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 stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two the teacher frog gigging.
Speaker 1: If there's a more identifiable country summer nighttime grocery gathering
Speaker 1: endeavor than frog gigging, I don't know what it'd be.
Speaker 1: What other activity combines water, the darkness, a flashlight, sneaking
Speaker 1: up on prey and going home with a toasack full
Speaker 1: of goodies better than frog gigging? I dare say none.
Speaker 1: There's different ways to do it, but the end goal
Speaker 1: is to get a mess big enough to get the
Speaker 1: grease to stinking. I'm going to tell you where to
Speaker 1: find them, how we catch them, how we clean them,
Speaker 1: and how we cook them up. Better get you a
Speaker 1: snack before you listen, cause you're going to be hunger
Speaker 1: when we get done. But first I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you a story of how I came to poking holes
Speaker 1: and frogs on the History Channel in twenty eleven, we
Speaker 1: were sitting at the table eating supper when an unknown
Speaker 1: number from Los Angeles ring on my cellphone. I didn't answer.
Speaker 1: Had to be a wrong number. I didn't know anybody
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. We finished eating and they called back.
Speaker 1: Now I have to admit I love wrong numbers and
Speaker 1: texts from wrong numbers. They're like a bird nest on
Speaker 1: the ground. They're easy pickings, Like the time I got
Speaker 1: a random text from someone at a conference who was bored,
Speaker 1: and it went something like, this is this the right
Speaker 1: number for your new phone? Lisa? This is Janet. This
Speaker 1: conference is so boring. I wish I had an excuse
Speaker 1: to get out of here. I'm sitting down front and
Speaker 1: I can't turn around to see where you are. Man,
Speaker 1: I remember this like it was yesterday. It still gives
Speaker 1: me chills. Here was my Here was my response, Yes, Janet,
Speaker 1: thank goodness you texted. I had a burrito from the
Speaker 1: complimentary breakfast bar and I'm dying. I'm stranded in the
Speaker 1: bathroom and no TP and my phone is almost dead,
Speaker 1: grab a roll and run to the lobby bathroom hurry.
Speaker 1: Thirty minutes later I got a text saying, Lisa, I've
Speaker 1: been to the lobby in every bathroom on six floors.
Speaker 1: Where are you. I'm not sure how that played out.
Speaker 1: I blocked her number after that last one, but I
Speaker 1: hope she had a good sense of humor. So guess what.
Speaker 1: My phone rang again, but this time I answered and
Speaker 1: a lady asked to speak to Reeves. I said, this
Speaker 1: is him. She told me her name and said, I'm
Speaker 1: a producer for the BBC. We have a new show
Speaker 1: to be on History Channel called Harry Biker's. We saw
Speaker 1: your frog hunting video on YouTube and would like to
Speaker 1: pay you to help us film a show like what
Speaker 1: you filmed. Now, I did have a video on YouTube
Speaker 1: that I shot a year earlier just for fun, that
Speaker 1: I'd posted, but I made the mistake of putting Born
Speaker 1: on a bio by Credence Clearwater Revival with it and
Speaker 1: quickly got it snatched off the air by John Fogery's
Speaker 1: lawyer or somebody, and rightfully so. So I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: this is a crocer bull and eventually this lady's going
Speaker 1: to ask me for my credit card number so she
Speaker 1: can help me get rich. So I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: interested in participating in your scam today, and I hung up.
Speaker 1: She called back, and it's a wonder I even answered.
Speaker 1: But when I did, she said, mister Reeves, please hear
Speaker 1: me out. We're a legitimate television production company and we
Speaker 1: want to hire you to help us produce a segment
Speaker 1: for the show. Oh, it's an American version of a
Speaker 1: successful show in England, and we're going to be in
Speaker 1: Arkansas film and several activities, and think you could help
Speaker 1: us represent your state in your way of life. I
Speaker 1: started to believe her, but I told her if they
Speaker 1: were looking for someone to help them poke fun at
Speaker 1: people in our whale life, that she'd picked the wrong
Speaker 1: man to help her. I wouldn't be a part of
Speaker 1: anything like that. She assured me that they loved what
Speaker 1: I'd filmed and they wanted the world to see what
Speaker 1: fun we were having and how we did it. She
Speaker 1: didn't ask me if I eat the frogs I caught,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying yes, I'm If I didn't need them,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be running around at night jobbing holes in them.
Speaker 1: She thought that was funny as for my address and
Speaker 1: said she was sending me five hundred dollars. Three days later,
Speaker 1: I got it in the mail and ran to the
Speaker 1: bank to make sure it was good. It was a
Speaker 1: few weeks later, and after lots of planning and coordinating,
Speaker 1: the production crew and hosts showed up for two days
Speaker 1: of filming. A month or so after that, Yours Truly
Speaker 1: was gigging Frogs on the History Channel with Paul Patrinella
Speaker 1: and Bill Allen. These Texas boys were compadres and traveled
Speaker 1: around the US gathering up victials and with the locals
Speaker 1: and cooking them the way the locals did. Then they
Speaker 1: flipped the script and fixed the food according to their style.
Speaker 1: Paul was a short enough trained professional chef, and Bill
Speaker 1: he was like me. He just a cat that like
Speaker 1: to cook, except he was really good at it. They
Speaker 1: got out of the TV business after a while, and
Speaker 1: Paul owns the Bait Barn Fisheries down in Brian, Texas,
Speaker 1: where you can order freshwater fish for your ponds and lakes.
Speaker 1: And Bill that Rascal's busier than a one armed paper hanger.
Speaker 1: He's in Brian too, and a genuine brain surgeon caliber
Speaker 1: mechanic at Frank's motorcycle resurrections, and even manages his sons band,
Speaker 1: the Southern Degenerates. That sounds like the recurring theme of
Speaker 1: My family Reunions. It was a lot of fun doing
Speaker 1: that show, and I count them boys as friends. But
Speaker 1: they still ain't asked me to come fishing with them
Speaker 1: in the Gulf. But anyway, if you're interested in watching
Speaker 1: that episode, you can see it for free on the
Speaker 1: Pluto TV app. Search for Harry Baker's USA at episode
Speaker 1: Numero Uno is finger Licking Frogs with no Beard Brent.
Speaker 1: My buddy Jeremy Humphreys helped me with that project. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's been fishing with them either, But if
Speaker 1: they're only inviting one of us to look, Jeremy get
Speaker 1: your own podcast. And that's just how that happened. Now,
Speaker 1: I wonder how many folks who listen to this have
Speaker 1: ever been frog gigging. Even better, I wonder how many
Speaker 1: folks of eating them now. Just like a lot of
Speaker 1: the people I grew up with, I love frog legs,
Speaker 1: batter and fried and scale it. My mama didn't eat
Speaker 1: a lot of them, but she'd cook us as many
Speaker 1: as we wanted on one condition. She didn't want to
Speaker 1: cook them if they hadn't been frogs. Do you know
Speaker 1: that you can make a fresh skipp frog leg wiggle
Speaker 1: and twitch with just a pinch of salt put on them?
Speaker 1: Apparently rigor mortis doesn't set in as fast with frogs
Speaker 1: as it does other creatures, and fresh frog legs still
Speaker 1: have some cells that can respond to stimulus and salt
Speaker 1: hot grease. It can make them twitch. It would freak
Speaker 1: my mama out, and we could hear her every time
Speaker 1: it happened, regardless of where we were inside or out.
Speaker 1: First things first, we got to catch them to cook them,
Speaker 1: and there may be no cheaper source of entertainment. When
Speaker 1: it comes to the equipment, you need to start gathering
Speaker 1: them up because you really only need a light to
Speaker 1: see in the dark with the blind the frog while
Speaker 1: you slipping up on it. Now, when I was young,
Speaker 1: and I can't tell you how many of those old
Speaker 1: six Volk batteries I went through that attached with two
Speaker 1: wires to a little light that was rigged up on
Speaker 1: the headstrap. The metal bracket that held that light was
Speaker 1: flat as a flitter, and by the end of the
Speaker 1: night it made your forehead feel like Chuck Norris have
Speaker 1: been using it for target practice. I started using my
Speaker 1: coon hunting light after that, and that was an old
Speaker 1: carbide light i'd wired up on my cap. I got
Speaker 1: my first one when I was twelve from Johnson's Hardware
Speaker 1: store and I paid eight dollars for it. If you
Speaker 1: don't know what a carboyd light is, you'ta look that up.
Speaker 1: I was basically walking around in the woods with an
Speaker 1: open flame of settling torch burning on my head, not
Speaker 1: kidding you. Adjusted the brightness by how much gas was
Speaker 1: fed to the flame through a valve that was connected
Speaker 1: to a small reservoir of carbide that sat under a
Speaker 1: small container of water that dripped onto the carbide, creating
Speaker 1: settling gas. Now what parent wouldn't want their child walking
Speaker 1: around with a flamethrower strapped to their face. I'd love
Speaker 1: to have that thing back, And if anyone out there
Speaker 1: has one that works and they'd part with it, hit
Speaker 1: me up on the old Gram and let me know.
Speaker 1: And before we get to catching them, we got a
Speaker 1: no word to look and win. Well. The wind is
Speaker 1: easy when the frogs come out, And ten times out
Speaker 1: of ten the frogs come out at night. That's one
Speaker 1: of the ones we're after, do anyway, And the one
Speaker 1: we're after is the American bullfrog frog nerds. Get your
Speaker 1: pencils ready and understand I'm not John Prine and talking
Speaker 1: ugly and Hawaiian. I'm fixing to speak Latin. Leido badez
Speaker 1: cadis bajanas is the Latin name for our supper ben
Speaker 1: bat and haight I do on that we got to
Speaker 1: have water in just about any old water will do. Ponds, lakes, creeks,
Speaker 1: boughs and rivers, they'll all fill the bill. Slow moving
Speaker 1: portions of the streams are best, and the ones with
Speaker 1: clean banks, well they're even better. That show we found
Speaker 1: for the History Channel was done on a mental farm
Speaker 1: where they kept the pond bank's mode and we could
Speaker 1: slip down the levees, usually spying the frogs a long
Speaker 1: time before we ever got to them. In the cottonel Us.
Speaker 1: My research shows that every state except for the Peace
Speaker 1: Garden state of North Dakota has a chorus of bullfrogs.
Speaker 1: Do you know that's what you call a group of bullfrogs?
Speaker 1: Of course it's a fitting a denter fire. If I
Speaker 1: do save myself, I like to hunt them on boughs, sleughs,
Speaker 1: and canals. You can get a small on a boat
Speaker 1: or a pi row or a kayak, anything that will
Speaker 1: cruise along in shallow water and use a push pole,
Speaker 1: a paddle or a trolling motor to quietly ease down
Speaker 1: the edges. That's where you're gonna find a old bully.
Speaker 1: It'll be sitting right near the edge of the bank,
Speaker 1: on the ground or in the water. Their eyes will
Speaker 1: shine easy enough, but one thing I always look for
Speaker 1: is that whitish colored patch of their throat, and most
Speaker 1: times it's just as easy to see as their eyes.
Speaker 1: If the woods are flooded, you can find them sitting
Speaker 1: on logs, big lily pads, floating around moss, just about anywhere.
Speaker 1: The key to the whole operation is having a steady
Speaker 1: beam of light directed in that rascal's eyes to keep
Speaker 1: them still along on them for you to get close
Speaker 1: enough to add him to your limit. Gig Man, stay
Speaker 1: focused on that frog and be ready in case he
Speaker 1: starts to get away, but not so focused that you're
Speaker 1: not aware of your surroundings. A good friend of mine
Speaker 1: tells the tale of when he was a game warden
Speaker 1: and received a complaint of someone gigging frogs out of season.
Speaker 1: The frog season usually opens around the middle of April here,
Speaker 1: but this spring had been unusually warm and frogs were
Speaker 1: everywhere on this farm, and these boys were helping themselves
Speaker 1: a few weeks too early, and on top of that,
Speaker 1: they were supposedly seldom without a license. There was a
Speaker 1: big cypress boo that wound through that property, and he
Speaker 1: said it was covered up with frogs. So after getting
Speaker 1: the complaint, he went down and snuck into a good
Speaker 1: hiding spot to sit and watch for him. He did
Speaker 1: it two nights in a row parking, hiding his truck,
Speaker 1: walking a long way to his hiding spot, sitting in
Speaker 1: the dark and watching him, waiting and listening for them,
Speaker 1: and never saw a thing. He went back on the
Speaker 1: third night and was just about to leave when he
Speaker 1: saw a flash of light and heard him coming his way.
Speaker 1: In a few minutes, he saw three folks in a
Speaker 1: little aluminum boat going back and forth from bank to bank.
Speaker 1: The man in the back was running the little troll
Speaker 1: to motor, the man in the middle was holding the spotlight,
Speaker 1: and the guy up front was gigging the frogs. My
Speaker 1: friend slipped down from his hiding spot and stood behind
Speaker 1: a big cypress tree waiting for the men to get
Speaker 1: close enough to catch The bable was wide enough that
Speaker 1: if he announced himself too soon, they could be on
Speaker 1: the other bank, ditch the boat and get away, so
Speaker 1: he had to let him get close enough that he
Speaker 1: could at least identify them if they ran. He watched
Speaker 1: him for ten or fifteen minutes as they got closer
Speaker 1: and closer, going back and forth across that canal, gigging frogs.
Speaker 1: When he thought they were getting close enough, he saw
Speaker 1: that beam of lights surround the tree he was hiding behind.
Speaker 1: He said he knew right then that they'd seen him,
Speaker 1: and he went to step out from behind the tree
Speaker 1: and try to get a look at their faces. As
Speaker 1: he started moving around that tree, he saw a huge
Speaker 1: bullfrog sitting in front of that tree he was hiding behind.
Speaker 1: He said, it was like he was hunting over a decoy.
Speaker 1: They had no clue he was there watching them, peeking
Speaker 1: around that tree. He could see them all focused on
Speaker 1: that frog as the light got closer and closer, and
Speaker 1: he heard them talking back and forth about how big
Speaker 1: it was. He could also see that the only visible
Speaker 1: weapon they had in the open was the frog gig.
Speaker 1: When they got right near the bank, and that gig
Speaker 1: was only seconds away from sabbing that frog. He stuck
Speaker 1: his arm around the tree and grabbed the frog gig,
Speaker 1: snatched it out of the man's hand and simultaneously saying
Speaker 1: game warders. He said it was the blood curdling squeal
Speaker 1: of the man in the front that caused man in
Speaker 1: the middle to drop the spylight and start screaming too.
Speaker 1: They both started running out the back of the boat
Speaker 1: and over top of the man in the back, who
Speaker 1: started screaming, what is it? What is it? What is it?
Speaker 1: He turned on his flashlight and hollered game warding again.
Speaker 1: They stopped running through the waist deep water and mud
Speaker 1: and crawled out on the bank where he was standing.
Speaker 1: He said they was actually seemed to relieve that they
Speaker 1: were only getting tickets and that a boogerman hadn't got them.
Speaker 1: Oh lord, there's three legal ways to catch frogs in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and that's what I'm talking about. So y'all be sure
Speaker 1: and check with your state laws and do what's right here.
Speaker 1: If you're sixteen or older, you're going to have to
Speaker 1: have a fishing license. In Texas you'll need a hunting license,
Speaker 1: so wherever you are, make sure you get what you need.
Speaker 1: In Arkansas, you can catch them with your hands, use
Speaker 1: a gig or a spring loaded grabber attached to a pole,
Speaker 1: or a bow and arrow, and the last way, be
Speaker 1: it or not, is to fish for them. Now. Using
Speaker 1: your hands is my least favorite for two reasons, and
Speaker 1: those reasons are number one, I don't like poking my
Speaker 1: hands in dark places where cotton mouse live. And number two,
Speaker 1: I don't like poking my hands in dark places where
Speaker 1: cotton mouse live. I got snake bit once, and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you all that story another day. Another thing about
Speaker 1: using your hands, you have to walk right up on
Speaker 1: them or run the boat right up on them, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll make a racket or hit a stob and
Speaker 1: spook the frog, causing them to jump and get away,
Speaker 1: even though you got him blinded with a light. I've
Speaker 1: never used a bowl in ara, but that sounds like fun,
Speaker 1: especially if I used archery equipment. I don't think I'd
Speaker 1: to be slinging frog airs out of my compound. Probably
Speaker 1: be a better idea to get you a traditional bowl
Speaker 1: or recurve and do some instinctive shooting with a fishing era.
Speaker 1: They're attached to your bowl with a real or by
Speaker 1: a spool, and you can shoot them and then reel
Speaker 1: them in. I can't think of a better way to
Speaker 1: stay and practice for archery. It's sure beach standing in
Speaker 1: the backyard shooting a styrofoam target that wouldn't taste good
Speaker 1: even if a Harry Biker cooked it. Fishing for frogs
Speaker 1: is an easy way to let everybody have a cracking
Speaker 1: catch and supper. If you knew the frogging and you
Speaker 1: haven't developed those long forgotten caveman skills the chunking spears,
Speaker 1: let the frog catch himself. Just get you a long
Speaker 1: cane pole or a jig pole, attach a few feet
Speaker 1: of fishing line and tie cropper jig on it and
Speaker 1: dangle it in front of that frog. Frogs are predators
Speaker 1: and they'll eat just about anything. Once he bites it,
Speaker 1: just pull him to you and drop him in the sack,
Speaker 1: and then it's on to the next one. If I
Speaker 1: got to making some notes and getting organized to talk
Speaker 1: to you all about frog fishing, I found a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of videos of folks catching frogs this way on
Speaker 1: the interwebs forget walleye fishing, seth and Chester. The bullfrog
Speaker 1: tournament trail is where it's at, plus no waiting frogs.
Speaker 1: I've used the grabber before. It's a tension loaded apparatus
Speaker 1: that folks gig fish with too. The proty using a
Speaker 1: grabber is when you gig the frog, you're really just
Speaker 1: catching him. The trigger hits that frog when you spear him,
Speaker 1: and tension loaded springs collapse and the jaws of the
Speaker 1: graver they come together and trap the frog instead of
Speaker 1: poking new holes in him that he wasn't designed to
Speaker 1: live with. Then you just drop him in the ice
Speaker 1: chest or in your tosac and move on to the
Speaker 1: next one. All your frogs stay fresh and you can
Speaker 1: wait and clean them in the morning without any problem.
Speaker 1: The cons he using a grabber, and my experience is
Speaker 1: that joker will go off if you bump something in
Speaker 1: the boat or hitt on limb at the worst possible time,
Speaker 1: usually spooking your supper away. And fresh frogs are always
Speaker 1: trying to get back from whence they came, and you'll
Speaker 1: spend some of your time re catching the frogs that
Speaker 1: hop out of the bag or the ice chest. I
Speaker 1: like to catch my frogs once, and when I'm using
Speaker 1: a gig. It ain't like I'm running a sword through
Speaker 1: them and throwing them in the dungeon to slow to
Speaker 1: meet their fate. That would be cruel and unnecessary. It's
Speaker 1: just a frog, someone would say, Well, it may be,
Speaker 1: but they're a creature we've been given dominion over to utilize, enjoy,
Speaker 1: and respect, even if it is just a frog. When
Speaker 1: I pull him off the gig, I give him a
Speaker 1: good watch four on the knogging and by taking hold
Speaker 1: of his legs and using the part of his head
Speaker 1: where his hat would go for a hammer on the
Speaker 1: side of the boat, wham and drop him in the bucket.
Speaker 1: Now you got to mess the dead frogs, And if
Speaker 1: you ain't planning on cleaning them when you get done,
Speaker 1: you better have some ice ready to keep them good
Speaker 1: and cold till you get ready to ject the breeches
Speaker 1: off of them the next morning. That's easy too, and
Speaker 1: I'm fixed to tell you how to do it. You
Speaker 1: gonna need a dead bullfrog, any kind of kitchen shears,
Speaker 1: a pair of plyers, and a pocket knife. You know
Speaker 1: what kind of pocket knife. Grab your shears and cut
Speaker 1: his feet off at the ankles. Then with your pocket knife,
Speaker 1: cut a line across his back about even with the
Speaker 1: armpits of his front leg. Take your plyers and grab
Speaker 1: a hold of the skin as you just cut, and
Speaker 1: take your other hand and grab him just above that cut,
Speaker 1: using his front legs for leverage. Pull down with you plyers,
Speaker 1: and just that easy off comes his breeches. Then I'll
Speaker 1: take the shears and cut across where his back meets
Speaker 1: his legs. You should have two legs ready for fry.
Speaker 1: Some folks will separator or leave them together. What are
Speaker 1: you preferred on mat? All right, somebody get the peet
Speaker 1: up old to three hundred and twenty five degrees. We're
Speaker 1: about to get busy cooking up our veentles. Buttermilk, egg
Speaker 1: flyour salt and pepper. That's about his basic and he
Speaker 1: gets and that's all you need to cook up a
Speaker 1: mess that's really good food. I like to add a
Speaker 1: little crawfish bowl and lemon pepper to my fly. I
Speaker 1: talked about that batter mixture on the Catching Catfish with
Speaker 1: Trotlines episode. If you ain't heard that one, you need
Speaker 1: to get your ears over there on that one and
Speaker 1: get to listening. Sometimes I'll go with two parts fired
Speaker 1: to one part cornmeal if I'm feeling fancy, and I'll
Speaker 1: use the same spices or a combination. There ain't no rules.
Speaker 1: Just fix them the way you like them. But when
Speaker 1: you fix them, holler at me when they're ready. A
Speaker 1: basic way to make them is mix that egg up
Speaker 1: in a bowl of buttermilk, dip the legs in there,
Speaker 1: and then roll them in the flour that you've added
Speaker 1: spices to and drop them into grease. You can double
Speaker 1: up the dipping process legs and buttermilk, then in fly
Speaker 1: back to buttermilk again, back in the fire to give
Speaker 1: them that extra crust. Man, it's good if you deep
Speaker 1: fry them. Well, you know how much oil you need
Speaker 1: If you do it in a skillet, about a quarter
Speaker 1: to a half inch is plenty. The best part of
Speaker 1: this activity is it's one of many ways to introduce
Speaker 1: children to the outdoors and the concept of being self reliant.
Speaker 1: With your help, you can teach them that darkness can
Speaker 1: be inviting and wonderful, filled with adventure and fun. I
Speaker 1: hope y'all be inspired to get out with the little
Speaker 1: folks and have fun. Schools out and when I was young,
Speaker 1: and school being out meant that school was in with
Speaker 1: my dad. There's a whole other world going on out
Speaker 1: there at night, and it's responsibility of those of us
Speaker 1: who are familiar with it to show those that ain't
Speaker 1: how good it is. We value and look out for
Speaker 1: the things we love, even if it is just a fraud.
Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.