March 27, 2025 • 64 mins
Dirk gets to talk with one of his favorite podcasters - Brent Reaves. Brent hosts "This Country Life" on the Bear Grease podcast and is an avid sportsman and advocate for hunting. They talk about Brent's upbringing and his take on hunting turkeys.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Today's guest is none other than the famous or maybe
I should say infamous, depends on who you ask. Brent Reeves.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome, Hey, Derek.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
How are we doing?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Man? I'm doing great, you know, I always I was
thinking today when I remembered, actually just a few minutes ago,
when I remembered we were going to be doing this,
I was thinking, you know, Dirk is like my second
favorite person to see when I'm in Bozeman.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Really, I mean my first favorite is the uber driver
that's taking me back to the airport so I can
get back to Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I feel that.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
No, I love it up there. Man, it's just this
time of year, it's just too dank for me. But
I mean there's nothing that's nothing for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Weather, you know, I live in near Boise, Idaho, and
it you know, it's pretty moderate here. We're at the
kind of the edge of the mountains and edge of
the desert, so we don't get a lot of snow.
We don't get a lot of real cold weather. If
you drive an hour north, hour and a half north,
you'll you'll get to Stanley, Idaho, and that is the
(01:25):
cold spot in the USA and the lower forty eight
every year, you know, you'll be like watching the national
news and they're like, and the cold spot is Stanley,
Idaho thirty five below zero or whatever. So we're not
too far from there. But it's pretty nice here. Nothing
like bozman Man Bozeman is a is a n ice
box for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yes, I'm running my air conditioner here today. It was
seventy eight here yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Holy cow.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Here For folks that don't know, here is in central Arkansas. Yeah,
I probably thought I was from Boston my accent. Well
I'm in Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, say say chowder clam chowder.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Uh. What's the closest thing to clam chowder you got
in Arkansas?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You guys like, uh, probably crawlfish. A Yeah, yeah, Now
I like chowder, Uh, clam chowder. I've eaten it before.
It's pretty good, But yeah, I like, I'd rather eat
something comes out of dirty water catfish and crawlfish and
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
There's a lot of mystery. You know, you just don't
know what you're gonna get till.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
You get it. So you pull it up and put
it in the boat.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Oh man. Well, Brent hosts if you folks don't know,
he hosts uh This Country Life, which is part of
the Bear Grease podcast, and he's an amazing storyteller and
I just love his down home anecdotal stories on the podcast.
I hadn't listened to him until, like, I don't know,
must have been a year and a half or so ago.
(03:02):
And I don't listen to a lot of podcasts because
I got a lot of desk work, and it seems
like anytime I have some road time behind the steering wheel,
listen to some podcasts. And anyway, I kind of man,
I can binge watch or binge listen to Brent because
his stories are are you know, they're pretty digestible, pretty short,
and uh man, you can listen to a lot of
(03:23):
them on a good road trip. So uh man, I
just sit there and drink like a fool. And I
listened to your recount stories from your past, so I
can appreciate those.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I appreciate you listening and saying that you know it's
we we did it as a you know on the
Baggery's channel. You know, we got Clay that does the
documentary stuff and there's you know, a lot of it technical,
very deep, very detailed, very articulated as far as historical
data and dates and stuff. And yeah, you know, I
(03:54):
wanted to do something totally opposite of that that would
just it's an easy listen. You can do it while
you're you can listen to it, like you say, like
while you're riding down the road, or you're you know,
sitting around the campfire outside barbecue or something like that,
and something that's quick and I think a lot of
people like to listen to it, or I've got a
(04:17):
lot of feedback from people that listen to it going
to and from work, you know, on the most folks
you know, commute thirty minutes or so to work, and
you can it's an efficient listen, they can say, you know,
you can listen to it the whole thing. You don't
have to stop it from the time you you know,
you get in a truck to go home or go
to work, either way. But I appreciate you listen to it.
(04:39):
It's we get a lot of feedback about how easy
it is to listen to which is which is very favorable.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I like that, Yeah, it was. It's different enough from
like your standard podcast. It's just like, you know, all
the little and I don't know if your listeners pick
up on this, but all the little there's like some
sound effects in the back and your storytelling, the voice
inflection and everything. It just, I don't know, you feel
pretty good after you listen to it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I love Clay's as well, but you have to have
some time to dedicate to listen to that. DEA truely.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah. And you know, every week I send one in,
I'm thinking this is going to be the one that
gets me fired. This is terrible. It sucks from start
to finish. It there was nothing good about it. And
then Reva Hanson, who works on all our stuff up
there sound engineer whose title should be more than sound engineer.
(05:37):
She puts her touch to that thing and puts the
music in there and makes the mood and really sets
the mood with sounds that I was trying to describe
with my very limited vocabulary, and it's always a plus.
And I just you know, I would think, you know,
people think about hunting in the hunting industry and all
(06:00):
this kind of stuff. They never or or at least
my generation, you wouldn't think of a lot of females
automatically being involved with it, and her feminine touch to
my masculine buffoonery and how it's described is an absolute
(06:21):
great marriage of I don't expertise, I guess, but she
just has a really special way of interpreting the things
that I'm trying to say and the mood that I'm
trying to project. And it's, oh man, it's it's good.
It's it wouldn't be what it is without her, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's next Levely. Yeah, she's great. She does such a
great job. And it's it's well, it shows. I mean,
it's a it's it's a great lesson. If any of
the folks out there haven't listened to it, definitely take
little time, and I think you're gonna walk away with
a grint on your face and a really cool story.
And I find myself telling anybody I see after I
(07:03):
listen to what, I'm like, Hey, I got to tell
you this story. You know, it's pretty funny. You know,
it's it's I think a lot of us it just
kind of hits home, you know, it's that nice, that personal,
you know, anecdotal stories from you know, your childhood or
experiences in life that just just kind of resonates with us.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, you know, they're I mean, they're not unique. I
may tell them in a unique way or something, but
everybody has these experiences because you know, it's excuse me,
it's not a I didn't really know what this show
was going to be about. And I've said this before
another podcast, but it's it's it's it bears repeating that
(07:43):
I didn't want it to be a hooks and bullets podcast,
how to hunt, how to catch fish. You you, among
the other folks that work in meat Eater are way
better killing animals and calling them up than I am.
In anybody can do that, or anybody can do it
(08:03):
better than me, I should say. So. When I started
this thing, I was like, I just got to I've
got to find my own place. And I was about
three or four shows into it, and I got a
message from a guy from New York, from New York City,
and he said, Man, I really enjoy your show. He said,
although I've never hunted and fished or really done anything
(08:24):
out in the country, he said, I identify with your
show and the stories you're telling. As I'm reading this thing,
I'm thinking this guy's got out of the mental hospital. Somebody,
what does he get? What is he getting out of this?
And he said in the last little paragraph, he said,
when your dad was taking you hunting and fishing, my
dad was taking me to Yankee Stadium. He said, all
(08:45):
your stuff has a is about relationships. It's about relationships
either with he said. I took it as as identifying
it with my father taking me to the ball game.
He said, And you're just telling a story about your
dad taking you hunting, or you going fishing with your
brother or whatever. And it made me realize he was
(09:06):
exactly right. That's what this thing is about. And it's
it's easy for me to talk about that because I'm
in We have relationships, you know, every day, and there's
I'm very blessed to not be pigeonholed into one thing
because I'm not smart enough. I can't do Tony Peterson.
(09:26):
I can't be Tony Peterson talk about deer hunting all
the time. No, I don't know enough to do that.
I don't know enough about it to do that. I
don't know anything about enough about any singular subject to
do something interesting every week. Hopefully this is but I
experience life, you know, And I try to have fun
(09:46):
wherever I'm at. And that is the blessing of this show,
of this country life. It's not about just living in
a country. It's this person that I'm pointing at myself.
It's about my life and and the people that I
meet and the things that I see and how I
look at them. And it has just been it's really
(10:07):
been easy. I had a buddy of mine, Michael Roseman,
that I coon hunt with all the time. He makes
sun spotlights that we sell the Mediator store, and he says, uh, man,
what are you gonna do when you run out of story?
So I'm like, dude, I'll be dead. I learned there's
a story every day. This is a story right now.
You know, you asking me this question, that's a story
(10:28):
right there. And I've told that story a thousand times
talking to people, you know. So it's I forget what
we even started out on this subject because this is
this is like my podcast. I get on a tangent
and run down a rabbit hole and start talking about everything.
But it's perfect. It it's just it's just a fun
(10:51):
thing to do for me. It's just, you know, I
was a policeman for so long. This is so far
removed from that that I'd really do this for camouflage
and pocketnize. But don't tell Uncle Steve because they'll quick
pay me.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
He'll stop sitting the checks. Yeah, so one thing I
kind of wanted to know. Like, so we hear a
lot of little bits and pieces about you know, your
your life. Tell us about where you grew up, and
you know I grew where did you grow up?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I grew up in Southeast Arkansas. I graduated from Warren
High School. I grew up on a farm. It was
about eight miles out of town. Six miles out of town,
and I graduated high school in nineteen eighty four. I'm fifty.
I'll be fifty nine years old this this March, and
(11:50):
in my mind, I'm probably in the fifth grade. It's
I wake up. I am as happy as I'm ever
going to be the moment I wake up every morning
and it's just a I have fun. My dad told me, oh,
when I was a little kid. I don't know how
old I was, but I was in elementary school that
(12:12):
and I'll tell you the occasion it was. We were
supposed to go fishing, but we had chores to do there,
and he said, we'll go fishing as soon as we
get done with these chores. Now, my chores ain't no fun.
Fishing is fun. I want to go fishing. And he
told me, he said, you know, if you're doing something,
fun can happen anywhere. You can make anything fun. And
(12:32):
if it's not fun to start out with, you make
it fun. So we started playing a game or he
made a game out of whatever it was we were
doing that wasn't nearest fun is fishing And it wasn't
nearest fun. It's probably he wanted me to think it was,
but he made it tolerable that I'd get it done
and then we'd go fishing. So that is stuck with
(12:53):
me forever about having fun and if something's not fun,
I'm just not going to do it. If I can't
make it fun, I'm gonna do something else. But I
found it pretty well to be to be true that uh,
And it's a lot easier. Life is a lot easier
when you when you make things fun, even the things
(13:15):
that you have to endure, if you can find some
way to cope with it and go forward. That is
It's been a blessing to me to be able to
do that anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, I can relate. Over the years, I've you know,
I've done lots of different jobs, and it seemed like
there was always one guy you'd always work with that
no matter how miserable the work was or whatever, he'd
be cracking jokes, you know, saying little funny things and
you know, one liner. So I'd love one liners. And man,
(13:46):
there'd be these guys in my past that, like, you know,
I looked up to and they were a little usually
a little bit older than me and whatnot, and that
made the day go by. That's what made the work taller. Well,
like just like what you said, and so we did
laugh like fools and work hard. And uh but I
can I can relate to that a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah for sure. But you know, further that was in
Southeast Darkansas. It's uh and I grew up there on
that farm. Outside was everything that I wanted to do
was outside.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You have video games?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
No video games there. I mean, I think that atari
thing came out sometime when when when I was maybe
in in in school. But yeah, yeah, I think we
had we we may have had one of those things,
if I remember right, we did. But it was. I mean,
nothing could compare with anything that they could do. I said.
(14:44):
We had a three acre pond out back, one of
the ponds just right there, close to the house. But
everything was an adventure, and there was every adventure I
ever had, all started with me slamming the screen door
and running away from the house, going outside. That's where
that's where my fun was.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, that's that's awesome. I didn't grow up on a farm,
and we had a We lived in town, but it
was a small town and the woods were walking distance,
a short walk from from my front door. And man,
me and the neighbor kids, you know, same thing summertime.
As soon as I got of the right age to
where my mom would let me out of her supervision
(15:27):
longer than thin an hour or two, then we disappear
and you know, be back by dark. And man, we
did all sorts of crazy stuff in the woods.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It was awesome, oh for sure, you know. And I
would I've thought about it since I've got three kids,
and I've got three and three grandchildren and them being
more or less feral like I was, is I wouldn't
even consider that today. Of course, you know, times are
a little different now. But and you have to adjust
with with how society is in the communities that you live.
(15:59):
But that was an absolute priceless way to grow up.
I mean I would hit the door as soon as
whatever I had to do that day was done, I
was gone. And if it was on a bicycle or
walking or on a horse or whatever I was doing,
and you know, we could wind up. I had a
couple of friends that my age that we rode to
(16:23):
school of us together. They didn't mean they weren't neighbors
by any mean, but we would meet up during the
day somewhere and at somebody's house or some one of
their houses, or one of their grandparents or an aunt
or uncle, or just old folks in the community that
knew who we were. If it was around dinner time,
we kind of knew where to whose yard to be
(16:44):
walking by and making racket when it was time to eat,
and somebody would holler for us to come in and
get some groceries. So it was it was literally like
growing up on Mayberry, you know, it was. It was
just it was a great, great childhood I had. I
was very blessed.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Well, it sounds like you grew up in a in
a hunting, fishing, outdoor family. Who who was your biggest
mentor in the in in hunting fishing.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Oh, no, doubt my dad. You know, my father was
and my dad didn't hunt a very large variety of things.
He was. He loved to squirrel hunt, and he loved
a hog hunt, and he loved which was kind of
in conjunction with one another. And he loved to uh,
to run couchs with dogs. He was a dog runner,
(17:40):
a dog man. Didn't really care nothing about deer meat. Uh,
didn't care about shooting deer. He told me one time
he could mash a button and and and here's the
here's the here was the correlation. He didn't like deer
because he turned his coat dogs out after a coyote
in instead of chasing a coyote to get after a
deer occasion. Oh, you know, and just run out of sight,
(18:01):
out of here. And he told me, he told me
one time that if he could mash a button and
kill every deer in Arkansas, he'd mash it twice to
make sure he got them all. And I said, bad, dad,
Maybe you just need to get some better dogs, you know,
and let the rest of us dear huh uh, but
(18:21):
he was the biggest influence because he would take me
and to do all that stuff, even when he cared
nothing about deer hunting. We would go some. And then
when I got big enough to go on my own,
which was I mean, like you know, twelve eleven twelve,
I could go by myself. And but I was taught
(18:42):
at an early age, you know, gun safety, and it
was drilled into me. I mean, you make one mistake
and anything, and how he loaded it or if he
checked it and the safety wasn't on or any deviation
from one hundred percent safety, and how I handled it
and prepared it and took care of it and cleaned
(19:03):
it or whatever. I mean, it was bad news. It
was big, bad times coming and I wouldn't see a
rifle or a fishing pole for a long time. It
was h I mean, there was a price to be
paid for not being safe. And that's I think, there's
no doubt in my mind, the only way I was
(19:24):
allowed to go and do as I did at a
very young age, when a lot of people now would think, man,
that's that's kind of wild, and even me would cause
me pause to think, should he have really let me go?
And do that kind of stuff. But I mean, I
wasn't any safer now than I was then. You know,
I apply the same basics of unsafety. It's pretty simple.
(19:49):
And he was. He taught me. He was obviously my
biggest influence. And my older brother too. As far as hunting.
Anything that didn't it wasn't squirrel hunting or you know,
chasing coats or whatever, my older brother would take me.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's really good. Yeah, same with me
at an early age. You know, we were at my
brothers and I were allowed to handle guns, and we
were taught the right way to do it, and we're
definitely scolded in deep trouble if we didn't do it right.
And yeah, my listening to my dad tell hunting stories,
(20:27):
my uncle and and then by the time I was
able to hunt, you know, my my brother, my won
this closest to my age. He'd take me hunting and stuff,
so man, I couldn't get enough. But but the same thing,
like I would, I would go up hunting on my own,
you know, thirteen years old. My mom would drop me
off after school and come pick me up after dark,
(20:48):
or drop me off in the dark in the morning,
come back at noon pick me up and yeah, with
with no cell phones or nothing other than you'd be
right here at this spot at this time and I'll
pick you up. And and you know we got bears
and mountain lions and whatever else to befall, you know,
packing around a firearm. You know, I always had gun
with me when I left the house and they just
(21:09):
let me do it. It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
My generation. I am sixth, the generation of my family
to be to grow up where I grew up on
that land and hunting that land down there. So I
mean we started, we were there not long. I like,
I'm to make the ink wasn't wet, wasn't dry on
(21:42):
the paper that made Arkansas state. And my family was
where it is now and we've been there for a
long time and hunting that ground down there, and it
was always just so such a special place to me,
and it was preached to me from the beginning. And
now you know, your great grandfather was hunting right here
(22:04):
where we are today, and this story came out from
my dad and then you tell a story about my
uncles or whatever, but that was it was a legacy,
I guess, and he saw so much value in it.
Or enough value in it that he told me and
(22:27):
my brothers, you know, the stories about the things that
went on there with our family, and unbeknownst to me,
was mentoring me to be able to I guess to
tell stories today because I'm not a patch on his behind.
As far as being able to tell the story, my
dad was the best storyteller that ever lived far as
(22:48):
I'm concerned. But that's where all that came from. And
I mean in a very convoluted way. He was preparing
me for the job that I have now, which is
just talking about the things that we did, like like
I'm doing with you right now.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Love it, love it.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So he was a mentor in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah. Yeah, So tell me Caron, I switch gears a
little bit since its turkey season is coming right around
the corner. Yeah, it's gonna be starting in some probably
Florida or some of the southern states real soon in
the next month or so.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Maybe yeah, next month in Mississippi. Yeah, maybe opening it
the first of the month in Florida pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So what can can you remember the very first time
you heard a turkey gobble.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
A wild turkey? I would say, yeah, absolutely, it was
April the fourteenth, nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
First real election was the first day I killed a turkey,
a wild turkey, And every time he gobbled, I turned
around and looked at the fellow I was with. I said,
that's somebody shaking a box. Call. He's like, no, it ain't.
That's a you know, gobbling with a box, like an
old lych box. He said, no, that's that's a turkey.
(24:20):
Now turn around, get ready. He gob turkey gobble again.
I turned, I said, man, that's that. Ain't that's a
that's somebody doing that. He said, it's a turkey. Foot
turn around and get ready, shure enough, Sure enough, it was.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Man, that's that's awesome. How old were you at that point?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I was nineteen. I just turned I just turned nineteen.
And there were turkey hunters around, but we just didn't
turkey hunt much. And there was turkeys on our property
that we would see occasionally on our farm, but I
just never took a notion to hunting. And when springtime came,
(25:00):
it was fishing. It was crappie fishing and cat fishing
and doing all that kind of stuff, and turkey's just
never were on my radar much growing up until I
got invited to go fella. He was a policeman there
in town. Invited me to go, and I was working
(25:23):
on the occasional times I was going to college. I
was working on the weekends as a dispatcher at the
police department, midnight dispatcher. And he invited me to go
with him as when I'll go turkey hunting. I'm like, well, hunt,
I like to hunt. Sure, I'd like to go. And
we went and we got out there this place it
(25:48):
was like in the next town over near Monticella, Arkansas,
and a turkey gobbled and we sat down and he said,
get out there in front of me. He called it
up and we went through that dialogue I just described
to you of a turkey gobbling everybody. Every time he'd
called I turnround, looked at him. I was like, man,
(26:08):
you're calling somebody up. That's somebody. And he's about to
lose his mind back there because I'm wiggling around like
a paint shake. I'm shaking paint down at the home
depot and he's like, no, he still, he's coming, He's coming.
And I learned a lot of two lessons that day.
Three lessons actually what a wild turkey sounds like, don't
(26:31):
guide the guide and laying down like an army man.
The snipe a turkey coming through the woods is a
very terrible choice because the turkey was almost on me
when I got when I can shoot him because of
the because of the brush, I was laying on my belly,
and he was walking in the weeds, was a little high.
(26:52):
You know, I was hiding. I guess like I thought
he was coming to shoot at me. But anyway, it
all worked out. And from the first flop when I
walked over there and put my foot on his head, man,
I've been chasing that ever since. It is it's good.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
That's fun. I think they first introduced turkeys in Idaho
in nineteen sixty one, the part. I'm not sure exactly
where they dumped them off, but I remember when I
was a kid in the early eighties, you started hearing
grumblings about them dropping some off in the area we
lived kind of north central Idaho, and then we'd be
(27:30):
out in the woods cutting firewood and you'd come to
a mud puddle and you'd see a turkey track in.
I'm like, what the heck is that really that's a
turkey track, and you just see one every now and then.
And then then we'd start seeing like a little bit
of poop here and there. And I didn't know nothing
about if a gobbler poop or hen poop, you know.
(27:52):
And then one spring day I was walking along my
Mama dropped me off by this old dump. There was
this an old place where there was a dump back
in the fifties and sixties. Well this is the eighties
and long abandoned. So there's just a bunch of old
junker around there and old pieces of metal and old
wreck cars. And I'd go out there and i'd shoot
shoot stuff with my twenty two shoot shoot car fenders
(28:15):
and stuff like that. Oh yeah by twenty two. Yeah,
And it was it was really close to my home anyway.
So but I was walking along there one day along
this old old road, this whole gravel road, and I
heard like, I heard a turkey. I'm like, that was
it like? And I didn't recognize it at first. I
(28:37):
took a couple of steps. I'm like, wait a minute,
I think that was a turkey gobble. And I stopped
and listen, and I heard it one more time, but
it was a little more distant, and by that point
i'd kind of talked to people and heard people call,
and I start trying to do it with my mouth,
you know, but I never heard it again. I'm like, ah,
(28:57):
maybe I was just hearing things, I you know, And
I was probably i'd say, probably twelve thirteen years old.
And fast forward to the first time I killed a
turkey was in nineteen ninety four, so that would have
been like eighty seven, probably eighty six eighty seven the
(29:19):
first time I heard a turkey, but then never really
hunted them much until probably the early nineties, and then
finally kill one in ninety four. And I'd been watching
these gobblers every morning for work before i'd go to
work and trying to call them, and all they would
want to do is just strut up on this old,
this open knoll, you know. They would gobble to beat
(29:41):
the band and just strut. But they'd never come my way.
So I got off work early one day and I'm like, man,
I'm going to go right back out there. So I
stopped and bought me one of them old Quaker boy
box calls Grand Old Master, is that it?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I bought one of those and I went out there,
and I thought, I'm gonna do like I do deer hunting,
you know, when there ain't no deer around the middle
of the day or late afternoon here, before the turkeys
are out, I'm just gonna lay down. So I just
laid down. It's kind of this old clere cut, timber cut,
and you know, you had a little bit of brush
starting to grow up. So I laid down flat on
my back and I started squawking with that box and
(30:20):
I didn't hear nothing squawked somewhere. And then it was
such a nice spring day. It was warm and like,
I laid there and fell asleep. Yeah, I knew that
was COVID, only to be rudely awakened by a gobble.
Oh yeah, he's just right there. I'm like, I woke up,
my eyes open. I'm like, oh no, I'm laying on
my back. What do I do? My shotgun's over here,
(30:40):
there's no way to shoot a turkey. And then he
gobbled again. I was like, okay, I can hear where
he's at. So I slowly rolled over, and just so happens.
When I'd rolled over, he was facing away. Oh his
tail fan he couldn't see me, and he was only
fifteen yards maybe. Oh, and he turned back around and
I let him have it with that shotgun.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Oh that is awesome, man. I can think of I
know of three turkeys right now that I that woke
me up, either drumming or gobblin that I killed. And
then I was leaned up against the tree, you know,
asleep in one of those things where they they're not
coming in, they're not they hung up or they walk
off with hens and you just you got no other
options other than to sit right there because you don't
(31:20):
not really sure where he's at. Yep. And and over
the years, I can think of three for sure that
that you know, and you just slowly, thankfully you know,
I'm not when I woke up, I didn't just like,
you know, look around, I'm just easing the eye open,
looking and either he's there in my peripheral somewhere or
(31:42):
eventually moving into it. You know, I got enough sense
that I didn't move and scare them off. But yeah,
that's that's a that isn't a drilling field moment to
wake up to that.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, I got a picture of me standing there. I'm
wearing desert camo. I took this turkey to the TUXTRMA
shop and they took a picture of me there and
because I'm like, I got to get this thing mounted, right,
I don't know anybody that has a live turkey mount,
you know, a full strut wild turkey mount.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
So I took it and.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
They got a picture of me stand there and I'm
wearing desert camo, you know, like from Desert Storm type
camo bottoms, pants and like an Air Jordan T shirt.
I was wearing some other camo top when I was hunting.
But it's it's pretty funny picture.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
But what I've learned hunting Easterns the last few years,
me and Jason Phelp's been going out to Kansas hunting Easterns,
and they're not always the funnest to call in. They
can be they can take their time. It seems like
Easterns are there's if they come at you're on their time, and.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
We take a We take a lot of pride down
here and how hard these turkeys are to hunt, but
then every day we're out there trying to hunt them.
He was like, man, I wish these things work so hard.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I know, I know it and what I've kind of
figured out. So like last year, I figure this out.
This is like last year was year three. I said, folks,
about the time I can't hold my eyes open anymore
and I'm about ready to fall asleep. That's when them
turkeys come in. It's like they've been here long enough
to where you're just kind of starting to take a
nap and want to take a nap. I'm like, man,
(33:15):
you got to like snap out of it and like
be ready. And it seems like it's that like you're
sitting there for like an hour or longer, and it
takes meat about that long to get, you know, to
where I want to take a nap.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
So that internal clock going yep.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So I've learned, you know, you have to have a
lot of patience turkeys. So I have a question. So
turkeys are made this is an airb AARB answer. Turkeys
are made to be shot with a shotgun or b
BO shotgun. All right, my man, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I mean, why you would won't to increase the the
degree of difficulty Because if your if your mission is
to do something hard, go climb a mountain. But if
you're if you're wanting to go out and kill a turkey.
I mean you've you've already reverse nature by calling him
(34:14):
to you instead of you going to him the way
it happens in nature. You know, the turkey's gobble to
gather up hens. You calling a hen calling to a
turkey is doing the exact opposite of how it's actually
supposed to work. So why would you want to put
another limiting factor on yourself of having to be able
to pull a bow back and shoot the turkey. My
(34:37):
goal is to put the turkey in the skillet. That
is my number one priority, because they taste so good,
and they don't taste any better being shot with a
bow than they do a shot. I agree with that. Hey,
my answer is.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Hey, okay, all right, we're on the same wavelength. Last
last spring, Jason Phelps and I went to Kansas and
he's like, hey, we're going to shoot him with a bow. Well,
he made all these these these promises, like we're going
to shoot turkeys with the bow, and then when it's
gets time to to pack to go, he's like, yeah,
blah blah, shotgun. I said, what are you taking your
shotgun for? He's like, well, because he's.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Not an idiot.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I'm like, well, hold on, you said you you said
we're going to use our bows to shoot these turkeys.
He's like, I don't want to do that. I'm like,
you need you made the promise.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
So we both pack our bows fly him out there
with us and our buddy Randy Milligan's got the farm
we hunt, he's the guys are going to do what?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Right, so he knows.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So we got like, uh, we got it like a
day and a half into this, sitting in a blind
hoping turkeys kind of walk by, you know, and finally
he's like, when are you gonna let me use the shatga?
Like I just wanted you to suffer for a day
and a half here like everybody else is just blasting turkeys,
you know, and here we are with these stupid bows.
And I'm like, all right, we'll borrow around Randy shotguns.
(36:07):
And then that man, the hunt definitely took a turn
for the better, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, deer hunting turkeys. Deer hunting turkeys is what I
call it. When you're sitting and waiting for him to
come to a certain spot, that is my least favorite
thing to do. I like to get up and go
after Yeah, I like to get up and go and
and it just I mean, if you're going to put
a challenge, if you want to challenge, move around and
(36:31):
move around in the woods with something that's that is
my grandpa described it. A turkey. Can hear you thinking
and see you change your mind? You know, so try
especially somebody big as me trying to slip around and
kill a turkey that I have an I have enough
issues trying to overcome those obstacles. Uh So, you know,
(36:53):
adding a boat of that is way in the in
the turkey's favor. I'm not for that.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, I'm with you. So about a year ago, I
think it was a year ago, meat Eater they had this,
they put together this turkey calling contest yep. And I
know you and a bunch of other crew member guys
on there were involved in this turkey contest, and I
know there was some heated debate towards the end of it.
(37:21):
Tell our listeners about that, in case they didn't catch that.
How that all played out.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I can tell you how I played out up to
a certain extent, because some of this on the advice
of counsel, I have been advised not to talk about
very much. I have a pending lawsuit against Clay nukemb
all the people that he paid to vote continuously for him,
(37:48):
when he knows himself who he wound up winning this contest.
But it was rigged from the start. I don't know
how many kids he had a questioned in his barn,
out there with iPhones and laptops, voting for him when
I clearly, clearly it was a better turkey call than
(38:09):
he is. Well.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I listened to that contest, and I'm just gonna say you,
you cleaned his clock.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Let me tell you. I hear. I shouldn't even have
to call. I shouldn't even have to call in this
thing Dirk I have. I don't know where it's at.
I know a lot of turkey hunters that are a
lot better turkey killers than I am. I've killed close
to one hundred and fifty turkeys. I don't know how
many it is. And I told Clay that he could
not he couldn't hold all the turkeys. I can hold
(38:40):
all the turkeys he's killed in a sock. He couldn't
hold a turkey beards in a sock. He couldn't hold
all the turkey beards I've killed in his sock drawer.
So I mean, there there's the judgment right there. Yeah,
the turkeys. The turkeys have judged who won.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah that's so.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
But there we are. It's coming around again. You know
this year I.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Heard some rumblings at it. They're gonna maybe try to
do that again.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, that's from what I understand. There's gonna be a
little different format. And you know they put me in
clay together against each other right at the beginning. So
that was last year. That's how it worked out last year.
But this year they're changing that up. And I'm I'm
gonna whoop him and everybody else in that thing. I'm
(39:28):
gonna I'm bringing home the trophy this year. And if
you get in that, I'm sorry to saying I'm gonna
beat you too.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I promise you you'd beat me. I'll call turkeys a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
I'll go out in the first round just like I did,
like I did last year. But it's fun, man. It
brings a lot of tension onto to what we love
to do so much, and that that's the thing, that's
that's why we do it. But yeah, I mean, I'm
not bitter, but I hate Clay nucle Man.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I love listen to that rivalry and back and forth.
That was pretty funny. Well, I have another question. So now,
being an Arkansas boy, I have an idea what you're
gonna say. Maybe I'm wrong, but you gotta tell me
which of these game animals or game pursuits is better
(40:24):
turkey hunting, duck hunting, or deer hunting, ma'am?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
In your opinion, which is best? Man? That is so
hard to I love it all so much. You know.
I was talking with a friend of mine, Benny Hargrove,
(40:54):
just a couple of days ago, and he is he's
got a wonderful place that we duck hunt on the
cash River. And he was asking me, he said, Brent,
what what's your favorite? And I stammered around, like I'm
stammering now. And I've been asked this question a bunch,
But it's they're so it's kind of it's so different
(41:14):
if I if somebody if you held a gun on
me Dirk and said he was gonna shoot me in
the foot, if I didn't say, I'd probably say say here,
I am pausing right now. Yeah, it would. It would
be but it's probably turkey hunt. I'd probably say turkey hunting. Wow,
And I know and seeing and I'm thinking when I
(41:36):
said that, I thought, why didn't I say duck hunting?
And I did the same thing with with Benny. But
deer hunting is number two to ever to all of it.
I loved the bow hunt. I love to bow hunt,
and and I hadn't shot a deer with a rifle,
and in a while I'm going to if I'm going
through this year, I've got some plans to do some
deer hunting with a rifle. But turkey hunt and didn't
(42:00):
duck hunters are so vastly different, But the way I
do it is kind of similar, if that makes any sense.
You know, usually you you duck hunting with a group
of people, and you turkey hunt alone. I liked I
like to do it with other folks as well. I
would rather share the experience with of turkey hunting with
(42:23):
someone than do it by myself and kill the biggest
turkey in the woods. And I don't have to kill
the turkey, you know, I call it up for somebody
else or I watch them do it. And that that
is why I have such a hard time choosing. Now,
if you the traditional route being a single turkey hunter
(42:46):
or duck hunting with two or three folks, that's I'm
gonna pick that every time, just because I love sharing
the experiences that we do out there so much. That's
the reason. That's how I got into film and stuff
thirty years ago, you know, for myself, was because my
dad was not a duck hunter. He wasn't a turkey hunter,
and I wanted to film and to show him the
(43:07):
stuff that I was seeing out there, and to show
other folks, you know, but mainly mainly my dad to
look at it. But that's always a tough question. But
if you if my answer would be duck hunting, if
you look at it as duck hunting with other people
and turkey hunting by yourself. But I hardly do any
(43:28):
of it by myself anymore.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, It's it's always fun
to go out with your buddies and cut it up
and just have a good time.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
And even now, you know, I mean, you know, we
it's very seldom if we're on a big hunt somewhere
that you know, working for me either we don't have
a cameraman with us, and that to me is it's
more fun than document than than documenting the the hunt,
which is fun and entertaining and part of my job.
(44:02):
But having that guy with me seeing the same thing,
I'm thinking that I can turn him mind, did you
see that squirrel jump you know, from that tree or whatever?
To see the things that are out there that I
get more enjoyment out of sharing that with him, or
as much as I do with sharing the whole thing
with everybody, but having somebody there to share the moment
(44:22):
with there is I think about the best part of
all of it for me.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, there's I've done a lot of like solo hunting
for elk and beer and turkeys and bears and whatever,
and man, I've seen some crazy things. I've had some
crazy awesome experiences. I've seen some neat stuff in the
woods back especially back before he ever packed a cell
(44:49):
phone that had a good camera. You know, sure, you know,
you just like have to sit there and watch something
you didn't have a draw camera and you just all
every time I'd be like, man, I wish I had
somebody with me right now to enjoy this moment. Nobody
is ever gonna believe what I just saw.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yeah, and you know that's that has probably cost me
more good hunting spots by grabbing the first person I
could that was available to go back the next day
and do something again. And then you get there the
next time and you know they're there with their buddies
or whatever. But you know there's a cost or a
chance you take when you do that kind of stuff.
(45:28):
But you know, with the right folks, it just it
just makes it so much better. And it's just the way.
I just love sharing it with people. And if I
can share it with you know, a kid or even
an adult that especially if it's the first time to
do something, to me, it's like doing it for the
first time all over again because they'll they'll have the
(45:50):
same expressions and they'll they'll see, you know, a lot
of the same things that that I saw, and it
just reminds me, you know, you know, just how special
this stuff is.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Absolutely what do you think? Well, I'm just gonna switch
gears before I ask the question. So this I'm gonna
bring up this week's Pendleton Whiskey's Q and A and
I wanted to talk about how statistically they say whoever
they is, they say new hunter recruitment is down across
(46:22):
our nation. In your opinion, what do you think is
the biggest cause of.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
That hunter recruitment is down? Probably opportunity, man, you know,
it's that's it's hard for me to quantify an answer
like that on a national scale because there's while our
communities and interaction with people is similar everywhere. I can't
(46:50):
relate to somebody who lives in Texas, which is next
just the next state over, because they, you know, have
almost zero public land there, and Arkansas has so much
you know, we have so much like and you guys
out west have so much land. So to me, it
would be the opportunity for some to mentor somebody to
(47:13):
take them. You know, I don't know if if recruitment
is down because the folks are being selfish, or if
they're losing interest in it because you know, license fees
going up, or I tell you the worst thing. To me,
I think it's probably video games. Yeah, and you know
(47:35):
I sound like the old man on the porch, get
off of my lawn. But you know this that came
screen time. These screens are standing or what's between our
youth and the outside, And I don't you know who knows.
I may have been the same way had I been
inundated with the opportunity to sit in the air conditioning
(47:56):
and play a game that's fun instead of going outside
where it's hot, you know, and getting bit by mosquitoes
or whatever. You know, I can't say that I wouldn't
have the same issues that kids are having now. But
I just that's a hard it's a hard question for
me to answer because I'm just not familiar with it.
You know, when I told you that I grew I
(48:19):
grew up hunting and fishing, it wasn't it wasn't expected.
I wasn't expected to do that. I wasn't made to
go any means I had the choice not to go.
But I mean, there was just no at any time
when I wouldn't have wanted to. Yeah, there was nothing
else that that I was doing that or have done
since I've played you know, football, organized football, played you know,
(48:44):
even a little bit of college football, and none of
that come close to the enjoyment stuff that I had
when I was out in them in the woods. So
I don't know if it's a mindset or if it's
just there's so many distracts now, Uh, I don't know.
(49:04):
It's a it's a hard it's a hard question for
me to answer, really, and I probably talked two minutes
now and I hadn't set a durn today. But well,
you know, folks, that's it's important that that goes back
to the other thing about me getting enjoyment out of
watching somebody else go. It's our responsibility, you know. If
(49:28):
if there is, if if limited opportunities is a portion
of that, that's that's my fault. I need to step
up and and and find other people to go and
and take them and give them the opportunity to at
least give them the opportunity to say, no, I've got
some folks coming in tomorrow to go coon hunt with me.
(49:52):
I'm taking coon hut tomorrow night. And they're from uh Manitoba, Canada.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
They are actually killed a gold bear with them up
there last May may have last year, and they were
coming down to visit, just taking a vacation down through
the States, and I invited them to come and we're
gonna take them coon hunting and give them a dose
of that. They probably don't have a lot of coon
(50:18):
hunting up in Manitoba where they're from. But you know,
not just them. You know, I don't have to find
somebody from Manitoba that I had never been coon hunting.
I couldn't probably no further than you to be begun,
find twenty people that live behind me in this neighborhood
out here that had never been either. Now, if they
(50:41):
want to go, they're more than welcome to go with me.
So I need to do a better job of getting
that word out that I'm available to take fulks and
you know what I can And when I say I'm
talking about the you know, sports and all of us,
all of us need to do that.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, I feel like I have those same cinnamon uh
of opinion, Like you said, not enough mentors. You know,
maybe maybe they don't have grandpa or dad around to
take them, take them to the woods. These kids maybe
opportunity like property, you know, maybe they don't have access
(51:16):
to to the woods, you know that we had. You know,
lots of folks live in cities and the less maybe
country lifestyles these days compared to when we were young.
And sure so that that that's a challenge, you know,
to to drive from the big city out to to
the woods. It may be it's like a big trip.
You know, it's it's not just a let's run out
(51:38):
there for a few hours.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, you know that that and that is you're absolutely correct.
That only goes so far. It's just like uh, people
you say on the news breaking the law or being
wild or you know, saying you know why in the
world wild somebody do that? Well, at some point you
gotta you got to take possession of yourself. And if
(52:04):
you're old enough to know what's going on around you,
and you know that life ain't easy and there may
be some struggle to it, and you have to work
and save and scrimp and do without something to be
able to go hunt and fish, to go do these
kind of things. Well, that you put in the effort,
it's dang well worth it. In anything worth having, it
(52:25):
shouldn't be easy. You should have to work for it. It
should be hard because it's going to make you value
that thing that much more. That's the reason you guys
can pack sixty pound packs and walk forty miles chasing
elk and then tow the dead elk out, you know,
one pack at a time. I mean, that's because you
work for it, because that is not easy, and you
(52:47):
sacrifice things for that you sacrifice ice cream and French
fries and time away from home to prepare yourself to
do that kind of stuff. So you know, if you're
living in the city or and you don't have those opportunities,
eventually you will and eventually you can make those opportunities yourself.
(53:09):
And that would be my advice to anybody would be
to seek out the conservation organizations around because there's somebody
there that is going to help you. There's somebody there,
and we shouldn't wait for them to come find us.
We need to go find them because there could be
you know, there could be a mentor right around the
(53:30):
corner just begging, wanting to take somebody to do something
and just not knowing that the opportunity is there. So
all of it don't fall on us. Some of it
falls on the folks that want to go.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah. I have a lot of people message me that
have moved to the West from Xyz State and they
never ill hunted or have never hunted whatever mule there
or whatever hunted in Western animals and they're like, you know,
I'm in this particular.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Area, how do I.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
I don't even know where to start. And I say
exactly that you know, to reach out to the you know,
get involved with your local conservation groups, you know, whether
it's out here, you know, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation or
or Mule Deer Foundation. Yes, some limit we got those.
I mean there's and you're going to find like mind
people and sportsmen and someone is probably going to be
(54:21):
willing to help mentor you or get you in the
right direction. And same with archery clubs and shotgun clubs.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
And yeah, I'm not aware of one wildlife agency at
least none in the States that I've been to that
don't have some type of program for beginner hunters. Number
Number one, they need to sell that personal license because
the license feeds are what fund the work that they do.
So they they're they're trying to recruit folks. And there's
(54:50):
program I know, the Arkansas Game and Fish has an
excellent program for youth hunters and first time hunters. Uh uh,
women hunters. You know, they have all these programs where
they can there there got somebody there who's a professional
that's putting on seminars and classes and field trips and
(55:12):
they do a really great job. So the and because
we have cell phones and all this access to the information. Now,
hunting up a place to learn how to go do
something or have the opportunity to go do something can
really be done from the couch, you know. Wh while
we're sitting here talking, you know, I can be looking
(55:33):
at anything on the internet. Uh as far as what
we're talking about here, you know, the game and gaming
fish stuff. So there's there's programs out there in private
groups that with just a little effort, you know, you
can you can get out there and go. So my
always people I have. I have a lot of folks
the same that send me messages and invite me to
(55:55):
go places, some wonderful places, and there's no way in
a lifetime I'd be able to accept and go to
all those places that I get offered to. But I
always ask them, you know, if I can't go, take
somebody else, you know, take somebody that had never been,
or take a kid. And a lot of them will
have reached back eye to me and say, you know,
we did that, and now this guy's you know, doing good,
(56:19):
or this lady's doing good, you know, and coming back
next year. So it's I don't know, it's just good.
I love talking about this kind of stuff because there's
just so much opportunity out there. And I think the answer,
my original answer was lack of opportunity, and I think
it may be a better way to phrase it would
be a lack of knowing how to find the opportunity.
(56:42):
Maybe that's it.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I've always you know. Will Primos
said this a long time ago on an elk film.
He said, if you teach someone to love something, they're
gonna want to protect it.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
Right, Oh for sure. So absolutely.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
As hunter, I feel like, especially us guys who are
in the in the business or in the world of
providing content and you know, and trying to be a
positive example out here, it's our I feel like it's
our job to kind of like teach people to love
the things that we love. It's funny though, because online
(57:22):
on on in the Internet and people are like, hey,
you guys are ruining elk hunting. You guys are ruining
this hunting, that hunting. But because they've probably seen more
people in there, in there in their elk hunting spot
or whatever, which I can, I can, I can relate.
I I have more people in my hunting spots than ever.
(57:42):
But like you look at big picture, and man, we're
fighting an uphill battle as hunters. You know, It's it's
not common, especially for folks who are removed from the country.
The folks city folks, nothing wrong with them, but they
they're just so far removed from their relationship with the
(58:04):
wild and outdoor world that whether they have opinion, if
they're against hunting or for it. Like, man, we got
to get as many people fighting for it, then they
have fighting against it. Because the people who fight against
it they love those animals too, but in a different
way and to where they want to protect them. We
(58:25):
want to protect them so we can all everyone can
enjoy them.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Well yeah, and then also, I mean, having too much
of something is never a good thing, yea. You know,
you have to have it what the landscape supports. And
that's that's what the biologists and all the folks working
there are figuring out. You know, we can't have un
(58:50):
regulated hunting seasons, you know, like you know the stuff
that they're having with all the grizzly bears, you know,
because I mean, you know more about that than I
do because you live up there where you can't hunt them,
and you it looks like you are to be able to,
but I don't know that's and but education is the key,
(59:13):
and being willing able to listen and you know, have
some common sense and look at things instead of looking
at them romantically, looking at them scientifically. That is, you know,
the best thing to do. You know, my grandfather told
me that common sense ain't common And the older I get,
the more true that appears to be.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
I see it every day. Yeah, you shake your head.
Speaker 2 (59:38):
Yeah, I wonder what's what's really going on here?
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yeah, well, do you have any closing thoughts on turkey
hunting or or uh uh or anything you know, and
then your in your in your country life that you'd
like to to drive home the point on. I feel
like that last little little bit man that was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Well, you know, uh, I just appreciate the fun. I
appreciate you having me on here, an opportunity to talk
to maybe some folks that I haven't been able to
talk to. Hope they'll go over there and check it out.
But the main thing I want them to do is to,
you know, take a take some time and if take
some kids out, take some folks that don't get to
(01:00:22):
go out. If you get that opportunity to you know,
and you ain't got to go hunt, you ain't got
to go shoot animal. Just go out there with a
camera or a pair of binoculars and look at stuff
and learn about the things that are around you. There's
so many things that are so interesting and so fragile
around is that the more we're educated about it, the
(01:00:46):
more we're going to uh to take care of it.
Just like mister Will said, you know, you learn to
love something, then you want to protect it. And we've
got a lot of stuff out here that's that's worth
loving and worth protecting and worth sharing with other folks.
So I just hope, I hope folks will vote for
(01:01:06):
me when this Turkey thing, this Turkey contest comes and
Clay is not allowed to. I think he I think
he's used to having I think he did the election
model they use in North Korea. I think that's pretty
well what he used last time. So remember, Yeah, there
(01:01:26):
was some buffoonery on the high seas that went on
during that. So vote for It's r E A V
E s if you have to. If you're ride in
your ballots for the Turkey calling contest, don't do double a.
That's the other other folks. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
So where else can folks find you besides the Bear Grease,
this Country Life podcast? Where else can they find you?
Are you on socials?
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Yeah? Man, Instagram is Brent Underscore Reeves. Are you? And
just my name and beautiful picture on Facebook? I'll find
you out. I don't do the TikTok thing. I'm not yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Well, no, I don't, Clay. That's where he's getting all
these votes. He's like running a muck on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
That's probably what it is. So no, I don't do
the TikTok thing, and I'm not going to if I
didn't do Now, I'll say this, and then I'm going
to tell you what my wife told me. If I
didn't have this job, I probably wouldn't do much social media.
But my wife says, if I didn't do social media,
(01:02:35):
I would go if there wasn't no such thing as
social media, I would drive around door to door try
to make people laugh. So I don't know. I just
I try to bring a little joy. And there's one
thing about my show. You know, the folks that hadn't
You can listen to it anywhere, anytime, with anybody. Maybe
you won't ever hear any bad words or anything like that.
(01:02:56):
The kids can listen, and a lot of folks listen
to it with your kids, which is really good, and
I'm very proud of that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Well, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
So who pays me for this? You or Jason? Who
pays them for this? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
I think Jason Phelps. Okay, he's kind of tight, kind
of a tight wad.
Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
He's a real tight one.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
I know you, all right, Well, we'll catch you on
the next one. We'll see I'll probably see you this
summer sometime at a big meeting or something and absolutely
swap a few tails then too. So all right, buddy,
thank you,
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Today's guest is none other than the famous or maybe
I should say infamous, depends on who you ask. Brent Reeves.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome, Hey, Derek.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
How are we doing?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Man? I'm doing great, you know, I always I was
thinking today when I remembered, actually just a few minutes ago,
when I remembered we were going to be doing this,
I was thinking, you know, Dirk is like my second
favorite person to see when I'm in Bozeman.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Really, I mean my first favorite is the uber driver
that's taking me back to the airport so I can
get back to Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I feel that.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
No, I love it up there. Man, it's just this
time of year, it's just too dank for me. But
I mean there's nothing that's nothing for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Weather, you know, I live in near Boise, Idaho, and
it you know, it's pretty moderate here. We're at the
kind of the edge of the mountains and edge of
the desert, so we don't get a lot of snow.
We don't get a lot of real cold weather. If
you drive an hour north, hour and a half north,
you'll you'll get to Stanley, Idaho, and that is the
(01:25):
cold spot in the USA and the lower forty eight
every year, you know, you'll be like watching the national
news and they're like, and the cold spot is Stanley,
Idaho thirty five below zero or whatever. So we're not
too far from there. But it's pretty nice here. Nothing
like bozman Man Bozeman is a is a n ice
box for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yes, I'm running my air conditioner here today. It was
seventy eight here yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Holy cow.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Here For folks that don't know, here is in central Arkansas. Yeah,
I probably thought I was from Boston my accent. Well
I'm in Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, say say chowder clam chowder.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Uh. What's the closest thing to clam chowder you got
in Arkansas?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You guys like, uh, probably crawlfish. A Yeah, yeah, Now
I like chowder, Uh, clam chowder. I've eaten it before.
It's pretty good, But yeah, I like, I'd rather eat
something comes out of dirty water catfish and crawlfish and
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
There's a lot of mystery. You know, you just don't
know what you're gonna get till.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
You get it. So you pull it up and put
it in the boat.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Oh man. Well, Brent hosts if you folks don't know,
he hosts uh This Country Life, which is part of
the Bear Grease podcast, and he's an amazing storyteller and
I just love his down home anecdotal stories on the podcast.
I hadn't listened to him until, like, I don't know,
must have been a year and a half or so ago.
(03:02):
And I don't listen to a lot of podcasts because
I got a lot of desk work, and it seems
like anytime I have some road time behind the steering wheel,
listen to some podcasts. And anyway, I kind of man,
I can binge watch or binge listen to Brent because
his stories are are you know, they're pretty digestible, pretty short,
and uh man, you can listen to a lot of
(03:23):
them on a good road trip. So uh man, I
just sit there and drink like a fool. And I
listened to your recount stories from your past, so I
can appreciate those.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I appreciate you listening and saying that you know it's
we we did it as a you know on the
Baggery's channel. You know, we got Clay that does the
documentary stuff and there's you know, a lot of it technical,
very deep, very detailed, very articulated as far as historical
data and dates and stuff. And yeah, you know, I
(03:54):
wanted to do something totally opposite of that that would
just it's an easy listen. You can do it while
you're you can listen to it, like you say, like
while you're riding down the road, or you're you know,
sitting around the campfire outside barbecue or something like that,
and something that's quick and I think a lot of
people like to listen to it, or I've got a
(04:17):
lot of feedback from people that listen to it going
to and from work, you know, on the most folks
you know, commute thirty minutes or so to work, and
you can it's an efficient listen, they can say, you know,
you can listen to it the whole thing. You don't
have to stop it from the time you you know,
you get in a truck to go home or go
to work, either way. But I appreciate you listen to it.
(04:39):
It's we get a lot of feedback about how easy
it is to listen to which is which is very favorable.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I like that, Yeah, it was. It's different enough from
like your standard podcast. It's just like, you know, all
the little and I don't know if your listeners pick
up on this, but all the little there's like some
sound effects in the back and your storytelling, the voice
inflection and everything. It just, I don't know, you feel
pretty good after you listen to it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I love Clay's as well, but you have to have
some time to dedicate to listen to that. DEA truely.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah. And you know, every week I send one in,
I'm thinking this is going to be the one that
gets me fired. This is terrible. It sucks from start
to finish. It there was nothing good about it. And
then Reva Hanson, who works on all our stuff up
there sound engineer whose title should be more than sound engineer.
(05:37):
She puts her touch to that thing and puts the
music in there and makes the mood and really sets
the mood with sounds that I was trying to describe
with my very limited vocabulary, and it's always a plus.
And I just you know, I would think, you know,
people think about hunting in the hunting industry and all
(06:00):
this kind of stuff. They never or or at least
my generation, you wouldn't think of a lot of females
automatically being involved with it, and her feminine touch to
my masculine buffoonery and how it's described is an absolute
(06:21):
great marriage of I don't expertise, I guess, but she
just has a really special way of interpreting the things
that I'm trying to say and the mood that I'm
trying to project. And it's, oh man, it's it's good.
It's it wouldn't be what it is without her, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's next Levely. Yeah, she's great. She does such a
great job. And it's it's well, it shows. I mean,
it's a it's it's a great lesson. If any of
the folks out there haven't listened to it, definitely take
little time, and I think you're gonna walk away with
a grint on your face and a really cool story.
And I find myself telling anybody I see after I
(07:03):
listen to what, I'm like, Hey, I got to tell
you this story. You know, it's pretty funny. You know,
it's it's I think a lot of us it just
kind of hits home, you know, it's that nice, that personal,
you know, anecdotal stories from you know, your childhood or
experiences in life that just just kind of resonates with us.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, you know, they're I mean, they're not unique. I
may tell them in a unique way or something, but
everybody has these experiences because you know, it's excuse me,
it's not a I didn't really know what this show
was going to be about. And I've said this before
another podcast, but it's it's it's it bears repeating that
(07:43):
I didn't want it to be a hooks and bullets podcast,
how to hunt, how to catch fish. You you, among
the other folks that work in meat Eater are way
better killing animals and calling them up than I am.
In anybody can do that, or anybody can do it
(08:03):
better than me, I should say. So. When I started
this thing, I was like, I just got to I've
got to find my own place. And I was about
three or four shows into it, and I got a
message from a guy from New York, from New York City,
and he said, Man, I really enjoy your show. He said,
although I've never hunted and fished or really done anything
(08:24):
out in the country, he said, I identify with your
show and the stories you're telling. As I'm reading this thing,
I'm thinking this guy's got out of the mental hospital. Somebody,
what does he get? What is he getting out of this?
And he said in the last little paragraph, he said,
when your dad was taking you hunting and fishing, my
dad was taking me to Yankee Stadium. He said, all
(08:45):
your stuff has a is about relationships. It's about relationships
either with he said. I took it as as identifying
it with my father taking me to the ball game.
He said, And you're just telling a story about your
dad taking you hunting, or you going fishing with your
brother or whatever. And it made me realize he was
(09:06):
exactly right. That's what this thing is about. And it's
it's easy for me to talk about that because I'm
in We have relationships, you know, every day, and there's
I'm very blessed to not be pigeonholed into one thing
because I'm not smart enough. I can't do Tony Peterson.
(09:26):
I can't be Tony Peterson talk about deer hunting all
the time. No, I don't know enough to do that.
I don't know enough about it to do that. I
don't know anything about enough about any singular subject to
do something interesting every week. Hopefully this is but I
experience life, you know, And I try to have fun
(09:46):
wherever I'm at. And that is the blessing of this show,
of this country life. It's not about just living in
a country. It's this person that I'm pointing at myself.
It's about my life and and the people that I
meet and the things that I see and how I
look at them. And it has just been it's really
(10:07):
been easy. I had a buddy of mine, Michael Roseman,
that I coon hunt with all the time. He makes
sun spotlights that we sell the Mediator store, and he says, uh, man,
what are you gonna do when you run out of story?
So I'm like, dude, I'll be dead. I learned there's
a story every day. This is a story right now.
You know, you asking me this question, that's a story
(10:28):
right there. And I've told that story a thousand times
talking to people, you know. So it's I forget what
we even started out on this subject because this is
this is like my podcast. I get on a tangent
and run down a rabbit hole and start talking about everything.
But it's perfect. It it's just it's just a fun
(10:51):
thing to do for me. It's just, you know, I
was a policeman for so long. This is so far
removed from that that I'd really do this for camouflage
and pocketnize. But don't tell Uncle Steve because they'll quick
pay me.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
He'll stop sitting the checks. Yeah, so one thing I
kind of wanted to know. Like, so we hear a
lot of little bits and pieces about you know, your
your life. Tell us about where you grew up, and
you know I grew where did you grow up?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I grew up in Southeast Arkansas. I graduated from Warren
High School. I grew up on a farm. It was
about eight miles out of town. Six miles out of town,
and I graduated high school in nineteen eighty four. I'm fifty.
I'll be fifty nine years old this this March, and
(11:50):
in my mind, I'm probably in the fifth grade. It's
I wake up. I am as happy as I'm ever
going to be the moment I wake up every morning
and it's just a I have fun. My dad told me, oh,
when I was a little kid. I don't know how
old I was, but I was in elementary school that
(12:12):
and I'll tell you the occasion it was. We were
supposed to go fishing, but we had chores to do there,
and he said, we'll go fishing as soon as we
get done with these chores. Now, my chores ain't no fun.
Fishing is fun. I want to go fishing. And he
told me, he said, you know, if you're doing something,
fun can happen anywhere. You can make anything fun. And
(12:32):
if it's not fun to start out with, you make
it fun. So we started playing a game or he
made a game out of whatever it was we were
doing that wasn't nearest fun is fishing And it wasn't
nearest fun. It's probably he wanted me to think it was,
but he made it tolerable that I'd get it done
and then we'd go fishing. So that is stuck with
(12:53):
me forever about having fun and if something's not fun,
I'm just not going to do it. If I can't
make it fun, I'm gonna do something else. But I
found it pretty well to be to be true that uh,
And it's a lot easier. Life is a lot easier
when you when you make things fun, even the things
(13:15):
that you have to endure, if you can find some
way to cope with it and go forward. That is
It's been a blessing to me to be able to
do that anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, I can relate. Over the years, I've you know,
I've done lots of different jobs, and it seemed like
there was always one guy you'd always work with that
no matter how miserable the work was or whatever, he'd
be cracking jokes, you know, saying little funny things and
you know, one liner. So I'd love one liners. And man,
(13:46):
there'd be these guys in my past that, like, you know,
I looked up to and they were a little usually
a little bit older than me and whatnot, and that
made the day go by. That's what made the work taller. Well,
like just like what you said, and so we did
laugh like fools and work hard. And uh but I
can I can relate to that a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah for sure. But you know, further that was in
Southeast Darkansas. It's uh and I grew up there on
that farm. Outside was everything that I wanted to do
was outside.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You have video games?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
No video games there. I mean, I think that atari
thing came out sometime when when when I was maybe
in in in school. But yeah, yeah, I think we
had we we may have had one of those things,
if I remember right, we did. But it was. I mean,
nothing could compare with anything that they could do. I said.
(14:44):
We had a three acre pond out back, one of
the ponds just right there, close to the house. But
everything was an adventure, and there was every adventure I
ever had, all started with me slamming the screen door
and running away from the house, going outside. That's where
that's where my fun was.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, that's that's awesome. I didn't grow up on a farm,
and we had a We lived in town, but it
was a small town and the woods were walking distance,
a short walk from from my front door. And man,
me and the neighbor kids, you know, same thing summertime.
As soon as I got of the right age to
where my mom would let me out of her supervision
(15:27):
longer than thin an hour or two, then we disappear
and you know, be back by dark. And man, we
did all sorts of crazy stuff in the woods.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It was awesome, oh for sure, you know. And I
would I've thought about it since I've got three kids,
and I've got three and three grandchildren and them being
more or less feral like I was, is I wouldn't
even consider that today. Of course, you know, times are
a little different now. But and you have to adjust
with with how society is in the communities that you live.
(15:59):
But that was an absolute priceless way to grow up.
I mean I would hit the door as soon as
whatever I had to do that day was done, I
was gone. And if it was on a bicycle or
walking or on a horse or whatever I was doing,
and you know, we could wind up. I had a
couple of friends that my age that we rode to
(16:23):
school of us together. They didn't mean they weren't neighbors
by any mean, but we would meet up during the
day somewhere and at somebody's house or some one of
their houses, or one of their grandparents or an aunt
or uncle, or just old folks in the community that
knew who we were. If it was around dinner time,
we kind of knew where to whose yard to be
(16:44):
walking by and making racket when it was time to eat,
and somebody would holler for us to come in and
get some groceries. So it was it was literally like
growing up on Mayberry, you know, it was. It was
just it was a great, great childhood I had. I
was very blessed.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Well, it sounds like you grew up in a in
a hunting, fishing, outdoor family. Who who was your biggest
mentor in the in in hunting fishing.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Oh, no, doubt my dad. You know, my father was
and my dad didn't hunt a very large variety of things.
He was. He loved to squirrel hunt, and he loved
a hog hunt, and he loved which was kind of
in conjunction with one another. And he loved to uh,
to run couchs with dogs. He was a dog runner,
(17:40):
a dog man. Didn't really care nothing about deer meat. Uh,
didn't care about shooting deer. He told me one time
he could mash a button and and and here's the
here's the here was the correlation. He didn't like deer
because he turned his coat dogs out after a coyote
in instead of chasing a coyote to get after a
deer occasion. Oh, you know, and just run out of sight,
(18:01):
out of here. And he told me, he told me
one time that if he could mash a button and
kill every deer in Arkansas, he'd mash it twice to
make sure he got them all. And I said, bad, dad,
Maybe you just need to get some better dogs, you know,
and let the rest of us dear huh uh, but
(18:21):
he was the biggest influence because he would take me
and to do all that stuff, even when he cared
nothing about deer hunting. We would go some. And then
when I got big enough to go on my own,
which was I mean, like you know, twelve eleven twelve,
I could go by myself. And but I was taught
(18:42):
at an early age, you know, gun safety, and it
was drilled into me. I mean, you make one mistake
and anything, and how he loaded it or if he
checked it and the safety wasn't on or any deviation
from one hundred percent safety, and how I handled it
and prepared it and took care of it and cleaned
(19:03):
it or whatever. I mean, it was bad news. It
was big, bad times coming and I wouldn't see a
rifle or a fishing pole for a long time. It
was h I mean, there was a price to be
paid for not being safe. And that's I think, there's
no doubt in my mind, the only way I was
(19:24):
allowed to go and do as I did at a
very young age, when a lot of people now would think, man,
that's that's kind of wild, and even me would cause
me pause to think, should he have really let me go?
And do that kind of stuff. But I mean, I
wasn't any safer now than I was then. You know,
I apply the same basics of unsafety. It's pretty simple.
(19:49):
And he was. He taught me. He was obviously my
biggest influence. And my older brother too. As far as hunting.
Anything that didn't it wasn't squirrel hunting or you know,
chasing coats or whatever, my older brother would take me.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's really good. Yeah, same with me
at an early age. You know, we were at my
brothers and I were allowed to handle guns, and we
were taught the right way to do it, and we're
definitely scolded in deep trouble if we didn't do it right.
And yeah, my listening to my dad tell hunting stories,
(20:27):
my uncle and and then by the time I was
able to hunt, you know, my my brother, my won
this closest to my age. He'd take me hunting and stuff,
so man, I couldn't get enough. But but the same thing,
like I would, I would go up hunting on my own,
you know, thirteen years old. My mom would drop me
off after school and come pick me up after dark,
(20:48):
or drop me off in the dark in the morning,
come back at noon pick me up and yeah, with
with no cell phones or nothing other than you'd be
right here at this spot at this time and I'll
pick you up. And and you know we got bears
and mountain lions and whatever else to befall, you know,
packing around a firearm. You know, I always had gun
with me when I left the house and they just
(21:09):
let me do it. It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
My generation. I am sixth, the generation of my family
to be to grow up where I grew up on
that land and hunting that land down there. So I
mean we started, we were there not long. I like,
I'm to make the ink wasn't wet, wasn't dry on
(21:42):
the paper that made Arkansas state. And my family was
where it is now and we've been there for a
long time and hunting that ground down there, and it
was always just so such a special place to me,
and it was preached to me from the beginning. And
now you know, your great grandfather was hunting right here
(22:04):
where we are today, and this story came out from
my dad and then you tell a story about my
uncles or whatever, but that was it was a legacy,
I guess, and he saw so much value in it.
Or enough value in it that he told me and
(22:27):
my brothers, you know, the stories about the things that
went on there with our family, and unbeknownst to me,
was mentoring me to be able to I guess to
tell stories today because I'm not a patch on his behind.
As far as being able to tell the story, my
dad was the best storyteller that ever lived far as
(22:48):
I'm concerned. But that's where all that came from. And
I mean in a very convoluted way. He was preparing
me for the job that I have now, which is
just talking about the things that we did, like like
I'm doing with you right now.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Love it, love it.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So he was a mentor in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah. Yeah, So tell me Caron, I switch gears a
little bit since its turkey season is coming right around
the corner. Yeah, it's gonna be starting in some probably
Florida or some of the southern states real soon in
the next month or so.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Maybe yeah, next month in Mississippi. Yeah, maybe opening it
the first of the month in Florida pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So what can can you remember the very first time
you heard a turkey gobble.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
A wild turkey? I would say, yeah, absolutely, it was
April the fourteenth, nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
First real election was the first day I killed a turkey,
a wild turkey, And every time he gobbled, I turned
around and looked at the fellow I was with. I said,
that's somebody shaking a box. Call. He's like, no, it ain't.
That's a you know, gobbling with a box, like an
old lych box. He said, no, that's that's a turkey.
(24:20):
Now turn around, get ready. He gob turkey gobble again.
I turned, I said, man, that's that. Ain't that's a
that's somebody doing that. He said, it's a turkey. Foot
turn around and get ready, shure enough, Sure enough, it was.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Man, that's that's awesome. How old were you at that point?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I was nineteen. I just turned I just turned nineteen.
And there were turkey hunters around, but we just didn't
turkey hunt much. And there was turkeys on our property
that we would see occasionally on our farm, but I
just never took a notion to hunting. And when springtime came,
(25:00):
it was fishing. It was crappie fishing and cat fishing
and doing all that kind of stuff, and turkey's just
never were on my radar much growing up until I
got invited to go fella. He was a policeman there
in town. Invited me to go, and I was working
(25:23):
on the occasional times I was going to college. I
was working on the weekends as a dispatcher at the
police department, midnight dispatcher. And he invited me to go
with him as when I'll go turkey hunting. I'm like, well, hunt,
I like to hunt. Sure, I'd like to go. And
we went and we got out there this place it
(25:48):
was like in the next town over near Monticella, Arkansas,
and a turkey gobbled and we sat down and he said,
get out there in front of me. He called it
up and we went through that dialogue I just described
to you of a turkey gobbling everybody. Every time he'd
called I turnround, looked at him. I was like, man,
(26:08):
you're calling somebody up. That's somebody. And he's about to
lose his mind back there because I'm wiggling around like
a paint shake. I'm shaking paint down at the home
depot and he's like, no, he still, he's coming, He's coming.
And I learned a lot of two lessons that day.
Three lessons actually what a wild turkey sounds like, don't
(26:31):
guide the guide and laying down like an army man.
The snipe a turkey coming through the woods is a
very terrible choice because the turkey was almost on me
when I got when I can shoot him because of
the because of the brush, I was laying on my belly,
and he was walking in the weeds, was a little high.
(26:52):
You know, I was hiding. I guess like I thought
he was coming to shoot at me. But anyway, it
all worked out. And from the first flop when I
walked over there and put my foot on his head, man,
I've been chasing that ever since. It is it's good.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
That's fun. I think they first introduced turkeys in Idaho
in nineteen sixty one, the part. I'm not sure exactly
where they dumped them off, but I remember when I
was a kid in the early eighties, you started hearing
grumblings about them dropping some off in the area we
lived kind of north central Idaho, and then we'd be
(27:30):
out in the woods cutting firewood and you'd come to
a mud puddle and you'd see a turkey track in.
I'm like, what the heck is that really that's a
turkey track, and you just see one every now and then.
And then then we'd start seeing like a little bit
of poop here and there. And I didn't know nothing
about if a gobbler poop or hen poop, you know.
(27:52):
And then one spring day I was walking along my
Mama dropped me off by this old dump. There was
this an old place where there was a dump back
in the fifties and sixties. Well this is the eighties
and long abandoned. So there's just a bunch of old
junker around there and old pieces of metal and old
wreck cars. And I'd go out there and i'd shoot
shoot stuff with my twenty two shoot shoot car fenders
(28:15):
and stuff like that. Oh yeah by twenty two. Yeah,
And it was it was really close to my home anyway.
So but I was walking along there one day along
this old old road, this whole gravel road, and I
heard like, I heard a turkey. I'm like, that was
it like? And I didn't recognize it at first. I
(28:37):
took a couple of steps. I'm like, wait a minute,
I think that was a turkey gobble. And I stopped
and listen, and I heard it one more time, but
it was a little more distant, and by that point
i'd kind of talked to people and heard people call,
and I start trying to do it with my mouth,
you know, but I never heard it again. I'm like, ah,
(28:57):
maybe I was just hearing things, I you know, And
I was probably i'd say, probably twelve thirteen years old.
And fast forward to the first time I killed a
turkey was in nineteen ninety four, so that would have
been like eighty seven, probably eighty six eighty seven the
(29:19):
first time I heard a turkey, but then never really
hunted them much until probably the early nineties, and then
finally kill one in ninety four. And I'd been watching
these gobblers every morning for work before i'd go to
work and trying to call them, and all they would
want to do is just strut up on this old,
this open knoll, you know. They would gobble to beat
(29:41):
the band and just strut. But they'd never come my way.
So I got off work early one day and I'm like, man,
I'm going to go right back out there. So I
stopped and bought me one of them old Quaker boy
box calls Grand Old Master, is that it?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I bought one of those and I went out there,
and I thought, I'm gonna do like I do deer hunting,
you know, when there ain't no deer around the middle
of the day or late afternoon here, before the turkeys
are out, I'm just gonna lay down. So I just
laid down. It's kind of this old clere cut, timber cut,
and you know, you had a little bit of brush
starting to grow up. So I laid down flat on
my back and I started squawking with that box and
(30:20):
I didn't hear nothing squawked somewhere. And then it was
such a nice spring day. It was warm and like,
I laid there and fell asleep. Yeah, I knew that
was COVID, only to be rudely awakened by a gobble.
Oh yeah, he's just right there. I'm like, I woke up,
my eyes open. I'm like, oh no, I'm laying on
my back. What do I do? My shotgun's over here,
(30:40):
there's no way to shoot a turkey. And then he
gobbled again. I was like, okay, I can hear where
he's at. So I slowly rolled over, and just so happens.
When I'd rolled over, he was facing away. Oh his
tail fan he couldn't see me, and he was only
fifteen yards maybe. Oh, and he turned back around and
I let him have it with that shotgun.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Oh that is awesome, man. I can think of I
know of three turkeys right now that I that woke
me up, either drumming or gobblin that I killed. And
then I was leaned up against the tree, you know,
asleep in one of those things where they they're not
coming in, they're not they hung up or they walk
off with hens and you just you got no other
options other than to sit right there because you don't
(31:20):
not really sure where he's at. Yep. And and over
the years, I can think of three for sure that
that you know, and you just slowly, thankfully you know,
I'm not when I woke up, I didn't just like,
you know, look around, I'm just easing the eye open,
looking and either he's there in my peripheral somewhere or
(31:42):
eventually moving into it. You know, I got enough sense
that I didn't move and scare them off. But yeah,
that's that's a that isn't a drilling field moment to
wake up to that.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, I got a picture of me standing there. I'm
wearing desert camo. I took this turkey to the TUXTRMA
shop and they took a picture of me there and
because I'm like, I got to get this thing mounted, right,
I don't know anybody that has a live turkey mount,
you know, a full strut wild turkey mount.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
So I took it and.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
They got a picture of me stand there and I'm
wearing desert camo, you know, like from Desert Storm type
camo bottoms, pants and like an Air Jordan T shirt.
I was wearing some other camo top when I was hunting.
But it's it's pretty funny picture.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
But what I've learned hunting Easterns the last few years,
me and Jason Phelp's been going out to Kansas hunting Easterns,
and they're not always the funnest to call in. They
can be they can take their time. It seems like
Easterns are there's if they come at you're on their time, and.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
We take a We take a lot of pride down
here and how hard these turkeys are to hunt, but
then every day we're out there trying to hunt them.
He was like, man, I wish these things work so hard.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I know, I know it and what I've kind of
figured out. So like last year, I figure this out.
This is like last year was year three. I said, folks,
about the time I can't hold my eyes open anymore
and I'm about ready to fall asleep. That's when them
turkeys come in. It's like they've been here long enough
to where you're just kind of starting to take a
nap and want to take a nap. I'm like, man,
(33:15):
you got to like snap out of it and like
be ready. And it seems like it's that like you're
sitting there for like an hour or longer, and it
takes meat about that long to get, you know, to
where I want to take a nap.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
So that internal clock going yep.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So I've learned, you know, you have to have a
lot of patience turkeys. So I have a question. So
turkeys are made this is an airb AARB answer. Turkeys
are made to be shot with a shotgun or b
BO shotgun. All right, my man, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I mean, why you would won't to increase the the
degree of difficulty Because if your if your mission is
to do something hard, go climb a mountain. But if
you're if you're wanting to go out and kill a turkey.
I mean you've you've already reverse nature by calling him
(34:14):
to you instead of you going to him the way
it happens in nature. You know, the turkey's gobble to
gather up hens. You calling a hen calling to a
turkey is doing the exact opposite of how it's actually
supposed to work. So why would you want to put
another limiting factor on yourself of having to be able
to pull a bow back and shoot the turkey. My
(34:37):
goal is to put the turkey in the skillet. That
is my number one priority, because they taste so good,
and they don't taste any better being shot with a
bow than they do a shot. I agree with that. Hey,
my answer is.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Hey, okay, all right, we're on the same wavelength. Last
last spring, Jason Phelps and I went to Kansas and
he's like, hey, we're going to shoot him with a bow. Well,
he made all these these these promises, like we're going
to shoot turkeys with the bow, and then when it's
gets time to to pack to go, he's like, yeah,
blah blah, shotgun. I said, what are you taking your
shotgun for? He's like, well, because he's.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Not an idiot.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I'm like, well, hold on, you said you you said
we're going to use our bows to shoot these turkeys.
He's like, I don't want to do that. I'm like,
you need you made the promise.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
So we both pack our bows fly him out there
with us and our buddy Randy Milligan's got the farm
we hunt, he's the guys are going to do what?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Right, so he knows.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So we got like, uh, we got it like a
day and a half into this, sitting in a blind
hoping turkeys kind of walk by, you know, and finally
he's like, when are you gonna let me use the shatga?
Like I just wanted you to suffer for a day
and a half here like everybody else is just blasting turkeys,
you know, and here we are with these stupid bows.
And I'm like, all right, we'll borrow around Randy shotguns.
(36:07):
And then that man, the hunt definitely took a turn
for the better, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, deer hunting turkeys. Deer hunting turkeys is what I
call it. When you're sitting and waiting for him to
come to a certain spot, that is my least favorite
thing to do. I like to get up and go
after Yeah, I like to get up and go and
and it just I mean, if you're going to put
a challenge, if you want to challenge, move around and
(36:31):
move around in the woods with something that's that is
my grandpa described it. A turkey. Can hear you thinking
and see you change your mind? You know, so try
especially somebody big as me trying to slip around and
kill a turkey that I have an I have enough
issues trying to overcome those obstacles. Uh So, you know,
(36:53):
adding a boat of that is way in the in
the turkey's favor. I'm not for that.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, I'm with you. So about a year ago, I
think it was a year ago, meat Eater they had this,
they put together this turkey calling contest yep. And I
know you and a bunch of other crew member guys
on there were involved in this turkey contest, and I
know there was some heated debate towards the end of it.
(37:21):
Tell our listeners about that, in case they didn't catch that.
How that all played out.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I can tell you how I played out up to
a certain extent, because some of this on the advice
of counsel, I have been advised not to talk about
very much. I have a pending lawsuit against Clay nukemb
all the people that he paid to vote continuously for him,
(37:48):
when he knows himself who he wound up winning this contest.
But it was rigged from the start. I don't know
how many kids he had a questioned in his barn,
out there with iPhones and laptops, voting for him when
I clearly, clearly it was a better turkey call than
(38:09):
he is. Well.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I listened to that contest, and I'm just gonna say you,
you cleaned his clock.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Let me tell you. I hear. I shouldn't even have
to call. I shouldn't even have to call in this
thing Dirk I have. I don't know where it's at.
I know a lot of turkey hunters that are a
lot better turkey killers than I am. I've killed close
to one hundred and fifty turkeys. I don't know how
many it is. And I told Clay that he could
not he couldn't hold all the turkeys. I can hold
(38:40):
all the turkeys he's killed in a sock. He couldn't
hold a turkey beards in a sock. He couldn't hold
all the turkey beards I've killed in his sock drawer.
So I mean, there there's the judgment right there. Yeah,
the turkeys. The turkeys have judged who won.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah that's so.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
But there we are. It's coming around again. You know
this year I.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Heard some rumblings at it. They're gonna maybe try to
do that again.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, that's from what I understand. There's gonna be a
little different format. And you know they put me in
clay together against each other right at the beginning. So
that was last year. That's how it worked out last year.
But this year they're changing that up. And I'm I'm
gonna whoop him and everybody else in that thing. I'm
(39:28):
gonna I'm bringing home the trophy this year. And if
you get in that, I'm sorry to saying I'm gonna
beat you too.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I promise you you'd beat me. I'll call turkeys a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
I'll go out in the first round just like I did,
like I did last year. But it's fun, man. It
brings a lot of tension onto to what we love
to do so much, and that that's the thing, that's
that's why we do it. But yeah, I mean, I'm
not bitter, but I hate Clay nucle Man.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I love listen to that rivalry and back and forth.
That was pretty funny. Well, I have another question. So now,
being an Arkansas boy, I have an idea what you're
gonna say. Maybe I'm wrong, but you gotta tell me
which of these game animals or game pursuits is better
(40:24):
turkey hunting, duck hunting, or deer hunting, ma'am?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
In your opinion, which is best? Man? That is so
hard to I love it all so much. You know.
I was talking with a friend of mine, Benny Hargrove,
(40:54):
just a couple of days ago, and he is he's
got a wonderful place that we duck hunt on the
cash River. And he was asking me, he said, Brent,
what what's your favorite? And I stammered around, like I'm
stammering now. And I've been asked this question a bunch,
But it's they're so it's kind of it's so different
(41:14):
if I if somebody if you held a gun on
me Dirk and said he was gonna shoot me in
the foot, if I didn't say, I'd probably say say here,
I am pausing right now. Yeah, it would. It would
be but it's probably turkey hunt. I'd probably say turkey hunting. Wow,
And I know and seeing and I'm thinking when I
(41:36):
said that, I thought, why didn't I say duck hunting?
And I did the same thing with with Benny. But
deer hunting is number two to ever to all of it.
I loved the bow hunt. I love to bow hunt,
and and I hadn't shot a deer with a rifle,
and in a while I'm going to if I'm going
through this year, I've got some plans to do some
deer hunting with a rifle. But turkey hunt and didn't
(42:00):
duck hunters are so vastly different, But the way I
do it is kind of similar, if that makes any sense.
You know, usually you you duck hunting with a group
of people, and you turkey hunt alone. I liked I
like to do it with other folks as well. I
would rather share the experience with of turkey hunting with
(42:23):
someone than do it by myself and kill the biggest
turkey in the woods. And I don't have to kill
the turkey, you know, I call it up for somebody
else or I watch them do it. And that that
is why I have such a hard time choosing. Now,
if you the traditional route being a single turkey hunter
(42:46):
or duck hunting with two or three folks, that's I'm
gonna pick that every time, just because I love sharing
the experiences that we do out there so much. That's
the reason. That's how I got into film and stuff
thirty years ago, you know, for myself, was because my
dad was not a duck hunter. He wasn't a turkey hunter,
and I wanted to film and to show him the
(43:07):
stuff that I was seeing out there, and to show
other folks, you know, but mainly mainly my dad to
look at it. But that's always a tough question. But
if you if my answer would be duck hunting, if
you look at it as duck hunting with other people
and turkey hunting by yourself. But I hardly do any
(43:28):
of it by myself anymore.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, It's it's always fun
to go out with your buddies and cut it up
and just have a good time.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
And even now, you know, I mean, you know, we
it's very seldom if we're on a big hunt somewhere
that you know, working for me either we don't have
a cameraman with us, and that to me is it's
more fun than document than than documenting the the hunt,
which is fun and entertaining and part of my job.
(44:02):
But having that guy with me seeing the same thing,
I'm thinking that I can turn him mind, did you
see that squirrel jump you know, from that tree or whatever?
To see the things that are out there that I
get more enjoyment out of sharing that with him, or
as much as I do with sharing the whole thing
with everybody, but having somebody there to share the moment
(44:22):
with there is I think about the best part of
all of it for me.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, there's I've done a lot of like solo hunting
for elk and beer and turkeys and bears and whatever,
and man, I've seen some crazy things. I've had some
crazy awesome experiences. I've seen some neat stuff in the
woods back especially back before he ever packed a cell
(44:49):
phone that had a good camera. You know, sure, you know,
you just like have to sit there and watch something
you didn't have a draw camera and you just all
every time I'd be like, man, I wish I had
somebody with me right now to enjoy this moment. Nobody
is ever gonna believe what I just saw.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yeah, and you know that's that has probably cost me
more good hunting spots by grabbing the first person I
could that was available to go back the next day
and do something again. And then you get there the
next time and you know they're there with their buddies
or whatever. But you know there's a cost or a
chance you take when you do that kind of stuff.
(45:28):
But you know, with the right folks, it just it
just makes it so much better. And it's just the way.
I just love sharing it with people. And if I
can share it with you know, a kid or even
an adult that especially if it's the first time to
do something, to me, it's like doing it for the
first time all over again because they'll they'll have the
(45:50):
same expressions and they'll they'll see, you know, a lot
of the same things that that I saw, and it
just reminds me, you know, you know, just how special
this stuff is.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Absolutely what do you think? Well, I'm just gonna switch
gears before I ask the question. So this I'm gonna
bring up this week's Pendleton Whiskey's Q and A and
I wanted to talk about how statistically they say whoever
they is, they say new hunter recruitment is down across
(46:22):
our nation. In your opinion, what do you think is
the biggest cause of.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
That hunter recruitment is down? Probably opportunity, man, you know,
it's that's it's hard for me to quantify an answer
like that on a national scale because there's while our
communities and interaction with people is similar everywhere. I can't
(46:50):
relate to somebody who lives in Texas, which is next
just the next state over, because they, you know, have
almost zero public land there, and Arkansas has so much
you know, we have so much like and you guys
out west have so much land. So to me, it
would be the opportunity for some to mentor somebody to
(47:13):
take them. You know, I don't know if if recruitment
is down because the folks are being selfish, or if
they're losing interest in it because you know, license fees
going up, or I tell you the worst thing. To me,
I think it's probably video games. Yeah, and you know
(47:35):
I sound like the old man on the porch, get
off of my lawn. But you know this that came
screen time. These screens are standing or what's between our
youth and the outside, And I don't you know who knows.
I may have been the same way had I been
inundated with the opportunity to sit in the air conditioning
(47:56):
and play a game that's fun instead of going outside
where it's hot, you know, and getting bit by mosquitoes
or whatever. You know, I can't say that I wouldn't
have the same issues that kids are having now. But
I just that's a hard it's a hard question for
me to answer because I'm just not familiar with it.
You know, when I told you that I grew I
(48:19):
grew up hunting and fishing, it wasn't it wasn't expected.
I wasn't expected to do that. I wasn't made to
go any means I had the choice not to go.
But I mean, there was just no at any time
when I wouldn't have wanted to. Yeah, there was nothing
else that that I was doing that or have done
since I've played you know, football, organized football, played you know,
(48:44):
even a little bit of college football, and none of
that come close to the enjoyment stuff that I had
when I was out in them in the woods. So
I don't know if it's a mindset or if it's
just there's so many distracts now, Uh, I don't know.
(49:04):
It's a it's a hard it's a hard question for
me to answer, really, and I probably talked two minutes
now and I hadn't set a durn today. But well,
you know, folks, that's it's important that that goes back
to the other thing about me getting enjoyment out of
watching somebody else go. It's our responsibility, you know. If
(49:28):
if there is, if if limited opportunities is a portion
of that, that's that's my fault. I need to step
up and and and find other people to go and
and take them and give them the opportunity to at
least give them the opportunity to say, no, I've got
some folks coming in tomorrow to go coon hunt with me.
(49:52):
I'm taking coon hut tomorrow night. And they're from uh Manitoba, Canada.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
They are actually killed a gold bear with them up
there last May may have last year, and they were
coming down to visit, just taking a vacation down through
the States, and I invited them to come and we're
gonna take them coon hunting and give them a dose
of that. They probably don't have a lot of coon
(50:18):
hunting up in Manitoba where they're from. But you know,
not just them. You know, I don't have to find
somebody from Manitoba that I had never been coon hunting.
I couldn't probably no further than you to be begun,
find twenty people that live behind me in this neighborhood
out here that had never been either. Now, if they
(50:41):
want to go, they're more than welcome to go with me.
So I need to do a better job of getting
that word out that I'm available to take fulks and
you know what I can And when I say I'm
talking about the you know, sports and all of us,
all of us need to do that.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, I feel like I have those same cinnamon uh
of opinion, Like you said, not enough mentors. You know,
maybe maybe they don't have grandpa or dad around to
take them, take them to the woods. These kids maybe
opportunity like property, you know, maybe they don't have access
(51:16):
to to the woods, you know that we had. You know,
lots of folks live in cities and the less maybe
country lifestyles these days compared to when we were young.
And sure so that that that's a challenge, you know,
to to drive from the big city out to to
the woods. It may be it's like a big trip.
You know, it's it's not just a let's run out
(51:38):
there for a few hours.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, you know that that and that is you're absolutely correct.
That only goes so far. It's just like uh, people
you say on the news breaking the law or being
wild or you know, saying you know why in the
world wild somebody do that? Well, at some point you
gotta you got to take possession of yourself. And if
(52:04):
you're old enough to know what's going on around you,
and you know that life ain't easy and there may
be some struggle to it, and you have to work
and save and scrimp and do without something to be
able to go hunt and fish, to go do these
kind of things. Well, that you put in the effort,
it's dang well worth it. In anything worth having, it
(52:25):
shouldn't be easy. You should have to work for it. It
should be hard because it's going to make you value
that thing that much more. That's the reason you guys
can pack sixty pound packs and walk forty miles chasing
elk and then tow the dead elk out, you know,
one pack at a time. I mean, that's because you
work for it, because that is not easy, and you
(52:47):
sacrifice things for that you sacrifice ice cream and French
fries and time away from home to prepare yourself to
do that kind of stuff. So you know, if you're
living in the city or and you don't have those opportunities,
eventually you will and eventually you can make those opportunities yourself.
(53:09):
And that would be my advice to anybody would be
to seek out the conservation organizations around because there's somebody
there that is going to help you. There's somebody there,
and we shouldn't wait for them to come find us.
We need to go find them because there could be
you know, there could be a mentor right around the
(53:30):
corner just begging, wanting to take somebody to do something
and just not knowing that the opportunity is there. So
all of it don't fall on us. Some of it
falls on the folks that want to go.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah. I have a lot of people message me that
have moved to the West from Xyz State and they
never ill hunted or have never hunted whatever mule there
or whatever hunted in Western animals and they're like, you know,
I'm in this particular.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Area, how do I.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
I don't even know where to start. And I say
exactly that you know, to reach out to the you know,
get involved with your local conservation groups, you know, whether
it's out here, you know, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation or
or Mule Deer Foundation. Yes, some limit we got those.
I mean there's and you're going to find like mind
people and sportsmen and someone is probably going to be
(54:21):
willing to help mentor you or get you in the
right direction. And same with archery clubs and shotgun clubs.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
And yeah, I'm not aware of one wildlife agency at
least none in the States that I've been to that
don't have some type of program for beginner hunters. Number
Number one, they need to sell that personal license because
the license feeds are what fund the work that they do.
So they they're they're trying to recruit folks. And there's
(54:50):
program I know, the Arkansas Game and Fish has an
excellent program for youth hunters and first time hunters. Uh uh,
women hunters. You know, they have all these programs where
they can there there got somebody there who's a professional
that's putting on seminars and classes and field trips and
(55:12):
they do a really great job. So the and because
we have cell phones and all this access to the information. Now,
hunting up a place to learn how to go do
something or have the opportunity to go do something can
really be done from the couch, you know. Wh while
we're sitting here talking, you know, I can be looking
(55:33):
at anything on the internet. Uh as far as what
we're talking about here, you know, the game and gaming
fish stuff. So there's there's programs out there in private
groups that with just a little effort, you know, you
can you can get out there and go. So my
always people I have. I have a lot of folks
the same that send me messages and invite me to
(55:55):
go places, some wonderful places, and there's no way in
a lifetime I'd be able to accept and go to
all those places that I get offered to. But I
always ask them, you know, if I can't go, take
somebody else, you know, take somebody that had never been,
or take a kid. And a lot of them will
have reached back eye to me and say, you know,
we did that, and now this guy's you know, doing good,
(56:19):
or this lady's doing good, you know, and coming back
next year. So it's I don't know, it's just good.
I love talking about this kind of stuff because there's
just so much opportunity out there. And I think the answer,
my original answer was lack of opportunity, and I think
it may be a better way to phrase it would
be a lack of knowing how to find the opportunity.
(56:42):
Maybe that's it.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I've always you know. Will Primos
said this a long time ago on an elk film.
He said, if you teach someone to love something, they're
gonna want to protect it.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
Right, Oh for sure. So absolutely.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
As hunter, I feel like, especially us guys who are
in the in the business or in the world of
providing content and you know, and trying to be a
positive example out here, it's our I feel like it's
our job to kind of like teach people to love
the things that we love. It's funny though, because online
(57:22):
on on in the Internet and people are like, hey,
you guys are ruining elk hunting. You guys are ruining
this hunting, that hunting. But because they've probably seen more
people in there, in there in their elk hunting spot
or whatever, which I can, I can, I can relate.
I I have more people in my hunting spots than ever.
(57:42):
But like you look at big picture, and man, we're
fighting an uphill battle as hunters. You know, It's it's
not common, especially for folks who are removed from the country.
The folks city folks, nothing wrong with them, but they
they're just so far removed from their relationship with the
(58:04):
wild and outdoor world that whether they have opinion, if
they're against hunting or for it. Like, man, we got
to get as many people fighting for it, then they
have fighting against it. Because the people who fight against
it they love those animals too, but in a different
way and to where they want to protect them. We
(58:25):
want to protect them so we can all everyone can
enjoy them.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Well yeah, and then also, I mean, having too much
of something is never a good thing, yea. You know,
you have to have it what the landscape supports. And
that's that's what the biologists and all the folks working
there are figuring out. You know, we can't have un
(58:50):
regulated hunting seasons, you know, like you know the stuff
that they're having with all the grizzly bears, you know,
because I mean, you know more about that than I
do because you live up there where you can't hunt them,
and you it looks like you are to be able to,
but I don't know that's and but education is the key,
(59:13):
and being willing able to listen and you know, have
some common sense and look at things instead of looking
at them romantically, looking at them scientifically. That is, you know,
the best thing to do. You know, my grandfather told
me that common sense ain't common And the older I get,
the more true that appears to be.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
I see it every day. Yeah, you shake your head.
Speaker 2 (59:38):
Yeah, I wonder what's what's really going on here?
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yeah, well, do you have any closing thoughts on turkey
hunting or or uh uh or anything you know, and
then your in your in your country life that you'd
like to to drive home the point on. I feel
like that last little little bit man that was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Well, you know, uh, I just appreciate the fun. I
appreciate you having me on here, an opportunity to talk
to maybe some folks that I haven't been able to
talk to. Hope they'll go over there and check it out.
But the main thing I want them to do is to,
you know, take a take some time and if take
some kids out, take some folks that don't get to
(01:00:22):
go out. If you get that opportunity to you know,
and you ain't got to go hunt, you ain't got
to go shoot animal. Just go out there with a
camera or a pair of binoculars and look at stuff
and learn about the things that are around you. There's
so many things that are so interesting and so fragile
around is that the more we're educated about it, the
(01:00:46):
more we're going to uh to take care of it.
Just like mister Will said, you know, you learn to
love something, then you want to protect it. And we've
got a lot of stuff out here that's that's worth
loving and worth protecting and worth sharing with other folks.
So I just hope, I hope folks will vote for
(01:01:06):
me when this Turkey thing, this Turkey contest comes and
Clay is not allowed to. I think he I think
he's used to having I think he did the election
model they use in North Korea. I think that's pretty
well what he used last time. So remember, Yeah, there
(01:01:26):
was some buffoonery on the high seas that went on
during that. So vote for It's r E A V
E s if you have to. If you're ride in
your ballots for the Turkey calling contest, don't do double a.
That's the other other folks. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
So where else can folks find you besides the Bear Grease,
this Country Life podcast? Where else can they find you?
Are you on socials?
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Yeah? Man, Instagram is Brent Underscore Reeves. Are you? And
just my name and beautiful picture on Facebook? I'll find
you out. I don't do the TikTok thing. I'm not yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Well, no, I don't, Clay. That's where he's getting all
these votes. He's like running a muck on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
That's probably what it is. So no, I don't do
the TikTok thing, and I'm not going to if I
didn't do Now, I'll say this, and then I'm going
to tell you what my wife told me. If I
didn't have this job, I probably wouldn't do much social media.
But my wife says, if I didn't do social media,
(01:02:35):
I would go if there wasn't no such thing as
social media, I would drive around door to door try
to make people laugh. So I don't know. I just
I try to bring a little joy. And there's one
thing about my show. You know, the folks that hadn't
You can listen to it anywhere, anytime, with anybody. Maybe
you won't ever hear any bad words or anything like that.
(01:02:56):
The kids can listen, and a lot of folks listen
to it with your kids, which is really good, and
I'm very proud of that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Well, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
So who pays me for this? You or Jason? Who
pays them for this? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
I think Jason Phelps. Okay, he's kind of tight, kind
of a tight wad.
Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
He's a real tight one.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
I know you, all right, Well, we'll catch you on
the next one. We'll see I'll probably see you this
summer sometime at a big meeting or something and absolutely
swap a few tails then too. So all right, buddy,
thank you,
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