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 2: I want you to stay a.
Speaker 1: While as I share my stories and the country skills
Speaker 1: that will help you beat the system. This Country Life
Speaker 1: is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network,
Speaker 1: bringing you the best outdoor podcast the airways have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop
Speaker 1: that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two
Speaker 1: to teach you. Stories from the guide service. Twenty six
Speaker 1: years in the guiding business taught me a few things
Speaker 1: about people that hunt. The biggest thing was that they
Speaker 1: were all looking for something different, and what some of
Speaker 1: them were hunting surprised me. They were from all over
Speaker 1: this great nation. They ate differently, they dressed differently, certainly
Speaker 1: talk differently, and about the only thing we all had
Speaker 1: in common was ducks, or so a thought. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you all about it, but first I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Tell you a story.
Speaker 1: We were all standing in the dark, in the knee
Speaker 1: deep water in the flooded timber of an unnamed Arkansas
Speaker 1: Wildlife Management There, me, my brother Tim, and six boys
Speaker 1: from New Jersey that had booked a four day hunt
Speaker 1: with us. This was before it became illegal to guide
Speaker 1: on public land, and I'm not going to be any
Speaker 1: more specific about where we were, south southwest of Stuttgart,
Speaker 1: so the spot burning police don't issue a wart from
Speaker 1: my arrest and start hounding me with hate mail because
Speaker 1: I named the most well known thirty three thousand, eight
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty two acre, about twice the size of Cleveland,
Speaker 1: Ohio Green Tree reservoir on the planet. No gonna do that, biometam.
Speaker 1: We were waiting on daylight and staying warm, drinking coffee
Speaker 1: and anticipating the hunt. We'd absolutely smashed the ducks in
Speaker 1: the timber of the day before, but had to move
Speaker 1: to a different spot this morning because of the shifting wind.
Speaker 1: Some of the boys had stayed up late into the night,
Speaker 1: celebrating the hunt by abusing their livers. They weren't as
Speaker 1: easy to roust out of bed that morning, but peer
Speaker 1: pressure prevailed and they made mustar and time to ride
Speaker 1: over to the parking lot. Now, after a short half
Speaker 1: a mile walk and wade, we found ourselves in our
Speaker 1: current spot. Decoys out trees assigned to each hunter as
Speaker 1: their spot to stand and the first safety brief given
Speaker 1: all thirty minutes before shooting time. The second safety briefing
Speaker 1: would be right before we loaded up. Now, these Yankees
Speaker 1: were absolutely digging everything we were showing them. They were
Speaker 1: fish out of water about Southern culture, food, local animals,
Speaker 1: and and the way we talked. It was so much
Speaker 1: fun teaching them about all of it, and they, in
Speaker 1: turn were telling us about how life was where they
Speaker 1: were from. And for the most part it was eerly similar.
Speaker 1: Aside from the weird pronunciations of words, we were all
Speaker 1: pretty much alike. Oddly, folks up north find it necessary
Speaker 1: to use all the letters when saying a word. I know, right,
Speaker 1: Ain't that weird? Anyway? These boys could put away the
Speaker 1: groceries and if they were awake, they were eating. Now,
Speaker 1: we always vetted folks before they got there about food,
Speaker 1: and we told them the kinds of food that they'd
Speaker 1: be eating, which was home cooks, Southern food, and they
Speaker 1: were looking forward to it. But they had one request.
Speaker 1: They said that they weren't going to eat oakrey. I
Speaker 1: call it oakrey. Some folks call it okruh. I know, right,
Speaker 1: Ain't that weird anyway? However you say it they drew
Speaker 1: the line at eating it twenty four but twenty four
Speaker 1: hours into their visit and Tim had them eating pickled
Speaker 1: oakrey out of a jar, and my sister in law,
Speaker 1: Barbera Jean, had him eating cut up ochre she'd mealed
Speaker 1: and fried, and a cast iron skillet. We'd broken the
Speaker 1: ochre barrier. They trusted us, They had an open mind
Speaker 1: and were curious about things that they'd never seen before,
Speaker 1: and relied on us to tell them the truth about
Speaker 1: what they were looking at. That was the first mistake.
Speaker 1: Let's go back in time twenty four hours as I
Speaker 1: drove them from the airport and a Little Rock to
Speaker 1: our camp that sat on the bank with the mud
Speaker 1: Lake Bend on the Arkansas River. As soon as we
Speaker 1: hit the Gravel County Road on the last leg of
Speaker 1: the ride from the Little Rock, we passed a cotton
Speaker 1: field that had been picked, but the stalks hadn't been
Speaker 1: moved yet. If you're unfamiliar with what that looks like,
Speaker 1: imagine waste high rows of little sapling trees with no
Speaker 1: leaves and bits of white hanging off the limbs. Even
Speaker 1: with the most advanced machinery of today, there's always cotton
Speaker 1: that doesn't get picked. The passing by this field that
Speaker 1: was close to the camp, one of my passengers asked,
Speaker 1: what is that growing in that field? I saw him
Speaker 1: point to the cotton field, and everyone was looking at
Speaker 1: it or looking at me, waiting for an answer, And
Speaker 1: I said, y'all don't know what that is. And I
Speaker 1: was a little surprised that they'd never seen a cotton
Speaker 1: pass before. And then I realized they don't grow no
Speaker 1: cotton in New Jersey. Of course they hadn't seen one,
Speaker 1: so be in a compulsive liar, I said, those are
Speaker 1: grit bushes. Grits. He asked, yeah, man, grits, you know,
Speaker 1: like you eat for breakfast. He said, oh yeah, I've
Speaker 1: heard of those. We don't eat those back home. Well,
Speaker 1: I told him that he'd have the opportunity to eat
Speaker 1: them here because we have them every day. He asked
Speaker 1: me if that's what they'd be eating for breakfast, and
Speaker 1: I said, no, that's what you'll be eating with breakfast.
Speaker 1: Always wondered where those things came from, he said, they
Speaker 1: were all satisfied with my answer. Now, I could have
Speaker 1: told him the truth, But you know, what's the fun
Speaker 1: in that. I bet some of you are saying right
Speaker 1: now where dogrits come from. But anyway, that was lie
Speaker 1: number one. Before we driven another half mile. We drove
Speaker 1: up on the Arkansas River levee headed to where our
Speaker 1: camp was located, which was inside the levee. Also inside
Speaker 1: the levee where some old dykes that had been abandoned
Speaker 1: by the Army Corps engineers when in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: the McLellan Current Navigation System cut a new path for
Speaker 1: the Arkansas River, taking the mud Lake Bend out of
Speaker 1: the channel. The dikes were constructed of telephone pole sized
Speaker 1: timbers and stacked like an a frame or what's called
Speaker 1: a no dig fence, and it's covered in large gray rock.
Speaker 1: Most of the big rocks had been salvaged from the
Speaker 1: diyke by the locals with permission for erosion control and
Speaker 1: different uses. But when the gray rocks were gone, you
Speaker 1: could see what looked like a telephone pole sized fence
Speaker 1: about eight feet high. Someone else asked as we passed,
Speaker 1: what in the world is that fence for? Well, I
Speaker 1: saw them all looking at it, just like the cotton
Speaker 1: patch back down the road, and I said, oh, that
Speaker 1: fence they used to raise rod nastroses down here for
Speaker 1: the zoos. Someone else joined in, are there any more
Speaker 1: down here? Straight faced? I told him, well, they're not
Speaker 1: really sure. Five got out and killed one of the
Speaker 1: caretakers trying to put them back in, and they pretty
Speaker 1: well shut down the whole operation. Someone asked if they
Speaker 1: catch them. I said, well, they shot three of them
Speaker 1: the next day down the river on a big farm.
Speaker 1: One was killed a week later after he routed it
Speaker 1: up fifty acres of gritz they never found, and they
Speaker 1: never found the fifth one. There's lots of folks grilling
Speaker 1: out that summer though. They were amazed at that story.
Speaker 1: And to tell you the truth, if I can, so
Speaker 1: was I. And that was lie number two. Fast forward
Speaker 1: to the morning of the hunt, and as I was
Speaker 1: making coffee that morning and getting ready before we left
Speaker 1: the camp, I noticed one fellow was already up before
Speaker 1: the rest of them. He was one of the six
Speaker 1: that had abstained from the liver wrecking party and was
Speaker 1: a fresh as a daisy, bouncing around in that kitchen
Speaker 1: fixing blown and sandwich is like it was his normal job.
Speaker 1: He had them all laid out and stacked together according
Speaker 1: to what he put on him half he put on mayonnaise,
Speaker 1: another half he put on mustard. I followed him downstairs
Speaker 1: to go warm on my truck and saw him start
Speaker 1: handing out sandwiches like he was dealing cards in casino,
Speaker 1: and all his buddies, who were preoccupied with getting themselves
Speaker 1: ready mayonnaise or mustard. He asked the other five alls
Speaker 1: that it didn't matter, so he was just stuffing them
Speaker 1: in their blind bags. Eventually left. All right, now we're
Speaker 1: back in the duck hunting hole in the darkness, where
Speaker 1: the only light was from the occasional glow of a cigarette.
Speaker 1: Tim and I had been having a great time with
Speaker 1: these guys. They were one of our favorite groups of
Speaker 1: clients that would become more like friends and family after
Speaker 1: coming year after year. We still talk to them now,
Speaker 1: but that morning they were still new and extremely gullible.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned way back when this story started going
Speaker 1: off the rails, it was day two and we were
Speaker 1: standing in a new spot in the dark, with everyone
Speaker 1: standing in their assigned spot with everything you could imagine
Speaker 1: in their own personal blind bags, including the Balogney sandwhich
Speaker 1: is one of them, had made for everyone a screech
Speaker 1: owl cut loose less than fifty yards away, a six
Speaker 1: man simultaneous chorus of let me see, how can I
Speaker 1: say this? A profane inquiry of the source of that
Speaker 1: sound resonated through the flooded timber. My brother Tim said,
Speaker 1: don't nobody move or turn on a light now. His
Speaker 1: voice was seriously concerned. I realized then these boys had
Speaker 1: never heard a screech owl, and even though knowing what
Speaker 1: one is, it'll make the hairstown upon your back of
Speaker 1: your neck. But when everybody was quiet and listening and
Speaker 1: waiting for one of us to say something, it was
Speaker 1: then that I whispered loud enough for everyone to hear
Speaker 1: hawl or monkeys. You could have heard a pin draw.
Speaker 1: I saw two lid cigarettes almost simultaneously fall from their
Speaker 1: faces and disappear in the muddy water with an audible hiss.
Speaker 1: I don't think they took a breath. It was pitch
Speaker 1: black and you couldn't see an inch in front of
Speaker 1: your face. Tim whispered during that whole rhino deal. They
Speaker 1: had some monkeys down here too, And when they quit
Speaker 1: raising them rhinos, someone cut all the monkeys loose. They're
Speaker 1: attracted to light because the keepers fed them at night,
Speaker 1: and when they got loose man. They took to these woods,
Speaker 1: and that's where they've lived ever since. There's only a
Speaker 1: few left, but we hear them out here occasionally coming
Speaker 1: to headlights looking for food. They dine up in the daytime.
Speaker 1: You won't ever see them out Then now there was
Speaker 1: my opportunity. I was positive no one had moved a muscle,
Speaker 1: not one person, and I'm sure they were praying for daylight,
Speaker 1: which was still like twenty minutes away, and wondered how
Speaker 1: they'd voluntarily paid to walk into a wild animal park.
Speaker 1: That's when I said the problem. The problem is blowny.
Speaker 1: They fed them scraps from that blowny plant up river,
Speaker 1: and they could smell blooney from a long way off.
Speaker 1: Those jokers like bloonna more than I do. Good thing
Speaker 1: is they hate mayonnaise and they won't come near it.
Speaker 1: Y'all ain't got no blooney, do you. Tim waited about
Speaker 1: ten seconds, and then he turned on his headlight, and
Speaker 1: all six of them were bug eyed, trying to see
Speaker 1: it in the dark and silently checking their sandwiches to
Speaker 1: see which flavor they had. Tim and I couldn't hold
Speaker 1: it any longer and were busting a gut laughing at them. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they were laughing so hard because
Speaker 1: they thought it was funny, or if they were so
Speaker 1: relieved that a monkey wasn't gonna drop out of the
Speaker 1: tree and beat them up over a blowney sandwich. Now,
Speaker 1: we told them there weren't any monkeys running her around,
Speaker 1: and that was a screech owl they heard. And those
Speaker 1: boys hunted with us for several years, and they could
Speaker 1: dish out the fun just as well as they could
Speaker 1: take it. And I miss those and I talked to
Speaker 1: a few of them every now and then. But as
Speaker 1: far as they know, there's one rheino from the Arkansas
Speaker 1: River Rideinoceros Farm that's still unaccounted for, and the gritch
Speaker 1: crop is as strong as ever. And that's just how
Speaker 1: it happened, or how we told them it happened. Stories
Speaker 1: from the guide service, I got to meet a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting, in good people. I can't remember if we
Speaker 1: had anyone from any further west than Texas, but there
Speaker 1: ain't many states we didn't have hunters come from. On
Speaker 1: the eastern half of the US. You could just about
Speaker 1: draw a line from West Texas to Canada. And those
Speaker 1: were our people. Some were content just to be there.
Speaker 1: Some were happy if they just saw ducks, Some couldn't
Speaker 1: be satisfied regardless of the situation, and some folks I
Speaker 1: wouldn't let pay me to hang out with them again.
Speaker 1: Those were few and far between, but after after a
Speaker 1: quarter of a century of guiding, you could tell within
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes of meeting new clients how good
Speaker 1: or bad the next three days were going to be.
Speaker 1: If they marveled at the landscape and wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about their families and were interested in Arkansas and that
Speaker 1: ecosystem that they were seeing for the first time, it
Speaker 1: was going to be good. If they started talking about
Speaker 1: the number of ducks that they were going to shoot,
Speaker 1: and this is how we do it back home, you
Speaker 1: could get ready for a bumpy ride. There was a
Speaker 1: small percentage of them that came back just to get
Speaker 1: away from whatever it was they were dealing with back home,
Speaker 1: and some admitted they were coming back year after year
Speaker 1: to see if Tim and I were ever going to fistfight,
Speaker 1: And some of them loved that hell bent for leather
Speaker 1: boat ride through the flooded timber. All this duck hunting
Speaker 1: I've been doing lately is put ducks on my brain again.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, alexis not really, but it also reminded me
Speaker 1: of what I love and what I missed about it.
Speaker 1: Once I got over being burned out on the drudgery
Speaker 1: or guiding, my thoughts shifted back to why we started
Speaker 1: guiding in the first place, and that was to show
Speaker 1: others what we were seeing and let someone else pay
Speaker 1: for our duck hunting addiction. It was essentially the same
Speaker 1: reason I started filming hunts and what set me off
Speaker 1: on this long and winding road of how I'm sitting
Speaker 1: here today talking to you. Seeing people appreciating being all
Speaker 1: these creatures that were gifted to us to enjoy the
Speaker 1: same way that Tim and I are is a rarely
Speaker 1: reached level of satisfaction. I tell you this story to
Speaker 1: show you what I mean. Tim and I were guiding
Speaker 1: four folks from a couple of neighboring states who were
Speaker 1: multiple KFC franchise owners. Now, these guys were very successful businessmen,
Speaker 1: and they could have afforded to hunt with anyone they
Speaker 1: wanted to, and they chose us. They were all old
Speaker 1: country boys who had worked hard and made it big,
Speaker 1: but still appreciated the warmth and feel of a real
Speaker 1: hunting camp over a five star amenities that could have
Speaker 1: got them at a higher end private land hunting service.
Speaker 1: We were strictly the meat and Tater's guide service. We
Speaker 1: provided a clean, dry place to sleep, good home cooked food,
Speaker 1: and we worked our tails off to give them the
Speaker 1: best opportunity to kill ducks. So on the evening that
Speaker 1: they got there, we discussed where we'd be hunting the
Speaker 1: next day, and it wasn't going to be a cake walk,
Speaker 1: but it was going to be a walk. But there
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna be no cake at the end. There'd be
Speaker 1: a better chance of CPR because the ducks were using
Speaker 1: a spot that we had to walk to, and if
Speaker 1: we were being paid to give them the best opportunity
Speaker 1: to shoot ducks, this was where we were going and
Speaker 1: how we were going to get there. Now. Their ages
Speaker 1: ranged from their late fifties to mid sixties, and they
Speaker 1: all seemed in relatively good health. When their host book
Speaker 1: to hunt, we told them that the possibility of walking
Speaker 1: long distances existed. If that was a deal breaker, we
Speaker 1: needed to know now before they paid their deposit, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't think we ever really required.
Speaker 1: We trusted folks to do the right thing, and it
Speaker 1: always worked out except for one group of hunters, but
Speaker 1: that's my story for another day. With a thermist full
Speaker 1: of coffee, a sack of sausage biscuits, and a snake
Speaker 1: bite kit consisting of a half pint of peach snops,
Speaker 1: Tim and I, along with four trusting individuals, headed out
Speaker 1: to the public shooting grounds for a forty five minute
Speaker 1: march to where we'd been tricking ducks all week. Parking
Speaker 1: lot was full when we got there, so the race
Speaker 1: was on, and before the wheels stopped rolling on Tim's truck,
Speaker 1: I saw him bail out, rolling towards our spot. I'd
Speaker 1: bring the rest of the decoys and the rest of
Speaker 1: her plumb. Close to an hour later, me and my
Speaker 1: four charges walked into the spot where we'd been hunting
Speaker 1: all week to find Thim still sweating from his run
Speaker 1: into the hole touchdown. The south wind was perfect and
Speaker 1: there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Other groups of
Speaker 1: hunters that came close were waved away with a flashlight,
Speaker 1: and that was the unwritten rule of hunting public land.
Speaker 1: Back then. It was truly first come, first served, and
Speaker 1: everyone played by that rule. We've had to change our
Speaker 1: plans on many occasions by someone else beating us to
Speaker 1: a particular spot, But on this morning we'd slid right
Speaker 1: in on the eggs. The hole in the timber wasn't big,
Speaker 1: but it was nearly a perfect circle of trees. The
Speaker 1: water was between calf and knee deep, and we could
Speaker 1: still see a few sprigs of brown grass poking up
Speaker 1: here and there. With our lights as we put out
Speaker 1: the decoys. Now the whole measured about thirty yards across,
Speaker 1: so we lined the edges with decoys, and Tim put
Speaker 1: one hen decoy right in the middle. We all lined
Speaker 1: up on the south side of the hole, Me furthest
Speaker 1: to the right and Tim anchor in the other end.
Speaker 1: We kept our hunters between us for safety. Ducks started
Speaker 1: flying before shooting, light and Tim and I went over
Speaker 1: the safety briefing I would be calling the shot that day.
Speaker 1: Don't shoot until you hear me say shoot, and no
Speaker 1: shooting below that limb you see on the other side
Speaker 1: of the hole. Tim and I'll shoot the cripples. Remember
Speaker 1: there's other folks out here, and if we shoot someone
Speaker 1: and wound them, they might shoot back. The distance from
Speaker 1: me to Tim was no more than fifteen yards, and
Speaker 1: we were all perfectly spaced beside oak trees in a semicircle. Now, normally,
Speaker 1: when you hunt public land, you shoot at the first
Speaker 1: opportunity you have to shoot, because someone else may shoot
Speaker 1: at different ducks and the ones you were working get
Speaker 1: scared away. Now that's not a qualifier to shoot at
Speaker 1: ducks above the trees. I'm as anti skybusting as it gets.
Speaker 1: Folks that do that ought to be sentenced to six
Speaker 1: months in the chair. The reason we're out there is
Speaker 1: to experience and see the ducks working down in the timber,
Speaker 1: and when you see it for the first time, it's
Speaker 1: a magical thing. A shooting time arrived and the sky
Speaker 1: filled with ducks. We could hear folks calling all around
Speaker 1: us in different spots, but none close enough to consider
Speaker 1: too close. That was another unwritten rule. If you relate
Speaker 1: to a spot and had to find another one, you
Speaker 1: walked until you were far enough away that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: ruin that person's hunt, which would in turn be bad
Speaker 1: for years as well. But ducks started flying in every direction,
Speaker 1: and groups of fives and tens turned into twenties and
Speaker 1: thirties as they crisscrossed back and forth, some flaring to
Speaker 1: keep from running into each other. Tim and I called,
Speaker 1: and our hunters remained motionless as instructed. They were all
Speaker 1: leaned up against the trees, with their face touching the
Speaker 1: bark and watching only what was happening in front of them,
Speaker 1: which would be the direction the ducks would be coming
Speaker 1: into the hole froom, if we could get them in
Speaker 1: there before somebody else shot and spoke to them all
Speaker 1: the way. Now, the number of ducks were too big
Speaker 1: to estimate, but it looked like every duck in Arkansas
Speaker 1: was trying to get into our spot, and the only
Speaker 1: reason they hadn't was the lack of air traffic control.
Speaker 1: We called and called, and finally they all started getting
Speaker 1: in the same flight path. I want y'all to understand
Speaker 1: that these ducks weren't way up in the sky. They
Speaker 1: were just above the tree tops, in easy shooting range,
Speaker 1: and they were flying over several groups of other duck hunters.
Speaker 1: But they didn't shoot at them. They were working our hole.
Speaker 1: And that was the unwritten biggest rule of all. You
Speaker 1: didn't shoot someone else's ducks that were working to their
Speaker 1: calling and their spot. Those are called swing ducks, and
Speaker 1: to shoot at someone's swing ducks as a cardinal sin. Now,
Speaker 1: I know there may be some folks think of that gun.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of un written rules that go along
Speaker 1: with public land duck hunting, and you be correct, there are.
Speaker 1: But when everyone followed them, public land duck hunting was
Speaker 1: a pleasure, not a pain. We respected each other's right
Speaker 1: to have a good hunt, and respect only works when
Speaker 1: it's mutual. Now, this particular morning, it was working, and
Speaker 1: it was working well. I can't accurately estimate the number
Speaker 1: of ducks that were trying to get together to come
Speaker 1: into the decoys, but about two passes before they did,
Speaker 1: five or six dropped into the hole and lit in
Speaker 1: the water. Clients never moved. I didn't call the shot
Speaker 1: because I wanted them all to come in. Well, those
Speaker 1: ducks spooked and shot out of there, and I continued
Speaker 1: calling to the big group to circle. I looked over
Speaker 1: at Tim as the last duck that had landed flew away,
Speaker 1: and he mouthed the word to me, you messed up,
Speaker 1: except he used a different verb. Now I kept calling,
Speaker 1: and show did he, hoping the whole time that I
Speaker 1: had chosen wisely. The big group finally got all together,
Speaker 1: and after what had been must have been two to
Speaker 1: three minutes of working ducks, they slipped in over the
Speaker 1: trees and poured into the hole by the hundreds. They
Speaker 1: fell up the middle and started hovering towards where we
Speaker 1: were standing, landing between me and landing between the guy
Speaker 1: beside me and all our hunters. They were splashing water
Speaker 1: on me as they lit at our feet. One's wing
Speaker 1: slapped my coat sleeve as he hovered beside me and
Speaker 1: sat down behind me in the calf deep water. I
Speaker 1: yelled shoot, and Tim and I were the only two
Speaker 1: that stepped out from the hiding spote. I glanced at
Speaker 1: our hunters and they were frozen. Their eyes were bugged
Speaker 1: down of their heads and their mouths were wide open,
Speaker 1: and all what they were seeing me yelling again in
Speaker 1: a shot from Tim, and they came, and man, we
Speaker 1: cut it loose. We killed multiple ducks each on that
Speaker 1: first group, and were limited out after another group or two,
Speaker 1: and we walked all the way back to the parking lot,
Speaker 1: laughing and reliving that hunt. And it didn't stop there
Speaker 1: either that night. At supper the next day in the
Speaker 1: timber and until they left, they talked about how they'd
Speaker 1: been hypnotized by the beauty of the spectacle that they'd witnessed,
Speaker 1: and that's what I missed. That's what I love to
Speaker 1: share with others that see it as I do. A
Speaker 1: mesmerizing event that speaks to your soul. When all you
Speaker 1: hear is the whistling wing beaks and the subtle quacks
Speaker 1: and sounds of a large group of ducks settled in
Speaker 1: at your feet. Now, they'd have been just as satisfied
Speaker 1: by watching and not firing a shot. And Tim and
Speaker 1: I have done that on occasions when it was just
Speaker 1: me and him. Brent, we got enough ducks in the freezer,
Speaker 1: let's just look at them today, and we did that.
Speaker 1: I finally cracked the case after a few years of
Speaker 1: taking folks to the woods and spending time with them
Speaker 1: out in the creation, and I could tell what they
Speaker 1: were after. They just wanted to have fun and enjoy
Speaker 1: the sights and sounds of the common thing that we
Speaker 1: all loved, and that was duck hunting. You've heard me
Speaker 1: say it on here before, and this is kind of
Speaker 1: where it all came from. But sharing a burden lightens
Speaker 1: the load, and sharing a joy multiplies it. That's the
Speaker 1: good stuff.
Speaker 2: Seeing it for what it is, and what it is
Speaker 2: is a beautiful gift for all of us to enjoy.
Speaker 1: I'll see all after Christmas. And from Alexis Bailey and
Speaker 1: yours truly at Casa day Reeves, we want to wish
Speaker 1: you all very merry Christmas. Get in your girls, one, two, three,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas. Until next week. This is Alexis Bailey and
Speaker 1: Brent Reid signing off. Y'all be careful