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 airways had off. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
Speaker 1: stories to share Bear Camp. I'm working on more years
Speaker 1: at our Arkansas bear Camp than you can count on
Speaker 1: both hands. And if you judge this one by the
Speaker 1: quality of the bears taken, it wouldn't be close to
Speaker 1: the top ten. If you judge it by what I
Speaker 1: took home, it's far and above number one. I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you all about it, but first I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you a story. This week, we're doing a
Speaker 1: listener story that caught my attention on three levels. One
Speaker 1: who was sent in by a lady We need more
Speaker 1: of them in the outdoors. Two at the time it happened,
Speaker 1: she was a new hunter. And three it has a
Speaker 1: good lesson. It was sent in by the Pride of Arcade,
Speaker 1: New York, Amelia Martina. Arcade is also the home of
Speaker 1: Daniel Frederick Bateman, who died in eighteen sixty nine at
Speaker 1: the ripe old age of one hundred and nine. Daniel
Speaker 1: was the last survivor receiving a veteran's pension for service
Speaker 1: in the American Revolutionary War. But we ain't talking about
Speaker 1: old Daniel Bateman. It's a Milia's time to shine. So
Speaker 1: in my voice and Amelia's words, here we go. My
Speaker 1: name is Amelia Martina, and I'm not the best at
Speaker 1: telling stories, but we loved listening to yours. My husband
Speaker 1: has been listening to the Meat Eater podcast for quite
Speaker 1: some time and we look forward to doing trivia and
Speaker 1: listening to this country life. My son will stop whatever
Speaker 1: he's doing to listen to your stories. However, now I
Speaker 1: have a story for you, so here it is. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy it now. I was never a hunter,
Speaker 1: and even though I am the oldest grandchild, I was
Speaker 1: the last of the seven that my grandpa ever thought
Speaker 1: would become one. The men always went out every November
Speaker 1: on opening day of whitetail season, hoping to get a deer.
Speaker 1: All the while the women stayed at home making chili
Speaker 1: and desserts for when they came home at lunch and
Speaker 1: before heading back out for the afternoon hunt. However, I
Speaker 1: loved being in the woods when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: making forts and taking walks to find new secret spots.
Speaker 1: It's always a fun time. When I got married, my
Speaker 1: husband joined the men and the tradition continued. I was
Speaker 1: able to go out with him and join the experience,
Speaker 1: but shooting with my camera instead of a firearm. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed hunting more than I realized, so I took the
Speaker 1: proper courses to get my hunting license, and the next
Speaker 1: year I was able to join in. So for the
Speaker 1: past five years, my husband and I have gone to
Speaker 1: my grandpa's property out in the tiny town of Granger,
Speaker 1: New York for our hunting tradition. We pack our supplies
Speaker 1: and drive over to the family cabin the night before
Speaker 1: to spend the night. Now upon arrival, my grandpa always
Speaker 1: greets us, making a big deal out of coming over,
Speaker 1: and he gives us the I just know that you're
Speaker 1: going to get one speech. He shares stories that we've
Speaker 1: all heard before, but we never tire of hearing, and
Speaker 1: then go to bed, only to wake up before the
Speaker 1: sun to get to our blind that we set up
Speaker 1: months before, making sure that there are handwarmers for us
Speaker 1: and chili in the crock pot, and Grandpa says, all right,
Speaker 1: very good, let's go. He patched us on the back
Speaker 1: and we head out into the dark, making our way
Speaker 1: through the woods, the moonlight lighting our snow covered path
Speaker 1: as we make it down to our blind and snuggle
Speaker 1: in and wait. Disappointed by the lack of activity, we
Speaker 1: decided to pack it up as the last of the
Speaker 1: sun led us back to the cabin, telling my grandpa
Speaker 1: that we'll be back in a couple days to try
Speaker 1: it again. Keeping our promise, we returned with determination, ready
Speaker 1: for a day in the woods. We decided to try
Speaker 1: another blind that my grandpa had said up, letting us
Speaker 1: know his heater is in there so we can be warm.
Speaker 1: He wishes us good luck, and away we went. Finding
Speaker 1: the lying at the far end of the property. We
Speaker 1: slide into our folding camp chairs and wait for the
Speaker 1: birds to start singing their morning song, all snuggling into
Speaker 1: my husband's oversized winter came on. Fighting heavy eye lids
Speaker 1: and the quiet of the forests, I heard my husband whisper,
Speaker 1: don't move. Unaware of what he saw, I slowly turned
Speaker 1: my head to see where his rifle was pointing, and
Speaker 1: I saw nothing, and I heard nothing. Then, as if
Speaker 1: she appeared out of the thick brush, I saw her
Speaker 1: lumbering through the woods, but quiet as can be, not
Speaker 1: thirty yards in front of us, as she turns and stops,
Speaker 1: a two hundred and fifty pound beautiful black bear. Just
Speaker 1: standing there, holding my breath and bracing for the crack
Speaker 1: of the rifle, I waited, but the only noise I
Speaker 1: heard was my husband's disappointing size. We saw two cubs
Speaker 1: running to ketch up to their mama. In all ah
Speaker 1: of what we saw, and shocked by incredibly ghost like
Speaker 1: three bears can be in the woods, we just sat
Speaker 1: and stared. We watched as they vanished into the woods
Speaker 1: as quietly as they came in, and as our heart
Speaker 1: rates came back down and we were sure that mom
Speaker 1: and babies were far enough away, we ventured out to
Speaker 1: see where they could have gone, following tracks as far
Speaker 1: as we could until we headed back to the cabin.
Speaker 1: Excited by our encounter. My grandpa wasn't there, but we
Speaker 1: left them a note about the adventure and headed home,
Speaker 1: not caring much that we didn't get a deer that year.
Speaker 1: Next year would be a whole new adventure, to which
Speaker 1: I did get my first deer, a big, beautiful dough.
Speaker 1: But that's another story, And according to Amelia Martinez of
Speaker 1: Arcade in New York, that's just how that happened. Well, Amelia,
Speaker 1: I think you are a good storyteller and our appreciate
Speaker 1: you sharing that with the rest of us. Your narrative
Speaker 1: describes a hunter's relationship with the game we're entrusted to
Speaker 1: look after by learning the rules, the regulations, and the
Speaker 1: moral obligations we follow when deciding to legally kill an
Speaker 1: animal or let it go, depending upon the circumstances of
Speaker 1: each encounter. Now that's a lesson for us all, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate you sharing it. Like Amelia's new tradition that
Speaker 1: she's sharing with her family in Western New York, I've
Speaker 1: been privileged to share one with a group of folks
Speaker 1: here in Arkansas that I was initiated in about a
Speaker 1: dozen years ago, something we just call bear Camp. It
Speaker 1: started out for me as a job and an assignment
Speaker 1: to film a Harry Little Hillbilly that looked more like
Speaker 1: Harry Potter stunt double with his crazy round glass. This
Speaker 1: is then a bear hunting magazine publisher from northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 1: When I thought of a bear hunter, although I didn't
Speaker 1: know any, I thought of Will Gears character bear Claw
Speaker 1: Chris Lap and the greatest movie ever made Jeremia Johnson,
Speaker 1: a bearded buckskin and fur wearing gruff old cadra with
Speaker 1: a bear claw necklace, whose life experiences were written all
Speaker 1: over his weathered face, and the knowledge of bears and
Speaker 1: their habits were second nature to his own. Now, except
Speaker 1: for the fur trim to buckskin clothes, the gruff demeanor,
Speaker 1: and the weather warren face from decades of hard mountain living,
Speaker 1: I'd say the rest of it was pretty much on point.
Speaker 1: For my friend Klay Nukelem, he hired me to film
Speaker 1: him hunting a bear in Oklahoma. And when I say hired,
Speaker 1: I mean I offered to film him for whatever he
Speaker 1: could afford to pay me, just for the experience, and
Speaker 1: he gladly accepted. During our monetary negotiations on the phone,
Speaker 1: he caughted me a price of zero dollars, and I
Speaker 1: gladly accepted. He was grinding it out and burning the
Speaker 1: candle at both ends, trying to make it in the
Speaker 1: outdoor media business, a place I was looking to find
Speaker 1: my spot in as well. Something told me I was
Speaker 1: going to have a good time on this gig, and
Speaker 1: if I didn't, all it was going to cost me
Speaker 1: was a few days in my time, and I might
Speaker 1: get to see a bear in the meantime, something I'd
Speaker 1: never seen in the wild. We hunted hard for three days,
Speaker 1: never saw a hair or even a track, not one,
Speaker 1: and just like that, bear season was over. Acorns were
Speaker 1: dropping from the trees before the season opened. And when
Speaker 1: that happens, there is no use sitting at a bear
Speaker 1: bait site because they ain't coming. Bears will climb over
Speaker 1: a mountain of doughnuts to eat one white oak acren.
Speaker 1: They know what's good for them and there's no substitute.
Speaker 1: They're hardwired for natural mass, and that's what they're thinking
Speaker 1: about while they're killing time at a bait site. That
Speaker 1: was twelve years and a whole bunch of bears ago,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't even begin to say how many we've
Speaker 1: looked at sitting side by side, either in a stand
Speaker 1: or on the ground. Now the ground was a new one,
Speaker 1: I'd admit I thought it was really odd to hunt
Speaker 1: a bear from the ground. I knew they had better
Speaker 1: noses than deer, and to hunt a deer from the
Speaker 1: ground took a lot of wind direction and stand placement
Speaker 1: and thought and preparation. Deer can get a whiff of
Speaker 1: you in boom, They're gone. Turns out a lot of
Speaker 1: times a bear just don't care. That has allowed us
Speaker 1: to see a lot of crazy bear behavior all over
Speaker 1: the US and especially in remote areas of Canada. I
Speaker 1: was hooked from the first time we hunted together, even
Speaker 1: though we didn't see a bear. Just the thought of
Speaker 1: it intrigued me enough to commit to Any time Clay
Speaker 1: needed a camera man, I told him to call me,
Speaker 1: and he did, sometimes with a month or two warning
Speaker 1: that Sometimes it was hey, can you leave in two
Speaker 1: days for a week of bear hunting? My answer was
Speaker 1: always yes. I had become just as committed to his
Speaker 1: mission of creating interest in the professional and unique content
Speaker 1: about bears and bear hunting. I was only betting my time,
Speaker 1: but Clay he was betting his future, and that's the
Speaker 1: way it would go from then on. I'd go before
Speaker 1: season to document the task of baiting the sites, packing
Speaker 1: bait into a wilderness along with my camera gear, I
Speaker 1: met a handful of people who were trusted to be
Speaker 1: in the inner circle, none of which had a bigger
Speaker 1: standing than James Lawrence. James is a man that most
Speaker 1: of you know through Clay's storytelling, films and podcasts. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to be there and to get to
Speaker 1: know this man who became my friend because of the
Speaker 1: mutual respect we had for wild things that we all love,
Speaker 1: and the genuine good time that we all have together. James,
Speaker 1: his neighbors, and Clay's parents, his wife, Misty, and their
Speaker 1: children were always at bear Camp, and regardless of our
Speaker 1: success or failures, the whole pack of them was betting
Speaker 1: on us. It was truly a family event that I'd
Speaker 1: been invited to join. Now what it started out as
Speaker 1: a job turned into something bigger. The contact didn't start
Speaker 1: and stop at bear season anymore. He carried all throughout
Speaker 1: the year. I saw the mission that Clay was on,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be a permanent part of it.
Speaker 1: But I also learned that this wasn't like a deer hunt,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean that degradingly towards deer hunters either.
Speaker 1: The difference between deer hunting and bear hunting was significant.
Speaker 1: In the eyes of the Newcombs and the Lawrences, and
Speaker 1: that relevance was transferred to me. Now, Obviously, I thought
Speaker 1: it was cool to see a bear in my home state.
Speaker 1: And at that time, when I was first introduced to
Speaker 1: that world, there were way more hunters who hadn't seen
Speaker 1: a bear in the wild than those that had. I'd
Speaker 1: grown up deer hunting and seeing deer daily on our farm.
Speaker 1: Seeing and shooting a deer was like going to the mailbox.
Speaker 1: It was a commonality that we all shared where I
Speaker 1: grew up, We coexisted on the same ground and really
Speaker 1: only got excited by the big ones, the bucks that
Speaker 1: we'd hunt during the season, The big ones that we
Speaker 1: longed to have a shot at, were what excited us,
Speaker 1: not the endless parade of doze in yere lands and
Speaker 1: small bucks that we'd grown accustomed to seeing. We took
Speaker 1: it for granted, really, and when you do that, you
Speaker 1: become complacent. Now, complacency breeds in attendiveness, and that's how
Speaker 1: things slipped through the cracks. By only focusing on what
Speaker 1: you're after a few weeks before the onset of the season,
Speaker 1: you're not seeing the big picture. To me, that creates
Speaker 1: an interest that's only driven by harvest and not a
Speaker 1: true appreciation for the animal we're chasing. James and Clay
Speaker 1: both study bears year round, and if I wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to join the conversation, I'd better learn to
Speaker 1: do the same. I studied game camera pictures and read
Speaker 1: a ton of articles, a lot of them written by
Speaker 1: Clay himself, and I asked James questions and tried to
Speaker 1: soak in as much knowledge about bears that I could.
Speaker 1: When I was with him, the main thing I did
Speaker 1: was listen and try to apply the things I'd learned
Speaker 1: to the things I was seeing. Whenever Clay and I
Speaker 1: were on a hunt somewhere, him with a bow, me
Speaker 1: with a camera, I saw how both of them revered
Speaker 1: bears for what they are, a complex animal that roams
Speaker 1: the landscape, thriving in unfractured expanses of wilderness, ghostly appearing
Speaker 1: and disappearing seemingly it will. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: bears I feel with Clay or a campus someone else
Speaker 1: had taken when we all gathered to skin it and
Speaker 1: rendered down the fat, all of which they shared with me.
Speaker 1: And then one day, two days after we'd all left
Speaker 1: the camp for home with everyone who'd hunted taken bears.
Speaker 1: I got a call from James friend, you know that
Speaker 1: bait we thought was dead up on the hill, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: well there's a bear hitting it pretty hard and we
Speaker 1: want you to come back over, okay, James, Who am
Speaker 1: I going to be filming? James kind of laughed and
Speaker 1: he said, well, I think Clay might be filming you.
Speaker 1: I could hear the excitement and pleasure in his voice
Speaker 1: as he offered me my first opportunity to take a
Speaker 1: bear myself. I didn't know what to say, but less
Speaker 1: than twenty four hours later, I was sitting on that
Speaker 1: bait and Clay filming and kill a bear with only
Speaker 1: moments to spare legal shooting light. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: we'd already shot the end sequence of the hunt and
Speaker 1: was in the process of packing up when a bear
Speaker 1: walked out less than fifteen yards. And that's when I
Speaker 1: knew I'd been accepted into the bear Camp family, an
Speaker 1: extension of the newcom and Lawrence family that I do
Speaker 1: not take for granted. I've had conversations with Clay about
Speaker 1: gifting bears to hunters, and I took all my kids
Speaker 1: deer hunting. At the first notion, they expressed an interest
Speaker 1: in it, and Clay did the same, but he wouldn't
Speaker 1: allow them to take a bear until they had a
Speaker 1: true appreciation and understanding of how important it was To
Speaker 1: do so, they had to look at it like he
Speaker 1: and James did, and how they both taught me to
Speaker 1: It wasn't a process of paying dues or completing a
Speaker 1: course of study. It was an overall understanding of every
Speaker 1: facet of bear hunting, most notably conservation aspect and the
Speaker 1: role hunters play in the stewardship of bears. My observations
Speaker 1: as a parent tell me that's how my father raised me,
Speaker 1: and I've tried to raise my children the same way,
Speaker 1: teaching him the totality of how life ebbs and flows
Speaker 1: with sadness, joy, failure, and success, all of which you
Speaker 1: could experience on a one day bear hunt. I know
Speaker 1: I've seen it now this year is those of you
Speaker 1: who listened to last week's episode already know my bear
Speaker 1: hunting plans were changed at the last minute by a
Speaker 1: set of unfortunate circumstances. Disappointed, of course, I was sad,
Speaker 1: not even a little bit. I was only going to
Speaker 1: skip Bear Camp this year if I had a big
Speaker 1: bear coming into my bait that was three and a
Speaker 1: half hours away. Now, the baits at Bear Camp were
Speaker 1: pretty lean this year, and we'd invited the bear biologists
Speaker 1: for the State of Mississippi, Anthony Ballard, and a graduate
Speaker 1: student working on his master's degree in wildlife biology, Spencer
Speaker 1: Daniels Clay and I met him on a bearden study
Speaker 1: they'd invited us to last March in Mississippi River Delta.
Speaker 1: As soon as we all got into camp, the positive
Speaker 1: flow switched to a negative ebb. Big bears that had
Speaker 1: been hitting the baits began tapering off and going nocturnal.
Speaker 1: The number of acorns that were hitting the deck all
Speaker 1: over the mountains weren't helping either. That was keeping all
Speaker 1: the bears busy and only trickling in right after daylight
Speaker 1: and right before dark. Opening day wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: what it had been in the past few years. James
Speaker 1: and I talked, and I don't think we'd ever had
Speaker 1: an opening day where someone didn't get one since I'd
Speaker 1: started coming, and yet here we were bearless on opening day.
Speaker 1: Now that wouldn't remain, as two out of three did
Speaker 1: take bears on the evening of Day two in the
Speaker 1: morning of Day three. Significant accomplishments considering the conditions and
Speaker 1: all the factors we had working against us, but still
Speaker 1: not the best part of this year's camp, Not for
Speaker 1: me anyway. I've known James for years now. We shared
Speaker 1: a dangerous expedition into the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan, chasing
Speaker 1: barriers with Clay and a couple other close friends. One
Speaker 1: year that truly tested our resolve. James and I were
Speaker 1: in a boat together with a guide in the weather
Speaker 1: we endeared crossing a massive lake was unlike anything I
Speaker 1: had ever seen. The waves were three to four feet
Speaker 1: at unrelenting. The five and a half hour boat ride
Speaker 1: was horrendous, and there were several times I wished I
Speaker 1: wasn't there. I was scared, and I'm not ashamed to
Speaker 1: admit it now. I have no doubt that you could
Speaker 1: have looked at my face then and known yourself firsthand.
Speaker 1: But James never said a word, changed expressions, or exhibited
Speaker 1: anything other than a glare of contempt. As the next
Speaker 1: set of waves battered the boat we were trying to
Speaker 1: stay inside of. He was riding the storm out, just
Speaker 1: like he'd ridden the storms before when he'd gotten sick
Speaker 1: with a sickness that takes a lot of folks out,
Speaker 1: but it didn't get James. And on that trip, James
Speaker 1: didn't get a bear, when all the other hunters in
Speaker 1: camp did a few months later, I was back at
Speaker 1: our Arkansas Bear camp with James and Clay and had
Speaker 1: the pleasure of filming James hunting on the land he'd
Speaker 1: grown up on in the Washington Mountains. On the way
Speaker 1: over to our spot on opening day, I turned my
Speaker 1: camera on and started recording James without him, knowing best
Speaker 1: way to keep someone from being camera shot and measured
Speaker 1: in their responses if they're reserved and the quiet type,
Speaker 1: all of which James Lawrence is. It's one of the
Speaker 1: best interviews I've ever filmed. It was real and heartfelt,
Speaker 1: and you could see the emotion in James's face as
Speaker 1: he talked about his grandmother and the place we were
Speaker 1: going to hunt and what it meant to him and
Speaker 1: his family's legacy in the mountains. I didn't want the
Speaker 1: ride from his home to where we were hunting to end,
Speaker 1: but it did, and in short order we were in
Speaker 1: a tree and with his bow and me with that camera.
Speaker 1: James killed a big bear that afternoon, and we struggled
Speaker 1: to get it loaded in his truck, but eventually we did.
Speaker 1: And the look in his eyes and the smile on
Speaker 1: his face that afternoon, after I hugged his neck and
Speaker 1: thanked him for allowing me to share that moment with
Speaker 1: him while we stood over that bear, is one that
Speaker 1: I will never forget. I'd never seen that look from
Speaker 1: James before. I'm positive that was the day I understood
Speaker 1: how James felt about bear hunting and the deep rooted
Speaker 1: connection he had with the land, and that he'd officially
Speaker 1: adopted me into his own. It was beautiful. I saw
Speaker 1: that same expression last week when I watched James give
Speaker 1: someone who meant a lot to him in an item
Speaker 1: that meant a lot to him, something that he was
Speaker 1: proud to give to that person he loved and respected.
Speaker 1: The next day, he and I sat at bear camping,
Speaker 1: just visited for a while, and when he got ready
Speaker 1: to leave to go feed his cows, I walked him
Speaker 1: to his truck, just James and me. He told me
Speaker 1: as he leamped toward his truck, the years and the
Speaker 1: miles showing more evident now than ever on that tough
Speaker 1: old mountain man that he lived for these days each September.
Speaker 1: He told me he enjoyed getting ready for bear Camp
Speaker 1: more than Bear Camp itself, as if the activity and
Speaker 1: the anticipation of all of us being together was as
Speaker 1: exciting as the event. He put his hand on my shoulder.
Speaker 1: I thought to brace himself as he struggled just a
Speaker 1: bit to get into his truck. But when he didn't
Speaker 1: reach for the door, I looked at him, and he
Speaker 1: was looking at me right in the eyes. I saw
Speaker 1: that same old look we'd shared as we stood over
Speaker 1: that bear he killed all those years ago, and the
Speaker 1: same look he had when I saw him give that
Speaker 1: gift the day before. He smiled at me and he said,
Speaker 1: I love you, Bud. Bear Camp the least important thing
Speaker 1: we do there. It's hunt bears. Call it bear camp,
Speaker 1: deer camp, or coffee with your friends and family, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to, but find a circle of folks, start
Speaker 1: one yourself. When people can be together, folks you want
Speaker 1: to share your life with, it'll bless you beyond anything
Speaker 1: you could ever hold in your hands. Biggest trophies you'll
Speaker 1: take home in your heart. I promise thank y'all so
Speaker 1: much for listening to me and old Clay Bow here
Speaker 1: on the Bear Grease channel. I'm glad you're in this
Speaker 1: circle and you can help make it bigger by sharing
Speaker 1: it with other folks you think might like it and
Speaker 1: knocking us out of review. If you have time, we
Speaker 1: sure appreciate it. Until next week, this is at Reeve.
Speaker 1: Sign it up, y'all, be careful