Ep. 342: Render - Feist Mafia and Everything About Squirrel Dogs - Bear Grease

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Clay Nukleman, and this is a production
of the bear Grease podcast called The bear Grease render
where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the
scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast. Presented by f
HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear

(00:35):
that's designed to be as rugged as the place as
we explore. Welcome to the Bear Grease render Man. This
podcast is unique because I didn't foreshadow about this. I
straight up shadowed, didn't shadow. It was almost like a

(01:00):
I prophesied about this podcast. Did you hear when I
said that I was gonna have you on like a
couple of months ago. You heard about that.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
I caught that clip and then he had text me
earlier last week and my wife is like, what are
you guys talking about? Like they gave you talking points
to get studied up. And I'm like, no, but I
think we're cut from the same cloth, So we're just
gonna go talk.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
We're just gonna go talk. Yeah, Well, we've got we've
got Tyler Asberry here, Josh Bilmaker, and Tyler is a
squirrel dog expert. I don't care what anybody says. He's
gonna be like, oh, I don't know that much about him.
He does, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
In the business world, they call it a SMEE, A
subject matter expert.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Tyler is a SMEE when it comes to to squirrel dogs.
And so we're gonna talk about some squirrel go ahead, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The uh just just right off the top it did
you follow any of the public land stuff that happened
in this last week?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
I did. I did, and I've seen we won. And
that's that's wonderful selling selling public land for corporate money
or whatever they're going to do with that drill. I
assume that's just a huge win. And I feel like
that's a fight we're going to fight for a long time. Yeah.
I know, you guys hunt like a lot of public land.
That's ninety five percent of what I hunt, right, So
to think about like our kids not being able to

(02:21):
hunt that, it's yeah, it's crazy, man.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So the hard part of it is is it's it's
probably more nuanced than what it seems like. It's like
they're selling our public lands. That's bad. Well, when you
actually get into you know, a lot of what they're
trying to do is say that it's for affordable housing

(02:45):
out in these western cities, which is a legitimate thing,
like these cities that are surrounded by national forests that
are growing, and and it's like is public land eligible?
Can the government say, hey, we're going to sell off
this land these cities. And it's just such a hard
thing to regulate because it's like, yeah, are they really

(03:06):
gonna makeffordable housing in Bozeman, Montana? I mean, are they
really gonna build houses out there that you know, for
one hundred and fifty one hundred and seventy five thousand
dollars that you know a young family could go buy
or is it going to turn into something completely else
because there's nothing affordable there now? What would make it
afford you know, there's all these questions. But the bigger

(03:26):
philosophical question and the thing that the American Hunters and
other groups dug in, dug their heels in on on
this deal, is that I mean, despite anybody's view of
how the government should operate, yeah, like you know, big government,
small government, It's like wild lands are the most limiting

(03:54):
resource on planet Earth.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
I would say they're not making more of it, Like, no,
we can't, we can't make more.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
And barring in apocalypse that literally destroys our civilizations. Once
land becomes privatized and has roads, has development, has concrete,
has you know, goes in, goes into this, you know,
turning into non wild lands, it just never comes back

(04:19):
in ever. I mean literally, if barring an apocalypse of
commet hits us and destroys this country and it turns
wild for a couple thousand years. So you know, our
philosophy and our stance and what we're saying is we

(04:39):
want to keep wild lands and we can't trust the
government to really decide how I mean, if you actually
could partition off in a reasonable way, like a small
portion of land for some of these cities, I mean,
maybe there's some place where that could happen, and it's
actually legal to do that now, and there ways to

(04:59):
do that now. Not one point two to five million
acres though, No, And so anyway, it's a it's a
there's a lot of nuance to it. But the fundamental
question was you know, the Senator Mike Lee, which who
who was Who's from Utah? Who's who is just like

(05:20):
wanting to sell this land. Utah has a huge portion
of their state that is federal lands. There's people that said, well,
what does anybody else in the country have, Why do
we have a right to say what happens in Utah
when we don't live in Utah. But then it's like,
well it's Utah doesn't own it. The federal government owns it.

(05:41):
You know.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
I contacted my my senators and I just said, look,
it took too long to get these private these these
public lands, and this is this is what makes America America,
and these are the rights of an American and our
rights should be protected and not so so I'm counting
on you to protect our rights.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Can you believe that there's people in this country that
would have no place in their in their just their life,
their mind, their history, their their history, they can remember
anyway of any value for public lands.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
It's it's crazy to think about. And I don't think
that people realize how much impact that that has had
on their lives, regardless or not whether they interact with it.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Well, I mean, you know, you look at these population
maps that show I'm pretty sure I saw a map
the other day that said these cities have more like
like It showed like Los Angeles, Uh, the parts of
Texas like Dallas, New York City, Miami maybe, and they

(06:50):
were like, these little circles have more population than these states. Well,
I mean, I mean, you know, there's more people in
Dallas than the whole state of Arkansas, like stuff like that.
So it's like there are population centers of people that
don't on a daily basis think about or interact with
wild lands. Probably like a lot of people that listen

(07:10):
to this podcast and us in this room do. And
so it's like you talk to I mean, that might
be a massive population that it's just not that important.
And so it's they hear we have all these federal lands.
They cost a lot of money, They're worth a lot
of money. Countries in debt. Maybe it's a pretty easy

(07:32):
ideological process for them to go, yeah, just sell it.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
They don't live the lifestyle we live exactly. Yeah. What
was really cool to me? And like I'm not political,
politics suck whatever side, Jesus rules, Jesus wins them. But
what was cool to me is is there's so much
agendas in government, right, so everything is funded or has
to do with a dollar. So they when they did this,
like everyone on my Facebook feed, my Instagram feed is

(07:59):
sharing attacktor senators, let's win. Like I got guys posting stuff.
I've not seen a post from you since twenty sixteen. Yeah,
every Maybe it's just the group of friends I have,
but everyone coming together, like we're not doing this, Yeah, happening. Well,
it was wonderful.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, it was pretty cool. Yeah it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
BHA put out some numbers. It was like, I can't
remember one hundred and thirty three thousand calls to senators in.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Just a few days.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
You know, it's pretty pretty There's everybody showed up, and
I think that's what helped protect the lamb.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, the main reason that we need public lands, and
I think all Americans agree, is for squirrel hunting. And
that's why Tyler.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
Asbury is here, always circles except.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
For like I have to dodge bow hunters and then
have to dodge duck hunters, and then I have to
dodge trappers. Like I came out of the woods. I
came out of the woods last year on a road
I like to hunt quite a bit in rainy break
Rainny Brakes a w my I named my son after it.
And there's this old dude on a four wheeler just
like Catt and By and he's got to be eighty five.
And I was like, hey, man, he's like, you got
squirrel dogs. I was like yeah, he's like, I've got

(09:00):
like nineteen number two dukes on that water to catch
coons with. You might not want to turn loose here.
I'm like, oh, so now I got to dodge trappers
as well, you know so, but yeah, public lands.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Challenges of public lands. Yeah, yeah, Well Tyler, you live
in east central Arkansas, yep, yep. And how long you
been squirrel hunting?

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Oh? Man, fifteen years or so. I started coon hunting
and the wife was like this coming in at four
am is not going to work. So and I love
to coon hunt, but I'm also not a night oul.
So yeah, fifteen sixteen years squirrel dogging. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Now, so I wanted to have you on just to
set the record straight about We're going to talk about
many things, but talk to me at first about what
you said earlier about how squirrel hunting with dogs is
kind of blown up.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
It really has, and I think it's because of things
like this, social media and just people like I grew
up in every one deer hunted, Like, let's get a
corn pile out in a thirty thirty and let's kill
that pasca RAC six and we're getting it, you know,
and like anymore, like there's like there's that's what it is, Josh,
that's what it is. In my country, there's there's more

(10:18):
and more people, uh, you know, trying new things. But
like I cannot fathom sitting in a deer stand and
just swilling my thumbs like hoping a deer walks by.
I think I deer hunt differently than most people. Maybe
I wasn't talked to deer hunt right, but anyway, Yeah,
it's it's huge and uh like.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
That's why all deer hunters do is just twiddling their thumbs.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, I've offended someone and I apologize to whoever. But yeah, no,
it's it's really blown up. And uh, I think people
trying new things, you know, but really social media has
done wonders for the sport. And you've got guys that
you know, can't afford to go buy like a finished
trained dog, you know, Like I saw a gyp in

(10:55):
twenty two to a man in Georgia and he never
met him. He's like, hey, senor Facebook post, want to
buy your dog? Cool? You know, and and yeah, social
media's blew it up huge. And then there's you see
that as a positive thing. I am a father of
four in the toughest economy I've seen, Like, I'm gonna
sell a dog yearly, Like I've got to so so
I try to raise two a year, maybe keep one,

(11:17):
maybe sell one. That's what I do. Uh. And you
know there's there's there's people out there that don't enjoy
raising dogs and they need to buy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Now, hey, I tend to offend people, like offend the
cultural norms. When I'm around cattle farmers. Usually the first
thing I ask is like, how many cows you got?

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, like, I know the rules? What are you worth?

Speaker 4 (11:38):
Brother?

Speaker 1 (11:38):
I know the rules. I'm not worried about. I'm not
doing the math. Economics is not what I'm interested in.
I'm interested in just like, what's your workload? How much
land do you have? How much how many how many
cows per acre are you putting on this place? You know?
Just tell me about your life, Like, I'm not really
trying to get in this pocketbook, So I'm not trying
to get into your pocketbook here. What's a good finished

(12:01):
squirrel dog worth? A good year? And a half old
finished squirrel.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Dogs to a man wanting to kill squirrels or a
man wanting to go to competition. You tell me, so
you can go. There's several different like organizations. You can
go to a us d C. It stands for Ultimate
Squirrel Dog Club Competition Hunt, and you can spend out
a tattoo on chest. Yeah, yeah, I got what as well?

Speaker 1 (12:25):
But oh, you actually have a squirrel dog test.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
I've got a squirrell sorry, but anyway, Yeah, you can
go spend two thousand dollars on an entry fee and
win a new pickup squirrel hunting squirreling squirrel. I have seen,
I quit, I have seen thirty thousand dollars exchange holy
for a good squirrel dog that sorry young one, five
six year old, healthy, clean, bill of health, in the

(12:49):
prime of his life. And then I've seen a good
a good pleasure dog like if I call you like Clay,
I've got an eighteen month old dog. That's that's rocking.
He's as good as she's ever gonna be. I want
three grand four. That's that's pretty close right now, depends
on the party, like the customer. I guess, yeah, so, uh,

(13:09):
thirty grand. I've seen Coondog self for double that.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Dude, It's now explain to me how did these groups?
I've never understood these truck hunts. Where's this money coming from?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
The entries? The entries?

Speaker 1 (13:24):
So like, tell me give me now, I'm into the
pocket book. Yeah yeah, squirrel dog hunt? How does this work?

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Like?

Speaker 1 (13:30):
I come and it's a two thousand dollars entry and
there's one hundred guys. So they're gathering up two hundred
thousand dollars and they go buy a pickup and somebody
walks away with one fifty. Welcome to the Bear Grease
Squirrel Classic. We're hiring Tyler Asbrey to run it. We're
gonna pay him thirty grand. We're gonna buy a forty
five thousand dollars pickup, and me and Josh are keeping

(13:51):
one hundred and sixty's.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
What's comical is is what you just said is happening
in the coondog world right now, and I'm clapping for them, guys.
I am. I wake up and go to bed thinking
about squirrel dogs, and these guys do too. I don't
have any interest to drive to Mount or Ohio for
a competition hunt at all. I would rather go squirrel
hunt alone with my dog and make a good dog

(14:13):
and then sell it. I can't. I can't run the
roads like that. I can't afford those entry fees. Some
people can, that's great, but I can't. But uh yeah,
and you know the more like so like right now
they're selling entries. Uh. The president of the us DC,
his name is Jeff Island. He's from Alabama, a good
friend of mine. He every Thursday he's like, Okay, here's
this hunt in Jamestown, Tennessee. We're gonna sell thirty six

(14:36):
entries for sale right now. Go Wow, how much I
want entry? I want one? I want want five hundred thousand,
whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
What have they given away on those hunts?

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Money? Sometimes money? I used to I used to hold
a lot of squirrel dog hunts before the kids got
old enough to really really go and do uh four
wheelers side besides whatever you want to play for, you know.
But and then there's other score dog registrations where it's
not so much, but like one hundred dollars entry fee.
Like there's a company called NSD, which is my favorite.

(15:05):
Jimmy Mmon owns it. He's out of Tennessee as well,
and they have state races, so you can go do
like a thirty dollars hunt on Saturdays and keep up
with like say, say Josh wins it, he gets one
hundred points. Well the end of the year, he gets
a check and a jacket and he won the state race.
You know. So it's, uh, it's whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Really is there Are there multiple organizations? Yeah? Are there?
Just are theyre just like people that.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Just have hunts, there are And that is very like
what do you want to do? Like do you want
so so you wanted to talk about fists and like
there's like sixty four fist organizations based on is that?

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Are you hyperbolically saying sixty four? Are there literally sixty four? No,
there's like five or six hyperbolic Yeah, I know that
exaggeration to prove a point. Right with that in your bank.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
I can't wait to call my wife and use that
word on the way home.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
But yeah, rebelically.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Hyberbolically, She'll be like, what where did you learn that? Uh?
What were we talking about?

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Okay, a number of fist organizations?

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah they're five, Yeah, there are five, And basically like
it's political it's so political. So it's basically like this
group of guys doesn't want to hunt against this group
of guys. So like we're going to make our own organization.
You're not in, You're in. It's what it is.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Okay, I want to come back to FIST, but I
want to stay on the squirrel dog competition competition. I've
never now, I've I have, I've competition coon coon hunted.
I won't say a lot, but enough to be quite
familiar with ye and uh, I've never been to a
competition squirrel hunt. Yeah, but I now, man Tyler, I

(16:44):
knew this was going to be good. I now have
a new dream.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
I have to.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
I have too. I added a new dream and I'm
gonna expose it. Formerly I was interested in being a
commercial fisherman and a high end mule trade. That was
like a drink. I've dropped. I'm dropping commercial fishing just
over it. And but I have attained high end mule trader.

(17:10):
You want to you want to find like the top
dollar mule, I'm your man. Uh, actually put mule trader
in my bio on Instagram. Yeah, okay, Now I want
to have a bear Grease squirrel Classic okay, we where
we give away a thousand acre track of land and uh,

(17:32):
and I also want to hold a a high end
uh mule sale like chrumb in the canyon or like
Bishop Gildays that kind of.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
You doing that at the same location at the same time.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
It had to be different times. But I would just
be the guy this like, hey, if you need squirrel
dogs or mules, he's not only the man, but he's
got the infrastructure around him. So yeah, anyway, guys, uh
type yeah, no, So there's all these all these hunts.
How okay, So there's a different describe to me the

(18:07):
difference between a pleasure dog and a competition dog, so
that those are phrases that people in the dog world
would be really understand. I think somebody that's never squirrel
hunted would not understand.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
There is no difference in a dog's talent in the
two pleasure versus competition. It's just a difference in the handling.
So like, if you go squirrel hunting, you may want
your dog to timber with the squirrel as it leaves
and stay with it so you can find it to
shoot it. I don't want my dog to timber because
in a competition hunt, you're gonna get minused if your
dog leaves that tree. I've not seen I've seen three

(18:42):
dogs my whole life that could timber a squirrel. Well,
most dogs are gonna timber it for twenty thirty yards
and then lose it and their instincts to put that
nose on the ground and then they look like a
fool they've lost it.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Like if timberand means dog's tree, the squirrel in the tree. Yeah,
and then the squirrel leaves, Yeah, goes from tree to tree.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah. The way I am bringing up pups right now,
I do not want them timbering. I don't want them
to leave that tree until I physically pull them off
of it. Okay, Yeah, there's very very little difference. I
have seen some pleasure dogs that will never see a
competition hunt that I think a lot of always will.
Tim's mother, Cally, never put her in a hunt to
this day. The best pure squirrel traer I've owned, the

(19:21):
only one I've ever buried. And then I've seen some
competition dogs that were like, where I live, I hunt
along a lot of rice fields being filled, So I'm
gonna send him like down that levee. So he may
be six hundred yards before he ever cuts in the
woods and smells the squirrel. We don't want to do that.
If for cooln squirrels, I don't want to walk that far.
You dang sure don't in this country. I definitely understand

(19:41):
why you hun off mules. Now, I am not a
mountain guy. I'm not built for that. So yeah, it's
just a little bit of handling, that's all it is.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
So the idea with the competition dog is that he
needs to go tree a squirrel and stay on the
tree till you get there. Because that's when you think
about if I were just describing the competition as someone
had no understanding, like a competition gives value to the
things that's difficult for a dog to do. And what's
difficult for a dog to do. Even though we're breeding

(20:11):
tree dogs, is that not every dog that's bred to
be a tree dog is going to be a tree dog.
Tree dog meaning when an animal runs up a tree,
they stand under the tree embark Like if you think
about it biologically, that is clearly a man induced trait
because a wolf, if an animal runs up a tree,

(20:32):
a wolf is gonna walk away and go find something
else to catch on the ground because he's never going
to climb that tree. So I mean, you know, like
deep Historically, like people were breeding dogs that stayed at
the tree embarked, and so anyway, that's a limiting factor.
So a competition gives ultimate value to a dog that
stays tree.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, yeah, basically.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
And so a competition dog needs to be quick and fast.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
He needs to be trea very fast. Here's the deal,
and this is gonna really hit home with you. If
you are treed nine hundred yards do what direction is that?
That is that west? If you're treed nine hundred yards
west here, you might not hear that dog right in
the flat lens, you might hear him. So a dog
that's a competition dog needs a big mouth. Okay, So
I e they are breeding a lot of hound into

(21:21):
these competitions for that mouth. Okay. Like my cur that
I raised last year, I called her sassy. I sold her.
She had a really sharp, high pitched mouth. I could
hear her. Will I have had dogs with a course
like dog sounds like it's been smoking menthos for twenty years.
I can't hear that, will, I can't hear this well
on the right ear. But yeah, so it needs to
have a huge mouth, a lot of foot speed. I

(21:42):
know guys that are breeding English pointer into these squirrel
dogs for speed. Yeah, and lockdown tree true power. I
mean that's it sounds so simple, go tree a squirrel fast,
stay there, But you have to factor in so many
things weather, location, population of squirrels, you know. I mean,
it's it's always different and that's.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Why I love it. And getting treed fast, you know
that sounds kind of silly. It's like, well, yeah, you're
gonna turn loose a dog and it's gonna go tree
man that goes back to hunt drive that's in a dog.
I mean, getting treed fast is basically just there's a
lot of If you turn loose ten dogs, they're all
gonna have a little bit different style in the way

(22:24):
they hunt. I mean some dogs are just gonna disappear
into the woods. Some dogs are gonna, you know, every variation,
they're gonna stay close to you for a little while
and then go hunting or whatever. In a competition dog,
no matter what he does, go, he's got to go.
And then there's also dogs that are just instinctively well
let me ask you, do you think that there's like

(22:46):
these really good ones, like they kind of understand squirrels
and understand where they're gonna be. Like you and I
would like if you were in a rice field looking
at a wooded wood edge and I don't know, the
timber was real thick right there and viney in your mind,
you're thinking, I bet there's a scroll right there.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Do you think the dogs are keyed in that much?

Speaker 2 (23:06):
They have to be and that I actually just talked
about that with my buddy Lane Parks in Tennessee. Like
I've seen good competition dogs that just didn't know. All right,
I got to get out of this water. I gotta
get down like where I live. Game is on field edges.
That's where game is. I've got to get out of
this and go find the right woods. And what you
just said, that is a trait that cannot be They

(23:28):
either have it teach it, you do not teach it.
And that's what's so amazing me is that is pure skill.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Like that dog just knows intelligence.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
And here's here's another thing, Like you've got these fights
running around that are ten times more intelligent than a
walker hound. They're way smarter.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Hey say that again for Brent.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
I am a Walkerman to the core and always will be.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
But it's facts and then plots there a lot smarter
than walkers. But keep going.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Round you. You're gonna have to get used to this.
My job to derail Mike. You did good.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
You've taught me a new word and we've derailed me twice.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
So sorry. So okay, dogs like, yeah, he's an intelligence
for the game. Yeah, fi smarter than a hound.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, it's facts. Uh yeah. So so No One Where
to be is huge? Now, I really am huge on
a winding nose. So like I took, I raised a
gip I called a whip. She's always gonna be my
one that got away. I sold her needed the cash.
She was just amazing. She's in the Hall of Fame
now in Nst. My buddy Lane owns her. She was

(24:35):
the kind of dog that would win no matter where
you were. So in twenty two, maybe twenty three, I
go to Mount orrab Ohio. It's a huge frost on
the ground. It's October. It's not frosted here yet. She's
seventeen months old. I've put her in three hunts and
won all three of them. So this is the fourth
hunt I took her to, so the mid round or

(24:55):
the early round, Like, I get my head beating. She's
never hunted on a frost in her life, She's never
seen and I get to think about them, like this
was so stupid. This is on me. I get to
buy back in the next round. Those squirrels up there
are laid out sonning, like they are on limbs, just chilling.
That doesn't happen here. That doesn't happen here. So she's

(25:16):
just winding squirrels just picking on my popcorn here in
the middle of the day. They're not laid out sonning.
They've been down, got what they need to, and they're
back in a hole. So location is pretty huge, you
know where you're at. And I'm really jealous of that
because those guys will like those guys will like sleep
in until six, go get breakfast at the local cafe
eight nine o'clock. They're gonna turn loose around ten, be

(25:37):
home at two. Like brother, where I'm at, you better
turn loose at daylight if you want to treat a
squirrel the right time of the year, because there's so many,
you know, I hunt around a lot of salus and
there's these duck hunters and a lot of gun pressure,
and these squirrels are wild, wild, yeah, which I've actually
with this job, I have, I've actually found a lot
more public land and we've started hunting out of boats

(25:59):
just to get away away from all the noise, away
from all the pressure, you know, And that's really where
I like takeup.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
So where is the squirrel hunting and what I mean
by that the squirrel hunting epicenter of the country, like culturally,
like where are the most squirrel dogs? Where are the
best squirrel dogs? Where are the most squirrels? Where are
there more hunters? Like where is or is there a
place or is it all kind of just spread out
through the.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
East squirrel There are squirrel hunters, like from Oklahoma north
to Indiana and then east. So like the southeast, like
go sec there's a lot of squirrel dog people there.
I talked to a man in Pennsylvania about once a month,
and he is in true mountain country there. I know
a guy in New York with squirrel dogs. I've not

(26:54):
heard of anyone like north of the border. I'm sure
there're squirrels in Alaska. In Canada, I'd love to go
up there like me myself. I've hunted, I've been in
the Mississippi Delta. I've been in the Mark Twain in
Missouri land between the Lakes and Kentucky's a good time.
Upper Peninsula of Michigan's a good time. Arkansas has game

(27:14):
and that's kind of where I hang out. There's no
really no reason for me to leave Arkansas.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
What about numbers of squirrel hunters? Where do you like
the people you interact with?

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Like where I have more friends out of state that
I talked too daily than I do at home, because
you know, like minded things. I'm gonna say, like the
leader in number of squirrel hunters will probably be Mississippi.
Really yeah, and I'm a huge Mississippi fan.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, there's a lot a lot of the you know
the guy that got me into squirrel hunters for Mississippi cool, Yeah,
Trey Autry, gotcha.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
The Mississippi Delta is a good time for sure. And
a lot of that depends on the water situation. Is
it flooded, is it not flooded? You know when did
the like at home? Right now? The water's going down
finally on our ref you just like a little rain's
not hurting right now, and I know what's coming. It's
about to get dusty dry. But like, if they're not
pumping things off down there, you know they may don't
have a great year. So if Timber stays flooded, it's

(28:06):
not gonna produce that well.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Okay, tell me about your hunting schedule throughout the year,
Like when do you start hunting?

Speaker 2 (28:13):
So so, like I sold my jip Sassy right after Christmas,
and I bred her her first heat, and I had
a litter of seven six or tran squirrels. I kept one.
I call her up. She was born in August, so
she's ten months old right now. She is a deep
and lonely dog. Like today she's six seven hundred to
find a squirrel. A lot of that's hyperness. I'm not

(28:35):
trying to go that far right now. I also have
a four month ooughd pup named Nova that's about a
fifty yard dog like hanging around me. I'm just not
doing much right now. Like it rained Wednesday and the
wife was like, oh man, it cooled down. The thermometer
says eighty one degrees, and like I wasn't even done
making my peep and Jai I was like be back,
gotta go, and I went and turn my pupplace, you know,
but I'm going to get fired up about mid September.

(28:58):
It's still dry, it's still hot, and I'm gonna make
a tree or two. Let's end on a good note.
And I'm not really doing a whole lot till mid
October and then it's go time. After January. Squirrels get
pretty hard to tree. I'm sure it's the same way here.
They're done enough predators, Squirrels get pretty hard to tree.
And then to build on that. Like, my oldest two

(29:18):
kids are sports players, so that we're busy spring softball.
Jason's a basketball player. I don't have time to hunt February,
so pretty much September January is my window September through January. Okay,
I'll do a little bit in the spring, like I
love to go to the Mark Twain Light May and
hunt opening weekend. Such such a good time short Timber
which I don't get to hunt ever. Yeah, yeah, so

(29:39):
that's that's a pretty good time up there.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Okay. So layout for people that have never even done
it and don't have any familiarity with the types of
squirrel dogs. So we use that phrase squirrel dog, squirrel dog. Yeah,
what dogs would fit into that category that squirrel dog.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
You have fasts, you have mountain curves, you have treeing
curves or treeing fasts. And what that means is if
you take a curve or a fist and you add
another breed to it. That's when we introduce the word dream.
And then there's people squirrel hunting, walkers, black and tans,
red ticks, plots, any kind of hound. There's also a

(30:23):
breed dog called a leaka. And maybe I'm saying that right. Uh,
these these dogs don't bark much treed. They look like
sled dogs. And the guys that squirrel hunt them kill
a pile of squirrels with them. I've never been with one,
and I am very open minded and I like to
try new things, but I cannot get behind squirrel hunting
a long haired dog. Yeah, it's the only ick I

(30:45):
have in life. I think, Uh that in red waspers,
but it's just yeah, So that's the categories. Okay, and
then you have bloodlines in each in each category, you.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Know, Okay, so let's talk about Okay, let's go ahead,
and let's sorry it there.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Let's roll our sleeves up.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Okay, everybody thinks that a breed of dog is like
just like a UKC like yeah, blue tick or yeah,
you know poodle or labrador, UKC bread you breed. It's
you know, a full bread lab to a full bread
lab and you get a full bread lab litter. Yeah,

(31:24):
describe to me what a feist is.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
In my opinion, a feist is a dog that trees
or chases game under thirty pounds, under eighteen inches. That
is a feist. That is a that is a squirrel
dog feast.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Now, so it is not that's what. That just explains
why I've got a feist out here that has white
legs and yeah a little bit of brindle, and then
I've got some that are almost black. Yeah, like they
look different.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah they do. In my So, if you've got so luck,
you've got Osage out there, and she's a fast, her
mother is half cur but Osage is so small that
she measures for a fast. So if you aid her,
if you artificially inseminated her to a walker hound, a
sixty pound walker hound, and those pups were half fast,

(32:18):
half walker and they're under thirty pounds, that is a fist.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
There's still a fist.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
A fast is a fast.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
So a fist is not really a breeded dog. It's
a category of dog.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yes, Siry, you nailed it correct.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Okay, that's the clear. Yeah, I wanted to say that
because there's also a lot of different kinds of fist, right,
what are the different kinds?

Speaker 2 (32:42):
So people call treeing fists and mountain fasts this or
that because they have an agenda. A mountain fist group
once a small, prickier dog that these guys know. There's
no hounderbird dog in this. So we're gonna call these
mountain fosts. We want these to be mountain fois. Tree
and fist guys can't come. The fast is a feist,

(33:03):
no matter what's in it.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Okay. So there's a mountain feast, which a mountain feist
might look almost like a.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Like a terrier top top situation.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
A lot of times lighter colored even solid colored dog
under eighteen inches under thirty pounds might have a saddle
back with like be red, or might be light colored
lemon drop color, even.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Jet black possibly really yeah uh huh, or white and
ticked up maybe, But.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
That mountain feast is clearly not going to have any
hound in it, Yes, sir, is that and that would
have been people that we're trying to kind of make
a breed of dog, right.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Correct, So my friend Todd cos and baseball has a
lot to do with almost everything to do with what
your dogs are. Todd calls his dog's feists. That's what
they are. They are brindle, and they are most of
them are under twenty pounds. His in my opinion, his
best dog is a dog he calls moon Pie one

(34:02):
of the best I've seen ghosts. She weighs like fourteen pounds.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
That is tiny.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Like we've come up to water and I like, I
look back and Todd's got her like a football, like
walking across water so you don't have to swim and
then just drop her back down. But yeah, so his
bloodline of fists are called booster bread feists, and he
has not brought in outside influence of any other dog.
He has linebread his fists, that's what it is. Everything

(34:27):
has the same relatives. But he has not dipped out
of other stuff. You see him saying he's not grin,
got any cur or, got any hound or bird dog
and added in.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
That Now, okay, so with those dogs, tell me the
pros and cons.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Of a little big dog like that heavily opinionated. Like
you've seen the meme where the guy is standing up
and they've got like swords at his throat.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, Like that's how I feel you can put yourself
in danger, yes as.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, like I hope no one does a break
through my window.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, uh, try to blur out his face, turn down
the and be like we're bringing in an expert and
tell us what he really thinks about small feists.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
A small fist is gonna hunt close, He's gonna he's
gonna be within two three hundred yards most of the time.
A small fist isn't going to tree very hard. And
when I say tree very hard, I refer to that
as bark's per minute. That dog might bark thirty to
forty times per minute to where a cur or a
tree in curve, or a hound is gonna give you
like one twenty a minute. Me personally, like when I

(35:28):
get treated, I want you to know where I'm at,
and you to know where I'm at, And Donald Trump,
you know, I want everyone to know Tyler's right there,
Like I don't want to walk in there guessing, like
wonder where my dog's at. The garment says he's treated,
but I don't hear it. That's my preference. Fists are smart, Okay.
So I have seen I have been with people who

(35:49):
hunt fists and maybe we like, hey, man, meet me,
meet me at the gas station at six, we're gonna
go hunting. And we get there, and you know what
a December morning can do. The temperature falls, the wind
picks up, and games something moving. And I have seen
dogs that will go try for twenty minutes and they're like, Okay,
squirrels aren't moving. Dad, I'm gonna hang out with you,
and people will tell you like, hey, they're not moving,

(36:10):
so we're gonna go to the truck. We're gonna go home.
That's okay. I don't want that. I want to I
get more satisfaction off of knowing what my dog can
do when things are tough, you know what I'm saying.
So that that is the to me, that is the
biggest con of a feist. If squirrels are moving and
you and I are, man, we've had a great week

(36:31):
at work and we want to go kill some squirrels.
We're gonna make some dumplings for the you know, the holidays.
You can't beat them. You cannot beat them. And a
good fist is gonna be treated. There's not anything you said.
It's a con you're saying. What are you saying about
that bad that bad morning? A fist is not gonna
treat this, Yes, sir, they're going to quit. Okay, the

(36:54):
you know.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Get out, I got fist in mind, have never done.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
That in ninety percent of them are are going to
and that's all right, Like, okay, it's not working out.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
So what would the pros be?

Speaker 2 (37:08):
So why would a pro of a fist obviously other
than the brains is they are so gamy that they
are going to tree squirrels with more senses than a
hound or a curt use, ears, nose, ies everything. So
like you go on a windy day and leaves are shaken,
like that fis is watching. You know, they are really

(37:30):
tuned in with that branch is shaken up there. You
just holistically cannot beat a fist for killing squirrels. Like
if you come over in December, and I hope you do,
to my area and we go squirrel hunting the bottoms,
I'm leaving my stuff at home because if we're going
to kill squirrels. I've got squirrel dogs, yeah, but we're
not gonna tree near the amount like the refuge that

(37:54):
I hunt the most. I call it Rainy Break. I
named my first or my second son after that. I
love it that much. I'll go meet Todd cos in
the morning, like we're there. He like, I'm going over here.
I'm like, cool, I'm going over here this month. He's
gonna come back with twenty five. I may not even
carry a gun. If I do, I'm gonna come back
with ten. So what it is.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
And he's got fist and you don't, and you and
I know that I don't understand.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
I know that sounds wild. I want a bigger dog
with more tree power and more endurance and.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
That because you're more competition oriented than yeah, pleasure hunting.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, at this point in life, I am. I love
to kill a squirrel.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
So so I fis my tree a squirrel and the
timber out, and he's gonna stay on it, and you're
gonna kill that squirrel.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
You want a dog that's just gonna go in and
be for sure certain, treat one and stay there.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
My best friend in the world, Jamie Bullinger. He's in London, Kentucky.
He told me one time, like, quit squirrel hunting with
a shotgun. Like, dude, I've got to No, you don't,
he said, walk in with the twenty two and shoot
that squirrel. It's gonna fall right on that dog's head.
That's gonna keep that dog tight. If we walk up
to a tree like over here, and the squirrels timbering

(39:03):
forty yards this way and we're shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting
over here, distractions, it's nuts. It's great for killing squirrels,
it's not for the game I'm playing currently.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
I got what I'm saying. So yeah, so it's a cop.
It's a competition.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, and I, like I said earlier, I've not been
at a complint in nearly three years.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
But it's the time style. That's the style of dog.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
On one right now. Yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Does that make sense to you, Joe?

Speaker 4 (39:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, I'm contra contradicting myself big time. And I know
that when I say.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, no, I I it makes sense what you're saying.
I just I your original description of fist. I wasn't
sure if and I realized not everybody wants a yeah,
dog that hunts close. But yeah, I tell you what
around here, boy, I don't know how anybody want one
to go over two yards.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
As I was driving yesterday, I was like, I definitely
know why he hunts off mules, and I know why
he's loving these fists because if I had the squirrel
hunt here, I would be at your door ever more
like Clay can I borrel mule because this is I'm
not from hill country, so yeah, yeah, And there's guys
in the bottoms where I live at hunt fist and
like I said, I love them.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
But but I they're in a competition. They're not gonna
be able to compete with.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
The There are like on any given weekend, there are
forty to fifty competition hunts going on in the world
in America throughout different states.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Forty one now with the bear grease now that the.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Bear Grease Classics coming up. So like on any given Saturday,
there's probably two to three hundred dogs entered in a
competition hunting. Three of them are going to be fists.
Really maybe maybe if it's an open hunt. So let
me build on that. An open hunt is where bring
what you want, let's go. I don't care how your
dog's papers, like their how it's spread. Yeah, it's fine. Whatever,

(40:47):
chihuahua whatever, let's go put in the chihuahua be a
faight correct, Yeah, squirrels. Yeah, and then and then like
if like I have mountain curs right now, that's that's
kind of what I'm doing. I'm kind and join that
there are cur only hunts, that are feist only hunts. Yeah,
I went to hunt against everything. So yeah, there's a

(41:08):
boy in b b Arkansas, great friend of mine, Garrett Key,
and he's got a fist that is half walker, half feist,
and she is about twenty five twenty six pounds. She
is the only one I've ever seen that will go
on my off to tread squirrel. She'll be on the
tree like a hound. And she's ever breath treed. She is.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
She's still got some of the positive traits of a fist,
like ye's and eyes and ears.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Like we we have went before, like we got we
got this. Like I don't own a boat. I'm broke,
so we got my canoe and we get on this island.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
How can a good squirrel dog man be broked?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
It's anyway, you should see my kids eat but uh no.
We get in my canoe and we get on this
island and she is literally every forty yards boom boom boom,
Like I've not even been down to pick this one
up and rack another one in my chamber and she's
treated again, and it's it's just crazy. But she is
one out of two hundred that I've seen like that, really,

(42:03):
And I told Garrett, like, enjoy this. He's like me
and like you. He likes to deal with a young
dog like you know, And I told him, I enjoy
this because you might not see it again.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
You know, it's too hard to replicate and breeding.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
It's it's a wow factor that you hope for when
you're breeding, but you can't do it every time. Like
I seen a video and this is kind of going
off on left field. I've seen a video and these
guys have got these setters and this dude like throws
a wing out there and there's like eight pups that
like walk up instinctively, and I'm pretty sure they're still

(42:37):
nursing a squirrel dog. The breed holistically today is better
than it was fifteen years ago. There are more like
back in the day, you get a litter of six, Like,
two of them's probably gonna be pretty good dogs. Another
one might treat the other ones, don't. Squirrel dogs today
are better, but they are behind bird dogs. I think
a squirrel dog has the worst job of any hunting

(43:00):
dog because like you sit in a deer sin and
watch a squirrel like do they're everywhere? How it pegs
it like it is in this tree. I'm directly it
is insane to me. Yeah, it's it's I'm so fascinated
by it. Maybe I'm small minded, but I just like,
how did you know to find this?

Speaker 1 (43:16):
One of the great mysteries of the world.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, and uh so that's just I mean,
how a squirrel dog knows to do to do that
is just.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
It really is pretty fascinating. I agree with you, just
having hunting with dogs for a lot of different kinds
of game, from bear to deer, coons to hogs. A
squirrel dog. My dad was over here the other day
and he was looking at O sage and he said, boy,
she's got a real good nose. I bet doesn't she.

(43:45):
And I said, well, for a squirrel dog, she does,
But she didn't have a nose compared to a hound,
And he was like, what do you mean? And I said,
imagine having a hound that could smell where a squirrel
was six hours ago and trying and what that squirrel
the tracks that squirrel made six hours ago from until
now no telling where it's at. Yeah, you want that

(44:07):
squirrel dog to have the right mix of hot track
cold track. Well, I mean not even barking unless yeah,
the thing was probably on the ground, I don't know,
ten minutes ago. Yeah, am I right? What do you think? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (44:19):
No, you you've nailed it. You want a squirrel dog
to have the mix of I know they're moving, I'm
gonna go find a hot one versus they're not moving.
I need to gamble on this scent that is three
hours old, and the mixture of that is a fine
line based on the day. So say you and.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
I've never thought about it. Oh yeah, there that they're Yeah,
that a dog is actually calibrating, like, boy, there's not
many out today. I guess I better tree. I guess
I know there's one was one here two and a
half hours ago. Versus he goes out and he's just
like slam dunk and hot ones.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, that's that's so in anyone that tells you like, hey,
I know when squirrels are moving is a lining because
I have laid away bed at night and thought, why
we're squirrels moving at two pm today but they weren't
at six am, Like I don't understand it, and they
they so yeah, so like a dog, So that's where
you get into Like, so, say we go to a
competition hunt man, and it's just raining. It's raining, and

(45:15):
it's fifteen degrees, Like a hound is still gonna get
treated a fast is not. We're not gonna look at
anything when we get there unless we get lucky and
beat it out of a snag. But it's what game
do you want to play? You know? So but yeah,
you're right. I mean they've got to figure out what
kind of track do I need to work for today?

Speaker 1 (45:32):
And okay, that describes it so well.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
And to build on that, like here's the scenario, say
us three or in a competition hunt we've got a
sixty minute cast. If you have a dog that knows
and I have a dog that's younger and like, I
don't know if I need to try to gamble today
or go find a hot one and he makes two
trees he's beat me. Time's wasted, he's already done it,
and mine's not smart enough to know, like, here's what
I gotta do today. So I mean having one that

(45:56):
can differentiate that is so big and uh, that's that's
what drives me, you know.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Okay, that's what drives me. The original question, I was
asking you to describe the breeds, and we described the Feist.
Yeah okay, and and uh okay, my bad. What no, no, no, no,
what you just you described before we started that the

(46:27):
Feist world is kind of like the mafia. Uh can
you can you describe that to me before we get
onto the other breeds. So that's the direction.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Word the fast. The fast guys are like, ah, man,
I don word this, so just tell it like it is.
I'm just I'm just going to There are different blood
lines of Fast. There are Mullen's Fast, Booster Bread Fast,
Champ Fast, Williams Fast, Barger Fist, mc Andrew Fast. I'm

(46:55):
sure that I've missed a real prominent one. Some of
those guys are line eating their dogs. They Todd Cosey's
fis derived from Streak. Streak is the most famous mountain
curve producer ever. He was a cur. Todd has line
bread these dogs, and when you line breed, you're going
to lose size. It's the same with any animal. I'm

(47:17):
really I don't know genetics, but that's what I'm told.
So Todd has stayed straight on that. Then there are
guys like the champbread dogs. Champ himself was half bird dog.
He came from Almah, Arkansas. Bill Douglas, James Quick, those
are two guys that really pioneered the Champ.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Line one hundred with Bill Douglas one time, did.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
You really I did the best dog man I've ever seen? Yeah,
born none. I could get on that story too. But
so those guys might have added something different. They don't
like to intertwine based on the talent of their dogs,
so they bring up these different associations of fists to

(47:58):
fit what their talent is. You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
And yeah, so they so they get they get real,
they get real territorial.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Yeah very yeah got that. Yeah, it's it's we're fighting
over a food boat. Yeah, I've got better. Well, I've
got better. Well, we use these rules, we use these rules.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Now, I'm kind of a I'm kind of a booster
fiest man.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Same to my core. I don't hunt with Todd as
much as I used to.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
I think I could call him today and be like, Todd,
I've got a pup, I really need some help. I
need to kill his dogs and squirrels, and he would
drop what he was doing and come help me. He
does not have what I am truly after, but I
have a lot of respect and love for his dogs.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah. I mean, she's just got a style of dog.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
He has a He's pioneered it. He has stayed on
the course and he has replicated four years. He knows
exactly what buttons to push with each dog because they're
all the same. You see what I'm saying. That's that's
what's amazing about what Todd's done.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah that is cool.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah, Okay, his cheeks will be red when he's hearing
this because I've not spoken that nicely to him in
a decade. So that was your one freebie. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Well I've told a lot of people about Todd Coles
because a lot of people ask me about dogs, and
I've just been like eight contact ca Todd Coles.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah. I try to get with him like once a year.
It didn't it didn't happen last year. I was we
had too much going on. And he has this this
thing he calls booster Fest, which like he gets in
this certain location at this time of year and all
the guys with a booster dog pull up and like
over here, like a dude's on a black stone, like
cooking up some breakfasts and over here. Yeah, oh it's

(49:33):
a party. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
And then like it's kind of like the Burger's Classic.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
It's kind of like the Burgerge classic. Yeah yeah, no, no, mean.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Different.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
They don't have T shirts yet and you guys do,
so of course we do that. Yeah, enter promo code
one hundred pending, but that's my catchphrase. Yeah. And then
they're just gonna disperse and there may be like six
six seven groups of guys hunting together and then come
back and like there's two hundred squirrels that they've got cleaned.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
Okay for the non squirrel dog hunter.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
Yeah, you know, I'm sure there's lots of people listening
who don't have a frame of reference to put it in. Sure,
when you're going out squirrel hunting, how many dogs are
you normally taking?

Speaker 2 (50:15):
One? Just one? That's what I like to do If
us three go hunting and you've got a old spot,
now I've got old brownie, why do we want to
take opportunity away from each other? You see what I'm saying.
Let's all be together at the tree. Because your dog's
gonna go over here and tree, and I'm gonna be
over here in tree. We're not gonna see each other
all morning. So why are we hunting two dogs? That's
what I like to do. I want to go to

(50:36):
the tree and talk with you guys. Every tree I
walk to is like the first one I walked. What's
this tree look like? Is there a vine? Is it
got a hole in it? Is it got a nest?
What's it look like? How many squirrels are in that tree?
Because I don't know about here, but when squirrels are
running in my country, you might shake the vine in
like four go like in one tree. Right.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
I want to be there making those memories with you guys.
So I just yeah, I hunt one at the time.
Some guys will hunt too, know and we My friend
Travis Tate, when I was younger, he called me a soldier.
So a soldier in our lingo is someone that doesn't
have a dog, and it's gonna shake vines for Travis
so he can shoot it. So you're like a footman,
you know. So it depends on how many soldiers you

(51:16):
have with you, Like I love to go with one
good dog and about five guys so we can surround
that tree, take turns shooting vines. Men make fun of
each other when we miss.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
I mean, just what a time, which inevitably happens if
you're shooting a twenty, especially.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Especially shooting just the only flaw, the only flaw. With
the way that we hunt in big groups, it's like
pros and cons when we go when we scroll on
on mules with a big group, which I think two
years ago we had seventeen mules and like eight eight
dogs out at the same time. Yeah, for dog work,

(51:51):
it's not the best. You wouldn't want to.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Not promoting independence at that point.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Yeah, yeah, and it and and it's hard on all
the dogs. None of the dog do look as good
as they would on their own, some of the dogs. Yeah,
it's it's kind of chaos. Yeah, but it's you know,
it's worth it for the amount of fun that you have.
And there is enough difference in the dogs that everybody
seeing the difference. Yeah, and you know kind of maybe

(52:18):
giving a hard time about this dog or that dog,
or maybe not really when guys aren't making fun of
your dog and he's doing bad or good, you know
that you're probably getting under their skin someway.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
And that's the thing. Actually, yeah, that's just that's like
a wide glove to the face if you're talking bad
about my dog and we're out there together, like, oh quit.
You know, here's the deal, though, I've never I can
meet a complete stranger and we go squirrel hunting together
and then we're best friends. Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah,
like you care if I ramble real quick, ramble best
killing I've ever been on. We are down south. I'm

(52:53):
with my friend Travis Joe Collier, and he's like, hey,
I got some boys gonna meet us in the slip.
We're getting my boat. Travis always keeps like a eight
sixty ambush like a tank. It's a barge. So six
of us get in this boat and we go to
this island. I don't know these guys like from Adam.
We killed forty two squirrels in a little under an hour.
The Wow, best hunting I've ever been on and it

(53:14):
gets it's getting dark, So we get on the boat
and we're getting ready like to head back to the slip,
and the sky is like orange pink red, and ducks
are like heading to the roost. And I was like,
try to kill that motor. And we just sat there
and just kind of looked up and like took in
the blessings, took in like nature, like how lucky are
we right now? And every time I see one of

(53:36):
those guys, those memories fled back. I've never had a
squirrel hunt, even if we don't have a great hunt,
I've never had one where I don't make memories.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah, So that's just kind of what's I don't do
this for the dog work as much as I do
the people. Like I'm in a group. I'm in a
group text I'm in like five of them actually, but
the main one justin Hitchins is in Ohio, Lane Parks, Tennessee.
Scott Cassiopo is in Mississippi, uh and then me and
Garrett in Arkansas. And I talked to those guys daily

(54:06):
and uh men, I really care about what's going on
in their lives. You know. We keep it up with
each other's kids. Like Hitchens is in Oklahoma right now
on vacation. Lane, Lane's working. You know, we keep up
with each other, Nathan Young, and that's the just the
camaraderie is so huge to me. And I'm sure you
see that, like in your profession you get to do

(54:27):
man I and I'm clapping for you guys so hard
because you guys are doing all these different things and
that comes with meeting people, you know. So yeah, just fellowship.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
That's really cool to hear to hear you say that,
and and to say that so well, yeah, that's uh.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
I wrote that down before I got in here.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Yeah. No, yeah, no, it's you know, squirrel hunting to
the to the uh, to the to the actual fundamentals
of squirrel hunting. Why it's exciting. Like I spent most
of my life being real serious, I'm big game hunting,
which is almost entirely solo sure, I mean truly, like

(55:06):
bow hunting white tails, most bear hunts, unless you're hunting
with dogs, is going to be this like ultra solo hunt.
And I do that almost instinctually. It's like I just
have this drive that to go that I just almost
can't quit when I go squirrel hunting, I feel like

(55:26):
I'm actually going to have fun. When I started hunting
with and I didn't, I didn't get squirrel dogs until
I mean, the squirrel dogs I've got right now are
the first ones I had. I've not been doing this
my whole life. And when I when I got those dogs,
I was it touched the same places that having a

(55:49):
coon dog and what I saw in the bear dog guys,
just on a smaller, much easier, more approachable scale. Like
to go bear hunting with hounds, you gotta go on
an expedition, yeah, like you might. You gotta have a
bunch of dogs, you gotta have a good place, you
gotta have a bunch of ground. There's a lot at stake.
It's hard and like and there's some wonderful things about

(56:11):
bear hunting with hounds. Yeah, never done it. Even even
a coon hunt is you know, you gotta go at night.
It's a little wider scale. You need more land.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
A squirrel hunt has all the same positives of those things,
but it's you can squirrel hunt on.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Forty acres no pressure, anytime.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
You can.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
You can go on most public land in the country
and not feel a ton of pressure. I mean there
are places where there's a squirreling pressure for sure. My
point is it's it's accessible, and it is. I would
my mind was blown by how fun it is to
walk up to a squirrel tree and to see a
squirrel timbering out through and we're shooting them. Buddy, We're

(56:54):
chasing them and shooting them.

Speaker 4 (56:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Uh you know, well, and there's no lock. You don't
have to get new gear every year. Yeah, I mean
right where what you want? Yeah, you've nailed it. I
mean I agree with you one hundred percent. I have
like a little thing and I hope it's okay that
I say this, but I have like a headshot album
on my phone, Like I home with the twenty two
most like to get up and see a squirrel still,

(57:16):
and I've got like a good rest man. I'm like, yes, gotay.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
So I take a lot of flak from Steve Ranella
for carrying a shotgun. Uh yeah, we're with dogs, and hey,
I get it.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
I prefer Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
How often would you say that the squirrels that your
dogs are treeing are sitting still where you can shoot them?

Speaker 2 (57:37):
The twenties so like we're in the South, like it
could be mid December and the leaves aren't fully off yet.
So I mean, and here here's like a whole new thing.
Guys are using thermals. Now I don't have girls. I
don't have one. Yeah, they're using thermal monoculars to find squirrels.
I'll have one someday. But uh, where I'm at, like,
the trees are super tall, man, So I'm not gonna

(57:59):
walk in there alone and see that squirrel. I've got
to move him if I want to kill him, or
if I want to show him to a judging compent.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
You might if you might be, you might be treated
on a three foot yeah diameter at the base yeah,
one hundred and twenty foot tall yeah oak.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Yeah, and twenty foot over there there's like another one
and then another one. So those branches are I've got
to move him, so yeah, yeah, like shotguns for sure
in that in that type deal. Uh, They're they're not
gonna set still very long where I'm at, the only
time a squirrel is gonna set still where I'm at
is in the spring, and it's a young, dumb squirrel.
You see what I'm saying. They don't They just kind
of walk up. They don't know to.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
So you're carrying a twenty two though.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
I carry a twenty two because I know myself. And
if i'm alone, squirrel hunting a loone's tough. I don't
care where you are, what kind of timber you're in.
If I'm alone, I'm gonna walk up there and just
be like bam, bam bam with my shotgun to try
to move him. Yeah, I'm just wasting loads trying to
scatter that dude.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Uh and that gets expensive because I love to pull
a trigger. Yeah bad. Uh and I and I'm the
worst shot you'll ever meet. But uh it. And here's
another thing. If I find that squirrel with my twenty two,
he's dead. If he's sitting still, he's dead and he's
gonna fall straight down. And that helped keep my dog tight.
I don't want them timbering and going with them. Yeah,
so it's kind of what do you want to do?

(59:12):
You know? But no, if US three go hunt like
you guys, come on in US three, I'm carrying a shotgun.
If we're killing, I'm carrying a shotgun. Okay, Okay, there
are a lot of.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
Shooting The twelve gauge twenty gauge.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Twelve gage, no twelve gauge with like high brass sixes
or five's. And you guys heard of Rob Roberts. He's
there out of baseball. He built me a choke too. Yeah,
I should have been Nelli super ninety. And uh that's
what's worked for me because that stuff is so tall.
But uh yeah, And another thing is like a lot
of times when I'm raising a dog. I mean, a

(59:44):
young dog needs squirrels. For sure, you gotta give him
a few. But when I get them to a certain point,
I may don't even carry one. Matter of fact, most
of the time I don't. And if I've hunted Monday
one hundred, Tuesday one hundred, Wednesday, Thursday, I've got ball practice,
so I don't go Friday. I want to reward that dog,
So I'm gonna take my twenty two. I'm only kill
one or two. Like if you look at my Instagram
or you look at any of my posts, a lot

(01:00:04):
of times you'll see my dog and me in two
or three squirrels. That is sufficient, Okay, I don't want
to clean over that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Yeah, maybe maybe they treat a bunch more bigger than
shoot them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Yeah, I got you that is sufficient. Yeah, you don't
have to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
You don't have to kill them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
But now if y'all are like Tyler, I'm coming over,
let's go, let's get it. Yeah, I'm gonna have like
three boxes of real blues in my back and maybe
like some in my front pocket and look like a
scarface out there, like, yeah, I'm bringing the shotgun. Okay, yeah,
I'm sorry, I keep getting on rent.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
So the other kinds of dogs, we've only talked about fist.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
That was an hour ago when we started that. Yep, yeah,
all right, mountain curse, mountain curves, mountain curse. That's what
I'm doing right now. They are a little bit bigger
than a fist. The thirty to forty five ish pounds.
Now mountain curves. If you have an original mountain curve
bread dog with papers has been bred to another car,

(01:01:01):
it is not outside. So they are doing the same
thing with that. The some of the fist guys are
doing both with curs. Just a little bit taller dog, yeah,
a little bit, and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
That dog is almost always gonna look about the same.
It's gonna be a brindle dog.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
There are some Kimer mountain curs that are yellow and
there's some like, here's the deal, dude. All mountain curves
have some hounding them. It's just what it is. Somebody
slips some in there. It happened. So there might be
some black, there might be some white patches of white socks,
but brindle's pretty much the deal.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
They bobbing most of their tails. Yeah, yeah, mountain curves.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Very few mountain curves are born matural bobbed lots of
fire star. Because we've been line breeding this trait for.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
So long, they're just losing their tail.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Yeah, I guess, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Yeah, But culturally you're cutting the tail of a mountain fast.
Do you ever have any long tail mountain feasts.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
I have not seen a long tail mountain fist.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
It just doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
I've not Yeah, I'm sure it does. I've not seen it.
I've seen long tail tree and curse that have a
lot of hound or bird dog in them that are white.
A white tail is okay with me on a heavy
hound bred dog a mountain curve.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
I do not want to tell Funny the tail thing,
because if you gave me the best coon dog in
the country and it had a bobtail, I would be like, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Out, No, that dog's supposed to have a tail.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah yeah, if a coon dog is supposed to have
a tail, like I just I wouldn't even get excited
about walking to the tree. I mean, I'd just be like,
I mean, it's a bobtail dog. I mean, yeah, sure
we got a trick, we got a coon, but with
a squirrel dog. I can't imagine my face with long tail. No,
Like I want to see that tail doing like this. Yeah,
that little nub little up just going very con forted.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
I don't want a brindled dog to have a tail.
It's just not for me. Yeah yeah, any brindle dog,
any including the big ones with long ears.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Oh I've gotten a hound.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I don't want to plot a hand with a tail really, So,
so I'm different there just because they're they're black and brindle.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Okay, I see I see walker dog a black and tan.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
That's a okay. And I guess it's like when you
buy a pickup and you decide, like what kind of
running boards you want, or like do you want a
ten windows? It's all it's just like this is what
I want. Like, I don't like call opinions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
I'm getting a plot this mont Yeah, and it's it
will have a long tail. Okay, well it's not brindle though,
it's pretty dark. Yes, I mean it's got brandle in.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
That's okay to be Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
It's gonna appear almost black.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
As Roy Clark said, the correct color for a plot
is when you're about thirty feet away, you think it's black.
Right when you walk up to it, you realize it's
actually got some.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Brindle, And I like what that is. I call that
a black brindle. Yeah, that's what I call it. Yeah,
and I love that color. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Okay, so mountain curs that's what you're hunting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
I'm hunting.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Are you hunting original mountain curves? Like registered original mountain curse?

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
I have two right now. Like I said, up was
off of Sassy. She is a thundersport bread mountain curve. Okay,
So mister Allen Franklin in Ohio has been breeding these
dogs up in bottom. Her pedigrees are a lot close
to the same. And then I have a dog I
called Nova, who could be the most natural I've ever had.

(01:04:11):
Like that's a big statement for me. Like maybe a
man in Louisiana called me Doucy do coding. He's okay,
never met the dude. He's okay. I've got a litter,
I've got a puppy. I want to send to you
the female. I'm a female guy. You will not see
a male at my house preference, so I'm like, cool,
send it up here. So like this puff has trade
five squirrels and it's not been alive one hundred and

(01:04:33):
fifty days on this earth, like just naturally. Like I
took her the other day and she's just hunting, hunting,
and knows like locks straight up and she her back
end like sets down like a cutting horse, and she's
just like and I'm like, you don't even know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
I'm doing the math. I can't do it quick enough.
One hundred and fifty days, four five months.

Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
Five months.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
So she's five months old right now.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
No, she's not. She's still four months old, four months
so maybe my masth hugs sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
But it's all already. I'm just like straight up like and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
It's innocent, it's pure. It's not been around me long
enough for me to put any kind of influence on it.
Like that is what it is. I've not an.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Original mountain curve.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Yeah, here's another thing. It is built. It has the
confirmation of a metal dog. Huge long snow, very wide chest,
huge front feet, big hawks. I can see every muscle
on her already, and I am very fascinated with her
right now. She has she she's the type of pup
like and then I've just gotten so lucky because I

(01:05:36):
have went through some pups that didn't turn out that
I don't talk about. But she's the type of pup
that you're like, Okay, if I take off the day
before Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving, that's five days
a hunting, but I only have to use two days
of PTL. Likeually, I'm getting ready to lose a crop
over this pup, Like I'm ready. It's it's fixing to
me on in pot.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Yeah, Nova is what you call her.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
I named her Nova because my wife wouldn't let me
call either of my daughter's Nova, which I just I
thought that was a cool name. Nova. Yeah, I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
It's it's a good kind of like one syllable dog name.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
No is what I've been calling her, like on paper,
it's Nova, but I'm definitely a one syllable guy. Yeah okay, yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Yeah, am okay.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
That's dangerous calling a dog no, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Yeah yeah, and then telling it no yeah yeah yeah.
My wife actually brought that up. So I don't really
talk to my dogs out in the woods like I don't.
I don't hoop and holler. I'm not like hurry up,

(01:06:40):
hurry up, right up, like I unsnap it. I want
you to go get treed, and then when you get treated,
I'm gonna put my leash on you at the tree
and like pat pat the job, and that there's not
much conversation there.

Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Yeah, I don't want to influence that dog at all.
If I have to that that that way, if it's
time for me to influence, it's gonna pay attention to
me because it's not used to me hooping with me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Gotcha, you're gonna waste that communication with Yeah, it's in trivial.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
And maybe I think too much. But I had a
man tell me, a man named Dean, Right, So I go.
I go to the World Hunt in like twenty seventeen
or something, and it's my first time, never been to
a World Hunt. It's in Limb between the Lakes, and Kentucky,
and I walk in and this guy's sitting over there
by himself, man, and he's got like the greasiest hair
and like like just like old stains and holes in

(01:07:29):
his pants. I'm like, who's that like? Man, his name's Dean.
He's spend the game for like forty years. No one
likes him. I heard forty years. So I get up
and I walk straight to him, like okay, this guy
doesn't teach me something. And we get to talking, you know,
and about two minutes in I realize he's just the
world's giant teddy bear. I mean, he's just the nicest
dude ever. Maybe maybe he just comes office like anyway.

(01:07:50):
So so we get to talk in and he's like, look,
I watched one of your videos and you were kind
of like really talking to your dog quite a bit
of the tree. He's like why. I was like why.
I was just excited. He was like, I'm gonna tell
you something, son. He's like, you yell to a dog,
and you whisper to a dog, and see which one
that dog has to work harder to pay attention to.
And I was like, wow, Yeah, So when the time

(01:08:13):
comes that I have to yell at that dog. He's
gonna listen to me because I've not done it. It's
whole life.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Hm.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Maybe maybe that's a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
Maybe it isn't, But you know there's a correlation in
that with training a mule. Sure, Like if you want
to if you want a mule to be soft, yeah
and super responsive to you. Yeah, if the first time
you step on it you start yanking around its head, yeah,
and spurring it and like basically in its language, yelling

(01:08:42):
at it, you will never give it a chance to
be soft. But the best mule guys are the ones
that are given the most nuanced cues. And that animal
is just like bouncing. And so when you do have
to get loud with it, and not loud verbally, but
like in the cues that you're giving it, Yeah, it's
gonna come unglued and do what you wanted to correct.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Maybe my body language is a little bigger, my tone
of voice is a little larger, but just like that mule,
like it's gonna pay attention because it's not seen that before, right,
and then and then you're speaking my language, right and.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Then it it it moves and responds off very gentle cues. Yeah,
as opposed to yeah, an amateur riding, which which I
have been in the squirrel dog world and the mule world. Yeah,
you know, yelling at your dog or you know, I.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Have seen it, and I've seen some guys just absolutely
hooping and hollering at their dog and the dog is
just like so guarded, so jaded, you know, just walls
built up, and I'm like, I don't know that you're
gonna fix this issue because that dog isn't paying attention
to you. It's just trying to literally survive this scenario.
So yeah, I don't know how gonna tear, but yeah, listen,

(01:09:48):
and didn't tell me that went like a long waist.
So when I'm in the woods, like until I get
this dog solid, like I may we may be high
fiving or something or laughing, the dog's on to pay
attention to me. Never it never has because I've been
so quiet that like literally I have three commands that
I like, come here, stay treed, and go get tree.

(01:10:09):
That's all I want you to do. And it sounds
so simple, but repetition that I unsnap you your treed.
You stay there till I'll pull you off the tree.
We're done, those three things you do that for like
fifteen sixteen months. Boom, that's what that dog gets.

Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
So keeping it all the same is is so big.
But here's the cool part. Like so like Bear and
Shep shepherd, yep, so they are Like I was looking
at some of your posts, like any father wants their
kid to be successful humans and like those two like
obviously they are killing it, like like Bear is out

(01:10:45):
here casually digging bear pits with his own homemade bow,
and Shep's one of the better ballplayers in the state
right now, I'm told. So they're similar, but they're probably
so different, right, you know, my kids are so every
pupp I get. I'm like, what are you going to be?

(01:11:05):
How are you gonna act? What is your demeanor? And
maybe I shouldn't compare children and squirrel dogs, but I do,
but I do, Like honestly, like my little boy Rainy
needs whooped four times a day, probably will be in
jail by fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Now, don't say that, dad, come out the oldest.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Boy, Jase, I can get like eye level, like Jace,
I really didn't like the way that went here. Let's
do this and he'll melt. I mean, that's my daughter's
the same way. I mean, they're so so different, and
I think that's wonderful. Me and my brothers are different,
and I think that that's what. You know, God made
us all different, and there's these different genes and different ideologies,

(01:11:43):
and you know, what works for you may not work
for me, and that just fascinates me. I wish that
I would have went and got like a background in
genetics in something to understand it more, because things like
that really tickle me.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
Yeah, you know, man, I tell you what dog to
me have are are like Mendel, the famous geneticists that
learned about like this monk. Yeah, and the I don't
know when it was the seventeen hundreds, whenever it was,
he like was like breeding flowers and like pollinating hand

(01:12:18):
pollinating flowers and getting different crosses and basically he mapped out, Yeah,
this like genetic architecture that you know, people still use today.
What I've seen with with dog breeders that are like
dead serious, yeah, like they kind of have a functional
knowledge of genetics that is pretty amazing. And in some ways,

(01:12:43):
I don't want to say supernatural, but I guess that's
a good word. Like just like instinctual. Yeah, like an
instinctual like if you do, if you input this into
this line, it's going to produce this. Yeah, it's pretty
fascinating to the guys that are really good and all
those guys too, if they're really being honest, and most

(01:13:04):
of them are pretty humble too. Some of them aren't,
but they they say, oh man, we produced a lot
of error before we got to this, but once we
learn this, we kept going.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
And I mean, yeah, it's so like you and I are,
like I'm sitting here like, I'm so thankful for your
forty years of work here. Yeah, I'm thankful for what
you've done. Now I have something to go off of.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
You do you do you have a desire as much
as you love it and are interested in to like
have a line of dogs.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
I don't. I don't. I want to clap for the
men who have put in the work, and I want
to give them the credit and hope that I can
breed that stuff together, which is what they've done, because
it's worked, So why do I want to change it? Okay,
see what I'm saying, I've made three crosses my whole life.
I think that's awesome. But I don't. I don't want
to try to like recreate it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
So what is what's your strength? Is it? Hanling dogs?
Raising starting dogs?

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Certain dogs is my strength.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Yeah, that's why people would have given you a dog
and said, hey, I want you to have this dog.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Yeah. And I've gotten really lucky and made contact with
the right people and got the right line of dogs
and it's just worked out. Yeah. I'm thirty four. I
know a man in Oklahoma, Keith Sutton Miller. He's seventy
six and can get through the woods better than you
two and me like the dude's mountain goat, And like
I pray that I'm fit enough and healthy enough and
have the time to do this for the next thirty

(01:14:28):
forty years. That I love it that much. But yeah, man,
you you get the right the right thing going. And
it's just to me. I mean it's there's nothing else
important to me right now, family obviously, but like other
than that, I'm not wasting my time doing anything else.
Like I could low key be a like closet crappie fishermen.

(01:14:49):
I would love to be, but I don't have time
for it. You got to you got too many dogs. Yeah,
start and and what you said just a minute ago.
I wanted to touch on that about you got to
be brutally honest about what you've got. Yeah, that's so true.
That's like I was raised by a perfect greg Asberry
was a perfectionist. Is a perfectionist. Happy birthday, Dad, today's birthday.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
And he demanded that from this kid's his employees, blah
blah blah. So honestly, I was about thirty years old, Todd.
I appreciated that I didn't like it, and then I
was like, so I over analyzed and like nitpick everything
in my life. So I had a gip a couple
of years ago that was everything I wanted her to be,
except she did not have any mouth as a young dog.

(01:15:32):
She just did not have that mouth, and I have
to have it. I cannot hear very well. And I
didn't breed her, and sometimes I think I should have.
Maybe the right student could have brought it up. I've
got a buddy that's got a dog that's really, really,
really quick, but she will not stay on the tree.
She's just gonna follow that squirrel. And we're not breeding her.

(01:15:53):
I mean, to the right people.

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
Really know exactly what you want.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
Yeah, yeah I do. Yeah, so yeah, young dogs, young
dogs are my forte. I don't care about a five
year old finished dog that I don't care. You guys
have done your work, Like Lebron James is like what
else has he got to prove to me? Like, let's
let's go to this next this next class. Yeah. So yeah,
that's me and I try to raise one one or

(01:16:17):
two every year.

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
So man, we're we've we've moved along feist. We don't
have to go into as much detail, but I mean
what other breeds were, So just.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
A hound a hound or like a bird dog hound
cross would be would be the other.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
There's a lot of crossing and stuff. There's some some
dog pursuits. People get a big kick out of papers.
I feel like the squirrel dog world is a little
less uh interested than that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
It is the company that I like the most. NSD
has a junior futurity program.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
N SD stands for.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
National Sporting Dog. They have DNA parentage in their papers,
So that doesn't tell you like how much of what
is in your dog. That just proves that my dog
is off this dog and this dog like that is
its parents. So if you pay that up and you
get your dog in the junior program. It can hunt
in junior hunts till it's three years old, meaning only
hunt against younger dogs. That is really the biggest thing

(01:17:17):
going right now. But if you, if you, I could
call a guy right now who I got off the
phone with yesterday and be like, hey, I've got this dog.
This is what she is, this is what you can
do with her to date. I don't have any papers.
He don't care. Yeah, we don't care. Like most of
the time, I get puppy papers and I pull up,
you know, I pay them up, do the swab the
cheek thing, and I put that in my drawer and

(01:17:39):
then like I get ready to sell it, I'm like, crap,
what other than papers, I don't care. Yeah. Yeah, I
mean it's nice to know. It's not to be able
to look back and see what was what you know? Yeah,
but no, not a huge deal. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Interesting. Yeah, man, that's incredible. Yeah that's uh. Your your
your passion and knowledge of what you're good at is
is unique.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
Uh. Like I said, I've been watching you guys for
a long time and just the things you guys are pursuing, Like, man,
I'm laughing for y'all so hard because you guys are
you guys are living living the life and obviously very
passionate about it. And uh, man, it's it's great to watch.
It's great to watch someone who's good at something exceeding it,
you know, especially for for a career. And yeah, I

(01:18:25):
can't wait to see you guys do next. But uh,
I may be like a two. My wife doesn't call
it my addiction. She causing my affliction. Yeah, uh, And
I'm I'm on the phone all the time with guys
and we're talking about this and that, this dog and
that dog. And yeah, it's just it's just what drives me, man,
and I love it so much.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
You know, my buddy Michael in there.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Man, I know the name, Uh sounds really familiar now.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
He told me that he had communicate with you at something.
Michael Michael has been my I call him my squirrel
hunting uh Jedi masters. Yeah, Uh sounds like I I
wish I wish he could have been here today. Yeah,
we rode mules yesterday afternoon. But Michael's a great guy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
I just wondered if you knew he's from Debates little area.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
But the name sounds so familiar, but it doesn't ring
a bell. Yeah, yeah, I talked. I talked to a
lot of people through squirrel dogs, so yeah, lots of folks. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
Okay, So the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff is coming up
in September here in Arkansas, which we'll probably have Joe
Wilson on here pretty soon to talk about that. But
me and Brent usually try to get up there. I
wish we could have more of a squirrel dog presence there.
I mean, it's about cooking squirrels, you know, that's kind
of the main emphasis there. It's a squirrel cooking competition. Yeah,

(01:19:41):
we need to we need to get like I don't know,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
They usually reach out to me for some meat yearly,
and and last year I gave the year before I did.
Last year, I was able to give them quite a bit.
I don't have any frozen this year. But what they're
doing is so cool. I've never had to go. Yeah,
never got to go. So are they just like different
dishes with squirrels.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Well, there's forty teams, so there's a there's a cap
on the amount of teams, but there's forty teams and
they come from all over the country. Okay, I mean
like even the world. At times there's been international teams,
but basically everybody usually each team usually has somebody that
is like a legit chef, and they'll just try to

(01:20:25):
come up with the wildest plate combinations possible for the squirrel.
So it's it's not it's not like squirrel and dumplings.
It's like I can't even I couldn't even pronounce. Probably
did you get to do any sampling?

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
Oh yeah, that's that's part of the event is that
the guys, like you know, it starts at like nine
o'clock and the judgeons at like one o'clock or something.
And in the afternoon, and even as they're cooking, they're
giving away free samples to the public. It's a pretty
unique event, I mean, and I mean they give away

(01:20:58):
stuff until they run out, so you're walking around and
so they're they're cooking for the judges, so they're trying
to make like like two plates for the judges, but
all the teams are encouraged to just cook a bunch
and so they give their two plates, but then they
give away the rest of it and it's a whole meal.
It's not just like you know, barbecue squirrel. It's like

(01:21:23):
we're having barbecue squirrel with a side of this. And
I mean it's like a legit cooking competition. Some guys
go like super classy and have some kind of like
French cuisine you can't pronounce. Other guys. I remember one
year there was a team that like mocked a Chick
fil A meal with squirrel. But it was like, you know,

(01:21:45):
like waffle fries and homemade Polynesian sauce and a sandwich
that looked just like a Chick fil a sandwich and
you know, like they tried that. That was their stick
is that. You know, it's like like squirrel fill a
you know, So it's pretty fun.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
That sounds it's pretty fun. I've got like two squirrel dishes.
I give a lot of mine away. There's a guy
that has a food truck in Cave City Barbecue, and
I'll call him like, hey, on my way, got you
ten and he's like, here's a rack of ribs and
we just shake hands and like if I don't have
time to skin them, we don't want to, you know,
But yeah, I would love to see some of those dishes.
That's obviously like looking at me. I'm a foodie, so

(01:22:20):
I love new dishes with squirrel would be welcome. Ye yep,
house well cool.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Well is there anything else we were supposed to supposed
to cover, Josh today, Tyler Man been a pleasure. Yeah.
One of these days we're gonna go squirrel hunting.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
Yeah, for sure. I appreciate you guys having me on. Uh,
had a great time. Yeah. I would love for you
guys to come over and hunt hunt my country and
you know, see see what it's like in the bottoms.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
Yeah, yeah, I know it's it's I'm told by guys
that know, yeah, that there's way more squirrels over there.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
It's just is key. Yeah, it's just it's just the population. Yeah.
And it's flat walking which never hurts. Yeah yeah, yeah
yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
Well man, I could I could keep talking about squirrel dogs.
Will have to have you back on at some point, sure.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
But it was great to meet you guys. Great to
come out here.

Speaker 4 (01:23:11):
Thanks. You see this part of the world.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Hey, I was going to show the world. I wore
my over I meant to say I wore these overalls
today in honor Brent Reeves because he hasn't he doesn't
come to the render anymore. You don't have to film this, Josh.
But uh, that's my uh Brent Reeves addition case knife.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
So he's got his own addition.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
He has his own Brent Reeves Mini trapper. And when
you're when you have that level of status in the
in rural America, you don't even come to podcasts anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
No way, you send somebody like when there's a request,
you can just send your proxy.

Speaker 4 (01:23:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:59):
We don't even know that is for Brent anymore. Yeah,
but anyway, I mean, I guess whenever I have a
knife that has my name on it, I probably won't
even be here.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
Yeah, probably not.

Speaker 3 (01:24:09):
Somebody else cardboards stand up and will pre record you.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
Yeah, so Brent love the knife brother. Yeah, I've been
carrying this. It's I'm fearful of losing it. I think
there's only a couple hundred of them in the world.
There are, and there may already be sold out.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
I don't know. I bet they're all.

Speaker 1 (01:24:28):
Yeah, keep the wild places wild because that's where the
squirrels live.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Yeah. Yeah, And my catchphrase is one hundred penning, meaning
we are treating let's go one hundred pens hundred penning.
That's my phrase.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
Yeah, I like it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
Thanks Tyler, Yeah, thank you guys.

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Ep. 342: Render - Feist Mafia and Everything About Squirrel Dogs

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Clay Newcomb

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