Bear Grease - Ep. 89: Bear Grease [Render] - Tecumseh, the Black Bear Bonanza, & Misty's First Duck Hunt

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

On this episode of Bear Grease, most of the regulars, Clay, Misty, Josh, Gary, and Isaac, gather at the Bear Grease Global Headquarters to discuss the great and enigmatic leader of the Pan-Indian Confederacy Movement, Tecumseh. But not before the crew, who is joined by James Brandenburg, Chair of the Arkansas chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, talk about the upcoming second annual Black Bear Bonanza which will take place March 4th from 9am to 5pm and feature, among other things, an owl hoot contest MC'ed by our very own Brent Reaves and judged by Clay Newcomb. Misty then dives into talking about her first duck hunt, before the outfit jumps back into discussing perhaps one of the most underrated, forgotten, and earliest American Folkheros - of whom was said "If it were not for the vicinity of the United States, he would perhaps be the founder of an empire that would rival in glory Mexico or Peru." We really doubt you're gonna want to miss this one... Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days 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. What's your favorite type of bonanza?

Mine's when it's like all yellow, no brown spots, no greens either. The favorite bonanza? Yeah. I don't even know what that means. Like the type of fruit? It sounds like he's describing a banana. Banana fruit? Oh, you're joking.

That was like one of those kids. It's like a English joke. Yeah. Because bonanza and banana are spelled close together. Yeah. I don't think it's an English joke as much as just like a bad joke. Like a bad, maybe a bad joke even. I think it's a dad joke.

Yeah, I end up getting that category. I eat a lot of brown bananas because. Because it takes two seconds. I'll tell you who'd rather eat a brown one that's like about to be, you know, look like. Turned out a banana bread. What we call. Gary Newcomb. Really?

You love a real. Gary Newcomb made it an ethical and moral, you know, statement inside of our house to eat brown bananas. Well, so that's where it started for me. Like, I'm not going to throw away bananas, but I would prefer a yellow one. You know what I'm saying? See, he would prefer, I mean, he went to the store. Or did it, like, did it just shift that way because of the moral standard? Oh, 100%.

But I'm saying if he went to Walmart and there was like brown ones there, he'd pick those up. And by the time we got home, he would have told us, you're going to eat those brown ones and you're going to love it. Yeah. Because not everybody gets something for free in life. Yeah. Right, Gary? That's right. It's all bad money.

It's all about the money, man. My question, though, is would he eat a black bear bonanza? Yeah. Oh. Excellent. And that's exactly where we're starting. Bringing it back. We have one, well, we have many special guests today.

It's true. One of our special guests today is James Brannberg. James, this is your first time on the bear grease render. Yep. Now, you're a long-time bear grease going, throwing old school. Long-time listener, first time called. A devotee. So James would have been on the Bear Grease podcast.

Didn't we do a live render last year at the Black Bear? At the Black Bear. The First Annual. Yeah. Black Bear Bananza. So the reason, part of the reason James is here, well, that's not why he's here. He's here because he's James Brandberg. Oh, yeah.

And he's just here because he's just that kind of guy. And he's got a cool truck. Got a good truck? What kind of trucks he got? He's got a Chevy A-Semit. What is that thing? That's a GMC-A-4. Okay.

I like those A-C-C-4s. It looks good, man. I've got some. I've got a GMV. but it's not quite that new and fancy, James. It's got some nice flavor on the camper shell. Yep. We got a Pebble Mine sticker.

I saw a Pebble Mine sticker. A BHA sticker. It's got tires. It's got the wheels. I mean, it's got the stuff, you know. Well, you walked right past his truck and walked right past mine. What did you think of mine? I thought your truck looked real good.

2014, Chevrolet. Totally functional. 2014. Silver Auto, Work Truck Edition. Absolutely. I know. We hear it on the commercials all the time. Been to my.

Montana pulling mules like four times, New Mexico, Colorado, been all over the country. As a shout out to General Motors, and it's never been washed. That's the truth. That's the truth. Every time I think about that truck and you haul in that mule trailer with two mules in it with a V6 in there, I'm always impressed. Oh, me too. I can't believe it. So is everybody I pass.

It might impress you want to know. I drove it with a V6 in there. So with mules on the back. Oh, really? And so I think that, you know, that kind of gives it an extra layer of credibility because it was going about 20 miles faster than when Claydrome. That's true. That's true.

It'll pull that fuel trailer 70 miles per hour all the way to Montana. Now, James, do you have to have a souped up new GMC to attend the Black Bear Mananza? Gosh, I hope not. Or are all vehicles welcome? All vehicles welcome. Okay. The teacher and me is wanting to put some structure to the Black Bear Bonanza and what we're talking about. Jay, let's define it.

Tell us about the Black Bear Bonanza. All right. All right, the 2023 Black Bear Bonanza. It's a educational fundraising event. It's put on by Arkansas BHA. It'll be March 4th at the Benton County Quail Barn in Bentonville, Arkansas. March 4th is a Saturday. It is a Saturday.

Let me start this over. He said this was a fundraiser event. People don't like to go to fundraiser. Or educational of it. This is a stop-down good time about Arkansas Black Bears and a bunch of cool people and a podcast and coo skin hats. I was thinking that we need to start with a better hives. It'll be so much fun when people get there that they won't even know that it's a fundraiser.

That it's a fundraiser slash educational event. Funners. Yes. Funraiser. From the fun and fundraiser. That's right. There we go. I heard they were going to have a live black bear just roaming loose in the event.

Dancing black bear. Don't let that secret get out. We need to keep that right here in the room. What are we doing? What are we doing? Black Bear Benetka. Okay, so we're going to do, we'll have some cooking demos. We're going to do a Bear Grease render podcast.

So we'll all be there. Well, I mean, there will be. I mean, I'm pretty confident everybody in this room will be there. Okay. I'm 99% confident that everyone in this room will be there. I mean, I'll go if Misty goes. We got to talk to Isaac, see if he'll come. I'll go with Joe.

I really want to. You'll go if Josh goes. Okay, we got to do. The Walry's will be there. Yep. Brent's going to, he's going to emcee, see, the al-hoot contest before us this year?

Very nice. You're going to judge it this year, Clay. So last year, Clay emceed. Okay. And this year, we're going to put his judging skills to the test. That's what you need to do. I'll be the greatest al-hoot judge

that ever walked this continent. I have no doubt. So that means he can't compete. Exactly. It's like a food critic. I'm not saying I'm the greatest al-hooter. No, I know that. But I'm saying you can't compete.

No. In a contest. But he would be like if, like, if the scary food critic came to your restaurant and was like picking apart every single thing you did when it comes to Al Houtes. He's the Gordon Ramsey. Exactly. Your trailing was lacking a little bit.

Oh, let me hear your laugh. Yeah. Man. Hey, you know what I want to see with this Al Houton contest? I'd like to see the best guys in the world come in here. That'll be awesome. Who is the guy? Who is the guy on the front porch of that old house?

He's just a dude from Missouri. Hey, man, he's about as good ones up in Missouri, man. There are as good as it gets. It is. And see, what I want to do is I want to start bringing in these guys. And, like, they would become. Legends. You know how, like, a guy would have a racehorse.

And he would be like, I want that racehorse. Yeah. And he's up in the stands watching. I'm going to pay for this guy to come down here. And he's going to be like. Like a ringer. He's going to be like, you know, my guy. Yeah.

I'm imagining like 20 years in the future. This has turned into, like, the bass fishing circuit where they have logos all over their clothing. Oh, yeah. And they pull in. in the big trucks completely logoed up just to make an hour. If you have, if you, if you are listening to this, if you're in the contiguous

United States, you should come to Bentonville, Arkansas for our Al-Hooten contest. And when is it? And I think even it's March 4th. Okay. That's a Saturday. It's a Saturday. Even people from Alaska and Hawaii

are welcome, Clay. There's no bard owls over there. They don't know who. I would think people in Canada can't. I feel like you're setting up a real underdog story for a, You really are. A Hawaiian or an Alaskan. Yeah.

I just heard half of Alaska light up. Or someone from the Caribbean? I mean, we're not living here. Absolutely. We could have a true cool runnings kind of thing here. There you go. There you go. It would show me if somebody from this country was.

I'll be honest. I'm just going to be honest. Okay. So now I'm imagining Josh Spillmaker, who is in the room and a part of the render today, as a real sort of John Candy-esque expert who moves to Jamaica and coaches Antigua. Antigua. Okay.

What if you got kicked out of the render? And you went down there and turned back to a rent. You came these guys up. Rolling large with my team. Yeah. Come back in here. I feel like this is some high quality bear grease intellectual property. The Disney movie right now.

So where we are? Okay. Hold on, Isaac. How are you fundraising? New hashtag. Isaac quit interrupting. I'm excited about the bananas. Wait, let Misty talk.

I'm going bananas. Isaac, don't interrupt. Okay. So we got Al-Hoot Contest. Al-Hoot Contest. We're going to, Myron Means from the Game and Fish Commission. Large carnivore biologist. He will do another Q&A session for us.

How big a boy are? Myron will be wearing a pair overalls and John Deer cap. If you have a question asked how big he is, Clay did a video with him on a Bairden study that's available somewhere in the media. If they knew how big I was. Yeah. It's all about scale on video. It is scale. That's true.

The newer things that we're adding to it this year will be, we're going to do a butchering demo. Oh. Part of this is. What are we butchering? A deer. Hopefully a deer. If we can get one. You know, if it's not that, we'll get a pig or a goat or something like that.

It's generally the same thing. But what we're trying to do is introduce people to the fact that we go outside. Yeah, we can hike, we can bike, but we can also hunt and fish. These things are very normal activities that we engage in. And we have a lot of people moving into the air. who maybe don't do that but are interested in learning how. We're going to try to break down the barriers to that so that they have a little bit more confidence. We're introducing them to BHA as an avenue to gain those skills.

And then the fundraising piece of it, we've got a couple of things that we're going to raffle off. But I'm going to pass this around. Metaphorically and physically. It is. It's a very large knife. And this knife was made by Garrett Polk. This knife is... This is not one you just want to go traipsing through the woods on your hip.

You could. And this is what Garrett told me yesterday. This is what he told me about it yesterday. It's a beautiful knife. The handle is made with a femur bone from Batman. So Clay's... Oh, really? That handle bone, it looks like elephant ivory.

It does. It is the fever bone from the largest black bear I've ever killed. Yep. True story. We'll get some... good pictures of this up on the Instagram, but steel is AEBL steel. Four and a half inch blade, probably four and a half, five inch blade.

I've got the particulars. And what Garrett told me is this knife is made to be used. Okay. He said, that's what they all say. He, yeah, they all want them to be taken out into the field and used. And then he made the sheath for it, and it's got a beaver tail inlay on the sheath. And that beaver was trapped on public land here in Arkansas by one of our board members. members Brad Green.

So we will... So we're... This knife will be in the... Special rifle. You'll be able to buy a ticket and then put it in a bucket and yeah, it's great, man. I really like that barebone, man. For real, it looks like, it looks like ivory. Can we talk about Josh's thing?

Yeah. Your hat. Oh, oh yeah, the stakes are high for the Al-Hoot contest. Yes. So the winner, the winner of the Al-Hoot contest, Clay, is going to get... A handmade. A handmade coonskin cap.

Yeah. That's a big deal. Yeah. Made by Josh Billwinker. There's only a handful of those on this great planet. Yep. So last year we had people from all over the country come. We did.

We had from Pennsylvania to Idaho. We had from the Dakotas all the way to South Texas, you know, from across the country. Last year, I don't know, how many people were there? We had about 400 people. Yeah. And that was our first year. And we didn't, it was the first year we did it. It's a good event.

And I'll be there all day. Just hanging out. It's family friendly. Bring your kids. Everybody 12 and under gets in free. This year tickets are super easy. It's 10 bucks for adults to get in the door. Yeah.

You know, have a good time all day. Game and Fish Commission is going to support us as well. So they'll have some educational booths and stuff like that. And then, you know, we can't do all of this without sponsors. So far, our big sponsors. are Umarex, the Air Gun Company. You know, people that listen to this podcast would have heard their ads. Vortex has just, they were like, sign us up.

We want to help out. And UmerX was the same way. They reached out to us. They're like, hey, when's that going on? We want to be a part of it. Good. And we're going to do a live bear grease render there. I'm not sure who's going to be on it yet.

So all of you in this room, just be on your best behavior. Like things aren't looking good for me. Maybe you can we? Maybe you get picked. Maybe you won't. This is our audition. Can we plead our case or is it a drawing? Well, there's a persuasive essay.

Yeah, a persuasive essay. Well, that's great. So that's March to 4th. Benton County Quail Barn. In Bentonville. In Bentonville, Arkansas. Doors open at 9. We'll go from 9 to 5.

There'll be things going on all day. Come for the whole day. Have a good time. We'll have a website up. So it's the easiest way to find it is go to backcountryhunters. dot org look for the events page and look for black bear bananza and by the time this podcast comes out that page will be up and people can buy tickets and folks if you're coming buy tickets and let us know you're coming so we make sure and have enough of everything there for you enough corn dogs enough

corn dogs water and port of johns yeah i'm gonna those are the three things i need i'm gonna have corn dog stand there no no i'm not clice corn dog stand well great Fantastic. Misty Newcomb had a big day yesterday. Huge. She killed her first duck. Congratulations. Tell us about that, Misty.

Was that everything you hoped it would be? I have things to say, all right? I'm not the big hunter in our family. The hunting that I've done pretty much in the last 20 years. Yeah, it's actually Clay. You may be surprised. But the last 20 years, when I've gone hunting, most of the time I'm a chaperone. I'm sitting or just coming along to hang out with Clay.

I could get into duck hunting. Like, I could be a duck hunter. I believe that's huntress. Huntress. That's right. That's right. We, I really didn't know what to expect. I really, like I've seen pictures of people duck hunting and it kind of looks really

different and I knew waiters were involved. So I figured, okay, it's going to be cold, wet, early. This doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but going to take on for the team. First of all, Amory, just as kind of a continuation from last, from... Amory DeRamus. Amory Dramus, who was on the last podcast. gave me some tips that she learned from Kaylee that that she also learned and both were on the last shooting tips shooting tips and so we went out the first day that evening we got there and we

hey Misty I also want to tell you I am right-handed and left-eye dominant as well so you're not the only one well and it doesn't even matter it turns out when you're shooting ducks because you're looking at the target not at the not down the barrel and so that was a big game changer so she gave me a few tips. And really, I couldn't believe what a difference it made in a matter of seconds, not hours and not lots of practice. But I was able to shoot those skeet, and that was fun, super fun. I mean, not 100%, but still better than 0%. And then the next morning we woke up, and I really didn't know what to expect, the dog situation in duck hunting is pretty amazing because the dog's just, like it's super fun to watch a dog that's been bred to do something that has a function.

It's really amazing to watch them. And so the dog was like antsy and he was sitting, they had this chair hooked up to a tree. And it was just really enjoyable to watch him. You know, we would talk and have, which is like thing two. So thing one, the dog. That's, that's, and I'll come back to thing two in a second. But you can actually talk in duck hunting. And, but the dog was no nonsense.

He was just like sitting there and hit, he was a lot. alert and watching. And he, if you watch the dog, you could see, okay, here's where the ducks are coming in from.

And so they were really, everybody was so, so nice, Britt and Clay, especially, you know. We were with Amory Dramus, me and Brandt,

and then Luke Naylor. Who's also been on the podcast. Who's the, Waterfile biologist. No, he was. No, he's the director. Chief.

The chief of the wildlife, chief of the wildlife, Wildlife Division. Way to go. Luke? Yeah, and they were so, So nice.

So when the first thing of ducks came in, what do you call them? They were teal. Well, but what do you call? What do you call? Is it a flock? It's a flock.

Okay. So the first flock of ducks came in, they just let me shoot. No one else shot. And the first one came in and it was like, ah, I don't know what to do. Where's my going?

I mean, like, it takes a minute to like get in position. You don't see them coming in. Yeah. I mean, like, you're just kind of, you're kind of hiding, trying to be still. And it's just like, they're there, they're there. Get ready.

Get ready, get ready, get ready, here. And so, like, I thought I would be prepared, but it took a second to get the gun up. And, I mean, I think I shot that first time, but definitely didn't hit anything. But then the second one that came in, they did again. They just let me shoot. And it was a group of flock of teal, which apparently is a real fast little bird. And I shot and I got one. And it was super exciting.

Like, super exciting. There was no film of it because we were just, you know, it was all hands on deck to get me to. where you needed to be. Yeah. And then, so what was, then they released the dog, and the dog just jumps up and looks like it's, you know, this is, this is what its purpose in life is and got to fulfill it. And it was so, I love the dog. I mean. Barron.

Yeah, barren. Big year old black club. Probably going to have to get the dog to go like that. So then, so then we weren't working many mallards. We were sitting on the edge of a overgrown field that had just kind of been and had not been, planted or tilled that year, and it kind of butted up against the slew, and it had flooded. And so basically it was a flooded field that didn't have crops in it, but it had coffee bean and a lot of just like weeds and vegetation in it.

And they had seen some mallards right there the day before, so we were sitting there. But the mallards weren't working much, but we'd have teal come bombing in. and so after Misty Kill went on the second group of ducks that came in. So we were like, sweet, we got a duck. And so she was gaining some confidence. And so the next time we're working a group of like seven or eight teal. And they're about to light. And I say, Misty, just start pulling the trigger and don't stop until it clicks.

Clay said shoot three times. You know, she's got a plug in there. And I said, shoot three times. And she just looked at me just like, oh, we can. do that? Bam, bam, bam, bam. I hope it wasn't Bam, bam, bam.

Well, I hope it was just... There we go. There we go. So, thing one that I like about duck hunting dogs, thing two, you get to talk to people. It's real social. It's a lot more. And we were with great people.

They were a lot of fun and everybody was, I mean, they were across the board, just fantastic hosts. And I learned a whole lot about ducks. And it's just fun to be with people. And it's a lot. And then thing three is just, the intensity of it.

Like, it's not like, you know, when you go on a deer hunt, you might sit for five weeks. Take a long nap. Yeah. And I remember going on, Clay one time describing our ship when he was taking sheep hunting. And he said it was like being in a sleeping bag with a coyote. What?

Well, just like, you're restless. And I kind of felt like Shep at all those deer hunts. It's like, well, we're just going to sit here. And it's just not as, it's rewarding at the, end, but it's different than duck hunting. Whereas duck hunting, like, they come in and it's like, boom, boom, boom. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. So you like the dog work. I did. Yeah, that was pretty amazing to watch. I've got the perfect breed of dog that you guys. I mean, you got the perfect dog for me? I do. I do. What kind of dog have you got? Boykin Spaniel. How's it doing?

Great. You talk about, yeah. Yeah, you talk about the, the dog sitting there like, yeah. Yeah, we went, We went this past Sunday, and we had some geese come in, and they landed too far out where we had no shot at him. But he could see them. And I was sitting right next to him. We were on the bank of this strip pit pond. And he was vibrating. Like literally, he wanted me to let him go so bad. You know, and I didn't have to hold on to him, but I was just in case.

It's the, I mean, there's a lot of good things in Dunders. duck hunting, but that's probably the best part of it for me is just watching that dog get so excited to go out and catch the thing that it was made to do. Yeah. And Boykins are great family dogs. They're great pets. Like ours is, you know, he'll just lay around the house and be snugly and everything. And then when it's time to go, he's at the door winding.

Ready to row. He's ready to go. How big is he? He's 35 pounds. He's about, about yay tall. You know, what is that 18, 24 inches at the shoulder. Okay. Yep, pretty small.

Much smaller than a lab. Yeah, yeah. It was a cool thing. Isaac, you've been deck hunting quite a bit? Oh, yeah. Where you been? I can't tell you. Tell me every single spot you've been.

I've been in the Delta in Arkansas a lot and then just, you know, west central Missouri quite a bit. There's a lot of conservation area. Scrashing out. No lights out days up in Missouri and I managed time it so that my time down. in Arkansas last week was bookended by two really great days on either side. What's a great day? A limit. A limit?

Four mallards. Yeah. So were you by yourself? No, no. I've got a buddy down there in Deval's Bluff. So you got two limits? No, no, no, no. They were limiting the two days before I showed up.

You weren't even there. I scratched out a few ducks and then they started killing them again once we left. So it feels good. Gotcha. Man, I'll tell you, here's the thing. that I have yet to, well, I'm getting, I'm starting to understand it. Just the more you're exposed to the, okay, the more you understand the, the draw to it. And if you understand the draw to it, and that's not the best way to describe it, but the more that you can get through the hard part of it.

Right. Like, for instance, we took some people coon hunting the other night for the first time. Mm-hmm. And I was trying to understand their position inside this coon hunt. We just went out in the dark and turned this dog loose. that they have no connection to, nor do they probably really have any value for a coon. I mean, like most people would see a coon dead on the side of the road or trucking pictures,

and it's not this highly valued animal. And you hear a lot of negative press about coons being overpopulated and all this stuff, nest predators. To me, when I hear a dog bark just as faint as you could hear one and you walk to it and you get like 100 yards, from the tree and you see glowing orange eyes and you hear your dog underneath it. Like that is a incredible

like feeling. And when you walk up and you see a ring tail hanging off the bottom of that tree. And you don't get that just in a moment. You get that over a lifetime of wanting to love something. And kind of what it represents. So to me a treeed coon

is just like, wow. But somebody else, I might just be like, dude, I see Coons every day on the side of the road dead. I'm starting to learn about what that is for duck hunting. Because duck hunting is a ton of work. Yes. You wake up extremely early.

And more times than not, you don't do very good. Right. Yeah. And this is the one thing about big game hunting is that you can go have a bad streak of deer hunting. But at the end of the season, you know, maybe you're going to get your buck. And the payoff is so big that it makes all that suffering worth it. And so I hiked. We calculated about seven miles on Sunday at the place that we went.

Duck hunting. Hiking in, carrying decoys. And then we did a little bit of just walking around maybe jump shooting if we could find any. We couldn't find any. We didn't fire our guns on Sunday. Hiked seven miles. And even if we had, I mean, the most we would have brought home is six. ducks, which is not nearly as much stuff as what you get off of one deer.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's, but, but the experience of being out there, you're out early, you get to see everything, it's exciting, you're talking about where are you going to go. Yeah. You're calling. That's the, that's the fun part, right?

It's talking to the ducks and trying to get that figured out. I get it. I don't think you could underestimate the, like, aspect of, like, the foolishness of it. Right. And like, so that goes hand in hand with like the talking like camaraderie, right? Where you're all up in the middle of the night, in the dark, standing in water. Hopefully it's really cold. Yeah.

That's like the best case scenario. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like doing this all together with your friends. And you're like, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Yeah, exactly. Because I can't not.

And it's not like you get a trophy duck. You know what I mean? Right. It's like. You know, I used to think that, but they're, there are. are, so first of all, a band-ed, if you shot a band-ed bird, that's a trophy. But we went on a guided hunt in Nebraska last year, and we shot some whigin that were, we'd never even seen a widgeon before.

I'm not a very seasoned duck hunter, but we shot a widgeon that everybody else in the blind was like, oh my gosh, that's beautiful. And then when you start looking at it, you're like, oh, I understand why this is, it's really nuanced, I guess. But it's completely luck. I mean, it's not like you saw that duck on a trail can and I'm going to go hunt it. Right. But it's not, I think that would, I don't know, that's the best way to say it, Josh. No, but it is true.

Like you're not targeting a specific duck. Right. You're not like, I hope, I hope. You guys aren't. That till that misty shot the other day, we had that thing on trail cam for a week. I've got a serious question. A mile away. He wasn't daylighting, and then all of a sudden.

As someone that's new to it, I picked up that bandits where banded ducks were really valuable. What's the, is it just that it's cool? Yeah. It's not like there. It's just that it's one. Yeah.

It's rare. I don't know how many ducks literally are banded. I mean, let's just say one in 500,000 ducks. I don't know. It's banded. And it's kind of neat that you can plug in the information on the band, see where it was banded. It's like life cycle.

That's a neat little nuance. There is a lot of little neat things about duck hunting. and one of them is the diversity of ducks. Like when we go out here, squirrel hunting, like we could kill fox squirrel or gray squirrel. When you go deer hunting, you know, you're going to kill a deer. When you go duck hunting, all the different ducks are, there's different value added to each other.

How many different ducks can you kill in Arkansas? Oh, man. You're asking the wrong guy. There are 41 in North America. I don't know how many are in the Mississippi Highway. In their Flyway specific. I would guess about 15 to 17 species just off the top of my head. You're probably in anyone given sit only going to kill like two or three varieties.

But the guys here in Arkansas at least want to kill Mallards. They can care less about most other ducks. That's just what, except for teal. Misty and I are big teal people. I'm a huge teal fan. And they're really cool. Now what I wanted to ask about the teal is how are you going to cook the teal? So I'm, okay, so I have one, right?

I mean, I have a teal. And it's not big. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You just have one, so you shot at all the other ones and you guys didn't bring any more back? No. There was one other teal killed. Okay. It was a two bird morning.

Okay. And I really want to mount mine. It is a really pretty bird. And so I was having a hard time deciding whether to mount it or to cook it. Because the whole reason I went was I wanted to cook a duck. Yeah. And anyway, I got. I said your first one you mount.

I mounted that one. It's real pretty. And the other one was donated to me to cook. So. Okay. But I think I. We had a gumbo, a duck gumbo. And I thought that would be super, like it was...

We just say dumbero. You would call it dumber. That's a good idea. I thought that would, I want to do something where it's either pressure cooked or, you know, low and slow. We tried some duck, we tried to cook duck last year. We're not rare meat people. Okay. And that, I think, makes a huge difference in whether you like duck or not.

Oh, big time. Yeah. And so since that's not who we are, we're going to. going to have to find another way than just like, you know, smoking or grilling it up. Look up teal in a jar. Okay. That's a way to do it. And you, you know, put all the ingredients into a jar and cook it low and slow.

I've heard that's pretty good. I think I might have tried it once, but I can't remember for sure. Brad that we were talking about earlier with the beaver tail. Okay. They did it once. And he's not a big duck hunter, but they thought it was okay. It's really funny because I have this one teal. And in the past two days, everyone's given me a recipe.

And it's like, well, guys, I've got this one deal. We're going to invite a bunch of friends over. Yeah. Our other friends. Have a bite each. For my plate. For my plate of deal. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't.

This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. because out here there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'd like to talk about a man named Tacomsa.

Is that why we're here? Okay. Yes. Okay. I like the way they say his name, Tecumsee. Okay. Well, there is a couple of things. That is the way Robert Morgan said it.

I know. I like it. Is that the way you wanted to say it to you guys? No, Tacumsa. I've always been a Tecumsa guy. What did you? You started off Ticumsee and then you were code switching on me. Yeah.

You'd be saying Ticumse and then I say Ticcumsa and then you'd switch over to DeCumse. It's true. And then when you're not around, he goes back to Ticumsa. Well, and it's neither one. One of them. It's to come the fifth. To come the thoth.

Oh, there's a this. Thith. At the end, to come Thimth. Man, I, on the way here, I said his brother's name, like 200 times so I could remember it. And now I forgot again. Tenskwadawa. Tenskwadawa. And I said it different ways more than once on the podcast.

Because this is what I want to start off on talking about Tukmth is that I have never, Isaac can vouch for this. Sounds like Mike Tyson. I've never researched something so long. This was well over a year ago that I started researching Ticumseh. And as I learned more and more, I pronounced the names different and as I kind of nailed it down. But this was probably the most, well, for sure, the most research that I ever did. You went to New York, Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma. I went to New York to meet with

Robert Morgan to meet with New York Times best selling author Robert Morgan. If I'm ever a New York Times bestselling author, I want you all to introduce me that every single way. You're going to have your name legally changed. This is my friend, New York Times bestselling author, Clay New York Times bestselling author, Clay

New York. I listen to myself. Anytime I say Robert Morgan's name, that's the way I want to introduce him. It's like, you did this, my man. Maryland was. New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Ronella. Well, he is for sure. sure.

Yeah. Multiple times. So the, so Robert Morgan, I went to his house to talk to him and I also interviewed him about another topic that we haven't even done yet. Then I went to, I went to Maryland for Peter Cozons. Went to D.C., Washington, D.C., yeah, Maryland, essentially. To meet with Peter Cozons, who is the author of the book, Tecumson the Prophet, which is, I mean, I'm not really authorized to say what is the seminal work on Tecumseh, because there are a lot of books on

Tecumseh and a lot of stuff. But I have not found one that is that I liked as much as this one. And I looked at several of them. So this is a great book. Tecumse and the Prophet. It's a read, man. I mean, it's a read. It's no joke.

So we went up there. Now I went to Dallas, Texas to meet Dr. Dave Edmonds, who, It basically has spent his life as a historical researcher of Native American history, but he's also very involved with multiple tribes and it stood before, been involved in court cases and different things that have to do with tribal history. There's a lot of stuff going on right now that has always gone on with the tribes and the U.S. government and land. and treaty stuff, they're still, I mean, it's pretty wild. So Dave Edmund's very, very, very knowledgeable guy.

And Dave's like 81 years old. That's it. Wow. He was, yes, he was a young guy. And then I went to Miami, Oklahoma. Yep. And met with Chief Ben Barnes, which was a really neat thing. Can you say that right, please, Miami.

I thought about that. Miami, Oklahoma. Yeah. And you went to Well, we went to Ohio Watch the Tacomsa Outdoor drama

Yeah, me and Isaac Drove to Ohio to watch There is an outdoor drama In Chilacothy, Ohio That's been going on for 50 years. Yeah. I mean a major outdoor production With like 100 cast members

And a big outdoor stadium Gunshots that they don't prepare you for. Gunshots that will definitely Yeah. Our ears are rigged. It's a two-hour long outdoor play. We got to. Live horses.

Yeah. Wow. Indian battles. Hang out with the guy who produces it and the pyrotechnics guy. Yeah. Both been there for a long time. Yeah. So there's a lot on Ticumsa.

And the best part of it is, is that I didn't know anything about Ticumsa a year and a half ago. Nothing. I'll tell you how I got interested in him is I was reading a number of. Another book, a book by Alan Eckhart called The Frontiersman, which I didn't, ball boy, I'm going to make some enemies. I didn't like the book. I actually couldn't finish it. It was written in a, it's a very famous book. It's very well-known.

A well-known biography of Ticumseh. And he also wrote the outdoor drama, didn't he? That's right. Eckhart. Eckhart, yeah, he's passed away. But he, his books, especially the Frontiersman, were done. done, they're written, what do they call it? Like a historical narrative?

Historical fiction. Yeah. Basically, they take real stuff that they know happen and kind of dramatize it inside of writing. Tell it in a story form. So it's very informative in that you probably get a really good picture of what happened, but they're totally just guessing about like, you know, they would put words in DeCumse's mouth about him talking to. It would be a story that is informed by the historical figures and a lot of research, but factually, it's like, yeah, I had a hard time. My wife loves books like that.

She loves a historical fiction. So, but I was telling you why. I was telling you why I was reading that book, and it was talking about Ticumse, because he's in the book, and it talked about how his name meant a panther crossing the sky. That's pretty dope. They knew how to name. Yeah, they did. Yeah. And Tinsquadoa, I mean, even just on syllables, that's a good one.

Yeah. It's so complex, though. Tensquado's name wasn't Tenskwadoa until after he had the visions. Okay. His name was. Correct. Larry. Lerwitha.

But still. Lalawithica. Yeah. Still think it's a better name than Josh. Sorry, man. Both from are great. So, moms, you need to work a little harder. Yeah.

Do better. Both are strong. in their own way. The other thing that I wish I had known, which I had declared on the podcast, was that I wish I had known about burying a white-tail antler with an ambivalical cord. Oh, that's big.

Yeah. Her chance. Did y'all do that with me, Dad? No, we did not. You got that umbilical cord floating around anywhere? I don't know, man. Is it too late to bury it? Man.

Is there another body part you could use? That's a great question. Cut off a finger? Yeah. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Well, Misty. What did you think of the podcast? I thought it was really good.

I thought you're taking a pretty complex topic and you're just trying to look at it, you know, shoot it straight. Get the facts and none of the other stuff around it. And, you know, you acknowledged in the podcast that this kind of stuff, for no good reason, can be difficult to talk about because people get so, I don't know, people get so easily offended and don't necessarily want to look at things. just yeah people want to make a lot of a lot of qualifying statements around everything and I thought you did a good job of just like saying this is what happened

this is a story it's a very intriguing story I mean there's so many different aspects of this particular story as you're going through it it almost felt like it almost felt unreal I mean like the brother

what did he I remember your phrase do you think he called that down what was the when the Cubs said William Henry Harrison that he was going to go back to Detroit and stop his foot and it was going to, the earth was going to shake his house down. Okay, yeah, and that, yeah, right,

right, so the earthquakes and, but there was just several aspects of it that were, yeah, almost unbelievable, and I'm not saying that I don't believe these things happened. Like, I do believe these things happened, but I just thought it was a great, it's a very intriguing tale, I'm looking forward to hearing the other two. I think there's,

it's a sad tale. I mean, it's on a lot of different levels. Personal, like what happened to his people if I put myself and I think that's what you did really well in this you made to come to come to a person you made him a person that you could relate to

and not like this heroic figure which he was but or you took someone whose life had a whole lot of dynamics in it that that seemed too big to be real and you could kind of feel like well if I was in his bow if I was in his shoes this is how I would yeah I can understand

I can understand this man better. He was a man that loved his people. Yeah, I love it. He loved being an Indian. Yeah. He loved living the way that they wanted to live. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's, you know, I think it also gives a level of, well, I'll let someone else, I'll let someone else talking. If I don't say it, I will. Josh, what you think? You can give an overarching statement, but like, what is one thing? I can think of the one thing that if I were talking to you, I would get excited about. And I would say, man, you wouldn't believe this. this about this. I thought it was fascinating the overlap with Daniel Boone. Yeah. I mean, that was fascinating. Did that surprise you, Dad? It did. Yeah, that was, that kind of came out of nowhere. Like, I didn't, I didn't quite, you know, I listened today to the podcast and I didn't quite catch all the timelines. And then when you started talking about that, I'm like, oh, man, this is like two huge figures in American history just paling around. You know what I mean?

You think it's pretty incredible. At the very least, in more of Daniel Boone's biographies, it would come up. Oh, and by the way, he had these interactions with this, probably the most prolific leader of Native Americans. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Daniel Boone wouldn't have even, eventually he would have known who he was. I mean, surely Ticomso would have known who Daniel Boone was, at least. 100%. And, yeah, I thought that was pretty fascinating.

Yeah. Yeah, but we don't, there is no record. Right. Of them actually. No. They were just, they were. They were contemporary. All that stuff back there is so, there is a lot of folklore around all those guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Folklore meaning just, we're not exactly sure how to dial it in. Possibly exaggerated tales. But that is not folklore. Right. I mean, like, Tacumsa was with blackfish who was his adopted father. And it was the same blackfish that adopted.

Boone and they would have absolutely overlap. So, I mean, there's no question about that. The speculation is was Tacomsa, one of the kids that Boone gave candy to. Right. I didn't, the statement I made, I made two

just interesting statements that I remember I remember Boone telling his son Nathan that Blackfish would suck on a sugar cube and give it to him. Man, when you think about like a way, to like capture a moment in history,

Boone knew how to do that. Yeah. And it showed so much of what Blackfish wanted from Boone and who he was. But the way I said it in the podcast, it made it sound like Blackfish was giving candy to the kids. Boone was the one who also told Nathan, his son, that, hey, I would give candy.

I guess he got sugar cubes from somewhere to the little kids. in Chilli Cothe. They weren't in Chilacothy at that time. Well, yeah, they were. He could have given a sugar cube to Ticompson. Yeah. That's speculation. We don't know that.

So I thought that was really fascinating. Also, you know, we've talked a little bit about Chief Ben Barnes. Fascinating guy to hear speak. I mean, just seems very articulate and knowledgeable. And I'm hoping we're going to get to hear from him more. Oh, for sure. It was kind of, I kind of hated it that he didn't show up more on this first episode. He just didn't, we didn't talk as much with him about the chronology of Tecumse's life.

So he weighs in a whole lot more in later episodes. And we're going to hear about the Shawnee Nation today. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. But, Dad, what do you think? Oh, it is always very, very good. Really deep.

I mean, it was just like, I just couldn't believe all the action in that thing. an amazing guy. You know, I read about Quanta Parker years ago. The two guys remind me of each other. Yeah. Empire, the Summer Moon. And I'd never dreamed there'd be an Indian more popular and bigger significance than Quanta. I mean, he entertained presidents.

But this guy was amazing. I mean, I liked it when they said, you have a... personality arise. They didn't say a generation or every other generation, but you see it in sports. You know, you go, this is a generational athlete. But he was one in a many, many, many people that had the ability to lead, just a natural ability. And, you know, his looks, that was interesting. You know, that's kind of interesting.

You know, I mean, he had everything you would want in a leader. He even had a limp where people could tell who he was from a distance. Yeah. I mean, he was a beautiful guy. He was built well. He was strong. He was, his voice. I mean, everything about him was said, I am the guy, follow me.

Yeah. Now, I'm not sure, I assume he took the nation down the right path. I don't know about that. I mean, you know, he cost a lot of lives by taking them that direction. But, yeah. is also intriguing to me that it was just Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, just the mid-America. Yeah, it sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

Let's go for that. Yeah. And that's so deep. It's hard to get everything right. But the simplest way to say it is that Ticompson didn't think that the whole continent of North America was going to be given back to the Native Americans. They just wanted an Indian nation. Yeah.

And that, when you think about it, is really, doesn't sound that wild. Right. I mean, think about Europe. Think about Europe. Europe is full of different countries. I mean, there's, I mean, a country like the U.S. that has this much geographic land of contiguous, you know, geographic areas of the same jurisdiction of government is pretty wild.

And, you know, if there was a, if there was a country inside of this, heck, we wouldn't, we'd just be like, yeah, that's. It would have worked some way. I mean, we would have combined forces together and been like one country. I mean, who knows where it would have gone, but pretty crazy. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing about to comes to that, it's so intriguing. And we really haven't even got into, these things are so hard to put together because we haven't even got into really what he did. We described his, we spent a lot of time on his childhood, which I thought, that's always one of the most interesting parts to me of these guys' lives, is who made them and why are they the way they are?

And when you see the crisis in Tecumse's life, oh my gosh, we can't. Now, there are people on planet Earth today that can identify with living in a war zone and having people killed. I mean, this is not something that is unusual to the human race. Yeah, for us here in North America, yeah. I mean, three major figures, like every father he ever had died by the time he was 14 years old. His older brother, who then was tasked to raise him, Chisacua dies. Chisacua says, I don't want to be buried like these.

You're not supposed to say that word anymore. Squaw, they don't say that anymore. Indians don't say that. They don't. Really? Yep. So, but that's what, that's what they said. Did he said, I want the fowls of the air to pick my bones.

I love that, man. I just thought that was awesome. I'm thinking that's kind of the way I want to go. We can make that happen. Did you know there was a duck that had to get renamed because it was called an old squaw? Yeah. It's a long tail now. Yep.

Yep. I'm for it. Yep. I just when it recorded, when I heard that, I immediately lived at Clay and said, hey, I don't feel the same way. For what if man, hey, those, the Native Americans, those, the Native Americans, Americans, and this goes back to what's so intriguing to me from a language and kind of folk speech, like where did kind of the American dialect come from, is that the Native American orators were powerful. You go back and listen to the very first introduction of the podcast. I start off with a quote from Tacomsa, where he's talking to who would eventually become a U.S. President, William Henry Harrison. Just listen to the way he spoke. And there are hundreds of Tecumse quotes where, I mean, those guys, man, that's all they had.

They didn't have written language. They didn't have books to write stuff in, I mean, in most of their history. What they had was spoken language, and they were masters of it. And then when these Europeans came over here with English language, they heard these guys talk. and we're like, wow. And, you know, Robert Morgan is the one who told me that, well, I said all that to say what Chesaquois said was, that's just the way they spoke. They were just dramatic in the way that they spoke. You know, he said, I want the fowls of the air to pick my bones.

I don't want to be buried back at camp. But that would have really impacted Tacumsa. And the, and I'm picking on two things here. the fog of death over his life, but then that translated to him being this leader, visionary, with what he believed was in the best interest for his people, and then him being this great orator and leader, incredible stuff. Isaac, what was your favorite part?

I got three big ones. Okay. One, the idea that he, like, stood up on the first war party outing, 15 years old against like if I was in that position I'd be like yep we torture people that's what I'm into now like because I had just no like personal authority or you know identity yeah to be able to be like hey guy even if I felt that way you know and I'm not I'm not trying to map my my current understanding of the world onto these people but to see someone do that is truly remarkable to me yeah to stand stand against a trend yeah

You could dice it up, but as a, not as a full-grown man. As a 15, I mean, to some degree he was, but like as a 15-year-old boy, I was, you know, lighting bottle rockets with my buddies and getting up to no good. And he's like, hey, let's reconsider this tradition. Yeah. Remarkable. Yeah. Two, I've been back and forth.

So, like. Hey, let me stop you. Hold your number two. Okay. I want to talk about that because that was a definer of Tecumse's life. Yeah. that was what got back to the American people that made them

love to Kumsa was that that was part of what got back and I had asked Peter Kosen's I said where did that come from and in the section we used on the podcast it was kind of like we don't know where he got that like how did that come wasn't on the podcast because I just had to chop it

was he told me that there were some other chiefs, like way back, like a random chief every now and then, would be like, hey, this is bad, we shouldn't do this. So he probably had that in his lineage at some point, but he still had to stand up vehemently. And we just told this time when he was 15 when he did that, that was the first time he made a stink about it. But all through his life, even to his deathbed,

He was going in and like scolding guys for torture and prisoners, which was extremely common. Whole life. And to bring it back to Daniel Boone, it makes me wonder he was 10 years old when Daniel Boone was captured. Only five years later, he's standing up to a war party saying, like, let's reconsider how we operate here. So it wouldn't surprise me if he stood out as a child in this circumstance. You know what I mean? Right. Like 10 years to 15 years old is not that big of a difference.

Number two. Yeah. Like my background, I maybe considered more of a bleeding heart or I don't know what you would want to call it, but like I empathize with the plight of Native Americans and I feel kind of bad about the way that they have been treated, historically speaking. And I was listening to a podcast recently that deals with a modern struggle of Native rights against the established government. And I got to thinking, like, in any other circumstance, a conquered people, like, it doesn't matter what they feel.

Like, the history of people is that we conquer other peoples. And then it's like, too bad, you lose. And so I was like, is my feeling correct about this? But one of the things that made me swing back to my original position on this is the idea that what is at stake here is not a conquered people versus a conqueror, but it is a powerful entity that operates in, bad faith, giving treaties, and then going back on their word, saying, here's how we're going to deal with you, and then discovering that that was a lie or a ruse to whatever. And so ultimately, what we're saying is not only is this a people who was treated poorly in terms of they had the bad luck to be overran by people who had better technology and a bunch of disease, but then

those people who were operating in power dealt in bad faith with them and have continued to. And so that's a lot of the issue that we're dealing with today. Not this abstract concept of this people was treated poorly back then, but our government said, here's how we'll operate with you. Here is a legal document that says, these are your rights, this is your place, that continually was treated like garbage. And so I think that that is an interesting thing to view this through because not only is there this moral question of what's right and wrong, but there is this legal question of they are probably owed something to some degree. And through that lens, the idea of, hey, I'd just like to set up this Indian country,

that seems like a very valid and very small ask, especially because that was guaranteed to them by the way our government operated. And so I think that's an interesting concept. You touched on it in the podcast, but. Yeah, yeah. We didn't go in super deep. Yeah. Which leads to my third point, which is he's so interesting,

and this is kind of what Gary was talking about, in this, like, great, like, confluence of all of these personality and physical traits, the oration, so much of the story of Native Americans is our government dealing with them in a way that they don't understand, like the idea of private landownership. And so, like, to treat with them. them in that way is kind of dirty pool. And then here we have somebody like, Tacomsa, who understands the concept is well versed in the way of the American people, but then also has the backbone to stand up and go, I reject that. So I'm going to lead my people

with this understanding into a way that could potentially bring success. And I think that's another just really fascinating aspect of his unique personhood. Yeah. 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. James, what did you think? think? Well, there were a couple aspects of it that jumped out to me. The first part of it that I was

really struck by, because I think if you took the names off of all the different parties in it and just told the story from the standpoint of a charismatic leader and oppressed people, or you could say it from an oppressed people, or you could even say it from a standpoint of people who felt like they were being treated badly, maybe, or they weren't. Because history is full of these figures, and you touched on it this once in a lifetime or once in a generation, these people who come along who can inspire a revolution, right? So good revolutions and bad revolutions have have happened throughout history. So that was the first thing that kind of struck me is that this is one of those

kind of stories that just didn't result in the kind of happy ending or, you know, if it was, if it was put Churchill in there or put Gandhi in there as Ticumseh. okay and they were victorious we would remember the history differently but he wasn't victorious right right and so ultimately wait what he doesn't win oh hey wait to hear ben barnes comment on that love it i asked him sorry go ahead yeah it's up for debate okay so so you i understand your point i was making a joy Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, but you, that's the thing that struck me was how it's a charismatic, it's a charismatic leader who, in the second thing that, that I kind of saw was you had said that you had this religious movement, started as a religious movement, and then, you know, with his brother, and then he came along it added the political and military component to it. Mm-hmm. Okay. How often has that happened, even fairly recently? Yeah.

You know? So history has this way of repeating itself. Yeah. And then thinking about how you were, you had mentioned that they, back to the storytelling and the way that they spoke and how that was basically borrowed, here you had people on essentially two opposite sides, right? So the Europeans who were moving in wanted to conquer, and their leadership and their, you know, the religious leaders,

their political leaders were looking at their opposition and copying what they admired that their opposition was able to do. I mean, that still happens too. Yeah. Every day. You know, one side gets a little bit ahead, and then the other side copies their tactics, and they get a little bit ahead.

Yeah. So the overarching thing there for me is that I was struck by how easily you could take this story and place it in so many other times in history and have the same thing. You just took the punchline from episode two, James. Now you're fired. Thanks a lot. You're not getting the invite back. I didn't get the memo.

That's a great observation because that's what I talk about it with Dave Edmonds and it's so interesting to hear him describe it in that when you turn a bunch of people loose in the same place and there's border conflicts and cultural conflicts like the Native Americans and the Americans basically all the same. stuff like always happens. Different, different players, different characters, different, little different scenarios, but some, it's really similar. So, yeah, that's a good, that's a good observation.

I also thought it was really interesting how the reaction was, hey, we got to get rid of this modern stuff that's coming in here and go back to our simpler way of life. Isn't that interesting? I mean, so much of history is that conflict between progress. and our roots. It is. It's like we feel it personally. We feel it generationally.

We feel it as a country. And that's always the political tension pretty much anywhere. Yep. It's the political tension in this country. Yep. Is that, well, you know, who was the America from 50 years ago? We're not that anymore. And it's an idealized way also.

It can be. You know, we remember the good things from the past. and we forget the whatever, you know, we forget the childhood poverty or, you know, birth rates or, you know, whatever it is that we, that we kind of gloss over from the past that wasn't as good. What do you think, Dad? Didn't have a thought? Yeah, well, I've had several, but I forget them pretty quickly. Remember in the past? You know, the point you just made about going back the way.

we used to be, you know, I thought that was really critical. You see it all through our society today. I want to go back the way we were 20 years ago. I mean, how we teach our kids, all this stuff. They had the same issues. And if you go back to the Civil War, you know, wherever you go, I mean, we fight the same demons. And when they, when his brother received this vision or whatever it was, this dream,

he went around the country. is an evangelist and they said a lot of the early evangelists were Indians like Royal Roberts I don't know that's a

that overlap was really interesting and I saw it coming in the book before they actually said it so in the way the book structured it talks about

Tensquantawa's Tinsquadoas his vision and the components of the doctrine and as I'm reading it I'm thinking this is a lot

There's a lot of overlap with Christianity. Sounds like a circuit preacher. Yeah. You know, you got the serpent. I mean, that's tied right in with what we believe. And then you've got the master, whatever they call it. Master of life. So you got God and Satan.

And a lot of it, you know, we couldn't get into like all the doctrine just because there's only so much. I tried to give people just what they need to understand. But the whole thing was about gaining access back to the great spirit, which is essentially the story of Christianity. access to God, you know. And so it was the same thing. It was a similar story.

And it was so interesting to hear. Go ahead. Go ahead. For I forget it. Yeah. He said, the brother said that I've already forgotten it. But the point that I'm driving at, I've talked to Indians, you know, people that I know today, and they say one great thing that came from all this was Christianity.

and so there were some good that came. I'll raise my hand again. I'm getting too old to be on the render. Hey, hey, here you go. Here's a point. Here's a point. No, this isn't it. This is better.

Okay. Even better. When I think about the render, the brotherhood, the bond that we have here, we eat out of the same bowl, we eat out of the same with the same spoon. There you go. Same stuff. Strong metaphor, huh? Yeah, there you go.

Does anybody want this sugar cube up and chew on? Yeah. Yeah, I'm past the sugar cube. That's what we're going to start doing. No, I thought that was super interesting at the time of the Great Awakening in this country, and there was this frontier Christian revival. Same time this was happening. Super interesting.

And, yeah, the miracles were very interesting. The clips. So when you read it, there's some guys that just, straight up say Tinsquadoa knew there was an eclipse coming and it just it just worked out for him. Just like, you know,

threw him a softball, you know, a slow pitch and just let him knock it out of the park. But I mean, I don't know. How fast does word travel about a solar eclipse? I mean, today, even with Instagram, I only know about a few days before they happen. And he was, he said it 50 days before.

I don't know. And then. But no one can predict an earthquake. No. No. Do you think, do you think,

do you think, do you think, he was like, it happened? Or do you think he was like, lucked out on that one? Dodged the bullet. I asked Robert Morgan. Yeah. He said he,

New York Times best selling. Yeah. He said a lot of the problems, not on the white man, but on the way they were living.

That's right. I mean, that was pretty insane. I mean, you know, we do the same thing today. We talk the same way today a lot of times. Yeah. Yeah, they said that it was a punishment for, they believed that what was happening to their culture was a punishment for them assimilating.

Yeah. And the other part of this story, the more I learned about these things is that this all didn't happen real quick. Like right now, when we tell the story, we say, yeah, there was a civilization here, and then that civilization was basically moved and removed. This thing took place over the course of several hundred years. And so I was really, I mean, almost disappointed in a way when I learned that a lot of the Shawnees rejected Tecumseh and his brother. And you just kind of were like, doggone it really? He said J.C., man, I'm not too sure about that.

I mean, he was the one who said a prophet wasn't being accepted in his hometown. It's interesting to think about the timeline. So they accepted European settlement, 1492, right, took a couple of goes to start. If you want to look at the Vikings settling sooner, that's a different thing. But if you just go with 1492, we've not been the United States of America longer than we have. right and so like it seems like this very short compressed thing but like that's almost 300 years before to comes it comes along yeah that's a that's a lot of time that's a lot of time especially in the they were talking about christopher Columbus the same way we are yeah i mean the difference

between 300 and 500 years right i mean it's like yeah yeah it's a complicated history and And it is intimidating to do a series like this because, I mean, I'm not trying to say that this is an all-inclusive, that this podcast is going to cover everything about, which comes to life, that would be impossible. But, man, I want it to have as much as it can that makes sense of the time. And to me, like, the revelations that I have about these things as I study them is what I put on the podcast. and I thought it was a powerful metaphor, the soccer game. Oh, that's great. It would be like, trying to describe what it would be like for the Native Americans, and with an understanding of their understanding of private land ownership,

which I'm fascinated with. I own a piece of land that's not here, a small piece of land. And when I go there, that's not where I live. We own another little piece property. When I go there... Can you drop me a pen? Negative. I'm like, I don't own this place.

This is ridiculous. This is a joke. I don't own this place. Yeah, I've got the right to be here. Nobody else does. I don't own this place. I for real feel like that when I'm standing there. I'm like, this is a very abstract, weird feeling.

I identify with those guys. But, okay, soccer game. When you understand that the Native American, a lot of the tribes, that their connection to their gods and the spiritual world is very site-specific,

super good intel to understand their culture. And then for a group to come in that had private land ownership, worldview, and understanding, it would be like a soccer game forming in your yard around you and the rules of the game violate your worldview.

You don't understand them. You don't know them. You find yourself in the middle of the game. And whoever wins gets the land. Just like flesh this out a little bit further. On my point number two, I feel like the rules of the game are additionally convoluted by the fact

that the opponent is telling you the rules and then changing them. There you go. That's it. You can pick up the ball. Whistle. You picked up the ball. Number two is just way too long. You should have just said that.

We'd all got it. Pick up the ball. And then... They cheated at the soccer game. We'd all know what you meant. Additionally, you're not really aware that you're going to lose your house at the beginning of the game. Right. It just slowly unfolds that like, hold up.

And we're just going to play for fun. Somebody just moved to bad. They're going to give you somewhere else, but you got to walk there. Yeah, the most amazing thing to me is what James said. Dang it. We've got a hero that lost. That's just uncalled for in America. It doesn't happen.

It doesn't happen. I mean, yeah. But I bet, but I think history is probably full of that. Oh, yeah. That's the thing is, history is littered with these people that have done amazing things, but they just didn't win. And whoever won gets to write the history. Right?

Absolutely. Yeah. And, yeah, the just don't always win. I mean, they don't. They don't win. I thought the other thing, if I had been asked, Misty, why don't you ask me?

Clay, what did you think? You got to make the podcast. What? No, you asked me, Ms. What did you think? What was your favorite part? Oh, thanks for asking. That's great.

To me, one of the most interesting parts was about the influence of Native American culture on early American identity. I thought that was super interesting. I think that's way underrated. and I'll walk you even more through what I said on the podcast. So the, and I hope it made sense.

I think the difference between Europeans today, like you just go get a random sampling of a guy from Europe and you put him with a random guy from, I don't know, just a state in this country. And it would help if that guy was somehow connected to the land in a way, not somebody from urban America. I think the difference between those guys, which would be a vast difference.

If you could really trace it back, if you could do an ancestry of me.com with culture and figure out kind of where they came from, I think the difference is the Native American influence that impacts us to this day. Because when you think, because the Daniel Boone was the first real American non-governmental hero, America's first heroes were like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and these kind of guys.

The only guys written more about than Boone are those two in American history, American literature. The only two guys written more about. So Boone, in a philosophical level, taught us how to be an American. He was an archetype. And Daniel Boone was tried for treason, Josh, because they thought he was an Indian. He went and lived with them, became adopted with them, knew the Shawnee language, knew how to trade. He would come back and they wouldn't trust him. They're like, dude, you can't trust that guy.

He's been with, you know, these domestic terrorists. And he was so influenced by the Native Americans and all these frontiersmen were. I mean, they taught us how to live in this place. I think that's fascinating. I think it's fascinating And Point of order real quick My dad, who is wonderful

And listens to the podcast Religiously, Chris Neal called on the way down here And said What Chris say He said, Is Clay sure that all of his descendants Are white Europeans? I said most of them.

Your descendants? You did say that I paid attention. Yeah. Oh, I have. I did. Hey, no, no, no, no. I should be very sure about this, actually.

You should be extremely sure. I didn't get it the first time he said it either. I caught it. I don't. Are you sure all of your descendants? Are all your descendants? That's the descendants. Oh, no.

Tell you a snail. You and I. I missed it. I listened to the podcast twice yesterday, missed it. And missed it when he first said it. I see what you said. Yeah, that's true. I love it.

It's like being on LinkedIn. When you're on LinkedIn and you make a grammatical error, you're hammer. On Instagram, they'll let it slide. Instagram doesn't even let you edit some of your things to fix those grammatical errors. Oh, tell Chris, I'm sorry. I did. I was listening to the, good point. The Meat Eater podcast, would they do the game, the game show one?

Yes, trivia. And Spencer Newhart said pronunciation. He did? Oh, no, it's viral. Yeah. It is like a sickness. It's spreading. Listen, yesterday, Clay said.

Influencer, right? pronunciation. You did? He did. He said it in the podcast, and when I was listening to it, I paused and said, is that how you say that?

Truly, that can't be right. You're a total influencer, Clay. Well, so what's coming up on episode number two, Clay? The second half of Tecumse's life. Okay. Second half of his life.

So we really haven't even got into to what he did, which is he was highly involved in the War of 1812. Right. sided with the British. Okay. So he's totally, totally in with the British.

So, no, a fascinating guy. And we didn't even talk about him being a hunter. That was the main thing he was known as, as a young man, was a great hunter. Oh, yeah. None of us picked up on that 40 deer. Yeah, killed 40 deer. 40 deer in three days.

It's funny, that's the part that Clay really questioned in the whole story. He's like, oh, I know about the 40 deer. I know something about hunting, and that is not. It's possible, but no, when I'm reading all these things, especially when there's a guy that far back, a lot of the questions I have for some of these historians, and I've learned a lot from Robert Morgan and from some of these other guys, it's like, how do we know that? Like, how do we know he did that? Because, I mean, I hope he did that. But I want to know how. And a lot of them, when they come from multiple sources that are legitimate.

It's a good indicator. But some things are just like, you trace it back and you'd be like, yeah, somebody wrote that in their journal and they never even met the guy. Yeah. And I think the point stands that even if it was half that, if it was a tenth of that, you would be a great hunter. Like if I killed four deer in three days, somebody would be like, dude, that Isaac guy knows how to hunt. He's getting it done. Yeah. So I think the point stands.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He was known as a great hunter in the Shawnee Nation, and that was a major deal for them. That was like, it was like being, like being a NBA athlete. Speaking of hunting, what's coming up on March 4th? Black Bear Bonanza. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. At the Benton County Quail Barn in Bentonville, Arkansas. Yep.

Get your tickets, $10 each. The website, backcountryhunters.org. Go to the events page. If you have a, if you have a protest. you want to launch. You might try that. An audio-based protest, you might try that

during the Bear Grease render recording. What do you mean? I'm just trying to incentivize some people to come out that might not otherwise. You think they might start like chanting. Could be. Let Misty talk.

Let Misty talk. I was thinking if you have an alhut, you should be practicing. And it doesn't matter where you're listening. I think we're going to get to the point where we're going to have to have qualifying rounds. We might.

We had a lot of people last year. It would be, if it was like an hour and a half of people getting up there in Alhut and you'd get tired of it. Yeah. But you'd have to have. How many competitors did you have last year? I mean, like, probably 40. I think so. Oh, are you serious?

I think we had about 40 people. The Alhubes in Arkansas were good. I'm just going to say that. I'm not saying they were all from Arkansas, but we've been to other places this year. But you do get the guys that probably have never outhooted much that just want to get up there and have a fun time. Right. Which is cool. Yep.

What are the chances of me doing all right with a trench coat and a real owl? I get up there with, if you can put an owl under your trench coat and make it hoot, I say let him go. Yeah. Bonus points for execution, right? Yeah, but gaming fish will be there, so just be wearing. That's what the trench coat is for. You could probably get a permit for a barred owl.

I wish I had a barred owl. I know you do. I know you do, Clay. Well, hey, this has been great. This has been great. This is a long time coming for me. I've been planning this for a long time to come so. It's true.

Yep. Yeah. All right. Good. 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 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.

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.