00:00:02 Speaker 1: I said, is he big? And he said, no, said he's a monster. Well, when I got to him, Jack was standing beside him, and his horns were higher than his knees, so I knew he was pretty good. And Jack was trying to pick his head up, and he couldn't get his head picked up. You know, the deer was stiff. But anyway, when he finally did, there's a kicker about eight inches had gone in the mud, and when it froze that night, That horn froze to the ground, and Jack said, well, no wonder he grew, said he sprung a taproot. 00:00:41 Speaker 2: It's mid-October, and a cold front has just passed over much of the country, and it's time for what, you might ask? It's not time for golf or fishing. craft show shopping it's time for deer hunting hunting america's most popular big game animal the white-tailed deer found in every woodlot swamp mountain drainage ditch and grassy patch east of the rockies this episode has folks falling out of trees getting attacked by deer and owls and a couple of 200 inchers this is our deer stories episode we've got five storytellers from different parts of the country And this fall, for whatever reason, I keep being drawn back to the foundations of American deer hunting. And we're going to start off with an old story. I really doubt that you're going to want. 00:01:31 Speaker 3: To miss this one. 00:01:40 Speaker 2: My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land. Brought to you by Tecova's Boots. I'm a cowboy boot man, and I've been wearing Tecova's for years. They're the most comfortable boot I've ever put on. Good boots for good times. In 1837, a young man by the name of Frederick Gerstacker arrived in America from Germany to experience the world famous American frontier. He'd spend the next six years traveling the country. He spent many of those years in the wilds of Arkansas. This story is short, but it gives us a window into the time period when Gerstacker was here and he hunted with the Choctaw Indians in Southwest Arkansas. He recorded it in one of my favorite books called Wild Sports. He was hunting alone in the wilderness north of the Red River on the border of Texas and Arkansas when he came upon a Choctaw camp. The scene begins around a campfire. These are the words of Gerstacker. The Indians belonged to the Choctaw tribe and had come out of Arkansas in search of game, As night came on, fires were burning all around us and the women, among them were some beautiful figures, cooked the suppers while the men quietly smoked their pipes. Finding the Indian fashion of staring at the fire rather tedious, I made several attempts to engage the chief in conversation but only received short answers so that at last there was nothing left for it but to play the Indian and maintain a dignified silence. At length, we retired to rest. I slept on a bearskin beside the fire in front of the chief's tent. Before sunrise, I was awakened by the noise of dogs and songs of the Indians who were preparing for a shooting excursion. We set off 16 in number, all on foot, some of the Indians with firearms, others with bows and arrows, with which they can hit their mark at a great distance. I attached myself to one of the young men with a bow and arrow. And as we could not understand each other's language, we proceeded in silence. Each of us had provisions which we ate as we went along. It may have been about noon when we saw a herd of deer. My companion went around to gain the wind of them and shot a couple with his unerring arrows. Away flew the others in headlong fright, coming directly towards me in such blind haste that the leader of the herd, a fat buck of eleven, was little more than 10 paces off when he discovered me. My ball pierced his heart and he fell without a cry. The rest fled in all directions. We were obliged to return to camp for horses to carry our booty. My companion started off in a straight line for the camp, which I should have never been able to find again. It was only a few miles distance, although I thought it must be at least a half a day's journey behind us. On arriving at the camp, we each mounted on horseback and rode off at a quick trot to the place where our game lay, which we found without difficulty, the Indian having marked several trees with his tomahawk as we returned. The last prize we came to was my buck, and on him we saw a wild cat preparing to enjoy itself. The Indian rushed forward, and the cat, which did not perceive him until too late, flew up a tree, whence an arrow from the sure hand of my companion soon brought it to the ground. It was of a gray color and larger than the domestic cat. When the animals are irritated, they will attack men. My comrade carried off the skin. We rode back with our booty to the camp and were received the cheers. The party all returned, one after the other, most of them with game, and one with an immense bear that he had killed, the largest I had yet seen. 00:06:08 Speaker 3: What a wild story. 00:06:10 Speaker 2: Can you imagine what it would be like to hunt with the Choctaws using self-bows, killing multiple deer in a day off the ground, and killing what sounds like to me was a bobcat? And how about that big bear? That big bear has captured my imagination for decades now. What a wild scene. It was a rare moment in history, and things have certainly changed. But I'll tell you that we're right now at a rare moment in history when it comes to white-tailed deer. Some have called this the golden age of white-tailed deer hunting. For some, it might be a stretch to connect that scene of Gerstacker with the Choctaws to modern deer hunting, and I get that. But it's the same animals on a different but similar landscape, really the same landscape, just changed some. But this is the main point. I don't think the excitement is And the human heart has changed at the taking of game for the purpose of acquisition of protein and hide and supplies. I think that's this primitive thing that's never changed. But now we're going to jump into the present, a modern tree stand hunt. Our first story is from Jim Malone, a former fish farmer from eastern Arkansas. But hang on, because this one might put you into free fall. 00:07:38 Speaker 4: My name is Jim Malone. I'm from Lone Oak, Arkansas. And this is a story about my bow hunting adventure. I had taken up seriously bow hunting at about 52 and had done fairly well and enjoyed it a lot. And when I had turned 58, it was January and we needed to harvest some more does. And so that day I went out early and found a really gnarly tree to put a stand, a lock on, and I had 20-foot climbing sticks that I attached to the tree. After I got the climbing sticks up there, I took my pulley and pulled the stand up and got it locked on so the base of it was sitting exactly at 20 feet. And I went back down, left the area alone, just on the edge of a food plot, kind of a fence row, and I went back and just let it settle down. About 4 o'clock, I went back out there that afternoon. And went to get up in there and realized I had not put my rope to pull my bow and my backpack up. Being the stubborn person that I am, I just started climbing the sticks and yanking myself up with one hand, holding on to the bow with the other, with my backpack on. The whole tree was covered in grapevines. And I'm climbing and it's going along there well. And I'm to my last peg on the climbing sticks. And I reached back and jerked and went for the back of the stand. and the vines had wrapped around the back of the pack, and I didn't have enough reach, and I missed it. And the momentum started pulling me back with the vines, and I missed the first top rung of the climbing stick. And from that point on, the vines had me, and they started pulling me backwards and rotating me. I looked a little like Wiley Cody coming off the cliff, with all fours up, rotating to his head. 00:09:27 Speaker 3: And everything's in. 00:09:28 Speaker 4: Slow motion at that point. 00:09:30 Speaker 5: So. 00:09:31 Speaker 4: I'm sitting there contemplating as I'm going down, this is going to be bad because I'm going to land on my head. And I thought, I can't do this with a bow. And I threw the bow. And then I thought, people that survive a car wreck, they're in a limp mode. And so I just tried to completely go limp. I crossed my arms and I crossed my chest and let go. I hit the ground on my shoulders, my back. hit first, of course. And I was in a pile of vines. I'm thinking that's what cushioned my fall. I laid there for about a half a second thinking, where's my bow? I got that rude answer about a half a second later right in the face. Filled the bow off of me and I'm still... You got 100 on the vines or something? 00:10:19 Speaker 2: I don't know. 00:10:20 Speaker 4: I threw it up, and it was just an extra second to get to me. And so I'm laying there shaking like a leaf. I'm thinking, am I paralyzed? I don't know at this point. So I start trying to move extremities, and I've got my toes to move, my hands to move, and finally I've got enough courage to roll over and stand up, and I'm shaking like a leaf, but I can move. 00:10:42 Speaker 6: I can stand. 00:10:44 Speaker 4: And so I look around, and I'm like, God, what do I do now? First thing I did was got my rope, and I went back up the tree and tied the rope on. Came back down, tied the bow and the backpack on. I went back up there and hauled it all back up there and got settled in and thought, you've got to finish this hunt because if you don't, it's your last one. That was pretty traumatic because I really didn't expect to walk again. I thought I'd be paralyzed, and I thought, you know, it's the hair of the dog. 00:11:13 Speaker 3: You've got to go back and get him. 00:11:14 Speaker 4: You don't let him walk away. So I got up there, and I got settled in, And about 45 minutes later, I'm still just thoughts are running through my head. I'm thanking God that I can walk, that I climbed this tree again. And this doe and a couple of yearlings come out, exactly what I'm looking for, 30 yards. And I reached, kept my bow off the hanger, came to full draw, put it on her shoulder, and I couldn't do it. 00:11:41 Speaker 6: I let her walk. 00:11:42 Speaker 4: I said, God's letting me walk home today. 00:11:46 Speaker 3: You get to, too. 00:11:48 Speaker 4: And that was the last day I bowhunted with a compound bubble. Last day I've been in a lock-on stand. And I've modified all of our box stands now that we want to bowhunt out of so you can bowhunt from a box stand. But for me, it was just a moment in time to where Jim, check up. 00:12:05 Speaker 3: You're not Superman. 00:12:07 Speaker 2: Falling 20 feet from a tree typically leaves someone severely injured or even dead. For Jim to climb back up that tree and hunt... I say it every single year, climbing in a tree stand is probably one of the most dangerous things that hunters do. 00:12:24 Speaker 3: And the older I. 00:12:25 Speaker 2: Get, the more safety precautions I take, the less I trust myself. Thank you for sharing your story. We appreciate it, Jim. Our next story is from a guy that's a living legend around the parts that I live in. Ron Poole is 76 years old. He doesn't use sights on his bow. He's killed two bucks over 200 inches and has hunted his whole life and killed more bucks with a bow than the rural mailman has seen. 00:12:53 Speaker 3: Through the windshield. 00:12:55 Speaker 2: That's a weak metaphor. 00:12:56 Speaker 3: Got to get that one dialed in. 00:12:58 Speaker 2: But you get the point. And many of Ron's bucks have come off public land. This story involves a deer from Iowa. 00:13:07 Speaker 3: A big one. 00:13:08 Speaker 1: I'm Ron Poole from Hector, Arkansas. 00:13:11 Speaker 2: I'm a. 00:13:13 Speaker 1: Construction worker. I've been for 40-something years. An avid bow hunter and traditional archery. Make my self-bows and nap my heads and do it all. I put on a class once a year at our bow range where people can come and we'll teach them how to make self-bows and all and get them shooting. But Clay wanted me to talk about hunting stories the way i met clay was in 2010 i i killed a buck in iowa and me and one of my best friends put in as a party to hunt iowa and i drew and he didn't and so I called them and told them. I said, look, I've got the printout from the computer and everything showing that we applied as a party. And I drew, and he didn't. I said, if you can't give him a tag, can you take mine and let me keep my preference point so next year we can hunt? They said, no, we can't do any of that. So we decided that Jack would go with me, and he would film me. And then next year he'd draw and I'd go with him and film him. Well, when we left home, he had a boil or a rising on the side of his neck. And the third day we were up there, he woke up, he couldn't even move his head. He was in such pain and it was swollen so bad. And we'd been hunting and it passed some really good bucks that, probably should have shot but we didn't and so we got up that morning and i drove him all over southeast iowa trying to find a doctor that would lance this thing and we finally found a guy that would do it and we got back to the camper we had a good friend up there that would let us pull our camper inside his barn and you were out of the wind and the weather and you had water and electricity and nobody knew you was even there, you know. So I took him back to the campers and they said, there ain't no way I'm going to be able to go. Well, I had this one place that I'd hunted two years before that. I had a tree in the best place and I went over there to hunt it. Well, it had grown up so much that I'd had to, cut firing lanes and everything else to hunt it there. So I went to another place that just creaked around through the field and had some big grubs, I mean, way bigger than my leg, and big scrapes. And I climbed up a tree there, and there was some CRP land beside me, and I heard people hollering and screaming,'. 00:16:22 Speaker 3: Hi, mule, hi! 00:16:25 Speaker 1: Well, about a dozen mules come busting over the hill, hit the creek, and run right through my stand, right through the scrape, and then all these guys right behind them. So I had one more place. We'd been hunting like 40 miles from there, but I had one more place. It was within probably three-quarters of a mile of where our camper was, but it was a five-acre woodlot in the middle of a 5,000-acre field. and a creek ran through the field and ran through that brush lot, and I'd found good buck sign up and down that creek, and I knew there was a good buck in the area. So I drove in there that afternoon, and there was a shop there, and about five people was out there working on the combine, and I parked 100 yards from where they was working, and went in and climbed and I had five bucks underneath me and one of them was a really really good eight point and I decided I was gonna hold off because I'd done past 160 inch deer that week and this doe got behind me and she started blowing and these other deer didn't pay any attention to her but she smelt me and she was blowing and stomping her feet and I thought, boy, if that big buck is up and down that thicket anywhere, he's fixing to come to this doe that's standing here blowing. Because a lot of times, doe will stand out in the open woods and just blow and blow and blow trying to get a buck's attention. And I heard him grunt. And I looked down through the woods and seen him coming. And I had to watch him for 35 minutes. 00:18:10 Speaker 7: And. 00:18:13 Speaker 1: I don't shoot sights. I shoot instinctive with a compound and a recurve or longbow, either one. And he went behind some trees, and he was quartering coming to me. And he went behind these big trees while I went ahead and drew on him. And as soon as he come out from behind the trees, and I'm 25 foot up the tree, and he's looking dead at me. He was quartering, but I thought I could hug that shoulder and get in him still. And so I let the arrow go, and I hit right where I thought I was going to hit. But when him and all these other deer started running in this honeysuckle thicket, I couldn't keep up with him. And I knew that, you know, I'd just got back a lung and liver probably. And so I just got down and slipped out and went to the camper. I told Jack, I said, I'll run an arrow through a good'un. 00:19:10 Speaker 3: He said. 00:19:12 Speaker 1: Real good? And I said, yeah. I said, he's real good. Well, I said, I think he'll go 200. And he said, oh, well, it turned off cold that night. And the next morning, we went over there to look for the deer. And I went one way, and Jack went the other. And he went hollering and screaming. And he said, he's over here. And I said... Is he big? 00:19:43 Speaker 3: And he said, no. 00:19:43 Speaker 1: He said, he's a monster. Well, when I got to him, Jack was standing beside him. and his horns were higher than his knees, so I knew he was pretty good. And Jack was trying to pick his head up, and he couldn't get his head picked up. You know, the deer was stiff. But anyway, when he finally did, there's a kicker about eight inches had gone in the mud and when it froze that night that horn froze to the ground and and jack said well no wonder he grew said he sprung a taproot but we took him up to the they was having a big buck contest and i i went in to tell the guy i wanted to have a deer scored he said i don't want to even look at it if it won't score 200 and i said well you you won't come look at this one And he said, do you think it'll go 200? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, it takes a mighty big deer to go 200. I said, well, I think he will. He went out there, and he just went to cussing. He said, that's the biggest deer I've ever seen in my life, you know. And we dropped the tailgate, and you know you've killed a big deer in Iowa if when you drop the tailgate, brakes start squeaking and people come walking back, you know. And he scored him and scored him at. 233 and. 38. And so we came home and Muzzy, I killed it with a Muzzy Broadhead and they had a thing called the 200 Club. Anybody that killed a deer that scored over 200 with a Muzzy product, they'd get free Muzzy products for the rest of their life. And they made a reproduction cast of the deer and had him life-size mounted. And for years there, I got all Muzzy stuff free. And then the company that owns Rage bought Muzzy out and they wouldn't honor my contract anymore. Even though I had a written contract, they wouldn't honor it. But I got free Muzzy products for about six or seven years for it anyway. But Jack and I, we've hunted all over the United States together. Had some good hunts. 00:22:15 Speaker 2: Ron's buck would be the largest non-typical bow kill in Iowa in 2010, gross scoring 232.38. If you'd like to come to one of Ron's self-bow classes, they typically do it in March in central Arkansas, and I'd suggest you just find him on Facebook. Our next story is from Mississippi deer biologist and the deer coordinator for the state, William McKinley, which involves shooting a deer in May at night and encountering something very strange. 00:22:52 Speaker 7: Yep. 00:22:53 Speaker 2: You heard all those weird pieces to the puzzle correctly. 00:22:59 Speaker 5: So I started my graduate degree at Mississippi state in 1998 and my research project was to test the camera survey technique. 00:23:08 Speaker 3: Dr. 00:23:08 Speaker 5: Harry Jacobson had developed this technique and my master's research was to try to refine the technique as a means of trying to figure out how many deer are on a property. So in doing so, I had to dart a lot of deer and put unique ear tags in them on the properties that were cooperating. So I'm trying to dart deer in May. It's like bow hunting. I had to get them within 25 yards. And if anything, this dart and these dart rifles at that point were, they were worse trajectory than even trying to shoot a longbow. The trajectory on this dart, you're shooting a six inch dart with a three quarter inch needle, barb needle. And so here I am, I'm trying to figure out how can I get deer within range? I've started my research and I'm out there in May trying to dart deer. you ever tried to get a deer close enough to shoot in May? 00:24:08 Speaker 3: There's so much to eat in the woods. 00:24:10 Speaker 5: So how do you pattern a deer in May? It was practically impossible. So I took to hunting at night. We had this old first of its kind night vision scope that we put on. And these things were not anywhere near The quality that we looked through today. You had to have some moonlight to even see anything. It had a little Y, that little arrow that pointed up that you used to as the aim point on it when you turned it on. Battery would only last like 45 minutes. So you turned it on and took a sweeping look and turned it back off. 00:24:46 Speaker 3: And so here I am. 00:24:48 Speaker 5: I get in the stand. I've got my co-worker is down the field from me. And I'm in a climber. I'm in a funnel that I'm hoping that I'll just luckily get a deer to walk by. 00:25:02 Speaker 3: It's got around 9 p.m. I'm in camo. 00:25:06 Speaker 5: I've got a head net on because not so much to hide, but the mosquitoes. 00:25:11 Speaker 3: Are pretty bad. 00:25:11 Speaker 5: So I need it just for the bugs. And I'm just using my ears. I'm waiting to hear something walk up. And I hear something. I hear something walking. And it's on my right side. I wasn't anticipating that. 00:25:25 Speaker 3: I'm right-handed. 00:25:27 Speaker 5: And I'm in this climber and I'm like, okay, I got to stand up and I got to look that way. So in central Mississippi, the sun, it was well past dark at this point. But there was still a glow in the western horizon where the sun had set. 00:25:44 Speaker 7: Dead silence. 00:25:46 Speaker 5: I'm up a tree in the dark. I'm sweeping with this thermal and I see a deer. I'm yet to determine is it a buck or a doe. I'm trying specifically to dart does. I'm looking at the deer waiting. I don't know if you know much about screech owls, but they're a little bitty guy that the eastern screech owl, he can come in two color phases, red and gray. I have no idea which color he was. I just know that I must have picked a tree that this owl had nested in. 00:26:17 Speaker 3: Because suddenly. 00:26:18 Speaker 5: The thing hits me on the back of the head, gives that eerie screech owl call while it's on me. Its talons are starting to dig into my neck. Now, you imagine, it's pitch black dark. I'm standing there, standing up in a climbing stand, probably wasn't wearing a safety belt like I should have, and I nearly fall out of the stand. 00:26:40 Speaker 3: And it scared me to death. And I'm thinking, what? 00:26:43 Speaker 5: And I knew when it made the noise what it was, but I'm bleeding down my neck. It's talons got tangled in my head net, and I'm trying to get it off of me, and it flies over and lights on a limb behind me, and I can see it on the western skyline. He's 15 yards away, and I'm shaking, and I'm sure I've run the deer off by this point. 00:27:06 Speaker 3: I sit down. I'm shaking. 00:27:08 Speaker 5: I'm like, well, I just almost fell out of the stand. 00:27:12 Speaker 3: I'm scared to death. And he hit me again. 00:27:17 Speaker 1: Whack! 00:27:18 Speaker 5: Right in the back of the head, letting out that screech again. I'm trying to get him off. I can grab a hold to him. He's digging in. I'm still bleeding down the neck. And I'm like, get this thing off of me. So now I'm down there holding a flashlight. This was the old mag light, DC old days. I had this huge flashlight in my pack. I'm waving it through the air. My coworkers down there, like what in the world is the matter with him? He can see the light. He's like, what is, what's going on? And I'm trying to find this owl just to be ready before it hits me again. Whack, it hit me on the side of the head. This time I gave. 00:27:54 Speaker 7: That tree to that owl. 00:27:55 Speaker 3: He won. He absolutely won. 00:27:58 Speaker 5: I started scooting down that tree as fast as I could. I learned my lesson, uh, That little nine-ounce owl took me out. So that was one of the memorable things that happened when I was darting deer. 00:28:12 Speaker 3: It was a lot of fun. 00:28:13 Speaker 5: But that night, that night really, really, that's a heck of a reminder that a little owl can run you off. 00:28:22 Speaker 2: I was not expecting the screech owl. That was a great story, William. Thanks for all your work down in Mississippi. Our next story is a big buck story from the Ozarks told by Lane Weaver. He was on the last episode and talked about grabbing a deer by the horns that came alive again. And I told you that he had another good story. And this one is complex and layered, involving multiple hunters, multiple years, and multiple deer. There's a story inside of a story. It's a stay on your toes. Here is veteran whitetail deer hunter, Lane Weaver. 00:29:02 Speaker 7: So I guess you'd say in 2020 is where the story starts with Edward there. Edward, call him Edward Longtines. Okay. Edward, I think it's the movie Braveheart where it's Edward Longshanks. And me and my son thought that's Edward Longtines because he had super long tines. So he was just an eight point. He was an eight point. There's a three year old. Eight point is a four year old. And I think he's five here. I started hunting him in 2020. And I knew from years past, though, that that deer would leave. He had his summer home, which was where I had permission to hunt. And he would leave there anywhere from October the 18th to the 22nd. and we would not get another picture of that deer. We'd string cameras out all over that farm, would not get another picture of that deer. But I knew a friend, he was kind of tight-lipped about it, but I knew where that deer was going. He crossed that canyon, and he was on another mountain over there, and that deer lived there in the rut. And in 2020, when I was hunting that deer, he left me right before muzzleload season, every time. And I was hunting that even, in fact, hoping that maybe he'd come back through there. And there was a pretty nice buck out there chasing does in front of me. And I heard that old boy shoot over that muzzleloader, you know. There's no, that's, you can't deny that sound. Oh, son of a gun. Because I knew that's the only buck he was hunting too. And sure enough, next day he called me. He said, you're not going to believe what happened. I said, you killed him, didn't you? He said, I thought I did. He said, I cut down on that buck. He was out there chasing does in that field about 100 yards from me. He said, I cut down on him with my muzzleloader. He dropped in his tracks. He said, I walked over and looked at him and thought, gotcha. Went back to his old farm truck, got his farm truck out flatbed. He got about 50 yards from that deer in his flatbed. That son of a gun jumped up and took off. Run slick out of sight. Never seen, gone. That's Edward. But anyway, Edward there, And like I said, he got shot with a muzzleloader, 20-20, and disappeared. And we thought maybe he had died. He's gone for a month almost, a little over a month. The day after Thanksgiving, I went up, I hunted him over feed, and he come in there the day after Thanksgiving. And I thought, I've got you. You're back home. I've got you. But now when I say I fed this deer, I just did drive up there. I had to pack that feed almost three-quarters of a mile on my back. uphill most of the way. And I went in a different way nearly every time. So I would not, he would not pattern me. I might go a mile around the mountain and come in on another deal. So he would not. People say hunting deer over feed is easy. They don't hunt mature deer over feed. But anyway, so I went to hunt that deer late season. He'd come in there, high pressure days, eight or nine in the morning, four in the afternoon. So there was one day about like that. And me and my son was both going to hunt him. And my son had another tree stand down two benches below me. And I went in there, and that old buck come in there behind two dokes. He was just an eight-point then, 140-ish deer. But to me, with a bow, that four-year-old buck, that's plenty good. So I shot that old buck. He come in there, and I shot him and hit him up there. You know, just clipped the hair, just some meat there. I knew I was sick. Gosh, I was sick. I'd spent so much time after that buck. So he'd been shot with a muzzleloader that year and I shot him with that bow. Two weeks later, he shows up at my feed. He shed one side already. Season ends and I don't get another chance at him. 20, what'd I say that was? 2021, Edward shows up in the summertime and now he's famous. Everybody in town knows that deer and he's blew up into that. He has blew up into that and everybody knows this deer and everybody is hunting this deer. And I'll get to another part of that after here, but a deer's range will shock you. Now that we've got so many, everybody's running cameras, everybody around knows it will shock you at that deer's range in a rut. You'll be amazed. But anyway, so once again, October 22nd, he leaves me. I've hunted him three sets. The wind was right. I just got to hunt him three times from when bow season started to then. He's daylighted a bunch, but I just don't get the opportunity there to kill him. October 22nd, he's gone. No more. And I know he's back over there. That guy tells me he's back. He doesn't have him all year until the middle of October. He shows up after them does. And he said, he's back. I said, well, maybe you'll get him this year. And so they went to hunt him. 00:33:36 Speaker 3: Youth season. 00:33:37 Speaker 7: Me and my daughter sitting on another farm across about a mile from there. And I hear that good old shoot. And I told Gracie, I said, Gracie, Edward's dead. I said, she's got him. Come out. I messaged her. She's like, I guess I missed. She said, we can't. There's no blood. We've looked. 00:33:56 Speaker 6: Nothing. 00:33:57 Speaker 3: I was like, okay. 00:33:59 Speaker 7: Day after Thanksgiving, boom, he shows up. Back on my feet. 00:34:03 Speaker 3: Same pattern. 00:34:04 Speaker 7: Same pattern. 00:34:04 Speaker 3: Late season. 00:34:05 Speaker 7: And I thought, I've got you, buddy. But I'm working at school. I don't have much time. I'm leaving here at 2.30 in the morning. I'm packing feed up on that mountain in the middle of the night. And rainstorms, sleet storms. I'm driving my wife nuts. She thinks I'm the craziest person on earth. And I tell her, I said, hon, this is it. Christmas, over Christmas break right in there, I'm working at school. I'll go back, sorry. I messed up. He leaves me October 22nd, and I know it. And so I've got some more farms around to hunt. And these all farms have no, there's no cell phone service. So I've got to walk to each camera. So like usual, I don't have much time. I may get up at 3 in the morning and go run cameras, just like somebody running a trapline. I may go run cameras and check them and see what's going on. So I get up early one morning. So I go down in there, and I've checked a couple of cameras, and I'm coming down to one of the last ones down there. And there's a creek. You come down in a creek there. You come off a bluff and then ledge, and then you come down into a creek, just some old big old boulders and stuff. It's just an old rough, rough canyon. And I come across that creek and them old rock walls, you know, it's a long way. Well, there's a gap in that rock wall, and I go through that gap. And I know once I get in that old field, there's a gum tree right here that they always scrape under. And I just got my headlamp. I don't have a weapon. I don't carry nothing like that in the woods with me when I'm just going. And so I go down in that, and I come up on that old field, and I shine my light in that scrape, and something just blows up here beside me. And I whip my headlamp around like that, and I can tell it's a buck. He's jumped up mere feet of me here in that old grown-up field. He jumps up and runs out there just out of my headlamp, and I hear him stomp. Now, you're going to think this is nuts, but an old timer taught me this years ago, and it's worked for me several times. If I've spooked a deer like that, especially before daylight, or even he don't know what I am or anything, you know, I just spook him and he don't smell me, I'll snort at him, blow at him like another deer. I did that. I blew, snorted, and stomped my foot. And that has worked for me lots when i done that that son of a gun turned and come straight at me barreling and i can see him coming in the headlamp there and i thought oh god i can't i'm helpless so i just put both hands out and brace for impact like that and let out a god-awful scream and that son of a gun stops just right here in front of me just slams on the brakes wow and i am i'm just standing there just like that afraid to move and he's standing there just like this just backing how far from you me to you i mean i could if i had a club i could have clubbed him in the head i mean he's just three feet yeah he's just right there and he just turned his head back and forth like he's hunting something there and i'm afraid to move i don't move muscle and that that deer before i thought it killed me you know and i panicked here i didn't panic i thought what do i do what do i do to get out of this and he's still just like that and i know then in my headlamp something's wrong with that deer's face there's something awed about that. I can't, right now I'm not computing what's going on and figuring it out, but I said, there's something wrong with that deer's face. And I'm standing there just like that. And I thought, I'm just going to... It's a buck. Oh, it's a buck. Yeah. He's a 16, 17 inch wide, 150 pound eight point. I mean, I know exactly what he is standing right here. He looks as big as an elk. And I'm standing there just like that. And I thought, I'm just going to step off this little bank behind me here. And I pick up my foot and I just, as soon as my foot hits that next ground below me, I just turn like that and barrel back across that creek. And when I do, I shine my light back over there. He's not moved. He's standing there just like this, looking just like this. I thought, what in the world is wrong with that deer? So I'm standing there for a minute, and I watch him over there for a little while. I thought, what is going on with that deer? So I thought, I'm going to leave out of here. So I go back up, and I'm walking back up to the truck there, not thinking a whole lot. I mean, I knew something's wrong, but I wasn't really, you know, I was just thinking, what is going on with that deer? And I get back up to the truck, and I've got my bow in the truck because I was going to hunt. And I thought, That old farmer there, he's about 85 years old. And I thought if he walked up on that deer, that deer would kill him. So I got my bow. I thought I'm going to ease back down there and see if he's still down there. Well, let's get that old mist, you know, that old haze on them creek. And when I get down across that creek, he's about 50 yards over there, that little field he is. And I look over, he's walking back and forth. Is it daylight now? Barely. Just barely daylight enough to see, you know. And he's walking back and forth like this. Just back and forth over there, I thought. something up right with that deer so I get across that field over there when I come across that little creek and I ease up on that bank that I step off of look he's just over there back and forth I just knock an arrow there and get in there where I can see him and that and torch went off it centers him he makes it about not very far I hear him crash so I go over to him and I mean he I can show you a picture he's a pretty nice buck and uh but well all right well look at him and no eye No eye on this side here. It's like shriveled up like a grape back in his head. So I grab his horns and flop him over. The other one's the same way. No eyes. Just like shriveled up raisins back in his head there. I thought, what in the world? 00:39:22 Speaker 1: That is crazy. 00:39:24 Speaker 7: So I tagged the deer, checking him, and going about my business there. And that old deer, I got to looking at that old field, and he had several beds where he'd laid in that field by that creek, that little creek. I guess he had lived there for quite a while. I didn't know it until three or almost Thanksgiving, almost Thanksgiving, that I wasn't the only one that had to run in with this deer. I'm driving down the road on that farm. I've got my hunter's orange on this rifle season. I'm driving down the road there and see an old boy coming, and I pull over there and have my window down, of course, and he pulls up there. He goes, you hunting? You hunting, young man? I said, yeah, I hunt on this place here. He goes, man, let me tell you what. He said, about three weeks ago, four weeks ago, there's a ruck crazed buck right here. He said, I was coming down the road before daylight one morning, and I seen him in my headlights there, and I pulled up there pretty close to him. He wasn't going to get out of the road. He said, he's just like this, looking back and forth. like that he said he he rut crazed he said i blew my horn that deer charged the pickup just come straight at the pickup he said i just laid down on the horn revved up the engine he said he stopped right there in the road looking back and forth then he said he got over in the road ditch and i drove by him and he said that deer's eyes there's something crazy about his eyes i said that deer's no more i said i killed that deer i said that deer didn't have eyes it was like raisins back in his head i said they were black but anyway that tag's over with so now i've got one tag left And it's going to Edward. That's the only buck. That's the only buck for me. Like I said, Thanksgiving there, the day after Thanksgiving, he shows back up. Edward does. And I'm working a lot like that. School, Christmas break comes over, I get COVID. So I'm back there. You're homebound. You can't do nothing. And I told Lee, I said, I got COVID. I'm going to kill Edward. I said, that's all I got to do is hunt. And lo and behold, he showed up that very next day. Of course, with COVID, I didn't even know. 00:41:14 Speaker 6: I felt fine. 00:41:14 Speaker 7: I didn't, you know. He showed up 8 in the morning. So I go get my stand. He don't show up that evening. I told Lee, I said, three days here, high pressure. He's going to be there one of them days. And I've got two stands set up for each wind there so I can hunt him. It don't matter. And I go up there, 4 o'clock. 4 o'clock, here he comes. He's coming in. There's some little bucks there around the feed. And he comes in there and he postures. He just fuzzed up. This is December 20th. And he turns. And that time of year, you're, you're an open, I mean, I'm an open, you know, and I didn't stand up and I messed up there and I didn't stand up. So I'm sitting down and my shooting lane is all cut out for standing up. So whenever I draw my bow back, sitting down there like that, there's a limb there. And I think I've got to get above that limb. Well, when I did, I almost pulled the same thing down. He went and thank goodness. I mean, I held it together and put another shot in him there, but, And as soon as I texted him, you know, my son was on a trip, and I texted him and told him that I'd got him, you know. Well, I started texting everybody then. My wife called my wife and everybody. And Jared, my good buddy, he lives through my stories. I mean, he's a big deer hunter too, and we swap stories and information and stuff all the time. And I called him. I said, man, because I talked about a cloud being over me all the time because I couldn't kill that deer cloud. You know, when he texted me that, just right before I shot that deer, he texted me and said, Is it still cloudy, you know? And I text him back. I said, no, the sun's shining bright, buddy. And I sent him a picture of Edward out there, and he goes, is that Edward? 00:42:52 Speaker 1: I said, that's Edward. 00:42:52 Speaker 7: And he's like, I'm on my way. Edward, he's something special for me to hunt around here. You know, he scored 161. 00:43:02 Speaker 2: Wow. That was a wild story with lots of twists and turns, layered like a Faulkner novel. 00:43:10 Speaker 3: Thank you, Lane Weavers. 00:43:17 Speaker 2: Our next story is from Miss Margie Saul. She's from the Delta of Arkansas. When you walk into their family's farm headquarters in Duval's Bluff, there are whitetails, caribou, elk, even a polar bear from the 1950s killed by a family member. These people are a family of hunters. And Margie, now in her 70s, isn't quitting anytime soon. 00:43:43 Speaker 8: Margie Saul. I am from Duval's Bluff, Arkansas. I am almost 75 years old. I'd gone hunting, and it was one of those afternoons where you just never know whether you're going to see something or not. In the lane that I was looking down, I saw several doe come out, and then there was a buck came out. 00:44:05 Speaker 9: And all he ever got out of the. 00:44:07 Speaker 8: Timber was his head. And it was the biggest buck I'd ever seen on the farm. 00:44:13 Speaker 9: And I was shaking. I was rifle hunting with my. 270. 00:44:18 Speaker 8: And I called James and I said, okay, it's been a while since I've shot a deer. Remind me about my safety. Because this particular gun had a two-position safe on it. 00:44:30 Speaker 9: And he said, all the way up. I said, okay. And I shot. And he actually had somebody with him and he said, I think Margie just shot a deer. 00:44:38 Speaker 8: Well, in a few minutes, William called me and when I answered the phone, he said, are you okay? 00:44:43 Speaker 9: And I said, son, I don't know if I am or not. And he said, what? 00:44:47 Speaker 8: And I said, I just shot the biggest buck I've ever seen and everything flushed. And I said, I have no idea where it went to. I didn't get to spot it at all where it went to. He said, if you shot it, it's okay. And he came down and I had shot it in the neck because that was all the target I had. And We looked for a very long time and never found any drop of blood anywhere. It did not bleed a drop. William actually walked up on it, and it wasn't, what, 75 yards away? But it was just one of those things that it just, I hit it, and it took off. It bolted, and so did the doe that were with it, and it just took me a while to find it. 00:45:28 Speaker 10: It was a very beautiful deer, and that's still the best deer that she killed, but she's killed. 16 or 17 deer with her bow, including, you know, does and bucks. 00:45:40 Speaker 8: But I guess one of my favorite hunts, I had breast cancer in 2020. And so I hadn't hunted for a while because just shoulders and muscles and so forth. 00:45:52 Speaker 9: Were not doing too good. 00:45:54 Speaker 8: And William called me one day and he said, I'm going to take Lane out and put him in a stand. 00:45:59 Speaker 9: My grandson, do you want to go hunting? He said, I can drop you off in a stand. And I said, yes, I do. 00:46:05 Speaker 8: So I grabbed my gun, pulled on probably some kind of a jacket or a camouflaged shirt. I'm blessed in the fact that I have a stand and I can even have a heater and all of this sort of stuff. So I do easy hunting. But anyway, he dropped me off at my stand, took Lane, and he and Lane went on to another stand. Well, in just a couple of minutes, I had deer in the food plot, but they were doe. And I sent him a message and just told him that I've got deer in front of me. Lane sent back, I haven't seen anything. Probably 20 minutes later, I had a nice buck come out. 00:46:41 Speaker 9: He never stopped. 00:46:44 Speaker 8: And I looked at him through my binoculars. I looked at him through my scope. I went back to the binoculars because I have been fooled sometimes with how big they are looking through the scope and so forth. 00:46:56 Speaker 9: But I thought, yeah, he is a good buck. So I shot him. William called me and he said, did you get him? And I said, yes. 00:47:04 Speaker 8: I said, he didn't drop in the field, but I know where he went in the timber, so I've got him marked. I said, should I go ahead and get him? And he said, no, go ahead and you might get another one. He said, which one did you shoot? I said, son, I don't know. I haven't seen your pictures this year, so I don't know which one he was, but he was a good buck. So in a little bit, and Lane at this point still had not seen anything. But about 20 minutes later, I heard Lane shoot, and he did well. He dropped his right there in front of him, so they didn't even have to go track it. Well, in a couple minutes, I hear William's vehicle, so I start getting everything put away in my stand so I could get down. He got out of the vehicle. He didn't come to the stand at all. He knew from where I had told him that the deer went in the woods. He knew exactly where it was. And the next thing I hear is he hollered, so. 00:47:56 Speaker 9: He started dragging it out. 00:47:57 Speaker 8: And it was a nice buck. 00:47:58 Speaker 10: It was the best deer we had on camera. And yeah, 72 year old grandmother doubled up on the same day as her grandson. I think he killed a 125 inch 10 point and she killed a 140 inch 10 point. So she got on the good side of that. 00:48:14 Speaker 8: And then the following year, I actually had an opportunity. I was hunting on a different place on the farm, but still, you know, and at this point, because of the surgery and so forth, I don't get to use my compound bow anymore. But anyway, I had shot a nice, well, a very nice deer with my rifle. And when my husband came to pick me up from the stand, I told him I had a deer down. 00:48:41 Speaker 9: He said, well, we got to go pick up Williams first. 00:48:43 Speaker 8: So this was another day that I doubled with my, you know, this one was with my son instead of with my grandson. But One year it was with my grandson. The next year it was with my son that I doubled. So just pretty exciting to get. 00:48:54 Speaker 3: To do that. Hers were bigger on both hunts? 00:48:58 Speaker 9: I didn't say that. 00:48:59 Speaker 1: You did. 00:49:01 Speaker 3: That was a great story, Margie. 00:49:04 Speaker 2: When you hear this woman talk, you can hear the excitement in her voice and you just get the sense that she's a wonderful person loved by all of those around her. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Our last story is told by... a true big buck killer a man by the name of greg sims he lives here in northwest arkansas and i would say that the deer that he's killed would rival probably anyone in the country in terms of just sheer inches he focuses on archery hunting giant whitetails And though he has many other fantastic stories, this one stood out to us. And I think you're going to see why. 00:49:47 Speaker 11: When I married my wife, her brother, Brett Curtis, he is torp about deer hunting as I am. 00:49:55 Speaker 6: And he doesn't know all. 00:49:57 Speaker 11: The things to do to get the big deer, but he's starting to get better at it. I put him on so many good bucks throughout the years. And, man, if we put him on something, he just got the deal done. 00:50:12 Speaker 6: Closed the deal. So he had a little farm, too. And he would joke and say the first. 00:50:17 Speaker 11: 180, 200-inch deer he got on camera, it was mine. 00:50:22 Speaker 6: And, of course, I would argue and say, no, I'm not going to shoot your deer, man. 00:50:25 Speaker 3: You're crazy. 00:50:27 Speaker 11: Because that's all I was ever after. I was after a mature buck that was, you know, booner size, big, mature deer. 00:50:35 Speaker 7: So. 00:50:37 Speaker 6: Fast forward down. 00:50:38 Speaker 11: The road, Brett, 36 years old, I think, passes away unexpectedly. He's just talking to his wife and passes out and is gone unexpectedly. Really don't know for sure what happened. It could have been an aneurysm, heart attack. 00:50:56 Speaker 6: No one knows. 00:50:58 Speaker 11: Just a really bad deal. So fast forward, I'm trying to get my life back in order and everybody is. And there's this little farm that's up there, and I start running cameras, and I find this big buck. And it was a buck that in a previous year, Brett and I had had a lot of conversations about, and he had really blown up. And we had done a lot of work together trying to find where this deer might be. So he's a giant. Man, he is just daylight all the time, but it's early morning. Well, early season, it's really hard to hunt. early morning I never never do that because it's so hard to do but something told me that I needed to do it so I ride in there get there before daylight man the world comes alive you know there's a story about cardinals. 00:51:59 Speaker 6: Sorry deep breath man over to my right. 00:52:10 Speaker 11: This cardinal lands in that tree and is just giving me crap. I mean, it won't shut up. It is flying back and forth in the tree. It is doing everything. I think at this point it's going to run everything in the county off. It is making tons of noise. And I'm going, what in the world is this bird doing? I quit paying attention to it because a couple of deer come in and everything's going the right way. And all of a sudden this bird is behind me about five, 10 yards on a tree limb. And it's on my left side now. And this is where the deer typically comes from. And it is giving me everything again. 00:53:04 Speaker 6: And I'm like, Bird, just go away. 00:53:09 Speaker 11: And, you know, but your thoughts are going crazy because of brother-in-law passing and, you know, the cardinals. 00:53:15 Speaker 6: And I'm thinking, man, let me hunt the dadgum deer. And he goes away. And I'm like, well, okay, finally. 00:53:25 Speaker 11: Let me sit here and get a little quiet because it's getting within about 10, 15 minutes when this deer typically shows up. 00:53:31 Speaker 6: Well, I'm looking the other way. 00:53:33 Speaker 11: And I just have a feeling and I look back to my left and the Cardinal's back in the tree up high. And I swear it's as if he's going, look down, man, like look down. And it's super thick behind me. So I look down and I see this deer's rack. 00:53:52 Speaker 4: He's here. 00:53:53 Speaker 6: I'm talking five yards. He is right under me. The wind is perfect. He's not going to win me. And I just like, wow, this is, I can't believe this happened. 00:54:05 Speaker 11: Deer walks up and gets to a fence line. He walks the fence line. 00:54:10 Speaker 6: Right to the base of my tree, basically right under this. I waited. 00:54:16 Speaker 11: He walks the fence line back and jumps the fence. And when he jumps, he's going to walk into this wide open. Well, I draw back and, and drill him just perfectly. And, um, ends up scoring 198 inches. I mean, he is a big, big whitetail. 00:54:33 Speaker 6: And he runs 70 yards and piles up. I can see him laying. And, you know, just tons of emotions. 00:54:45 Speaker 1: God. 00:54:47 Speaker 6: Man, just hard to talk about. 00:54:49 Speaker 11: You just, it's hard to believe, but, you know, Something inside of me just believes that there's the 200-inch deer practically that Brett always promised. 00:55:13 Speaker 6: Dang, man. 00:55:15 Speaker 3: That was tough. 00:55:19 Speaker 11: We, as a family, mostly his mother, started a foundation in Brett's name. 00:55:27 Speaker 6: That is called Continuing the Hunt. 00:55:30 Speaker 11: And it's a foundation that concentrates on getting people out into the woods, hunting, giving them an opportunity to do things that they normally wouldn't have, and hopefully introducing them to the outdoors and getting them on a good turkey hunt, deer hunt, or whatever it may be in memory of Brent. 00:56:04 Speaker 2: I can't thank you all enough for listening to Bear Grease. And our Dear Stories episodes are always so much fun because of all the people that we get to hear. I just love listening to people tell their favorite stories. You can tell a lot about somebody by the stories that they tell. Thanks again for listening to Brent's This Country Life, Lakes Backwoods University, and just supporting us in all that we're doing. I've got some big stuff coming up in the near future. We're going to be talking about it a lot more, but I've got a book coming out called American Bear. It's really my life's work put into a book up until this point. And I can't wait to share it with you guys. And in November, we're going to be sharing some of the details about when it comes out. Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.