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 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two the teaching dog stories.
Speaker 1: Nothing will pull at your heartstrings, make you laugh, aggravate you,
Speaker 1: or make you proud quicker than your dog. Since the
Speaker 1: first wolf slipped up to the fire and didn't try
Speaker 1: to eat the folks that was camped there eons ago
Speaker 1: to this morning when I walked outside the feet old way,
Speaker 1: dogs have been our faithful companions that love us unconditionally,
Speaker 1: even when we don't deserve it. It's all about our
Speaker 1: hunting buddies. This week the four legged ones on Meat
Speaker 1: Eaters This Country Life Podcast. But first, I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you a story. My dad was a very well
Speaker 1: known wolf hunter, and yet he had never actually seen
Speaker 1: a wolf in his life. It's just what folks in
Speaker 1: South Arkansas called kyoud hunting, and the hunting part was
Speaker 1: all about whose dog was leading the pack. The object
Speaker 1: was not to kill the kyoty, but to run him.
Speaker 1: And I guess I need to put this in context
Speaker 1: for all the cayote lovers out there, if there are any,
Speaker 1: which I doubt there are, and if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this of your own free will and not being forced
Speaker 1: under some kind of government sponsored enhanced terrogation technique. If
Speaker 1: that's the case, you might as well go ahead and
Speaker 1: fess up, because this ain't gonna get no better. But
Speaker 1: running a colt just means your hounds are trailing the
Speaker 1: scent of where the coyote has been, just like a
Speaker 1: coon hound trailing and barking after a coon that's been
Speaker 1: walking down the edge of a creek and follows his
Speaker 1: scent trail to whatever tree he eventually climbs. My dad's
Speaker 1: running dogs were just smelling and barking on the trail
Speaker 1: of the cold They main't never get close enough to
Speaker 1: even hear him trotting through the woods, and the coyote
Speaker 1: may slap get away from them by zigging when the
Speaker 1: dogs are zagging. I don't need any hate mail from
Speaker 1: the folks picturing wily coyote running through the desert with
Speaker 1: his ribs showing and his tongue hanging out. That ain't
Speaker 1: how it works as evidence. I all for exhibit A
Speaker 1: the red Man Coot story. I was just youngin and
Speaker 1: my dad and I were standing on a timber coming
Speaker 1: road that ran north and south one evening in the
Speaker 1: fall of the year. It was about fifteen minutes before dark,
Speaker 1: and we'd just cut the dog's loose, about six of them,
Speaker 1: out to the west of the road. One of his
Speaker 1: dogs had struck the scent of a cod from the
Speaker 1: back of the truck while we were driving. That's not
Speaker 1: unusual for a good dog to do that, but this
Speaker 1: dog was exceptional at it. He was a bone of fire,
Speaker 1: straight up running walker. Foxhound. Now y'all gonna think I'm
Speaker 1: messing with you, bringing the word fox into a story
Speaker 1: about code hunting that we call wolf hunting that ain't
Speaker 1: actually hunting. But this is where I'm from, and we're
Speaker 1: pretty much making up the rules as we go along. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was the time of day when headlights were no good,
Speaker 1: but the light from the sun wasn't much better, but
Speaker 1: you could still see in the open, but out in
Speaker 1: the woods it was dark, and like I said, the
Speaker 1: dog Old Red Man started barking in the back of
Speaker 1: the truck, and we were going down the roads. When
Speaker 1: we stopped, Dad said, dump them all. So I let
Speaker 1: the tailgate drop, and those hounds poured out of there
Speaker 1: like tea out of a picture. Red Man was leading
Speaker 1: the pack, and they had a due west straight away
Speaker 1: from us, with all of them barking every breath. Dad said,
Speaker 1: Old Red Man's got him, and the rest of them
Speaker 1: are going to put it on him. The dogs were
Speaker 1: sure enough, sanding the rails and moving directly away from
Speaker 1: us just as fast as they could go, everyone of
Speaker 1: them bawling and barking as loud and fast as they could.
Speaker 1: Now less than two or three minutes, and they were
Speaker 1: getting the pretty good ways out there, But boy, it
Speaker 1: sounded good. We were smiling at each other, listening to
Speaker 1: the race, and me trying to guess which dog was Witch,
Speaker 1: and Dad telling me if I was guessing right. They'd
Speaker 1: gone about as far as we could hear them when
Speaker 1: something caught my eye about two hundred yards away, and
Speaker 1: I looked down the road. It was a straight section
Speaker 1: of road that you couldn't see either end of from
Speaker 1: where we were standing. I said, Dad, look yonder. The
Speaker 1: cow just walked out in the road. I was standing
Speaker 1: at the right front fender of the truck and Dad
Speaker 1: was standing right beside me. He said where. I told him,
Speaker 1: right there in the road. He's coming this away. He
Speaker 1: still didn't sing, Dad, right there, he's coming straight to us, Son,
Speaker 1: I don't see him. I thought maybe he'd gone blind,
Speaker 1: because he was standing so close to me that I
Speaker 1: could feel him behind me. Dad, he's right there. I
Speaker 1: could hear his feet clicking on the gravel and pointed
Speaker 1: at the coyote that was now less than fifty yards
Speaker 1: from us. He was just trotting toward us in the
Speaker 1: right hand rud of that road like he's riding the bicycle.
Speaker 1: Dad said, that's that young dog that we turned loose.
Speaker 1: I didn't say a word. That was a cold, and
Speaker 1: I know I didn't turn one of those loose. Well.
Speaker 1: As he got closer, the cold was passing by us,
Speaker 1: literally within the arms reach. Dad reached out and put
Speaker 1: his hand on my chest and mashed me up against
Speaker 1: the truck and kicked it tack coyote to move him
Speaker 1: on down the road. He never changed gears. We were laughing,
Speaker 1: high fiving and retelling each other that story that we
Speaker 1: both just witnessed. It was incredible. While all that was happening,
Speaker 1: that pack of wolfhounds that we thought were burning the
Speaker 1: hair off of coyote started getting a little louder and
Speaker 1: looping around to the south. It took him about twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: but they came out on the road right where I
Speaker 1: saw the kyote come out, and we're kicking rocks as
Speaker 1: high as a six rail fence when they passed us,
Speaker 1: hot on his trail, hot on his trail, Yeah right.
Speaker 1: That race lasted about three hours before he finally gave
Speaker 1: the dogs a slip and we caught them all not
Speaker 1: far from where we turned them loose. Man, that was
Speaker 1: a fun night and we got to see something and
Speaker 1: share something pretty cool that we both talked about for
Speaker 1: the rest of his days. And that's just how that happened.
Speaker 1: I never get tired of hearing dog stories, and I
Speaker 1: never get tired of telling them. I come from a
Speaker 1: long line of folks that use dogs to put food
Speaker 1: on the table. We're dog people, and there has never
Speaker 1: been a time in my life that I didn't have
Speaker 1: a quality hunting dog of some flavor, whether it was
Speaker 1: a duck dog, a squirrel dog, or a coon dog.
Speaker 1: Obviously my dad, my uncle, Jimmy Ray, and my brother Tim.
Speaker 1: It was just something that we did. Any of us
Speaker 1: could have opted out at any point, but why in
Speaker 1: the world would we have wanted to. There's nothing outside
Speaker 1: of my family that equals the joy and satisfaction I
Speaker 1: get from hunting a well trained dog, especially one that
Speaker 1: I trained or had a hand in training. I know
Speaker 1: there's folks that don't have the time or the ability
Speaker 1: to do the training themselves and love the companionship and
Speaker 1: the thrill of the hunt, just like the folks that
Speaker 1: train their dog. There's just a little extra bump on
Speaker 1: the proud meter when you're the one helping your dog
Speaker 1: see the light and the purpose for his being. It
Speaker 1: strengthens the bond between you even more because you have
Speaker 1: both figured out that you can trust each other. You
Speaker 1: show him what you want done and how you want
Speaker 1: it done, and the dog trusts you to praise him
Speaker 1: when he does it the way you've taught him. Tim
Speaker 1: and I were duck hunting buy Meeta with some clients
Speaker 1: many years ago back when you could commercially hunt there,
Speaker 1: and my black lab Anna was our retriever. Anyone that
Speaker 1: had the good fortune to hunt with this dog would
Speaker 1: tell you that she was something special. I was reminded
Speaker 1: of the story by hearing my friend in Arkansas Sports
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame member Jim ron Quest, talking about a
Speaker 1: similar thing that happened to him with one of his labs.
Speaker 1: Jim is a world champion competition duck caller, but better
Speaker 1: than that, he's a heck of an outdoorsman, and beyond
Speaker 1: all that, just a dang good fella. And when he
Speaker 1: told this story, it reminded me of this one. We
Speaker 1: were having a good hunt with good groups of ducks
Speaker 1: working into the hole we were hunting. We boted in
Speaker 1: before daylight, we found a likely spot that we'd hunted
Speaker 1: before and with a forecasted wind, and when shooting time came,
Speaker 1: so did the ducks. We were smashing them pretty good,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite way to do it. Get the
Speaker 1: hunters in some ducks, let them shoot their limits fast,
Speaker 1: and get back to the camp to fix dinner, watch
Speaker 1: a little football, take a nap. Whatever. It was setting
Speaker 1: up to be an easy day. We were just four
Speaker 1: ducks short of six man limit, and Tim and I
Speaker 1: had our limits, and the four clients they lacked one
Speaker 1: duck each. So Tim and I were done shooting. We
Speaker 1: were just calling working the ducks, and I was handling Anna.
Speaker 1: Now these boys were not the best shots, but the
Speaker 1: ducks were working in the decoy so good that they
Speaker 1: were real having to work hard not to hit them
Speaker 1: when they came in the hole. Those last few ducks
Speaker 1: always seemed to be the biggest struggle. I added the
Speaker 1: pressure of strongly encourage them to shoot only green heads,
Speaker 1: which was supposed to make them take their time and
Speaker 1: shoot what they recognized as being a drake mallard. There
Speaker 1: was two reasons for this. The most important was conservation.
Speaker 1: By not shooting hens, we were returning mama ducks to
Speaker 1: the nesting grounds to raise more babies next year. The
Speaker 1: second reason was to make our clients pay attention and
Speaker 1: focus on one particular duck to shoot instead of getting
Speaker 1: all amped up. When fifty more ducks dropped in through
Speaker 1: the timber and were hovering over the decoys, landing literally
Speaker 1: all around them, I seen them run the shotguns to
Speaker 1: the plug, aiming at nothing in particular and hitting the same.
Speaker 1: But the quicker they got their limit, the quicker we
Speaker 1: got out of there, letting the ducks rest, and men
Speaker 1: Tim rest too. We counted and recant ducks. Yep, four
Speaker 1: ducks short of a six man limit, and the midmorning
Speaker 1: little of no ducks flying had just begun. Now we wait.
Speaker 1: It's getting close to ten o'clock and I'm hungry, and
Speaker 1: we could have been done two hours ago if these
Speaker 1: clowns could shoot. Anna sat beside me on her dog stand,
Speaker 1: her eyes ever more on the watch for ducks. She'd
Speaker 1: retrieved every duck that morning that we killed, except for
Speaker 1: two of three that fell so closer to where we
Speaker 1: were standing that we just picked him up and hung
Speaker 1: them on the stringer. None of them fell further than
Speaker 1: forty yards, and she made quick work of them in
Speaker 1: that knee deep water. I saw Anna jerk her head
Speaker 1: and start tracking toward the sky, and a moment later
Speaker 1: Tim started calling. I looked over at him, and I
Speaker 1: saw where he was looking, and they were both laser
Speaker 1: focused on six ducks. As they passed overhead. I could
Speaker 1: easily see that group had four drakes and two hens.
Speaker 1: All right, boys, shoot the drakes, I told them me
Speaker 1: and Tien went to work on the calling those ducks
Speaker 1: in kicking water to put some moving in the decoys.
Speaker 1: And when the ducks were facing away from us and
Speaker 1: standing dead still, when they passed over the hole, checking
Speaker 1: out whether or not it was safe to come in. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm telling the clients where they are the whole time.
Speaker 1: They're behind us. At six o'clock, they're getting lower. Y'all
Speaker 1: be still circling around to the west. Three o'clock, y'all
Speaker 1: get ready. Twelve o'clock, het it come go to work? Boys? Well,
Speaker 1: they commenced to shooting, and three drakes fell as dead
Speaker 1: as the duck could die, barey up in the decoys,
Speaker 1: and a couple of them paddling at the air with
Speaker 1: the little orange feet. The two hens climbed out of
Speaker 1: there like they were headed to the moon. I recounted
Speaker 1: the ducks floating in the water. I mean we get him, said,
Speaker 1: all the drakes fell, but I only saw three. The
Speaker 1: hunters were hooping and hollering for getting their limit, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't find the last duck. I looked at Anna
Speaker 1: and she was stone cold. Fro was on her seat,
Speaker 1: stared out to the right of the hole, and That's
Speaker 1: when Tim said, yondergoes a cripple. He pointed in the
Speaker 1: direction Anna was looking. I knew then she'd seen it,
Speaker 1: and I sent her off on a straight line in
Speaker 1: the direction she was looking. She left that stand like
Speaker 1: it was on fire and was bounding through the water
Speaker 1: like she was on a rail, in a perfect line
Speaker 1: cast in the direction I sent it. A couple of
Speaker 1: the hunters that were standing close to me got my
Speaker 1: attention away from her by slapping me on the back
Speaker 1: and shouting how cool that was and how much fun
Speaker 1: they'd had. They were already getting the cameras out. Now
Speaker 1: that'll give you a clue, is how long ago it happened.
Speaker 1: They brought cameras, not phones. I turned back toward Anna,
Speaker 1: and the ripples that she'd made in the water were
Speaker 1: all about gone. I told them to be quiet and listen,
Speaker 1: and they didn't. They were still all excited, and understandably
Speaker 1: so after the second time I told them to be quiet,
Speaker 1: I got rude and I said, hey, y'all, shut up,
Speaker 1: I don't know where my dog is. Well, I couldn't
Speaker 1: hear a thing, no crashing through the water like i'd
Speaker 1: heard when she left. I walked out towards the direction
Speaker 1: that she went, but the film that covered the surface
Speaker 1: of the water had closed back together and the sunken
Speaker 1: leaves had kept her from leaving a mud trap. I
Speaker 1: called her and nothing. I whistled and nothing. She was
Speaker 1: a well trained professional duck dog. It wasn't like she
Speaker 1: was just a labrador and looked apart. No, sir, she
Speaker 1: was the real deal. I whistled again, trying to blow
Speaker 1: the pea out of that roar, going your dog whistle
Speaker 1: and nothing. Boats were starting to come down to Baiou
Speaker 1: and out of the woods, so the noise they made
Speaker 1: was drowning out any hopes of hearing her in the water.
Speaker 1: Twenty minutes went by, Tim and the other hunters had
Speaker 1: everything loaded in the boats. I'd made a big loop
Speaker 1: out in the flooded timber, looking and calling for Anna
Speaker 1: and nothing. I walked back to where they were and
Speaker 1: we started making plans of how we were going to
Speaker 1: all split up and start looking for I had no
Speaker 1: idea how I was going to explain this to my kids.
Speaker 1: They loved her more than they loved me. I was
Speaker 1: sick to my stomach, and I hated the fact that
Speaker 1: I'd even brought her. I heard a racket in the
Speaker 1: absolute opposite direction from which she left on that retrieve,
Speaker 1: and I saw a flash of gray about as far
Speaker 1: as you could see down through the woods. We all froze.
Speaker 1: As it got closer. I could see that it was
Speaker 1: the top side of a mallard drake's wing, and it
Speaker 1: was sticking straight up in the air, moving through the
Speaker 1: flooded timber like a shark's fin on top of a pinball,
Speaker 1: bumping into bushes and ricocheting off trees. And I had
Speaker 1: a locked down grip on that crippled duck, and when
Speaker 1: she caught him, his wings folded over her eyes. She
Speaker 1: was slowly but surely making her her way back to
Speaker 1: me with that duck in her mouth, unable to see
Speaker 1: a frazzling thing. I met her halfway and took that
Speaker 1: duck from her. Man. I was glad to see that dog.
Speaker 1: I was worried to death, but she wasn't. She was
Speaker 1: doing her job and loving every minute of it. We
Speaker 1: walked back to the hole of the When we got there,
Speaker 1: she hopped up on her stand, ready to go again.
Speaker 1: I was needing a cigarette and I didn't even smoke.
Speaker 1: It's times like these that stick in your head forever.
Speaker 1: I can show you right where we were hunting the tree.
Speaker 1: I was standing beside the tree, Tim was standing beside
Speaker 1: or at least where the stumps are now, And I
Speaker 1: remember the great sense of relief I felt when I
Speaker 1: saw her coming back with that duck in her mouth. Man,
Speaker 1: it's a bond you build through living life together, not
Speaker 1: just hunting, the ups and the downs, the successes and
Speaker 1: the near failures. Watching your kids play with a dog
Speaker 1: in the yard. Y'all have heard me talk about Peanuts,
Speaker 1: the world's greatest squirrel dog. That was my hairy little
Speaker 1: brother and my father's favorite son. He would play chase
Speaker 1: with us and hide and seek. I remember one time
Speaker 1: we were all chasing him and he took off behind
Speaker 1: the house with us in tow. He circled around and
Speaker 1: was heading back toward the front yard, so some of
Speaker 1: us doubled back to catch him and cut him off.
Speaker 1: When he round to the other end of the house,
Speaker 1: some of us continued to follow him. We met each
Speaker 1: other in the front yard, but there was no Peanut.
Speaker 1: Where'd he go? We only lost sight of him for
Speaker 1: a second or two, But apparently that's all he needed
Speaker 1: to disappear. We called him and looked all around the house,
Speaker 1: going back and forth, but we couldn't find him. Then
Speaker 1: someone looked up and he was sitting on the roof
Speaker 1: of the house just looking at us. And if a
Speaker 1: dog could smile, that Rascal was smiling big. My dad's
Speaker 1: truck was parked at the edge of the carport and
Speaker 1: the tail was now. Peanut jumped up on the tailgate,
Speaker 1: onto the toolbox behind the cab, that on top of
Speaker 1: the cab, that onto the roof, and I suppose was
Speaker 1: just sitting there watching us running around the yard looking
Speaker 1: for it. A dog's life mirrors my own in some degree.
Speaker 1: I have to say. I like to have fun. I
Speaker 1: like to be around the folks that I love. I
Speaker 1: get excited at meal times. I like to take naps.
Speaker 1: I like to hunt every chance I get, and go
Speaker 1: with someone that I care about and share it with
Speaker 1: them that I mentioned naps. Kids and dogs go together
Speaker 1: like biscuits and gravy. Kids and grown folks too, can
Speaker 1: learn a lot about loyalty, friendship, and unconditioned love just
Speaker 1: by having a good dog. I read a quote that
Speaker 1: said having a dog will bless you with many of
Speaker 1: the happiest days of your life and one of the worst. Well,
Speaker 1: that's true. And when they leave us, man, it's hard
Speaker 1: and it's sad. But I look back at the membies
Speaker 1: and the stories I have about Anna and Peanut and
Speaker 1: a whole host of others, and it doesn't make me sad.
Speaker 1: When someone asked about a dog and I don't tell
Speaker 1: them how they died, I talk about how they lived,
Speaker 1: and all the adventures are the funny things that was shared.
Speaker 1: Just last Saturday, I was sitting in my truck waiting
Speaker 1: on daylight so I could hit the woods and go
Speaker 1: squirrel hunting. I was catching up on my messages and
Speaker 1: I read one from my guy up in the Appalachian
Speaker 1: Mountains who had recently lost one of his turkey dogs.
Speaker 1: That's right, I said, turkey dogs. I remember reading an
Speaker 1: article about turkey dogs when I was a kid in
Speaker 1: some hunting magazine, and more recently, doctor Seth Bynam wrote
Speaker 1: a good one that you can read at the Meat
Speaker 1: Eater dot com entitled how to hunt Turkeys with a Dog.
Speaker 1: The point of me bringing either one of those subjects
Speaker 1: up is you can train a dog to hunt anything,
Speaker 1: and if you put in a little effort. You can
Speaker 1: find folks that'll help you get it done, or if
Speaker 1: you can't, they'll do it for you. But back to
Speaker 1: the fellow that lost his dog. While I was reading
Speaker 1: his message, I was immediately back hunting with Peanut and Anna,
Speaker 1: both of which have been gone now for years. Peanut
Speaker 1: when I was just a kid, and Anna ten years ago.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't sad. It made me happy thinking about them.
Speaker 1: I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a
Speaker 1: little wistful thinking about both of them. But how much
Speaker 1: would I be missing today if they hadn't been in
Speaker 1: my life. Some would say nothing, because you can't miss
Speaker 1: what you never had. But I look at the pictures
Speaker 1: that that man sent me, and I can see myself
Speaker 1: and him sitting in a cameo with his dog in
Speaker 1: their turkey, both of them looking proud to be in
Speaker 1: each other's company, the hunter looking at the camera and
Speaker 1: the dog looking at him. That paints a bigger picture,
Speaker 1: and that pretty well describes the true relationship between hunters
Speaker 1: and hunting dogs. Now, thank you so much for listening,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate y'all sharing this podcast. I'd like to
Speaker 1: say a special hello to Miss Michelle Baldwin's English class
Speaker 1: at Cherokee High School in Cherokee, Oklahoma. Man, that's almost
Speaker 1: smack dab in the middle of the US of A.
Speaker 1: And if anyone knows the country life and how good
Speaker 1: it is, it's the great folks in Cherokee. This is
Speaker 1: Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful. Fire movies.