September 11, 2024 • 60 mins
On this episode of the Bear Grease Render, Clay Newcomb is filming live from the World Championship Squirrel Cook Off! He's joined by Brent Reaves, small game extraordinaire Kevin Murphy, the king of the cook off Joe Wilson, squirrel-skinning champ Clifton Jackson, and world-famous BBQ man Malcolm Reed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Clay 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 today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We got like a deep rides from.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Marito and promise sirl chips on the side. Yeah, sputilla
chim that's forrtilla chips.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
We're making a it's a campfire Carbland campfire by It's
made with a horn sauce that around since of seventeen
hundred five game sauce.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Man.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
That makes me hungry just just thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Squirrel, I don't know all we're going to the ground.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're testing the fritters. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Now, my grandpa when he took a bite of something,
you know he liked it.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
If he said, you know what, this tastes like, it
tastes like more.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Good, We'll get you a full deal with everything on
with that's good man, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Going to squirrel Cookie. We found ourselves at the World
Championship World Championship Squirrel Cookoff Big Springdale, Arkansas, Arkansas.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
With a W.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
That's right, right, that's right now, this is uh, we're
in Springdale, Arkansas. Man, the guests that I have in
front of me, and this is this is like the
this is like dream team, dream team, beggery shrender. Here.
We got Brent he's right here working undercover as usual.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Won't even know it's him.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I mean, he's so good we don't even care anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Then we got Kevin Murphy from Kentucky. Came with stuff.
He's got his squirrel dog, looks like he's got a
nine millimeter on his side, and he brought a Kentucky
long rifle.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Do you mind if I tell you this right quick?
Yesterday when Kevin was unloading to get here, I've got
a couple of pet peeves in life, and one of
them is it's my socks. Okay, A pair of socks
will wreck your life. Kevin Murphy drives all the way
from Kentucky with a hole in his sock to where
(02:42):
the third knuckle on his big toe was showing through.
A matter of fact, his ankle was almost through his sock.
I know, why did you see his socks because I said,
you got shoes on for the first time I ever
seen you. And he pulls off his shoe and he's
got a hole all the way through his sock. And
I thought I could well Kevin Murphy till I've seen
how tough he was, because there ain't no way I
(03:03):
could drive from Kentucky arkansall the whole of myself like that.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
He's an efficient man.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I was told not to go barefooted, so I had
to let the big toe hang out.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Do you go barefoot much?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Hell? No? Okay, my feace as tender as a baby's butt.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Okay, okay, just checking, just checking. So we've got Malcolm
Reid from Mississippi. Where do you live in Mississippi?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Malcolm, I live in Hernando Desorta County just south of
Memphis a little bit.
Speaker 6 (03:30):
Yeah, I'm not too far from the Arkansas line.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And man, Malcolm is a world famous barbecue man. You
were on the podcast last year and I've since been
following you. He's like the evil Canieval of Barbara.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Oh yeah, for real. He breaks older.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
He comes on and he's got a huge, huge following
on TikTok and YouTube, like massive. He comes on there
and it's like, uh, it's like, guess what I'm gonna
do today? Folks? Yep, and man, it's always good.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Well, I just like to eat, so you can tell
I hold back.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Now, what were you doing here today?
Speaker 6 (04:03):
I came back for the squirrel cook Off?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You know, I had such a good time last year
here that I that when Joe asked us that we
were willing to come back, I was.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Like, absolutely, did you cook?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I didn't cook in the contest, but we cooked jumble Lie.
We cooked three rounds of jumble Lie. Probably fed over
about a thousand people today. Come on, we brought a
thousand bowls and we ran out of bowls.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
Wow, they were eating it out of the palm of
their hands.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Give me I had I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Gonna I'm gonna come to you last, Joe. We've got
We've got Clifton Jackson. Why is everybody yelling? Todd Razorbacks?
Are playing? Playing? Who we playing today?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Some little team from Oklahoma? I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, I don't even know what they're called. But we
just tied up the game with like a few seconds left.
Clifton Jackson. Man, this guy right here, he's glowing we're
amongst the world champions today, world champion hill billy, World
champion barbecue, World Champion squirrel skinner. Man, it's good to
have you.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
So you've been the so at this event, the World
Championship Squirrel cook Off. We also have the World Championship
Squirrel Skinning Contest. And you've won how many years, Clifton?
Speaker 7 (05:11):
Every year?
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Dominated you know, Humble is a big part of this program.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Hey, it ain't.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Bragging if it's fact.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 7 (05:24):
Where do you live, Clifton, Surewood, Arkansas?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
And you work for the Game and Fish.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
I do twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Man, tell me what you do for the Arkansas Game Fish.
Speaker 7 (05:32):
I'm a wildlife biologist.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's awesome.
Speaker 7 (05:34):
I have several w as that I'm in it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now are you are you the squirrel biologist or is
that just kind of like a no no?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I guess.
Speaker 7 (05:43):
I mean, I'm usually the go to person with squirrels,
but nah, no, we don't. We don't have a small
game pologist anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Okay, I was you were the That's what I remember.
You were the small game bologists for the Arkansas Game
and Fish Commission. Man, So could do you uh, did
you ever do any research on squirrels or anything or
were you just mainly involved in like management, Well.
Speaker 7 (06:05):
Mainly other things like rabbits, and then I had quail
for a while too, until they separated that to another
one sole person, But not so much to do with
squirrels per se. For management, it's just getting people to
get out there and hunt them.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, it's not really like deer in Turkey and bear
where we're like really trying to count numbers and understand
management or like harvest and stuff. It's it's a little
it's different than that, am I right?
Speaker 7 (06:31):
Absolutely? Yeah, yeah, And it's actually kind of when you
say it, that's the d verse of deer hunting, where
it's like, you know, ninety five percent participation rates amongst hunters.
Squirrel hunting used to be like that, but it's just
hasn't been like that anymore, and trying to get people
back into the squirrel woods is a challenge.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Somebody was asking me today if if I think that
squirrel hunting and small game hunting is coming back, and
I kind of gave them a little bit of a
tour that I probably everybody here would know, but the
wildlife tour and history tour. Is that back when my
grandfather maybe your father were growing up in the nineteen thirties, twenties, thirties, forties,
(07:13):
there was no there wasn't much big game in Arkansas
or any anywhere to speak of in the southeast, especially,
I mean, whitetail deer, bear, turkeys, all these things were
very low numbers. And if you were a hunter, if
you were trying to get game, you were a small
game hunter. I mean you were hunting quail, you're hunting squirrel,
you're hunting rabbits. And then fifties, sixties, seventies, all these game,
(07:37):
the big game just came back, I mean like big
time with the reintroduction of wild turkeys and reintroduction of
white tail deer, and they just beare all of it.
It just kind of took off. And so it's like
the hunting community is shifted more towards big game stuff.
But this reporter asked me why I thought this was
significant what we do here, and to me, it's like
(08:02):
it's it's it's a it's a hat tip to our
roots and poverty. Really, it's like, because that's you don't
have there was a time when you probably had to
eat squirrel. Yeah, we don't have to eat squirrel today.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
We could.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
We could have been celebrating brisket.
Speaker 7 (08:19):
Might have that would have been good.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
There's something squirrel dishes that will give a brisk run.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And and you know this event, it's fun, it's lighthearted,
but it's all it's just a hat tip to kind
of our rural, humble roots in the squirrel and squirrel world.
Is that you think that's about?
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Right? Absolutely?
Speaker 7 (08:38):
I said, it's very much a heritage thing, especially with
me and and and even when you think about concessually
the things that we eat now, like chicken, I mean
it wasn't. I mean there, that's only I don't know,
maybe the past seventy eighty years or something. But before then,
squirrel was the chicken. Yeah, idea, idea very much.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Are you hunting with dogs or you like, still hunting.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
Still hunting primarily?
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (09:04):
You know Clinton or Clinton has the Jackson squirrel rifle
named after him. You know about that, So it's Cooper arms, right, yes, sir?
And what's cool is coopting a joke? No, this ain't
no joke. Come on, I don't joke you.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I hadn't even introduced you yet, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
I'm the silent guy over here in the corner. But
there's a there's an gun manufacturer called Cooper Arms. They
were out of Montana and here recently state of Arkansas is.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Now Cooper Arms out of Bariville, Okay.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Now that rifle the most high dollar accurate squirrel rifle
you could buy. It's called a Jackson squirrel Rifle and
it's named after this man sitting right next to me.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Oh, I did not know that. Yes, sir, I love it.
That's awesome. Well, there, that's awesome thing. Clinton's like I
happened to have one.
Speaker 7 (09:58):
Right, it's probably been about maybe fourteen fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Ago, and and they just heard about you and your
I mean just your reputation as a squirrel hunter, squirrel man.
Speaker 7 (10:12):
Well, actually I met the owner of the company at
the time, and he hadn't he grew up squirrel hunting,
but he moved to Montana where squirrel hunting isn't a
big deal. And he said, whenever, and now this wasn't
the original rifle, but whenever the rifle that I ordered
would come in, he said he wanted to come in
and go squirrel hunting with me. I took him down
(10:33):
to the White River bottoms and we shot a squirrel
and he just loved it and just he wanted to
do something to kind of commemorate that. Oh and flew
me out there to the company and oh, that's prototypes
and he gave me serial number one. Oh wow, you
got it, I do. Oh, that's that's really neat. That's
(10:53):
really neat.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well, the only guess I had introduced is Joe Wilson,
the founder, Yes, sir, and the originator of this event.
Joe tell us like, tell the world what's happened here today.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Every year I'm more and more impressed. And you know,
you asked, I think we were kind of green room
in it at the time. How many of the people
standing around us, there's one hundred people plus standing around us,
how many of them are from Arkansas? And we got
about what Brent three four class.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, it wasn't many.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
It wasn't many. And to think that we bring people
from Hey, we had folks come from England today. And
I'm not saying like Texas or someplace like England. England
redcoats man come all the way across here.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I've talked to folks from Oregon, Yeah, Wisconsin.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
Wisconsin, all over this country, every point of the compass.
From right here, you're going to shoot at somebody's house. Yeah,
that's coming.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
So what's impressive to me is we get people from
so many places, and you know that, we get fourteen
hundred inside of a room shooting bb guns and pellet rifles.
What's impressive is is I could look around and inside
this room right now, there's some camouflage, right, but you
see people who don't own any camouflage, right, And so
(12:16):
those are the people that I want to touch first.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We've already got.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
The people in camouflage. We want to grab those people
that don't know why we do what we do. And
me and Kevin Murphy we talk on the phone and
we discussed how important it is that we get our youth,
we get the unknowing involved in what we're doing. You
(12:42):
ain't going to sell the same truck to the same
guy every day, and so what we're trying to do
is we're trying to market this to people that wonder
why it is that we'll go out and get siggers
and ticks, you know, and so this is the way
to do it. Malcolm knows our way to get to
people in any community events through their through their stomachs,
(13:05):
because if we could get through their stomachs, we could
get to their soul, absolutely, and we could start preaching
shirt box I want. But if we could, if we
could get through your stomach, we could get through your soul. Man.
And breaking bread is as old as time. And so
today Malcolm serving a thousand bowls of jambli us, cooking
(13:30):
up one of the fish that nobody ever thinks they
want to eat, an old Asian carp and serving it
to thousands of people. All of this stuff that we've
done rabbits, you know, rabbits have forgotten protein and so
that to me is important. And the fact that we
know that today we made it. We made some more hunters,
(13:53):
and we made some people that will never hunt a
better supporter of what you preach every week on the show,
you know, So that's important to me.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So the tell me the structure. So we had usually
between thirty and forty teams, Yeah, that are competing for
the world title.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
We always shoot for forty. And you know you mentioned brisket.
If I asked for forty teams, come brisket. That's no
problem because you could go buy it. When I asked
for forty teams to cook squirrel you got to go
hunt it. And it ain't easy.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
I mean, me and you did a deal the other
day at a circle k in the afternoon that we
were looking over our shoulders.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I donated some squirrels to this event that had the freezer.
Brent you to like it. I said, Joe, meet me
at that gas station off the Johnson exit and I
pull up beside him in the truck and he had
a guy I didn't know with him, and the guy
got out and I said, this is the snitches it
and Joe was like, no, he's good, and I'm like okay,
And then I reached in and got my stuff and
put the frozen squirrels in his b and I was like,
(15:00):
I hold on out of there.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
So I'm vaguely familiar with that concept.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Yeah, I hold on out of there.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It's it's real tough.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
I mean, people will sign up and then they'll figure
out the labor behind it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And how many squirrels do you think each team is
needing to compete?
Speaker 5 (15:19):
I don't know. I'd say at a minimum, you probably
need ten. Okay, you need ten for the judges. That's
that's to put a pile on there. But you know,
to do this, to feed these people, you need a
pile up.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So everybody, every team's making like ten plates for ten judges.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Or so, six entrees and six side dishes, and then.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
They're encouraged to give food samples to the public. So
that's kind of what people come to do, is try
all this squirrel.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Yeah, let's hear from the crowd. How many of them
got to eat today?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah? Did everybody get some squirrel today? Yeah? Did you
try something? Malcolm? Absolutely well, were you a judge?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
No?
Speaker 6 (15:59):
I didn't judge the day.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We were busy out there with the jumble eye, but
people would bring it by. And that's see, Joe, that's
something special you have here too. Because all the barbecue
contests I go to, they don't let you share with
the general public, and so I think it hurts their
event because people come out and they come out with
this anticipation, Hey, I'm gonna get to try.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Some barbecue, or they come to the squirrel cookoff.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Guess what.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
All the teams are encouraged they want you know, they
may have never tried squirrel, but they're curious and they
come out and they get to try these dishes and
it's just amazing.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
You see what it's done.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Yeah, you're right, men. Men Malcolms traveled the country going
to big cookoffs, you know, barbecue and steak and all that,
and we get ten times to hold more. We get
a lot more crowd.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Than they do.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
And the reason is is we want you to be involved.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, we want to feed you. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (16:50):
It's like going to a ball game and getting to play.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Same deal.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
But for me, man Kevin Murphy, you know, if you
google the name Ebb and Murphy and put say squirrel
or rabbit behind it, what's it say?
Speaker 1 (17:04):
The world's greatest small game hunter says here, take.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
Me in right.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I want to know from the crowd here who didn't
have an opportunity to eat some type of wild game today?
Speaker 5 (17:18):
What's wrong with this guy? He must be vegan or something.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
What times you get here? So to be a wild
you know, to be a hunter, it's not forever.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Look what's happening, Kenny.
Speaker 8 (17:37):
Oh, he got a squirrel leggs Josh.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
All right, I'm gonna ask this question again. How many
people here today didn't have an opportunity to eat some
type of wild game meat nobody. So your mission is complete, yes, sir.
Not everyone is meant to be a hunter. We don't
want everybody. We want that ten percent of the by
the hardy people. Not everybody is meant to be a
(18:02):
dog hunter. We want that one percent. Handle this dog
for three hundred and sixty five days a year to
maybe to go hunting sixty days, or if you're retired
and work all through the summertime, you can go one
hundred days. And that's what's on my calendar this year.
But to be a small game hunter, you can be
a minimalist. You just need a rifle or a shotgun,
a box of shells and you can go to the
(18:23):
woods with a hunting license. Or if you're a youth,
do you wait for the free youth day and go.
But that's why you get a taste of hunting there,
and that's where you learn your skills. You start at
the bottom, work your way to the top and figure
out is this for me or is this not for me?
And then you graduate to say, hey, I want to
be a deer hunter, turkey hunter, rabbit hunter, out west hunter,
(18:47):
or across the pond hunter. I'm going to Iceland in
October to hunt ptarmigant. So I've been very fortunate to
be around everybody and see everybody. And you know, on Tuesday,
I'll be sixty five on the outside and I'm still
like twenty one twenty two on the inside. So you know,
hunting keeps me young. I go with a lot of
(19:09):
young hunters. I tried to teach them, a bunch of
pilgrims out there. Some of them got no skill whatsoever.
We take a bunch of college kids every December from
the BHA, take them out hunting. And this last year
we had a young girl that grew up with no
farms in her house. Her mom was adamantly against farms.
Day had just went along with her mom and she
(19:31):
went squirrel hunting with us. Got to kill her first squirrel,
got her to skin a squirrel. And that's what it's about.
It's about one small win at a time, and that's
what we've all all got a deck.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Hey, if we would have forgot hunting, if it wasn't
for people passing it down to us, and we would
forgot how to cook squirrel if there ain't those recipes
out there. You know, and so it's our duty everybody
in this room to brag. I know you're humble, Clay,
(20:03):
I know you're I'm not that humble, but anybody Turkey color.
But you know what I mean, all of us have
our duty to pass it on, whether it's to our
children or somebody else's. And and that's what's cool about
watching Clifton out there showing people how to skin these things.
One of the biggest problems of small game honey is
(20:26):
the fact that you got to clean them. And to
show a Kevin Murphy of Clifton, anybody who's a master
at cleaning a squirrel, it becomes a lot easier to
say you're gonna go out and go squirrel. So when
we learned a.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Lot, Yeah, Malcolm, did you do any squirrel hunting this year?
I know last year you were telling me about hunting
some on the Mississippi River with some friends. Did you
get to do any of this winter?
Speaker 6 (20:56):
So I had I had to go out and buy
me a new rifle just for squirrel hunting.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I just I didn't go anything crazy, just a little
ten twenty two and coming a decent you know, little
loophole rim fire on it. Yeah, And I did, and
we've had we've had a ball doing it, and my
son enjoys it, you know, and we we take something
for granted that you know a lot of times when
the people in the neighborhood they see squirrels, they don't
realize that they're you know, we're out in the woods
and we're out, you know, trying to stalk these things
(21:20):
or use a dog or whatever.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
But we we, uh, we have a big time squirrel hunt.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I'm not crazy about the ticks and chiggers. I like
it to be a little cool. But man, there's there's
just something about that little animal that you never would realize,
is that it brings so much enjoyment to me of
doing it. Yeah, and it's you know, to me squirrel hunt.
You know, everybody can go sitt in a deer stand
or whatever and you're by yourself. You don't want people
to know the buck you're after, and all that squirrel hunts.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
A communality pictures squirrels, that's right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
And when we've got so many of them, I mean,
it's just it's really fun and it's a great it's
a great way to.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
Spend time outdoors.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And if you can take somebody along and teach a
kid how to shoot a square or how to properly.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
You know, clean the squirrel.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
All this is life lessons that man, I just I
get behind it hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
You got any killer squirrel recipes? I mean this guy
watch stuff.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
That's on my list now, Clay to do some squirrel
recipes this fall, because I have never done a video
with one, you know, you know, squirrel and gravy.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
That's that's the.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
One we like to do for that squirrel simmer down.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I don't get really, I've never really gotten too crazy
with squirrel. But after coming to this contest and seeing
what these ship I call them outdoor chefs, because these
jerkers are coming up with recipes that are incredible. I
mean it's not just your standard stuff. Yeah, you can
do anything with that squirrel.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Met What what are some of the examples of stuff
that people did today today?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Yeah, Impanadus was one.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well today today.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
I think we hit new highs. And if I'm gonna
be honest, which I like to be, we may have
hit a couple of new loaves.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
No fence to the cooks.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
I mean, you know it was we were lucky that
early on we had the best representation of what a
box should look like and we had one that wasn't
the best, okay, And so it gave me the ability
to kind of teach judges, Hey, y'all, this is what
presentation should look like, and this is what it shouldn't.
(23:23):
But with that being said, there was, man, there was
a squirrel pizza today that would knock your socks off
with a fried ravioli. That was awesome.
Speaker 8 (23:35):
I a squirrel cookie. I swear I would rob the
liquor store for.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
There was a squirrel cookie. There was a squirrel ice
cream showed up again today.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Oh I heard about that. I remember that from last
squirrel ice cream.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Hey, Kevin Murphy, what's the one organ on the squirrel?
They say, it's probably like on a pair of boots
or something bad for you in California?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Which which part of the squirrel has.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Been known to cause products?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The thinking part, the thinking part.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
We had a squirrel brain ice cream show up.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Was anybody worried about eating it?
Speaker 5 (24:11):
I told everybody, Hey, this is the part of the
squirrel that could cause your heart. Yeah, now go ahead
and eat it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
What's the science behind that? Do you know that Clifton.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
Well, yeah, I mean it's it's it's not been definitively
linked to, you know, the Crisfield Jacob's disease. But I
mean I think there was somebody, you know, some people.
I said something about it if I.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
Read an article about this not too long ago, and
I talked about it on the podcast. It was a
group of individuals overla like them four or five year period.
They were in a very small area in Kentucky that
that contracted the disease and.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
The what's the name of the disease.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
It's Chrisfield Jacobs.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
That's Jacobs mad cow disease.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, it's a life it's like for humans.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
Yeah, and they had they all the only qualifier for
all of them was they had all eaten squirrel brains.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
We'll find out tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So we squirrel brains I have.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I don't explain.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So do you not like it or do you not
eat it because you're afraid of.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
There's a thing called a prion and you can put
it in an autoclave and it will not kill it.
It's a protein that gets in the brain. Do not
eat I recommend that you do not eat brain from
anything back home.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But it's a traditional dish though, Oh yes, I mean
squirrel brains and eggs is something that I grew up
hearing people.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Talk about cavia.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, there you go, but yes, I've eat it. It's
a delicacy. A lot of people when they would go
squirrel hunting, they woudn't shoot them in the head with
the twenty two because they wanted to serve up fried
squirrel brains in the skull. And then they would, like
a butter knife, crack it open and open it up,
(26:03):
and that was the ultimate.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
We just lost half the listeners.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
So I've done a lot of research. Man, I'm a
wastewater guy. You know, when I go to somewhere foreign country.
Next time I go see Steve out Montana, I'm gonna
go to their wastewater plant because they've got the state
of the art your wastewater plant. But we had a
local architect back where I live, and he came down
(26:29):
with crutch Phil's Jacob's disease. And the only thing they
could think of was he was taking a vitamin that
was made out of a from Europe, made out of
a cow patratory glan. So that's the reason why I
say do not eat brain matter from any any animal.
So that's what I highly recommend.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
So let's see if I can start another topic. Man,
we also had plenty of egg rolls. We had a
squirrel sushi show up. I'll leave it at that. You've
had squirrel sushi, didn't you. Yes, yeah, we had squirrel
sushi in the past.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
He had it about fifteen minutes ago.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Yeah, you see skin contest.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
Did you see that Clay?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Did you see Clifton in the skin and content?
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah video?
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Did you see the technique to win the championship?
Speaker 4 (27:19):
This?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, tail method? Well, I mean the teeth. Oh no, no, no,
I didn't see the first one. I actually saw him
win the first heat.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
He had to go straight to the mouth and pull
that skin off with his teeth to win.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And here this is true. Yeah, yes, Why did you
have to do that?
Speaker 7 (27:36):
Well, I had an arm that had been shattered right
there at the joint and it was just you know,
when I had it was slick as an al pellet
trying to pull that knee out, so I couldn't. I
just had to use my teeth.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
And you know what's even odd.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Slick is an al pellet. We'll be using that one.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Oh yeah, well, I'll give we have to give you credit,
but we're What's odd is the second place in the
world also went to the te No way. I've been
watching Clifton just dominate this event for years. Today was
as tough as he had it. I mean it was
neck and neck.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
So who's the other guy?
Speaker 5 (28:18):
What's his name?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Mitch?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yoah, Mitch. Mitch is in the Service.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
He's an army recruiter.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Hey, hey, Mitch, just walk up.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Here so we can get you on film just one second.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Right, Yeah, where are you from, Mitch? Do you know
this guy? You don't know what? Okay, Well, I guess
you better practice a little more to get in the gym,
work out those arms.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Mitch is in the Service, he's a he's an armor recruiter.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Oh cool man, that's good. That's good.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
So they were neck and neck, got it all the
way down. I bet you there wasn't two three seconds
in between the two of them.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Oh, it was tight.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's tough. He pushed me, he pushed, Yeah, this is
it's kind of like Jordan winning that like fifth title,
kind of getting a little lazy, and.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Then he's gonna start trying Baseball Day.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Uh, but we haven't announced the winner yet. No, who
did the Razorbacks win? I'm afraid they didn't.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
We just lost.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Scratch that from the tape. Can you take no, we
that it's not that we lost it.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
They cheated, Yeah, they cheated.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I heard they cheated. So we have not announced the
winner for this year yet though.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
Now as soon as this shows over, we're gonna go
out and get on stage and we're going to handle it.
I got my buddy across from me. He helped me
out on getting them case knives as their awards.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (29:50):
Yeah, man, we're gonna present the winners world champion with
a case knife, right, yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Kevin, what's your if you could if you could hunt
one thing the rest of your life, you only had
one dog that did one thing and you got the hunt,
that's it. What would it be? Squirrel, rabbit, falconry, kangaroo?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Well, probably one of the most exciting the question.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's like, well, let me let me tell
you about my policy.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Swamp rabbits.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
There you go, swamp rabbits with beagles, Yes, swamp rabbits
of beagles. I'll be done.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Because you know, to go get a squirrel. You got
a good dog. The squirrel is going to be in
that tree, or he's not going to be in the tree.
You hit a swamp rabbit, your dogs might running back
to you. They might not. Those dudes are smart. They
go in hose, they swim rivers. Man, I've seen them
do just amazing things.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
So the rabbit is like the thinking man's small game. Yes,
just the heel Billy's tree them with squirrels and shoot them.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
The big game a small game, and I can go
I can go out, put that on a shirt, and
I can go out my door within a half mile
and start hanging.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
You got swamp rabbits in Kentucky. Yes, now it's a
it's actually a different species of rabbit than a cottontail.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yes, it's the largest cottontail rabbit.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
But it's a different species. Or it's just a big one.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
No, it's a different species.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Okay, do we have them here?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
They're I've hunted them down around the cotton patch, So
I don't know exactly where that is from Wigs. I
hang out with those deer dog hunter guys down there.
But it's along the drainage of the Mississippi River up
to about Saint Louis and then as far north it's
probably not hardly, uh, Cincinnati, and then all the way
(31:45):
down to the Louisiana. But but Bergman's rule is the
further north that you go on a mammal, the bigger
it goes. So what I want to do is drive
up around Saint Louis somewhere and try to find the
extended range of it. The biggest one I have killed
so far or in our hunting party is like six
pound weighed with a turkey scale, so you know it's
(32:06):
right on it. It's right right on the money. And
so I hope to go like two hours north and
get a six and a half pound.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Be like a world record.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yes, that's what I'm going for.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Crocket impressive. That's good. That's why you're the world's greatest
small game hunting. You're thinking, you're thinking like a champion.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
I like that.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Clifton, When when will you start squirrel hunting? If you
already squrel hunting something this fall or like typically, when
would you start?
Speaker 7 (32:32):
Typically I would have started last weekend. This is this
will be the latest that I've ever started this year. Really, Yeah,
So I always go at least by September first.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Now, okay, this is a good topic of conversation. I
had somebody the other day tell me that the liberalization
of squirrel hunting, which is a positive thing, like our
squirrel season is basically nine months long, or maybe even
ten months.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Yeah, made fifteenth to the end of February.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, so it's off for three months. It's not on
for three months pretty much March April May. The guy
told me, he said that took away the prime season opener,
which the season opener is just kind of this like
hype that we all have, which used to be like
September first. Absolutely, And he was saying, man, when we
(33:18):
were kids, we'd camp out for you know, days for
the squirrel opener. But now that they've done us good,
I mean, like we can hunt anytime. It's not a complaint.
It was just interesting, he said. People don't get it
excited because the season opener is not like a few
people are hunting in May, and it's just you can
hunt all the time. What do you think about that?
Speaker 7 (33:40):
I do miss it. Uh, you know, I missed that
cultural it is very much. I mean, we still will
have squirrel camp and we do squirrel camp, but that
opener even as the season changed, you know, it used
to be October one, and then what depends on the zones.
I mean it's like a you know story past of
those dates being like you're talking about like the big opener,
and now we've taken that away. And then the limit
(34:03):
changed to twelve.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
What was it for?
Speaker 7 (34:05):
It was eight for most of my life. Really yep, yep.
Now it's twelve per person per day. So I think
that did take some of this thing.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
You know what I think Clifton, that I think that
me and Kevin's talked about. I think me and you
talked about it. It's it's squirrel hunting is a hard
thing to market because we don't have a bunch of
cool stuff to sell you to make you a better
squirrel hunt. We you could you could spray vanilla flavored
deodoring on and go kill a squirrel. You know, it
(34:36):
don't matter, And so you could wear what we're all
wearing right now and go squirrel hunt. So, since it's
so hard to market, it's real hard to put on TV. True,
And so since we're not putting it on TV, there's
a whole bunch of people never see it. And so
one of the times you get to see the benefits
(34:58):
of it is right here at the this event. Now,
you're a great marketer of small game hunting. I see
you out on the mules doing it. You've done a
phenomenal job. Kevin's done a phenomenal job. Clifton's done a
phenomenal job. I've tried to catch up to you guys
a little bit over the last dozen years, but this
(35:19):
is our biggest marketing day of the year for squirrel hunting.
You see it on news all across the country. Overseas,
people see this event. So I ain't saying we need
to do one of these every week. I ain't got
the time for that. But you know, the industry itself
and agencies and departments really need to start thinking about inflation.
(35:43):
It's still cheap to go squirrel hunting, you know all
the stuff. If you're a father, a mother and you
want to get your kids in the outdoors, at least
give this a shot first man.
Speaker 8 (35:54):
And this has always been a good It's always been
traditionally anywhere you go, folks kids start out shooting squirrels
before they start shooting deer, and what the elk and
whatever and it's always a good introduction, yep, to what
we all love to do, you know, and you can
do it with dog. You can add a dog as
(36:16):
an extra component which will take you to whether you're
chasing coons like I do, or you're running codes or
bobcats or whatever. You know, it's just a good a
good introduction. I agree, Joe, it's good.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
I just think we need to do a better job
of marketing. And you know, Kevin will tell you, well,
we don't want everybody in it, you know, but really
Kevin may not feel that way. I think if everybody
would just give it a shot, it's a great time.
You can talk while squirrel hunt. You can walk around
(36:51):
and carry on a story and squirrel hunt. There's not
really an age when it's not right. If you could
walk get out there and walk behind somebody and try
to do it, and the benefits of it is, at
the end of the day you might be able to
make a squirrel pizza out of the deal.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Kid.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I can remember in nineteen eighty seven I had a
Border Collie and I had some people come in from
Alaska that had been living there for a couple of
years and hunting and stuff and I took them hunting,
and they said, and this is the greatest hunt I've
ever had in my entire life. Now, one person was
from Ohi, the others Illinois. You know they're out there.
They do I set up now, y'all, don't buy it.
(37:31):
Just work off my license. That's okay in fishing game department.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So I said, just work off my license. This was
a long time ago, long long time.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
So I would give them a gun and then they
would want to shoot, I says, and they would want
to like free hand, and I had a twenty two magnum. Man,
you really need to shoot them in the head because
we're going to eat them and clean them. And you know,
they just told me that said, man, this is the
greatest hunt we've ever met. We've never had any more fun.
And then like Joe said, you can take kids out there,
you can talk, you can have a good time in fellowship.
(38:03):
I mean, like I said, every year we take ten
to twelve college students out there to go squirrel hunting
and have a big time. And you can fellowship and
you only need to be quiet for like, okay, now's
the time to be quiet. We're gonna shoot the squirrel
and it's your turn to shoot. You get a shot,
and then you get a shot, and we rotate around
and then the shotgunner don't let him get away because
(38:24):
the pressure is on you when he's running.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So who said that? Somebody can say something? Hey, okay,
I got a question for for the squirrel masters here.
What's your doctrine on shotguns versus twenty two s Clifton?
Do you have a doctor on.
Speaker 7 (38:44):
A rim fire purist? Kind of just I just really like.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Just tell her.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Thank you for a rim fire purist.
Speaker 7 (38:51):
Well, I mean it's it's it's usually they're a little
more arrogant. It's just more mentally stimulating to me. You know,
it's really.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Easy taking the high intellectual ground.
Speaker 7 (39:01):
It's me against myself. I mean I have a really
you know, really nice rifle and I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Ruffle after you. Cliff is playing golf, the rest of
he's playing chess.
Speaker 7 (39:14):
Yeah, it's really uh. I mean it's days that I
don't have any luck. I mean I've gone out there
and got skunked. I mean, and it's just kind of say,
really mentally stimulating, uh effort for me, just me against myself.
I enjoyed the rifle more so than that.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, what if you're using dogs? Do you dog that much?
Speaker 7 (39:35):
I go and I have had dogs over the years.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Uh here different?
Speaker 7 (39:41):
Oh no, I love it. I mean it's more.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I'm saying for the twenty two verses.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
I do like to have both.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
I do like to have both.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
You like you said that that shotgun is like the kicker,
you know, if it gets past all of us, Yeah,
don't let him get past you.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah yah. So with that, how do they
do it down in Mississippi.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Boat you see both?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
You know, most of you're gonna see kids with shotguns,
and you know some of the adults will take them,
but most of the time you're gonna have somebody with
twenty two.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And what I what I have seen here lately is
usually once somebody's got a thermal too, so you.
Speaker 6 (40:15):
Can see if that ship squirrels up in there, not
on the rifle.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Usually they're just hadelts just to try to figure out
where he is and then give the guy with the
rifle a shot. And then the shotgun guy is a
clean up man.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
When I get part to me, shot.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Doctor, We'll let Joe have shot Joe, shot man.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
I tell you what, one day, when I get a
YouTube channel like you boys, I'll get me one of
the thermal squirrel hunters too. But uh, you know, an
old eight seventy like we growed up with. That gun
was designed to shoot any small game you could imagine.
And I'll fess up and say a shotgun was a
(40:55):
good way. It's a meat stick, man, it throws meat
inside there. But like Clifton said it, if you're going
out to enjoy the hunt, twenty two is the way
to go. In my opinion.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
It conserves the meat too.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
Though you're not going to damage that.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Squirrels, right, Yeah, you're right. It does conserve me. You
don't bring any home.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Conserve Swiss. Okay.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Now here's the like if we were all like, if
there was an organization that was the twenty two squirrel
purest organization, this guy would probably be the president. Clifton
would be maybe vice president. Give me a run for
money for president. You're you're a square twenty two man, yes,
like without question. Well, it's like a it's like a
(41:42):
moral issue for you.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
It's I'm a Kentucky, I'm a rifleman. I'm a Kentuckian. Okay, Okay,
I got my long riffle thirty two caliber. But back
when I was a killer in my young running in
gun to days, I had a twenty two magnum over
a twenty gauge. Hmmm, nothing escaped me. Nothing. So if
(42:04):
I couldn't get it with a magnum, if it was running,
I could get it with a shotgun. Killed quail flying
with a shotgun. So that was the all purpose. But
to me is like said, you know, if you're a
dog hunter, you got a couple of people with rifle,
you give them a chance, and then the shotgun guys,
he's got all the pressure on him. Because as my
(42:24):
friend Steve Ranella when I told him took him squirrel
hunting the first time. I said, Ben, Steve, he's going
to come out of there like a like a BMX
missile out of this this nest there And he come
out and he run and he missedy. But I run
and squirrel at full steam. I've got waterfowl buddies. They
have trouble hitting them. It's hard to get them a
(42:46):
lot of times. What it is you're shooting them at
a limb and that and the limb is kind of
behind him. So you're only shooting. Yeah, you're shooting at
a little a third of that height this squirreld. So
here's a protest.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
That's exactly why the shotgun pro tip.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Here's the pro tip. You wait for that squirrel to
run out to the end of that limb, and right
as he gets ready to jump, he will stop mm hmm.
And so you know that, and then he jumps and
you shoot him in that air and you can shoot
the squirrel mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Pro tip.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
It's a life hack. Control.
Speaker 8 (43:27):
Well, my dad was buying my shelves. He would have
loved to have told me that along.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Come. That's right now.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Self control that it takes to actually pull that off.
That's like high level human psychology and discipline and training
to when you got a gun in your hand and
there's a squirrel running across a limb and you're waiting
for him to get to the end of the limb,
it bounces, Bob's he jumps, then you shoot.
Speaker 8 (43:58):
That's high levels like old Damny Glover and leath the weapons.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
But Jedi level is when you can do it by horseback.
And I've reached that level, I hear you, But yes,
twenty two but whatever works for you, you know, just
if he's up there. You know, I got a lot
of rabbit hut buddies and they all use big twelve
gages and they either miss them or mush them, because
(44:26):
when the rabbit's running, they miss, and when he's sitting still,
they go center mass on him. They don't hold up
to his ears or whatever. And do the same thing
with a squirrel. Don't center mass at squirrel. Put it
on its head. Know the pattern of your gun, what
it's gonna do at twenty yards, twenty five or fifteen,
and hold it on his head, hold off a little bit,
(44:46):
use some big shot. Number five is the best I
have found. That is what I used, Number five. If
I had one shotgun shell to go hunting with number
five shot?
Speaker 5 (44:58):
Yeah, could I say there's another there's another weapon, and
and they're getting better every year, and that's gonna be
your air rifles?
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Oh gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
And a lot of states have made an air rifle
small game help even big game, right, I mean, there's
big game caliber air rifles that you can go out
and hunt with. I think we're that way in Arkansas.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Now.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
You could deer hunt with an air.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Rifle Kentucky's saying.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
So they're making these air rifles that are as cheap
as anything you could use out in the field. They're
as accurate some of these air rifles were using. You you
get fifty sixty shots out of them before you got
to fill that tank. And so we had a couple
of those air rifle companies here umeer X. I know
they've been a part of your sponsorship. They make some
(45:43):
fine quality stuff, and you know it's a cheap way
to get it. Get into honey.
Speaker 8 (45:48):
I've been using them, shooting coons out of trees with it.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
Really.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Oh yeah, you think they're gonna make one called the Reeves.
Speaker 8 (45:55):
Oh, I don't know. I'm not near it's jacks. I'm
not near the caliber at Clifton Is. But yeah, we
shoot coons out with it.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
I was in Puerto Rico shooting in Puerto Rico squirrels,
you know.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
That leather leather squirrels.
Speaker 5 (46:08):
Yeah, and I ain't going to start that cook off.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
You're good, Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
You know, eating a couple of them all I needed.
They weren't that good man, No, they weren't they word.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Yeah, Well, here in hearing y'all talk about your your
doctrine on twenty two versus shotgun it I realize I'm
like still in that stage of my squirrel hunting journey
that where yeah, I'm playing checkers, you are playing chess
because me and my my, my Jedi Master Muleman, squirrel Man,
(46:45):
dog Man Michael Lanier. Oh yeah, we shoot them with
shotguns because we just want to bring them home.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
It is we do live in a place it's tough
for squirrel hunting. I mean, like if you were if
you were just uh you know, grading uh territory of
the United States, like we do with white tailed deer
like Iowa and Kansas and the Great Plains, it's just
incredible deer hunting. And you know, deer hunting is tough
and here, here, and there, those arcs would be on
(47:11):
the tougher side of the places we just don't have.
The mountains just aren't as aren't as quite as productive.
Speaker 6 (47:18):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (47:19):
From a management perspective, it is like the river bottoms
because the guys over in the river bottoms can just
kill the fire out of them. And what do you
think do you think it's just better squirrel hunters over there?
Speaker 4 (47:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (47:30):
I think that you know all the soils. You know,
productivity is just better in the bottoms.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I thought he's gonna say way better over there.
Speaker 7 (47:39):
Yeah yeah, and and and and the cavities, those old
grolth trees, you know, having better, better habitats, better habitat.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
You are playing squirrel food plots over there and everything flying. Well,
my point being, we're just happy to We're trying to
bring every squirrel home that our dogs tree, and we
and we get going and we we don't care if
we get a few pellets.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
I won't shame you for that. Well, you have the right, no,
but I mean you're exactly right, because a squirrel, you know,
you can't kill them out. You could have season all
year long. They're dependent on the mass crop and there
might be hard masks, which is the acorn crop, walnuts, whatever,
and then soft mass in the springtime. So they've got
(48:22):
to have those two types of mass crop to survive.
Springtime masks, the soft mulberry's, elum buds, maple buds, whatever
buds are out there. They eat some mushrooms. You know,
we had the had one of the largest locusts hatches
this year in Kentucky. So we're going to have probably
(48:44):
the biggest bumper crop of squirrels that I have seen
since they will eat locusts. I have not I have
not physically seen them do that, but I have skin
squirrels from locust years and we had mass fayres and
the squirrels were as fat as it's pregnant dog.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
Squirrels will eat a squirrel.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, And I remember you telling your story.
Speaker 8 (49:06):
I was I was working at the capitol, the State
Capitol Police, and I was sitting in the parking lot
eating my lunch and it was it was squirrel left
over from supper the night before. And I was sitting
there in this parking lot and the squirrels, you know, everywhere,
especially all over the little rock. And I was sitting
there eating and gnawing on this leg in the car
had the winter roll down. Looking the gray squirrel walked
(49:29):
just right up beside the car over there was a
contry right there, and I thought, I'm gonna hit him
in the head with this leg his bone. I threw
it out there and I missed him, but he jumped
back and he looked at it, and he picked it
up and started gnawing on it and then run off
with the leg and I.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Thought, my gosh, that was horrible. Now have a nightmare
just thinking about it.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Hey, Clay, I could I ask a question of the
two geniuses sitting around here?
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Ready? Yeah, go ahead. I hope his math.
Speaker 8 (49:58):
You know.
Speaker 5 (49:59):
One of the things, There was a time I was
the president of Squirrels Unlimited. You remember that, Clifton.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
And uh, yeah, we're amongst royalty.
Speaker 5 (50:08):
Well you know I'm around royalty. But I'd get people
to write to me all the time and ask about
the squirrel migration.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Oh, you know controversial.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
The great squirrel migration when they were dipping them. Oh
he's stopping.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
It's not a migration.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Lady Mask's question is Adrill Reeves.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
Have you heard about where there was so many squirrels
crossing across in the Mississippi they were dipping that now,
the squirrels out of the river.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
That's not the one I heard. I heard.
Speaker 8 (50:39):
It was my great grandfather. There was a team and
a wagon going through the woods and they would have
to stop the wagon for all the squirrels running across
the river.
Speaker 5 (50:48):
So the great migration, there was a time, Kevin, Yes,
there was.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
It's not a migration, Kevin.
Speaker 5 (50:54):
There was a time up in Pennsylvania where they were
knocking down the corn fields.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
I heard they were riding on the backs of American buffalo.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
These squirrels were knocking down.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
There was a bounty on the dang old squirrels. Now,
what are you calling this?
Speaker 3 (51:08):
It's a dispersal because of migration. You go and you
come back. They just say, getting it's Jedi level here
between me and Clifton. He's a biologist and just a
squirrel killer. But it's a dispersal and I have I
have witnessed it in sixty eights, a.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Lot of squirrels moving in the same direction.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
They're just they're just you've had a bumper cop crop
of masks.
Speaker 5 (51:33):
You know what he wanted to say, and then that
he wanted to say, they just migrate.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Dispersal. I can't spell it, but somebody google it for me.
Speaker 5 (51:42):
It's a dispersed Missouri.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
It's just dispersal.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Clifton does the science back this.
Speaker 7 (51:47):
You know, I've never seen it documented. I know it occurs.
But when it says.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
He ain't reading what I'm reading, you're right, Joe.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
Joe was one hund percent right. Clifton needs to go
and look at his cliff notes, because it is documented
and at Kentucky at one time when you were sixteen
years old, you had to kill so many squirrels.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
To be like a Kentuckyan.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Yeah, I mean there was like a legal document there
that they had to turn Colonel. They would they would
like come through and devastate the corn crop. But like
I said in sixty eight, oh squirrels would. That was
probably the last big squirrel dispersal. Down in the Carolinas
and the edge of Tennessee. They had a mass figure
down there, and those squirrels came up into Kentucky through LBL.
(52:42):
They would be crappie fishermen out in the lake and
with a dip net dipping them up. My dad would go,
I remember he would go squirrel hunting and come home.
It's probably him in five or six guys hunting. He
would have what I call a West Virginia doggley, where
you take a sapling bended over and leave a limb
(53:06):
cut like this right here, and then the main runner
of the tree and you run them through the back
of the squirrel leg. He'd come home and have like
sixteen on there. He said. The dog would tree one
squirrel and then maybe three or four two three would
come running through on the ground and he would shoot
ups just giving up. They were pushing, they were pushing up.
(53:27):
I mean, it's documented, and I saw it and properly.
Let me think I saw it on I twenty four
going to Nashville. I was taking my son and one
of his friends down there, and I started seeing all
these squirrels ran over between Paducah in Nashville, and I
counted like fifty squirrels on a four lane highway ran
(53:50):
over and then went. I took my son from Paducah
to Cincinnati to watch a ball game, and I counted
one hundred and something squirrels run over. And I had
friends that they said that had to take uh there
was a barrier wall or something and they got choked
in and they took a backo out there and scooped
(54:12):
up the dense squirrels.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
Wow, they call that a dispersal.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Hey, we need next year Clifton finding some literature on
this so that we can put the beargrey stamp of
academic approval on this dispersal.
Speaker 7 (54:30):
I would love to see that, you know, with the
contemporary tracking devices that we have now, That's that's what
I mean, that it's squirrels. I haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
See here's I believe what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
It can't happen anymore. We don't have those huge fans
of hardwood forest. It's not it's not gonna I mean,
it could happen in like a little regional thing like
I saw.
Speaker 4 (54:52):
I see.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
I mean, to many people have ever seen a squirrel
run over on a four lane highway? You're seeing it.
I mean, you just don't see it, you know, you
see all the other dick. Of course, they're not going
to last long because something's going to scoop in and
pick them up.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
But I see what you're saying, Like they would have
to be really wanting to cross a big you know,
a quarter stretch for a mile from open ground.
Speaker 9 (55:15):
Yeah, so we need bridges squirrels, I think you know,
there was a vision of this great squirrel migration, and
I always put the will to beests and the crocodile
into the deal.
Speaker 5 (55:28):
And I just thought they were crossing the and the
crocodiles would be there just eating them up like wilderbees.
That's not what took place. But there is tons of
literature over the year, regardless of what you call it.
Of these squirrels pushing and fire could fire. It could
be a big cause of it. It could be you know,
a stand of forest burns down, there's nothing to eat.
All the squirrels travel across.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
You buy it, Malcolm.
Speaker 6 (55:51):
I have never seen that.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Mississippi nuts everything, and we've seen a lot.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
So, Hey, we're getting real close. We're gonna have to
bail out this. We got to initiate the world change.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Hey, it's uh, we've been going for an hour, so
I told them that's what we would do. Uh, Malcolm,
where can where can we watch all your barbecue stuff?
Speaker 2 (56:15):
It's how to bbq write on all the social channels
and you can go to how to barbecue rite dot com.
Speaker 6 (56:21):
We've got a lot of stuff on the website too.
Speaker 8 (56:23):
But I got one of your brands last year from
a from Thanksgiving Turkey.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
Oh I hope it turned out. Oh man, it's really good.
Speaker 6 (56:30):
Send me a text and I'll send you some more
for this year.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
Oh you're on awesome, Joe. Anything. H When we're doing
this next year, same time, same.
Speaker 5 (56:39):
Place, relatively close to the same time.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Early September, it'll be here.
Speaker 5 (56:44):
It'll be about the same place. I guarantee that. And hey,
you know, I've got a podcast called Cooking Up a Story. Yes,
and uh, we tried to put faces on on people
and and take a lot of pride in it.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (56:58):
And you've helped me a lot and that as well.
So same time, same place. Next year, Kevin Murphy will
have shorter hair. I imagine he won't be trying to
look like a Viking.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
I'm gonna shave it all soon as I get back
from Iceland.
Speaker 5 (57:11):
I could promise you we're gonna bring at least a
four time world champion squirrel skinner back.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
I hope he comes.
Speaker 7 (57:18):
Oh, you bet you. I'll be here, all right, I'll be.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
We'll be we'll be looking for some of that squirrel
literature on the migration, all right, Uh, Brent, yes, sir,
anything you gotta say.
Speaker 8 (57:30):
I am just so thankful that this this episode was
not about the bearg Rease latest episode, because I hadn't
had a chance to listen to it yet.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Oh, Sterling hard Joe, Yeah, good, Sterling's getting the getting
the short stick today. It's so sorry, Sterling because we
had to do this. But yeah, it was a really
neat episode. Sterling Hard. I actually just since Sterling Heart
Sterling Hard. Joe's a Seminole filmmakers, remember the Seminole tribe
in Oklahoma. Really successful filmmaker and uh. On the podcast,
(58:01):
this would be the one thing I say about it.
He talked about how his people and a lot of
Indigenous Native American Native Americans in America, I really messed
that up.
Speaker 4 (58:11):
That's really.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
They're terrified of owls, like in their culture, owls are
a big deal. And so he talked about that for
a long time on the podcast. And there's a there's
a text Jermy to owl in this building over here,
and I sent him a video. I said, Sterling, sorry, dude,
and I showed him the owl and he blurred it
out and sent it back to me. He blurred out
the owl and sent me a video back and said, here,
(58:34):
I fixed it. Sterling is a great guy. Kevin, thanks man,
thanks for being here, Thank everybody for being here, Thanks Joe,
and thanks everybody for I hope y'all, hope y'all had
a good time watching the Render. And Reva. Reva is
the one that builds all the Bear Grease podcasts and
(58:55):
this country life podcast. So she's actually the one like
working with us on the addits, the music and everything.
So she's as much a part of this as me
and ow Will farm girl.
Speaker 8 (59:07):
Now living in Bozeman, and she is down here soaking
up the Arkansas suncha.
Speaker 5 (59:11):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, thanks Reva.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
Let's go crown the winter. Yeah, so I got one
short blurb to put in. We're doing a small game
boot camp again in Paduca, Kentucky. Be the first weekend
in June. We cook rabbit, have fun. Everybody brings their
hunting dog out, So look forward to see everybody maybe
come out and join us with that. When I was
in Mongolia, the owl was a sacred animal. I was
(59:33):
over there, I said them, there's all these chicken feathers
on your review mirror on the motorcycle, and they said,
that's our sacred animal there, and then we hunted.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
An out when we were over hunted them.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
Yes, but thanks for being here. I really appreciate it
all you guys, especially bringing your kids out and new people.
I mean, it's just like it just charges me up
to be down here long with all you Arkansas and
so yeah, it's a great.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
Time, right, Thanks everybody. Let's go crown a world can
right
Speaker 7 (01:00:10):
M hm.
My name is Clay 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 today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We got like a deep rides from.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Marito and promise sirl chips on the side. Yeah, sputilla
chim that's forrtilla chips.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
We're making a it's a campfire Carbland campfire by It's
made with a horn sauce that around since of seventeen
hundred five game sauce.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Man.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
That makes me hungry just just thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Squirrel, I don't know all we're going to the ground.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're testing the fritters. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Now, my grandpa when he took a bite of something,
you know he liked it.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
If he said, you know what, this tastes like, it
tastes like more.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Good, We'll get you a full deal with everything on
with that's good man, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Going to squirrel Cookie. We found ourselves at the World
Championship World Championship Squirrel Cookoff Big Springdale, Arkansas, Arkansas.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
With a W.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
That's right, right, that's right now, this is uh, we're
in Springdale, Arkansas. Man, the guests that I have in
front of me, and this is this is like the
this is like dream team, dream team, beggery shrender. Here.
We got Brent he's right here working undercover as usual.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Won't even know it's him.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I mean, he's so good we don't even care anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Then we got Kevin Murphy from Kentucky. Came with stuff.
He's got his squirrel dog, looks like he's got a
nine millimeter on his side, and he brought a Kentucky
long rifle.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Do you mind if I tell you this right quick?
Yesterday when Kevin was unloading to get here, I've got
a couple of pet peeves in life, and one of
them is it's my socks. Okay, A pair of socks
will wreck your life. Kevin Murphy drives all the way
from Kentucky with a hole in his sock to where
(02:42):
the third knuckle on his big toe was showing through.
A matter of fact, his ankle was almost through his sock.
I know, why did you see his socks because I said,
you got shoes on for the first time I ever
seen you. And he pulls off his shoe and he's
got a hole all the way through his sock. And
I thought I could well Kevin Murphy till I've seen
how tough he was, because there ain't no way I
(03:03):
could drive from Kentucky arkansall the whole of myself like that.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
He's an efficient man.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I was told not to go barefooted, so I had
to let the big toe hang out.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Do you go barefoot much?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Hell? No? Okay, my feace as tender as a baby's butt.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Okay, okay, just checking, just checking. So we've got Malcolm
Reid from Mississippi. Where do you live in Mississippi?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Malcolm, I live in Hernando Desorta County just south of
Memphis a little bit.
Speaker 6 (03:30):
Yeah, I'm not too far from the Arkansas line.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And man, Malcolm is a world famous barbecue man. You
were on the podcast last year and I've since been
following you. He's like the evil Canieval of Barbara.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Oh yeah, for real. He breaks older.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
He comes on and he's got a huge, huge following
on TikTok and YouTube, like massive. He comes on there
and it's like, uh, it's like, guess what I'm gonna
do today? Folks? Yep, and man, it's always good.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Well, I just like to eat, so you can tell
I hold back.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Now, what were you doing here today?
Speaker 6 (04:03):
I came back for the squirrel cook Off?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You know, I had such a good time last year
here that I that when Joe asked us that we
were willing to come back, I was.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Like, absolutely, did you cook?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I didn't cook in the contest, but we cooked jumble Lie.
We cooked three rounds of jumble Lie. Probably fed over
about a thousand people today. Come on, we brought a
thousand bowls and we ran out of bowls.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
Wow, they were eating it out of the palm of
their hands.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Give me I had I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Gonna I'm gonna come to you last, Joe. We've got
We've got Clifton Jackson. Why is everybody yelling? Todd Razorbacks?
Are playing? Playing? Who we playing today?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Some little team from Oklahoma? I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, I don't even know what they're called. But we
just tied up the game with like a few seconds left.
Clifton Jackson. Man, this guy right here, he's glowing we're
amongst the world champions today, world champion hill billy, World
champion barbecue, World Champion squirrel skinner. Man, it's good to
have you.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
So you've been the so at this event, the World
Championship Squirrel cook Off. We also have the World Championship
Squirrel Skinning Contest. And you've won how many years, Clifton?
Speaker 7 (05:11):
Every year?
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Dominated you know, Humble is a big part of this program.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Hey, it ain't.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Bragging if it's fact.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 7 (05:24):
Where do you live, Clifton, Surewood, Arkansas?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
And you work for the Game and Fish.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
I do twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Man, tell me what you do for the Arkansas Game Fish.
Speaker 7 (05:32):
I'm a wildlife biologist.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's awesome.
Speaker 7 (05:34):
I have several w as that I'm in it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now are you are you the squirrel biologist or is
that just kind of like a no no?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I guess.
Speaker 7 (05:43):
I mean, I'm usually the go to person with squirrels,
but nah, no, we don't. We don't have a small
game pologist anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Okay, I was you were the That's what I remember.
You were the small game bologists for the Arkansas Game
and Fish Commission. Man, So could do you uh, did
you ever do any research on squirrels or anything or
were you just mainly involved in like management, Well.
Speaker 7 (06:05):
Mainly other things like rabbits, and then I had quail
for a while too, until they separated that to another
one sole person, But not so much to do with
squirrels per se. For management, it's just getting people to
get out there and hunt them.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, it's not really like deer in Turkey and bear
where we're like really trying to count numbers and understand
management or like harvest and stuff. It's it's a little
it's different than that, am I right?
Speaker 7 (06:31):
Absolutely? Yeah, yeah, And it's actually kind of when you
say it, that's the d verse of deer hunting, where
it's like, you know, ninety five percent participation rates amongst hunters.
Squirrel hunting used to be like that, but it's just
hasn't been like that anymore, and trying to get people
back into the squirrel woods is a challenge.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Somebody was asking me today if if I think that
squirrel hunting and small game hunting is coming back, and
I kind of gave them a little bit of a
tour that I probably everybody here would know, but the
wildlife tour and history tour. Is that back when my
grandfather maybe your father were growing up in the nineteen thirties, twenties, thirties, forties,
(07:13):
there was no there wasn't much big game in Arkansas
or any anywhere to speak of in the southeast, especially,
I mean, whitetail deer, bear, turkeys, all these things were
very low numbers. And if you were a hunter, if
you were trying to get game, you were a small
game hunter. I mean you were hunting quail, you're hunting squirrel,
you're hunting rabbits. And then fifties, sixties, seventies, all these game,
(07:37):
the big game just came back, I mean like big
time with the reintroduction of wild turkeys and reintroduction of
white tail deer, and they just beare all of it.
It just kind of took off. And so it's like
the hunting community is shifted more towards big game stuff.
But this reporter asked me why I thought this was
significant what we do here, and to me, it's like
(08:02):
it's it's it's a it's a hat tip to our
roots and poverty. Really, it's like, because that's you don't
have there was a time when you probably had to
eat squirrel. Yeah, we don't have to eat squirrel today.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
We could.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
We could have been celebrating brisket.
Speaker 7 (08:19):
Might have that would have been good.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
There's something squirrel dishes that will give a brisk run.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And and you know this event, it's fun, it's lighthearted,
but it's all it's just a hat tip to kind
of our rural, humble roots in the squirrel and squirrel world.
Is that you think that's about?
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Right? Absolutely?
Speaker 7 (08:38):
I said, it's very much a heritage thing, especially with
me and and and even when you think about concessually
the things that we eat now, like chicken, I mean
it wasn't. I mean there, that's only I don't know,
maybe the past seventy eighty years or something. But before then,
squirrel was the chicken. Yeah, idea, idea very much.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Are you hunting with dogs or you like, still hunting.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
Still hunting primarily?
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (09:04):
You know Clinton or Clinton has the Jackson squirrel rifle
named after him. You know about that, So it's Cooper arms, right, yes, sir?
And what's cool is coopting a joke? No, this ain't
no joke. Come on, I don't joke you.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I hadn't even introduced you yet, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
I'm the silent guy over here in the corner. But
there's a there's an gun manufacturer called Cooper Arms. They
were out of Montana and here recently state of Arkansas is.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Now Cooper Arms out of Bariville, Okay.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Now that rifle the most high dollar accurate squirrel rifle
you could buy. It's called a Jackson squirrel Rifle and
it's named after this man sitting right next to me.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Oh, I did not know that. Yes, sir, I love it.
That's awesome. Well, there, that's awesome thing. Clinton's like I
happened to have one.
Speaker 7 (09:58):
Right, it's probably been about maybe fourteen fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Ago, and and they just heard about you and your
I mean just your reputation as a squirrel hunter, squirrel man.
Speaker 7 (10:12):
Well, actually I met the owner of the company at
the time, and he hadn't he grew up squirrel hunting,
but he moved to Montana where squirrel hunting isn't a
big deal. And he said, whenever, and now this wasn't
the original rifle, but whenever the rifle that I ordered
would come in, he said he wanted to come in
and go squirrel hunting with me. I took him down
(10:33):
to the White River bottoms and we shot a squirrel
and he just loved it and just he wanted to
do something to kind of commemorate that. Oh and flew
me out there to the company and oh, that's prototypes
and he gave me serial number one. Oh wow, you
got it, I do. Oh, that's that's really neat. That's
(10:53):
really neat.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well, the only guess I had introduced is Joe Wilson,
the founder, Yes, sir, and the originator of this event.
Joe tell us like, tell the world what's happened here today.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Every year I'm more and more impressed. And you know,
you asked, I think we were kind of green room
in it at the time. How many of the people
standing around us, there's one hundred people plus standing around us,
how many of them are from Arkansas? And we got
about what Brent three four class.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, it wasn't many.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
It wasn't many. And to think that we bring people
from Hey, we had folks come from England today. And
I'm not saying like Texas or someplace like England. England
redcoats man come all the way across here.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I've talked to folks from Oregon, Yeah, Wisconsin.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
Wisconsin, all over this country, every point of the compass.
From right here, you're going to shoot at somebody's house. Yeah,
that's coming.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
So what's impressive to me is we get people from
so many places, and you know that, we get fourteen
hundred inside of a room shooting bb guns and pellet rifles.
What's impressive is is I could look around and inside
this room right now, there's some camouflage, right, but you
see people who don't own any camouflage, right, And so
(12:16):
those are the people that I want to touch first.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We've already got.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
The people in camouflage. We want to grab those people
that don't know why we do what we do. And
me and Kevin Murphy we talk on the phone and
we discussed how important it is that we get our youth,
we get the unknowing involved in what we're doing. You
(12:42):
ain't going to sell the same truck to the same
guy every day, and so what we're trying to do
is we're trying to market this to people that wonder
why it is that we'll go out and get siggers
and ticks, you know, and so this is the way
to do it. Malcolm knows our way to get to
people in any community events through their through their stomachs,
(13:05):
because if we could get through their stomachs, we could
get to their soul, absolutely, and we could start preaching
shirt box I want. But if we could, if we
could get through your stomach, we could get through your soul. Man.
And breaking bread is as old as time. And so
today Malcolm serving a thousand bowls of jambli us, cooking
(13:30):
up one of the fish that nobody ever thinks they
want to eat, an old Asian carp and serving it
to thousands of people. All of this stuff that we've
done rabbits, you know, rabbits have forgotten protein and so
that to me is important. And the fact that we
know that today we made it. We made some more hunters,
(13:53):
and we made some people that will never hunt a
better supporter of what you preach every week on the show,
you know, So that's important to me.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So the tell me the structure. So we had usually
between thirty and forty teams, Yeah, that are competing for
the world title.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
We always shoot for forty. And you know you mentioned brisket.
If I asked for forty teams, come brisket. That's no
problem because you could go buy it. When I asked
for forty teams to cook squirrel you got to go
hunt it. And it ain't easy.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
I mean, me and you did a deal the other
day at a circle k in the afternoon that we
were looking over our shoulders.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I donated some squirrels to this event that had the freezer.
Brent you to like it. I said, Joe, meet me
at that gas station off the Johnson exit and I
pull up beside him in the truck and he had
a guy I didn't know with him, and the guy
got out and I said, this is the snitches it
and Joe was like, no, he's good, and I'm like okay,
And then I reached in and got my stuff and
put the frozen squirrels in his b and I was like,
(15:00):
I hold on out of there.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
So I'm vaguely familiar with that concept.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Yeah, I hold on out of there.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It's it's real tough.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
I mean, people will sign up and then they'll figure
out the labor behind it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And how many squirrels do you think each team is
needing to compete?
Speaker 5 (15:19):
I don't know. I'd say at a minimum, you probably
need ten. Okay, you need ten for the judges. That's
that's to put a pile on there. But you know,
to do this, to feed these people, you need a
pile up.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So everybody, every team's making like ten plates for ten judges.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Or so, six entrees and six side dishes, and then.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
They're encouraged to give food samples to the public. So
that's kind of what people come to do, is try
all this squirrel.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Yeah, let's hear from the crowd. How many of them
got to eat today?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah? Did everybody get some squirrel today? Yeah? Did you
try something? Malcolm? Absolutely well, were you a judge?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
No?
Speaker 6 (15:59):
I didn't judge the day.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We were busy out there with the jumble eye, but
people would bring it by. And that's see, Joe, that's
something special you have here too. Because all the barbecue
contests I go to, they don't let you share with
the general public, and so I think it hurts their
event because people come out and they come out with
this anticipation, Hey, I'm gonna get to try.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Some barbecue, or they come to the squirrel cookoff.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Guess what.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
All the teams are encouraged they want you know, they
may have never tried squirrel, but they're curious and they
come out and they get to try these dishes and
it's just amazing.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
You see what it's done.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Yeah, you're right, men. Men Malcolms traveled the country going
to big cookoffs, you know, barbecue and steak and all that,
and we get ten times to hold more. We get
a lot more crowd.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Than they do.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
And the reason is is we want you to be involved.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, we want to feed you. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (16:50):
It's like going to a ball game and getting to play.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Same deal.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
But for me, man Kevin Murphy, you know, if you
google the name Ebb and Murphy and put say squirrel
or rabbit behind it, what's it say?
Speaker 1 (17:04):
The world's greatest small game hunter says here, take.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
Me in right.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I want to know from the crowd here who didn't
have an opportunity to eat some type of wild game today?
Speaker 5 (17:18):
What's wrong with this guy? He must be vegan or something.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
What times you get here? So to be a wild
you know, to be a hunter, it's not forever.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Look what's happening, Kenny.
Speaker 8 (17:37):
Oh, he got a squirrel leggs Josh.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
All right, I'm gonna ask this question again. How many
people here today didn't have an opportunity to eat some
type of wild game meat nobody. So your mission is complete, yes, sir.
Not everyone is meant to be a hunter. We don't
want everybody. We want that ten percent of the by
the hardy people. Not everybody is meant to be a
(18:02):
dog hunter. We want that one percent. Handle this dog
for three hundred and sixty five days a year to
maybe to go hunting sixty days, or if you're retired
and work all through the summertime, you can go one
hundred days. And that's what's on my calendar this year.
But to be a small game hunter, you can be
a minimalist. You just need a rifle or a shotgun,
a box of shells and you can go to the
(18:23):
woods with a hunting license. Or if you're a youth,
do you wait for the free youth day and go.
But that's why you get a taste of hunting there,
and that's where you learn your skills. You start at
the bottom, work your way to the top and figure
out is this for me or is this not for me?
And then you graduate to say, hey, I want to
be a deer hunter, turkey hunter, rabbit hunter, out west hunter,
(18:47):
or across the pond hunter. I'm going to Iceland in
October to hunt ptarmigant. So I've been very fortunate to
be around everybody and see everybody. And you know, on Tuesday,
I'll be sixty five on the outside and I'm still
like twenty one twenty two on the inside. So you know,
hunting keeps me young. I go with a lot of
(19:09):
young hunters. I tried to teach them, a bunch of
pilgrims out there. Some of them got no skill whatsoever.
We take a bunch of college kids every December from
the BHA, take them out hunting. And this last year
we had a young girl that grew up with no
farms in her house. Her mom was adamantly against farms.
Day had just went along with her mom and she
(19:31):
went squirrel hunting with us. Got to kill her first squirrel,
got her to skin a squirrel. And that's what it's about.
It's about one small win at a time, and that's
what we've all all got a deck.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Hey, if we would have forgot hunting, if it wasn't
for people passing it down to us, and we would
forgot how to cook squirrel if there ain't those recipes
out there. You know, and so it's our duty everybody
in this room to brag. I know you're humble, Clay,
(20:03):
I know you're I'm not that humble, but anybody Turkey color.
But you know what I mean, all of us have
our duty to pass it on, whether it's to our
children or somebody else's. And and that's what's cool about
watching Clifton out there showing people how to skin these things.
One of the biggest problems of small game honey is
(20:26):
the fact that you got to clean them. And to
show a Kevin Murphy of Clifton, anybody who's a master
at cleaning a squirrel, it becomes a lot easier to
say you're gonna go out and go squirrel. So when
we learned a.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Lot, Yeah, Malcolm, did you do any squirrel hunting this year?
I know last year you were telling me about hunting
some on the Mississippi River with some friends. Did you
get to do any of this winter?
Speaker 6 (20:56):
So I had I had to go out and buy
me a new rifle just for squirrel hunting.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I just I didn't go anything crazy, just a little
ten twenty two and coming a decent you know, little
loophole rim fire on it. Yeah, And I did, and
we've had we've had a ball doing it, and my
son enjoys it, you know, and we we take something
for granted that you know a lot of times when
the people in the neighborhood they see squirrels, they don't
realize that they're you know, we're out in the woods
and we're out, you know, trying to stalk these things
(21:20):
or use a dog or whatever.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
But we we, uh, we have a big time squirrel hunt.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I'm not crazy about the ticks and chiggers. I like
it to be a little cool. But man, there's there's
just something about that little animal that you never would realize,
is that it brings so much enjoyment to me of
doing it. Yeah, and it's you know, to me squirrel hunt.
You know, everybody can go sitt in a deer stand
or whatever and you're by yourself. You don't want people
to know the buck you're after, and all that squirrel hunts.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
A communality pictures squirrels, that's right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
And when we've got so many of them, I mean,
it's just it's really fun and it's a great it's
a great way to.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
Spend time outdoors.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And if you can take somebody along and teach a
kid how to shoot a square or how to properly.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
You know, clean the squirrel.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
All this is life lessons that man, I just I
get behind it hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
You got any killer squirrel recipes? I mean this guy
watch stuff.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
That's on my list now, Clay to do some squirrel
recipes this fall, because I have never done a video
with one, you know, you know, squirrel and gravy.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
That's that's the.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
One we like to do for that squirrel simmer down.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I don't get really, I've never really gotten too crazy
with squirrel. But after coming to this contest and seeing
what these ship I call them outdoor chefs, because these
jerkers are coming up with recipes that are incredible. I
mean it's not just your standard stuff. Yeah, you can
do anything with that squirrel.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Met What what are some of the examples of stuff
that people did today today?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Yeah, Impanadus was one.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well today today.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
I think we hit new highs. And if I'm gonna
be honest, which I like to be, we may have
hit a couple of new loaves.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
No fence to the cooks.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
I mean, you know it was we were lucky that
early on we had the best representation of what a
box should look like and we had one that wasn't
the best, okay, And so it gave me the ability
to kind of teach judges, Hey, y'all, this is what
presentation should look like, and this is what it shouldn't.
(23:23):
But with that being said, there was, man, there was
a squirrel pizza today that would knock your socks off
with a fried ravioli. That was awesome.
Speaker 8 (23:35):
I a squirrel cookie. I swear I would rob the
liquor store for.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
There was a squirrel cookie. There was a squirrel ice
cream showed up again today.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Oh I heard about that. I remember that from last
squirrel ice cream.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Hey, Kevin Murphy, what's the one organ on the squirrel?
They say, it's probably like on a pair of boots
or something bad for you in California?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Which which part of the squirrel has.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Been known to cause products?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The thinking part, the thinking part.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
We had a squirrel brain ice cream show up.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Was anybody worried about eating it?
Speaker 5 (24:11):
I told everybody, Hey, this is the part of the
squirrel that could cause your heart. Yeah, now go ahead
and eat it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
What's the science behind that? Do you know that Clifton.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
Well, yeah, I mean it's it's it's not been definitively
linked to, you know, the Crisfield Jacob's disease. But I
mean I think there was somebody, you know, some people.
I said something about it if I.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
Read an article about this not too long ago, and
I talked about it on the podcast. It was a
group of individuals overla like them four or five year period.
They were in a very small area in Kentucky that
that contracted the disease and.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
The what's the name of the disease.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
It's Chrisfield Jacobs.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
That's Jacobs mad cow disease.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, it's a life it's like for humans.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
Yeah, and they had they all the only qualifier for
all of them was they had all eaten squirrel brains.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
We'll find out tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So we squirrel brains I have.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I don't explain.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So do you not like it or do you not
eat it because you're afraid of.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
There's a thing called a prion and you can put
it in an autoclave and it will not kill it.
It's a protein that gets in the brain. Do not
eat I recommend that you do not eat brain from
anything back home.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But it's a traditional dish though, Oh yes, I mean
squirrel brains and eggs is something that I grew up
hearing people.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Talk about cavia.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, there you go, but yes, I've eat it. It's
a delicacy. A lot of people when they would go
squirrel hunting, they woudn't shoot them in the head with
the twenty two because they wanted to serve up fried
squirrel brains in the skull. And then they would, like
a butter knife, crack it open and open it up,
(26:03):
and that was the ultimate.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
We just lost half the listeners.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
So I've done a lot of research. Man, I'm a
wastewater guy. You know, when I go to somewhere foreign country.
Next time I go see Steve out Montana, I'm gonna
go to their wastewater plant because they've got the state
of the art your wastewater plant. But we had a
local architect back where I live, and he came down
(26:29):
with crutch Phil's Jacob's disease. And the only thing they
could think of was he was taking a vitamin that
was made out of a from Europe, made out of
a cow patratory glan. So that's the reason why I
say do not eat brain matter from any any animal.
So that's what I highly recommend.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
So let's see if I can start another topic. Man,
we also had plenty of egg rolls. We had a
squirrel sushi show up. I'll leave it at that. You've
had squirrel sushi, didn't you. Yes, yeah, we had squirrel
sushi in the past.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
He had it about fifteen minutes ago.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Yeah, you see skin contest.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
Did you see that Clay?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Did you see Clifton in the skin and content?
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah video?
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Did you see the technique to win the championship?
Speaker 4 (27:19):
This?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, tail method? Well, I mean the teeth. Oh no, no, no,
I didn't see the first one. I actually saw him
win the first heat.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
He had to go straight to the mouth and pull
that skin off with his teeth to win.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And here this is true. Yeah, yes, Why did you
have to do that?
Speaker 7 (27:36):
Well, I had an arm that had been shattered right
there at the joint and it was just you know,
when I had it was slick as an al pellet
trying to pull that knee out, so I couldn't. I
just had to use my teeth.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
And you know what's even odd.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Slick is an al pellet. We'll be using that one.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Oh yeah, well, I'll give we have to give you credit,
but we're What's odd is the second place in the
world also went to the te No way. I've been
watching Clifton just dominate this event for years. Today was
as tough as he had it. I mean it was
neck and neck.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
So who's the other guy?
Speaker 5 (28:18):
What's his name?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Mitch?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yoah, Mitch. Mitch is in the Service.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
He's an army recruiter.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Hey, hey, Mitch, just walk up.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Here so we can get you on film just one second.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Right, Yeah, where are you from, Mitch? Do you know
this guy? You don't know what? Okay, Well, I guess
you better practice a little more to get in the gym,
work out those arms.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Mitch is in the Service, he's a he's an armor recruiter.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Oh cool man, that's good. That's good.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
So they were neck and neck, got it all the
way down. I bet you there wasn't two three seconds
in between the two of them.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Oh, it was tight.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's tough. He pushed me, he pushed, Yeah, this is
it's kind of like Jordan winning that like fifth title,
kind of getting a little lazy, and.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Then he's gonna start trying Baseball Day.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Uh, but we haven't announced the winner yet. No, who
did the Razorbacks win? I'm afraid they didn't.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
We just lost.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Scratch that from the tape. Can you take no, we
that it's not that we lost it.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
They cheated, Yeah, they cheated.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I heard they cheated. So we have not announced the
winner for this year yet though.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
Now as soon as this shows over, we're gonna go
out and get on stage and we're going to handle it.
I got my buddy across from me. He helped me
out on getting them case knives as their awards.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (29:50):
Yeah, man, we're gonna present the winners world champion with
a case knife, right, yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Kevin, what's your if you could if you could hunt
one thing the rest of your life, you only had
one dog that did one thing and you got the hunt,
that's it. What would it be? Squirrel, rabbit, falconry, kangaroo?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Well, probably one of the most exciting the question.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's like, well, let me let me tell
you about my policy.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Swamp rabbits.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
There you go, swamp rabbits with beagles, Yes, swamp rabbits
of beagles. I'll be done.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Because you know, to go get a squirrel. You got
a good dog. The squirrel is going to be in
that tree, or he's not going to be in the tree.
You hit a swamp rabbit, your dogs might running back
to you. They might not. Those dudes are smart. They
go in hose, they swim rivers. Man, I've seen them
do just amazing things.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
So the rabbit is like the thinking man's small game. Yes,
just the heel Billy's tree them with squirrels and shoot them.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
The big game a small game, and I can go
I can go out, put that on a shirt, and
I can go out my door within a half mile
and start hanging.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
You got swamp rabbits in Kentucky. Yes, now it's a
it's actually a different species of rabbit than a cottontail.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yes, it's the largest cottontail rabbit.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
But it's a different species. Or it's just a big one.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
No, it's a different species.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Okay, do we have them here?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
They're I've hunted them down around the cotton patch, So
I don't know exactly where that is from Wigs. I
hang out with those deer dog hunter guys down there.
But it's along the drainage of the Mississippi River up
to about Saint Louis and then as far north it's
probably not hardly, uh, Cincinnati, and then all the way
(31:45):
down to the Louisiana. But but Bergman's rule is the
further north that you go on a mammal, the bigger
it goes. So what I want to do is drive
up around Saint Louis somewhere and try to find the
extended range of it. The biggest one I have killed
so far or in our hunting party is like six
pound weighed with a turkey scale, so you know it's
(32:06):
right on it. It's right right on the money. And
so I hope to go like two hours north and
get a six and a half pound.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Be like a world record.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yes, that's what I'm going for.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Crocket impressive. That's good. That's why you're the world's greatest
small game hunting. You're thinking, you're thinking like a champion.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
I like that.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Clifton, When when will you start squirrel hunting? If you
already squrel hunting something this fall or like typically, when
would you start?
Speaker 7 (32:32):
Typically I would have started last weekend. This is this
will be the latest that I've ever started this year. Really, Yeah,
So I always go at least by September first.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Now, okay, this is a good topic of conversation. I
had somebody the other day tell me that the liberalization
of squirrel hunting, which is a positive thing, like our
squirrel season is basically nine months long, or maybe even
ten months.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Yeah, made fifteenth to the end of February.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, so it's off for three months. It's not on
for three months pretty much March April May. The guy
told me, he said that took away the prime season opener,
which the season opener is just kind of this like
hype that we all have, which used to be like
September first. Absolutely, And he was saying, man, when we
(33:18):
were kids, we'd camp out for you know, days for
the squirrel opener. But now that they've done us good,
I mean, like we can hunt anytime. It's not a complaint.
It was just interesting, he said. People don't get it
excited because the season opener is not like a few
people are hunting in May, and it's just you can
hunt all the time. What do you think about that?
Speaker 7 (33:40):
I do miss it. Uh, you know, I missed that
cultural it is very much. I mean, we still will
have squirrel camp and we do squirrel camp, but that
opener even as the season changed, you know, it used
to be October one, and then what depends on the zones.
I mean it's like a you know story past of
those dates being like you're talking about like the big opener,
and now we've taken that away. And then the limit
(34:03):
changed to twelve.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
What was it for?
Speaker 7 (34:05):
It was eight for most of my life. Really yep, yep.
Now it's twelve per person per day. So I think
that did take some of this thing.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
You know what I think Clifton, that I think that
me and Kevin's talked about. I think me and you
talked about it. It's it's squirrel hunting is a hard
thing to market because we don't have a bunch of
cool stuff to sell you to make you a better
squirrel hunt. We you could you could spray vanilla flavored
deodoring on and go kill a squirrel. You know, it
(34:36):
don't matter, And so you could wear what we're all
wearing right now and go squirrel hunt. So, since it's
so hard to market, it's real hard to put on TV. True,
And so since we're not putting it on TV, there's
a whole bunch of people never see it. And so
one of the times you get to see the benefits
(34:58):
of it is right here at the this event. Now,
you're a great marketer of small game hunting. I see
you out on the mules doing it. You've done a
phenomenal job. Kevin's done a phenomenal job. Clifton's done a
phenomenal job. I've tried to catch up to you guys
a little bit over the last dozen years, but this
(35:19):
is our biggest marketing day of the year for squirrel hunting.
You see it on news all across the country. Overseas,
people see this event. So I ain't saying we need
to do one of these every week. I ain't got
the time for that. But you know, the industry itself
and agencies and departments really need to start thinking about inflation.
(35:43):
It's still cheap to go squirrel hunting, you know all
the stuff. If you're a father, a mother and you
want to get your kids in the outdoors, at least
give this a shot first man.
Speaker 8 (35:54):
And this has always been a good It's always been
traditionally anywhere you go, folks kids start out shooting squirrels
before they start shooting deer, and what the elk and
whatever and it's always a good introduction, yep, to what
we all love to do, you know, and you can
do it with dog. You can add a dog as
(36:16):
an extra component which will take you to whether you're
chasing coons like I do, or you're running codes or
bobcats or whatever. You know, it's just a good a
good introduction. I agree, Joe, it's good.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
I just think we need to do a better job
of marketing. And you know, Kevin will tell you, well,
we don't want everybody in it, you know, but really
Kevin may not feel that way. I think if everybody
would just give it a shot, it's a great time.
You can talk while squirrel hunt. You can walk around
(36:51):
and carry on a story and squirrel hunt. There's not
really an age when it's not right. If you could
walk get out there and walk behind somebody and try
to do it, and the benefits of it is, at
the end of the day you might be able to
make a squirrel pizza out of the deal.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Kid.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I can remember in nineteen eighty seven I had a
Border Collie and I had some people come in from
Alaska that had been living there for a couple of
years and hunting and stuff and I took them hunting,
and they said, and this is the greatest hunt I've
ever had in my entire life. Now, one person was
from Ohi, the others Illinois. You know they're out there.
They do I set up now, y'all, don't buy it.
(37:31):
Just work off my license. That's okay in fishing game department.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So I said, just work off my license. This was
a long time ago, long long time.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
So I would give them a gun and then they
would want to shoot, I says, and they would want
to like free hand, and I had a twenty two magnum. Man,
you really need to shoot them in the head because
we're going to eat them and clean them. And you know,
they just told me that said, man, this is the
greatest hunt we've ever met. We've never had any more fun.
And then like Joe said, you can take kids out there,
you can talk, you can have a good time in fellowship.
(38:03):
I mean, like I said, every year we take ten
to twelve college students out there to go squirrel hunting
and have a big time. And you can fellowship and
you only need to be quiet for like, okay, now's
the time to be quiet. We're gonna shoot the squirrel
and it's your turn to shoot. You get a shot,
and then you get a shot, and we rotate around
and then the shotgunner don't let him get away because
(38:24):
the pressure is on you when he's running.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So who said that? Somebody can say something? Hey, okay,
I got a question for for the squirrel masters here.
What's your doctrine on shotguns versus twenty two s Clifton?
Do you have a doctor on.
Speaker 7 (38:44):
A rim fire purist? Kind of just I just really like.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Just tell her.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Thank you for a rim fire purist.
Speaker 7 (38:51):
Well, I mean it's it's it's usually they're a little
more arrogant. It's just more mentally stimulating to me. You know,
it's really.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Easy taking the high intellectual ground.
Speaker 7 (39:01):
It's me against myself. I mean I have a really
you know, really nice rifle and I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Ruffle after you. Cliff is playing golf, the rest of
he's playing chess.
Speaker 7 (39:14):
Yeah, it's really uh. I mean it's days that I
don't have any luck. I mean I've gone out there
and got skunked. I mean, and it's just kind of say,
really mentally stimulating, uh effort for me, just me against myself.
I enjoyed the rifle more so than that.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, what if you're using dogs? Do you dog that much?
Speaker 7 (39:35):
I go and I have had dogs over the years.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Uh here different?
Speaker 7 (39:41):
Oh no, I love it. I mean it's more.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I'm saying for the twenty two verses.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
I do like to have both.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
I do like to have both.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
You like you said that that shotgun is like the kicker,
you know, if it gets past all of us, Yeah,
don't let him get past you.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah yah. So with that, how do they
do it down in Mississippi.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Boat you see both?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
You know, most of you're gonna see kids with shotguns,
and you know some of the adults will take them,
but most of the time you're gonna have somebody with
twenty two.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And what I what I have seen here lately is
usually once somebody's got a thermal too, so you.
Speaker 6 (40:15):
Can see if that ship squirrels up in there, not
on the rifle.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Usually they're just hadelts just to try to figure out
where he is and then give the guy with the
rifle a shot. And then the shotgun guy is a
clean up man.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
When I get part to me, shot.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Doctor, We'll let Joe have shot Joe, shot man.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
I tell you what, one day, when I get a
YouTube channel like you boys, I'll get me one of
the thermal squirrel hunters too. But uh, you know, an
old eight seventy like we growed up with. That gun
was designed to shoot any small game you could imagine.
And I'll fess up and say a shotgun was a
(40:55):
good way. It's a meat stick, man, it throws meat
inside there. But like Clifton said it, if you're going
out to enjoy the hunt, twenty two is the way
to go. In my opinion.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
It conserves the meat too.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
Though you're not going to damage that.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Squirrels, right, Yeah, you're right. It does conserve me. You
don't bring any home.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Conserve Swiss. Okay.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Now here's the like if we were all like, if
there was an organization that was the twenty two squirrel
purest organization, this guy would probably be the president. Clifton
would be maybe vice president. Give me a run for
money for president. You're you're a square twenty two man, yes,
like without question. Well, it's like a it's like a
(41:42):
moral issue for you.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
It's I'm a Kentucky, I'm a rifleman. I'm a Kentuckian. Okay, Okay,
I got my long riffle thirty two caliber. But back
when I was a killer in my young running in
gun to days, I had a twenty two magnum over
a twenty gauge. Hmmm, nothing escaped me. Nothing. So if
(42:04):
I couldn't get it with a magnum, if it was running,
I could get it with a shotgun. Killed quail flying
with a shotgun. So that was the all purpose. But
to me is like said, you know, if you're a
dog hunter, you got a couple of people with rifle,
you give them a chance, and then the shotgun guys,
he's got all the pressure on him. Because as my
(42:24):
friend Steve Ranella when I told him took him squirrel
hunting the first time. I said, Ben, Steve, he's going
to come out of there like a like a BMX
missile out of this this nest there And he come
out and he run and he missedy. But I run
and squirrel at full steam. I've got waterfowl buddies. They
have trouble hitting them. It's hard to get them a
(42:46):
lot of times. What it is you're shooting them at
a limb and that and the limb is kind of
behind him. So you're only shooting. Yeah, you're shooting at
a little a third of that height this squirreld. So
here's a protest.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
That's exactly why the shotgun pro tip.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Here's the pro tip. You wait for that squirrel to
run out to the end of that limb, and right
as he gets ready to jump, he will stop mm hmm.
And so you know that, and then he jumps and
you shoot him in that air and you can shoot
the squirrel mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Pro tip.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
It's a life hack. Control.
Speaker 8 (43:27):
Well, my dad was buying my shelves. He would have
loved to have told me that along.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Come. That's right now.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Self control that it takes to actually pull that off.
That's like high level human psychology and discipline and training
to when you got a gun in your hand and
there's a squirrel running across a limb and you're waiting
for him to get to the end of the limb,
it bounces, Bob's he jumps, then you shoot.
Speaker 8 (43:58):
That's high levels like old Damny Glover and leath the weapons.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
But Jedi level is when you can do it by horseback.
And I've reached that level, I hear you, But yes,
twenty two but whatever works for you, you know, just
if he's up there. You know, I got a lot
of rabbit hut buddies and they all use big twelve
gages and they either miss them or mush them, because
(44:26):
when the rabbit's running, they miss, and when he's sitting still,
they go center mass on him. They don't hold up
to his ears or whatever. And do the same thing
with a squirrel. Don't center mass at squirrel. Put it
on its head. Know the pattern of your gun, what
it's gonna do at twenty yards, twenty five or fifteen,
and hold it on his head, hold off a little bit,
(44:46):
use some big shot. Number five is the best I
have found. That is what I used, Number five. If
I had one shotgun shell to go hunting with number
five shot?
Speaker 5 (44:58):
Yeah, could I say there's another there's another weapon, and
and they're getting better every year, and that's gonna be
your air rifles?
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Oh gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
And a lot of states have made an air rifle
small game help even big game, right, I mean, there's
big game caliber air rifles that you can go out
and hunt with. I think we're that way in Arkansas.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Now.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
You could deer hunt with an air.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Rifle Kentucky's saying.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
So they're making these air rifles that are as cheap
as anything you could use out in the field. They're
as accurate some of these air rifles were using. You you
get fifty sixty shots out of them before you got
to fill that tank. And so we had a couple
of those air rifle companies here umeer X. I know
they've been a part of your sponsorship. They make some
(45:43):
fine quality stuff, and you know it's a cheap way
to get it. Get into honey.
Speaker 8 (45:48):
I've been using them, shooting coons out of trees with it.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
Really.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Oh yeah, you think they're gonna make one called the Reeves.
Speaker 8 (45:55):
Oh, I don't know. I'm not near it's jacks. I'm
not near the caliber at Clifton Is. But yeah, we
shoot coons out with it.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
I was in Puerto Rico shooting in Puerto Rico squirrels,
you know.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
That leather leather squirrels.
Speaker 5 (46:08):
Yeah, and I ain't going to start that cook off.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
You're good, Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
You know, eating a couple of them all I needed.
They weren't that good man, No, they weren't they word.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Yeah, Well, here in hearing y'all talk about your your
doctrine on twenty two versus shotgun it I realize I'm
like still in that stage of my squirrel hunting journey
that where yeah, I'm playing checkers, you are playing chess
because me and my my, my Jedi Master Muleman, squirrel Man,
(46:45):
dog Man Michael Lanier. Oh yeah, we shoot them with
shotguns because we just want to bring them home.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
It is we do live in a place it's tough
for squirrel hunting. I mean, like if you were if
you were just uh you know, grading uh territory of
the United States, like we do with white tailed deer
like Iowa and Kansas and the Great Plains, it's just
incredible deer hunting. And you know, deer hunting is tough
and here, here, and there, those arcs would be on
(47:11):
the tougher side of the places we just don't have.
The mountains just aren't as aren't as quite as productive.
Speaker 6 (47:18):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (47:19):
From a management perspective, it is like the river bottoms
because the guys over in the river bottoms can just
kill the fire out of them. And what do you
think do you think it's just better squirrel hunters over there?
Speaker 4 (47:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (47:30):
I think that you know all the soils. You know,
productivity is just better in the bottoms.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I thought he's gonna say way better over there.
Speaker 7 (47:39):
Yeah yeah, and and and and the cavities, those old
grolth trees, you know, having better, better habitats, better habitat.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
You are playing squirrel food plots over there and everything flying. Well,
my point being, we're just happy to We're trying to
bring every squirrel home that our dogs tree, and we
and we get going and we we don't care if
we get a few pellets.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
I won't shame you for that. Well, you have the right, no,
but I mean you're exactly right, because a squirrel, you know,
you can't kill them out. You could have season all
year long. They're dependent on the mass crop and there
might be hard masks, which is the acorn crop, walnuts, whatever,
and then soft mass in the springtime. So they've got
(48:22):
to have those two types of mass crop to survive.
Springtime masks, the soft mulberry's, elum buds, maple buds, whatever
buds are out there. They eat some mushrooms. You know,
we had the had one of the largest locusts hatches
this year in Kentucky. So we're going to have probably
(48:44):
the biggest bumper crop of squirrels that I have seen
since they will eat locusts. I have not I have
not physically seen them do that, but I have skin
squirrels from locust years and we had mass fayres and
the squirrels were as fat as it's pregnant dog.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
Squirrels will eat a squirrel.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, And I remember you telling your story.
Speaker 8 (49:06):
I was I was working at the capitol, the State
Capitol Police, and I was sitting in the parking lot
eating my lunch and it was it was squirrel left
over from supper the night before. And I was sitting
there in this parking lot and the squirrels, you know, everywhere,
especially all over the little rock. And I was sitting
there eating and gnawing on this leg in the car
had the winter roll down. Looking the gray squirrel walked
(49:29):
just right up beside the car over there was a
contry right there, and I thought, I'm gonna hit him
in the head with this leg his bone. I threw
it out there and I missed him, but he jumped
back and he looked at it, and he picked it
up and started gnawing on it and then run off
with the leg and I.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Thought, my gosh, that was horrible. Now have a nightmare
just thinking about it.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Hey, Clay, I could I ask a question of the
two geniuses sitting around here?
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Ready? Yeah, go ahead. I hope his math.
Speaker 8 (49:58):
You know.
Speaker 5 (49:59):
One of the things, There was a time I was
the president of Squirrels Unlimited. You remember that, Clifton.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
And uh, yeah, we're amongst royalty.
Speaker 5 (50:08):
Well you know I'm around royalty. But I'd get people
to write to me all the time and ask about
the squirrel migration.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Oh, you know controversial.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
The great squirrel migration when they were dipping them. Oh
he's stopping.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
It's not a migration.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Lady Mask's question is Adrill Reeves.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
Have you heard about where there was so many squirrels
crossing across in the Mississippi they were dipping that now,
the squirrels out of the river.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
That's not the one I heard. I heard.
Speaker 8 (50:39):
It was my great grandfather. There was a team and
a wagon going through the woods and they would have
to stop the wagon for all the squirrels running across
the river.
Speaker 5 (50:48):
So the great migration, there was a time, Kevin, Yes,
there was.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
It's not a migration, Kevin.
Speaker 5 (50:54):
There was a time up in Pennsylvania where they were
knocking down the corn fields.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
I heard they were riding on the backs of American buffalo.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
These squirrels were knocking down.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
There was a bounty on the dang old squirrels. Now,
what are you calling this?
Speaker 3 (51:08):
It's a dispersal because of migration. You go and you
come back. They just say, getting it's Jedi level here
between me and Clifton. He's a biologist and just a
squirrel killer. But it's a dispersal and I have I
have witnessed it in sixty eights, a.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Lot of squirrels moving in the same direction.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
They're just they're just you've had a bumper cop crop
of masks.
Speaker 5 (51:33):
You know what he wanted to say, and then that
he wanted to say, they just migrate.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Dispersal. I can't spell it, but somebody google it for me.
Speaker 5 (51:42):
It's a dispersed Missouri.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
It's just dispersal.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Clifton does the science back this.
Speaker 7 (51:47):
You know, I've never seen it documented. I know it occurs.
But when it says.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
He ain't reading what I'm reading, you're right, Joe.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
Joe was one hund percent right. Clifton needs to go
and look at his cliff notes, because it is documented
and at Kentucky at one time when you were sixteen
years old, you had to kill so many squirrels.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
To be like a Kentuckyan.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Yeah, I mean there was like a legal document there
that they had to turn Colonel. They would they would
like come through and devastate the corn crop. But like
I said in sixty eight, oh squirrels would. That was
probably the last big squirrel dispersal. Down in the Carolinas
and the edge of Tennessee. They had a mass figure
down there, and those squirrels came up into Kentucky through LBL.
(52:42):
They would be crappie fishermen out in the lake and
with a dip net dipping them up. My dad would go,
I remember he would go squirrel hunting and come home.
It's probably him in five or six guys hunting. He
would have what I call a West Virginia doggley, where
you take a sapling bended over and leave a limb
(53:06):
cut like this right here, and then the main runner
of the tree and you run them through the back
of the squirrel leg. He'd come home and have like
sixteen on there. He said. The dog would tree one
squirrel and then maybe three or four two three would
come running through on the ground and he would shoot
ups just giving up. They were pushing, they were pushing up.
(53:27):
I mean, it's documented, and I saw it and properly.
Let me think I saw it on I twenty four
going to Nashville. I was taking my son and one
of his friends down there, and I started seeing all
these squirrels ran over between Paducah in Nashville, and I
counted like fifty squirrels on a four lane highway ran
(53:50):
over and then went. I took my son from Paducah
to Cincinnati to watch a ball game, and I counted
one hundred and something squirrels run over. And I had
friends that they said that had to take uh there
was a barrier wall or something and they got choked
in and they took a backo out there and scooped
(54:12):
up the dense squirrels.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
Wow, they call that a dispersal.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Hey, we need next year Clifton finding some literature on
this so that we can put the beargrey stamp of
academic approval on this dispersal.
Speaker 7 (54:30):
I would love to see that, you know, with the
contemporary tracking devices that we have now, That's that's what
I mean, that it's squirrels. I haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
See here's I believe what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
It can't happen anymore. We don't have those huge fans
of hardwood forest. It's not it's not gonna I mean,
it could happen in like a little regional thing like
I saw.
Speaker 4 (54:52):
I see.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
I mean, to many people have ever seen a squirrel
run over on a four lane highway? You're seeing it.
I mean, you just don't see it, you know, you
see all the other dick. Of course, they're not going
to last long because something's going to scoop in and
pick them up.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
But I see what you're saying, Like they would have
to be really wanting to cross a big you know,
a quarter stretch for a mile from open ground.
Speaker 9 (55:15):
Yeah, so we need bridges squirrels, I think you know,
there was a vision of this great squirrel migration, and
I always put the will to beests and the crocodile
into the deal.
Speaker 5 (55:28):
And I just thought they were crossing the and the
crocodiles would be there just eating them up like wilderbees.
That's not what took place. But there is tons of
literature over the year, regardless of what you call it.
Of these squirrels pushing and fire could fire. It could
be a big cause of it. It could be you know,
a stand of forest burns down, there's nothing to eat.
All the squirrels travel across.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
You buy it, Malcolm.
Speaker 6 (55:51):
I have never seen that.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Mississippi nuts everything, and we've seen a lot.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
So, Hey, we're getting real close. We're gonna have to
bail out this. We got to initiate the world change.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Hey, it's uh, we've been going for an hour, so
I told them that's what we would do. Uh, Malcolm,
where can where can we watch all your barbecue stuff?
Speaker 2 (56:15):
It's how to bbq write on all the social channels
and you can go to how to barbecue rite dot com.
Speaker 6 (56:21):
We've got a lot of stuff on the website too.
Speaker 8 (56:23):
But I got one of your brands last year from
a from Thanksgiving Turkey.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
Oh I hope it turned out. Oh man, it's really good.
Speaker 6 (56:30):
Send me a text and I'll send you some more
for this year.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
Oh you're on awesome, Joe. Anything. H When we're doing
this next year, same time, same.
Speaker 5 (56:39):
Place, relatively close to the same time.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Early September, it'll be here.
Speaker 5 (56:44):
It'll be about the same place. I guarantee that. And hey,
you know, I've got a podcast called Cooking Up a Story. Yes,
and uh, we tried to put faces on on people
and and take a lot of pride in it.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (56:58):
And you've helped me a lot and that as well.
So same time, same place. Next year, Kevin Murphy will
have shorter hair. I imagine he won't be trying to
look like a Viking.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
I'm gonna shave it all soon as I get back
from Iceland.
Speaker 5 (57:11):
I could promise you we're gonna bring at least a
four time world champion squirrel skinner back.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
I hope he comes.
Speaker 7 (57:18):
Oh, you bet you. I'll be here, all right, I'll be.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
We'll be we'll be looking for some of that squirrel
literature on the migration, all right, Uh, Brent, yes, sir,
anything you gotta say.
Speaker 8 (57:30):
I am just so thankful that this this episode was
not about the bearg Rease latest episode, because I hadn't
had a chance to listen to it yet.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Oh, Sterling hard Joe, Yeah, good, Sterling's getting the getting
the short stick today. It's so sorry, Sterling because we
had to do this. But yeah, it was a really
neat episode. Sterling Hard. I actually just since Sterling Heart
Sterling Hard. Joe's a Seminole filmmakers, remember the Seminole tribe
in Oklahoma. Really successful filmmaker and uh. On the podcast,
(58:01):
this would be the one thing I say about it.
He talked about how his people and a lot of
Indigenous Native American Native Americans in America, I really messed
that up.
Speaker 4 (58:11):
That's really.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
They're terrified of owls, like in their culture, owls are
a big deal. And so he talked about that for
a long time on the podcast. And there's a there's
a text Jermy to owl in this building over here,
and I sent him a video. I said, Sterling, sorry, dude,
and I showed him the owl and he blurred it
out and sent it back to me. He blurred out
the owl and sent me a video back and said, here,
(58:34):
I fixed it. Sterling is a great guy. Kevin, thanks man,
thanks for being here, Thank everybody for being here, Thanks Joe,
and thanks everybody for I hope y'all, hope y'all had
a good time watching the Render. And Reva. Reva is
the one that builds all the Bear Grease podcasts and
(58:55):
this country life podcast. So she's actually the one like
working with us on the addits, the music and everything.
So she's as much a part of this as me
and ow Will farm girl.
Speaker 8 (59:07):
Now living in Bozeman, and she is down here soaking
up the Arkansas suncha.
Speaker 5 (59:11):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, thanks Reva.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
Let's go crown the winter. Yeah, so I got one
short blurb to put in. We're doing a small game
boot camp again in Paduca, Kentucky. Be the first weekend
in June. We cook rabbit, have fun. Everybody brings their
hunting dog out, So look forward to see everybody maybe
come out and join us with that. When I was
in Mongolia, the owl was a sacred animal. I was
(59:33):
over there, I said them, there's all these chicken feathers
on your review mirror on the motorcycle, and they said,
that's our sacred animal there, and then we hunted.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
An out when we were over hunted them.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
Yes, but thanks for being here. I really appreciate it
all you guys, especially bringing your kids out and new people.
I mean, it's just like it just charges me up
to be down here long with all you Arkansas and
so yeah, it's a great.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
Time, right, Thanks everybody. Let's go crown a world can
right
Speaker 7 (01:00:10):
M hm.
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