00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukleman. This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast presented by f HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. So, right before the podcast started, there was mention of a premature baby, which is something that happens occasionally in the human species, and I started to tell a story about how in medieval times in Europe, bears were on the hit list of the Catholic Church in a major way because of the pagan bear cults of Europe that were so dominant that like imagine today if you said, what's the king of the beasts? Like, what would you say? 00:01:27 Speaker 2: King of the beast? 00:01:28 Speaker 1: King of the beasts. Yeah, I mean that's like the universal king of the beasts. Well before, pre about a thousand years ago, especially in Europe, king of the beast would have been the bear because of what's called what anthropologists have labeled a very controversial idea, but what they have labeled the circumpolar bear cult, which basically everywhere that there's bears north of the equator. There is this like consistency in the way that humans have have ceremonialized bear in like really strange and wild ways, which gave rise to these bear cults and actual bear worship in Europe and about fifteen hundred years ago, the Catholic Church, one of their primary targets cultural targets like today, like a cultural target for I won't even speculate on what that would be for a church today, but one of their main targets was bears. And literally, I've recently read a book about this, and literally there were marketing campaigns against bears. And one of the things that was written by a medieval author circling back to a premature baby, is that bear cubs are born in the winter den and weigh less than a pound, and per the calcul elations of big game mammals and how big their offspring should be, a bears offspring is like way smaller and it's just like deep biological strategy. Because they have their cubs in the den, the mother has to sustain herself and the cub through the spring without urinating, defecating, or leaving the den, and so that they have this strategy of delayed implantation where they have this tiny premature cub. Coming back to this story with me? 00:03:29 Speaker 2: Everybody with me? 00:03:30 Speaker 1: Brent, Oh yeah, okay. This these medieval writers marketed that that the sALS, the sal bears were so lazy, carnal and lustful lug your ears. 00:03:46 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:03:47 Speaker 1: That they were so burdened by pregnancy because they couldn't mate again with their lovers that they just spat their young out of the oven way before it was done. 00:04:03 Speaker 2: With me, I'm following. 00:04:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, So this like biological reproductive strategy of having these little beady cubs was was marketed as bears are bad and you need to quit your pagan heathen cult of worshiping them, which I mean, I'm all four not doing that. But welcome to the Bear grease Pipe Podcast. 00:04:31 Speaker 2: How did I tell you to end those kind of stories? 00:04:33 Speaker 1: And then I found five dollars on the ground were just in Montana, and I he told some. I told some that were just flat stories amongst the group, and Brent was like, when you tell a story that dumb, you should end it with. And then I found five dollars. 00:04:54 Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell you where I learned that from the lady that gives you so much grief about mushrooms in your chili. 00:05:02 Speaker 2: My wife, your wife, Yeah, do you put mushrooms in your chili? 00:05:05 Speaker 1: I did once. 00:05:07 Speaker 4: I love mushrooms in your chili, spaghetti sauce. 00:05:12 Speaker 2: I put mushrooms in just about anything, my oatmeal pipe. 00:05:16 Speaker 1: So so your wife taught you to say, like, if you end the story and people are still like, yeah, well, I mean what. 00:05:24 Speaker 4: Happened, Yeah, where it came from? Was I tell her a hunting story or something that we would found. Oh, that's good, And she's like, I'm still waiting for the worst part where Lewis Viten comes in or what's his name, Louis Vatan, whatever his name is. 00:05:39 Speaker 2: She's waiting for that lemon part of the story. 00:05:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's it. 00:05:44 Speaker 4: She said, you should always end one of those with And then I found five dollars. 00:05:48 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:05:49 Speaker 1: Finding out a lot of my stories in that way. But welcome to the Bear Grease Render. Today we have Brent Reeves of this Country Life podcast here. It's been a while since you've been here, so good to see you. We've got Josh Lambridge Spillmaker. 00:06:03 Speaker 2: I'm here I'm in pursuit of a turkey. 00:06:05 Speaker 1: In pursuit of a turkey, and we got Lake Pickle, good friend, Robert Lake Pickle, Robert Lake Pickle. Yeah, so we've got We've got a lot, a lot to cover today. Big Time had a Big Time podcast hit the airwaves last week. I want to talk about and just in case you're new to this, man, our our feed is not getting any more simple to understand. But on the bear Grease feed, which typically a feed would just be one podcast and there'd be one thing, but not us, not us, we have the bear Grease Podcast, which is our documentary style podcast, which we're going to talk about this true bear Grease is what I call it, the Confessions of a former outlaw. 00:06:54 Speaker 2: We have that. 00:06:54 Speaker 1: We also have this the bear Grease Render is where we gather up and have a kind of a traditional style podcast where we typically will talk about last week's Paar Greece. But we also have Brent Reeves this country life podcast every Friday. What is this country life podcast? Would you describe it in a word? I didn't think you could. Moving right along, You. 00:07:18 Speaker 2: Can't do it in a word, for sure, not one word. No. 00:07:21 Speaker 4: It is an amalgamation of my life and those around me. And it's anything culturally significant in my life, which could be falling, riding a tricycle, awful porch as a child or grown up, but anything is is this country life. It's actually this country life. It's my country life and my friends and observations about living in the country and the country could be a trip that we went to New York City, you know, just my observations. 00:07:55 Speaker 2: And how I view the world and how the world. 00:07:58 Speaker 4: Is viewed by people like me and folks that I know, and stories that have some type of roots in place, in place and family. So it's not a it's not a hunting and fishing show, but we talk about hunting and fishing. It's just really an Americana. If you want to do one word, Americana is probably it. 00:08:24 Speaker 2: I like it. Yeah, I just thought of that. 00:08:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, there's I've never sent somebody to Brent's podcast that that didn't like it, and that's the truth. I think just about anybody in the world could listen to it, and. 00:08:36 Speaker 2: I appreciate it and like it very entertaining. 00:08:40 Speaker 1: Entertaining, you know, it's just entertaining, always, always entertaining. 00:08:45 Speaker 3: And It's one of those podcasts you don't have to sit down for two hours and listen to. They're usually about what, twenty minutes, twenty five minutes. 00:08:50 Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of people listen to it going to work, coming home from work, whatever. 00:08:56 Speaker 2: Some folks save it up for road trips. Know. 00:09:01 Speaker 4: Lake has memorized a lot of them. He puts them to music and sings them back to me a lot on my. 00:09:08 Speaker 2: Voice smel I put them to auto tune. Stop doing please stop doing that. Lake, no promises, but it's a lot of fun. It's I'm very blessed to do this. Man. 00:09:19 Speaker 4: It's uh here it is Open the Turkey season. We're recording this and I'm sitting in here with you. I got a guy that gets paid for two guys that get paid three four guys. 00:09:30 Speaker 2: They get paid the hunting fish. 00:09:31 Speaker 1: It's kind of have qualms with that labeling. I don't. I don't think I get paid to hunting fish. 00:09:39 Speaker 5: Yeah, because I'm gonna have to reframe that too, because if I said I, if I agreed to that, I would have to do some real explaining to my wife. Because I've done a lot of explaining myself out of that that I don't do that. 00:09:49 Speaker 2: She thinks I just play all the time. Yeah. 00:09:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, Well it is today the Arkansas and Missouri turkey season, and we're all here, but we're splitting from here and heading pretty quick to our haunts, the haunts of the wild turkey Man. So Lake, Uh, if I don't know what Lake does with his life, it's hard to say what he does. He works for on X, that's true, and what he does for on X is hard to say. It's possible that on X is like in some sort of money laundering scheme, because I know a lot of people that work for on X, and it's like they do a lot of stuff. 00:10:33 Speaker 4: He's on my feet every day and everything I opened it, I turn on, turn on the old Google machine, and there's Lake. 00:10:41 Speaker 1: Yeah, they're feeding him. They're feeding him to us daily. Hey, but Lake Pickle is is a true Southern turkey hunter. This guy right here's a turkey hunter. Brent's a turkey hunter. Two but I always talk about Brent. But but uh, Lakes a turkey hunter, the turkey killer, and it's hunted with some of the some of the iconic turkey hunters of North America, primarily Will primos So I'm talking about that's and that's kind of the reason I know you. It's through Wilbur. I mean, that's pretty much why everybody know. 00:11:14 Speaker 2: I will accept that label. Yeah. No, If I'm known through that's that's a good association. Known through Wilbur. That's fine by me. Yeah. 00:11:22 Speaker 1: So what do you do? 00:11:22 Speaker 2: Like, little of this, little of that? 00:11:25 Speaker 1: What do you do that you can talk about? 00:11:28 Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I'm a the like the easiest term would be like a marketing manager. I was doing social media strategy for pretty much the whole of the three years I've been there, and then recently changed from that into doing more of a marketing manager role, so mainly focusing on me personally. We've got a couple of different marketing managers, but I focus on the waterfile side, So work with ambassadors, work with a bunch of corporate partners like Ducks Unlimited and places like that, and marketing strategy, which is in a learning curve. 00:12:01 Speaker 2: But it's been fun. It's always fun. 00:12:04 Speaker 1: Hey have you got that call now? I told the guys before you got here. Josh said that he liked that phelps Prime cuts call. 00:12:14 Speaker 3: I tried like twelve different and I'm I'm a novice using a mouth call. But as a novice, I put ten or twelve different calls in my mouth and then one at the same time. I say, if three reads are good, thirty or even better, I put that call in my mouth. And that's the one call that I could I could make sound realistic, and it was like easily you could manipulate it and make good good, like as just the right amount of rasp and and you can manipulate manipulate. 00:12:43 Speaker 1: It really well well Lake when he started using that call, and that's that's my call in that prime cuts pack. And I know, as much as it hurts Lake to say that my name on it was good, I said before you got here, I said, Le's not playing around. If he's using it, he likes it. He's not trying to butter anybody up. Because if somebody's really serious, that's something you can trust him to not just like, oh, use it to like make you feel good or something. And I know how serious you take turkey calling. So when I mean you like that call, though, no. 00:13:17 Speaker 5: I do. I fall into when it comes to like mouth he oopers, which turkey calls diepram cause people call I've fall into a problem with I blow a batwingstall call a lot, and so I find myself I'm comfortable with that, so I get the same tone with my yelp and all the time. 00:13:37 Speaker 2: So if I can. 00:13:37 Speaker 5: Find one that I can blow and it gives me a different tone, I like that because that means I have something to switch to. 00:13:43 Speaker 1: Just to throw at him. That's different the old dazzle. 00:13:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, just like, hey, they ain't heard this yet. Now. 00:13:50 Speaker 1: I heard Brent call that a cotton mouth cut, which I don't think is that cut? I think maybe you have you ever heard of that before? Seen a cut like that that it's it's uh yeah, I mean so when you're talking about diaphragm turkey calls, you don't have to know what cut it is. But you know there's double reed, triple read, single reed, and there's all these different cuts that are on the basically the the the bottom read that read closest to your tongue is cut in a certain way, and that gives a cut tones. What kind of cut is that? 00:14:26 Speaker 2: Man? 00:14:26 Speaker 5: I mean, it looks like somewhere between a bat wing and a ghost cut. And I'd never seen one like it, honestly, which is why I was like, man, I don't know if I'll be able to make a turkey sound on this or not, because I never used one that had a cut like that but ended up liking it. 00:14:41 Speaker 1: Here, hit us with it. Just give us a little little sequence, give us a little perr, little whistle that sounds good? 00:15:08 Speaker 2: Man, it does? You know? To me? 00:15:11 Speaker 1: What when I find a call that I like, And that's the reason that we made that one, is that I can purr on it and make those soft noises but also get a good raspy cut And a lot of times it's like one of the other, at least with me, that's the way it's been, is one of the other. 00:15:30 Speaker 2: Oh you have to do one one call for one thing and another. 00:15:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, well that's my I mean, you could always yelp on any of them or cut on any of them. But like my best raspy cutting call was this one. And then well, if I want to make soft purrs, it's you know, got to use this call, but that one I seem to be able to get all the sounds out. 00:15:48 Speaker 5: Of them the same way. It's the only thing that I can't do well on that is Kiki. But I really on that one. You can't get just the only thing, Okay, but I'm willing to take that compromise because that's about the same like the only mouthcawl kiki on is a ghost cut. 00:16:02 Speaker 2: So I mean, okay, used to that. Okay? 00:16:06 Speaker 1: Uh have you uh you've turkey don it quite a bit this year? Well maybe not as much as usual, but you have turkey in it. 00:16:12 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, as much as I can. 00:16:14 Speaker 1: How many of you killed? 00:16:15 Speaker 2: Three? Three? 00:16:16 Speaker 5: Where killed one at home in Mississippi, killed one in Texas with my wife, and then I killed one in Tennessee last week. 00:16:25 Speaker 2: Nice. 00:16:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, Now you didn't killing in Florida. 00:16:28 Speaker 2: I did not. 00:16:29 Speaker 5: I took I you were there while but yeah, some turkey. So where we go in Florida. We've been able to go to for a number of years, and uh Lacey has been burning me up to go there, which I understand, but it was a situation where I wasn't in the driver's seat to be able to do any inviting. 00:16:46 Speaker 2: Uh. 00:16:47 Speaker 5: Last spring that we were there, that got like, man, bring your wife next year. So uh, this year, Lacey went first, and then Jordan's wife went, and then Jordan went, and by the time I got the gun. We had one afternoon and was able to hunt till like seven the next morning. So I tried but didn't pan out, but Lacey got one. 00:17:05 Speaker 1: So yeah, good for her. 00:17:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, how many states have you killed turkeys in ninety one? 00:17:13 Speaker 5: I think I want to see like twenty three, maybe twenty three states, I think. So that's pretty sport, I think so yeah, I would man the whole forty nine state thing for a while, like probably twenty one twenty twenty two. I was trying to hit that pretty hard, and then it seemed like everyone and their cousins started trying to do it too, And then me and Jordan blissit do y'all know we would have these trips every year. We'd try to hit a couple of states, and we'd get to this point, man, where we would be we weren't even really enjoying the hunting. We would just try to get this state, all right, let's get stuff on this jump to other stairs, Like man, that ain't that? 00:17:52 Speaker 2: Ain't it? Isn't it? Yeah? 00:17:54 Speaker 5: So I mean I still like, if I have a spring where I'm able to hit a new state, awesome, but I'm not breaking my back to see how quick. 00:18:01 Speaker 4: Have you killed all the all the subspecies, yeah, except forate golds. 00:18:06 Speaker 2: Hadn't done that. Yeah. Hm, I've just got two Easterns and rio. 00:18:12 Speaker 1: Let me say it's a few hundred. 00:18:13 Speaker 4: In uh, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama. I've killed turkeys in all them. In Mississippi, I say Mississippi, not yet. I've killed turkeys and all them. 00:18:31 Speaker 1: To a lot of the Southeast States. It's kind of the places you can drive probably easily. 00:18:36 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:18:45 Speaker 1: Man, I'm I'm looking forward to Uh, I'm looking forward to hunting. Me and Lake hunted. And I almost wanted to tell that story, but I kind of I thought about saving that story for the Turkey Stories episode for next year. 00:19:00 Speaker 2: Year. 00:19:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it. There's some I thought it could work. So I'm torn as quick as it happened. It did have enough turns in it to make it funny. And yeah. Yeah yeah, so it's a good story. I make them make them way teas. 00:19:15 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. 00:19:16 Speaker 1: Now what's your best what's your best story from this year? Do you have a good one? 00:19:20 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:19:21 Speaker 5: Our hunt so I could teue the one from last week in Tennessee is uh. The way I was actually talking to a buddy this morning, I told my story. 00:19:29 Speaker 2: I said. 00:19:29 Speaker 5: The best way I explained this is I've never so finally ridden the line of you screwed this up and oh my gosh, how did you hold that together? 00:19:39 Speaker 2: And so that's my every day line. Look, man, look driving down the highway. Yeah. 00:19:44 Speaker 5: So I was with my buddy Gary Stanton and we were in oh Musket bloodline. 00:19:49 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's some good boys, man. Me and Gary know each other because of Turkey On. 00:19:54 Speaker 5: Yeah, we had been on phone calls with each other, and then they had the COVID year they had to cancel touring. And uh I'd met the dude in person for the first time at a hotel at an airport in Maine, and me and me and Jordan picked him up in an electric blue Hyundai rental car and we hunted for four days. We've been budgeting in. Yeah, we've been buddies ever since. 00:20:18 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I like I talked to him, not often enough. He's a good guy. 00:20:23 Speaker 5: So, uh so Gary had me up this place in North Tennessee and my day, my morning was made before the turkey's even hit the ground, because I'm sitting there and turkeys are gobbling and then Bible whack Quil started whistling on the. 00:20:36 Speaker 2: Edge of this field. I'm like, this is great, Oh God. 00:20:39 Speaker 5: So the turkey's hit the ground and I figure out real quick I'm in a flock situation. I'm like, oh my gosh, this flock situation has followed me from home. 00:20:46 Speaker 2: Everywhere we went. 00:20:47 Speaker 5: I've been dealing with flocks the turkeys with and so they don't do anything, and we're like, let's make a loop around, and we end up going to the clear other side of the property. We crossed this steep creek, climb up to the top, and here in turkeys. But I told Gary said, man, I've not had a turkey gobble at me all morning, Like I'm here, like other than like a hoodoo or a crow call, but not it yelping. I'm like, man, And I was telling him, I said, this is kind of following me from home. They've just kind of been in that mood. They're staying in flocks later than I've expected them to. It's just kind of been like that, kind of easing down this ridge. And I put that call in my mouth and I yelped kind of mid volume one time, and nothing, and then I got on it pretty hard and Turkey jumps over it and I looked at Gary said that's different. And the problem was, is he gobbled from right down that creek that we just came up from. And I said, Gary, can you tell what side of the creek he's on? He's like, I said, because he was, I mean right there on it. So it's like, is he on our side to see across? How far one eighty so not like on top of you, but like close enough that you're like, if he is on our side of the creek, you know. And so there was this little bity finger that was steep, and I'm like, man, if we were making ease up there, and if he's on there side of that creek, there's just this a little meadows, like maybe I can glass down there possibly see him, because I'm still thinking, I'm not thinking gobbler by himself at all. I'm thinking wad of turkeys because that's what we've been dealing with. Yeah, so he's up that finger, dge a glass down in that meadow. 00:22:19 Speaker 2: I don't see anything. I yell up again. 00:22:21 Speaker 5: He jumps all over the same spot, sounded like and I'm like, man, I don't know. And then I wait a few seconds, I yelp again. He doesn't gobble at all, which when I hear that, I'm like he's doing something. 00:22:30 Speaker 2: Is yeah. So I said, I'm gonna sit down right here, Gary. 00:22:34 Speaker 5: So I sit down and Gary drops behind me about thirty yards and I sit there and as soon as I sit down, I look and this ridge has turkey scratching everywhere. 00:22:42 Speaker 2: I'm like, good son, the. 00:22:45 Speaker 5: Problem was is we sat there for like twenty minutes and I didn't hear that turkey. Again, I didn't hear him drum. I didn't hear walking in the leaves. Man, What is wrong with a courtesy gobble? Just let me know. And I'm sitting there going, I'm like, I've only got two days this turkey, and I'm just in my mind, I'm convinced he's on the other side of the creek. 00:23:08 Speaker 2: And I'm like, that turkey's on the other side. 00:23:10 Speaker 1: As the other side of the creek, someone else's. 00:23:11 Speaker 2: Probably no, no, we can hunt it. 00:23:13 Speaker 1: Just but you don't think he's gonna cross. 00:23:15 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a big creek, Like, it's a big, big, wide deep you know, got your legs wet crossing it kind of thing. Yeah, and I'm like, man, he's on the other side of the creek in that meadow, probably with a bunch of hens and jakes like every other turkey we've been hearing. I'm wasting time up here on this ridge. And so I'm like, what, you know. 00:23:31 Speaker 1: What getting down on the situation. Yeah, and we see it. 00:23:34 Speaker 5: We've been there for about two minutes and I yep a little bit, Gary, yep back, there's something nothing. And finally one time I got on it pretty good. You cut and yelped nothing. I sit there and I said, man, we need to move. I need to move, like he's down there waste our time. 00:23:47 Speaker 2: We need to move. And so I make up my mind. 00:23:50 Speaker 5: But I'm like, I need to act like I have some sense and get up stealthy because it's so steep. When you stand up you can see down, you know. And so I'm like, I'm on a big o oak tree. So I stand up straight up, real slow, and I got my shotgun on my left hand. 00:24:06 Speaker 2: I stand up and saying I think. 00:24:08 Speaker 1: Something about that. 00:24:08 Speaker 2: I hear the morning. 00:24:12 Speaker 1: When there's a normal standing up, you don't you don't do this. 00:24:15 Speaker 2: So I stand play in the background. 00:24:20 Speaker 5: So stand straight up, and I go to grab and I can see down the ridge of good ways, and I go to grab my binoculars my right hand and I put my right hand on binoculars and AUTI pops behind a tree and told you full struck fifty yards. But I'm still I'm just standing there, flushed like this. He's none the wiser. He's walking towards me. So I just stood there and he's like kind of angling towards me. Walked all the way into thirty yards, went behind another tree, and I just went. He popped out on the other side, and I said, hello. 00:24:50 Speaker 2: With your shot. 00:24:51 Speaker 5: Yeah, and I and Gary was He said, man, when when all it was over? He said, man, I saw you stand up and and I thought I knew what you were doing. Then I saw you reach your bino's and stopp and you were just standing there. 00:25:05 Speaker 2: I said, what is he doing? All of a sudden, your gun snaps up and I said, hone, shut have you shut? 00:25:13 Speaker 5: Standing up more than you'd think, but none that like like I've I've done that that, like that sneaky stand up and check. I do that because I've seen it blown so many times, like that exact situation. But every time since I started sneaky standing up sorry, I was like, all right, there's nothing there. 00:25:29 Speaker 2: Let's move. I stood up in that rascal was coming up the hills, like, yeah. 00:25:34 Speaker 1: So you thought this thing is messed up. You know, we've we've we've screwed this up. 00:25:39 Speaker 5: As soon as he when he popped out and yep, I mean like a half second, they're sure, but he just kept walk. It never broke struck when he popped out from behind that tree. I he I mean, he kind of came out strutt and do one of those where's that hen kind of looks? But he he was he never knew. 00:25:55 Speaker 1: That's good, that's awesome. Hey, you know what I just remembered today, the day this podcast comes out, Meat Eater on their on their clips YouTube channel has My Hunt from Tennessee from last year coming out this very day, and on that channel is also your Hunt from Missouri Surry last year. Yeah on O, I believe it was opening day in Missouri last year. 00:26:24 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:26:24 Speaker 1: Or you killed one yeah yeah yeah, yeah. 00:26:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, well we killed that turkey before breakfast. 00:26:30 Speaker 1: Mm hmm. 00:26:31 Speaker 4: It was right off the roofs and pal it's fun to watch. Oh yeah, it didn't take long. 00:26:36 Speaker 1: Man, Isaac mm hmm man, My my hunt in Tennessee last year was it was? 00:26:43 Speaker 2: It was? 00:26:45 Speaker 1: I said on the video, I said it was one of the best times I'd been on. You know how you're kind of just pumped after you kill one, and you you like think it's the best thing that ever happened. And it probably was. But on the video I said it was the best turkey hunt I ever been on. But we had worked. It was opening day and we'd messed around with birds all day, but still at four o'clock, I was still hunting. And I won't spoil it, but basically killed the bird at four ten eagle after after watching him, I learned a lot. He probably won't see it on the video, so it's not a spoiler alert. But this this I cut at this, I didn't know the bird was there, just was on this little little ridge point, going looking off into this drawl and cut real hard and at four well, actually it was. It took thirty minutes. So it was at three forty five turkey God was like four hundred yards and we're right on this point and he's way below us in some flat ground and I just say I'm just gonna sit right here and see what he does. Sat down. Four or five minutes later, he god was again. He's half the distance and I think I've yelped at him, yump at him again. He cuts me off. I mean, it's it's it's feeling good for a four o'clock gobbler. And the woods are so open, and this is what the video is hard to see. The woods are so open. I can see probably one hundred and twenty yards through these open hardwoods, and the turkey probably gobbled three maybe four times, and at you know, he he I finally see him out there about one hundred and twenty yards and he's just in full strut, just spinning circles, just thinking about himself. 00:28:23 Speaker 2: And selfish like giraffes. 00:28:27 Speaker 1: Yeah, and he never gobbled though, he never gobbled. He never gobbled. If I hadn't been able to see him, I would have thought something happened. 00:28:36 Speaker 2: Yeah he's gone. 00:28:37 Speaker 1: Yeah. But but just because I could see so far, I just watched him, watched him, and rather than coming straight to me, he's he's he's strutting and drifting, you know, like Elton John's tiny dancer, you know, and he's he's kind of spinning and he's he's veering off to my left but kind of getting closer. And I know what he's gonna do. He's gonna end up losing interest and getting around the point of this ridge and then probably making a big circle and just complicating things, you know. And I would watch him and i'd call, like when he was one hundred and twenty yards with insight, had a decoy out, and he would but he never would come. Finally, when he got to the point where he was about to like go around the point of another ridge, I just said, man, something's got to happen here. And I started scratching the leaves and he's probably now ninety yards but not coming in scratching the leaves, and then I just hammered him. Like once I saw him, I was just slow playing him, you know, just thinking, Ah, he's coming, he's coming, he's coming. But when he was about to get away from me, and I mean it's getting late in the afternoon, I'm scratching the leaves and I just, I mean just hit him hard, and man, he gobbles and just breaks that strut and just comes straight to me, jumps up on. 00:30:01 Speaker 2: A log, got him how close. 00:30:04 Speaker 1: Probably twenty five yards and it was a good hunt. 00:30:09 Speaker 2: Man. 00:30:09 Speaker 5: I hear stories like that, and my head goes to, you know, the old school calling mentality to sit down and cluck three times and wait from the show up. 00:30:17 Speaker 1: I'm not saying. 00:30:18 Speaker 5: I'm not saying it's not effective. It worked for a lot of people, and it can work sometimes work. 00:30:22 Speaker 1: For Wayne Cox. 00:30:23 Speaker 2: It I mean, hey, you can't. It works for some folks. 00:30:26 Speaker 5: But I say that especially because the whole you know, Wilbur, his whole career, you know. 00:30:32 Speaker 2: The calling too much and calling. 00:30:33 Speaker 5: Too lou accusations. Yeah, I'm not saying it doesn't work, but you can't say that what like what you just described that works too. 00:30:41 Speaker 2: Just depends on the turkey. 00:30:43 Speaker 1: The first of I hunted with Lake and and well and the only time I really hunted with Will we went on a couple of day hunts. I remember you saying that Wilbur would leave yelp marks on a turkey. So the Wayne Cox Do you all know who Wayne Cox is? You guys, if we were doing a quiz on the confessions of a former outlaw, Wayne Cox was the old man that taught Johnny Johnson turkey. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't expect you to get it. But he was the old man that that used a piece of slate and a goat horn. How excited can you get on a piece of slate and a goat horn? I kind of got my Johnny Johnson. 00:31:28 Speaker 2: That wasn't. 00:31:30 Speaker 1: He thought it was close? 00:31:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's nice. 00:31:36 Speaker 4: Hey, today is the second year anniversary of the release of my podcast? 00:31:42 Speaker 1: Is it really to this day? 00:31:43 Speaker 4: April twenty first they were recording it it released. You and I were in Turkey Camp in Missouri. 00:31:51 Speaker 1: Is that the day it came out? 00:31:53 Speaker 2: That's the day it came out. 00:31:54 Speaker 1: Really, that's pretty cool. We had we I don't know what I've said, but I know what I was thinking. I thought, there's no way this is gonna work. 00:32:02 Speaker 4: I figured I'd be in either jail or hr by now, and I've escaped both of them. 00:32:11 Speaker 1: Two years, two years. That's awesome. Well, you know what bear Grease is now? Four years in April. I hadn't really thought about it. 00:32:18 Speaker 4: It was released in April two Yep, there you go, yep, yep. 00:32:22 Speaker 2: Yeah. Stuff started to get serious, ain't it. Yeah? 00:32:27 Speaker 1: Getting tired of Talking's what I'm getting. It's not true. 00:32:31 Speaker 2: That's not true, not true at all. 00:32:34 Speaker 1: Well, so this this episode, I'll give you a little context. This episode is called Confessions of a Former Outlaw and I this episode also is playing on the on the Meat Eater main feed, which is unique to bear Grease. We've we've never had a bear Grease podcast that played on the main Meat Eater channel. So a lot of people hopefully listen to it that maybe wouldn't have. And the point of me saying that is that I had called Steve Ranella after actually I had had Josh and Lake and Lake and I were turkey hunting and so we had to drive somewhere and I just I sent you this draft and I said, hey, listen to this and just tell me what you think, and Josh should listen to it. And this podcast was different than anyone I've ever done. And this is the way I described it. I've done a lot of outlaw stuff. I've done stuff with undercover agents who were talking about people that they busted that broke the law, Russ Arthur and my buddy in Ohio, Artie Stewart. I've done a podcast on Donnie Baker, who is a good friend of ours these days, great guy who who committed a crime and was punished for that crime, and he talked about it. So I'm painting the different scenarios and the little capsules that we've talked about. Outlaws. We did the Genuine Outlaws series, which was one of my favorites that we've ever. 00:34:20 Speaker 2: Done and people's favorites. 00:34:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was on two guys that are now deceased. So it was on some some guys that are no longer here, and it was about their lives and they interviewed their family and their friends. There's a new there's this one. The Johnny Johnson episode fits into a different category because Johnny Johnson is still alive and he was talking to me about stuff that he was not caught for caught on, and that it was setting with him was like wildly interesting. I recorded a three hour conversation with you. You heard if you listen to the episode, you would have heard. Now the episode was fifty four minutes long, but the actual Johnny talking was only like thirty five minutes. So, I mean we talked a lot to get what we got, and and I just called Steve Runella and was just like, hey, man, is this okay for me? To put this out because I'm always conflicted about you know, when you talk about outlaws, you know, are you glorifying it? And I think if I were playing Devil's Advocate and I was not me and I was someone else talking about me, I could probably make a pretty good case that I am glorifying out lawn. 00:35:41 Speaker 2: I don't think so, but we'll disagree. 00:35:44 Speaker 1: Go ahead, Well, I appreciate that. And number and then number two I was I'm always very I'm not just saying this, this is the truth behind the curtains of bear grease. My number one concern is the people that I interview, in whatever case it may be, because media sometimes exploits people, period. I mean and and I never want to do that. So if I talk to somebody, I don't I don't want to just exploit them to get a good story that's going to damage them. And so here's Johnny who he's never listened to a podcast before, uh and and I And he doesn't know me, but multiple people around him know me and have come to him and said, hey, you need to let this this random guy come interview you. Well, what's he want to talk about? Well, probably about you know, the negative parts of your life. Oh okay, Well, I mean, you know, there's a lot of different things Johnny could have told me all the stories about in his life where he he did good stuff. Yeah, and and so I'm always really concerned. So that was part of it too. When I talked to Steve, I was like, listen to this, and is this is this going to damage Johnny? And what also behind the curtains. That's what the bear grigshrender is. I called some high ups in the Oklahoma game and fish and they didn't listen to it. They didn't put their stamp of approval on it. That's not what I'm saying. But I just said, I'm going to do this. What are the chances that that this is going to hurt this guy in some way? And and basically, I mean, you know, when you're talking about stuff that happened that long ago, it literally is a different time, and there's legal things that you know, statutes of limitations and stuff. So but it was it was stressful, and that's why Steve Vannella got involved and that and and and and Steve was just like, hey, man, if it's interesting to you and people are going to think you're glorifying out line. If it's interesting to you, it's gonna be interesting to other people. This guy's really unique. It's a great story. Yeah, and he was like, do it and then it ends up you know, it plays on the meat eater main feed, which was really cool, really cool. But I don't know how to start the conversation other than just like general general thoughts, Brent. 00:38:33 Speaker 4: I think up until that one came out, I would have easily, hands down, had a top three that I could have argued were my favorite. And this is not even close. This one is so far above the rest of them because of the story. Story to me is everything. I mean, that is my job telling the story. It's your job telling the story. But this story is as complete a story that fits in the wheelhouse of what my feelings are, what my what I hold important. This one is. 00:39:18 Speaker 2: By far surpassed anything else. 00:39:21 Speaker 1: That Really, I'm pretty surprised to hear you say that. 00:39:24 Speaker 4: No, it's not even close, and it's I don't want to get too far in ahead of myself here, but it's the redemption of the whole thing is great. I'll listen to it twice and I sometimes I'll listen to them more than once on up here, so I'll have something fresh in my mind, like, Okay, I need to I need to remember this when we talked about it on the render. I need to because I listen to it when it comes out and then the next week we're coming up here. I listened to this twice because I enjoyed it, and while I was thinking it was just enjoyable, listen again because I got so much out of it. 00:40:00 Speaker 1: What about before the end though, when you didn't know what was going to happen, just with like, did you find yourself frustrated with the way this guy was? 00:40:10 Speaker 2: No, and that was totally different. You know. 00:40:13 Speaker 4: I was one of the dissenters on the Genuine Outlaws podcast. 00:40:16 Speaker 2: I didn't like it. Yeah, I didn't like it at all. 00:40:21 Speaker 1: And why was this one different though? 00:40:24 Speaker 4: Just the humility of the man talking and the way he talked and the way he spoke about it. And he was not doing it flawning the law. He had He had an issue with living turkeys, not getting away with killing them. 00:40:43 Speaker 1: He just he is that why you didn't like Louis Delle and Charlie. Yeah, they were like flaunting it in the law, like half of it now. They were turkey hunters and loved a turkey hunt. But yeah, half of it was some portion of it was that they were their Their identity was that they were out and that they were breaking along couldn't be caught. 00:41:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't. 00:41:04 Speaker 4: I'm not casting anything ill towards them or their families or anything like that. I don't want people to take it that way, because different folks is what makes this world up. It would they would not have been someone that I would have told a story about or enjoyed to be around. I don't think, Yeah, this guy right here I would share a cup of coffee with in a minute and would like to hear I would just like to hear how he thinks about I know what he thinks about turkey hen because I like the turkey hen too. 00:41:34 Speaker 2: I want to know what he thinks about cows feeding. 00:41:39 Speaker 4: In the field, or what he thinks when he sees a redbird singing in a tree. I want to know something else because I identify real close with what he's talking about chasing turkey. It just it was very It's very moving to me, man. 00:41:54 Speaker 1: I'm actually surprised. I think I think sometimes and I know you pretty well, Brent. And uh, it surprised me what you said, but partly because I boxed you in to thinking that anybody breaking these outlaw stories you just didn't like. I mean, and if you if you're new to bear grease, Brent spent his career in law enforcement, and so and I heard Brent one time. I think I can say this, Brent spent his life, risking his life chasing drug dealers. And today when he drives down the road and he sees a dispensary on the side of the road, it kind of gives him a little conflicted, yeah, conflicted feeling. 00:42:40 Speaker 2: It does. 00:42:41 Speaker 1: He could have been he could have been killed in the line of duty and some of the crazy stuff they did, and then today you can just it's like going to Walmart to buy marijuana. I mean, it's not quite that easy, I'm told. 00:42:52 Speaker 4: But and before we get the hate mail in that I'm against anything, you got to remember it was against. 00:42:59 Speaker 2: The law and was my job exactly here. Yeah, and I do not apologize for it. 00:43:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's just like rational. But it's interesting, interesting because when you said that to me, it kind of put it into perspective and it's like, yeah, I can understand then, why when you hear about these lawbreakers that you're just like No, I mean, I don't care how cute your story is, Clay, or how you know, funny and entertaining these guys are. I just can't get behind it. So that's why I thought that you wouldn't like this one either. No, I mean, I knew you'd like the end, the redemption. I mean, that's hard to argue with, but. 00:43:37 Speaker 4: Well, I spent thirty two years and seven months seeing even the best people in the world on their worst day, you know, so you don't get to see the whole person. This story told the whole person, the whole person's story and the man and no one told it for him. You didn't tell his story. He told it. Just handed him a mic and he spit it out there. 00:44:04 Speaker 2: It was good. 00:44:15 Speaker 1: Lake had a little bit of a different Uh. Well, Lake, Lake heard one version which I don't know. It's kind of hard to uh, I don't know. We'll start with Lake. 00:44:31 Speaker 5: I gave some thought to how the best way to articulate my thoughts on it, and I feel I have to tell it in like two factions because I feel that's the way his story went. I think if you look at his story, the first part of it, I know we're talking about Johnny as an individual, like a like a person. 00:44:52 Speaker 2: This is his story. 00:44:54 Speaker 5: But I would bet I can't speak for the rest of the country, but for the southeast Arkansas, Mississippi, albe I'm in Tennessee, Georgia, all that stuffy Johnny when he got talking about hiding guns and getting dropped off and giving zero cares about limits on turkeys or when seasons opened. I would bet that most of folks that listen to this from this region either knew somebody that was like that, or at least heard stories that was some of them. 00:45:23 Speaker 2: Or they are that guy. 00:45:24 Speaker 5: And man, it's probably because it's no secret how I feel about turkeys and turkey hunting. When I hear that kind of behavior, I just don't like it. I do not like it. I don't have I'm not endeared to it. I don't care if. I don't care if they're crawling them and shooting them and not yelping them. I don't care if they're the best turkey caller in the world. And I thought about that for a while because I'm like, man, why do I feel that strongly about it. And the best reasoning I can give you is because I would argue now, because it's the thing you take some if you were to ice late some of the things that Johnny said talking about how he feels about wild turkeys and calling them in and hearing the goblin. If you would to I said some of the things he said, I would argue him. And I feel very similarly about the thrill of hunting them. 00:46:13 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:46:13 Speaker 1: And the difference like what he's doing here, he's being articulate. He's gonna split it up like a surgeon. This is good, that's good. 00:46:19 Speaker 5: So the difference is it's like I have those same temptations when I go listening at turkeys and it's late February, early March. Don't think it doesn't cross my mind to go, Man, it'd be fun to you up that turkey up right now. Yeah, because I'm gonna. 00:46:34 Speaker 2: Be the older man in the woods. 00:46:37 Speaker 5: There's been times where it's during season and two long beards come in. I shoot one of them, the other one sticks around. Don't think it doesn't cross my mind to shoot the other one. Or I'm walking out with him I hear another one. I have the same same temptations. The difference is I don't do it because I feel so strongly about the resource and the people that taught me how to turkey hunt feel that way. So when I hear that, I just there's no other ways. I just don't like it. I don't like that attitude. 00:47:01 Speaker 2: I don't like treating the resource that way. 00:47:04 Speaker 5: But when you get to about fifty four minutes into that podcast and he talks about meeting the Lord and it changing his life, then him and I can find common ground because while I've never been a serial turkey poacher, Lord knows, I've sending a lot of other ways. So up until minute fifty four, I was like I don't like this, and then it hit minute fifty four I was like, man, I love this guy. 00:47:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was about the arc of it. 00:47:34 Speaker 2: I was like, eh, oh. 00:47:36 Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this. I don't I don't think you differ. You did a good job of describing it and breaking it down like these little segments. 00:47:46 Speaker 2: Maybe. 00:47:47 Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not a serial turkey poacher either, never have, and I feel like we would be like within a degree of each other when it comes to I mean the same when it comes to obeying the law. So it's not like when I hear stories about Johnny Johnson killing turkeys out of season that I'm like, go, Johnny, Yeah, that's cool. So I guess my question really inside the episode is why do why do people find it to find it? So it's not entertainment, It's not like it's not like a gladiator fight. It's just interesting. So, I mean, so I find these Outlaws stories very interesting, and I think it's because we grew up being taught to follow the law so stringently that I mean, it was I was of age before I knew people broke the law. I mean, my dad was just like so adamant about it that and it's like, who are these crazy people intrigued? 00:48:51 Speaker 2: The law intriguing? 00:48:53 Speaker 1: Intriguing one hundred percent. So I mean it's not like I'm rooting for for Johnny. But you didn't even enjoy it up until that point. You were just mad, really yeah, so you were just like this isn't even cute. 00:49:07 Speaker 5: I just well, again, I grew up hearing stories like that about folks that just like, the limit meant nothing, the law meant nothing. 00:49:15 Speaker 2: The season dates, season dates meant nothing. 00:49:17 Speaker 5: And that was always like you don't do that, Like the resource means too much to be treated like that. And so, like I said, he had some stories that were unique to him, but the overall like temperament of that side of his story, I'm like, I've heard this before and I don't like it. 00:49:36 Speaker 1: I hear what about okay? I think when I hear a story like Johnny, people fairly fairly often will hear me do a story on bear Grease, and they'll go, I know a guy just like that, you need to come interview. I would say, if you let me interview fifty outlaws, one of them would I would have permission, like internal permission to highlight. And Johnny, throughout his whole story, I saw admirable traits of personal responsibility, open openness, and honesty like so like I saw a bunch of other stuff in case inside his stories about outlawn. I mean, I just think, and I mean I guess. I'm I'm telling you why I like the guy and why I think most people might listen to it, and nobody's agreeing with Like it was, Yeah, it was okay for Johnny to kill Turkey's because he's honest about it. Like, no, that doesn't make it right. But I think most people that had done what he done wouldn't come on the Bear Greeks and be as vulnerable and just like I don't know why I did it, or you know, just quite that open about it. 00:51:00 Speaker 2: True. 00:51:00 Speaker 5: And the other point is it's the folks that I had been around, grew up here and had stories similar, maybe not as egregious, but you'd hear them talk, and I heard very few that had the redemption side of it that Johnny had right. Most of them that I heard or knew of, even if they'd hung up that way of living, it was just because like, man, I can't slip around like or they're like, ay, it's just too much to risk these days. But you know, more like it wouldn't have like I turned from it. I realized that I shouldn't be doing that. Yeah, So that was like very different. 00:51:40 Speaker 1: Well, and I did not know much about this story. If the way I framed it up in the podcast was true, is that all these people had talked to me and just been you've got to go interview John Johnson, and I would ask every single one of them. 00:51:56 Speaker 4: Did you notice that the three things he talked about doing that were bad. He had no control over what do you mean he drank to excess? He didn't have a beer or a whiskey drink or whatever it was. He was an alcoholic. He used dope, regardless how much he used, it was illegal. And he hunted turkeys with reckless abandoned. So the three things that he talked about in there were things that he had he couldn't control himself with. 00:52:26 Speaker 1: Now I don't understand when you say couldn't control I mean you just say it was like he. 00:52:30 Speaker 2: Had no self control. No, there was no self control over it. Yeah. 00:52:34 Speaker 1: Now that's not a justification though, for being able to do it. 00:52:37 Speaker 2: No, I just what I'm saying is there was something missing in his life. 00:52:41 Speaker 4: Yeah, and then when he got when he got it squared away at the redemptive part of that of his story. That's why he's not ashamed to talk about it. That's that was the feeling that I got. Yeah, because he is unashamed now because he knows he's been forgiven. 00:52:58 Speaker 2: He don't care what Clay newkem. Yeah, he don't care what I think. 00:53:02 Speaker 4: He knows that he's been forgiven and and he's rocking on with his life as he should be. Yeah, I always use that old analogy. People laugh, But I mean I used to pee in the bed. I don't do that no more either, you know. And I can say that was and when I say that, I'm talking about it wasn't like last week. 00:53:22 Speaker 2: Is when I was a baby. 00:53:24 Speaker 4: But I mean that time I was coming back soon probably. But there we all, there's nobody sitting here that ain't messed up. There ain't nobody sitting here that ain't messed up on purpose. It just happened to be dope, alcohol and turkeys. Yeah, but he got all that squared away, and I could hearing him talk. 00:53:50 Speaker 2: I just he was somebody that I would listen to. Number One. I never heard any of the word fugalty. It didn't show up in mind. But what he meant, I knew exactly what. 00:54:06 Speaker 4: Yeah about the puzzle that that was calling it causing him. But it was just a totally different story than any other Outlaws story you've ever. 00:54:15 Speaker 1: Done for me, you know, I think too, if there were and man, forgive me for like being a little defensive, I think I am. I think that Steve Vernella told me. He was like, you don't need to apologize for playing that story. But I still like kind of come in with like my hands raised like this Johnny Johnson didn't come to me so that he could tell that story. I mean, it's like all that stuff has just been put to bed. It's it's not it's not stuff he even probably even cares that much about. Literally, he was a guy that when I talked to him on the phone, he I think he would have tried to if I was selling newspapers and he had money to buy one. I think he'd bought one from me just to be nice to me. 00:55:04 Speaker 2: You know. 00:55:05 Speaker 1: I called him and was just like, Hey, can I come talk to you? And and he was just like, well, he literally said the first time, He's like, Clay, you're welcome to come down here. He said, I don't know that I've got a good story to tell you. I mean, he he way undersold. He was like, I don't I don't know that. I don't know what we'll talk about. I don't you know. And and and uh so it's not like this guy was knocking on my door saying let's do a bear grace on me. I went down there, pride his arm to talk to me, and and and I think I can share this because it's it's just interesting and I don't think Johnny would mind. But he did have some people that told him he shouldn't talk to me. 00:55:51 Speaker 2: M I could. I could. 00:55:53 Speaker 3: I'm not surprised by that, like just because it would expose him. 00:55:57 Speaker 1: Just I mean, it was people close to him that loved him that We're just like, Johnny, why are you doing this? This is dumb, you know, just like why now, like you're seventy five years old, just let all that just go to sleep yep, you know. And Johnny told him this was after we had talked for three hours and we had just become we just had this pretty genuine connection for as much as somebody that's known someone for three hours could have, which I think is pretty legit. And he said, he said, he told this person that was looking out for his best interest. He said, the man told me it was going to be okay. And I believe the man talking about me. I mean, like I just I tried to Like when I first it's always awkward conversation the first time you talk to somebody, especially about something like this. Because I was just like, hey, I want to come talk to you about your turkey hunting. But I mean I had to tell him what I was after I said, I also want to hear about kind of you know, about some of the illegal stuff you did. I mean, it's not like it's in the newspapers that he did illegal stuff. I mean, Johnny is just like people love him where he's from. If there's one thing I know after this podcast came out is how supportive the world is around him, of the people that just love Johnny and uh but and so you know, he's like, well, okay, if you want to talk about that, I mean sure, And anyway, that's the hardest part of all this. If there's any magic inside of getting people to tell these stories, it's just like that first like connection with him and trying to say, hey, I go around and talk to people about bad things they've done, and I'd like to talk to you, Blake if I if like twenty years from now, I call you and I'm like, and what he did? 00:57:46 Speaker 3: Oh he had a talk show back in the day where just would uncover every dirty deed everybody ever did. 00:57:53 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:57:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, So if I call you one day and say, like a legitimate bargary on you, you should be like, what have I done. 00:58:03 Speaker 2: What do you know about me? Don't do it? 00:58:15 Speaker 3: I really liked the podcast, and I think I was kind of with Lake at the beginning, like listening to it and then I heard I heard the end. But I think the issue is is it's not a story of a reformed poacher, Like, that's not what it's about. It's it's the story of two different people, you know what I mean. It's it's the story of what can happen when a moment of redemption hits that that that whole thing is just that's not him anymore. Like he literally sat there at his fire pit, gave his life to the Lord and became a completely different guy. And the fact that a man who is sixty years old, who's been a drug addict and an alcoholic for the greater majority of his life can immediately stop shows power beyond himself. And so I think I think in a sense that Johnny probably looks at that like that was a different guy, because he's not that guy. I mean, you hear him talk, He's like, I don't do that anymore. And it's not this like he didn't he didn't get to the point where he felt like he needed help, not poaching anymore, and he tried and tried and eventually he quit poaching. That it happened in an instant, and that's a to me, like one of the most honorable things that a human being can do is to transform like that. And that's that's worth that's worth highlighting to me. And I don't feel like the podcast at all glorified as poaching. I think what it did is it set set a stage to show who he is now. And I think I think that's the difference. You know, the the Louis Dell and Charlie was really entertaining. It was it was it was fun to listen to. But this is a story where of two men, of two separate men, it is a redemption story. And to me, that's what makes this podcast so good. And I think I think there's probably a lot of people out there who don't who don't necessarily know that that's available to them, you know what I mean, There's a lot of people who live in regret. I mean, there's a lot of things that I've regretted in my life that I've done. But that's the great thing is about in an encounter with with God, like Johnny Johnston had radically changed this man's life. Well, there is there is no that's incredible. 01:00:46 Speaker 4: There is no worse feeling that being at the lowest point of your life and knowing that there is no further place to go, no further depth to go, and in an instant when you make up your mind and get your heart right, there is nothing that feels any better knowing that you are on your way out of it and you ain't never going back. And I have been there, and I know what that cat's talking about, and it's good. 01:01:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's really good. Man. 01:01:20 Speaker 1: Johnny's what I appreciated about him is his ability to articulate, like his experience of being on the mountain that daylight and the moment of his his salvation was powerful and super genuine. I mean, I mean, I think I can say this in the world to know what I'm talking about. I mean, like the fact that it played on Meat Eater, and I wasn't sure how how some people would have taken the the kind of direct story of salvation, and I think what people responded to it was just the genuineness of it, Like he was he wasn't trying to yep. 01:02:12 Speaker 2: I mean, you don't have to believe to understand what that man went. 01:02:17 Speaker 1: I mean, anybody would listen to that, regardless of what doctrine they have about life and eternal life, and they would be like, I believe that that guy had a genuine experience that changed his life and he he he told us that story and hat tip to that just for human transformation and I and man, that's why this story was so cool for me. Like I called Josh after I left Johnny's house and I said, man, I mean I just I just was like on a high from talking to this guy, just because of how genuine he was and just and I knew that we had something special. Also, it was one of the hardest ones that I've put together. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that's not on there. And and you know, Johnny's not perfect today, and he wouldn't say that he was, nor is that what he's trying to advertise. I mean, you know, how much of his story can we tell in you know, thirty five minutes of his actual voice? I mean, you know this is this is a curated version of the story, honestly, I mean, but but it tells the truth. I mean, the story is the way that I perceived it, you know, but go Lee, man, That's why I think what we're I love stories like this because it involves the things that we love, hunting, fishing, but it's so much bigger than that. It's a it's a human story. It's it's the story of rural America. I talked about that in the beginning of the podcast. You know, drugs, addiction, broken relationships. I mean, sometimes the stories that me and you tell are the are the good version of the rural America, you know, and we all know that there's a lot of negative stuff going on too well. 01:04:07 Speaker 2: I even keep it on the detail. You know. 01:04:09 Speaker 5: He talked about his dad knew about, hey, his turkey poaching and was like very disapproving, like, you know, son, you should not be doing this, you know, And that just made it more real. You know, you made it because, like you said, whether it's turkey poaching or something else you shouldn't be doing, I could rely, I could relate to that part of a lot when you're doing something that like you're like, I shouldn't be doing this. I know, I shouldn't be doing this. My father doesn't approve, And that just made that made the redemption part of it mean more, I guess. 01:04:47 Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah. What was Josh, what was the most entertaining story? 01:04:54 Speaker 3: I love the cold open I had it explained to man in part out in the Woods that I think I was killed in turkeys at the wrong time. 01:05:05 Speaker 1: I think I killed a turkey at the wrong time. 01:05:08 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:05:09 Speaker 3: I loved that that little the way the way and then he ended it and that and he that's how I explained it to me. 01:05:17 Speaker 1: That that is one of the if there was an all time best bear Grease just moments, that would be in the top five. 01:05:27 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but he but he. 01:05:28 Speaker 1: Said, when tomatoes are right, he said where I come from, when tomatoes are ripe, you pick them. When the potatoes are right, you dig them. When the turkeys gobble, you go get you one, or when the turkeys are right, you go get you one. That's where we lost Lake. 01:05:45 Speaker 5: I told you when I listen to that draft, I said, I'm gonna start using that next time I hear turkey gob and go who had tomatoes? 01:05:51 Speaker 2: Right? 01:05:53 Speaker 1: Hey, Let if there's anything that I did, like now, two weeks after this podcast came out and we finished it just like right before. If I had like six months to build these podcasts. They would probably be slightly different than just my initial blow at it, you know, and I was pretty heavy handed. Jannis Poutellus thinks that I that I over that I over host like would be relevant for me and you to talk about. 01:06:27 Speaker 2: He just he just he just thinks, I let the story tell the story. 01:06:32 Speaker 1: Yeah. Basically, he was like, I wish you'd just let Johnny talk and you wouldn't even be on. 01:06:37 Speaker 4: We call it clay blaming, that's what. And I want you watch Josh, you're around it more than any of us. When he goes to clays blaming something, his right hand does this right here. 01:06:53 Speaker 2: I watch. 01:06:55 Speaker 1: Well, And I want to talk about one thing that that I kind of went on and on about because it was interesting to me. Where I said that Johnny's excuse today is that it was a different time. And I mean it if you would have the right to just roll your eyes at that, I mean, it's just like, give me a break, you know, I mean poachings, poachings, poaching, you know, as long as it wasn't like in the eighteen hundreds and literally there were no laws. I mean you could make a case. I mean, we did this thing recently with the Buckley Foster about the progression from market hunting to this conservation mindset we have today. And you know, there were game laws in this part of the world really in the eighteen seventies, and then it went further and further and further until the creation of the Game and Fish Commission in nineteen fifteen. And I mean, game laws have been around for a long time. It's not like they just happened in the nineteen seventies. And you know, guys like Louis Dell and then were just like, oh, game laws. But so you know, but at the same time, I mean, it was a different time. Do you think that's fair? And I explained over and over too much about the things back in the seventies. There were a ton of turkeys. Back in the seventies, there was I mean, turkey hunters like we know today were almost non existent. I mean, I mean, for what my dad can tell you about it, everybody can tell you about it. In that part of the world in the nineteen seventies, you go turkey hunting in the National Forest, you're gonna have it all to yourself. 01:08:47 Speaker 4: We all are a product of our communities our environments, you know. And it is never an excuse, but I think it could be a reason. Because anything that you can do get ticketed for and pay a fine and go on, that means it's legal for a fee. Yeah yeah, right or wrong yep. So, and it just wasn't looked upon. You had to have he got explained. He had it explained to him by that judge, and from then on it was like, Okay, I'm still going to do it, but I'm going on. And there's an old joke, it's old police joke where a policeman stops the guy for slowing down at a stop sign because no one else was coming, and he pulls him over. That's what he's stopping me for. He said, well, you didn't stop at that stop sign. He says, well, I slowed down. What's the difference, he says, step out of the car. He steps out of the car. He starts hitting him in the head with the flashlight and he says, now, do you want me to stop or you want me to slow down? So when he. 01:09:53 Speaker 1: Got when when he realized the different. 01:09:57 Speaker 4: When you when you when they difference explained to you and it's all on you, then you know I'm not saying the man didn't understand what the laws were, right, but the norms of the societal norms of where he was at. 01:10:11 Speaker 2: You know, it was I think too. 01:10:16 Speaker 3: You know, we talked about at that point in Johnny's life there were a lot worse things happening. Killing some turkeys were was the kind of the lowest rung of his egregious. 01:10:29 Speaker 2: Violations, you know. 01:10:30 Speaker 3: And I remember, I remember when we're doing the Paddlefish Wars podcast and we're talking to Jeff Brown, Captain Jeff Brown the Oklahoma Oh Death, I can't remember there. 01:10:41 Speaker 1: They're game and fish, big big guy in Yeah. 01:10:44 Speaker 3: And I remember when when he talked about busting the guys that he'd spent you know, a year chasing after and they just got a slap on the wrists, and we're like, did that did that bother you? And he's like, man, there's people out there getting murdered, there's kids out there getting getting abused. It's like, this is in the grand scheme of things. This is pretty low on the on the things that are going to hurt society. And and you know, as much as I want to steward the resource that we have for generations killing turkeys is is not as not. 01:11:22 Speaker 2: As high on the run. 01:11:23 Speaker 1: It really bothers me to think like that, but it's it's true. Yeah, I mean, I know it bothers like I mean, it bothers me. It's like I want turkey poachers to go to jail, Like I want them to go to jail. But then when you actually like start looking at the big picture of life, and now, anybody that's sitting in this room, or maybe even anyone listening to this podcast, you are the minority of the world that you probably care for wildlife and specifically game species of wildlife more than the average person, right, you know. I mean, so it's like this thing that we've focused on and we've said this is very important. I mean, and the truth is humans don't need a wild turkey to survive. Now, Like, don't get mad at me. I'm playing the devil's advocate because I believe that. I mean, we we've chosen a lifestyle in a way of viewing the world that we're like it actually does it's really important. 01:12:24 Speaker 2: You know, I think I'd die if they did. 01:12:27 Speaker 1: What was that quote that I sent you the other day, Oh, it said. 01:12:32 Speaker 5: Oh, a world with something about a world without birds as a bird I don't want to exist in or something like that. 01:12:37 Speaker 1: Well, it was that was the essence of it. But it said humans can't exist without bird. 01:12:41 Speaker 2: Yes, that was it. 01:12:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was. It was just like metaphorical kind of are like just beautiful saying about this person's expressing their love for birds. But they were also actually talking about how birds make the world go round, eating insects and keeping them off crop and all that. But basically they were like, humans have to have birds. I sent it to Late because he likes DUTs. 01:13:06 Speaker 5: So I'm gonna take I mean, I hear the point. 01:13:09 Speaker 2: You just made. 01:13:10 Speaker 5: I'm gonna take it put a little bit different spin on it, right, So I do agree, like definitely about to being a product to your society, because I have thought, you know, because I've crossed paths with guys that are my age and younger that I don't know if they did anything as you know, killing as many or but guys that were willing to break the law for wildlife and hunting stuff, and it would cross my mind and think, like, man, if I wasn't if I didn't have a main turkey out mentor like Keith Polk or followed up by Will for real, Will Primos, guys like that, would I have the same views that I have the same values. But then talking about like I mean, I definitely hear like low on the wrong, you know, grand scheme of society. But man, when I think about turkey on, just turkey and I could go down this direction with a lot of different stuff, but we're talking about turkey on today. Some of the most impactful relationships that I've had in my life, some of the most impactful friendships. I mean, like me and I know Keith Polk because of spring turkeys, and Keith Polk has been other than my actual father, I don't know if there's been a male figure that's been more impactful than Keith has good human being. So when I think about Turkey's and turkey hunting, and I attach such a high value to that resource. Of course, I'm thinking about the hunting side of it, but I'm also thinking about the people that I know and the friendships that I have because of it. Heck, my whole career started because of a love for turkey on. So when I see that get abused, that's why it strikes such. 01:14:47 Speaker 2: A chord with me. Yeah, oh I get it. 01:14:50 Speaker 1: Yep, Yeah, noah, I mean that's that's that's that's the way we all feel. I mean it's true. Mm hmm, it's it's yeah, that's a great it's a great way to say it. Yeah. I mean we've we've fixated our life where this is like something really important, you know, and and and I think in society that's really that is really important because the only reason wild turkeys are still here today is because of hunters who loved them. I mean essentially that carried them all over the country. We put them out in new places. I mean, like you know, the story of the wild turkey in North America if you if you don't know, it is pretty astonishing. I mean, numbers got down super low, I don't know around the turn of the century. I mean the people that brought it back. It wasn't the tree huggers, it wasn't rich people from some place. It was it was turkey hunters. Yep. That's like so yeah, so in that case, we do have a right to be like, don't abuse our resource, you know. But uh, I always think about it from a historic revision standpoint, though, Like when when when you like look back at a time and you just go, man, that was so bad, because I there's there may be people today in America that are proaching turkeys like that, and I hope they get caught and I hope they go to jail. Yeah, I mean that that's the way I feel about it. But I don't think it's as common today as it would have been back then. And I do think it was a different time. I mean, like, man, and again, I'm not trying to justify what Johnny did, but I'm just saying, fifty years ago, Bural, Oklahoma was a different place than it is today, and there has been this transition from these guys that had this resource to this like hyper fixated conservation hunter that's kind of arisen today where we're like, hey, it's not cool to break the law. 01:16:53 Speaker 2: Yep. 01:16:54 Speaker 3: And that's what I was going to say was I think that we've done a good job, as you know, game and agencies and ethical hunters to make obeying game laws cool. You know what I mean That it's not you know, there used to be this outlaw mentality. Now it's like it's like we don't do that like that. That's what's that's what's going to keep us from having hunting. And I think there's been a good mind shift about that, Yeah, because you know, we've got to protect it if we're going to have it. 01:17:23 Speaker 1: So mm hm. Anyway, I don't want to name his name, but this dude that's like a known poacher that has like a poaching in like social media presence, are you aware of that? You you were aware of that guy. I don't even want to say his name. 01:17:42 Speaker 2: I wouldn't. Yeah, I dare not say his name, but yeah, I'm aware of him. 01:17:47 Speaker 1: Is that common? That was the first time I've ever seen anything like that. 01:17:50 Speaker 5: No, it's not common, and it it honestly, it's a it's something that we've hashed out before, and he's honestly, it's honestly not as prevalent. He's not as prevalent now as he used to be. 01:18:06 Speaker 4: Uh, But that was the thing our friends sent us this morning. First I ever saw that was at the first Yeah, good, I never heard of that. 01:18:15 Speaker 1: It's just this guy that like his shtick is that he's a poacher, you. 01:18:19 Speaker 4: Know, a social media yeah yeah, yeah, And frankly I can't stand him. 01:18:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, well I don't. 01:18:26 Speaker 1: I don't think anybody could, and that's where people get confused. Someone in jest sent that to me. That person shall remain nameless. 01:18:37 Speaker 2: H don't look at me. 01:18:39 Speaker 1: It wasn't you. But it was just like somebody like you and they were like, why don't you have this guy on the podcast? And uh, and it was it was a joke. But it's like, no, that's not I mean, that is not cool. Yeah, I don't know, it's it's it's just like very fine. 01:19:00 Speaker 2: It's disgraceful. It's disgraceful. No integrity. 01:19:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, and man, you know, there's a big difference between somebody that's doing that and somebody that makes an honest mistake and gets a wildlife violation. 01:19:15 Speaker 2: Yep. 01:19:16 Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I probably a pretty high percentage of serious hunters that are have have received some kind of wildlife violation just because of sheer exposure. 01:19:33 Speaker 2: Really in this chair, in this room. No, well me, there you go a quarter. 01:19:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm Johnny. Hey, few young podcasters out there. There's some little seven year olds out there that's gonna have a podcast one day. Come talk to uncle Klay. No, I've talked about it on this podcast. I got a shooting at night no, No, that's not true. Accidentally, that's not true. That's not true at all. It was a it was a it was a squirrel wanting to waste violation for a single squirrel. I mean, I've talked about it on the media podcast years ago, and it was it was a massive deal in my life. Not because I got in trouble. I just went and paid a ticket. 01:20:14 Speaker 5: I remember, I remember. 01:20:16 Speaker 2: It was a huge deal. 01:20:17 Speaker 1: I mean it like broke me down for like years, truly did. And there's not nothing to say that I couldn't get a violation tomorrow book just I mean, just on accident. Stuff happens. But I mean I'm not saying that. I'm just saying there's good people that have stuff happened to them. 01:20:35 Speaker 2: Mm hmm. 01:20:37 Speaker 1: That's true. Oh yeah, this get the lake? 01:20:41 Speaker 2: Lake? 01:20:41 Speaker 1: Would Lake is like the fly fishermen of Turkey hunting? 01:20:45 Speaker 2: What is that? 01:20:46 Speaker 1: It means like elitists like you know, like sinning and spent spinning and sinning, you know, like you like being like, oh did you catch it with a spoon and rule or with a fly rod? I would say in the Turkey world, Lake holds the highest standards. 01:21:02 Speaker 2: I wouldn't there'd be some people that would argue with you on that. 01:21:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, uh well what a renders it's this is I love these conversations. It's just interesting to me. I mean, it's just interesting, you know, and it kind of makes people talk. One thing that Steve Renella said to me the other day is he said, hey, even if people didn't like it, he said, if it makes people talk about hunting conservation and makes them like flesh out more of their doctrine for why they do what they do. I think a lot of times we just have things that are formed and we don't really know why, or we don't really think it all the way out. And a story like this makes you think some of it out. And I'm still wondering about it because I mean, I don't know. I still even go back to maybe the most interesting thing about Johnny, and I think this is the reason that I'll probably still do outlaw maybe not outlaw stuff, but that you don't have to be an outlaw. But I think Johnny is more honest about his life than a lot of clean cup people that I know. 01:22:12 Speaker 2: Yep. 01:22:14 Speaker 1: I mean I just think he's I just think he's honest. I appreciate that. 01:22:17 Speaker 2: Who didn't like a story with a happy ending? 01:22:19 Speaker 5: Yeah, I had a pretty fantastic ending. 01:22:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, good one. Yep, absolutely. 01:22:28 Speaker 1: Well. Anything in closing, Brent, anything you want to talk about pertaining to the episode, anything, anything in the world. 01:22:39 Speaker 2: Uh. I like a tart cherry pie more than like sweet. I like it tart. How do you get that? I don't know. My wife cooks them, so you'd have to ask her. 01:22:53 Speaker 1: Put mushrooms in it, not that I know of, Blake, What about you closing closing thoughts comments me and like you're going turkey hunting closing thoughts, Well, you. 01:23:04 Speaker 2: Know you ain't gonna be poaching if you're going with lakes. 01:23:07 Speaker 5: Sorry off your list closing thoughts. I guess you know. Like I said, Johnny was about in the worst kind of way as you could ever be. 01:23:20 Speaker 2: And he found redemption and for everybody and by way by way of the Lord. Yep, same way I found it. So think on that. 01:23:30 Speaker 5: I'm sure that there's as many people who listen to it, especially some madele the bear grease feed, I mean the meat eater feed. Somebody listened to that story that probably could use a little redemption. 01:23:40 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Josh, I'll take that one. 01:23:45 Speaker 2: I'll take that for my elitist ways. 01:23:48 Speaker 1: Man, if I could, if the Bear Grease podcasts were just guys like Johnny Johnson Joe Rogan would be knocking on my door wanting to be on the render. 01:24:01 Speaker 2: I've had. 01:24:01 Speaker 1: Some people are like, why don't you do more of those people? 01:24:04 Speaker 2: Dig the out laws? 01:24:05 Speaker 1: Well, are just people stories? Yeah, I mean it's hard. It's hard to they're hard to put your hands on. I mean, uh, and boy, when you when you get one, like like Johnny, you just it's it's special. 01:24:19 Speaker 2: Love it. 01:24:19 Speaker 1: Closing thoughts, Josh. 01:24:22 Speaker 2: Nope, I don't have anything nothing. 01:24:24 Speaker 3: We're gonna go kill some turkeys. I'm going to Kentucky. All are going stayd in Arkansas. We're gonna go bring home some birds. Keep watching on social media. We'll put pictures up. 01:24:34 Speaker 1: Keep watching. All right, Well, thanks for coming up, Brent Lake, thanks for being here, Josh, appreciate it. And uh, keep the wild places wild because that's where the beers were