Ep. 367: Render - Artist and Outdoorsman Duane Hada

In this episode of the Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb is joined by Bear Newcomb and Josh “Landbridge” Spielmaker for a conversation with renowned Arkansas artist and fly fisherman, Duane Hada. Together, they dive into Duane’s deep-rooted love for the natural world, his artistic journey, and his passion for chasing smallmouth bass in the wild waters of the Ozarks.

If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail]

Connect with Clay and MeatEater

Clay on Instagram

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop Bear Grease Merch

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Clay Neukleman.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called
The bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper,
and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast,
presented by f h F Gear, American Maid, purpose built
hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged

(00:37):
as the place as we explore. So we've got we've
got a few things that we've got to do, Dwayne
right off the top that I usually always forget to
the to the end.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
But welcome to the Bear Grease Render.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
We are.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
There's a Meat Eater Lie tour that's coming up, a
couple of couple of housekeeping things we got to talk about.
First Meat Eater Live Tour coming in December. Tickets go
on sale next week. Oh really, Yes, tickets go on
sale next week. When do they announce the dates? Do
you know you got the insider trading info on that

(01:19):
next week, which would be the like the twenty in
the twenties of September. Whenever that week is, and uh,
We're going to Birmingham, Nashville, Tennessee. Birmingham, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee, Fayetteville, Arkansas,

(01:39):
which Barry Newcomb is going to be one of our guests.
And there's another secret guests that we're not gonna say
who's going to be there that I promise you you're
going to be. Glad is there and uh Dallas, Texas
in Houston, Austin, Austin seven seven cities, seven nights in
a row. And if you go to the mediator dot

(02:01):
com slash tour, you can sign up for an email
that will allow you to get first DIBs at the tickets.
That's the way this works. So you know, at some
point they'll just go and sell to the general public
and you can just go and buy them. But if you,
if you, if you go to that meat eater, the
mediator dot com slash tour, put your email in there,

(02:22):
they'll send you a deal where you can order them
before and I really think a lot of these shows
are gonna sell out.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
So it's in the Media Live Tour. We've we've done
it several years and it's really fun. Steve Vanella, y'as
who tell us myself, h Randall, Randall and Brent Reeves.
Did I say Brent already? In every every place has
a special guest and it's like a variety show. There's

(02:52):
gonna be music, there's gonna be trivia, We're gonna give
away a bunch of stuff. There's gonna be storytelling, there's
gonna be audience participation and contests. It's it's a hoot.
It's a it's a hoot. We've done it all over
the country and it's a ton of fun. And they're
all different. Everyone's different. But I'm very, very much so
believing that the South is going to come come in

(03:12):
the South.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
And what's that the South carise Again.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
I didn't say that, but the South will dominate the
out hooting contests we have. Typically we have an out
hooting contest. I haven't heard that we're going to do that.
So here speculate.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Here's my question for you. What city is going to
have the best out hooters?

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Uh? I think they're Texas won't, but all the others will.
Where in Tennessee it would be my guess.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I'd say I'd say Alabama and Tennessee faible, Arkansas will
be just it'll be at the lower tier of Southern states. Wow,
it will Man's a kick in the shin, but it's
just the truth. I mean, I'm I'm, I'm I'm Arkansas
is I mean, we're like we're like in this part

(04:02):
of Arkansas, like pretty close to not being in the South.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
I mean, it's just the truth.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
As much as I hate to say, and and our
Turkey population for the last decade almost a half generation
has been so low that I think fathers aren't teaching
their kids how to out hooot.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
It's hard. Now.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I taught my son how to al hoot ye. So
that's just my prediction. I mean, we're going to be
way better like we last year. We were in like
San Diego, Sacramento, Portland, Boise.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
And I was in I was at the show in
in California and.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Anaheim Anaheim, California.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
The al hooting contest was pretty abysmal.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
I mean, listen, I love those people so much, and
and it's kind of like asking it would kind of
be like if somebody, you know, came no offense to
the Anaheimers this part of Arkansas and was like, who's
really good at playing soccer?

Speaker 1 (04:58):
And we were like, well, we don't.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
We don't really play a lot of soccer or you know,
my generation and be like, well kick this ball and
let's see how you do. And it's like, well, we
don't really do that. That's kind of what it's like
going out there asking them to out, you know, but
I would.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
I would.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
It's my prediction that the out that the worst out
hooter at those places would probably win in any of
those cities out there. But it's not their fault. It's
not a character it's not it's not a character judgment.
But so looking forward to the Meat Eater Live Tour,
a couple of I'm gonna I can't wait to introduce

(05:35):
my guests.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
I'm I'm afraid you're going to point out me and say,
give you your best bar now over. I'm over here, shaken.
I have done them, and I've been at an introduction.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, okay, we're gonna get to that. We're gonna get
to your bar nowt Hey, this white Tail Week is
coming up at Meat Eater. John When is Meat Eaters
White til.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
We September twenty ninth through October fifth.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Great, I want to show you the new Uh look
at this man, this is this is really cool. This
is a this is the new and improved acorn Grunner
from Phelps. I truly believe it's the best deer call
ever made, but it's made out of oceage. This year,
Oh yeah, yeah, So it's a it's a it's a
dual call. It's a buck grunt and a doe bleed

(06:26):
in one call inhale exhale. That's what I asked Jason
to make three years ago. First year we made him
out of oak, which is the only year we're ever
going to do it.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
They'd be like they're like collectors of this year.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, man, and the oak was a little bit unstable.
Oh and then we made one out of u uh,
it was an acrylic ma crilic. We made one that
was a cryllic and I really liked the acrylic one.
I mean it's a lifetime call, but the sound was
a little different.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
This this year we went to oceage burnt oceage. So
it's you know, they they burn it and then it's
got just like a matt finish on it. But uh,
and so you can that's slick if you if you blow,
I mean you know there's one side where you blow

(07:17):
grunt suck for a bleat. You flip it around and
it's opposite blow for a bleat, suck for a grunt
and you know you can adjust the reeds and everything, but.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Can you adjust the reason growth?

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, yeah, you just you just take it apart, check
that and adjust the reads. And I mean that's pretty
that's pretty common amongst deer calls there.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
But would you say that if you don't have that call,
you probably won't kill a deer this year.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
No, No, there's a lot of calls out there. I'm
not gonna I'm not even gonna go that low. It's
just it's just like anything. It's just like duck hunting.
It's just like turkey calls. I mean, a lot of
grunt calls will call in a deer. This is just
this is just a cool call. One thing I just
know just about that call. Hold that up for a second,

(08:02):
is that you can put the lanyard on either side
so it dangles so that it's a predictable when you
pick it up.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
That's right, That's that's that's the idea.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
That good point, Josh, is that you you basically we
we thought about putting like a word on either side
so you would know, but it was just a little complicated.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Just you just make the call adjusted the way you want.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
So if you want your lanyard on like the so
when you blow it, blow grunt side, you know. But uh,
but I use a dough bleat all the time. Like
guys always talk about grunt calls, I've called in way
more dear with a dough bleed. I personally have just
the way that I'm hunting. And I'm also oftentimes in
the early season trying to call in a dough to
shoot her. And so a buck grunt on October first

(08:47):
to a dough is not most likely going to be
that appealing to her. But man, you you bleeded a
dough out there at fifty sixty yards on October the
first around here, fair chance she's gonna come check you out.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
I don't know if you know the but October the
first happens to fall during meat eaters White tail Week.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Are you sure the burnt o sage looks good on it?
Does that look good?

Speaker 4 (09:08):
It looks really nice?

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, this is a great This is a great time
to introduce our guest, Dwayne Hayda from Yaleville, Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Sir, glad to be here.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah, it's it's nice to meet you. This is the
first time that we've met. But you know, you know,
my dad.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
I do. I do from way back in my days
of Mina. Okay, do we have this right? Yeah? But
the right person and everything? Yeah, yeah, pretty sure. Yeah yeah.
I taught school down to Mina down there and loved
it and knew of your dad anyways.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Okay, and then you've met Bear in recent years.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yes, I have. And what an introduction. You've got a
fine young man there, I tell you, he's He's helped
me with the boys that I do with my group.
And I love seeing youth that are on purpose and
and got skills, and you see my pleasure. Man.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, so give me give me a general introduction of
what you do.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
I know you have.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna let Josh do that. Josh,
how would you introduce Dwayne Hayden and somebody that.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Dwayne Hayden is a fly fisherman, an artist, a mentor.
I know his son in law, so he's a great
father in law. I mean, just a he's a renaissance man.
He's an outdoor renaissance traditional archer, traditional archer.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
I love that traditional archer.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, that's how I would introduce Dwayne Hayden. Just an
incredible artist.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
We have a.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
We have a beautiful rainbow trout license plate for the
state of Arkansas. He made that that piece of artwork
for our and everything.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
So yeah, so you're but you live on the White
River a couple hours.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
I actually live closer to the Buffalo River. But my
I have a business which is Rivertown Gallery. That's my
art studio, and I have a gallery. It's open to
the public, and that's in the Mountain Home area near
the White River. So but I'm very familiar with the
White River and all. But my home is tucked out
on what to call Pendleton Ridge, which is down near Rush, Arkansas,
kind of going down Highway fourteen South. It's a thirty

(11:08):
five mile drive to town every day, but I love it.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Okay, So town for you is Mountain Home.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yellville really Yellville? Yeah, yeah, I'm closer to Yellville, but
my business is in Mountain Home. Just because there's people
in Mountain Home, they're not very fun.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
So what have you done? What have you done career wise?
You've told your team short off.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
I do have a degree in art education from UCA
and my first teaching position was in Mina, Arkansas, and
I stayed there almost five years. What years were we there,
nineteen eighty one to eighty five, I think, or something
like that or eighty five anyway, early early ages. Yes,

(11:47):
and loved it. That's a if I didn't live where
I live now, I'd probably live back down there. I
love it because it's so wild and access to the
mountains and things that I love. Anyway, but I got
I'm you know, I've always been in an outdoorsman and
angle and fly fishing was something that was just big
and my life and loved it. And so I got
an opportunity. I was teaching some fly fishing classes for

(12:10):
Rich Mountain Community College of all things. And see these
guys from Fort Smith were coming down taking the class
from me, and they were opening a business up there
in Fort Smith. And they kind of dangled a care
in front of me and said, how much do you
want to teach the rest of your life? You want
to do what you really love to do, and gave
me an opportunity. And I have a understanding why. She said,

(12:30):
I'll go anywhere that you feel God's leading me, but
to make sure, and so I jumped and took it,
and it's all made a difference, and.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
So I I what was that business.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
The business was of actually being a fly fishing guide.
I worked in Hebrew Springs, Arkansas. We and then we'd
go back and forth between Fort Smith and I do
a lot of work with that group there, and then
eventually we came on up to the White River and
I guided heavily there for years anyway, about thirty two
years as a professional fly fishing guide. And but along

(13:04):
the way I always did my art. But it was
kind of interesting how my guiding was here. My art
was just kind of for a few clients and that
type of thing. And then as I've gotten older and everything,
the flyfish guiding business has kind of switched and the
art business has really taken off. And that's just been
an amazing blessing for me to be able to make
my living with what I love to do. And and

(13:25):
my son in law now has really taken over the
guiding aspect, and he's he's young, and he's energetic and
good at it. So it's been an amazing couldn't have
scripted it better for what I do anyway, But art
and fly fishing, those two things as far as for
the income, and you know, but everybody always says you know,
the definition of a successful artist is an artist whose

(13:47):
spouse has a good job, you know, so thank god
my wife was teaching school, and you know, because it's
not easy. I mean, it's you know there. But I
am blessed to I think now, not that I've arrived
or anything, but least it's making a good living for me,
and I enjoy that. And I feel very blessed to
describe your art to us. Well, my art is my passion.

(14:09):
So if you know me and the hunting and the
fishing and being an ozark's boy, and that's you know.
I had a professor in college. He said, never waste
your time painting what you don't have a passion for.
And that makes a lot of sense because I did
a commission painting for somebody the other day and he
wanted a duck hunting scene. And I'm like, I'm not
duck hunting right now. And you know, now, if you

(14:30):
told me in January to do it and everything, I'd
probably have my full soul and passion into it. So
I paint for me if I like driving up here,
I see these beautiful mountains. I got here early. I
walking up down West Fork on the White and everything,
and just seeing the way the lights playing on the
water and watching some small mouths swim around and various things.
So I start getting that building concept and inspiration within me,

(14:54):
and I can't rest till I painted out. So those
are my best paintings is when it comes from truly me.
That's that's my artistic voice and my artistic voice. When
you come in my gallery, it shouldn't take you long
to figure out who Dwayne Hate is. He likes small
mouth bass, he likes the Ozark Mountains. He likes the
birds and the beer and the wildlife and things like that.
So I paint what I know, because you're gonna paint

(15:17):
best what you know and what you have a passion for.
You're gonna put your soul into that.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Would you say the the paintings that I've seen of yours,
which I've certainly not seen all of them, but they're
they're big, they're colorful, they're at least your fish. Yeah,
it feels like they're really zoomed in to. I mean,
you know, you might have a foot wide and have

(15:41):
a like the whole image be of the fish, not
like the fish jumping out of the water with a
big landscape.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
I mean, maybe that's just a bias of what I've seen.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
And I kind of go through stages. I guess you
might say. I've got everything from very small paintings to
huge murals that I'm doing a lot of now on
big buildings show sixty seventy foot twenty foot, you know. So,
But as far as my hanging canvas is that type
of thing, I've got one down at the restaurant in
uh Cotter, Arkansas, they commissioned me to do. That's an

(16:10):
underwater scene and so White Basically if you just stuck
your head under the water and the White River and
looked around the logs and saw big brown kind of
holding in his little place and some rainbows, and then
we have you know, cutthroat and a few brook trouting
that type of thing. So it's kind of that grand
slam of trout species in the White River, and it's
just sort of a little cross section of in the

(16:31):
field of water moving and there's crawdads and sculptings and
all that living environment in there. So that's that's a
But a lot of my paintings are above the water too,
you know. I love how the mist rises off the
river in the mornings and and just that lone angler
out there in his world. I mean, there's nothing more
peaceful than being out there and just the rhythm of

(16:52):
casting and searching for fish and in the river and
that type of thing. So I've I identify with that,
So I paint that and then thank god, you know,
customers walk through like, wow, that's connect to you, bet.
So that's that's that's what's going on there. You know.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
I saw one of your paintings that I connected to
immediately was I can't remember the name of it, was
like Ozark Flush or Ozark Quail Hunts, Oh yeah, yeah,
and it's it's two guys with their backs. You can
see their their backs, and there's a dog pointing and
there's a covey rise. But what stood out to me
was with the chimney. There's an old and that's a

(17:29):
real place stone chimney in the background where the home
has rotted away and only the chimney remained. The reason
that's meaningful to me is those are my favorite places
out in the National Forest and when you're on just
out in the mountains and you see an old standing
chimney and just to stand there and just think who
who lived here, the kids that were raised here, Why

(17:52):
did they come here, why did they leave? How hard
was their life? I mean, it just it's like this
cascade of questions that probably will never be answered. And
I Dwayne, before you leave, I'm gonna have to show you.
I built a rock chimney on the other side of
my house that sets out from my house that acts

(18:13):
as an outdoor fire pit, but it stands alone, and
it was built to look like an old home place.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Essentially.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
It was just like a hat tip to the to
the Ozarks.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
I'm all about that. I love. Yeah, I know the
place and that painting, and it's amazing to the guy
that walked in. You know, I love this when you know,
I've got hundreds of paintings on the wall in the gallery,
but when somebody comes in just like a bird dog
going on point, you know. And when that guy looked
at that paint just started walking to it, I knew
I had him. You know. It was that he connected
And I mean he just walked right, took it off

(18:46):
the wall and just I mean did he he just
like looking at it, just mumbling to himself, walked to
the cash right and just yeah, I didn't need to.
The painting sold itself.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Now that was the Chimney painting. Yes, yes, with the
Do you have reprints with that or.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
I did not? I don't, you know. I feel like
an original is something I will print some because I
know the market and all that. And I've got a
bear print that I've did for the National Bar Festival
that they do over in North Carolina. Okay, they add
me comings to artists and I painted one, so I
put that in print for longevity and more affordable pieces.
And I do things, you know, the v RBO business

(19:20):
and the White River Lodges is boom. So I've got
trout paintings you know, all over in them and those
are prints, you know. But I feel like when you
buy a painting you you want, it's like buying a
homemade bow or something you know you want, you bet
you want to.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
That's surprising to me. Yeah, I was planning on trying
to figure out how to buy a print at.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Ozarkbe to get in his will.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Now that I've said I like it.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
They'll jack the price up too late, take that out,
get the number of that guy.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah. So anyway, but I paint, you know, something has
to when it triggers me that painting starts building into
me and I just can't rest till I just I
just have to get in the studio and paint.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Let me ask you a questions. There's so so art.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Art truly is a gifting in the very truest nature
of what we conceive as a human gift, like like
a personal capacity that isn't taught. It's just like either
have it or you don't. But gifting can be sculpted

(20:28):
over time and developed and grown. My question to you
as how much have you progressed in your actual skill
as a painter? So how much of it is skill
that was developed as a craft? I guess is just
the natural raw bone God given.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
I get asked that a lot, and I struggle with
that because I'm all about God's gifts, okay, and and
and and obviously he instilled something in my brain, my
makeup my uniqueness. That Dwayne is that five year old
kid that couldn't leave a chalkboard alone, had to turn
over his Sunday school bulletin and drawl over the back

(21:07):
of it, had to if it was a blank piece
of paper. You know, I'd never did coloring books I
don't know that I've ever colored in a coloring book
as a kid, I always had to have a blank
piece of paper to create. So there's something going on
here that maybe is a little different from some of
the other kids, and that now my mom still has
some drawings I did at five or six years old,
and for a five or six year old kid, they're

(21:29):
pretty good. Okay. I'm a little better today, Okay, because
I have worked hard and I have strong passion, and
I have surrounded myself with some other artists that I
have fed off of to perfect my craft. Okay, and
all of us do that, I think, so to say,
Dwayne is a prodigy born walking out and I could

(21:51):
paint this if I lived in a cave somewhere and
never was exposed to other artists, or so you do.
And I'm seeing this right now. You know, the young
man that works with me, one of my CTO boys, Zach,
an amazing artist. He's he never knew he could do that, okay,
but he's working with me, and he's a very quiet
young man, but he's always over my shoulder watching and

(22:11):
then one day he just likes starts painting, and I'm like,
whoa and it's good, and then I start encouraging him
and so it can be taught. I feel like good drawing,
realistic drawing. Okay. Now there's a lot of things out
there called art today that whatever that definition is. But
I'm into realism. I live in a real world, and

(22:33):
I feel like, if you're gonna paint a white tailed deer,
you had better look like a white tail deer, Okay,
So you better know them and you and all those
kind of things. Put in the right environment and get
the body. And the white tail is different than mule deer,
than a black tailed or key deer and all that
kind of thing. So if you're going to paint that,
you need to know something about that. But your eye
in your hand, okay. And this is what I have taught,

(22:54):
because I taught even at ASU and Mountain Home some
drawing classes, and I get people come in, especially ladies
that were older in life, and they're like, you know,
we used to always wanted to paint bad race, family
and all this, or want to draw. So they come
and take a class just as a hobby, and my goodness,
suddenly it's just like putting gas to the flame. You know,
it's within them, and I think there's a lot of

(23:15):
people of this and it's left brain right brain functions. Okay,
So if you can teach your hand to record what
the I sees, you can develop drawing technique. What you
now do is you take your history, your passion, your
creativeness and put that in with it and no tell

(23:38):
them what you can do so it it can be taught,
but you've got to put that passion soul into really
be an artist that shows his individual You should be
able to go in and look at somebody's sketchbook and
immediately tell something about them. And that when you come
into my gallery, you're not going to see wild, weird
abstracts and things like that. You're going to see Dwayne

(23:59):
Hay the soul out there for you to walk around
in and see what I love, okay, And I just
and I paint for myself really and I just hope
that enough people come in that can identify the like
like that guy did on the quail painting of the chimney.
You know, he connected exactly just as you did. And
thank goodness, there's enough people he did. He did, I could,

(24:21):
I might could do another one. I don't know. It's
hard and people ask me, they said, well, just paint
me another one. I'm like, that's like different. Yeah, it's
like you know that beautiful bow with that wood. You know,
to duplicate that, would you know? Because it had to
be I've.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Got the perfect analogy draining of what it's like. They
say that a memory is actually just a recollection of
the prior time you had that thought.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
Wow, do you understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
I'm trying to see you see, you see an image,
you have an experience, right, the next time you tell
that story, you're actually remembering the real thing.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
But the next time you tell.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
It, you know, there's there's some equation where you're you're
actually just saying what.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
You said before. Okay, do you understand?

Speaker 2 (25:14):
And so by the time you're an old man, that's
the reason stories get so distorted. Sure, And why you
might be talking to your grandpa and he tells you
a story that he is adamant happened just this way
and it didn't happen that way at all. It's because
because the story shifted over time. Yeah, I mean for
real that That is the genesis of many of the

(25:34):
myths and things that have happened is just the fallacy
of our ability to recollect. So painting trying to duplicate
a painting would be like painting what you remembered of
the painting.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
My paintings in the moment, and it's got to be
an original. Yeah, I agree, I understand. I like it good.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Uh, Joshua Brair, do y'all have any y'all know Dwayne
better than me? I mean, there's plenty that we could
talk about. But but uh, now, how what were you
doing with Dwayne?

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Bear?

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Just Bear is a grown man now, so he just
does stuff, doesn't even talk to you. He doesn't even
tell me what he's doing anymore. He just show up
and do stuff. What were you doing with Dwayne? I'm
trying to think. I think I was over there with
Now are you? Are you remembering the actual memory or apparently.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Memory fish that night?

Speaker 5 (26:25):
Yeah, we were fishing with Kyle v with the Ozark podcast.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
You met him first, meet fly fishing, I hope spinning
and sinning.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
I had a guy.

Speaker 4 (26:38):
I had a guy leave a comment this week on
one of the podcasts and he said he said, he said,
using a bait caster or a spinning rod is akin
to your preacher telling you the gospel using a fly
rod is like the Lord Jesus telling you about himself.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Oh wow, wow, what an analogy.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
You know. If you go back to my I got
a fly rub when I was nine years old, Okay,
living in Moon County, Arkansas, flyfish Criocket Creek and Bear
Creek all the time, and and I didn't know anybody

(27:21):
that fly fish. There's one old man in our community
that had done a little bit, and but he also
told me before spinning rods. That's however, beding in the
Ozarks fished. If you go look at those old photos
up at Bass Pro Shop and that type of thing,
in those old John boats, there are a lot of
them fly ridding, you know, and they used to have.
There's some old Ozark lures for fly rods, like the

(27:42):
the hill Brandt spinner with a pork rind on the
back of a holly grove. That was an Ozark uh,
you know, that was very effective. And the water hag Okay.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
That's supposed to be the other one. You said, was
it supposed to be a crawdad?

Speaker 3 (27:54):
No, it's just a basically like what we use as
spinner bait today, you know, it's just something that made
vibration and noise and movement. Okay, you know, they just
hit it out of reflex more anything. But down the washtalls,
the old timers down there, that's where I came in.
Uh uh, learned what a water hag was, and it
was and the old the old float tubers you know
down on the Costa to the Mountain Fork River. Yes, uh,

(28:15):
they all fished with a water hag, you know, or
they'd use live grasshoppers a lot on it. What is
a water a water hag is? Basically it was like
a foam long bug with rubber bands sticking out the
side of it. It's just basically a top water probably
ate it for a big grasshopper or something like that.
I'm going to name a mule that water hag. That's
a good that'd be a good water hag. Yeah that

(28:36):
was that was and people still still use them anyway.
But anyway for me, so for fly fishing, you know,
you uh, you know river ran through it and all that,
and you know, and I worked in the fly fishing
industry and there's a whole I guess I can say
this sort of a yuppie crowd that you know, wanted
the image, the orvist image or whatever, and that's great,
not more power to them, and and they're out there

(28:58):
and they're doing their thing. I came at it totally
as an artist, okay, because I remember in fifth grade
sitting there looking at film Stream magazine or Outdoor Life
it was back then, and seeing these beautiful pictures of
these Colorado mountains and everything, catching the beautiful native cutthroats
and everything. And so I'd go down to Crooker Creek
with a fly rod that I got for my ninth birthday.

(29:18):
My parents, like they called an uncle of ours that
lived up Michigan, like, what the boy wants a fly rod?
What's a fly rod? You know? And they found one
and got it to me. In of course, it came
with no instruction. I'd beat the water to a froth
in front of the mem behind me and everything. But
I was determined to fish that way because as an artist,
you know, I'd pick up fox squirrels that I'd shot
and my mom's chickens and wrap feathers and you know,

(29:40):
and it was cool to me to make something to
go out and trick a fish with it. You know.
Now I still fish with crawdads and minnows because I
wanted to learn, and I had an older brother and
I had to beat him, you know. So there was
sort of a handicap, you know, somewhat with fly fishing.
But as I got older, the confidence level and the
skill levels, and as I got around other wonderful fly fishers,

(30:02):
Dave Whitlock came into my life, and my goodness, what
a mentor for me with his amazing skills and others,
and just never wanting to not learn every time the river,
every day, the river teaches you something if you let it,
and so I just absorbed everything. But for me, fly
fishing was just the art kind of traditional shooting at bow.

(30:24):
It's just smooth, it's fun, it's pure. That's what fly
fishing is for me. So I don't come at it
from a status. I coming at it from more of
an artist than the satisfaction. Okay, I've caught fish every
way you can imagine, okay, from noodland to limb lines
to snagging whatever, okay, and it's all fun and it

(30:47):
all produces. But there's nothing as satisfying as catching, at
least for me and a lot of people. That's why
they identify with fly fishing. There's a certain piece about it,
but there's also that satisfaction in coming with tricking a
fish with an artificial especially one that you made, and
then the rods are just so vibrant, visceral feeling. It is.

(31:10):
There's something spiritual almost about it, and I don't know,
it's just a it's a different type of fishing, but
you can gain and push your skill level. And I've
been very lucky my fly fishing has allowed me. I
had a business at one time where I was able
to travel and put together. I have literally fished in
a lot of places all around the world for a
lot of different species, saltwater species and some of the

(31:33):
famous places in Europe and even place like that. I
allowed me to coach the US first youth fly fishing
team and I'm a silver medalist, you know, the first
silver medalist anyway for the US. Yes, Olympics, Yes, there's
an Olympics. Are fish well, it's it's its own Olympics.
It's called the Phipps Mouche fly Fishing World Tournaments anyway

(31:54):
that they hold in different countries. The first time that
I did this, we were in the country of Wales,
and then we went to Ireland and it was amazing.
So it's uh, it's been now.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Is that what took you around the world fly fishing?

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yes, yes it was.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
It was coaching this team.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
That that was part of it, and just working through
businesses anyway, as kind of a trip host, I advertise
trips and go I can't afford to go do all that,
so you get a group of people that can go,
and that's how you get to go. So it's been awesome.
I've been to Christmas Island a couple of times, well
almost to Australia. Of fly fish in England and Wales

(32:32):
and Ireland and.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Is there Okay, if you asked me this question as
a hunter, I could come up with an answer, even
though it wouldn't be perfect. If you could, if you
could tell about one one fish you caught a while
anywhere in the world, which one would you tell you?
It's the only story you get for the rest of

(32:54):
your life.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
I've got two.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
I knew it.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
I knew I was going to do that. And then
the reason, okay, one of them. I took some guys
to Blize one time and they have a rare uh genetic.
It be like a pieball deer or a black squirrel
or something like that. That's pretty rare. They have something
that are called a golden bonefish and they figure it's
probably one in five thousand bonefish. And the lodge that

(33:19):
I went through, they would give you a free trip
if you caught one. And I caught one and it
was amazing, okay, and it's it's like the normal bonefish,
but it's like you dipped him in a champagne gold
orangeish coloration. Wow. Unique to be very unique. But they
didn't give me a free trip because I was hosting
that trip, and they said, well, your trips already free
the way they could. But I went back again the

(33:43):
next year and took some people. But so that was
kind of unique.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
And now what country was that?

Speaker 3 (33:48):
That is bleeze.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Ocean fish?

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yes, but it's in shallow water. That is the most
hunting of fishing because you are stalking and if you
step wrong and you make a wrong step, they're gone.
I mean they're in shallow water to avoid sharks and
they're feeding with their tails up, so you're looking for
you can walk.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
You would lovetten stock.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
You would love everything's spotting stock and you've got to
be a good castor you've got to hit about a
foot in front of them and usually at some distance.
So it's it's a skill builder. And when you hook them,
it's about like trying to stop a car out here
on the family.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
My sun in law is from Antigua and fishing and
Antigua and hooked a couple of them.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Just couldn't get them to they break your line.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
They just the I mean they just take off and
I mean they'll pull a boat. You know, they're about
this big, but they're.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Built for speed.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
They have a big forktail, bone fish, bonefish.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Yeah, basically a melanistic melon, well reverse melanism probably.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
What's that word, robinistic.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
There's a word for it anyway, that's kind of unique
when you don't know when it's lacks of melanism anyway.
The other one is just you know, good old home
Buffalo River.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
My biggest small hoping I actually said, I hope his
second one is something.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
It's always going to be. The flip pilot just passed
away and Dave Whitlock just passed away not too long ago. Great,
you're talking about the Mount Rushmore fly fishing. These are
two chisel faces that will be there, and they were people,
especially Dave Whitlock, very dear in my life anyway, And
he wrote one time in Fly Fisherman magazine that people
asked him that question and the greatest you know. And

(35:22):
I don't want this to sound bragging or whatever, but
he said his favorite fishing experience would be the Lower
Buffalo River wilderness area with a fly rod and having
me paddle that canoe down there with him. Oh wow,
that is special. But so I got to do that
with my son in law and a dear friend of mine,
Ben Levin, who's a fly fishing guide who guided with

(35:43):
me when he was fourteen years old, and he's from
over here in the Mulberry region where he grew up,
and great young man. And so we're together on this
float trip and this very first bend in the river
down there, and I've got to fly that tide and
I've got it down deep around a boulder, and all
of a sudden it gets solid. I come up and
I don't know what's a good That broad's just dancing

(36:03):
around in the front of the boat around, and I'm like,
and all of a sudden, it shoots up right in
between our two canoes and this mental picture of this
twenty inch golden brown. You know, I tried every way
to make him four pounds and he wouldn't. But these
in my mind he's four. But he's been a big,
big as old fish, you bet. And when I got
my hands on that thing, I just shook, like hold

(36:24):
a big buck, you know by the horns, because I mean,
that was my life right there. And to do that
in front of two young men that they always want
to catch one like that, and I did it. You know,
I was the stud for that day, you know, And
I got to look at that and and just to
hold that fish and I'm like, man, you're gonna kill
it if you don't, you know. But but just to

(36:46):
look at in the eye and just think everything it
took for that small amount to go from fry to
you know that biologists tell me that fish was probably
a minimum of sixteen years old. You know, they they
live long lives. A lot of people don't understand them.
With smallmouth bass, how fragile. I'm really working with the
game and fish now, trying to just left with the
biologist and everything, because they need to make regulations if

(37:06):
we're going to have big small mouth and numbers. Yeah,
we kill them all faster than they can grow, is
a simple thing. So we need to we need to
be very protective. So I eased him back in, and
what a great I mean, my soul just went with
that fish as he went down in the rocks, and
I just pulled back and said, I'm done. We got
a three day trip, I said, you boys, you know
how paddle the canoe, and no one else caught one.

(37:29):
They caught some seventeen inches, but nobody came close on
that whole trip anyway, three day lower buffalo. So that's
that fish will always be etched in my what year
was up? It's been about five years ago, so yeah,
fairly recent. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah, Oh that's a great that's a great story.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah. So of all the places I've been, I think,
you know, they say there's no place like home. You
can't take the Ozarks out of the boy, you know,
And that's to me. I think we have some of
the beautiful, most beautiful and unique fishing. Uh you know
you can have. I'll be anywhere right here in the Ozarks.
So give me one last day, I'll probably you probably
stay home. I'll stay home. It's pretty good.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
Yeah, Dwayne's also an incredible fly tire. I've got a story.
I fished the the uh the Odyssey. So there's a
fly fishing tournament where it's an all species tournament. The
goal is to catch the most number of species. And
Dwayne Hayda it makes everyone look like a joke when
he competes in this thing. Oh yeah, I heard it,
but I fish that. And then for my daughter's sixteenth birthday,

(38:31):
we did a family trip to Hawaii.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
And we went to Kawaii and I wanted to do
some fly fishing out there, and so I called a
guid and I said, I really like to go bone fishing.
He said, well, the bone fishing is not real great
right now, but we can go small mouthfishing. And I said,
small mouth fishing in Kawaii and he's like sure. So
I set it up. My wife and I had to
go fly fish.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Now.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Mind you, this is like three days after the Odyssey.
And we meet the guide, super nice guy. We trek
through the jungle. We're standing in front of this probably
one hundred and twenty foot waterfall in this deep pool.
Beautiful and uh, he pulls out the flyer on he
hands it to me, and he reaches in his fly
box and he pulls pulls out a fly and ties
it on. I look at it and I said, is

(39:14):
that a Hat Creek Crawler? And he goes, yeah, man,
this fly is awesome. I said, I just fished with
Dwayne Hated three days ago.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
He's like, are you kidding?

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Would he have bought that from Dwayne or did he?

Speaker 3 (39:26):
It's a production fly. I sold the rights to that
fly several years ago to W I have a I
have a royalty pattern out there that they I get
a check every so often when they you know, it's
not a whole lot. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
So I'm I'm in Kawahi the God's time on a
Hat Creek Crawler and I.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Just hated a Creek Crawl. That's a good name.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Yeah. You know where that fly was first tied? Where
the art classroom in Mina High School with Tim Strawther
Is that right? It was one of my students. He
would come in during his lunch period and I kept
a fly tying bench set up in there, and uh,
I would use it so art instructional thing, and I'd
have boys that come in to eat their lunch and
watch me tie lies and I would teach them there,

(40:06):
and Tim Strather was one of those young men. But
the very first ever creek crawler was designed right there in.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
That Wow and it was it was your design.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yes, oh yes, yes.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
I've tied a few. I've tied a few of myself
that looked horrible. I just wish the very someday.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Fort Smith he ties, Brandon Bells and my son in
law probably tied three of the best ones. You know,
if you want an artistic one, I mean the making
tie you one. It'll catch a fish, you know. But
but there, yeah, they take it to another level.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Every time I hear the name Keith Reeves, which I've
never actually met Keith Reeves, but he seems like a
wonderful person. Maybe he'll hear this. I feel bad though,
because one time I took a photograph of Bear Nukem
when he was just a little boy leading a mule
across a stream. We were hunting, and Keith ree is

(41:04):
we were kind of Internet buddies, and he goes, hey,
where'd you take that? That looks like a good place
to fish. I know you're not a big fisherman, Clay,
and I wouldn't tell you where.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
That's good sorry, Keith, he would be there tomorrow. Well, no,
I know Keith very well and I have to keep
some secrets too, or he will he will be there.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
I feel better.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
I mean, I wouldn't have buy it him fishing there,
Like we've never fished there one time in my life.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
But I was like, I'm gonna have to keep that
one and down load.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
And if anybody understands that and respects that is Keith.
He he is a passionate voice. He has become the
Ozark smallmouth by US Alliance spokesperson's. Yeah, he's got a
great kind of where I don't want to say I've
burned out because I haven't. But Keith has the technology,
time and all to keep that alive because we have to. Uh,

(41:56):
there's a lot of people. If I can even get
on any stump here at all, it would be the
fact that smallmouth bass in Ozark and wash it toss streams.
That's like the region from south of Saint Louis all
the way down into Oklahoma and down even into the Washtalls.
And I know you've done BO broadcasts and everything on this,
but there are definitely three distinct subspecies of smallmouth bass

(42:17):
that we have only in this region that right there
is worthy of protection, and we can't just keep treating
them like skillet food. I love to eat fish. People like, oh,
you're one of those. I'm like, no, no, no, no. We
were eating gator tail and bass and catfish down in
Louisiana last week. Okay. So I love to eat fish,
and I'll eat as you can see in any fish fry. Okay,

(42:40):
I'll belly up to the and I'll get after it.
So that's not what it is. It's about the fact
if you want to continue to have them in numbers
and quantity and size of any kind of sport fish free,
you must have some conservation in there. And the way
the current regulations are written, we will catch them out
and we will kill them off faster than they can grow.

(43:00):
They are so slow growing.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Why wouldn't the game and fish be like instantly responsive
to that.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
It's a they're better than they were. Okay. I've served
on the Smallmouth Bassed Task Force back in the nineties
and I helped write the regulations that we now have,
which is a two fish fourteen inch minimum in blue
ribbon streams, and we put one eighteen inch trophy status
on like the lower Buffalo, and I think part of
the Washingtall had that and few other streams that will

(43:29):
grow trophy size of smallmouth. There's more of us out
there nowadays than there were then doing it. They still
had what I think is a very archaic old regulation
in the Washtalls you can keep outside the blue ribbon
streams four ten inch smallmouth, well ten inch small mouth.
I mean once you fillay that you got a fish stick,

(43:49):
They're worth more than that. That fish alive part of
the system, a spawner. You know, if you want to
fish a stream, if you put a group of guys
ahead to you mena fishing crowdad fishing and keeping fish,
I'll guarantee you the damage they can do will take
years to replace. It will take years. I just wonder
who fish a fished out stream. Okay, I just came

(44:12):
from your wonderful hole here in town that probably has
had pressure for hundreds of years, and I was so
excited to see a few small mouths swimming around there.
But I'd love to run through there with some biolog
just and get an idea of just what is that
fish count in there and what does the population look like.
I don't it's it had a feel that it's been

(44:32):
pretty heavily used over the years, and the only way
it can ever recover, if it will, is through some
very serious Smallmouth bass do not respond to riggs as
fast as likes largemouth in a lake or in a
farm pond or anything. They're just too slow growing. There's
too many factors against them, like just because they try
to spawn.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
A smaller system, it's colder.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Probably. They say only one in every three years do
we get a successful recruitment of smallmouth or it's will spawn.
And there's just so many of us out there. The
boom of kayaking and fishing, and then the game and
fish has opened up accesses on places that you know,
and then the advent of all these vrbos, all of

(45:14):
them are on a beautiful stretch of Ozark and washed
all waters, so everybody comes in and and so there's
no secret places anymore. That place I got there, You
want that deer man and release cotton mouths in there too,
And okay that helps. Yeah, And that's where the black panther,
that's the last place he lived.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Many I am it's if there was a fish. I
was passionate about fishing it would be small mouth. And
I mean in the last twenty years, I haven't.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Done a lot of them, but I grew up.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
I grew up small mouth fishing, and I have a
ton of respect for that fish. And it's now I'm
not deep into that culture, but it's surprising to me
that people would have any trouble just like turning back
every s they caught. And I would be like, so
for that, because I understand it. I mean, if you
just listen, you understand it.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
I take my grandson and my son in law, he
is so passionate about smallmouth now and he's come to
live back in this area, and I take him to
places that I fish when I was a kid, and
we'll see a few here and there, and I'm like,
you don't realize how crazy good this used to be.
You know, fifty sixty hundred fish days, you know, and
there and then like the canopy is gone because they've

(46:32):
gravel minded to death or they've overcattled the pastures around
it just all kinds of habitat destruction. And there's a
few smallmouth here and there hanging on and they think
it's still pretty good. And I'm like, you have no idea,
how good it was and how rapidly it declined, and
then I've got my grandson and I'm like, what will
he ever get to experience? So that's the passion driving

(46:53):
me there. Yeah, and it's in all types of wild life.
You know. We're consumers of wildlife. We hunt, you know,
and every thing, but we're the best conservation is too.
We are because we have the passion for it and
we're I want to see it survive, you know, definitely.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Well, we need to talk about ISHI for a minute.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Oh yeah, so yeah, on these bear grease renders, we
we we typically take a little bit of time to
talk about the podcast that just came out. And so
last week we came out with this podcast on Ishi.
The were titled it The Last Stone Age Man. And
this is also where I kind of give a behind

(47:35):
the scenes from you know, kind of like this polished podcast.
But I want to say that when I first started,
very well before I started bar Grease, when I was
asked by the company to ride out twenty six mock
episodes because we make twenty six bear grease propers a year,
right yep, every other week, so twenty six and they

(47:57):
said okay, well, if you're going to do this podcast
right out, twenty six things you're gonna do, and the
first five.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
I would say was Ishi.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
I mean, so I've known about this story for a
long time, yet it took me five years to finally
pull the trigger on the story. And part of that
was just that there was no rhyme or reason. I
just I just always knew that, like at some point
I'm going to talk about Ischi at some point. But
then it became it was it was more difficult than
we anticipated finding experts.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Yeah, it really was.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Now.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Jeene Hopkins was incredible.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
We typically like to have one or two expert guests,
so you kind of get like two angles of the
same story from maybe experts in different just different viewpoints
coming into it.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
But were you familiar with Ishi?

Speaker 3 (48:49):
I had read the book about him. I knew of him,
and we owe everything in archery that we know today
pretty much back to that. I think I do know
a lot about Ishi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
The well, Josh, what stood out to you?

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Man?

Speaker 4 (49:03):
I think I think listening to Gene talk about because
I didn't I didn't know much about the history. You know,
you told me about issue before, but knowing the history
about what what he and the Yahi people endured living
in the Mill Creek area, there was just unbelievable. And

(49:24):
and and the fact that, you know, just the idea
of them being hunted and the way they lived during
the concealment, that that blew my mind to think of
a guy who lived with three to four other family members, hiding,
walking on all fours to look like a bear, jumping
from rock to rock, making small fires and living you know.

(49:47):
We we we got shows you know, like Alan where
people go out and they make it eighty days or
one hundred.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Days, and yeah, and and they've got they've got ten
modern things with them.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
These people were stone age living out there but also
concealing themselves. So they were attempting to live as hunters
and gatherers but also as prey. And so just that
what that had, what that did to his psyche, you
know what I mean, the way that they had to
live is a pretty unbelievable situation. And uh, yeah, it

(50:26):
blew my mind.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
You know what was I didn't really know that in
the in the podcast, but most of the other tribes
by that time, well, I mean, this was this would
have been the last of tribes that weren't on reservations
or or hadn't you know, people that had assimilated into
kind of just American culture. I was that they weren't

(51:01):
influenced by the technology of just modern American civilization.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Like they didn't have steel like now he did have.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
I mean, think about all the Eastern tribes that I
mean even back in the sixteen hundreds were using steel points,
and it might have been the seventeen hundreds by the
time they were doing that. But I mean, like these
tribes were quickly inundated with some modern technologies. But the
Yahee were far enough west that you know, that development

(51:35):
just didn't get there till the mid nineteenth century. And
then they were deep enough in a wild enough place
that just people couldn't get to them, and so they
just like stayed hyper isolated. I thought that was the
most unique thing, because you know, if they were hiding out,
like the more I learned the story and saw how

(51:57):
they were just on the cusp of civilization, I mean
like Ishi could could could see the trains down the valley,
like he he would have run into people. You know,
there were times when he was out in the woods
and he would have met somebody like those surveyors. And
yet still they didn't have any of the technologies other
than Jean said that they were making stone points out

(52:20):
of ceramics that they would find right and then and
then they were raiding people's They were raiding people's cashes
and out farms and different things. But they were pretty
much just taking food and they they probably had some
degree of maybe some clothing or materials that they might
have taken, but like like they didn't take canned foods,

(52:43):
which was really interesting, Like they would they would break
in somewhere there be walls of canned food, and they
wouldn't take the canned food.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
But uh no, I just thought that was interesting.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Bear.

Speaker 5 (52:57):
Yeah, I thought I've heard of Ishi a lot through
like making bows and stone points. He comes up a
lot because I think that he brought a lot of
like primitive technology into like people's Like he made stuff
that people saw and like now people replicate a lot,

(53:19):
Like there's like a really specific style of arrow that
they think came from him that he taught to the
people there, and it's basically like you know, it's like
a two piece arrow and the tip comes off. It's
like you can put like a spear fishing tip on there,
you can put a you know, an obsidian point on there.
But so I've heard a lot about Ischi just through

(53:41):
a lot of the stuff like the primitive technology that
he brought into the world.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
But I'm with you.

Speaker 5 (53:47):
It was honestly, it was kind of sad because it
was just like it kind of brought to reality the
actual like actually what the natives experienced whenever they whenever
the Europeans came through and wiped them out.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:04):
I mean, like you always hear about like a mass
genocide and you're like, yeah, that's terrible, but whenever you
actually like look at it down to that specific of
a level, like to that all the way down to Ishi,
like like he was just like this lone native like
it's it's it's really sad.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:24):
So yeah, yeah, I thought it was an interesting, interesting podcast.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
I think that's a good analysis bare because like, yeah,
we're all like pretty comfortable. I mean just because it's
the history of this country of I mean, there's no
other word. It's not like a harsh word to use,
it's just the accurate word to use.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
A genocide. I mean, you know.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
That word is thrown around a lot politically sometimes as
a thing to like it's like the worst thing you
could say, So I'm not trying to do that, but
I mean that's just what it was.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
And but seeing the human the main.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Not somebody that got killed that we don't know, that's
just an abstract idea of a human, but like to
actually see the man Ishie And in this next episode,
we're gonna see him even more and you're gonna like
see how he interacted with people in his life for

(55:22):
a very short time after he came here because spoiler alert,
he only lived a few years after he after he
came into uh San Francisco. Well, and it's a tragic story,
but it does. It puts, It puts a human and
then and then the really like the wildest part of
the whole story, the wildest part of the whole story.

(55:45):
And in what this does is it it humanizes the
Native Americans. Is that you see that this stone age
man who would have fit perfectly in with people tend
that years ago. I mean he would have stepped in
me and you step into a camp ten thousand years

(56:05):
ago in these ozarks. Apparently people have been here for
ten twelve thousand years, we would we would be pretty lost,
I mean just to functionally he would be able to
do that. But he stepped into essentially a modern society
with cars, planes had flown in the air, electricity, modern vaccines,

(56:26):
and he was a man just like us.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
I mean he was you know.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
I alluded to it in the final moments of the
podcast where they said that he was generous and kind
and relational, he was very interested in other people.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
He was.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Everybody commented on just how kind this man was and
he wasn't embittered, which is astonishing.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yeah, I mean, so it just it.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
And that's what we've all we always say, like when
you think about anthropology and you think and you look
back into these deep stories of human antiquity, it's hard
to imagine one of those guys being a pilot and
flying a plane for delta. It's hard to imagine them
coming to your house for dinner and like being your friend.

(57:22):
But they could have. They were just like us. Yeah,
you know they were, and that's this like gap that's
hard to spend. And she did that is she tells
that story and it'll be in this second episode it'll
be like more more of that what stood out to you, Dayne,
just just in all of it, if you.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Well, it wasn't really that long ago. We were talking
like nineteen eleven. Okay, my grandmother was born, you know,
about that time. So that in my mind, that makes
a sou And then what I love is the fact
that you know, he archery probably was going to die out.
I mean, why would you hunt with a primitive bow

(58:01):
and arrow when modern firearms were starting to make their advancement.
The scope rifle was starting to come in and higher
powered cartridges, and then the bolt action rifle not too
long after that and everything, which is a much more
efficient way to take out a deer. Okay, but yet
he and Saxon and you know, like and that's why

(58:24):
we bowhunt today. You know, I much prefer even though
it's a handicap in some ways. I don't really think
it is if you adapt your techniques and your skills
to what the weapon will do. But it brought about
this whole rebirth or first time really for I mean,
we owe so much to him for what we enjoyed

(58:46):
to do today, and that's amazing to me. And then
it connects you. I think that's what I love about
traditional bow hunting. It just takes you raw back to
somebody like Ishi and if he could do it, and
maybe maybe I can there as well. But I'm gonna
I'm gonna try hard, you know. And and uh, because
they fed their families that way, they fed, uh, you know,

(59:07):
as long as there was game. I mean, when I
have read you know, the books that were written on him,
and and they said his skills and you know, and
you know, we we studied gap shooting and various things.
He just instinctively pulled back and knew where they are
or went and hit his mark. And and then I
think one of the thing that I read was up
until then, there wasn't a whole lot of knowledge of

(59:30):
tracking an animal. You know, it's common today if you
strike a deer with a projectile a bow, and you know,
it's it's seldom going to just drop within sight. You know,
you have a responsibility to blood, trailing and tracking. And
that was something that was taught according to what I've read,
you know, and and the waiting period even you know,

(59:50):
and things like you know and reading there or you know,
what kind of hit was made and those kinds of things.
Those are things I think that all go back to
somebody who had that incredible knowledge and from his people forever,
and and we benefit from that today. You know, we're
we're carrying on a tradition, you know. And so and
I think that's why there's somewhat kind of a I've

(01:00:12):
never seen more of a revival, I think, Barry, you
can probably talk more on this maybe, but these two
people wanting to get back into just simple you know,
you know, draw back and let it fly, you know,
with with skill. And so we owe a lot to
this man and his genius, you know. And and and

(01:00:32):
the fact that you know, they when they brought him in,
when he came in, they found him in that it
was a cattle sale barn type or something ud yeah, yeah,
so uh And I guess technically he could be considered
a savage, entreated as such, you know, and yet somebody
had compassion on him. And and and you know, and

(01:00:55):
you know he didn't survive. Well, he did, but he
didn't you know, I mean, they weren't. They weren't. He
was not immune to a lot of our diseases and things.
And I think that's in that what eventually overcame him
and there's too much exposure to things that didn't they
didn't even travel to England at one time, or am
I thinking something different?

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
You know, I'm not sure yet.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Got read that and maybe I'll pulled off on that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
That part hasn't been really okay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
We don't know what that was. Kind of celebrated him
a little bit. You know, maybe I'm thinking anti Oakley
or somebody else, and yeah, I don't know, but anyway,
but anyway, I'm sure he was quite the uh you know,
as he was put on display, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Yeah, he was, yes, definitely put on Yeah, but yeah,
what an anomaly that even showed up. You know, we'll
talk about it more on this next episode. But like
just the fact that the fact that he even wandered
into town was an anomaly for his tribe, his culture.

(01:01:53):
I mean, there was a lot of fatalism inside of
many of those tribes that they observed, and I mean anthropologists,
well Krober, this lady that Theodore Krober, who wrote this
really great book kind of the seminal book on it.
There's a lot of books on the sheet. I think
it's probably the one to read. She speculated that it

(01:02:14):
was wild that he even came into town, like like
the kind of the culture of those people, a lot
of times would have been just to kind of curl
up and and I mean, that's that's.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
A pretty big projection on a culture.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
But for him to come down and to even be
to try to get help from these people that his
entire life age aged fifty or so, you know, was
trying to get help, was a wild thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
And then what he gave to us was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Yeah, to be just an amazing person to be around.
I would have loved anything that, you know, my biggest
pet peeve when you know I talked a little bit
earlier that you know, I've put together a lot of
travel trips to some pretty remote areas Christmas Island, and
I've been few Central Maria fishing situations and stuff where
primitive native people as our guides and nothing is more

(01:03:11):
gets on me. Then take clients who think of them
as a second class servant guide. These men know there
is not a bird that flies a track in the
dirt that those guys, they are such far superior to
us on fishing and hunting skills. In their they're they're

(01:03:33):
wild people, but yet they are so amazing and because
they grew up in it, they had to do it,
and they're there to teach you if you're smart enough
to watch them and learn. And I love them. I've
got great friendships. I keep up with people you know
all over and you know they have that wildness in

(01:03:55):
them and that skills that are amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
So what would be interesting to know is how good
she would have been in archery compared to everybody else,
because he's just he's one day to point out of
a whole, a whole, a whole tribe of people. Was
he just average? Maybe he would Maybe they would be
chuckling that she was the one that taught us be like,

(01:04:21):
like he should have seen if you think good he
should have seen this guy or if he was, I mean,
you know, and per chance maybe. I mean the fact
that I think maybe he was like the master of
the greatest Yahee archer of all time is probably a stretch.
He probably wasn't. He probably was somewhere in the middle.
He probably was just average. So you think about that

(01:04:43):
and how good he was skilled he was at napping,
making arrows, making bows, what he did so stuff will
never know because the language bearer that we had with
him was strong enough that you know, there was a
lot they didn't get into, but they had about four
years with him, and uh in those four years were

(01:05:03):
you know, used as documented pretty well for for the
time period. But well, Dwayne, it's been a pleasure to
meet you, truly has.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Yeah, great to be here among brothers.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah, well it's it's great to finally meet you and
to finally talk about fly fishing and finally talk about
We've ever gotten to trout Grease podcast podcast? Well, Dwayne,
Dwayne's sales pitch on fly fishing was compelling a little
more compelling. I think you know what I actually was

(01:05:40):
thinking about that I give these guys a hard time
about wanting to talk about fly fishing on here. And
it's it's a it's a it's I'm just I know
what it is. It's a it's a self protection mechanism because, yeah,
because I made a decision when before Bear was born
that I couldn't be a fisherman and hunter and be successful,

(01:06:02):
and so I just cut one off at the head
and it was fishing, and so so I have to
There may be a time when that changes, but right
now I'm still in that mode. But no, I value
anybody that's a master of their craft or just has
a PAS. Don't have to be a master, just have
a passion for it, genuine love of it. And it's

(01:06:22):
not I'm gonna say this one time. Boys, Okay, I'm
gonna say it one time. I know fly fishing is
really cool. I know, I know get that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
I know I know that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
So I'd just like to give you all hard time,
So no pleasure, Dwayne, Thank you so much,