Speaker 1: I had it explained to me one time by a
Speaker 1: judge in court. Not hunting seemed like I had killed
Speaker 1: a turkey during the wrong dates and times. He said,
Speaker 1: why did you do that? I said, well, where I'm from,
Speaker 1: when your tomatoes get right, you pick them. When your
Speaker 1: potatoes get right, you dig them. When your turkeys are right,
Speaker 1: you go get you on. Yeah. But he said, that's
Speaker 1: not the way we do it. You have laws at
Speaker 1: govern when you kill them and when you can. But
Speaker 1: he explained that to me.
Speaker 2: I traveled a couple of hours south and slightly west
Speaker 2: from my home on Wednesday, March twenty sixth, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: to meet with a man who I was told might
Speaker 2: be the most interesting man in Lafleur County, Oklahoma. I
Speaker 2: hardly knew anything about him, in all though I talked
Speaker 2: to people for a living. While I was in my truck,
Speaker 2: and when I got within about two miles of his cabin,
Speaker 2: I started to get nervous. He was described to me
Speaker 2: as a kind man, loved by those who know him,
Speaker 2: but with a checkered past and an uncanny expertise in
Speaker 2: wild turkeys. Why he'd agreed to talk with me, I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure, and I began to doubt why I had
Speaker 2: agreed to come. This is real rural America, not the
Speaker 2: curated version that I sometimes like to talk about. This
Speaker 2: one has addiction, illegal hunting, and broken relationships. But I
Speaker 2: had no idea I'd be impacted so much. This is
Speaker 2: an unusual Bear Grease, dark at times, funny at others,
Speaker 2: but I was surprised at the arc of redemption. You'll
Speaker 2: have to forgive me because I'm still sorting out the details,
Speaker 2: but I'd like to share with you the confession of
Speaker 2: this former outlaw. I really doubt that you're going to
Speaker 2: want to miss this one. My name is Clay Nukem,
Speaker 2: and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore
Speaker 2: things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,
Speaker 2: and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live
Speaker 2: their lives close to the land. Presented by f HF Gear,
Speaker 2: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed
Speaker 2: to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
Speaker 1: I had a friend, and people that hunt know When
Speaker 1: Ben Rogers Lee Ben Lee world Champion caller hunter good
Speaker 1: friend being got killed in a vehicle accident, he was
Speaker 1: at my turkey camp. We hunted the first part of Caeson,
Speaker 1: and he tried to give me to quit and go
Speaker 1: with him to Alabama. He said, you like this game,
Speaker 1: You're good at it. I see it in you. I
Speaker 1: see potential in you. You need to quit what you're
Speaker 1: doing and go with me, and I ah make you
Speaker 1: famous and me rich. And I said, no, I can't quit. Well,
Speaker 1: O God, I've got a good job, good family, got cattle.
Speaker 1: I can't do that.
Speaker 2: This is the voice of Johnny Johnston. You've probably never
Speaker 2: heard of him, but I doubt that you'll forget him.
Speaker 2: On the walk from the truck to the door of
Speaker 2: his cabin, I estimated there to be no less than
Speaker 2: twelve well taken care of hunting dogs scattered within sight, beagles,
Speaker 2: running walkers, and bird dogs. To Johnny, being called a
Speaker 2: hillbilly is a term of endearment, and he identifies as one.
Speaker 2: And by his definition, the highest drinking qualification has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with hounds or overalls. But it's not being superficial.
Speaker 2: This story is about Johnny's life and we'll learn some
Speaker 2: foundational stuff that started on this hunt with Ben Lee.
Speaker 1: So he left, I stayed continued to Hunt. Hunt was
Speaker 1: over into seasion. I was going to go out west
Speaker 1: in Turkey Hunt and I had a gun and some
Speaker 1: stuff at Octavia friend of mine's house, and I was
Speaker 1: supposed to have been there that got my stuff, and
Speaker 1: I never showed up, so we came looking for me
Speaker 1: and found me. I had flipped my gep over, broke
Speaker 1: my neck, broke my back, cut my left ear off,
Speaker 1: crushed the foot bunge of rib. Critical condition. Well. They
Speaker 1: loaded me in the back of a Bronco and took
Speaker 1: me to the hospital, and my wife was there pretty upset.
Speaker 1: I don't remember any of it. There was from drinking involved.
Speaker 1: There is something to that drinking and drive. Because since
Speaker 1: I've quit drinking fifteen years straight n or nineteen days ago,
Speaker 1: I had a night of rouge.
Speaker 2: When people know to the day how long they've been sober,
Speaker 2: the days prior to that were probably tough. Johnny is
Speaker 2: from the small town of heaven Or, Oklahoma. He was
Speaker 2: born in nineteen forty nine. He's seventy five years old.
Speaker 2: He's been married to the same woman for fifty five years.
Speaker 2: He's of average height. He has a wiry build with
Speaker 2: dark eyes that squint tight when he smiles. We're inside
Speaker 2: of his small white cabin with interior walls of rough
Speaker 2: san oak turkey beards hanging wads from deer antlers like
Speaker 2: clusters of grapes. Every single beard has a tag attached
Speaker 2: to it. There's no cell service here, but he doesn't
Speaker 2: on a cell phone or a computer. He never had.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to the hospital. This wreck sounds really bad.
Speaker 1: But I was telling her they would fix me the
Speaker 1: best they could right then, and they could later come
Speaker 1: back and fix my ear. And I said, oh, I
Speaker 1: forgot to tell you. My ear is in the right
Speaker 1: front pocket of my Camelflaud.
Speaker 2: You told him that.
Speaker 1: I told the doctor that on the gurner going into surgery,
Speaker 1: and he said, go look at his clothes and see
Speaker 1: if you find an ear. And a nurse came running
Speaker 1: down the hall and said, I've got an ear. And
Speaker 1: so they took my ear, and he said, well, we'll
Speaker 1: do the best we can. And I raared up again
Speaker 1: and said he so I on backwards where I hear
Speaker 1: them turkeys walking behind me.
Speaker 2: That story tips us off to two things, how central
Speaker 2: wild turkeys have been in his life, and that he
Speaker 2: is a character. This whole story is about Johnny's life,
Speaker 2: some of it very personal, but I'm interested in his
Speaker 2: relationship with the law as it relates to wild turkeys.
Speaker 2: People's relationship to the law is helpful in understanding our society,
Speaker 2: not the one we think we have, but the one
Speaker 2: we actually do have. Johnny is a rare find, willing
Speaker 2: to be vulnerable. When a stranger showed up me and
Speaker 2: asked about some of the darkest times of his life,
Speaker 2: I think we should start off with that. Credit to
Speaker 2: his ledger. In the last three years, no less than
Speaker 2: half a dozen people have emphatically told me that I
Speaker 2: needed to come here to Johnny's, including a game warden,
Speaker 2: but nobody could really articulate why. There's a lot I
Speaker 2: don't know about Johnny. So I'm going to begin with
Speaker 2: a question about his friendship to a particularly famous turkey hunter.
Speaker 2: You may have heard of him. Tell me about your
Speaker 2: relationship with Ben Lee.
Speaker 1: He's a super nice guy, big man walking this hooting,
Speaker 1: this yap and this human I oversaw. He went from
Speaker 1: daylight to the door, charged him turkey. He knew turkey,
Speaker 1: he knew how to hunt. He had a call company
Speaker 1: made call He was just a good, good fellow. I
Speaker 1: liked you. He just had away with people.
Speaker 2: Now, how did you meet him?
Speaker 1: Through a friend of mine hunting down there and I
Speaker 1: told him where they could find some turkeys, and they
Speaker 1: went there and hunted, and he said, I want to
Speaker 1: meet this guy told us about this spot where the
Speaker 1: turkey dore and I tell many. He invited me up
Speaker 1: there to talk, and we just went hunting and killed
Speaker 1: a turkey and hit it off. He'd come down and
Speaker 1: camped with me ever spring after that.
Speaker 2: This story isn't about Ben Rogers Lee, but his connection
Speaker 2: to Johnny is beyond interesting. Ben was from Jackson, Alabama,
Speaker 2: and has been referred to as the father of modern
Speaker 2: turkey hunting. He started his call company, ben Lee Calls
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy and made a flurry of instructional tapes, videos, seminars,
Speaker 2: and won five turkey calling World Championships. He was a
Speaker 2: Southern style storyteller and was one of the great communicators
Speaker 2: of American turkey hunting. Here's a clip of Ben Lee.
Speaker 3: Sitting out there any woods. She's laid a few eggs,
Speaker 3: you know. He gets up there in the morning at
Speaker 3: four o'clock, you know, and old Ale, well he'll out
Speaker 3: wakes him up here. Boy, he just had his law.
Speaker 3: I mean, he just ready for ever thing to happen.
Speaker 1: So instructional tapes. We're a big then. Turkey hunting was
Speaker 1: just getting going. Mouth called, we're just coming out. My
Speaker 1: old turkey hunting friend, one that I hunted with, used
Speaker 1: a gold horn and a piece of slate. Now, I excided,
Speaker 1: could you get on a gold horn? They clucked a
Speaker 1: couple of time i's and three soft yeps and put
Speaker 1: it down, And that was completely reverse way being legal. Honey.
Speaker 1: He never shut up. He walked calling turkey gobbled. He
Speaker 1: didn't die in a brush ball. He'd start to at turkey,
Speaker 1: calling and walking to it, and he'd get right on
Speaker 1: them and put some turkey stuff to him. Well, he
Speaker 1: told me one time, he said, you like this game,
Speaker 1: but you got to keep in mind, if you hunt
Speaker 1: these turkeys like they need to be hunting, you won't
Speaker 1: have no friends, your family be mad at you, you'll
Speaker 1: probably lose your job. He went on and on about
Speaker 1: all bad things that can happen to you. I said, well,
Speaker 1: it can't be that bad. He said, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: if you really hunt turkey. Now there's people that turkey
Speaker 1: hunt and there's people that really hunt them.
Speaker 2: I get the feeding Johnny is one of those turkey
Speaker 2: hunters that really hunts them, and that these hanging tagged
Speaker 2: beards aren't the only turkeys. This man is killed. His
Speaker 2: friendship with Ben Lee is going to lead us right
Speaker 2: into something critical. Did you know him personally very well? Like, like,
Speaker 2: was he married? Did he have a family?
Speaker 1: He had been married thirteen times?
Speaker 2: Are you serious?
Speaker 1: I'm serious, That's what he told me. I didn't know
Speaker 1: all his wives. I knew Servello. But he said, if
Speaker 1: you really hunt him, turkey's right. That's when he said
Speaker 1: about the family and your job and all that.
Speaker 2: He was speaking from experience, from experience, y'all? Was he was?
Speaker 2: He kind of an outlaw?
Speaker 1: Sort of would you say? Was? I hate the category people?
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's kind of like myself.
Speaker 2: Interesting, he was kind of like myself, he said, an outlaw.
Speaker 2: I'd heard this about Johnny and Ben, but I didn't
Speaker 2: know for sure about Johnny. I kind of put him
Speaker 2: on the spot, and he it's hesitant to categorize his
Speaker 2: old friend in this way. But Johnny kind of tells
Speaker 2: stuff the way it is. But again, this story isn't
Speaker 2: about Ben Lee, who passed away in a car accident
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one at the age of forty six.
Speaker 2: The story is about Johnny Johnston, and as you may know,
Speaker 2: I have a lot of respect for people willing to
Speaker 2: be honest about their past. I've often found people like
Speaker 2: Johnny to be more honest than people with less visible
Speaker 2: issues lurking in their past. And I know that people
Speaker 2: like Johnny are usually cut from a different cloth. In
Speaker 2: this next question, I cut right to the chase, and
Speaker 2: you'll hear the nervousness in my voice was with you.
Speaker 2: Did you did you ever have any Did the law
Speaker 2: ever mean anything to you? No? Why wouldn't it because
Speaker 2: most people it does.
Speaker 1: The law itself? Or you mean a turkey law, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: when turkey's gobbled the hunting them.
Speaker 2: You just weren't afraid of getting in trouble.
Speaker 1: No, never crossed my mind. I had it explained to
Speaker 1: me one time by a judge in court, not hunting.
Speaker 1: It seems like I had killed a turkey during the
Speaker 1: wrong dates and times. He said, why did you do that?
Speaker 1: I said, Well, where I'm from, when your tomatoes get right,
Speaker 1: you pick them. When your potatoes get right, you dig them.
Speaker 1: When your turkeys are right, you go get you on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he said that's not the way we do it.
Speaker 1: You have laws that govern when you kill them and
Speaker 1: when you can. He explained that to.
Speaker 2: Me, Americans are intrigued by people willing to break the
Speaker 2: law period. If you need convincing, just look at the
Speaker 2: top movies, podcasts, and books we read. Heck, look at
Speaker 2: the top Bear Grease podcast. But I'm still trying to
Speaker 2: understand why. I think examinations of extremes help calibrate society
Speaker 2: in some tribal, primitive way, almost like we get the
Speaker 2: signal for normal by bouncing off the outliers. But there's
Speaker 2: no debate about it. What's ironic is that we are
Speaker 2: a society of rule followers. If our civilization gets smashed
Speaker 2: by a comet and archaeologists dig it up and start
Speaker 2: making conclusions about us, they'll find that this country was
Speaker 2: built on law and order. The vast majority of people
Speaker 2: who come to a stop sign in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night, even though they know that no one is watching,
Speaker 2: they're gonna stop, I mean at least a rolling stop,
Speaker 2: And in many places of the world they wouldn't at all,
Speaker 2: even when they know people are watching. Americans are rule followers,
Speaker 2: despite the independent liber the aholic, brash exterior. But the
Speaker 2: outliers are worth examination, and Johnny was an outlier when
Speaker 2: it came to wildlife law. We need to know more
Speaker 2: about his past. Now, let me this is kind of
Speaker 2: a personal question. But would your parents have raised you
Speaker 2: to just obey the law?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like in general. Yeah, you would have known
Speaker 2: nobody can't steal or you can't.
Speaker 1: O My folks were by the book all the way.
Speaker 2: Well, how did how did you get from that to
Speaker 2: being willing to break the law?
Speaker 1: I don't know, just getting in the world and not
Speaker 1: really caring, just doing pretty much what I wanted to do. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, did you ever really get in trouble? Did you
Speaker 2: ever get caught, like killing a legal turkey?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I just didn't ever give it a whole lot
Speaker 1: of thaw when turkeys are goblin. I just went on.
Speaker 2: Always like this can make people feel uncomfortable, especially people
Speaker 2: that love wildlife and conservation and talk about it a lot.
Speaker 2: But this is part of the rural America that I
Speaker 2: grew up around. Turkey laws were often seen as mere suggestions.
Speaker 2: This next story is about the man who taught Johnny
Speaker 2: to turkey hunt, and the first time they got caught.
Speaker 1: I can't talk about turkeys with talking about my old friend,
Speaker 1: the man that taught me out of turkey hunt superman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been caught. He lived at Tallahaney, Oklahoma, and I'm
Speaker 1: calling his name. He's dead and gone now and he's
Speaker 1: respected by every turkey hunter or that part of the world.
Speaker 1: Way ain't caught turkey killing. This man I've ever met,
Speaker 1: have ever known. And I knew that he hunted a
Speaker 1: law back when I started. I didn't even know him.
Speaker 1: I went he was horsemen, had a good race horse,
Speaker 1: stood a race sore stallion, and now I was kind
Speaker 1: of a horseman back in the day, and that's how
Speaker 1: I knew him. But I looked him up and got
Speaker 1: acquainted with him, and I said, here's what I want.
Speaker 1: I want you to teach me how to turkey hunt.
Speaker 1: No old board, I want to know it all. Well,
Speaker 1: he said, next spring, you'll just have to come over here,
Speaker 1: we'll go. I said, when when he said, oh, first
Speaker 1: of March, had a good time.
Speaker 2: If you're a turkey hunter, you'll know that ninety eight
Speaker 2: percent of American turkey seasons don't open in the first
Speaker 2: of March. This was an invite to get an illegal
Speaker 2: early start.
Speaker 1: Okay, so first of March I went to day with
Speaker 1: it and we hunted and he what lettle I know
Speaker 1: about a turkey? That old gentleman taught me he was
Speaker 1: slicking a snottled the door knob. Now he used a wingbone,
Speaker 1: or a piece of can or a briar leaf or
Speaker 1: a peach leaf later on in the year, or a
Speaker 1: sleigh called very little, very light. You could be sitting
Speaker 1: next to him and barely hear him call. But he
Speaker 1: didn't call to a turkey unless he was seventy yards close.
Speaker 1: He used the terrain, the lamb, to cover of darkness
Speaker 1: to get to him. He said, there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as working a turkey. People talked about working a turkey
Speaker 1: for two hours. He said that should never happen. If
Speaker 1: they're right on that turkey, they're having killed in ten minutes.
Speaker 1: One cluck, two clucks. That's not put the call up.
Speaker 1: And he showed me some moves pretty slick. He's a
Speaker 1: good guy, but he didn't pay a lot of attention
Speaker 1: to season. When a turkey gobbled. He went. We were
Speaker 1: one day in there behind his place and two turkeys.
Speaker 1: He give me to easy. He wasn't. He took the
Speaker 1: hard one further and we met back. We had two turkeys,
Speaker 1: he said. We was walking back to the jeep and
Speaker 1: one gobbled off in fe a little rough candy that injurors,
Speaker 1: give me out turkey, I'm going gee. So I went
Speaker 1: off down there. Nothing, couldn't do nothing with him. Watered
Speaker 1: him around a couple of hours, come back, went to
Speaker 1: the g well. He said, we've been caught. We may
Speaker 1: we've been called well, he said, I've been called game
Speaker 1: boardeners there when I got here, got a ticket. You
Speaker 1: got two tickets. So that's the first time we'd ever
Speaker 1: been in any problem, and we on it all time.
Speaker 1: Poor ze.
Speaker 2: What did he tell the game boarding that you were
Speaker 2: down there?
Speaker 1: No, he wasn't. Never told that. He said, I heard.
Speaker 1: I hurried up and took the ticket because I know
Speaker 1: you was going shoot any minute.
Speaker 2: This is where the story starts to get complicated. It
Speaker 2: was back in the mid seventies. It would be the
Speaker 2: start of about thirty years of illegal turkey hunting for Johnny.
Speaker 1: My dad used to get on to me a low
Speaker 1: or hunting too much.
Speaker 2: Really so your dad, Oh yeah, I knew that you
Speaker 2: were illegally hunting.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: What would he say to you?
Speaker 1: I'd call him and asked for a ride somewhere, let
Speaker 1: me out and picked me up at a certain time.
Speaker 1: He knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2: What would he say? Do you remember anything specific? Like
Speaker 2: he was like, Johnny, this is bad. You're gonna get
Speaker 2: in trouble.
Speaker 1: You no better than now.
Speaker 2: But he still helped you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he would. He didn't like it, but he would.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did he ever hide guns in the woods?
Speaker 1: Oh? Man, Yeah, I had a couple of logs up here.
Speaker 1: I'd put him in and I had a no shotgun.
Speaker 1: I'd very proud of I put it in there in
Speaker 1: the wood. Rats he just stopped cheot it all up.
Speaker 2: So it's just like in a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, they just eat on it
Speaker 1: and eat on it. So I'd get me a big
Speaker 1: PVC and pipe put it in camp. And another time
Speaker 1: or two I got a chuckle control burns. They cause
Speaker 1: you some pugalty. I had a gun back over here
Speaker 1: and stay in here in the camper. And I came
Speaker 1: in that day and took a nap and I got up.
Speaker 1: You couldn't see for the smoke. I thought, crap, I've
Speaker 1: got a Browning shot gun and a log right in
Speaker 1: that far, so I'll get it on my four wheeler
Speaker 1: and i'll take off up very well. I'll come around
Speaker 1: and then just people ever were bulldoders and fire lighters,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to get around, and I was
Speaker 1: trying to stop.
Speaker 2: Didn't burn your guy up.
Speaker 1: Now, I got through them and got through it. Boy,
Speaker 1: it's pretty smoky and it's getting pretty cloth. Yeah. Another time,
Speaker 1: a funny little deal. I got a chuffle out, hit
Speaker 1: a turkey and a gun up here on a dead
Speaker 1: end road, and I went back up there again. It later,
Speaker 1: everything good, everything okay, And there was a bulldozer and
Speaker 1: a lot boy sitting there not ten foot from my
Speaker 1: turkey in that gun. Well, but he run over that
Speaker 1: gun when he unloaded that older but he didn't he
Speaker 1: minced it about that for yeah, and they were doing
Speaker 1: something and we knuck around about the gun turkey and
Speaker 1: got out of there.
Speaker 2: This is some pretty serious outlawn. Illegal turkey hunters often
Speaker 2: hid guns in the woods where they knew turkeys were close,
Speaker 2: so they could drive to and from the spot without
Speaker 2: a gun in the truck, making it almost impossible for
Speaker 2: game wardens to pin them down. It might seem unusual
Speaker 2: for us to be talking about this so openly, but
Speaker 2: the reason he's so comfortable is that today Johnny doesn't
Speaker 2: have anything to hide, because when he hit the bottom
Speaker 2: fifteen years, three hundred and nineteen days ago, everything was
Speaker 2: laid bare. That story is coming. I'd rather someone tell
Speaker 2: it to me like it happened than try to sugarcoat it.
Speaker 2: I think we need to fill in the gaps in
Speaker 2: Johnny's history, though, I'm interested in his upbringing.
Speaker 1: I was born in Haveneror in Oklahoma, ordinary people. My
Speaker 1: dad worked for the railroad. All my family worked for
Speaker 1: the railroad. I grew up just a normal boy, playing sports,
Speaker 1: and my dad quail hunted John I just went crazy
Speaker 1: about it. I love it. That's what I do, that's
Speaker 1: my lie. And I played sports and rodeo. Was raised
Speaker 1: on a horse, rode a horse to a ball practice,
Speaker 1: and rode a horse everywhere I went swimming and over time,
Speaker 1: and the hunting part of it that I just kind
Speaker 1: of figured it out on my own. My dad, dear
Speaker 1: honted a little bit and he'd take me and he
Speaker 1: gave me a thirty thirty and I just started there
Speaker 1: hunt and just talking to people and learning how to
Speaker 1: hunt and doing it and learning from my mistake. That's
Speaker 1: a big thing we can learn in our lives by
Speaker 1: our mistakes. I disliked life. I was raised in church,
Speaker 1: and I don't know where I went wrong, but I
Speaker 1: liked the world better. I did think the hard way,
Speaker 1: and I made a lot of bad choices. But I'm
Speaker 1: not that way anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm not that way anymore. He said. That's actually what
Speaker 2: all the people that told me about Johnny said. That's
Speaker 2: really why I'm here. I want to learn more about
Speaker 2: Johnny's life.
Speaker 1: One time, my mom made me go of college. When
Speaker 1: I got out of school, I said, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want to go, but yeah, you're going. I had a
Speaker 1: hard time getting along. I'd be late for class, drinking
Speaker 1: with a big part of my lot. And they suggested
Speaker 1: that I take a samaistra off and kind of find
Speaker 1: myself well in the process. I was going to college
Speaker 1: at Talaquaw, fell in with a band of hippies and
Speaker 1: I stayed on the Illinois's River Bridge and the freedo
Speaker 1: van for Samarster and I got quite an education. And
Speaker 1: when I left there, I went to work on a
Speaker 1: railroad and for the summer. Then I was gonna go
Speaker 1: back to school straighten up, and I never happened. I
Speaker 1: stayed with the railroad and retired there.
Speaker 2: Johnny started working for the railroad in nineteen seventy and
Speaker 2: was a train engineer for decades, but the spring of
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five was the first time that he ever
Speaker 2: turkey hunted. This is when it all started.
Speaker 1: It was around seventy five, started having a turkey on
Speaker 1: and I didn't know anyone that had ever a turkey on.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what a turkey call was. I
Speaker 1: knew two older men and my dad told me that
Speaker 1: they had killed turkeys, they had hunted them. So I
Speaker 1: went and talked to them and they showed me a
Speaker 1: few moves on a turkey call. And that April we
Speaker 1: had a caesar and I got a call off mister
Speaker 1: Phillips and went up on the hill. We had a
Speaker 1: cabin and I'd seen some turkeys there deer hunt, and
Speaker 1: I went up on the hill and laid my gun
Speaker 1: up against a tree and whacked a box and a
Speaker 1: turkey gobble and shot me. And I looked and it
Speaker 1: running right at me, and I dropped my call and
Speaker 1: shot the turkey and they run off. I was the
Speaker 1: first encounter I d had with a wild turkey, and
Speaker 1: I was hooked right to them.
Speaker 2: Did you get the turkey or to get away from them?
Speaker 1: Oh? We got away, but I was walking around the
Speaker 1: way he went looking for him, and I heard another
Speaker 1: one goble and I called to him and he came,
Speaker 1: and I've shot him and got him. So I'm a
Speaker 1: turkey killer now and I've hunted them ever since, justlike
Speaker 1: they've done something to my mama. I've had the opportunity.
Speaker 1: I hung with doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite people was the chief of the Cherokee Nation. He's
Speaker 1: a good god. My mom was part Indian. I'm a
Speaker 1: quarter but I like Indians. I've got a good spirit,
Speaker 1: a good feel for the wood, water and the wind.
Speaker 1: They like all that stuff. I may be part of
Speaker 1: why I'm drawn to it. I don't know. I like them.
Speaker 1: I respect turkeys. I got more respect for a turkey
Speaker 1: gobbler than a lot of people. I'll promise you.
Speaker 2: A statement like this, coming from a confessed lawbreaker, could
Speaker 2: certainly ruffle your feathers. But I think what he's really
Speaker 2: saying is that turkey hunting meant so much to him
Speaker 2: that he was willing to risk it all to hunt them.
Speaker 2: But the functionalization of that passion was awry. There are
Speaker 2: some things in life that seem to be built for temptation,
Speaker 2: uniquely appealing but forbidden. In a goblin Turkey before season
Speaker 2: has been the downfall of many a man. I've never
Speaker 2: known a woman to be a turkey outlaw, and if
Speaker 2: you've listened to me enough, you know that I pray
Speaker 2: that this story in no way glorifies breaking the law,
Speaker 2: and I don't think Johnny wants it to either. But
Speaker 2: like in most things that deal with human nature, they
Speaker 2: are nuanced, interesting, if examined in detail, and insightful. If
Speaker 2: you're willing to listen to people talk who have a
Speaker 2: different life experience than you, There are so many tidbits
Speaker 2: of interest in Johnny's story. It's like being confused on
Speaker 2: a covey rise by how many he targets are in
Speaker 2: front of you. The thing that stands out most to
Speaker 2: me is Johnny's honesty about a dishonest past. He's not
Speaker 2: blaming anyone for his decisions, and he's not seeking attention
Speaker 2: or any kind of glory at all. I pride his
Speaker 2: arm to get him to talk to me. And I'm
Speaker 2: the one that came to him. And if something goes awry,
Speaker 2: and the fact that this story was released, it's Clay
Speaker 2: Nukeom that's to blame, not Johnny. Johnny remembered a story
Speaker 2: from the nineteen eighties that he thinks I need to hear.
Speaker 1: I probably need to tell you that story, don't. I
Speaker 1: had a cabin on Poto Mount and leap it's a
Speaker 1: mail roof, and I got up there with a hammer
Speaker 1: and every time I was beating that rich cap down,
Speaker 1: trying to get a nail in it to pull that
Speaker 1: rich cap down. Every time i'd hit that maidle of
Speaker 1: Turkey ago. This was a couple of weeks before season.
Speaker 1: I was gonna hunt there of that seat. But every
Speaker 1: time I'd hit that, she dire bowl off man. Well
Speaker 1: rain that night, big rain, bad ruin man. There won't
Speaker 1: be nobody overwhere, So I just drove around. I know
Speaker 1: close to where he was from my cabin, but I
Speaker 1: could get up there that get wet and walk down
Speaker 1: that road and I'd be right on it. And I
Speaker 1: yep to him and he go all right back. When
Speaker 1: he come there were three ol' Oh boy, I don't
Speaker 1: need three. I believe I'm gonna get one. And it's
Speaker 1: a good deal. I did a lot of calling just
Speaker 1: seeing what I could get by with. I don't close
Speaker 1: enough kill I cut, squawked and cackle. Yeah the boy.
Speaker 1: They was putting the show on. So I shot one,
Speaker 1: got it, went back to my truck, discharged to set
Speaker 1: it over in the back of the truck, and my
Speaker 1: game more than friend. Randy Fennel cut up behind my truck.
Speaker 1: He was in a rushball right there behind my truck.
Speaker 1: Got you, boy, you sure do? I couldn't lie had
Speaker 1: run so I said, you ain't not a bad day yourself?
Speaker 1: Did you hear all that? Randy? Oh? Yeah, I heard
Speaker 1: it all. That's good as a gift. It's just too early.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to take it. You for well. I
Speaker 1: don't blame me. You ain't not a bad day. Here's
Speaker 1: your gun, here's your truck, here's your turkey. What else
Speaker 1: you need? Well? He said, I hate to see you
Speaker 1: taking that hard. I'm job security for you. Do you
Speaker 1: hear all that goblin this morning? I ain't going nowhere.
Speaker 1: You making it that? Yes, I said, you can make
Speaker 1: a name for yourself right there. I ain't going nowhere.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take your gun. I said, well, you can
Speaker 1: catch me a couple more times before I'm getting nervous,
Speaker 1: and I said, get in. It's started rain again. He
Speaker 1: had soaking wet. He had sat in the rain, probably
Speaker 1: biggest part of the morning in the dark, because he
Speaker 1: didn't come in there out of senior truck. But I say,
Speaker 1: get in. I'll take you to your truck. After all this,
Speaker 1: you will give me a ride. Well, I'm a good guy.
Speaker 1: If you knew me, you'd like me. I ain't a
Speaker 1: bad guy. You make a name for yourself right there.
Speaker 1: I hope they promote you and move you to Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: Get you out of the wood. I hauled him right
Speaker 1: to his strug. We still talk now.
Speaker 2: Okay, when you describe how calm you were today forty
Speaker 2: years later, as you tell that story, you're like super calm,
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of times we kind of
Speaker 2: rewrite stuff in our head. Were you that calm? For real?
Speaker 2: When that guy you didn't care.
Speaker 1: No, he'd tell you the same thing. If we were
Speaker 1: here today, he'd tell you the same thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, So there's these rock climbers, these these free climbers
Speaker 2: that climb these big granite faces out and out west,
Speaker 2: and they talk about how those guys are superhuman when
Speaker 2: it comes to dealing with anxiety, and they're just able
Speaker 2: to climb on these rocks where me or you, a
Speaker 2: normal guy, I would be scared to death. Their brain
Speaker 2: doesn't equate the consequence of falling like a normal person.
Speaker 2: I still don't understand why you wouldn't be afraid, because
Speaker 2: it's not like you're rich and could just pay tickets.
Speaker 2: No big deal. They're going to take your truck, they're
Speaker 2: gonna take your gun, just for what you had going
Speaker 2: on in your life. And at that time too, I
Speaker 2: guess you were were you an alcoholic at that time?
Speaker 2: So I mean there was a lot of I guess
Speaker 2: of rough stuff going on much.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's just like turkey O eaton was
Speaker 2: not something you were worried about.
Speaker 1: When I loaded them in the truck, I had a
Speaker 1: thought that nervoushed me just a little bit. Right between
Speaker 1: me and m laying on a seat with a bag
Speaker 1: of dope and a deer horn pipe, and I very
Speaker 1: casually screwted a glove over it. Now, that unnerved me
Speaker 1: a little bit, But as far as killing a turkey
Speaker 1: a few days early, now, I didn't bother them at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: getting caught in I don't know. Maybe I'll just look
Speaker 1: at it different.
Speaker 2: We're starting to see that his problems with the law
Speaker 2: were bigger than just turkeys. He could have left out
Speaker 2: that little detail, but he didn't, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: What's ironic is that today marijuana is legal in most places,
Speaker 2: but at the time Johnny might have gone to jail
Speaker 2: for it. But I'd like to examine his statement about
Speaker 2: looking at wildlife laws different. That could sound like the
Speaker 2: typical excuse, But Johnny brings up an interesting point that,
Speaker 2: if not addressed, could assault the intellectual integrity of our discussion,
Speaker 2: which I am greatly enjoying. My point is nuanced, and
Speaker 2: it has to do with how different generations view life
Speaker 2: laws and ethics. By my observation, some people, emphasis on
Speaker 2: some in rural America that were adults by the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: viewed game laws as mere suggestions and it was even
Speaker 2: validated by the legal system of the time, as they
Speaker 2: simply ticketed people with relatively minimal consequences, making the crime
Speaker 2: feel not that much different than a speeding ticket. I'm
Speaker 2: not suggesting that it was ever right to break the law.
Speaker 2: The Bible says that men should obey the laws of men,
Speaker 2: and by doing so, they're ultimately obeying God, and that
Speaker 2: book was written long before nineteen sixty. But people raised
Speaker 2: later in the progression of American conservation were more likely
Speaker 2: to respect and obey wildlife laws. By the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: average hunters were becoming indoctrinated with functional ideas about conservation,
Speaker 2: and it became much more mainstream to obey the law,
Speaker 2: to the point that outlawing has fallen more and more
Speaker 2: out of style. At least this is what I have
Speaker 2: witnessed with my own eyes. But you'll have to listen
Speaker 2: to this and tell me what you think.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: What about today, though, Johnny, Because because what I've what
Speaker 2: I've heard from people, and I feel like what I've
Speaker 2: heard from you is that you don't break the law
Speaker 2: anymore on purpose?
Speaker 1: No, why not. I'm just a better person than I
Speaker 1: used to be. I used to just didn't care. I
Speaker 1: care now I don't go before season that.
Speaker 2: What about now, probably with more knowledge of conservation, if
Speaker 2: everybody killed twenty turkeys a year, that would.
Speaker 1: For sure be bad, it'd be wrong.
Speaker 2: What about from that angle, from just a conservation angle.
Speaker 1: Now, the way our turkeys are number numbers are down,
Speaker 1: they don't need to be over on at Luckdade.
Speaker 2: But so part of your deal was back in the
Speaker 2: day we had so many there were so few turkey
Speaker 2: hunters that you just couldn't figure out why it was wrong.
Speaker 1: Right, didn't see that much wrong, isn't it. When I
Speaker 1: first started hunting over here meant seventies, I'd come over
Speaker 1: here for two weeks and never see a turkey under hunt.
Speaker 1: This whole country, all of it, never even see a hunter.
Speaker 1: Nobody hunting overhere. Andy's probably full of turkeys any anywhere
Speaker 1: you stop, my no difference. Anywhere you stop, you if
Speaker 1: you're a turkey go.
Speaker 2: And so you're sitting here saying the game and Fish
Speaker 2: tells me I can kill two turkeys. I mean, you're
Speaker 2: you're gonna kill more than that.
Speaker 1: Probably it's a different time.
Speaker 2: It was a different time, he said. And I want
Speaker 2: to point out that He's literally describing a former time.
Speaker 2: Penalties were different, Turkey populations were higher, Turkey hunter numbers
Speaker 2: were way lower, and it was more common for his
Speaker 2: generation and their mentors to take wildlife laws less. Seriously,
Speaker 2: all this stuff makes me grateful for the generations of
Speaker 2: American game wardens that have been the interface of the
Speaker 2: law in our society as it gradually has shifted from
Speaker 2: the market hunting mentalities of the eighteen hundreds to the
Speaker 2: hyper informed conservation mind frames of the average modern hunter.
Speaker 2: We've still got problems today, but things are getting better.
Speaker 2: I'm still, though, trying to figure out Johnny's motivation. I've
Speaker 2: got a question for him, and I'm going to bring
Speaker 2: up two familiar names from Bear Greece's past that we
Speaker 2: did on a series called Genuine Outlaws, which started on
Speaker 2: episode fifty two. We did this series on Louidale and
Speaker 2: Charlie Edwards. It was real clear that they enjoyed getting
Speaker 2: away from game ordens and that was a part of
Speaker 2: the fun that they had and it felt like and
Speaker 2: kind of what the people around them. And I never
Speaker 2: interviewed Louidlle and Charlie because they were they had passed
Speaker 2: away by the time I did this, it was clear
Speaker 2: that they that was part of the reason that they
Speaker 2: want wanted to kill stuff illegally. It was just kind
Speaker 2: of the thrill of getting away with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah was that?
Speaker 2: Do you think that was a part of what you did? Not?
Speaker 1: Really, I just liked it. I just liked hunting turkeys
Speaker 1: and the time to hunt thems when they're double is
Speaker 1: just that simple. Yeah, that's simple. But no, not not
Speaker 1: just trying to get away with it. It just I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just did it. Uh, you know. I
Speaker 1: didn't bait them or hunt them in the summer and
Speaker 1: shoot them over water, set around the water hole and
Speaker 1: try to kill them. I didn't do that. If you
Speaker 1: hunt a turkey with a turkey call and a shotgun,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna hurt the population, just shoe gobbler. That's
Speaker 1: the way I looked at it. I'm not saying that's right,
Speaker 1: and if everybody did that it would be bad. But
Speaker 1: as far as being scared.
Speaker 2: No, Back in those days, though, a ticket might have
Speaker 2: been just like one hundred and fifty dollars. Just go
Speaker 2: pay your ticket, is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I got call one time, I got caught. I
Speaker 1: think two hundred and seventy dollars, and after Turkey season,
Speaker 1: I made a deal with the DA that I could
Speaker 1: pick up trash with the inmates from our prison here
Speaker 1: at Hodgy to pay for the rest of it. And
Speaker 1: that's what I did.
Speaker 2: See you picked up trash.
Speaker 1: I paid him a little cash and picked up trash
Speaker 1: with them in money. Boy, they made me a lot
Speaker 1: of deals, but I couldn't take any of them either.
Speaker 1: I said, I'll be in here full time with you
Speaker 1: all right now. Got a couple of months here picking
Speaker 1: up trash. But that's worth killing the turkey. You can't
Speaker 1: put a price on killing the turkey.
Speaker 2: Really, that's the way you would well look at it.
Speaker 1: But as much as I've done it, I've been chased around.
Speaker 2: But do you think they were after you?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, yeah No.
Speaker 2: Do you think they ever worked you undercover?
Speaker 1: I think, what are.
Speaker 2: You pointing out there?
Speaker 1: Old bricks? Uh huh. I had a couple of gentlemen
Speaker 1: show up here, wanted to do that, do this brick work? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I said, well, yeah, it'd be a good idea and
Speaker 1: needed one, but don't have it. I said, well, well
Speaker 1: we're gonna build you one. I didn't think nothing about it,
Speaker 1: and they start calling my house. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: phone here. They started calling my house looking for me,
Speaker 1: and they showed back up and find me in town,
Speaker 1: and I found that strange. They got nearly through and
Speaker 1: he said, you don't know what to think about us,
Speaker 1: do you? I said, well, no, at really, but I
Speaker 1: thank you. Probably worked for the Waldlife Department, maybe undercover
Speaker 1: trying to catch me. They'd asked me all kinds of
Speaker 1: turkey stuff and deer stuff and how men were they
Speaker 1: hunters claimed to be. I don't know. I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to go wanting one, but they just keep coming back,
Speaker 1: coming back, coming back, and I finally he said, you
Speaker 1: don't know what to think about us, do you? I said, well,
Speaker 1: I think you're undercover, probably trying to catch me in
Speaker 1: some kind of violations. And they loaded their stuff up
Speaker 1: them left, and I hadn't seen them.
Speaker 2: Since you're pretty certain they were undercover guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes if you listen, you can hear stuff. If
Speaker 1: you've got your ears open and your eyes open, you
Speaker 1: might get a tip from somebody that And I was
Speaker 1: kind of on the look.
Speaker 2: You were just suspicious of these guys. Yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 2: did you get a tip from somebody else. Yeah, how
Speaker 2: does that make you feel? I mean, at the time,
Speaker 2: did that that didn't scare you?
Speaker 1: No, it made me feel good that that man thought
Speaker 1: enough of me to save me a problem. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a bit afraid of them. Now, game ardens
Speaker 1: are just people. I'm not afraid of them. People say
Speaker 1: them coming A lot of times. I've been hunting with
Speaker 1: people and game warding drive up and they just go
Speaker 1: all to pieces. They we ain't done nothing wrong. The
Speaker 1: man ain't gonna bother Ruugh.
Speaker 2: Johnny's transparency today is notable. We're going to learn the
Speaker 2: nitty gritty of why he changed. But first here's a
Speaker 2: lighter story about an interaction with a game warden that
Speaker 2: happened during a legal hunting season, and then after this
Speaker 2: we're gonna get real serious.
Speaker 1: There was an old gentleman we know was calling to
Speaker 1: a turkey, so we just laid in the ditch. We
Speaker 1: didn't them want to mess him up. We just laying there. Listen,
Speaker 1: he'd whacked the turkey of gob We wasn't coming. We'd
Speaker 1: played with him quite a bit. He was not a player.
Speaker 1: He had gobbled over his fun and I said, look
Speaker 1: coming up a road there and there come a game
Speaker 1: order sneaking up a road. Now we're laying our full
Speaker 1: caval fog right in the ditch. And he got right
Speaker 1: even with me, and I said, get somewhere and say
Speaker 1: down here. The wild turkeys were hunting here. We can't
Speaker 1: kill him. You walking up down the road here, what's
Speaker 1: better to you? And it haddled him, kind of blowed
Speaker 1: him up or something. He went for a gun, but
Speaker 1: it last day. Boy, you don't need no gun. Now
Speaker 1: we're just haven't. Another man called this turkey said down
Speaker 1: here with if you won't hunt with us, you need
Speaker 1: to get here early and work from camifalauge. If you
Speaker 1: ain't got a shot gun, all out you want.
Speaker 2: And now is this before season?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: This is during legal season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, we've had from wardens here.
Speaker 2: Johnny has painted a clear picture of his days of outlawing.
Speaker 2: But the one thing that those half a dozen people
Speaker 2: did tell me one by one before I met Johnny
Speaker 2: is that he is different today. He's changed, they said.
Speaker 2: Even the game wardens suggested this. Throughout this story, you've
Speaker 2: heard that Johnny used to be an alcoholic. And from
Speaker 2: one story we learned that he used some drugs. I
Speaker 2: wanted to know how that started and why he changed,
Speaker 2: so I asked him.
Speaker 1: Well, I just made some bad choices hanging out with
Speaker 1: the wrong people, and I'd been around whild caf whiskey
Speaker 1: and home brew, and I just didn't handle it very well.
Speaker 1: And then I got over here. After I got my cabin,
Speaker 1: there was a preacher that coon hunted a lord. He
Speaker 1: would stop by the seaman. I was usually too drunk
Speaker 1: to talk to him, but I know he was here.
Speaker 1: I was raised in church, trained up in church, like
Speaker 1: the boat books sell, but I just let the world
Speaker 1: get the best of me. But when that preacher started
Speaker 1: coming here, it kind of got me to thinking. And
Speaker 1: I woke up one morning up the creek here. I'd
Speaker 1: been on a pretty bad drunk and when I woke
Speaker 1: up that particular morning, I didn't know where I was,
Speaker 1: how I got there. I didn't know any of them.
Speaker 1: People didn't know where my truck was. I finally found
Speaker 1: someone I know and got them to take me to
Speaker 1: my truck. In fact, i'd been gone about six months.
Speaker 1: I come over there hunt and it was after Turkey's
Speaker 1: evening and I still hadn't been on so I lost
Speaker 1: about everything, my wife, my family, my friends, my place,
Speaker 1: cattle tractors, but I didn't care. And I woke up
Speaker 1: one morning up here and I thought, you're in a
Speaker 1: bad way, and the only hope for you of Jesus.
Speaker 1: And by that preacher coming here, I think that kind
Speaker 1: of rekindled the spirit that had been instilled in me
Speaker 1: as a kid. And I decided I needed to get
Speaker 1: right with the Lord and get my life right and
Speaker 1: try to get my family back. And so I stopped
Speaker 1: on top of Horseshoe Mountain one morning, just getting daylight,
Speaker 1: and I asked the Lord to help me. I'm in
Speaker 1: a bind, save me, take this addiction from me, give
Speaker 1: me my life back. And I drove on to the
Speaker 1: cabin and I went out here by this fire pit,
Speaker 1: and the sun was coming up then, and I saw
Speaker 1: a transformation in the east with that sun shining through
Speaker 1: the clouds like I had never seen before. Had to
Speaker 1: be a sign from God, a glimpse of heaven, maybe
Speaker 1: orange purple, blue cloud raised a light shining through them.
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing, And my life was changed after to that
Speaker 1: fire pit. Believe it or not, it was easier than
Speaker 1: you think. When you get Jesus involved in it. He
Speaker 1: took when I gave my life to him, he took
Speaker 1: that addiction from me. Been fifteen years, three hundred and
Speaker 1: nineteen days, and I'll serve it. I believe, and he
Speaker 1: took that from me. Yeah, I'd been locked up, dried
Speaker 1: out in jail for public drunk, all kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But when I got Jesus in my life through the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, he took that addiction from I quit smoking,
Speaker 1: I quit drinking, I quit everything right there to a
Speaker 1: fire pit. It took a few months, but I had
Speaker 1: some time. I waited. I got my life back, I
Speaker 1: got my wife's back, my family back. Lord bless me
Speaker 1: with a good cabin, a new house. And I went
Speaker 1: from being an alcoholic with a drug addiction to a
Speaker 1: deacon and an order to minister. And some people get
Speaker 1: saved at an early age. I got to preach. Your
Speaker 1: friend told me he was saved when he was nine
Speaker 1: years old, never broke any laws. I said, what you
Speaker 1: get saved from? Yeah, I've done it all. What I
Speaker 1: hadn't done all, this, hadn't never thought over, didn't want
Speaker 1: to try it. I've done it all, and that ain't
Speaker 1: no secret. But I'm not that way anymore. Jesus has
Speaker 1: given me a whole new life, the whole new heart,
Speaker 1: and the whole new mind. Today I've got my wife back,
Speaker 1: my family bad, Yeah, bout everybody equipment, Yeah, Jesus fixed
Speaker 1: all that. Better than that over be. I still like
Speaker 1: a hunt. He goes with me. He likes mountains.
Speaker 2: It's it's clear that Johnny has been through the ringer,
Speaker 2: but it sounds like he's got things figured out now.
Speaker 2: There's more to people than the worst days of their past,
Speaker 2: and there's more for you than the worst days of
Speaker 2: your past. The confessions of this former outlaw is really
Speaker 2: a story of redemption. Thank you, Johnny for sharing the
Speaker 2: nitty gritty of your story. I can't thank you enough
Speaker 2: for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast.
Speaker 2: Please share this podcast with someone that you know that
Speaker 2: might be struggling, or somebody that just enjoys a genuine story.
Speaker 2: Thank you all so much. Keep the wild places wild,
Speaker 2: because that's where the bears live.
Speaker 1: A lot of train whistled right under the whistle. I've
Speaker 1: lost quite a bit of my hearing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I used to get here good and of course good,
Speaker 1: but now I have to have someone go with me
Speaker 1: because my son in law said, if you hear a
Speaker 1: Turkey John it, don't go to it. Said, down's dark calling.
Speaker 1: You're already too close.
Speaker 2: If you can hear it, you're already hear gobble.
Speaker 1: You're already too close.
Speaker 2: That's funny at hup