Bear Grease - Ep. 83: Bear Grease [Render] Motorcycle Wreck in Vietnam, the Mystery Bengals Fan, and Human Instinct

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

One this episode of the regular crew is joined by Clay's friend Ben Lagrone. They talk about child birth, Clay's new coonskin cap, and the mystery Bengal's fan wearing a Bear Grease hat on national television. Clay goes into detail of the untimely passing of best coonhound, Fern. Which leads Gary "Believer" Newcomb to tell a rogue story of how he rode motorcycles all over Vietnam dressed in disguise and ended up in a motorcycle wreck. The crew has a lively discussion about the final episode in the Secret Agent Man series where they discuss the brilliance of human instinct. Clay ends by clarifying his social media biff with Steve Rinella. It's heartwarming, and you're not going to want to miss it! 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. 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. Newk, your office looks real nice.

It does it really? Yeah, I think it could be because it's so gray and sad outside, but it just feels... It is pleasantly gloomy out. Do you think it's because I just sprayed this old spice wolfthorn in here? I don't know. First time in Misty's life, she's ever walked in my office and went, man, it looks really nice.

Not five minutes ago. Is that the only thing you've done different today? Five minutes ago, I picked this up from where Baranukin Parks his vehicle. it is a can of aerosol, aerosol aluminum-free body spray. Wolfthorne Old Spice. I walked in, put a puff by the air conditioner. Ben's almost down. We almost lost one.

This chair. That chair's got a reputation. Be careful with that chair. We're going to introduce our guest here. I puffed this right by the air conditioner. Misty walks in and is like, man, it looks great in here. Other things that are different. And you've never been more handsome.

Excuse me. Well, I mean, he's got a wolf skin, our Coonskin hat on his head. Wow. Just bring up the elephant in the room right off. The raccoon in the room. So let me let me, well, what's different about the office? Honestly, I think that you have tidied up the podcast equipment on that little tote. It does look more tidy. And I think that having it organized like that as opposed to how it typically is makes it feel cleaner in here.

And I like a clean and orderly environment. I think it's because there's nothing laying right there. All the stuff that's laying is laying at my back. I can't see it. Yeah, right. So it's just a matter of perception. You know, you notice there's a new bear hide in here. See that big old bear hide?

That's a beautiful dark chocolate brown bear out there. Yes, it is, Josh. Good eye. Yeah. Josh has an eye for color. And it's real glossy. Many people would just look at that and say it's black, but you're right. It's deep chocolate.

Yeah, pretty. Deep chocolate. So that's the bear that I killed last year that's on the film, the Newcomb family, the Newcomb family bear camp film. Oh, okay. You know, when bear killed his bear in National Forest and then I killed the bear, that's the bear. I just got it back. It's a beautiful height, probably a six and a half foot bear. Yeah, that's a good size.

Wow. Wait about 300 pounds. So that does bring up a great point about the office. I have been working on my tractor. I have a B-26 cabota tractor that I bought in. 2007, brand spanking new. I believe we put our house up as collateral. I mean, it was like the biggest purchase of my life.

Do you remember it down? Oh, yeah, shoot you out. And I bought it, and it was one of the best decisions that I ever made, because I made a living, driving that thing for, basically, well, I started in 2005, ended that career stint in 2013. So from 07 to 13, really made a living off this little cabot tobacco. I still have it. And it's got 1,200 hours on it.

Those things hold their value, tremendous value. I had a lot of people try to buy it from me, and I won't sell it. But it's like part of the family now. Yeah. But I spent quite a bit of time digging out. So my office is on a, is on a slope. A slightly sloped bridge. I don't know, probably a 10, 15 degree slope.

And I dug out probably 20 feet back into the ridge. And would you say that cut bank back there? probably three and a half, four feet. Yep. So, I mean, moved a lot of dirt. Yeah. And for a Cabota B-22. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's not a big tractor. And I'm, I use the dirt to fill in a bunch of other stuff, but I'm building on a north wing to the global headquarters of Meat Eater South. The global headquarters of Meat Eater South. Yeah. Yeah. That's out.

I haven't got the official clearing from Meat Eater for that title. That's a little heavy dude. You might find yourself working at Walmart. I'm not careful. But I have big plans this winter and spring. I've got a guy going to bring a sawmill in. We're going to cut some long-leaf pine off Dad's Land in Oklahoma. We're going to skid it out with the tractor.

I'm going to bring it back here. We're going to mill up all the frame and lumber for the addition. I've cut some cedars off my place that we're going to use to line the inside. And basically, I'm going to build. a big wing that's going to be for gear and for, primarily for gear, and for Ms. Newcomb to have an office. How about that? That'll be pretty awesome.

Yeah, how about that? She's earned it. After all these years. She's earned it. Yeah. So that's big news. Would you guys agree? I agree.

Okay, so to my left, Josh Lambridge spillmaker. Greetings, everybody. Fantastic to see. When we come back around, we're going to talk about what I'm wearing. Okay. And to. Wow. To Josh.

to Josh's left. Ben's not really a guest. Ben, you've never been on Bear Grease, but you were on Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. Correct, yeah. Yeah, so Ben LaGrone, long time, family friend of ours.

His wife worked for... Yeah, we were talking about. So Ben's wife worked for me for how long, Ben? I think, eight years. She was the copy editor of Bear Honey Magazine. Yeah. and she was like a

tell us what she did and why it's kind of fun now well so my wife is she's never really hunted doesn't know really it's not her thing and but when you hired her she had to read every single article every article that was ever in bear hunting magazine jessica's read and edited and then you'd also send the magazine to her so she would proof the whole thing and just look over every so she would individually read all the articles and edit them yeah and then when i built the magazine, I would send her the finished version of the magazine, which she would read again. Yeah. I promise you, she read way more than I did about bear hunting.

I'm just glad that wasn't my job because that's a lot of time in the bathroom reading magazine. Well, this one time, Clay told her, straight up, Jessica, I think you know more about bear hunting than I do. To this day, any question I ever have about, not just bear hunting, but the species, I asked my wife. I don't ask Clay. Because she can file off all these stories and anecdotes and

this biology. And it's like amazing because she's never hunted. And she you know, she's from Midwest and kind of moved around. A lot of places of Midwest to my standards would be considered Yankee as we'd call it, you know? And which, you know, plenty of people up North Hunt. But it's, to this

day, very funny to me. And it's, I genuinely learn a lot from her. I love it. We got to get her on the podcast at some point. Yeah. And, Hey, Dad, I was going to tell you this outside, but I thought I'd wait to tell you this. Ben and Jessica are Internet sensations. Oh, really? For real.

They actually are. Tell us about your business. That's not why you're here, but. Yeah. So I guess you could say in the baby world, we're a baby. If you're a baby, we're a baby. So years ago, we started an online childbirth class, and it was this dream we had. And then during COVID, it kind of blew up because people couldn't go to hospitals and have traditional childbirth classes.

And Jessica is a certified childbirth educator and a dula, a labor dula. And it just kind of grew from there to this whole brand and business where we build online courses for couples, wanting to learn about childbirth, how to take care of babies. And we got a lot of big dreams and places we're taking in the future. But it's just me and her. We run the whole business on the internet. So it started out as an Instagram thing. We make educational but comedic videos about pretty much every stereotype toward pregnant women.

My Instagram bloggerth is thrown way off because it's like fly to the out hunting. And then. I actually, whenever we started, I had to unfollow our account too. So I was like, this is messing up my world. So tell us what the Instagram name is. Balanced birth couple, balance. birth. Dot,

couple. And that comes from our company name, which is called balanced family. So we're helping couples learn how to balance all

the information they read on the internet. Because you get all the extremes now, and the extremes on the internet thrive, on both sides of the controversy.

We try to teach couples how to be balanced, figure out what's good for them. So that's our business. So they make a living, like he and his wife, full-time living off the internet business.

They've got 100,000-plus people, right? Yeah, 108, on Instagram. Big TikTok following. And then they sell these birth classes. So it's really pretty cool. And being your hunter.

Your lifelong hunter. Yeah. Lifelong hunter, born and bred in Arkansas. I'm actually like a multi-generational Arkansas and I was thinking about it. Because you always say you're like seventh generation. Yeah, yeah. I tried to count up.

Do other states do that? I don't know. It's weird in Arkansas the way people are like, I'm a seventh generation. I'm a ninth generation. And it's like, I never hear that. alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This place is so poor, so desolate. It's true. People need to know the history of Arkansas. They might not know, like, Arkansas came from a bunch of people. Do you remember one of the most, Ben, we're going to get back to you. Yeah, yeah. But on this topic, Mark Kenyon asked me about my mule trailer on his show, Deer Country. Okay.

And he said, Clay, why are you riding around with this old beat-up mule trailer? He said, is it like a family heirloom or is there some, like, sentimental thing? And I said, Mark. My family's been in Arkansas for seven generations, and that is not enough time to pull yourself up from the dregs of poverty. You can tell a lot about a man's expendable income by his meal trailer. Mark Kenyon, silent. Carry on, Ben. I'm very proud of you that you're a multi-generational.

Yeah, yeah. When I started hearing you introduce yourself like that, I wanted to start counting it up. And I was like, I can't really count it up. but I don't know. So I'm multi-generational. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. Hunting my whole life and love to fish.

And my fly fishing mentor is in the room. Oh. Yeah, yeah. The land bridge himself. This past year, Josh has got me on fire for fly fishing. So I love it. Yeah. I don't realize that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I absolutely love it. And it's all thanks to this guy. I know that one of your girls hunts with you. I've seen her in pictures. I got two out of the three hunting with me now. Two out of the three hunting with you. Okay.

Do any of them fish with you? Oh, they love fishing. They love fishing. Ben bought a boat too and kind of he fixed up a boat, sold it by another boat. Okay, I kind of feel lied to

because I didn't get taken fishing a lot, all right? I just going to just throw that out there. That wasn't an experience I had. When I did have it, I was told I had to be quiet. Oh, no.

Not by me. You know what? No, not by, I'm talking about as a kid. I get it. And now I see all these people taking their kids. fishing and I'm like, I know your kids are not quiet.

You think they were just looking for a reason for you to be quiet? To tell me that I had to be quiet. Never. Did people, let me ask you something, Misty, did people tell you that when you were doing pretty much everything else? Shopping, you know. It's true. You got to be quiet when you're shopping. Yeah, yeah, you can't let other shoppers know what you're after. They'll take it from you. We traveled a lot. And there's a fun story where my brothers basically said every time we went out to eat. Not a joke. Misty, you can't, we bet you can't stay quiet.

Oh, no. The whole order or the whole this or the whole that. And so one time my waitress came up and she's like, what are you doing? I had three older brothers who just tormented me. And we, yeah, all in fun and games. But I was the only girl and it was like I was their favorite. One of my brothers told my mom, mom, she's our chew toy. And so this waitress came up and I wouldn't, I was pointing and it was weird.

because I wasn't talking. Right. And finally, my mom said, they said they want to see how long she can stay quiet for and she's trying to prove them wrong because I'm the youngest style,

only girl, this is the sort of thing. And the woman felt really sorry for me because she had all older brothers. So they announced over the big speakers at this restaurant went after 20 minutes that they wanted to congratulate Misty

for being quiet for 20 minutes. They brought me this big huge Sunday. No way. I felt vindicated. My brothers got so mad. I mean, like so upset because my parents Like she does not have to share with y'all.

That's good stuff. Wow. Wow. Yeah. It was a pretty good story. Kind of claim to fame. I could be quiet for 20 minutes. Yeah.

So yes, I was told that a lot. That's what happens. Shut you. And now there's a let Misty talk campaign. Yeah, exactly. Going on across the world. Well, Ben, good to have you. So to Misty's left.

To Ben's left, Misty. That'd be Misty. Yes. She'd be in Shand. To Misty's left. Gary Believer, Newcomb. Good to see, man. Thank you.

Good to be here. We're wearing his signature hat. I get not every day, multiple times per week would not be an exaggeration of people sending me Black Panther stuff. Non-stop. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm seeing a lot of it now, too. Just on the Internet, I mean, a guy go, here, look here, Black Panther.

Grandma saw it walking through the backyard, you know, that type deal. Yeah. And, you know. It's real. And, in fact, I had a guy yesterday say, does Clay still believe that Black Panthers don't exist? Are you serious? Was he serious? It was coy.

He introduced me to a buddy of his from college. He said, hey, here's the believer. Yeah, yeah. So we got to laughing about that. So he actually, he thinks that, like, I'm in the wrong. Well, you know, he's not sure. And I said, well, Clay stays pretty close to the science. And I said, probably what we're seeing is pumice.

You know, some, you know, painted something walking through there. that's probably not a panther, but I still believe in them. I was just trying to describe what you probably believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you're wearing a believer hat, which you usually do for the render. You know, Steve Radella loves that hat. Does he? He wears it all the time.

Really? It feels pretty good on my head. Yeah. Speaking of hats, last night I got a text from, I was coming home from Ohio, which is a foreshadowing of what's to come. which we're not going to talk about at all. He's looking at me. Message receipt.

Let's see how long you can be quiet. I'll be honest. She was already telling me stuff in the house. And then I shut it down. I shut it down. Let's just say, Bear grease fans, you're not going to want to miss the next one. You're not. I mean, like, sincerely, you're not.

Yeah. So my friend, Andrew Wills from Nashville, who has a band called Hawkinghorse, sent me a text message of a screen clip of a television with the Bingle's Chiefs game. And there was a guy with a bear grease hat with his arm out, like saying like first down Bengals. And they zoomed in on him for, you know, he just stood out in the crowd. He was standing up and he had his arm out like this.

And I assumed it was the call. That was correct. It was first down. You know, they just randomly get crowd shots. where they zoom in on the sky for just like two seconds. Right. And he's wearing a bear grease hat. I love it.

And my internet world just like lit up. People were just all over just like, Clay, I was watching the NFL. It was a dude with a bear grease hat. Really? And then everybody chimed in about what he was drinking, which he was drinking. I couldn't even tell what he was drinking.

But apparently it was some kind of beer. And people were going on and on about the beer he was drinking. And then he had a jersey, a Bengals jersey on. And so the people that love the Bengals were like, this guy, it should be president. Barry Grace had in the number nine Bengals jersey? And then another, you know, people were like, great hat. But they ought to, you know, they ought to drive him over with a truck for wearing that jersey.

You know, the place just like erupted. But I thought it was pretty cool that he had a Barry's hat on. It was cool. I saw that. The Bear Greas hat. And every time that I go somewhere, or just any time Bear Greas hat comes up, people tell me that they were in a public,

random place wearing their Bear Greas hat, and people stop them. And have had multiple people tell me that they've made friends in airports, restaurants, because they talk to this guy that has a Bear Greas hat on, and they, like, have stuff in common with them. Oh, interesting.

Yeah, yeah. They're like, Bear Greece, healing America. That's right. One hat at a time. One hat at a time. Pulling America together. You're bringing us all together, man.

Pulling America together, one hat at a time. Healing America. That's what we're going to put underneath bare grease. Hey, let's talk about your hat. Okay, continuing on with headgear. Josh, why don't you describe what I'm wearing from the shoes up? I wish Grant was there. He does have his extra tough.

He does have his extra tough boots on. Yeah. Kind of a milk chocolate brown. And then he's sporting these cordura nylon overalls, Dans briar-proof overalls. These overalls are bad to the bone. They look pretty bad to the bone. Did you know that Dan's, Dan's hunting gear,

is, it's a company out of Ohio, and I watched their video today. We're just Ohio heavy. Yeah, and I bought it in Ohio at a sporting goods store. And I went home and looked up Dan's. Dan's is based in Ohio, and these are handcrafted by the Amish. Really? One human being made this entire thing. Like the zippers, the stitching, the cutting, the buttons was made by one person in Ohio.

Really? The Amish. Amish people. Wow. How do you know it was made by one person? Yeah, that's what they say. They say it's quality control. Like, they have people that just make the whole thing.

So they're able to, you know, when you pass off jobs, like, you do this, you do this, you do this. Like stuff could get missed. But they have real quality control. And I've never owned a thing of dance before. Hey, are those waiter boots that Brent wears that they dance to? Probably. There's a couple of kind of rough hunting, coon hunting. like gear

Dan's is one of them Wix used to be one but I don't think Wix is and then Nightlight makes a brand of Bibb like Briar Bridges chap overalls but these are waterproof

briarproof like super tough I'm a big fan so yeah carry on and then we're down up to the shoulders a shirt he's wearing a button down shirt

the shoulders are the front line of a man's physique mystique Pearl snap shirt But really the crown and glory of this outfit Would be this fine Handcrafted by one person Coonskin hat

Yes And whose Whose hides were Tried by none other than the one and only Fern Nookam The late Fern Nookam Josh made this Coonskin hat for me Josh is the one person

Josh is the one person Yeah, it's beautiful. And it's a one-size-fits-all hat. Did you come up with that design? I did. Did you really? Yeah. So basically, tell us how it is.

It came to me in a laying awake one night. Yeah. But it came to you. Yeah. From outside of you. Yes, it did. Yes, it did.

Yeah, I just wanted a hat that everybody could wear. It wouldn't have to be sized. So it has a liner inside of it. So it's a, it's a, describe it. to me how you made these. So the actual fur part is made from one and a half hide. So you get the lid out of one,

you can get the lid out of the half hide. And then the sides and the tail come out of another hide. They're stitched together. And then the liner and the sweatband inside, it's a satin liner with a leather sweatband band. It's an inside.

And they're all joined together with hand. They're all hand stitched together the liner to the to the hide. and yeah it looks really nice yeah so this one's got a beautiful long tail on it it was a beautiful hot oh it's so it's so warm just noble regal elegant I'm gonna go ahead and say this we're probably so I gave Josh 36 cun huds that tan coon hides and we're gonna probably get like 12 hats out of them I think so probably somewhere in that ballpark okay and at some point

Most likely, maybe. It's possible, but probably will happen, I hope, in the future. Probably. This is good marketing. I'm certain that it's likely that at some point they'll be for sale on the Meteeter.com. Whoa. Oh, yeah. And we're not certain.

Let me just tell you. This is great marketing. You might be for sale. Let me tell you. Just keep your eye on the page. They aren't going to be cheap. They aren't going to be cheap. If you were to buy.

a Coonskin hat that you supplied the Coons to to a custom furrier, you'd pay like 300 bucks for a good Coonskin hat. So it's not like, when Dad saw it, he was like, oh, yeah, man, I'd pay 75 bucks for that. I was like, I bet you would. No, you'd think a Coonskin hat would be cheap, but fur is actually, takes a lot of skill. You know, Josh has like three hours in building this,

and then it costs money to tan the hides. And then, and we're not doing. doing it to make money. Are you counting the hours that it took to actually harvest these kids? No, that's just free labor. I'm giving it back to America. Just part of the mission of Mary's. Sowing into America.

Sowing into America. One hat at a time. I mean, it just keeps coming back to that. We're probably going to be raising some money for some special things through selling these hats. This is like this episode could not be. more vague. Hey, but one question, all these coons came from Fern, right? Absolutely.

Yeah, so all these hides were treeed by Newcomb's Ozark Bluff Creek Fern, RIP, the late Newcomb's Ozark Bluff Creek Fern. So about three weeks ago, you would have seen it on Instagram if you follow me on Instagram, but yeah, Fern died. I wasn't ready to talk about it. We had to render the day afterwards. It was too soon. But now it's been about three or four weeks, three weeks, I think.

Yeah, she was eight years old. Yeah, it was unfortunate. She died a little bit premature. Complications were there lyciosis. We live in Arkansas and in the hub of the Fort Smith area, which is where there's an Air Force base called Fort Chaffee. I've heard this from multiple sources and actually heard it from a vet, a veterinarian. So, I mean, I tell this story for truth that ehrlichiosis is a tick-borne illness that is like Lyme's disease,

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Humans can get it. Any mammal can get it. And eryciosis is endemic to, what's that? A dolphin could get it. If there's tree and coons. Yeah, yeah. Those tree-coon and dolphins, ain't you get it.

Orlikiosis is a tick-borne disease that is endemic to Southeast Asia. And the hub, have you heard this before, Ben? Well, I know where you're going with it now, but. Well, the hub of where they were bringing service dogs back from Vietnam was Fort Chaffee. So they were taking dogs into Vietnam, bringing the dogs back. And basically these dogs brought ticks from Southeast Asia. I think it was dad. Yeah.

Did you do a tick check before you got on an airplane? No, I did not. Hey, well, When you came back from Vietnam, you'd had a motorcycle wreck. I was all bandied up. You look like a war hero. It's kind of crazy.

Why did you tell me about, okay, let me finish this thought, but we got to go back to that. I'll help. Remember. So, erliquiosis. The further you get away from Fort Smith, the less likely that you're influenced by erliquiosis, but there's like a heat spot.

within about 200 miles of Fort Smith that almost every dog this is an exaggeration but close to true like almost every dog in this region is going to have some amount of ehrlichiosis and two years ago Fern almost died before we figured out what was wrong with her

and we got her on antibiotics and treated her and the older she got she would go through spells of when this ehrlichiosis would flare up and you can't really cure it You carry it your whole life. But when it flares up, you get on doxycycline and steroids and different things. And basically, I was gone for eight days.

And when I came back, she was just down. And, you know, you just almost wouldn't have noticed it unless you just were really paying attention. And it took me a day or two to realize, yeah, she doesn't look good. And basically, it was just too late. And we got her on doxycycline and got her on. everything and basically I couldn't bring her back from it well she she kind of I mean she was aging yeah she was not the same she was eight years old she was not the same for she was two years before when she had a bad flare-up of it so she I think I think there's a

little bit of you know the stages of grief part of the denial and the bargaining and all that I think there's a little denial about her baseline was pretty pretty poor the last couple years. I mean, I think. But she hunted up until, I mean, hunted good up until last winter. Yeah. Even this summer. I hunted her this summer.

Yeah, I'm not saying she couldn't hunt. I'm just saying I think that Clay feels like if he had been here, he could have fixed this. I'm not sure he could have. Right. I'm not sure. I'm going to write a song about this. It'd be a heartbreaker. If I'd have been there.

Man, there's an old country song about feed Jake. Yeah. But that was the owner died. The owner died. Yeah, a little bit different. Yeah. No, it really was sad for me. Fern was the best coon dog I've ever owned.

And she came around, it was almost by accident that I got her. She was such a good dog for me. For me, she was. And so it was hard to lose her. It was. It was. But I'm hunting a new young dog and we're already gathering up some coons. Does she treat some?

Yeah, yes and no. not really all by herself, but I've been hunting her, and we've been bringing Coons home in the back of the truck. Let me just say it that way. What's her name? Hoot? Hoot? That's good.

It's Fern's niece. Yeah. So Fern's brother is the sire of Hoot. I'll see if I can find the video. She got her name because we put a video up of her on Instagram. She had the funniest, she's the bark andest dog we've ever had. And when she was a newborn, we brought her inside, and she would, she would get going and then she would kind of howl like a bardow she would sound the way she would

it was it was real funny we so yeah we got a lot of hope hope for hoot 23 that's uh that's the campaign hashtag hope for hoot yeah yeah if you if you if you if you want to tag us me on that on instagram go for it hope for hoot 23 it's all we got man uh we've still got jed which the world bearhut magazine people would know jed jed jed was the dog that i used to make video videos of that would jump up on my desk and everything. Man, I tell you what, you learn a lot about a dog. And I think you learn, I mean, maybe you could learn this about people. If you turn Fern and Jed loose and they went and treat a coon, you would think Jed was the top-notch coon dog.

Because he's going to strike with Fern, he's going to run with Fern, he's going to be there every breath, he's going to tree. You're just saying, man, I got two fine coon dogs until one of one. of them until fern's gone and jed he can't triacoon for the life of himself he really can't he tries hard too man it's almost like he's confused like he burns out of there and he's like here we go winter 22 let's go coon season yeah and then he goes out there and like he runs back tracks and he can't there's all kind of things going on in coon hunting that that a dog has to be able to do. They got to know which way to run the track. They got to be able to be able to locate the tree. And Jed, he just can't do it, man. My favorite part about hunting with Jed, though, that's great,

is that he likes to show off. He's real athletic. And he likes to, he likes to, he likes to climber and a runner. And he likes to leap. He likes to, like, get on a hillside and try to leap towards the tree. And it's kind of a beautiful thing to watch. Like, you're out there in the evening and you've just got a coon light out there. And you see that silhouette of that dog. dog jumping from the side of the hill. I've got pictures of Jed no less than like 12 feet up of like almost straight oak tree. Really? He'll just run and hit that tree and just strangle up there.

He doesn't have a great nose, but he's got a lot of enthusiasm. What they do when they get up there is they just kind of push off the tree and then just come down and land. And it's actually dangerous. He's a climber. So lots of dogs get killed. Lots of dogs get killed by being climbers because they, if you have a slanted, tree that a coon's in, they'll catwalk and get way up in the top of a tree. Brent was actually on a hunt where a dog died that had climbed a tree.

So Jed's only fallen out of the tree a couple times. Might be why you can't tree a coon now. 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. 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 contest 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 Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises

and getting action. Dad, Vietnam, when you came home, you had a motorcycle ride. What happened? Well, you know, I can make this story real short or I can make it real long. Make it as long as you want. Okay.

Well, we had a buddy when we were in the States that wanted to be a war hero. He had a buddy killed in Vietnam and he tried and tried to get in something where he could fight. He really wanted to be a helicopter pilot, want to be a warrant officer. And he couldn't get through. I mean, he had a degree from University of Missouri, one of the smartest guys you've ever met, great personality. And so once they put him into post office with me, he kind of devoted his whole career to just monkey with people, you know. It was real fun to be with him. And he was, was smarter than most of the officers.

So, I mean, he could do cool stuff to us. Well, anyway, after he got out of a French dungeon when we were in Germany, my other buddy, we're already in Vietnam. French dungeon. Well, he got picked up for doing some stuff. It wasn't too good. And so anyway, his dad was an attorney. He came over.

Oh, so he straight up got arrested. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's pretty serious stuff. Okay. I mean, to us is GIs, it was, you know, it wasn't bad, but to the world it was. Yeah. So anyway, we get to Vietnam and we'd get him shipped over to us. Yeah. So we're all at this post office.

So we got a one-man post office up in way, the Tet of 68, where all the fighting was going on. And this was in 69. And so we told ourselves, if you'll get this guy in here, we'll have him behave as long as you're here. once you leave, you know, two or three weeks or a month, we'll turn him loose. Okay, so the boss man was going to be there for three more weeks. Something like that. And you requested a favor. Yeah, he was kind of our buddy.

He was a captain. You said, hey, get this guy here. If you get him here, we promise you he'll behave until you leave. And so once he leaves, Quint takes over, man. I mean, this guy, I'll tell you his name. I'd love for it. We've tried to contact him. We think he's probably dead.

he was so crazy. So he gets in the post office in way. One man post office. I mean, this is going to be a zoo. We're a big post office and food by it. I mean, we just can't wait to see what he's going to be up to. After about six months, three months maybe, he's got an apartment downtown, which you can't even get off the compound.

I mean, you get there in a vehicle. You stay there. You don't even get off the base. Well, he's got a, apartment downtown. When you go into his hooch, he's got stuff from the commissary. He's fixed to open a restaurant. This is an American GI in Vietnam.

He's got a business in way. Well, he hadn't opened it, but he's got the merchandise there. He's getting, he's planning where he's going to do it. Now he's going to pull it off and he's going to get to run it. But he does have the apartment. And I spent the night with him one night. I mean, you could hear gunfire in the street. So anyway, he buys a Honda 90 and a Honda 50.

I mean, this guy's in Vietnam. And, of course, we're in Vietnam, and we're so bored that we just had to create stuff, you know, to get us through. Well, here, Quince got this apartment and two motorcycles. This is off of the base, and, you know, you're not even supposed to leave the base. Yeah. He had stuff we would dress up in. He called it Korean outfits. We'd put on Korean hats, and we would walk off the base, even though we were bigger than Koreans,

and we could get off the base, and he had little ways, and he could get us back to this shop where he had these motorcycles. And then we'd go ride these motorcycles all day and come spend the night in his apartment. And so, anyway, we're just out. and he took us out into the Aishaw Valley. We'd go to restaurants. We thought we were going to a restaurant one time, and it was actually a family reunion.

And so, I mean, that was pretty comical. And so. Now, I remember this. I've heard these stories about all life. They go to this place that they think is a restaurant. There's all these people eating and all this food set out, and they, like, walk in. And y'all, like, start eating, right?

Well, I mean, they brought us food. They brought you food. Yeah. And then you, like, were like hoping to pay for it, and they're like. And this older guy was what they called an opium freak. And Quint, well, he could relate to him, you know. Quint can talk enough. And finally, Quint looks over to us and goes, hey, this is a family reunion.

And they're glad we're here. So they brought us little things to drink and some little rice and stuff. And then we leave. And we'd just come out of the Aeshaal Valley. If you know what, the Aeshael Valley is all this ageing onwards. That's where all the fighting, I mean, they were in the Aeshael Valley, those Viet Cong. And we go, Quint, you know, are you sure we can ride these motorcycles? In the Ayeshael Valley?

And he goes, oh, yeah, man. He said, we'll just hit the edge of it and come around to this restaurant. And, you know, we run into infantry guys in the back of a deuce and a half, and we pull up behind them. and you know they're all sitting there like this and they look back and they just loved it they just went berserk when they saw that when they saw that we were on four guys on motor on two motorcycles and they they were like hey those are our guys of you on two motorcycles yeah four of us on two motorcycles a honda 90 and 150 so i mean we're driving through inches we're seeing big buddhas about the size of your house back in the jungles i mean wow it is a treat for a guy locked up

in Vietnam. I mean, it's just like the most freedom I'd ever felt. So we'd play little games, we'd race and we'd chase and, and, uh, so Quint would drive one. I'd drive the other one. And then we had buddies on the back. And so my buddy, he, uh, you know, I just thought I'd slap him with a limb, you know, just be driving down the road and hit a tree like this. Kind of lean out from, yeah, yeah, I'd lean back and I was going to slap him with a tree limb. Yeah. Well, there's Constitina wire. it and it took our motorcycle and it just skipped us down the highway and my arm was all messed up.

So like barbed wire. Constitina wire. Like the stuff they would use to keep people out. Wow. So it just like skid skided you all down the road. Yeah. Yeah. And this must have been right before you went home.

It was. And so I had to go. How did you explain that? Yeah. At the infirmary. I don't remember that part, but I know when I went home, I was bandaged from here. down and I've got a picture of me coming off the plane with my arm bandaged. So we had, we, you know, Vietnam was, was not good, but we, we made the best of it.

Yeah. Your buddy could have been an undercover CIA or something doing some high level operations in the city. Oh, yeah. I mean, he had to be able to do anything, really. Well, and I mean, back circle and full circle here, folks, like, We don't know if Dad did a tick check or not when he came back. So he may have brought the ticks back from East Asia. Ehrlichiosis, Spurn, Coon-Cunskin hat.

Here we are back again in the render. Bear Greene's podcast. That was a great summary. Taking you on a journey tonight. Yeah, it was a long way to get there. But here we are at Bear Green, the Bear Green surrender. And kudos to Ben for bringing it back to the actual topic of the render. Yes.

I was actually dead serious. like what if he really was an undercover guy doing some high-level stuff? I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. We knew he wouldn't. That's what they all said about RT, too. Okay, so this third secret agent man podcast, let me say that when I went to Ohio to meet with RT Stewart, you never know what you're going to get into. That's why it's so wild about what I'm doing is I envision this being one podcast.

you just don't know how someone's going to respond to, or just if they're going to give you a lot or give you a little or just how it's going to go. And when I was with RT, I spent three and a half hours with him, just talking nonstop. And I knew I was like, this is really good. There's a lot of story here. And so, you know, we were able to make three full podcasts.

So just to review, if you've not heard them, the first one was called Secret Agent Man, RT, which was a big high-level overview of RT's life as an undercover agent, kind of what they did, how they did it. And it ended in a climactic moment of me asking RT, was it worth it? Like all that you had to do, RT talked about the difficulties he had with family. And he said no. And that was like a really unique podcast.

The second podcast was about, it was called Secret Age Man. Operation Redbud, part two. And that was about the biggest sting that they ever did, which was the largest turkey, turkey, poaching sting in the U.S. at the time. The third one was called Secret Agent Man, Instinct. And it was really, really what happened from a functional level is that I had built these two podcasts,

but I still had multiple disconnected, really fun stories from RT that I couldn't fit in the other ones. But I really wanted to tell those parts of the story. And then I'd also interviewed Dr. Matthew Sharps, which I need to make a correction. I said he was from... Fresno? I stated the wrong university that he was from.

He's from California. I believe he's from California State. Somebody look up where Dr. Matthew Sharps is a professor of it. I need to make a correction there. But he gave, basically what I was trying to do in the stories that were told about RT was that he just had an uncanny ability to get out of situations. And then I started asking Dr. Matthew Sharps about that, about how humans respond under stress.

And when we go on autopilot, what happens? And he starts talking about scripts, script violations, and how there's a whole lot of stuff that's built inside of us at a DNA level that we feel like is unconscious and unplanned, but it's actually like really deep inside of us. And he gave some really unique examples that didn't directly relate to RT, but showed us that we are flowing at a whole level of action, sometimes that we don't even connect to conscious thought. for instance, like him saying that humans have an innate built into them in their DNA desire to be near cover at dark.

Yeah. Does y'all think that was interesting? That was fascinating. I thought the part about like even paintings, like we have like preferential. Yeah. Taste inside of paintings that we want people to. Yeah, I thought that was that was super fascinating. Yeah. I mean, that's at a DNA level. But if you think about it, envision yourself with your family out in a big giant field, and it starts to get dark.

Like, you, I mean, I guess you could rationalize staying in the middle of the field. But like, you're like, I don't know. I'd want to be near the cover. We didn't get some cover. Oh, and where you could climb to safety. Yeah. And that's what he said. He said because we used to have to watch out for big cats.

I mean, some people in Arkansas and Alabama still do. Black Panthers. Exactly. It's probably a little stronger in us that sixth sense. Cal State. Cal State and Fresno is where Dr. Matthew Sharp's. He was a neat guy. He was a fun guy.

I think that's what you said, wouldn't it? Well, I said it on the first one, the second one I said a different one. And somebody called me out on it. I was really fascinated by a human's ability to three times. your ability to memorize tracks. Yeah. In his test sample were like urban students, which was amazing. Yeah, yeah.

That's good research. I'm glad there's guys research and stuff like that. Yeah. What I thought when I heard that was like, that's really cool. Yeah, yeah. It just makes you wonder how much we really are flowing. Did it make sense when I did the spot on Supernatural? Did that make sense in why I was saying that?

It does to me. Everybody's quiet. I was going to say the same thing. It does to me. I mean, it does to me because I think that that's, I can, you know, I think from our worldview, there's, and that's what I was thinking as I was listening to this, you know, I definitely, we have space inside of our worldview for a spiritual, a spiritual component of our life. And, you know, like I think, I don't know, like, doctrinally if that's the right word to use,

but like we believe there's a spirit, soul, and body and that these are three aspects of a human being. And we do things to intentionally make, you know, make our spirit alive and active and a dynamic part. So I feel like when I was listening to that, I was thinking there's for sure things that have happened that are in the supernatural realm that I've experienced personally. And I would have a hard time separating those things

from what they described as like these DNA encoded, Well, that was kind of my point was that there are mechanisms that describe things that maybe someone would have attributed as a six cents or something supernatural. And then you could go, well, it turns out it wasn't supernatural. It turns out this is a result of, you know, just humans being on the landscape for how long. And all I was saying was I absolutely believe that. but I was saying the mechanism of how this stuff happens does not negate for me another thing that I'm not talking about which and I was just like I absolutely believe in the ability for someone to get information that absolutely doesn't come from here and doesn't come from our DNA but comes from a divine source that's all I was saying because I guess that the next train of thought was like oh shoot there's no such thing as instinct instinct is just built into our our DNA. We're actually tapping into some unseen database of intel that's making us move. The way that always summarize this kind of struggle you're talking about between like science and

spirituality is that they're not mutually exclusive. They answer different questions. Like science addresses the how and the spirituality addresses the why. So when I hear stuff about that and you know, we can trace this anthropologically to blah, blah, blah, I'm like, Well, to me, that just answers the how. But it could still be some divine source. That's one thing I love about Bear Grease is that to me, when you try to whittle everything down to this super scientific rationale, it actually kind of simplifies it. Yeah. Because there were scientific traceable evidence and conclusions that were being brought up in that episode.

But to me, that doesn't negate how amazing it is. It's like, look at this ability, these social abilities that we have because of our large brains, because of however long we've been here, whatever, it's pretty incredible. And to see that go from this ancient context and how this guy, you know, in this context of undercover. Yeah. To me, it just, I like the whole series because it just showed me just how unexplainable our minds are, and unexplainable people are. To me, it's just a really cool series. What about when he, go ahead, Misty. What were you going to say?

Let Misty talk, 23. I was just going to say, I think one of the things, you know, he talked about these fire, flight instincts, kind of brought that on. And this guy was putting himself in an incredibly dangerous situation. And one of the things that I think about a lot is that just how people, over time, that spiritual component, that six sense, whatever you call it, has become numb.

Or more so than it was 100 years ago. And part of that is because of philosophies of thought that have shifted and that say, well, that's actually not even, you know, if it's not measurable, visible, these are things, if it's intangible, we don't, yeah, all those things. It doesn't exist. So it's part of that. Part of it is that society has shifted in most parts, in a lot of parts of the world to where we're not in such a survival state. And one of the things that I think is interesting and interesting question to ask is have those things numbed us to the point. and numbed our kids and the kids that are growing up now to the point that they are going to have to... You have to make space for that aspect of your life to come alive.

And this guy basically created that space by putting himself... Into like a wild situation. Yeah, in a wild situation. If the structures of life were tore down around us, we'd all get real spiritual real quick. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I watched my bees last week. We had like 70-degree weather all week long.

and the way they acted the night that it was going to drop to 20 from like have that 50 degree which is a big deal was interesting to me just like watching them they were out and alive but they were kind of crazy they were bees can be peaceful or they can be agitated and they were agitated and I you know you hear all these stories about the birds before that big tsunami that the birds kind of and all the animals

retreated from the coast it's almost like they knew so there was some definite biology theological things. But I think I have like real specific examples, even of, of you, of like being concerned for you or not concerned, where I did feel like it was a spiritual thing. Yeah. And, and, but I also feel like, I don't know, you make yourself more open to that realmer. Yeah.

Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Well, it was, it, it, it was interesting. I also thought it was interesting when he said. that humans can oh yeah they can pick out a serial killer just by looking in their eyes now he said they didn't know they were serial killers but if you gave an eye gate image of right 10 people you

would be like that guy and that guy i don't trust and then you know some percentage of the time a high percentage of the time they're like well okay those two guys are serial killers What I tried to describe, which was kind of hard to do, but think about an actual image of someone's eyes. Like envision just like a cropped photo where all you could see was eyebrows over and maybe under the eyes like two inches across the bridge of the nose. What would be different about that between people? What does a serial killer have? It's, it's, I mean, literally, like, you could draw it out and you could say, well, his eyes were slightly closed more. His pupils were bigger.

Gary Neucom's always looking up pupils. He is. I walk into Dad's house and he hadn't seen me in a month. You've been smoking marijuana. He does. I walked into his house the other day after being hunting and he hadn't seen me in a while. And I can always tell when Dad hasn't seen me while, he just stares at me for a long time. And he said, you look like you're on drugs.

And I was like, actually, your mother brought that up. You really didn't. But I do notice certain people. In fact, I know it's not always true because I've seen it in two or three people that I know aren't on drugs, but their pupils are about this big. Right, right. Hey, let me say something about what you're talking about, all the spiritual stuff and six senses and things. You know, I really liked this guy, your Ph.D. guy. I mean, and I think what he's saying, there's a lot of truth to it.

But there's another side of that thing that the boy missed. And that is that when I raised you guys, Judy and I did, we would not allow y'all to fight and argue. And it took something away from you where when you got out in society, you weren't as equipped as other kids to verbally defend yourself, even though I never saw it. But I just know there's a reason it's so. consistent within kids to scuffle and argue and learn how to be a defense attorney. I mean, they really do, I think. And so he was raised up with two or three older brothers. So his whole life, he, RT, RT is, he is, he is spending a great amount of time trying to

survive. He's learning how probably, now, not necessarily with you guys. But a lot of kids, you know, if you're brought up in the ghettos, you learn how to lie to the police, you learn how to tell stories, you learn how to get out of stuff. You know, he was he was learning how to think real quick on his feet. Mom, I didn't do that. You know, I mean, he learned this stuff as he was growing up. So he was very well equipped to handle things quick. Yeah.

Or his brothers were going to beat him up. Yeah, because his brothers were fighters. And would you believe it or not, there's a lot to that. He trained his whole life for this. Just, you know, he was a fighter. He was an arresting guy, you know. He's in the law enforcement. I mean, yeah, I mean, he's, so I mean, he's, if you're going to survive as a little kid and you got older brother, you know what it was like.

Yeah. Yeah. I, there's, I think that that's a pretty good, a pretty good point that you're, and it wasn't like this guy was living a real protected life. I mean, the stories that he told about his life, the coal mines and all that. Yeah. And when they asked him how many fights he got in, and he's like, oh, not many. Was that on this episode? Yeah, that was on this episode.

Oh, that was one of my favorite stories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Only 40. So, you know, 40 fights, how many times did he have to defend himself in front of a parent or police officer or a school teacher or, you know, his girlfriend? Somebody. Right, right.

He had to explain himself. I mean, he had to go, wait a minute, now, wait a minute. You know, he had to be quick on his feet. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I think what I hear you saying is that before you try to jump to all the. these big biological conclusions, maybe look at a guy's immediate family and you can probably get a lot of, yeah.

I definitely saw that a lot when I used to teach in public school and it was kind of sad, but you could watch a family, you could watch boys and girls growing up and be like, man, I don't want them to end up in prison, but man, it's going to take a lot of invention, but for these behaviors to stop. And so those patterns are pretty traceable. There's a movie that Opie Taylor was in The Courtship of Eddie's Father Did y'all see that?

My mom liked all these old movies And in it he was trying to explain to his dad What Made a Good Woman, the type of what he was His dad was a widower And Richie Cunningham Ron Howard? Ron Howard, yeah But Opie's a little boy

And he describes like squinty eyes Are the kind of woman you don't want He described some other characteristics as well. But the kind women were the ones with a round eyes. And it's real funny. You should find that clip and play it because it's actually... He's right, didn't he? It's really funny.

You have round eyes. Oh, okay. Not a bad girl? Not really, actually. Hey, what about the movie? I'm real bad at remembering the name of movies, but this older, smart mafia guy was giving this young kid some advice. He said, when you date this girl tonight,

Let me tell you what. You take her to your car and you open the door and you get her in, you close the door. Then you go to your side and make sure the door is locked on your side. When you come to the door, pull out your key to unlock. If she doesn't unlock that door, just take her home. You know, and so anyway, that's... What was he saying? Well, he was just saying if that girl has not got enough smarts to look over and see the door's locked,

care enough about you to reach over and unlock it. Take her home. And, of course, it made a lot of sense when you watch the movie. So there's little things that you can watch for. Girls that wear rubber boots are always really good wives. Cashmere sweaters and fancy pants and shirts and rubber boots. Yeah, I like that. So there were multiple stories.

I think one of the best stories, was when he was buying walleye from a guy near Lake Erie. So Ohio, I'm now like an Ohio expert. Wow. I find I really connect with these guys from Ohio. Ohio's a pretty rough place. You know, there's the Appalachian Trail to Ohio. What do they call that?

They call that highway that runs from... I don't think it goes through Ohio. No, it does. It lands in Ohio. It's where people migrated away when they were trying to get work outside the coal mines and they landed in Ohio. What do they call it? We're out of our lane here.

Okay. He was buying illegally caught perch. There was a big thing going on where guys were catching perch and selling it illegally. Have you ever eaten yellow perch? No. Have you ever eaten walleye? Yeah, yeah, walleye. Those are two of the best eaten fish.

Yellow perch is, too. Oh, man. Our friend Troy Booth made us perch. made us fish tacos out of perch one day. Really? It was delicious. Yeah, I kind of was wondering, like around here, a perch is not like a great, you know,

people eat them, we eat them, I mean, whatever, but it's not, you wouldn't die for a perch out of the pond over here, or brim, as we call them. A perch is something different, I think. Oh, it is. It is totally different. Yeah, it was delicious. But buying perch, buying these yellow perch,

and the guy, they're at a party. And you hear a bigger story, told a real condensed version. They're at a big party. And these guys are like pretty wealthy. And but they're selling a ton of perch illegally. And RT's buying it. And he's a known buyer.

He's been buying it, buying it, buying it, buying it, just racking up tickets for him. He would weigh every, when they would sell him fish, he would go, you know, they would say like, here's two pounds of fish. And RT would be like, are you sure? And he'd get his scale out and weigh it and document it. the ride it down right in front of them yeah yeah and be like okay that's actually 2.7 pounds thank you for the extra you know whatever but the guy says how do i know you're not a you're not a game warden

and uh and then r t jumps up yells at the guy and says i think you're the bleeping game warden he says i tell you what take off all your clothes and r t starts taking his clothes off drops his pants down to his ankles pulls his shirt shirt off, throws his shirt on the ground, standing there with his pants as his ankles, shirt off at a party, yelling at this guy, demanding that he take his clothes off so he can see if he's carrying a wire. And the guy that thinks RT as a game warden is just like, chill out, man. And then RT's wearing a cowboy hat, and he's wearing the wire under his cowboy hat.

I love it. I mean, I thought it was so cool that Sharps, he told me what that was. It was a script violation. Yeah, there you go. That was really interesting to me, because I've actually seen that. We've all seen that take place in our lives. That's where these little kids learn this stuff. The really sharp kids, you know, mama jumps among them for something.

They go, well, Susie just shot the game warden, you know. And so, you know, then what? So this girl's free. Script violation. Yeah, script violation. You like how I encourage people to try it? Yes. Yes.

I was waiting for the right moment. But I said it. Sometimes people ask you for stuff that you can't give them. And so you got to find a way out. You know, I think the thing about kids, Mike, in our family, we knew if we could make her mom laugh. So you would be getting in huge trouble. But if you could make, because she's got a weak spot.

If you make that woman laugh You could get out of anything And your brothers are all funny Well that's why they're fun My brothers are all funny I'm hilarious I'm assuming I'm assuming that you never did anything wrong

I didn't do anything Get out of 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 bed and there was a full of blood.

Oh my God, he doesn't have a head. 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 two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. The other one was, so the script violation, I thought that was really good. The other one was he's sitting around a card table, and there's been a bald eagle that's been killed. Yeah, that was something.

That was something. The poachers go, are setting him, he doesn't know it, but they say, we know who killed that bald eagle. And RT never lifted his eyes off his cards. Yeah, he's player playing poker. And he just never paid him. any mind to it. And then, you know, two weeks later, the guys go, man, we thought you were a game warden. That's why we said that eagle thing.

They laugh. I mean, crazy. That is pretty crazy. That's pretty good. To me, that was the, to me, that story was the, told the most about his complexity. Like, for a person to have all that confidence and fearlessness, yet the self-control in that moment, that to me was really interesting. Like the script violation, like comedians do that stuff all the time to be funny.

You know, I used to have a friend in college. And if you're parked in front of those concrete barriers, he had a big O.G. He'd always, instead of, you think you're about to back up, he'd drive over it. You know, it's just hilarious. It was always doing something weird like that. But in that moment, I want to know what went through his brain in those milliseconds to know that would have put him in danger. I want to know that too. That's what I, when I was listening to this one, just listening to him talk,

I thought, you know, R.D's a fun guy, like, did a big service, but he got a rough. I mean, he, some of the, when he was talking about his stories, I thought I, I could have gone to high school with this guy. I mean, like, I know people like him who were just smart, but, but pretty rough. And that really uniquely equipped him for, for this. And I couldn't help but think how much of this was just, like, you just kind of learn to shut your mouth and not say, like, maybe he wasn't being strategic in that moment. But maybe he was, and looking back, he's like, oh, that was really strategic.

Not to discount what he did, but just like, maybe you just kind of know how to handle yourself around rough people. Well, and he even said, you said, and you were a master at that. And he said, well, I didn't know it at the time, but looking back, I was pretty good at it. Isn't that the way that people do things, though, is that they, yeah, he wouldn't have thought I was good at this? Yeah. Like, he just was doing what he knew how to do.

and then, you know, 30 years later, when you kind of examine what he did, you're like, yeah, that's, that's pretty good. I mean, that's kind of the way a lot of stuff works. I mean, that's the way guys in wars often, they come back from a war. There's like, dude, we were just doing what we were supposed to do, and it was terrible. But then, you know, you dive into what they did, and it's like, that was pretty heroic. That was pretty unusual action. You're like, well, maybe it was. Yeah, yeah.

He wasn't too. to him, it was just normal life. When he stripped down, that was the danger right there. I mean, somebody could have said, okay,

let's look at your hat now. You know, I mean, he could have been, his goose cooked, so he was gambling, and he knew from probably childhood experiences

that you get naked and from much folks, you can get away with a hat on it. That's why you wear that believer hat. Yeah. I mean, I don't know,

but that, you know, I would not have ever, had the savvy to do that. I mean, that takes a war type, hero type guy to say, man, I'm going to layer on the line right now, brothers. He didn't have a choice, though, you know? Yeah.

I mean, that's the thing that we're not putting ourselves in is these high stakes moments. And that's what is so unusual. What was the other one? So it was the walleye, it was the eagle story, and then Chip Gross told the third. They call them R.T. Real turkey. Yeah, real turkey. In the 40 fights.

I mean, that was just crazy. Well, yeah, the real turkey. Now, I think the real turkey was just wit. Yeah. Like, I don't think R.T. ever thought, if I'm ever called out by a turkey. No, yeah, he just pulled that out of the attack. He's a smart guy. I mean, that's what it pulled down to.

That's why they call me real turkey, RT, you know. With burst of adrenaline going towards his brain. You know, like your fight-or-flight response is to shoot. adrenaline to whatever is needed at that time. You know, you mentioned the cortex a couple of weeks ago, and then this guy brings it up again. So if you get too much blood flowing through your cortex, it doesn't work properly, or what was he saying? No, I think what he was saying was in a fighter flight moment, your body, your physical body requires more blood energy to potentially fight or run. and so it takes blood away from your brain.

I got you. So you actually aren't consciously thinking, but you go on autopilot. I got you. So there's less fuel in your brain, and so your brain is just running off instinct, whatever you want to call it. That's what I understood.

Is that what you all understood? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're all doctors, so we know.

Mm-hmm. Well, it was a fun series. I think people really liked it. Did he retire from DNR? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he did. Hey, what about, this was just one of the things of this episode that really surprised me, that the news, the Ohio State News, ran a story on undercover wildlife agents while he was undercover.

Okay, Ms. Newcomb, we actually covered that in the first episode and this one. Okay, well, I'm just saying, in the render, we talked about it? Were you able to listen? Do we talk about that in the render? No, so, okay. in the first episode cut that out where Clay was real mean to me in the first episode

no Chip Gross told his story Chip Gross the guy who wrote RT's book in first person Got it got it He was a game warden in Ohio But he also wrote for Ohio DNR's like

Magazine that they sent to all their constituents They had just started This undercover unit in The Wildlife Agency And it was public knowledge it wasn't like super top secret that like hey we're doing this thing now and he went to the supervisor and asked if he could write an article about the undercover agents and the guy said sure and so he writes an article and target number two target number two we all know target number two carries the the magazine article back to RT and says look at this these these guys are living with these folks.

And RT's like, golly, I can't believe it. And RT was very angry at Chip Gross. For writing the article. Yeah. I can appreciate that. That's the way I felt when I. Yeah, I can appreciate that for sure. And you heard them banter them back and forth.

So in the interview, Chip Gross was there with me. And Chip is funny, man. Chip is like, I don't know how old Chip is. Chip is, maybe Chip's 70. I mean, he's a really fit guy. a really smart, sharp, like, fun guy. Like Gary.

And I'm sure Chip is going to be listening to this podcast. So Chip, hat tip to Chip Gross. And if you're only 62, sorry. Yeah, sorry about that, Chip, if you're not 70.

No, Chip's a lot of fun. And he's a great writer. And he wrote the book, Poachers Were My Pray, which you can find on Amazon. How did the book do is what I was curious about? Do you know?

Yeah, it did well for, a book that, I mean, it wasn't like a New York Times bestseller, but it was just kind of a regional book published by a state university. And so I don't know the numbers, but I think the book, the book did well. And I know he's got a lot of sales on it since, since this podcast came out. Most of. But, so Chip was there, and he and RT were going back and forth about, you know, RT was like, I couldn't believe you did that.

And Chip was, he was like, sorry, man. How big is RT? I'm in the kind of wondering if I'm a big an old boy, is he? How big old boy is he? Artie Mercer. He's, he, he's got to be over six foot, you know. I mean, he's, you think I could take him? Oh, yeah.

R.T. How many fights have been in? Gary, believe he'd nuke him? One. And I didn't start at this guy, jumped on me. I didn't have any choice. No, he's pretty good. He's probably 6-1, 6-2, and, you know, he's probably not in fighting shape these days,

but I wouldn't want to fight him. I mean, if I fought RT, I mean, he'd know he'd been in a fight. He'd know he'd been in a fight. Good. I'm going to start saying that to Clay. You can engage in this argument. You might even win. You'll know he's been in the fight.

That was good That was good Well, I can't wait I can't wait for the next episode It's gonna be good No foreshadowing No None

Zero Wow Takes a lot of personal discipline on you Doesn't it? Yeah, it does But when I wear this coon skin cap I feel like the king You're an oak

I feel like a mighty oak tree The giant Borkoon Nestled in his branches underneath an Ozark moon swaying in the wind. Great to have to have everyone. It looks like a beautiful 80s hairstyle. Oh, one more thing.

Okay. Pretty sure December 14th, almost certain. Probably, it might be, I know for sure. Potentially. Potentially, Meteor season 11, my episode with the moose. Oh, already.

We'll be out December 14th. Oh, good. So, listen, let me explain the Meteor We might need to have a watch party for that. And maybe we should eat the moose. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. It's a good episode.

I've seen it. I've named the moose, Steve. For everyone that doesn't understand this, meaty to the television show, my friend, Steve Ronella's show, was on sportsman's channel for a long time, and then the last four years it's been on Netflix. And that's where the world was able to watch meat eater, which is really cool.

This year, season 11 is only on it only streams from the meat eater.com so it's not on Netflix but it's the same quality I mean it's like meat eater and you just don't have to pay a subscription you know what all you have to do you got to put your email in literally you go to the website you you click up on videos or shows media your season 11 and then it asks you for an email you put that email in I mean heck you use my email just put in clay dot I'm just kidding I did that today, and if I can do it, anybody. You got on there?

Yeah. Okay. Good deal. I had a neighbor text me and say I saw Clay a squirrel hunting. You know, he told a little bit about squirrel hunting. I said, well, I'll try to find that. Yeah. I think it's the one that you did years ago, a couple years ago.

That one's on Netflix, though. Netflix, yeah. See, he probably saw on Netflix. So the last four seasons they're still on Netflix. Yeah, those will remain on Netflix. So you'll still be able to watch media on Netflix. but the season 11 is only on the Meteor.com and they've been releasing episodes one per week since about like October 26.

And so I think there's eight episodes in season 11. I need to get caught up. I've only watched like first three. I was on another one too. I killed that buck right there. That's a buck I killed in Nebraska on Jordan Budge farm. Which one over here? The skull.

Oh. The skull right there. Beautiful. Yep. It's a good looking dude. A neat hunt in Nebraska. so that moose hunt was really it's incredible man

like I'm I'm a moose hunter did the show turn out well I think it did Steve I think Steve thought it did one hunt I'm a moose eater let me just say that I'm a big fan hey I saw your deer hunt where Rinella was with Jordan and you were by yourself

yeah that's the deer that's that buck yeah Nebraska I mean that was pretty cool because you were by yourself. Yeah. I interpret that correctly? Well, I mean, I was by myself. I mean, she probably told you where to go and what to do, but. Well, you were out there hunting on your own.

Yeah, I mean, it really wasn't even that great. What was it fully understood in the episode was that Steve was hunting over on this cornfield, and I was like a mile away from him, but I could see him. It's so flat out there. So I'm watching them, like about a mile away. I'm here. They see a buck come running by just out of range, but kind of in their quadrant, that buck, that morning, and it runs into the corn. Well, we meet up for lunch, and they're like, yep, we saw a buck. And I saw the buck too, but it was like three quarters of a mile away from me.

And they go, yeah, it was a good buck. It ran into the corn. And Steve wanted to go kind of still hunting that evening. He wanted to kind of stalk through the river bottoms. And I said, well, dude, if you're not going to sit in that spot, I said, I'll sit in that spot because that buck went in that corn and he's going to come back out of that corn. That's what I thought. That makes sense.

And so Steve abandoned the spot and I went to his spot. And sure enough, that buck came out of the same row of corn he went into. I mean, just like he literally was like 20 feet in there. He just turned around. He backed out. It was like, put his reverse lights on, and backed out of the court, turned around, jumped the fence, and boom, I shot him.

And so the whole week, that was like the first day. And so the whole week, I'm just hanging out in camp and Steve and Jordan are out there hunting. And I kept saying, should have been your buck, Steve. Steve's buck. I killed your buck. I'm sorry, man, I killed your buck. And so, you know, that's what he talked about on the episode was that he was like, Clay killed my buck.

So it was fun. funny. Steve's a lot of fun to hunt with. He really is. Man, for all the, okay, I'll clear the air too. On social media. We're going deep today. On social media, you will see me.

Like, if you only knew me from Instagram, you would see me razzing Steve Ronella and him razzing me. And that's fun. We enjoy that. But, I mean, Steve is a great guy to work for. He truly is. A great guy to hunt with and a ton of fun. and he's been Steve has been a big mentor to me

I mean it kind of goes without saying but in the media space like when Steve gives me input on bare grease I listen I really do and uh when's he gonna be we've stayed at their home he and his wife once he's gonna be on a render

he's been on one render yeah but not not with the real render that's a good idea we'll get him down here he's a busy man he didn't even listen to the render I've been wanting to put my application in verbally, but I know he doesn't listen to it. He listens to the Bear Greas podcast. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're just nothing.

I mean, come on. Well, you know, when he's wearing your hat, though. Yeah. Yeah, true, true. What are we going to say, I was just going to say, I think he has listened to some renders because he, he, remember when he said that Brent was real smart, Josh? Yeah. And said nothing about you.

He didn't say anything about us. Yeah. Hey, I enjoyed the, what do you call it when you had your coat and tie, or your coat on and your watcher? That was pretty, that was funny. That was, as a dad, that was like, where did this little dirtball come from? Yeah, how nice and clean he looked and then you look at him right now. I can get real self-conscious about that stuff.

Hey, it looked nice, man. I'm telling you, that's the only time I've ever looked at you. And I thought, hey, that's my boy right there to look at it. What? What about chopped liver wearing my coonskin hat? It's overawls right now? man, come on, brother. No, not the way I looked.

I mean, anybody dress up and look good. No, I get self-conscious about harassing Steve Rinella. Because people think I'm serious. Literally, you'll put something like that on Instagram, and they'll be like, you're such a jerk, man. That's what makes it funnier than me. I'm like, I don't get satire, dude.

Yeah, so I started, you would have seen me start my, start my post with this is satire I really like Steve Rinella and Carl Malcolm I'm not really belittling them I think they're great hunters it's gonna be on my Google home feed

like Clay Newcomb Steve Rinella and brutal yeah yeah for so reason that got that got to me when somebody was like what an arrogant jerk you know I'm like

yeah I couldn't sleep that night. It's like, man, it was supposed to be a joke. Was that all off the cuff or did you have that scripted out sort of? It really is all off the cuff. That's what I thought. See, that's, you know, you want to, I like what you were saying about, you know, you want to dig deep and look at the science and how people act. A lot of times it's just, I mean, you just got the stuff to do it. You know what I'm saying? What we do on those videos is we, at Isaac Neal, he, he films them and makes them,

and he makes him funny. Isaac is great at making them funny. He does the edit. And Isaac coaches me too. So we'll watch an episode of Meat Eater, and I will just comment on anything that stands out. So we'll watch the whole thing, and I might talk for 10 minutes and just like.

And he'll pick it. And he'll go, hey, hey, do that again, but say it like this. And I'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be funny. And so, you know, some things we kind of did. over. Yeah. But it's kind of just like off the cuff, just kind of slinging, slinging stuff.

But it's a fine line because you don't want to like, like you could really like rip someone a new one and you don't want to do that entirely. You kind of want to hit kidney punch them a few times, but then end on a high note. Because really the episodes are incredible. I mean, meat eater is like, you know, for sure one of the best outdoor productions ever. Absolutely. Ever. And so, you know, here I am making fun of it.

Which is the humor of it. Yeah, exactly. And Steve Ronell is a way better hunter than you. I mean, for sure, in Western hunting. Yeah. You get him back here in these mountains in Arkansas. Get after it. Get it.

He makes it look like a poodle. And the squirrels. He did walk up in here with his 22, though. I thought that was impressive. Ask him how many of his grose he killed. Okay. Sometimes when we go places, there's a thing in our family, there's a belief that I don't know how to leave.

Like I can't get out of a conversation. It's more of a fact. So we go, like we go to church or we go wherever, and the kids are like all waiting in the car, Clay and the kids. So they've coached me on how to leave a conversation. I feel like the end of this Bear Gries podcast is sort of like we're not really quite sure how to leave.

Yeah. I have an idea. I have how we can leave. Well, we started. I could scold that squirrel dog for barking. We started this. Ah! We started talking about the spray.

And this is my first time on the render. When I came in, the first thing you did was turn and spray the room. And I was like, wow, this is a big deal. You're like, we need like scent. It's got a smell right. This is the bear grease render scent. The official body spray of the pear grease. He said and want to have a great time, get a little bit of that in your house.

And all of a sudden. The only thing that would make it better is if this chair would break right now. The whole time I've been saying, don't make that a talking point. By you falling on your butt on this chair. Well, Ben, thanks for coming, man. We're going to have you back on. We've got to have Jessica on here sometime. That would be great.

Because she's a bear hunting expert. And a childbirth. That's right. All right. Thanks, guys. 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 Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human. Thank you.