Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
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 to teach you. Dogs, hogs,
Speaker 1: and submarines. Those of us who value the companionship and
Speaker 1: love of a good dog are many now. You spend
Speaker 1: enough time with them and they'll fill your head and
Speaker 1: your heart with some great memories. I talk to folks
Speaker 1: all the time about my dogs, and I listen to
Speaker 1: stories about theirs, and you can tell which ones that
Speaker 1: have really made it impact on them by the way
Speaker 1: they look when they talk about it. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about a couple today that will forever be at the
Speaker 1: top of my list as favorites. But first I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you a story. Zach was a giant black labrador.
Speaker 1: He belonged to my brother Tim and was about as
Speaker 1: big as a lab gets. He was a monster, and
Speaker 1: the good Lord chiseled him out of patience and brains.
Speaker 1: He was smart. Tim had trained him on the basics
Speaker 1: of obedience and retrieving, But that dude possessed an abundance
Speaker 1: of inherent natural ability of what made good labs great labs.
Speaker 1: You've heard me say before that just about any kind
Speaker 1: of utilitarian dog that there desire to go and do
Speaker 1: what theyre bread to do is an untrainable treat. Just
Speaker 1: because the dog is a Labrador doesn't make him a
Speaker 1: good retriever, just like having a coonhound doesn't make them
Speaker 1: a coon dog. There's a big difference. A coon hound
Speaker 1: is a breed category within a group of hunting dog breeds.
Speaker 1: A coon dog is a title given by hunters to
Speaker 1: a specimen from one of those breeds that consistently strikes
Speaker 1: a track, follows it to a tree, and barks so
Speaker 1: you can find him and the coon You can see
Speaker 1: beautiful specimens of each breed of sporting dog every Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: when they have that Westminster Dog Show on TV. We
Speaker 1: hardly ever miss it. They have some beautiful beagles and
Speaker 1: retrievers and coonhounds and bird dogs. They are the epitome
Speaker 1: of what all those breeds are supposed to look like. Height, weight, earlength, gate, stance, color,
Speaker 1: and build are all judged according to a set of
Speaker 1: list of requirements. Some of them may even be good
Speaker 1: hunting dogs. They obviously possess the outward traits of the breed. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's not how it works in the real world. They
Speaker 1: not only have to look the part, they have to
Speaker 1: be able to perform it. The show dogs are what
Speaker 1: one of my old football coaches would say when describing
Speaker 1: an athletically built player with zero ability as looking like
Speaker 1: Tarzan but playing like Jane. Well, Zach not only looked
Speaker 1: like Tarzan, but he played like Tarzan. And King Buck
Speaker 1: had a baby. If you don't know who King Buck was,
Speaker 1: look that dog up. Anyway, Zach not only looked the part,
Speaker 1: but he played the part as well. Add in the
Speaker 1: mixture that he was a perfect family dog, and you
Speaker 1: get Zach. Zach was in his prime in the mid eighties,
Speaker 1: and he was a constant companion of any of the
Speaker 1: Reeves Boys' activities as long as Tim was there, whether
Speaker 1: it was Me and Tim or Tim and his two boys,
Speaker 1: Matthew and Will. Zach was a fixture on every outing
Speaker 1: and adventure. I recall a time in the summer that
Speaker 1: truly dim illustrated Zach's patience with children. This is what
Speaker 1: made him such a great family dog. We were shooting
Speaker 1: clay targets in front of Tim's house. It was in
Speaker 1: the middle of the summer and duck season was still
Speaker 1: a couple of months away. Matthew and Will were watching
Speaker 1: and helping load the skip thrower, playing in the dirt,
Speaker 1: and just doing what boys do. Will, the younger of
Speaker 1: Tim's sons, was around I guess around five years old,
Speaker 1: and was standing safely behind everyone as we took turn shooting. Now,
Speaker 1: Will didn't miss a lot. He paid attention to everything,
Speaker 1: but he didn't make a lot of racket and could
Speaker 1: easily entertain himself. But I remember him catching my eyes
Speaker 1: I waited for my turn to shooting. He was staring
Speaker 1: at Zach, who was standing in front of him at
Speaker 1: Tim's side on the firing line. Zach, as I failed
Speaker 1: to mention, was a male dog. His name was a
Speaker 1: context clue, but for the sake of the side story
Speaker 1: that I'm on right now, that fact needs to be
Speaker 1: understood completely. Also, it was extremely warm and inn keeping
Speaker 1: with how nature has provided that dogs of Zach's persuasion
Speaker 1: keep some of their parts cool by allowing them to
Speaker 1: distance themselves somewhat from their normal anatomical position. Zach was
Speaker 1: a big dog, you remember, Zach had a noticeable amount
Speaker 1: of his anatomy that needed cooling, and that was what
Speaker 1: caught Will's attention. I watched Will as he watched the
Speaker 1: south end of Zach. He was seemingly hypnotized, like he
Speaker 1: was watching the pendulum of a grandfather clock, swinging back
Speaker 1: and forth, back and forth. I could see the wheels
Speaker 1: turning in his head and the confused look on his
Speaker 1: face as he wondered what he was looking at. He
Speaker 1: slowly walked forward, and before I could stop him, he
Speaker 1: reached out with his right hand and he took hold
Speaker 1: of Zack's swinging and he squeezed. Zack never made a sound.
Speaker 1: His hind end lowered a couple of inches, and he froze.
Speaker 1: A normally expressionless dog. Zack slowly turned his head back
Speaker 1: to see what had captured him, and I could see
Speaker 1: the horror of the situation encapsulated on Zack's face. His
Speaker 1: eyes bugged nearly out of his head, yet showing no
Speaker 1: signs of aggression or panic. Now I was scared to
Speaker 1: move for fear of startling with Zack and the bite
Speaker 1: and Will, and as quickly as if it started, Will
Speaker 1: slowly released his grip on Zach's person. Will walked away,
Speaker 1: curiosity satisfied, and resumed playing in the dirt and never
Speaker 1: set a word. Zach turns. Zach turned back around and
Speaker 1: slowly sat down at the hill on Tim's left side.
Speaker 1: Zach was a chump at family life, and he loves
Speaker 1: those boys.
Speaker 2: As just as much as we all love. That's why
Speaker 2: he got to go everywhere that we went, and it
Speaker 2: was usually only an arm's length away when we were
Speaker 2: doing something, which leads me back to the story I
Speaker 2: started telling way back at the.
Speaker 1: Beginning of this. Sometime around that time frame, after dark
Speaker 1: and maybe even the following winter, Tim and I were
Speaker 1: skinning a wild hog we'd killed down in the bottoms.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good bar hog that we'd caught and
Speaker 1: cut sometime earlier. I'm going to talk in depth about
Speaker 1: wild hogs in the future, but for right now, all
Speaker 1: you need to know is that a bar hog is
Speaker 1: a boy hog minus a couple items that make him
Speaker 1: a boy hog that had been removed by us the
Speaker 1: previous winter after our squirrel dogs had bade him up
Speaker 1: down in the bottoms. So we had this hog hanging
Speaker 1: in a pecan tree in Tim's backyard, and we were
Speaker 1: removing his hide in strips. It's an easy way to
Speaker 1: skim the hog if you're not intending on cooking him hole,
Speaker 1: which we weren't. I remember he was a fat rascal,
Speaker 1: and some of that fat was nearly as thick as
Speaker 1: your fist. Between the meat and the inside of his hide.
Speaker 1: The hair on that hog was coarse, thick and jet black,
Speaker 1: the same color as Zach, who sat beside us watching
Speaker 1: the whole operation. He was licking his chops, and Tim
Speaker 1: cut off a piece of fat and chunked it towards
Speaker 1: Zack and he caught it in midair. And every time
Speaker 1: we'd cut off a little chunk, we'd lob it over
Speaker 1: to him and he caught it. Every one of them.
Speaker 1: The bigger, longer, thicker strips of hide and fat we
Speaker 1: piled up on the other side of the tree, away
Speaker 1: from where Zach was sitting. They never whimpered, wined, or
Speaker 1: made a sound. The only thing you heard was the
Speaker 1: occasional chump when we blindly tossed the chunk hog fat
Speaker 1: in his direction. We were skinning that hog in the
Speaker 1: dark except for the truck lights, and Zack was as
Speaker 1: black as a shadow. Anyway, Now we got that hog
Speaker 1: skin quartered on ice, and we loaded all the guts
Speaker 1: and the skin in the back of the truck and
Speaker 1: we haulted off for the couch and the buzzards to
Speaker 1: take care of the next day. I just lived down
Speaker 1: the road from Tim then, and we were meeting early
Speaker 1: the next morning to go duck hunting on the Sleek River.
Speaker 1: Tim picked me up and was Zach sitting in the
Speaker 1: middle between us and his old truck. We headed out.
Speaker 1: We didn't have a far drive, and we were just
Speaker 1: tooling along when the most mild odorous stitch I've ever
Speaker 1: had the displeasure of smelling punched me in the nose.
Speaker 1: Sweet Jesus, Tim, what did you do? He said, I
Speaker 1: didn't do that. What is wrong with you? It was horrible.
Speaker 1: It was worse than anything I'd ever experienced. I'd been
Speaker 1: in the Army basic training in the gas chamber, when
Speaker 1: they make you take off your mask to fill the
Speaker 1: effects of the gas, and so you'll trust that your
Speaker 1: mask works. That was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to this.
Speaker 1: We rolled the windows down, let that cold, frigid air
Speaker 1: rush in and allow both of us to see through
Speaker 1: the tears of agony. I still thought it was him,
Speaker 1: and he still thought it was me. With ten minutes
Speaker 1: left after our ride, Whamo, there it was again, Oh
Speaker 1: the silent killer, and this time it was even worse.
Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna die Before I could get
Speaker 1: the window rolled down. Tim was driving all over the road,
Speaker 1: trying to roll his window down, cover his nose and
Speaker 1: mouth and cuss at me while trying not to breathe. Now,
Speaker 1: this hunt had started off terribly. We weren't even out
Speaker 1: of the truck yet. I felt like if I hadn't
Speaker 1: been so weak from the fumes, that I had just
Speaker 1: bailed out going down the highway and just took my
Speaker 1: chances with the laws of physics instead of counting on
Speaker 1: hold of my breath to save my life. Both windows
Speaker 1: were down and there was no relief. Whatever it was
Speaker 1: it was being manufactured in the cap of that truck,
Speaker 1: and it was gonna kill us all if we didn't
Speaker 1: get it stopped by Now, I thought, if it is Tim,
Speaker 1: he was a lost cause and there's no saving him.
Speaker 1: I'd yet to have children, I still had something to
Speaker 1: live for. Oh the humanity. My eyes were burning. I
Speaker 1: can't breathe mercifully. I felt the truck slow down and
Speaker 1: make the sharp turn into the parking spot. We both
Speaker 1: had the doors open on his old truck before the
Speaker 1: wheel stopped rolling that gum. It was cold outside, but man,
Speaker 1: that air was fresh and clean. I looked through the cabin,
Speaker 1: saw Tim standing in the door, just as I was
Speaker 1: on the other side of the truck in the dim
Speaker 1: glow of the interior light. And then I saw Zack.
Speaker 1: I'd forgotten about Zach. He'd been like the invisible man
Speaker 1: during the turmoil of the darkness. I had totally forgot
Speaker 1: he was with us. But there he sat, motionless in
Speaker 1: the middle of the bench seat, looking through the windshield
Speaker 1: like he was the only one there, before burping loudly
Speaker 1: and throwing up a congealed glob of hog fat and
Speaker 1: hair that nearly made me faint. It was Zack pulling
Speaker 1: the old sneaky pizza on us. Apparently he used his
Speaker 1: black coat as a cloaking device and was slipping to
Speaker 1: the other side of the tree in the hog skinning
Speaker 1: last night and filling his belly up with a pork
Speaker 1: fat weapon of mass destruction. Poor fella had to have
Speaker 1: been suffering with all that on his stomach, I know.
Speaker 1: We were. Tim cleaned the floorboard up as best he could,
Speaker 1: and we went hunting. The buddy of ours came out
Speaker 1: a little later and hunted with us in her little
Speaker 1: makeshift blind and I told him when he got there,
Speaker 1: you better watch that dog. And he said, why will
Speaker 1: he bite or is he gonna try to get my
Speaker 1: cheese and crackers to him? And said, oh, he won't
Speaker 1: bite you, and he probably he probably ain't real interested
Speaker 1: in eating nothing right now. We put him down wind
Speaker 1: to the dog, and it didn't take long before Zach
Speaker 1: started passing gas again, but this time with Tim and
Speaker 1: I both upwind. It was funny, Oh man, the look
Speaker 1: on his face. I'm sorry, Gerald, but that's just how
Speaker 1: that happened. Billy Coleman starts out in the story where
Speaker 1: the Red Fern grows as an adult that rescues a hound,
Speaker 1: and while nursing it back to health, he remembers and
Speaker 1: tells the story of his journey with a pair of
Speaker 1: hounds when he was ten. The format in which it's
Speaker 1: told is somewhat reminiscent of this podcast. I pick a
Speaker 1: subject and talk about it and tell stories relating to
Speaker 1: it that I remember from my own experiences. It was
Speaker 1: also quite possibly the best introduction to hunting and hounds
Speaker 1: for folks who knew nothing about it. And as I've
Speaker 1: said before, it also let the fuse of desire for
Speaker 1: kids at that time to long for a puppy of
Speaker 1: their own and to chase and tree coons with them.
Speaker 1: And I was one of them two generations later, and
Speaker 1: that story in book is still inspiring people now. I
Speaker 1: talk to folks all the time that reference it to me.
Speaker 1: Someone will ask a question about the book or a
Speaker 1: dog that they've heard me mention on here, and it
Speaker 1: will get the storytelling and memory machine going. I was
Speaker 1: thinking the other day about a recent trip with a
Speaker 1: group of friends and old whaling. Whaling is my Tree
Speaker 1: and Walker coon dog, and you've probably seen pictures of
Speaker 1: him on my Instagram, heard me talk about him on here.
Speaker 1: But we were coon hunting last year and had three
Speaker 1: or four hounds out running in the White River bottoms.
Speaker 1: It was coonhound pandemonium with dogs, Tree in here, and
Speaker 1: they're at a pretty fast pace. Had we been walking,
Speaker 1: and we'd have been in for quite a trick. The
Speaker 1: coons had the running shoes on that night and were
Speaker 1: making the dogs earn their keep. Seemed like we had
Speaker 1: a dog running a good track in every direction, which
Speaker 1: isn't a bad thing at all since we were all,
Speaker 1: you know, riding four wheelers and cyber sides. But these
Speaker 1: dogs were leaving the country these coons. Summer treeing a
Speaker 1: mile apart and picking our way to the trees through
Speaker 1: the river bottoms can take time when you're avoiding slews
Speaker 1: that are too deep to cross and a flat full
Speaker 1: of cypress needs that will get you hung up. We've
Speaker 1: been to several trees, and my garment trackers showed whaling
Speaker 1: headed back into an area that we treated lots of
Speaker 1: coons in. The display map on the garment shows you
Speaker 1: the track the dog is making from the signal it
Speaker 1: receives from his tracking collar. You can tell by looking
Speaker 1: at the picture. It's literally painting pretty well. If a
Speaker 1: dog is running a coon, or chasing something off game
Speaker 1: like a deer or a coyo deer, or just about
Speaker 1: anything else. The dog is following the coon's feeding patterns,
Speaker 1: and having been a student of coons and my own
Speaker 1: eating patterns for the last fifty seven years, I can
Speaker 1: tell at a glance what's going on. Couple that with
Speaker 1: knowing how my dog runs a coon, and the sounds
Speaker 1: he makes when he makes them tells the whole story.
Speaker 1: The story Whaling was telling right then was that he
Speaker 1: was chasing a coon and was getting close to the
Speaker 1: bandido that was made in the tracks. With no other
Speaker 1: dogs closed that were running a track that hot, we
Speaker 1: headed toward the area where Whaling was making such a fuss.
Speaker 1: The group of us stopped our four wheelers and side
Speaker 1: besides when my trackers said we were about two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty yards away from Whaling. According to it, Whaling
Speaker 1: was moving in our direction, and according to his barks
Speaker 1: that I could hear, he was getting close to the coon.
Speaker 1: He was barking more and more excitedly. The tempo was
Speaker 1: picking up, and you could hear the drive and determination
Speaker 1: in his voice. Two hundred yards away now and he
Speaker 1: has loud. He locates with a big long ball, and
Speaker 1: I say, tree Whaling, he's got him. Boys, let's go.
Speaker 1: We started all the ATVs and drove the short distance
Speaker 1: down a wood road that led to within a few
Speaker 1: yards of where my trackers showed his location. Now, normally
Speaker 1: you can hear him barking over the engine noise when
Speaker 1: you get that close, but when we pulled up, it
Speaker 1: said like he was a quarter of a mile away. Well,
Speaker 1: that's weird. My tracker says, he's fifty yards off the road.
Speaker 1: We all pile out of our machines and walk to
Speaker 1: where my tracker says he's supposed to be. Now whaling
Speaker 1: is barking is even more intense now, but he sounds
Speaker 1: like he's getting further and further away. It took us
Speaker 1: less than thirty seconds to travel the two hundred yards
Speaker 1: from where he was so loud, and now he sounds
Speaker 1: like he's traveled nearly half a mile away. Well, my
Speaker 1: tracker has an option for a compass display that shows
Speaker 1: the face of a compass and an arrow that shows
Speaker 1: the direction and the distance from the handheld device to
Speaker 1: the collar that's being tracked. I followed it from the
Speaker 1: wood road we were parked on to where I was
Speaker 1: now standing, and the compass was spinning around on the
Speaker 1: display indicated that I was standing on top of whaling,
Speaker 1: but there was no whaling to be seen. People were talking,
Speaker 1: looking around for him, trying to figure out why he
Speaker 1: sounded so far away. Now whaling had trailed this coon
Speaker 1: through the bottoms along a big water filled slow and
Speaker 1: I was standing thirty five yards from the edge of
Speaker 1: the slough. I asked everyone to be quiet and listen.
Speaker 1: According to my device, I should have been standing right
Speaker 1: on top of him. They got quiet, Whaling kept barking,
Speaker 1: and I realized my tracker was right. I was standing
Speaker 1: on top of him. He was under the ground. I
Speaker 1: told everyone to start looking for a hole, but there
Speaker 1: was none to be seen. I was in a panic,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how I was going to get
Speaker 1: him out of there. Now, if you follow this podcast
Speaker 1: on my Instagram, you know that that dog is a
Speaker 1: valued member of this family to my wife Alexis and
Speaker 1: my daughter Bailey. He may be more valued than the
Speaker 1: coon hunter. I've never taken that survey for fear of
Speaker 1: getting my feelings hurt, So going home without him was
Speaker 1: a no go. It just wasn't going to happen. Now,
Speaker 1: he obviously chased that coon in there and had him bathe,
Speaker 1: But how in the world did he get in there,
Speaker 1: and how the world was I going to get him out?
Speaker 1: I seen him baycons in beaver lodges and then holes
Speaker 1: dug in the side of a creek and slow banks,
Speaker 1: but to have him thirty five yards away from the
Speaker 1: water's edge on a flat, barren ground was a new
Speaker 1: one on everyone there. I'm thinking, how long is it
Speaker 1: going to take me to dig that dog out with
Speaker 1: his pocket knife? While someone goes up to the farm
Speaker 1: shop several miles away and gets a shovel. I shine
Speaker 1: my light back toward the edge of the slough and
Speaker 1: I saw a ripple in the water. Now, unless there's
Speaker 1: an overflow with the river pushing out into the woods
Speaker 1: over its banks, slows don't have current, so the water
Speaker 1: should be still. With us being there, with no other
Speaker 1: dogs and all the commotion going on, there shouldn't be
Speaker 1: any animal activity in making the waves. I ran over
Speaker 1: to the spot on the edge of the slough and
Speaker 1: I laid down looking over the bank. The water was
Speaker 1: less than a foot below the edge of the bank,
Speaker 1: and with my head light I could see a six
Speaker 1: inch gap between the top of the water and the
Speaker 1: top of a big hole that ran straight back up
Speaker 1: in there. About six feet. My heart sank. I couldn't
Speaker 1: hear Whaling any better here than I could when I
Speaker 1: was standing right on top of him, way back up
Speaker 1: in the woods. It looked like it was just to
Speaker 1: wash out, But hoping against all hope, I started calling him.
Speaker 1: The barking stopped after a few minutes, and it was
Speaker 1: stone cold silence. Here, Whaling, here, come on son here.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a sound, There wasn't a ripple in the water.
Speaker 1: There was nothing but gloom hanging in the air, and
Speaker 1: I whispered the prayer, Lord, please let this dog come
Speaker 1: out of there. I looked around for the men of
Speaker 1: the time while I laid there on the bank, for
Speaker 1: another entrance into what I thought was going to be
Speaker 1: Whaling's grave. As I looked across the slough on the
Speaker 1: other side, I saw another ripple push out across the
Speaker 1: top of the water, and I followed it back across
Speaker 1: several others and looked back into that hole up in
Speaker 1: that bank, just in time to see a set of
Speaker 1: coon dog eyes pop up from under the water. He
Speaker 1: was swimming to me with nothing but his eyes above
Speaker 1: the water, and a small gap between the water and
Speaker 1: the top of that tunnel, and when he poked his
Speaker 1: head out from underneath the edge of that bank, I
Speaker 1: grabbed his collar and pulled him up on the bank
Speaker 1: beside me. My friend David McDaniel's got a picture of it,
Speaker 1: and I'll share it so you can see it on
Speaker 1: my Instagram. Good night, nurse. I was glad to see
Speaker 1: that dog. I will never forget that feeling of see
Speaker 1: in that set of green glowing eyes sticking up above
Speaker 1: the water like a periscope on a submarine now wailing.
Speaker 1: He was just as happy and proud to be there
Speaker 1: and treated it like it was just another tree coon,
Speaker 1: and to him, I suppose it was. I turned him
Speaker 1: loose from that spot after I bout petted all the
Speaker 1: hair off of him, and we hunted on through the
Speaker 1: night with my friends and all the other dogs. But
Speaker 1: my mind kept going back to that moment that I
Speaker 1: thought all hope was lost and that he was lost.
Speaker 1: I still think about it, and it's a good lesson
Speaker 1: for me. I'm telling you this story now, and that
Speaker 1: old coon dog I thought I'd lost forever is laying
Speaker 1: at my feet, sound asleep. He's a living, breathing and
Speaker 1: loving example that all is never lost. And with the
Speaker 1: little faith you can see the light in the darkest
Speaker 1: of tones. I thank you so much for listening, and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the time you give me each week
Speaker 1: to talk about this country life of mine. It's a
Speaker 1: good one and I'm proud to share it with you.
Speaker 1: Until next week. This is Brent Reeves said, and af
Speaker 1: y'all be careful.