March 20, 2024 • 63 mins
This is episode one of the Bear Grease Turkey Stories Series. We’ve gathered six storytellers from Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Georgia. We've got a tale of a man getting shot while hunting, a prankster planting a pair of emu eggs to trick his hunting buddy, and a 21-day hunt for a gobbler called the Blue Yodeler. Our storytellers are best-selling novelist, David Joy, TikTok celebrity, Macy Watkins, Jack Hall, a 92-year old Appalachian mountain hunter, and several others.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
My best turkey hunting stories don't always feature the best calling,
or the ideal set up, or even the desired outcome.
They include moments like getting superpowers from electric shock. Okay,
maybe that isn't all true, but this is my story,
and I believe I'll tell it how I want to.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
There must be DNA in humans coded to anticipate the spring,
and it feels like some might even have DNA wired
for telling turkey stories. The Northern Hemisphere's South Stepping Waltz
is a celebration to many types of folks, but to
none more than the hunter of the wild turkey. The
most noble spring indicator of the wild things that audibly
(00:46):
speak is the gobble of the wild turkey, which, by
all measurable variables able to be assessed by humans, it's
become vividly apparent this gobble is of higher rank than
of all nature's claraty of trumpets.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
But then again, maybe the turkey hunters are biased.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
This is episode one of the Bear Grease Turkey story series.
We've gathered six storytellers from Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Georgia.
We've got a best selling novelist, a TikTok celebrity, an
undercover wildlife agent, a museum curator, a Mississippi gas company man,
and a ninety two year old Appalachian mountain hunter. Turkey
(01:30):
story is just hit different in March, and I really
doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I don't know what it is about that bird that
really sticks out in my mind. I guess it's more
the friendship than the bird. It's a testament to that
good medicine that is spending time in the outdoors.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Tell the story.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Of Americans who live their lives close to the land.
Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
places we explore. The story of the wild turkey in
(02:38):
North America is one of ups and downs, some of
it natural, some of it man induced. The time of
your birth often determines your outlook on the bird as
a resource, and it's the people that use them that
have historically valued them. The Most Native Americans use their meat, bones,
and feathers in practical ways, but also sacred the birds.
(03:01):
Early Europeans found the place stacked with an estimated ten
million turkeys and used them as a plentiful, life saving
food source, but market hunting the eighteen hundreds would almost
extirpate them, wiping them from ecological memory, their numbers dwindling
down to thirty thousand birds contined wide by the nineteen thirties,
(03:22):
but the modern conservation movement has helped restore them to
around seven million birds today, and they've even been introduced
into areas in the Western US they never inhabited pre
European settlement.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Modern turkey numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
In the East peaked in the late nineteen nineties and
early two thousands, right when I was growing up.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
However, in the last.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Twenty years, turkey numbers have declined in many areas in
the eastern United States, none more than in my home
state of Arkansas. If there's one thing I've learned from
my grandfather, Lewin Nukom, who spent the last thirty five
years of his life lamenting the loss of the bob
white quail, it's that it's not wise to put your
(04:07):
hope and passion into a ground nesting bird. But for
some of us it's a little too late. We love turkeys.
Most of the wildlife stories in our times are positive,
but of late we've been in the valley of what
we hope is a cycle. Turkey numbers are on the
(04:28):
decline in many areas, but I think it's producing the
generation of people that truly value the wild. Turkey scarcity,
or even perceived scarcity, is producing appreciation and action for
turkey and turkey habitat, maybe more than ever.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Let's get to the stories.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Our first storyteller is from Leland, Mississippi, and we're sitting
in the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. Billy Johnson is as
Mississippi as a cypress and muddy water.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
This story is about a bird he named the blue.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yodler, but you'll see it's really about a man iconic
in Billy's life, a riverman.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
I'm Billy Johnson and I'm the director of the Missippi
Wildlife Heritage Museum in Leyland, Mississippi. I started hunting on
a place in the Mississippi River that's on the Arkansas
side of the river, and there was an old black
man that had lived on born on the island, lived
(05:36):
on the island. His name was Clay Matthews, and he
had a single shot twelve gage shotgun with about a
thirty inch barrel. And he believed that when the hen
got ready to do business with the gobbler, that she
wasn't gonna yelp but four times. And you know most
(05:57):
of the time people calling or up five times. You know,
that would be the secret. But anyway, you know, when
I was a little kid, you know, he'd tell me
about you know, when you deer hunting, you want to
get behind a tree and look around it. When you're
turkey hunt you got to get a tree wider than
you are and you sit sit face, you know, facing the.
Speaker 6 (06:17):
Turkey and all.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
So anyway, as the years went by, I mean I
turkey hunted a good bit, but I got to where.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
I liked the crappie finish a lot better.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
One year, we got thirteen inches of rain in three days,
and the lake came up six or seven feet and run.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
The crappery fishing.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
It's a lot of little places up in the hills
of Mississippi that used to have a store in a
post office and maybe at one point of school, and
it just got got down to where there the towns
just went away. And usually what would happen, what happened
to start with is wherever it was a spring looked,
where it was water in the hills, you know, it
(07:01):
would it would, it would be little towns would spring up.
And then his farming became more capital intensive and less
labor intensive, they just you know, shrunk back down. And
one of those places that we hunt up in Holmes County, Mississippi,
it's a place where they had planted all the cotton
fields and pines, and it was some tall hardwood ridges
(07:24):
behind behind the pines. There was a big gobbler that
would that would would gobble on one.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
Of those big hardwood ridges, and he uh.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
He'd get real excited and almost like he was yodling
in the middle of the goblins. And so I nicknamed
him the Blue Yodler. But you couldn't call. If you
tried to call to him, he wouldn't come. I hunted
the turkey twenty one days, and it was like I
(07:55):
stepped into a different world from a crappee fishing point
of view to the turkey hunting. And I would have
to try to guess which way the turkey was gonna
go that morning and not call, and a big storm
came up. One morning he gobbled two hundred and sixty
seven times, and finally it was just a day loge
(08:19):
I'm talking about. When I started walking out of the woods,
my boots got full of water, and you know this,
and that I just didn't know how, you know, when
you got a three hundred and sixty degree area in
the woods and you trying to figure out which way
that turkey's gonna walk that next morning. Finally I lucked
(08:40):
up and he hooked up with another gobbler, and uh,
they hadn't gobbled that morning, and so I started calling
and the other goblin was answering and made a complete
circle around me, and I mean, I didn't have that
good place to hide, and as they would gobble from
(09:03):
a little bit farther round, I'd had to kind of
try to ease around, ease around, And I finally saw
the gobler.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Coming and killed it.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
And it was the big gobbler that I'd been hunting,
you know, for twenty one days.
Speaker 6 (09:20):
And for the.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Rest of that day until when I went to sleep,
I was just on top of the world. And I
woke up the next morning time to go turkey hunting,
And about ten minutes after I woke up, it hit
me that I didn't have that turkey to hunt anymore.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
And it was just like a.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Complete loss of what to do about how to try
to kill the turkey. Finally killing the turkey and your
old cloud nine. And the next morning you realize that
it's over, and it just just complete, you know, I
don't know if it's disappointment, but just just sad that
that it's ended.
Speaker 6 (09:57):
You know, when a.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
Deer or a turkey here are a big bass that
you lose, or whatever takes your mind over, completely takes
your mind over, and you know all of your thoughts
are about that, you know where you you're thinking about
it when you're awake and dreaming about it when you're sleeping,
and you know, that's the way I was with with
(10:20):
that turkey. I think about that, that that old that
old black man Clay Matthews a lot. He was the
last of those lamp lighters. They had floating lamps, caroseen
lamps that marked the channel and the river. He would
row out there and fill the lamps up with Caroseene
(10:41):
and you know this and that, and then it's another
guy living on another island south there, north of there.
They would have those those little areas. But I often
think about how simple his life was. You know, he
had a he had a garden by his house and
had tin around the bottom and you know, fenced in
where the deer, you know, couldn't get in there. And
(11:02):
he raised hogs and chickens, and he hunted, you know,
he hunted squirrels and the turkeys, and you know, his
wife fished, and I mean they lived off of what
the river and the island afforded. There he would always
kill a couple of big gobblers the last week or
(11:23):
two of the season, which would be like from the
twentieth of April for the first of night. He knew
where some mulberry trees were, and those turkeys would come
once the mulberries got right, and he knew just to
set up in there around those trees, and he knew
turkey hunting inside out, and he was self talked. One
(11:49):
of my prize possessions. We opened this wildlife museum in Leyland.
A guy that used to hunt with us on that
island came in with a paper bag. He said, here,
I've had this long enough. And it was Clay Matthew's
turkey call box call, and whoever made that call had
put it together instead of gluing it together, he'd used
(12:12):
those little cobbler tacks like somebody working on in the
shoe shop used. So, I mean, it's no telling where
he got it or whatever. But but after Clay died,
you know, he went in his house and found that
found that old turkey call.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
So he died in the.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Late seventies, so I mean he lived on that island,
you know, his whole life. It was a whiskey maker,
real famous bootlegger up there named named Perry Martin, and
Clay made whiskey for Perry Martin and uh, and it
was just kind of the way of life on the river,
I know, Clay. Clay told me that before they had
(12:53):
outboard motors, that the three most important things on the
river was flower, tobacco, and whiskey. And then once they
had got to use an outboard motors in gasoline, so
that was the foremost important things. But we had a
drug store and we sold garden seeds and plants and stuff,
and my daddy would fly up there in the spring
(13:16):
the turkey hunt, and he would bring clay like cabbage
plants and sweet potato plants, and enough seeds.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
You know, for his garden and stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
So between his chickens and his hogs, and caught what
he shot, what his wife caught.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
You know, they ate what they had. They used to
have what they called blue.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Logs, and they were like cypress. Mostly the river would
change and the current would change and those things would
shoot up. He would tie them up on the bank.
All of the rivermen that collected those logs for the
lumber companies had their own knot. Other words, if the
(13:55):
timber buyer came up there, he could look at the
knot hold them together and know who they belonged to.
That was something that Clay Clay did for money. And
the other thing he trapped bobcats and uh, you know
when spring came and he had all his hides, he
had put him on his back and he would take
his boat go across that white river cut off walk
(14:18):
across Big Island, and somewhere out in the middle of
Big Island.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Was a huge hollow tree.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
He had cooking utensils and stuff in that tree in
a lantern, you know, care thing, and he'd spend the
night there, and then he had walked to the other
side of Big Island, and a friend of his had
take him across, and he would go to Arkansas City
and sell his furs.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
And come back. Clay was a man of nature.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
In other words, he would go out in the fall
and according to high high off the ground the hornets
nests were, he would predict whether it was going to
be a coal winner or warm winner or whatever. The
higher they were up in the tree, the colder the
winter was gonna be. If they were low, it was
gonna be a warm winner. And in those days, I
(15:07):
mean we had a we had a fill turkey season.
But before they started having that fall turkey season. All
of the guys in my dad's generation were big squirrel hunters,
and they a lot of them.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
They hunted with twenty two rifles.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
And Clay could clean squirrels like you wouldn't believe how
fast he could clean them, and wouldn't be a hair on,
but he would. He would rub his hands over those
those squirrel hides in a corner.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
To ever, how much how thick the hair.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Was, he could predict what the winter winter was gonna
be whether it was gonna be cold or not.
Speaker 6 (15:49):
So I mean he learned what he knew from nature itself,
you know.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
And you think, in this day and time, with all
this instant this communication and all this stuff, how rich
a life he had.
Speaker 6 (16:05):
People like Clay.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
Matthews were living in a world that was rapidly changing.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
It didn't change for him, but the rest of the
world around it.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
In this world we live in now, with the Internet
and Instagram and Twitter and emails and text and all that,
it makes me wonder what life ever get.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
To be like it was with him living on those isles.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's clear that when Billy thinks about turkey hunting, it's
filtered through the life of Clay Matthews. The story of
the Blue Yodler had nothing to do with the man
on the surface. That is, it happened long after Clay
had passed away, But still Billy can't talk about him
without talking about Clay.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
What an incredible life he lived.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And Billy did a good job of describing how an
individual animal at times can overtake you. As frustrating as
it can be, the older I get I realize how
unique those times are.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It makes me grateful.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
If you're near Leland, Mississippi, you're gonna want to stop
by the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. It's truly an incredible
place that will impress you.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Tell them that I sent you.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I wish every state had one of these, and I
wish every state had a Billy Johnson too. He's done
an incredible job. Our next storyteller is named Jack Hall.
He's from Tennessee. If there ever was a living turkey
hunting legend, it's him. And it's not because he had
(17:52):
a TV show, wrote a book, or got a turkey slam.
In some ways, it's a shame to even introduce you
to him in this way. I asked the man to
tell me one of his favorite turkey stories. He really
deserves more. Jack is ninety two years old. I met
him through my friend Russ Arthur, who will hear from
(18:14):
At the end. Russ says that Jack was one of
the original true mountain turkey hunters in East Tennessee. Jack
ran Hall Chevrolet in Cleveland, Tennessee. He had the resources
to travel and hunt in easier places, but he never did.
He loved the mountains. Here's Jack with some history and
(18:34):
a funny story.
Speaker 7 (18:42):
Yeah, okay, Well I'm Jack Hall and I live in Cleveland, Tennessee,
and I was born in thirty one.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I'm ninety two.
Speaker 7 (18:54):
I started hunting the mountains when I was about ten
years old when we moved here. My dad was a
big hunter and fishermen. But when he hunted, we didn't
have turkeys here, but he was shown. When I started
hunting the mountains, it was squirrel hunting. That's all we did.
We didn't have a turkey season back there. We'd run
(19:17):
those ridges, squirrel hunted. What I think of that day,
I think, why did we do that? But uh, but
we loved being into the mountains.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Then.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
I suppose when I was twenty five, thirty years old,
we started turkey hunting. Oh for many years, they only
had like a two day hunt maybe three times a year,
and that's all. That's all the turkey hunting did. I
used to hunt a lot with a fred about it
(19:47):
worked at Bowl Water and his name was Clyde Steiner.
And uh, one time I decided I'd get one on him.
I was all the time trying to pull one on him.
Be he said his family said he was gullible because
I was all the time getting something. But uh, but anyway,
I walked in this place and he was going to
(20:10):
pick me up later, you know. I told him give
me about two or three hours and come down and
pick me up. So I walked a good ways about
two miles in, and uh, what I'd done is I
had a friend about it had a bunch of eb us,
and I asked him he'd give you a couple of
evu eggs, and I bought him from me and I
(20:31):
got a gas mask, and uh, I put those m
u eggs in and packed newspapers a ready and everything
through an open shoulder and uh, and I built a
desk about that big around and I put these two
inbu exit. Before I put the exit, I said it
that they could call turkeys for about an hour, you know.
(20:52):
So it looked like the desk was hued, you know.
And then I put those two eggs in. And when
I went out, he I med eve. He said, you
do the good. I said no, but you would not
believe what I failed. And he said, what do you find?
He said, I found a nest back there. I don't
know what it is. I said that it must have
(21:15):
been a dinosaur egged there's two of them, innut it.
And he kept questioning me about that. He said, I
don't want to see them. I said, it's about a
mile or two back in there. He said, I don't care.
Let's go. I want to see it. So we took off,
walked and walked and all its uphill all the way
to it. And when we got there, you'd have to
you'd have to dore him to appreciate it, because he's fuddy. Anyway,
(21:39):
he looked at that legs. Soon as he walked up,
he said, what in the name of God?
Speaker 6 (21:47):
And I started.
Speaker 8 (21:49):
I said, I don't door.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
He's and I got down there and had a stick
and I said, he said, don't move that thinking he said,
I don't believe it's a legg He said, I believe
it's a bomb. Somebody believe there was are bombs. I said, well,
I don't believe her bomb. Anyway, I had more fun
with him about to do it at it. We took
(22:12):
him back to town and he had a workshop. We
took him out there and he kept saying, don't touch
those things, and I cared him. He said, I still
believe her bomb. I said, give me a drill. That
he fussed about that and I drilled it. He saw
it was an ad and that I got to think
(22:33):
him later, I better tell him better. That he was
older than me. Thought he'd lively have a heart attack.
So I called him and told him. But that's what
his his family told him. I heard of all the
telephone that that he said. I can't believe you always
believe him. Yeah, I told him I was afraid he'd
(22:54):
have hearts. That well. I could tell a lot of
stories about killing turkeys, but I thought i'd.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Tell what about but he just knew they were bobs.
Speaker 7 (23:07):
You know. I still would love to turkey out in
the mountains, but but uh, legs just won't let me
do it any boy. It's been about three years ago,
and I have no idea how many of you, but
I'd always killed one or two a year, you know,
but that's all you could kill, you know. I've never
(23:29):
traveled much and done in turkey out and just just oh.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Good, Jack Hall, What an incredible guy, and what a
sense of humor the old em you ag trick. And
I hadn't even told you that Jack is an expert
ballroom dancer too. Well, I hate to turn the table
(24:01):
too quickly and disorient you. But our next storyteller is
about six point five decades younger than Jack. Macy Watkins
is from Gordon, Georgia. She's an artist, a hunter, and
a fly fisherman. I think you'll enjoy her story about
gaining superpowers from a hunt. And yep, Macy is our
(24:23):
resident turkey hunting TikToker.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I'm doing to the mut My name's Macy Watkins, and
my best turkey hunting stories don't always feature the best calling,
or the ideal set up, or even the desired outcome,
but yet they are plagued with adversity, bloopers and such.
They're always colorful, never dull, and sometimes victorious. They include
(24:54):
moments like getting superpowers from electric shot. Okay, maybe that
isn't all true, but this is my story I believe,
I'll tell it how. I want to more on that later.
So I had a pretty rough season in Tennessee. Was bounding,
determined to kill a bird there, entered a tournament that
just did some other hunting in Tennessee and just came
(25:14):
up with no luck. Hunted multiple locations just came up
shorts like it wasn't meant to be until the divine
appointment of I met Slade and we got to turkey
hunt and doubled up and that was our first date.
So that was the beginning. Finally got one in Tennessee.
So after that, now I went back to Georgia. Slade
(25:36):
and calls and says, let's go back to Tennessee. I
have somewhere we can hunt. So I said, all right,
I'm spontaneous, so I just I picked up went back
to Alabama and we drove back up to Tennessee, hunting
with our friend Tyler Sanders. So us three deep in
the woods. Slade kills his bird very quickly. So but
(25:57):
my luck or lack of luck, actually, you know, it
wasn't that easy moving forward. The opportunities to kill did
not come easy. Hunted another day, had the opportunity to
kill some if they would have just taken a few
more steps, which I'm sure a lot of turkey hunters
have those similar stories. But we were right on a line,
(26:19):
probably had them ten feet in front of us, and
Slade said, hold off, we gotta do it by the book.
And I'm a person of integrity too. I enjoyed doing
things the right way. If you're gonna do something, it's
worth doing right. So we did not shoot those turkeys.
Probably could have shot a few, Yeah, So we held off.
(26:39):
So another day passed, did not get Macie her bird.
We said we could hunt the next morning. Then we
had some heavy rain coming in, so we went out
and we just we were kind of running and gunning,
and we parked. The truck started calling. We immediately heard
one fire back and I was like, oh, snap, that's
(27:00):
not that far away. And then we call again and
this turkey was coming in hot and bothered. He was
fired up. We were like, dang, that's closer. So the
time was ticking. We were on a clock, us versus
the bird. Who's gonna get there first? And it was
absolutely my last chance. Yeah, So it was probably mid morning.
(27:21):
We had hunted other spots that morning. We actually saw
this patch of cedar trees outside of the woodline. I
don't even think we actually had time to make it
into the woods, because that's how fast everything was happening.
Everything that happened from here on out is the funny part.
So there was a fence, and you know, the guys
are a little taller than me, so they easily got
(27:44):
over it, and they wanted to like me to step
in their hands and get over the fence, but I
was like, no, no, that's too hard. I'm just jumping.
It's not even that high. Anyways. Well, I backed up,
I got a running start, and I ate my words,
but after that, I also ate dirt that I tripped
over the fence. But like I said, there's clumsiness and
(28:08):
adversity plagues all with my turkey hunts. I'm a very
clumsy person. And one thing I always say that it's
not a turkey hunt for me until I saw until
I busted. Doesn't matter how short or long a turkey
hunt is, I'm usually gonna fall just because I don't know.
Maybe that's my trademark. But the fence caught my rubber
(28:31):
light boot. I almost made it. It's just this much
that got me and I hit the ground and the
guys just start laughing at me. I'm like, y'all, shut up,
we got a bird.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
To go kill.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Quit messing around. They were just laughing. I'm like, we're
we were on the clock. Quit laughing.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And we finally got her composure, and when we ran
over to the patch of cedar trees. I mean it
didn't take long after that. We only had a minute
or two once we got set up. Then we just
finished the deal of the bird came in and just
if I had one word to describe how that turkey
looked was haggard. He was just road hard and put
(29:14):
up wet, and actually he was wet because it had
started raining pretty good at that point. And that's really
when I become one with the turkey, because at that point,
after three days of hunting hard and coming up short,
so tired and getting rained on and my hopes were down,
became one with the turkey because I was also road
(29:35):
hard and put up wet. So he came in. I
guess he was like, so where's this hen I was
here and and just oblivious to us. They're hiding. And
now I pulled the trigger and got it done. We
had some high fives, and when I say I absolutely
dirt rolled him, I did. We were on a decline,
so made a successful shot, rolled down the hill a
(29:58):
little bit, and we were pretty high. It was awesome turkey.
So when I kill a turkey, I usually just can't
believe it. I'm surprised and excited every time, I mean,
mouth opens just I usually laugh out of just pure happiness.
There's just such joy in it, especially when there's so
much adversity, so many things that might go wrong, coming
(30:20):
up short in Tennessee with all my hunts there, it
just makes the moment sweeter.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Lots of high fives, hugs.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Picking people up, yelling at the same time. I'd say,
so Macy finally got her bird. It's an amazing moment.
And then we headed out of the woods having my
bird over my shoulder. But what stood in the way
of getting back to the truck was that dang fence
and the guys got over it. And this is a
(30:49):
fence that we had permission to hot, by the way,
I just want to point that out. So I got
to the fence, I'm like, well, that fence ain't hot.
I already touched it when I fell over it. But
I made one step over it with my turkey, and
I'll be dan if it didn't shock me. And I
screamed so loud, and Slade was in the truck laughing
(31:14):
so hard. Tyler, who was trying to help me over,
was laughing. And you know, like when people laugh at you,
but that you're there laughing a little harder than you're laughing,
So I.
Speaker 8 (31:25):
Was a little embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
But anyways, I really feel like that day I gained superpowers,
some kind of turkey hunting superpowers from my electric voltage
that I got shocked with. And the thing is, that's
not a lie, because that was my last bird of
the season last year. So time will tell. If you
(31:48):
see me out there on the Dagone killing spree just
having a record year this year, you'll know Macy's got
something that the rest of us don't have. And that's
because I gained superpowers that day. This story ends in
a trout stream in North Carolina. So later that week
I went back home, and I love trout fishing. That's
(32:09):
my mother passion turkey hunting, trout fishing, or what I
was put on earth to do. I tied a bunch
of flies that week, and I took a bunch of
feathers from my turkey and tied some pheasant tail niphs,
which I affectionately called my turkey tail niphs. We do
a bunch of euro niphing in North Georgia and the streams,
And if you look at my page, you'll see that
I catch the occasional giant trout because I do have
(32:31):
access to a few trophy streams, but my passion is
going way up in the mountains, way past cell service
and catching wild rainbows, brook trout with your native to
our area and brown trout. So I almost got my
Cherokee slam. That's where I was fishing in Cherokee, North Carolina,
not far from my house. I caught every fish that
(32:53):
day on flies that I had tied with my Tennessee bird,
which is just all encompassing full so moment, I feel
like turkey hunting makes me a well rounded outdoorsman, but
also a resourceful and more appreciative angler.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Thank you, miss Macye for the story, and we'll see
if those big talking superpower predictions come true. It's go
time and showtime in the spring woods.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Right now. I'll be paying attention and I'll be rooting
for you.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Be prepared to be disoriented even yet again as we
move across the state line to the great state of
North Carolina to our next storyteller, David Joy is as
country as cornbread. And if you lined up ten people
and we're asked to guess which one was an award
(33:49):
winning novelist who just got off a European book tour.
I bet you wouldn't pick him, but you'd be wrong.
If you didn't, you might have didicted that he was
a ridge running Southern Appalachian turkey hunter by the length
of his legs. He's a tall fella and a bona
fide turkey hunter. Here's David's story and it involves a
(34:12):
man getting shot.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
So I guess one of the things that I like
most about turkey hunting is that you have the potential
to develop like a partnership with another person that you're
hunting with. And in some ways that differs from other
pursuits in the outdoors. So, you know, especially like whitetail
hunting or something where you're you know, spending a lot
of time in a tree by yourself. With turkey hunting,
(34:37):
if you can find the right partner, it serves as
a tremendous advantage. And I've been very fortunate to develop
a relationship with with just an incredible sportsman who's probably
about twenty five years my senior, but just a hell
of a turkey hunter. I mean, it's killed hundreds of turkeys,
(34:58):
and you know, through the years I've had. I've had
the chance to hunt with him a lot, and he
and how I have kind of developed a relationship where
he knows what I'm going to do and I know
what he's going to do, and because of that, we
have the opportunity to kill a lot of birds that
we probably couldn't have killed by ourselves. And so really
that's become one of the things that I look forward
(35:20):
to most every Turkey season, is just spending time in
the woods with him, because I know one day I'm
not going to have that. So, you know, jumped to
last year. This was real early in the season because
I was hunting in South Carolina, just over the line,
and I was up on a mountain. I was hunting
by myself, and I had been on this bird multiple
(35:42):
days and it had woked me every day, and it
kind of played out the same way this morning. And
I sent this buddy of mine a text message, you know,
telling him what had happened, and he texted back, I've
been shot. And I immediately thought he was joking, you know,
I thought he was just making it up, and you know,
(36:05):
I sent something back and he said he said he
was at the hospital and that he was he was
going to be fine, but that he had been shot.
And where I was on the mountain, it was kind
of an odd spot because typically you don't have service
in the mountains, but I had very good service there,
and so my immediate thought was, Okay, he's safe. But
(36:25):
I knew he was at the far eastern end of
North Carolina, and we live in the mountains of North Carolina.
So my immediate thought was his wife, And it was like,
how is his wife going to get down there to
the hospital? But so eventually she she reached out and
said she was fine, she was headed that way, and
and that was that. Uh So, so what wound up
(36:47):
happening was was that another hunter shot this buddy of
mine thinking that he was a turkey, and he had
just enough time to kind of roll on his side
so that he took the majority of the shot into
his ribs, his shoulder. He was shot with long beard
copper plated number fives, and somehow or another, you know,
(37:08):
just by the grace of God, it none of it
got him in the head. And thank god they were shooting,
you know, copper plated lead instead of tungsten, because because
I think it would have been a different story. I
think he'd be dead. So he immediately, you know, is
at the hospital. They're working to get the shot out
of him. They put him on antibiotics. He comes home
(37:28):
pretty much that next day, but within a week there
was a secondary infection that started that luckily another doctor
caught and you know, they wind up working on him
and get him healed. But you know, that doctor told
him that if he hadn't taken care of that secondary infection,
it would have killed him. It would have traveled to
his brain that had killed him. So all of this
(37:51):
is going on, and turkey hunting is kind of out
the window, you know, And and I'm devastated for him,
but I'm thankful that he's alive. And so my turkey
season last year was real funny, you know. But I
decided I was gonna hunt with an old Winchester Model
twelve because that's what he always hunted with. So I
hunted all season with an old Nickel still nineteen twenty
(38:16):
eight Winchester Model twelve twenty gage. So time goes on
and through the month of April, and I'm you know,
men are not wanting to share their feelings, so it
was always hard to try and you know, feel him
out on where he was mentally. And so I spent
a lot of time talking to his wife, and she
(38:37):
kept saying he needs to get back in the woods,
and I thought she was right. But at the same time,
that's not one of them things you can pressure somebody
to do, you know. I mean, he had just been
shot and thank god, you know, didn't die. But you know,
that's an incredibly traumatic experience that was obviously going to
linger pretty heavy. And so it was this delicate balance
(38:59):
and act of not wanting to push him but also
knowing that where he needed to be was in the
Turkey woods. And so we started having those conversations and
I just kept telling him, you know that if it
made him more comfortable, I wouldn't carry a gun. You know,
We'll just go in the woods together. And you know,
he didn't really want to do that, and you know,
(39:22):
I'd almost giving up on asking him, and out of
the blue, he sends me this message one evening and
he said, I've got a bird pinned down and I said, well,
let's go chase him. He said, you know, he said,
we'll meet me at the house the next morning, and
so I did and we rode out through the mountains.
It was first day we hunted, you know, together last season.
(39:46):
We head out this ridge, you know, to try and
hear if this bird is roosted where he thinks it'll be.
And we get out there, and sure enough, that bird
starts hammering across the valley before daylight, and you know,
I know that it's on. I know, you know, Raymond's
got him pinned down, and I know for a fact
he's going to know the landscape and know the moves
(40:07):
we need to make to get on him. So it's super,
super steep, and we just drop off the side of
this mountain through a bunch of laurels and rodeo and
get down into the bottom along this field, and the
birds are roosted at the bottom of that field, and
we kind of make a plan on what we're going
to do. And right about the time that I was
(40:30):
going to go sit at my tree, I could just
since that he was really nervous. It was something I'd
never experienced with him before, because he knows how safe
I am with guns. He's been around with me with
guns all the time.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I always tell him that when the gun's loaded, I
tell him when it's unloaded, and he just started asking
a lot of questions about the gun, and so I
told him, I said, Raymond, I said, I'm gona unload
my gun. I said, I'm not going to touch it.
I said, I'm gonna get behind you, and I said,
I'm not going to touch it.
Speaker 6 (41:00):
I just wanted him to hunt.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
So we start calling to this bird and they pitch
out into that field, and they had a bunch of
hens with them, and for the most part, we spent
the morning, you know, calling to Noah Vail, trying to
call a bird that had everything he wanted. And so,
you know, we spent the morning calling at him, and
every once in a while he'd answer, but never made
(41:22):
a move up there towards just just stayed in the
bottom of that field. And about mid morning, probably around ten,
those hens started to leave the field to go to nest.
When they did that, Tom started following them, and I
had already made a move further away from Raymond. My
plan was to try and pull those birds up to us,
(41:44):
and that that field made a real hard like a
hard right dog leg back up above us, and so
my plan was to try and make it sound like
there had been birds that moved up that field that
they couldn't see. And so I was up there and
I was calling and they were still answering me. And
it was late season. So I started gobbling on a
(42:04):
box call, and every time i'd gobble on that box call,
they'd answer me. But so those birds are working up
the field, and as turkeys you know, always do, they
did not cooperate. They went the opposite direction and they
went up the left hand side, and that gobbler just
just kept on, you know, gobbling with his hens up
(42:25):
up through the woods. And I thought, well, this is over.
And about that time I seen a turkey pop up
over the hill in that field, and he was on
the right hand side, and he was coming in silent.
I think he was probably a subordinate bird, you know,
that had broken off from them others, but was coming
to check out all that noise he'd been listening to
(42:47):
all morning. And so he pops up and he starts
walking through that field. I mean, just gorgeous. The sun's
just hitting him perfect, and I'm watching him work up
through that field and I think any minute he's gonna
get in front of Raymond, and you know, and Raymond's
gonna smoke him. And it gets to the point where
I'm convinced that he's past him. And all I'm thinking is,
(43:11):
you've let that bird get past you because you want
me to kill it, because that's something he would do.
That's just him.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
He's always like he's always thinking of others before he's
thinking of himself. So I'm thinking, you idiot, man, You've
let this bird get by you, and now we've got
to hope it gets all the way up here to me.
And right about the time that that that thought is
settling in my mind, I don't hear Raymond, but I
know he must have called because that bird threw his
head up and he just walloped him out there in
(43:41):
that field. And I don't know what it is about
that bird that really sticks out in my mind. I
guess it's it's more the friendship than the bird. And
I think it's it's just a testament to, you know,
what the outdoors and what the sporting life means to
people who can't live.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
With out it.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
You know, it's a testament to that good medicine that
is spending time in the outdoors.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
That was a good story. David and a serious one.
I think you should write a novel about a man
getting shot by a stranger in the backwall turkey hunting,
and the shooter escapes on.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
A crooked hoofed mule.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Years later, the shot turkey hunter unknowingly saves the life
of the mule trapped in swirling Mississippi River Eddie. The
steed presumably belonged to the mysterious shooter. We don't know
who he is, and the beast has a unique brand
on his left haunch BP three.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
But unfortunately, the mule dies three days later.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
And I mean, it's a long story and David would
do such a better job telling it. But it's kind
of a plot twist and weird. But the shooter was
actually the man's brother, and they didn't know about each
other because of the father's double life, and their father,
a turkey hunter, had accidentally told them both about the
same ridged a turkey hunt on where they faithfully met
(45:08):
on the morning of the shooting.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Oh my, at the drama, And the.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Mysterious brand stood for black panther three because three generations
of those Hillbillies believe they'd seen a black mountain lion.
Like I said, David, would tell it better anyway. In
all seriousness, the thought of getting shot turkey hunting is
a nightmare. And if you don't know much about turkey hunting,
(45:33):
it's a unique hunt because we roam around in the
woods making the calls of a turkey without any hunter
orange on. Because turkeys can see color, most firearms hunting
requires people to wear hunter's orange to be visible. Hunting
accidents are rare but possible. But honestly, to me, the
other version of the nightmare is being the one who
(45:56):
made the mistake and shot someone. I think about that
more than getting shot. Be careful out there, folks. We're
now going to go back to Leland, Mississippi, to the
Wildlife Heritage Museum to meet our next storyteller who is
from the Delta. His name is Roy Stubbs, and he
(46:17):
worked for the gas company. Roy is in his eighties
and it's clear that he has a unique appreciation for
the wild turkey. I was so glad to be able
to capture his story in a little bit about his history.
Speaker 6 (46:34):
My name's Roy Stubbs.
Speaker 9 (46:36):
I lived in the Mississippi Delta and that was the
place to be if you had the opportunity to hunt turkeys,
especially along the Missippi Roup. My desire for turkey hunting
started at early age when a friend of ours and
the town I lived in but aught Misissippi with keller
(46:58):
turkey and bring it by when if we'd have our
little Wednesday morning at school, and he would bring his
turkey in and lay it down and talk about the turkey,
and then he'd take a leave off of a tree
of some kind and use that as its call. And
so it kind of stayed with me, and so I
(47:18):
fast forward then several years and I had the opportunity
to become a member of a honting club along the
mist every rubber and there was lots of turkeys, lots
of turkeys, and the timeframe were talking about it's a
late nineteen sixties, so it'd been around those turkeys for
(47:41):
the first time in the woods. I just had this
desire building. But it hunting turkeys just so much different
than the hunting anything else. You just have to have
a lot of knowledge. So I had a friend of
mine there was a barber in a small town near me,
and I used to go and set any and talk
(48:01):
with him. He made his own malcohols and he taught
me a lot about calling turkeys. He taught me how
to make a malcohol even and I hammered out a
piece of aluminum and some rubber and I made my
first first turkey I killed in nineteen sixty seven. I
(48:21):
called it up with my mouth call.
Speaker 6 (48:24):
Later on I developed the weight.
Speaker 9 (48:27):
That used my natural voice, and I used it most
of all time until I got too old too. Turkey
hunters have a bond all across the country. That's it's
just a part of hunters and camaraderie, the love we
all have for each other and for the sport itself.
(48:50):
The turkey is a magnificent bird and it's not to
be taken lightly that when you could kill, to thank
the Lord for naming you have this opportunity and his creation.
So in nineteen eighty four, had I lived in Greenville, Mississippi,
(49:13):
which is right on Misssippi River. My club I hunted
on with just a few minutes north of town, and
so started the season off and had a turkey that
has caught my attention right away. The main line Levy,
if you've never been there. This runs from Memphis to Vicksburg.
(49:34):
There's dikes on it we call dikes that are running
and they're there for to control the water flow as
it flows on toward the Gulf and so on. These
we traveled on these dikes. There our road on top
of them, and you can drive down for you woods
and most of them, a lot of them go all
the way to the bank of the Mississippi. So we
(49:56):
ride down them in Stoton, call and the turkey answer.
Speaker 6 (49:59):
We get to they get a hunt on.
Speaker 9 (50:02):
So this particularly year started off with this turkey. And
I noticed the first few times I went, I'd drive
down there.
Speaker 6 (50:10):
He would cop them.
Speaker 9 (50:11):
So I said, okay, I know where you are, I
know how to give you. Well that that started my
season long turkey honk. So I would go out and
call that turkey in he would gobble, and so we
would get in. I'd move, he'd move, and literally literally
(50:33):
I would go every day and want that turkey. With
my job there I had that time. I'd get all
my men working and I'd sneak off and get my truck,
drive up there and call and he'd answer me and
I'd go hunting. So we did this day in and
(50:53):
day out. It's the weather permitted and sun Sundays off
mostly well, we came down it's gonna be the last day,
last day of trucky season. Well, unfortunately, on the last
day of trucky season, my wife had us a social
event to go to. Well, I thought I had a train,
(51:17):
but she slept a scept through on men. So I'm
thinking about my turkey. I got one last chance, one
last chance to get him. And so I had many
encounters through the year. I'm crawling up on snakes. I
had deer walk up to me check and see what
I'm doing. I mean, coons follow some of armidellas because
(51:42):
I did a lot of belly crawling that food that year,
trying to crawl up on this turkey. He was a
smart he's smart smart, and he.
Speaker 6 (51:51):
Was really fun to hunt.
Speaker 9 (51:53):
And it was just calling experience and learning experience that
I'll never forget. So the last days and so I
get there bout the middle afternoon and I start my hunt.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
I got a plane.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
I know what.
Speaker 9 (52:08):
I know what he's done the last few times I
haunt him. So I've come in a different direction, changed
everything up, got a different call. But I was gonna
have to do my crawling, so I eased up and
kept going going, and he's kept coming a little bit.
Finally I had him in range. I guess one of
my disadvantages was I was laying down and it's hard
(52:31):
to chew the gun hold it up. Besides the turkey
ahead and anyway, I got it all set, got all ready,
got my gun up, and just looking at that turkey,
just the magnificence of him, and I already sometimes think
the Good Lord has a hand and who we are
and what we do, and he also has control over
(52:55):
what happens in the woods so many times with us,
and I'd rather blame the Lord, I think sometimes than
blame myselfthing not being able to make it, you know,
make the kill or whatever. So very carefully I had
got my gun up and got my head down on it.
(53:16):
I thought, just right, which is difficult to do laying
down and not can't move.
Speaker 6 (53:21):
You can't move.
Speaker 9 (53:22):
So I get everything just right. I pulled the trigger,
and the turkey had expression on his face. So he
just lifted up and flew right over the top of me,
about five feet over my head, and he said goodbye
for the day, for the season.
Speaker 6 (53:42):
And I got up.
Speaker 9 (53:43):
And I said tip my head to him, and I said,
thank you, thank you for a break. Season, and I
think that Turkey today, if he's in Turkey Heaven, I know.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
What a classic gentleman overflowing with appreciation for just getting
to chase one and who knew there was a Turkey Heaven?
These boys from Mississippi are just made different. And I'm
extending a genuine Bear Grease hat tip to mister Roy Stuves.
(54:19):
Our final storyteller is Russ Arthur from Cleveland, Tennessee. If
Russ's name sounds familiar, it's because he was on our
genuine Outlaw series of Bear Grease episodes fifty two through
fifty six a couple years ago. Russ was the undercover
agent who hunted with Louisdale Edwards in western Arkansas in
(54:41):
the nineteen nineties. Louisdale said Russ was the best turkey
caller he'd ever heard. Russ is one of those guys
who has a story much bigger than a single turkey story,
and it was an honor to sit with him and
hear this one about his late father, Jim Arthur.
Speaker 8 (55:02):
Well, my name is Russ Arthur. I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
in a community called Hickson, Tennessee, right outside of Chattanooga.
I was blessed to have a father who was a
passionate outdoorsman. My dad killed his first turkey in nineteen
sixty one. Of course, I was only two years old
at that time, so I don't remember that. But he
(55:26):
would always hunt on this management area where there was
only the season. Back then in the sixties, there was
only one or two days a week that you could hunt.
There were very limited counties in the state of Tennessee
that had turkeys. He would always come home and talk
about his adventures. The hunts were normally Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
(55:48):
and he would always go up on a Thursday in camp.
He had an old station wagon fifty something mile station
wagon and he would go up and camp out of it,
and he would normally hunt on Friday and Saturday and
come home Saturday, even for church on Sunday. As a kid,
growing up seven eight nine year old kid, I could
not wait to hear the stories.
Speaker 6 (56:09):
And it was later in.
Speaker 8 (56:10):
Life that I figured out that my dad had done
a very noble thing, and that is he took the
curiosity of a kid and turned it into a passion.
Because he would give me just enough information about what
he was doing where it was at, and I had
this this mystical place in my mind that I wasn't
(56:32):
old enough to go to yet. And he didn't drag
me along as a six year old or a seven
year old or an eight year old. He waited till
I got old enough that I could I could handle
a single barrel, and he started taking me. So I
had this passion to my dad. And one of my
favorite turkey hunting stories will have to go back to.
(56:54):
And this is if I get emotional, I'm sorry. Well,
he had an old call and he called it sweet Thing,
and it was and I've got that call with me today.
He bought it for I think it was three dollars
from a gentleman by the name of Earl Dishram. As
a ten, eleven, twelve thirteen year old kid, I had
(57:17):
heard all these names, the Earl Dishram, the Bobby Card,
the Jack Hawks, the Charlie Elliotts, the Jen Denton, the
Dan Layman's, the Glenn Honeycutts. These were all people's names
that were these true turkey hunters. And I was kind
of like a little kid that was hearing about a gunfighter.
(57:37):
You know, these were legends you know, when I first
started getting to come and stay at camp, I wouldn't
meet all these guys. And we had a place in
the mountains that he had taken me to the year before,
and we'd heard a few turkeys. And I was thirteen
this particular year, and I was carrying a single barrel
twenty ga and he said, sign, I'm gonna take you
(57:59):
on this ridge. And there was an old trail. He
called it the Indian Trail, and it was just a
hunter trail, nothing that's marked on a map. And he
took me up there when I was thirteen, and he
set me in a gap and he said, you stay here.
I'm going to go on out the Indian Trail. And
after about two hours, if you hadn't heard anything, come
(58:20):
on out the trail. I will either be on the
trail or I'll put a rock in the middle of
the trail and draw you an era with a rock
telling you which direction I went, and you wait right there. Well,
that was our way of communicating. So I'll admit I'm thirteen.
I'm sitting there. I cannot wait for it to get daylight.
(58:40):
And I thought it would never get daylight. And I
never heard anything now I'm going to have to back
up again. The only call that he bought me what
was called a lynch jet turkey call. I still got
it today. In my opinion, it was a terrible call.
It was a very small slate calls insect in wood
and had a burnt wooden peg and it was good
(59:01):
for a cluck or a pr but that was about it.
So an hour after daylight, I couldn't stand it. I
needed to go find Daddy. I was ready for some action.
So I ease out the trail and I get, oh,
probably three or four hundred yards from where I had left,
and I hear a turkey just hammering, and I mean,
it's just hammering its hat off, and I think I
can call that turkey up. You know, I've sat with
(59:24):
my dad and I watched this last year. I can
do this. And I set down on that call, and
it was terrible. And that turkey gobble and and it gobbled,
and I just kept doing it, and it gobbled every time,
and then it started going away. Next thing I know,
(59:47):
I heard something coming up through there. It was my
dad and he was he was frustrated I'd run that
turkey off of him.
Speaker 6 (59:53):
He had it.
Speaker 8 (59:54):
He was getting ready to shake hands with it.
Speaker 6 (59:56):
He came.
Speaker 8 (59:57):
He came right straight from where that turkey was gobbling,
and all he said was, he said, son, He said,
we need to work on your calling, you know. But
I've got to tell this story if you think that
there's not a higher being. Ten years ago tomorrow, my
dad passed on February tenth, twenty fourteen. Well, we were
(01:00:22):
getting ready to bury him, and he had left in
his workshop. He was very meticulous. There was a wooden
box full of notepads. They were all the same making model.
And I reached in. I said, I've never seen this before.
And I did not know that my dad had kept
a diary. And the literally the day we were burying
(01:00:46):
my dad, I found this in his workshop and it
was as if he had set that out for us
to find. I reached in and I pulled out and
I said, what is this? And I opened it up
and it was a journal. And when I opened that up,
it turned till April twelfth, nineteen seventy two, and I
(01:01:09):
got to read about what he thought about that morning
when he left me in that gap. I closed it up,
I put it back, and I'm not read anymore since.
So one of these days I'm going to take that
and go the mountains and go the cabin and read it.
(01:01:32):
But it was pretty amazing that the very day that
he left me for the first time in the mountains,
that I pulled one of the seventy two books out
and turned that date.
Speaker 6 (01:01:46):
So what did he say?
Speaker 8 (01:01:48):
It was just talking about how proud he was, and
I didn't be Honestly, I didn't read it all. But
when I recognized where it was at, what we had,
what he was writing about, it would just overwhelmed me.
I closed it up. Well, But anyway, that was a
great man, what.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
An incredible story in man. Jim Arthur was the first
chapter president of the Chattanooga National Wild Turkey Federation Chapter,
and in two thousand and three he was inducted into
the Tennessee Turkey Hunters Hall of Fame. Russ said there
was a time when the state was trapping turkeys out
of areas where Jim hunted, and many people were mad
(01:02:46):
about it. But around the campfire, Jim would advocate to
his peers that this was a short term sacrifice for
a long term game. He was influential as a grassroots
spokesman for the Wild Turkey relocation, which ended up being
the salvation of the wild turkeys. I truly love these
(01:03:07):
Turkey Stories episodes, and, like mister Roy Stubbs said, turkey
hunters share a unique bond around the unique bird. I
can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. We've
got another Turkey Stories episode coming up. We put our
heart and soul into these episodes documenting the stories of
(01:03:28):
our collective history. Be sure to check out Brenton E's
Mississippi River Expedition film on the Meat Eater YouTube channel,
and if you're out west, check out the Meat Eater
Live tour schedule. I'm gonna be there at every show.
My best turkey hunting stories don't always feature the best calling,
or the ideal set up, or even the desired outcome.
They include moments like getting superpowers from electric shock. Okay,
maybe that isn't all true, but this is my story,
and I believe I'll tell it how I want to.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
There must be DNA in humans coded to anticipate the spring,
and it feels like some might even have DNA wired
for telling turkey stories. The Northern Hemisphere's South Stepping Waltz
is a celebration to many types of folks, but to
none more than the hunter of the wild turkey. The
most noble spring indicator of the wild things that audibly
(00:46):
speak is the gobble of the wild turkey, which, by
all measurable variables able to be assessed by humans, it's
become vividly apparent this gobble is of higher rank than
of all nature's claraty of trumpets.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
But then again, maybe the turkey hunters are biased.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
This is episode one of the Bear Grease Turkey story series.
We've gathered six storytellers from Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Georgia.
We've got a best selling novelist, a TikTok celebrity, an
undercover wildlife agent, a museum curator, a Mississippi gas company man,
and a ninety two year old Appalachian mountain hunter. Turkey
(01:30):
story is just hit different in March, and I really
doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I don't know what it is about that bird that
really sticks out in my mind. I guess it's more
the friendship than the bird. It's a testament to that
good medicine that is spending time in the outdoors.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Tell the story.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Of Americans who live their lives close to the land.
Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
places we explore. The story of the wild turkey in
(02:38):
North America is one of ups and downs, some of
it natural, some of it man induced. The time of
your birth often determines your outlook on the bird as
a resource, and it's the people that use them that
have historically valued them. The Most Native Americans use their meat, bones,
and feathers in practical ways, but also sacred the birds.
(03:01):
Early Europeans found the place stacked with an estimated ten
million turkeys and used them as a plentiful, life saving
food source, but market hunting the eighteen hundreds would almost
extirpate them, wiping them from ecological memory, their numbers dwindling
down to thirty thousand birds contined wide by the nineteen thirties,
(03:22):
but the modern conservation movement has helped restore them to
around seven million birds today, and they've even been introduced
into areas in the Western US they never inhabited pre
European settlement.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Modern turkey numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
In the East peaked in the late nineteen nineties and
early two thousands, right when I was growing up.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
However, in the last.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Twenty years, turkey numbers have declined in many areas in
the eastern United States, none more than in my home
state of Arkansas. If there's one thing I've learned from
my grandfather, Lewin Nukom, who spent the last thirty five
years of his life lamenting the loss of the bob
white quail, it's that it's not wise to put your
(04:07):
hope and passion into a ground nesting bird. But for
some of us it's a little too late. We love turkeys.
Most of the wildlife stories in our times are positive,
but of late we've been in the valley of what
we hope is a cycle. Turkey numbers are on the
(04:28):
decline in many areas, but I think it's producing the
generation of people that truly value the wild. Turkey scarcity,
or even perceived scarcity, is producing appreciation and action for
turkey and turkey habitat, maybe more than ever.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Let's get to the stories.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Our first storyteller is from Leland, Mississippi, and we're sitting
in the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. Billy Johnson is as
Mississippi as a cypress and muddy water.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
This story is about a bird he named the blue.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yodler, but you'll see it's really about a man iconic
in Billy's life, a riverman.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
I'm Billy Johnson and I'm the director of the Missippi
Wildlife Heritage Museum in Leyland, Mississippi. I started hunting on
a place in the Mississippi River that's on the Arkansas
side of the river, and there was an old black
man that had lived on born on the island, lived
(05:36):
on the island. His name was Clay Matthews, and he
had a single shot twelve gage shotgun with about a
thirty inch barrel. And he believed that when the hen
got ready to do business with the gobbler, that she
wasn't gonna yelp but four times. And you know most
(05:57):
of the time people calling or up five times. You know,
that would be the secret. But anyway, you know, when
I was a little kid, you know, he'd tell me
about you know, when you deer hunting, you want to
get behind a tree and look around it. When you're
turkey hunt you got to get a tree wider than
you are and you sit sit face, you know, facing the.
Speaker 6 (06:17):
Turkey and all.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
So anyway, as the years went by, I mean I
turkey hunted a good bit, but I got to where.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
I liked the crappie finish a lot better.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
One year, we got thirteen inches of rain in three days,
and the lake came up six or seven feet and run.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
The crappery fishing.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
It's a lot of little places up in the hills
of Mississippi that used to have a store in a
post office and maybe at one point of school, and
it just got got down to where there the towns
just went away. And usually what would happen, what happened
to start with is wherever it was a spring looked,
where it was water in the hills, you know, it
(07:01):
would it would, it would be little towns would spring up.
And then his farming became more capital intensive and less
labor intensive, they just you know, shrunk back down. And
one of those places that we hunt up in Holmes County, Mississippi,
it's a place where they had planted all the cotton
fields and pines, and it was some tall hardwood ridges
(07:24):
behind behind the pines. There was a big gobbler that
would that would would gobble on one.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
Of those big hardwood ridges, and he uh.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
He'd get real excited and almost like he was yodling
in the middle of the goblins. And so I nicknamed
him the Blue Yodler. But you couldn't call. If you
tried to call to him, he wouldn't come. I hunted
the turkey twenty one days, and it was like I
(07:55):
stepped into a different world from a crappee fishing point
of view to the turkey hunting. And I would have
to try to guess which way the turkey was gonna
go that morning and not call, and a big storm
came up. One morning he gobbled two hundred and sixty
seven times, and finally it was just a day loge
(08:19):
I'm talking about. When I started walking out of the woods,
my boots got full of water, and you know this,
and that I just didn't know how, you know, when
you got a three hundred and sixty degree area in
the woods and you trying to figure out which way
that turkey's gonna walk that next morning. Finally I lucked
(08:40):
up and he hooked up with another gobbler, and uh,
they hadn't gobbled that morning, and so I started calling
and the other goblin was answering and made a complete
circle around me, and I mean, I didn't have that
good place to hide, and as they would gobble from
(09:03):
a little bit farther round, I'd had to kind of
try to ease around, ease around, And I finally saw
the gobler.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Coming and killed it.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
And it was the big gobbler that I'd been hunting,
you know, for twenty one days.
Speaker 6 (09:20):
And for the.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Rest of that day until when I went to sleep,
I was just on top of the world. And I
woke up the next morning time to go turkey hunting,
And about ten minutes after I woke up, it hit
me that I didn't have that turkey to hunt anymore.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
And it was just like a.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Complete loss of what to do about how to try
to kill the turkey. Finally killing the turkey and your
old cloud nine. And the next morning you realize that
it's over, and it just just complete, you know, I
don't know if it's disappointment, but just just sad that
that it's ended.
Speaker 6 (09:57):
You know, when a.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
Deer or a turkey here are a big bass that
you lose, or whatever takes your mind over, completely takes
your mind over, and you know all of your thoughts
are about that, you know where you you're thinking about
it when you're awake and dreaming about it when you're sleeping,
and you know, that's the way I was with with
(10:20):
that turkey. I think about that, that that old that
old black man Clay Matthews a lot. He was the
last of those lamp lighters. They had floating lamps, caroseen
lamps that marked the channel and the river. He would
row out there and fill the lamps up with Caroseene
(10:41):
and you know this and that, and then it's another
guy living on another island south there, north of there.
They would have those those little areas. But I often
think about how simple his life was. You know, he
had a he had a garden by his house and
had tin around the bottom and you know, fenced in
where the deer, you know, couldn't get in there. And
(11:02):
he raised hogs and chickens, and he hunted, you know,
he hunted squirrels and the turkeys, and you know, his
wife fished, and I mean they lived off of what
the river and the island afforded. There he would always
kill a couple of big gobblers the last week or
(11:23):
two of the season, which would be like from the
twentieth of April for the first of night. He knew
where some mulberry trees were, and those turkeys would come
once the mulberries got right, and he knew just to
set up in there around those trees, and he knew
turkey hunting inside out, and he was self talked. One
(11:49):
of my prize possessions. We opened this wildlife museum in Leyland.
A guy that used to hunt with us on that
island came in with a paper bag. He said, here,
I've had this long enough. And it was Clay Matthew's
turkey call box call, and whoever made that call had
put it together instead of gluing it together, he'd used
(12:12):
those little cobbler tacks like somebody working on in the
shoe shop used. So, I mean, it's no telling where
he got it or whatever. But but after Clay died,
you know, he went in his house and found that
found that old turkey call.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
So he died in the.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Late seventies, so I mean he lived on that island,
you know, his whole life. It was a whiskey maker,
real famous bootlegger up there named named Perry Martin, and
Clay made whiskey for Perry Martin and uh, and it
was just kind of the way of life on the river,
I know, Clay. Clay told me that before they had
(12:53):
outboard motors, that the three most important things on the
river was flower, tobacco, and whiskey. And then once they
had got to use an outboard motors in gasoline, so
that was the foremost important things. But we had a
drug store and we sold garden seeds and plants and stuff,
and my daddy would fly up there in the spring
(13:16):
the turkey hunt, and he would bring clay like cabbage
plants and sweet potato plants, and enough seeds.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
You know, for his garden and stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
So between his chickens and his hogs, and caught what
he shot, what his wife caught.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
You know, they ate what they had. They used to
have what they called blue.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Logs, and they were like cypress. Mostly the river would
change and the current would change and those things would
shoot up. He would tie them up on the bank.
All of the rivermen that collected those logs for the
lumber companies had their own knot. Other words, if the
(13:55):
timber buyer came up there, he could look at the
knot hold them together and know who they belonged to.
That was something that Clay Clay did for money. And
the other thing he trapped bobcats and uh, you know
when spring came and he had all his hides, he
had put him on his back and he would take
his boat go across that white river cut off walk
(14:18):
across Big Island, and somewhere out in the middle of
Big Island.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Was a huge hollow tree.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
He had cooking utensils and stuff in that tree in
a lantern, you know, care thing, and he'd spend the
night there, and then he had walked to the other
side of Big Island, and a friend of his had
take him across, and he would go to Arkansas City
and sell his furs.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
And come back. Clay was a man of nature.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
In other words, he would go out in the fall
and according to high high off the ground the hornets
nests were, he would predict whether it was going to
be a coal winner or warm winner or whatever. The
higher they were up in the tree, the colder the
winter was gonna be. If they were low, it was
gonna be a warm winner. And in those days, I
(15:07):
mean we had a we had a fill turkey season.
But before they started having that fall turkey season. All
of the guys in my dad's generation were big squirrel hunters,
and they a lot of them.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
They hunted with twenty two rifles.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
And Clay could clean squirrels like you wouldn't believe how
fast he could clean them, and wouldn't be a hair on,
but he would. He would rub his hands over those
those squirrel hides in a corner.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
To ever, how much how thick the hair.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Was, he could predict what the winter winter was gonna
be whether it was gonna be cold or not.
Speaker 6 (15:49):
So I mean he learned what he knew from nature itself,
you know.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
And you think, in this day and time, with all
this instant this communication and all this stuff, how rich
a life he had.
Speaker 6 (16:05):
People like Clay.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
Matthews were living in a world that was rapidly changing.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
It didn't change for him, but the rest of the
world around it.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
In this world we live in now, with the Internet
and Instagram and Twitter and emails and text and all that,
it makes me wonder what life ever get.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
To be like it was with him living on those isles.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's clear that when Billy thinks about turkey hunting, it's
filtered through the life of Clay Matthews. The story of
the Blue Yodler had nothing to do with the man
on the surface. That is, it happened long after Clay
had passed away, But still Billy can't talk about him
without talking about Clay.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
What an incredible life he lived.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And Billy did a good job of describing how an
individual animal at times can overtake you. As frustrating as
it can be, the older I get I realize how
unique those times are.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It makes me grateful.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
If you're near Leland, Mississippi, you're gonna want to stop
by the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. It's truly an incredible
place that will impress you.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Tell them that I sent you.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I wish every state had one of these, and I
wish every state had a Billy Johnson too. He's done
an incredible job. Our next storyteller is named Jack Hall.
He's from Tennessee. If there ever was a living turkey
hunting legend, it's him. And it's not because he had
(17:52):
a TV show, wrote a book, or got a turkey slam.
In some ways, it's a shame to even introduce you
to him in this way. I asked the man to
tell me one of his favorite turkey stories. He really
deserves more. Jack is ninety two years old. I met
him through my friend Russ Arthur, who will hear from
(18:14):
At the end. Russ says that Jack was one of
the original true mountain turkey hunters in East Tennessee. Jack
ran Hall Chevrolet in Cleveland, Tennessee. He had the resources
to travel and hunt in easier places, but he never did.
He loved the mountains. Here's Jack with some history and
(18:34):
a funny story.
Speaker 7 (18:42):
Yeah, okay, Well I'm Jack Hall and I live in Cleveland, Tennessee,
and I was born in thirty one.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I'm ninety two.
Speaker 7 (18:54):
I started hunting the mountains when I was about ten
years old when we moved here. My dad was a
big hunter and fishermen. But when he hunted, we didn't
have turkeys here, but he was shown. When I started
hunting the mountains, it was squirrel hunting. That's all we did.
We didn't have a turkey season back there. We'd run
(19:17):
those ridges, squirrel hunted. What I think of that day,
I think, why did we do that? But uh, but
we loved being into the mountains.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Then.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
I suppose when I was twenty five, thirty years old,
we started turkey hunting. Oh for many years, they only
had like a two day hunt maybe three times a year,
and that's all. That's all the turkey hunting did. I
used to hunt a lot with a fred about it
(19:47):
worked at Bowl Water and his name was Clyde Steiner.
And uh, one time I decided I'd get one on him.
I was all the time trying to pull one on him.
Be he said his family said he was gullible because
I was all the time getting something. But uh, but anyway,
I walked in this place and he was going to
(20:10):
pick me up later, you know. I told him give
me about two or three hours and come down and
pick me up. So I walked a good ways about
two miles in, and uh, what I'd done is I
had a friend about it had a bunch of eb us,
and I asked him he'd give you a couple of
evu eggs, and I bought him from me and I
(20:31):
got a gas mask, and uh, I put those m
u eggs in and packed newspapers a ready and everything
through an open shoulder and uh, and I built a
desk about that big around and I put these two
inbu exit. Before I put the exit, I said it
that they could call turkeys for about an hour, you know.
(20:52):
So it looked like the desk was hued, you know.
And then I put those two eggs in. And when
I went out, he I med eve. He said, you
do the good. I said no, but you would not
believe what I failed. And he said, what do you find?
He said, I found a nest back there. I don't
know what it is. I said that it must have
(21:15):
been a dinosaur egged there's two of them, innut it.
And he kept questioning me about that. He said, I
don't want to see them. I said, it's about a
mile or two back in there. He said, I don't care.
Let's go. I want to see it. So we took off,
walked and walked and all its uphill all the way
to it. And when we got there, you'd have to
you'd have to dore him to appreciate it, because he's fuddy. Anyway,
(21:39):
he looked at that legs. Soon as he walked up,
he said, what in the name of God?
Speaker 6 (21:47):
And I started.
Speaker 8 (21:49):
I said, I don't door.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
He's and I got down there and had a stick
and I said, he said, don't move that thinking he said,
I don't believe it's a legg He said, I believe
it's a bomb. Somebody believe there was are bombs. I said, well,
I don't believe her bomb. Anyway, I had more fun
with him about to do it at it. We took
(22:12):
him back to town and he had a workshop. We
took him out there and he kept saying, don't touch
those things, and I cared him. He said, I still
believe her bomb. I said, give me a drill. That
he fussed about that and I drilled it. He saw
it was an ad and that I got to think
(22:33):
him later, I better tell him better. That he was
older than me. Thought he'd lively have a heart attack.
So I called him and told him. But that's what
his his family told him. I heard of all the
telephone that that he said. I can't believe you always
believe him. Yeah, I told him I was afraid he'd
(22:54):
have hearts. That well. I could tell a lot of
stories about killing turkeys, but I thought i'd.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Tell what about but he just knew they were bobs.
Speaker 7 (23:07):
You know. I still would love to turkey out in
the mountains, but but uh, legs just won't let me
do it any boy. It's been about three years ago,
and I have no idea how many of you, but
I'd always killed one or two a year, you know,
but that's all you could kill, you know. I've never
(23:29):
traveled much and done in turkey out and just just oh.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Good, Jack Hall, What an incredible guy, and what a
sense of humor the old em you ag trick. And
I hadn't even told you that Jack is an expert
ballroom dancer too. Well, I hate to turn the table
(24:01):
too quickly and disorient you. But our next storyteller is
about six point five decades younger than Jack. Macy Watkins
is from Gordon, Georgia. She's an artist, a hunter, and
a fly fisherman. I think you'll enjoy her story about
gaining superpowers from a hunt. And yep, Macy is our
(24:23):
resident turkey hunting TikToker.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I'm doing to the mut My name's Macy Watkins, and
my best turkey hunting stories don't always feature the best calling,
or the ideal set up, or even the desired outcome,
but yet they are plagued with adversity, bloopers and such.
They're always colorful, never dull, and sometimes victorious. They include
(24:54):
moments like getting superpowers from electric shot. Okay, maybe that
isn't all true, but this is my story I believe,
I'll tell it how. I want to more on that later.
So I had a pretty rough season in Tennessee. Was bounding,
determined to kill a bird there, entered a tournament that
just did some other hunting in Tennessee and just came
(25:14):
up with no luck. Hunted multiple locations just came up
shorts like it wasn't meant to be until the divine
appointment of I met Slade and we got to turkey
hunt and doubled up and that was our first date.
So that was the beginning. Finally got one in Tennessee.
So after that, now I went back to Georgia. Slade
(25:36):
and calls and says, let's go back to Tennessee. I
have somewhere we can hunt. So I said, all right,
I'm spontaneous, so I just I picked up went back
to Alabama and we drove back up to Tennessee, hunting
with our friend Tyler Sanders. So us three deep in
the woods. Slade kills his bird very quickly. So but
(25:57):
my luck or lack of luck, actually, you know, it
wasn't that easy moving forward. The opportunities to kill did
not come easy. Hunted another day, had the opportunity to
kill some if they would have just taken a few
more steps, which I'm sure a lot of turkey hunters
have those similar stories. But we were right on a line,
(26:19):
probably had them ten feet in front of us, and
Slade said, hold off, we gotta do it by the book.
And I'm a person of integrity too. I enjoyed doing
things the right way. If you're gonna do something, it's
worth doing right. So we did not shoot those turkeys.
Probably could have shot a few, Yeah, So we held off.
(26:39):
So another day passed, did not get Macie her bird.
We said we could hunt the next morning. Then we
had some heavy rain coming in, so we went out
and we just we were kind of running and gunning,
and we parked. The truck started calling. We immediately heard
one fire back and I was like, oh, snap, that's
(27:00):
not that far away. And then we call again and
this turkey was coming in hot and bothered. He was
fired up. We were like, dang, that's closer. So the
time was ticking. We were on a clock, us versus
the bird. Who's gonna get there first? And it was
absolutely my last chance. Yeah, So it was probably mid morning.
(27:21):
We had hunted other spots that morning. We actually saw
this patch of cedar trees outside of the woodline. I
don't even think we actually had time to make it
into the woods, because that's how fast everything was happening.
Everything that happened from here on out is the funny part.
So there was a fence, and you know, the guys
are a little taller than me, so they easily got
(27:44):
over it, and they wanted to like me to step
in their hands and get over the fence, but I
was like, no, no, that's too hard. I'm just jumping.
It's not even that high. Anyways. Well, I backed up,
I got a running start, and I ate my words,
but after that, I also ate dirt that I tripped
over the fence. But like I said, there's clumsiness and
(28:08):
adversity plagues all with my turkey hunts. I'm a very
clumsy person. And one thing I always say that it's
not a turkey hunt for me until I saw until
I busted. Doesn't matter how short or long a turkey
hunt is, I'm usually gonna fall just because I don't know.
Maybe that's my trademark. But the fence caught my rubber
(28:31):
light boot. I almost made it. It's just this much
that got me and I hit the ground and the
guys just start laughing at me. I'm like, y'all, shut up,
we got a bird.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
To go kill.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Quit messing around. They were just laughing. I'm like, we're
we were on the clock. Quit laughing.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And we finally got her composure, and when we ran
over to the patch of cedar trees. I mean it
didn't take long after that. We only had a minute
or two once we got set up. Then we just
finished the deal of the bird came in and just
if I had one word to describe how that turkey
looked was haggard. He was just road hard and put
(29:14):
up wet, and actually he was wet because it had
started raining pretty good at that point. And that's really
when I become one with the turkey, because at that point,
after three days of hunting hard and coming up short,
so tired and getting rained on and my hopes were down,
became one with the turkey because I was also road
(29:35):
hard and put up wet. So he came in. I
guess he was like, so where's this hen I was
here and and just oblivious to us. They're hiding. And
now I pulled the trigger and got it done. We
had some high fives, and when I say I absolutely
dirt rolled him, I did. We were on a decline,
so made a successful shot, rolled down the hill a
(29:58):
little bit, and we were pretty high. It was awesome turkey.
So when I kill a turkey, I usually just can't
believe it. I'm surprised and excited every time, I mean,
mouth opens just I usually laugh out of just pure happiness.
There's just such joy in it, especially when there's so
much adversity, so many things that might go wrong, coming
(30:20):
up short in Tennessee with all my hunts there, it
just makes the moment sweeter.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Lots of high fives, hugs.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Picking people up, yelling at the same time. I'd say,
so Macy finally got her bird. It's an amazing moment.
And then we headed out of the woods having my
bird over my shoulder. But what stood in the way
of getting back to the truck was that dang fence
and the guys got over it. And this is a
(30:49):
fence that we had permission to hot, by the way,
I just want to point that out. So I got
to the fence, I'm like, well, that fence ain't hot.
I already touched it when I fell over it. But
I made one step over it with my turkey, and
I'll be dan if it didn't shock me. And I
screamed so loud, and Slade was in the truck laughing
(31:14):
so hard. Tyler, who was trying to help me over,
was laughing. And you know, like when people laugh at you,
but that you're there laughing a little harder than you're laughing,
So I.
Speaker 8 (31:25):
Was a little embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
But anyways, I really feel like that day I gained superpowers,
some kind of turkey hunting superpowers from my electric voltage
that I got shocked with. And the thing is, that's
not a lie, because that was my last bird of
the season last year. So time will tell. If you
(31:48):
see me out there on the Dagone killing spree just
having a record year this year, you'll know Macy's got
something that the rest of us don't have. And that's
because I gained superpowers that day. This story ends in
a trout stream in North Carolina. So later that week
I went back home, and I love trout fishing. That's
(32:09):
my mother passion turkey hunting, trout fishing, or what I
was put on earth to do. I tied a bunch
of flies that week, and I took a bunch of
feathers from my turkey and tied some pheasant tail niphs,
which I affectionately called my turkey tail niphs. We do
a bunch of euro niphing in North Georgia and the streams,
And if you look at my page, you'll see that
I catch the occasional giant trout because I do have
(32:31):
access to a few trophy streams, but my passion is
going way up in the mountains, way past cell service
and catching wild rainbows, brook trout with your native to
our area and brown trout. So I almost got my
Cherokee slam. That's where I was fishing in Cherokee, North Carolina,
not far from my house. I caught every fish that
(32:53):
day on flies that I had tied with my Tennessee bird,
which is just all encompassing full so moment, I feel
like turkey hunting makes me a well rounded outdoorsman, but
also a resourceful and more appreciative angler.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Thank you, miss Macye for the story, and we'll see
if those big talking superpower predictions come true. It's go
time and showtime in the spring woods.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Right now. I'll be paying attention and I'll be rooting
for you.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Be prepared to be disoriented even yet again as we
move across the state line to the great state of
North Carolina to our next storyteller, David Joy is as
country as cornbread. And if you lined up ten people
and we're asked to guess which one was an award
(33:49):
winning novelist who just got off a European book tour.
I bet you wouldn't pick him, but you'd be wrong.
If you didn't, you might have didicted that he was
a ridge running Southern Appalachian turkey hunter by the length
of his legs. He's a tall fella and a bona
fide turkey hunter. Here's David's story and it involves a
(34:12):
man getting shot.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
So I guess one of the things that I like
most about turkey hunting is that you have the potential
to develop like a partnership with another person that you're
hunting with. And in some ways that differs from other
pursuits in the outdoors. So, you know, especially like whitetail
hunting or something where you're you know, spending a lot
of time in a tree by yourself. With turkey hunting,
(34:37):
if you can find the right partner, it serves as
a tremendous advantage. And I've been very fortunate to develop
a relationship with with just an incredible sportsman who's probably
about twenty five years my senior, but just a hell
of a turkey hunter. I mean, it's killed hundreds of turkeys,
(34:58):
and you know, through the years I've had. I've had
the chance to hunt with him a lot, and he
and how I have kind of developed a relationship where
he knows what I'm going to do and I know
what he's going to do, and because of that, we
have the opportunity to kill a lot of birds that
we probably couldn't have killed by ourselves. And so really
that's become one of the things that I look forward
(35:20):
to most every Turkey season, is just spending time in
the woods with him, because I know one day I'm
not going to have that. So, you know, jumped to
last year. This was real early in the season because
I was hunting in South Carolina, just over the line,
and I was up on a mountain. I was hunting
by myself, and I had been on this bird multiple
(35:42):
days and it had woked me every day, and it
kind of played out the same way this morning. And
I sent this buddy of mine a text message, you know,
telling him what had happened, and he texted back, I've
been shot. And I immediately thought he was joking, you know,
I thought he was just making it up, and you know,
(36:05):
I sent something back and he said he said he
was at the hospital and that he was he was
going to be fine, but that he had been shot.
And where I was on the mountain, it was kind
of an odd spot because typically you don't have service
in the mountains, but I had very good service there,
and so my immediate thought was, Okay, he's safe. But
(36:25):
I knew he was at the far eastern end of
North Carolina, and we live in the mountains of North Carolina.
So my immediate thought was his wife, And it was like,
how is his wife going to get down there to
the hospital? But so eventually she she reached out and
said she was fine, she was headed that way, and
and that was that. Uh So, so what wound up
(36:47):
happening was was that another hunter shot this buddy of
mine thinking that he was a turkey, and he had
just enough time to kind of roll on his side
so that he took the majority of the shot into
his ribs, his shoulder. He was shot with long beard
copper plated number fives, and somehow or another, you know,
(37:08):
just by the grace of God, it none of it
got him in the head. And thank god they were shooting,
you know, copper plated lead instead of tungsten, because because
I think it would have been a different story. I
think he'd be dead. So he immediately, you know, is
at the hospital. They're working to get the shot out
of him. They put him on antibiotics. He comes home
(37:28):
pretty much that next day, but within a week there
was a secondary infection that started that luckily another doctor
caught and you know, they wind up working on him
and get him healed. But you know, that doctor told
him that if he hadn't taken care of that secondary infection,
it would have killed him. It would have traveled to
his brain that had killed him. So all of this
(37:51):
is going on, and turkey hunting is kind of out
the window, you know, And and I'm devastated for him,
but I'm thankful that he's alive. And so my turkey
season last year was real funny, you know. But I
decided I was gonna hunt with an old Winchester Model
twelve because that's what he always hunted with. So I
hunted all season with an old Nickel still nineteen twenty
(38:16):
eight Winchester Model twelve twenty gage. So time goes on
and through the month of April, and I'm you know,
men are not wanting to share their feelings, so it
was always hard to try and you know, feel him
out on where he was mentally. And so I spent
a lot of time talking to his wife, and she
(38:37):
kept saying he needs to get back in the woods,
and I thought she was right. But at the same time,
that's not one of them things you can pressure somebody
to do, you know. I mean, he had just been
shot and thank god, you know, didn't die. But you know,
that's an incredibly traumatic experience that was obviously going to
linger pretty heavy. And so it was this delicate balance
(38:59):
and act of not wanting to push him but also
knowing that where he needed to be was in the
Turkey woods. And so we started having those conversations and
I just kept telling him, you know that if it
made him more comfortable, I wouldn't carry a gun. You know,
We'll just go in the woods together. And you know,
he didn't really want to do that, and you know,
(39:22):
I'd almost giving up on asking him, and out of
the blue, he sends me this message one evening and
he said, I've got a bird pinned down and I said, well,
let's go chase him. He said, you know, he said,
we'll meet me at the house the next morning, and
so I did and we rode out through the mountains.
It was first day we hunted, you know, together last season.
(39:46):
We head out this ridge, you know, to try and
hear if this bird is roosted where he thinks it'll be.
And we get out there, and sure enough, that bird
starts hammering across the valley before daylight, and you know,
I know that it's on. I know, you know, Raymond's
got him pinned down, and I know for a fact
he's going to know the landscape and know the moves
(40:07):
we need to make to get on him. So it's super,
super steep, and we just drop off the side of
this mountain through a bunch of laurels and rodeo and
get down into the bottom along this field, and the
birds are roosted at the bottom of that field, and
we kind of make a plan on what we're going
to do. And right about the time that I was
(40:30):
going to go sit at my tree, I could just
since that he was really nervous. It was something I'd
never experienced with him before, because he knows how safe
I am with guns. He's been around with me with
guns all the time.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I always tell him that when the gun's loaded, I
tell him when it's unloaded, and he just started asking
a lot of questions about the gun, and so I
told him, I said, Raymond, I said, I'm gona unload
my gun. I said, I'm not going to touch it.
I said, I'm gonna get behind you, and I said,
I'm not going to touch it.
Speaker 6 (41:00):
I just wanted him to hunt.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
So we start calling to this bird and they pitch
out into that field, and they had a bunch of
hens with them, and for the most part, we spent
the morning, you know, calling to Noah Vail, trying to
call a bird that had everything he wanted. And so,
you know, we spent the morning calling at him, and
every once in a while he'd answer, but never made
(41:22):
a move up there towards just just stayed in the
bottom of that field. And about mid morning, probably around ten,
those hens started to leave the field to go to nest.
When they did that, Tom started following them, and I
had already made a move further away from Raymond. My
plan was to try and pull those birds up to us,
(41:44):
and that that field made a real hard like a
hard right dog leg back up above us, and so
my plan was to try and make it sound like
there had been birds that moved up that field that
they couldn't see. And so I was up there and
I was calling and they were still answering me. And
it was late season. So I started gobbling on a
(42:04):
box call, and every time i'd gobble on that box call,
they'd answer me. But so those birds are working up
the field, and as turkeys you know, always do, they
did not cooperate. They went the opposite direction and they
went up the left hand side, and that gobbler just
just kept on, you know, gobbling with his hens up
(42:25):
up through the woods. And I thought, well, this is over.
And about that time I seen a turkey pop up
over the hill in that field, and he was on
the right hand side, and he was coming in silent.
I think he was probably a subordinate bird, you know,
that had broken off from them others, but was coming
to check out all that noise he'd been listening to
(42:47):
all morning. And so he pops up and he starts
walking through that field. I mean, just gorgeous. The sun's
just hitting him perfect, and I'm watching him work up
through that field and I think any minute he's gonna
get in front of Raymond, and you know, and Raymond's
gonna smoke him. And it gets to the point where
I'm convinced that he's past him. And all I'm thinking is,
(43:11):
you've let that bird get past you because you want
me to kill it, because that's something he would do.
That's just him.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
He's always like he's always thinking of others before he's
thinking of himself. So I'm thinking, you idiot, man, You've
let this bird get by you, and now we've got
to hope it gets all the way up here to me.
And right about the time that that that thought is
settling in my mind, I don't hear Raymond, but I
know he must have called because that bird threw his
head up and he just walloped him out there in
(43:41):
that field. And I don't know what it is about
that bird that really sticks out in my mind. I
guess it's it's more the friendship than the bird. And
I think it's it's just a testament to, you know,
what the outdoors and what the sporting life means to
people who can't live.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
With out it.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
You know, it's a testament to that good medicine that
is spending time in the outdoors.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
That was a good story. David and a serious one.
I think you should write a novel about a man
getting shot by a stranger in the backwall turkey hunting,
and the shooter escapes on.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
A crooked hoofed mule.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Years later, the shot turkey hunter unknowingly saves the life
of the mule trapped in swirling Mississippi River Eddie. The
steed presumably belonged to the mysterious shooter. We don't know
who he is, and the beast has a unique brand
on his left haunch BP three.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
But unfortunately, the mule dies three days later.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
And I mean, it's a long story and David would
do such a better job telling it. But it's kind
of a plot twist and weird. But the shooter was
actually the man's brother, and they didn't know about each
other because of the father's double life, and their father,
a turkey hunter, had accidentally told them both about the
same ridged a turkey hunt on where they faithfully met
(45:08):
on the morning of the shooting.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Oh my, at the drama, And the.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Mysterious brand stood for black panther three because three generations
of those Hillbillies believe they'd seen a black mountain lion.
Like I said, David, would tell it better anyway. In
all seriousness, the thought of getting shot turkey hunting is
a nightmare. And if you don't know much about turkey hunting,
(45:33):
it's a unique hunt because we roam around in the
woods making the calls of a turkey without any hunter
orange on. Because turkeys can see color, most firearms hunting
requires people to wear hunter's orange to be visible. Hunting
accidents are rare but possible. But honestly, to me, the
other version of the nightmare is being the one who
(45:56):
made the mistake and shot someone. I think about that
more than getting shot. Be careful out there, folks. We're
now going to go back to Leland, Mississippi, to the
Wildlife Heritage Museum to meet our next storyteller who is
from the Delta. His name is Roy Stubbs, and he
(46:17):
worked for the gas company. Roy is in his eighties
and it's clear that he has a unique appreciation for
the wild turkey. I was so glad to be able
to capture his story in a little bit about his history.
Speaker 6 (46:34):
My name's Roy Stubbs.
Speaker 9 (46:36):
I lived in the Mississippi Delta and that was the
place to be if you had the opportunity to hunt turkeys,
especially along the Missippi Roup. My desire for turkey hunting
started at early age when a friend of ours and
the town I lived in but aught Misissippi with keller
(46:58):
turkey and bring it by when if we'd have our
little Wednesday morning at school, and he would bring his
turkey in and lay it down and talk about the turkey,
and then he'd take a leave off of a tree
of some kind and use that as its call. And
so it kind of stayed with me, and so I
(47:18):
fast forward then several years and I had the opportunity
to become a member of a honting club along the
mist every rubber and there was lots of turkeys, lots
of turkeys, and the timeframe were talking about it's a
late nineteen sixties, so it'd been around those turkeys for
(47:41):
the first time in the woods. I just had this
desire building. But it hunting turkeys just so much different
than the hunting anything else. You just have to have
a lot of knowledge. So I had a friend of
mine there was a barber in a small town near me,
and I used to go and set any and talk
(48:01):
with him. He made his own malcohols and he taught
me a lot about calling turkeys. He taught me how
to make a malcohol even and I hammered out a
piece of aluminum and some rubber and I made my
first first turkey I killed in nineteen sixty seven. I
(48:21):
called it up with my mouth call.
Speaker 6 (48:24):
Later on I developed the weight.
Speaker 9 (48:27):
That used my natural voice, and I used it most
of all time until I got too old too. Turkey
hunters have a bond all across the country. That's it's
just a part of hunters and camaraderie, the love we
all have for each other and for the sport itself.
(48:50):
The turkey is a magnificent bird and it's not to
be taken lightly that when you could kill, to thank
the Lord for naming you have this opportunity and his creation.
So in nineteen eighty four, had I lived in Greenville, Mississippi,
(49:13):
which is right on Misssippi River. My club I hunted
on with just a few minutes north of town, and
so started the season off and had a turkey that
has caught my attention right away. The main line Levy,
if you've never been there. This runs from Memphis to Vicksburg.
(49:34):
There's dikes on it we call dikes that are running
and they're there for to control the water flow as
it flows on toward the Gulf and so on. These
we traveled on these dikes. There our road on top
of them, and you can drive down for you woods
and most of them, a lot of them go all
the way to the bank of the Mississippi. So we
(49:56):
ride down them in Stoton, call and the turkey answer.
Speaker 6 (49:59):
We get to they get a hunt on.
Speaker 9 (50:02):
So this particularly year started off with this turkey. And
I noticed the first few times I went, I'd drive
down there.
Speaker 6 (50:10):
He would cop them.
Speaker 9 (50:11):
So I said, okay, I know where you are, I
know how to give you. Well that that started my
season long turkey honk. So I would go out and
call that turkey in he would gobble, and so we
would get in. I'd move, he'd move, and literally literally
(50:33):
I would go every day and want that turkey. With
my job there I had that time. I'd get all
my men working and I'd sneak off and get my truck,
drive up there and call and he'd answer me and
I'd go hunting. So we did this day in and
(50:53):
day out. It's the weather permitted and sun Sundays off
mostly well, we came down it's gonna be the last day,
last day of trucky season. Well, unfortunately, on the last
day of trucky season, my wife had us a social
event to go to. Well, I thought I had a train,
(51:17):
but she slept a scept through on men. So I'm
thinking about my turkey. I got one last chance, one
last chance to get him. And so I had many
encounters through the year. I'm crawling up on snakes. I
had deer walk up to me check and see what
I'm doing. I mean, coons follow some of armidellas because
(51:42):
I did a lot of belly crawling that food that year,
trying to crawl up on this turkey. He was a
smart he's smart smart, and he.
Speaker 6 (51:51):
Was really fun to hunt.
Speaker 9 (51:53):
And it was just calling experience and learning experience that
I'll never forget. So the last days and so I
get there bout the middle afternoon and I start my hunt.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
I got a plane.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
I know what.
Speaker 9 (52:08):
I know what he's done the last few times I
haunt him. So I've come in a different direction, changed
everything up, got a different call. But I was gonna
have to do my crawling, so I eased up and
kept going going, and he's kept coming a little bit.
Finally I had him in range. I guess one of
my disadvantages was I was laying down and it's hard
(52:31):
to chew the gun hold it up. Besides the turkey
ahead and anyway, I got it all set, got all ready,
got my gun up, and just looking at that turkey,
just the magnificence of him, and I already sometimes think
the Good Lord has a hand and who we are
and what we do, and he also has control over
(52:55):
what happens in the woods so many times with us,
and I'd rather blame the Lord, I think sometimes than
blame myselfthing not being able to make it, you know,
make the kill or whatever. So very carefully I had
got my gun up and got my head down on it.
(53:16):
I thought, just right, which is difficult to do laying
down and not can't move.
Speaker 6 (53:21):
You can't move.
Speaker 9 (53:22):
So I get everything just right. I pulled the trigger,
and the turkey had expression on his face. So he
just lifted up and flew right over the top of me,
about five feet over my head, and he said goodbye
for the day, for the season.
Speaker 6 (53:42):
And I got up.
Speaker 9 (53:43):
And I said tip my head to him, and I said,
thank you, thank you for a break. Season, and I
think that Turkey today, if he's in Turkey Heaven, I know.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
What a classic gentleman overflowing with appreciation for just getting
to chase one and who knew there was a Turkey Heaven?
These boys from Mississippi are just made different. And I'm
extending a genuine Bear Grease hat tip to mister Roy Stuves.
(54:19):
Our final storyteller is Russ Arthur from Cleveland, Tennessee. If
Russ's name sounds familiar, it's because he was on our
genuine Outlaw series of Bear Grease episodes fifty two through
fifty six a couple years ago. Russ was the undercover
agent who hunted with Louisdale Edwards in western Arkansas in
(54:41):
the nineteen nineties. Louisdale said Russ was the best turkey
caller he'd ever heard. Russ is one of those guys
who has a story much bigger than a single turkey story,
and it was an honor to sit with him and
hear this one about his late father, Jim Arthur.
Speaker 8 (55:02):
Well, my name is Russ Arthur. I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
in a community called Hickson, Tennessee, right outside of Chattanooga.
I was blessed to have a father who was a
passionate outdoorsman. My dad killed his first turkey in nineteen
sixty one. Of course, I was only two years old
at that time, so I don't remember that. But he
(55:26):
would always hunt on this management area where there was
only the season. Back then in the sixties, there was
only one or two days a week that you could hunt.
There were very limited counties in the state of Tennessee
that had turkeys. He would always come home and talk
about his adventures. The hunts were normally Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
(55:48):
and he would always go up on a Thursday in camp.
He had an old station wagon fifty something mile station
wagon and he would go up and camp out of it,
and he would normally hunt on Friday and Saturday and
come home Saturday, even for church on Sunday. As a kid,
growing up seven eight nine year old kid, I could
not wait to hear the stories.
Speaker 6 (56:09):
And it was later in.
Speaker 8 (56:10):
Life that I figured out that my dad had done
a very noble thing, and that is he took the
curiosity of a kid and turned it into a passion.
Because he would give me just enough information about what
he was doing where it was at, and I had
this this mystical place in my mind that I wasn't
(56:32):
old enough to go to yet. And he didn't drag
me along as a six year old or a seven
year old or an eight year old. He waited till
I got old enough that I could I could handle
a single barrel, and he started taking me. So I
had this passion to my dad. And one of my
favorite turkey hunting stories will have to go back to.
(56:54):
And this is if I get emotional, I'm sorry. Well,
he had an old call and he called it sweet Thing,
and it was and I've got that call with me today.
He bought it for I think it was three dollars
from a gentleman by the name of Earl Dishram. As
a ten, eleven, twelve thirteen year old kid, I had
(57:17):
heard all these names, the Earl Dishram, the Bobby Card,
the Jack Hawks, the Charlie Elliotts, the Jen Denton, the
Dan Layman's, the Glenn Honeycutts. These were all people's names
that were these true turkey hunters. And I was kind
of like a little kid that was hearing about a gunfighter.
(57:37):
You know, these were legends you know, when I first
started getting to come and stay at camp, I wouldn't
meet all these guys. And we had a place in
the mountains that he had taken me to the year before,
and we'd heard a few turkeys. And I was thirteen
this particular year, and I was carrying a single barrel
twenty ga and he said, sign, I'm gonna take you
(57:59):
on this ridge. And there was an old trail. He
called it the Indian Trail, and it was just a
hunter trail, nothing that's marked on a map. And he
took me up there when I was thirteen, and he
set me in a gap and he said, you stay here.
I'm going to go on out the Indian Trail. And
after about two hours, if you hadn't heard anything, come
(58:20):
on out the trail. I will either be on the
trail or I'll put a rock in the middle of
the trail and draw you an era with a rock
telling you which direction I went, and you wait right there. Well,
that was our way of communicating. So I'll admit I'm thirteen.
I'm sitting there. I cannot wait for it to get daylight.
(58:40):
And I thought it would never get daylight. And I
never heard anything now I'm going to have to back
up again. The only call that he bought me what
was called a lynch jet turkey call. I still got
it today. In my opinion, it was a terrible call.
It was a very small slate calls insect in wood
and had a burnt wooden peg and it was good
(59:01):
for a cluck or a pr but that was about it.
So an hour after daylight, I couldn't stand it. I
needed to go find Daddy. I was ready for some action.
So I ease out the trail and I get, oh,
probably three or four hundred yards from where I had left,
and I hear a turkey just hammering, and I mean,
it's just hammering its hat off, and I think I
can call that turkey up. You know, I've sat with
(59:24):
my dad and I watched this last year. I can
do this. And I set down on that call, and
it was terrible. And that turkey gobble and and it gobbled,
and I just kept doing it, and it gobbled every time,
and then it started going away. Next thing I know,
(59:47):
I heard something coming up through there. It was my
dad and he was he was frustrated I'd run that
turkey off of him.
Speaker 6 (59:53):
He had it.
Speaker 8 (59:54):
He was getting ready to shake hands with it.
Speaker 6 (59:56):
He came.
Speaker 8 (59:57):
He came right straight from where that turkey was gobbling,
and all he said was, he said, son, He said,
we need to work on your calling, you know. But
I've got to tell this story if you think that
there's not a higher being. Ten years ago tomorrow, my
dad passed on February tenth, twenty fourteen. Well, we were
(01:00:22):
getting ready to bury him, and he had left in
his workshop. He was very meticulous. There was a wooden
box full of notepads. They were all the same making model.
And I reached in. I said, I've never seen this before.
And I did not know that my dad had kept
a diary. And the literally the day we were burying
(01:00:46):
my dad, I found this in his workshop and it
was as if he had set that out for us
to find. I reached in and I pulled out and
I said, what is this? And I opened it up
and it was a journal. And when I opened that up,
it turned till April twelfth, nineteen seventy two, and I
(01:01:09):
got to read about what he thought about that morning
when he left me in that gap. I closed it up,
I put it back, and I'm not read anymore since.
So one of these days I'm going to take that
and go the mountains and go the cabin and read it.
(01:01:32):
But it was pretty amazing that the very day that
he left me for the first time in the mountains,
that I pulled one of the seventy two books out
and turned that date.
Speaker 6 (01:01:46):
So what did he say?
Speaker 8 (01:01:48):
It was just talking about how proud he was, and
I didn't be Honestly, I didn't read it all. But
when I recognized where it was at, what we had,
what he was writing about, it would just overwhelmed me.
I closed it up. Well, But anyway, that was a
great man, what.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
An incredible story in man. Jim Arthur was the first
chapter president of the Chattanooga National Wild Turkey Federation Chapter,
and in two thousand and three he was inducted into
the Tennessee Turkey Hunters Hall of Fame. Russ said there
was a time when the state was trapping turkeys out
of areas where Jim hunted, and many people were mad
(01:02:46):
about it. But around the campfire, Jim would advocate to
his peers that this was a short term sacrifice for
a long term game. He was influential as a grassroots
spokesman for the Wild Turkey relocation, which ended up being
the salvation of the wild turkeys. I truly love these
(01:03:07):
Turkey Stories episodes, and, like mister Roy Stubbs said, turkey
hunters share a unique bond around the unique bird. I
can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. We've
got another Turkey Stories episode coming up. We put our
heart and soul into these episodes documenting the stories of
(01:03:28):
our collective history. Be sure to check out Brenton E's
Mississippi River Expedition film on the Meat Eater YouTube channel,
and if you're out west, check out the Meat Eater
Live tour schedule. I'm gonna be there at every show.
Host
Clay Newcomb
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