Speaker 1: Welcome to This country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
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 experiences and life lessons. This Country Life is presented
Speaker 1: by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast the airways had off. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
Speaker 1: stories to share. Knowing where north is finding your way
Speaker 1: around the woods can be a challenge, especially when you
Speaker 1: don't know what you're doing. Now, I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about the importance of using the basics to
Speaker 1: get you where you want to go, and I will,
Speaker 1: But first I'm going to tell you a story. It
Speaker 1: was over twenty years ago. It was cold and a
Speaker 1: long walk back to the truck, and I was tired.
Speaker 1: It was the last split of duck season, and Tim
Speaker 1: and I had been guiding every day since thanksgiving up
Speaker 1: at three thirty am and getting to bed sometimes at midnight.
Speaker 1: It takes a toll after a while, and I was beat.
Speaker 1: We were hunting the public shooting grounds and the weather
Speaker 1: was getting cold and slowly locking up all the open
Speaker 1: water that didn't have any current. We had four or
Speaker 1: five hunters with us, and Tim took his ducks and
Speaker 1: left early to go back to the camp and start
Speaker 1: cooking a big, hot breakfast we'd all be wanting once
Speaker 1: we knocked out the last few remaining ducks to finish
Speaker 1: out our limits. That morning. There was no GPS's then
Speaker 1: I didn't tote the compass, and I also didn't want
Speaker 1: to tote all those decoys over the near mild trip
Speaker 1: we had in front of us back to the parking lot,
Speaker 1: over ice and waiters, and with three dozen decoys and weights,
Speaker 1: I decided I'd just hide them. We were coming right
Speaker 1: back to this spot the next morning, anyway, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't that big of a no. No. The law said
Speaker 1: you couldn't leave them out overnight, But did they really
Speaker 1: mean left overnight in the hole you were hunting, or
Speaker 1: would it be okay to leave them heading the sack
Speaker 1: next to the hole you were hunting. Well, I knew
Speaker 1: the answer, but I was willing to take the risk.
Speaker 1: If I had a sleeping bag with me and could
Speaker 1: have stayed warm, I'd have just laid down in it
Speaker 1: and slept until Tim showed up. The next morning we
Speaker 1: hunted the woods on clear days. That day had a
Speaker 1: few clouds, but not enough to hide the moon, which
Speaker 1: was how we navigated the last quarter of a mile
Speaker 1: after veering off the trail that headed into the only
Speaker 1: open water we could find, and we had it all
Speaker 1: to ourselves. It was during the middle of the week.
Speaker 1: The college kids were back at school and most folks
Speaker 1: were back at work, and believe it or not, there
Speaker 1: was four hundred acres of prime flooded Arkansas public timber
Speaker 1: that we might as well have just owned ourselves. We
Speaker 1: were the only folks hunting. Another reason I decided to
Speaker 1: leave the decoys now. I hit them beside a tree
Speaker 1: where I'd been standing, and I gathered up my charges
Speaker 1: and we lit a shuck for the truck as soon
Speaker 1: as the last duck was strapped into our limit. Once
Speaker 1: back at the camp, I told Tim I hit the decoys,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me like I'd seen him look
Speaker 1: at me almost every time I did something stupid. It's
Speaker 1: going to be cloudy in the morning, dummy, and it's
Speaker 1: my turn to go in early. What if I can't
Speaker 1: find them? I wanted to hit him with that iron
Speaker 1: skillet he was using to turn a dead hog's belly
Speaker 1: into savory strips of bypass surgery. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: I'll go early again. I know where I'm going, I
Speaker 1: know where I left him. Matter of fact, you ain't
Speaker 1: even got to go sleep in and have the groceries ready.
Speaker 1: We'll be back by ten. And that's how I left it,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think about it again until we got
Speaker 1: out of the truck The next morning. At the parking lot,
Speaker 1: Arkansas was dark as four foot up of bulls behind
Speaker 1: total cloud covered. Standing outside, you couldn't see your hand
Speaker 1: in front of your face. We had a half a
Speaker 1: mile of trail to walk, then we had to go
Speaker 1: overland through the woods and a couple of thickets. I'll
Speaker 1: find where we walked through the ice and trace our
Speaker 1: steps backwards the way we came out. That should work,
Speaker 1: but it didn't. Everything had refrozen during the night, and
Speaker 1: about four inches of water had fallen out, and nothing
Speaker 1: looked the same. Nothing. The small flashlight I had only
Speaker 1: kept me from walking into trees. I had no idea
Speaker 1: where I was or where I was going. After I
Speaker 1: left that trail, headed to where I thought my decoys
Speaker 1: and the whole we'd hunted the day before would be.
Speaker 1: The hunters behind me didn't have a clue. I was lost,
Speaker 1: mainly because I acted like I wasn't. They were paying
Speaker 1: me money to know what I was doing, so even
Speaker 1: if I didn't, I was going to act like we
Speaker 1: should be there. But now I thought that the waterfall
Speaker 1: out had changed everything so much, I wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: planet I was on, much less what unmarked location I
Speaker 1: was trying to find on a wildlife management area that
Speaker 1: I was currently wandering around then with a group of
Speaker 1: men who were following behind me like they were sold
Speaker 1: to my breeches. Finally one of them spoke up, how
Speaker 1: much further? Oh, it's right up here, We're not far.
Speaker 1: I shared the light up in front of me, trying
Speaker 1: to locate a gap in the timber big enough to
Speaker 1: look similar to a hole that we could maybe coke
Speaker 1: some ducks down into once it got light enough to
Speaker 1: see there, right there, about forty yards away, was the
Speaker 1: narrowest of holes in the timber. There was nothing closer.
Speaker 1: Daylight was only a few minutes away. As we finally
Speaker 1: begun to be able to see without the aid of
Speaker 1: the only light we had. None of them had brought one,
Speaker 1: but there was still one other hurdle to jump. All
Speaker 1: the water in the hole I had lucked up on
Speaker 1: was frozen almost solid. I placed my hunters around in
Speaker 1: a semicircle where they were going to be standing once
Speaker 1: the shooting started, if there was going to be any
Speaker 1: and I began to monkey stomp that ice until oblivia
Speaker 1: I broke through the to find the water below was
Speaker 1: only deep enough to cover the toe of my boot.
Speaker 1: With all the fallen leaves taking up the space and
Speaker 1: the water between the bottom of the ice and the
Speaker 1: top of the earth, I wanted to be someplace else.
Speaker 1: If I hadn't hid them decoys and brought them out
Speaker 1: like I was supposed to, I would be someplace else,
Speaker 1: and Tim would be dealing with this fiasco right now
Speaker 1: instead of laying in his warm bed sleeping the sleep
Speaker 1: of the guiltless. I quickly prayed he'd went the bed.
Speaker 1: Then I had the idea to kill all the wet
Speaker 1: leaves of mud up on the ice, making it resemble open, dark,
Speaker 1: muddy water in a sea of light colored iesed up
Speaker 1: muddy water. I was feeling good about what I'd managed
Speaker 1: to conjure up out of literally nothing, when one of
Speaker 1: those cats asked, are we not going to use the decoys? Now?
Speaker 1: With all the confidence I could muster, I told them, now,
Speaker 1: we don't need them. I'm gonna put them right in
Speaker 1: through that small hole in the trees, and by the
Speaker 1: time they figure out that that ain't water, they'll be
Speaker 1: close enough for us to shoot them in the lips.
Speaker 1: They seemed excited and couldn't wait to see what was
Speaker 1: about to happen. I couldn't either, but I knew one
Speaker 1: thing for sure. What I told them was fixing to
Speaker 1: happen was probably the furthest thing that was actually gonna happen.
Speaker 1: As it grew lighter, I glanced around for the decoy
Speaker 1: as I stood by my clients, I looked around for
Speaker 1: anything that might actually tell me where we were. The
Speaker 1: only thing I saw was my hunters. Though as inexperienced
Speaker 1: as they were, I could tell they weren't exactly smelling
Speaker 1: what I was stepping in. I heard a few whispers
Speaker 1: back and forth as I stomped and kicked more muddy
Speaker 1: leaves up on top of that thick ice. I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell what they were saying, but I knew they wasn't
Speaker 1: buying it. At least not yet. Ducks started flying and
Speaker 1: I started calling, and I was more surprised. The ducks
Speaker 1: looked like they were trying to find a spot to
Speaker 1: light in the woods that they knew better than I
Speaker 1: did was all frozen up, and yet there they were.
Speaker 1: I told them to be stealing and get ready, and
Speaker 1: I started calling at a group of ducks, and my
Speaker 1: glimpsed passing overhead, and three mallards pitched in through the
Speaker 1: top of the trees and hovered over the hole I'd
Speaker 1: stomped out in the ice covered with wet, muddy leaves.
Speaker 1: We got them all. Twenty minutes later we were high
Speaker 1: fiving and picking up our last green head for a
Speaker 1: full limit of big ducks over zero decoys with zero
Speaker 1: open water. I celebrated with him, but was trying to
Speaker 1: be like the great Chicago Bear Walter Payton. When he
Speaker 1: scored a touchdown, he just hand the ball back to
Speaker 1: the referee and trot off the field. He said, YOA,
Speaker 1: act like you've been there before. Well, in my mind
Speaker 1: I was moon walking back to the truck and doing backflips.
Speaker 1: Those cats thought I was the greatest duck guy in
Speaker 1: the world. Walking out from that whole about thirty yards
Speaker 1: was the sack of decoys I'd hit the day before.
Speaker 1: I didn't even break stride. I scooped him up and
Speaker 1: kept walking like I knew right where they was, straight
Speaker 1: back to the parking lot. My hunter's walking behind and
Speaker 1: reliving the hunt shot by shot and talking about how
Speaker 1: we did it without decoys and water. I wasn't the
Speaker 1: greatest duck guy in the world, not by a long shot.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even the greatest duck guy in our business.
Speaker 1: But I was no doubt the luckiest. And that's just
Speaker 1: how that happened. Getting lost, turned around, or temporarily disoriented
Speaker 1: is something we all take a chance on each time
Speaker 1: we leave the house and venture into parts of the unknown,
Speaker 1: and knowing how to navigate around and through our surroundings.
Speaker 1: It's something we've been doing since the first folks decided
Speaker 1: to see what was on the other side of the hill.
Speaker 1: Curiosity has done more than kill the cat, as the
Speaker 1: old saying goes, on the positive side, it's fuelled uncountable discoveries,
Speaker 1: territorial expansion beyond what was thought possible, And on the negative,
Speaker 1: unscheduled sight seeing tours of the back forty I figured
Speaker 1: there was a lot of that taking place back in
Speaker 1: the days of exploring the West. How can you know
Speaker 1: where you're going if there's no one there to tell
Speaker 1: you where to go, if no one you know's ever
Speaker 1: been there before. You can always mark a trail to
Speaker 1: where you've been. It's where you're intending to go that
Speaker 1: can cause the problems. And I've always been fascinated with
Speaker 1: reading maps and using them with a compass to get
Speaker 1: around in the woods. Knowing where I am in the
Speaker 1: wilderness and being able to point it out on the
Speaker 1: map has always been something that I take a lot
Speaker 1: of satisfaction in. Being able to read a map is important.
Speaker 1: In the days before GPS, it was the two Most
Speaker 1: folks that were from where I grew up had their toolbox,
Speaker 1: and it was learned in my case from a very
Speaker 1: early age. When I was a little boy, my dad
Speaker 1: and I would lay on the dog box in the
Speaker 1: back of his truck, staring at a cloudless sky while
Speaker 1: parked on a Timber company road, waiting on the dogs
Speaker 1: to strike. Total darkness surrounded us, and the stars were
Speaker 1: clear and bright. He pointed out the Big Dipper and
Speaker 1: the Little Dipper and then the north star, which is
Speaker 1: the last star in the little Dipper's handle. If you're
Speaker 1: looking at that star, you're looking north. East is to
Speaker 1: your right, West is to your left, and south is
Speaker 1: one about face away. Years later, when my dad got sick,
Speaker 1: he was admitted to the hospital and spending what would
Speaker 1: be his final forty two days on earth. The value
Speaker 1: and the importance to him of the lessons he taught
Speaker 1: me way back then became apparent. Night and day kind
Speaker 1: of blend into one when you're in and out of
Speaker 1: consciousness in a windowless room or one with the shades
Speaker 1: constantly closed. The nurses were always good about writing the
Speaker 1: day and the day and whether it was am or
Speaker 1: pm on a big board with colored markers next to
Speaker 1: a clock that faced his bed, and he could see
Speaker 1: it whenever he woke up and looked around. During one
Speaker 1: of his lucid moments, he looked around the room at
Speaker 1: me and my brother Tim, who were standing on each
Speaker 1: side of his bed. I saw him look at that
Speaker 1: board and then back at us, and he waved his
Speaker 1: right index finger back and forth as his hand rested
Speaker 1: on top of the covers, his eyes going back and
Speaker 1: forth from Tim to me and We could tell he
Speaker 1: wanted to know something, but he couldn't speak. We made suggestions,
Speaker 1: asking him what it was. He wanted, both of us
Speaker 1: trying to decipher what he was trying to say through.
Speaker 1: So finally Tim said North is that way and pointed
Speaker 1: out the window with his left hand. Dad nodded ever
Speaker 1: so slightly, closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Speaker 1: And from then on, regardless of where he was in
Speaker 1: that hospital, the nurses or one of us always included
Speaker 1: the word north in an arrow pointed in that direction.
Speaker 1: Besides the date and the time, I would take those
Speaker 1: lessons he taught me as a kid, and expand on
Speaker 1: him throughout my life even today. There was one time
Speaker 1: in January of nineteen eighty eight when it was most important.
Speaker 1: I was in a land navigation course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: At that time of my life, I'd never been as
Speaker 1: cold or seen the cold Oklahoma was beating me around
Speaker 1: the head and shoulders with There were ten of us
Speaker 1: in my group that started from the back of a
Speaker 1: deuce and a half truck that we'd been freshly thrown
Speaker 1: out of, with a compass and a map and a
Speaker 1: list of individual points that we all had to find
Speaker 1: on our own. There may have been ten of us
Speaker 1: in the group, but we all had different points to
Speaker 1: find and an unknown time in whish to complete the evolution.
Speaker 1: The map had them pre marked as a dot in
Speaker 1: a distance from where we stood. Here's how it worked.
Speaker 1: We all had that you are here mark on a map.
Speaker 1: This would be in the first of the field exercises.
Speaker 1: They at least gave us that as a starting point.
Speaker 1: Then from the maps they had us, we had to
Speaker 1: find markers scattered over acres of woods in the order
Speaker 1: that they were listed on the map. We all had
Speaker 1: a different number of points to find that zigzagged across
Speaker 1: the course that had followed correctly would have you end
Speaker 1: at the corresponding endpoint marked on your map. At each
Speaker 1: such reference point was a metal stob that had been
Speaker 1: drove in the ground with a brass tag on it
Speaker 1: that had an alpha numeric code stamped on it. You
Speaker 1: had to write those down before shooting an asthma to
Speaker 1: try and locate the next point. They were easy to
Speaker 1: miss if you deviated the slightest on your path from
Speaker 1: the previous point or miscalculated the distance, because they only
Speaker 1: poked up about six inches out of the ground. The
Speaker 1: terrain we were in went from open fields that were
Speaker 1: grown up with waist high grass and briars to dense woods,
Speaker 1: and compounding the problem was there wasn't only just the
Speaker 1: markers you were looking for out there, but other markers
Speaker 1: in close proximity that were marked differently. If you didn't
Speaker 1: walk exactly along the proper asthmas counting the paces from
Speaker 1: the previous spot to the next, you could write down
Speaker 1: the wrong code when you reached that next point in
Speaker 1: the series. You'd wind up back with everyone else eventually.
Speaker 1: But if you mark down the incorrect code, you failed course.
Speaker 1: If you failed the course, you had to recycle and
Speaker 1: do that phase of training all over again. If you
Speaker 1: failed the second time, I think that took you out
Speaker 1: back and shot you, or worse, made you join the Navy.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I love the Navy. I'm kidding now.
Speaker 1: I loved every minute of it, and it was a
Speaker 1: great example of the difference between being close and being
Speaker 1: right on the money. And it's good to know where
Speaker 1: you are in relation to what you're asking other folks
Speaker 1: to shoot at, if you know what I mean. There's
Speaker 1: all kinds of GPS devices, apps and trackers that are
Speaker 1: as common today as that computer camera, television telephone A
Speaker 1: bunch of you are listening to me talk on right now,
Speaker 1: But that hasn't always been the case. I love the
Speaker 1: on X app on my phone. I use it literally
Speaker 1: every day for something. I depend on it to help
Speaker 1: me navigate. But there was a time, as my daughter
Speaker 1: Bailey calls it back then, when those things didn't exist.
Speaker 1: Those simple skills are not as common as they used
Speaker 1: to be because of the great convenience of technology. But
Speaker 1: we owe it to ourselves and our kids and the
Speaker 1: new outdoor folks that we should be entering to pass
Speaker 1: along the basic skills that will help you get around
Speaker 1: in the woods when your computer, camera, television telephone battery dies.
Speaker 1: Keep a compass in your pocket and no how it
Speaker 1: works and how to use it. In its most simplistic form,
Speaker 1: if you walk into an area you're unfamiliar with in
Speaker 1: a northerly direction to get back in the vicinity of
Speaker 1: where you left from, you know you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: walk in a southerly direction. You don't even need a
Speaker 1: compass to do that. If the sun is on your
Speaker 1: right when you leave, it needs to be on your
Speaker 1: left when you return if you're only gone for half
Speaker 1: the day. Now, don't be jamming up my email with
Speaker 1: what if you left at ten am and came back
Speaker 1: at two pm, Galileo, I know the sun would have
Speaker 1: to be on the right side. Again, I'm talking in
Speaker 1: very general terms here, so take it easy. Look at
Speaker 1: a map of the area you're in before you leave
Speaker 1: the truck, and orient it with a complaice to where
Speaker 1: you are and what direction you want to go. Better, yet,
Speaker 1: look at it at home and familiarize yourself with it
Speaker 1: before you ever leave the house. The degree of accuracy
Speaker 1: of maps online is extremely detailed and manipula to the
Speaker 1: point that you can just about see what you'll be
Speaker 1: seeing before you load up and go. A physical map
Speaker 1: of the area is good to tote in your pocket
Speaker 1: as well. It's not that you're gonna need it. It's
Speaker 1: all about if you suddenly find out you do you
Speaker 1: vetteran backcountry folks know what I'm talking about. Sometimes a
Speaker 1: day of hunting in the wilderness can turn into an
Speaker 1: overnight stay because of weather or packing out an animal,
Speaker 1: or maybe an injury, or, for heaven's sake, battery dies
Speaker 1: on your computer, camera, television, telephone. Being prepared, it is
Speaker 1: essential an extra pair of socks, a packable sleeping bag
Speaker 1: and warm clothes jamming until a day pack doesn't take
Speaker 1: up much room, and a compass hanging around your neck.
Speaker 1: For sure. Dog, I go overboard when packing for a
Speaker 1: trip and take way more than I'll ever need. But
Speaker 1: regardless of where I'm going to what I'm doing that
Speaker 1: requires me to take things into the field. I have
Speaker 1: a minimum a compass in every day pack, backpack and
Speaker 1: chest rig I on if I'm talking all three on
Speaker 1: a trip, I have them all Three is two, two
Speaker 1: is one, and one is none. I googled how to
Speaker 1: read a map and added me to either in the
Speaker 1: search bar. There were half a dozen great articles on
Speaker 1: the media to the website explaining in detail how to do it.
Speaker 1: The Bureau of Land Management has an entire free course
Speaker 1: on map reading on their website that goes into the
Speaker 1: weeds so deep you could plan a mission to Mars
Speaker 1: with it. And of course there's always the universe. Thank
Speaker 1: give you Tube for video instruction. The main thing is
Speaker 1: it's a great tool to have in your toolbox should
Speaker 1: you need it. It's also a skill that's being lost
Speaker 1: to the convenience of modern technology. And maybe best of all,
Speaker 1: it's an activity you can share with you young as
Speaker 1: it gets you both outside doing things that doesn't require electricity, batteries, bait,
Speaker 1: or even bullets, just a little time and a willingness
Speaker 1: to learn. Knowing where north is it's the first step,
Speaker 1: and knowing where to take your second. Thank y'all so
Speaker 1: much for listening to all of us here on the
Speaker 1: Bear Grease channel, as really is something for everyone here
Speaker 1: at Mediator, from how to and trivia and music documentary,
Speaker 1: kids and this calamity that drops every Friday morning until
Speaker 1: next week. This is Brent Reeves. Sign it off, y'all,
Speaker 1: be careful to be done. R.