Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. 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 h
Speaker 1: F Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear
Speaker 1: that's designed to be as rugged as the place as
Speaker 1: we explore. So, Hey, we're gonna we're gonna do it
Speaker 1: a little different this time. I'm gonna introduce everybody. We're
Speaker 1: doing Spanish, but see we're gonna do it in Spanish.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna talk about Donnie Baker first, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go Usually the sequence of the Bear Grease Render
Speaker 1: is introduced me Bull with chit chat, with small talk,
Speaker 1: and and then we like fight off the deep desire
Speaker 1: to talk about the thing we're all here to talk about.
Speaker 1: But we're not going to do that today. We're gonna
Speaker 1: dive right in. I do have a very This is
Speaker 1: a great crew. This is this is an exciting crew
Speaker 1: to have multiple everybody's all been here, but it's not
Speaker 1: the standard crew. I've got to my left Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: and in the building is whaling the Wonder Dog Whaling, Jennings,
Speaker 1: Tree and Walker.
Speaker 2: Yes, just got back from Kansas. He was treating Kansas coons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Whalon and Brent are here, doctor miss newkom
Speaker 1: So great to have you. Good to be here, yes,
Speaker 1: last Yeah, it's long story, but you're here.
Speaker 3: I'm happy I'm here.
Speaker 1: Yes to your to your left, my neighbor, hero and
Speaker 1: national Pastured Poultry Icon Terrell Spencer, also known as Spence,
Speaker 1: my neighbor. Good to have your brother.
Speaker 3: Can I just help for a second. It's pastured.
Speaker 4: These are not spiritual ministry to the chickens.
Speaker 3: They're not pastored.
Speaker 1: They are not pastored poultry, past poultry. You know I have.
Speaker 1: I have a former background in pastured poultry media.
Speaker 5: Chicken feeds the World.
Speaker 1: Okay, we made a film years ago about pastor poultry. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: American Pastured Poultry Producers. It's a mouthful, it's a mouthful.
Speaker 1: Spence is also at one time was the National Rooster
Speaker 1: Calling Champion of the a p p p A. It's
Speaker 1: recently been the title has been stripped from him, given
Speaker 1: to Yes. This is a little bit outside the rails
Speaker 1: of what we're here to talk about today. That's TERRYL.
Speaker 1: Spencer to TERRYL. Spencer's laft Man. It's like Stack. This
Speaker 1: is like the Dream Team. This is like nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's Magic, Johnson's Bird Keem Elijah Wan. We have
Speaker 1: Joe Wilson with us.
Speaker 6: I'm here, Joe.
Speaker 1: I've got to introduce you, like if you're in this room,
Speaker 1: like there's your life is much bigger than this, but
Speaker 1: there's like one thing that's connected to you. Joe Wilson
Speaker 1: of the World Championship Squirrel cookoff Man.
Speaker 6: I also live at the Squirrel Dairy.
Speaker 1: Okay, you live at the Squirrel Dairy.
Speaker 6: We got to talk about Donnie Baker.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got questions squirrel, mostly about technique.
Speaker 6: Coming down the tree.
Speaker 7: Well, you know what.
Speaker 1: They say about Mammelian you can anything. Yep, there you
Speaker 1: go to your laugh.
Speaker 8: My friend, how can you follow that up?
Speaker 1: James Brandenburg, Arkansas, Yeah, yeah, in Spanish head of Arkansas
Speaker 1: b h A. And I'm gonna call you, uh just
Speaker 1: for sake of clarity and simplicity, founder of the Black
Speaker 1: Bear Bonanza, which isn't entirely true. But you have a
Speaker 1: great team around you. We have a great team around
Speaker 1: You're a part of the founding. I'm of the black.
Speaker 8: We'll go with that part of the founding for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, James James has uh he's been on He was
Speaker 1: on the Old Bear Honting magazine podcast. And Uh, I
Speaker 1: like to talk at James. That's what James is like
Speaker 1: a good face. He gives good James is like a
Speaker 1: high level corporate exec.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't know it by looking at him. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: know by looking at this humble man. Uh No, I'm kidding, no,
Speaker 1: but for real, James's high level business exec in the
Speaker 1: high reps of American industry, industry captain of industry in
Speaker 1: India next week for real. Uh, great to have you,
Speaker 1: thank you sir. But I was getting at why I
Speaker 1: like to talk to James. What I'm learning that's gonna
Speaker 1: be relevant in next week's podcast is how oh wow,
Speaker 1: what a rabbit trail. People that are really good in
Speaker 1: business are are good listeners.
Speaker 8: Some people.
Speaker 1: He's also a good talker.
Speaker 8: Sometimes he's also.
Speaker 1: A good talker.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 1: And my name's Clay nukem.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 1: So Donnie Baker, we're gonna we're gonna do the order
Speaker 1: a little bit different. I wanna I just want to
Speaker 1: jump right into it. YEA almost don't. I don't want
Speaker 1: to give a spiel, so I'm not. I want to
Speaker 1: hear your first impressions.
Speaker 6: My impression is as I sent Brent Reeves a message
Speaker 6: the other day, telling this was your best work. Huh.
Speaker 6: Everything leading up to this was fantastic, great history, amazing stories.
Speaker 6: But this story I think went way deeper than a
Speaker 6: guy shooting at two hundred and four inch buck. And
Speaker 6: I think it gives guidance to all of us in
Speaker 6: our life because that buck, as we found out in
Speaker 6: episode two, it was just one little thing that led
Speaker 6: up to the story, and you could substitute that buck
Speaker 6: for all kinds of problems in your life. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I thought it was fantastic. You did a great job.
Speaker 6: Donnie Baker could be my friend any day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's That's what. There's so many parts of
Speaker 1: this the are so interesting to me. And I learned
Speaker 1: this story in the same way really that the listener did. Like,
Speaker 1: this is not a story that I grew up with.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Donnie. I knew very little about his
Speaker 1: story before I went to his house to told him
Speaker 1: before the podcast. I said, Donnie, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can use this or not. It was because I
Speaker 1: didn't know the whole story, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: evaluate what story was kind of sitting in front of me.
Speaker 1: I knew it was interesting. I'm interested in big deer,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in apparently, I'm interested in people that break
Speaker 1: the law. And I honestly I told him that. I said, Donnie,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I can use this, but I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you. And he was like, that's great, Clay,
Speaker 1: it'd be I'm glad to tell a story. You do
Speaker 1: whatever you got to do. If you can use it,
Speaker 1: use it. If you can't, no problem.
Speaker 8: But it was pretty obvious as you went along though,
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm sure as you were talking to him,
Speaker 8: the what was the interesting part about what happened to him?
Speaker 8: Because it I'm sure as you were talking to him
Speaker 8: it was you know, you can sit and talk to
Speaker 8: somebody and hear a story of them killing a big
Speaker 8: deer and be like, oh, that's cool. But then as
Speaker 8: you kind of brought us all along in it and
Speaker 8: kind of I mean, what I appreciated about it. To
Speaker 8: Joe's point, I thought it was your best work that
Speaker 8: you've done so far, and you helped us see all
Speaker 8: the different components of it, like a rope that all
Speaker 8: kind of braided together to make the story of his life.
Speaker 8: And they all had to be there to get him
Speaker 8: where he is today. Yea, And we lose that a
Speaker 8: lot of times when we hear stories about this or
Speaker 8: we just see the headline kills man poaches giant deer. Yes,
Speaker 8: there's way, way, way more to it.
Speaker 1: And see that's a good point. And what's interesting I
Speaker 1: said it. I didn't say it on the first render.
Speaker 1: I'll say it on this render. I did less in
Speaker 1: the interview with Donnie Baker than I ever do with someone.
Speaker 6: I was wondering that if it all fell together, Hey, that.
Speaker 1: Was his story that he put together all on his own.
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes you hear someone's story and people are
Speaker 1: so close to it and an outside eye comes in
Speaker 1: and you kind of put it together. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: person hears it and they're like, yeah, yeah, that's like
Speaker 1: it's it. That's the way it happened. But maybe there
Speaker 1: was some conclusions. I don't know, there's some there's some
Speaker 1: things that you kind of weave together. Donnie Baker told that.
Speaker 1: I asked Donnie Baker honestly one question, and that was,
Speaker 1: how where do you think we should start?
Speaker 7: Donnie?
Speaker 1: I intentionally left that in, which I usually would have
Speaker 1: cut it out. I intentionally left that in because I
Speaker 1: asked him that, and he started talking, and I was
Speaker 1: a part of the conversation, like I I, you know,
Speaker 1: asked him specifically about you know, just questions like what
Speaker 1: were you thinking?
Speaker 5: Did you? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, I did ask him questions, But I'm telling
Speaker 1: you he started talking and he ended, and I talked
Speaker 1: to him for two hours. So you guys heard I
Speaker 1: think twenty seven minutes of Donnie. These are things on
Speaker 1: the editorial side that I see. On the first episode,
Speaker 1: you heard Donnie talk for twenty seven minutes. The episode
Speaker 1: was fifty five minutes long, so you heard me talk
Speaker 1: for as long as you heard Donnie talk story of
Speaker 1: Missy's life.
Speaker 7: I still pretty good average.
Speaker 1: On the second episode, we only heard Donnie talk for
Speaker 1: twenty two minutes, so you heard about half of the interview.
Speaker 1: But that's what made the most sense to me. And
Speaker 1: even the sequence of it. A lot of times on
Speaker 1: a story, I have to sequence it, like maybe they
Speaker 1: tell something that actually chronologically came at the end, but
Speaker 1: that needs to be in the beginning to make sense.
Speaker 6: It sounded like he was loaded up and ready to
Speaker 6: fire for a while. Yeah, and you become that broadcast
Speaker 6: that would air it out to like minded people, and
Speaker 6: which I think.
Speaker 5: You did well.
Speaker 6: But he needed to get it out there, and maybe
Speaker 6: it was to get it out there once and for
Speaker 6: all to show people this is who I was, it's
Speaker 6: who I am, and maybe you don't need to walk
Speaker 6: down the same road as I walked down, which I
Speaker 6: think that's how I took it personally, like he was
Speaker 6: showing us everybody's got a little outlaw in him, and
Speaker 6: he used it that day. Found out he didn't want
Speaker 6: to be an outlaw anymore, you know.
Speaker 8: I think the second he released that arrow, he knew
Speaker 8: And when he said that in the first episode, Clay
Speaker 8: that part and I texted you this, the part about
Speaker 8: I'm sure we've all you know, shot at a bird
Speaker 8: on a tree limit. Yeah, I mean that was just
Speaker 8: like that was just like he had cracked from my
Speaker 8: head and looked inside and like read my life story
Speaker 8: or something, you know. I remember, uh, you know the
Speaker 8: first I think the first animal that I ever killed
Speaker 8: as a little kid, you know, shooting a bb gun.
Speaker 8: I shouldn't have been shooting in a place I shouldn't
Speaker 8: have been shooting it, and how I felt, and and
Speaker 8: it just took me right back to that moment, and
Speaker 8: I was like, I knew, I know exactly how he
Speaker 8: felt when he let that arrow go. He he just
Speaker 8: had walked up to the edge of something to see
Speaker 8: if he could do it. Yeah, and just in that
Speaker 8: split second, temptation overcame him and the arrow flew and
Speaker 8: he instantly, like when Adam took a bite of the apple.
Speaker 1: He knew there was no going back to buy clothes.
Speaker 8: Yeah, dang it.
Speaker 1: Well, in that the analogy of shooting a bird and
Speaker 1: regretting it immediately probably could be a major literary mechanism
Speaker 1: in a book to just describe what all of us
Speaker 1: have felt, whether you've actually killed an animal or not,
Speaker 1: but just that instantaneous regret, even in the act of
Speaker 1: something that you know you can't take back.
Speaker 6: I shot that bird. You shoot that bird?
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 6: I remember shooting that bird. And it was so light
Speaker 6: that it stayed on the leaf. It is just a
Speaker 6: little yellow bird. And I remember crying at that bird,
Speaker 6: going in grabbing my mom's gravy spoon, digging a hole,
Speaker 6: putting that little bird in there, and saying, I ain't
Speaker 6: ever going to shoot a bird again. And that lasted
Speaker 6: about an hour.
Speaker 7: Maybe it's yellow bird.
Speaker 6: I just I remember when I heard it, just like you,
Speaker 6: I knew exactly what shooting that bird mean.
Speaker 2: Anybody a lot of folks could identify with that wouldn't
Speaker 2: Maybe wasn't even killing the animal. Maybe it was cheating
Speaker 2: on a test at school and you get home and
Speaker 2: you make you make a hundred on it, and you
Speaker 2: get home and your mama's so proud of you, and
Speaker 2: then you realize, you know, I didn't do that right,
Speaker 2: She'm proud of me. She's proud of that kid that
Speaker 2: was sitting beside me that I copied off of, which
Speaker 2: is me. People can people copied off of me in school? Up,
Speaker 2: they're in prison now.
Speaker 1: Spence, what do you think just like first impressions.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just I felt like it was almost cleansing
Speaker 5: for him, Like I didn't see it so much he
Speaker 5: was telling everybody. I felt like more like he was
Speaker 5: doing it for himself. And I've had stuff that I've
Speaker 5: done that I'm ashamed of, you know, I mean, we
Speaker 5: all have. And I think there's just you know, I've
Speaker 5: got a church group and even just a couple of
Speaker 5: years ago going through stuff that had been hidden, and
Speaker 5: I've seen other guys share that, Like it's just it's
Speaker 5: cleansing to get that, to unburden yourself. But and I
Speaker 5: don't know, I think I I saw it more as
Speaker 5: Donnie was doing this for Donnie than he was to
Speaker 5: like clear his name or anything. And that might be
Speaker 5: me putting my own stuff on it, but yeah, that
Speaker 5: was just initially what I and I just you know,
Speaker 5: I just appreciate when people change, you know, like and
Speaker 5: so often people change for the worst, and it's rare
Speaker 5: to see a grown man just completely change. And it
Speaker 5: wasn't just that, it's you know, later he talked about
Speaker 5: his wife having cancer, and he talked about, you know,
Speaker 5: he was a knucklehead with as a family. He wasn't
Speaker 5: leading his family, his horsing around, not taking it serious.
Speaker 5: But even that, you know, it's like he got popped
Speaker 5: again in life and instead of shrinking back or collapsing
Speaker 5: in on himself, he kind of rose up. And it's
Speaker 5: just really admirable to me, you know, so I admired
Speaker 5: him for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Miss NUKEM.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think it's a it's it's really
Speaker 4: fascinating to me to see the impact that the stories
Speaker 4: had on people. And I've wondered a lot, like why
Speaker 4: is this story different? Because I do think that not
Speaker 4: every story that every poacher tells it's going to be
Speaker 4: this no endearing, you know, like it's not going to
Speaker 4: have this impact. And I don't think everyone responds this way.
Speaker 4: And I don't think that everyone. I think that there's
Speaker 4: like all these events in Donnie's life, uh, that that
Speaker 4: kind of shape a person. And and that's what you're
Speaker 4: The Donnie that we're hearing from in this podcast is
Speaker 4: a different person than the Donnie that that shot the deer.
Speaker 4: And there's a whole range of things that happened that
Speaker 4: produced who's talking on this podcast. And so to me,
Speaker 4: it's kind of fascinating to watch, honestly, like the power
Speaker 4: of suffering and whether whether that suffering is directly linked
Speaker 4: to him shooting this deer or not, Like the wife,
Speaker 4: his wife's that situation that's not necessarily that's not it's
Speaker 4: not like that is an outcome of this what he
Speaker 4: did with the deer, but that it produced something in
Speaker 4: him and that change just perspective of how he saw
Speaker 4: that part of his life. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 4: suffering is a very humbling thing. And he did suffer
Speaker 4: from what the dear situation, and he did suffer from
Speaker 4: these other situations. And I think that humility is something
Speaker 4: that when you see it in people, you can you
Speaker 4: can you can relinquish a lot of a lot of guilt,
Speaker 4: a lot of blame, a lot of you can like
Speaker 4: you can take it away from them, you know you can.
Speaker 4: It does, And I don't know why, but I think
Speaker 4: it does produce something in people if they, you know,
Speaker 4: depending because some people get bitter when they suffer, some
Speaker 4: people get angry when they suffer.
Speaker 3: But if you if you can let it.
Speaker 4: Shape you, you know, like a like a river in
Speaker 4: a canyon, then it can actually produce something really good.
Speaker 4: And and to me, I think that's the the thing
Speaker 4: that I see inside of this is that suffering produce
Speaker 4: something in him that people want, people find endearing. It
Speaker 4: moves people, and uh and you can almost it allows
Speaker 4: you to look at his life differently than just seeing
Speaker 4: that that thing that happened.
Speaker 6: I was going to try to say the same thing
Speaker 6: you were but I'm not a doctor.
Speaker 7: Is there more?
Speaker 4: Well, that's that's all I was I was going to say,
Speaker 4: is just I think that that's what That's the thing
Speaker 4: that's actually impacting here is what that produces.
Speaker 1: The theme of human suffering is something that man since
Speaker 1: the beginning of time, and all cultures and all literature
Speaker 1: and all movies, in all conversations. It's the theme of mankind.
Speaker 1: It's suffering. And and it's so ironic because the intent
Speaker 1: of every warning, every human life. We wake up and
Speaker 1: we try not to suffer. I mean, we try to
Speaker 1: do things that are beneficial for our families, that are
Speaker 1: beneficial for us. We we we try to avoid suffering.
Speaker 1: But the ironic thing is is that suffering is actually
Speaker 1: the crucible in which character and all the things that
Speaker 1: actually matter in life yeah happen. I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: no way around it. And and and how we respond
Speaker 1: to that that difficult and suffering could be described is
Speaker 1: not always like the death of someone really close to you.
Speaker 1: Suffering is comes in. It's scalable at all levels. Scalable too,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 7: It's all relative to what what what you're talking about exactly.
Speaker 1: I Mean, there's really big macro suffering of yeah, like
Speaker 1: the death of a family member or or you have
Speaker 1: cancer yourself, down to suffering of you know, you don't
Speaker 1: get to go eat out because you're you're saving money
Speaker 1: and you're you're you're you're sacrificing for something, and some
Speaker 1: people could be that as some level of suffering or whatever.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what what stood out to you, Brent about it?
Speaker 1: This like the if you could Okay, let me let
Speaker 1: me say this. I have never gotten in it one
Speaker 1: single day and probably never will again. The amount of
Speaker 1: text messages from grown men, some of them in this room,
Speaker 1: who texted me or messaged me contacted me saying that
Speaker 1: they cried in their.
Speaker 5: Truck about the walk in the Lows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 5: A little awkward.
Speaker 7: I was in the in the you know what.
Speaker 2: I called you right after I was in the I
Speaker 2: was still in the driveway and just listened to it.
Speaker 2: And I was already getting text messages from other people
Speaker 2: that don't have your phone numbers, like this is the
Speaker 2: best one I've ever heard. So I when I quit
Speaker 2: sniveling enough that I could make sense and give you
Speaker 2: a call. It's such a human story. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 2: way you can live on this planet to an adulthood
Speaker 2: and not be able to identify with hardship and levels
Speaker 2: of it. If the worst thing that ever happened to
Speaker 2: that guy was him shooting a two hundred and four
Speaker 2: inch deer and getting.
Speaker 1: Caught being fired one hundred and fourteen dollars, he.
Speaker 7: Would be a happy guy. But that is an insignificant blip.
Speaker 2: It ain't even a ripple in the hardship of life
Speaker 2: that he had to go through and put. He put
Speaker 2: all that stuff in perspective, and to me it was
Speaker 2: I was endearing with his navigation of hardship and keeping
Speaker 2: his eyes focused on his kids.
Speaker 7: Kids.
Speaker 2: To me, are that's what I have fought for for
Speaker 2: my whole life, my whole career. I was fighting every
Speaker 2: day to try to take care of a kid that
Speaker 2: somebody else wasn't taken care of, and that the focus
Speaker 2: on that is what really stood out to me. Because
Speaker 2: he had he didn't have every right. No one ever
Speaker 2: has or the right to be bitter that they have excuse,
Speaker 2: they have reasons why they're bitter.
Speaker 7: You, I don't think you have the right to be better.
Speaker 7: I don't think you earn a right.
Speaker 2: To be bitter and hard and cold, but he had
Speaker 2: every reason that he could have been that way, but
Speaker 2: he chose to keep going, fighting through, fighting through it.
Speaker 2: And I still say, I still hold my gun, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I am so.
Speaker 7: For the law enforcement.
Speaker 2: Yes that if you plead not guilty to something and
Speaker 2: then you get found guilty, they ought to try you
Speaker 2: again for perjury because obviously you lied. I don't think
Speaker 2: this guy as a poacher. I think he was he
Speaker 2: violated the law. I think he's a violator. A poacher
Speaker 2: to me is somebody that leaves their house with intent
Speaker 2: to go do it. And I said it on the
Speaker 2: other render, but that that just kept coming back to
Speaker 2: me and I just don't. I don't see him that way,
Speaker 2: and I didn't see it that way at.
Speaker 5: All, And that being a violator makes some human Like
Speaker 5: every one of us in this room is a violator.
Speaker 5: Everyone that listened to the to this podcast is a violator.
Speaker 5: And he broke Chicken, I broke a lot of law. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's but there's I don't know, it's just and that's
Speaker 5: the humanity, right, Like I think the stories that touch
Speaker 5: us on that deep level. It like some of this
Speaker 5: reminded me of the Book of Job you know, and
Speaker 5: you see a guy rise up and it's it's identifiable.
Speaker 5: You know, a guy that you know you mentioned in
Speaker 5: Bathsheba or sin crouching at your door. We've all done that,
Speaker 5: whether it's a test or whether it's something in business,
Speaker 5: and as soon as the bird whatever, we've all done that.
Speaker 5: And I think, what it's rare you hear a story
Speaker 5: that's just so identifiable and it ends up going the
Speaker 5: right way. And I think for me when I hear
Speaker 5: heard Donnie's story, it was the reason it touched me
Speaker 5: is because that's how I would like to think I
Speaker 5: would react, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't feel like i'd admire him.
Speaker 7: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: I don't feel sorry for anything that happened to him.
Speaker 2: I sympathize and empathize with him, but I admire how
Speaker 2: you come through it.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me. I'm going to paint a picture for you,
Speaker 1: and I want to tell you what you guys would
Speaker 1: do in this scenario. Say, there was a national podcast
Speaker 1: that told the story of a poacher. In this podcast,
Speaker 1: the intent of everybody that's ever been and on it
Speaker 1: was for the benefit of wildlife, wild places, adherence to
Speaker 1: the law and integrity and actually A big theme inside
Speaker 1: of the whole podcast was integrity and character. Let's say
Speaker 1: that guy that had that podcast interviewed a man who
Speaker 1: had committed an egregious wildlife crime, and at the end
Speaker 1: of that everyone felt sympathy for the poacher. How do
Speaker 1: you justify this?
Speaker 6: I got you.
Speaker 1: Do you hear what you're saying? I mean, like if
Speaker 1: you were an alien from another planet and you looked
Speaker 1: in my head and you looked at my life. I
Speaker 1: had never had an outlaw stage like I've broken the law.
Speaker 1: I never I had a guy tell me the other day.
Speaker 1: He said he didn't know me, and he said, Clay,
Speaker 1: you're fascinated with the poachers. Either you're an old poacher
Speaker 1: or you were so not a poacher that you're peering
Speaker 1: into this realm with like a lot of curiosity. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to paint myself like a saint, but
Speaker 1: I mean I never did stuff on purpose illegally ever,
Speaker 1: even being exposed at a high level to hunting in
Speaker 1: rural America when everybody around me was. I say that
Speaker 1: to say, if you looked inside my an alien could
Speaker 1: scan my head.
Speaker 6: I'm kind of an alien, okay, And.
Speaker 1: Why so, how can we justify this because the only
Speaker 1: you know, I've got very little criticism for this public,
Speaker 1: you know, and how much criticism actually reaches you is
Speaker 1: hard to evaluate. Like we just have these platforms that
Speaker 1: people can communicate. But I've had some people say you
Speaker 1: were glamorizing poaching.
Speaker 6: Let me say, I would like to say that it
Speaker 6: was a human story, but for a listener, I think
Speaker 6: we listened to it as a as Americans, and as
Speaker 6: Americans you've showcased it throughout your entire three season whatever.
Speaker 6: How that outlaw, the frontiersman, the guy who's going to
Speaker 6: take a risk, the chance, all of that. That's a
Speaker 6: very American thing. I'm sure other countries have those kinds
Speaker 6: of people, but as Americans, we like to see suffering
Speaker 6: and learn from it. Whether it's in sports, the guy
Speaker 6: that pushes the extra mile. You know, you look at
Speaker 6: those marathon guys and maybe they're just struggling to get
Speaker 6: over the line. We admire those people that struggle. I
Speaker 6: will be the first one to say I don't believe
Speaker 6: you find success without suffering. I think that if you
Speaker 6: don't suffer as a small business person, you're probably not
Speaker 6: going to have a successful business. It's real hard for
Speaker 6: us to look at people who are born with wealth
Speaker 6: and think that they earned something. We want to see
Speaker 6: them suffer. It gives them some street cred, you know.
Speaker 6: And so as an alien looking down at Clay, my
Speaker 6: opinion would be that story taught us how to do
Speaker 6: things right. We've listened to his whole spiel. We feel
Speaker 6: like we know this guy. I don't know what he
Speaker 6: looks like. When I first heard Donnie Baker, I was
Speaker 6: thinking of the comedian with man Donnie something else.
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't have been awesome if that was Donnie.
Speaker 6: I think Donnie probably looks like all of us, you know.
Speaker 6: I think his day to day activities are like all
Speaker 6: of us, and we learned that don't be like Donnie
Speaker 6: in that one instance. But if you can recover from
Speaker 6: sacrifice like Donnie did, that's a that's a high price
Speaker 6: right there.
Speaker 2: Well, if I understand the story right, if I was
Speaker 2: listening to all the the legal issues part of it.
Speaker 2: Thing he did was shoot that deer you u yeah,
Speaker 2: zone in the wrong spot because it was during deer season.
Speaker 7: He did with archery legal archery tackle.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, yeah, he had a right to hunt
Speaker 1: on the base.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, so it was just one spot, so I
Speaker 7: mean that is just one.
Speaker 1: Well, and then and then illegal falsification of where he
Speaker 1: killed it, which was big. So there's two major.
Speaker 2: Correct But as far as the act of what he
Speaker 2: did off shooting that deer, the only thing he did
Speaker 2: wrong was he was in the wrong spot.
Speaker 7: But he knew it.
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm just saying it wasn't like you talk
Speaker 2: about intent and all that stuff. And he didn't do
Speaker 2: it at night. He wasn't with a rifle on top
Speaker 2: of the building.
Speaker 1: Like there's been a little misk, a little misunderstanding with
Speaker 1: some people, and I've heard it enough times that it's
Speaker 1: worth clarifying. People have heard me say Donnie didn't have intent,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, yeah he did. He shot a
Speaker 1: deer with his bow. He didn't just sling an air
Speaker 1: into the woods and accidentally hit it. It would have
Speaker 1: been better if I said pre med take it and
Speaker 1: I and I said, basically, I was saying intent matters,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, but there's no, there's no, not even
Speaker 1: a debate that premeditated intent matters with punishment. In the
Speaker 1: murder one murder two. We know that's from our nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties rap days, right, Misty, I thought you're gonna say
Speaker 1: law and order, Well, law and order, but also following,
Speaker 1: you know, probably more law and order.
Speaker 5: We got a lot of questions about Clay nukemb.
Speaker 7: Now I'm not versed on the gates.
Speaker 5: It explains the two.
Speaker 1: Murder one murder.
Speaker 8: Too, Clay.
Speaker 7: I thought it was.
Speaker 8: I thought it was some of the criticism that was, like,
Speaker 8: you're glorifying poaching and law breaking, and I don't. I
Speaker 8: don't understand that point of view because there was nothing
Speaker 8: that was glorified about out the illegal thing that Donnie did, right.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't like we were saying this is
Speaker 1: cool exactly.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 8: I think we were invited as listeners to have empathy
Speaker 8: for what he had gone through. We were also invited
Speaker 8: to put ourselves in his shoes and think about times
Speaker 8: when we had been tempted and how had we reacted.
Speaker 8: And it could have been you know, whether you were
Speaker 8: tempted to poach or tempted to you know, knock a
Speaker 8: couple of strokes off your score on a certain golf hole,
Speaker 8: or you know, whatever the case is going to be, right,
Speaker 8: you're always presented with temptation, and you know the magnitude
Speaker 8: of the sin, so to speak, or the transgression. Yeah,
Speaker 8: probably kind of informs how you react and what you
Speaker 8: do and things like that. But there was nothing glorifying
Speaker 8: about the conversation at all. And and that's what you know,
Speaker 8: I think. I think anybody who listens hopefully to this
Speaker 8: render and had made the decision not to listen to
Speaker 8: those two podcasts because it was glorifying poaching, yeah, I
Speaker 8: would just I would just ask them to listen to
Speaker 8: it from the standpoint of trying to learn something about
Speaker 8: yourself and about humanity, almost like you're having a mirror
Speaker 8: held up to yourself, because I think that's what you
Speaker 8: really did with with these is you kind of held
Speaker 8: a mirror up to all of us and said, give
Speaker 8: yourself a look and and think about what you would
Speaker 8: do in the situation, or remember that time in your
Speaker 8: life when you were attempted, and did you did you
Speaker 8: live up to what you what you wanted to do,
Speaker 8: could you have done better? Are you doing better? I mean,
Speaker 8: that's this is all stuff that I've kind of ye
Speaker 8: taken away from it. So it really that that one
Speaker 8: piece of criticism that I saw, I think that you're
Speaker 8: talking about of you know, it is glorifying law breaking.
Speaker 8: I just I don't think that was right.
Speaker 6: I don't want to say too much because tax season
Speaker 6: is just around the corner.
Speaker 5: Behind it.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 1: I think what people would say, well, what what.
Speaker 5: Is?
Speaker 1: Well, there's kind of a philosophy, and it would be
Speaker 1: clear is that you know, nobody knew Donnie Baker's name
Speaker 1: before this and now they do, so that would be
Speaker 1: glorifying a poacher. But the way, you know, I got
Speaker 1: to give credit to my buddy Steve Vanella in some ways,
Speaker 1: not directly for Donnie Baker. He didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: it before it happened and whatnot. But but years ago
Speaker 1: I remember asking Steve about some controversial stuff, stuff that
Speaker 1: I've done that actually made the air. And for instance,
Speaker 1: in the Warner Glendale I brought up a little bit
Speaker 1: about the border wall. We were hunting right on the
Speaker 1: Mexican border. We were like looking at the border wall.
Speaker 1: We were finding immigration, illegal illegal, evidence of illegals, all
Speaker 1: just strown over the landscape. And I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't talk about this, right And he was like,
Speaker 1: why not? You talked about it we were down there hunting,
Speaker 1: didn't you. And I was like, yeah, it's like all
Speaker 1: we talked about, and he was like, talk about it.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Several other times. I messaged Ranella one time and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: is it okay if I play a clip of of
Speaker 1: Alabama governor that was the lead racist in the world
Speaker 1: for a while, George Wallace and his infamous speed each
Speaker 1: about segregation forever, Like I put it in there, and
Speaker 1: then I was like, holy cow, I'm broadcasting George Wallace's voice.
Speaker 1: I'm literally a message Renela and said can I put
Speaker 1: that on there? And he was like, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 1: It's part of the story. It's building, I mean, and
Speaker 1: he obviously knew that it was gonna tear that down.
Speaker 1: That gave me the confidence to stand in a story
Speaker 1: like this and just be like, hey, this is just
Speaker 1: the way it happened.
Speaker 8: There's there's too much effort right now in our society
Speaker 8: to cleanse and strip difficult conversations, difficult things from our
Speaker 8: past or difficult things from today. We have to be
Speaker 8: able to sit together and talk about whatever that shue
Speaker 8: is some bad stuff and it can be whatever.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 8: You have to be able to be in a place
Speaker 8: to compare and contrast, to think critically about what's going on.
Speaker 8: We have to teach our kids how to do this.
Speaker 6: Gott to enjoy liberty exactly.
Speaker 8: That's exactly right, Joe.
Speaker 6: You don't have liberty. You don't have freedom.
Speaker 8: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 6: Your liberty to showcase a story right or wrong, that's liberty, man.
Speaker 7: That's what.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's how we're sitting in this room.
Speaker 1: That's really the philosophy of the guy who was like,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have told this story, is like, that's a no,
Speaker 1: no story and we don't need to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And in his mind, as you know, and and and honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean there's some credence to that in the sense
Speaker 1: of that's in the in the zeitgeist, it's in the
Speaker 1: atmosphere because I picked it up, like, hey, this is risky.
Speaker 1: Nobody else is talking about stuff like this, but I
Speaker 1: talk about it all the time when the MIC's not on.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't I talk about it? Now?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 1: And and I'm learning that those are stories that that
Speaker 1: are usually really impacting and and and profitable if they're
Speaker 1: told in the right way, you know.
Speaker 8: And personally profitable, like internally profitable, because you.
Speaker 3: Could be economically profitable.
Speaker 8: Your censors over here.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But also just like if you look at the law
Speaker 5: as the mechanism for building morality, that that's not how
Speaker 5: life works, right, it's community. Like the hardest thing he
Speaker 5: was nothing. It was going and telling his dad. It
Speaker 5: was telling all those folks that drove around that base
Speaker 5: he lost his dream job. And hey, I went to
Speaker 5: basic training, I went to be knock there. I spent
Speaker 5: a good chunk of my military career at Fort leonard Wood.
Speaker 1: Did you see that book?
Speaker 5: No? But I knew that gas station that but yeah,
Speaker 5: and uh, you know, it's like he lost his dream job.
Speaker 5: And if you feel like he kind of got like
Speaker 5: maybe hosed on that situation like that, that's where like
Speaker 5: the chemical defense training facility, they got like chemical weapon
Speaker 5: precursors and not being able to stay out of places
Speaker 5: you're not supposed to. The MP's had every right. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's a that's a millet. It's Fort leonard Wood. It's
Speaker 5: not hunting place leonard Wood. Yeah, it's it's not a
Speaker 5: no no, and so they you know, but like with community,
Speaker 5: when my kid, one of my kids was horsing around
Speaker 5: on a four Wheeler and he went on the County
Speaker 5: road last year or down on the street and he
Speaker 5: got hit and it just about killed him. And you know,
Speaker 5: he was fine. I mean, he was in a lot
Speaker 5: of pain and he was really really bad hurt, paramedics,
Speaker 5: police all that around him. And he lost it when
Speaker 5: I walked up, because he was more scared of me
Speaker 5: than anything going. And it's because he knew he'd elated
Speaker 5: my trust in the first It wasn't anything like, you know,
Speaker 5: I may never use my arm again or all that.
Speaker 5: It was just I'm sorry, Like that was the first
Speaker 5: and he was in kind of a life or death situation,
Speaker 5: like the the community aspect, and and I'm outside of
Speaker 5: the hunting community, but I have a one of my
Speaker 5: young men is boldly like eagerly stepping. But that guy,
Speaker 5: you know, he's in it, and so like outside of
Speaker 5: the community, what makes your community stronger is talking about
Speaker 5: this and realizing the shame that comes with it. The
Speaker 5: the the the worst part is having to go and
Speaker 5: say I did this, like I cheated?
Speaker 1: Did you hear when he said that he was in
Speaker 1: the hospital after that broke leg and the nurse recognized
Speaker 1: him as and the guy that had killed the huge deer,
Speaker 1: but she thought he killed it. She didn't know he
Speaker 1: killed it illegally. He's he's got a broke leg in
Speaker 1: the emergency room, and he tells her, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: killed it illegally.
Speaker 5: And even that, like he felt that need.
Speaker 1: Like he almost brought it up in the voiceover, almost
Speaker 1: wanted to go, hey, did y'all hear that?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he told the nerd, Like he could have just
Speaker 1: been like, yeah, it was awesome and been a hero.
Speaker 1: That's what she presented it as, Hey, you're the guy
Speaker 1: that killed a big buck.
Speaker 5: He's like, yeah, but before you set that leg, I'm
Speaker 5: actually a fraud. Yeah, you know. It's so there's something there,
Speaker 5: like the one hundred and forty one dollars. I actually
Speaker 5: think the way it worked out is more powerful than
Speaker 5: while they took your guns in your truck. Yeah, it
Speaker 5: seemed because of the human impact, because then you would
Speaker 5: feel like, well, he's been through enough, but just that
Speaker 5: having to go back losing his job in a poverty
Speaker 5: stricken area. That's not like that's right, I'm poverty stricken.
Speaker 5: But you know, like if that's a rural area, there's
Speaker 5: not a lot of good jobs. I get a good job. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so I think I don't think he got off easy.
Speaker 1: Okay, the the the white mast down in the room,
Speaker 1: was the one hundred and fourteen dollars? Fine, any any
Speaker 1: comments on that, Like, do y'all that that probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have happened today? I don't think.
Speaker 8: I don't. I kind of disagree, really, because I thought
Speaker 8: a lot about this over the last couple of days.
Speaker 8: I think, I mean, after saying everything I've already said,
Speaker 8: I kind of hesitate to say it this way, but
Speaker 8: I think that's I don't think they knew exactly what
Speaker 8: he'd done until he confessed, Okay, Yeah, and so that's
Speaker 8: all they had.
Speaker 1: Would you thought that if I hadn't said it?
Speaker 8: It took me. I mean I've listened to that second
Speaker 8: podcast three times and I only thought of this this Morning's.
Speaker 1: Why James is here. Thank you James. So those numbers.
Speaker 8: You're checking the mail? I I think they they knew
Speaker 8: that buck belonged. I mean, everybody knew that, Bucky, So
Speaker 8: they knew that. We know you didn't kill that buck
Speaker 8: over there. He can't figure out anything else. Maybe, And
Speaker 8: I mean I'm putting words in these guys mouth, right,
Speaker 8: so I don't know for sure, but I I honestly
Speaker 8: you asked the question, would he have gotten a bigger fine,
Speaker 8: not if they would have not, if they would have
Speaker 8: offered him like, hey, you know you need to plead
Speaker 8: guilty to this, and this is what the fine is
Speaker 8: going to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, so if you think they'd have said, they
Speaker 1: might have r guilty and we're gonna we're gonna find
Speaker 1: you ten thousand dollars, like they would have known he
Speaker 1: wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 8: They would have known, they would have had more. I
Speaker 8: think they would have had more on him.
Speaker 1: They would have had to have had more on it.
Speaker 2: Well that I agree. Yeah, you're the law enforcement guy.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent agree. And I say that from I'm
Speaker 2: a standpoint that I don't. I haven't seen that case file.
Speaker 2: But judging by everything that was said, and that's what
Speaker 2: that's the story that we have.
Speaker 7: To go with.
Speaker 2: And knowing what I know about law enforcement and interviews
Speaker 2: and people.
Speaker 1: You said that the first time, the very first you
Speaker 1: tell you, when I even just told you about the story, Brent.
Speaker 7: Said, yeah, they didn't have him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not this I'm not saying anything toward
Speaker 2: the investigators that they didn't do a good job.
Speaker 7: Sometimes you don't have much.
Speaker 8: Well, they had two weeks. They had been working on
Speaker 8: it for like two weeks. Right, he had been gone
Speaker 8: somewhere else, right, and then when he came back, they
Speaker 8: wanted to talk to him. So I'm with Brent, like,
Speaker 8: it's nothing against them.
Speaker 7: Oh, it's just sometimes you the clues ain't there.
Speaker 6: I know it's probably something more important going on. Yeah,
Speaker 6: crimes against humans. Yeah, and that that could sound negative
Speaker 6: to the outdoor world. But that same deer could have
Speaker 6: tried crossing the road and got run over and no
Speaker 6: one would have cared about it. Someone would have said,
Speaker 6: do you see that big old deer dad on the
Speaker 6: side road? Law enforcement has a lot to do now.
Speaker 6: I say that with you asked if the one hundred
Speaker 6: and fourteen dollars was significant. I don't think most of
Speaker 6: us in the outdoors knows where that money goes. You know,
Speaker 6: I know where it goes here in the state of Arkansas.
Speaker 6: If you receive a fine that goes to the school
Speaker 6: district in the county that you.
Speaker 1: Use while life finds the money goes directly and.
Speaker 6: Which is a phenomenal system, and that system is put
Speaker 6: into play so that way people don't think that the
Speaker 6: game ORNs just out to meet a quota and to
Speaker 6: get them. It's to put a human side to the
Speaker 6: to the game order that he's protecting wildlife. I think
Speaker 6: that's a huge deal. I wish we knew where fines
Speaker 6: went to in all aspects of law and order.
Speaker 7: But I just want to make sure.
Speaker 2: I just want to to be clear when I say,
Speaker 2: regardless of if they had him or not, I don't
Speaker 2: personally think they did. But sometimes you have to go
Speaker 2: with what you have to get a conviction, you know,
Speaker 2: if when all things are come down and you know,
Speaker 2: but you don't know as an investigator, when you know,
Speaker 2: I know Clay did it. I know he did it,
Speaker 2: but I can't prove that he did it. The rest
Speaker 2: of that falls on Clay to either fess up and
Speaker 2: cleanse his soul and try to do right by what
Speaker 2: he did wrong. And that's what I like about this story,
Speaker 2: because that guy did it and he didn't have to.
Speaker 2: I really, I really don't think he did.
Speaker 1: I said it, and I hesitated to bring the Missouri
Speaker 1: Department of Conservation into it, but in some ways I
Speaker 1: felt like I owed it to them for sure. And
Speaker 1: then I also think I owed it to the listener.
Speaker 1: I reached out to those guys and they were fantastic.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just glowing praise for the Missouri Department
Speaker 1: of Conservation. It just wasn't possible to talk to the
Speaker 1: game wardens that did the case. These guys are still active,
Speaker 1: still working, they're not retired, and it's just not in
Speaker 1: their job description to talk to podcasters.
Speaker 5: From another state.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it like, I got it. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to those guys. Yeah, for what I was doing,
Speaker 1: that would have made the most sense to sit down
Speaker 1: with someone and be like, dude, did you know Donnie
Speaker 1: did it? And that's just not the way it worked.
Speaker 1: I was contacted though, by a very high level official
Speaker 1: in the I mean he called me on my cell phone.
Speaker 1: He didn't he didn't know about the Burger Ease podcast.
Speaker 1: He didn't know who I was.
Speaker 5: For real.
Speaker 1: I was just a dude that he was calling that
Speaker 1: had asked about this crime committed in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: And he called me multiple times and talked to me
Speaker 1: about Donnie and offered to be a guest on the
Speaker 1: Beargrease and I it just didn't fit inside like this
Speaker 1: guy actually like he he was not. He didn't know
Speaker 1: about the case previously. I mean, you know, not everybody
Speaker 1: knows every single poaching violations that's happened in their state
Speaker 1: in the last thirty years. So he didn't know about it.
Speaker 1: He learned about it by reading about it and by
Speaker 1: talking to the guys that were part of it. And
Speaker 1: so I just didn't feel like it would make a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense.
Speaker 8: It would have, it would have changed the story. It
Speaker 8: wouldn't have changed the nature of the story if you
Speaker 8: if you had had.
Speaker 5: Got a he just offered.
Speaker 1: I just I just had to make an editorial decision
Speaker 1: to not include it in anyway. I just give so
Speaker 1: much credit to them, and I I hope they're not
Speaker 1: I hope they're not upset with me.
Speaker 5: I mean, they had like five guys. I mean, as
Speaker 5: a as a layman here I did. I left depression
Speaker 5: and with the impression they're very serious about deer because
Speaker 5: they have five guys working at When my four wheeler
Speaker 5: was stolen, I could barely get one county shirt. But
Speaker 5: deer is a big deal in Missouri. Thought four wheeler
Speaker 5: theft is not.
Speaker 6: But you know, it's one of the It sounded like
Speaker 6: Donnie's wife was. She's a She's a big part of
Speaker 6: the lighter end of this episode and that struggle with cancer,
Speaker 6: the willingness to go and try and alternate medicine, anything
Speaker 6: to survive, which I'm a fan of that whole realm
Speaker 6: as well. But uh, for her to come from a
Speaker 6: stage four cancer, go and remission, come back and catch
Speaker 6: it again. You know the people we didn't hear from
Speaker 6: were those boys, And you think about the sacrifice leads
Speaker 6: to success. Those boys are gonna be some tough kids.
Speaker 6: You know. They've went through a whole bunch and they
Speaker 6: probably idolized their dad. They watched him fail, and it's
Speaker 6: super important that he succeeds to give those kids a crutch.
Speaker 6: They obviously the mom was there and responsible for the
Speaker 6: kids all the time while Donnie was out jacking around.
Speaker 6: They lost their mom.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 6: It's it's an amazing story, man. It pulls at every
Speaker 6: heart string that you could you could pull that. I
Speaker 6: never knew that you were going to be like the
Speaker 6: Oprah Winfrey of the outdoors.
Speaker 5: Uh check under your chair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about how about the wedding dress and the
Speaker 2: story that story that that was, and I'm talking about
Speaker 2: where they tried out this dog they couldn't afford, and
Speaker 2: she loved it so much that she said that the
Speaker 2: money that I got saved up from my wedding dress, we'll.
Speaker 7: Buy that dog. And they did. And man, that was that.
Speaker 2: It hit me right in the old fields when I
Speaker 2: was already getting them punched up pretty good.
Speaker 7: But to me, that is an.
Speaker 2: Absolute demonstration of pure love. That she was giving up
Speaker 2: something that she had probably dreamed about as a little girl,
Speaker 2: but something that no one was she going to get,
Speaker 2: but she was going to share that with her husband.
Speaker 7: Man, that was that was true.
Speaker 1: And how that dog became this thread that their family
Speaker 1: traveled all over and they brought their bulls. I mean
Speaker 1: that was such a big part of their boys life.
Speaker 1: That dog lived fifteen years, just died like last year.
Speaker 1: I think you said her years ago.
Speaker 7: Yeah, just yeah, recently.
Speaker 2: But that was something to always talk about, tangible things
Speaker 2: that you can reach out and hold. And they could
Speaker 2: pick up that dog that their mama had, that their
Speaker 2: mama loved, that, the that their mama was the reason
Speaker 2: that thing was in their their home.
Speaker 7: That's gotta be a lot of connections.
Speaker 6: This is This is one of those you know, we
Speaker 6: all of us in the outdoors, we try to think
Speaker 6: about how we could bridge a gap to get to
Speaker 6: those who aren't in the outdoors, and out of all honesty,
Speaker 6: it takes stories such as this to put kind of
Speaker 6: the human side to the hunter.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: And if you were going to share an episode of
Speaker 6: bear Grease or a series of bear Grease to someone
Speaker 6: who's outside of this broad circle, this would be the
Speaker 6: one to share. And we need little pieces like this
Speaker 6: to keep the big mission going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, how surprised were you? I looked
Speaker 1: at the time stamps on this second episode and there
Speaker 1: was twelve minutes left in a fifty six minute episode
Speaker 1: before he started talking about Angela's cancer. Did it slip
Speaker 1: up on you or was it foreshadowed enough? Because I'll
Speaker 1: tell you going into it, I didn't know Donnie he
Speaker 1: I think I knew that he was married and that
Speaker 1: his wife had died, like I just somehow picked that
Speaker 1: up from maybe maybe even Facebook, looking at his Facebook
Speaker 1: or something, And so I didn't know that this was
Speaker 1: going to come up like it wasn't like I came
Speaker 1: in thinking we're going to talk about his wife. No.
Speaker 1: I mean I thought I was interviewing a guy about
Speaker 1: killing the deer, and that's where it went. So I
Speaker 1: was shocked. I mean, I'm sitting there just like, holy smokes.
Speaker 1: Is that the way it felt to you guys? I mean,
Speaker 1: did you see that coming or no?
Speaker 7: No, it looked like that. Yeah.
Speaker 5: If I would have knew that was coming, that's where coming.
Speaker 5: I was right there, just about to walk in the door.
Speaker 1: I don't know how the flowers before it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: the prices are high. Yeah, that's an economy.
Speaker 7: You're supposed to be able to talk about true things.
Speaker 1: One the economy is actually pretty good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wondered how it because I didn't realize
Speaker 1: when I look back at the timestamp, like it was
Speaker 1: the last twelve minutes when it all when it all happened, I.
Speaker 4: Knew it was coming. I was kind of surprised that
Speaker 4: you hadn't when I actually because you told me how
Speaker 4: long the podcast was. So I kind of had my
Speaker 4: mind how And I thought, man, I think I'm almost
Speaker 4: done with this thing, and I haven't heard I haven't
Speaker 4: heard about his wife yet.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was waiting for that part of the story.
Speaker 1: So now did you know that was coming?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 8: I mean I thought you alluded to it in the
Speaker 8: first episode that.
Speaker 1: Oh I said he was a widower. Yeah, the first episode.
Speaker 1: That's right, in the beginning, I said he was a widower,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, the foreshadow
Speaker 1: foreshadow man.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's a good storytelling though.
Speaker 1: Oh shoot, what was I going to say? The the
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I had something right on the tip
Speaker 1: of my tongue and I got to thinking about it.
Speaker 1: You ask him if he liked to eat squirrel? No,
Speaker 1: he should come to the World Championship. You know, you
Speaker 1: know who's who says he's probably gonna come. So the
Speaker 1: black Bear Bonanza, Joe Wilson, Donnie Baker, Oh really.
Speaker 7: Well we might.
Speaker 6: We might need to get done sitting next Sprint Reeves
Speaker 6: or something like that.
Speaker 4: Judgency, let's not do that to Donny's so you can
Speaker 4: wear one of thes and come to the other.
Speaker 5: Squirrel.
Speaker 7: Did you eat? Oh my gosh, you was all I
Speaker 7: could hold.
Speaker 1: Here's what I was gonna say. Here's what I was
Speaker 1: going to say. The podcast just ends with with I
Speaker 1: thought it was what I didn't what I didn't include
Speaker 1: which I was a little bit torn, but but I
Speaker 1: felt like from a I just felt like that story
Speaker 1: ended the story. It was just like in kind of
Speaker 1: people came to their own conclude, Like I didn't need
Speaker 1: to sum it up with a v O of like
Speaker 1: these are the conclude I usually would like. I usually
Speaker 1: would be like, here's what we learned, here's there's you know,
Speaker 1: I was just kind of like that story told itself,
Speaker 1: made his own gravy. But what I almost included was
Speaker 1: about a two minute a minute section where he talked
Speaker 1: about his life today and he has a really great
Speaker 1: job and his family's doing well, and it's like things
Speaker 1: are going going well for Donnie and and and uh
Speaker 1: and he's actually, yeah, that's all.
Speaker 7: That's all.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you included that in this because that was
Speaker 2: one thing that I wondered. I wonder how he's doing now,
Speaker 2: because I hope he's doing well, right, Yeah, And I
Speaker 2: think that is a lot of closure for the folks
Speaker 2: that are listening that, uh.
Speaker 6: Because with that hope it gives somebody who did something wrong.
Speaker 7: Yeah, hope maybe maybe I can overcome it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that I can overcome it.
Speaker 2: Because he the dear thing is inconsequent Yeah, that's the
Speaker 2: only reason. The only reason that is relevant is because
Speaker 2: we do an outdoor tem podcast. That's the you were
Speaker 2: there that all this all came about. I don't think
Speaker 2: it was coincidence. I don't think it was by chance.
Speaker 2: I think this story had needed to be told and
Speaker 2: the only thing that could light the fuse was the deer.
Speaker 2: Because the deer, to me, is is inconsequential to this story?
Speaker 7: Is anything.
Speaker 1: There's a guy there Instagram that said I've got a
Speaker 1: fever and the only thing that could cure it is
Speaker 1: more and that's Saturday night, Like yeah that When he
Speaker 1: said that, I was like, I laughed. I don't know
Speaker 1: who it was. Good job Instagram person. Uh but.
Speaker 8: Back to black Beard bananza.
Speaker 1: Back to the Black Bear bananza.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this backwards because I wanted us
Speaker 1: to talk about the Donniebacker episode before we finish off.
Speaker 1: There is there anything else? I mean, there's so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could talk about well, we talked about intent, we
Speaker 1: talked about the fines. The whole fine thing is is
Speaker 1: important because that that would make if I didn't know
Speaker 1: this story and you told me a guy killed a
Speaker 1: big deer and got one hundred and fourteen dollars fine,
Speaker 1: I would be pounding the table saying injustice, and I
Speaker 1: believe that I just can't help but believe that today
Speaker 1: that would have been different.
Speaker 6: Might be.
Speaker 4: But also, I mean to their point, I think it's
Speaker 4: possible they didn't know that, like the egregious nature that he,
Speaker 4: you know, hauled it out of there.
Speaker 1: Yeah they did, Okay, Well, I mean I think, I mean, they.
Speaker 3: Knew something wasn't right.
Speaker 4: I think they knew he didn't kill it where he
Speaker 4: said he did. I don't think they knew he hauled
Speaker 4: it out. Do you see what I'm saying. I think
Speaker 4: that makes a little bit of a difference. True, Like
Speaker 4: I wondered if when they heard the whole story, if
Speaker 4: they were like, well, shoot, opportunity, we probably should have
Speaker 4: taken it, you know, Like I wondered if that if
Speaker 4: it would have been different.
Speaker 3: But they said, this is how we're going to respond.
Speaker 6: I don't know how you come up with what a
Speaker 6: proper fine is, because when I drive through the state
Speaker 6: of Missouri through a construction zone, there's a sign that
Speaker 6: says hit a roadwork or get a ten thousand dollars fine.
Speaker 5: Rush.
Speaker 6: I mean that kind of sounds cheap as well. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, so coming up with some sort of guideline
Speaker 6: on what you find somebody is we don't vote on that. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, it's not the people. I don't know who comes.
Speaker 6: The judicial system comes up with it, I guess, but
Speaker 6: it sounded love well.
Speaker 1: Today there's these poacher trophy fees, right, which are which
Speaker 1: just weren't that. I don't know when they started, but
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago they certainly weren't as popular today. I
Speaker 1: would say probably every state has higher penalties for killing
Speaker 1: a bigger animal.
Speaker 6: Do you think that's to separate a guy who's hungry,
Speaker 6: who say, shot a deer, Yeah, because he needed food
Speaker 6: or to feed his family. He hits one hundred and
Speaker 6: fourteen dollars five. A guy that went out and shot
Speaker 6: a two hundred and four inch deer, he does well.
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a response to the cultural
Speaker 1: frenzy and celebration of big animals, and we've valued big
Speaker 1: animals to such a degree. And I'm not saying it's wrong.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting, and I think you could you
Speaker 1: could if we were standing before aliens who didn't live here.
Speaker 1: You can make a case that it's crazy, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's equivalent to cultural value because if Donnie Baker had
Speaker 1: killed he said it himself, I said it. If he'd
Speaker 1: killed one hundred and ten inch eight point like that,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be telling the story. We never would have
Speaker 1: known about it, and that wouldn't have been that big
Speaker 1: a deal because the deer was so big, and there's
Speaker 1: so much cultural value placed on antler size, and with
Speaker 1: what we've seen the craziness of what people will do
Speaker 1: to break the law to kill a big deer. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of stories. Mister. You said
Speaker 1: something earlier that I want to touch on before we
Speaker 1: get to the Black Bear Bonanza on March ninth and
Speaker 1: bitten Ville, l Arkansas. Is you said that could Basically,
Speaker 1: you said that Donnie was different from like a standard
Speaker 1: poaching story, because part of me, if you give me criticism,
Speaker 1: I have thought about that criticism immensely before it probably
Speaker 1: ever popped into anyone's mind. I as I told this story,
Speaker 1: I thought, could I go to any poacher in America
Speaker 1: and tell an appealing story about their life?
Speaker 6: Probably?
Speaker 1: Okay, well, but that's bad, Joe, I know, but it's
Speaker 1: the truth. You could well, but but that's where it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: am I just glorifying spinning a story? I did it
Speaker 1: with Louis Dell and Charlie. I mean, and again, they're
Speaker 1: a great effect on all of us.
Speaker 7: What's that not a great effect on all of us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't like that one. And and again I
Speaker 1: wasn't spinning the story. I was just telling it the
Speaker 1: way I saw it, which was these guys I we
Speaker 1: liked them, but there were also egregious poachers. I listened
Speaker 1: this week to a podcast that had a poacher on it,
Speaker 1: and uh, I was like, I couldn't help this guy.
Speaker 1: Like it made me realize how special Donnie was. I
Speaker 1: went to another podcast that had a guy that was
Speaker 1: telling a story and I was like, dude, there's no
Speaker 1: story there there. Yeah, there's no there there. There wasn't.
Speaker 1: It just made me feel confident that Donnie's story is
Speaker 1: pretty unique.
Speaker 6: And you said, Donnie told his own story. You didn't
Speaker 6: have to coach him or anything. It wasn't like you
Speaker 6: were a defense attorney.
Speaker 2: Folks to get the idea you said, there's no way
Speaker 2: you could help that guy. You need to explain that
Speaker 2: you didn't go up there to help Donno, No, you
Speaker 2: went up there to let him tell he contacted you,
Speaker 2: yes about listening to us, and he wanted to he's
Speaker 2: here's a story.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it wasn't even like that. He just
Speaker 1: volunteered that story. Not he wasn't fishing for I think
Speaker 1: I honestly think the last thing on his that I
Speaker 1: was going to show up at his door, he just
Speaker 1: told me that he just gave he gave us a
Speaker 1: compliment on something we did, and he said, man, I
Speaker 1: identify I got in trouble years ago. And that's when
Speaker 1: I said, Hey.
Speaker 2: That's what That's what I want you to just put
Speaker 2: out there, that that you weren't trying to help him,
Speaker 2: you were just letting The.
Speaker 1: Point of the whole story was that. I think Donnie's
Speaker 1: story is very unique. Yeah, you couldn't. You couldn't do
Speaker 1: that with.
Speaker 5: Most people's crimes don't eat at them like I mean
Speaker 5: that thing he reached out to you like that is
Speaker 5: a weird thing. It's because it was eating them up.
Speaker 7: Still.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there there's a there's there's cleansing and
Speaker 5: transparency and I think like maybe other people had forgiven him,
Speaker 5: but he still hadn't forgiven himself. Even hearing that telling
Speaker 5: that story, you can tell you that's still really a
Speaker 5: raw subject.
Speaker 8: There's a couple of points when when he and I
Speaker 8: don't remember what the questions were, but there were a
Speaker 8: couple of points. It's where he answered a question that
Speaker 8: you asked him, and I think he was coming to
Speaker 8: a realization on something. So he was definitely still processing.
Speaker 1: When I said it was ego, yeah, and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, I guess it was.
Speaker 5: He's like, I wanted to be everybody know I was
Speaker 5: a great I killed him because I wanted everybody who
Speaker 5: didn't think I was like a great white you know, most.
Speaker 1: People wouldn't admit that. No, I mean they we'd all
Speaker 1: know it, but they wouldn't have the guts to just
Speaker 1: like say that.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: I think he's been thinking about it an awful long
Speaker 8: time to try to put sense to what he did
Speaker 8: and the outcomes from it. And and I can identify
Speaker 8: with that. I mean, there's things that I did when
Speaker 8: I was, you know, a teenager that I still think
Speaker 8: about and I'm like, what.
Speaker 5: Do you.
Speaker 1: Confession she'd a golf No, no, no, no, he killed
Speaker 1: the peregrine falcon with his driver on the button green
Speaker 1: a sparrow shot Randy Johnson.
Speaker 8: No, I I think that he's been wrestling with that
Speaker 8: stuff and and his had thought through a lot of
Speaker 8: it and had a lot of it figured out. But
Speaker 8: the few there was a few things there that you
Speaker 8: asked him that he you got him off, not to
Speaker 8: say off his game because that sounds bad. You made
Speaker 8: him think about something a little from a little different angle.
Speaker 8: And that's the point that that last thing that I
Speaker 8: wanted to say on the whole thing was that the
Speaker 8: reason why you can tell those stories about poachers or
Speaker 8: outlaws or you know, whatever it is, is because you
Speaker 8: don't bring it to us in a way of saying, hey,
Speaker 8: here's this cool guy. I listen to this cool story.
Speaker 8: You always bring it to us and you kind of
Speaker 8: walk us through different ways to think about it, different
Speaker 8: angles to think about it critically, and you leave it
Speaker 8: with us to decide how we feel about that particular story,
Speaker 8: you know. And I think that's a different way of
Speaker 8: doing it. So instead of you know, hey, Joe Smith,
Speaker 8: the Poacher's going to be on our podcast next week,
Speaker 8: you know you'd be sure and listen to it. Blah,
Speaker 8: blah blah. It's it's not told that way, and that's
Speaker 8: the refreshing part of what you do. And I'm not
Speaker 8: saying that so I can earn a spot back here
Speaker 8: for next week's episode to come back. I just think
Speaker 8: I'm I mean, I'm just trying to probably speak for
Speaker 8: those of us who are out there listening and appreciate
Speaker 8: the way that you do what you do, whether you're
Speaker 8: talking about going down the Mississippi River, you know, as
Speaker 8: Brent's cub pilot, or you know, telling somebody's difficult story.
Speaker 8: You know, I know it's pilot.
Speaker 1: All in the the Donnie Baker conversation with this statement,
Speaker 1: Donnie the I think the last thing that Donnie would
Speaker 1: want us all to think about him is that he
Speaker 1: is a saint even today. Like he didn't like there's
Speaker 1: a there's a version of the story and reason you
Speaker 1: tell it and you and you make up this redemption
Speaker 1: story or not make it up. But but the but
Speaker 1: the end of it is like I'm different now, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm so different. I would never do that again, you know,
Speaker 1: distance me from that. Donnie didn't really have that deep
Speaker 1: of clarity on the redemption side of it. In a
Speaker 1: way but when he told it. But when he told
Speaker 1: his story, we could see it. It's like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: way different. And I say that to say, like, it's not.
Speaker 1: And there were parts of the interview that just weren't
Speaker 1: as relevant to keep on there like it's it's it's
Speaker 1: not a fairy tale story of this, like clean transition
Speaker 1: from this bad guy to good guy.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean very if you're expecting that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and Donnie. Donnie would tell me, he said,
Speaker 1: Clay it, I wouldn't have been able to do this,
Speaker 1: maybe even like five years after this happened, he said,
Speaker 1: there was I was bitter. I was mad. I felt
Speaker 1: like they lied to me about my job.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: I was scrambling, like this is fifteen years later, after
Speaker 1: all this stuff has happened in his life, after a
Speaker 1: long time of distillation that he's he's come to this conclusion.
Speaker 1: And the conclusion wasn't was not Clay I'm perfect today.
Speaker 1: I even tell told you, I said, he's had some
Speaker 1: what what I consider and somebody could debate me on it,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even go into the details of it
Speaker 1: because I might punch them. Is what I would consider
Speaker 1: minor wildlife violations that could have happened to anybody that's
Speaker 1: happened to him, since I mean he's not an outdoor
Speaker 1: media He's not like he's not trying to. He's just
Speaker 1: a guy that just like loves hunting, very passionate, very
Speaker 1: skilled bowhunter. And I mean, Kyleie great story. Stuff happens,
Speaker 1: and so anyway, does that make sense?
Speaker 7: Is that okay? Yeah?
Speaker 5: And I think like for me, just kind of one
Speaker 5: of the parting things is this episode kind of shook me.
Speaker 5: It shook how I look at myself because you had
Speaker 5: a guy and he did this thing that just you know,
Speaker 5: looking back at it like that split season, you know,
Speaker 5: like he could have killed that deer many times, but
Speaker 5: then one day it was there and boom. And I
Speaker 5: look back at successes that I had in my life
Speaker 5: that I hold on to, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 5: if that went a different way, like things that I'm
Speaker 5: proud of, you know, I'm like, I might not have
Speaker 5: done it that way. I could have done it like
Speaker 5: a dirtball and been a dirt ball like everybody else.
Speaker 5: And so I think one of the things that did
Speaker 5: for me is it really took my trust out of myself,
Speaker 5: like that I would always have that moral thing like
Speaker 5: you know, like that's not a given in any of
Speaker 5: our lives, Like you can't rest on your haunches that
Speaker 5: I'm a great guy like And it goes back to
Speaker 5: that phrase you started off with David and crouching at
Speaker 5: the door conscious and it's a warning. And I think
Speaker 5: that's why this is so powerful, because that you could
Speaker 5: be you could step into what he stepped at any
Speaker 5: time if you're not careful.
Speaker 4: I think about, like with your kids. One of the
Speaker 4: things we talked about when this first came out is
Speaker 4: you tell your kids don't go to the party, like
Speaker 4: don't be there, because you could say I'm not going
Speaker 4: to do this. But if you're where it's happening, you
Speaker 4: know you're you don't know in the right circumstances what
Speaker 4: you what you would do and all the regret that
Speaker 4: that will produce. So stay far away, stay stay in
Speaker 4: the stay in another building, and then you know, be
Speaker 4: a mile away from it. And because it's true, you
Speaker 4: don't And I think on the other on the this
Speaker 4: side of it, you know we're looking at this. It
Speaker 4: should produce humility for everybody, not just like you don't
Speaker 4: know what you would do, but also what you've done.
Speaker 3: You know who you you've We've all done stupid stuff.
Speaker 7: Yesterday.
Speaker 1: This has been a great, great conversation.
Speaker 8: Benville, Arkansas. Where is it that James at the Benton
Speaker 8: County Fairgrounds this year? So we're moving venues. We outgrew
Speaker 8: the Quail Barn, so we'll have two indoor settings. Our
Speaker 8: food trucks will still be outside, but our main show
Speaker 8: that people would be familiar with will be in one building.
Speaker 8: We've hired an event production company to help us with
Speaker 8: sound and video this year, so people will be able
Speaker 8: to see and hear what's going on much better good.
Speaker 8: So you know, we'll have you know, cooking demo and
Speaker 8: a deer butchering demo that you know, will have some
Speaker 8: video production to help out with so people can really
Speaker 8: see what's going on on that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 8: then of course we'll so.
Speaker 1: The the Black Bear Bonanza is the premiere premium bear
Speaker 1: hunting event in the nation.
Speaker 5: That's what it is. You're saying, it's a big deal,
Speaker 5: it is, And.
Speaker 1: And how much does it cost to get in?
Speaker 8: Like ten ten dollars for everybody thirteen and over, So
Speaker 8: twelve and hundred gets in free.
Speaker 1: Kids get in free.
Speaker 8: It's get in free.
Speaker 1: And Brent and I was about to say, Brent Nukleman,
Speaker 1: I br Brent Reeves and I will be there all day. Yep,
Speaker 1: just just hanging out and we're going to do a
Speaker 1: live bear grease render podcast there. There's going to be
Speaker 1: a the Arkansas bear biologists and other people from the
Speaker 1: Game and Fish are doing a presentation on Arkansas black bear.
Speaker 7: That's right.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of vendors there.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be uh snakes there.
Speaker 8: There will be snakes there. There's gonna be all kinds
Speaker 8: of stuff for kids to see and do and touch
Speaker 8: and snakes.
Speaker 1: I was going to get to that nations Premiere olt
Speaker 1: Hooting contest. Let me say that again, the Nation's premiere
Speaker 1: ol hooting contest. One day we're gonna give away one
Speaker 1: day this year. One day we're going to give away
Speaker 1: a major prize.
Speaker 8: Now this year we're we're route, We're okay, So we're
Speaker 8: working on it. I doubt it's gonna happen this year,
Speaker 8: but we're working on it. We you know, we've talked
Speaker 8: about a particular kind of prize and there's a particular
Speaker 8: uh kind of enterprise out there.
Speaker 1: That could we be any more specific?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, but we all drove here today in trucks.
Speaker 1: I will give away Banjoe Newcomb to the winner of
Speaker 1: the nineteen No, no, just know you won't.
Speaker 5: Brent.
Speaker 8: So, Brent's gonna MC the world famous Alhot contest that'll
Speaker 8: be in the middle part of the day.
Speaker 1: A little jealous.
Speaker 5: About that man? Where where would Clay place? Let me
Speaker 5: ask Brent, you're where would he play? Is he an elite?
Speaker 5: Is he?
Speaker 7: Oh? He's he's a He's a top tier out of tier.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason that the reason that is because
Speaker 2: he's practiced. It's like anything, the more you practice, the
Speaker 2: better you get. Ten percent of the things that come
Speaker 2: out of this dude's head is an olt at any
Speaker 2: particular event, but.
Speaker 5: You don't get the real the qualit. The best olhats
Speaker 5: are in a basketball setting, and basketball, oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: sure on the hardwood that's where he's really at his own.
Speaker 1: Every time or Simon Spencer does a sweet move which
Speaker 1: happens all the time, which Simon Spencer is Spencer sun
Speaker 1: Well alhood as loud as I can, and Spence.
Speaker 7: Does his.
Speaker 1: Opposing has no idea, what's happening.
Speaker 5: But we'll go to like real in north central Arkansas
Speaker 5: and do it and occasionally we get one back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a joke any every How many games
Speaker 1: we had this year, Yeah, we had thirty games. I'm
Speaker 1: out hooted all one hundred times. Yeah, and then we
Speaker 1: go to some little four times five times per game.
Speaker 4: One of the mons asked me this week on our team,
Speaker 4: She said, can I put in a request for different animals?
Speaker 6: I was like, but you can put it in.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that they can more.
Speaker 4: And we said, you know, I hope it doesn't embarrass y'all,
Speaker 4: you know when we show up to these things, and
Speaker 4: she said, oh no, it's not embarrassing, and with a
Speaker 4: totally straight place, she said, it was very surprising the
Speaker 4: first time, and we are.
Speaker 1: So pumped at the last game. At the last game,
Speaker 1: we were at the opposing team. We were at a
Speaker 1: stadium and there was a whole you know, one hundred
Speaker 1: and something people like, you know, sixty feet from us
Speaker 1: across the way. They never I never saw a parent
Speaker 1: get up, like stand up like they would just cloud
Speaker 1: like reasonable humans. I'm already fired up last time and
Speaker 1: Spence We're standing the entire game al hooting, yelling, high fiving.
Speaker 5: Gary is pumping. I went to Gary, I went Gary,
Speaker 5: hit him with the black panther.
Speaker 2: Call and he's like, man, you know the folks on
Speaker 2: the other side of the gym was like, what WoT.
Speaker 5: You're not doing that the mermaids.
Speaker 1: But it's but it's not the alley, like are we
Speaker 1: playing the owl?
Speaker 7: Were playing the house.
Speaker 1: My dream is that one day when Shepperd Simeon like
Speaker 1: do something major, like everyone in the stadium will al
Speaker 1: hooting crow call my mom.
Speaker 3: I gotta tell this story and then we could do
Speaker 3: whatever we want.
Speaker 5: But going back to.
Speaker 4: From Jake, we were in a game a couple of
Speaker 4: weeks ago and it we are intense and shep was
Speaker 4: actually explaining to Simon.
Speaker 3: He's like, this is my grandma. Can you imagine the
Speaker 3: pressure that.
Speaker 4: Her watch asked a non conference, non important game, but
Speaker 4: her watch said are you okay? Because her heart rate
Speaker 4: was getting so out of control that they were like,
Speaker 4: whoa boy, what is going on with this?
Speaker 3: This is this is a yeah, this is this is
Speaker 3: his grandma.
Speaker 5: The best so is when we have we've got this
Speaker 5: rapidly urbanizing area with a lot of folks coming out
Speaker 5: of state in some school districts up told you allsway,
Speaker 5: and so we'll go there. And when we hit it there,
Speaker 5: the other team's players kind of like freezer. Yeah, they're
Speaker 5: not quite sure. It's just it's just a little discombobulating
Speaker 5: to be.
Speaker 1: In their life and here wildlife in the Dams James
Speaker 1: World Famous Alhoot.
Speaker 8: Famous Alhoot Contest at the Black Bourbonanza March ninth, Bent
Speaker 8: County Fairgrounds and Bentonville, Arkansas. It's from nine to five.
Speaker 8: We'd like people to buy tickets in advance. They buy
Speaker 8: tickets before February fifteenth, we're going to put him in
Speaker 8: a special drawing for a couple different rap prizes. They
Speaker 8: can go to www dot blackbear Bonanza dot com. It'll
Speaker 8: redirect them right to our website where they get the
Speaker 8: whole rundown on what's going on and they can buy
Speaker 8: their tickets. We also have added a little bit of
Speaker 8: camping this year. We got the option of the fair
Speaker 8: grounds have camping, nothing super fancy, so this is essentially
Speaker 8: gonna be primitive camping. We'll have Portajohn's on site. We're
Speaker 8: not gonna have there's some running water out there, and
Speaker 8: there's a few electric sites. But this is gonna be
Speaker 8: pretty basic. So don't don't come expecting like a total
Speaker 8: Woodstock festival HMP ground experience.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm not you're familiar.
Speaker 5: With deal well, I don't know if you've with this
Speaker 5: mud we've had lately.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, it could be well and and so I
Speaker 8: just you know, I don't want people to get too
Speaker 8: high of expectations. But we've had a request for that
Speaker 8: in the past, and so we've got that available this
Speaker 8: year as well.
Speaker 6: I kind of seen a sneak peek at one of
Speaker 6: the prizes.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, the knife.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I say, you get your own owl.
Speaker 1: Now, I got to chances we could get a live
Speaker 1: bear there.
Speaker 8: I mean, we need to talk to our bear biologist
Speaker 8: about that.
Speaker 5: We need a bear.
Speaker 6: Let that one they used to bring a bear to
Speaker 6: the Big but classic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they sure did.
Speaker 5: Like a live bear.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they used to have one down.
Speaker 5: That would be pretty cool. I'm in.
Speaker 6: So is there music or there will be?
Speaker 8: We're working on a little bit of music in the
Speaker 8: middle part of the day and then at the end
Speaker 8: of the day. And last year, Myron.
Speaker 1: The Arkansas bear biologist, incredible guy, fantastic banjo player. We
Speaker 1: played music. I'm not sure if we're going to play again,
Speaker 1: but there's gonna be some music, trust me.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So so we're working on a little bit of music.
Speaker 8: Our basic outline. The morning time will be all about
Speaker 8: our educational stuff, so kids come and see stuff and
Speaker 8: touch stuff. We're gonna have archery range. Umerax is bringing.
Speaker 8: They're gonna set up an air gun range for us,
Speaker 8: so kids can you know, get exposed to some of
Speaker 8: that kind of stuff. Of course, all the furs and
Speaker 8: game of fishes coming with their big fish tang So
Speaker 8: the goat year, I bet we'll have goats. Yeah, I
Speaker 8: don't know for sure that snake mountain pack goats. I'm
Speaker 8: pretty sure they'll be there. And so that's kind of
Speaker 8: the morning time is all that educational stuff. And then
Speaker 8: over the lunchtime or right around lunchtime, we'll have a
Speaker 8: little bit of music, and then we'll have the State
Speaker 8: of the Bears in Arkansas, and then we'll get into
Speaker 8: the render and and we'll do some of that stuff
Speaker 8: in the afternoon, and then of course drawing.
Speaker 1: That's great time.
Speaker 5: How many folks like, what are you shooting for?
Speaker 8: We had eight hundred and fifty people last year, and
Speaker 8: you know, we'd like we'd like to be in that
Speaker 8: range or maybe a thousand.
Speaker 7: You know what, do you know?
Speaker 8: Just transparently, we're trying to digest moving from one spot
Speaker 8: to another and kind of make sure we understand how
Speaker 8: traffic flows and and all that kind of stuff. I
Speaker 8: say that though, we're already ahead a schedule on ticket
Speaker 8: sales for this year, so you.
Speaker 6: Could fit a lot of people in a small space.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there'll be room. I mean, we're do everything we
Speaker 8: can to entertain every single person who comes out.
Speaker 5: Sounds like as a as a non hunter like, yeah, sounds.
Speaker 6: I'll try to I'll try to promote it a little
Speaker 6: bit too, and get out there. I know there's a
Speaker 6: lot of people in my circle who want to come
Speaker 6: to see it.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, it's a lot of good man, it's good.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for coming and uh, thank you.
Speaker 1: There's no Donnie Baker part three, so moving on. But
Speaker 1: it's it's it's possible.
Speaker 7: It'd be great.
Speaker 6: One last thing, you go on that audible, get that
Speaker 6: long hunter. You know, I'm three listens into it. By
Speaker 6: the fourth or fifth, I'll know what I'll be an expert.
Speaker 6: The pard that got me was Daniel Benn was forty
Speaker 6: years old before he ate buffalo. Mm hmm, it was
Speaker 6: It was an odd deal. I thought that guy'd be
Speaker 6: eating buffalo every night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you started eating buffalo, Brent, let's see, no
Speaker 1: thanks for thanks for listening to that audiobook. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: gotta thank everybody for that bought it. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have bought it, a lot of people have supported
Speaker 1: supported what we're doing, and that's been awesome.
Speaker 7: It was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was number one on Apple audiobooks like nationally,
Speaker 1: like not in like hunting.
Speaker 5: Books like that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like all audiobooks Short time Britney Spears. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a time when.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying that was unexpected. In the late nineties
Speaker 3: when I was.
Speaker 1: There, there was a chart that Misty screenshot that had
Speaker 1: me and Steve Vanella's name at number one in Britney
Speaker 1: Spears name it like number six, number nine.
Speaker 8: I'm just saying, was that was that like the second
Speaker 8: stage of you know, Clay and Missy's marriage goals is
Speaker 8: step one was too Yes, we got to put this.
Speaker 4: I felt like what Clay said on this podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 4: when he was like, I thought that. When I listened
Speaker 4: to it, I thought, wait, is Clay saying that the
Speaker 4: mission of our marriage is why do bad things happen
Speaker 4: to good people?
Speaker 8: Because we got married.
Speaker 1: And that was a bad thing.
Speaker 3: Like, that's what it sounded like.
Speaker 5: You were.
Speaker 3: Ya, I probably was a good person. That story funny.
Speaker 1: It was just a random question that we had when
Speaker 1: we got married.
Speaker 4: We had a lot of funny stuff happened at the
Speaker 4: beginning of our marriage, and we were like, man, what
Speaker 4: bad things happen to good people? And it just kind
Speaker 4: of became the catch race for a while.
Speaker 5: And now he's whooping up on Britain spirit. Yeah that
Speaker 5: sounds that sounds terrible, but you know, in the in
Speaker 5: the audiobooks,