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. Deer hunting with Dogs. Deer hundred with
Speaker 1: Dogs has faded from the spotlight over the past thirty years.
Speaker 1: That at least it has around here. There's some great
Speaker 1: stories and lessons and cutting a pack of Houds loose
Speaker 1: and listening to them putting a white tail through his paces.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about some of them, but first
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you a story. This story comes
Speaker 1: from a fellow, y'all hear me talking about all the time,
Speaker 1: my older brother Tim. I'll have him on here one
Speaker 1: day telling stories himself, but until then this will have
Speaker 1: to do so in Tim's words and my voice. Here
Speaker 1: we go. It was nineteen seventy and I was twelve
Speaker 1: and finally big enough to deer hunt by myself, sort
Speaker 1: of I'd always wanted to use a rifle, but rifle
Speaker 1: hunters at the time were looked upon like they were
Speaker 1: sort of nuts. I grew up deer hunting with a
Speaker 1: brown and a five that held a buckshot and slug
Speaker 1: combination that I lost many hours of sleep over trying
Speaker 1: to get the right combination in the magazine. We used
Speaker 1: dogs back then, and if they ranted deer Bobby, I
Speaker 1: needed buck shot first for close range, then slugs in
Speaker 1: case I missed up close three double all bucks shot,
Speaker 1: followed by two slugs in case he was still amongst
Speaker 1: the living. Them rifles will shoot a mile son, you
Speaker 1: don't need one. They're dangerous. You could shoot a deer
Speaker 1: miss and kill someone over in the next county. That's
Speaker 1: what they told me. That's what my dad told me.
Speaker 1: So there I was stuck with buckshot and slugs to
Speaker 1: deer hunt with until I was married, except for one time.
Speaker 1: It was December deer season and way before the Curse
Speaker 1: of Leaks Land, when you could hunt anywhere on Timber
Speaker 1: Company land that I wanted to go deer hunt. Dad
Speaker 1: said his friend Raymond was going to run his dogs
Speaker 1: and he would put me in a spot on the
Speaker 1: Upper Potlatch Road. We were at Uncle Jim's house talking
Speaker 1: about all of it, and Uncle Jim asked me if
Speaker 1: I wanted to use his thirty thirty. Well, I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, I am a rifle man and I need
Speaker 1: that Winchester thirty thirty. I'll show these old folks I
Speaker 1: ain't gonna kill nobody. And I looked at Dad and
Speaker 1: he said, you need to toke that shotgun. I started whining,
Speaker 1: I come from a long line of winers. Dad caved
Speaker 1: in and Uncle Jim let me have that thirty thirty.
Speaker 1: A short while later, I was sitting on a pile
Speaker 1: of logs on the side of the road on a
Speaker 1: Timber company road close to Crane's Lake when Raymond's dogs
Speaker 1: jumped a deer and they headed in my direction. Dad
Speaker 1: was parked about one hundred and fifty yards behind me,
Speaker 1: sitting in the truck, letting me quote unquote hunt by myself.
Speaker 1: And as the dogs got closer, I stood up with
Speaker 1: my thumb on the hammer of that lever action rifle.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, a humongous eight point buck jumped out in
Speaker 1: the road right in front of me, no more than
Speaker 1: thirty five yards away. I pulled that hammer back and
Speaker 1: sent one to him. I missed two things that day,
Speaker 1: that buck and my opportunity for my first deer with
Speaker 1: a rifle. If I killed anything, it had to be
Speaker 1: someone in the next county. But if I did, we
Speaker 1: never heard about it. But I had to listen to
Speaker 1: my dad all the way home, son, if you just
Speaker 1: used that shotgun, you'd killed that big old buck, on
Speaker 1: and on and on. I come from a long line
Speaker 1: of folks that will say I told you so, and
Speaker 1: he did for the rest of his life. And according
Speaker 1: to my brother Tim, that's just how that happened. Now
Speaker 1: I can testify myself to that last statement of Tims
Speaker 1: that I read. As our father got older, he soffered
Speaker 1: that into saying, how son, you'd do that anyway you want.
Speaker 1: But if it was me, that translated into, if you
Speaker 1: don't want to hear about this for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life, you'd better do it. The way out of
Speaker 1: deer hunting with dogs was at one time the way
Speaker 1: people in my part of the world hunted deer almost exclusively. Camps, fed,
Speaker 1: and cared for packs of hounds all year for the
Speaker 1: opportunity to cut them loose. When firearm deer season opened,
Speaker 1: any number of dogs from groups of two to pens
Speaker 1: of twenty plus would be managed and conditioned throughout the
Speaker 1: year for the big hunt that happened at the beginning
Speaker 1: of each November. Second Saturday of November would see the
Speaker 1: majority of the state's modern gun deer season opener. Now,
Speaker 1: but there was a time when it opened on Mondays
Speaker 1: and schools did not. Deer season was eagerly in anticipated
Speaker 1: this Christmas, and while I can't testify to the rest
Speaker 1: of the school districts in Arkansas, I can vouch for
Speaker 1: the Warren School district yours truly was serving a twelve
Speaker 1: year sentence a being force fed everything I wasn't interested
Speaker 1: in learning about, aside from football and girls, and those
Speaker 1: two exceptions were not necessarily in that order. But getting
Speaker 1: out of school for deer season was something we could
Speaker 1: all get behind. It was a hunting culture and recognized
Speaker 1: by the community of folks who lived there as a
Speaker 1: social norm. Church was on Sunday and the men folk
Speaker 1: were hard to find around town on opening day and
Speaker 1: the week of deer season. You didn't have to be
Speaker 1: a hardcore hunter either to participate in the opening gun
Speaker 1: deer hunt. There were a few who didn't participate. My
Speaker 1: maternal grandfather, find A Sly, who I've spoken about on
Speaker 1: here before. He was not a hunter. He was fully
Speaker 1: in support of anyone who did it. He just never
Speaker 1: got the hankering, But the rest of us we got
Speaker 1: his portion and took up the slack of anybody else.
Speaker 1: A lot of the big camps back in the day
Speaker 1: would have dog pins where they kept their dogs year round.
Speaker 1: Some would serve as a caretaker throughout the year by
Speaker 1: feeding and watering them and taking them on hunts during
Speaker 1: the off season to keep them in shape, or members
Speaker 1: would take turns with that responsibility. They weren't shooting deer
Speaker 1: during the off season, just keeping the dogs up to
Speaker 1: speed on what was expected of them and training new
Speaker 1: ones that they were acquired and brought into the pack.
Speaker 1: I was never a member of one of the big
Speaker 1: camps where members were from all over the community with
Speaker 1: a big pen full of hounds out back. It was
Speaker 1: always a small family camp of in laws and brothers
Speaker 1: and nephews and cousins. Females were as welcomed as any
Speaker 1: of the rest of us. They just chose not to
Speaker 1: hang out at the camp outside of family night when
Speaker 1: everyone brought food, and we all gathered for any evening
Speaker 1: a fellowship in vitals. That was their choice. Now, we
Speaker 1: didn't continue to practice running deer dogs, more or less,
Speaker 1: dropping out of that practice in the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Now you back up over two hundred years and you'll
Speaker 1: find records of settlers and adventurers roaming through Arkansas. Was
Speaker 1: some kind of utilitarian k nine that assisted in hunting game.
Speaker 1: You regular listeners of this channel may have heard about
Speaker 1: a settler from Kentucky living in Arkansas around eighteen eighteen
Speaker 1: who had a dozen hunting dogs, one of which he
Speaker 1: gave to a German novelist who sailed to the New
Speaker 1: World to seek adventure, finding a lot of it right
Speaker 1: here in the natural state when it was in its
Speaker 1: most natural state. The Kentucky and gifted Friedrich Gerstoker one
Speaker 1: of his hounds during his hunting adventures through the region. Now,
Speaker 1: the man claimed the dog was an excellent turkey dog,
Speaker 1: and it would chase turkeys until they flew into a tree.
Speaker 1: Then he treated the turkey by barking until the hunter arrived.
Speaker 1: And Old Gerstalker took that dog and cut him loose,
Speaker 1: and he jumped a deer, chasing him clean out of sight.
Speaker 1: Frederic never saw him again. Now more than likely that
Speaker 1: dog went back to the last place he saw his
Speaker 1: original owner and trailed him back home if hunting in
Speaker 1: familiar territory. Many hunting dogs would return home if they
Speaker 1: separated from their hunters. And don't feel bad for old
Speaker 1: Gerstalker on losing that dog. He eventually ended up with
Speaker 1: a more faithful hound that stuck by him through some
Speaker 1: interesting times, and his name was Bear's Grease, So I'm
Speaker 1: familiar now. In the late eighteen eighties, a native North
Speaker 1: Carolinian and current at the time Arkansas US Representative Poindexter
Speaker 1: Done hunted with a renowned Mississippi bear killer, Robert E. Bobo,
Speaker 1: and his famous past back of fourteen dogs, and they
Speaker 1: were hunting here in Arkansas. After a successful four day hunt,
Speaker 1: taling over a ton of bear and deer meat, it
Speaker 1: was apparent to everyone involved that Bobo's hounds were just
Speaker 1: as advertised. The politician offered Bobo a section of land
Speaker 1: that's six hundred and forty acres for his fourteen dogs,
Speaker 1: and Bobo declined. Bobo's hunting partner, Jim Dunn, no relation
Speaker 1: to the representative traded six of his dogs to the
Speaker 1: legislator for half a section of land, or three hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty acres. The old Jim Bow later sold that
Speaker 1: ground for thirty five hundred dollars, which is north of
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand today. Those were some good dogs. If
Speaker 1: you've listened very long, you've heard me expound on a
Speaker 1: few dogs of my own, currently my coonhound, old Whaling.
Speaker 1: But before Whaling, there was Anna, my black laugh. Her
Speaker 1: retrieving abilities were so to none. She was the solid
Speaker 1: of a hunting companion as you could have, and that
Speaker 1: pealed in comparison to her duties as a member of
Speaker 1: the Reeves family. I know I've told this story before,
Speaker 1: but it's a story I like to hear myself, and
Speaker 1: it fits when I'm talking about the value of hunting dogs.
Speaker 1: And it was a gift to me from a very
Speaker 1: good friend who received her as payment on an overdue
Speaker 1: tree planting job that my friend, who wasn't a duck hunter,
Speaker 1: had done for a guy who happened to be a
Speaker 1: professional dog trainer. I recapped that portion only to emphasize
Speaker 1: the value of this dog, as I fully trained to
Speaker 1: work in retriever her bloodline was impeccable, and her demeanor
Speaker 1: and personality was what anyone would want in a dual
Speaker 1: purpose hunting family pet. She wiped out that four thousand
Speaker 1: dollars over to my friend, and he in turn gave
Speaker 1: her to me, where he knew that she'd be put
Speaker 1: to good use anyway. I had her a couple of
Speaker 1: years at this point, and lots of people that hunted
Speaker 1: with her at my brother and I's guide service. One guy,
Speaker 1: particularly from the start, right after his arrival with his
Speaker 1: group to our camp, wanted to buy her, and I
Speaker 1: repeatedly told him no over and over again, to the
Speaker 1: point that after two days of it, I began avoiding
Speaker 1: one on one conversations with him for having to hear
Speaker 1: his pleas for me to sell her. That always told
Speaker 1: me to never put a price on something that I
Speaker 1: didn't want to sell, because someone would pay it. I
Speaker 1: found that out on the day they were leaving, when
Speaker 1: that cat came up to me and said, I am
Speaker 1: asking you again to name your price for Anna. Frustrated,
Speaker 1: I blurted out, six thousand dollars. That's what it'll take
Speaker 1: for her to leave here with you, And that joker
Speaker 1: never batted an eye. He said, will you take a
Speaker 1: personal check or do you prefer cashiers? He got me.
Speaker 1: I was a deputy sheriff at the time, working on
Speaker 1: a poorly equipped and overworked, underpaid department, and six thousand
Speaker 1: dollars was nearly a third of my yearly salary. And
Speaker 1: he was serious. But I wasn't. I crawfished on him
Speaker 1: and I told him no, escorted him to his vehicle
Speaker 1: to get him gone. Dogs are valuable. Good was even
Speaker 1: more so. So I get it. When represented done offered
Speaker 1: that section of land from mister Bobo's dogs, I doubt
Speaker 1: that I'd have made that deal either. Dear dogs, at
Speaker 1: least in my part of Arkansas, were a big percentage
Speaker 1: of the running walker breed, the cousin of my hound, Whalen,
Speaker 1: who's a tree and walker. I remember introducing my wife
Speaker 1: Alexis to my dad when we were dating, and at
Speaker 1: his house, his cow dogs were across the road and
Speaker 1: the pen raising all kinds of ruckus. When we pulled
Speaker 1: up and Alexis asked my dad what kind of dogs
Speaker 1: he had, he said, running walkers. She said, running walkers.
Speaker 1: They need to make up their minds what they're doing.
Speaker 1: But those dogs were just about the standard for all
Speaker 1: deer camps in our area, with the exception of being
Speaker 1: the folks who'd feed anything, they would chase and barket
Speaker 1: a deer, and the beagle folks, which is what our
Speaker 1: little camp did for a few years. Tim's brother in law,
Speaker 1: who has looked upon as being a brother to us both,
Speaker 1: Joe Bryant, was the keeper of the beagles, and before
Speaker 1: we built the structure that is the current being our
Speaker 1: deer camp, we hunted out of an old army tent
Speaker 1: that I described in detail back in episode one one
Speaker 1: aptly titled deer Camp Real original I know. Anyway, if
Speaker 1: you were running dogs, you were the designated as the
Speaker 1: captain of the hunt, and you decided when and where
Speaker 1: to cut them loose depending on where the folks sat in.
Speaker 1: The stands were located along the wind direction, and the
Speaker 1: most likely avenues of escape at the deer take from
Speaker 1: the barking hounds. This type of hunting is foreign too.
Speaker 1: You need just understand that deer being shot at ain't
Speaker 1: necessarily the one being pursued. It's the deer on the
Speaker 1: edges of all the commotion that slip away to avoid
Speaker 1: the hounds. That usually wind up getting tagged. Also, they're
Speaker 1: not likely to catch the deer that they're chasing. They
Speaker 1: ain't a deer dog in the country that could run
Speaker 1: through the woods and thickets fast enough to catch the deer.
Speaker 1: And I bet on the deer being chased a hundred
Speaker 1: times out of a hundred to live to see another day.
Speaker 1: It defeats the purpose anyhow. We don't want the dog
Speaker 1: to capture. We want someone sitting on a deer stand
Speaker 1: and have an opportunity if we're shot at him. Here's
Speaker 1: how it worked. The night before, we'd gather at the
Speaker 1: fire after suffer to decide if we were running dogs
Speaker 1: the next day. If we were, we all picked stands
Speaker 1: and Joe would decide where he was going to cut
Speaker 1: him loose based on our locations. After breakfast the next morning,
Speaker 1: we'd all head off to our selected spots. They would
Speaker 1: go back to his house and load the dogs, usually
Speaker 1: about an hour or so after daylight, and at a
Speaker 1: pointed time, he'd cut them loose and follow them through
Speaker 1: the woods, hooping and hollering them on their way to
Speaker 1: jump a deer. They was so much fun setting on
Speaker 1: a stand watching the woods for deer, watching the clock
Speaker 1: for the time to start listening for the dogs to jump.
Speaker 1: We liked beagles because the land we hunted was relatively
Speaker 1: smalk compared to the other camps, and beagles didn't push
Speaker 1: deer as fast as the big hounds do. Also, the
Speaker 1: race lasted longer, take a bigle a long time to
Speaker 1: cover the same amount of ground as a big hound
Speaker 1: and man, and it really sounded good. I remember one
Speaker 1: particular morning that we had gotten a good frost. The
Speaker 1: air was cold and crisping. Seven point thirty Joe was
Speaker 1: scheduled to cut the dogs loose. I was north of
Speaker 1: the camp, less than a quarter of a mile on
Speaker 1: a stand we called the salt lit. We poured out
Speaker 1: some rock salt from an old stump a few years before,
Speaker 1: and it had leached into the ground, and deer craves
Speaker 1: salted the fall live because of a sodium deficiency. They
Speaker 1: create that deficiency about even plants hide in water and
Speaker 1: protasting him throughout the summer. And they dug a hole
Speaker 1: out around that stump about a foot deep and a
Speaker 1: couple feet wide. So I was in a pretty good spot,
Speaker 1: regardless that the dogs pushed them above by me or not,
Speaker 1: and Joe had both dogs, Isy and Nooget on leeds,
Speaker 1: and he left the camp heading east. He got to
Speaker 1: the corner of our property and the neighbors which lay
Speaker 1: east and south of our own. He pointed the dogs north,
Speaker 1: cut them loose, pooping them up and getting them out
Speaker 1: in front of him through a small thicket. Both of
Speaker 1: them opened at once, and you could hear their voices
Speaker 1: ringing out through the woods as they told us all
Speaker 1: to get ready. They were trailing a deer. We were
Speaker 1: all holding out for a big buck. But you never
Speaker 1: really knew what the dogs were actually running. It was
Speaker 1: a fifty to fifty chance if they were on the
Speaker 1: trail of a buck or dough, and really the percentage
Speaker 1: was higher that they were chasing the dough. That was
Speaker 1: still during the time when shooting the door wasn't actually
Speaker 1: considered a sin, but it was frowned upon to the
Speaker 1: point that the older hunters wondered if you'd ever make
Speaker 1: it past Saint Peter because you had killed one. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we've all learned that having a more balanced ratio of
Speaker 1: bucks and doze makes it a better and healthier population
Speaker 1: of deer. Anyway, from over half a mile away, the
Speaker 1: cold air allowed me to hear Joe's faint hollering and
Speaker 1: a beagle strike. Game on bigles travel about as fast
Speaker 1: as a man can walk through the thickets, over logs,
Speaker 1: and crossing creeks, and whatever's going to happen ain't necessarily
Speaker 1: going to happen fast. There's gonna be plenty of time
Speaker 1: for the anticipation of trying to figure out if the
Speaker 1: dogs are coming towards you or away from you. Are
Speaker 1: they running or pushing a buck by you? It's someone
Speaker 1: else going to shoe first. All of these things are
Speaker 1: going through your head at one hundred miles an ire
Speaker 1: while you're watching for movement, straining to hear a limb
Speaker 1: breaker or leaves crunching from an approaching deer. This morning
Speaker 1: was no different, except five minutes into the race, I
Speaker 1: heard the dogs turn toward me. A short while later,
Speaker 1: I heard the unmistakable sound of deer moving toward me
Speaker 1: through the dense second and third growth hardwood and pine
Speaker 1: saplings that limited my view in some places to less
Speaker 1: than twenty yards. The limbs and bushes shook as the
Speaker 1: deer brushed up against them, and I knew it was
Speaker 1: only a matter of seconds. Before whatever kind of deer
Speaker 1: it was, stepped into the opening in front of that
Speaker 1: salt licked stamp. My rifle, let my shoulder, and every
Speaker 1: bit of my senses tuned to what I was hearing
Speaker 1: and almost seeing. The expectation of a big buck stepping
Speaker 1: into the opening right in front of me had my
Speaker 1: heart pounding in my ears. I could hear Joe a
Speaker 1: lot better now as he and the beagles made their
Speaker 1: way to my stand. All the while, the deer that
Speaker 1: was so close and still unseen, stood within easy range
Speaker 1: but still in the cover of the thicket. My imagination
Speaker 1: started to run away with me. Had I not heard
Speaker 1: what I knew to be a deer getting close. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like I had never heard that sound before. No,
Speaker 1: I was positive I'd heard a deer walking. But did
Speaker 1: it go back the way it came I would have
Speaker 1: been towards Joe and the dogs. I started to doubt
Speaker 1: everything I'd observed up to this point, when all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, a dough in a year and broke out
Speaker 1: of cover and stood looking at me from fifteen yards away.
Speaker 1: I let out a sigh disappointment, and saw my breath
Speaker 1: in the cold air drift right straight to them. It
Speaker 1: was clear to me then that they'd smelled me as
Speaker 1: they'd gotten closer and stopped just short of breaking out
Speaker 1: of cover to weigh the odds are whether to continue
Speaker 1: go back toward the racket that had pushed them there
Speaker 1: in the first place, lowered my rifle, and they shot
Speaker 1: across in front of me, headed west in a bigger
Speaker 1: hurry than they'd been in just a few minutes before.
Speaker 1: The beagles were getting closer now, and I could hear
Speaker 1: them clearly as they followed the scent trail of two
Speaker 1: deer that they just ran out in front of them.
Speaker 1: It was funny listening to them and hearing them is
Speaker 1: just as plain as day, and then hearing their barks
Speaker 1: and balling muffled as if they were suddenly one hundred
Speaker 1: yards further than they actually were. When I saw them
Speaker 1: coming down through the woods, I saw the reason why
Speaker 1: they're barking sounded different. The timber had been cutting there
Speaker 1: the previous spring, and that it had been a particularly
Speaker 1: wet year. The loggers had put those big flotation tires
Speaker 1: on all their skidders, and some of the rusts that
Speaker 1: they left were really, really deep, and they caused those
Speaker 1: little beagles to drop out of sight when they reached them.
Speaker 1: It sounded like that falling in a well, only to
Speaker 1: pop up on the other side, unfazed and determined as
Speaker 1: ever to gain some ground on the animal that they
Speaker 1: couldn't have caught if they'd been riding a motorcycle. It
Speaker 1: was hilarious and in a lot of ways, much better
Speaker 1: than killing a deer. I caught the beagles and was
Speaker 1: still laughing when Joe got there. We laughed about that
Speaker 1: together for a long time afterward too. He's gone on
Speaker 1: ahead of the rest of us, but we're gonna laugh
Speaker 1: about that again one day when I seen him, and
Speaker 1: I really look forward to that time. That's a little
Speaker 1: bit about deer hunting with dogs. It may not be
Speaker 1: the preferred way of hunting these days, as we opt
Speaker 1: for the most covert ways to get within range of one,
Speaker 1: but it definitely has a place, especially in our legacies
Speaker 1: as hunters and sportsmen and women. The stories we tell
Speaker 1: about those days are important. They are important to hear
Speaker 1: be remembered, more so for the folks that involved than
Speaker 1: any of the deer ever taken. We got some extra
Speaker 1: video content dropping Monday, November fourth, on the Meat Eater
Speaker 1: podcast network YouTube channel of me and my pal and
Speaker 1: colleague Austin Chili clever ad. Like I always say, don't
Speaker 1: be cool, be chilly. I think you'll enjoy it. Now.
Speaker 1: Something even more important is A Meat Eater's partnership with
Speaker 1: on x and donating twenty thousand dollars to hurricane relief
Speaker 1: for our brothers and sisters who are still reeling from
Speaker 1: the effects of the hurricanes. If you'd like to help
Speaker 1: through our site, you can donate through the link that
Speaker 1: Reeve's going to include in the show description. Man, it's
Speaker 1: important and we really need your help. Thank you all
Speaker 1: so much for listening to this Country Life and Clay
Speaker 1: Bow's Bear, Grease and Render shows. We truly appreciate it
Speaker 1: very much. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves sign
Speaker 1: and out. Y'all be careful.