Ep. 352: Render - Calling All Chefs for the Squirrel Cook Off

On this episode of the Bear grease render, Joe Wilson joins host Clay Newcomb along with Bear Newcomb, and Josh “Landbridge” Spielmaker as he shares about his adventure cooking a whole moose in Alaska, and preparations for the annual World Champion Squirrel Cook Off which will be held at the Ozark Highlands Nature Center in Springdale, Arkansas on September 13, 2025. If you’d like to participate as a cooking team, you can reach out to Joe Wilson on the World Champion Squirrel Cook Off Facebook page.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Clay Nukeleman. 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 that's designed

(00:36):
to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
Welcome to the Bear Grease Render.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I knew I was here for some reason.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, man, well it's been a while since we've had
Joe Wilson on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
The Illustrious Joe Wilson.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
I wish I knew what that meant.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
But just look in the mirror, bro, and start calling
stuff that you think looks like that. Just see how
it goes.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
I got it, man.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
It's good to have you, Joe Man.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
I appreciate you'all having me back and always have a
good time.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Learned something, Yeah, man, We've got Barry Newcomb here, Josh
is here. Uh. I feel like looking at the screen
of what's on the screen, I feel like I need
to explain something real quick. This is a painting of Tecumsa.
This is a famous painting of Daniel Boone. And this
is an Ai image of my mother, Judy Nukelem. So

(01:38):
she retired, my daughter made retirement party decorations of Juju.
This is who we call Juju and uh and my
daughter made that and uh and like made them on
a like a like a hanging banner. So there was
just like Juju's everywhere, and it was so my mother's
so close, such a great woman.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's pretty.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
I mean, if there were seven ladies in this room,
you'd be able to pick her up. I got you,
but I thought it was appropriate to be up here
by Tecumsa and Boon. All legends, all legends in their
own rights. But uh, no, Joe, you I've been hearing
a lot about your uh, your trip to Alaska. Where

(02:21):
when were you all up there? And what did y'all do?

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Oh man, this year we were there in May. And
I think it's the first time, Clay anybody's ever cooked
a whole moose, like spit roasted a whole mood.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
You spit roasted a whole moose.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Spit roasted a whole moose. And uh, you know, I
tried to plan out stuff a little bit. Actually that's
not right. I'm more of a scrambler. Okay, you know,
and I think I work best in scramble mode. But
you know, as you're driving down to get to cook Inlet,
there's road signs and those road signs will have a

(02:59):
picture of a mood and they'll say how many moose
versus vehicle accidents have taken place that year? And I
guess as we were coming into town the sign said
one hundred and sixty three. Now, yeah, So the moose
that we cooked was harvested via a ford raptor, okay,

(03:23):
just at the knees, and so whenever the truck hit
it at the knees, that moose had severe whiplash and
didn't make it. So there's a list in Alaska to
where roadkill bears, moose, whatever it is, they'll give you
a call. So my friends are on the list. And

(03:45):
about midnight Arkansas time I get the call, which you know,
I'm asleep. I get the call, Hey, you want this moose?

Speaker 4 (03:55):
And Joe Wilson doesn't say no no to them.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Is this is the timing of it coming up? Or
do they have a way that they can freeze it.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
We're about a month and a half out.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Okay, so they would have to process it and then
freeze it.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, So the moose is about thirty miles from their house.
They get the call. Just so what happens like in
most of Alaska, they got stuff. So they had a
miniature excavator flatbed trailer and they went wow, and they
picked this thing up off the road with a little
mini X, put it on the trailer, took it back,

(04:30):
skinned it, butchered well, processed it for a whole roast,
and called me in the morning. They said, you remember
what we talked about last night? And I said, I'm
cooking a moose and they said, yeah. So you know
it's a story, Clay.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
So so a second, Joe, slide forward for me. Just
yep and Bear and Clay, you guys need to get
a little bit closer.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Look, needle to move.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Probably Bear, Bear, just slide that way a little bit.
That's better, all right.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
So it's it's a story, Clase.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
So so, so Joe lives in Arkansas. Just to establish
that you live here in Arkansas. You got buddies in Alaska.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
You go up there every year, been going eighteen years.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
And so now you got a moose.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
So now we got a moose. I know how to
season meat. I know that I'm gonna need fire, but
I know how hard it is to get things to
rural Alaska. And so I worked out a deal with
the with the charcoal company, and they flew me a
pallet a charcoal, and uh, I worked out of steel

(05:42):
to where I got a pallet of pecan wood.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh nice, which it's probably not native to the last
not a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Of pecans in Alaska, you might call pecan can.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
First time I went to the last guy was on
a little old trail out by Denali, and as far
as you could see, everything was about three three and
a half foot tall, you know, the shrubs. And I
was walking on this trail and I thought, someone keeps
dropping their pecans all over this trail, and there would
be a pile, you know, like a coffee can worth

(06:15):
of pecans. And after about half a mile of walking,
I reached down there and grab me one of them pecans.
I gave it him a little miut. It didn't man,
it was just because they're eating It was a moose hurt.
So they're eating all this bark and all of this

(06:35):
dry stuff, and I bear would do the same thing.
I just squeeze this old pecan and it turns into dust.
Well back where we were at, back to the road kill.
So h I get the wood, I get the charcoal.
I know all about seasoning. I get the seasoning shipped

(06:56):
up there. And I'm thinking, how am I going to
cook this moose? Because I'm gonna need something. The best
I could do was I went on Amazon and I
ordered a bed frame that said it was all steel
and it would ship via Prime. And I'm thinking, I'm
gonna sprawl this moose out corner to corner, build me

(07:19):
a fire around it, and I'm gonna cook a moose
on a bed How's that sound?

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Sounds risky?

Speaker 3 (07:31):
So this is a plan. We make a little flyer,
we invite the whole village. Everything's riding on this bed frame. Well,
we go to Whittier, We bear hunt for three days
and fish and shrimp and it's not relaxing because I
got this big mission ahead of me. I gotta perform.

(07:53):
And we show up in the nil chick, Alaska and
the first thing I want to do is see my cooker.
And it's in a little old six inch box about
four foot tall. And I opened it up and three
quarters of the pieces are plastic.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
But it's supposed to be still.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's set all still man and I got it for
a stell and Prime shipped it for free. So everybody's
bought something on Amazon that, Oh you don't get what
you think you're going. This happened to me in the
middle of Alaska. So that day there was three gentlemen
I had never met in my life. A mountain lion

(08:34):
hunter from South Arizona. Great story about that guy. A chiropractor,
and a cowboy are at the same a little setup
for a joke. It sounds like a joke, it's not.
They come up and they said, we hear you're cooking
a moose. I said, yeah, but I ain't got nothing
to cook it on. They said, we're master fabricators. We
can build anything. So in Alaska, in your yards it's

(08:57):
like Oklahoma times ten.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
They don't get rid of anything.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
They don't get rid of nothing. So we go on
a little field trip scavenger hunt. We get about ten
miles off the highway and there's a like a Scooby
Doo version of an RV park, kind of like you
know how it's kind of spooky, and sitting off in
the corner is a spit roasting barbecue pit all by itself.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I've already built.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
Already built. So we ease down this road, get over there.
It's got two flat tires, it's rusted out, it's got
an electric motor. And they said would that work? I said, yeah,
and yep, let's use it, They said, I said, who
we asking? Don't worry about it. So come to find

(09:51):
out I can to fix a flat and that part
of Alaska is twenty eight dollars, you know. And we
buy a couple of cans fixed flat, put it in there.
We go, drive a little bit, maybe fifty yards. We
got two more, you know, two flat tires. Again, go
to town, get an air compressor at one of these
guys's place, and got a cowboys sitting in the barbecue pit.

(10:15):
And as we're driving down the road, he's hopping out
about every three hundred yards filling up the tires. We
get it back. First thing I want to do is plug
this bigger in, you know, right, I plug it in
and it's got a pulse. You hear a little. That's
a good sign. We find out that this barbecue pit

(10:35):
had set over there about twenty years. An electric motor
in Alaska uncovered. You can imagine what that's like. And
it had a pulse. We spent about fourteen hours working
on this deal.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Now, when when do we have to feed the people?

Speaker 3 (10:52):
The next day?

Speaker 1 (10:53):
The next day, so this is the day before.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Still haven't seen the moose. Okay, I mean, there's no
point in seeing the moose if I don't have something
to cook it off.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
And uh is the moos frozen at this time?

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I don't know. I know there's a moose, and I'd
heard this moose was about six hundred pounds. And as
locals start showing up helping us, everybody wants to help.
This is a big party of the year. You know.
This moose keeps getting lighter and lighter and lighter. And

(11:29):
I'm not discouraged by this. That means I could sleep sleep,
sleep right. And so we get the barbecue pit, We'll
get a new chain, get it all greased up. It's
running jumping the truck. We go to where the moose
is and one of these homemade walk in coolers, you know,

(11:52):
And I pull up with the trailer and the guy says, oh,
you won't need that trailer. I'm theying I'm here to
pick up a rabbit or something, you know. He said
that moose it don't weigh two hundred and fifty pounds.
And we open up the door and it was about
two hundred fifty pounds, so it was a yearly a calf, yeah,

(12:17):
which is still a big piece of meat.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
I mean, you're not going to cook a hog two
hundred and fifty pounds and be successful. You want a
hog one hundred and ten one hundred and twenty pounds, right.
So we pick up the moose, bring it back and
I rubbed this whole moose down with vinegar, clean it
all up with vinegar, and then season it, tarpe it.

(12:41):
Go in, get some sleep, and the whole night while
I'm trying to sleep, I'm thinking bears are going to
come eat my moose, or all them eagles you see
is going to peck this moose apart. Nothing happened. Four
o'clock in the morning, we put it on. We cooked
this moose for sixteen hours and that barbecue hit never missed.
The lick really fit roasting this thing.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Now, are you all right? So what's your what's your
strategy for those sixteen hours? Are you basting that?

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah? So believe it or not. There's not a lot
inside this house set on it. So there was a
two and a half gallon bucket of peanut ol sitting
over there, and I took peanut oil. I took some
mustard that was in the fridge and some Greek seasoning

(13:31):
and I mixed it all up, pretty much made an
Italian dressing. And I paid about fifty bucks for a
mop because it's Alaska, and we mopped this thing, baseded
it the whole time. But Clay, I had no idea
what I was even shooting for, you know, because if
you talk to Alaskans, moose isn't high on the I mean,

(13:54):
it's grind They want to grind it down. Yeah, it's
not like their favorite thing to eat. They all have moose.
Someone's giving a moose, but it's not their favorite. And
here I am, redneck from Arkansas cooking a moose, having
the time of my life. And it got to the point,
fourteen hours into this stal to where I could poke

(14:17):
my finger through the ham of this moose. Really yeah,
yeah it was. It was pretty amazing. And anytime you're
roasting a whole animal, it's the most inefficient way to cook.
H Heat's escaping Yeah, the ribs are gonna be overcooked,
the hams are gonna be undercooked. It's just and there's

(14:39):
an art form to getting real close. But you can't
cook a whole animal perfect. So what do you do
anytime something's not gonna be perfect? You call it tacos?

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Right, So it just started just like shaving it off.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
We debone this thing. We got it all deboned. I
went chopping. I had three guys working over some oil
over there. We made fry bread, and we made Indian
tacos and we fed about two hundred and fifty people. Now,
if you ask me, the moose was okay. But when
Alaskan's come around and tell you that's the best moose

(15:16):
they ever ate, they either want to be your friend
or they're telling you the truth, you know.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
And so it was good.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
It was fantastic. Man. We actually we filmed the whole deal.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
What are you gonna do with that?

Speaker 3 (15:29):
It's gonna be on dead meat on the outdoor channel?

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah cool in February, I think so.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, it was the adventure.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Very cook of moose.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, we I've killed a bose and we we spent
two years eating one.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, a lot of frying it. I guess what did
you do with that?

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Man? So I would if you'd asked me without you
saying what you said about how people view moose, I
would have said they view it pretty high, like as
a as a I mean, we we ate a lot
of ground meat, just like burgers, chili, tacos, that kind
of stuff. But uh, but man, a moose steak. Becca Spring,

(16:14):
justin Becka Spring made me a moose steak one time
when I was at their house in Montana, and I'm
telling you it was as good as a beef file
at but so it's it's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I thought it was. I thought it was good too,
I mean, and we got to sample backstrap and yeah,
was there.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
A prime piece on it? Man?

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Of course the tender loins were sure were tender loins.
Like like everything. It was just well flavored. And you know,
that's one of the deals with wild game. That's that's
beend my bread and butter for a long time, trying
to cook things that either people don't want to try,
you know, like they'll say, that's that's not what we
you know, in Alaska. When we first went to Alaska

(16:56):
eighteen years ago, every cod we caught they thought was
a trash fish, and we were I was watching the
guide and he's shaking them off, putting them back, and
after about a dozen of them, I said, hey, Bubba,
next one of us, you get, go ahead and shake
it off in that box there. We'll cook it for dinner.
And he said, you don't want to eat cod. I said,

(17:16):
look where I come from, we see the word cod
on the menu. We much rather eat that than catfish.
You know, it's to us, it's an exotic bill and
it's good. And so we started cooking cod. And over
the years, cod kept being put in a boat, not
only our boat, but other people's boat. There's a lot

(17:37):
of animals like that, you know. That's thus the squirrel.
That's why we started the squirrel Cookoff, was to show
people that this meat that they think is so exotic
and strange, tree, rat or whatever. We wanted to showcase
whatever you're out there harvesting, whether it be fish or
fowl or a bear or whatever it is, there's ways

(17:58):
you can cook it and you can it into something
fit for two hundred and fifty people, yeah, or some
the Squirrel Cookoff thousands of people.

Speaker 5 (18:06):
Yeah, definitely a lot of critters that get a bad
reputation just for like no real reason, or like one
person had a bad experience with it, and then like
all of a sudden, it becomes like a cultural thing.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
We live in a time period where we're eating the
most the wildest meat that humans have ever eaten, where
we're taking beef, cows and pork and chicken, genetically modifying
them some of them, the chicken and whatnot, feeding them
out with corn to the point of obesity. And that's

(18:38):
the norm. Yeah, so the standard for modern society, at
least in the Western world, would be you know, like
a really like the highest end in human history of
a beef and pork. So, you know, if you just
go back a little ways, I mean, you know, there
was it wasn't that long ago when you look at

(19:00):
the span of of human history that they were selling
deer and bear and all kind of stuff in these
big meat markets, and even in the big cities, you know,
and these they're Saint Louis and Memphis and Chicago had
these huge outdoor markets and I mean, well throughout they

(19:21):
were selling wild game. People loved it.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Throughout your storytelling on this show, I mean we've learned
about market animals, you know, and and how bear was
something that people wanted to eat and buffalo tongue, right,
wasn't that a big deal? And it's it's amazing how
we went so far backwards on today. I'm really not
scared to cook any of them. Have you ever eate porcupine,

(19:48):
believe it or not?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
I have.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
It's good too, right.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
It tastes like it tastes like spruces.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
The one you ate tastes like spruce. One I ate
taste like gumbo.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
So you cooked it up there? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
They come to me one one night and they said,
you ever cooked baby bear? And I said no, And
they said, we've got a baby bear? Will you cook it?
And they brought out a bag and the only thing right,
I'll fast forward. It's a porcupine. But the only thing
the only thing that's got fur is its feet, and

(20:24):
so it's got the fur around it looks like it
looks like little baby bear feet. And they said, that's
a baby bear. What are you gonna do with it?
I said, well, sounds like gumbo to me, and made
porcupine gumbo and it was fantastic for me. It was beefy.
It had it had a good beef flavored. But what

(20:47):
you said is one hundred percent right. Whatever these animals
are eating, I mean you could take if you take
a steer, and we want to finish that steer and
we finish it on grains and sweets to get that
meat taste right. There's a lot of stuff cariboo to me,
If you ask me what cariboo tastes like, I tell
you sage, because the cariboo that I ate it had

(21:09):
been eating a lot of sage, you know. And so
the same thing goes with squirrels. The springtime squirrel, to me,
is a heck of a lot better than that squirrel
that you're going to be harvesting in August September whenever.
They're just eating that old green stuff off the makrons.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, man, Well, World champions Squirrel Cookoff.
So Joe is the founder of the World Championship Squirrel
cook Off.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
I think Joe's secretly getting rich off of the squirrel Cookoff.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
It's gonna tell my wife.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
I mean, he can't work this hard and not get
anything out of it.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
Man, I get the fun of being around some people
for one day. It's been one hundred percent no profit.
How many years now, Well, the first one was in
two thousand and eleven. Wow, and we missed a couple
for COVID, you know. And but yeah, twenty eleven. I

(22:07):
think most folks probably know the story. If you don't,
we were filming Bizarre Foods for the Travel Channel. Yeah,
we need to review this. Do you remember this bear?
Clay was part of it. Yeah? Yeah, and the part
of the lie, part of the lie, because one of
the big backstories on that is what's the old boy Blake.

(22:28):
There's a guy named Blake. He had a big old
bear on camera and we were supposed to.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Film Oh yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, we were supposed to film Blake hunting this bear
and then once he got the bear, we were going
to cook up the bear. And camera crew showed up.
Now this isn't an outdoor camera crew. This is a
big city, big lights, big cameras.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's our foods with Andrew Zimmern's crew.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
And the director had a big old cigar.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
You remember this, Yeah, you would think you would think
this guy's the director of a you know, Hollywood production,
right had he played the part?

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Well, yeah, and he has got a big old cigar
and shows up to do this hunt smoking a cigar
or a bunch of lights. And asked Blake, what time
will the bear be here? We ain't got all day
and and Blake called and he says, man, I'd love
to help you joke, but they ain't gonna go like this.

(23:34):
I said, I get it. He said, I'll put the
word out first first and gets a bear and we'll
send him. We'll send that crew over that way. And
just so happens, it was a fella. It was not
near as popular at the time. His name was Clay
Nukean didn't have his own hats, he didn't have his
own shirts, nothing, had a little old magazine.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
You know. When they called me about that, I thought
it was a joke. And I actually I almost ran
him off, you know, because they were like, hey, we're looking,
we're gonna be in Arkansas, we we we need a
bear on this day at this time. And I was
just like, I can't guarantee you anything. I said, you know,

(24:17):
there's there's no way to predict that we're gonna be
able to kill a bear that day. And uh and
and basically I didn't know anything about Andrew Zimmern at
that time, and uh, and I was like, what do
you want to do? And they're wanting to film somebody
skin and cook a bear. And this was so long ago.
I didn't really know anything about media, and I actually

(24:40):
thought they were looking for some abilities to make fun of.
And I said that. I said, Hey, if you're looking
for somebody to make look dumb, I'm not your guy.
And they were like, oh no, no, no, no, Andrew
zimmer is really respectful. And then I start watching Andrew
Zimmern and he's like this world traveler and like really
cool guy and has this really legit show. And anyway,

(25:00):
they said, well, we need a bear on this day.
And so I then put out a net of people
that I knew and knew where they were hunting, and
I was like, hey, if anybody kills a bear, call me.
And sure enough, that day, my buddy Trey Clark killed
a bear. And so we had a bear and the
whole crew came down. They filmed it. They filmed us

(25:21):
making bear crack ones.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
That was a great show.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, it was cool. It was cool. It's about all
about the Ozark.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
They gave us a list they wanted bear hunt, rabbit hunt,
sucker fish and sucker crat well giggingsuckers on the river.
And then they wanted to crow hunt. And they asked
if I'd ever cooked crow, and I said I'd done
it twice, but I'd been drinking both times. And they said,

(25:58):
so you don't eat crow all the time, and I said, no,
nobody does. Poultry is forty five cents a pound. Now
you can tell this was back in twenty eleven. I said,
poultry is forty five cent a pound. We don't have
no room to go out there and work like that
for them crow. And they said, we really need crow.
So I called Phillis Spears, and Phillips Spears had been

(26:20):
cooking on PBS for years and years here in the Ozarks.
And I called Phyllis and I said Phyllis. I got
myself in a pickle. I said I I need to
cook some crow for a TV show and she said
you need my help and I said yeah, And she
said do I need to bring my own crow? I
said probably, wouldn't it hurt? And a side story on

(26:43):
that man. We went out by my house to crow hunt,
and we knew there was crows out there, and we
start calling a little bit and one of the guys
he goes shooting at that you know, that old spy
crow that comes out and wreckx the old deal for us,
and that director smoking that cigar, he says, we need

(27:05):
to kill some crows. And he said what can we do?
I said, well, I guess we could go to the
store and buy a few things and it may help us.
So we went to one of them giant retailers off
the highway. There we had us specializing in everything hunting
and fishing. And when we pulled up that deal, we
grabbed three shopping carts and we bought fishing poles and

(27:26):
bull blinds, and we bought everything. None of it really
dealt with crows too much. But he had a credit
card and he was willing to spend it. And so
to make a good TV show, we get back. Phyllis
is there. She pops her tailgate down. She's got four
dead crows in the back, and we threw that one
in the air three different times to make some be roll.

(27:52):
That's the true story, man. We made some bee roll,
and we cooked the crow. She made shepherd's pie and
then we just fried.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Up some c How she cook it for the shepherd.
So she put it in rart. She cook it first before.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
She put it on shepherds.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
She kind of browned it up and then put it in.
But man, my nemesis in life is sweet potatoes. I
just I can't do them. That's not my deal. And
so I dug around all them orange potatoes to get
to the crow. Meat. If you ask me, crow is
exceptionally good. And if you find that video and you

(28:28):
look back at it, I went back for seconds on
the crow. To me, it was beefy. It was. It
was the farthest thing from poultry. And what was unique
was was the thighs were the dark meat and the
breast was the lighter colored meat on the crow. And

(28:50):
these I'm talking ozark crows, so we know what they eat.
That armadilla is everything on the side of the road.
I'm thinking the boar was up there in Nebraska and Iowa.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Might have some good crows.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
I think they got good crows.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
And so the squirrel cookoff was They said, do you
cook squirrel?

Speaker 3 (29:11):
I said, world champion squirrel. And they said how do
you know. I said, well, we throw a world championship.
They said, when is it. I said, well, when are
you coming?

Speaker 2 (29:25):
And it's kind of like the water Witch and saying
where do you want your Well.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, yeah, does that mean it's not real?

Speaker 3 (29:34):
So they said the date whatever it was, I think
it was in August, late AUGUSTA And I said, you
ain't gonna believe this. It's the same weekend, no kidding.
I said, yeah, it's the same weekend. They say, how
many teams you got? I don't know, like twenty five.
The whole time I'm telling this story, I'm thinking, man,
I got some work to do. And so they're good.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
At digging yourself holes. It is like when you went
to Alaska, same deal. I didn't have a spit.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Let's see a pattern for me.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
It is your life fifty one years of this trap on.
I mean, so they said we're gonna be there in
two weeks. Yeah, no problem, man, you'll be there right
in time. And so I went to scrambling.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
So you had two weeks to put together the World
Chamionship Squirrel.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
And this was in twenty eleven.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah, and so I start calling friends. This is where
networking comes in. If I could give anybody the secret
of life, build you a network. You gotta have a
guy right, you gotta have a friend. You gotta do favors,
never asking for him to come back to you. But

(30:41):
trust me, they will. So I started calling people.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
That's good advice.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
I started calling people. I said, hey, hold Joe's in
a pickle. I gotta get a squirrel cook off going. Man,
I don't even cook squirrel. I don't care. He's just me.
We'll cook it. I believe I had teams from seven states. Wow,
show up?

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Did you get twenty five teams?

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah? Yeah, in two weeks and they come from seven states.
And in my mind I needed judges, so let's be fair.
So I call two different county judges, actual actual judges, because.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
These weren't guys that you had stood in front of before, were.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
No, but they were heavyweights, you know, and I knew
they knew how to eat. So I got two got
I got two judges and chef Matthew McClure. Yeah yeah,
and uh he was a James Beard type chef. And
I said, man, I need you come eat some squirrel
with me, and he agreed to it. So we made

(31:47):
this show. And you're gonna find this hard to believe.
I dug myself into another little whole nother one because
we got so much attention that show aired Clay in
like a hundred twenty countries. You know, Me and Clay
become movie stars overnight on this deal. Well, they start

(32:09):
sending messages, I need a T shirt. I got them.
They twenty bucks, so I had to find someone to
make a mess with T shirts. Well then I started
sending T shirts to Australia and the heck it costs
more than twenty bucks to get over. Yeah, so it
was a short lived business. And uh that started it. Man.
We got we got a lot of traction or a

(32:30):
lot of traction, and but but it it turned into
something I never thought it would. Now you could call
it a lie. I don't know if it was a lie.
It was just something that wasn't there yet.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Well it was a fabricated truth, good fabricated.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
I could go with that.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Well you but but you you followed through on it
and then it's and it's then it's become something really cool.
So the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff is in Springdale, Arkansas, Yes, sir,
at the Arkansas Game and Fish Big Nature Center there.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Yeah, yep, right off the highway.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
September thirteenth September thirteenth, twenty twenty five. It's a one
day event.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
One day event, all day, nine o'clock in the morning
till we get done.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Bear, have you been hadn't you? Yeah, like three or
four years. Describe what it's like.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Basically, there's a bunch of teams cooking squirrels.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (33:25):
And then there's just there's all sorts of like attraction
and stuff, live music and.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Uh Simmons from Kiss Okay did you see him there?

Speaker 1 (33:36):
I saw whoever was playing.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
But yeah, basically a bunch of teams cooking squirrels and
then they you know, they're cooking throughout the day, they
bring it to the judges and then they judge the squirrels.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
They're squirrel skinning contests. Yeah, squirrels contests is a real hoot.
But I'd say the biggest attraction though, is all the
different teams all day while they're cooking. So they've only
got to cook like two meals for the judges.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yeah, so you're cooking an entree in a side for
six judges.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Okay, do both have to have squirrel in them?

Speaker 3 (34:11):
If you don't put squirrel in your side, issue lost
and not because you're disqualified. It's just worth five points.
And so anytime we're in any sort of anything, five
points is a lot, right, and then out of one
hundred points, five is huge. And so yeah, but there's
tricks like we've had people use squirrel bone broth to

(34:35):
mix in with their masa to make tortillas oh right
and snaky.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
So let me say that's the thing that I think
stands out to people as a as an event that
people would come to, is that you get so these
people are cooking for six judges, but everybody's cooking a
whole lot so all day. It's kind of just the
thing that as guys they're cooking, they're giving away food
for free to the public. And there's no guarantee that

(35:05):
anybody's going to do that. They don't have to do
that per se.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
But I think they want to. And yeah, I think
that goes back to who we are as outdoors people, right.
We like to share our bounty and we also like
to let people experience new things. And you know we
did two years ago we cooked the two largest Asian

(35:29):
carp that had ever been caught. Right, they come out
of Grand Lake, Brian Baker, out of Grand Lake is
a guide over there. He figured out how to locate
and snag these horrible fish, right, we want them out
of our waters. Arkansas just offered up with one hundred
dollars bounty on every black carp right, and so they

(35:53):
become a big problem. So Brian was breaking these records
and I hollered at Brian and I said, man, what
are you doing those fish? He said, what do you
want it for? Us? So I'd like to make tacos
out of out of big oasan carp and I got
the University of Arkansas's culinary team to come down and
cook this carp. Never in the history of man, do

(36:16):
you think there's ever been a thousand people waiting in
line to eat a carp?

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Really?

Speaker 3 (36:21):
I mean, it's unbelievable the things that that we've cooked
at this event. You know, we we we've cooked everything,
exotic animals. You know, some guy goes down to Texas
and shoots an exotic and he don't know what to
do with it. We'll take it, well, we'll cook it
and we'll.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Feel So is it still twenty five teams?

Speaker 3 (36:40):
No, So we're a maximum of forty. And the reason
why we're a maximum of forty. Is it's torturous to
the judges?

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Brent Reeves has judged twice now, I guess. And in
Big Old Brent he hits the wall man. There's a
wall that hit Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
So last year, uh, Malcolm from How to Barbecue?

Speaker 5 (37:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Is that right? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Malcolm Reed.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Malcolm Reed was there. He's a really cool guy, has
a huge, huge internet following YouTube TikTok. When I want
to major barbecue man, when I want to.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Know how to cook something.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, So Malcolm comes and then Clifton Jackson, who has
a twenty two rifle named after him.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
I believe it's the most expensive squirrel rifle you could buy. Yeah,
Cooper Arms puts it together.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
So Clifton is a Arkansas game and fish biologist won
the squirrel skinning contest multiple years and.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Every year every year unbeaten every year.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
Like since you started doing the skinning contest every year?

Speaker 1 (37:45):
What method is a somebody needs to he used the
tail method.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Somebody needs to thrown this guy teeth. He's like the.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Guy they've used. It's pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty gross.
It can be.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
I mean this year it got down to the finals
and it was Clifton and another fella and they're really
wanting to win this deal, and the crowd is behind him.
You know, we're hooting and a hollering, and Clifton had
a squirrel that had it was definitely a shotgun squirrel.

(38:22):
It probably a closer range and it split on him.
Oh and so since it split on him, he went
third gear on this deal and grabbed grabbed his teeth.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Oh really, oh myn He.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
Goes to torking around on this and so his competition
sees this and thinks this is the method. So his
competition is a tugging around?

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Is this a timed vent?

Speaker 1 (38:52):
First off, it's like two on two, Like so you said,
how long does it take it? It's two people and
they go head to head and whoever wins moves on.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
So it's like we'll call it squirrel skin and drag racing.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
I see, yeah, right, And so you know, if you're
up against Clifton, you probably won't do very good. But
if you're there, I saw people that had never skinned
a squirrel.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Oh really, Like yeah, and there's people that will impress you.
I mean you'll have these dainty females show up and
we become judgmental, and then all of a sudden she
undresses a squirrel like a Barbie doll, you know, just
wam skins off. This thing is done. Yeah, and uh

(39:36):
so yeah, we do side shows. We do that. We
bring in music, we bring in and it's free. Is
it's free is you just walk in there. And Kevin Murphy,
Kevin Steve Arnella's proclaimed the greatest small game hunter in
the world. Kevin Murphy has come the last two years.
I don't know if he's coming this year or not,
but the last couple of years he's been there.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, Kevin brings dogs with him. Me and Me and
Brent are playing to come. I'm and uh uh Jannist
Brutellius is wanting to come. I have a feeling they won't.
It's right in the middle of this, this whole ELK season.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah, it's in the way.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
You know, trying to put an event amongst the fall yep.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Nobody wants to stand around and eat squirrel in the
middle of summer in Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
It's we've had good weather, you know. Yeah, And I
went ahead and AI didn't. The weather's gonna.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Beautiful that day, perfect, sweet.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
I checked it out, and they said.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
Joe In say, for instance, last year, do you have
any idea how many squirrels were consumed in this event?

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Ballpark Man forty teams, I'm gonna say, or between eight
hundred and a thousand.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
One hundred. Where do where do all these squirrels come from?

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Mostly from the tops of trees, but not to sell.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
But I'm squirrels are you?

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Are you looking for teams right now?

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Absolutely? I'm looking for teams. And you know, and I
get it. There's a lot of places in this country
to where squirrel season doesn't start till October. And uh,
you know, which is really unfair. I mean, there's not
a lot of science billboards out there saying don't walk
in this field because you might disturb a squirrel. Yeah,

(41:28):
when you're jogging or when your power goes out or whatever.
You know, they're squirrels. Those squirrels are knocking the power
out quite frequent. But uh, the biggest problem is is
this is one of the only cookoffs that I know
of that you got to work before the cookoff to
be able to be in the cookoff. You can't go

(41:50):
down to the b wyl squirrel it is and and
but once again. It goes back to the heart of
the outdoors people. You know, there's plenty of people. If
I put out a nine to one one that man
I got three teams and they don't have any meat,
someone's gonna gonna volunteer. But part of the game is
is I want you to get out and try it.

(42:11):
I want you to understand why we feel that this
game meets so precious. You know them big game hunts,
watching Clay chase a mountain, goat up a hill, or
watching Clay on his moose hunt and all this and
everybody you watch who does this? I mean, you're putting

(42:32):
yourself at risk. You've spent your treasure to get there.
You've thought about it for so long. There's been so
much work put into this. You better eat that meat.
And let me tell you what an insult would be.
An insult would be to use some sort of chinatte
and plastic. Now, grab that medal, grab that good plate

(42:57):
and turn it into a meal. If if we live
our whole lives just feeding people on a napkin, this
game meat that we get it becomes third rate meat automatically,
you know, showcase it. It's the treasure, the older we get,
the more we much rather see young people do all

(43:18):
the stuff. You know, my son right now is me hunting,
and this year we turkey hunted in three states and
he got two bucks. And he likes squirrel hunting and
all that, and he stands there and he helps clean it.
And then at the end of it, if you ask

(43:39):
my son what his favorite meat is, it's not squirrel.
That's my daughter. But if you ask him, his favorite
meat is bear. Out of all the things that he
could eat, and I think he got into some really
good bears that he was eating on, you know, but
he just he loves bear meat. And it's because we

(43:59):
make big deal out of it, and when we cook it,
it's labeled right on the package. You know, when you
go out to the freezer, you know what you're getting,
and it kind of puts you a notch above a
lot of other people who don't know anything about what
they're eating. Yeah, and it's it's a cool story. It
should be a bigger story told. Is the use of

(44:23):
what we are out there getting And I like to
be just a small part of it. And we've fed
tens of thousands of people their first taste of game meat.
Most people come and their noses turned up, and when
they taste that first bite, that whole paradigm of what

(44:47):
they just ate goes away. And especially whenever whenever you're
doing it right.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, what would So the thing that most people ask
me about the World Championship Squirrel cook Off is what
do people cook? So you might think that it's gonna
be like squirreling dumplings, fried squirrel, you know, kind of
these traditional meals. It rarely is what, Barry, do you

(45:16):
remember any specific dishes that somebody made. I'll try to
run through a few and if you'll think of maybe
four or five really good ones or just memorable ones.
So if you get a team, if you're one of
the lucky forty that gets the spot and you've never
been here, you are gonna be There's all levels of cooks. Yeah,

(45:42):
there's people that have never even cooked squirrel that are
doing it. There's also the potential to be some legitimate
chefs that work at restaurants. You are, but you really
need to do something cool. I don't think this team
even placed, or I know they actually didn't, but it
stood out to me there was a team one time

(46:04):
that they were dressed like people from Chick fil A,
and they made Chick fil A squirrel sandwiches and them
did you Yeah, well, don't spoil my story, Joe. Let
me just have fun for a minute here. So they
I actually may have told this story before. The point

(46:24):
is that they they made sandwiches squirrel sandwiches. They had
the waffle fries, and they had a shtick like so
you know, the idea was that when the judge got it,
they would be like, oh, squirrel fil a and it
was really good. I don't even know what they had
as a side dish. You know, you have the squirrel
gumbo people, but everybody has this like elaborate meal, and

(46:47):
the better naming that you have of it usually does good.
There's some marketing in the way it looks. I've had
squirrel chocolate chip cookies, squirrel meat chocolate chip cookies for real?

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Yeah, ice cream?

Speaker 1 (47:02):
What uh do you remember? Any like really good?

Speaker 5 (47:06):
Didn't like some sort of some sort of typhood place
last year?

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Do really well? Asia food tends to do really well. Yeah.
And one of the reasons is is, you know, if
you if you think about the activities a squirrel is
participating in he's using every muscle on that body, right,
and so dark meat, dark meat, but meat with a

(47:33):
lot of power. You know, if you're looking at a steer,
when you get to the chuck, the first three ribbis
coming off that chuck are going to be the most tender.
And that's because that animal doesn't turn right there, right.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
It's it's unused.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
It's lazy meat meat, and so lazy meat is going
to be your most tender. Now you're working meat, it's
going to be your most flavorful, but tougher. It's you
need to put more care into it. So if you
take that tough, working meat and you cut it into
small pieces, something that your tooth can can go ahead

(48:14):
and get through. That's where these Asian dishes really come in.
We've had people grind it make squirrel sausage. But Clay
is right. Showmanship is a big part of anything. It's
it's twenty five points.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
So there's a rubric for scoring.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Very very serious, very very legit scoring system.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Yeah well, and you I mean you guys majure deer
antlers for weeks upon weeks. So if these people are
coming to win a World Championships, I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Want it to be some standardization.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
You want it to be as standard and I want
my judges to be as accurate as possible. You know,
I always ask all judges when they first come in
if they have any squirrel allergies? Right, I meancause I
can't have that. But uh, the fact that you have
put in the time, the effort to hunt the animal,

(49:12):
to focus and build a recipe, to come and put
that recipe together, I want you to be critiqued as
fair as possible.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Yeah, and that.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
Tells you that that guy who may work at a
high end restaurant, or that lady who might cook on
the river bank or equals at this steal. And another
key component to keep in this, this ain't a chili
cook off. This isn't cooking briskets or anything. Everybody's cooking
something different. So you're gonna be judged on your own merit.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
And yeah, that's a big party.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
And it's it's a lot of it. I mean, if
I were, if I had a team, I would be
thinking real serious about what I was gonna make. And
you know, you could you could always go with something
simple and just make it really good, or you could
do something crazy. I mean there's been squirrel pizza. Yeahirrel
squirrel pizza.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Won last year. Oh really, yeah, it really did. And
to be honest with you, to the rule state that
eighty percent of the meat used in the dish has
to be squirrel. Now it doesn't say that eighty percent
of the dish is squirrel, right, right, And that confused.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
So you can have other meat in there with it.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Well twenty percent, but like your pizza, you may only
be eating a little bit of squirrel. But and like
most of your meal is a pizza with cheese and the.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Dough and yeah, everything, And so that's why that's confusing.
So if you're thinking about coming eighty percent of the
meat you use and that eighty twenty is a perfect
combination of hamburger, right, So we wanted to allow twenty
percent for other which could be fat. We had a

(51:03):
team of doctors come from Oklahoma one time and they
made squirrel hot dogs which they actually emulsified and really
did all of this and and uh so they're twenty
percent was a can of spam, right, because that can

(51:23):
they make it there got you. That's why when Clay
said the Chick fil A story, and I said, disqualified
them because the rules clearly state that the squirrel has
to be whole, quartered or half and unmarnated.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Okay, And so everybody starts at the same time.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
Yeah, we're all. We're all. Heck, I was modern before
I knew it, But every everybody's equal at this deal. So, uh,
in order to make that Chick fil a sandwich, the
secret the Chick fil A has always done is what
pickle juice, pickle juices.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
They marinated it.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
So they had marinated their whirl and pickle juice, I
see before they got there. And so one of the
things we do to make sure there's no contraband is
we do a meat inspection. The meat inspection is to
see that the meat is forty degrees or less, that
it is squirrel, it's a whole quarter or half, and

(52:18):
it's not been marinated or season. And then straight up
nine o'clock, everybody starts off fresh and you go and
make it.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
What time is the judging about?

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Noon? Have you got judges this year? I'm looking for
a couple. I'm looking for a cop.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
I'm out. But that seems like a hard job. It
is fun, it's fun. I've been back there in the
room and it's really a fun vibe.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Yeah. And you know Arkansas Game and Fish, I give
them a judging spot every year and they auction it
off to raise money to help whatever it is. And
that is always amazes me watching that auction because I'm
looking at cool stuff, you know, sitting over here, and
squirrel judge is higher than about a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
And really, this this event has so much potential. I mean,
it's already like thriving. I mean, you know, I don't
I don't know do we have any idea how many
people would have come on a given day, I mean
just a guess.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
I mean, like an overwhelming amount of people.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, you know, it's not a huge it's not a
it's not a it's not like this thing sprawled out
over half a mile or something. I mean, like the
courtyard there at the Nature Center is you know, not
too big. But I mean several thousand people are coming
to this seat.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
We had to make between seven and eight thousand people.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's one day. A lot of people,
a lot of fun, a lot of there's other like
the our buddy Casey Brewster down here that brings his
pack goats up there and it's given given letting kids
feed and play with the goats, and he's showing how
he uses them for packing and doing all kind of stuff.
And the fish tank will be there at the Arkansas

(54:03):
Game and Fish they bring their fish tank.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
Yeah that that. We have a shooting event, you know,
bb guns, pellet rifles, things like that's going on. Cool. Uh.
What we try to do is is we try to
show who we are and not intimidate people. I think camouflage,
for some reason is intimidating to those who don't wear camouflage, right,

(54:29):
and there was a time in history. There was a
time in history.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Sorry, I'm so intimidating. We're people.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
People thought that was the army because hunters were wearing
red and black flannels and you know it's an army guy.
But you know a lot of sources has tried to
turn people with firearms or people that hunt into bad people.
We put a lot of effort in showing that's different.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
One of the things I'm proud of at the event
is we bring in a lot of of organizations that
support children. You know, we're fingerprinting kids, We're doing all
that with the sheriff's departments, they're doing a database to
protect kids, and we want to protect kids. This year,
there's going to be two different organizations that deal with

(55:19):
foster kids. And you know, one of the things that
we're trying to do is get these foster kids into
the outdoors. That's a high risk deal. You know, God
bless the people who take on the responsibility of being
the foster kids. And you don't know what that kids
went through, but we've heard it time and time again,

(55:42):
the healing of PTSD and depression and all that through
the outdoors. It's not even an experiment, it's the truth, right.
And so this year, when you show up, they're not
going to have signs on them clay that say I'm
a foster kid, right, because they're just kids who don't
know about the outdoors. And so I've had a couple

(56:04):
of those organizations reach out and I want, I want,
I want them to know they're just people, right, just
like us, We're just people. And I want them to
gain experiences that prove that they're just people. And uh,
I offered one organization three team spots, and I said,
get your adult and take two of these kids and

(56:27):
they might become world champions. Now, anybody who tries to
help people in life, you're you're kind of it's a
false thing that thinks you're gonna heal everything because of
your organization or whatever. Drop that. Just heal one or

(56:47):
heal ten and let those go out and be the
ones that do it for you in the future. And
so I want to help out these foster kids a bunch.
There's a bunch of them out there. Arkansas's estate loaded down.
You know, we're as a country, we're loaded down. So
I'm gonna bring those out a lot of feel good

(57:09):
stories out there. A C. C. Crappy sticks. They're coming
from Tennessee. They're they're gonna fry up a whole bunch
of fish that you know, to give to the public.
Towns and spice and supply, an Arkansas company will be
there seasoning up all kinds of weird stuff and and

(57:30):
we feed it to to everybody. So we don't sell
food at this event. We give it to you.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
Yeah, man, it's it's that's that's what makes this so unique.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
It's free.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
And then you come and you'll, you know, if you're there,
especially if they're early, you'll you'll leave full with a
bunch of cool food.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
And then we record an episode of the Render and uh,
you know what was what's weird about when we record
the Render is Clay will I ask who hears from
Arkansas and you'll hear a six pack of people hood
or holler.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Yeah, a lot of out of state people.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
A lot of out of state people.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
We've done it the last several years. I planned to
do it again this year. Do we do like a
live render? And it's not a you know, it's not
like in a stadium, but like people can we just
kind of we're in this big room and people can
just kind of gather around and listen and it's a
lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Oh it's amazing. Yeah, I really you know last year
we had multiple families who traveled from England who didn't
even know each other, who show up in Arkansas to
eat a squirrel. Wow, And now you said it was
a lie earlier that I that I said whenever I
got this thing started, right, I think it was supposed

(58:52):
to happen.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Yeah, you know ye World Championship. Yeah, well it's really cool.
It's a cool event. Man, it's a lot of fun
and uh yeah, man, I love some squirrel hunting. So
it's a great it's a great a great fit. It's
a great fit. And I also loved the story where

(59:15):
they kind of they kind of tried to run Joe
in the in the event out of Bentonville.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Yeah, so we don't have to go in the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
But but uh, Bentonville got a little high faluting.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Yeah, Benville is uh good. It's a wonderful town. We
love Bentonville and uh it's yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
But they're asking for it back.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Are they they want it back? Oh, they want us
to come back.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Now, they all us come back. Everybody needs a redneck. Hell,
you don't know when you're gonna be a flat tar.
But uh man, I would really like us to promote
the hunting end of it better. I've never been able
to do that, and I think you, in particular do
a good job showcasing that. I think Baird a good job.

(01:00:00):
I think Bear is one of the most needed things
in the outdoor industry is showing the youth, you know,
because there's so many novice people. As a dad who
grew up in it, I have experience and I know opportunities,
but it's intimidating for a lot of people and for

(01:00:21):
this more rough hunting and fishing style of just going
down and gig some frogs. That was perfectly normal for
me as a kid, but now it's so far out
of line. You know, we need people younger than Bear
showing it too. I think that's a big, missing, missing

(01:00:43):
part of this whole thing. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Yeah, everybody's got a cell phone. Now, we didn't just
think of the stuff we'd have on a video. But
I think what Bear's doing is cool. I think that
I think that the showmanship has shown dad and son
and a lot of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Is is if I can get Bar to go with
me anymore. He's got all his on friends now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
I've seen him at the bar of Bonanza. I felt
like he was going to have a paparazzi or something out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yeah, well, man, yeah, I'm looking forward to it's gonna
be It's gonna be a blast. And uh yeah, come
on out, come on out. Joe needs teams.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
I need.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Well how do they read? How do they contact you?

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
Well, basically it's always on messenger on Facebook, so there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Pretty much there's no official website.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Oh that costs money.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Yeah, there's no there's no website, So you got to
engage with the facebook page.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
There's a there's a World Champions Squirrel Cookoff facebook page. Yeah,
and they can reach out to you directly through there.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Yeah, and we'll keep you updated on things. You know.
Last year, spur of the moment, I like to scramble
and uh, I've heard I decided how funny it would
be to watch kids under ten years old eat raw oyster. Okay,
and so you were already inside signing autographs or something,

(01:02:05):
but we threw a hunder ten year old oysteret in
competition and it worked out exactly like I thought it was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
So is that happening again this year?

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
I maybe, I don't know. I'll come up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Never got up to sleep, but yeah, it's it's a
it's a.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
It's a great family event.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
And yeah it's a family event.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Well, dang bear, I was gonna have you tell about
your mule training, but uh, too late. Now close us down,
tell us about give us a mule update, mule update,
just like overview that people hadn't heard about your mule training.

Speaker 5 (01:02:43):
So guys started our mule slow trap like maybe a
month ago for a month and a half ago, got
a saddle on him, got him right in the round pin.
Took him out of the pen for the first time
two days ago, and then today I was just riding
him around and he was doing pretty good, so I
just had to take him down the road and we
just kept going and he did really good.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
I was coming up the road and I saw a
bear and slow trap coming right down the road. Yeah,
did miss the lick really? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
He did everything.

Speaker 5 (01:03:12):
Yeah, he did for like two laps around the round pin.
He was bucking at one point the first time I
tried to get him to try.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Hey, listen, let's talk about the marketing here. I think
we might describe it more as a crow hop. I
wouldn't describe it. I think if it was bucking, it
would have bucked you off. He was, he was bucking.
I mean, I'm telling you, you know, the biggest thing
when with the like mule training and stuff, if no

(01:03:41):
one's there, when when you tell someone that the mule
was bucking, everybody's like, now, was it really bucking or
was it just kind of crow hopping.

Speaker 5 (01:03:49):
I'm telling you, it was all I could do. I mean,
after the first lap around, I started looking for how
I could jump off onto the side panel, so I
told him this could happen, is that you can.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
So he's riding on this mule in around pen walking it,
and it's doing everything he wants it to do, giving
it cues, and it's moving and stopping, backing up, doing everything.
But the first time you trot one, this one hundred
and fifty pound animal on your back, you know you're
the mule starts bouncing on your back. Well you're trotting,

(01:04:26):
and it's a whole different feeling. And a lot of
times the first time you trot them they get it
scares them. So I told him, I was like, hey,
when you trot him, be careful. Yeah, and yeah, sure
enough he kind of he didn't like him.

Speaker 5 (01:04:37):
Yeah, so I was able to stay on him and
then just you know, we never started going.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
But Slow Trap it's not it's not our best work.
But GERSH. Stocker one of my heroes from Arkansas, old
guy from the eighteen hundreds that was market hunting and
doing a much stuff here in Arkansas. One of his
good buddies from south of for Smith on the fouche
Lea fe River in the wash Toalls was they called

(01:05:04):
him Slow Trap, and Slow Trap was a super good
hunter and he and Gershtalker talks about him in the book,
and that name always stood out to me, Slow Trap
and Gersalk. The Gershtalker book Wild Sports was also the
book that I first read about bear Grease. The first
time I ever read those words bear Grease was in

(01:05:26):
that book. So Slow Trap is this this? Uh it's
a black mule with white stocking feet, and bears trained
it completely, Like I didn't. I mean, we we used it.
We did, I guess I did. We did messed with
a little bit last summer. It was packing with us.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
He got a little help from Uncle Cash.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
He did get a little help from Uncle Cash.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Uncle Cash really cut him straight.

Speaker 5 (01:05:51):
Yeah, So last summer I saddle broke him or just
got him to where he could put his saddle off,
and then we used him a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
So it wasn't like a total like fresh start. So
are you enjoying training the mule?

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
I am a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:06:02):
Actually, at first it was a little like you know,
I knew I wanted to try and train a mule
just to kind of experience it, because I've heard that
there's a lot of like you, you gain a lot
of other stuff whenever you give that Uh, you did Okay, yeah,
and I mean some other people, but uh so I
wanted to do it just for the experience. But as

(01:06:23):
I've been doing it, I've really been enjoying it, like
seeing him progress and like start to understand what I'm
telling him to do, like because because I mean really
like they speak a language. They don't speak a language,
but they have a language, and you're just trying to
figure out how to communicate with them, which is it's
super interesting and super fun.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
Really is it's kind of like hunting with a dog.
You know, if you if you don't have a dog
and you just go with somebody with a dog. The experience,
I mean, it can be exhilarating, but it it's it
can also be just like oh yeah, that was fun.
You get a dog and all of a sudden, it's
like next level like human physiology, chemistry, wild stuff. I mean,

(01:07:07):
it's like biological like you're engaging with this animal that
you raise and that you know, and a lot of
cool stuff happens. You talk to somebody about riding mules
or horses and they're like, oh, that sounds fun. I
get on that horse and ride around. Yeah, you know,
it's like maybe not that big a deal. You train
a mule or train a horse and then ride it

(01:07:30):
and use it in the mountains to haul out game
or to rope on or whatever you're going to do,
completely different experience.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
I'm going through the same deal. I want to talk
to Josh about it a little bit. Uh oh, Well,
from my whole life, I always thought fly fishing was ridiculous.
I always I compared fly fishing to the chopsticks and
the fork that once China found out there was a

(01:07:57):
fork available, they should have just did it the chopsticks
and went straight. They didn't, but they didn't. They held
on to the chopsticks, and then I took fly fishing
was like if I drove four hours to go fishing
with my spinning reel and I got there and it broke,
I'm just gonna have to deal with it, so I'll
just swing this fishing line around and try to catch

(01:08:18):
a fish. Well, about a month ago, I went on
a fly fishing deal and I caught some fish in
a place that I know the only way I was
going to catch those fishes with what that dude put
in my hand that day. So I did what I'd do,
and I scrambled and now I own three different fly rods.

(01:08:41):
I bought all kinds of stuff, and I stand either
in the creek in my backyard or in the front yard,
and I'm trying to figure this out. I no longer
think that fly fishing is stupid. Now I do think
there's plenty of room for a fork. Well, sir, but

(01:09:01):
I want to I want to get a lot better.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
At this fly If you hadn't been with Josh, No, yeah,
you need to go.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
We'll go.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
I tell you how ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
You know who's a good fly fisher? That guy right there.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
I don't know about that. You know, catch some fish
here in there.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
I'm kind of a fence rider in life. I don't
want to cross over and get in trouble. But I'll
go ahead and rub the side of that fence, and
so you'll rub it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
By talking more about fly fishing. We don't talk about
fly We're trying to keep our only way.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
We talk about fly fishers when Clay's gone.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Yeah, when the thing gets hijacked.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
Flies that look just like the feed that they feed
them fish at the hatchery. Oh, and that's probably not traditionalists.
But I don't think I'm gonna get into this deal.
Clays a traditionalist. Sometimes I'll use that fly right as
a cane pole, I promise you. So, yeah, that's what
Chop six and Forks brother top six and Forks.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Well great. Well, me and Bear we've uh we we
broke out The Man from Snowy River about two nights ago.
That is a great movie if you're training horses, training mules.
Bear watched uh running them off a cliff buck.

Speaker 5 (01:10:16):
Yeah, buck Buck Brandman Buck Brandnonman, super Horse whisper movie.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
I heard Dale kind of pin you up on a
Lonesome Dove.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I I don't. I don't know
that movie that way. I've watched I have watched it,
but uh, I don't watch a lot of movies.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
Did you heal from the from the Horses?

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Now, No, we were. We didn't do any rope or anything.

Speaker 4 (01:10:44):
The bruise heal heal You went straight up cowboy. I'm
impressed that that's where your mind went.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Oh well, yeah, healing. Yeah. I can still feel where
it kicked me. Yeah, yeah, it was fine. You know
what when it happened, You know, I had my sunglasses
on and I actually thought, there's no way you can
get kicked that hard and not break something. I mean,
I actually thought my leg is gonna be broke. But

(01:11:13):
I watched the video it didn't even look that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
I heard it and I saw it. I was standing
at the fence, and I thought that's bad. Like anybody
who heard it was like it was. There was kind
of like this collective like.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Ooh, yeah, I would. It was like like a few
days after the doc it was yeah, and then it
immediately was just like what you see in the video
is like a minute after it happened, and it doesn't
even look that bad. By the time we got done,
it was it was swollen up quite a bit, and
then like two days later it's a big black bruise

(01:11:49):
that kind of spread all down my legs.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
So you stated that you had the sunglasses on where
they hide and the allergies that happened.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Well, I just think I was I would have. I mean,
I wasn't crying, but I just feel like if you'd
seen my face, you would have seen my eyes. Yeah. Yeah,
it's no fun getting kicked by a horse or mule,
But Kyle, when they do you, uh you you you
respect that animal because holy Cali got some power. Yeah, yeah,

(01:12:18):
bears a bear's mule. Uh well, we've got a new
plot hound and slow Trap is like this super gentle
like dog, gentle mule and uh man, it just reared
back and Wick.

Speaker 5 (01:12:36):
He's not a huge fan of dogs because Tim is
an idiot, and we'll just like chase him and then
so then he'll, you know, start trying to stomp him,
and Tim will like run out of the fence before
he gets them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
So I think he's probably they have a good relationship, though,
I think the mule likes it.

Speaker 5 (01:12:51):
Yeah, I think at this point that's the same relationship
I have with my wife.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
She kicks me in the head, and I mean she
likes it. So hey, if I'll leave the show with this.
If you're interested in cooking at the Squirrel Cookoff, reach
out to us on Facebook. It's on September thirteenth, Springdale, Arkansas,
free to the public. Show up at nine o'clock, enjoy

(01:13:16):
the day. The teams are bound to enjoy the day,
and they like seeing you. They like hearing Clay will
be there, Brent Reeves will be there. Josh said he's
showing up yep, bear if he ain't chasing frogs or
lizards or whatever he's doing. He'll be there there, yeah,
and we'll have a good time. But it's not what

(01:13:38):
you expect when you get there, and it's a good
time for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
Yeah, all right, thanks Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
Hey, I got you some sauce ball man.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
That stuff right there is the best. This is not
like sometimes at meat Eater we have to like put
stuff in the camera and talk about our greatness, and
if we do that, it truly is our endorsement. It's
good stuff. This is not that, except that this is
incredible stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
It's I wanted to make sure Bears has a pack
of that to carry with him when you know, cooking
all of the environment.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
That craft Worcestershire sauce and uh wash your sister sauce Wilsonshire.

Speaker 3 (01:14:22):
Yeah, it was easier to say I kind of got
one of them impediments.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
Well, I was pretty proud of what I just said it.
But yeah, for real, that is like the best stuff
in the world. Man, I don't even know. It doesn't
even taste like Worcester sauce to me. Well, it's better better,
It's better.

Speaker 3 (01:14:38):
On there and come see me hey if if you
like my story. So we got a little. I've got
a podcast and it's called cooking Up a Story. I
don't cut this out, okay, but it's called cooking Up
a Story. And we take normal people and talk about
how struggle leads to success and uh it's it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Time, so a lot of fun, all right. Keep the
wild places wild because that's where the bears live.