Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 2: I want you to stay a.
Speaker 1: While as I share my stories and the country skills
Speaker 1: that will help you beat the system. This Country Life
Speaker 1: is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network,
Speaker 1: bringing you the best outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2: The airways have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop
Speaker 1: that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two
Speaker 1: and teach you Turkey season therapy. Turkey season is almost here,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait. Sitting in the woods in the
Speaker 1: springtime is good therapy after a cold, gray winter.
Speaker 2: It's time to.
Speaker 1: Reboot and get a fresh start. New beginnings and revisiting
Speaker 1: some old one sport and a fresh coat of paint
Speaker 1: is good for your soul. That's what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1: But first, I'm going to tell you a story. The
Speaker 1: story I'm telling you today I wrote eighteen years ago
Speaker 1: this spring, long before I had any idea anyone outside
Speaker 1: of my friends and family would ever hear it or
Speaker 1: even want to. It was during the middle of my
Speaker 1: law enforcement career, and unbeknownst to me, I was putting
Speaker 1: myself through therapy by writing. It was an outlet and
Speaker 1: a place I could go back to. As I recounted
Speaker 1: in great detail whatever I was writing about, which was
Speaker 1: always outdoor related adventures. It allowed me to escape what
Speaker 1: I was dealing with at worked for a little while
Speaker 1: and focus on happier places and memories that were far
Speaker 1: removed from the stress and sadness of my work. My
Speaker 1: inspiration for writing these stories came after I read a
Speaker 1: book called The Flaming Turkey by mister Robert hit Neil.
Speaker 1: I read it in nineteen eighty nine for the first
Speaker 1: time and have read it about every year, just prior
Speaker 1: to Turkey season ever since. I more or less copied
Speaker 1: his style of writing because it was so descriptive and
Speaker 1: easy to read. It played like a little movie in
Speaker 1: my head, and I put myself in his stories as
Speaker 1: a witness to the events he's describing and instead of
Speaker 1: being a reader after the fact. For about the last
Speaker 1: thirty five years, I've read that book so many times
Speaker 1: that I feel like they're my stories too. Uncle Bob,
Speaker 1: as mister Robert likes to be called, has helped me
Speaker 1: get through a lot of struggles over the last three
Speaker 1: and a half decades and he doesn't even know it.
Speaker 1: He's written fourteen books and is still living a good
Speaker 1: life down in Mississippi in his early eighties. Clay even
Speaker 1: had him on The Bargery's podcast last year telling a story.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I remember Clay asking me if I had ever heard
Speaker 1: of him, and I about fell out of my chair
Speaker 1: heard of him. That guy's been one of my greatest inspirations.
Speaker 1: Clay said, oh, do you know him? No, I've never
Speaker 1: met him, but we exchanged about five emails in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. When I sent him a collection of
Speaker 1: stories i'd written. He told me he liked them and
Speaker 1: that others would like to read him too. He would
Speaker 1: help me get them published if i'd get someone to
Speaker 1: edit them. That was the last correspondence I had with him.
Speaker 1: Life and my job got in the way, and that
Speaker 1: was that I buried those stories in a box and
Speaker 1: dug them up. After I tricked the folks of me
Speaker 1: Eater into letting me go to work for them. I
Speaker 1: wasn't writing them to publish a book. I was writing
Speaker 1: them to keep from going berserko. And it didn't cure me, obviously,
Speaker 1: but it helped so without further ado here It is
Speaker 1: just like I wrote it twenty years ago. Each spring
Speaker 1: for the past few years, I had been fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to travel to Missouri, a beautiful state blessed with an
Speaker 1: abundance of turkeys. My Dad and I stayed with some
Speaker 1: friends who allowed me to hunt their land. And those
Speaker 1: are the neighbors who were equally willing to grant my
Speaker 1: passage on their property for one of my greatest passions,
Speaker 1: chasing turkeys. Now, last spring, my eight year old son
Speaker 1: Hunter joined Dad and me. The long trip to Toby
Speaker 1: and Mary's home was filled with anticipation of repeating my
Speaker 1: previous year's successful hunts, and I hoped that Hunter would
Speaker 1: be able to take his first Missouri gobbler. Now, he'd
Speaker 1: been allowed to miss a few days of school for
Speaker 1: this adventure with Dad and me. And I'm a strong
Speaker 1: supporter of education, and I rarely let the little guy
Speaker 1: miss school, but this was an opportunity for him to
Speaker 1: spend some time with his grandpa and me in somewhat
Speaker 1: of an educational setting. Now I learned something on nearly
Speaker 1: every turkey hunt I go on. Normally, the turkey gives
Speaker 1: me the lessons, and I have been astute in these lessons,
Speaker 1: learning what I shouldn't have done and realizing too late
Speaker 1: what I should have won, too many calls, or moving
Speaker 1: when I should have stayed where I was, or just
Speaker 1: generally screwing up my chance and taking home with Gobbler
Speaker 1: through my lack of patience. The Hunter has turkey hunted
Speaker 1: with me for the past couple of years, and was
Speaker 1: with me last year when I shot one, and he
Speaker 1: even took a shot this year and missed his first
Speaker 1: one by just the narror was the Margins. He had
Speaker 1: a score to settle with a turkey, and I was
Speaker 1: going to do my best to give him.
Speaker 2: The opportunity to do it.
Speaker 1: The first morning, we dressed as quiet as we could
Speaker 1: and I wanted to wake our hosts, and made our
Speaker 1: way to the Turkey woods. The Hunter was full of
Speaker 1: questions as we left the truck and walked to where
Speaker 1: we were going to listen from dad. Are we gonna
Speaker 1: kill a turkey? Can I call to him? How many
Speaker 1: will we hear? How old were you when you killed
Speaker 1: your first turkey? Who do you think would win in
Speaker 1: a fight between Superman and the Hulk?
Speaker 2: Well? I answered them.
Speaker 1: As best I could, but I really had to argue
Speaker 1: with him the fact that Superman can whip anybody. That's
Speaker 1: why they called him Superman. Yes, Sir, I know he Superman.
Speaker 1: But what if the Hulk picked up an army tank
Speaker 1: and hit him in the back of the head with it. Well,
Speaker 1: the Hunk the Hulk wouldn't do that. So they're both
Speaker 1: good guys, and good guys don't fight each other. Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: I know they're both good guys. But what if Superman
Speaker 1: drank the last dr Pepper and the Hulk was really thirsty?
Speaker 1: Superman wouldn't drink the last dr Pepper Hunter without asking
Speaker 1: the rest of the super Friends if they wanted it.
Speaker 2: Yes, Sir, I know.
Speaker 1: But what if the Hulk was in the bathroom and
Speaker 1: he asked everybody else and he didn't hear him. Well,
Speaker 1: he had me there and I was thinking about my
Speaker 1: answer when thankfully a turkey gobble. Did you hear him? Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: all right, we gotta be quiet. He's about two hundred
Speaker 1: yards away, so let's get going. We slipped quietly through
Speaker 1: the woods, me picking and choosing my steps as if
Speaker 1: I was a lion approaching the herd of Zebras, and
Speaker 1: Hunter breaking every limb he came to, and remembering along
Speaker 1: the way that he had recently learned how to whistle,
Speaker 1: and demonstrating this to all the living creatures with an earshot. Hunter,
Speaker 1: don't whistle. I'm being a bird daddy, so the turkey
Speaker 1: won't know where after him. Okay, that's a good idea,
Speaker 1: but let's just try sneaking up on him, because birds
Speaker 1: don't whistle jingle bells. We got to the edge of
Speaker 1: a pasture and a small creek bed lined with oak
Speaker 1: trees that the gobbler was roosted in. I whispered the hunter.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, buddy, we're about one hundred yards from him.
Speaker 1: We got across this fence and set up near that
Speaker 1: big old tree right there in front of us. I
Speaker 1: picked him up and I placed him gingerly across that fence,
Speaker 1: and I was halfway across myself when Hunter said, in
Speaker 1: a not so whispering voice, Dad, look. I froze, terrified
Speaker 1: that the goblin had flown down early in collars before
Speaker 1: we could set up for him. Where is he, Hunter,
Speaker 1: I whispered, he's right there. I looked where my little
Speaker 1: buddy was pointing, but I couldn't see anything. Where is he, son,
Speaker 1: He's right there, he said that. Like I had gone blind.
Speaker 1: I strained to look in the direction he was pointing,
Speaker 1: like I feel. My retiness was about to tear out
Speaker 1: of my head, and I finally saw a big box
Speaker 1: turtle making his way across that open we had just
Speaker 1: stepped into. Don't do that, hunter, I thought you were
Speaker 1: looking at the turkey. No, sir, ain't that a big turtle? Though, yeah,
Speaker 1: he is a big turtle. I'd be quiet. We're close
Speaker 1: to the turkey. Turkey began gobbling at nearly every breath,
Speaker 1: and we set up in a good spot to call
Speaker 1: to him. The goblet eventually flew down away from where
Speaker 1: we sat and stopped at the crest of a hill
Speaker 1: near an old barn, and we slipped as best we
Speaker 1: could out into the pasture, keeping the crest of the
Speaker 1: hill between the turkey and us, and Duck walked our
Speaker 1: way to a large wallnut tree, where we sat down,
Speaker 1: hunting in my lap and gun and calls it there ready,
Speaker 1: I called, and the turkey answered immediately. After a few minutes,
Speaker 1: the turkey gobbled again, this time. Morderar left then a
Speaker 1: few minutes later, back where he had answered me.
Speaker 2: We couldn't see him. He was just out of.
Speaker 1: Sight, but he was in his strutting zone and was
Speaker 1: waiting for us to come to him. We crawled several
Speaker 1: different trees, but the turkey never got within sixty yards
Speaker 1: of us. I slipt up behind a tree that we
Speaker 1: were sitting at, and I could see him out there,
Speaker 1: strutting and putting on a heck of a show. So
Speaker 1: I let hunters stand up behind that tree and look
Speaker 1: at him. Dad, I see him. He's beautiful. I could
Speaker 1: feel his little heart beating fast as I held him,
Speaker 1: so he could see that turkey. We waited a few minutes,
Speaker 1: and the turkey gobbled again, and this time going down
Speaker 1: the hill toward the little creek where he had come
Speaker 1: from when he roosted. We watched him as he strutted
Speaker 1: into view, just out of Hunter's shooting range and stopping
Speaker 1: near a big, old, blown down oak tree in the
Speaker 1: middle of that field. A turkey strutted on past the
Speaker 1: fallen tree and made his way to the creek bed,
Speaker 1: where he continued to strut and gobble in full view
Speaker 1: of men.
Speaker 2: Hunter.
Speaker 1: Hunter, do you see that blown down tree? Yes, sir, okay,
Speaker 1: do you think you can crawl on your hands and
Speaker 1: knees behind me to the base of that tree. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: I took off my hunting vest, leaving at where we sat,
Speaker 1: trying to make a small at signature as I could.
Speaker 1: I got Hunter's twenty gage and we made our way
Speaker 1: to the base of that clay root, with Hunter in tow,
Speaker 1: with my heels keeping the tree between the turkey and us.
Speaker 1: Finally we arrived. I placed Hunter right beside me where
Speaker 1: he could see that turkey and propped the shot gunn
Speaker 1: up on an exposed root, where all he had to
Speaker 1: do was lay across that take steady, aim, and shoot.
Speaker 2: When that turkey got close enough, all we needed him to.
Speaker 1: Do was to come twenty yards closer twenty yards and
Speaker 1: Hunter would be close enough to take him. We watched
Speaker 1: him for twenty or thirty minutes and gobbled and strutted
Speaker 1: and strutted and gobbled and answered me every time I
Speaker 1: called to him, but came no closer.
Speaker 2: Dad, He's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's the biggest turkey I ever seen.
Speaker 2: He was right.
Speaker 1: He may be in the biggest turkey I'd ever seen.
Speaker 1: His beard was thick and long, and I could see
Speaker 1: the huge spurs he was sporting from sixty yards away.
Speaker 1: I was lost on what to do. I couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out how to get this turkey to close that last
Speaker 1: twenty yards for Hunter to get a shot. And I
Speaker 1: tried everything short of letting Hunter whistle jingle bells at him.
Speaker 1: I let him call to him using my old box call,
Speaker 1: and we both grinned and giggled. When that gobbler answered him,
Speaker 1: he was so proud. How come he ain't coming?
Speaker 2: Dad?
Speaker 1: Well, I told him, he wants to see the hen
Speaker 1: that's making all these calls. Dad, We need to stick
Speaker 1: up one of our decoys. Now, why hadn't I thought
Speaker 1: of that? I took Hunter's shotgun, I unloaded it, and
Speaker 1: I placed it on the ground away from where he
Speaker 1: was laying watching the turkey. I said, okay, Son, I
Speaker 1: got a crawl back to where I left my vest
Speaker 1: and get the decoy. Can you wait here and keep
Speaker 1: an eye on that turkey? Yes, sir, you want me
Speaker 1: to call at him or whistle to him. I was like, no, No,
Speaker 1: don't do that, just be still and watch him.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I crawled back up that hill, not unlike the turtle
Speaker 1: we had seen earlier, and about the same speed. Carefully
Speaker 1: I found every sharp rock that I had somehow missed
Speaker 1: on our way down the hill, but grabbing the vest,
Speaker 1: I slowly inched around on my belly to make my
Speaker 1: way back to where Hunter was. And that's when I
Speaker 1: saw a sight that will forever be burned in my memory.
Speaker 1: I was three quarters of the way up that hill
Speaker 1: from the turkey that I could plainly sing down below,
Speaker 1: a strutting as he had been all morning. Beside that
Speaker 1: small flowing creek. The blowdown tree lay pointing away from me,
Speaker 1: and there lay my son at the base, dressed in
Speaker 1: full camouflage, peeking from around the mount of dirt and roots,
Speaker 1: and watching that turkey as I did from thirty yards
Speaker 1: above him. And the morning sun was bright, and the
Speaker 1: green of spring was everywhere, and it was the first
Speaker 1: time I had heard all the birds that were singing
Speaker 1: that morning. I smelled the yellow jasmine as it wafted
Speaker 1: across the hillside, and a cool breeze was moving the leaves,
Speaker 1: and I longed for a camera to capture the moment
Speaker 1: that no artist would ever duplicate. I wanted so badly
Speaker 1: for everyone I knew to see what I was seeing.
Speaker 1: A beautiful day, a majestic creature, and my son, who
Speaker 1: was now experiencing the sights and sounds, the smells and
Speaker 1: the feelings that I could never explain to anyone that
Speaker 1: has never experienced on firsthand.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to move.
Speaker 1: I wanted to stay right there and watch the whole
Speaker 1: thing unfold in front of Hunter and try to interpret
Speaker 1: what he was thinking and feeling as he stared so
Speaker 1: intently at that turkey. Hunter glanced back at me and
Speaker 1: gave me a big smile and the thumbs up.
Speaker 2: I returned.
Speaker 1: I returned the signal, and I fought the tears that
Speaker 1: were welling up in my eyes, and I paused a
Speaker 1: moment to thank the Good Lord.
Speaker 2: For all he had given me that morning.
Speaker 1: I made my way back to Hunter's location, and with
Speaker 1: that decoy in the hand, and we sat it up
Speaker 1: and called and Gobble responded as he had all morning.
Speaker 1: But eventually he walked away with a hen that had
Speaker 1: come to him from across that little creek. After he left,
Speaker 1: we said up against that old tree, and we talked
Speaker 1: about what we had seen that morning. Wasn't he pretty daddy?
Speaker 1: Did you see him?
Speaker 2: Gobble? When I called to him?
Speaker 1: We did our secret handshake that only he and I
Speaker 1: know about. That not only makes us both look really cool,
Speaker 1: but so we could identify each other should we ever
Speaker 1: be confronted with an imposture of ourselves. He held my
Speaker 1: hand as we walked off that heeling and made our
Speaker 1: way back to the truck. I remember that like it
Speaker 1: was this morning. He's twenty five now, and I'd hold
Speaker 1: his hand right now if he'd let me. I wonder
Speaker 1: where that turtle wind? He said, Dad? Do turkeys eat grass?
Speaker 1: I wonder what Miss Harris is reading in my class today.
Speaker 1: This is fun, ain't it. Who do you think would
Speaker 1: win if Batman Spider Man got in a fight?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't. I don't know who'd win that us so.
Speaker 1: But I do know that that's just how that happened.
Speaker 1: Turkey season is here for some of us, and will
Speaker 1: be for more of us as we finally start easing
Speaker 1: into spring. My fall and winter are my favorite times
Speaker 1: of year. With the majority of hunting seasons in swing,
Speaker 1: I look forward to this time of year as much
Speaker 1: as anything. Unfortunately, it doesn't last long down here. Just
Speaker 1: in the last couple of weeks, I've run the heat
Speaker 1: and the air conditioning in the same day of alternated
Speaker 1: coon hunting to night and t shirts and heavy coats.
Speaker 1: Crazy weather comes this time of year too, and when
Speaker 1: you grow up dodging springtime tornadoes, you make a habit
Speaker 1: out of keeping an eye on the weather. But every
Speaker 1: year I make a pilgrimage to central Missouri and hunt
Speaker 1: on land that I've been making tracks on for more
Speaker 1: than a score of years. My friends Toby married Jean
Speaker 1: and Jolie and Jason have been more than kind to
Speaker 1: an Arkie that fell in love with that whole family
Speaker 1: from the moment I met him. Toby and my dad
Speaker 1: were great friends and bought and sold running dogs and
Speaker 1: cold honted together. They invited me to come up when
Speaker 1: they're now grown girls were just in elementary school. It
Speaker 1: was like for a week each April, I was the
Speaker 1: crazy uncle that moved in, and they seemed to look
Speaker 1: forward to it as much as I did and still do,
Speaker 1: although I seriously doubt it. But I started going up
Speaker 1: there with my dad, who liked to travel and go
Speaker 1: places and see things and then see how fast he
Speaker 1: could get back home. Now they used to drive me nuts.
Speaker 1: When I go somewhere I want to take it all in,
Speaker 1: see all I can see, and hunt till I limit
Speaker 1: out or the season closes. But Dad wasn't a turkey
Speaker 1: under He was just hanging out with Toby and knocking around,
Speaker 1: fishing and messing around, hoping I'd hurry up and kill
Speaker 1: the turkey so we could go home. He was with
Speaker 1: me and Hunter on that trip I talked about in
Speaker 1: the opening story. I missed him not being with me
Speaker 1: on the last eleven trips I've made up there, and
Speaker 1: I missed him cooking fish. And every year someone brings
Speaker 1: up the story when he put too much salt in
Speaker 1: the corn mill and we were frying fish one time.
Speaker 1: Then when we started eating Marying, Toby and I took
Speaker 1: a bite and felt like we'd all found Jimmy Buffet's
Speaker 1: lost shaker assault. We'd laugh at all those things and
Speaker 1: talk about how much we miss him and the others
Speaker 1: who've gone on too, like mister Max. Mister Max was
Speaker 1: ninety when he left us three years ago, and he
Speaker 1: was a turkey killing machine well up into his eighties.
Speaker 1: I got to hunt with him several times, and he
Speaker 1: was something special, to say the least, and I miss him.
Speaker 1: Peyton and Emily Toby's and Mary's little girls who are
Speaker 1: now grown. I watched them grow up from giggling little
Speaker 1: kids to being grown. One of my favorite memories is
Speaker 1: sitting on the front porch in the afternoon waiting on
Speaker 1: the girls to get off the bus. I'd hunt it
Speaker 1: all morning, right up to quitting time at noon, and
Speaker 1: hadn't been back to the house long one they were
Speaker 1: due to get home. Toby and I watched as those
Speaker 1: little gals ran up the driveway with their backpacks, giggling
Speaker 1: and laughing all the way until almost to the porch. Emily,
Speaker 1: who couldn't have been more than six or seven, skinny
Speaker 1: as a reiling, pretty as a picture and her little dress,
Speaker 1: walked over to that fenced in lot that held a
Speaker 1: milk cow named Tea Bone. Sweetly, she called that cow
Speaker 1: to come over to where she stood next to the
Speaker 1: barb wire fence, and in my mind I thought how
Speaker 1: sweet it was that this little angel had missed her
Speaker 1: pet cow while being at school all day and wanted
Speaker 1: to say hello and tell her that she was back home.
Speaker 1: A giant of a cow that towered over Emily slowly
Speaker 1: walked over to her. I swear it looked like a
Speaker 1: scene out of a Hallmark movie in until that sweet
Speaker 1: little angel reared back with the rock she had hid
Speaker 1: in her hand and drilled that bovine in the top
Speaker 1: of the head with a smile confastball that didn't cause
Speaker 1: that cow to blank, much less breakstride. Then she skipped
Speaker 1: the rest of the way up the drive and smiled
Speaker 1: at me as she walked in the house. We still
Speaker 1: laugh about that. I brought a lot of turkeys home
Speaker 1: from up there. But the best thing I've taken away
Speaker 1: from the show me stayed is the memories and relationships
Speaker 1: with those I look forward to seeing every turkey season,
Speaker 1: and who I stay in contact with all year long.
Speaker 1: It's never been about the turkey hunting, even when I
Speaker 1: thought it was. It was my therapy and it gave
Speaker 1: me the stories and experiences that eventually led me to
Speaker 1: sharing them with Robert Neil and others by writing them down,
Speaker 1: which in turn through the most crooked pathway ever conceived
Speaker 1: as me sitting here now sharing them with you. It
Speaker 1: started out as a turkey hunting and morphed into something bigger,
Speaker 1: and it took years for me to see exactly what
Speaker 1: it was. I've taken others with me over the years
Speaker 1: up there, and even from the Bear Greece road show
Speaker 1: Installmuth that'll be dropping soon on our YouTube channel. The
Speaker 1: point of this whole episode is to encourage you to
Speaker 1: find your turkey season therapy.
Speaker 2: Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be turkey hunting or limited to
Speaker 1: one thing. Just find yourself some good folks and spend
Speaker 1: time with them, regardless of the activity. I'm forever indebted
Speaker 1: to that family up there, and that has done more
Speaker 1: for me than they'll ever know, just by being hospitable
Speaker 1: and allowing me to have a place to gather with
Speaker 1: them and enjoy each other's company and celebrate both of
Speaker 1: our families as one, both past and present.
Speaker 2: That's good stuff.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, March ninth, is the Black Bear Bonanza in Bentonville, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: where I'll be gathered with Clay bow in a multitude
Speaker 1: of our closest friends, some of which we hadn't even
Speaker 1: met yet. I hope to see you there until next week.
Speaker 1: This is Britt Reeves signing off.
Speaker 2: Y'all be careful