Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from cone 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. Safety first. Usually, safety is said to
Speaker 1: be everyone's job. I believe that to be true, because
Speaker 1: nothing can ruin a grand adventure quicker than someone getting hurt.
Speaker 1: Being in the outdoors enhances the risk of accidents and injury.
Speaker 1: But there are things we can do to put the
Speaker 1: odds on our side. I tell you about some I
Speaker 1: think you should know. But first, I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you a story now that it's starting to cool off somewhat.
Speaker 1: A few days ago, it was only one hundred here
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, but I catched myself reminiscing and longing for
Speaker 1: time spent in cooler temperatures. I was also putting together
Speaker 1: an outline for this week's podcast about safety and thought
Speaker 1: which misadventure should be a good way to start the show. Well,
Speaker 1: with a seemingly endless catalog of calamity and near missus
Speaker 1: that grows bigger nearly every time I get out of bed.
Speaker 1: I settled on this one that happened during a particularly
Speaker 1: bitter cold front. Back around nineteen ninety five. Tim and
Speaker 1: I were just getting necked deep in the duck guid
Speaker 1: in business and had a group of hunters from North
Speaker 1: Carolina on their first of what would be several years.
Speaker 1: The majority of them would book hunts with us. The
Speaker 1: big cold front had pushed in with their arrival, and
Speaker 1: hunting in the woods was going to be hard to
Speaker 1: do with everything freezing up. For those that don't know,
Speaker 1: ducks prefer open water to roost and rest in, and
Speaker 1: when the flooded timber and fields lock up due to
Speaker 1: the water not moving to stay open. There was one
Speaker 1: place you could count on them going, the Arkansas River,
Speaker 1: and it was right out the back door. We had
Speaker 1: a place that we hunted, a lot that was open
Speaker 1: to the public, just like hunting on Wildlife Management Area land.
Speaker 1: Whoever got their first claim the spot. Now, with that
Speaker 1: in mind, somebody had to go early to claim it
Speaker 1: for us. Tim volunteered and a pair of North Carolinians
Speaker 1: would go with him. Tim and his charges hit the
Speaker 1: river that morning, a couple hours ahead of when I
Speaker 1: would be bringing the rest of the crew, and there
Speaker 1: was nine of us total, seven hunters and me and Tim.
Speaker 1: Tim took all the decoys in his boat and would
Speaker 1: meet me back at the boat rent when I arrived
Speaker 1: to help haul everyone else. Three hunters in his boat
Speaker 1: and the other two with me. Now there was no
Speaker 1: way to safely haul them all in, all the decoys
Speaker 1: and two boats in one trip, so we knew the
Speaker 1: seven mile round trip would take a little bit, but
Speaker 1: it would be worth it to be on the safe side.
Speaker 1: It was in the pitch black dark and in the
Speaker 1: high twenties when Tim got to the point of land
Speaker 1: that stuck out of the backwater slough that we hunted.
Speaker 1: It was off the main channel nearly a mile, and
Speaker 1: had we been hunting deer there, you would have called
Speaker 1: this place a pinch point. Now, beyond that pinch point
Speaker 1: of land it opened back up into a big backwater bay,
Speaker 1: and depending on the river level, it could be as
Speaker 1: much as twenty acres or more of water that was
Speaker 1: perfect for resting ducks. Now, I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many times we watched ducks light out in the middle
Speaker 1: of that big open water when there wasn't any wind
Speaker 1: or ice. The first group of twenty or more of
Speaker 1: a morning would sit down out there in relative safety,
Speaker 1: and then we'd be in for a day of just
Speaker 1: seeing all the rest of them fall a suit until
Speaker 1: it was time for us to head back to camp.
Speaker 1: Now we'd scrap out some here and there that buzz
Speaker 1: the decoys, but if the wind wasn't blowing, you could
Speaker 1: just about bet the hunting wouldn't be nearly as good
Speaker 1: as the scenery. It's like watching the National Geographic Channel
Speaker 1: before there was such a thing. But if you had
Speaker 1: wind of any speed and in any direction, you could
Speaker 1: hunt it just fine. There was literally no wind direction
Speaker 1: that we couldn't set up for by moving around to
Speaker 1: different locations in that bay. The wind direction that day
Speaker 1: wouldn't play a factor on how the ducks worked into
Speaker 1: the decoys. It would, however, play into how we got
Speaker 1: back home. And hour before shooting ours, we were at
Speaker 1: the boat ramp, backing the boat in before I could
Speaker 1: get the truck and trailer parked. Him pulled up, having
Speaker 1: left his two hunters at the hunting spot. We got
Speaker 1: the spot, he said, but it's full of ice. The
Speaker 1: hole is froze up, so we're gonna have to break
Speaker 1: it open. No problem. We done that before, and breaking
Speaker 1: ice and pushing it out with a boat is simple
Speaker 1: enough task. Tham's boat had a SEMIV hole that means
Speaker 1: that front of the boat comes to a point instead
Speaker 1: of having a square front. The V hole is great
Speaker 1: for cutting waves and makes for a smoothie ride, but
Speaker 1: when opening a frozen hole for shooting ducks, the flat
Speaker 1: nose on my boat was way more effishent and here's why.
Speaker 1: I made circle after circle, breaking up the ice where
Speaker 1: we wanted to sit out the decoys, and I made
Speaker 1: a hole in the ice about forty yards across. Then
Speaker 1: I pulled my boat to the bank and parked it
Speaker 1: with the nose of the boat against a tree. I
Speaker 1: kicked the outboard into shallow water, drive, put it in gear,
Speaker 1: and just let it idle. It takes two trees for
Speaker 1: SEMIV boat to stay in one spot. You just got
Speaker 1: to poke the nose in between them. But there wasn't
Speaker 1: two trees available where we needed one. Mine fit perfectly.
Speaker 1: The small amount of her was pulling the broken ice
Speaker 1: down stream and the thrust of the island motor was
Speaker 1: pushing all the broken ice out to where the floe was.
Speaker 1: It was also mudding up the water like ducks had
Speaker 1: been feeding in it and keeping it open. If any
Speaker 1: ducks flew that day, we should be right on the x.
Speaker 1: There would be no sitting out in the middle of
Speaker 1: the bay that day. It was a solid sheet of
Speaker 1: ice and we were the only game in town. We
Speaker 1: put out two dozen decoys, stood our hunters beside the
Speaker 1: trees on the bank, just a few feet away from
Speaker 1: the edge of the water. They were hid, and Tim
Speaker 1: and I anchored each end so we could call and
Speaker 1: watch for ducks, keep control of the hunters and call
Speaker 1: the shot. Ten to fifteen minutes of island, the boat
Speaker 1: motor and we had the only spot that was sheltered
Speaker 1: off the main channel and away from the strong current
Speaker 1: that wasn't frozen. Ducks started bombing in a few minutes
Speaker 1: before daylight, and the way the breeze funneled up that
Speaker 1: slew it put them right in our face. We made
Speaker 1: everyone keep their guns unloaded until the less than a
Speaker 1: minute before shooting ears open. It was just to keep
Speaker 1: the boys on the leash. The mallards were hovering within
Speaker 1: a boat, paddling to the bank and hitting the water
Speaker 1: like they were crashing, hoping to secure a spot in
Speaker 1: our hole that was filling up with ducks. This was
Speaker 1: fixing to get pretty sporty. We rang the bell and
Speaker 1: it was an absolute feeding frenzy and the worst display
Speaker 1: of shooting I believe I've ever been a witness to.
Speaker 1: There was one cat shooting a ten gauge that was
Speaker 1: running it to the plug on every volley. It was
Speaker 1: like being in London during the Blitz. Nine folks shooting
Speaker 1: ducks all at once and then boom, boom boomed that
Speaker 1: ten gauge that never cut a feather. He was so
Speaker 1: shook up by what was happening, and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: he could have fell off a bucket and hit the grin.
Speaker 1: He was even talking about one of us taking him
Speaker 1: to Walmart to buy more shells up in the morning
Speaker 1: after his second box ran dry. That's fifty shells of
Speaker 1: shooting at ducks less than thirty yards away. They were
Speaker 1: more or less stationary as they hovered looking for a
Speaker 1: spot to light. It was brutal to witness. Well. We
Speaker 1: finally got him and the rest of them calmed down
Speaker 1: to agree, and with a barred shotgun and shells, he
Speaker 1: started working on his limit. Now everyone was settling into
Speaker 1: the once in a lifetime event. I know, folks that
Speaker 1: have hundred dollar their lives here in Arkansas had never
Speaker 1: seen what we saw that day. I promise you every
Speaker 1: last one of them that was there remembers it just
Speaker 1: as well as Tim and I do. We had to
Speaker 1: choke them off the trough though before we shot all
Speaker 1: our limits. Those cats were just shooting ducks and not
Speaker 1: picking out the drakes. We warned them several times as
Speaker 1: they were getting close to the hen limit, and if
Speaker 1: they kept shooting them, we were going to have to
Speaker 1: pull the plug on the hunt, regardless if we had
Speaker 1: our total limit or not. Now we weren't about to
Speaker 1: risk violating the law by shooting over the limit. Tim
Speaker 1: and I both were in law enforcement and getting a
Speaker 1: ticket like that could have been the end of our careers.
Speaker 1: It also didn't look good to be in the guiding
Speaker 1: business and breaking the law. The biggest reason is it
Speaker 1: just wasn't right to begin with, and we weren't about
Speaker 1: to let that happen, even on accident. So if it
Speaker 1: meant airing on the side of caution. That's what we
Speaker 1: were going to do. The same caution didn't apply to
Speaker 1: navigating the river in a big wind, but it would
Speaker 1: from that day on. But the lasting lessons, the good ones,
Speaker 1: come with a high price, and we were about to
Speaker 1: run our credit to the limit. The way we were
Speaker 1: positioned on the point of land facing the duck Hoole
Speaker 1: had our backs to a narrow shute that you could
Speaker 1: see out toward the area that led out to the
Speaker 1: main channel. Twice, just before we had the end to
Speaker 1: hunt because of the hen count, Tim called me over
Speaker 1: to look at the waves that were now moving in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction from how they'd been moving when we
Speaker 1: got there. The wind was still blowing in the same direction,
Speaker 1: although it was much harder now, but I assumed it
Speaker 1: was because of how it was funneling up that big
Speaker 1: slew that we were hunting on, not because it had
Speaker 1: totally switched directions out in the main channel. On the
Speaker 1: section of the river where we were A west or
Speaker 1: north wind of any magnitude was all good. It could
Speaker 1: have blown forty miles an hour down the river, no problem.
Speaker 1: But anything stout enough to fly a kite out of
Speaker 1: the south or the east, or any combination thereof was
Speaker 1: no bueno, and this wind was now kicking hard enough
Speaker 1: to fly coffee table. The problem with wind in that
Speaker 1: direction is that it's blowing against the downward current of
Speaker 1: the river. The wind was pushing big waves against the tide.
Speaker 1: We could see that the ride back to the boat
Speaker 1: ramp was going to be cold, wet, and dangerous. Both
Speaker 1: of our boats were sixteen feet long and forty eight
Speaker 1: inches wide, mine with a twenty five horse fire tiller
Speaker 1: handle and Tim's sporting a console steering with a forty horse.
Speaker 1: They were dependable, just not big enough for what we
Speaker 1: were asking them to do that day. Neither one of
Speaker 1: us would forget that day, and a bigger boat for
Speaker 1: hunting Arkansas was our next purchase. Tim started the first
Speaker 1: leg of what would be his round trip with four
Speaker 1: hunters laying in the bottom of the boat. Life jackets
Speaker 1: buckled up and looking like sardines packed in a can
Speaker 1: from above, and the waves were two and three foot high,
Speaker 1: making it slow going as we convoyed down the river.
Speaker 1: The three hunters I had with me riding the same way,
Speaker 1: and the two guys who left all the bank, had
Speaker 1: no idea what was in store for him as the
Speaker 1: wind grew with intensity, out of sight from where they
Speaker 1: waited at the duck over where hundreds of ducks were
Speaker 1: still falling in. The three and a half miles down
Speaker 1: river was some of the roughest water I've ever been off.
Speaker 1: Waves and spray coming over the front and the sides
Speaker 1: of the boat had my hunters soaked and freezing. The
Speaker 1: front of my coat and waiters was a solid sheet
Speaker 1: of ice. We finally made it back to the boat
Speaker 1: ramp and a couple of them said they would have
Speaker 1: kissed the ground that they could have been over in
Speaker 1: the frozen clothed to do it, and we unloaded everything
Speaker 1: and everyone from Tim's boat pulled it out and drained
Speaker 1: the water, checked his gas, then put it back in
Speaker 1: the river. He headed back up the river into a
Speaker 1: gale that was blowing so hard now that even the
Speaker 1: slack water just up from the boat ramp was white capin.
Speaker 1: It seemed like it took forever for them to come back,
Speaker 1: and I had my boat drained, ready to go, and
Speaker 1: had already made a plan on how I was going
Speaker 1: to go check on them. When we saw them heading
Speaker 1: our way, the boat coming almost out of the water
Speaker 1: at times as they ramped from one big swell to
Speaker 1: the next. They pulled onto the trailer and both of
Speaker 1: Tim's passengers slowly crawled out of that boat into the truck.
Speaker 1: One of them tried to sit on the front deck
Speaker 1: as they pulled away from our hunting spot, after Tim
Speaker 1: told them both the better lay down in the bottom
Speaker 1: of the boat. He was setting up front facing Tim,
Speaker 1: and after the first two or three small waves, he
Speaker 1: grabbed a rope in his hand and started spurring the
Speaker 1: air like he was coming out of a bucket shoot
Speaker 1: on a bronck at a rodeo. Tim said all the
Speaker 1: color drained out of his face when they hit the
Speaker 1: next series of waves that pitched him a foot or
Speaker 1: so off the deck, and before he had time to
Speaker 1: regain his seat, the boat dropped a couple of feet
Speaker 1: and old cowboy Bob hit the deck flat of his
Speaker 1: breeches so hard he said he thought he chipped a
Speaker 1: two ooths. That was how the whole ride back to
Speaker 1: the boat ramp went. And for a little extra spice,
Speaker 1: the throttle cable froze and broke on Tim's motor. Not
Speaker 1: long after they got in the main channel. They bobbed
Speaker 1: around out in the current at the mercy of the
Speaker 1: elements until he rigged up a leather ductote to the
Speaker 1: throttle on the outboard and had it over his shoulder
Speaker 1: controlling the gas while he drove one handed back to camp.
Speaker 1: His passengers were rattling around in the bottom of that
Speaker 1: boat like two beans and a coffee camp. Now, we
Speaker 1: still talk about that day, and that day was over
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago. We still talk about it with
Speaker 1: the two guys that were in the boat that day
Speaker 1: with Tim, and we never mentioned one without the other.
Speaker 1: Remember that day we all nearly died on the river.
Speaker 1: I mean today that we killed all those ducks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember, and I won't never forget it. And that's
Speaker 1: just how that happened. Use enough boat. That's what we
Speaker 1: learned from the story I just told y'all. And that's
Speaker 1: a veiled reference to a book mister Robert Ruark wrote
Speaker 1: about big game hunting. He was talking about, if you're
Speaker 1: hunting dangerous game, you better have a gun big enough
Speaker 1: to do the job. Well. The same applies for boats
Speaker 1: on the Arkansas River. My maternal grandfather find a sly
Speaker 1: to those who knew him and Pap all to a
Speaker 1: wagon load of grandkids, and several close friends of mine,
Speaker 1: believe that if two nails would hold an item in place,
Speaker 1: that six would be three times as good. I'm exaggerating
Speaker 1: a little bit, but to anyone that knew him, they
Speaker 1: know it ain't an exaggeration by much. I got some
Speaker 1: folks working on a boat for me down in southeast Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be wide enough that the Arkansas
Speaker 1: River will have to work extra hard to get inside it,
Speaker 1: like the old one I had in the story I
Speaker 1: just told y'all. Also with the information that I can
Speaker 1: get off my phone and at any given time to
Speaker 1: garden weather the river ain't gonna get a chance. I'll
Speaker 1: either leave before he gets bad where I'm hunting, I'll
Speaker 1: wait for it to pass, or I just won't go
Speaker 1: because of it, live to hunt and fish another day.
Speaker 1: It took years for me to actually put my priorities
Speaker 1: in place regarding when the weather was too bad to hunt.
Speaker 1: My drive to get a turkey had me and a
Speaker 1: friend of mine hunting through a tornado that blew up
Speaker 1: in the most inopportune time. A turkey was on the
Speaker 1: ground gobbling his brains out, and slowly strutting towards us
Speaker 1: at one hundred and fifty yards away. I told that
Speaker 1: story on our newest edition of Me to Campfire. Stories
Speaker 1: about close calls. Accurate on demand weather forecasting would have
Speaker 1: kept me from putting myself in that situation to begin with. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that technology was still years of poor decisions away from reality,
Speaker 1: and maybe even then it wouldn't have mattered. There's a
Speaker 1: calming and a maturity that comes with stacking birthdays up
Speaker 1: in a pile. For most, it's wisdom from lessons learned.
Speaker 1: In my case, it's more like wonder, Like I wonder
Speaker 1: how in the world I managed to make it this
Speaker 1: long without falling off a cliff or zigging when I
Speaker 1: should have been zagging. I can only chalk it up
Speaker 1: to divine intervention and having not yet fulfilled my duties
Speaker 1: here on this side of the river, Jordan, I'm thankful
Speaker 1: to still be stumbling around out here and doing my
Speaker 1: dead level best to figure out what my purpose is.
Speaker 1: Financial support system for a twelve year old competition dancer
Speaker 1: may be it, who knows, but putting yourself in positions
Speaker 1: to fail will always increase the risk. You don't lay
Speaker 1: down on the highway at night to look at the
Speaker 1: heavens unless you're a total bozo. The same way you
Speaker 1: don't drive down a long, straight stretch of deserted highway
Speaker 1: with your lights off because the moon is so bright
Speaker 1: you can see without them. Now, who does that? No
Speaker 1: one does that? I mean besides me? Who is dumb
Speaker 1: enough to do that? My partner. My partner and I
Speaker 1: were working in the graveyard shift and had been patrolling
Speaker 1: all over the county. Now nothing was going on and
Speaker 1: no one was out. It was the middle of the week,
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. Spring was in full
Speaker 1: swing and the nights were still cool enough to wear
Speaker 1: a jacket. We'd stopped to check an old church beside
Speaker 1: the highway, and I walked out to the pavement for
Speaker 1: nothing better to do than The night was bright and clear,
Speaker 1: and the moon was crystal clear and bright. I sat
Speaker 1: down on the edge of the asphalt, and within a
Speaker 1: minute I was laying flat on my back, watching the
Speaker 1: moon like it was a TV. The pavement was still
Speaker 1: holding some heat from the sun, and it felt good,
Speaker 1: and I could feel it radiating up through my jacket.
Speaker 1: My crime fighting comrade joined me. We talked about what
Speaker 1: it must have been like to walk on the moon,
Speaker 1: and my friend said, hey, you hear that? And we
Speaker 1: both sat up, straining to hear, and what he said
Speaker 1: sounded like a car well off we could see for
Speaker 1: nearly a mile in both directions. Neither one of us
Speaker 1: saw any lights. We each laid back down, but this time,
Speaker 1: after a moment, I thought I heard something. About the
Speaker 1: time he said, I hear a car. We sat up,
Speaker 1: each looking up and down the highway and said nothing,
Speaker 1: but I could hear the unmistakable sound of an eight
Speaker 1: cylinder engine shifted into overdrive, getting louder closer, and we
Speaker 1: both stood up and stepped away from the highway in
Speaker 1: time to feel the wind rushed by us as a
Speaker 1: black Chevy Nova blew by us. It mocked too, with
Speaker 1: no head, the moonlight stillhouating the un mistakeable shape of
Speaker 1: that car, as I tried to remind myself I wasn't
Speaker 1: wearing a diaper. No. We looked at each other, both
Speaker 1: full of adrenaline and happy to be alive, as we
Speaker 1: put as much distance as we could between us and
Speaker 1: the highway. A fool was driving one hundred miles an
Speaker 1: hour with his lights off. Do we need to go
Speaker 1: get him? Do you really want to put in the
Speaker 1: report that we were laying in the highway when this happened.
Speaker 1: We decided to let him go. The reality of all
Speaker 1: three principal players in those two scenarios, the duck guides
Speaker 1: whose boats were moderately up to the tasks they were
Speaker 1: asked to perform, the deputies that put themselves at risk
Speaker 1: by laying down on a highway, and the nameless driver
Speaker 1: who tempted fate by driving only with the moonlight needlessly
Speaker 1: put themselves in a position to fail. Laugh at those
Speaker 1: events now, because we lucked out. We didn't sink a boat.
Speaker 1: No one got run over. As far as I know,
Speaker 1: that guy driving in the dark didn't have an accident,
Speaker 1: Not in our county anyway. There are a lot more
Speaker 1: examples of these calamities that so many. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think we'll talk about some more next week. I got
Speaker 1: a couple of stories that I still have flashbacks about
Speaker 1: scary tim too. Let's continue this series and talk about
Speaker 1: things that we did and folks shouldn't. Thank y'all so
Speaker 1: much for listening to this country life and my goat
Speaker 1: smashing homie Klay Bold, Nukem, and Bear Grease. I gotta
Speaker 1: get you one of those goat hacks. But until next week,
Speaker 1: this is Brent Reeves signing off. I'll be careful.