Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukleman. This is a production of
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast presented by f HF Gear,
Speaker 1: American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the place as we explore. So,
Speaker 1: right before the podcast started, there was mention of a
Speaker 1: premature baby, which is something that happens occasionally in the
Speaker 1: human species, and I started to tell a story about
Speaker 1: how in medieval times in Europe, bears were on the
Speaker 1: hit list of the Catholic Church in a major way
Speaker 1: because of the pagan bear cults of Europe that were
Speaker 1: so dominant that like imagine today if you said, what's
Speaker 1: the king of the beasts? Like, what would you say?
Speaker 2: King of the beast?
Speaker 1: King of the beasts. Yeah, I mean that's like the
Speaker 1: universal king of the beasts. Well before, pre about a
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, especially in Europe, king of the beast
Speaker 1: would have been the bear because of what's called what
Speaker 1: anthropologists have labeled a very controversial idea, but what they
Speaker 1: have labeled the circumpolar bear cult, which basically everywhere that
Speaker 1: there's bears north of the equator. There is this like
Speaker 1: consistency in the way that humans have have ceremonialized bear
Speaker 1: in like really strange and wild ways, which gave rise
Speaker 1: to these bear cults and actual bear worship in Europe
Speaker 1: and about fifteen hundred years ago, the Catholic Church, one
Speaker 1: of their primary targets cultural targets like today, like a
Speaker 1: cultural target for I won't even speculate on what that
Speaker 1: would be for a church today, but one of their
Speaker 1: main targets was bears. And literally, I've recently read a
Speaker 1: book about this, and literally there were marketing campaigns against bears.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that was written by a
Speaker 1: medieval author circling back to a premature baby, is that
Speaker 1: bear cubs are born in the winter den and weigh
Speaker 1: less than a pound, and per the calcul elations of
Speaker 1: big game mammals and how big their offspring should be,
Speaker 1: a bears offspring is like way smaller and it's just
Speaker 1: like deep biological strategy. Because they have their cubs in
Speaker 1: the den, the mother has to sustain herself and the
Speaker 1: cub through the spring without urinating, defecating, or leaving the den,
Speaker 1: and so that they have this strategy of delayed implantation
Speaker 1: where they have this tiny premature cub. Coming back to
Speaker 1: this story with me?
Speaker 2: Everybody with me?
Speaker 1: Brent, Oh yeah, okay. This these medieval writers marketed that
Speaker 1: that the sALS, the sal bears were so lazy, carnal
Speaker 1: and lustful lug your ears.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: That they were so burdened by pregnancy because they couldn't
Speaker 1: mate again with their lovers that they just spat their
Speaker 1: young out of the oven way before it was done.
Speaker 2: With me, I'm following.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this like biological reproductive strategy of having these
Speaker 1: little beady cubs was was marketed as bears are bad
Speaker 1: and you need to quit your pagan heathen cult of
Speaker 1: worshiping them, which I mean, I'm all four not doing that.
Speaker 1: But welcome to the Bear grease Pipe Podcast.
Speaker 2: How did I tell you to end those kind of stories?
Speaker 1: And then I found five dollars on the ground were
Speaker 1: just in Montana, and I he told some. I told
Speaker 1: some that were just flat stories amongst the group, and
Speaker 1: Brent was like, when you tell a story that dumb,
Speaker 1: you should end it with. And then I found five dollars.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell you where I learned that from the
Speaker 4: lady that gives you so much grief about mushrooms in
Speaker 4: your chili.
Speaker 2: My wife, your wife, Yeah, do you put mushrooms in
Speaker 2: your chili?
Speaker 1: I did once.
Speaker 4: I love mushrooms in your chili, spaghetti sauce.
Speaker 2: I put mushrooms in just about anything, my oatmeal pipe.
Speaker 1: So so your wife taught you to say, like, if
Speaker 1: you end the story and people are still like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean what.
Speaker 4: Happened, Yeah, where it came from? Was I tell her
Speaker 4: a hunting story or something that we would found. Oh,
Speaker 4: that's good, And she's like, I'm still waiting for the
Speaker 4: worst part where Lewis Viten comes in or what's his name,
Speaker 4: Louis Vatan, whatever his name is.
Speaker 2: She's waiting for that lemon part of the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4: She said, you should always end one of those with
Speaker 4: And then I found five dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Finding out a lot of my stories in that way.
Speaker 1: But welcome to the Bear Grease Render. Today we have
Speaker 1: Brent Reeves of this Country Life podcast here. It's been
Speaker 1: a while since you've been here, so good to see you.
Speaker 1: We've got Josh Lambridge Spillmaker.
Speaker 2: I'm here I'm in pursuit of a turkey.
Speaker 1: In pursuit of a turkey, and we got Lake Pickle,
Speaker 1: good friend, Robert Lake Pickle, Robert Lake Pickle. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we've got We've got a lot, a lot to cover today.
Speaker 1: Big Time had a Big Time podcast hit the airwaves
Speaker 1: last week. I want to talk about and just in
Speaker 1: case you're new to this, man, our our feed is
Speaker 1: not getting any more simple to understand. But on the
Speaker 1: bear Grease feed, which typically a feed would just be
Speaker 1: one podcast and there'd be one thing, but not us,
Speaker 1: not us, we have the bear Grease Podcast, which is
Speaker 1: our documentary style podcast, which we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: this true bear Grease is what I call it, the
Speaker 1: Confessions of a former outlaw.
Speaker 2: We have that.
Speaker 1: We also have this the bear Grease Render is where
Speaker 1: we gather up and have a kind of a traditional
Speaker 1: style podcast where we typically will talk about last week's
Speaker 1: Paar Greece. But we also have Brent Reeves this country
Speaker 1: life podcast every Friday. What is this country life podcast?
Speaker 1: Would you describe it in a word? I didn't think
Speaker 1: you could. Moving right along, You.
Speaker 2: Can't do it in a word, for sure, not one word. No.
Speaker 4: It is an amalgamation of my life and those around me.
Speaker 4: And it's anything culturally significant in my life, which could
Speaker 4: be falling, riding a tricycle, awful porch as a child
Speaker 4: or grown up, but anything is is this country life.
Speaker 4: It's actually this country life. It's my country life and
Speaker 4: my friends and observations about living in the country and
Speaker 4: the country could be a trip that we went to
Speaker 4: New York City, you know, just my observations.
Speaker 2: And how I view the world and how the world.
Speaker 4: Is viewed by people like me and folks that I know,
Speaker 4: and stories that have some type of roots in place,
Speaker 4: in place and family. So it's not a it's not
Speaker 4: a hunting and fishing show, but we talk about hunting
Speaker 4: and fishing. It's just really an Americana. If you want
Speaker 4: to do one word, Americana is probably it.
Speaker 2: I like it. Yeah, I just thought of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's I've never sent somebody to Brent's podcast that
Speaker 1: that didn't like it, and that's the truth. I think
Speaker 1: just about anybody in the world could listen to it, and.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it and like it very entertaining.
Speaker 1: Entertaining, you know, it's just entertaining, always, always entertaining.
Speaker 3: And It's one of those podcasts you don't have to
Speaker 3: sit down for two hours and listen to. They're usually
Speaker 3: about what, twenty minutes, twenty five minutes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of people listen to it going to work,
Speaker 4: coming home from work, whatever.
Speaker 2: Some folks save it up for road trips. Know.
Speaker 4: Lake has memorized a lot of them. He puts them
Speaker 4: to music and sings them back to me a lot
Speaker 4: on my.
Speaker 2: Voice smel I put them to auto tune. Stop doing
Speaker 2: please stop doing that. Lake, no promises, but it's a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. It's I'm very blessed to do this. Man.
Speaker 4: It's uh here it is Open the Turkey season. We're
Speaker 4: recording this and I'm sitting in here with you. I
Speaker 4: got a guy that gets paid for two guys that
Speaker 4: get paid three four guys.
Speaker 2: They get paid the hunting fish.
Speaker 1: It's kind of have qualms with that labeling. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I get paid to hunting fish.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I'm gonna have to reframe that too, because
Speaker 5: if I said I, if I agreed to that, I
Speaker 5: would have to do some real explaining to my wife.
Speaker 5: Because I've done a lot of explaining myself out of
Speaker 5: that that I don't do that.
Speaker 2: She thinks I just play all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well it is today the Arkansas and Missouri turkey season,
Speaker 1: and we're all here, but we're splitting from here and
Speaker 1: heading pretty quick to our haunts, the haunts of the
Speaker 1: wild turkey Man. So Lake, Uh, if I don't know
Speaker 1: what Lake does with his life, it's hard to say
Speaker 1: what he does. He works for on X, that's true,
Speaker 1: and what he does for on X is hard to say.
Speaker 1: It's possible that on X is like in some sort
Speaker 1: of money laundering scheme, because I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people that work for on X, and it's like they
Speaker 1: do a lot of stuff.
Speaker 4: He's on my feet every day and everything I opened it,
Speaker 4: I turn on, turn on the old Google machine, and
Speaker 4: there's Lake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're feeding him. They're feeding him to us daily. Hey,
Speaker 1: but Lake Pickle is is a true Southern turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: This guy right here's a turkey hunter. Brent's a turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: Two but I always talk about Brent. But but uh,
Speaker 1: Lakes a turkey hunter, the turkey killer, and it's hunted
Speaker 1: with some of the some of the iconic turkey hunters
Speaker 1: of North America, primarily Will primos So I'm talking about
Speaker 1: that's and that's kind of the reason I know you.
Speaker 1: It's through Wilbur. I mean, that's pretty much why everybody know.
Speaker 2: I will accept that label. Yeah. No, If I'm known
Speaker 2: through that's that's a good association. Known through Wilbur. That's
Speaker 2: fine by me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what do you do?
Speaker 2: Like, little of this, little of that?
Speaker 1: What do you do that you can talk about?
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I'm a the like the easiest term would
Speaker 5: be like a marketing manager. I was doing social media
Speaker 5: strategy for pretty much the whole of the three years
Speaker 5: I've been there, and then recently changed from that into
Speaker 5: doing more of a marketing manager role, so mainly focusing
Speaker 5: on me personally. We've got a couple of different marketing managers,
Speaker 5: but I focus on the waterfile side, So work with ambassadors,
Speaker 5: work with a bunch of corporate partners like Ducks Unlimited
Speaker 5: and places like that, and marketing strategy, which is in
Speaker 5: a learning curve.
Speaker 2: But it's been fun. It's always fun.
Speaker 1: Hey have you got that call now? I told the
Speaker 1: guys before you got here. Josh said that he liked
Speaker 1: that phelps Prime cuts call.
Speaker 3: I tried like twelve different and I'm I'm a novice
Speaker 3: using a mouth call. But as a novice, I put
Speaker 3: ten or twelve different calls in my mouth and then
Speaker 3: one at the same time. I say, if three reads
Speaker 3: are good, thirty or even better, I put that call
Speaker 3: in my mouth. And that's the one call that I
Speaker 3: could I could make sound realistic, and it was like
Speaker 3: easily you could manipulate it and make good good, like
Speaker 3: as just the right amount of rasp and and you
Speaker 3: can manipulate manipulate.
Speaker 1: It really well well Lake when he started using that call,
Speaker 1: and that's that's my call in that prime cuts pack.
Speaker 1: And I know, as much as it hurts Lake to
Speaker 1: say that my name on it was good, I said
Speaker 1: before you got here, I said, Le's not playing around.
Speaker 1: If he's using it, he likes it. He's not trying
Speaker 1: to butter anybody up. Because if somebody's really serious, that's
Speaker 1: something you can trust him to not just like, oh,
Speaker 1: use it to like make you feel good or something.
Speaker 1: And I know how serious you take turkey calling. So
Speaker 1: when I mean you like that call, though, no.
Speaker 5: I do. I fall into when it comes to like
Speaker 5: mouth he oopers, which turkey calls diepram cause people call
Speaker 5: I've fall into a problem with I blow a batwingstall
Speaker 5: call a lot, and so I find myself I'm comfortable
Speaker 5: with that, so I get the same tone with my
Speaker 5: yelp and all the time.
Speaker 2: So if I can.
Speaker 5: Find one that I can blow and it gives me
Speaker 5: a different tone, I like that because that means I
Speaker 5: have something to switch to.
Speaker 1: Just to throw at him. That's different the old dazzle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like, hey, they ain't heard this yet. Now.
Speaker 1: I heard Brent call that a cotton mouth cut, which
Speaker 1: I don't think is that cut? I think maybe you
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of that before? Seen a cut
Speaker 1: like that that it's it's uh yeah, I mean so
Speaker 1: when you're talking about diaphragm turkey calls, you don't have
Speaker 1: to know what cut it is. But you know there's
Speaker 1: double reed, triple read, single reed, and there's all these
Speaker 1: different cuts that are on the basically the the the
Speaker 1: bottom read that read closest to your tongue is cut
Speaker 1: in a certain way, and that gives a cut tones.
Speaker 1: What kind of cut is that?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 5: I mean, it looks like somewhere between a bat wing
Speaker 5: and a ghost cut. And I'd never seen one like it, honestly,
Speaker 5: which is why I was like, man, I don't know
Speaker 5: if I'll be able to make a turkey sound on
Speaker 5: this or not, because I never used one that had
Speaker 5: a cut like that but ended up liking it.
Speaker 1: Here, hit us with it. Just give us a little
Speaker 1: little sequence, give us a little perr, little whistle that
Speaker 1: sounds good?
Speaker 2: Man, it does? You know? To me?
Speaker 1: What when I find a call that I like, And
Speaker 1: that's the reason that we made that one, is that
Speaker 1: I can purr on it and make those soft noises
Speaker 1: but also get a good raspy cut And a lot
Speaker 1: of times it's like one of the other, at least
Speaker 1: with me, that's the way it's been, is one of
Speaker 1: the other.
Speaker 2: Oh you have to do one one call for one
Speaker 2: thing and another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, well that's my I mean, you could
Speaker 1: always yelp on any of them or cut on any
Speaker 1: of them. But like my best raspy cutting call was
Speaker 1: this one. And then well, if I want to make
Speaker 1: soft purrs, it's you know, got to use this call,
Speaker 1: but that one I seem to be able to get
Speaker 1: all the sounds out.
Speaker 5: Of them the same way. It's the only thing that
Speaker 5: I can't do well on that is Kiki. But I
Speaker 5: really on that one. You can't get just the only thing, Okay,
Speaker 5: but I'm willing to take that compromise because that's about
Speaker 5: the same like the only mouthcawl kiki on is a
Speaker 5: ghost cut.
Speaker 2: So I mean, okay, used to that. Okay?
Speaker 1: Uh have you uh you've turkey don it quite a
Speaker 1: bit this year? Well maybe not as much as usual,
Speaker 1: but you have turkey in it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, as much as I can.
Speaker 1: How many of you killed?
Speaker 2: Three? Three?
Speaker 5: Where killed one at home in Mississippi, killed one in
Speaker 5: Texas with my wife, and then I killed one in
Speaker 5: Tennessee last week.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now you didn't killing in Florida.
Speaker 2: I did not.
Speaker 5: I took I you were there while but yeah, some turkey.
Speaker 5: So where we go in Florida. We've been able to
Speaker 5: go to for a number of years, and uh Lacey
Speaker 5: has been burning me up to go there, which I understand,
Speaker 5: but it was a situation where I wasn't in the
Speaker 5: driver's seat to be able to do any inviting.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: Last spring that we were there, that got like, man,
Speaker 5: bring your wife next year. So uh, this year, Lacey
Speaker 5: went first, and then Jordan's wife went, and then Jordan went,
Speaker 5: and by the time I got the gun. We had
Speaker 5: one afternoon and was able to hunt till like seven
Speaker 5: the next morning. So I tried but didn't pan out,
Speaker 5: but Lacey got one.
Speaker 1: So yeah, good for her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how many states have you killed turkeys in ninety one?
Speaker 5: I think I want to see like twenty three, maybe
Speaker 5: twenty three states, I think. So that's pretty sport, I
Speaker 5: think so yeah, I would man the whole forty nine
Speaker 5: state thing for a while, like probably twenty one twenty
Speaker 5: twenty two. I was trying to hit that pretty hard,
Speaker 5: and then it seemed like everyone and their cousins started
Speaker 5: trying to do it too, And then me and Jordan
Speaker 5: blissit do y'all know we would have these trips every year.
Speaker 5: We'd try to hit a couple of states, and we'd
Speaker 5: get to this point, man, where we would be we
Speaker 5: weren't even really enjoying the hunting. We would just try
Speaker 5: to get this state, all right, let's get stuff on
Speaker 5: this jump to other stairs, Like man, that ain't that?
Speaker 2: Ain't it? Isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I mean I still like, if I have a
Speaker 5: spring where I'm able to hit a new state, awesome,
Speaker 5: but I'm not breaking my back to see how quick.
Speaker 4: Have you killed all the all the subspecies, yeah, except
Speaker 4: forate golds.
Speaker 2: Hadn't done that. Yeah. Hm, I've just got two Easterns
Speaker 2: and rio.
Speaker 1: Let me say it's a few hundred.
Speaker 4: In uh, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama. I've killed turkeys
Speaker 4: in all them. In Mississippi, I say Mississippi, not yet.
Speaker 4: I've killed turkeys and all them.
Speaker 1: To a lot of the Southeast States. It's kind of
Speaker 1: the places you can drive probably easily.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm I'm looking forward to Uh, I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to hunting. Me and Lake hunted. And I almost wanted
Speaker 1: to tell that story, but I kind of I thought
Speaker 1: about saving that story for the Turkey Stories episode for
Speaker 1: next year.
Speaker 2: Year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it. There's some I thought it could work.
Speaker 1: So I'm torn as quick as it happened. It did
Speaker 1: have enough turns in it to make it funny. And yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so it's a good story. I make them
Speaker 1: make them way teas.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now what's your best what's your best story from this year?
Speaker 1: Do you have a good one?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Our hunt so I could teue the one from last
Speaker 5: week in Tennessee is uh. The way I was actually
Speaker 5: talking to a buddy this morning, I told my story.
Speaker 2: I said.
Speaker 5: The best way I explained this is I've never so
Speaker 5: finally ridden the line of you screwed this up and
Speaker 5: oh my gosh, how did you hold that together?
Speaker 2: And so that's my every day line. Look, man, look
Speaker 2: driving down the highway. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I was with my buddy Gary Stanton and we
Speaker 5: were in oh Musket bloodline.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's some good boys, man. Me and Gary
Speaker 2: know each other because of Turkey On.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we had been on phone calls with each other,
Speaker 5: and then they had the COVID year they had to
Speaker 5: cancel touring. And uh I'd met the dude in person
Speaker 5: for the first time at a hotel at an airport
Speaker 5: in Maine, and me and me and Jordan picked him
Speaker 5: up in an electric blue Hyundai rental car and we
Speaker 5: hunted for four days. We've been budgeting in. Yeah, we've
Speaker 5: been buddies ever since.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I like I talked to him, not often enough.
Speaker 2: He's a good guy.
Speaker 5: So, uh so Gary had me up this place in
Speaker 5: North Tennessee and my day, my morning was made before
Speaker 5: the turkey's even hit the ground, because I'm sitting there
Speaker 5: and turkeys are gobbling and then Bible whack Quil started
Speaker 5: whistling on the.
Speaker 2: Edge of this field. I'm like, this is great, Oh God.
Speaker 5: So the turkey's hit the ground and I figure out
Speaker 5: real quick I'm in a flock situation. I'm like, oh
Speaker 5: my gosh, this flock situation has followed me from home.
Speaker 2: Everywhere we went.
Speaker 5: I've been dealing with flocks the turkeys with and so
Speaker 5: they don't do anything, and we're like, let's make a
Speaker 5: loop around, and we end up going to the clear
Speaker 5: other side of the property. We crossed this steep creek,
Speaker 5: climb up to the top, and here in turkeys. But
Speaker 5: I told Gary said, man, I've not had a turkey
Speaker 5: gobble at me all morning, Like I'm here, like other
Speaker 5: than like a hoodoo or a crow call, but not
Speaker 5: it yelping. I'm like, man, And I was telling him,
Speaker 5: I said, this is kind of following me from home.
Speaker 5: They've just kind of been in that mood. They're staying
Speaker 5: in flocks later than I've expected them to. It's just
Speaker 5: kind of been like that, kind of easing down this ridge.
Speaker 5: And I put that call in my mouth and I
Speaker 5: yelped kind of mid volume one time, and nothing, and
Speaker 5: then I got on it pretty hard and Turkey jumps
Speaker 5: over it and I looked at Gary said that's different.
Speaker 5: And the problem was, is he gobbled from right down
Speaker 5: that creek that we just came up from. And I said, Gary,
Speaker 5: can you tell what side of the creek he's on?
Speaker 5: He's like, I said, because he was, I mean right
Speaker 5: there on it. So it's like, is he on our
Speaker 5: side to see across? How far one eighty so not
Speaker 5: like on top of you, but like close enough that
Speaker 5: you're like, if he is on our side of the creek,
Speaker 5: you know. And so there was this little bity finger
Speaker 5: that was steep, and I'm like, man, if we were
Speaker 5: making ease up there, and if he's on there side
Speaker 5: of that creek, there's just this a little meadows, like
Speaker 5: maybe I can glass down there possibly see him, because
Speaker 5: I'm still thinking, I'm not thinking gobbler by himself at all.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking wad of turkeys because that's what we've been
Speaker 5: dealing with. Yeah, so he's up that finger, dge a
Speaker 5: glass down in that meadow.
Speaker 2: I don't see anything. I yell up again.
Speaker 5: He jumps all over the same spot, sounded like and
Speaker 5: I'm like, man, I don't know. And then I wait
Speaker 5: a few seconds, I yelp again. He doesn't gobble at all,
Speaker 5: which when I hear that, I'm like he's doing something.
Speaker 2: Is yeah. So I said, I'm gonna sit down right here, Gary.
Speaker 5: So I sit down and Gary drops behind me about
Speaker 5: thirty yards and I sit there and as soon as
Speaker 5: I sit down, I look and this ridge has turkey
Speaker 5: scratching everywhere.
Speaker 2: I'm like, good son, the.
Speaker 5: Problem was is we sat there for like twenty minutes
Speaker 5: and I didn't hear that turkey. Again, I didn't hear
Speaker 5: him drum. I didn't hear walking in the leaves. Man,
Speaker 5: What is wrong with a courtesy gobble? Just let me know.
Speaker 5: And I'm sitting there going, I'm like, I've only got
Speaker 5: two days this turkey, and I'm just in my mind,
Speaker 5: I'm convinced he's on the other side of the creek.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, that turkey's on the other side.
Speaker 1: As the other side of the creek, someone else's.
Speaker 2: Probably no, no, we can hunt it.
Speaker 1: Just but you don't think he's gonna cross.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a big creek, Like, it's
Speaker 5: a big, big, wide deep you know, got your legs
Speaker 5: wet crossing it kind of thing. Yeah, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 5: he's on the other side of the creek in that meadow,
Speaker 5: probably with a bunch of hens and jakes like every
Speaker 5: other turkey we've been hearing. I'm wasting time up here
Speaker 5: on this ridge. And so I'm like, what, you know.
Speaker 1: What getting down on the situation. Yeah, and we see it.
Speaker 5: We've been there for about two minutes and I yep
Speaker 5: a little bit, Gary, yep back, there's something nothing. And
Speaker 5: finally one time I got on it pretty good. You
Speaker 5: cut and yelped nothing. I sit there and I said, man,
Speaker 5: we need to move. I need to move, like he's
Speaker 5: down there waste our time.
Speaker 2: We need to move. And so I make up my mind.
Speaker 5: But I'm like, I need to act like I have
Speaker 5: some sense and get up stealthy because it's so steep.
Speaker 5: When you stand up you can see down, you know.
Speaker 5: And so I'm like, I'm on a big o oak tree.
Speaker 5: So I stand up straight up, real slow, and I
Speaker 5: got my shotgun on my left hand.
Speaker 2: I stand up and saying I think.
Speaker 1: Something about that.
Speaker 2: I hear the morning.
Speaker 1: When there's a normal standing up, you don't you don't do this.
Speaker 2: So I stand play in the background.
Speaker 5: So stand straight up, and I go to grab and
Speaker 5: I can see down the ridge of good ways, and
Speaker 5: I go to grab my binoculars my right hand and
Speaker 5: I put my right hand on binoculars and AUTI pops
Speaker 5: behind a tree and told you full struck fifty yards.
Speaker 5: But I'm still I'm just standing there, flushed like this.
Speaker 5: He's none the wiser. He's walking towards me. So I
Speaker 5: just stood there and he's like kind of angling towards me.
Speaker 5: Walked all the way into thirty yards, went behind another tree,
Speaker 5: and I just went. He popped out on the other side,
Speaker 5: and I said, hello.
Speaker 2: With your shot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I and Gary was He said, man, when
Speaker 5: when all it was over? He said, man, I saw
Speaker 5: you stand up and and I thought I knew what
Speaker 5: you were doing. Then I saw you reach your bino's
Speaker 5: and stopp and you were just standing there.
Speaker 2: I said, what is he doing? All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: your gun snaps up and I said, hone, shut have
Speaker 2: you shut?
Speaker 5: Standing up more than you'd think, but none that like
Speaker 5: like I've I've done that that, like that sneaky stand
Speaker 5: up and check. I do that because I've seen it
Speaker 5: blown so many times, like that exact situation. But every
Speaker 5: time since I started sneaky standing up sorry, I was like,
Speaker 5: all right, there's nothing there.
Speaker 2: Let's move. I stood up in that rascal was coming
Speaker 2: up the hills, like, yeah.
Speaker 1: So you thought this thing is messed up. You know,
Speaker 1: we've we've we've screwed this up.
Speaker 5: As soon as he when he popped out and yep,
Speaker 5: I mean like a half second, they're sure, but he
Speaker 5: just kept walk. It never broke struck when he popped
Speaker 5: out from behind that tree. I he I mean, he
Speaker 5: kind of came out strutt and do one of those
Speaker 5: where's that hen kind of looks? But he he was
Speaker 5: he never knew.
Speaker 1: That's good, that's awesome. Hey, you know what I just
Speaker 1: remembered today, the day this podcast comes out, Meat Eater
Speaker 1: on their on their clips YouTube channel has My Hunt
Speaker 1: from Tennessee from last year coming out this very day,
Speaker 1: and on that channel is also your Hunt from Missouri
Speaker 1: Surry last year. Yeah on O, I believe it was
Speaker 1: opening day in Missouri last year.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Or you killed one yeah yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we killed that turkey before breakfast.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: It was right off the roofs and pal it's fun
Speaker 4: to watch. Oh yeah, it didn't take long.
Speaker 1: Man, Isaac mm hmm man, My my hunt in Tennessee
Speaker 1: last year was it was?
Speaker 2: It was?
Speaker 1: I said on the video, I said it was one
Speaker 1: of the best times I'd been on. You know how
Speaker 1: you're kind of just pumped after you kill one, and
Speaker 1: you you like think it's the best thing that ever happened.
Speaker 1: And it probably was. But on the video I said
Speaker 1: it was the best turkey hunt I ever been on.
Speaker 1: But we had worked. It was opening day and we'd
Speaker 1: messed around with birds all day, but still at four o'clock,
Speaker 1: I was still hunting. And I won't spoil it, but
Speaker 1: basically killed the bird at four ten eagle after after
Speaker 1: watching him, I learned a lot. He probably won't see
Speaker 1: it on the video, so it's not a spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: But this this I cut at this, I didn't know
Speaker 1: the bird was there, just was on this little little
Speaker 1: ridge point, going looking off into this drawl and cut
Speaker 1: real hard and at four well, actually it was. It
Speaker 1: took thirty minutes. So it was at three forty five
Speaker 1: turkey God was like four hundred yards and we're right
Speaker 1: on this point and he's way below us in some
Speaker 1: flat ground and I just say I'm just gonna sit
Speaker 1: right here and see what he does. Sat down. Four
Speaker 1: or five minutes later, he god was again. He's half
Speaker 1: the distance and I think I've yelped at him, yump
Speaker 1: at him again. He cuts me off. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's feeling good for a four o'clock gobbler. And
Speaker 1: the woods are so open, and this is what the
Speaker 1: video is hard to see. The woods are so open.
Speaker 1: I can see probably one hundred and twenty yards through
Speaker 1: these open hardwoods, and the turkey probably gobbled three maybe
Speaker 1: four times, and at you know, he he I finally
Speaker 1: see him out there about one hundred and twenty yards
Speaker 1: and he's just in full strut, just spinning circles, just
Speaker 1: thinking about himself.
Speaker 2: And selfish like giraffes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he never gobbled though, he never gobbled. He
Speaker 1: never gobbled. If I hadn't been able to see him,
Speaker 1: I would have thought something happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah he's gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But but just because I could see so far,
Speaker 1: I just watched him, watched him, and rather than coming
Speaker 1: straight to me, he's he's he's strutting and drifting, you know,
Speaker 1: like Elton John's tiny dancer, you know, and he's he's
Speaker 1: kind of spinning and he's he's veering off to my
Speaker 1: left but kind of getting closer. And I know what
Speaker 1: he's gonna do. He's gonna end up losing interest and
Speaker 1: getting around the point of this ridge and then probably
Speaker 1: making a big circle and just complicating things, you know.
Speaker 1: And I would watch him and i'd call, like when
Speaker 1: he was one hundred and twenty yards with insight, had
Speaker 1: a decoy out, and he would but he never would come. Finally,
Speaker 1: when he got to the point where he was about
Speaker 1: to like go around the point of another ridge, I
Speaker 1: just said, man, something's got to happen here. And I
Speaker 1: started scratching the leaves and he's probably now ninety yards
Speaker 1: but not coming in scratching the leaves, and then I
Speaker 1: just hammered him. Like once I saw him, I was
Speaker 1: just slow playing him, you know, just thinking, Ah, he's coming,
Speaker 1: he's coming, he's coming. But when he was about to
Speaker 1: get away from me, and I mean it's getting late
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, I'm scratching the leaves and I just,
Speaker 1: I mean just hit him hard, and man, he gobbles
Speaker 1: and just breaks that strut and just comes straight to me,
Speaker 1: jumps up on.
Speaker 2: A log, got him how close.
Speaker 1: Probably twenty five yards and it was a good hunt.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 5: I hear stories like that, and my head goes to,
Speaker 5: you know, the old school calling mentality to sit down
Speaker 5: and cluck three times and wait from the show up.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying.
Speaker 5: I'm not saying it's not effective. It worked for a
Speaker 5: lot of people, and it can work sometimes work.
Speaker 1: For Wayne Cox.
Speaker 2: It I mean, hey, you can't. It works for some folks.
Speaker 5: But I say that especially because the whole you know, Wilbur,
Speaker 5: his whole career, you know.
Speaker 2: The calling too much and calling.
Speaker 5: Too lou accusations. Yeah, I'm not saying it doesn't work,
Speaker 5: but you can't say that what like what you just
Speaker 5: described that works too.
Speaker 2: Just depends on the turkey.
Speaker 1: The first of I hunted with Lake and and well
Speaker 1: and the only time I really hunted with Will we
Speaker 1: went on a couple of day hunts. I remember you
Speaker 1: saying that Wilbur would leave yelp marks on a turkey.
Speaker 1: So the Wayne Cox Do you all know who Wayne
Speaker 1: Cox is? You guys, if we were doing a quiz
Speaker 1: on the confessions of a former outlaw, Wayne Cox was
Speaker 1: the old man that taught Johnny Johnson turkey. Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't expect you to get it. But he was
Speaker 1: the old man that that used a piece of slate
Speaker 1: and a goat horn. How excited can you get on
Speaker 1: a piece of slate and a goat horn? I kind
Speaker 1: of got my Johnny Johnson.
Speaker 2: That wasn't.
Speaker 1: He thought it was close?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's nice.
Speaker 4: Hey, today is the second year anniversary of the release
Speaker 4: of my podcast?
Speaker 1: Is it really to this day?
Speaker 4: April twenty first they were recording it it released. You
Speaker 4: and I were in Turkey Camp in Missouri.
Speaker 1: Is that the day it came out?
Speaker 2: That's the day it came out.
Speaker 1: Really, that's pretty cool. We had we I don't know
Speaker 1: what I've said, but I know what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: I thought, there's no way this is gonna work.
Speaker 4: I figured I'd be in either jail or hr by now,
Speaker 4: and I've escaped both of them.
Speaker 1: Two years, two years. That's awesome. Well, you know what
Speaker 1: bear Grease is now? Four years in April. I hadn't
Speaker 1: really thought about it.
Speaker 4: It was released in April two Yep, there you go, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Stuff started to get serious, ain't it. Yeah?
Speaker 1: Getting tired of Talking's what I'm getting. It's not true.
Speaker 2: That's not true, not true at all.
Speaker 1: Well, so this this episode, I'll give you a little context.
Speaker 1: This episode is called Confessions of a Former Outlaw and
Speaker 1: I this episode also is playing on the on the
Speaker 1: Meat Eater main feed, which is unique to bear Grease.
Speaker 1: We've we've never had a bear Grease podcast that played
Speaker 1: on the main Meat Eater channel. So a lot of
Speaker 1: people hopefully listen to it that maybe wouldn't have. And
Speaker 1: the point of me saying that is that I had
Speaker 1: called Steve Ranella after actually I had had Josh and
Speaker 1: Lake and Lake and I were turkey hunting and so
Speaker 1: we had to drive somewhere and I just I sent
Speaker 1: you this draft and I said, hey, listen to this
Speaker 1: and just tell me what you think, and Josh should
Speaker 1: listen to it. And this podcast was different than anyone
Speaker 1: I've ever done. And this is the way I described it.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of outlaw stuff. I've done stuff
Speaker 1: with undercover agents who were talking about people that they
Speaker 1: busted that broke the law, Russ Arthur and my buddy
Speaker 1: in Ohio, Artie Stewart. I've done a podcast on Donnie Baker,
Speaker 1: who is a good friend of ours these days, great
Speaker 1: guy who who committed a crime and was punished for
Speaker 1: that crime, and he talked about it. So I'm painting
Speaker 1: the different scenarios and the little capsules that we've talked about. Outlaws.
Speaker 1: We did the Genuine Outlaws series, which was one of
Speaker 1: my favorites that we've ever.
Speaker 2: Done and people's favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was on two guys that are now deceased.
Speaker 1: So it was on some some guys that are no
Speaker 1: longer here, and it was about their lives and they
Speaker 1: interviewed their family and their friends. There's a new there's
Speaker 1: this one. The Johnny Johnson episode fits into a different
Speaker 1: category because Johnny Johnson is still alive and he was
Speaker 1: talking to me about stuff that he was not caught
Speaker 1: for caught on, and that it was setting with him
Speaker 1: was like wildly interesting. I recorded a three hour conversation
Speaker 1: with you. You heard if you listen to the episode,
Speaker 1: you would have heard. Now the episode was fifty four
Speaker 1: minutes long, but the actual Johnny talking was only like
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes. So, I mean we talked a lot
Speaker 1: to get what we got, and and I just called
Speaker 1: Steve Runella and was just like, hey, man, is this
Speaker 1: okay for me? To put this out because I'm always
Speaker 1: conflicted about you know, when you talk about outlaws, you know,
Speaker 1: are you glorifying it? And I think if I were
Speaker 1: playing Devil's Advocate and I was not me and I
Speaker 1: was someone else talking about me, I could probably make
Speaker 1: a pretty good case that I am glorifying out lawn.
Speaker 2: I don't think so, but we'll disagree.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Well, I appreciate that. And number and then
Speaker 1: number two I was I'm always very I'm not just
Speaker 1: saying this, this is the truth behind the curtains of
Speaker 1: bear grease. My number one concern is the people that
Speaker 1: I interview, in whatever case it may be, because media
Speaker 1: sometimes exploits people, period. I mean and and I never
Speaker 1: want to do that. So if I talk to somebody,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to just exploit them to
Speaker 1: get a good story that's going to damage them. And
Speaker 1: so here's Johnny who he's never listened to a podcast before,
Speaker 1: uh and and I And he doesn't know me, but
Speaker 1: multiple people around him know me and have come to
Speaker 1: him and said, hey, you need to let this this
Speaker 1: random guy come interview you. Well, what's he want to
Speaker 1: talk about? Well, probably about you know, the negative parts
Speaker 1: of your life. Oh okay, Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different things Johnny could have told
Speaker 1: me all the stories about in his life where he
Speaker 1: he did good stuff. Yeah, and and so I'm always
Speaker 1: really concerned. So that was part of it too. When
Speaker 1: I talked to Steve, I was like, listen to this,
Speaker 1: and is this is this going to damage Johnny? And
Speaker 1: what also behind the curtains. That's what the bear grigshrender is.
Speaker 1: I called some high ups in the Oklahoma game and
Speaker 1: fish and they didn't listen to it. They didn't put
Speaker 1: their stamp of approval on it. That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But I just said, I'm going to do this. What
Speaker 1: are the chances that that this is going to hurt
Speaker 1: this guy in some way? And and basically, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're talking about stuff that happened that
Speaker 1: long ago, it literally is a different time, and there's
Speaker 1: legal things that you know, statutes of limitations and stuff.
Speaker 1: So but it was it was stressful, and that's why
Speaker 1: Steve Vannella got involved and that and and and and
Speaker 1: Steve was just like, hey, man, if it's interesting to
Speaker 1: you and people are going to think you're glorifying out line.
Speaker 1: If it's interesting to you, it's gonna be interesting to
Speaker 1: other people. This guy's really unique. It's a great story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was like, do it and then it ends
Speaker 1: up you know, it plays on the meat eater main feed,
Speaker 1: which was really cool, really cool. But I don't know
Speaker 1: how to start the conversation other than just like general
Speaker 1: general thoughts, Brent.
Speaker 4: I think up until that one came out, I would
Speaker 4: have easily, hands down, had a top three that I
Speaker 4: could have argued were my favorite. And this is not
Speaker 4: even close. This one is so far above the rest
Speaker 4: of them because of the story. Story to me is everything.
Speaker 4: I mean, that is my job telling the story. It's
Speaker 4: your job telling the story. But this story is as
Speaker 4: complete a story that fits in the wheelhouse of what
Speaker 4: my feelings are, what my what I hold important. This
Speaker 4: one is.
Speaker 2: By far surpassed anything else.
Speaker 1: That Really, I'm pretty surprised to hear you say that.
Speaker 4: No, it's not even close, and it's I don't want
Speaker 4: to get too far in ahead of myself here, but
Speaker 4: it's the redemption of the whole thing is great. I'll
Speaker 4: listen to it twice and I sometimes I'll listen to
Speaker 4: them more than once on up here, so I'll have
Speaker 4: something fresh in my mind, like, Okay, I need to
Speaker 4: I need to remember this when we talked about it
Speaker 4: on the render. I need to because I listen to
Speaker 4: it when it comes out and then the next week
Speaker 4: we're coming up here. I listened to this twice because
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it, and while I was thinking it was
Speaker 4: just enjoyable, listen again because I got so much out
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 1: What about before the end though, when you didn't know
Speaker 1: what was going to happen, just with like, did you
Speaker 1: find yourself frustrated with the way this guy was?
Speaker 2: No, and that was totally different. You know.
Speaker 4: I was one of the dissenters on the Genuine Outlaws podcast.
Speaker 2: I didn't like it. Yeah, I didn't like it at all.
Speaker 1: And why was this one different though?
Speaker 4: Just the humility of the man talking and the way
Speaker 4: he talked and the way he spoke about it. And
Speaker 4: he was not doing it flawning the law. He had
Speaker 4: He had an issue with living turkeys, not getting away
Speaker 4: with killing them.
Speaker 1: He just he is that why you didn't like Louis
Speaker 1: Delle and Charlie. Yeah, they were like flaunting it in
Speaker 1: the law, like half of it now. They were turkey
Speaker 1: hunters and loved a turkey hunt. But yeah, half of
Speaker 1: it was some portion of it was that they were
Speaker 1: their Their identity was that they were out and that
Speaker 1: they were breaking along couldn't be caught.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 4: I'm not casting anything ill towards them or their families
Speaker 4: or anything like that. I don't want people to take
Speaker 4: it that way, because different folks is what makes this
Speaker 4: world up. It would they would not have been someone
Speaker 4: that I would have told a story about or enjoyed
Speaker 4: to be around. I don't think, Yeah, this guy right
Speaker 4: here I would share a cup of coffee with in
Speaker 4: a minute and would like to hear I would just
Speaker 4: like to hear how he thinks about I know what
Speaker 4: he thinks about turkey hen because I like the turkey
Speaker 4: hen too.
Speaker 2: I want to know what he thinks about cows feeding.
Speaker 4: In the field, or what he thinks when he sees
Speaker 4: a redbird singing in a tree. I want to know
Speaker 4: something else because I identify real close with what he's talking
Speaker 4: about chasing turkey. It just it was very It's very
Speaker 4: moving to me, man.
Speaker 1: I'm actually surprised. I think I think sometimes and I
Speaker 1: know you pretty well, Brent. And uh, it surprised me
Speaker 1: what you said, but partly because I boxed you in
Speaker 1: to thinking that anybody breaking these outlaw stories you just
Speaker 1: didn't like. I mean, and if you if you're new
Speaker 1: to bear grease, Brent spent his career in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and so and I heard Brent one time. I think
Speaker 1: I can say this, Brent spent his life, risking his
Speaker 1: life chasing drug dealers. And today when he drives down
Speaker 1: the road and he sees a dispensary on the side
Speaker 1: of the road, it kind of gives him a little conflicted, yeah,
Speaker 1: conflicted feeling.
Speaker 2: It does.
Speaker 1: He could have been he could have been killed in
Speaker 1: the line of duty and some of the crazy stuff
Speaker 1: they did, and then today you can just it's like
Speaker 1: going to Walmart to buy marijuana. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: quite that easy, I'm told.
Speaker 4: But and before we get the hate mail in that
Speaker 4: I'm against anything, you got to remember it was against.
Speaker 2: The law and was my job exactly here. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I do not apologize for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's just like rational. But it's interesting, interesting
Speaker 1: because when you said that to me, it kind of
Speaker 1: put it into perspective and it's like, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: understand then, why when you hear about these lawbreakers that
Speaker 1: you're just like No, I mean, I don't care how
Speaker 1: cute your story is, Clay, or how you know, funny
Speaker 1: and entertaining these guys are. I just can't get behind it.
Speaker 1: So that's why I thought that you wouldn't like this
Speaker 1: one either. No, I mean, I knew you'd like the end,
Speaker 1: the redemption. I mean, that's hard to argue with, but.
Speaker 4: Well, I spent thirty two years and seven months seeing
Speaker 4: even the best people in the world on their worst day,
Speaker 4: you know, so you don't get to see the whole person.
Speaker 4: This story told the whole person, the whole person's story
Speaker 4: and the man and no one told it for him.
Speaker 4: You didn't tell his story. He told it. Just handed
Speaker 4: him a mic and he spit it out there.
Speaker 2: It was good.
Speaker 1: Lake had a little bit of a different Uh. Well, Lake,
Speaker 1: Lake heard one version which I don't know. It's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to uh, I don't know. We'll start with Lake.
Speaker 5: I gave some thought to how the best way to
Speaker 5: articulate my thoughts on it, and I feel I have
Speaker 5: to tell it in like two factions because I feel
Speaker 5: that's the way his story went. I think if you
Speaker 5: look at his story, the first part of it, I
Speaker 5: know we're talking about Johnny as an individual, like a
Speaker 5: like a person.
Speaker 2: This is his story.
Speaker 5: But I would bet I can't speak for the rest
Speaker 5: of the country, but for the southeast Arkansas, Mississippi, albe
Speaker 5: I'm in Tennessee, Georgia, all that stuffy Johnny when he
Speaker 5: got talking about hiding guns and getting dropped off and
Speaker 5: giving zero cares about limits on turkeys or when seasons opened.
Speaker 5: I would bet that most of folks that listen to
Speaker 5: this from this region either knew somebody that was like that,
Speaker 5: or at least heard stories that was some of them.
Speaker 2: Or they are that guy.
Speaker 5: And man, it's probably because it's no secret how I
Speaker 5: feel about turkeys and turkey hunting. When I hear that
Speaker 5: kind of behavior, I just don't like it. I do
Speaker 5: not like it. I don't have I'm not endeared to it.
Speaker 5: I don't care if. I don't care if they're crawling
Speaker 5: them and shooting them and not yelping them. I don't
Speaker 5: care if they're the best turkey caller in the world.
Speaker 5: And I thought about that for a while because I'm like, man,
Speaker 5: why do I feel that strongly about it. And the
Speaker 5: best reasoning I can give you is because I would
Speaker 5: argue now, because it's the thing you take some if
Speaker 5: you were to ice late some of the things that
Speaker 5: Johnny said talking about how he feels about wild turkeys
Speaker 5: and calling them in and hearing the goblin. If you
Speaker 5: would to I said some of the things he said,
Speaker 5: I would argue him. And I feel very similarly about
Speaker 5: the thrill of hunting them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the difference like what he's doing here, he's being articulate.
Speaker 1: He's gonna split it up like a surgeon. This is good,
Speaker 1: that's good.
Speaker 5: So the difference is it's like I have those same
Speaker 5: temptations when I go listening at turkeys and it's late February,
Speaker 5: early March. Don't think it doesn't cross my mind to go, Man,
Speaker 5: it'd be fun to you up that turkey up right now. Yeah,
Speaker 5: because I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Be the older man in the woods.
Speaker 5: There's been times where it's during season and two long
Speaker 5: beards come in. I shoot one of them, the other
Speaker 5: one sticks around. Don't think it doesn't cross my mind
Speaker 5: to shoot the other one. Or I'm walking out with
Speaker 5: him I hear another one. I have the same same temptations.
Speaker 5: The difference is I don't do it because I feel
Speaker 5: so strongly about the resource and the people that taught
Speaker 5: me how to turkey hunt feel that way. So when
Speaker 5: I hear that, I just there's no other ways. I
Speaker 5: just don't like it. I don't like that attitude.
Speaker 2: I don't like treating the resource that way.
Speaker 5: But when you get to about fifty four minutes into
Speaker 5: that podcast and he talks about meeting the Lord and
Speaker 5: it changing his life, then him and I can find
Speaker 5: common ground because while I've never been a serial turkey poacher,
Speaker 5: Lord knows, I've sending a lot of other ways. So
Speaker 5: up until minute fifty four, I was like I don't
Speaker 5: like this, and then it hit minute fifty four I
Speaker 5: was like, man, I love this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was about the arc of it.
Speaker 2: I was like, eh, oh.
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: think you differ. You did a good job of describing
Speaker 1: it and breaking it down like these little segments.
Speaker 2: Maybe.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not a serial turkey poacher either, never have,
Speaker 1: and I feel like we would be like within a
Speaker 1: degree of each other when it comes to I mean
Speaker 1: the same when it comes to obeying the law. So
Speaker 1: it's not like when I hear stories about Johnny Johnson
Speaker 1: killing turkeys out of season that I'm like, go, Johnny, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. So I guess my question really inside the
Speaker 1: episode is why do why do people find it to
Speaker 1: find it? So it's not entertainment, It's not like it's
Speaker 1: not like a gladiator fight. It's just interesting. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: so I find these Outlaws stories very interesting, and I
Speaker 1: think it's because we grew up being taught to follow
Speaker 1: the law so stringently that I mean, it was I
Speaker 1: was of age before I knew people broke the law.
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad was just like so adamant about
Speaker 1: it that and it's like, who are these crazy people intrigued?
Speaker 2: The law intriguing?
Speaker 1: Intriguing one hundred percent. So I mean it's not like
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for for Johnny. But you didn't even enjoy
Speaker 1: it up until that point. You were just mad, really yeah,
Speaker 1: so you were just like this isn't even cute.
Speaker 5: I just well, again, I grew up hearing stories like
Speaker 5: that about folks that just like, the limit meant nothing,
Speaker 5: the law meant nothing.
Speaker 2: The season dates, season dates meant nothing.
Speaker 5: And that was always like you don't do that, Like
Speaker 5: the resource means too much to be treated like that.
Speaker 5: And so, like I said, he had some stories that
Speaker 5: were unique to him, but the overall like temperament of
Speaker 5: that side of his story, I'm like, I've heard this
Speaker 5: before and I don't like it.
Speaker 1: I hear what about okay? I think when I hear
Speaker 1: a story like Johnny, people fairly fairly often will hear
Speaker 1: me do a story on bear Grease, and they'll go,
Speaker 1: I know a guy just like that, you need to
Speaker 1: come interview. I would say, if you let me interview
Speaker 1: fifty outlaws, one of them would I would have permission,
Speaker 1: like internal permission to highlight. And Johnny, throughout his whole story,
Speaker 1: I saw admirable traits of personal responsibility, open openness, and
Speaker 1: honesty like so like I saw a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff in case inside his stories about outlawn. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think, and I mean I guess. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: telling you why I like the guy and why I
Speaker 1: think most people might listen to it, and nobody's agreeing
Speaker 1: with Like it was, Yeah, it was okay for Johnny
Speaker 1: to kill Turkey's because he's honest about it. Like, no,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make it right. But I think most people
Speaker 1: that had done what he done wouldn't come on the
Speaker 1: Bear Greeks and be as vulnerable and just like I
Speaker 1: don't know why I did it, or you know, just
Speaker 1: quite that open about it.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 5: And the other point is it's the folks that I
Speaker 5: had been around, grew up here and had stories similar,
Speaker 5: maybe not as egregious, but you'd hear them talk, and
Speaker 5: I heard very few that had the redemption side of
Speaker 5: it that Johnny had right. Most of them that I
Speaker 5: heard or knew of, even if they'd hung up that
Speaker 5: way of living, it was just because like, man, I
Speaker 5: can't slip around like or they're like, ay, it's just
Speaker 5: too much to risk these days. But you know, more
Speaker 5: like it wouldn't have like I turned from it. I
Speaker 5: realized that I shouldn't be doing that. Yeah, So that
Speaker 5: was like very different.
Speaker 1: Well, and I did not know much about this story.
Speaker 1: If the way I framed it up in the podcast
Speaker 1: was true, is that all these people had talked to
Speaker 1: me and just been you've got to go interview John Johnson,
Speaker 1: and I would ask every single one of them.
Speaker 4: Did you notice that the three things he talked about
Speaker 4: doing that were bad. He had no control over what
Speaker 4: do you mean he drank to excess? He didn't have
Speaker 4: a beer or a whiskey drink or whatever it was.
Speaker 4: He was an alcoholic. He used dope, regardless how much
Speaker 4: he used, it was illegal. And he hunted turkeys with
Speaker 4: reckless abandoned. So the three things that he talked about
Speaker 4: in there were things that he had he couldn't control
Speaker 4: himself with.
Speaker 1: Now I don't understand when you say couldn't control I
Speaker 1: mean you just say it was like he.
Speaker 2: Had no self control. No, there was no self control
Speaker 2: over it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now that's not a justification though, for being able to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: No, I just what I'm saying is there was something
Speaker 2: missing in his life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then when he got when he got it
Speaker 4: squared away at the redemptive part of that of his story.
Speaker 4: That's why he's not ashamed to talk about it. That's
Speaker 4: that was the feeling that I got. Yeah, because he
Speaker 4: is unashamed now because he knows he's been forgiven.
Speaker 2: He don't care what Clay newkem. Yeah, he don't care
Speaker 2: what I think.
Speaker 4: He knows that he's been forgiven and and he's rocking
Speaker 4: on with his life as he should be. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: always use that old analogy. People laugh, But I mean
Speaker 4: I used to pee in the bed. I don't do
Speaker 4: that no more either, you know. And I can say
Speaker 4: that was and when I say that, I'm talking about
Speaker 4: it wasn't like last week.
Speaker 2: Is when I was a baby.
Speaker 4: But I mean that time I was coming back soon probably.
Speaker 4: But there we all, there's nobody sitting here that ain't
Speaker 4: messed up. There ain't nobody sitting here that ain't messed
Speaker 4: up on purpose. It just happened to be dope, alcohol
Speaker 4: and turkeys. Yeah, but he got all that squared away,
Speaker 4: and I could hearing him talk.
Speaker 2: I just he was somebody that I would listen to.
Speaker 2: Number One. I never heard any of the word fugalty.
Speaker 2: It didn't show up in mind. But what he meant,
Speaker 2: I knew exactly what.
Speaker 4: Yeah about the puzzle that that was calling it causing him.
Speaker 4: But it was just a totally different story than any
Speaker 4: other Outlaws story you've ever.
Speaker 1: Done for me, you know, I think too, if there
Speaker 1: were and man, forgive me for like being a little defensive,
Speaker 1: I think I am. I think that Steve Vernella told me.
Speaker 1: He was like, you don't need to apologize for playing
Speaker 1: that story. But I still like kind of come in
Speaker 1: with like my hands raised like this Johnny Johnson didn't
Speaker 1: come to me so that he could tell that story.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like all that stuff has just been
Speaker 1: put to bed. It's it's not it's not stuff he
Speaker 1: even probably even cares that much about. Literally, he was
Speaker 1: a guy that when I talked to him on the phone,
Speaker 1: he I think he would have tried to if I
Speaker 1: was selling newspapers and he had money to buy one.
Speaker 1: I think he'd bought one from me just to be
Speaker 1: nice to me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I called him and was just like, Hey, can I
Speaker 1: come talk to you? And and he was just like, well,
Speaker 1: he literally said the first time, He's like, Clay, you're
Speaker 1: welcome to come down here. He said, I don't know
Speaker 1: that I've got a good story to tell you. I mean,
Speaker 1: he he way undersold. He was like, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I don't know what we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: I don't you know. And and and uh so it's
Speaker 1: not like this guy was knocking on my door saying
Speaker 1: let's do a bear grace on me. I went down there,
Speaker 1: pride his arm to talk to me, and and and
Speaker 1: I think I can share this because it's it's just
Speaker 1: interesting and I don't think Johnny would mind. But he
Speaker 1: did have some people that told him he shouldn't talk
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: M I could. I could.
Speaker 3: I'm not surprised by that, like just because it would
Speaker 3: expose him.
Speaker 1: Just I mean, it was people close to him that
Speaker 1: loved him that We're just like, Johnny, why are you
Speaker 1: doing this? This is dumb, you know, just like why now,
Speaker 1: like you're seventy five years old, just let all that
Speaker 1: just go to sleep yep, you know. And Johnny told
Speaker 1: him this was after we had talked for three hours
Speaker 1: and we had just become we just had this pretty
Speaker 1: genuine connection for as much as somebody that's known someone
Speaker 1: for three hours could have, which I think is pretty legit.
Speaker 1: And he said, he said, he told this person that
Speaker 1: was looking out for his best interest. He said, the
Speaker 1: man told me it was going to be okay. And
Speaker 1: I believe the man talking about me. I mean, like
Speaker 1: I just I tried to Like when I first it's
Speaker 1: always awkward conversation the first time you talk to somebody,
Speaker 1: especially about something like this. Because I was just like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to come talk to you about your turkey hunting.
Speaker 1: But I mean I had to tell him what I
Speaker 1: was after I said, I also want to hear about
Speaker 1: kind of you know, about some of the illegal stuff
Speaker 1: you did. I mean, it's not like it's in the
Speaker 1: newspapers that he did illegal stuff. I mean, Johnny is
Speaker 1: just like people love him where he's from. If there's
Speaker 1: one thing I know after this podcast came out is
Speaker 1: how supportive the world is around him, of the people
Speaker 1: that just love Johnny and uh but and so you know,
Speaker 1: he's like, well, okay, if you want to talk about that,
Speaker 1: I mean sure, And anyway, that's the hardest part of
Speaker 1: all this. If there's any magic inside of getting people
Speaker 1: to tell these stories, it's just like that first like
Speaker 1: connection with him and trying to say, hey, I go
Speaker 1: around and talk to people about bad things they've done,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to talk to you, Blake if I
Speaker 1: if like twenty years from now, I call you and
Speaker 1: I'm like, and what he did?
Speaker 3: Oh he had a talk show back in the day
Speaker 3: where just would uncover every dirty deed everybody ever did.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So if I call you one day and say,
Speaker 1: like a legitimate bargary on you, you should be like,
Speaker 1: what have I done.
Speaker 2: What do you know about me? Don't do it?
Speaker 3: I really liked the podcast, and I think I was
Speaker 3: kind of with Lake at the beginning, like listening to
Speaker 3: it and then I heard I heard the end. But
Speaker 3: I think the issue is is it's not a story
Speaker 3: of a reformed poacher, Like, that's not what it's about.
Speaker 3: It's it's the story of two different people, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. It's it's the story of what can
Speaker 3: happen when a moment of redemption hits that that that
Speaker 3: whole thing is just that's not him anymore. Like he
Speaker 3: literally sat there at his fire pit, gave his life
Speaker 3: to the Lord and became a completely different guy. And
Speaker 3: the fact that a man who is sixty years old,
Speaker 3: who's been a drug addict and an alcoholic for the
Speaker 3: greater majority of his life can immediately stop shows power
Speaker 3: beyond himself. And so I think I think in a
Speaker 3: sense that Johnny probably looks at that like that was
Speaker 3: a different guy, because he's not that guy. I mean,
Speaker 3: you hear him talk, He's like, I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 3: And it's not this like he didn't he didn't get
Speaker 3: to the point where he felt like he needed help,
Speaker 3: not poaching anymore, and he tried and tried and eventually
Speaker 3: he quit poaching. That it happened in an instant, and
Speaker 3: that's a to me, like one of the most honorable
Speaker 3: things that a human being can do is to transform
Speaker 3: like that. And that's that's worth that's worth highlighting to me.
Speaker 3: And I don't feel like the podcast at all glorified
Speaker 3: as poaching. I think what it did is it set
Speaker 3: set a stage to show who he is now. And
Speaker 3: I think I think that's the difference. You know, the
Speaker 3: the Louis Dell and Charlie was really entertaining. It was
Speaker 3: it was it was fun to listen to. But this
Speaker 3: is a story where of two men, of two separate men,
Speaker 3: it is a redemption story. And to me, that's what
Speaker 3: makes this podcast so good. And I think I think
Speaker 3: there's probably a lot of people out there who don't
Speaker 3: who don't necessarily know that that's available to them, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, There's a lot of people who
Speaker 3: live in regret. I mean, there's a lot of things
Speaker 3: that I've regretted in my life that I've done. But
Speaker 3: that's the great thing is about in an encounter with
Speaker 3: with God, like Johnny Johnston had radically changed this man's life. Well,
Speaker 3: there is there is no that's incredible.
Speaker 4: There is no worse feeling that being at the lowest
Speaker 4: point of your life and knowing that there is no
Speaker 4: further place to go, no further depth to go, and
Speaker 4: in an instant when you make up your mind and
Speaker 4: get your heart right, there is nothing that feels any
Speaker 4: better knowing that you are on your way out of
Speaker 4: it and you ain't never going back. And I have
Speaker 4: been there, and I know what that cat's talking about,
Speaker 4: and it's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's really good. Man.
Speaker 1: Johnny's what I appreciated about him is his ability to articulate,
Speaker 1: like his experience of being on the mountain that daylight
Speaker 1: and the moment of his his salvation was powerful and
Speaker 1: super genuine. I mean, I mean, I think I can
Speaker 1: say this in the world to know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I mean, like the fact that it played on Meat Eater,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't sure how how some people would have
Speaker 1: taken the the kind of direct story of salvation, and
Speaker 1: I think what people responded to it was just the
Speaker 1: genuineness of it, Like he was he wasn't trying to yep.
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't have to believe to understand what
Speaker 2: that man went.
Speaker 1: I mean, anybody would listen to that, regardless of what
Speaker 1: doctrine they have about life and eternal life, and they
Speaker 1: would be like, I believe that that guy had a
Speaker 1: genuine experience that changed his life and he he he
Speaker 1: told us that story and hat tip to that just
Speaker 1: for human transformation and I and man, that's why this
Speaker 1: story was so cool for me. Like I called Josh
Speaker 1: after I left Johnny's house and I said, man, I
Speaker 1: mean I just I just was like on a high
Speaker 1: from talking to this guy, just because of how genuine
Speaker 1: he was and just and I knew that we had
Speaker 1: something special. Also, it was one of the hardest ones
Speaker 1: that I've put together. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that's not on there. And and you know, Johnny's
Speaker 1: not perfect today, and he wouldn't say that he was,
Speaker 1: nor is that what he's trying to advertise. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, how much of his story can we tell
Speaker 1: in you know, thirty five minutes of his actual voice?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know this is this is a curated
Speaker 1: version of the story, honestly, I mean, but but it
Speaker 1: tells the truth. I mean, the story is the way
Speaker 1: that I perceived it, you know, but go Lee, man,
Speaker 1: That's why I think what we're I love stories like
Speaker 1: this because it involves the things that we love, hunting, fishing,
Speaker 1: but it's so much bigger than that. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a human story. It's it's the story of rural America.
Speaker 1: I talked about that in the beginning of the podcast.
Speaker 1: You know, drugs, addiction, broken relationships. I mean, sometimes the
Speaker 1: stories that me and you tell are the are the
Speaker 1: good version of the rural America, you know, and we
Speaker 1: all know that there's a lot of negative stuff going
Speaker 1: on too well.
Speaker 2: I even keep it on the detail. You know.
Speaker 5: He talked about his dad knew about, hey, his turkey
Speaker 5: poaching and was like very disapproving, like, you know, son,
Speaker 5: you should not be doing this, you know, And that
Speaker 5: just made it more real. You know, you made it because,
Speaker 5: like you said, whether it's turkey poaching or something else
Speaker 5: you shouldn't be doing, I could rely, I could relate
Speaker 5: to that part of a lot when you're doing something
Speaker 5: that like you're like, I shouldn't be doing this. I know,
Speaker 5: I shouldn't be doing this. My father doesn't approve, And
Speaker 5: that just made that made the redemption part of it
Speaker 5: mean more, I guess.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah. What was Josh, what was the most
Speaker 1: entertaining story?
Speaker 3: I love the cold open I had it explained to
Speaker 3: man in part out in the Woods that I think
Speaker 3: I was killed in turkeys at the wrong time.
Speaker 1: I think I killed a turkey at the wrong time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I loved that that little the way the way and
Speaker 3: then he ended it and that and he that's how
Speaker 3: I explained it to me.
Speaker 1: That that is one of the if there was an
Speaker 1: all time best bear Grease just moments, that would be
Speaker 1: in the top five.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but he but he.
Speaker 1: Said, when tomatoes are right, he said where I come from,
Speaker 1: when tomatoes are ripe, you pick them. When the potatoes
Speaker 1: are right, you dig them. When the turkeys gobble, you
Speaker 1: go get you one, or when the turkeys are right,
Speaker 1: you go get you one. That's where we lost Lake.
Speaker 5: I told you when I listen to that draft, I said,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna start using that next time I hear turkey
Speaker 5: gob and go who had tomatoes?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Hey, Let if there's anything that I did, like now,
Speaker 1: two weeks after this podcast came out and we finished
Speaker 1: it just like right before. If I had like six
Speaker 1: months to build these podcasts. They would probably be slightly
Speaker 1: different than just my initial blow at it, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was pretty heavy handed. Jannis Poutellus thinks that
Speaker 1: I that I over that I over host like would
Speaker 1: be relevant for me and you to talk about.
Speaker 2: He just he just he just thinks, I let the
Speaker 2: story tell the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Basically, he was like, I wish you'd just let
Speaker 1: Johnny talk and you wouldn't even be on.
Speaker 4: We call it clay blaming, that's what. And I want
Speaker 4: you watch Josh, you're around it more than any of us.
Speaker 4: When he goes to clays blaming something, his right hand
Speaker 4: does this right here.
Speaker 2: I watch.
Speaker 1: Well, And I want to talk about one thing that
Speaker 1: that I kind of went on and on about because
Speaker 1: it was interesting to me. Where I said that Johnny's
Speaker 1: excuse today is that it was a different time. And
Speaker 1: I mean it if you would have the right to
Speaker 1: just roll your eyes at that, I mean, it's just like,
Speaker 1: give me a break, you know, I mean poachings, poachings, poaching,
Speaker 1: you know, as long as it wasn't like in the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds and literally there were no laws. I mean
Speaker 1: you could make a case. I mean, we did this
Speaker 1: thing recently with the Buckley Foster about the progression from
Speaker 1: market hunting to this conservation mindset we have today. And
Speaker 1: you know, there were game laws in this part of
Speaker 1: the world really in the eighteen seventies, and then it
Speaker 1: went further and further and further until the creation of
Speaker 1: the Game and Fish Commission in nineteen fifteen. And I mean,
Speaker 1: game laws have been around for a long time. It's
Speaker 1: not like they just happened in the nineteen seventies. And
Speaker 1: you know, guys like Louis Dell and then were just like, oh,
Speaker 1: game laws. But so you know, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a different time. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's fair? And I explained over and over too much
Speaker 1: about the things back in the seventies. There were a
Speaker 1: ton of turkeys. Back in the seventies, there was I mean,
Speaker 1: turkey hunters like we know today were almost non existent.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, for what my dad can tell
Speaker 1: you about it, everybody can tell you about it. In
Speaker 1: that part of the world in the nineteen seventies, you
Speaker 1: go turkey hunting in the National Forest, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: it all to yourself.
Speaker 4: We all are a product of our communities our environments,
Speaker 4: you know. And it is never an excuse, but I
Speaker 4: think it could be a reason. Because anything that you
Speaker 4: can do get ticketed for and pay a fine and
Speaker 4: go on, that means it's legal for a fee. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 4: right or wrong yep. So, and it just wasn't looked upon.
Speaker 4: You had to have he got explained. He had it
Speaker 4: explained to him by that judge, and from then on
Speaker 4: it was like, Okay, I'm still going to do it,
Speaker 4: but I'm going on. And there's an old joke, it's
Speaker 4: old police joke where a policeman stops the guy for
Speaker 4: slowing down at a stop sign because no one else
Speaker 4: was coming, and he pulls him over. That's what he's
Speaker 4: stopping me for. He said, well, you didn't stop at
Speaker 4: that stop sign. He says, well, I slowed down. What's
Speaker 4: the difference, he says, step out of the car. He
Speaker 4: steps out of the car. He starts hitting him in
Speaker 4: the head with the flashlight and he says, now, do
Speaker 4: you want me to stop or you want me to
Speaker 4: slow down? So when he.
Speaker 1: Got when when he realized the different.
Speaker 4: When you when you when they difference explained to you
Speaker 4: and it's all on you, then you know I'm not
Speaker 4: saying the man didn't understand what the laws were, right,
Speaker 4: but the norms of the societal norms of where he
Speaker 4: was at.
Speaker 2: You know, it was I think too.
Speaker 3: You know, we talked about at that point in Johnny's
Speaker 3: life there were a lot worse things happening. Killing some
Speaker 3: turkeys were was the kind of the lowest rung of
Speaker 3: his egregious.
Speaker 2: Violations, you know.
Speaker 3: And I remember, I remember when we're doing the Paddlefish
Speaker 3: Wars podcast and we're talking to Jeff Brown, Captain Jeff
Speaker 3: Brown the Oklahoma Oh Death, I can't remember there.
Speaker 1: They're game and fish, big big guy in Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I remember when when he talked about busting the
Speaker 3: guys that he'd spent you know, a year chasing after
Speaker 3: and they just got a slap on the wrists, and
Speaker 3: we're like, did that did that bother you? And he's like, man,
Speaker 3: there's people out there getting murdered, there's kids out there
Speaker 3: getting getting abused. It's like, this is in the grand
Speaker 3: scheme of things. This is pretty low on the on
Speaker 3: the things that are going to hurt society. And and
Speaker 3: you know, as much as I want to steward the
Speaker 3: resource that we have for generations killing turkeys is is
Speaker 3: not as not.
Speaker 2: As high on the run.
Speaker 1: It really bothers me to think like that, but it's
Speaker 1: it's true. Yeah, I mean, I know it bothers like
Speaker 1: I mean, it bothers me. It's like I want turkey
Speaker 1: poachers to go to jail, Like I want them to
Speaker 1: go to jail. But then when you actually like start
Speaker 1: looking at the big picture of life, and now, anybody
Speaker 1: that's sitting in this room, or maybe even anyone listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast, you are the minority of the world
Speaker 1: that you probably care for wildlife and specifically game species
Speaker 1: of wildlife more than the average person, right, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's like this thing that we've focused
Speaker 1: on and we've said this is very important. I mean,
Speaker 1: and the truth is humans don't need a wild turkey
Speaker 1: to survive. Now, Like, don't get mad at me. I'm
Speaker 1: playing the devil's advocate because I believe that. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we've chosen a lifestyle in a way of viewing
Speaker 1: the world that we're like it actually does it's really important.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I'd die if they did.
Speaker 1: What was that quote that I sent you the other day, Oh,
Speaker 1: it said.
Speaker 5: Oh, a world with something about a world without birds
Speaker 5: as a bird I don't want to exist in or
Speaker 5: something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, it was that was the essence of it. But
Speaker 1: it said humans can't exist without bird.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was. It was just like metaphorical kind
Speaker 1: of are like just beautiful saying about this person's expressing
Speaker 1: their love for birds. But they were also actually talking
Speaker 1: about how birds make the world go round, eating insects
Speaker 1: and keeping them off crop and all that. But basically
Speaker 1: they were like, humans have to have birds. I sent
Speaker 1: it to Late because he likes DUTs.
Speaker 5: So I'm gonna take I mean, I hear the point.
Speaker 2: You just made.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna take it put a little bit different spin
Speaker 5: on it, right, So I do agree, like definitely about
Speaker 5: to being a product to your society, because I have thought,
Speaker 5: you know, because I've crossed paths with guys that are
Speaker 5: my age and younger that I don't know if they
Speaker 5: did anything as you know, killing as many or but
Speaker 5: guys that were willing to break the law for wildlife
Speaker 5: and hunting stuff, and it would cross my mind and think, like, man,
Speaker 5: if I wasn't if I didn't have a main turkey
Speaker 5: out mentor like Keith Polk or followed up by Will
Speaker 5: for real, Will Primos, guys like that, would I have
Speaker 5: the same views that I have the same values. But
Speaker 5: then talking about like I mean, I definitely hear like
Speaker 5: low on the wrong, you know, grand scheme of society.
Speaker 5: But man, when I think about turkey on, just turkey
Speaker 5: and I could go down this direction with a lot
Speaker 5: of different stuff, but we're talking about turkey on today.
Speaker 5: Some of the most impactful relationships that I've had in
Speaker 5: my life, some of the most impactful friendships. I mean,
Speaker 5: like me and I know Keith Polk because of spring turkeys,
Speaker 5: and Keith Polk has been other than my actual father,
Speaker 5: I don't know if there's been a male figure that's
Speaker 5: been more impactful than Keith has good human being. So
Speaker 5: when I think about Turkey's and turkey hunting, and I
Speaker 5: attach such a high value to that resource. Of course,
Speaker 5: I'm thinking about the hunting side of it, but I'm
Speaker 5: also thinking about the people that I know and the
Speaker 5: friendships that I have because of it. Heck, my whole
Speaker 5: career started because of a love for turkey on. So
Speaker 5: when I see that get abused, that's why it strikes such.
Speaker 2: A chord with me. Yeah, oh I get it.
Speaker 1: Yep, Yeah, noah, I mean that's that's that's that's the
Speaker 1: way we all feel. I mean it's true. Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah, that's a great it's a great way
Speaker 1: to say it. Yeah. I mean we've we've fixated our
Speaker 1: life where this is like something really important, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and I think in society that's really that
Speaker 1: is really important because the only reason wild turkeys are
Speaker 1: still here today is because of hunters who loved them.
Speaker 1: I mean essentially that carried them all over the country.
Speaker 1: We put them out in new places. I mean, like
Speaker 1: you know, the story of the wild turkey in North
Speaker 1: America if you if you don't know, it is pretty astonishing.
Speaker 1: I mean, numbers got down super low, I don't know
Speaker 1: around the turn of the century. I mean the people
Speaker 1: that brought it back. It wasn't the tree huggers, it
Speaker 1: wasn't rich people from some place. It was it was
Speaker 1: turkey hunters. Yep. That's like so yeah, so in that case,
Speaker 1: we do have a right to be like, don't abuse
Speaker 1: our resource, you know. But uh, I always think about
Speaker 1: it from a historic revision standpoint, though, Like when when
Speaker 1: when you like look back at a time and you
Speaker 1: just go, man, that was so bad, because I there's
Speaker 1: there may be people today in America that are proaching
Speaker 1: turkeys like that, and I hope they get caught and
Speaker 1: I hope they go to jail. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: that's the way I feel about it. But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's as common today as it would have been
Speaker 1: back then. And I do think it was a different time.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, man, and again, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: justify what Johnny did, but I'm just saying, fifty years ago, Bural,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma was a different place than it is today, and
Speaker 1: there has been this transition from these guys that had
Speaker 1: this resource to this like hyper fixated conservation hunter that's
Speaker 1: kind of arisen today where we're like, hey, it's not
Speaker 1: cool to break the law.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And that's what I was going to say was I
Speaker 3: think that we've done a good job, as you know,
Speaker 3: game and agencies and ethical hunters to make obeying game
Speaker 3: laws cool. You know what I mean That it's not
Speaker 3: you know, there used to be this outlaw mentality. Now
Speaker 3: it's like it's like we don't do that like that.
Speaker 3: That's what's that's what's going to keep us from having hunting.
Speaker 3: And I think there's been a good mind shift about that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because you know, we've got to protect it if we're
Speaker 3: going to have it.
Speaker 1: So mm hm. Anyway, I don't want to name his name,
Speaker 1: but this dude that's like a known poacher that has
Speaker 1: like a poaching in like social media presence, are you
Speaker 1: aware of that? You you were aware of that guy.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to say his name.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't. Yeah, I dare not say his name, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm aware of him.
Speaker 1: Is that common? That was the first time I've ever
Speaker 1: seen anything like that.
Speaker 5: No, it's not common, and it it honestly, it's a
Speaker 5: it's something that we've hashed out before, and he's honestly,
Speaker 5: it's honestly not as prevalent. He's not as prevalent now
Speaker 5: as he used to be.
Speaker 4: Uh, But that was the thing our friends sent us
Speaker 4: this morning. First I ever saw that was at the
Speaker 4: first Yeah, good, I never heard of that.
Speaker 1: It's just this guy that like his shtick is that
Speaker 1: he's a poacher, you.
Speaker 4: Know, a social media yeah yeah, yeah, And frankly I
Speaker 4: can't stand him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody could, and that's where people get confused.
Speaker 1: Someone in jest sent that to me. That person shall
Speaker 1: remain nameless.
Speaker 2: H don't look at me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't you. But it was just like somebody like
Speaker 1: you and they were like, why don't you have this
Speaker 1: guy on the podcast? And uh, and it was it
Speaker 1: was a joke. But it's like, no, that's not I mean,
Speaker 1: that is not cool. Yeah, I don't know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's just like very fine.
Speaker 2: It's disgraceful. It's disgraceful. No integrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and man, you know, there's a big difference between
Speaker 1: somebody that's doing that and somebody that makes an honest
Speaker 1: mistake and gets a wildlife violation.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I probably a pretty high percentage of
Speaker 1: serious hunters that are have have received some kind of
Speaker 1: wildlife violation just because of sheer exposure.
Speaker 2: Really in this chair, in this room. No, well me,
Speaker 2: there you go a quarter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm Johnny. Hey, few young podcasters out there. There's
Speaker 1: some little seven year olds out there that's gonna have
Speaker 1: a podcast one day. Come talk to uncle Klay. No,
Speaker 1: I've talked about it on this podcast. I got a
Speaker 1: shooting at night no, No, that's not true. Accidentally, that's
Speaker 1: not true. That's not true at all. It was a
Speaker 1: it was a it was a squirrel wanting to waste
Speaker 1: violation for a single squirrel. I mean, I've talked about
Speaker 1: it on the media podcast years ago, and it was
Speaker 1: it was a massive deal in my life. Not because
Speaker 1: I got in trouble. I just went and paid a ticket.
Speaker 5: I remember, I remember.
Speaker 2: It was a huge deal.
Speaker 1: I mean it like broke me down for like years,
Speaker 1: truly did. And there's not nothing to say that I
Speaker 1: couldn't get a violation tomorrow book just I mean, just
Speaker 1: on accident. Stuff happens. But I mean I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying there's good people that have stuff happened
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's true. Oh yeah, this get the lake?
Speaker 2: Lake?
Speaker 1: Would Lake is like the fly fishermen of Turkey hunting?
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 1: It means like elitists like you know, like sinning and
Speaker 1: spent spinning and sinning, you know, like you like being like,
Speaker 1: oh did you catch it with a spoon and rule
Speaker 1: or with a fly rod? I would say in the
Speaker 1: Turkey world, Lake holds the highest standards.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't there'd be some people that would argue with
Speaker 2: you on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, uh well what a renders it's this
Speaker 1: is I love these conversations. It's just interesting to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just interesting, you know, and it kind
Speaker 1: of makes people talk. One thing that Steve Renella said
Speaker 1: to me the other day is he said, hey, even
Speaker 1: if people didn't like it, he said, if it makes
Speaker 1: people talk about hunting conservation and makes them like flesh
Speaker 1: out more of their doctrine for why they do what
Speaker 1: they do. I think a lot of times we just
Speaker 1: have things that are formed and we don't really know why,
Speaker 1: or we don't really think it all the way out.
Speaker 1: And a story like this makes you think some of
Speaker 1: it out. And I'm still wondering about it because I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I still even go back to maybe
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing about Johnny, and I think this
Speaker 1: is the reason that I'll probably still do outlaw maybe
Speaker 1: not outlaw stuff, but that you don't have to be
Speaker 1: an outlaw. But I think Johnny is more honest about
Speaker 1: his life than a lot of clean cup people that
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I mean I just think he's I just think he's honest.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Who didn't like a story with a happy ending?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had a pretty fantastic ending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good one. Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Well. Anything in closing, Brent, anything you want to talk
Speaker 1: about pertaining to the episode, anything, anything in the world.
Speaker 2: Uh. I like a tart cherry pie more than like sweet.
Speaker 2: I like it tart. How do you get that? I
Speaker 2: don't know. My wife cooks them, so you'd have to
Speaker 2: ask her.
Speaker 1: Put mushrooms in it, not that I know of, Blake,
Speaker 1: What about you closing closing thoughts comments me and like
Speaker 1: you're going turkey hunting closing thoughts, Well, you.
Speaker 2: Know you ain't gonna be poaching if you're going with lakes.
Speaker 5: Sorry off your list closing thoughts. I guess you know.
Speaker 5: Like I said, Johnny was about in the worst kind
Speaker 5: of way as you could ever be.
Speaker 2: And he found redemption and for everybody and by way
Speaker 2: by way of the Lord. Yep, same way I found it.
Speaker 2: So think on that.
Speaker 5: I'm sure that there's as many people who listen to it,
Speaker 5: especially some madele the bear grease feed, I mean the
Speaker 5: meat eater feed. Somebody listened to that story that probably
Speaker 5: could use a little redemption.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Josh, I'll take that one.
Speaker 2: I'll take that for my elitist ways.
Speaker 1: Man, if I could, if the Bear Grease podcasts were
Speaker 1: just guys like Johnny Johnson Joe Rogan would be knocking
Speaker 1: on my door wanting to be on the render.
Speaker 2: I've had.
Speaker 1: Some people are like, why don't you do more of
Speaker 1: those people?
Speaker 2: Dig the out laws?
Speaker 1: Well, are just people stories? Yeah, I mean it's hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard to they're hard to put your hands on.
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, and boy, when you when you get one,
Speaker 1: like like Johnny, you just it's it's special.
Speaker 2: Love it.
Speaker 1: Closing thoughts, Josh.
Speaker 2: Nope, I don't have anything nothing.
Speaker 3: We're gonna go kill some turkeys. I'm going to Kentucky.
Speaker 3: All are going stayd in Arkansas. We're gonna go bring
Speaker 3: home some birds. Keep watching on social media. We'll put
Speaker 3: pictures up.
Speaker 1: Keep watching. All right, Well, thanks for coming up, Brent Lake,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here, Josh, appreciate it. And uh, keep
Speaker 1: the wild places wild because that's where the beers were