Bear Grease - Ep. 85: Bear Grease [Render] - Christmas Tidings, Bear Grease Hats, and Micro Celebrity

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

On this episode of Bear Grease, the render crew gathers at Meateater South HQ to discuss a variety of things. Clay and Isaac discuss wild Bear Grease Hat sightings. Josh relates being recognized while fishing…by his voice. Brent talks about coon hunting with Clay’s dog Hoot. While Mist and Gary give their thoughts about on Target 2, Mr. Claude Maxwell. Make sure to catch our special guests bringing the Christmas well wishes. I really doubt you’re gonna wanna miss this one. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days 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. Like the South American singer?

Yeah. Oh, okay. She's not Salish. Bailey loves her. She's not South America. She's not South America. She's not South America. I'd like to begin my apology by state.

Where's she from? Mexico. Hey, guys. I thought she was from. Hey, guys. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render, everyone. That's why we're here. Yes.

Welcome. This is the Christmas edition of the Bear Grease Render. Can we call this one the Bear Grease Rinder then? Oh. Got it. Play on words there. I will submit that to Hayden. Words.

The bear grease reindeer. If there was a bear grease reindeer, it's deer season. It would be mounted up on the wall. Man, what a group we have today. We have the standard six. I've got Brent Reeves to my left. We're in a fine pair of overalls. I'd say a 20% wore-down bear grease hat.

Josh Lambridge spillmaker. wearing a Lange bridge. Wearing the Landbridge mustache himself. Misty Newcomb. Good to be here. To your left. To your left. Isaac Neal, assistant to the producer of Bear Grease podcast.

Yep. Just happy to be invited. And to your left is the believer himself, Gary Newcomb. Good to see you. Yeah, man. But who you didn't know, who you couldn't have expected who was going to be here, is the one and only ju-ju-n't-ne. Newcomb. My mother.

And, well, I'll introduce the second person after this. You figure that part out, right? It is so fantastic to have you here. I am really glad to be here. I'm honored to be here at the annual Christmas party of Bear Greece. Why don't you tell us what you've brought for us all? Oh, I brought some Christmas cookies like I did last year. And I'm just happy to be here and send Merry.

Merry Christmas greetings to all your listeners and let them know I do read all of their comments. And I get on to Clay if he does something wrong or ignores something. So just know. Have I ever done anything wrong in a comment? Oh, no. But sometimes you don't answer them. So great to have you, Juju. Hope y'all all have a blessed Christmas.

Juju has brought the Christmas spirit on us today. Yes. Okay, the second guest that we have, very special guest, a first-time guest on the Bear Grease podcast, the one and only Bailey Reeves. clapping for Bailey. This is Brent Reeves' daughter. That's my baby. Bailey, how are you? Good.

What are you doing for Christmas this year? Opening presents. Wow. Nice. Well, why don't you wish everybody, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. What would you say if you're doing? If you were giving advice to people that are going to see their grandpas, grandmas, their mom and dads, their cousins, and they're all going to get together, like, what do they need to hear from the Reeves family that's going to, like, really set off this Christmas?

What would you say, Bailey? Make sure to spend as much time as you came with them because you don't know how much time you have with them. So just make sure that you spend as much time with them this. Christmas. That's good. That's very good. Well, thank you for being here, Ms. Bailey. You're welcome. And Ju-Ju.

Good job, guys. Y'all are welcome to stay in here, or y'all can leave. We're going to roll. And Jiu-Ju is total muscle getting up out of that chair. Let's roll. Good job, boo. Good job, Bailey. Good job, J-Ju.

Except for we would like to discourage all comments that are mean towards Clay. Which, oh. It wasn't that. Juju is monitoring. I'm going to put on every post I ever make. I'm going to put on every post I ever make an asterisk that says, Juju is watching. Be nice to me.

Can we just start a hashtag? Juju's watching. Juju's watching. I think you ought to just have her respond to all the comments. Okay. I've always thought, whack in the day when Clay was making videos, bear hunting videos,

people would leave the worst comments. I mean, the worst, the meanest, those, I guess it's P to Beauds. I don't know, but they're terrible. And they would say things like, your mom should be... Misty's bringing the hammer. I mean, they would say horrible things about, like, violent things that should be done to our kids or to Clay's mom,

and they would curse her. And I thought it would be nice to have Juju read those comments out loud and just have a video of Juji reading these, you know, not nice in the sense of, like, oh, this is heartwarming. But just so that they realize, like, Juj is a really sweet person. And before you say mean things about her and her grandkids, should probably realize who you're talking about.

I'm fully in on that idea. Yeah, that's great. Well, so I tell you something, I've got a few little things I want to go through. On this episode, we're going to talk about this secret episode, the bonus episode of what became a four-part series on our secret agent man,

where we had R.T. Stewart, undercover wildlife agent, and then the bonus episode, when I met, I went and met with Claude Maxwell Maxwell Maxwell, well in Ohio. Who we will refer to as Target number two only. Which is a major deal. A really major deal. Kind of a sensitive deal in a way too.

But before we get to that, lots of bear grease hat sightings in the wild. It's incredible. Yeah. It started off with the guy on the Bengals and Kansas City Cheese game. I don't know that it started off that way. I feel like that's more of an apex. It's kind of an apex.

Right, right, right. It started out with good, everyday, hardworking Americans buying bear grease hats and wearing them. And then one of those good, hardworking everyday Americans went to an NFL game. Yeah, got spotted. Got spotted. And then another guy was watching a hockey game, a hockey game. Yes. And there's a bear grease guy just giving them heck.

Yep. And so I put that online too. And then the comments are just full of people saying, hey, I saw a guy with a bear grease hat and we went and talked. And listen to this. Misty and I went to Cabela's two days ago. Should you say the exact location? Because I thought this was a pretty good story too.

Well, I hope this person is listening. We're at Cabellas. Yes. And we're in line. and a Cabela's worker goes, I like your hat. And I said, thanks. And I kind of thought maybe it was a lady.

I thought she might, it was just like the design. Yeah. And I just said, hey, thanks. And I just kind of kept walking. And she says, that's one of my favorite podcasts. And I just said, oh, cool, yeah, yeah. And we kept walking.

And Misty was like, don't tell her. And then I thought that was pretty cool. And she recognized the hat with the, you know, the podcast. And I responded, ah, it's mediocre. I mean. There's an average episode. Yeah. It's got a lot of runway.

Hey, who was telling, was it, was it juju that just told us a story about someone? Yeah. What did she say? Two people ran into each other that were both wearing them. And this story's told to her. This story was told to her by a person who was. with one of the people wearing the hats. Gotcha.

He said that two guys, one that he knew and one that he didn't, ran into each other, and they started talking to each other like it was a different language. Yeah. That's cool. Does he want the hat now? Is he trying to get in on the hat train? Who? The guy who related the story.

Why did she get a hat? She was getting a hat for some reason. Oh, it wasn't for that guy. Okay. Somebody got a hat, though. I went on a trip this weekend, flew down to Texas, Friday morning, 530 at the airport. There's a guy sitting there with a bear grease hat. Saturday night, Rockport, Texas, eating at a Mexican restaurant,

a guy comes in with a bear grease hat. Really? What do you order? We left before they ordered. Same hat. He was very appreciative, very polite young man. Maybe his name was Trevor. I asked it, and I was like, I'm going to remember this.

Trevor. I don't know. Trevor from Rockport, Texas. How did you approach this guy? I said, hey, this is weird. That's how you got to start off. That's the thing. It's not, though. If a guy has a bear grease hat on, he wants.

somebody to come up and fist bump in and just grow out. Yes. It's to be like, yeah. Yeah. He received it. Well, that's great. I love it. I love it.

Third thing on the list. The Moose episode on a meeting. Was fantastic. Did you enjoy it? Yeah, that was really good. That was one of the better episodes of us. Why was it? People have said that, but like, why?

It was just because you, because you can't trust people who know you. You can't even trust yourself, Josh. You certainly can trust Brent Reeves. The idea of the hunt. the fact that it's so remote. It's such a, it's the kind of hunt that not a lot of people will get to do in their lives.

And then you go for nine days and you got Jack nothing and then you get that last minute. I mean, it was like it was set up. You know what I mean? Even us talking about? Yeah. Like I didn't even remember

we had that conversation when I said, man, I thought it was your year. Like that wasn't as, I mean, none of these scenes were set up scenes. Literally, we were having that conversation and there were two dudes behind us

who we didn't know filming us. But... We kind of knew them. But... Like strangers. That is... That is what someone who set up a hunt to succeed would say.

Can we trust you? Did you plant the moose there? Oh. I think you may have... I think you packed in the moose and you planted it there. Helicoptered in a moose. That's all I'm saying.

And I feel like... And I feel like... What's funny... What's funny is that... When you started saying stuff like that, now, like, people are going to believe it. Yeah, absolutely. We've introduced this now. They helicoptered.

I think you should cut that out. Okay. Well, what's funny is that I actually posted a video on the TikTok of me and Ronella in Alaska at the airport, and a Chinook helicopter comes in. True story. Chinook helicopter comes in. I video it. I turn the camera to Ronella, and I say, that's the way we're getting in there. right and he says that's the way which is clearly not true this is a U.S. military like I want to say they

said it was a $20 million helicopter okay and so I joke that that's what was taking us in and he said that's how we helicoptered in the animals it was a joke oh and do people believe it well I don't know it's on the talk I think it can only be beneficial to have people out there talking about it spreading rumors then people go watch the episode Bumps up numbers. There's no bad press. So I'm getting to the dollar bill. Dad, did you see the episode yet?

Oh, yeah. What'd you think? I didn't like it. You didn't? Whoa. No. Because I'm sleepy. I want to take a nap.

You want to take a nap right now? I'm retired, man. I'm not used to working. He needs everything. No, no, it was excellent. It was excellent. Great. You know, when you told the story,

I'm trying to think where I heard the story. You told that y'all were in camp, ready to go, packed up, and Ronella said, I'm going to the possum trot deal. Yeah. And they didn't tell that part. Yeah. To me, you know, that was a highlight. Actually, it was real good without it.

But I enjoyed that part. because it tells you a lot about Ronella, why he is where he is, is, I mean, you're worn out, you've been there 10 days, this guy's still fired up, wanting to kill something. Yeah.

His instincts took him to the exact correct spot. Yep. And then turns it over to you. Yeah. So. Yeah. And I thought the same thing, Dad. I really wish they had included that.

Because if you remember the story that I told about that moose hunt, we were all but, like, packing up to leave. Like, we were done. We'd already, like, shot the ending scene of the video, and we're going home after nine days with no moose and, like, really discouraged. And then just on a whim, we don't even have time to kill a moose because the planes are coming.

And Rinella, it wasn't me. I mean, I was done. Was there some particular reason that he went to that spot? Just, it was, no, we hadn't been there in a few days. Okay. But it was the worst spot we had, too. Like we'd never, we'd never seen a bull moose there For some reason

But we just hadn't been there in a couple days Sure And so he was just like I'm gonna walk up to the porcupine And then I was like, well How far was it? Probably half mile So it would have been just a whole lot easier

Just to kick back Wait on the airplane to get there Yeah And nap Yeah Like I thought Yeah it was We were done man

Like done And because even earlier that day, the producer had said, hey, we really can't kill a moose anymore because the planes are coming. Wait, so how did you resolve it then? Man, Rinella's dead serious about hunting. Like, he was just like, we'll figure it out. Yeah. And I don't think we really plan to kill one.

Sure. But like, I mean, because the planes were coming and you shot one, did you just tell the planes not to come? Gotcha. Well, so the way it worked is the planes were coming in the morning real early. And it was late in the eve. They worked real fast and everybody was involved. Well, and we were able to bump the plane back, which we didn't think we could do. Because the moose season ended, so all the hunters they had out were all trying to get home.

And so it was real, it was like, well, they may not be able to get you out. If you lose your spot, it may be two days before they can come get you. So that's what they were worried about. But just the way it worked out, we were able to say, hey, come later in the day. And they were like, that's no problem. So it ended up working out. But it was pretty incredible. Well, the antlers look awesome up on the wall in there.

Yeah, they do. They do. So this is what I wanted to talk about, though. In a picture that's on the FHF Gear Instagram page, there's a picture of me, Glassin in Alaska. And I've got my big puffy jacket on, and I've got their new bino harness, which they've got a new bino harness they're coming out with.

And at the top of that bino harness, you'll see a dollar bill, an American dollar bill. And somebody zoomed in and spotted that American dollar bill. And I wanted to explain why that was there. It was the, just randomly, I found it in my pocket while I was hunting. We're in the back country for nine days with like six people. And I had the thought that if things go to pot and they don't come to get us, that this dollar bill,

it would be the start of a great novel. Are you with me? No. Six people in the wilderness. Okay. That they would find on your cell phone? There's one thing that represents the lost civilization that has now been destroyed. Let's say we're out in the wilderness.

The apocalypse happens. And the earth is destroyed. Yep. Go on. Everybody's dead. Yeah. except for us because we're way in the back country and whatever got us didn't think about us in the back country.

Yes. This American dollar bill, this is the start of a novel, and it's called the American dollar bill. Okay. And this is what happens when you're in the back country too long. And so this dollar bill, then we have to build a whole new, like, human order amongst like the six of us,

You know. Yeah. And whoever has the dollar bill has the power. King of the castle. Yeah. And so the novel is about the treachery. Wasn't there something like that in Lord of the Flies? Hey, Gary.

That nap's sounding a whole lot better at any point. Is this a sequel to American Buffalo? American dollar bill. In some ways. Okay. We talked about this nonstop, my novel, about the treachery, backstabbing. Okay. And every character,

would reveal a part of human nature that is innate in people. But at the end, there would be like some massive redemption because it's bear grease. Okay. You with me? You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm on. And then, that was the main reason I kept the dollar bill close. But the second practical, a little more functional reason was I said I would give that dollar

to anybody that could find me a black bear that I could shoot. Could you have shot a black bear? Yeah, I had a black bear tag. Did you keep the dollar? Nobody found me a black bear that I could shoot. We saw a black bear, it was too far, so it didn't qualify. I was like, I got to have a black bear that's, like, in range, you know, that I could actually take. And if you find me that bear, this dollar bill is yours.

Where's the dollar bill now? Do you still have it? I think I spit it. On an ice cold Coke. It had more value up there in Alaska. 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 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 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Josh, tell us about your recent... I believe that I have reached micro-celebrity start-up. Yes.

I was down at the river the other day on last weekend, fly fishing. And the fish were biting good, man. Okay. We were just pulling out left and right. Yep. But I moved down to a new section. It had dried up a little bit where I was at, and I moved down to a new section. Can you drop me a pen?

No. I'll put it on my Instagram page. I moved down to a little section. There was a guy. fishing on the other side of the river and I you know I gave him a few yards so he could catch some fish there but I noticed as I was walking down he wasn't catching any fish and I just I walked into the water and just went bam bam bam caught three fish right back to back and he goes man you're on fire I said I said well I told him what I was fishing with I said try this I said they're biting these

really good so so tie one of those on if you got one and uh he he fishes and he did I pulled another one out and he goes he goes is your name josh i was like uh yeah and he goes he goes like as in the land bridge josh incredible i was like yeah he goes i thought i recognized your voice yeah he recognized your voice he recognized my voice wow he goes he goes bear grease my favorite podcast man excellent yeah well i know he was stokes he was wearing a hat but not a bear grease You hate to see it. That's good to hear. That's great to hear. Yep. So I'm living large.

Living large. Living large. Next thing on the list, Brent Reeves is hunting my dog. Hoot. Okay. So Brent, so I, we live in the Ozarks, in the mountains. And if you were, if you were explaining this to a kid, and you were talking about the, the, the bio, what's the word I'm looking for? like the bioproductivity of a region. Okay. You would essentially be talking about at a real foundational level,

the richness of the soil literally translates into the how many animals and the carrying capacity of the land for all kind of stuff. Yep. Like the size of trees, the amount of raccoons, the amount of deer, the amount of waterfowl, how big deer antlers are. It all goes back to the soil. Well, in the Ozarks, the Ozarks, my friends, is an eroded plateau, an uplifted plateau that was bumped when the South American continent, bumped into the North American continent. Have you ever heard this, Misty?

I'm going to start a new podcast called Erogeny. Maybe not. No, thank you. Mountain forming process. I feel uncomfortable. No. Okay. So the springfield, it's called the Springfield Plateau,

which was a bulged, a bulged section of land that eroded. So the Ozarks were formed by erosion, which means all the good stuff left. No one is having fun right now. I'm fully in, but where to go? How many times are you? I'll tell you exactly where it went. Thank you, John. Went into the Gulf coastal region, basically the Mississippi River Delta.

It literally formed the dirt of Louisiana. Okay. Come on. And so the raccoon hunting is better down there. That's exactly right. All the soils down there. I wish you were down there hunting because I had to call through the hides that were left, and I only got enough for four more hats.

Oh, wow. We'll talk about that in a second. So Brent lives in the Delta region of Arkansas. So Arkansas will be split into like the mountainous regions, the Delta region, which would be influenced by the great rivers of the heartland of America. The primary river being the Mississippi River, but also the White River,

Arkansas. Black River, Arkansas River, Arkansas River. Cash River. Cash Money River. And so Brent Hunts and the Flat River, country where there's a ton of coons so he took my dog i said all that to say you know life's connected josh it's connected erogeny is why he has your dog's a terrible word around it's a terrible word mountain look at this hold on i've got a book here that it would explain it all you got more than one

the appalachian wachita orogen in the united states see that textbook right there that's as thick as your thigh yep never read it but it's uh it has that word word. Yeah, outforming processes. Brett. Yep. You're hunting hoot.

How's she doing? She did good. Night before last, I went over to the farm. We cut her loose. Or I cut her loose. Man, she hunted good. She hunted out 300,

350 yards. Made a big loop. Kind of bumped something a little bit. May have been a deer. May have been a rabbit. I don't know what it was, which. She barked a little.

She barked a little bit. But it's good. You know, it doesn't really matter. She's got all the tools. If it's got all the tools, if it's got all. the tools, the only other thing that you need is the desire for it to go. And she has that desire to go.

So even if she's chasing off game, I can fix it. Yeah. Because if she's got to hunt, you're halfway there. Yeah. So we go out and she comes back and move over to a different spot and turn loose. And it's cold, man. I know a lot of folks up North Hunt when it's below freezing and stuff and their tree and coons on outside of trees.

But down here, if it gets below. low 32. Coons get scarce on the outside. In the Delta. In the Delta. Up here, it's a little different. In the Delta is all I'm speaking about right now. So, and if it gets 28, if it's 28 and below, if you catch a coon on the outside, he's probably laying dead on the highway.

I mean, because it's, you just don't see them out there. They're in the den to stay warm. So it's, man, it's hovering. It's like 34 degrees. And she's, she's circling and barking and she's real excited. I know she's. She's smelling a coon because I'm watching her. I watched her on the Garmin.

The way she fed that or struck that track. And you can tell the way she's just moving just in little intricate left and right and zigzags. And she's moving real slow. So you know she's not chasing something that she's seeing. She's on an actual track. She's smelling a coon. She gets in one spot, man. And she doesn't locate.

She doesn't do the long ball locate. She just starts barking. And then she stopped. So I slipped in. I snuck in there with my red light. She ain't paying any attention to me. And I got within about 40 yards of where she's at. And I look up in a tree and I find the coon.

Coon's looking right at me and she is right beneath it. But it's a leaning tree. And the coon is like from the trunk of the tree is out probably 20 feet and probably 20 feet off the ground. So she is, the coon's been there a long time, you can tell. He's in a big comfortable place where Coons would lay up when it's cold like that. So the, she just couldn't locate. where it was at. She could smell the scent

in the air, but she couldn't smell where the coon went up the tree. So which was really a feat in itself because the track was so old. She did really good. But I didn't knock the coon out to her. Yeah. And she eventually quit it and we went on, moved on home.

All positive she did good. Last night we went, I turned her loose and she absolutely scalded the hair off of two deer. That's my hoon. She put them down the road. Really?

Oh, yeah. And I know 100% it was a deer because I, she took off, struck, and she started making a loop. She started coming back to me and I stepped out in this old woodrow, turned my red light on and a big old doe deer come smoking across and the hoop was right behind. Oh, be done. So, which is fine. She didn't run it that far. Yeah.

She stopped. I'd love to see her tree of deer. Yeah. She come on. She come on back to me. I moved down and she did another one. And that time, I gave her a little correction. on the collar to stop.

And she stopped and she come back to me and we went on. How'd she hunt after that? Fine. Did she keep hunting? Oh yeah. Yeah. Man, I remember one time when I was hunting, when I was hunting, RIP Fern, RIP Fern. It was one of the first times I went with another good Coon Hunter that had a good dog.

And Fern was probably 11, 12 months old and turned her loose and it was full moon night. and she just scalded, as Brent said, something that was not a coon. Because they just took it out across, she by herself just took it out across a wide open field, just barking every breath. I mean, it just sounded like she's about to catch this thing. I mean, ran it out of hearing, you know.

Yeah. And I mean, it was like, no, no doubt it was a trash game. Right. And I was kind of upset about it, you know, just kind of like, dogon it, why did she do that? And my buddy said, my buddy was like, Clay, that's good I mean

she she wore that thing out so she had the desire she had the want she had the go and because like Brent said you can break them off off game but you can't put that

fire in them and so eventually broke her off deer but even as good as Fern was at Trey and Coons she would run I never really could figure it out if it was deer coyotes

but she was about five years old about once or twice a winter she'd just smoke something that wasn't a coon. Oh, yeah. And, you know, it wasn't... I didn't ever said that while she was alive. The stimulation. I didn't ever admitted it.

The stimulation, that sent her on that collar, it was not pain compliance. All that does is enough to break her concentration. So it wasn't nothing that would even... Misty has one of those for me. Well, you need to turn that one up. Because he tells that story about the wash-it-all-monds again. I'm talking to her, and it's like, I just kind of like,

wince. I don't really feel pain, but I just feel like restarted. And then she asked me to do something. And I just do it. She breaks your concentration. That's all. That's all. But she. Brent's hunting. Who? Yeah. And hey, you've been, you've been coon hunting quite a bit, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We had some folks come down, some folks that participated in a contest we had with the bear hunting magazine in Blood Origins. And some folks came down from to live up here in northwest Arkansas. So Ryan and Heather Harris came down and we hunted with Michael, Sunspot Lights. We hunted over there.

Where are we hunted? And I'll see, Josh, Isaac, you guys were all there. They just put a coon hunting video up that we filmed last year. Yeah, we were there. Oh, really? We were there at that place. And tree. I think we hunted two nights.

It was cold and rainy. And we treat, I think, 11 or 12 coons, both nights. I mean, total, you know. Wow. So it was, we hunt a lot, though. That's good. That's good. Talk to me about the coonskins.

Well, I've got six hats made, and I went to go start what I thought was going to be six more. But we're kind of digging into the bottom of the barrel of the coon hides. They're getting a little small and scraggly down there. They, you know, they send those hides back all strung together. and it's like I didn't I wasn't real strategic about the first ones I was grabbing out yep but somehow they got all the bad ones in the middle all the nice ones on the outside because I started grabbing them like wait a minute oh I can't get it so it it I mean I've got enough I cut enough pieces that I got four more what it from half so how many hats do we have that'll be 10 10

10 hat not counting the one I have including that one including and I've got I've got that my first prototype I can probably turn into a useful one too Okay. What about, if I got you a couple of possum skins, could you make a hat with that with the naked pale? Could or would? It's a great question. There's a difference between the ability and low on the wood. I look forward to seeing those.

Let's talk about the topic at hand, this fourth episode that... Didn't see that one coming. Yeah. How do you think... It's hard to gauge what people would think about it. I mean, I got a lot of feedback on it, but just, you know, you would have had to have listened to all the episodes to kind of get why this was significant. Yep.

And it was significant for me to go and meet with Claude, who all just started off at the very beginning and just say, I had a ton of respect for him for meeting with me. and I did my best to really show the character that this guy has. And I mean, the whole point of meeting with him and showing who he was today is to show that you hear about somebody that's a poacher, bad poacher, you would think a certain way about who that person would be. I mean, especially in a day with Internet and Internet forums

and just we label people so quickly of who this person is. And then when you see somebody that the result or 30 years later, they're not who you thought that would be. I think that's real healthy for us to not be so quick to really bring judgment on somebody, you know. And so it was real interesting going to meet with Claude, who I really do have a lot of respect for. What do you guys think?

I listened to it twice, and I felt like, you know, such an incredible story from both sides, but I really felt like Claude was kind of the hero of the story. I mean, not because, not just because he got his story out, you know, we can look at it and say, well, he really wasn't that mad of a guy. He had 74 game violations, but he really wasn't that bad of a guy. But I appreciated so much how transparent he was about everything and how he didn't let that thing define him. And he didn't carry resentment.

But instead, he literally made an overnight change of who he was and how he was going to live the rest of his life. And man, that thing, opens up doors. I feel like the decisions that he made opened up doors for success in business, success with his family, who knows what it could have done to his marriage, you know. But now, you look at him now and you think that's not something that just happened, but really that, his life was the product of those decisions 30 years ago. And that makes that guy a hero. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't, the system didn't refer.

form him, his choices reformed him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. If we were all known, if our biography or if our label was all from the worst day that we ever had, you know, how many everybody you see would be bad. That guy did something, and he learned his lesson, then he became obviously a very important part of that community. which puts him in my community and yours if we're hunters we're all in that community he did he

he proved that what what was set out to do worked and that i would i would that guy's welcome to go hunting with me anytime you know i read a book uh about neil armstrong for years he wouldn't do any kind of interviews it wouldn't do anything wouldn't talk about anything as far as him going you being the first guy on the moon. And he was up in his 70s, early 70s when they wrote this book, when he authorized this book to be. And the guy was interviewing and asked him why he didn't cash in on being the first guy to step on the moon. Because once he came back, he got out of space program.

He went and taught at a college in Ohio, taught engineering. He didn't do book tours. He didn't do speaking engagements. He didn't do anything about it. And the guy told me, so, well, he didn't think it was right for him to receive all the accolades when it was nearly, took nearly 400,000 people working together to get him to the moon. And he said there was nobody in that system that was any, or that he wasn't as important as anybody else, or more important than anybody else in it.

And he did not want to be known for one singular accomplishment when he had lived his whole life. That was something he did one day. And you can look at this the same way. Yeah, so that's like the positive side of it, but also you could apply it to the negative. Yeah, and I wouldn't, I mean, I don't have any sympathy. I have empathy for him because it affected his whole family.

and that I wouldn't want to be known for just one singular thing. If I was going to be known for one single thing, it wouldn't have anything to do with my work. It would have something to do with my relationship. What did you do that? It was so bad. I can't literally discuss that yet. Are we under subpoena?

I think it was good. It's a great lesson. And I'm really pleased and proud that the guy did what he did. That's pretty good. There's some goods. I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about the nature of the justice system and how it often functions versus how we say it is to function. We aspire to have a restorative justice system where you have transgressed,

you go through this, and you don't do that anymore. Like that's what the system is supposed to be set up. Oftentimes we don't approach it in that way. And I think that's a rabbit hole that we could go down and there's no point in doing it. because it'll take forever and probably not produce much fruit. But this is a perfect example of restorative justice. Like, he's guilty. He said it so on the podcast.

But then that to me, and I think probably to you, which is why you did this episode, is less interesting than how he reacted once that happened. And we can see that throughout the fruit of his life. You talked about it with his kids, how he has good relationships with his kids who are productive members of society. I think the bowling alley is an incredible example.

Not to say that it's altruism or whatever. It's a business, right? But the idea that he invested in this thing in this small community and it's like, it's going to provide an outlet for kids and people to have a lead. These are all examples of like the fruit of changing and going in a different direction and saying, I'm going to be a productive member of society. I'm going to give back to society. Yeah.

I felt like you made a very compelling case. in the podcast about this, so much so that when we got to the point where it was like, Andy lost his hunting license forever. I was like, dang. That, like, I mean, it hit me.

Like, I was like, that sucks. Like, he seems like such a great dude. It sucks that he can't hunt anymore. And then, like, obviously we resolved that in the nature of the story. And I just felt like it showed the powerful impact of hoping for redemption in a story. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And also a side thing, this may be speaking out of term, but I just speaking to the listening audience, like Claude didn't ask for any of this to happen to him, the podcast. Right. And I feel like you would mention that it was turning a lot of attention on him. And so I just would, I think, I think it'd be cool to appeal to the audience to say, if you are in a position to go there or interact with him, like, be cool. Yeah.

And even if it's a positive thing, if you want to support him, just remember that he didn't ask for any of this attention. Yeah. This happened years ago. Like the old guy outside of the sporting goods store said, like you're talking about it like it happened yesterday. This happened years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. So, man, you know, I really did apologize to Claude. And when you record an apology and listen to it, you sometimes wish you'd have done it different. But I... So you're going to be. going to do it again. Well, no.

For me, it was interesting. I actually talked to Steve Renella about it. Yeah. About, I said, I was getting his advice and I kind of had to handle this thing. And I told him, I said, man, it never even occurred to me that these guys would still be here. I mean, I don't know why I thought, like, all poachers are, like, old and not here anymore. Sure. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And, like, all these. guys are still here. Well, and there was some like modicum of respect for that because we removed names from, that's right, that's right. But it just feels so removed like, why would they hear about it? Or what? Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Well, it kind of even goes into the idea of what you, how you handle a criminal, quote unquote, like someone who's been, it's just like, they, they, you know, they're not as an important part of, yes. They are a pariah. They are to be cast out of society. Well, in terms of.

that far, but just... No, I mean, like, in terms of the social graces that we afford them. Right, yeah. And so I never... So I told Ronella, I said, it never even occurred to me that these guys were still around. And he laughed and he said, Clay, as a writer, you always have to assume that they're very much alive. And he laughed, and I was like, noted. And not that I would have done anything different.

I mean, like, I would just wouldn't have not... Like, the story was interesting to me, and we had access. So much of these stories we did. tell are have a lot to do with access to people and that's something that people probably wouldn't understand from the outside because I get stuff almost every day with people saying how you should do a podcast on this or this or they see we're interested in something like this and they say oh then you'd be interested in this so much of it has to do with just access that you almost can't script and we're up there with chip gross our good buddy chip gross and he goes hey I wrote a book

I had access. Yeah, we were up there for Lou Wetzel. Yeah. Yeah. Louis Wetzel, yeah. Yep. And he goes, you know, I have access to RT Stewart. If I talked to RT, he'd talk to you.

And so we go and do it. And it's a fascinating story. And I loved it. And we went out of our way to hide the identities of these people, which in the book it didn't. And so I felt like. So it says his name in the. Oh, yeah.

And I felt like we were going kind of above and beyond. Well, on the way down here, I was talking to my buddy Nathaniel who got us that Turkey Call article from 1996. And he said he was going through the article, the Turkey Call, NWTF's publication, it published their names. It's still out there, you know? Yeah, yeah. So it's not like we uncovered something that wasn't known.

But I'm going back to my apology to Claw. I really did. I said, you know, I'm sorry for what this might, the attention this might have. brought to you, you know. But I really feel like how he handled himself on the podcast was noble. I really do. And I hope that it brings, you know, we talked about as businesses and stuff. And I mean, you know, if you want to support them, go buy a, go bowling.

Go bowl and go buy dinner. Go buy. So let me say something, though, before I forget it, this burns me more than anything. is I said the name of the restaurant is the Blue Bell restaurant in McConnell'sville, Ohio. I said Blue Bird. Blue Bell. It's Blue Bell. So that was my bad.

So that is an official correction. You also said repercussion and crawled dad, which are both wrong. It's repercussions and crawfish. No. Crayfish? Let's hold on. We'll come back to this. We'll come back to this.

So the restaurant, holy cow, for real, if you're in McConnellsville, if you were within an hour and a half of McConnell'sville, I'd drive there to eat breakfast. Really? Yeah. This is fantastic breakfast. Great atmosphere. And everybody in that restaurant wanted to talk to Claude Maxwell. Really? I mean, nobody knew who, I mean, I was just sitting there.

I was just a dude sitting there. Everybody wanted to talk to Claude. Everybody walked by was trying to get his attention. It's like, he's that kind of guy. Awesome. He really is. That's great. And he, he, so anyway, I, deepest apologies to Adrian.

That's honorable. That's honorable. It's an honorable life. And that's when I realized that we probably weren't the most popular crew for bringing this all back up on the national stage. Rubbing a little salt on it. Well, I mean, for real. It's been gone for 30 years.

So that, you know, like I said, it just. Yeah, I bringing it back to like the fact that. like we are not, uh, we're not, uh, putting our stamp of approval on poaching. What is so interesting is the redemption. The choices that he made after. And I think that like one of the pieces of evidence for his change is his willingness to go on record and talk to you and be like, hey, I was wrong. But here's my life now. Yeah. And I think that's such a privilege. I don't want to lose sight of the fact that it was a privilege to get to tell this story. And a privilege that he chose to give you time and to yeah i i don't know i'm i'm very thankful for that 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 thing 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. What'd you think, Dad?

Well, y'all, y'all have done a nice job covering it. I would just say that he was the exact same guy when he was doing this. RT saw that. He was a good guy. Yes. He just got involved with peer pressure. And felt like it wasn't that big of a deal, you know. Even though really he knew it was a big deal, I feel like.

I mean, you know, you just know, it's breaking the law. But he had all the inner workings and hidden mechanisms to be successful in this life. And he took a little detour. And the detour brought him back probably to his destiny he was going to have anyway and made him probably better. You know, is what I thought. Yeah. Artie saw it. He was a quality guy.

You know, he had a lot of stuff going for him. It makes you wonder when RT talks about having that urge to call him and tell him that the raid was happening, what would have been the trajectory of his life if he had warned him? or something of that nature. Yeah. Yeah. If he would have eventually had that break or if this was the thing that he needed to...

All right, let's get the ship headed in the right direction now. Yeah. I don't know. You know, it's not... Things like this aren't clear. Like, I agree with what Dad said. And if there's one thing that I could do... Not different, but if you were just telling a more complex story.

Yeah, I don't think target number two back in... 1994 was necessarily a bad guy. Like, it wasn't, like, he had, I think you talked to him and it'd be the same Claude I talked to, just a little detour. And, you know, like he said, he didn't view himself as a bad person. I mean, he wasn't, so,

so what would have happened if this would have been prolonged for a period of time? Like, maybe, probably would have grown out of it. Probably he would have. Yeah. There would have been pressures. that would have come around his life

where he's like, okay, I'm going to have to do stuff different. This was just a hard smack. And, you know, you got to be careful how you say this stuff because, you know, I'm playing both sides of the fence. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm promoting law enforcement and RT and what the Ohio DNR did. Or, you know, I'm telling their story like, hey, this is good stuff.

But now I'm also... interested in Claude's story. And I, honestly, I feel loyalty to both of them. Yeah. And, and, so it's a tricky, it felt tricky on the inside of me, being loyal to both sides of this story. Duplicitous. Well, maybe not.

But, but it was probably one of the most interesting situations I've been in since I've been doing this here podcast. You shouldn't feel torn one way or the other because it's, it worked out like it's supposed to. Yeah, you did a great job with it. It's the people that I'm most concerned about. Well, that's what I'm talking about. You know, somebody was doing wrong.

The law went in. They took care of it. The guy paid his debt. It's over with. Yeah. Unless he. It was. It was.

It was. It was. It was. Overwhip. Yeah. Yeah, it was over with. That's the part I feel bad about. Yeah.

It could work out for him better, though. I mean, it's a flip a coin. It could, something good could come from this. Yeah, well, and that's what I hope the... For sure. What's the name of the town? What's the name of the town? McConnell'sville.

McConnell'sville? I smell a target number two coffee shop. Yeah. McCallesville's a great town. McCallelsville's a great town. It's right on this big river. Big fishing community. What do you think the contention of Bear Grease listeners within an hour and a half of McConnell'sville is?

I have no idea. Are you thinking? 172. $172. There's one Bengals fan we know that listens to Bear Gris. That's incredible. Yeah. I like Ohio, though.

Can we get all of them to go there, not ask for Claude, not be weird about it? Just buy some stuff from his store. And leave big tips. Yeah, big tips. Yeah. Yeah, they're sharp family, man. And the... Was there a rooftop place?

Yeah, there's a pizza place. Real nice. I called the pizza place one day to... I was actually trying to get a hold of... It was before I had an official introduction to Claude. And it was the best, like, voicemail. It was like after hours or something. It was before they opened during the day.

and it was like super polished and professional. My mouth was watering by the time I got done. It was like giving you the menu. It was like, thanks for calling Maxwell's Pizza. Try our cheese sticks. I mean, it's not like a major national franchise. And I was like, you forgot why you were calling. Or a fantastic.

I'll take a. Y'all delivered to Northwest Arkansas. But it was good. Dad, what were you going to say? He survived for a lot of reasons. one thing he's smart, smart guy, but he had two good families.

Two really good families. And I mean, that tells you a lot about him. He's got two good families. And he had a wonderful wife. I mean, his wife was unbelievable. I mean,

she saw the whole thing. Yeah. And because of that, here's our resident expert right here. Misty. I mean, really, Judy, I just marvel almost daily as I get older and wiser of how Judy is right so many times.

And she can move me and direct me and, you know, get me pointed in the right direction. What did you do that was so bad? Well, it's a long story. It's every day. It's every day is what I'm talking about. That's a three-part podcast for another time. It's every day. I mean, you know.

Wouldn't it be awesome if Dad was like a criminal and we could do a podcast series about him? Do you mind committing some crimes? What if the twist is? Brint is actually undercover. He's only, He's only become friends with you to get Gary. I'm target number two. He's target number one.

But to finish it off, I mean, I want to hear what a wife and a mother thought about this deal. Yeah, Misty, what do you think? Okay. Oh, wow, she's got notes. I don't have notes. I wanted to make sure I quoted it, right? No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who've been trained by it.

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees, make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. And I think that discipline, punishment, consequences can either cripple a person. I'm going to applaud, and you are supposed to be. applause. It was a mic drop. It can either, you know, completely destabilize and destroy a person. I think that's a New Testament.

Oh, okay, okay. Can either destabilize and destroy someone or can cause them to become more stable, to become stronger, can be trained, you can be trained by it. And I think there's kind of two pieces here. He was trained by discipline. But you saw how it nearly ruined his life. I mean, the way he talked about the depths of despair that he went into. And I don't think you even covered that as much as your conversation would have led on.

But so there is something in him that responded to that well. And I think what Gary says is right. I think his wife really helped him. I think just from the stories, his family, you know, he was pulled forward by the things he did have left. But I think that, you know, you can have difficult circumstances, the consequences. the consequences of your own actions, whatever you want to call it, can completely destroy a person.

But I think it speaks to his character, and I think it speaks to the strength of the people around him that he was able to allow this to be something that changed him. Yeah. But I do think it changed him. Also, he, if he had been just average Joe poacher, it wouldn't have bothered him that much.

You know, it really bothered. I mean, he, he beat on himself so hard. But he was smart enough and had to support to pull out of it and come back like a racehorse. Yeah. I mean, he came out of there running wide open. Yeah, that's a good point. And that's the thing that when something negative comes on you, so many people would fold in bitterness.

or they would have set out to try to prove to the man that they didn't have to stand under his authority. I mean, really, a lot of guys that get caught end up getting embittered, and they spend the rest of their life trying to just like. Or don't even care. Just go, holy cow, all right? So I got caught and just keep doing whatever you do it. Yeah. Yeah.

It really bothered him, which tells you what we've said. He was a quality guy. Yeah. Yeah. Quality guy. And that brings me back. I actually now remember what I was saying when I was saying I'm playing both sides of the fence. About 10 minutes ago I was talking about that.

Is that McAllardesville folks, not, Claude didn't tell me this. It's just what I felt when I was there. They all felt like they came down real heavy-handed on these guys trying to make a statement to the world, make an example out of them. Which we all know is true and that happens. Well, that's effectively what you were talking about with your caribou and wolf analogy. Right. Like it may seem harsh in the moment, and it's unfortunate for this population or that single caribou.

But I don't know if I'd use the word necessary, but it does send a message to coaches in general. And this is where you have to be careful because it's not like you're being, you know, somebody can say, well, you're being soft on poachers if you feel sorry for these guys that were breaking the law that did get caught and the heavy hand of the law came down on them. And you might say, well, they were guilty of every bit of it. Well, you know what? I've hunted without a hunter's orange before and didn't get a ticket for it. That ain't over with. Keep going. No.

You see what I'm saying? I mean, literally there's a guy and I know what it feels like to have a guy. undercover following you. Yes. Right in every single thing you do. And then having to give recompense for every, like, it was, it was heavy hand it. And I'm not saying that's wrong.

I'm just saying it's kind of a bummer for Claw. Kind of a bummer for all these guys. And that's kind of the consensus of the community. And I think we'd be the same way. If that had happened to an, by us, I mean, just somebody in our community. Well, it's, I mean, going. Back to restorative justice versus punitive justice, it's like the thing that is compelling

about restorative justice is it makes our community better. The thing that's problematic about punitive justice is that we often want punitive justice for other people, but we want restorative justice for ourselves because we can, we know the story and we can tell a different story of why it was okay that we did it or apologize for it. It's like, we want justice, quote unquote, justice for them, but we want grace for ourselves. Yeah. And that's why it's important to have a system that trends towards restorative justice. And that's why we like stories like this, where it's like, it worked.

And I'm not sure that, honestly, what I don't know if what you're saying is actually, I don't know that our justice system is designed or that people want it to be. And you're using the word restorative, I think, in justice literature, it'd be more rehabilitative. You know, like when you're looking at drugs, there's a big conversation of, are we trying to rehabilitate these guys? are we trying to punish them for the crime they did? And that's a big, huge question that people are trying to figure out. And I think that that, you know, I don't know that it's like determined,

oh, we want to rehabilitate criminals. I think, you know, we have the death row. We have life sentences, and those are not rehabilitative in nature. So I'm not sure that is a decision that's been made by the American public, or I think that's just a conversation that keeps happening. But I think that that's the point. Like, I don't think it's like a done and everybody. agrees we need to be rehabilitating criminals.

I think it's a national conversation that is unresolved. And you know, we're probably given way too much credit to the punitive action in this specific thing. Like, and to Dad's point, I don't think it was, you know, all that happened to him that turned Claude into who was. It was who he was. It was a wake-up call. It was just, yeah.

Because you could, because there's probably guys on that same team who had similar consequences who did not change by it. That's kind of what I'm trying to say is I think that there's something in you have a choice about how you respond even to those. That's why I love Claude Maxwell. Exactly. He responded correctly to getting smacked. Not for anybody else's sake, but for his own.

I mean, he just went forward and has done well. And him doing well to me, I said it on the podcast, but I'll say it again, it's not. doesn't have anything to do with business success, but he was an intact man. He's been married for however long. I mean, decades, decades, decades. And you know a lot about somebody when you meet their grown children.

Yeah. Watch them interact. I mean, for real, like, just intact people. Hey, one of my favorite parts of the whole thing was the story about the little boy thinking everybody was having a party and him trying to show them how to get the product. That was good.

I thought that was good. He was pumped about that. Yeah. Yeah, and he's like his dad too. I mean, he's pretty sharp cat. He said, Dad, you need to do this. And I think he was right.

I think this is going to help him some way. I think something good will come from this. I deeply hope so. Yeah, Claude would be welcome on the bearerous render anytime. Or Cass, his son, any of them. You know, Cass is super sharp. The other thing that I didn't do real well is the Bowling Alley and the restaurant are actually Casses.

Oh, really? Yeah. And I, boy, we just had such a short production window for this one because I just went there and then just turned around and did it. And I just wasn't able to clarify some of that stuff. But I should have done a better job at that. But fantastic. I think it was, it was, it was real. Like, that's what was kind of unique about it,

is that this wasn't a fabricated story, real story. All the stories are real, but it kind of happened, happened in a way that surprised me even. So, very grish, baby. I like it. Any foreshadowing of what's coming up? Woo! Yeah.

Hold on. You'll see this. right here. Yes. This was made by a famous Arkansas duck call maker. Grant,

do you know the name of that, do you know that name? I'm trying to read it. Jim Stinson. In Clarendon? Yeah. Hey, let's hear a duck call. That's a beautiful duck call,

by the way. What you blow on it, Brian? Let's hear a duck called. That's pretty. Excellent. Look out. Awesome. Here they come.

That is the only foreshadow you get. That is the only foreshadow you get. Man, hey, Merry Christmas to everybody. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Into all a good night. Thanks for listening. We didn't sing.

I think that'll be okay. Everybody pick your own song and start on the 9-0-3. Well, I hope everybody has a great Christmas. I hope all you have a great Christmas that are here in the room. and I think the next Bergerish Render will be after the first of the year, 2023. Wow.

Time just marches on. I think John Anderson has a song about that. Years? Nope. Tracy. Tracy Lawrence. Lawrence, yeah. Sing it, Brent.

I don't, I can only sing the John Anderson version. Come on. I don't know it. All right. All right. Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Christmas. And a happy new year. And a happy new year. Jingle bells. Jingle bells. Jingle all the way. Oh, what fun is to ride in our horse a slice.

I hear you only a bell. There goes smells. That was true. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to 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 Felps. Help's 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. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed human.