October 22, 2020 • 44 mins
We’re around the campfire this week and Clay Newcomb and some family and friends tell some hunting stories and even sing a song. This is the closest thing to a live podcast you’ll hear from us anytime soon, but you’re sure to enjoy the conversation at the Newcomb muzzleloader camp.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
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arms dot com. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the
host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be
your host into the world of hunting the icon in
the North Americans. Will this prepare, We'll talk about tactics,
gear conservation. We will also bring you into some of
(01:06):
the wildest country on the planet chasing fair This one
is gonna be a little bit different We're sitting around
a campfire in Arkansas. I've got a lot of my
family with me and friends. We've got about fifteen people.
It's almost like a live podcast because several of us
(01:29):
take turns telling stories and my brother even sings a
song with the guitar. This is a very fun podcast.
You're gonna enjoy it. You're gonna enjoy the stories, and
you're gonna enjoy some of the new voices on this podcast.
And uh, a bunch of the kids were there, my
nieces and nephews, my mom and dad, and some other
good friends. You're gonna enjoy this. This week, I've been
(01:54):
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in last Friday with five shots. Uh sighted. It end
(02:14):
at a hundred yards easily. Really like carrying this gun. Unfortunately,
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doing a lot of great stuff in the West. Check
(04:25):
out the Western Bear Foundation. You're gonna enjoy this podcast
with my friends and family around a red oak fire
in Arkansas. So, uh, Dad, did you know that there
have been some grievances that have come up to me
(04:47):
from the other pupils in the Gary newcom Hunting School
of Hard Knocks. Because I have said in the past
that I was the only graduate, actual graduate what of
the school. There were actually two other students, both of
which you were here tonight. One of them is my
older brother, Zack Um And Zach came to me and
(05:13):
and I actually apologized to him. But Zach, so I
just want to give you this opportunity to like relieve
any grievance publicly. This is like the bully pulpit right here. Okay, okay, yeah,
so what now? What you're saying is that you didn't
really try to complete the school. Oh wow, this is deep.
(05:39):
Or you're forcing me to respond. So I was never
in the school, okay, okay, okay, So what you said
is that we were in a school and failed to graduate.
Ok Now, what actually happened. The reality of the scenario
is that we were offered entrance to the school and
we said we're good, Okay, we should too high? Yeah,
(06:01):
well just not interested, not interested. And so so you
felt like you were misrepresented. I felt like, yeah, so
there was a graduated, Tyler was for sure. You know,
I'm gonna just recamp that there were that I was
the only graduate. I think Tyler graduated, and we're gonna
hear a story from Tyler later. I think you were
(06:23):
the only graduate and the only attendee. Okay, and Josh
Tyler thinks he was Josh was the summer camp was
the summer Josh is hunted enough. Garry knucom that he
basically as the equivalent of education of someone that went summer.
I don't have a degree. I have a certification an associates.
It's like an associates. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I've
(06:46):
even ever killed a bird, Like when we were kids
and we would hunt with babies, like I have the
vivid here's my only hunting story. I have the vivid memory.
Here we go. You pulled it out of me. We
have the vivid memory of going BB and I could
never hit the bird with the BB like never, like
really never could. I could never hit it. And then
(07:06):
one day it was snowing and I hit the bird
and then the blood, you know, it was all over
the snow. So it created going to get a citation
now creating. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying what
kind of bird it was. Maybe it was a game bird, Josh, Yeah,
maybe it was a quail. Maybe it was. And then
I have to I have that memory of probably the
(07:27):
only animal I've ever actually killed. But now you're actually
a big outdoorsman, those acts like you're not you've not
been a hunter, but you're a big fisherman, fly fisherman,
so we'd like to do those things. Yeah, for sure.
But we never entered into the garret he was offered.
I maybe Tyler entered. I would I wouldn't say I entered. Yeah,
(07:56):
and we're gonna get to that dad. Do you have
any comments on a lot of a lot of company
Tisian compound? Now that was really fun some archery. Yeah.
I also was a Zack Newcom's School of fly fishing
summer camp attende is really you had a lot of
summer camping and now Josh is like way surpassed and
that j Josh is now master. Well, hey, here's what
(08:21):
here's what we're doing. We are Yeah, give that back
to Tie. So we are we're at our muzzloader camp
and uh, let me let me count how many people
are here? We got one too, three four or five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen,
we got fifteen people. Can anybody give me an estimation
(08:43):
of on like a scale of like zero to ten
for like a typical like hunting camp fire size, like
what described this fire tie size of the fire? Yeah,
like like camp fire, not a bottom fire. Okay, we're
above average, but I'm not impressed. Okay, okay six and
(09:08):
seven above average, but unimpressed. If this fire was in
your yard, you would be like highly impressed. I mean,
am I right, it's a good fire. Impressed. I remember
the last well last deer camp when we had the
log and it was I've got a really standard. So
(09:29):
we're in uh, we're we're in Arkansas. We're the Muzzloader camp.
And uh, it's always important to note what kind of
fire you're burning. I would say this is a red
oak fire, which has a very distinct smell. It's got
an average crackle. You know, if you're burning light birch
wood up in Northern Canada, crackles and pops a lot.
(09:52):
This stuff will burn all night like this. So but hey,
here's what we're gonna do. I've got there's five of
us here that are gonna tell a story. So the
way this is gonna work is each guy is gonna
tell a story. And we've got all our kids here.
I've got three of my kids. Um Ty Dennison's boys
(10:13):
are here. We've got Simeon Spencer here, we got Shepherd,
we got my brother, Zach. We got my niece and
nephew here, I can Clara um, and we have my
mother and father. This is Juju nucoms first time on
the podcast. She I asked her to tell a hunting story,
and uh, you know, I could tell you about the
(10:34):
time she swatted me with a broom, but I won't. Okay, No, Juju,
what an honor to have you here. Um for the record,
her her legal name is not Juju, that's correct, Judy Judy.
And then my brother Tyler's here. So we're all here, Okay,
who's gonna Who's Who's gonna tell the first story? Should I? Should?
(10:57):
I started out? I guess I could start it out
my as well, go for it. Okay. So ty is
gonna tell a story. I'm gonna start off with a story.
Dad's gonna think of a story, and then Tyler's gonna
tell a story. Okay. So the year was two thousand, No, no, no,
The year was nineteen and ninety nine. The calendar had
(11:19):
yet to flip to two thousand. I remember that because
I was dating Misty some of you guys mother at
the time. So it was it was after work and
it was mid October and I drove my Ston pickup.
I was driving into this place on a non maintained
(11:41):
road and a deer jumps out in front of me.
And man, this was so long ago. I don't think
I would do this anymore, but this was this was legal.
I stepped out of the truck. It was just a
pig trail, and I walked off the road in the
year just stood there, and I shoot this deer with
(12:03):
my bow. Like I walked off the road. Shot this
deer with my bow. It just stood there and let
it just stood there. That's why I shot. Probably it
just stood there. I was going hunting on top of
the mountains, so I didn't want to mess with like
letting the deer like usually you would wait like thirty
(12:24):
minutes before you trailed it. Man, as soon as I
shot the deer and it ran off the hill, I
just took out after it, and about the time it
rolled to a stop, I just grabbed it by the
back feet and carried it up the mountain, threw it
in the back of the truck, and then went on
to go hunting where I was wanting to hunt. When
I got up to the tree stand, I've already got
(12:45):
a deer in the back of the truck. And I mean,
that's a pretty good day in the mountains. And uh
had a deer in the back of the truck. And
I'm hunting in a hunting in a tree stand, and
right about out, probably an hour before dark, I see
a big gobbler turkey coming up the hill. And at
(13:09):
the time we had a fall turkey season, and this
this gobbler turkey, he just comes right by me, right
under the stand. I drew my bow back and he
was about six or seven yards shot and it hit
just right in front of him, just stuck in the ground.
And then I remember the turkey jumps straight up in
the air, you know, fluttered three or four times, and
(13:30):
probably went twelve feet off the ground. And I mean
when he hit the ground, he took off running and
stopped out there across a little draw at about twenty yards.
I grabbed another era and I just pulled back and
put it right on him and shot and just I
(13:52):
mean hit the turkey. The turkey turns, runs, and I'm
up on the side of this mountain sting see you
off this mountain. The turkey just jumps, spreads its wings
in sales like a bald eagle out across this canyon.
I mean, that is a bad thing that happens if
(14:15):
we shoot a turkey with a boat. And I just thought,
holy smokes, I am probably not gonna find that turkey. Well,
I sit up there to try to kill a deer
for a little bit longer, and finally I say, man,
I better go find that turkey. I get out of
the get out of the stand, go get my arrow,
and I just start walking in the direction that turkey flew.
(14:37):
And I walk around for you know, until just almost dark,
and it had been raining and it was real foggy,
and so the woods were real quiet, and I just
made zigs and zags down in the bottom of the canyon,
and I mean I was just looking for a turkey
lay on the ground, and it wasn't gonna happen. Well,
I decide I make a big loop and come back
(14:59):
to a truck, and I mean, I'm pretty much I'm
just like, well, I've got a deer. I guess the turkey.
I guess I'm not gonna get this turkey. I put
my bow in my truck and I thought, you know what,
I'm gonna go one more time back over into this
little spot and see what happens. I start walking down
this road and it's real quiet, and I come it's
(15:21):
like you know, sometimes you're walking and there's like real
thick brush and then all of a sudden, like there's
a new vista that opens up to you, and all
of a sudden you can see a new spot. But
I'm walking and all of a sudden, fam, I kind
of come around the corner and there is a turkey
sitting on the ground like a like a roosted chicken,
(15:42):
with its head up. And I was so close to
it I could see that its eyes were closed. I
mean it was like like five yards from me. This
turkey is sitting there like a roosted chicken and kind
of had its neck down it's will and its eyes
were closed, and I freeze in The turn key's right there,
and I'm right here, and I had enough time to
(16:04):
think should I go back to the truck and get
my bow or should I just rush this turkey? And
and in a moment of clarity, how that time, I
see that turkey's eyes go His eyes just popped wide open,
and that turkey jumped up like it was not hurt
(16:24):
and just took off down the mountain. Well, does anybody
know what would you do if that happened to you?
Get after it, man. I took after that turkey and
we got take off running down the hill. And I
remember I was running through briers and brambles. I was
wearing those green lacrosse boots with a little yellow the
(16:46):
yellow rim around the top, not exactly like the best
athletic like running shoes. And I was running down the
hill and that turkey was about ten yards in front
of me because he gotta jump on me. And we're
running down the hill, running, running, running, and he's getting
further and further away from him, further and further away
(17:06):
from me, and I think, holy cow, that sucker is
gonna get away from me. And I am just running. Isa.
I was like nineteen, so as fast as a nineteen
year old Clay Nukeolen could run. He was running down
the hill. And we get to the bottom of the hill,
and that turkey had no option but to basically go
back up the other ridge. We get to the bottom
(17:29):
and he starts going up the next ridge. Well, I
get to the bottom, I start going up the next
ridge and I found his weakness. It was going uphill
because as we start going up the hill, I start
gaining on him. And I don't know if you've ever
chased anything on foot, but there is a special adrenaline
(17:50):
rush that a predator gets when it begins to fathom
that it is actually gonna be able to capture its prey.
And man, I started gaining on that sucker, and I
was like, I'm gonna catch that sucker. And we run
up the hill and I really don't I would like
to go back to that spot. I can take you
to the spot and actually see how far it was.
I mean, maybe it wasn't that far. It felt like
(18:13):
I chased the turkey a quarter mile. You know, I
probably didn't. But we start going up the hill and
I start gaining on him, and I am shocked that
I'm gaining on him, and man, I get about four
or five ft from him, and I just dive, just
straight up dive and just tackle that turkey. And me
(18:34):
and that turkey are both so tired that I I
just held onto him. I didn't even try to like
wring his neck for a minute, because I just I
was just so tired, and the turkey was so tired,
and he had his head up, and I just remember
looking over at him, and his head was about four
inches from my head, and we just looked at each
(18:55):
other for a few minutes while we both breathed real hard,
and then human only dispatched the turkey with a twist
of the neck, took him back to the pickup truck,
threw him in with a deer, and went over to
Missy's house and showed her my my, uh, my, my
gathering and she married me. All right, who's who's next?
(19:20):
Tell us your story? Yeah, so, um, I I didn't
grow up in the deer woods. I grew up in
South Texas and um the duck blinds. Um, but all
my duck hunting stories are boring. Um just involved waking
up early and stories are boring. You're run. I love
(19:42):
duck hunting. Yeah. So I came up here to Arkansas
and started deer hunting, and uh did not do well
for quite some time. Um, a lot of time in
in the deer woods unsuccessful or I either um not
(20:03):
see deer or I would uh mr shot never never
had a bad shot that hit and I wounded an
animal thankfully. Um, but just lots of lots of time
observing and learning about how deer run around and getting
used to sitting for hours. You don't have to sit
for hours duck hunting really either. Like that was a
(20:25):
shift for me. I was sitting in a deer stand
um for a long time. But I really enjoy it
now and I did at the time too. I just
had to get used to, you know, three four five
plus hours sometimes just just sitting still and so kind
of getting my my my time, my reps in at
the gym, I guess you could say. But thankfully, Uh,
(20:49):
it would have been almost three years ago I got
my first buck with the help of one claim was
that three years ago? Three or two? I was two
years ago. Um we went out, ironically, after all the
(21:10):
time that I had spent deep in the woods, this
was on a less wooded property, like I wasn't I
you know, we you dropped me off from your truck.
It wasn't something I had to hike into. We wouldn't.
I was ground hunting. I wasn't even a tree stand
hunting some private land in northwest Arkansas. So UM got
(21:31):
got settled in and UM was it was in the
middle of the day, and I was actually I was
I was sitting there, and I kind of learned how
to multitask, can do different stuff in the stand. I
know Josh today took the kindle out with him to
uh do a little reading, and I was I was like, man, okay, well,
(21:53):
I know later in the day as higher activity, and
I had some stuff I could kind of do for work.
I'm a uh software engineer, and uh so I put
my phone out. I was like, oh, I got service.
I'm I start writing technical Yeah. I started writing tech
docs for one of our clients. And uh, I'm so
I'll write, I describe something, and I look around and
(22:15):
just kind of wait and uh and I'd go back
to writing something and I look up and look for
a while. Wait, and uh, I've got was his rifle season.
So I've got during the windmac on a tripod in
front of me. Um. So what a three D win
mag is? No, it's a big it's a big gun. You. Yeah,
(22:40):
you do not have to be very close? Um And uh,
I actually wasn't in this situation. I wouldn't too far away.
I think it was two yards maybe two or fifty
I'm looking maybe not even that far. But uh, I'll
look up and I see a dough down the road
cross a clearing, but not in time for me to
(23:04):
take any kind of action. And I'm like, oh man,
that was my dear. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring home
another goose egg that was there. There was the deer
that I was supposed to shoot, but I was just
sitting on the edge of a big field. So you
can see, you can see yards in one direction and
probably three or four hundred another. Yeah, and I thought, well,
(23:25):
there there weren't my chance. And but it was still
early in the afternoon, and so okay, and so I
get everything ready and sure enough, as soon as uh
a little not even fifteen seconds after I had kind
of processed, okay, get ready. Anyway, here comes a buck
chasing after that dough, and I got super excited because
(23:50):
this is this was more than I hope for. I
was just trying to fill the freezer at this point.
I had been skunk so many times going out. There's
one thing. If I was trying to be selective here,
I just wanted a dear and thought I had missed
my dear, which was a doe. And I see, I
see antlers and he puts his head down and I
take my shot pal and uh he didn't go but
(24:13):
maybe twenty yards and drops and all of a sudden,
because Clay was hunting further onto property, I could excited
text from Clay like did you just shoot? And uh
I was like, yeah, I got one, and uh man.
I sat there super excited, and I was waiting because
(24:34):
I knew I needed to wait for a while. And
did you see the deer go down? I saw him
go down? Yeah, I saw. I saw him go down,
and I knew I dropped him, but I wanted to
wait and not I was probably trying to wait about
half an hour, and about twenty minutes after that, I
was there was a I don't know if it's a ridge,
(24:57):
probably like a ridgeline, and I see a dough, like
three doughs come out from the top and start playing
around in front of me. And and these were much closer.
These were maybe fifty yards in front of me, and
I'm like, I'm gonna take like three deer home. All
of a sudden, I get super excited and I message
with Clay and I was like, nah, just just stick
(25:17):
with the one deer um But yeah, sure enough went
over there and it was it was for this for
the region. It was a it was a good buck.
It was the best deer that has been taken off
that property in a long time. Let me put it
that way. So it's ties the first time on the property. Now,
was that your first deer? That's my first, dear first deer.
(25:40):
Gar hold him because I was trying to just put
him in just an average spot, you know, I didn't
want him to kill a big buck. Put him there,
and he kills the biggest buck killed on that farm
in probably fifteen years. What do y'all think about that?
That's great, y'all know I'm is kidding, right, I really
(26:01):
didn't want a guard holding a little bit. Can we
get a definition of gar hole? Gar hole? And you
all know what a gar holing is? Shepherd does because
that gar hoole him all the time. Do you know
what it means Atticus? Yes, that is Edicas said, trying
(26:25):
to keep people away from good places. That is that
nails gar holing. I think the I think the phrase
comes it's a fishing phrase when you say, yeah, that's
a good fishing spot and you go down there and
all that's in there is guard and so they gar
hold me which there's no game fish there. It's just
gar just fun to fish. Well they're hard, yeah, so
(26:50):
but no, so Tyd kills this beautiful h buck and
I remember he texted me a picture of it and
he said, I killed a proper buck. He used that phrase,
I killed a proper buck, which you know he knows
now better than to use that kind of terminology to
describe a buck. Well, I was worried that it was
gonna be just barely shootable, and I was like, dude,
(27:12):
you just kids gonna be Yeah. I would have spent
my whole season hunting that buck. It was a good
one man, so a beautiful buck. So it all worked
out over over time. It was worth all the investment,
all the all the official score. You know, we never
score scored it. We'll have to score it when we
get it. Best on the texadermist Yeah yeah, yeah, because yeah,
(27:37):
you like to eat it, didn't you? It was good? Good?
All right? Dad or Tyler? Who's going next? I can
jump in? All right? Tyler? Tell you guys, hey, you
do you have a good song? You could play us
maybe now you okay, tell your story and when Dad
tells his, then you come back with a song. Okay,
(27:58):
let's see what we can pull. Okay, just a thought, Okay, alright.
I mean the last person I played a guitar on
this podcast was Ted Nugent, So no pressure. Okay, nice,
can you play the national anthem? Okay, go ahead? Sorry,
not quite alright. So my big hunting story. Yeah, I'm
(28:22):
not gonna tell you about killing a big bear. I'm
not gonna tell you about me killing a big buck.
What was that? We'll save that, We'll save that. But
I will tell you this is the only mammal that
I've ever killed. Too. I'm gonna let you guys figure
this out by the end of this story. What really
(28:43):
happened here? Let's build this. I'm gonna build this story.
What was that bigger than a bread bon? I'm not
gonna give it away, man, No hints here. Alright. So
I got into shooting the compound bow. It was a
beautiful time in my life. I'm gonna say this could
have been a four month period of my life where
(29:04):
I just absolutely loved shooting a compound bow. And I
went to probably three tournaments. I believe I placed one time,
maybe third place, and it was fascinating. It was it
was exciting. I have no idea why I actually stopped
doing that, But one day I was out practice. Time
of deep reflection. Yeah, probably because Dad gave your bow
(29:26):
to Josh. That may have been it. That very well
may have been it. Uh So it's out shooting, practicing,
shooting a a target of just a just a deer,
not a real deer target deer. How do you say that?
That shows you how long I've been out of the
We could call it a deer target deer target as
(29:47):
opposed to target target, dear, dear target. So I'm just
trying to validate this is a true story. Okay, I'm
thirty six years old. This was probably when I was
ten or maybe thirteen, somewhere in the wow three years
span somewhere within there, I'm guessing. So, yeah, I think
you were younger than that. You were younger you you
(30:07):
were dead guy, I'm stealing diapers, man finished. I may
have been shooting a deer target. There we go. So
as I'm shooting target, I look, I'm gonna guess twenty
yards behind that target was a rabbit. Mm hmm. A
real rabbit, a real rabbit or target rabbit, not a
(30:28):
target rabbit, not a, yeah, not a target rabbit. Then
what happened. I made the decision that I wanted to
shoot that rabbit with a compound bow. So I snuck
over there. The rabbit hadn't moved, I pulled back, nailed it.
I'm gonna say it jumped about six ft in the
(30:49):
air and squealed. And so that was my kill right now. Wow,
a good story, Tyler. Thank you. You're you're we one
bow kill crab of one bow kill. Incredible. Well, Dad,
you have a story, well, you know, kind of. I mean,
it's no big deal really. But the one story I
(31:11):
think I would tell that maybe I hadn't mentioned before
would be Um, I would turkey hunt with a gun,
kill a kill a bird with my gun. Then I'd
go hunting with my bow. And uh So I went
out one day and the birds weren't gobbling, and I
took a little break, and as I was taking my break,
(31:33):
I would call and I heard, I heard, I'm gonna
be your sound effects guy. Okay, very good. I could
hear the woods were real dry, and I could hear
more than one bird up above me coming across the backside.
(31:57):
They weren't gobbling. Sorry, recount and so you know, I'm
going like, these birds, how did you hear them? You
heard them walking? I heard them walking, and so I'm like, uh,
that's good with your sound effects. Uh. So I hear
(32:17):
these birds walking, I'm thinking, you know, they're doing exactly
what they're supposed to do. They don't come down hill.
So these birds are gonna go past me, and there's
a chance they're gonna come in from the front side.
So I get all my equipment ready and uh, I'm
sitting there and I'm pretty well camouflage, just sitting on
(32:40):
the ground, and these birds go down yards and then
they come down even with me, and then they come
to me have gobbled. Yet they don't gobble. These birds
don't gobblem. They know they're on their death walk. This
is their last stroke. So I'm I'm sitting here ready
(33:06):
and here comes really just one bird. The other bird
didn't come in. And this bird was big and he
had a ten or let me, what do you have? Tennis?
Beard didn't he was a good bird. And so he's
coming in. He's strutting, you know, he's he hears this
beautiful hen yepping and he didn't know that the little
(33:27):
hen's got a compound bowl in her hand. So so
he comes up. And this is what I found really
intriguing is turkeys they don't like to come downhill. They
don't like going over objects, they don't like crossing creeks,
there's a lot of stuff they don't like doing a
real picky. And this bird followed all the rules. It's
(33:49):
like it had a textbook. Okay, I don't go downhill.
So he actually comes in coming uphill towards me. When
he comes to me, there's a log there. He won't
cross that log. So he comes to that log, and
I'm sitting here like this and he gets the strutting
up and down that log and he's jumping up on
the log. No, no, he's just he's he won't cross
(34:11):
this tree, this log. I wonder how he walked every
day out in the woods. Do you think across the log?
I think this bird was destined to be in my freezer.
So this guy is he comes up and he turns,
and I see his fan, and I'm thinking, you know,
I believe that's what I've been looking for. And so
(34:34):
finally the bird did it two or three times, and
about the third time when it turned and did the
big strut. I whacked the bird, and the bird went
about ten yards and fell over dead, dead turkey. And
so for the compound boat. Of course, I go to town.
Thirty years later. I still have people going, I remember
(34:57):
when you kill let the barber that we used to
go to, uh huh. Every time i'd go in there
to get a haircut, which was about once every five
years because I'm ballyheaded, he'd go, I remember when you
had that turkey across the street. You know, I took
it down and showed it to somebody I forgot, but anyway,
you know, killed turkey with the boat. When I did that,
(35:20):
occasionally hunted him, but that time was it was really
special to be so yeah, because you killed it without
a blind which was a big deal. Yeah, I mean,
that's that's still a tough thing. But back then, not
many people were even doing it with blinds, you know.
I mean the last twenty years people have kind of
got on to killing turkeys with the bow, but mostly
they're doing it in blinds. So just doing it out
(35:42):
in the mountains used to blind and you know, and
I had a lot of birds, you know, I probably
you know, I had a lot of opportunities killed birds,
But that's the only one I killed with my bow,
even though I missed a couple. You know, made some
mistakes right into the last minute, but you know it
was really fun to kill that. Try to kill that
second bird with a bow. Yeah. So anyway, I've still
(36:06):
yet to go turkey hunting, and I want to. Hey,
let me sneak turkey feather in my hat. Let let
me sneak in. Just a real quick story. I come
home one day from turkey hunt and I tell Judy,
I go, Judy, this is crazy, but I know where
a bird is gonna be strutting this afternoon. I don't
remember why I even knew it. You know, they have
strut zones. And I go, I heard the bird goblin,
(36:28):
d gobble here and need gobble here, Goblin. I said,
that bird is in this particular place, and I said,
once you go with me. Judy hates hunting, don't one hunt,
And so I said, it doesn't. She didn't want to go.
So that afternoon, you know, when I come in from hunting,
I go, Judy, I want to take you and Gracie
(36:50):
on a hike. And at the end of the hike,
I'm gonna kill us, big gobbler, and you know that
never works out. So I got lab who is well
trained and will do exactly what I tell us to do. Really.
And I got Judy, which she has me well trained,
and I do whatever she wants. So we take off
(37:11):
on this about a half a mile to three quarters
of mile hike. And when we get to a certain spot,
I said, Gracie sit, I said, Judy, you and Gracie
sit right here. And I swear I ducked down and
I walked about thirty yards and I stood up and
just took my gun and killed a big tom turkey
(37:34):
where I mean. It was crazy. It was just where
he thought it was exactly. I mean it was a
strut zone. And uh, you know, I've never it sounds
like a turkey story. But itnessed, is this true? Can
you verify that what he said was true? Very true?
I watched the whole thing set by Gracie held onto Grace.
(37:56):
What did he do after he shot? It was the
excited Oh he was thrilled to that. I was shocked. No, no,
I held on to Gracie. She would have Gracie would
have stayed there anyway. Jiuju what story do you want
to tell? I really have no hunting story since this
is my first experience at deer camp. Never come to
(38:19):
deer camp before. That is true, I didn't experience What
have you been doing with your life? Oh, I've enjoyed
my time at home in a quiet house. Everybody else
was deer hunting. Why did those people at the bar
know your name? Well, that's a long story. That's a
mule story that everybody knows. That story. It's a long,
(38:43):
funny story that I give my mom a hard time
about because I had to go into a bar one
time to look for a lost mule and I got
one of her former students was in there. I heard
my name and said, is your mom? Judy knucom And
I didn't know why this man knew my mother's name.
You know, y'all y'all heard the story, and I go, yes,
she is. And I didn't know if I was gonna
(39:05):
have to fight this guy. I didn't know what was
about to happen. And he goes, she was my teacher anyway,
So I always always give Judie a hard time because
they knew her name down at the you know, at
the bar. I just wondered if you had wanted to
like say anything about that. No, I really have nothing
to say. I have enjoyed watching though the dad's with
(39:28):
their kids. Hey, I tell you, Judy Knum inside of
all of us is a hunter. I'm telling you, and
it has come out since I've retired. Judy Knukeam loves
to check or spider traps. I mean, it's like it's
like running traps in the house. She'll go, man looking
(39:50):
at me I got last night. Well, I hate spiders.
I don't want him in my house. So anyway, so
I will kill a spider. And then I told her
there's a mouse in the camper. I mean, she brings
me all the paraphernalia to catch this man. Did you
get him? Did you get him? If I don't get him,
you know, it's like she's a better hunter than I am.
It's the pressures amazing. Tyler, you got a song for us.
(40:17):
If I if I could remember the song, how does
that one go? Billion Bobby is all about just being
a country guy. Well, I'm a countryman. Try it. Let
me just try it. Yeah, try try skoll. We'll see
(40:37):
this one happened. I want to say this podcast has
like we've spoken about a lot of things that I
don't endorse. And I did write a song that involved
hunting about five years ago that was talking about the
inner hunter that's been deprived. But I don't think I
could sing it because I don't really remember it yet.
But right now, but let me just see, let me
just this one's an old, the older older. Let's see
(40:59):
what you got, tyl all right, Tyler sing it? Man,
all right, I may sing along a little bit with you.
Tyler wrote this one. He's in the seventh grade. Well
where the country kind? Boy? We sure don't mind the
(41:24):
field or two occupy our entire day. Some people answer
to their boss was sitting at their desks all day.
But we answer to the wild. We answer to our hate.
(41:44):
We put deer stands and trees. We take pride in
making cheese from our goats milk. We milk them in
the morn. Taking care of our animal is an hour
for the acre yard was really hard back before Bobby
(42:07):
and Billy and Willie and Jilly and Crystal and Otis
were born. That's right. Well, I'm a countryman. When you
think about me and about who I am, what do
(42:29):
you think? Hey, Well, I can sum me up. And
that's with this. I like dipping skull. I like dipping skull.
I like it fresh, and I like those circles of
faded Denham on my back pockets. Me and my buddies
(42:50):
getting a contest, we pull out our wranglers. We see
who's the best, who's got the widest rings of skull
cars faded on our gene. My wife prefers dipping winter green.
But sometimes when I'm on my BushHog machine, I pull
out the regular flavor. Who cares about your breath when
(43:12):
you're doing manual labor? Hey, we're country here, all right, Okay,
Now we do want to make it public that we
never condone any type of tobacco. That's right, No mouth tobacco.
No any kind of tobacco, that's right, many kind tobacco free.
(43:33):
But good song. Tyler, Thank you wrote that when you're
in the seventh grade. Uh, that one may have been
ninth grade. It's a little later work, yeah, a little yeah.
Keeping the wild places wild because that's where little bears.
That's it, nailed it. Zero
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arms dot com. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the
host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be
your host into the world of hunting the icon in
the North Americans. Will this prepare, We'll talk about tactics,
gear conservation. We will also bring you into some of
(01:06):
the wildest country on the planet chasing fair This one
is gonna be a little bit different We're sitting around
a campfire in Arkansas. I've got a lot of my
family with me and friends. We've got about fifteen people.
It's almost like a live podcast because several of us
(01:29):
take turns telling stories and my brother even sings a
song with the guitar. This is a very fun podcast.
You're gonna enjoy it. You're gonna enjoy the stories, and
you're gonna enjoy some of the new voices on this podcast.
And uh, a bunch of the kids were there, my
nieces and nephews, my mom and dad, and some other
good friends. You're gonna enjoy this. This week, I've been
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at a hundred yards easily. Really like carrying this gun. Unfortunately,
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out the Western Bear Foundation. You're gonna enjoy this podcast
with my friends and family around a red oak fire
in Arkansas. So, uh, Dad, did you know that there
have been some grievances that have come up to me
(04:47):
from the other pupils in the Gary newcom Hunting School
of Hard Knocks. Because I have said in the past
that I was the only graduate, actual graduate what of
the school. There were actually two other students, both of
which you were here tonight. One of them is my
older brother, Zack Um And Zach came to me and
(05:13):
and I actually apologized to him. But Zach, so I
just want to give you this opportunity to like relieve
any grievance publicly. This is like the bully pulpit right here. Okay, okay, yeah,
so what now? What you're saying is that you didn't
really try to complete the school. Oh wow, this is deep.
(05:39):
Or you're forcing me to respond. So I was never
in the school, okay, okay, okay, So what you said
is that we were in a school and failed to graduate.
Ok Now, what actually happened. The reality of the scenario
is that we were offered entrance to the school and
we said we're good, Okay, we should too high? Yeah,
(06:01):
well just not interested, not interested. And so so you
felt like you were misrepresented. I felt like, yeah, so
there was a graduated, Tyler was for sure. You know,
I'm gonna just recamp that there were that I was
the only graduate. I think Tyler graduated, and we're gonna
hear a story from Tyler later. I think you were
(06:23):
the only graduate and the only attendee. Okay, and Josh
Tyler thinks he was Josh was the summer camp was
the summer Josh is hunted enough. Garry knucom that he
basically as the equivalent of education of someone that went summer.
I don't have a degree. I have a certification an associates.
It's like an associates. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I've
(06:46):
even ever killed a bird, Like when we were kids
and we would hunt with babies, like I have the
vivid here's my only hunting story. I have the vivid memory.
Here we go. You pulled it out of me. We
have the vivid memory of going BB and I could
never hit the bird with the BB like never, like
really never could. I could never hit it. And then
(07:06):
one day it was snowing and I hit the bird
and then the blood, you know, it was all over
the snow. So it created going to get a citation
now creating. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying what
kind of bird it was. Maybe it was a game bird, Josh, Yeah,
maybe it was a quail. Maybe it was. And then
I have to I have that memory of probably the
(07:27):
only animal I've ever actually killed. But now you're actually
a big outdoorsman, those acts like you're not you've not
been a hunter, but you're a big fisherman, fly fisherman,
so we'd like to do those things. Yeah, for sure.
But we never entered into the garret he was offered.
I maybe Tyler entered. I would I wouldn't say I entered. Yeah,
(07:56):
and we're gonna get to that dad. Do you have
any comments on a lot of a lot of company
Tisian compound? Now that was really fun some archery. Yeah.
I also was a Zack Newcom's School of fly fishing
summer camp attende is really you had a lot of
summer camping and now Josh is like way surpassed and
that j Josh is now master. Well, hey, here's what
(08:21):
here's what we're doing. We are Yeah, give that back
to Tie. So we are we're at our muzzloader camp
and uh, let me let me count how many people
are here? We got one too, three four or five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen,
we got fifteen people. Can anybody give me an estimation
(08:43):
of on like a scale of like zero to ten
for like a typical like hunting camp fire size, like
what described this fire tie size of the fire? Yeah,
like like camp fire, not a bottom fire. Okay, we're
above average, but I'm not impressed. Okay, okay six and
(09:08):
seven above average, but unimpressed. If this fire was in
your yard, you would be like highly impressed. I mean,
am I right, it's a good fire. Impressed. I remember
the last well last deer camp when we had the
log and it was I've got a really standard. So
(09:29):
we're in uh, we're we're in Arkansas. We're the Muzzloader camp.
And uh, it's always important to note what kind of
fire you're burning. I would say this is a red
oak fire, which has a very distinct smell. It's got
an average crackle. You know, if you're burning light birch
wood up in Northern Canada, crackles and pops a lot.
(09:52):
This stuff will burn all night like this. So but hey,
here's what we're gonna do. I've got there's five of
us here that are gonna tell a story. So the
way this is gonna work is each guy is gonna
tell a story. And we've got all our kids here.
I've got three of my kids. Um Ty Dennison's boys
(10:13):
are here. We've got Simeon Spencer here, we got Shepherd,
we got my brother, Zach. We got my niece and
nephew here, I can Clara um, and we have my
mother and father. This is Juju nucoms first time on
the podcast. She I asked her to tell a hunting story,
and uh, you know, I could tell you about the
(10:34):
time she swatted me with a broom, but I won't. Okay, No, Juju,
what an honor to have you here. Um for the record,
her her legal name is not Juju, that's correct, Judy Judy.
And then my brother Tyler's here. So we're all here, Okay,
who's gonna Who's Who's gonna tell the first story? Should I? Should?
(10:57):
I started out? I guess I could start it out
my as well, go for it. Okay. So ty is
gonna tell a story. I'm gonna start off with a story.
Dad's gonna think of a story, and then Tyler's gonna
tell a story. Okay. So the year was two thousand, No, no, no,
The year was nineteen and ninety nine. The calendar had
(11:19):
yet to flip to two thousand. I remember that because
I was dating Misty some of you guys mother at
the time. So it was it was after work and
it was mid October and I drove my Ston pickup.
I was driving into this place on a non maintained
(11:41):
road and a deer jumps out in front of me.
And man, this was so long ago. I don't think
I would do this anymore, but this was this was legal.
I stepped out of the truck. It was just a
pig trail, and I walked off the road in the
year just stood there, and I shoot this deer with
(12:03):
my bow. Like I walked off the road. Shot this
deer with my bow. It just stood there and let
it just stood there. That's why I shot. Probably it
just stood there. I was going hunting on top of
the mountains, so I didn't want to mess with like
letting the deer like usually you would wait like thirty
(12:24):
minutes before you trailed it. Man, as soon as I
shot the deer and it ran off the hill, I
just took out after it, and about the time it
rolled to a stop, I just grabbed it by the
back feet and carried it up the mountain, threw it
in the back of the truck, and then went on
to go hunting where I was wanting to hunt. When
I got up to the tree stand, I've already got
(12:45):
a deer in the back of the truck. And I mean,
that's a pretty good day in the mountains. And uh
had a deer in the back of the truck. And
I'm hunting in a hunting in a tree stand, and
right about out, probably an hour before dark, I see
a big gobbler turkey coming up the hill. And at
(13:09):
the time we had a fall turkey season, and this
this gobbler turkey, he just comes right by me, right
under the stand. I drew my bow back and he
was about six or seven yards shot and it hit
just right in front of him, just stuck in the ground.
And then I remember the turkey jumps straight up in
the air, you know, fluttered three or four times, and
(13:30):
probably went twelve feet off the ground. And I mean
when he hit the ground, he took off running and
stopped out there across a little draw at about twenty yards.
I grabbed another era and I just pulled back and
put it right on him and shot and just I
(13:52):
mean hit the turkey. The turkey turns, runs, and I'm
up on the side of this mountain sting see you
off this mountain. The turkey just jumps, spreads its wings
in sales like a bald eagle out across this canyon.
I mean, that is a bad thing that happens if
(14:15):
we shoot a turkey with a boat. And I just thought,
holy smokes, I am probably not gonna find that turkey. Well,
I sit up there to try to kill a deer
for a little bit longer, and finally I say, man,
I better go find that turkey. I get out of
the get out of the stand, go get my arrow,
and I just start walking in the direction that turkey flew.
(14:37):
And I walk around for you know, until just almost dark,
and it had been raining and it was real foggy,
and so the woods were real quiet, and I just
made zigs and zags down in the bottom of the canyon,
and I mean I was just looking for a turkey
lay on the ground, and it wasn't gonna happen. Well,
I decide I make a big loop and come back
(14:59):
to a truck, and I mean, I'm pretty much I'm
just like, well, I've got a deer. I guess the turkey.
I guess I'm not gonna get this turkey. I put
my bow in my truck and I thought, you know what,
I'm gonna go one more time back over into this
little spot and see what happens. I start walking down
this road and it's real quiet, and I come it's
(15:21):
like you know, sometimes you're walking and there's like real
thick brush and then all of a sudden, like there's
a new vista that opens up to you, and all
of a sudden you can see a new spot. But
I'm walking and all of a sudden, fam, I kind
of come around the corner and there is a turkey
sitting on the ground like a like a roosted chicken,
(15:42):
with its head up. And I was so close to
it I could see that its eyes were closed. I
mean it was like like five yards from me. This
turkey is sitting there like a roosted chicken and kind
of had its neck down it's will and its eyes
were closed, and I freeze in The turn key's right there,
and I'm right here, and I had enough time to
(16:04):
think should I go back to the truck and get
my bow or should I just rush this turkey? And
and in a moment of clarity, how that time, I
see that turkey's eyes go His eyes just popped wide open,
and that turkey jumped up like it was not hurt
(16:24):
and just took off down the mountain. Well, does anybody
know what would you do if that happened to you?
Get after it, man. I took after that turkey and
we got take off running down the hill. And I
remember I was running through briers and brambles. I was
wearing those green lacrosse boots with a little yellow the
(16:46):
yellow rim around the top, not exactly like the best
athletic like running shoes. And I was running down the
hill and that turkey was about ten yards in front
of me because he gotta jump on me. And we're
running down the hill, running, running, running, and he's getting
further and further away from him, further and further away
(17:06):
from me, and I think, holy cow, that sucker is
gonna get away from me. And I am just running. Isa.
I was like nineteen, so as fast as a nineteen
year old Clay Nukeolen could run. He was running down
the hill. And we get to the bottom of the hill,
and that turkey had no option but to basically go
back up the other ridge. We get to the bottom
(17:29):
and he starts going up the next ridge. Well, I
get to the bottom, I start going up the next
ridge and I found his weakness. It was going uphill
because as we start going up the hill, I start
gaining on him. And I don't know if you've ever
chased anything on foot, but there is a special adrenaline
(17:50):
rush that a predator gets when it begins to fathom
that it is actually gonna be able to capture its prey.
And man, I started gaining on that sucker, and I
was like, I'm gonna catch that sucker. And we run
up the hill and I really don't I would like
to go back to that spot. I can take you
to the spot and actually see how far it was.
I mean, maybe it wasn't that far. It felt like
(18:13):
I chased the turkey a quarter mile. You know, I
probably didn't. But we start going up the hill and
I start gaining on him, and I am shocked that
I'm gaining on him, and man, I get about four
or five ft from him, and I just dive, just
straight up dive and just tackle that turkey. And me
(18:34):
and that turkey are both so tired that I I
just held onto him. I didn't even try to like
wring his neck for a minute, because I just I
was just so tired, and the turkey was so tired,
and he had his head up, and I just remember
looking over at him, and his head was about four
inches from my head, and we just looked at each
(18:55):
other for a few minutes while we both breathed real hard,
and then human only dispatched the turkey with a twist
of the neck, took him back to the pickup truck,
threw him in with a deer, and went over to
Missy's house and showed her my my, uh, my, my
gathering and she married me. All right, who's who's next?
(19:20):
Tell us your story? Yeah, so, um, I I didn't
grow up in the deer woods. I grew up in
South Texas and um the duck blinds. Um, but all
my duck hunting stories are boring. Um just involved waking
up early and stories are boring. You're run. I love
(19:42):
duck hunting. Yeah. So I came up here to Arkansas
and started deer hunting, and uh did not do well
for quite some time. Um, a lot of time in
in the deer woods unsuccessful or I either um not
(20:03):
see deer or I would uh mr shot never never
had a bad shot that hit and I wounded an
animal thankfully. Um, but just lots of lots of time
observing and learning about how deer run around and getting
used to sitting for hours. You don't have to sit
for hours duck hunting really either. Like that was a
(20:25):
shift for me. I was sitting in a deer stand
um for a long time. But I really enjoy it
now and I did at the time too. I just
had to get used to, you know, three four five
plus hours sometimes just just sitting still and so kind
of getting my my my time, my reps in at
the gym, I guess you could say. But thankfully, Uh,
(20:49):
it would have been almost three years ago I got
my first buck with the help of one claim was
that three years ago? Three or two? I was two
years ago. Um we went out, ironically, after all the
(21:10):
time that I had spent deep in the woods, this
was on a less wooded property, like I wasn't I
you know, we you dropped me off from your truck.
It wasn't something I had to hike into. We wouldn't.
I was ground hunting. I wasn't even a tree stand
hunting some private land in northwest Arkansas. So UM got
(21:31):
got settled in and UM was it was in the
middle of the day, and I was actually I was
I was sitting there, and I kind of learned how
to multitask, can do different stuff in the stand. I
know Josh today took the kindle out with him to
uh do a little reading, and I was I was like, man, okay, well,
(21:53):
I know later in the day as higher activity, and
I had some stuff I could kind of do for work.
I'm a uh software engineer, and uh so I put
my phone out. I was like, oh, I got service.
I'm I start writing technical Yeah. I started writing tech
docs for one of our clients. And uh, I'm so
I'll write, I describe something, and I look around and
(22:15):
just kind of wait and uh and I'd go back
to writing something and I look up and look for
a while. Wait, and uh, I've got was his rifle season.
So I've got during the windmac on a tripod in
front of me. Um. So what a three D win
mag is? No, it's a big it's a big gun. You. Yeah,
(22:40):
you do not have to be very close? Um And uh,
I actually wasn't in this situation. I wouldn't too far away.
I think it was two yards maybe two or fifty
I'm looking maybe not even that far. But uh, I'll
look up and I see a dough down the road
cross a clearing, but not in time for me to
(23:04):
take any kind of action. And I'm like, oh man,
that was my dear. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring home
another goose egg that was there. There was the deer
that I was supposed to shoot, but I was just
sitting on the edge of a big field. So you
can see, you can see yards in one direction and
probably three or four hundred another. Yeah, and I thought, well,
(23:25):
there there weren't my chance. And but it was still
early in the afternoon, and so okay, and so I
get everything ready and sure enough, as soon as uh
a little not even fifteen seconds after I had kind
of processed, okay, get ready. Anyway, here comes a buck
chasing after that dough, and I got super excited because
(23:50):
this is this was more than I hope for. I
was just trying to fill the freezer at this point.
I had been skunk so many times going out. There's
one thing. If I was trying to be selective here,
I just wanted a dear and thought I had missed
my dear, which was a doe. And I see, I
see antlers and he puts his head down and I
take my shot pal and uh he didn't go but
(24:13):
maybe twenty yards and drops and all of a sudden,
because Clay was hunting further onto property, I could excited
text from Clay like did you just shoot? And uh
I was like, yeah, I got one, and uh man.
I sat there super excited, and I was waiting because
(24:34):
I knew I needed to wait for a while. And
did you see the deer go down? I saw him
go down? Yeah, I saw. I saw him go down,
and I knew I dropped him, but I wanted to
wait and not I was probably trying to wait about
half an hour, and about twenty minutes after that, I
was there was a I don't know if it's a ridge,
(24:57):
probably like a ridgeline, and I see a dough, like
three doughs come out from the top and start playing
around in front of me. And and these were much closer.
These were maybe fifty yards in front of me, and
I'm like, I'm gonna take like three deer home. All
of a sudden, I get super excited and I message
with Clay and I was like, nah, just just stick
(25:17):
with the one deer um But yeah, sure enough went
over there and it was it was for this for
the region. It was a it was a good buck.
It was the best deer that has been taken off
that property in a long time. Let me put it
that way. So it's ties the first time on the property. Now,
was that your first deer? That's my first, dear first deer.
(25:40):
Gar hold him because I was trying to just put
him in just an average spot, you know, I didn't
want him to kill a big buck. Put him there,
and he kills the biggest buck killed on that farm
in probably fifteen years. What do y'all think about that?
That's great, y'all know I'm is kidding, right, I really
(26:01):
didn't want a guard holding a little bit. Can we
get a definition of gar hole? Gar hole? And you
all know what a gar holing is? Shepherd does because
that gar hoole him all the time. Do you know
what it means Atticus? Yes, that is Edicas said, trying
(26:25):
to keep people away from good places. That is that
nails gar holing. I think the I think the phrase
comes it's a fishing phrase when you say, yeah, that's
a good fishing spot and you go down there and
all that's in there is guard and so they gar
hold me which there's no game fish there. It's just
gar just fun to fish. Well they're hard, yeah, so
(26:50):
but no, so Tyd kills this beautiful h buck and
I remember he texted me a picture of it and
he said, I killed a proper buck. He used that phrase,
I killed a proper buck, which you know he knows
now better than to use that kind of terminology to
describe a buck. Well, I was worried that it was
gonna be just barely shootable, and I was like, dude,
(27:12):
you just kids gonna be Yeah. I would have spent
my whole season hunting that buck. It was a good
one man, so a beautiful buck. So it all worked
out over over time. It was worth all the investment,
all the all the official score. You know, we never
score scored it. We'll have to score it when we
get it. Best on the texadermist Yeah yeah, yeah, because yeah,
(27:37):
you like to eat it, didn't you? It was good? Good?
All right? Dad or Tyler? Who's going next? I can
jump in? All right? Tyler? Tell you guys, hey, you
do you have a good song? You could play us
maybe now you okay, tell your story and when Dad
tells his, then you come back with a song. Okay,
(27:58):
let's see what we can pull. Okay, just a thought, Okay, alright.
I mean the last person I played a guitar on
this podcast was Ted Nugent, So no pressure. Okay, nice,
can you play the national anthem? Okay, go ahead? Sorry,
not quite alright. So my big hunting story. Yeah, I'm
(28:22):
not gonna tell you about killing a big bear. I'm
not gonna tell you about me killing a big buck.
What was that? We'll save that, We'll save that. But
I will tell you this is the only mammal that
I've ever killed. Too. I'm gonna let you guys figure
this out by the end of this story. What really
(28:43):
happened here? Let's build this. I'm gonna build this story.
What was that bigger than a bread bon? I'm not
gonna give it away, man, No hints here. Alright. So
I got into shooting the compound bow. It was a
beautiful time in my life. I'm gonna say this could
have been a four month period of my life where
(29:04):
I just absolutely loved shooting a compound bow. And I
went to probably three tournaments. I believe I placed one time,
maybe third place, and it was fascinating. It was it
was exciting. I have no idea why I actually stopped
doing that, But one day I was out practice. Time
of deep reflection. Yeah, probably because Dad gave your bow
(29:26):
to Josh. That may have been it. That very well
may have been it. Uh So it's out shooting, practicing,
shooting a a target of just a just a deer,
not a real deer target deer. How do you say that?
That shows you how long I've been out of the
We could call it a deer target deer target as
(29:47):
opposed to target target, dear, dear target. So I'm just
trying to validate this is a true story. Okay, I'm
thirty six years old. This was probably when I was
ten or maybe thirteen, somewhere in the wow three years
span somewhere within there, I'm guessing. So, yeah, I think
you were younger than that. You were younger you you
(30:07):
were dead guy, I'm stealing diapers, man finished. I may
have been shooting a deer target. There we go. So
as I'm shooting target, I look, I'm gonna guess twenty
yards behind that target was a rabbit. Mm hmm. A
real rabbit, a real rabbit or target rabbit, not a
(30:28):
target rabbit, not a, yeah, not a target rabbit. Then
what happened. I made the decision that I wanted to
shoot that rabbit with a compound bow. So I snuck
over there. The rabbit hadn't moved, I pulled back, nailed it.
I'm gonna say it jumped about six ft in the
(30:49):
air and squealed. And so that was my kill right now. Wow,
a good story, Tyler. Thank you. You're you're we one
bow kill crab of one bow kill. Incredible. Well, Dad,
you have a story, well, you know, kind of. I mean,
it's no big deal really. But the one story I
(31:11):
think I would tell that maybe I hadn't mentioned before
would be Um, I would turkey hunt with a gun,
kill a kill a bird with my gun. Then I'd
go hunting with my bow. And uh So I went
out one day and the birds weren't gobbling, and I
took a little break, and as I was taking my break,
(31:33):
I would call and I heard, I heard, I'm gonna
be your sound effects guy. Okay, very good. I could
hear the woods were real dry, and I could hear
more than one bird up above me coming across the backside.
(31:57):
They weren't gobbling. Sorry, recount and so you know, I'm
going like, these birds, how did you hear them? You
heard them walking? I heard them walking, and so I'm like, uh,
that's good with your sound effects. Uh. So I hear
(32:17):
these birds walking, I'm thinking, you know, they're doing exactly
what they're supposed to do. They don't come down hill.
So these birds are gonna go past me, and there's
a chance they're gonna come in from the front side.
So I get all my equipment ready and uh, I'm
sitting there and I'm pretty well camouflage, just sitting on
(32:40):
the ground, and these birds go down yards and then
they come down even with me, and then they come
to me have gobbled. Yet they don't gobble. These birds
don't gobblem. They know they're on their death walk. This
is their last stroke. So I'm I'm sitting here ready
(33:06):
and here comes really just one bird. The other bird
didn't come in. And this bird was big and he
had a ten or let me, what do you have? Tennis?
Beard didn't he was a good bird. And so he's
coming in. He's strutting, you know, he's he hears this
beautiful hen yepping and he didn't know that the little
(33:27):
hen's got a compound bowl in her hand. So so
he comes up. And this is what I found really
intriguing is turkeys they don't like to come downhill. They
don't like going over objects, they don't like crossing creeks,
there's a lot of stuff they don't like doing a
real picky. And this bird followed all the rules. It's
(33:49):
like it had a textbook. Okay, I don't go downhill.
So he actually comes in coming uphill towards me. When
he comes to me, there's a log there. He won't
cross that log. So he comes to that log, and
I'm sitting here like this and he gets the strutting
up and down that log and he's jumping up on
the log. No, no, he's just he's he won't cross
(34:11):
this tree, this log. I wonder how he walked every
day out in the woods. Do you think across the log?
I think this bird was destined to be in my freezer.
So this guy is he comes up and he turns,
and I see his fan, and I'm thinking, you know,
I believe that's what I've been looking for. And so
(34:34):
finally the bird did it two or three times, and
about the third time when it turned and did the
big strut. I whacked the bird, and the bird went
about ten yards and fell over dead, dead turkey. And
so for the compound boat. Of course, I go to town.
Thirty years later. I still have people going, I remember
(34:57):
when you kill let the barber that we used to
go to, uh huh. Every time i'd go in there
to get a haircut, which was about once every five
years because I'm ballyheaded, he'd go, I remember when you
had that turkey across the street. You know, I took
it down and showed it to somebody I forgot, but anyway,
you know, killed turkey with the boat. When I did that,
(35:20):
occasionally hunted him, but that time was it was really
special to be so yeah, because you killed it without
a blind which was a big deal. Yeah, I mean,
that's that's still a tough thing. But back then, not
many people were even doing it with blinds, you know.
I mean the last twenty years people have kind of
got on to killing turkeys with the bow, but mostly
they're doing it in blinds. So just doing it out
(35:42):
in the mountains used to blind and you know, and
I had a lot of birds, you know, I probably
you know, I had a lot of opportunities killed birds,
But that's the only one I killed with my bow,
even though I missed a couple. You know, made some
mistakes right into the last minute, but you know it
was really fun to kill that. Try to kill that
second bird with a bow. Yeah. So anyway, I've still
(36:06):
yet to go turkey hunting, and I want to. Hey,
let me sneak turkey feather in my hat. Let let
me sneak in. Just a real quick story. I come
home one day from turkey hunt and I tell Judy,
I go, Judy, this is crazy, but I know where
a bird is gonna be strutting this afternoon. I don't
remember why I even knew it. You know, they have
strut zones. And I go, I heard the bird goblin,
(36:28):
d gobble here and need gobble here, Goblin. I said,
that bird is in this particular place, and I said,
once you go with me. Judy hates hunting, don't one hunt,
And so I said, it doesn't. She didn't want to go.
So that afternoon, you know, when I come in from hunting,
I go, Judy, I want to take you and Gracie
(36:50):
on a hike. And at the end of the hike,
I'm gonna kill us, big gobbler, and you know that
never works out. So I got lab who is well
trained and will do exactly what I tell us to do. Really.
And I got Judy, which she has me well trained,
and I do whatever she wants. So we take off
(37:11):
on this about a half a mile to three quarters
of mile hike. And when we get to a certain spot,
I said, Gracie sit, I said, Judy, you and Gracie
sit right here. And I swear I ducked down and
I walked about thirty yards and I stood up and
just took my gun and killed a big tom turkey
(37:34):
where I mean. It was crazy. It was just where
he thought it was exactly. I mean it was a
strut zone. And uh, you know, I've never it sounds
like a turkey story. But itnessed, is this true? Can
you verify that what he said was true? Very true?
I watched the whole thing set by Gracie held onto Grace.
(37:56):
What did he do after he shot? It was the
excited Oh he was thrilled to that. I was shocked. No, no,
I held on to Gracie. She would have Gracie would
have stayed there anyway. Jiuju what story do you want
to tell? I really have no hunting story since this
is my first experience at deer camp. Never come to
(38:19):
deer camp before. That is true, I didn't experience What
have you been doing with your life? Oh, I've enjoyed
my time at home in a quiet house. Everybody else
was deer hunting. Why did those people at the bar
know your name? Well, that's a long story. That's a
mule story that everybody knows. That story. It's a long,
(38:43):
funny story that I give my mom a hard time
about because I had to go into a bar one
time to look for a lost mule and I got
one of her former students was in there. I heard
my name and said, is your mom? Judy knucom And
I didn't know why this man knew my mother's name.
You know, y'all y'all heard the story, and I go, yes,
she is. And I didn't know if I was gonna
(39:05):
have to fight this guy. I didn't know what was
about to happen. And he goes, she was my teacher anyway,
So I always always give Judie a hard time because
they knew her name down at the you know, at
the bar. I just wondered if you had wanted to
like say anything about that. No, I really have nothing
to say. I have enjoyed watching though the dad's with
(39:28):
their kids. Hey, I tell you, Judy Knum inside of
all of us is a hunter. I'm telling you, and
it has come out since I've retired. Judy Knukeam loves
to check or spider traps. I mean, it's like it's
like running traps in the house. She'll go, man looking
(39:50):
at me I got last night. Well, I hate spiders.
I don't want him in my house. So anyway, so
I will kill a spider. And then I told her
there's a mouse in the camper. I mean, she brings
me all the paraphernalia to catch this man. Did you
get him? Did you get him? If I don't get him,
you know, it's like she's a better hunter than I am.
It's the pressures amazing. Tyler, you got a song for us.
(40:17):
If I if I could remember the song, how does
that one go? Billion Bobby is all about just being
a country guy. Well, I'm a countryman. Try it. Let
me just try it. Yeah, try try skoll. We'll see
(40:37):
this one happened. I want to say this podcast has
like we've spoken about a lot of things that I
don't endorse. And I did write a song that involved
hunting about five years ago that was talking about the
inner hunter that's been deprived. But I don't think I
could sing it because I don't really remember it yet.
But right now, but let me just see, let me
just this one's an old, the older older. Let's see
(40:59):
what you got, tyl all right, Tyler sing it? Man,
all right, I may sing along a little bit with you.
Tyler wrote this one. He's in the seventh grade. Well
where the country kind? Boy? We sure don't mind the
(41:24):
field or two occupy our entire day. Some people answer
to their boss was sitting at their desks all day.
But we answer to the wild. We answer to our hate.
(41:44):
We put deer stands and trees. We take pride in
making cheese from our goats milk. We milk them in
the morn. Taking care of our animal is an hour
for the acre yard was really hard back before Bobby
(42:07):
and Billy and Willie and Jilly and Crystal and Otis
were born. That's right. Well, I'm a countryman. When you
think about me and about who I am, what do
(42:29):
you think? Hey, Well, I can sum me up. And
that's with this. I like dipping skull. I like dipping skull.
I like it fresh, and I like those circles of
faded Denham on my back pockets. Me and my buddies
(42:50):
getting a contest, we pull out our wranglers. We see
who's the best, who's got the widest rings of skull
cars faded on our gene. My wife prefers dipping winter green.
But sometimes when I'm on my BushHog machine, I pull
out the regular flavor. Who cares about your breath when
(43:12):
you're doing manual labor? Hey, we're country here, all right, Okay,
Now we do want to make it public that we
never condone any type of tobacco. That's right, No mouth tobacco.
No any kind of tobacco, that's right, many kind tobacco free.
(43:33):
But good song. Tyler, Thank you wrote that when you're
in the seventh grade. Uh, that one may have been
ninth grade. It's a little later work, yeah, a little yeah.
Keeping the wild places wild because that's where little bears.
That's it, nailed it. Zero
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