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 airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
Speaker 1: stories to share. Bucks Mama and Brent's Bucks. Dear. Season
Speaker 1: is upon us, and I can't wait for the mosquitoes
Speaker 1: to thin out a bit so I can climb a
Speaker 1: tree down in the river bottoms. Unlike hunting with dogs,
Speaker 1: which was passed down to me from my dad and
Speaker 1: my brothers and I were on our own when it
Speaker 1: came to deer, I'm going to tell you why, along
Speaker 1: with some other stuff. But first I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you a story. The story this week is a listener
Speaker 1: story from a family that lived twenty two minutes for
Speaker 1: where my wife Alexis grew up in the big city
Speaker 1: of Tyler. Lyndale, Texas is a small town well just
Speaker 1: over six thousand people according to the twenty twenty census,
Speaker 1: and if you look it up on the Internet. You'll
Speaker 1: see a list of quote unquote notable people from Lyndale,
Speaker 1: pro athletes, successful singers, composer, even the director for the
Speaker 1: Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. But a name you won't see on
Speaker 1: that list is Julie Thompson, a lady whose career for
Speaker 1: the last thirty years has been in education. She's the
Speaker 1: wife of Dee Wayne and mother to a son named Buck.
Speaker 1: And it's Bucks story that I'm sharing with you today.
Speaker 1: So when Buck Thompson's words and my voice, here we go.
Speaker 1: My name is Buck Thompson. I live in northeast Texas
Speaker 1: in the small but growing town of Lyndale. I grew
Speaker 1: up deer hunting and fishing, and my mom was always
Speaker 1: a big part of that. Now I don't remember a
Speaker 1: time when she was Most of the time she killed
Speaker 1: bigger and more dear than all the guys on the lease.
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in a culture of men only camps.
Speaker 1: My mom was always there, a part and accepted into
Speaker 1: the man dominated world. Some of my greatest memories are
Speaker 1: hunting with my mama. She really taught me how to hunt,
Speaker 1: and when I would go hunt with Daddy, we always
Speaker 1: had a good time. There was always going to be
Speaker 1: plenty of snacks and some sort of adventure. But my Mama,
Speaker 1: she took it seriously. Bringing home the meat was the
Speaker 1: name of the game. It was nothing for her to
Speaker 1: sit all day with a scope Marlin thirty thirty waiting
Speaker 1: for a deer to cross a small, narrow shooting lane
Speaker 1: where she hunted. Now once she sat motionless for hours
Speaker 1: waiting for the opportunity, and right a dark deer started
Speaker 1: crossing the lane, one after the other. She timed them
Speaker 1: crossing perfectly, and when the next shadows started across boom
Speaker 1: that Marlon notched another white tail and it was a buck.
Speaker 1: But the most special thing Mama did was take me hunting.
Speaker 1: My dad had to work one weekend and we loaded
Speaker 1: up and headed to Marion County, Texas for my first deer.
Speaker 1: The year was nineteen ninety nine and I was nine
Speaker 1: years old. I was in love with hunting. I remember
Speaker 1: staring at the kitchen window waiting for the mailman to
Speaker 1: deliver the newest deer hunting VHS tapes, and I washed
Speaker 1: them until they were broke. I had it all figured out,
Speaker 1: at least I thought I did. I had a few
Speaker 1: opportunities to kill my first dear, but none ever panned out,
Speaker 1: and I was getting antsy and have my picture taken
Speaker 1: with that old gray ghost of the East Texas woods. Finally,
Speaker 1: Mama and I got to the lease and we were hunting.
Speaker 1: We sat in my favorite hunting place we called the
Speaker 1: Hickory nut Stand. It was a homemade tripod stand with
Speaker 1: camo hanging from the shooting rail and built for two hunters.
Speaker 1: It only stood about eight feet off the ground because
Speaker 1: the pines that were surrounding it were only about eight
Speaker 1: or ten years old, and deer would literally walk right
Speaker 1: by you and never know you were there. Now, we
Speaker 1: got there before daylight, and this don grew in. Today,
Speaker 1: the deer movement was zero, and I got frustrated, impatient.
Speaker 1: I dreamed all summer about getting my first deer and
Speaker 1: was certain I should have already filled my tag and
Speaker 1: be telling tales of the hunt around the campfire. But
Speaker 1: there we sat, me and my mom for what seemed
Speaker 1: like years, until she finally gave in to my complaints
Speaker 1: and we left to go get something to eat. After lunch.
Speaker 1: I was ready to go home, convinced there were no
Speaker 1: dear for me that day, but my mama was confident
Speaker 1: we'd have better luck that evening. Another member, mister Dennis,
Speaker 1: he showed up to hunt that afternoon and decided he'd
Speaker 1: hunt with any earshot of us should we have any luck.
Speaker 1: And not long after Mama and I were back in
Speaker 1: the hickory nuts. Stand. Now, you remember how intense I
Speaker 1: told you my mom hunts well when you sat with her,
Speaker 1: That's how you're expected to hunt too. An hour, an
Speaker 1: agonizing hour of motionless staring into the woods was about
Speaker 1: all I was good for. And after an afternoon of
Speaker 1: sight eye looks and threats, she said, look, we've only
Speaker 1: got twenty more minutes set still. One will come out
Speaker 1: right at dark. My eyes rolled and a quiet sigh
Speaker 1: left my lips as I lowered my chin back on
Speaker 1: the woodstock of that single shot rifle that was secured
Speaker 1: on the shooting wreck. Light was leaving the pines, and
Speaker 1: shadows moved across the gray landscape, and just at the
Speaker 1: last bit of light, the image of a dope emerged
Speaker 1: from the pines, coming from right to left. Mama's hand
Speaker 1: patted my leg and whispered, there she is when you
Speaker 1: get it on your shoulder, squeezed the boom. Because of
Speaker 1: my mother's teaching, I already had my gun ready, and
Speaker 1: because of her lectures on shot placement, I knew where
Speaker 1: to settle the cross hair. The image of that that
Speaker 1: dough mule kicking straight up and down steals ingrained in
Speaker 1: my memory, and she tore off and made a big
Speaker 1: loop in the short pines. We found her with the
Speaker 1: help of mister Dennis, and me and my dad have
Speaker 1: had a lot of great memories in the woods, and
Speaker 1: I've hunted mule, deer and elk in the rocky mountains,
Speaker 1: experienced thousands of ducks. In migration, I ran up and
Speaker 1: down the river running through lines for big flathead catfish.
Speaker 1: But until my own children and I get to experience
Speaker 1: what me and my mama did that in November morning,
Speaker 1: it will forever be my favorite hunting memory. Don't ever
Speaker 1: take for granted the love of your mama, what she's
Speaker 1: willing to do to help you make your dreams come true,
Speaker 1: even if it's taking her only son by herself hunting
Speaker 1: all day, not expecting to have any help. But because
Speaker 1: she knew how much he loved to hunt and how
Speaker 1: bad he wanted to go get his first deer taking
Speaker 1: my wife and getting her into hunting as well as
Speaker 1: my little girl has been one of the most rewarding
Speaker 1: things I've done. I believe a lot of us out
Speaker 1: there and out on amazing opportunities, either because of a
Speaker 1: male only stigmatism or we are too wrapped up in
Speaker 1: our own wants and wishes. We missed the forest for
Speaker 1: the trees. How much joy we would have sharing our
Speaker 1: love of the outdoors with those who may never consider
Speaker 1: themselves an outdoorsman or an outdoors woman. Thank you, mama
Speaker 1: so much for loving the outdoors and not giving up
Speaker 1: on your desire to hunt and fish just because you
Speaker 1: weren't always invited because you're a girl. And thanks to
Speaker 1: my great great uncle George for taking my mama squirrel
Speaker 1: hunting when it wasn't the cool thing for a little
Speaker 1: blond headed tag along to be following you through the woods.
Speaker 1: One person's decision can shape a whole generation's outcome, and
Speaker 1: according to Buck Thompson of Lynndale, Texas, that's just how
Speaker 1: that happened. Thanks for sharing that, Buck, It's a wonderful sentiment,
Speaker 1: a wonderful tribute to you, mama. The love of a
Speaker 1: good mama just can't be big. Deer hunting is a
Speaker 1: big tradition in my family. Any and all game that
Speaker 1: was available was on the menu and supplemented the family
Speaker 1: on both sides of my lineage. My maternal grandfather, find
Speaker 1: a sly who grew up during the Great Depression, told
Speaker 1: me about catching possums and keeping them in a cage
Speaker 1: and feeding them out for weeks at a time with
Speaker 1: table scraps to clean out their systems before they knocked
Speaker 1: them in the head, cleaned them and ate them, and
Speaker 1: then sold the hides. Of course, but that side of
Speaker 1: my family was comprised mostly of subsistence farmers and saw
Speaker 1: mill workers who didn't have the time or the desire
Speaker 1: to hunt. My paternal side was a polar officer. If
Speaker 1: it crawled, walked, flew, climbed, or swam in the outdoors,
Speaker 1: it was fair game. In stark contrast to the other
Speaker 1: side of my family, there were no possum eating stories
Speaker 1: from the Depression era. Now I ain't saying they didn't
Speaker 1: eat them, but if they did, they didn't tell nobody
Speaker 1: about it, and I assume they didn't have to because
Speaker 1: of all the wild game that supplemented the livestock that
Speaker 1: was consumed. You know, squirrels, rabbits, and deer, just to
Speaker 1: name a few. I have a picture of my great
Speaker 1: grandfather love it reeves and a buck deer he killed
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. There weren't a lot of deer
Speaker 1: back then in Arkansas, not in our party anyway, And
Speaker 1: if I was a betting man, I'd guess that buck
Speaker 1: was probably in the wrong place at the right time,
Speaker 1: and cross passed with my grandpa on a squirrel hunting'd
Speaker 1: be pretty easy to hit the magazine, cut off on
Speaker 1: his brown in a five, and slide the boat back
Speaker 1: and exchange it squirrel oed for some buckshot. If the
Speaker 1: opportunity arose, who knows, he could have been a stander
Speaker 1: on a deer drive and smashed that rascal in the
Speaker 1: hounds pushed him by his location. What was for sure
Speaker 1: was he was a hunter, and a good one. But
Speaker 1: the deer hunting jeans skipped the generation with my dad.
Speaker 1: He hated deer with a passion and coined the phrase
Speaker 1: that I and others still use, interjecting our own nouns
Speaker 1: into the statement when talking about fire ants, farrel, hogs
Speaker 1: or red walks. Now here's the quote from my dad
Speaker 1: about the white tailed deer here in the natural state.
Speaker 1: If I could mash a button and kill every deer
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, I'd mash it twice to make sure I
Speaker 1: got them off. Now, my father's deep seated hatred for
Speaker 1: deer came from two places. Number one, they ate his garden,
Speaker 1: and number two, his old cold dogs would, on occasion
Speaker 1: chase them instead of CODI is a trade very unbecoming
Speaker 1: of a hound that was supposed to be broke from
Speaker 1: chasing deer and on to chasing codes only. My dad
Speaker 1: killed a lot of deer, but he ate only a
Speaker 1: few himself. They were giving away the folks that needed meat,
Speaker 1: or my brother and I would split them. Wasting them
Speaker 1: wasn't an option. But he cared nothing about antlers. He'd
Speaker 1: be proud of us if we killed a buck, but
Speaker 1: as far as horns go, he cared nothing about it.
Speaker 1: And in my office it's a set of deer antlers
Speaker 1: from a buck that my father killed a friend and
Speaker 1: a coworker. My dad saw the antlers laying in the
Speaker 1: back of his truck, having been freshly harvested and removed
Speaker 1: from the deer. He said, buddy, where'd you get that
Speaker 1: rack of horns. But Dad said, I killed him over
Speaker 1: in front of the house. I gave the meat away
Speaker 1: and told the man that I gave it to. I
Speaker 1: wanted the horns back. I'm gonna give it to one
Speaker 1: of the boys if they wanted. He said, well, let
Speaker 1: me mount it on a plank for you to give him.
Speaker 1: And with that our friend of forty years, Jackie Beathay,
Speaker 1: coworker of my dad, mounted the antlers and gave it
Speaker 1: back to him. A few weeks later, he's like, here's
Speaker 1: your horns, buddy, say you never told me how that
Speaker 1: that hunt went, he said. Dad looked at him and said, well,
Speaker 1: it's probably one of the best shots I ever made.
Speaker 1: I didn't really have time to react, and I got
Speaker 1: him just before he got out of sight. Jackie's a
Speaker 1: deer hunting has always been one, and he was intrigued
Speaker 1: by the story, and he said, well, was he about
Speaker 1: to run in the woods on you? Dad said, no,
Speaker 1: he's about to jump out of the headlights. He had
Speaker 1: a mouthful of my peas when I shot him about midnight.
Speaker 1: Now that was about That was about the extent of
Speaker 1: my dad's deer hunting. Everything on the outside of the
Speaker 1: hot wire around his pea patch was free, but everything
Speaker 1: on the inside deer had to pay for. There's one
Speaker 1: more incident that I can tell you about my dad
Speaker 1: and deer. My brother Tim and I were talking about
Speaker 1: the other day. He reminded me where we got the
Speaker 1: inspiration to rope the deer that I talked about back
Speaker 1: on episode two thirty one of This Country Life. My
Speaker 1: dad had been out running his hounds one night and
Speaker 1: on the way back home he rounded a ninety degree
Speaker 1: curve on a gravel timber company road, and standing in
Speaker 1: the middle of the road staring at the headlights was
Speaker 1: a huge buck deer. Now, the deer just stood there
Speaker 1: staring at the truck. Dad honked at him. He didn't budge.
Speaker 1: He inch closer to him, he didn't budge. He stood
Speaker 1: and stared along. That dad thought there was something wrong
Speaker 1: with him. Now, if you got the impression from the
Speaker 1: Peapat story that my dad was a deer hating poacher,
Speaker 1: well here's the evidence that should knock that silly thought
Speaker 1: right out of you. Nagging. This encounter was in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere, well past midnight. Had he chosen to,
Speaker 1: he could have just driven on by or shot got
Speaker 1: him out the window the ladder ben what a deer
Speaker 1: hating poacher would have done, but that's not what he did.
Speaker 1: He decided to see if he was injured and if
Speaker 1: need be render aid or put him out of his misery,
Speaker 1: both things that are heavily discouraged these days, but this
Speaker 1: was a different time. Moving on, he grabbed a brand
Speaker 1: new Laryert rope from behind the seat, walked out in
Speaker 1: front of his truck, and through a beautiful loop about
Speaker 1: fifteen yards that landed, as he said, like an angel
Speaker 1: had placed it around his antlers. He popped the rope
Speaker 1: to tighten the sensi, and that's when the buck came
Speaker 1: to life. Apparently the deer was none the worse for wear,
Speaker 1: and only blinded by the truck lights, because as that
Speaker 1: buck ran into the darkness, it took most of the
Speaker 1: hide from his palms and all his fingerprints and a
Speaker 1: brand new rope with him. Now he found that rope
Speaker 1: about sixty yards off the road two days later, where
Speaker 1: it had unceremoniously called on the limb after that deer
Speaker 1: it mocked too shortly after takeoff. Thinking about that story
Speaker 1: makes me realize that apples really don't fall far from
Speaker 1: the tree. My brothers and Eyelow, with most of our
Speaker 1: friends and relations, love to deer hunt. I've been hunting
Speaker 1: surrounding states and been successful on many occasions. Nothing earth
Speaker 1: shattering as in antlercized, but good mature deer just the
Speaker 1: same and trophies to me for sure. But it's the
Speaker 1: ones that got away, though, the ones that I slip
Speaker 1: through my fingers, that caused me to pause or reflect
Speaker 1: on what I did to mess it up, sometimes resigned
Speaker 1: to the fact that some things just aren't meant to be.
Speaker 1: I was hung with Jacob Wood, a good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: on family property that he's been hunting on forever. We're
Speaker 1: good friends. He's very good friends. He's like a brother
Speaker 1: and a son all in one to me. Both of
Speaker 1: us loved a deer hunt, and I filmed him smash
Speaker 1: a great buck back when I was just filming for
Speaker 1: the experience and trying to learn how. I made him
Speaker 1: pass on that buck with his bow at twenty five
Speaker 1: yards one evening because the camera light was bad. The
Speaker 1: next day we left for New Mexico, where we chased
Speaker 1: elk for almost two weeks all over creation to no avail,
Speaker 1: regretting the deer that we let walk away for that
Speaker 1: stupid camera back home. That sixteen hour drive back to
Speaker 1: Arkansas was mostly in discussion on how we were going
Speaker 1: to rest for a couple of days then try to
Speaker 1: get that buck hemmed up with his muzzleoader. We got
Speaker 1: home well after daylight, exhausted and beat down from the
Speaker 1: butt kicking we'd received in New Mexico. He crashed at
Speaker 1: his house and I crashed at mine. Three hours later,
Speaker 1: I was picking up my phone to text him to
Speaker 1: see if he was awake when my phone buzzed, I'm
Speaker 1: going after this afternoon, he texted. I texted back, picked
Speaker 1: me up on your way through. Three hours later, we
Speaker 1: were standing over one hundred and fifty six inch white
Speaker 1: tail that walked out in the golden hour of light
Speaker 1: like he'd read the script we discussed all the way
Speaker 1: back home from that unsuccessful Elkhunt feast to famine to feast.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just works out. What seemed like a sure
Speaker 1: thing went soar fast because of no camera light on
Speaker 1: the first opportunity, and then a couple weeks of self doubt,
Speaker 1: and then bingo, we got him. Then there's the times
Speaker 1: when all looks perfect, and Fate hands you an oatmeal
Speaker 1: raisin cookie you thought was chocolate chip. Can there be
Speaker 1: a bigger betrayal? I think not. I was both hunting
Speaker 1: the back of the property where my friend Jacob had
Speaker 1: named this buck High Beams because of his tall antlers.
Speaker 1: I called him a deer because I don't think an
Speaker 1: almo was outside of dogs and horses should really have names,
Speaker 1: and that includes cats. Sorry, Reva, but I said what
Speaker 1: I said. Anyway, This great specimen of a white tail
Speaker 1: buck was notoriously nocturnal, and Jacob had been watching him
Speaker 1: for coming on to four years. We had pictures of him,
Speaker 1: mostly at night, but on a whim, I went to
Speaker 1: the back where he hung out, just to sit on
Speaker 1: a food plot and see what I could see. I
Speaker 1: was facing the north and staring out across a hlf
Speaker 1: acre plot about lost in thought when I caught moving
Speaker 1: out of the right side of my vision. A doe
Speaker 1: was walking from the east edge of the woods, making
Speaker 1: her way steadily toward the center of the opening. As
Speaker 1: I watched her walking, tracking her smooth gait with my eyes,
Speaker 1: I looked past her and they're seventy yards away was
Speaker 1: the mystical book Old high Ben. It's halfway sticking out
Speaker 1: of the brush on the north side of the food plot.
Speaker 1: He walked out and followed her lead, pausing along to
Speaker 1: grab a bite of vegan food as he made his
Speaker 1: way closer with every step. At twenty five yards of broadside,
Speaker 1: I punched a hole just behind his left front shoulder.
Speaker 1: The mechanical broad had stopped when it hit the other side.
Speaker 1: The shot was as easy as falling out of the bed.
Speaker 1: He wheeled ninety degrees and smoked it out of orbit,
Speaker 1: heading northwest with about a foot of airw poking out
Speaker 1: of the entry hole. And that was the last I
Speaker 1: ever saw of him. We never found a drop of
Speaker 1: blood or him. Trust me when I say I looked,
Speaker 1: and we looked. We looked for days, and I looked
Speaker 1: for weeks. I crawled in and out of more treetops
Speaker 1: and thickets so thick with briers that a rabbit would
Speaker 1: have to toe the hatchet to get through them. And
Speaker 1: I never found so much as a hair. That was
Speaker 1: eight years ago, and I killed a lot of dear sins.
Speaker 1: But I will never get over not getting that one.
Speaker 1: And I don't get mad because his head isn't hanging
Speaker 1: on my wall. I'm disappointed. All the effort my friend
Speaker 1: put into passing him year after year, allowing that joker
Speaker 1: to reach his full potential, was seemingly wasting. I didn't
Speaker 1: get to have his antlers hanging on my wall. Now
Speaker 1: that was a big deal, don't get me wrong. But
Speaker 1: most importantly, that deer meet was lost, and that would
Speaker 1: have fed my family and my friends. And we can
Speaker 1: kill six deer in Arkansas. It's taking another deer for
Speaker 1: the freezer wouldn't be a problem, but that one would
Speaker 1: go to waste and wasting game. That's no way on. Now.
Speaker 1: Fast forward two years later, and on the opposite side
Speaker 1: of that property, I shot a good deer with a
Speaker 1: very familiar looking set of antlers. Now, the story of
Speaker 1: all stories would be that I cleaned him and found
Speaker 1: my era from two years before. But this ain't Hollywood.
Speaker 1: But standing there looking at the characteristics of the antlers
Speaker 1: in my hand and comparing them to the pictures I
Speaker 1: had in my mind of the one that got away,
Speaker 1: you know, OHI bem I'd say they were closely related,
Speaker 1: who knows, But I'll post pictures of them both and
Speaker 1: you can see what I'm talking about and decide for yourself. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make up for the one that was lost
Speaker 1: by any means. Nothing will replace the loss because no
Speaker 1: portion of that deer that I shot was ever utilized.
Speaker 1: But it does speak for wildlife management and the plan
Speaker 1: Jacob had going on that property, allowing the game to
Speaker 1: grow and reproduce with the strongest jeans winning out a
Speaker 1: great and hard lesson in conservation all in one, and
Speaker 1: anything I can take a lesson away from good or
Speaker 1: bad that will help me in the future is a
Speaker 1: lesson learned. White Tail Week is going on until the
Speaker 1: sixth of October, and if you're in the market for
Speaker 1: some new first light, the savings set up this year
Speaker 1: is pretty unique and the more that you spend, the
Speaker 1: bigger the savings. Now, if you don't spend anything, you
Speaker 1: save at all, but you also don't get any new
Speaker 1: cool deer smashing threads in the systems they put together
Speaker 1: this year really cool. Check out all the details over
Speaker 1: at the meat eater dot com. Thank y'all so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Remember our folks that have been affected by
Speaker 1: the devastation brought on by Hurricane Helene, and do what
Speaker 1: you can to help and be sure if you're sending
Speaker 1: money that is to a legitimate organization. Until next week,
Speaker 1: this is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.