Ep. 232: Render - Backcountry Law Enforcement

In this episode of the Bear Grease Render, retired US Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer, Joe Liles joins Clay Newcomb and Render crew members Brent Reaves, Misty Newcomb, Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker, and Bear Newcomb. Joe's career with the Forest Service overlapped with the end of Russ Arthur's and he confirms the legendary stories told on the Bear Grease podcast. Bear shows off his latest self bow, Misty talks farming, Brent explains what nets to catch catfish with, and Clay even permits a little fly fishing talk.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Klay Nukleman. 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 f h
F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear

(00:35):
that's designed to be as rugged as the place as
we explore. Show me your bow.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
We've got a Os George self bow. This one is
kind of snaky, like you can see the grain on
the actual stave is real snaky, and so we like
for all that. Yeah, I mean it makes the bow.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Look a lot cooler. It's a little character.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's not necessarily the most functional, and it is really
hard to make it actually work, yeah, because of the snake. Yeah,
and just like in this one in particular, it's just
like covered with knots and it's pretty hard.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
But does it.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Well, that's what I'm working on now.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's not in progress. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, So right now it's like probably sixty five pounds
if you're to drop back all the way, which I
haven't because I only want it to be like forty
eight mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Let me see it now, this is a state you
got off our property, right yep. Actually David Albright got
it off our property like two years ago. Oh and
then and they gave you the dryday and then gave
it to me. Yep, boomerang.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
What percentage done?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Is that bow?

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Probably?

Speaker 4 (01:56):
I'll recur percent got a little recurve on there.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
He put the on there, I know ends it and
then he's yep. One of our guests today is my
friend Joe Lyles. Joe, you're an old recurve hunter.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
I am. That's I started recurve hunting in twenty seventeen.
Twenty seventeen, yep, and sold my compound.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
And you might need to pull that back from your
lips just a little bit.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
How about right there? That's great, Okay, we're good. When
did you start triad hunting twenty seventeen? Yeah, and I
had a compound and started hunting with my precurve and
having looked back since, yeah, and really enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Have you shot a self bow?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
I have?

Speaker 5 (02:37):
I have not, not like that.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I've never hunted with one.

Speaker 5 (02:40):
And the one I have, I've got a black widow,
a forty pound black widow, and it shoots really good.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, I really like it. What's the difference between a
self bow and a long.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Bow, Well, a self bow is it's a terrible descriptor
who I want to talk to the guy that I
think self bow relies on its self for strength, like
one piece of wood.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
So like if if it's like send you backed or something,
if there was not a self fifty.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Different ways to name this and the components and the
physics and the dynamics and the spirituality of the flight
of the mystical arrow. I would not pick self to
describe this. I would call it a yeah, homemade, Okay,
that would be a logical description. I would call it
a one piece bow, like it's just one piece of wood.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
They do make two piece single that would we would
call that a two piece.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
With fries.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
No, this is uh, this is the the most primitive
type of bow. But a self bow is one that's
made from a single piece of wood, just whittled down
and so like a long bow like I have over there.
The modern long bows like Joe his Black Widow would
be a laminated bow, so have multiple different tops of wood, fiberglass,

(04:03):
different you know, different material in it. But this is
the way that I mean the Native Americans would have
made bose at one piece most of them.

Speaker 6 (04:14):
Yeah, this doesn't have much to do with nomenclature, but
it does have to do with O Sage Orange and Bear.
When Bear was a little boy, words that had three
plus syllables were a little bit tough for him. Yeah,
I mean he could pronounce him fine, but he was
really intentional about it pretty good. But this was one
of the words. Say George was hard for him. So
he would say bulldozer. He'd say bulldozer, strawberry. He would like,

(04:38):
really put the weight on the second syllable. And George
was He would say George. And I remember and every
time I hear O Sage Orange, I hear it in
little Bear's boys would oh say George.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Always. And he's got a dog named Osage. Yeah, dog,
I thought about get a dog again. It's gonna be
a it's a tree and feist. It's gonna be good. Well, uh,
Bear eventually is going to make me a bow.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Bear Bear made a bow that he donated to the
Meat Eater Audit House of Oddities auction house, and it
uh sold for a thousand dollars, didn't it?

Speaker 3 (05:20):
I think? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (05:22):
And that one was straight.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
What percentage of that you get.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
I got yeah named after you?

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, yeah, No, that's cool, that's cool. I was actually
going to show my bow very Uh. This is the
fanciest bow I've ever seen. This is I've never owned
a fancier bow with the back stabilizers, front stabilizers and
then the adjustable adjustable. Sit there, Joe, I'm going on

(05:58):
a mountain goat hunt in Alaska, and month.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
That's complicated anymore. I look at that stuff and then
compared to just my recurve, not just it's complicated.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
I know it is.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
How much?

Speaker 5 (06:09):
Is it way?

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Four or five pounds?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Oh more than that? Probably it's pretty heavy. I don't
actually don't know, but I you know, I shot trad
exclusively for seven years from about twenty thirteen to around
twenty twenty, Like that was my primary weapon. And it's

(06:31):
funny how people in the hunting community treat that. They're
like when they see it, they're like surprised that you
would have a compound bow, or they're upset with you
for having a compound bow. And I've always just kind
of gone back and forth, don't and you know, just
there's there'll be times when I want to focus on
trad and then times when the focus of the hunt

(06:53):
is more on something else like actually harvested an animal,
like the limiting factor, like with a mountain goat man.
All gosh, it would be very difficult. Like a short shot.
It's forty fifty yards a short that's what That's what
I'm told, and a lot of a lot of steep
angles and different things. So the reason I have all
this is I'm going to, you know, trying to extend

(07:14):
my effective range by cheating.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yep, yeah, I would be too.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
So what what do you feel comfortable shooting that bout?

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Well?

Speaker 1 (07:25):
I can, I can. I can shoot a group at
seventy yards. You know, my best group out of three
groups is going to be about six inches at seventy
It's pretty good. And I'm shooting pretty heavy arrow cut
on impact broadhead. I mean, I don't want to shoot
a one that far. But in that game, you that's
just kind of the.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Game wind up there too.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah. Yeah, but but I have a secret weapon. Yeah,
I can't talk about it.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Odds.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, Brent, you've been You've been commercial fishing.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
That's all I do.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Man, you're a commercial fisherman. Yeah, have you have you
caught some fish lately. I actually have yeah, been going good.

Speaker 8 (08:08):
One a couple of weeks ago. One catfish.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Yeah, are they all catfish or you get other stuff
mixed in there, cropping and stuff, you know, you just
they're piled up.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
We just throw them up on the bank. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 8 (08:25):
We hadn't caught one sport fish, one game fish. You
know what I mean, catfish these nets. Catfish is classified
as a sport fish, and you know commercial fish, rough fish.
But we yeah, we've caught a few buffalo. We caught
a big old drum. I put a hoop net out. Man,
it's four foot hoop net. You could catch that bear,

(08:47):
but stepped behind Joe in it. I caught one buffalo
at one drum in it. That's all we've caught so far.
So the hoop net thing is kind of escaping us.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
But oh, now, what kind of nets are.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
You using to use? Wire nets? Wire nets?

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Putting some kind of in there.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yep, cheese cheese block.

Speaker 8 (09:02):
It's like a the size of a block of velvety
cheese and it's cheese and fish.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah, four fish.

Speaker 8 (09:08):
We cut and knock them in half and put them
in there inside the throat of the of the fiddler net,
and then the fish went up in there and go
to chomping, and then we'd catch them.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
But the hoop but the hoop nets a little tougher.
Hoop nets just catching fish like in current just kind of.

Speaker 9 (09:23):
Yeah, it's tougher for folks that don't know what you're doing.
We're just learning. Yeah, do you bait those two?

Speaker 3 (09:29):
You can? But but we hadn't been.

Speaker 7 (09:30):
Okay, I'm surprised to hear that fish are not dairy free.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
They're not dairy free.

Speaker 7 (09:35):
I'm surprised cheese cheese could be.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
I don't even. I don't.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
Well, they nurse off their mothers when they're young, so
probably that's.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Probably what it is. That makes zero sense. Who invited him?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Josh, you caught a big brown trout yesterday around the
room here catching up?

Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, one out late.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
How big was that fish?

Speaker 3 (09:55):
You look big?

Speaker 4 (09:56):
It was probably eighteen nineteen inches.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
When Brent saw it, he said, would you say, look
at that stick of butter?

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Big stick, a big stick of butter. Beautiful beautiful fish.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
Beautiful night out on the cool river and the heat,
and it's like nature's air conditioned.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
It was a good night it was good.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
It was funny because I was fishing with a buddy
of mine and we fish for probably close to two
hours and caught like one fish each.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
After dark, well no, no, this is before dark.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
We started fishing about five thirty and uh Man had
just been trying to hone my guide skills and prospecting
on different flies, and went through probably a dozen different
flies and finally found the light switch and in the
last hour and a half we probably caught twenty fish.
And you done that big brown one, And yeah, not yet,

(10:44):
I've got You've got another buddy. I don't know that
there's a time of year, but you I think you
can do it pretty much all year round, but I
think it's better in the fall and winter. Okay, but
I've got a buddy who's been tying up a bunch
of mouse patterns, and we'll go out and night mice
at night, you know, stripping the stripping a mouse. That's
where you catch the big predatory browns. Really really yeah,

(11:07):
they'll they'll eat.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
I guess a lot of mouse would just cross the river.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yep, that's not far.

Speaker 8 (11:16):
There's a there's a film that was shot in New Zealand.
Uh once in a blue moon or something. I can't
remember the exact name of it, but you could see
it on YouTube.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Was it that film that the that the yet he
did I don't.

Speaker 8 (11:31):
I don't think so. This is they may have, but
but I don't think so. They may have done one.
But the one I saw was like in New Zealand,
and it's very I don't even know if there's any words,
and it's just starts out of this guy's in this
cabin and he sets his camera down, this little mouse
run up on the counter. I mean, you set the
stage of what's going on in the area. Personally, I

(11:54):
would have lit a railroad flare and dropped it in
the bedroom and walked out of there because I don't no.
And but then he starts. You see these humongous brown
trout eating these mice, and when the moon's full, really
and it's just pandemonium. Man, it's really cool, really really

(12:14):
cool shot. How the lot of slow motion stuff, it's
really cool.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
One When a mature brown trout reaches eighteen inches, its
diet switches from primarily bugs and you know, small crustaceans
in the water to other fish and a and a
mature brown trout will eat another trout up to two
thirds of.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Its body length. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. So there. Wow.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
They become serious predators when.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
They get that big.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Wow. So if you want to go fishing with Josh,
you're a god god here in our the beavertail water
in Northwest.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
As Josh Lambert Spilmaker.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, but y'all can talk about that on your own podcast.
We don't talk about fly fishing. Just kidding, just kidding,
just that, y'all. Little fly is a big fly fisherman,
brent on.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
The heck of a fly?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Is he really?

Speaker 4 (13:04):
He is a natural like he has a natural instinct.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Do you think it's his hair?

Speaker 4 (13:10):
Probably? Yes, probably I want to cut a lock of
it and tie a big streamer out of it.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Fishoeish.

Speaker 5 (13:17):
No, And that's what I was telling Josh. You know,
Je just.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
Moved that out just a little bit more.

Speaker 5 (13:21):
A little bit more.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, yeah, and no.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
I used to a little bit with Dwayne Hayden. Dwayne
Hayda was my art teacher back in nineteen eighty five
at Mean High School.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Now is he the famous fly fisherman you were talking about?

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Really?

Speaker 5 (13:36):
And he was my art teacher and we used to
actually go down to Albert Pike and fly fish a
little bit.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Huh.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
But since then, no, you know, I haven't fished anymore
since then as far as fly fishing, Yeah, and I
don't fish much at all anymore.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
I used to a lot.

Speaker 5 (13:51):
Yeah, but like I was talking to you about motorcycles
and stuff like that, I got to riding a little
bit of motocross and since then, you know, no, I
hadn't hardly fished all mainly just hon Yeah, you.

Speaker 8 (14:02):
Talked about tying flies out of bears hair. Those two
flies up there, I tad out of Saskatchewan bear hair.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Oh man, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
If you come in here and one of those is missing,
it wasn't me.

Speaker 6 (14:15):
Okay, We've got some specialty. Tim the squirrel dog hair
flies bears experiment.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
He made flies out of my own hair, flies out
of pieces of turkey beard tim hair.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Mule hair, really mule hair. Yeah, you you start talking
to me before you start pulling hairs out of my mules.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
Where did you get the turkey beard?

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Turkey?

Speaker 3 (14:45):
He didn't. Did you kill a turkey last year? Yeah? Sorry?
The Mississippi one?

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Or I killed two. I killed one Tennessee one Mississippi.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah, Brent called them both in for.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Me off the phone.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Uh what else, mule? I think that's all that I can. Well,
and then all the normal stuff that you would use,
like pheasant tails, Yeah, yeah, all the normal stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, but it is kind of cool to you stuff that,
like you've killed Oh and I have I made some
out of my blonde Montana bear.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Oh yeah, but yeah, and then turkey feathers and just
have you.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Caught fish on these flies?

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah? Caught one on a klouser out of my hair?

Speaker 7 (15:33):
How does Tim? How does Tim? Here?

Speaker 9 (15:34):
And do?

Speaker 4 (15:35):
It?

Speaker 1 (15:35):
Does pretty good?

Speaker 2 (15:36):
It's kind of like the the like whiskers on a crawdad,
not like the antennas, but like right at the mouth,
you know, just tie like a little Are.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
You plucking these hairs out of your dough?

Speaker 3 (15:46):
No?

Speaker 8 (15:47):
I up?

Speaker 1 (15:48):
And he just kind of stands there and you just
nip them.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Got a bald spot? Well, we have a couple of corkies.
So if you hair, yeah, we got it. I got
a lot of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Well, okay, so I've kind of gone around the room here.
Tell us about your garden, Miss nukem.

Speaker 7 (16:10):
Oh hell nice?

Speaker 6 (16:12):
Well, I got sweet corn out of it this week,
which is pretty exciting. Yeah, I think we're gonna have
a big year for tomatoes. I've heard it's not great
everywhere else, but it looks like it's a big year
for us. I've had two really great strawberry we love.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
I like kind of like suddenly like taking the knees
out of other recreational farmers.

Speaker 7 (16:33):
I have a big goal this year.

Speaker 6 (16:35):
I really want and I've wanted this for the last
couple of years, but each year I've run into a problem.
I really really really want a big pumpkin, like one
of those.

Speaker 7 (16:43):
I mean, you have to devote your life to it
if you want a competition.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
That you use Seven's nests.

Speaker 7 (16:48):
We have really bad squash bucks here, and yeah, really bad.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
And I keep thinking I can get around it in
natural ways and I can't. And my friend Jessica went
to the farmer's market and she just kind of assumed
that everyone there was like organic farming. And she asked
the woman and the woman was not a she didn't
really understand what Jessco was saying. She wasn't a native
English speaker, and she looked at Jessica and she just
said seven seven.

Speaker 7 (17:12):
She finally started to figure out what she said, and
Jessica's like, oh, gone, it sevens does maybe for maybe
for pumpkins. I don't know. I'm starting to waiver, you know, mine.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
I noticed my fidelity apple trees are.

Speaker 7 (17:28):
Like, they're incredible.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
That's incredible, apple incredible.

Speaker 7 (17:32):
And we had a real early spring, and this is
not interesting to most people. So this is a bad
deal that Clay asked me this question, because I could.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Go on and on, big Farmer.

Speaker 7 (17:40):
But we had a real early spring.

Speaker 6 (17:42):
And usually when you have an early spring, the apple
apple blossoms pop out and then you have a frost
and they all die.

Speaker 7 (17:47):
And this year they didn't. So I think we're gonna
have apples in July.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
I really make an apple butter in augustocause I'm out
apple butter.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
What I'm out?

Speaker 7 (17:57):
Out of the good stuff.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Oh oh, you're out. I thought you were. You didn't want it.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
I'm out uneven.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
I met a guy yesterday, Willard Blinds in Newton County,
that still makes his own sorghum molasses. He grows a
big patch of sorghum and has a meal that he
runs with mules ye oh my god, and makes there
was a.

Speaker 8 (18:17):
Guy down the road from where we lived that you'd
go by and he'd have a mule out there going
around in that sorgum meal. Oh really Yeah, he sitt
there in a bucket and every time that comes by,
he'd lean over it go by.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, you know, the.

Speaker 8 (18:33):
Big pole he had that he had the mule look
to going around in circles.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
I don't know that I could identify sorghum if I
saw it.

Speaker 6 (18:42):
And it grows everywhere in my compost ben now because
I got rid of some of it, and the seeds
are pretty.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
By a patch the other day.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's hard to tell. It's it's hard
for me to tell the difference between young corn and
so on. But it's it's it's the same kind of plant,
you know, kind of a taller plant with big wide
blades like grass, you know. But yeah, I want one day.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
Reminds me of Lambert's Home of the Throwed Roll.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
You guys, ever, it's a lot of fun. Yep, yep,
well man, this uh, this podcast was a was a
good one. We went.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
The reason Joe's here is that Joe's retired for service
law enforcement agent. How many years had you worked for
the for Service.

Speaker 5 (19:40):
I worked for the Forest Service for a little over
twenty two years, twenty two years in patrol.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
And so.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Several years ago when I did the Louis Dell and
Charlie Edwards series Genuine Outlaws, which is to this day
one of my favorite series that we've done, truly was there.
We got to the second episode and I think it
happened pretty quick because we had to go real quick Joe.

(20:10):
But Joe called me, or I called Joe, and he said, Hey,
I know the guy that worked Louis Deale Edwards undercover.
I know him. He's retired, he's in Tennessee. And I
was just like, really, because all these guys had talked
about it was it was. It was just so interesting

(20:30):
from a journalistic standpoint because I'm talking to lou Dell
and Charlie had passed away. They weren't a live at
the time, but I'm interviewing their family and friends and
Andy Brown and all these different people, and they all
told stories of Louis deal believing that he had entertained
an undercover wildlife officer, and but it was never nothing

(20:51):
ever came of it, Like they didn't they didn't get him,
you know, and uh, but they told the story just
as if it was one hundred percent true, like they
knew who he was. But but still I think over
the years it solidified more into certainty. Probably at the
time they were kind of like, I think that may
have been a undercovered Is that the kind of the

(21:13):
way you do you think that? Do you think Charlie
or Loudell really knew Russ was an undercover agent at
the time.

Speaker 5 (21:19):
At the time, no, I really don't. Yeah, yeah, and
especially talking to Russ after the fact.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
No, right, so at the time I think I think it.
It kind of came out later and then it solidified
a little bit more into like that he did know,
but he probably didn't. Well, so Joe goes, I know
this guy, and I contact him, and me and Joe

(21:47):
jumping the truck and drive to Cleveland, Tennessee, well not
quite to Cleveland, but drove to Tennessee and met Russ
Arthur and then and he told the story of working
Loudelle and Charlie Edwards and well primarily Louis Dell, and
it was fascinating. I mean, if you hadn't listened to
those episodes, you should turn this off, Turn this off.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Back to those episodes.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
We're back to lou Dell and Charlie that that was
one of one of my favorite episodes. And so Russ
while we were there, Joe, he told I don't know
if you remember, but he told us the story of
getting run over. But it real brief. It was just
kind of like after the fact. And he told me

(22:32):
the story of getting run over and basically a really
abbreviated version. But I was like, man, that is a
wild story. And I knew that at some point I
was going to go back and talk to Russ and uh.
And then he told me another wild story that I
can't tell you because it's the next episode, but I'm
telling you it's as good, it's as good or better

(22:54):
than this one. And but now, did you did you
work with did you know Russ pretty well when he
was in Arkansas?

Speaker 5 (23:04):
No, when he was in Arkansas, I was too young
at that time, okay, And when I started my fort
service career, Russ was already in management. He was in
a supervisory special agent at that time. But we had
lots of interaction together, you know, through he was our
fitness coordinator, so you know, I contacted him all the time.
We always had in service together, so I seen him

(23:26):
a lot during that time. But growing up as a kid,
you know, in later teenage years and stuff like that,
I heard these same stories that you've heard too, and
not till I got to know Russ and talk to
him and actually get the stories in.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, well, what's so cool about him?

Speaker 3 (23:44):
Is he?

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Well he told two Turkey stories too. But Russ can't
tell the story without talking about his dad. You know,
I really appreciate that. You know, you could tell just
how much he appreciated his dad and how influential his
dad was. But uh, this podcast kind of started off
and ended with his dad, you know, uh, just just

(24:06):
the history of his connection to the land and stuff.
What what'd y'all think of it? What'd you think of
the story? Mister you you wouldn't have known anything. Misty
came in completely cold. She just knew I was talking
to Russ.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Arthur.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
Well, I remember the Rainbow people coming to Mina, you remember, remember,
And I remember being excited and my brothers and I
most definitely got my brother's car and we were like,
let's go check this out.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Do you have to work them?

Speaker 5 (24:37):
I worked for the Sheriff's department at the time. And oh,
I remember it well. I had a brusheet down by
James's house. A lot of them stayed during that time.
Oh yeah, it was quite the adventure.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
And we did a bunch of them come.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
Not not like a regional or a national gathering, but
there was a lot.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, there was. There really was.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
I didn't realize this Rainbow people were still active. That's
probably the thing that people have most contacted me about
is talking about their interactions with the with the Rainbow.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
People and and a like positive or negative light, just
just like in general.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Russ said it, well, I mean it may not have
been like can we make fun of hippies or is
that not okay? Like politically correctness?

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Of course you can, okay.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Russ was like. Russ was like it was kind of
a freak show. That's the way every single interaction I've
had about the Rainbow People has been people people messaging
and being like, man, it was weird.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
We had one one guy.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
One guy wrote me, Oh my gosh, I gotta read this.
I won't read his name. I don't want to embarrass him. Yeah,
you gotta hear this. Uh, this guy. Uh, this guy,
I'm pretty sure this guy is an officer now, uh,
he said, he said, funny. The Rainbow People came up

(26:04):
in the latest episode. When I was four or five,
my parents followed the movement and would go to gatherings
in such and such state. I vaguely remember the naked people,
drug use and other things. Fast forward in two thousand
and eight and I was assigned to work. He's an

(26:25):
agent now, And he said, I was assigned to work
on this WMA where they were, and so he worked
them and anyway, we had a fun funny little deal there,
I said. Anyway, I called his parents hippies and he
laughed and he said, yeah, they were. So anyway, that's

(26:46):
the kind of messages I've been getting. Well, I just
I'm endeared to him. I love hippies.

Speaker 6 (26:50):
It just was kind of funny because there's something I mean,
it's not it's a you know, Clay's life goals, Swiss family, Robinson, Like,
that's what Clay's life goals was. He wanted to have
that kind of lifestyle family.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Are you sure that's the right one.

Speaker 7 (27:08):
Well, you're right, I'm sorry, not Swiss family. You were
Swiss family. He was wilderness family. Yeah, and he wanted
like Pat Raccoon.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
So sorry, I was like, my whole life flashed before. Man.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
I was like, I wanted to.

Speaker 7 (27:23):
Be what I wasn't even in it anyway.

Speaker 6 (27:27):
And there's there's a fine line between hillbilly and hippie.
I think it's like a very I think it's a
very fine line. So anyway, point being I was, I
was just trying to figure out why this mean squirrel
hunter was hanging out with the Rainbow people, Like, why
was he at that checkpoint?

Speaker 1 (27:45):
He was going to just see him, just see the
check them out. Okay, that's the way I understood. It
may not have been real clear.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
That's what it sounded like.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
Rainbow People were Usually you would go animals, that's what
he was.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Well, when Russ first started telling the story, it was
he spent more time than is on the episode talking
about the Rainbow People, and I thought it was going
to be them that tried to kill him because I
knew where the story was going. I knew that he
got run over, but I really didn't know exactly who
did it. And so when it wasn't them, and then

(28:18):
you know, they were gathering to pray for World Peace.

Speaker 8 (28:21):
Yeah, which I saw him wild into Mark Twain National
Forest one times. Me and Buddy Man was up there turkey.
He killed a turkey and we cleaned it and the
remnants of it we chunked in the dumpster. Next afternoon
we'd go by there. There's a guy cooking what's the
left of that turkey beside the dumpster?

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Really? Oh yeah, like gizzards and bone had a hole
in a big pot.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Was bald, it was balling.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
He was hungry.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
He was hungry. We stopped and gave him a sandwich.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
Are you sure this was a rainbow person or a
homeless person?

Speaker 3 (28:58):
No rainbow man. It was everywhere kind of big heart
for the hippies sandwich.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
I think that maybe the rainbow movement kind of makes
its own gravy, like you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Like like if you if you went and asked a
bunch of people like are you a member of the
the Rainbow Living of Light group?

Speaker 1 (29:19):
I mean they would be like no, And then then
you might be ask those same people have you ever
been to a Rainbow Living of Light meeting? They would
be like, I mean some persons would be like, well, yeah,
we went up there just to kind of see what
it was.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
All I know when they lift it was trash everywhere.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Really, yeah, I heard that. I heard that from a
couple of my comments.

Speaker 5 (29:40):
Now, they met here on the Ozarks in about three
or four. They had a gathering here, and I don't
think they like coming to Arkansas too. Me one time
during the summertime, you know, ticks, chiggers, a lot of humidity. Yeah,
and the Arkansas law enforcement it is not on their side.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Really, so I was afraid I generalized them. I actually
didn't research too much. I was just going off what
Russ said that they typically want to protest. Is that
what you understood.

Speaker 5 (30:13):
They did not like behind their permit. Okay, yeah, a
large group gathering, you know, and you know how they
are now, you know, I've been out of it so long.
My last gathering that I went to was and.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
We can get into a lot of stories, so.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
Sometimes it's better to just listen than talk. I was
in Okalla, Florida, and this would have been gosh, two
thousand and three, and it was a regional gathering. Because
I remember there was a few oranges left on the tree.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
So it now, why were you working down there?

Speaker 5 (30:49):
That was It was a detail just way were sent
We were detailed there, yes, and that was a regional
gathering and for the Force Service law enforcement part of it,
you know, it's pretty intense at times because they're not
friends with the for Service law enforcement and you see
a lot, you interact with them a lot, and there's

(31:12):
a lot of good people there and then there's some
that they don't want to see you at all. Lots
of drug use, doctors, lawyers, really, oh yeah, people from
all walks of life, all kinds. Yeah, been to a
few of them as far as but that was my
last right there.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, it was your last Rainbow gather, you know.

Speaker 5 (31:37):
And wise no, that was my last, you know it
just there are some things I couldn't take and that
was one of them.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, well you never got past. I asked you what
you thought about the episode.

Speaker 6 (31:50):
Well, I mean, and it's really hard not to like
Russ Arthur. Like just he's kind of like good guy
as salt of the earth. Just as you listen to him.
I think he probably gives a very great, a wonderful
reputation to if every law enforcement officer you met was
like Russ Arthur.

Speaker 7 (32:06):
He just seems very respectful, very even.

Speaker 6 (32:09):
Respectful of I thought the way he described the rainbow
people and kind of gave a little bit about there,
I just I just liked them, and I thought this
the story was cool, and I thought it was. I
enjoyed hearing them talking about him going to college to
become a law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Officer a while service for service and.

Speaker 7 (32:26):
His dad's response to that, and I enjoyed the heard.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Somebody else chuckle at that was that funny? Misty was.
I was watching Misty while she listened to ites In
and I was I just happened to catch it kind
of chuckle a little bit, and I went over and like, hey,
what did you laugh at? She was like, I don't
even know. I wondered what it was.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
I actually think it might have been that part, because.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
That's what that's what high level podcasters do is they
put people in glass booths and have them listen to
the podcast, and then we watch. We watched their internet.
They're like WinCE or fall asleep or laugh or punch
the glass and oh oh, and you're taking notes.

Speaker 6 (33:09):
It's difficult to be married to a high level podcaster
who's doing that kind of stuff, you know, like just
watching your every move and taking off your ears.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
You do you do that exact same thing.

Speaker 8 (33:22):
She'll she'll in that sentence at it's hard to be
married to Brent period. Nothing to do with podcast, that's
where there.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
I feel like you could do.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
That, okay, But to me, the story just was layered
with twist and turns. I mean, isn't that what you said? Bear?

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, it was just like it was like a movie,
you know, like they were just every single time you'd
think that the story was.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Like over, like like this is this is it?

Speaker 2 (33:54):
This is Yeah, it was the story his bosses would
come out of the woods with shotguns.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Some guy like some guy.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Came and told him that he knew where the guys
were and that he'd like, you know, kind of negotiate
and get him out.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Then whenever they found the you know, marijuana farm out
there and he didn't recognize anybody, and then like right
at the end, the guy, the squirrel hunter walks out.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
It was just like it was there were so many
twists and turns. Yeah. Yeah, you know, Russ is uh.
I've heard him tell a lot of stories. He this
is what I think. I think that was an exceptional story.
Number one, but number two I think that he pays
attention to detail and is an exceptional storyteller too.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
I mean, really, he's a great storyteller.

Speaker 8 (34:47):
He well, he knew it was his job to pay
attention to detail and tell the story because he is
the witness to what's going on, and he's got to
convey what happened there.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
Ji will tell you that was before body.

Speaker 8 (35:00):
Down on a piece of paper, and then he's got
to present it to folks that had no zero, have
zero knowledge about anything or anyone that's going on, and
he's got to convince them this is what happened, this
is what they were doing. So yeah, of course the
detail is the big thing.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what'd you think about it?

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Brent? Oh, it's good man.

Speaker 8 (35:21):
It was just I mean I could see it coming progressing,
you know, because somebody made the statement maybe and you
it may have been Russ himself. Some folks are just mean,
you know, and they don't and they don't think about things,
and going to prison or going to jail or the
repercussions of something is immaterial to what the message or

(35:45):
that they're trying to send or the the act that
they're trying to do. They don't care about that. There's
no they're not worried about anything. They're not worried about
how's it gonna look on my resume, you know, because
that's not that's not their deal. Where they're big in
their community, that might look good on there, give them
some street cred or whatever you call it. They don't

(36:07):
think about what's going to happen the day after. And
then when when you do, when they act impulsively or
they premeditate something and do it, then whatever repercussions they
receive from it, it wasn't their fault. That guy made
me mad, he made me do this, it's his fault.

(36:27):
And they get madder, you know. They just have a
warped way of looking at.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Did that surprise you the way? No, See, that's what
I just don't.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
It didn't surprise Joe. It wouldn't surprise me.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
What type of crazy person would do that?

Speaker 8 (36:44):
Well, I don't know that they're crazy. They're just they
have a different value system. And then they don't have
to be raised in a poor They don't have to
be raised in a poor place to be there. They
can be from the the nicest part of town, the
most successful parents. It's just whatever, how they perceive their

(37:05):
perception and reality of their perception of right and wrong.
You can you can teach. I mean, my parents and
grandparents were just as poor as you could get, but
their value system was, you know, impeccable.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Money.

Speaker 8 (37:21):
Hadn't didn't have anything to do with it, They're raising,
didn't have anything to do with it. Once they were
shown something they could see, Ah, this is the way
to go. This is the way to do, This is
the way to operate. This is the way to be
a productive member of my community and be a good person.
And some folks is like, I do what I want. Yeah,
I'm not a sap. I'm not going to do that.

(37:42):
I'm not going to you know, I'm I don't have
to respect you, but you got to respect me or
you'll pay the consequences.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
You know, So do you, Joe? When you heard that story,
do you think those guys were on drugs or.

Speaker 5 (38:01):
Without a doubt and just just all out criminals. You know,
probably have been career criminals since they were young.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
And specifically I'm talking about when they ran over Russ
Arthur because there's a there's a I was thinking about
it because Russ didn't know and he didn't really speculate.
I asked him one time, I said, we're they on drugs?
And his answer was, well, we'll never know because we
didn't catch them till three days later. But they were
going through a DUI checkpoint and there's one way out,

(38:28):
I mean, so they had to go through this checkpoint.
And so if they were aneebriated, they know they're about
to get caught.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Yeah, odds are yes.

Speaker 5 (38:38):
Yeah. And during that time, you know, Russ grew up
in the marijuana cultivation. That was a lot of his career.
Things have really progressed now to where it's methamphetamines. And
that's what a lot of my career was is meth
labs still the marijuana cultivation, but what they're seeing now,
the officers is fentanyl, right know. It's it's eating this

(39:01):
country up, it really is. My middle daughter is she's
an r N just over here in Oklahoma and she
deals a lot with seeing a lot of fen in
the lower doses and it's right here. And and going
back a lot of what Brent says, a lot of
people just don't like the law enforcement.

Speaker 8 (39:18):
They don't they don't respect, you know, it's they have
a h authority.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
This ain't there? Yeah, ain't there deal? You know? Yeah,
you know.

Speaker 5 (39:41):
Talking about the body cans and that's that's a game
changer right there.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (39:47):
And when I first got a body can, oh, I
hated the thing. You know, you were scared to say
anything because you did you didn't want to well, you
knew all this is going to be in core. But
then after you wear that thing for a while, you
get used to it, and then you wouldn't work without.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
It really.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
For you?

Speaker 5 (40:04):
Absolutely, you know, I got to where I would not
work without it. Yeah, because when they realize it's on
BODYCM games over then.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Really do you think it influences the way people react
to you? Oh?

Speaker 5 (40:16):
Absolutely. I would set mine on you know, there's different
settings on them. I would set mine on vibrate and
where it had an audible tone to where they knew
they knew they were being videoed.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
Because all that.

Speaker 5 (40:27):
You would see a lot of times that people break
out their cell phones and you know, I just tell them,
you know, well, hey, I'm recording it too, Yeah and
they know, Yeah, did.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
You have people pull out a cell thinking you're going
to be there there, You're going to unjustly treat them
in some way.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Oh yeah, you see that all the time.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Especially. I guess that kind of bothers you when that happens, though, right.

Speaker 5 (40:47):
Not when you're recording it to just Yeah, you get
used to it. It's just like anything else. But it
gets to the point where you would not work without it. Yeah,
And I would not be a law enforcement officer in
today's time without a body cam. Yeah, and I don't
see how they did. Yeah, because you're not going to
go out there. It makes you a better officer, Yeah,
it does. Just accountability absolutely, and my last few years

(41:11):
as a field training officer, and that will also make
you a better officer. When you've got someone else in
there that you're trying to get them into some type
of case or something.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
It just it makes you a better officer. Yeah, it does.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
To go back to what you're saying about how the
enforcement has shifted because the drug, the actual drug has shifted.
Like back in the eighties nineties, Yeah, growing marijuana was
the thing, and I was talking today I almost felt
the need to explain that, especially for maybe younger listeners.

(41:48):
I mean, like you can't drive ten miles down the
road in a lot of states without seeing a marijuana store.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Yeah, dispense it.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I mean so but back in the day, so, I
mean you were like desensitized to this idea of marijuana
being like a hard illegal drug used by you know
and sold by you know, criminals it. But back in
those days it was very much so that. I mean,
like marijuana was like the drug and it was and

(42:17):
it was being grown. I guess it probably shifted some
from being grown off the forest and then to grow
houses and stuff. Is it would that be.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
On private land? We would see a lot of it
on private land. Yeah, And it's talking about that. I
spent a lot of my career in the summertime, you know,
flyding helicopters, you know, looking for cultivation. And I know
it's never worth a darn at it, but some of
our guys that I flew.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
With, they were really good at it.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
You know, they could spot a single plant, really just
a single plant once it's.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
A different color. It's just it's a different cola.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
You've done it too, huh.

Speaker 8 (42:53):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (42:53):
Honestly, it's a beautiful planet, it really is. And you
get the sunlight, you know, high on you know, bright day,
it just stands out, you know, it does.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Are people still growing marijuana and national forests. I mean,
I know you can't answer that, but it's not it's
not like that's the thing anymore, am I.

Speaker 5 (43:09):
Right, Oh, they're growing it in their backyard. The laws
have gotten so liberal. Why drive once spend the money?
They're just growing.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
I can think about it.

Speaker 8 (43:16):
You know, when it got cheaper to bring it in
from Mexico than it did to take the risk of
growing it.

Speaker 5 (43:22):
Just like math Afet means, you know, once the pseudo
law has changed, you know, the meth, you know, it
just all comes out of the super labs in Mexico.
You know, it's ninety nine percent pure math.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
You know Russ's story in a way, it was kind
of dated because I mean, like setting up surveillance on
a huge patch of marijuana fifteen hundred plants and national
forests and guys coming in. You know, it's like, yeah,
my I guess my question is does that happen?

Speaker 5 (43:49):
I guess like that, Yeah, not anymore. You know, they'll
set it all up, you know, cameras, SMO cameras, sell cameras. Yeah,
well it's all done remote.

Speaker 8 (43:57):
We used to have a camera that we would use
and I can talk about it now because the technology
is so outdated. But it looked like a log remember
those log cameras, Joe, And it looked like a log man.
And it took a battery. He had to go and
dig a hole and put a car battery in it.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
We would carry a car battery.

Speaker 8 (44:13):
Yep, we put it in there. And you're having to
cover up wires and make this thing look natural, and
it's It was absolutely like dealing with Adam Bomb.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
It was just you probably thought it was high level technology.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
It was high level technology at that time. It was.
It was as much it was as high as it gets.
I mean it was Is.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
That why you put that log in my front yard?

Speaker 3 (44:35):
Don't don't worry about that. It's not what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
It looks like I've found this nice logo good right
here in front of your door.

Speaker 8 (44:44):
But yeah, but that that was the kind of stuff
you had to deal with. And now that technology is
so it's antiquated past a million miles by just a
regular cell camera.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Because this thing was like trying to hide that saddle. Yeah,
it was this bigger round about that long.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Huge Wow, did you do a lot of marijuana?

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Lot?

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Like when Russ is telling that story.

Speaker 6 (45:14):
You's a lot of sentences that could be taken out
of context.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
Here.

Speaker 7 (45:17):
Did you do a lot of marijuana?

Speaker 1 (45:19):
A lot?

Speaker 8 (45:23):
Yeah, I went to several schools. I was a certified spotter,
aerial spotter.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
We did.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Were you good at spotting it?

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Were you good?

Speaker 8 (45:31):
It's let me tell you what it is. You get
to looking for shapes. You're flying along and you're looking
at God's random order of plants and animals and objects.
Then all of a sudden, there's a neat little square
down there. And then when we figured when they figured out,
you know, the square being the plants all planted in
a row. So so then like, ah, we gotta we

(45:55):
got to break this up. We got to make it
do this random. I don't care how much you try.
A human cannot plant something without being something symmetrical. It
just cannot replicate Nature's random interesting And it was always
that and the color was the easiest thing to.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Find that is interesting.

Speaker 5 (46:15):
Or the trails leading out from the trails, yea, the garden.
Everything else is dead, but that's not.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wild We pulled.

Speaker 8 (46:27):
We had the record for a while. It was broken
later a couple of years later, we pulled seventeen thousand,
seven hundred and fifty six plants in one day.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
Seventeen thousand.

Speaker 8 (46:39):
You pulled them, Yeah, in Bradley County, in South Bradley County.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
It was on timber company land. Wow, that's a lot
of work. Yeah, it's not fun.

Speaker 8 (46:49):
That's what the guys in the helicopter which I was
that day, and it's it's smoking hot, man, I mean
it is humid, and they and the ground crew is
going out. We're directing them in by radio, you know, forward, left, right, whatever,
and they get in there. I remember when this one time,
this guy they get into the patch and one guy.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Breaks in there.

Speaker 8 (47:09):
He comes out of the thicket and all of a sudden,
he's standing and you see him, he's looking around all
this marijuana. All of a sudden he just starts doing
He's swinging his arms and kicking and junking and bucking
and doing all this kind of stuff. And the other
guy in helicopter says, man, he's it's a yellow jacket swarm.
He's got nowhere to go. So the helicopter pilots just

(47:29):
go down and they, I mean they are blowing air
all over the stuff and knock the yellow jackets off
of him enough where they can get out. But it
was like he was doing a karate demonstration.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
And uh, and the chopper pilot had to wear with
all the bee like, yeah, one blow those yellow jackets.

Speaker 8 (47:45):
Another another of the spotters said, that's yellow jackets and
they just lowered that huey right down over the top
of it and blew the yellow jackets off.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
And he was getting it up.

Speaker 6 (47:56):
So what kind of and you can you can get
this off your podcast if you don't want this intel
going out? But what kind of conditions do you need
for marijuana?

Speaker 1 (48:03):
It's a weed, a gardener.

Speaker 7 (48:05):
Well, I'm just trying to think.

Speaker 6 (48:06):
If it's in the National forest, is it it grows fine?

Speaker 7 (48:09):
Under tree came.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
It's a weed. It needs to grow it or to
spot it to grow it. To grow it, you can
do it. You need water and a soul.

Speaker 7 (48:18):
But it doesn't need It.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Needs sunlight, sunlight and the open and it can grow.

Speaker 6 (48:25):
It just grows in the warm temperatures, just like it's
frost intolerant.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Probably, Yeah, Arkansas is greatly.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
Can you not smell a patch that big?

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:38):
You can fly right, you can fly You can smell
it from a helicopter.

Speaker 5 (48:41):
You can smell it absolutely, and you know, interviewing some
of the people that were really long time cultivators, they
wanted it to frost on it and you know, we'd
see those plants and the buds would be you know,
like that, and they'd be just late on the ground.
And that's what a lot of them wanted that last
frost it. And then that's when the harvested. And there's

(49:03):
nothing more frustrating when you had all your equipment set up,
they harvested it and something went wrong with your equipment, yeah,
and missed them.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
We didn't get any documentation of it.

Speaker 5 (49:14):
No, Yeah, And you may want to cut this one out,
but we worked the case in.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Oklahoma for ten I bet I won't.

Speaker 5 (49:22):
We worked it for ten years before the people that
started you know, working it before me. And we worked
this case for ten years and we let them have it,
you know, during that length of time, because during that
length time, you're not gonna make you know, we're talking
you know, several hundred plants up to a thousand plants,
but that's not going to make any difference to people,
you know, so we'd let them have it.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Do you mean to make any difference in the court.

Speaker 5 (49:46):
Oh, well that and you're not going to make any
difference in the amount of marijuana out on the streets.
We wanted to catch them, you, we weren't in the
We were in the business to catch them. So we'd
let them have it and then they get a little
bit more comfortable. We worked this case for ten years.
In the let me think early February of twenty twelve,

(50:12):
we knew this guy would come in and he would
he would start his plots and he would come in
and get everything ready in the night, even during that
time of the year. So he'd ride a horse. That's
where how he tended all of his stuff. So we
went in in February and set our cameras and just
to get him prepping the sights, got all of our

(50:35):
stuff set up. And now we came back probably two
or three weeks later, and walking into that plot, I'm like,
oh my gosh. And because I'd set my camera up
and like part of years, I buried part of it.
And he came in at night and he took a
chainsaw and he cut that tree down and well it

(50:57):
was a big bush and my camera was just right.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
He cut the tree down that the camera was on.

Speaker 5 (51:03):
Absolutely it was a bigger, tight bush. But he came
in and cut it down. And if it would have
been during the daylight, he had has seen everything.

Speaker 7 (51:12):
Oh wow.

Speaker 5 (51:13):
And but he came in at night on a horse
and we didn't know what it was. So we worked
that all summer long and then August. And why we
left this equipment on that one patch, I don't know,
because it already burned up. He came in the daytime,
he had a veil on, he had a mask on,
just a handkerchief, he got hot. We just don't know.

(51:36):
But just the day before I'd service that equipment, so
I knew it was good. He got in there messing
around and he got hot, and he pulled it down,
wiped his face with it, put it all back up,
and we had him ten years later, really ten years.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
And so you had all this evidence of him growing, grown,
grow and grow and grow and growing, and then finally
you got a picture of the guy ten years later. Now,
how were you able to all the evidence you'd gathered
all those ten years, even though without photo evidence of
it being him? Were you able to push that on him?

Speaker 5 (52:14):
We were for the previous year because he had rode
a horse in We knew enough about the case that
we were able to prove it all and link it
all together.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (52:23):
And we actually, you know, the smallest pieces of evidence.
We picked up a little piece of a tarp that
was in the patch because he would he would pile
it all on this tarp, and he ripped off part
of this little blue tarp. I'll never forget that. And
that was actually at his house, the tarp that all
the marijuand was still laying on.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
And you were like wow.

Speaker 5 (52:47):
And that was twenty twelve. He since deceased and spent
a lot of time in prison. But when we served
that warrant, we never told anyone where we were going,
not the sheriff's department, nothing till the morning that we
were headed to his.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
House because he didn't want to leak out with the.

Speaker 5 (53:07):
Even when the law enforcement, the Forest Service kept it
so hush hush that we never told him where we
were going to we were on our way. And you
have problems with that in the past. Yeah, with leaks,
you just didn't know there had been so much and
we knew how violent this person could be. And I

(53:28):
can remember my captain at the time, you know, when
he was he loved to be the first one. And
you know he had a lock gate, you know with
those with our patrol vs.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
He rammed it.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
There was no there wasn't time to get out unlocked
gates because it could the potential could go south through
bad really and we had the entry team, the Sheriff's
department had an entry team. When they approached the house.
You know, he's got a glock laying right there by
the bed, and we knew there was a window there
where he slept, and that's where you know, the first

(53:59):
guy went out.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
There too, through the window.

Speaker 5 (54:02):
No, just right there at it, you know, because then
the entry team made, you know, entry into the house.
But he had a gun, you know, laying right there
on the nightstand.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
He was caught. Oh he's caught. Yeah, there was no
way out of that. Wow.

Speaker 5 (54:16):
And wow, lots of good cases like that, but oh
there are tons of them.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Yeah, I'll bet so interesting.

Speaker 6 (54:25):
Uh, I just think about the adrenaline and the I mean,
you have to have a special personality to be able
to our chemical makeup, even to be able to work
undercover the lion for a good cause. Like, I think
about what that would do to your psychology.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Well, now there was no undercover, official.

Speaker 7 (54:47):
Undercover, but I was just thinking like how hard it
would be.

Speaker 5 (54:55):
I was.

Speaker 6 (54:55):
I was thinking about the case with with Louis Dill
and Charlie and with ras and just the challenges that
that would that would present to do that I don't know,
and just to hear in that story. Just thinking about
the just the I don't know, that's kind of mess
you up a little bit. I mean, you seem to
be really healthy and stable.

Speaker 9 (55:16):
Just the stress psychological.

Speaker 6 (55:21):
It just like you've got to have some type of
special composition to be able to do that. And out
of that it would be hard to go, like to
your kids baseball game afterwards. That's what I think is, like,
how could you go from that to like your kids
baseball game?

Speaker 3 (55:37):
You missed a lot of them?

Speaker 5 (55:39):
Did you missed a lot? And you compartmentalize a lot? Okay,
And these jobs which you know he can also talk about.
You see lots of violence, yeah, tons of death, and
you compartmentalize it. You just you don't go there because
your mind will your mind will go there if you

(56:00):
at it, but think about something else.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Yeah, this segment brought to you by better Help the.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Better help dot com for all the therapy that you need.

Speaker 6 (56:12):
Do your do your like do your organizations provide that
kind of support and training for how to do that.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
Yeah, is that part of it for sure?

Speaker 7 (56:22):
Yeah, it seems like that would be super important.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Yeah, it does very much.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
So, Josh watch stood out to you. It was your
favorite part. You were there for the whole Josh was
with me when.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
I was at the rest his house. You know, he
told so many great stories. But that story of you
know that we've affectionately titled runt Over. I think here
in that story it's almost unbelievable. And the I think
the thing that really got me in that was when

(56:53):
he got in the ambulance and recognized the guy that
he had in federal court, and he's telling is, don't
leave me.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (57:01):
He never said if the guy left.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Him or not, though well he said he said he
stayed with him.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
I felt like he stayed with him.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (57:07):
But I think Russ just even in how he wrote
the guy ticket, He's like I wrote it for the.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Least, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
I appreciated the fact that in all the time we
heard Russ talk that there was that there was never
a sense of compromising standards, but at the same time,
there was a compassionate aspect of who he was as
a law enforcement officer.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
And I have.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
Tremendous respect for that. When I when I've interacted to
law enforcement, you know, there's there's been I've had good
experiences and I've had bad experiences. And the good experiences
that I can recall are when when I see someone
hold a standard at that yet be kind and compassionate
in there. And I really appreciated that about Russ.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
So what bad experiences have you had, Josh, i'se handcuffs.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Are too tight?

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Yeh, very interested here.

Speaker 5 (58:09):
I've actually had them say that these are not my paint.
Off the checkpoint, pull some dope out of a pocket, Well,
these aren't my paints.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
I remember coming through a check point on Forest Service
one time where you were there. Do you remember that
I did.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
We'll talk about that later.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
I was baiting bears and at that time I didn't
know you that well. I mean, we we, but I
know I just remember coming just coming around the corner
National Force and there's a bunch of trucks and the
UH roadblock and I thought about busting through it.

Speaker 4 (58:48):
What was happening, Joe?

Speaker 5 (58:50):
That was just a regular compliance checkpoint, is what that
one was.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
You know, there were a lot of people in the
forest at.

Speaker 5 (58:55):
That Yes, and since when Russ was talking about it,
they can probably call them roadblocks whatever they want. We
had to write them up as a compliance checkpoint. There
was only certain things you could ask for driver's license
and insurance and that was that was it.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
That was it.

Speaker 5 (59:09):
But with just those two questions, you just you can
see so.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Much well, I mean, just like somebody doesn't have insurance,
I mean, turn does it lead?

Speaker 3 (59:19):
Though?

Speaker 5 (59:20):
Like usually when we pull that vehicle over, you know,
if they don't have one of those, you pull on
over here.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
And then at that point you can ask them more.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
You can start asking more, but that's your first initial questions.
It has to be stated on there what you're going
to ask for, the exact location of the of the checkpoint.
You know, it's very systematic what you've got to ask for,
and we'll just leave it at that. But once you
pull that the what.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
You can see.

Speaker 8 (59:51):
We had one one time, this lady pulls up in
the station wagon and she's mad at the world, and
I said, I just need to see your license and
registration please, And boy, she's hot.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
She's mad.

Speaker 8 (01:00:04):
She's cussing me and cussing everybody else for being there
and being in her way. She's in a hurry, her
and her husband and fighting, and she's leaving him. I said, wow,
I said, let me just let me check your tags
on the back of the car and I'll be right back.
Then you can get on your way. And she's still
cussing me like the dog that I am. And as

(01:00:24):
I'm walking back to the back to check her license,
I just shined my light in the back and there's
like eighteen marijuana plants still in the in the pot,
just laying across all her clothes on the top. Wake
up there now, she said, giving my license, I'm leaving.
I said, we got a few more things to talk about.
I said, is everything in this car you're She said, yeah,

(01:00:46):
except for the marijuana plan are exactly do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
I mean? She knew they were back there?

Speaker 8 (01:00:55):
What made her she was mad? She was she mad
they were his, they were they left, and she's was
going to be spiteful and she had him in the
back but she was. She Her demeanor went from yes,
everything's in this car is mine realizing and she said,
except for the marijuana place my husband.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
So wow, too bad he ain't in the car.

Speaker 7 (01:01:16):
How were you able to verify that they were his?

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
You said, no, I'm sure they were his, but she
was in possession. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:01:25):
Wow, you see all sorts of stuff. Yeah, because story
on that. We were We're in Muddy Creek and we
had to check point, same situation, rolls through and you
could just smell it, you know, that car ended up
having seventeen pounds in it the best, Oh my god,
a lot of a lot of marijuana. And but you
just see and like I'm telling you the one where
he said, these ain't my pants. You know, you could

(01:01:47):
smell it rolling out, you know, get it out of
his front pocket. The best I remember. And he said, man,
whatever you do, don't call my grandfather. First thing, Well,
what's his phone numbers? You know that's the first person
you call.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Don't call my grandfather.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
That's that, he said.

Speaker 5 (01:02:00):
He said, he'll beat me to death last the first
person we called. And he was not happy when he
got there.

Speaker 4 (01:02:06):
Wow, So Brent, you'll like this if my daughter's probably
gonna kill me. But my youngest daughter, she's been driving
for a couple of years. She's eighteen, and she's Both
my daughters tend to have a little bit of a
lead foot, and my youngest daughter's never been pulled over,
so she's never had an interaction with that. Well, she's
on the interstate coming out here the other day and

(01:02:28):
gets pulled over, right, you know, about a mile before
the speed limit switches from from sixty five to seventy five,
and she thinks she's in the seventy five, so she's
driving eighty and she gets pulled over. And this is
the two lane divided interstate. She sees she's in the
left lane. She sees the blue lights and blue lights

(01:02:48):
behind her, and where does she decide to pull over?

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
In the median? In the meeting.

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
So he gets out and he walks up to her,
and he says, he says, can I see your license?
She gives him a license.

Speaker 9 (01:02:59):
She says, says, who's your and we we have insurance coming,
We have our our insurance on our phone. And he says,
who's your insurance provider? And she goes, my dad, that's good, Yeah,
that's a good so much you do.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
That's funny. That's funny, Isaac. Did you like the podcast? Yeah,
he's paid to say Caraman always say that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna repeat everything you're saying. Okay,
go ahead. In the words of Isaac Neil, the disparity
of the guy who runs him over members and the
two family members, right thing, the dad who said I'll

(01:03:57):
go get him, and then the relative and the relative
who called him up happen.

Speaker 6 (01:04:05):
Yeah, to be fair, the dad said I'll go get
him at our illegal hunting site.

Speaker 4 (01:04:09):
Yeah, exactly, as long as you guys don't shoot him.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
You know, I should have asked Russ. It made it
sound like it was an illegal camp in the Great
Smoking Mountain National Park.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Yeah, that's the way I.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Mean, he said, in the Smokies. And and for it
to be an illegal hunting camp, I mean, if it's
a national force, they could have a hunting camp. I mean,
assuming it wasn't like some like permanent structure or something like,
they could have a camp way back there. But apparently
it was in.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
The park, and he did right where it was at.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the dad knew where it was at. Coincidence, Yeah, Yeah,
there were so many parts of this that could have
been in a movie. You know. Yeah, I was, I
was flashing back. I think a lot of my young
youngest like I was like a little fledgling chick. It
was just really imprinted by Sylvester Stallone in the But

(01:05:07):
when Stallone, it's a little different with Russ and Stallone.
But when when Rambo was in prison and there was
only one man for the job and his old boss,
Colonel Troutman, calls him, gets him out of prison to
go do the job, the recon job and in Vietnam.
So when Russ moves back to Tennessee and he gets

(01:05:29):
a call from his old boss that needs him back,
I can hear the music. Russ was not in prison,
I could, I could, I could see the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Russ's back, just mad in his own business, just back
in Tennessee. I don't want anything to do with those
guys over Robin Corn. Yeah, platting corn, plowing with a
mule and uh. And then he has to go back
and bust these guys.

Speaker 6 (01:05:53):
Y'all think that Clay's just doing this to be entertaining,
but in reality, just the day to day, no routines
of our life. I will bring up Rambow quotes. When
River was about six years old and lost her first tooth.
We were pulling it. She's tearing up, and he said,
Rainbow was taught to ignore pain.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
Bear.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Was that a little bit of a tenant of your upbringing?

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Yeah, I mean it wasn't that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Oh yeah, that was like a saying that was like
constantly going through my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
You didn't know that came from a movie, did you?

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Well not until you know. I got old enough and
then you showed me all the rainbow. Rambo was his
uncle he'd never met, was still in prison for chucks.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Yeah, well, it's pretty helpful. I would advise parents to
teach their kids that Rainbow was taught to ignore pain,
not acknowledge and bow to it. I mean, there's certain
things that they need to be intended to, but most
of them can be ignored. Am I right? Bear? Yep?
Is that the way you're gonna teach your kids? Yeah?

(01:07:03):
That's good, good, good good? No, it was I really
like these just kind of monologue stories. It's just like
one person telling the story. You know, it's kind of.

Speaker 4 (01:07:18):
I'm excited for the next one. It's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
The next one's already gave, you know, some foreshadowing that
it's an illegal elk hunt in Yellowstone. I mean I gave,
I told quite a bit.

Speaker 6 (01:07:30):
Actually, have you ever referenced that one outside of because
for some reason, I feel.

Speaker 7 (01:07:36):
Like you've told me about it before.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
Okay, yeah, yeah, Well it's gonna be good. It's gonna
be good. What else, guys, Brent, what's going on with
this country life?

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Man?

Speaker 8 (01:07:50):
All good stuff we're talking about. Let's see help me
do the Matthew this one comes out, we'll be talking
about heroes. Heroes after this one comes out, and Rambo's
not in it, I should maybe I do that a
part too, just about Rambo.

Speaker 7 (01:08:06):
Just a single episode devoted.

Speaker 8 (01:08:08):
But we're having It's fun, you know, this is a
I like to talk about the stuff that I'm doing.
And right now I'm trying to hunt the shade and
stay cool. But we're we got some good topics coming up.
I think good thy folks. Folks are enjoying it, get
lots of good feedback, getting lots of good stories, people
sending stories in good We've got a project. Karen and

(01:08:30):
Reeve and I are going to be working on. It's
later on. It's going to be good, I think with
the stories that folks are sending in.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Yeah, good, good, good. Well, I've got two sales pitches
that I'm excited about. Meat Eater Experiences. Is this deal
where people can book a trip and go with some
of us on the team. Me and Brent are gonna
be in Venice, Louisiana in October October tenth through sixteenth

(01:08:59):
or something right like that. Yeah, we're gonna be down
on the coast of Vennics, Louisiana red fishing and people
can come. I mean it's not I'm not going to
tell you it's cheap, you know, which is unfortunate to
be nice if it was like two hundred dollars, it's not.
But uh, but people can book and it's it's like
booking a guided four day something fishing trip. I'm going

(01:09:20):
to lodging, food, everything. But but we'll be there so
and there's other and you're also doing the Kansas waterfowl deal.

Speaker 8 (01:09:28):
Yeah, if I think it's called foul planes that's being in.
I'll be up there in January and duck cuttings should
be phenomenal during that time. It's a great place. I'm
looking forward to it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Second sales pitch is for my pants.

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
But you weren't expecting that you can buy his exactly
these pants and send them down.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
This is first lights new three or eight pants. Nobody
told me to do this, but I literally wear these
every day or a mule riding yesterday. I got them
on today. I just kind of clean them up a
little bit. But they're like they're I mean, they're a
hunting pant. You can hunt in them, but I wear
them to church. You can hunt a dress, but I
wouldn't advise it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
Had bad experience.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
My bare hund fell off. But no, they just they
just dropped these. They call them three to eight three
o eight being the rifle caliber you get it? Did
you get that when you first saw I didn't.

Speaker 7 (01:10:22):
I did not. I can say I did not get that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):
Eight.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
I think that's the caliber. Uh didn't James Lawrence use
a three?

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
Oh? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Is that what he is? That what he used?

Speaker 5 (01:10:32):
Yeah, he's got one. It's a lever action the best
I remember.

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Yeah, that was a pop. I think that was a
popular caliber back in the day when he was.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
It still is.

Speaker 5 (01:10:44):
Yeah, run it suppressed.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
Yeah, Well good breches.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
Great, well Joe, thanks for coming up. Man.

Speaker 5 (01:10:53):
Absolutely, I've got one more thing to say about Russ.
I talked to you the other day. He said, he
wanted to make sure that everybody knew that his dad
had money saved up for him to go to college.
And this story he told me.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Just the other day.

Speaker 5 (01:11:05):
He said, I forgot to tell Clay this, so he said,
and you'd be sure and tell them that my dad
offered me this money, but I turned it down. He said,
I just wasn't going to go to college, and I
was going to continue to lay brick. And he said,
I got to thinking about that later, and he said,
my dad had already spent the money, but he wanted
to make sure that you knew that he paid for
his college himself, and that his dad.

Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
Had offered to pay for his college.

Speaker 5 (01:11:28):
Huh, but he ended up having to pay for it himself,
he said, But he wanted to make sure.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
I told you.

Speaker 8 (01:11:34):
That about a half a pallet of bricks would have
convinced me to go to college.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:11:39):
And he said that you know, his dad had had
this money saved up, but he wanted to.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Pay for his college.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Me and Russ talked a little stone work, you know,
he rust laid stone too, And I showed him a
picture of my magnum opus.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
That everybody you know is now seeing a picture of it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Yeah, I wish I had a picture, right, I wish
we could take these cameras out and I could show
you by Joe, I have to show you my Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
He wanted pictures of that too.

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
He mentioned he wanted some more pictures of it because
he's gonna build ones.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
What do you say?

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
Yeah, yeah he was. When he saw it, he was
like as Hunting and Kevin, he wants one. Yeah, he
could build one.

Speaker 5 (01:12:15):
Now there's another. There's a couple more guys that you
really you should talk to as his supervisors. Those are
the ones I can give you a lot of stories
on him, and they're all retired. So Russ is a hoot,
I mean comical and just all the time there was
something going on with Russ. Yeah, so I'll get you
fixed up sometimes with them and just hear the funny

(01:12:35):
side of Russ too. Yeah, that's just he's very comical person.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
Yeah, well, perfect perfect for Bear Grease stories for sure.
Great guy. Well, thank every thanks everybody for coming, and
thank you Miss Nukeman for being here. Good look in
the gardens. M.