It was a good plan. It didn't work out that good, though. If you had any guesses of why this sheriff is the first sheriff on the Bear Bear Rees Render podcast, you've just heard. why. This man's a coon hunter. Hog hunter.

Hog hunter. And he used to be a rodeo clown. So carry on. Well, that's really about it. I got started and when I got started good, I thought, well, I'm going to be sheriff one day. Really? So that was like a career ambition.

You were like, I want to be the sheriff. Yep. And here I am. So. What's it take to be a good sheriff? Patience, you know, you got to have good deputies. Your deputies is what makes a good sheriff. If you ain't got good deputies, you don't have a good sheriff.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you got to manage your team. Right. How many deputies do you have here in this county? I usually have about nine. I'm short-handed right now because I've had to get rid of some of them.

Yeah. Big Dave, you got any questions for Brian? Any law enforcement questions? Yeah, actually, we were talking about this earlier, Clay. Now, why, if you were pull somebody over and you're looking at their license and registration? Oh, yeah. Would you ask them to come and sit in the front seat of the car with them? Depends on the person.

You look like a shady individual. And I thought you as... Like Alvin. Like Alvin. Or if I thought you was holding dope or been drinking, I didn't bite you back to the car. A lot of times. To sit in the car with you. To sit in the car with me.

They train you not to do that. But that's a good way to get them in a car and go talking to them. You can smell alcohol on them or, you know, you're talking to them and might have some dope in the pocket. You talk them out of the dope. Probably get a little more nervous sitting back there with you, don't they? Yeah. You know, so tell them your story. I mean, basically me and him had the same story.

Just had a random, like a totally normal traffic stop. Go ahead. Oh, yeah, I was just working a gig one night. I was filming a show, and on the way out of there, I'd rolled through a stop sign, and sure enough, there was a cop right there. Yeah, he asked me to come and sit in the front seat of his car while he was checking my license and registration, insurance.

And then he didn't even give you a ticket. Didn't even give me a ticket, let me off with the warning. Yeah, nice guy. It was the mullet, Bill. It was the mull. Now, I had the same thing happen, And then I think I was in South Dakota and had a state trooper pulled me over in the middle of the day. I was going just a few miles over the speed limit.

And he was real nice. And we'd been hunting in Canada. And he was like, hey, you were going a few miles over. No big deal. But we like to keep it, you know, right there on the limit and gave him everything. And he was like, hey, come sit in the car with me. And I was just like, it kind of wigged me out. I was like, what are we doing here, man?

And anyway. Yeah. He just, and when I got in the car, he just, we talked about hunting for like 20 minutes in his car. Probably a fan. No, no, this was years ago, man. This was years ago. Years ago. Yeah.

It's checking you out. Really? Make sure he wasn't a bad guy. He didn't just want to chat with me. Right. He had suspicions. Yeah. I'll be darned.

What's the main thing going on around here that you guys are enforcing in terms of the law? Uh, drugs and stealing. Really? Just theft and drugs. Yeah, they go hand in hand. Really? Yeah. Yeah, that are our main crimes around here, theft and drugs.

Deft and drugs. Well, that's really interesting. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on RT. I got to tell you guys the story. RT called me on the way here, like after dark driving here. And RT, you know, I mean, in our conversation, like we're it's see we're just like buddies you know talking but it surprised me to see his name come up on my on my on my on my phone and uh so i picked it up and he's he's he he i should have

known he was trying to get me but he said clay how you doing man and he was real serious and i said i'm doing good he said i got a problem this is the first time he's called me since the podcast came out. He said, I got a problem. And I said, oh, man, that's not good. What's going on? And he said, man, ever since that podcast came out, I've been getting threats. I've already got one, two, three, four.

I mean, and I just was thinking, oh, no, I've got this guy in trouble. And he let me think it for a minute. And then he was like, Clay, you know I made a living lying, right? And then he started laughing, and he had some guys in there that was, he has a, he has a, he's an outfitter. And he had a bunch of guys hunting with him. But anyway. Artis an outfitter now? Yeah, he is.

He sure is. I wouldn't trust him. He lies. Yep. Hey, y'all are all hog hunting buddies. And that's the reason I know Alvin is, is from hounds. And I've said this to Alvin before, but I'm. I'll say it again.

Alvin, what little I know about hounds, a lot of it came from talking to Alman. Now, we've never hound hunted together. Y'all have come up and squirrel hunted with me. I've never hog hunted with you. But going back to our original conversation of when we met, I'd called you about trying to get a plot. And you, we talked on the phone for basically the first two years,

that fern's life. I was giving you the play-by-play of what she was doing and you were really good at articulating the hound world. It's the first time we met you when you come to the hogbane?

Well, that's the first time I would have seen you guys. Yeah, I mean seeing. Yeah, I mean, seen. Yeah. I mean, you're doing talking about these dogs. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say, yeah, I taught you everything you know. I mean, if that's what you're I mean, if any questions you asked me if I felt like I had to answer, you know,

I would try to do the best I could do to answer it, you know, other than that. I mean, a lot of stuff you were seeing, you know, might have been some of the first experiences you had. I mean, I know you couldn't have before, but some of the stuff you were explaining to me, you know, I had seen before. And I was like, well, I think this is actually what's going on, you know, don't be too concerned about it or whatever, you know. It's just kind of general conversation that I'd have with anybody or you'd have with anybody if you knew. Yeah. Yeah. And y'all do, this is hog country, man.

They're pretty much hogs all over this part of the world. Pretty much. Yeah. Brian, tell me about your schedule as a farrier. Like how many horses are you shoeing every day? Oh, I try to keep it if I'm shoeing something all the way around, you know, in the five or six a day range. And then if I'm trimming, I'll try to cut it off around 20, you know, in the 15 to 20. Okay.

And I keep most of my clients on a six weeks rotating schedule. Six week rotating schedule. You've got to have a tight schedule. I mean, you got to manage it to get people in there. And that seems like the failures I've worked with, that's been a challenge for me to fit their schedule. It can be tough. You know, you got to joke, life happens to everybody.

So you got to juggle all of their schedules into yours. You know, I mean, they have families, things come up, doctor appointments, what have you, you know, so you've got to juggle all that. but it's doable yeah um so i trim just the front feet of my mule back feet typically stay pretty tight is that okay that i don't ever trim her back feet yeah you you normally won't have as much trouble with the back feet because the horse carries 60 to 70 percent of their weight on the front end okay so uh the majority of your problems come in the front.

You know, I'm not saying you never need to trim the back, but it's generally doesn't, the problems won't show up there as quickly. Yeah, yeah. Kind of like the front tires on your truck, wearing out before the back tires. Yeah, you buy new tires, you put them on the front and put the old ones on the back.

That's right. Just by two at a time. That's right. That's the way y'all do it here. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts.

Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut.

I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at 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 callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.

Alvin, tell me and Sherry, Sherry, never in my life have I heard Sherry Grigg not talk in like a span as long as we've been out here. So Sherry, I need to hear from you too. There's two things that you should never put on social media. Two things. One of them is anything that has to do with beekeeping. Okay? If you have a beehive, keep it to yourself.

They will steal it. No, no. I mean, no. no, I don't know if they'll steal it. You will get more advice than you know what to do with. Passionate advice. Beekeepers are the most passionate people. They'll stalk you.

They'll want to come to your house. They'll private message you from like every angle possible to try to get you, to tell you, you know, like this thing you're doing. They're passionate people. And then the other group is horse people. So I had a couple of videos. Just, I mean, man, I had a ferrier that was coming to my house.

He came probably four times and just random times to put shoes on my mule when I was going out west. And he was a real nice guy, and he was just like, Clay, you ought to be able to do this yourself. He said, I'll teach you how to do it. And so he just showed me how to trim her feet and how to put shoes on her a couple times. And I'd just watch him and ask questions. So ever since then, I've done it myself. Okay. And so I put randomly, we'll put a little video up of me trimming Izzy's feet.

Right. And it's like the sky fell. People going wild. I need to show you that video. Tell me if I'm making a train wreck. Well, she's still sound. She's still going. Yeah.

You're doing something right. There's a little button. Play on social media. You can push block and you don't have to listen that crap. You can push block. I hear you. So, Sherry, tell me about your dogs. What kind of dogs do you have?

Plot hound and a corgi. Plot hound and a corgi. Tell me about your dogs. I love my dogs. They're awesome. What's the bloodline, like, and you're hog hunting with them? Tell me about them. A lot of our bloodline, aren't they?

We off across, he made a long time ago. We got some, though. I got a female from Jerry Gossnell several years ago. She would have been about, she was alive. She'd have been about 10, probably. She's Jeep's mom. And Jeep is fixing me eight. So, yeah, she'd have been about 10 probably if she's still alive.

And pretty much everything I got. I mean, we can trace it back to her, you know. Or Chile. Chili's Jeep's Daddy. Yeah. And we pretty much bred her offspring, you know, to outside males, you know, and then bred them back to our dogs. And some of them's family tree don't fork that too awful good. But it's kind of.

That's what you want, though. Well, it's what I think works good. Now, the name of your kennel, what's on the papers of, all your plots is, how do you pronounce that? Okony. That's the name of this community. You're at Okeney right now. Oakeny?

When it was Indian territory, this was called Okany. When Maine and Sherry first moved here, which... Moved here, I lived here anyway. Several years ago, there used to be a little school that was down there and they moved it over to Clarede, and it's right down here at the corner. If you go straight north right here at our place, the county road curves, and that corner right there was considered Okanee, and there was a school there, and it stood there for several years until a few years before Maine Sharia got married and they moved it over here to

Clarita. It has since fell out and everything, but there's actually still a graveyard back in there. He moved here. I've lived here since I's 12. Yeah, sure. So you live right in this area. This is my mom and my dad's place, and we lived next door until my mom and dad passed away. When I and Sherry got married, we bought the

place that joins next to here. Okay. Yeah, and I've lived here with Sherry for 20 years, but she's lived here, like I say, for 30, probably 35. Yeah, let's talk about that. So, hey, Alvin, describe for me the the the the the plot hound world like like these guys like roy Clark like a lot of people would have heard me talk about Roy Clark in East Tennessee that has Laurel Mountain plots yeah and then but you have the same thing

going here uh with your not quite well always got no I mean just what I'm saying is describe describe kind of like how how groups with these line bread strains of dogs. People want their stuff and their stuff's the best and they don't like to outsource it. Well, it's not so much. I mean, it's not so much that they feel like their stuff is the best. It's just that I do. I mean, there's so many, when you're raising dogs, there's so many pups in a litter, you know,

you obviously can't keep them all and you want to know what they do and how they're performed. You kind of keep kind of quality control on your product, you know, what you're producing, what the bloodline's producing, you know, and everything. and you kind of get you get you a small circle of some guys you can trust, you know. Here's our circle. And you just kind of share your dogs, you know, and that's just the kind of way you do it. And it's all, I mean, it's just a blueprint of what Roy is done, you know. I'm just as good as it gets, you know, as far as far as I'm concerned, he's a legend in the sport, you know,

and breeding and hunting and everything. And you see how he's done it, you know. He's said it more than once on your podcast. He couldn't do it by itself because it's just so many dogs, you know. and take so many people, you know, to keep it going. And he's got him a small tight-knit group, and they're all working together, you know, and that's the only way you can do it.

One guy can't feed 60 head, you know, and it literally takes nearly that many dogs to really get a good thing going, you know. I mean, and Brian Ringles and Jumpey's had some of my dogs, and then I've got some more friends around here, you know, that's had some, and that's just the way I've tried to do it. We got a whole heart in Wisconsin. Try to do it.

Yeah, I got Wisconsin. Yeah, you got Barrett. You go up to Wisconsin and hunt in different parts of the country. Barron, hog, in Wisconsin, different places. They come down every year or two are Wisconsin buddies. Yeah. Hog hunt. Yeah.

Okay. Why plot hounds? Sell me. Oh, don't get us started. I wanted this dog a long time for he didn't. He wouldn't get me one until he wanted one. Oh, really? You wanted plight hounds first?

Mm-hmm. Really? Yeah, she did. Come on, tell me. I didn't get it. We were out there staying in West Virginia, and he knew. Yeah, that's, she wanted the one, when I was, had car dogs and crossbread dogs, you know, she always liked the plots, brim of color, you know, and I did too, you know, I mean. Like ears.

Did you just like it because of the color? Sherry. I just want hound. I was raised. My brother coo hunted all my life. Yeah, she likes hounds. I like hounds. And I like it now.

I think they're pretty. And we was staying out there in West Virginia for a while, and I got to notice more and more of them out there, didn't have any idea about them. I just wanted one. And truth is, I mean, that's pretty much how it worked out. I mean, I was out there, you know, and I met some hound hunters. Didn't really hunt with anybody out there and met some hounders around there. And plots were pretty popular out there, you know. And I got to send them around there and got a few phone numbers to some people, you know.

And she more or less talked me and do it, you know. And first one I had was pretty good when it comes from Eugene Walker. It was a Pocahontas plot. Her name was Bear. We called a Bear. And I liked her and got some from Curtis Walker. You know, you went and met him. and then I just got started trying different bloodlines,

and then I got really intrigued with how each bloodline was like a breed all in itself. You know what I mean? Just like you could take it like Curtis Walker's dogs were nothing like Eugenes, and they were still plots, you know, they've just been bred different for years. Steve Heard's fine. You can tell a Steve Heard dog just by looking at it. And it got interesting, it really got interesting to me. That's when I got into the kind of the breeding aspect of it.

I kind of got interesting to me, but because how people could literally mold something to themselves, You know what I mean? It's like... To fit the style of their honey. Exactly. Yeah, you could take, you know, I mean, it just got interesting and I just got consumed with it, you know. And I just... It's how it all worked out.

You're the one who... Sherry started it. Okay. Thank you, Sherry, because I was going to say, Alvin is the one that really sold me on plots even after I had one. Because I got a plot almost on accident. Steve heard and the dog. What was the dog's name?

Buster. Gunner. Gunner. Bear Path Gunner. Bear Path Gunner. First dog that we ever did a legendary bear hound article in for Bear Honey magazine, completely coincidentally, was about Steve Hurd's dog, Bear Path Gunner. I mean, just totally random. And I got to know Steve.

My kids were the right age. They needed a dog. We had gone years without having a dog, and they were just right for a dog. And so... I ended up getting what I believe was a kind of a dog that didn't make the cut for what Steve wanted, to be honest with you. Because I told him, I said, I don't want a dog that hunt real hard. I want one that would kind of be a pet. And anyway, I get this dog from him, bring it home, six months old.

He tells me all this dog's going to do. And when it was 11 months old, it came in and did really good for me. but so I called Alvin was going to try to get another plot and Alvin was like man you don't need you pretty much told me you'd help me find a pup but you didn't think your bloodline would coon hunt the way I wanted one

is that about right that's exactly right 100% so you didn't try to sell me a dog I had some we don't we don't have dogs I would have dogs that or I would give them to if I thought they would work for it well don't make our cuts sold they they don't they don't make it yeah if he thinks he takes pride

and his dogs and not putting off a lot of crap. I mean, I mean, yeah, dogs that are bred for hog, when there's specific traits and skill sets you breed for for hogs, you know, you don't, that's got nothing to do with, I mean, it's like I was saying, well, go, how these guys can shape these bloodlines to mask their dogs, you know. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of my dogs ain't going to tree worth a flip, you know, and I knew that, you know, but they got some tree bred into them, obviously their plots, but, I mean, I haven't bred for that for years and hadn't bred for cold trailing cones and stuff, you know, and I mean, I knew the percentages would be so low, it wasn't worth your time to mess with, it, you know, so I didn't...

But you taught me about the cult of the plot hound. And, I mean, really, you're the one who sold me on these guys like Roy Clark and Eugene Walker, and I mean, all these guys that were big plot men and kind of how neat that was. We've meant a lot of interesting people. Cult would be a strong word, but it's kind of... I'll buy it. What do you think, Brian's? I call it.

It's not right, isn't it? It's pretty close. Pretty close? I call it tight, sorry. circles, you know? No, I'll go with a cult. Now, they would believe that they weren't any good for hog dogs because they bark on track, but they're coming around.

Yeah, people thought that over the years. Now, Jumpi, you probably don't like a... Have you ever tried a plot for coon hunting? I have. Yes. Didn't work out, did it? No. I knew it, did it.

It was one of ours. And it happened just like I thought it would happen for you. I'm a blue-tick man. That's why he don't hunt with us. Yeah. What kind of, what bloodline? of blue ticks do you have echo echo and that's a that's a line that kind of came out of southeast oklahoma right come from lane yeah lane oklahoma yeah what what are their strongest characteristics

uh cold nose move track good good tree dogs i think they're pretty too accurate tree dogs most of them are yeah yeah well uh i i started with blue ticks when i first started coon hunting but Anyway, I've joined the cult now, so I've got to have plots. I had a guy that I coon hunted a little bit with last year. He really wanted to go with me. He said, and when I got down to it, he said, Clay, I've never seen a plot tree of coon. I've always wanted to.

He hunted with a lot of... I was amazed people who didn't know what one was. We went, when I had a sign bull, they were puppies. We took them to a lot of hog bands. And people, what are them, plots? They never heard of them. They heard them after that little series of summer things, though, because they went and went a lot stuff.

They did good, huh? They did, and then the next year I went in there, kind of a big head thinking I was going to win everything, and they were growing dogs in, and they went caught like a bulldog. It was over. Yeah. Straight up, never made a sound just going to get in and caught.

So that was the end of their bay and days. Yeah. Do you hunt a lot with Alvin? I used to. Don't anymore? Well, my knees hurt. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Now, you got plots too, Brad. Yes, sir. Yeah. How many dogs you got? Oh, I'll be feeding 10 or 12 right now, probably. Ten or 12. Some coon dogs, too, though.

Oh, dogs are coon dogs, too, though. Right. He's got a pletthro color out there. My dog yard right now It looks like I rated the pound pretty much. I hear you. I hear you. Dave, you got any dogs?

I got one dog. What kind? She's an American classic. What does that even mean? She's mutt. I thought he was going to say a sit-chew or something like that, and I was going to give you one time. Yeah, I was about, I do.

He was going to say like something. Something a little. Okay, so you got, you do have a dog. I do, yeah. Where's all go when you go on these trips, man? Oh, she stays with a friend in Missoula. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Hey, did y'all know Dave reminded me of this today, and he told me not to bring it up. Dave's from New York. Did y'all know that? You're a Yankee. U-S. Upstate New York. Yeah, definitely.

He's not half bad from being from upstate New York. That's bottom in it. Yeah, that's downstate. How's you hit up in one-town? Speaking of stuff they do up north that we don't get to do down here, Dave killed an elk last week. Hey, I did do that. You did kill an elk.

You did in Oklahoma. Just a guinea. Dave, why don't you go sit in a truck? Sherry's got a story to tell us. Yeah, Sherry, just, you killed an elk in Oklahoma? We'll come back to you, Dave, maybe. That's fine. When did you kill an elk?

It was like their third season, wasn't it? Second or third season. It was probably about five years ago, wouldn't it? Yeah, they had got it. They started getting an established herd in certain little pockets of south-eastern Oklahoma and I guess it was I mean I quote me on any of this stuff you know but it's seven or eight 10 years ago they started having a season and we had the property we hunt which is property you're hunting now it and you've seen pictures of them that come to this year on some cameras but

yeah there was some some in there and you know and we started entertaining the ideal trying to kill one you know yeah and it's there there's a quota that where did they come from where did they turn it out fence ranch yeah oh literally they got loose from a ranch yeah wow but now they're regulated by the state Yeah, the whole state is cutting four quarters. Only in Oklahoma. Yeah, so then like out west, there's no quota. You know, some of the places.

So you kill the cow elk out there in the quota. That was the last one, yeah. Yeah, she was the last one. He had to call her morning, you know, to make sure the quotas filled. We had some that was coming around some of our stand sites and on the camera, you know, and she just kept playing cat and mouse with them, you know. And I said, they're going to fill the quota before you get to kill one, you know. And she called that evening.

And she said, it's still open. I'm going hunting, which me and Reese went hunting too. we were actually youth hunting me and my daughter it was the first day of youth season and my daughter had actually killed a dough and then uh we'd shot the dough and then we recovered the dough and a few minutes my phone started ringing you know and when we're hunting you know getting a text message is not nothing unusual when you start getting phone calls that's good shooting light at the end of the day you know something's going on you know and i got a cow you know and everything i'm like what you hit her you know and everything she'll go get down and look for blood so here we are tending to a dough you know and everything so i'll go

walk through the truck get the truck drive down there with the doze and i'm like to hit her and that by the time I get down there Sherry's found the cow you know and she tells me she's like it's such and don't tells me how to drive right to where she's at and uh she's like how we're gonna get out here I said I'm here she gives me a hard time about this and I've been around I'm not out west guy you know but I have been the all cutting I've seen a cow before and I mean a a couple guys loaded it in the back of a truck so I was like man I can get it up in there you know she's like what I'm like I can get it up back of this truck from drive right there close to it you know so I'm driving around talking over the phone you know and uh

still thinking I can get this elk in the truck and I was dead wrong and she's giving me a hard time by that. How much do you think of Wade? Man, I don't know. He couldn't turn it over by so. I couldn't flip it over. And he's a big man. It was the lead cow. It was the biggest cow in the group, you know.

Yeah, I don't see little stuff. There was an immature bull in there and she was going to shoot either the bull or whatever. You know, it was just kind of whatever, you know, it wasn't once in a lifetime deal. I don't ever kill him. No, I was after the big one. And she was after whatever, you know, but she got a chance to shoot that big cow. And it was the biggest cow in the group. I don't know, 500, 600.

I don't know. Yeah. I really don't know. Too big for me to put the back of a truck. Too big. Yeah, I just run my daughter's hunt. She said, you just had to up me. Well, Dave.

You killed a little scrawny bull up in Montana last week. He was a little more impressive about that. Oh, yeah. It's my first bull, so I was pretty stoked. Yeah, so you moved from New York to Montana like five or six years ago? Almost eight now. Eight years ago. Yeah, I'm pre-COVID and pre-year-old and pre-yellow stone, so I feel like I'm in the clear.

There you go. Okay, so people that move there after COVID is like a certain type of people. Yeah, that you don't want to be associated with. Well, the demographic's been changing, yeah. Yeah, okay. For sure. So. But yeah, kill the bull last week.

My first bull, been chasing them with a bow for quite a few years and a rifle, but spent like 20 days in archery this season. Missed one. And then third day with a rifle got lucky. How big was the rack? He was a six by six. Yeah. He's not a giant, but a good, I feel like a good representation.

Did you see the picture of it, Jerry? Yeah. You were, how far from the truck when you killed it? I was pretty lucky that I was only like two and a quarter miles because there were some points in archery season. Yeah. There was some points in archery season. I was pretty far out. So I shot at like two o'clock.

and then that evening I quartered it up I was by myself quartered it up took out a front quarter and all the loose meat and then the next day I went in with a sled

I was a little far away from home so trying to call friends to come help me pack out wasn't really working out so the next morning I bought a sled hiked in put the other three quarters on a sled and dragged it out

yeah wasn't too bad you need to one in pack llamas I seen it yeah that's what he needs I need to get a mule. I need to talk to Jumpy about buying one of them mules. Oh, man. I got about 10 of them over there.

Yeah, we didn't say that. Jumpy's a mule man, too. Right. Hey, we were going to talk about our squirrel hunt. You and Alvin. I wasn't invited. Brian Ringles and Alvin came up and squirrel hunting with me in February. We were just going to hunt pretty much one day, right?

And y'all brought your horses, and I had the mule. and we had an uneventful squirrel hunt in terms of killing squirrels, but we went to a big property, and I had my two fice, and they hunted out in front of us while we rode down some just basically old roads. You killed your eye. Yeah, that was, that's all I can remember is that I was riding to a tree, and the dogs were treed, and I took a stick in the eye, which, I mean, isn't terribly uncommon.

and I just kind of thought I could just blink it out. And man, it just kept getting, it probably happened at, I don't know, 10 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I had already shot the only squirrel to be shot. Yep. And what happened actually, I'll get this story for all the listeners, you know. What actually happened was squirrels were starting to move pretty good, and we were starting to get a lot more trees. And Clay knew I was fixing to put on this squirrel shooting exhibition.

That's what happened, man. I don't know. I don't know if I witnessed it that way for sure or not, but maybe I was missing something. It was something like that. It was something like that. So you poked yourself an eye. Where are you going, Dave? My chair just had a blowout.

Oh, wow. Dave lost a chair. This is what happens when you've been sitting in tree sand for a couple days. Man, that's my new rocking chair, my friend got me. We got to, yeah, just go over there and get that chair. I like it when that kind of stuff happens to skinny people. Makes you feel good. He's immune.

He's got a new chair. So I was riding to the squirrel tree, took a stick in the eye. I didn't think, I mean, it hurt right away. But, you know, probably a few minutes later, I was like, man, I took a stick in the eye. I can't already see on this eye. And, man, rather than getting better, it just kept getting worse. Because he was rubbing it. Well, probably.

Two hours later, I couldn't hardly see out of either eye. And it was like probably one o'clock. And these guys had driven hours to come up here to hunt for one day. day and I couldn't see. Alvin had to drive my truck, drive me to the eye doctor. Did you take me straight to the... No, I took you home and Mistyhead came to get you. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, I went to the eye doctor and I had scraped five layers off my cornea, which sounds worse than it is. They put a medicated contact lens over your eye and basically that's all they do and it heals. But anyway, that's all I can think about. It's wonders you didn't lose your eye after the fabrication of the eye patch that we did out there in the woods. What did we do?

I forgot. To cut a piece of a saddle blanket off or something. I can't remember and you tied it around your head with a piece of haystring or something. It was a pirate. It was pretty primitive. Yeah. Yeah, I remember it. The light was killing it.

Yeah. No, I told Alvin this the other day. So I'm relatively new to the equine world. I mean, I was an adult when I started riding quite a bit. And we were riding. So when I go with people that have been around, you know, have been riding and doing stuff their whole lives, I'm paying attention trying to learn something.

When I was, when we were riding, we came to a rocky, a real steep rocky bluff. And I didn't blame Alvin a bit. He stepped off as we rode through some pretty rough stuff. And when we came to this spot, it was brushy and about a, probably a three and a half foot drop of slick rock. It was slanted real bad too. You know,

there's a potential sliding down area, you know. Yeah. And, man, I mean, I think any horse guy, mule guy would pride himself on not getting off. And so I would be in that category. But when I saw you get off, I went and looked it over and was like, you know what?

I think I'll get off too, which is pretty rare. It was pretty rough little spot. So me and you just led your horse, my mule down this little deal and Brian's coming up Brian's coming up behind us on his Mustang Yeah and

And I just know he's about to get off And he doesn't get off and he does the man from Snowy River deal off the Off of this thing and leans back and his back Was on the bud of that horse And I was impressed I was thoroughly impressed With that you didn't get off your horse That was probably just pure de laziness

On my part Yeah You just didn't want to get off Tell me about your horse. What kind of horse you got? He's a Mustang out of a range in Nevada. He's where he come out. He was born a wild horse.

Is that the one he had out here? The paperwork. No. I've got two of them. But the paperwork on him says he was a four-year-old when they gathered him off the range. And I've been using him since he was about 10. I bought him already broke from some more guys that had actually been roping calves on him

and using him on a ranch. But he's made a nice hunting horse. And he's actually on his way back from New Mexico elk season right now on the second gun season. Some boys borrowed him and took him out there. Really? Yeah. Is there legitimate stuff about what a Mustang would be better at

than just a regular horse that have been bred and raised in captivity? I think so. Well, it's just got to do with the same as about you're talking about line breeding the dogs and stuff like that, you know. I mean, they're just the hybrid vigor is there and the survival of the fittest has been there from natural selection for so long as what makes them their gene pool so much difference, you know, from the domestic horse that we raise here, you know, has been so. So they're actually selecting for characteristics of survival that work for a horse on the range. Naturally, that happened, you know. Yeah.

Yes. To where we've selected for different performance aspects in the quarter horse world or whatever the other, you know, domestic course might be. So that's the difference. They're just naturally selected for brains, toughness. You know, they don't have feet problems. They don't have teeth problems. I can't think you can't beat them on being tough. That stuff weeded itself out, you know.

Yeah. You can fix a Colts feet with the shoes, but they're boring that away. If they don't have feet, right feet, they die. Right. I see what you're saying. Now, that brings up a good question. And we're going to get to talking about RT soon enough, okay? People ask me this, and I don't have a good answer.

I like having good answers when people ask me stuff. Today, most modern horses have to be shod, or they'll go lame. I mean, for the most part. Or is that it's a true statement? Well, depending on their job, that can be a true statement, yes. You know, there's a couple of reasons. This is going to be very broad, but there's a couple of reasons to shoe a horse, and it's going to be either for protection or some type of podiatry that they need to overcome a genetic issue.

Okay. You know, and so, yes, most performance horses today have to be shot and somewhere another because they kind of let that part of the selection and the breeding be on the back burner for so long. So that's why a wild horse wouldn't have to have had shoes a thousand years ago, was because he was selected for having good feet. Well, yes, that's true, you know, unless they have some type of job that they're wearing off more than they can grow back. You know, I mean, even I read a book just the other day that said that there was some,

some of the Apache Indians even would cut a piece of skin off of the hip of their horse whenever they was riding one and he was about to give up on them and put that over their foot, you know, so people have been half. A horse? Yeah, actually off the same horse they were riding, you know. But they didn't need to be shod for purposes like balance and podiatry and that kind of thing where you was correcting genetic issues, they just had to be shot

because you were wearing more foot off than they could grow back. Yeah. You know, in rough, rocky type terrain, you know, so... That makes sense. It depends on their job. If a cutting horse stud can get down on his belly and cut a cow like no other than's got a crooked foot,

he's still getting bred. And he's still passing them genetics on down their line. I see what you're saying. So if there's one that's real good at this other stuff, feet aren't that big a deal. You can fix a feet with a ferrier. Yeah. But not in the wild.

But not in the wild. Right. Yeah. That's why me and Jumpy ride mules. Right. Right. Right. Oh, Jumpy's a mule man.

I heard he has one that loves and what your wife told me earlier. Yeah. Mad Ann Bailey. Yeah, that's what she called it. Yeah. All right. R.T. Stewart, Secret Agent, man.

What did you think, Alvin? What stood out to you? You know, when I first started listening to it, the part about leading double lives, you know, and kind of messing with him, his mind, you know. Yeah. That was something I never would have thought of, you know. It was kind of like, oh, I never would have thought of that, you know?

Yeah. And that really was probably about as interesting. I mean, that was probably the most interesting. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm looking forward to episode two where he talks about some of the different, you know, jobs he was on, you know, and what some of the things were that were happening

that they put a stop to and stuff like that. but from the first one that was pretty much what was kind of something I never would have thought of kind of come across pretty interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to know how his wife, he was married right? He was. How she took it, because you can't tell me

if he's leading a double life, he wasn't leading to hanging out with buddies, party and drinking. Well, he, RT is very open about this stuff. It's in his book, so I feel like I can say this. And he even said it on the podcast.

It just didn't make the cut, but he lost his wife. Okay. He lost his marriage. Yeah. During that time. And he was real open about it, about how he, yeah, it did affect his marriage. And I felt sorry for him when he said, you know, I didn't go to graduation and stuff.

He didn't get paid enough for that. Yeah. And I already say, you know, he regretted. He wouldn't do that. You know, wouldn't do it again. You know, did it strike y'all as, and this is an honest question to any of you, Did it strike y'all as unique that he was as open about that stuff as he was? I mean, about like making mistakes.

Because, I mean, it seems to me like people would hide it. Well, or just find a way to justify it or blame it on someone else. I mean, it's like we have all these mechanisms to deal with kind of the way we've maybe messed stuff up. And he was just like, yeah, I pretty much. Is he not worried about him because he wrecked people's lives? And I mean, I guess he's messing with Hines. That's different, but he missed with him. He'll be like that.

You know, they still could come get you 20 years later. They're not going to forget. I just wondered how if he, that in the back of his mind. Yeah, if he was ever worried about retaliation from people. Some people are just more open than other people. I mean, some people will talk about things. It's like it's nothing. And some people won't.

Tell us about all your failings, Alva. Yeah, I mean. He's perfect. He's perfect. He has none. But also, too, I just had this thought when you were saying that, you know. I mean, this guy lived alive, a life for so many years. It may be a breath of fresh air for him to tell you everything you want to know about himself.

Right. Yeah. Could be. I mean, would you do it, Jumpy? Ask that again. Would you do that? Go undercover and leave your daughter? No.

Your grandkids? I wouldn't have made a good undercover. Do y'all work with any? undercover agents yes drug people drug people yes so how would that work with you with you with you I mean can you talk about that not probably not a whole lot but uh when we have something going on we'll we'll call some of them guys and have them come in and try to make some buys or something yeah for us yeah kind of works along the same lines what what RT was done yeah what'd you think jumpy just overall

Well, I tell you, a whole lot of things he talked about I can relate to. And I was really intrigued with the psychology part of it. And, well, first off, you know, he's got a pen full of blue ticks. I got a pin full of blue ticks. Yeah, yeah. He was 35 when he started law enforcement. I was 35 when I started. Yeah.

So, but the stress, you know, it's unbelievable what kind of stress. police officer goes through. And I can just only imagine what he stressed, this constant stress like that. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was so fascinating when that psychologist, Dr. Matthew Sharps,

was talking about how humans were designed to handle acute stress, which is acute means short-term stress, because of our hunter-gatherer roots. But we don't have any mechanism for long term deal with chronic stress. I love that guy, man. When we contacted him, he's from California State University, I think, in Fresno. And I was very happy that he was pumped that we were a hunting-related podcast.

Like, I wasn't so sure if he knew what he's getting into. But he was like, oh, yeah. He's studied quite a bit about, he had a lot of knowledge. But I thought that was an insightful thing I would have never thought about that. Even the way we're wired is built for, you know, kind of comes back from our background. Anything else stand out to you, Jambi? Yes. He got close to some of those guys.

And I relate the same way with some of our inmates that we have and people that we arrest. Of course, I was raised here in Coop County. It's a small county. Yeah, so I know most of the people that were putting in jail. Yeah. And I have work crew, and a lot of times I'll get the guys out and walk down highway picking up trash or a mole cemetery. Well, you get kind of, in about 90% of the guys, once they get in jail and get sobered up, they're pretty good people, pretty decent people. you kind of get a relationship with them you know kind of become friends yeah and it's easy to get

close to them yeah to them guys like that yeah and uh but just make it clear with them you know some of some of the ones we put in jail they're deer hunters their coon hunters hog hunters and some of them's just bad people they're never going to get any better but when they get out the ones would get close to, they get out and they know they get out there and get the messing up again, that they're not going to get no break or going right back to jail. Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying the relationship maybe helps them stay straight in the future?

Not very many. No? No. They all, when they go to jail and get straight, we're not doing this again. We're not coming back. Most of them's back within a few months. Fall right back in the same crowd. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. If they don't change the company they run with and, don't get a job to keep their hands busy, stay out of trouble. They end up right back in jail. Most of them do. Not all of them, but most of them do. Yeah.

They end up right back in jail. Most of them do. Not all of them, but most of them do. 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 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. Would you think that a guy like RT, like his life would have really been in danger with wildlife criminals like he was dealing? with? No, not around here. You wouldn't.

Really? I don't know how the laws or in Ohio, but in Oklahoma, the wildlife laws are all misdemeanors. And how are they in Ohio? I don't know. Because we have the Lacey Act here, of course, that's if you take a legal game across the state line. Yeah. That's a felony. But most, just like somebody going out here, poaching deer, that's a misdemeanor.

you know a fine they rarely put somebody in jail they do but it's not real common really can you lose your hunting license yeah you can lose your hunting license over see now that i wouldn't take a chance on that you had a lifetime hunting license i think you could lose that i got lifetime um i think i definitely there was some felonies given out to some of the guys that he was he was after You don't almost have to be to justify the time and money spent putting into it. I'll go ahead and do a spoiler for the next episode. He tells the story where he's with these guys. And basically, his undercover world means that he can break the law.

Like, he could actually go shoot a turkey if he felt like it was in the name of. of keeping his cover and was going to help bust these guys. So these undercover guys have some liberty to do the work that they need to do. And in all his work, he only killed one illegal animal, which I thought was pretty incredible because he was on hundreds of illegal deer and turkey kills. He sounded like an awesome job. Party, running around a shoot crap. I wouldn't want to come home either.

Sherry, you just exposed your deep motivation. No, but he said the one thing that he couldn't do in his undercover position was knowingly commit a felony. And one time he was with these guys and he's driving the poach coach and they go into a gas station and rob it and come back. He's out there pumping gas and has no knowledge of it. And he, it's a total spoiler. I'm going to, it's just a cool story here and to tell it. But basically, they come back out and they're like, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. And he's like, what happened?

What's going on? And they had robbed the store. And he turned on his video cameras so that the video would pick up that he didn't know about it. So he was like, man, I had no idea you guys were going to do that. And they were like, well, it just happened. You know, they, he wanted it because he would have gotten trouble. And it turns out there's a lot of liability. with being an undercover agent.

He was constantly worried about him himself getting in trouble. But the other thing that happened, spoiler alert too, is that he's with these guys one night and they're plotting to kill a guy that had turned them into the game warden. Like literally, he is over here in a conversation.

Well, no, no, no, no. It wasn't even that straightforward. He had somehow had his surveillance equipment on, and he overheard the guys in the poach coach talking about how they were going to kill such and such and such, like had a plan. But he didn't hear it in person. He didn't hear it in person.

He goes back and listens to the tape. Here's them plotting this murder. But in Ohio, for a conversation to be recorded, at least one person in the conversation has to be aware. of what's happened. Does he count his aunt? No. So he calls his boss and he says,

hey, we got a sticky situation. These guys are going to kill this guy. And I know this, but I know this illegally. And so what do we do? And basically the boss was like, we just got to ride it out.

And anyway, they ended up not killing the guy. But just constantly fighting himself in pretty wild situations. Yeah. And I mean, they're rough folks, man. I thought it, I said it early on in the podcast, and it was stuck with me, and I was like, man, he said that,

and crap me if I heard it wrong, but he said that every person he was investigating at some point in time during the course of the mission or whatever, they had questioned him about, are you a problem? Are you undercover? Yeah. Every one of them. And I thought, I mean, First thing I thought was, I mean, if I think you're undercover, you saying no, I'm not is not good enough for me.

Yeah. I don't understand why. I think that's why it took 11 months in him doing shady crap to. I guess maybe so. I don't know. I thought, I mean, I can't believe. I can't believe no one figured out. I mean, I guess he's good at what he did, you know?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you think about it. Every single situation, he was the new guy. I mean, just because they didn't know him from childhood. I mean, like, literally he was the new guy. And in every situation, he was deep in with these guys and was going out and poaching with him big time. So, I mean, I think sometimes it was joking.

It would just be like, man, I bet RT's a game warden. Dave, what did you think, man? You said you had some serious thoughts. Well, I have some thoughts, yeah. I don't know. It seemed to, I don't know to the extent of what he was catching people doing, but it, I mean, like he said, he got close to some of these guys, and he's like, he knew he was about to ruin their lives.

And I don't know, it just seems like going undercover like that for that long. It seems really deceitful. And for, I imagine most of these situations, these guys were doing crimes far beyond just, like, shooting some turkeys and... To go in and do that. Yeah. That'd be more than that.

And deer, but... Yeah, it just seemed a little... It seemed over-intrusive, is what you're saying. Yeah, a little icky almost. Seems cruel almost to go in there and do that. For wildlife violations, you know. They're not, I mean, they're not shooting the last rhino or, you know... Yeah.

Or... Let me say this. Selling drugs. If you read the book, which the book is called Poachers Were My Pre. and it's a very well-written book. Chip Gross, the guy that was on there, he actually wrote the book, and the book is very well written.

It's like, well done. And all of these, anything RT was called on was pretty major. I mean, for instance, there's, and I won't talk about this, R.T. doesn't talk about this, but one of the chapters was about poachers from West Virginia that were literally carting for years, enormous amounts of deer, turkey, squirrels, any kind of meat that they could get,

taking it to Cincinnati, Ohio to sell to restaurants. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's not legal. Yeah, normally you got to pay extra for that kind of thing. And so RT, yeah, so RT goes there and he's like, these guys are selling to these people. And they, you know, he infiltrates and like, it's like this super underground thing.

And basically they were putting it in stir fry for real. The whole, whole chapter about it. Like, that's pretty serious, you know. Yeah. And then the other guys, like when he got real, the guy he talks about that he got so close to, those guys in, he worked that case for like 17. months, R.T. himself was on, with one guy was on, he couldn't even remember how many turkeys before season that got poached. He said all probably around, he said between 40 and 60.

What did they do with them? I don't know. I mean, that's a lot of turkeys in one season for one guy. Because I think. I mean, that's pretty serious stuff. So that's why they're going to that But, yeah, they're not trying to catch a guy out here that's, you know, trying to feed his family. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's trying to get the bigger guy and probably take down more people, but I don't understand how you can go along with 40 to 60 turkey kills.

I mean, at some point in time, this is what we're trying to stop. Well, and he talks about that. And all that stuff is, like, very much on their minds. and what they were doing was they had by the time he was going after one guy and by the time he was done they had 26 people that were deeply involved in this that he had evidence on and so like you know maybe they've got this guy but they're still working on this guy and the sting has to come down at one time so they say hey man we need two more months and during that two months time He's got to maintain his cover and do his stuff. And he actually said that. He said there came a point when we just had to say, okay, enough is enough. For the people of Ohio, we got to bring this down.

So if you read his book, he's going to explain all this. He explains it all. Because I'm going to have to read it because I just can't wrap my mind around all that for. It's a cost for people poaching that much. I can't. Yeah, it's pretty wild. They started talking about buying new vehicles and renting houses for years at a time. And I started thinking, I mean, I would.

I started trying to imagine in my head actual like an analytical sheet that showed how much money they spent and all the actual convictions they got and started trying to just imagine it, I mean, it's probably going to break down to millions of dollars, you know, for, I mean, obviously several convictions, but

kind of, I mean, natural resources got to be protected, but at some point in time you can't spend billions of millions of taxpayers dollars, you know, but like you say, there's some pretty big cases, you know. Yeah. I wonder how that money could have been spent towards like habitat restoration. I started to think about how many of these guys we got a fire to buy a bunch of public land.

Yeah. Well, I mean, those are legitimate questions. I think, I mean, first of all, back in the 90s, I think they were on such shoestring budgets, the actual money that they spent on these things was relatively. small, you know. But I think wildlife enforcement over the years, it's almost like, what do they say? There's some, there's some, if people know that that's going on and that they're seeing people go to jail and get felonies for stuff, it kind of, it kind of, it's like having an

unhunted populations of grizzlies in the West. They get super aggressive because there's no penalty. for doing bad. When there's a penalty for doing bad, it kind of filters through the whole system. That's the way I think about undercover. Is that? Yeah, that's pretty close.

Yeah. Yeah. Just because, I mean, you know, if all I have to do is dodge a guy in a uniform, I mean, maybe that's, I mean, there's ways to do that. It's a game. Even Russ Arthur, the Forest Service agent, who interviewed Louis Dell,

or worked on Louisville. Dale and Charlie Edwards. He, the first thing he said to me is he said, Clay, how hard is it for a single poacher to evade one man that has to cover seven counties? You know, basically he was like, it's not hard to get away with breaking the law. And so anyway, the undercover thing, though, kind of filters out. And it's like, holy smoke, we better be watching our stuff. How bad did that bother him knowing he was putting these men in jail for stuff that he was doing right along with him?

Well, I think that's just part of the job. It's kind of like, you know, does a bull rider get upset when they get hurt? It's like, well, they ride bulls. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just part of the deal, you know? It would bother me that I would, I mean, you know better than them to a sense because you're going along with it. Well, and that's kind of what I've built up in the thing is that like it's an odd philosophical and ethical position to go and break the law in the name of the good guys.

Yeah. Yeah. This undercover agent deal being a deterrent, you know, like you're just explaining that, makes great sense, but I had a thought on that right there. You know what I mean, it's originally, it basically blows your cover. You know what I'm saying? I mean, once a big bust happens in southeast Ohio, you're not making a, you're not infiltrate no more poaching rings in that area for a long, long time.

I mean, it's just big news. Everyone knows the undercover. it comes out in news stories and knowing how many years they had involved and there's poaching rings that probably like it probably just helped them you know I mean which you got one of them

if you read the book and there's no way that you know an hour podcast is going to give you all the details of this book here's the way it would go down is a lot of times they wouldn't well this doesn't directly answer your question I see what you're saying but as far as

RT goes he was able to work in the same general kind of southeast Ohio for his whole career because sometimes they didn't even know who the undercover guy was. Yeah, before social media and stuff. Yeah, I don't think you could buy with that now

because you can reverse image search and find anything. Yeah, there would be, I mean, if you wanted to. Ever platform of social media available that people's looking at 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nowadays it'd be blowed all over it, you know.

And it would be, I mean, if someone didn't read the newspaper back then, they'd never read it. They might not even know, they would just be like, you remember that Bob Thomas guy? He was my neighbor for two years, and then he moved back. So did he come out? Not always.

Not always. What I'm saying is they don't necessarily have to know who it is. They just have to know that we've got to be careful. They're using undercover agents now. And therefore, no one's, even if they don't, no one, they're not infiltrating that group of people because they're aware now. The other thing that I learned in this is that they're also what they call, I think they call it whitting informants.

Does that phrase make sense, jumpy? Basically, where if you were a bad poacher and there was somebody close to you that got arrested, they could come to him and say, make a plea deal with him if they'll help catch this guy. Oh, yeah. So you could have a witting informant, which means an informant that is working along with the undercovers. So it could be your best friend. Yeah. But it's not a good life when everybody finds out about it.

No, it's not. It's a dangerous one. Yeah. There's a lot of, and he goes through the law, like in the book, kind of like how stuff legally works. It was pretty interesting. My question is, could R.T. catch Louisdale? I don't think so. Good question.

I don't think so. Man. He's like the ghost coon. You ain't catching him. Did you listen to the outlaws? I did. We listened it together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to say when Louis Dale said, hey, are you a private investigator?

And he said, no, I want to say Louis Dale would have followed up. He would have done some more research. He'd have got a second opinion. So, y'all heard. on there when when R.T. Like an elephant in the in the room when I said I've heard of undercover agents that like live in the area and drive a couple hours and just kind of have. And he said, oh, that's playing undercover. That's playing.

You know, he didn't know that I had interviewed a guy. And it was kind of I can't throw Russ under the butt. That was just what they had available. he that's just the way they had to do it they didn't have a big budget he wasn't a trained more respectful for their tax dollars wouldn't it well but I think if they had gone in and I think RT would have caught him I think it would have too I think he it sounds like RD's the goat when it comes to this undercover stuff I mean RT he he sounded like he was probably as good as you could be at that job yeah I think he's real deal what was a what was a timeline that he was

doing this? What years? Late 80s through 18 years past that. So like the mid, you know, like 2006 or 4. Yeah. Well, I got a question for you. So I wonder how much since the emergence of social media they've had to, they

haven't had to go undercover as much. It's totally different. Is it? People tell us. So Russ Arthur, the Forest Service, law enforcement guy that I interviewed, he called the Forest service before he talked to me and just said, hey, is it okay if I talk to this guy? And they were like, sure.

And he said it was because the undercover world is so vastly different. Used to, you could just show up and have an ID and say your name. They'd be searching Bob Thomas's social media for the last 20 years right now if you showed up. Yeah. So it's different tactics. My question, if they took that many turkeys, how did it affect the population in years after? You're going to talk to the biologist about I figured you already had on that

Because I know turkey density is a question thing You like to follow up on You know how it is They were if you can kill 40 turkeys in a year You're in a good turkey area Number one So they had a robust population But how was it afterwards?

I don't know Well you need to figure that out I don't know You need to look into that Yeah Well They they they it's it's definitely you know and the in the ethical position is that for that is that

game populations are owned by all the people so that guy was taking more than his share so he was taking game away from other people you know and so it sounds like they didn't have to me hunters back then if you had that many turkeys that's a lot of turkeys they're in a good area they're in a good area what did you think about it mr ferrier well a couple things jumped out at me about the I just hadn't ever thought of before, but it makes you think about your own psyche a little bit, you know, but he said that he caught every one of those people

basically by stroking their ego, you know, putting them on a pedestal, he said. And so that'll tell you something about the human mind that wants to be bragged on. That's why they get caught on social media now because they can't resist posting it. Yeah.

Everybody likes to brag. That's why I was wondering if they've had less, agents sent social media because they can just scroll through Instagram and find them now. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that was a little bit stood out to me was I never thought of this, but he said that he went into that job and done that for all those years and put up with all that stress and was very successful at it and was able to overcome all of the challenges of it, but he couldn't stand to go home and take care of his family. is, you know, he couldn't stand the stress of taking care of his kids or fixing the roof on the house, but he can go undercover for years and handle that.

He was living a good life undercover. That's pretty wild, I thought. That was selfish. He undoubtedly was getting some sort of a rush out of it, too. Yeah. You know what I mean? It was like, I mean, it may not be, it probably wouldn't affect everyone the same way. But undoubtedly, he may not say it and he may not even realize it,

but he undoubtedly was getting some sort of a dream. adrenaline rush. I mean, Yeah. He had no cares. I'm not trying to say he's a bad guy. I'm just saying it was, it was probably like his fuel.

He talks about it. And, you know, it's hard. I talked to him for almost four hours. And y'all heard 30 minutes of it. You know, the podcast was an hour long, but you actually heard RT talking for 30 minutes. So, I mean, like, he went into that. Oh, he was like absolute adrenaline rush.

He said constantly, he said, you walk into a new house. with a guy and you don't know what's about to happen and at any second your cover could be blown. He said it's just constant fight or flight and he thrived on that. I'm going to say it was more that than it was. I mean, I'm not trying to defend a guy or nothing, but I mean it was probably more that, enjoying that adrenaline rush than it was actually, you know, not being neglected. You know, I mean, he let on like he's neglecting his house and his family and everything, you know.

but it probably he was neglecting it but he wasn't neglecting it because he was a bad guy he was neglecting it because this rush and his adrenaline rush was drawing him back so hard you know As a mama I can't see anything that would take you from your kids though I've made a comment about when me and Sherry first got married I mean this is irresponsible

I remember quitting jobs the deer hunt Now how stupid is that you know what I'm saying? Yeah I mean that's ridiculous I mean it don't make me a bad person you know I mean but but but some things I mean sometimes you let things draw you away from your responsibilities, you know. But he didn't leave us.

Is that why you don't deer hunt anymore? I do the hunting now. Yeah. But I couldn't see leaving my kids for that long. That would break my heart. Yeah, yeah. There would be no adrenaline. That'd be almost like the druggies

that say they can't get off of drugs for their kids' sake because they like that high too much. I'm not saying it's good or bad. No, I'm saying he is. He is like addicted to the hive. He can leave his kids that long almost. Right. Sure.

I was really glad to hear him say that, and the way he said it, I believed him. He said he has a really strong relationship with his kids now. I'd like to question his kids and see how old were they? You know? And I bet they've got some stories that he don't want to hear. Oh, yeah.

As adults, they may understand it. I'm sure. But as little, when they were little, I bet they didn't. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's where it felt to me like he's taking responsibility for that now, you know. Yeah. And that's good.

I mean, that takes a lot to say that I neglected my kids and I missed this, this, and he admits it wasn't worth it. Yeah. I caught myself all throughout that. thinking, man, that'd be a pretty cool job. And then all of a sudden there'd be parts like, oh, man, I couldn't do that, you know. And it's just, I was back and forth. And I'd be like, oh, that'd be, you know, right down my alley. And then all of a sudden, oh, I couldn't do that, you know.

Yeah. And it's just, so it's kind of one of them deals, you know what I mean. I'm sure his things about it, he didn't like, you know, throughout all that. But all no, it's suited him to a tee. And he's actually pretty damn good at it. Yeah. Yeah. How long was he in law enforcement before he retired?

You know, he worked 18 years undercover, but I think he was a couple of years as a uniform. Well, I know for sure a couple years as a uniformed officer before that. About 20 years. 20 plus, yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of stress. 20 years would be a lot of stress. How long are you going on?

17. 17. Yeah. He deals with a lot of stress. I deal with a lot of stress. He can't please everybody. Yeah. Now, are you going to run for sheriff next election?

We'll just see what happens. We'll talk about that. We'll see what happens between now and then. Do you need us to help you with your campaign on Bear Greece? Oh, yeah. Is it next year? No, it's still a couple years away. It'd be a year and a half, actually.

Jumpi, with your credentials, you would be the only sheriff at this time in North America that I know that we could put the whole Bearish brand behind to get reelected. That's awesome. So with the blue checks, the mules, yeah. Brian, you had two great points there. Were those, do you have anything else to say?

Well, I just had a question in my mind. I wonder, you know, I'm not taking nothing away from the guy, but how good would he have been without those informants? You know, his whole career was set up on the informant thing, you know. Absolutely. I know you got to have them. Had a good team. He had a good team.

To do that job. Yeah. You know what? Those guys, when you're with him, and this is just stuff that couldn't, he talked about his boss and his, all the people around him, he gave a lot of credit to other people. You know, he really did. You know, on the podcast, it's like I wanted to talk about how great he was. Yeah. You know, but is that what you're saying?

Just like he was around a team of people? Well, yeah, that. and you know the people that. He wasn't snitching he couldn't do it. Right, you know, if it wasn't for the if it wasn't for the scumbag that would throw his own mama in front of a train to get out of trouble, he might not have could have got some of those convictions.

I see what you're saying. But he also had a good close-knit team like you're saying on his side too, you know. Yeah, yeah. No doubt about that. Yeah. But that just goes back to me. I'm not trying to take my own horn, but I put a lot of stock in honesty, you know,

whenever a guy stands up and says that it's pretty much all propped up on a lie, then I got my guard up, you know. But I would be all for whatever tactics he had to use if he was out there catching somebody that was mistreating little kids or raping women or something like that, you know. So it's it just, I had a little bit of a question there about that. So you felt like it was a little too much, kind of like Dave, but a little too much force for something.

I don't think we can wrap our mind around anybody poaching like that. I think Dave and Brian both, I mirror what they're thinking too. You know, it's a little extreme. But it's just like what Sherry just said is exact, is a great point. I can't wrap my mind around what, how bad something could be in a poaching world. You know what I mean? I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

Yeah. And I imagine, too, I mean, if they're poaching that bad, then, like, they held up gas stations. They were willing to kill somebody. I mean, they're different. Oh, and, you know, I came to him to talk about wildlife stuff. Almost everything involved, drugs. And, I mean, they were getting, and they were getting convictions for everything. Like, he was law enforcement, so he could, he could, he didn't have just jurisdiction over a guy killing illegal turkey.

You know, if that guy is selling drugs or if this guy's doing, you know, whatever. And that just blows my mind how this guy got inside with these guys and talked his way out of, drinking and drive and, you know, he couldn't, wasn't supposed to drink and drive, you know, and didn't need a drink and drive. And they're obviously probably doing drugs around him, him not, not doing any drugs. I mean, how do you fit in with these scumbags, you know what I mean? Well, they sit on there like they had, he'd show it with big horns and stuff like that and turkey fans that he got from the DNR.

I so bad want to give the biggest spoiler. He, okay. We're going to listen. Spoiler alert. I'm not going to tell the whole thing. RT is on the stand. He's in court. Looking at these people?

All 26 minus one of the guys that he is about to... It's so complicated. It'll give it all the way. Basically, they ask him, the defense. Fence. They can get R.T. On drinking and drugs. And they straight up ask him.

Were you ever drunk with this man? And our, it's so good to hear RT tell it. I can't tell it, but he told him the truth. And then he said, have you ever done drugs with this man? RT tells the truth. Anyway, it was incredible the way he did it. I'll tell you afterwards, I got to leave it as a shocker for everybody else. That's in the next episode.

But he navigated through all kind of wild stuff. All kind of wild life to live. I know it's pretty interesting. Yeah. If what I said, I mean, it did be a lot of fun. Well, hey, we've been going a while here. Closing thoughts. Hey, you, okay, there is a set of shed antlers right over there.

How big are those horns, Alvin? 199. 196. There, I don't know. Is it a 25 point buck? How many points are they? I never even counted them. My buddy of mine scored them, but I don't, I've never even counted them.

Giant set a non-typical animal. antlers that were found over here somewhere. Seven miles. And tell me what the guy said that you showed those two while you were working. My brother-in-law, my brother-in-law found the first match set at the ranch house. In the feed yard. Brought them over to us.

And I was like, whoa, you know, I mean, I know about carbet about deer horns. And I was like, them are not normal, you know. And they were like 170 inches, you know. And the next year he finds a single and then never did find the other one. They were right behind the ranch house, like coming up behind. the ranch house he's finding when he's feeding he's not looking for sheds you know it just anyways the next year he finds this final set and uh he brings them over to the house and we got all of them in he'd get them all to us he's not a deer hunter nothing anyway shed or an hunter anyways

i had them and i they're they're magnificent set of horns you know so i'm carrying them around you know everyone's showing different people you know and and uh guy worked with and uh a lot of comments about them you know different comments boy like to kill that one and all this you know Where are you working? You're working on a pipeline. We're doing a pipeline job with Tonga. This guy was from, this guy was from actually from Arkansas. He's an Arkansas year.

Anyway, Arkansas. And he was a dozer operator. And I knew he was crazy fanatic deer hunter, you know. And I was like, hey, check he's out. You know, and he comes over and he gets his hands on him, you know. And he just kind of don't say nothing for a few minutes. You know, and he's looking at him. And he's turning them this way and turning him out way.

And I'm kind of waiting for him to say something, you know, because it's kind of a moment of silence, a moment of pause there, you know. He just looks me straight in the eye and he says, I'd go to jail to kill this deer. Or he said, his exact quote was, I would go to jail trying to kill this deer. And I about fell over. I busted out laughing and he didn't crack a smile. He was not joking. And oh my.

Go to jail over a deer. Man, I can't wait. It blew my mind. I can't wait for Mark Kenyon one day to hand me a set of horns. And I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to do. just what Alvin's buddy did I go to jail trying to go. I don't think anybody killed him. You'll have a hard time not cracking a smile.

I don't think anybody ever killed that year. It was a pretty good hideout deal because the guy that lived right behind a ranch house never would. He denied it. I confronted him. I was like, how you got pictures of that deer? No, what are he talking about? One boy's from goodness. And then after the deer didn't show up for a couple years and the horns didn't show up for a couple years.

And to our knowledge, he finally admitted to it. And I actually seen daylight pictures of the deer. Oh, wow. He showed me daylight pictures of the deer. And he actually, you know, admitted to it, obviously show me. But no one else. I never talked to anyone else in that area that ever had pictures of that deer. But he did.

He had a bunch of them. And he hit it for several years. He didn't tell nobody. Wow. Yeah, I couldn't do that. Brian and Rhino both knowing him. I'll tell you who it was when we get off here. But yeah, I don't think any, because I think if somebody killed him, we'd have heard about it.

I mean. Yeah, you'd heard about that. Because the processing plants right down the road, too, and he knew about him. He'd seen all the shit. Oh, it's... Boys, I'd go to jail trying to kill that. I went this week, man.

Me and Dirty Dave have been trying to kill... We'd kill one a lot smaller than that. We should have never showed him then and snuck out there and put one horn in front of the camera. Well, hey, it's been fun having all you guys on. Jumpy, you're a big bear grease man. You listen to most bear grease podcast? Several times over.

Yeah. Probably your biggest fan. He needs autographs, hat. Right on, man. He got me a hat. You on my hat? Right on. He'll autographed for me.

I appreciate it. I do. I appreciate it. She's got my hat on. I don't. I got my hat. I had that put up. I was saving it.

Got the Barry Greas hat. Closing thoughts, anybody? R.T. It's your last chance to say anything about R.T. Stewart. If he needs an assistant, I'll take that job. I don't. Sherry. I can't be an undercover agent.

I don't listen as much as I mean, I listen to the. stuff that when I flip through your podcast, real air, if it looks interesting, I'll listen. I'm not a faithful listener, but I'm really looking forward to this next one. I really am. I kind of want to hear the rest of this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big dirty, Dave. I'm excited to hear more. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm crossing my fingers. Do you have friends? We get a buck even close to that size walking from us tomorrow. I'd kill a buck with just the amount of inches off of one side of his alley.

Absolutely. I said, no use a Yankee. You're wearing crooks. Oh, Dave's got crocs. Way to go, Dave. Just take the five right out of them. Rhino wears them, too. Cros and socks.

Uh-oh. Crocs and socks, the fairier? Not to work. On the boat. On the boat. On the boat. Well, thank you guys so much. Been a pleasure.

And yeah, this is the first podcast we've done in southeast Oklahoma. So. Around Campfire. This is good. This is good. 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 backwoods.

Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments. and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

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