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 to teach you.
Speaker 1: Decoy dogs. I'm talking about decoy dogs this week, and
Speaker 1: not the dogs are decoys I'm normally associated with. You
Speaker 1: don't hunt birds or bandidos with these cane nines, And
Speaker 1: believe it or not, the dog is the decoy. We're
Speaker 1: hunting codies. And if you're not familiar with how it works,
Speaker 1: just hang with me and I'll tell you all about it.
Speaker 1: But first I'm going to tell you a story. This
Speaker 1: story comes from This Country Life mail bag and listener
Speaker 1: Justin Moore from way up Yonder for me Anyway in
Speaker 1: Orchard Lake, Michigan. Orchard Lake is a bustling metropolis of
Speaker 1: some twenty three hundred folks, with the most notable being
Speaker 1: our pal Justin and Bob Seer. We're turning the page. Bob,
Speaker 1: it's Justin's time to shine. And does this boy shine?
Speaker 1: I'll say he does. And Justin's words in my voice.
Speaker 1: Here's Justin's story. Well, it was the fourth of July
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. I had the day off from working long
Speaker 1: care and I had decided to go fishing. There was
Speaker 1: a small lake in the back of my division that
Speaker 1: only me and one other gentleman fished. It was perfect.
Speaker 1: I had the whole place to myself, and for some
Speaker 1: reason unknown, I decided not to take the boat out
Speaker 1: that day and just to fish from the bank. And
Speaker 1: after a couple of hours and a few fish later,
Speaker 1: a woman came walking up the beach I was fishing
Speaker 1: with a big old flamingo floating well there with the fishing.
Speaker 1: She told me she was just going to anchor it
Speaker 1: out a little ways for her grandkids could swim on
Speaker 1: it and play on it the next day when they
Speaker 1: had a cookout. Well, I thought that was a great idea,
Speaker 1: so she started swimming out with it as I started
Speaker 1: packing up my gear and loading everything in my truck,
Speaker 1: and then I heard something no one ever wants to
Speaker 1: hear at any given place a yell for help, but
Speaker 1: I mean a real yell for help. I ran down
Speaker 1: to the edge of the water like I was getting
Speaker 1: paid for it, and I started yelling her, you okay,
Speaker 1: what's wrong? She continued yelling for help, and I pulled
Speaker 1: out my phone to call nine one one, but I
Speaker 1: quickly realized that whatever was going on, it couldn't wait,
Speaker 1: and in the water I went. I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if a witness told me I had a rooster tail
Speaker 1: of water coming up from behind me on my way
Speaker 1: out too or while I was swimming. I tried to
Speaker 1: keep communication with her, and I tried to keep her calm.
Speaker 1: I'm coming, it's gonna be okay. She wasn't responding, and
Speaker 1: that big floating flamingo a terror, was blocking my view.
Speaker 1: I came around the end of the floating All that
Speaker 1: was sticking out of the water was the woman's nose
Speaker 1: and her mouth. The anchor had wrapped around her arm
Speaker 1: and was pulling her under. Now she had enough time
Speaker 1: to grab the seam of the flamingo with the tips
Speaker 1: of her fingers, and I told her to stay calm
Speaker 1: and most importantly, don't grab onto me, or we're both
Speaker 1: gonna be in a big mess. I was able to
Speaker 1: reach under her for the rope with one hand and
Speaker 1: grabbed the floating with the other and pulled them together.
Speaker 1: I eased a tension off her arm and she was
Speaker 1: able to swim away. I made sure I wasn't in
Speaker 1: any way tangled up in that rope too, and I
Speaker 1: let it go. Who were both tired. She said, let's
Speaker 1: float on our backs to the beach now. I quickly
Speaker 1: made her aware that personally, I do not like being
Speaker 1: in deep water. Now. I'm a great swimmer, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, but I'll take the boat out and catch
Speaker 1: some fish anytime. That's never been a problem with me,
Speaker 1: and I just don't like knowing what's underneath me. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we made our way back to the beach in safety.
Speaker 1: She's a wonderful woman whom I'm glad to still know,
Speaker 1: and she laid her notified the fire department in our
Speaker 1: local newspaper, where I was recognized by the city and
Speaker 1: awarded the Meritorious Citizen Award at the fire station. To
Speaker 1: this day, she brings me down to jar of her
Speaker 1: homemade strawberry jelly for Christmas. And boy, that stuff will
Speaker 1: put some folks out of business. More importantly, Miss Andrew
Speaker 1: is still alive and doing well, and faced with that
Speaker 1: same situation, I'd do it all over again. And according
Speaker 1: to Justin Moore, that's just how that happened. Well, Justin,
Speaker 1: you earned that strawberry jelly, my friend. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: something else. If I ever find myself in Orchard Lake,
Speaker 1: Michigan being attacked by floating flamingo, I ain't gonna be
Speaker 1: hauling for Bob Seger to come save me. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be Justin Moore and nobody else. Decoy dogs. I had
Speaker 1: the pleasure several years ago before I started filming my
Speaker 1: old palle clay chasing bears, to be introduced to some
Speaker 1: of the coolest dog related hunts I'd ever been on. Now,
Speaker 1: I'd hunted coons, worlds, deer, quail, rabbits, hogs, and coyotes
Speaker 1: with dogs of all makes and models, and I assumed
Speaker 1: I had done just about every type of hunting imaginable
Speaker 1: with a dog in Arkansas, and I was wrong. Through
Speaker 1: an Internet hunting form, I ran across the guy from
Speaker 1: North Arkansas who was not only a decoy dog hunter,
Speaker 1: but about the best in the business. I'd soon come
Speaker 1: to find out. I never heard of decoy dogs or
Speaker 1: what they were used for. That was all about to change.
Speaker 1: When I saw some footage connected with a man named
Speaker 1: jeff Ryder. I told him I was intrigued with what
Speaker 1: he was doing, that I was trying to get into
Speaker 1: filming hunts and wanted to meet up and document what
Speaker 1: he was doing. Over the course of the next couple
Speaker 1: of years, I spent a lot of hours traveling and
Speaker 1: filming some amazing dog work and interactions that, while were
Speaker 1: exciting and action packed, were also providing a service to
Speaker 1: landowners and wildlife. Before all you lovers started lighting your
Speaker 1: torches and issuing out pitchforks. The National Agricultural Statistics Service
Speaker 1: reports that ninety five thousand caves were lost one year nationwide,
Speaker 1: and sixty five percent of the calf losses because of
Speaker 1: predators were attributed to coyoties. Now, codies can have a
Speaker 1: significant impact on cattle, sheep, and goats, but there there
Speaker 1: can be original differences as well. They can be worse
Speaker 1: in some places than others. Kansas, for example, sees coyoties
Speaker 1: being responsible for eighty four percent of calf losses. Not
Speaker 1: eighty four percent of losses to predators. Eighty four percent
Speaker 1: of all losses are to old wiley Cody filling his
Speaker 1: belly with baby bovines. That's a lot of calves. There's
Speaker 1: also a lot of bees. Kansas is also where my
Speaker 1: friend Jeff does a lot of his coat. Then more
Speaker 1: on Jeffrey in just a minute. Coats also impact dear
Speaker 1: another wildlife. After all, that's where they naturally get their groceries.
Speaker 1: And I get it they got a E two. But
Speaker 1: a study in South Carolina involving ninety one radio collared
Speaker 1: fawns saw fifty six of them killed by colds. That's
Speaker 1: why of those jokers have got to be held in check.
Speaker 1: Enter the decoyed dog hunter as one method of controlling them.
Speaker 1: And like I said, until I met Jeff, I didn't
Speaker 1: know there was such a thing or such an activity.
Speaker 1: He explained to me that there had been government contract
Speaker 1: hunters for years out west whose sole purpose was to
Speaker 1: control the colt population, and most all of them used
Speaker 1: decoy dogs. Now y'all have heard me talk about how
Speaker 1: my dad and his colt running buddies did it. They'd
Speaker 1: gather up after dark on the timber company roads near home,
Speaker 1: and they'd make the colts hound by blowing a siren
Speaker 1: at them, or mimicking the howl with their voices, or
Speaker 1: finding scating the road and just cutting the dogs loose,
Speaker 1: and the race would be on, literally a race. They
Speaker 1: chased them. They chased them through the woods and the
Speaker 1: the dogs did through the woods and the river bottom
Speaker 1: until the cold got away. Now rarely did they catch them,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to catch them. They wanted them
Speaker 1: to run so they could hear the hounds barking to
Speaker 1: see whose dog was the best. Then come back and
Speaker 1: do it again another time. And the longer the race went,
Speaker 1: the more testament to the dogs that keep up and
Speaker 1: stay in the contest. We just drove around different roads
Speaker 1: and keeping the dogs within the earshot and listening. Now,
Speaker 1: when using the decoy dog, the time of the day
Speaker 1: you hunt and the ending is much different, especially for
Speaker 1: the cows. Now here's how Jeff did it. When I
Speaker 1: was filming them in Kansas. He drive for miles talking
Speaker 1: to ranchers and farmers getting permission to hunt property specifically
Speaker 1: for coyote control. Now this was in the days before
Speaker 1: on next one, folks had to read maps, and Jeff
Speaker 1: had a landownership plat book in his truck with property
Speaker 1: owners marks that he'd gotten permission to access. And I
Speaker 1: remember thumbing through that book, and I don't recall the estimate.
Speaker 1: He told me once about how many thousands of Acrecy
Speaker 1: had permission to hunt coyotes on. But it was a lot,
Speaker 1: like a jillion. There's a jillion, and actual number, if
Speaker 1: it is, I know it's a big one. And Jeff
Speaker 1: had three of them. He knew those areas like folks
Speaker 1: know their neighborhoods that they live in. And we drive
Speaker 1: from my alls according to wind direction and the position
Speaker 1: of the sun, and cherry picking the best spots to
Speaker 1: set up and call a coat and break him once
Speaker 1: and for all from the bad habit of eating cash
Speaker 1: phones and building elaborate bombs and traps to catch road runner.
Speaker 1: We started daylight on that had creek bottoms and thickets
Speaker 1: next to prairie ground and pastures with grass that was
Speaker 1: short enough that you could see a good ways across it.
Speaker 1: Then he checked the wind direction and we'd set up
Speaker 1: with the wind in our face or at least a
Speaker 1: quarter and two us in one direction of the other.
Speaker 1: The reason being is if they smelled us before they
Speaker 1: heard the call or engaged with the dog, the chances
Speaker 1: of us even seeing them were drastically reduced. Kylds ain't dumb,
Speaker 1: and they're thriving everywhere because of their adaptability and weariness
Speaker 1: when it comes to survival. But you can throw all
Speaker 1: of that stuff out the window. Once they get focused
Speaker 1: on that dog, they do some really wild stuff. Now
Speaker 1: I've buried the hook deep enough, let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Check this out. We set up in a fence row
Speaker 1: or beside a big round bala haea, the tree line
Speaker 1: or brush topping. Nine times out of ten, we wasn't
Speaker 1: wearing any camouflage. We was just in jeans, overalls and
Speaker 1: T shirts and sitting on folding stools. And Jeff would
Speaker 1: run a fox Pro predator call out about thirty yards
Speaker 1: or so away, sometimes closer and come back and he'd
Speaker 1: set beside me and the camera on one side and
Speaker 1: his decoy dog spot on the other. Spot was a
Speaker 1: bobtailed Catahoula curR cross that was the smartest dog as
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. She was laid back, professional and knew
Speaker 1: what her job was as well as any seasoned veteran.
Speaker 1: Her job was to be the judas to every coat
Speaker 1: she could find. Jeff would kick that predator call off
Speaker 1: with different sounds depending on the time of the year,
Speaker 1: and set back and await for a coat to reveal itself.
Speaker 1: All the coaches had to do was be in a
Speaker 1: position where Spot could lock in on them. Couch sometimes
Speaker 1: would be hundreds of yards away when we saw them
Speaker 1: trotting closer to the sounds coming from that predator call.
Speaker 1: They moved in and out of the thickets and trees
Speaker 1: like ghosts until they got within one hundred yards or so,
Speaker 1: and with spot laser focused on that coyotes, Jeff would
Speaker 1: send her out towards the colt. Now eight times out
Speaker 1: of ten, the cold would see Spot loping out towards
Speaker 1: them and freeze until she crossed whatever distance that cayote
Speaker 1: had chosen us close enough, and then they turned around
Speaker 1: and start running away. But just before they hit the
Speaker 1: woods or a thicket, they'd always glanced back at Spot.
Speaker 1: And here's the cool part. Jeff had trained her and
Speaker 1: conditioned her to retreat when the coach did this, and
Speaker 1: it became so ingrained in her that he didn't even
Speaker 1: bother toning her back anymore over their tracking collar. She
Speaker 1: see that colt look back, and she'd voluntarily start back
Speaker 1: towards where we were sitting, and just like setting the
Speaker 1: hook on a fish, that colt would stop, turn around
Speaker 1: and follow her. Now. Once that happened, our scent, our movement,
Speaker 1: and any other thing that would normally spook a coat
Speaker 1: into another zip code went out the window. With the dishwater.
Speaker 1: They lost all natural fear of anything they were genetically
Speaker 1: coated to avoid, mainly people. It was incredible to watch
Speaker 1: the interaction between the dog and the colt, and every
Speaker 1: stand would have the coat turn and chase Spot, then
Speaker 1: turn and start back to safety, only to have Spot
Speaker 1: turn around and go back. Then the coat would re
Speaker 1: engage and Spot would once again make tracks back toward us,
Speaker 1: tolding the coat even closer. I've seen this back and
Speaker 1: forth go several rounds until Jeff ended it all with
Speaker 1: a well placed two twenty three round or turkey loads
Speaker 1: at close range. I remember one of the first times
Speaker 1: I hung with Jeff and witness this back and forth
Speaker 1: between Spot and the coat. We were sitting on the
Speaker 1: edge of a pl loud field in the Arkansas Delta,
Speaker 1: not far from where my brother Tim and I are
Speaker 1: putting the SmackDown on the catfish in the Arkansas River.
Speaker 1: It was nearing sunset, and the last end of the
Speaker 1: day was this one before we headed back to camp
Speaker 1: and supper, and we walked down the river levee and
Speaker 1: were more or less in the bald open setting on
Speaker 1: the ground, resting against the field levee with us hoping
Speaker 1: that it was tall enough to break up our outline
Speaker 1: against the horizon. The field was muddy, and Jeff laid
Speaker 1: the predator call in the seat of his hunt stool
Speaker 1: about twenty five yards out in front of us, and
Speaker 1: then he walked back through that gumbo mudding, settled back
Speaker 1: down beside me, and he turned it on. Almost immediately.
Speaker 1: We saw one, two, then the third codey entering the
Speaker 1: field a quarter of a mile away, heading toward the
Speaker 1: diet rabbit sounds coming out of that collar that was
Speaker 1: wailing out in front of us. Then they saw us
Speaker 1: and they froze and spot right on. Q took off
Speaker 1: like a labrador after ducking the decoys, and all three
Speaker 1: of them, at different stages, started going back from where
Speaker 1: they came. Just before hitting the field edge, they looked
Speaker 1: back and spot did her thing. One by one, they
Speaker 1: turned and followed her back, tried to catch her. She
Speaker 1: was playing tag, but the coyotes weren't playing at all.
Speaker 1: She was an intruder and if they could, they had
Speaker 1: to catch her and turn her into suffer. But Jeff
Speaker 1: was ready to make sure that that wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1: But back and forth they went, spotting all three colts
Speaker 1: like a k nine yo yo. Every time they came
Speaker 1: back they got a little closer. Jeff could have whacked
Speaker 1: all three of them at any time, but we were
Speaker 1: enjoying the show and it wasn't showing any signs of ending. Son.
Speaker 1: The predator call was twenty five yards in front of us,
Speaker 1: and at one time there was a cold walking around it,
Speaker 1: another one just behind it making laps. But the bravest
Speaker 1: of them all was following the spot back to where
Speaker 1: we sat in the bald open match. That one got
Speaker 1: so close. When he turned to go back yet again,
Speaker 1: he kicked mud on me and my camera. He was
Speaker 1: easily within ten feet to where we were sitting. I
Speaker 1: could have jobbed him with a frog gig and never
Speaker 1: fully stretched out my arm. It was crazy then it
Speaker 1: got loud, bam bam. The end of two cold is
Speaker 1: the third one, old, spooky, the one that never came
Speaker 1: in as close as the others. He got away. The
Speaker 1: thrill and enjoyment of seeing the interaction is what's so incredible.
Speaker 1: You know, I enjoyed cold hunting with my dad only
Speaker 1: because he was there. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy
Speaker 1: hearing a good dog race as much as anybody, more
Speaker 1: than most. But there's a reason I don't have a
Speaker 1: pen full of cold dogs out behind my house. Well
Speaker 1: there's probably several reasons, really, but the main one is
Speaker 1: I don't enjoy it enough to justify owning a passive
Speaker 1: of them. But hunting like he did, I had to
Speaker 1: guess at what was going on out there? Where his
Speaker 1: dog's really leading the pack or were they just allowedest
Speaker 1: or was it Toby's or Raimonds getting the best of
Speaker 1: all of them? You know, no one really knew, But
Speaker 1: with a decoy dog, the only thing you wondered about
Speaker 1: is why you hadn't heard of this, or why someone
Speaker 1: hadn't told you about it, or why you hadn't tried
Speaker 1: it before. Now it's fun, but it's not all action
Speaker 1: all the time, you'll have stand after standing, have driven
Speaker 1: miles and miles between them and zeroed on all of them.
Speaker 1: But just like that one good golf shot that keeps
Speaker 1: Gary Believer Nukem out on the link swinging the wrenches
Speaker 1: when it works, and you see a code attempting to
Speaker 1: play his deadling ninja skills in the broad daylight up
Speaker 1: close and personal. Man, it is a sight to behold, y'all.
Speaker 1: Check out Jeff's YouTube channel, Decoy Doggers. Reeve was going
Speaker 1: to post up a link to it in the description,
Speaker 1: And while you're wandering around on there, ease on over
Speaker 1: and smash the old subscribe button to our new Meat
Speaker 1: Eater YouTube channel two. It's gonna have the audio to
Speaker 1: all the podcasts and the video to the ones that
Speaker 1: are filmed. And we just started filming the Bear Grease
Speaker 1: Renders and that buffoonery will be up there soon too.
Speaker 1: Lots of other stuff is coming and in the works,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited for y'all to see it. I hope
Speaker 1: everyone has a safe and happy Fourth of July, or
Speaker 1: as I like to call it, America one England zero
Speaker 1: day until next week. This is brit Reeves. Sign it off.
Speaker 1: Y'all be careful.