The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 465: A Truck Story That’s A Love Story

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Steve Rinella talks with Clay Newcomb, Dirk Durham, Jason Phelps, KC Smith, Tyler Jones, Chester Floyd, and Phil Taylor. Topics include: Clay’s appetizer; sleeping in a convenience store parking lot; seeing the buck from the truck; when trucks and boats going aerodynamic; Chester’s Grandpa Czekalski; the blurred line between tighty whities and skin; bear scratches down your brand new truck; the universal animal stop call; getting the chance to throw one on the back of the pickup; floating on the snow surface; how those cursed wrestling shoes and a truck fire make a great love story; Old Grey driving nine miles in reverse; hauling mules all over the country in that truck; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you're sitting there and you look at your feed and you think, what in Sam Hill is this? A special episode of the Meat Eater Podcast. Well, you're correct.

This is a special edition called Truck Stories. Meat Eaters Truck Stories. Maybe you've heard Meat Eaters Campfire Stories. This is a special edition called Truck Stories. Meat Eaters Truck Stories. Maybe you've heard Meat Eaters Campfire Stories. This is Truck Stories. And here to share in this event with us is as though dealing poker and I'm the dealer.

Clay Newcomb. Yeah. Clay Newcomb. Glad to be here. Clay, you don't gamble, do you? That's probably why you don't know what I'm talking about. Not a lot of gambling. Okay. As though dealing old maid. Little horse racing. Little horse racing. As though dealing old maid. Texas Hold'em.

Yeah. Clay Newcomb from Barragree's Podcast. Casey Smith. Casey Smith from The Element. Tyler Jones. Tyler Jones from The Element. Big truck guys out here. Yep. Chester Floyd.

One time I won rent money off of a poker game. Oh, did you? Yep. Chester has a big concert coming up. Your dad asked him how long, when was the concert, and he gave it to me in hours. 11 days, four hours. And instead he wasn't nervous,

but the fact that he knew how many hours away it was suggested nervousness. No, I'm excited. I saw a great concert last night, Paul Cawthon, and I took some mental notes of performing. And it should be fun. The Big Velvet, they call him. Did you know that? Yeah, I did.

I like that guy. Yeah, he's good. Talented. I texted him about coming on the show. Yeah, we should get him on. Well, like referred me out it's just got complicated he like was like he had talked like the manager is but if you're out there paul koth we still like to have you come on the show i just want to like not have to make it so complicated yep jason jason phelps cutting the distance okay and dirkps, cutting the distance. Okay. And Dirk Durham, cutting the distance.

And you boys are going weekly. We are. We're changing it up from bi-weekly to weekly. Yep. Twice. How are you going to double the output? Oh,

just add Dirk every other week. So right now, I'm every other week. You're just going to mix in Dirk every other week. Twice as much talking. So if you're a cutting the distance podcast fan, now you can listen every week.

Yeah. What if that cuts into my listenership here? It shouldn't. It's all additive. Should the name of the podcast now not be Twice as Long? As opposed to Cutting the Distance? Twice as Far. Rebrand.

How's the ring do it? I like it. Twice as Far. Okay, who's going to start gonna start out i mean i could tell my story i could tell my truck story and listen my story's so old i had to call i had to call the person that's about to to um go over all the details this morning you should i mean hey listen i think this is what later i think this is what we should do i think we should go around the table rate our story based upon the what how we think the world's going to perceive it oh and then you could assign because you know i may have like a really happy fun story about family that people are going to go oh that was cute and you may have a story about a truck you know inferno yeah and you may we may want to order it a certain way i like it i would

say mine is like a it's like a 4.8 on the scale of like fun and then there's a smaller story that's like a seven it's got a great punch line uh mine is a is maybe a seven and it's a love story listen you're gonna think it's about wrestling and infernos it's a love story it's hard to beat what about you guys i think everybody thinks their own story's the best usually i gave mine a seven but uh you know That's the best we got to offer is a seven. I don't think mine would be the best, but you never know. Mine just got like a funny part

at the end. And then like, it's a lot of buildup to a funny, and then there's a predator issue at the end. You know, poor Corinne had to really

talk to a lot of people to find a room full of people with a good truck story. So you guys better bring it. It's going to be good. What are you guys rating? I'm kind of like a play. I like to underrate

but overachieve. You know? Like a four probably because I don't know how people perceive my story. Out of five or ten? Out of ten.

Wow. You know. My jersey number was a five so I'm going to go with that. Okay. Yep. Who goes first? You had the highest number at seven. Did yeah here we go okay so that's for last though right what's that best

oh yeah you said you had two stories that's why i'm going last no no one story i got one story that i'm very committed to and i even made phone calls about it so i'm there's no backing out now clay go ahead i was just to say, this isn't even on my roster of stories, but just to get us started, when I was a junior in high school, I had a four-wheel drive pickup truck. This is the story or not? This is not the story. This is an appetizer story. And I started complaining to my dad that there was mud getting into the cab of the truck. I said, Dad, the cab of my truck leaks. There's something wrong with my truck.

I don't know what's going on. And so we were like, what's wrong with this truck? And a few weeks later, it was back when we developed film. You know, you had film cameras that you took to the store and got filmed. Well, he took a camera to the to walmart got it the film developed and there was a picture of me in my truck and you could not see the truck i was i was deep i was i was you know rear view like side mirror deep in mud going like 20 miles an hour and he came home with a photo and said, Clay, this is why your truck leaks.

And it never occurred to me. So that's your appetizer story. And that truck was an incredible truck. It was a reclaimed. It had been salvaged. It had a salvaged title because it had been in a flood somewhere down south. And so for like eight years while I had it, I didn't have it for eight years. However long I had it, it blew sand when you turned on the air conditioner non-stop that's cool yeah i wear

glasses in the truck because it's blowing sand ambience that wasn't even my story guys are you are you going or do i go out no that somebody else i passed it off now right that well yeah i feel like the main course comes after the appetizer i'll go okay all right i'm tired of this all right ladies and gentlemen buckle up for a four let's go okay so i'll start it uh you know last time on the podcast you had talked about kind of our story and it involves being a true whitetail bone. So just completely broke, trying to kill whitetail deer on video and make something, you know, that we can, people would like, right? So we, I had, I was living basically in my truck for the season. I mean, like I would camp some, but I would sleep in the back seat.

And so I had, I had a, let's see, 2007 half ton. Is that acceptable? your standards and um and i killed a couple deer that year one on texas public land which was my first texas public land buck that i killed this is 2019 and then uh we spent i had an iowa tag which is like a five-year draw i mean it's like and it's 600 bucks. You got to put in every year. It's like 50 bucks, 60 bucks every year. So you're like racking up an expensive tag for a whitetail deer. I mean, close to a thousand bucks probably.

So it's an important tag. You have the chance of shooting the biggest buck you've ever seen in Iowa. It's the greatest state, in my opinion, for deer hunting. So anyway, the first time we went up there seen in Iowa. It's just, it's the greatest state in my opinion for, for deer hunting. So anyway, um, the first time we went up there was in October and Casey and I, uh, went together and we, we hunted last part of October all the way up to Halloween, like eight days. And we, there was like two snowing events. And I mean, we're from Texas, so that doesn't happen in October. We get up there and have a pretty good hunt. We don't kill a deer, so I got to go back.

Well, on the way home, I'm going to edit some footage. So I get the computer out. He takes my keys, and we're driving, right? And we get down into Missouri, and it's icy. And we come up over this big hill, and it's just flat prairie, you know. Come up over this big hill. It's pretty icy. We've been driving for like two or three hours and i'm like hey look at that 18 wheeler right there it's turned over and about that time it was like the the top of the hill

turned and went to the left and we just kept going and just black eyes i mean it was absolutely and it was like there was a bunch of cars that were the same problem that day. But, I mean, we tore through a fence, like 200 yards of pasture. I had a tree about that big around that was coming right at me in the pastures. He held his hands out as though gripping clay's head. That's right. A solid tree. Like you don't want to hit that, you know. And it came so close it blew the mirror off right beside me.

Vaporized. Vaporized, for sure. And it was like, it was deep snow, you know? Well, we somehow come to a stop finally. I mean, way out in this pasture. We limped the truck back up to the road and got it fixed that day enough. It had broken a tie rod or something, right? Yep, tie rod in.

And so ended up getting it fixed that day and made it home that night with no rear view mirror on one side. Like some of the lights weren't working, but I got to borrow a truck and come back in the rut because it was a special tag. So I come back in December and I'm literally, I leave my house with $1.67 in my account. I play guitar. I played a show, and I made like $200, which is pretty good. I didn't know you played. It was just an acoustic guitar.

Chester perked right up there. He's no interest. I'll tell you the venue name later on. Get $200, pretty easy. But I had the cash, So that was what I was going to pay for gas to get up there. And I was going to figure it out. I think we were supposed to have like a deposit happen, you know, happen when I was up there, but you know, my wife, um, she's been very faithful through this whole thing. So, uh, we get up, I get up there and I'm

by myself and, um, I have to sleep. I have no money. So I have to sleep in the back of this new truck that I got that I'm borrowing across it in a sleeping bag. It's cold out. And I'm in a Casey's parking lot. You know what a Casey's is? Anybody? Yeah, like a convenient. It's a general store. It's a pizza.

Great store. They have great pizza. You can get gas there. Yeah. You can get gas there. And so anyway, I mean, it was just terrible. Like all night, just big trucks were coming in and waking me up. I slept terribly, but I ended up like the third or fourth day that I was there on that trip, I'm hanging like 80 yards off the road. This road was

too slick for cars to come through at the time it had been raining and uh i i see a deer pass across the road and then um i hear the buck before i ever saw him and i thought it was a motorcycle coming down the road he was he was doing he was grunting so loud and long that it was just like i i thought a dirt bike's coming he's fixing to mess this whole thing up it was it's crazy it's all on video it's on youtube on the element channel yeah and i shot him and he ran like 20 yards and fell over. Could see the truck from the stand, too. Yeah. Yeah.

It was up the hill a ways. Oh, that was your punchline. Yeah, it's not like a... He could see the buck from the stand. Yeah. No, but I, you know, just sleeping in the bed of my truck, just poor boying it, you know? That's great. Yeah.

No, like no infernos or anything. I was sure happy to shoot that buck for sure dude whose truck was it is my wife's granddad uh he had uh he had gotten to where he couldn't really walk and so he wasn't using his truck much and so yeah it's a nice truck i still have it that's great yep yep dig in chester let's go so I took my sister's truck from her senior year high school. Okay. The day I graduated from high school, I took her truck out to Montana. I drove it all the way out because I wanted to be a fishing guide.

The truck that I had in high school was not going to make it kind of out west, make the big trip. So my parents. Did you let her know you were gonna take it i let her know well my parents basically let her know that that's kind of how it was gonna work okay so they said they said uh young chester is flying the coop and it will be in your truck basically it was it was more of like the family truck right but she drove it yeah okay um so i took that out west um the day after i graduated just like super excited to kind of start my own life so i drove it across the country and i got a job at working at a drift boat shop and i wanted to become a fly fishing guide so that was like the job i was like i can work at a drift boat shop and I wanted to become a fly fishing guide so that was like

the job I was like I can work at this drift boat shop this truck can handle it handle pulling a light drift boat I'm gonna work my way up and buy a drift boat so I did that and got a drift boat and was kind of eager to fish as much as I possibly could. So I would work and, or I'd get up real early, fish, then go work or fish after work. And I was fishing with my buddy, Stephen Smith. It was in, yeah, it was real high water year, 2011, I remember, great hopper fishing. So we were, it was like late July. We were literally going, burning the candle on both ends, getting up before the sun comes up and driving out to the Yellowstone. And we had a

pretty phenomenal day of fishing, um, hopper fishing and the wind was blowing and it was blowing all these hoppers in the water i remember and grasshoppers grasshoppers yep we were on like you know cloud nine two young kids i've got a drift boat i moved out from wisconsin you know it was like the as good of memory as anyone could have um meet some buddies at the boat ramp talking about our day and we get in the truck and I turned the AC on and we're cruising down I-90 just feeling great about life. And my buddy's sitting there in the passenger seat and he said, the next thing he looks over at me and I got my eyes shut, which is never man never good we got that ac going we got music going and i was tired and you know if we were in like today's trucks this probably wouldn't happen because there's all these alarms and safety things that are in them um but i hit the rumble strips and i was out cold sleeping

and i woke up and kind of from a dead sleep and over corrected oh we had the drift boat on the back and at any moment i was like it's one of those slow motion things in life that you're like we're gonna go we're gonna start rolling well we didn't we like slid sideways on going 80 miles an hour which is the speed limit out here on cruise control slid sideways and launched the truck off the side of the road airborne for like 60 feet with a drift boat on the back and we land in a farmer's field there's cattle around us and they're like what the heck happened and i'm just as surprised as the cows because i had just waken up from a nap and you know my my buddy is like, you know, like shaken and we did not have a scratch on us. So like.

How was the boat? The, the boat was completely fine. It was a aluminum drift boat, just a burly boat. And, uh, but the trailer was kind of messed up. Um, but yeah, every, I remember the, uh, old rancher coming and looking over the side and being like, you boys are lucky. Why is it always an old rancher? How come there's never a young rancher?

There is. Because a young guy doesn't have enough money to own a ranch in Montana. For sure. No nervousness and a young rancher came up to me. He might not have been a rancher either. He just had a cowboy hat. I didn't ask him at the time. How many cattle do you have?

Yeah. But, dude, we, yeah, I mean, we drove that truck back home that night. My buddy brought us Subway sandwiches, and we went to the drift boat shop and got a flatbed trailer and drove right back out there. Went back out into the shop and got a flatbed trailer and drove right back out there. Went back out into the field and got your boat? Winched the trailer and the drift boat back on the flatbed, and we were out there fishing. That day?

No, no, no. We were out there fishing a couple days later. How about that? Was your sister mad? Was my sister mad? Nothing to be mad about. Nothing to be mad about, man. That truck.

Just ramped her truck 60 feet. It just, but I think what happened there was what saved us was the boat trailer. I think, cause when we turned, it stayed, you know, parallel to the road. It was like a rudder. And I think that, exactly. Yeah. I think that's what kept us in there. But man, that was like, you know, one of those life lessons that like, you do not drive tired.

I feel like we all learn that. As young men, like around 20. You're doing something dumb. It's such a thing with young. I don't know if it will be in future generations, but it just, I far away from that now but it was just a real thing yeah i gotta pull over you gotta drive in like 10 minutes later i gotta pull over you gotta drive i'm so tired we didn't stop and do jumping jacks together a whole bunch man my buddy hit on this strategy he would get a he would stop at a gas station get a cup full of ice and i'm not joking we'll just drop ice cubes down his back of his t-shirt and then lean into the ice cube

against the seat and that was his whole like well i know how to get a long ways but man lucky to be fishing that's for sure sure man here you are now didn't hurt the truck much no didn't hurt drove it out of the now didn't hurt the truck much no didn't hurt drove it out of the field didn't hurt the truck at all man yeah did you go through any fences or did you ramp the fence one one fence yeah how'd you have to fix it no that we the guy said we were good we were good when we talked to him he'd fix it you know what i like about chester's little genesis story about um a fishing guide is he had no idea what he's doing or talking about but he actually did it just drove away from home and became a fishing guide

yeah that's what i wanted my guidance counselor in high school asked everybody like they want to kind of help you with your career goal in college and i said i didn't i don't want to go to college i want to be a fishing guide and saying that in wisconsin in the holy land of dairy country she's like you know uh-uh like you're not you can't catch fish for a living they were like cheese and fish don't go together right so when i uh i went down this would never happen anymore i went down to my guidance counselor people in fact people don't believe that I'm telling the truth, but this happened. I went to my guidance counselor in high school

and I signed up for a zero hour. So you started like seven in the morning and I had to do a gym credit still. I went down to the guidance counselor and said, listen, when I get out of school, I'm going to check on my traps. So I'm going to the guidance counselor and said, listen, when I get out of school, I'm going to check on my traps. So I'm going to be active. And if I didn't have to go to gym,

I could get out an hour earlier. And that's what I'm going to be doing anyways, is out canoeing and all that. They're like, okay, really? You got a credit. They for trapping.

They let me leave. So I was leaving at noon or whatever. And no one would ever be able to do that anymore. no that just goes to show what's happening in this country something's wrong dude that's great oh yeah just excuse me my pe credit sweet man that's a good guy i should find that guy make a little side money you know trapping um corinne do you want me to mention the other quick story i have yeah go ahead okay i'll make this brief um this is about a truck that is like larger than life um you know everyone like maybe knew a guy that he had a truck and you'd see that guy and be like oh there's old old bob you know doing something and like

the truck has its own character yeah the truck is the person yeah so my my grandfather is an accessory to the truck the person's an accessory to truck and the yeah this person was my grandfather and uh he was a great great man he seven girls, my mom being one of them. Big truck. It was a half, this one was a half ton. Yeah. Scosche bigger than the truck I drove out west. Was that a mom joke?

No. I mean, seven kids, big truck. It was a 53 to 55, I don't know the exact year, like a blue truck, just like that color. Like this little truck right here. Right here, yeah. I have some pictures that I want to show you. I'll pass my computer around. Oh, wow.

He's got show and tell this is a truck this is a picture with my dad his brothers and his father with some deer in the back of the the truck with some foxes on the ground and a coyote there are more trappers than real mixed bag real mixed bag the chikolski family and he bought this truck new which was like one of the only things he bought new ever for a farm truck um that's a great photo and he you know the neighbors would see this truck coming down the road and they'd be like oh there's john chikolski coming to help out or you know it was just that kind of character of truck anyways he's 96 years old right now wow and he's still alive yeah his his sister lived to be like 107 and his grandma was like 109

anyways my mother is right now getting this truck fixed and and refished. So I'll show you these photos really quick. Wow. This should have been the- Well, yeah, next time, Chester, we can put them up on the TV and have everyone see them. But- This is big. Yeah, let me find these real quick.

Sorry, I didn't have them pulled up. So here's a little text from my brother-in-law who's fixing it up. Just waiting on a little of everything for parts because you cannot find, it's not like one of those trucks where people want to fix up nowadays because it will have no value,

but it's just sentimental value to the family. He's waiting on some clutch parts, transmission parts, parts for the steering box, seals for the rear axle, some brake parts, some interior parts. Parts, parts. Yeah. The engine was completely rebuilt with possibly the last set of pistons that were ever made

in the factory. He got all the six pistons from a different store in different states. Really? So here's the color of it. So my mom's getting it redone, and my grandfather is not doing great right now. And the plan was to have my grandfather surprise him with this truck. Oh, that's cute.

And then take him to the local Weyerhaeuser parade, and he would ride in that with my mother or whoever. And all the people, like his nieces and stuff that are still around there, would be surprised and see my grandfather in the truck at the parade. Like he was meant to be. Like he was meant to be. And they would see that. And it would see that. So hopefully this can happen.

God, it puts my faith back in America. I lost my faith thinking about counselors these days, not letting kids out of gym class. Now it's back, man. Good story. That's cool. Yeah, that powder blue's nice. Good story.

Grandpa Tchaikovsky, good man, good truck, America. I think you might know the story. What's his last name? Tchaikovsky. Good man. Good truck. America. I think you might know the story. What's his last name? Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky. Yep. Ain't got one or two long where that guy come out of. Yeah. Poland. Hey folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Alright, who's up? I'll go. 2014, I trade in my half-ton gas rig for a three-quarter ton diesel. And this will be important later. I'm not just showing off. It's a beautiful truck, 8-inch lift, 37-inch tires, just a nice truck.

Man's truck. 2014. It's a humble brag. Like a monster truck. Yeah, but this is going to be an important detail later when we get to something trying to get in it um so 2014 my my hunting buddy charlie smith's wife draws a coveted blues tag there in our state of washington so it screws up our whole plans we got to go film that i'm gonna run camera he's gonna call we go get that one out of the way she kills a great bull on september 14th when me and charlie like our plan

was to still go to idaho that was back in the good days when you could buy a tag over the counter we go home because we had all of september, wash our clothes, and then we take off for Idaho. And this is really 2014, my first time really hunting out of state for elk. You know, I'd hunted deer in Montana and stuff, but this is like my first on my own, no dad, uncles around. I'm going to go out of state. So we leave in the brand new truck the night before. And so we get to nowhere, Idaho at 3 AM in the morning, just waiting for the gas station to open up. We're going to buy one tag.

We're going to be real thrifty by one tag in case we don't need the other one. And so we go up, look at the spot. We intended to go a few elk tracks, nothing. Um, we get, we get up there and hunt. So it's about two o'clock we're coming out um i remember like vividly he's chewing on a purple bag of skittles and i bugle out the window like this is how this is how like exhausted i am we just did like five miles in five miles out no elk a little bit like maybe your spot we pick sucks but you go out the window and i'm like will you stop chewing on your damn skittles i just heard a bugle and he didn't believe me so he's over there still rattling the bag and i'm like charlie stop with the Skittles.

I said, I want to hear this bull bugle. There ain't a bull out there. So we get out and listen again. And there's a bull answers. And so we're like, well, it's getting pretty late. It's like kind of a one track road. Let's fly up here. We have a four-wheeler trailer on the back on a one track road.

Let's go cut it. And then we'll get on the four-wheeler, drive back to this point and drop in. Successfully, fortunately, my first day in Idaho, like kill a bull. And then we're kind of, you got the bull, the bull, um, cut the distance. No pun intended, but, uh, cut the distance, got him killed. And I'm like, first thing you're like, nobody's ever like, we did nothing wrong, but like, this looks real fishy. Like we bought the tag three o'clock this morning. We got a bull in the truck this night.

Like, it's just not exactly, but everything was legit and, uh,, this looks real fishy. Like we bought the tag three o'clock this morning. We got a bull in the truck this night. Like it's just not exactly, but everything was legit and, uh, get it to the truck and, uh, we're like, it's hot. It's real hot. We got to get to a cooler. So we drive to a town later. Um, and then we go buy his tag the next day. Um, very fortunate.

Get into bulls that morning. Can't make it work that evening. He kills his bull. Wow. Um, a little bit of a tough shot we watched it through our binoculars stayed on its feet so we had to go camp in the truck um at this point um i i kept my head in the truck the the guy the cooler didn't want us to keep the head and i'm like well i'm just gonna do a euro so i'll skin it out but like

we were just tossing it in the brush uh you know i'm always like man predators around here like it's a little iffy it's warm it's gonna's going to get stinky, but we're making it work. So we're, we got to sleep in the truck. Now we throw it off and pack it. We go find his bowl next morning, get it all broken down, get it out. Um, so now normally we would just like bomb home, but my meats in a cooler, I can't get to cause it's five o'clock at night. So I'm like, well, what are we going to do? Like, he's like, Oh, my, my childhood cousin, I grew up with lives up here at the ski resort. We're going to go, I'm going to give her a call. Calls her up and she's like, yeah, come on over.

We're blah, blah, blah. My, you know, the, the in-laws are over and, uh, come hang out. You guys can shower up. Um, so we, I mean, it's nice. You know, you've been living like dirt bags for the last, last three days. Um, all sweaty. So you get to go take a shower we drink you know have a few drinks eat some pizza and just kind of re refresh but there were some bad decisions made along the way um you know normally people would

say like why is your meat in the back of your truck why are the heads in the back of the truck charlie's a taxidermist so he wanted to save his cape we were able to save it and get it out and you know you're always like well we're there's houses everywhere. You're in a ski resort. We should be fine. So we get my bedroom, a bonus room kind of over the top of the garage, which directly overlooks the trucks. And Charlie's down the hallway. And so it's somewhere in the middle of 2 AM. And Charlie comes sprinting into my room, wakes me up out of a, like middle of something's in your truck. I'm like, how did you hear that way down the hall? But, um, so we kind of peek out my blinds and, uh, you can see something like in some, some sort of light out there.

You can see that there's a bear in the back of my truck. Um, and in the short five seconds, like, I don't know how it all worked out, but you can see that he's also trying to get on your bumper and he's coming up like the side of the tire and like trying to get charlie's cape out right at this point so me good thing you got that lift yeah so i know he's working hard right and you can you can hear horns banging and this is my brand new truck and uh all right we gotta get down there quick well i had the wherewithal to put my pants on charlie is in a hurry so charlie flies down to the garage well my pistols and like we're not too worried but here's like there's a bear and once he's decided he wants to eat like who knows what we're dealing with so we get down to the garage and it's this point i realized charlie's still in his whitey tighties and i have to paint the picture of charlie for you and i paint it with a white brush because he is a italian or no an

irish ginger he's about five foot seven pure redhead and he's in tighty whiteys but you really can't tell where the lines are and so it's at that point where we turn the garage light on and i'm like well you didn't evidently it's your cousin and her family. I'm like, well, at least put my pants on. And we get down there and so we're sitting in the garage kind of trying to peek out the glass line of windows. Like, is he still in there? Yeah.

And then you could just hear him just beating the piss out of my truck. So what do we do? And these people live on the ski resort. Well, skis and ski poles are available. So before I could like think of any good sense, Charlie has a ski pole in his hand and is running out the side door at the bear with his ski pole.

Like a joust. Yeah, he was, I don't know if he's braver than I am or just less, like doesn't take the time to put all of the things together. But I'm like, I just don't know.

He's got meat. He's got hide. He's already on it. Um, and Charlie runs at this bear and gets about two feet from its butt with a, with the ski pole before it decides to take off. And then instead of, I mean, he didn't have any way to tell where it was going to go. It runs up a dang tree, 10 feet away from my truck. Like that was okay. He's not in my truck anymore, but we're not going to be able to go back to sleep now. Um, until we go back in, I'm like, ah, at this time, everybody else is awake and

Charlie's now just in his underwear talking to everybody. Um, so we, we kind of evaluate the situation and sure is, I mean, five minutes later, that bear's coming back down the tree and he doesn't run away. He goes back for the truck. And so we have to basically load up and leave at 2 AM, get out of that country, back down the tree and he doesn't run away. He goes back for the truck. And so we have to basically load up and leave at 2 a.m.

Get out of that country. Go down. Well, evidently when you park with elk heads in the back at a gas station. So we had sheriff stop us at three 30, woke us up, tapped on our window. Like what's going on at five o'clock, a different game warden pulls in, asks us what's going on. And it's just starting to get daylight. And it was at that point when the game warden tapped on the window

with his flashlight that I was able to evaluate the damage. Yeah, I had, my brand new truck had bare scratches down all three corners of the truck bed. Oh, that's sweet though. It is. It was cool.

That's like a sticker you'd buy. Yeah, like those details. Not good for resale. The punchline of that story was just Charlie, like I can never remember, like he was, I think he was more interested in protecting his cape than he was protecting my truck, but he just ran around the corner,

ski pole in hand, was going to joust that bear and yeah, I've had bad luck with bears. Two years ago, we were in Colorado, frozen cold. I lay a four by four post across the bed rails, right. From side to side and just try to get my wife's mule deer up off of, and that bear decided he

was going to lift the entire deer hanging on the post out and it like wrapped the side of my truck and smashed that four by four post scratched it. Bear scratches all over my brand new, um, pickup truck on that, that time. But yeah, I've had, I'm not keeping meat in the back of my truck anymore. Do you have a topper now?

I do. I have a topper. But I had a topper. Then I had the tonneau cover, but I rolled it up so that I can kind of semi-hang the meat. I bet your insurance guy's like, come on, Jason. Another bear. I never get a little fishy.

Listen, the first time, the whole bear thing. Yeah. The first time I was going to roll it, the second time I'm not buying it. We followed that second bear down to the creek where he'd try we could see the drag marks in the snow and that bear was just i thought it was late november or middle november cold as heck like that bear be gone he was down there by a big old oak tree or cottonwood or something whatever colorado grows along the rivers and i think he was just sitting there picking at some of the the front quarters

fortunately he didn't touch the back quarters of the back strap. But yeah, he was just down there munching. We scared him off and got the meat back. Oh, you did? Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I got a topper on my truck. Yeah.

You know, it's like a hunter thing. You know, apparently. Oh, for sure, man. We got told or commented on a video. Somebody was like, people can tell you're from out of state because you got a topper. I'm like, you insiders get your stuff wet? Or what's the deal with that?

We like our stuff to get wet. Yeah. So Tyler and I travel the country hunting deer. It's kind of what we do. You heard his story. We're bums. He has a topper. I had toppers on both of those trucks.

He can sleep in the back of it like he was saying. And I, in particular, got the six and a half foot bed because of that. I want to make sure you can sleep back there. The five and a half foot bed doesn't really work for me very good. You definitely would be comfortable in the six and a half foot. Seven footer for you. Corner to corner. Yeah.

So I got a, it's not an old truck. It's 2016 half ton, you know, four wheel drive, but it's like, you got to be comfortable for the road.

You know what I mean? Like we don't do the lift thing, not the big tires, but just like some good, smooth all terrains, you know, and, and we,

we just like spend a ton of time truck scouting. It's like a thing we do. So you drive, you know, you go all terrains, you know. And we just, like, spend a ton of time truck scouting. It's like a thing we do. So you drive, you know, you go to said state, and you just drive around, get a feel for the land. Elk is a lot like that, right? Like, you're bugling out the window, you know, it's cool. So, like, you're just doing three times. You ever grunted one out the window like Jason did?

I have not. You know, I just might have to, you know. It would be an experiment. He usually takes his javelina call and gets them to stop out there. I can do a quite loud call to make an animal stop. I feel like every outdoorsman should have this thing. Oh, yeah, you were saying about this sound. Yeah, yeah.

What's the sound again? Well. It's very loud. It's very loud. Should I back up from the mic and do the thing? No, I don't want to hear the sound. This is your universal animal stop. Yeah, this, yeah.

This makes sense in the story right now because he does this from his truck. Like, a deer jumps across the road, running across the field, roll down the window,

and... And you make the noise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's why it's... I got this from my old days as being a government trapper. Like, you gotta stop the coyote and shoot it.

So you gotta figure out the sound that makes things stop so He's gearing up for the sound Have I lost my call I don't know it's like Please heard it Believe I don't know if I have to be outside. I don't know if I can do it inside. Come on, try it again.

You got it. Come on. What does it sound like? It's close to the first one. Sometimes when people put you on the spot I'm barred out. You know how

when a grenade goes off in a war movie and everything goes like it's a high pitched noise? Yeah. He did that one time we were looking at javelinas in the Gila,

actually. And he did that to the back of my head and that happened. I had the high-pitched grenade sound end up to the back of my head. It was like concussion.

One more try, but it just might be an outdoors thing. You know, there's like a woo-woo thing or something. Diaphragm, man. I can't do it, guys.

I can't do it. We're having to do it on the S-Mode. It doesn't work inside't work inside bladder shy uh yeah anyways that has nothing to do with my story so sorry but that's a good story that doesn't roll into the story it doesn't roll the story at all but uh sorry it may i don't know i tend to use it did you hear it in arkansas yeah did i do it yeah yeah so it exists impressive did he stop an animal with the universal animal stop call uh I think we were talking about the universal animal stop call.

And I said, let me do it. Show it to me, and he did it. It worked. Yeah, I got you. So anyways, we're driving around, truck's out and doing the thing. And I'm a public land deer hunter. I always have been.

Tyler kills a awesome buck. This is all on film. We produced a series called Buck Truck that's on Meat Eater. And so he killed an awesome deer early. And that kind of puts me in a pickle because I'm like my buddy's waiting on me to kill a deer on the first of november yeah you killed a deer on november one and it's the best week of the year and you're like sitting around being the best buddy ever camp chef you know like just uh making breakfast

and stuff and i'm just struggling so bad. And we decide, all right, we cannot find a deer on public land. We're going to get on the phones, get on the phones, do some calling. Tyler somehow, some way gets ahold of this guy, remembers this guy's dad's name from like six years ago when he talked to him and like had that personal connection thing

and gets us permission to go hunt like it's 4,000 acre place, except there's no trees on the property. It is like rolling hills, nothing. So we drive the truck out there. We're driving through. You got to go through like another property on an easement. Go out. We scout the place.

Looks great. See a giant buck. Run. Get glass on that thing and decide, okay, tomorrow morning's the push. We're going to go out there and we're going to find a deer to shoot. We're like, I'm going to get it done. Well, it just so happens that, I don't know, three days before this, one of the other guys that travels with us got sick in the back of my truck.

And he's a young lad. And I guess he doesn't have as much experience with, you know, feeling it coming on. So he has a hard time, and I guess he doesn't have as much experience with feeling it coming on. So he has a hard time getting the window down in time. So the sickness then perforates throughout the vehicle, of course. You mean like he puked back there? He upchucked the back of the truck, hits the back of the headrest, you know, and all down the side. Yep.

Doesn't have the wherewithal to clean it up off the truck, so I have to do all that. And then he's going to be mad that I'm telling that part, but whatever. And so we're out scouting this bad to the bone property. Just the private land thing, being able to drive around a property is not a thing I'm used to. Right. And so I get a rumble down deep while we're out scouting like this ain't good. I have to go find a bush. I'm like okay

well that's over all right well no for the next 10 hours i have the most violent sickness that i've probably ever had in my life and i'm thinking like this is the baddest opportunity i've ever had at hunting whitetail deer private ground giant bucks the some of the best dates, and I'm sick. And I just can't do anything, right? I can't even get out of bed, which is not like a me thing to do. I'm a high energy guy. And so about like 3.30, I finally get everything worked out or something. I don't know. And I get an hour of sleep, get up the next morning, go up and make coffee. And I'm like, ah, all right, I can do this. Tyler actually woke Tyler up and he could not believe that I was moving. It was, it was a weird thing. And, um, go out to that property, run a little bit late. Tyler drops me off. He's going to go do some more scouting for me while I am going to go on a hunt. At least try, you know,

like you got to give it a go. It's like November 5th. It's the best day of the year, probably one of the best. It's a cold front and go out just kind of like have a beautiful morning sunrise. You know, it's just frosty. We're on the plains glass and it's just, it's just enjoyable. I'm just thankful to be there. And all of a sudden to see a giant buck at like 500 yards and thinking, well, I don't know if i can do anything about this but uh these deer are amped up i'm gonna rattle at this deer and uh i get my antlers and just if you've hunted whitetails you know that like sometimes the things you do with antlers actually isn't realistic but you're playing on their instincts right so i'm just cracking these things as hard as i can it's 500 yards away right this thing isn't gonna hear me sure enough whips his head up and looks and this thing just makes a beeline straight

to he's trying to get downwind of us 500 yards away i run down the hill sickness and all you know about to pass out and uh get to where i'm gonna be able to make a shot on this deer and uh long story short i uh get an opportunity at 32 yards and shoot this deer it's the biggest deer of my life and i'm just recovered after being like death sick and it's just one of those moments where we've all had them you know out in the outdoors where you're just kind of in awe of just the situation it's a bigger thing than what you are you know and you you you have to like kind of step back and be like, okay, I didn't really accomplish this. This just happened to me and I was blessed to be a part of it. You were the recipient. That's

exactly right, man. And so I'm so pumped about all this, right? Well, Tyler's out scouting and I want to share this with my best bud. Well, it ends up he gets a flat tire in the truck while I'm waiting on him to get there. And it's like an hour and a half before. And I'm just like sitting out on the plains just out here with this deer, you know, just hanging out. And we get to back the truck up, put the deer in the back of the truck and just do the thing as opposed to like what we're used to, you know, just packing stuff out and, you know, cutting it up or whatever. Just kind of a neat, different experience to be able to kind of like what that picture showed that you showed, you know, kind of like what people have been doing for a long time loading deer from the back of the truck yep i could work for nascar by the way change a lot of tires i've changed a lot of tires turning around the country with trailers and stuff we're buying the cheapest tires we could

we could find oh yeah keep the used tire places tires yep but yeah that's my truck story. Excellent. Thanks. Who's next? I'll go. Dirt. Hit them. So I don't know about you guys, but in my 20s, I had a lot of really good opportunity to learn life lessons. And I continue to do that. No, none of us did. But in my 20s, it seemed like there really a lot of times where I, you know, maybe made the wrong choice. So picture this.

North Idaho. it's 1997, and my best friend and my brother-in-law, we grew up hunting together, and he married my wife's sister. And so, we're brother-in-laws, and it's February. Hold on, back up a minute. Your best friend married- My wife's sister. They married sisters. Wow. So we're brother-in-laws. I think you told me that before and I was

equally surprised the first time I heard it. Wait a minute. Oh, that's great, man. So, yeah. So we, we went out to our old Elk hunting spot right out of, out of town in North Idaho in the wintertime and especially in February. So by this time we've had quite a bit of snow

on the ground and it's, and it's thawed and we've got more snow and especially in February, so by this time, we've had quite a bit of snow on the ground, and it's thawed, and we've got more snow, and then it's frozen. And it's been in the below zero, probably 5, 10 below zero at this point. Beautiful, crystal clear days, but it's ice cold out. And the snow has a crust like you can't believe. I mean, you can walk around on it without falling through. Well, we're out on this old road, and has a quarter, quarter ton pickup, if you will. Quarter ton. It's a compact quarter ton pickup and we're driving on top of the snow and it's beautiful

sun. Floating on the crust. Yes. Yeah. And it's like a, you know, standard cab, little light truck and piece of junk, you know. That's just so hard to picture the floating on the floating on the crust on snow. Yeah.

Do you have big tires? No, no, no factory. And they were worn out. It's good. There's a quarter ton. Yeah. It's a quarter ton. It's bigger.

Yeah. And I'm looking out the window and the sun is starting to shine. It's about seven o'clock in the morning. Warming up. And I tell, I look over to Randy and I said, you know, you might want to, and about that time it fell through the snow.

I'm like, oh no. So we get out. And of course the young men we were, we weren't prepared. We didn't have a shovel. We didn't have a come along. We didn't have anything. There was a handyman jack in the back of the

truck. So handyman jacks, I don't know if you're familiar with those, but they're really good for a lot of things. You know, jacking up your truck. I mean, you can put chains on them and use them for like a come along. You can, but they're dangerous. You got to be careful because if you're not, if you don't have a real good grip on that handle, it'll come loose and whack you in the chin and then go and ratchet back down and let the truck down. Widowmakers.

It's a, yeah. What I've heard them called. Yeah. I've got a, if I didn't have my beard, you'd see a scar on my chin. Oh, you got one? From another time. Yeah. Okay.

But anyhow, so we get, and we're facing the wrong way. We're faced away from where we want to be. So we get the old handyman jack and jack it up and then push it off. And we're going to try to turn this truck around so we can maybe get. By jackman jack and jack it up and then push it off. And we're going to try to turn this truck around so we can maybe get. By jacking it and pushing it over. Yeah. So it goes, yep. 10 inches over.

Yep. An hour later, we got it turned around. Wow. And mind you, we're not prepared. We don't have, we're in tennis shoes. You know, this is usually always, if I get stuck or have some bad decision made in a truck, it's always wearing tennis shoes or loafers or something. I'm not prepared. So we get this thing turned around and we're just not going to get out. So we're in the middle of this old logging road. There's probably three feet of snow there. And I'm like, well, we better walk back to town so it's six miles back to town we walk back to town it's the end of the day it's like all right tomorrow we're

gonna get reinforcements we're gonna come out we're gonna get this truck so my dad's got this old wood truck it's like a 1958 that he's kind of that he's uh had refurbished and he cuts a lot of firewood with it's got a win. It's got positive traction rear end. This thing's a bad mamba jamba. So we drive back out there the next day, but it's an automatic. And we're going up, up this little hill and the snow is deep and the truck's working hard. And I'm like, man, something's getting hot. Well, I get out and that truck is just bleeding automatic transmission fluid underneath. It overheated the transmission, boiled all the automatic transmission fluid out. And now

we got to walk back, not six miles. We have another truck parked back on the gravel where it's plowed. So we walk back, get in the other truck, drive to town. And this is a small town of 500 people, right? So a local convenience store, they've got like four quarts of automatic transmission ATF. So we buy everything they got, take it back out, pour it in there and then get the old truck out of there. So, well, we got to do something else. So the next day, my wife's uncle, he's got the ultimate hunting rig. It's got a bit of a lift kit. It's got big, tall mud tires. It's got the ultimate hunting rig. You know, it's got a bit of a lift kit. It's got big, tall mud tires. It's got a winch.

It's like, oh yeah, this thing will get up there. It's got posic. It's got a rear locker in it. This thing's going to get up there and get this truck out. So we get up there and we make it past where my dad's truck boiled over. Well, he had an automatic transmission too, and

his boiled over as well. Mm. Wow. It just like, he was working so hard. It just overheated the transmission. So, well, we bought all the, the ATF in town the day before, so we'd walk back to the other truck, drive all the way to the next town over

that have 600 people in it. Buy a little more ATF. Okay. Drive back out there, rescue that thing. And he's like, yeah, you're on your own guys. I'm, I'm out of here. So, well, I grew up my first car or my first vehicle. I can't, it was a, it's a 1969 four wheel drive. So it was basically kind of a, kind of an antique almost.

And then this thing is a brute, but it's not the most, you know, roadworthy machine, right? It, it don't run that great, but man, that thing will wheel. But I didn't really want to take it up there because who knows, it may break down too. So I get, I get this old machine out there. We start going up there. I go right past where everybody else went and it's just going great through the snow, like, like nothing. And it's just cutting and it's got real skinny mud tires on it. It's just digging and it's going. And we get to the, we get almost to Randy's truck. The fricking gas pedal breaks off. It breaks off on the floor. I'm like, what the hell? So now what do we do?

Well, this thing had kind of like a manual cruise control up on the dash. You have this knob you pull and this little knob has a little cable that reaches in to the carburetor and will operate the throttle. So kind of like a old school. Huh. Yeah. Old school. Like an airplane. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm like, and I'd never used it, but I knew what it was. I'm like, man, I got to get this thing working. So I jerked on that thing and finally got it moving to where I revved the motor up enough where we could get that thing kind of turned around and we got out of there. I said, I don't know, Randy, I don't know what you're going to do. So we had to leave that thing literally for a month. We had to leave it for a month in the woods. And I said, you know, maybe we can get it off the road. At least we had some

shovels. So we dug a trench to where we could get it off the road, jumped it up on the bank next to the road out of the way, because who knows a road grader may come through or people on snowmobiles or, you know, just hooligans in general, they may, you know, vandalize it. It's kind of a piece of junk truck anyway, but anyway, we had to leave that thing for a month. And, uh, in March we went back and, uh, was able to, to drive it most of the way out. We had to shovel a little bit in a couple places, but we're able to get it out, but.

A lot of casualties. Yeah. Yeah. That was like, that's, that's my worst, I think my worst truck story. Did Randy pay for all those repairs? Oh no. No, no. No, we were, we were, that's my worst, I think my worst truck story. Did Randy pay for all those repairs? Oh no. No, no.

No, we were, we were both poor as could be, you know, dumb kids in our twenties. We didn't have any money to pay, you know. Fortunately, you know, the old timers, they had money to pay for stuff. So. Well, that's good. It was good. But yeah, life lessons, you know, it seems like I've, I keep learning them. I, even last fall, my wife and I were out deer hunting and I, we were driving along.

I'm like, I'm going to pull into this landing here with my pickup in the snow and, and, uh, and do some glassing. I pull over there. It's pretty deep, you know, about a foot of snow. Well, I couldn't tell because it drifted, but it, the, the landing had kind of sloped. Well, as soon as I pull over there, I start

sliding over towards this little cliff and have to stop. So I'm prepared. I'm prepared now because, you know, I'm 49 years old. You're prepared by your 20s, man. That's right. So I've got to come along and I got lots of cable and chains, you name it. So I sat there for an hour and demonstrated and showed my wife how prepared I was and how you, you know, recover a vehicle with a come along and lots of chains and about an hour of that, moving that come along and getting my truck out inch by

inch. But we made it out, didn't have to walk. Didn't have to drive and buy transmission fluid? No, no transmission fluid. Perfect. Yeah. And I shot a buck about an hour later. Oh. Man. Yeah. Timing. Hell of a day it was hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season.

The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service.

That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal and more as a special offer you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet OnXMaps.com

slash meet welcome to the OnX club y'all my turn Clay? yeah bring the inferno this is our number seven story well i don't want to give it a seven did i say that earlier you did i'm not in the story so long ago way back in history they introduced a fish called a rainbow smelt into the Great Lakes. And you go smelt dipping after dark. So when you're talking about driving real tired, that was a trademark of smelt dipping.

And thinking about my favorite truck story, which I'm not even in, I called my buddy from high school, who I'm friends with Craig Christensen today to say, Hey, you remember that story about your truck smelt dipping? And he said, it wasn't smelt dipping. I'm like, Oh, I've been telling that story wrong for a long time. So he retells me the story. The first part of the story is this. Craig wrestled in our high school wrestling team. Okay. story is this craig wrestled in our high school wrestling team okay he had a pair of shoes that he

wrestled in all through his high school wrestling career and he got up to where he was gonna he got up to where he said when i get my when i win my 100th match i'm gonna retire my wrestling shoes. Okay. Red wrestling shoes. He goes on to have a 36 wrestling match winning streak and hits his hundredth win on his 36, his hundredth career win high school career win. He was good on his 36th match in a row that he won. So his hundredth win was his 36th consecutive win.

I imagine he was a state champ then. He had all that kind of stuff going on. So he then says he's going to retire his shoes, and he borrows a pair of shoes from another buddy of ours, John Merchant. Puts on John Merchant's wrestling shoes and goes out and gets pinned by a guy who, for that, who had a 13 loss, 11 win record. He declares these shoes to be cursed.

What does a wrestling shoe look like? I've never seen that. A minimalist high top. I've never seen a pair of Converse. Have you ever seen like a pair of Converse? Have you ever seen like boxing shoes? Yeah, yeah. They're kind of like that. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, minimalist, like a minimalist little high topper. Ankle support. Gotcha. So hold that in the back of your head, that little wrestling shoe deal. Craig's, he had an 84 three-quarter ton truck. And his dad had a much newer half-ton truck, but Craig's ice shanty

won't fit in Craig's dad's truck. Dude, I love this story already. Wrestling and ice fishing? It's very complicated. It's not a Texas thing. This is your home turf, man. I have no clue what's going on here. It's not a Texas thing. It's your home turf, man. I have no clue what's going on here.

It's... Me neither. Listen, Craig is now... So that 100th match when the wrestling shoes were and he's a senior in high school,

he's now at Muskegon Community College. I went there. Merch went there. Craig went there. Everybody went to Muskegon Community College. He's at

Muskegon Community College and his dad wants to go ice fishing. And his dad goes ice fishing. It. Craig went there. Everybody went to Muskegon Community College. He's at Muskegon Community College, and his dad wants to go ice fishing. And his dad goes ice fishing. It's Craig's dad, Craig's grandfather, and Craig's wrestling coach want to go ice fishing, but they can't fit the shanty in Craig's dad's truck. So they take Craig's truck. And there's a real heinous corner as you're approaching White Lake where we grew up. And it's icy on the way to ice fish and they blast off the corner off into the woods and hit the guy that just blasted off the road prior to that oh man gosh somehow when they hit craig's truck is racing and won't shut

off so his dad craig's like i even pressed him on this he doesn't understand why or what but his dad's idea is to pop the hood and cut the battery cable not unhook it cuts the battery cable okay i mean it's probably quicker than getting out of Crescent Ranch. Because he desperately wants to get the truck turned off. Now, they, a week later, fix the truck. The truck appears to be fixed. Craig drives the truck to Muskegon Community College and parks the truck under an oak tree. Okay? Does his classes and everything and at the end of school comes out and goes to start the truck and turns it and just clicks

like a dead battery he thinks whatever i don't know click dead battery something or another he's got all of his stuff and his and another friend is going to drive him home. He happens to have John Merchant's losing wrestling shoes. No. Okay. The pair he lost in the year prior. He has those wrestling shoes and he also has a dual cassette tape boom box

belonging to John Merchant. Places the cursed wrestling shoes in the truck with the boom box. A box of 22 ammo, a box of 20-gauge shotgun shells, and half of his clothes. Goes about his evening. They go out.

They go to some bars and whatnot. Craig gets home to his mom's house late at night, and the phone is just ringing up a storm at night. He never picks it up. Later realizes that was the fire department he gets a ride to school and still unbeknownst to him unbeknownst to him until later his truck has melted into the ground everything in the truck is gone he said the steering wheel is laying on the ground everything is melted glass is gone it burned up a oak tree it defoliated the oak tree he was parked underneath okay burned up the cursed wrestling shoes which he he blames for this whole thing, are gone. The dual cassette tape boom box, gone. Oh, his term paper is gone.

Oh, no. He goes to a teacher and says, I don't have my term paper. It was destroyed in a fire. And she's like, come on, Craig. He goes, no, it was burned up right out in this parking lot. And she goes, oh, that was your truck?

So he then goes to a wrestling match after all this happened. He has a wrestling match to go to. Goes to a wrestling match. And he's telling a buddy of his this story at the wrestling match. Behind him, he hears a girl laughing. Turns around, doesn't know her, and says, what are you laughing at? And she says, that's a pretty funny story about your truck.

This year, they're married 25 years. Wow. Told him that was a love story. Whoa. Man. You catch that, Phil? It's a love story you catch that phil it's a love story that's good wow i forgot about the love story no it's a love story that's better than it so seven i tell that story all the time but i tell it uh that he was coming back from smelt dipping not ice fishing did it kill that oak tree like no more no more acres craig said it defoliated it but

i haven't heard the oak trees dead gotcha yeah my favorite those those oaks are tough yeah it's my favorite story that's how that's how his that's how he wife has met his wife britney that's good beautiful children 25 years so the sort so wrestling man going from what seemed like something so negative These cursed shoes To a burn up truck That leads to When I was talking to him today He says I like to blame those shoes

For losing that truck But Considering that having my wife is a good thing I suppose it was all good in the end That positive. That's good. That's it. No, it's a great story.

It's like a love story. It's a feel-good story. Should things go well for him throughout life after the shoes are gone? Always. Yeah. Once the shoes are gone, everything picked right up. How about that? He sounds like a heck of a wrestler.

Things picked right up. What if the truck burnt and the shoes were just still sitting there? Like the shoes ran. It's time to find the fires in the door. That's when it's time. Chucky stuff there. Hey, I've got a couple of just machine gun stories. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so once me and my buddy Nick Cunningham were coon hunting in his dad's hunting truck, which was a half-ton four-wheel drive pickup. And we called it Old Gray. Was it gray? It was gray as a ghost. I knew it. I knew it. We called it Old Gray. The minute he said Old Gray, I knew where this was going.

So we went coon hunting one night. It was in the wintertime. And it was cold. It was just the wintertime and it was cold. It was just him and I, we were both about 16. And we got way back into an area we call Wolfpen Gap. Ooh, that's a good name. That sounds like a good ring to it. And we had two dogs named Macy and Maddie.

Those are my first blue tick, registered blue tick coon hounds. And we got way back in the mountains. Don't remember anything about the hunt but we went to the dogs got back in the truck and the truck wouldn't drive forward but the truck would drive in reverse and so we drove nine miles home in reverse we took turns because our necks would get in a creek we. It was so late at night, and it was just back roads the whole way. And so we drove nine miles all the way home. Was that a parking brake issue?

The transmission went out. A transmission deal. So we had this, me and my dad did, duck hunting when I was a kid. The parking brake froze in place, but it would go in reverse. So it went in reverse in circles in the pasture until it warmed up enough to thaw the parking brake down.

That's a better story than my first story. Why did I tell that? Why did you tell that one? I just remembered. I didn't know it could be that short. Me and Nick had some pretty good times coo-nutting.

His dad also had another truck that was a long bed, extended cab, full size, three quarter ton pickup. Huge. It was like a boat. I mean, it was like 18 feet long, you know,, three-quarter ton pickup. Huge. It was like a boat. I mean, it was like 18 feet long, you know.

And we're 16-year-olds. And at this time, we were at a place called Two Mile Motorway, which was a long stretch that went through National Forest. Some good names. Basically, like a one-way road. And the way you hunt Two Mile Motorway is you start at this end and you road hunt your dogs all the way to the other end, which the other end of two-mile motorway ends up in a really small rural community

outside of the bigger town we lived in, which town we lived in was like 5,000 people, but this was like a community way out. That community was called Hellfire Wolf Canyon. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly what it was. Look it up on Onyx. Well, we get out there, and it's cold.

And I remember we'd played basketball against a Catholic high school that night. And afterwards, we went coon hunting. You whooped them? Subiaco. Nah, they always beat us, man. Catholics are good at basketball. Not this one. We got the truck.

This story, this is a machine gun story. So there's not, there's no, this is a machine gun story. This is not a love story. But we tried to do the 18-point turnaround in this one-way road and turn this 18-foot truck around. And it didn't work. You need to come along. We banked it. Like the front bumper was embedded in the bank on the back. And the back bumper was embedded on the bank of the back and the in the in the back bumper was embedded on the

bank of the road in the back of the truck and basically we got the truck just dead stuck across the middle of this one lane road and i mean we dug and tried to do everything we could and could not get the truck unstuck and it was one o'clock in the morning and we walked the story we tell is we walked five miles i could probably go on onyx and actually find out it was you o'clock in the morning and we walked. The story we tell is we walked five miles. I could probably go on Onyx and actually find out it was, you know, like three and a half. We claimed we walked five miles to the nearest house, which happened to be our English teacher's house. A man named Mike McMaster. The Heddle's Marksman?

Who was an incredible man. Yeah. Rarely. It was a rare deal. And he was known for being the nicest guy in the world. And we were nervous as we could be, but we went up to his house in the middle of the night, before cell phones, and knock on his door. Nothing.

Knock on his door. And finally, we hear his wife like, who's there? And we're like, it's Clay and Nick. We're Mr. McMaster's students there and we're like it's clay and nick we're mr mcmaster's students and we got our truck stuck and she was like okay and like 10 seconds later i hear here comes mr mcmaster's and he was always just energetic and just the greatest guy in the world and he literally pops out the door hey boys what are y'all doing oh it's great to see you oh you got your truck stuck we'll hop in mine we'll take care of you i mean it's like i got of a movie and he goes and pulls us out can i tell you a quick rapid fire because that brings it to mind uh michigan deer season

opens november 15th and back then the way you would do things is you'd make your ground blind late at night, November 14th. Just not think it clear. Anyways, get real stuck out at the Zeldnerust farm, like buried up to the frame in my truck. I can't remember how we went about it, but somehow got word or got a ride to my friend Matt Jones. He comes out in his truck and blows the engine on his truck. At this point, we got no recourse. And I had my then girlfriend Kelly with me. Me and Matt Jones and Kelly then walk to the nearest house.

And it is a blizzard at this point. Bang on the door. And this woman is no way, no how going to let us come into her house. But she's like, I'll make a phone call for you. So she makes a phone call and we're within 40 yards of her front door. In a snowstorm laying in a drainage ditch to get out of the wind.

Me and Matt Jones laying on top of Kelly to try to keep her warm while this person stares at us out a window waiting for a rescue to come. Yeah. It's that Michigan hospitality. That would have never happened for me in case they had talked about it. They would never do that to you in the South. Well, it wouldn't be cold. They wouldn't need to.

That's right. Air conditioning is what we need down there. That explains the Michigan hello right there. I wasn't going to bring it up. I could take you. I don't know who lives there now. I could take you and show you that house right now. Probably the same woman lives there.

I don't know. I'm cranky as ever. You know, you that house right now. Probably the same woman lives there. I don't know. I'm going to stop. You know, I should stop in there and say, you know what, one time. You know what happened to that ditch in front of your house one time? Do we need to close or do we have? Well, that was the rapid fire. Well, I mean, I got another rapid fire. Wait on us.

I mean, are you sure? Yeah. When I was landscaping one time. So these are all rapid fires. Well, my long story is that my 2014 Chevy Silverado pickup that I bought brand new in 2014, V6, I have carried my mules literally all over America in that V6 pickup. And when I got it it people were like man you can't haul those that truck's not made for pulling you can't i mean for real like guys that haul livestock and trailers and they're like man you're gonna burn the tranny out of that truck

it has 222 000 miles and i have hauled my mules from arkansas to to Montana at least three times, to Colorado once, to New Mexico, all over the country. And it's still rolling. That's my long story. That's no fun, though. That wasn't that long. I mean, for real. It's incredible. I've got the truck to this day.

I drove it to the airport this morning. But I also had, okay, three-quarter ton, single cab, 1994 model, three-quarter ton truck. I had my trailer on and had my Kubota tractor on the trailer in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Oh, that's a good story. It's very, very hilly. Do you know the story? Have I told it before? Well, you told me.

Fayetteville's really hilly, and I was a commercial landscaper. It was my job. I was working by myself. I had backed my trailer way down this steep driveway, and the steep driveway ended on a concrete landing, and on the backside of the concrete landing was a very steep and severe drop off. Like these people had this beautiful view at the back of their house. My truck is up on the main part of the driveway. The trailer is on the concrete pad and 15 feet behind the end of the trailer is the drop off.

This I was young and dumb like Dirk was at one time. And I didn't realize that when you're backing up heavy equipment off a trailer on an incline that something very special happens. So I had the park brake on in the truck, and I got on the tractor and start backing the tractor off, and there comes a point, it's all physics, when the weight that's exerted as you back the equipment off the trailer lifts the the ball and tongue of the trailer up taking the pressure off the back wheels of your truck and i'm on the tractor which is holding you which is holding

then the back you know the the truck is is the parking brake's on. And so I'm on the tractor, on the trailer. Oh, my gosh. The truck's up above me, uphill. Behind me is a drop-off. And, I mean, that truck starts moving. I mean, not just like creeping, moving. And your instinct is to jump off. Well, my instinct was to jump off the trailer,

and the truck continues to slide. It's moving. Open the door while it's moving, jump in the truck, and slammed on the brake and skid to a stop, and the tailgate of my trailer was hanging out over the drop-off. The tractor is in gear gear still running on the trailer now what i should have done was kept driving the tractor back because if i had if i had driven the tractor back even while it was rolling you would have put the weight back on it it would have just

stopped like but it would it's everything against your instincts oh yeah yeah and so i like you you you have to make it worse before it gets better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I jump in the pickup, and it just – you know, just slides. And we had flip cell phones at that time. And I don't know how I had a wrecker service or how I got the number.

I don't even remember. But I called a wrecker. And, I mean, I'm just, just like cramming the brake pedal in. And I'm like, man, how quick can you get here? And I'm like, I am on the side of a mountain. And if I let my foot off this brake, this truck, trailer, and tractor is going over the edge. How quick can you get here? And I think my energy sped him up a little bit.

And he was like, man, I can be there in 30 minutes. So I sat there for 30 minutes in this customer's driveway. They weren't home. Tractor running. Hanging off the guy. And when he came, I just had the window down, and I was like, do what you can do, man. I'm not getting out.

I took my foot off the brake. It would slide. So anyway, that was the nail biter. Nail biter. It's good. Must have some strong calves. Yeah. Yeah, it's like doing 300 calf raises.

All right, everybody. Thanks for joining. Talk to you soon. Oh, ride on, ride on, little garden. I want to see your gray hair shine like silver in the sun. Ride on, ride on, ride on My lonely sweetheart We're done beat this damn horse to death So take your new one and ride on

We're done beat this damn horse to death So take your new one and ride on Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season.

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