00:00:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life.
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Speaker 2: I’m your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trotlining and.
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Speaker 1: Just general country living. I want you to stay a.
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Speaker 2: While as I share my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I’ve got some stories to share. From Corner to Corner. It’s girl Week here on This Country Life, or what my wife Alexis and daughter Bailey called just another week, but we’re celebrating some stories featuring gals from Washington Domain. We’re going corner to corner and there’s no better time to start than riding now. This story comes in from Washington States, very on Tyler Grosley and Tyler’s very own little girl named Annie. Y’all know I have twice as many girls as I do boys in my begettings, and I’m always a little partial to talking about girl power. I’m surrounded by strong women in this house and at work, and I struggled just to get them to do what I say. And by struggle, I mean I don’t even try anyway. Tyler’s been putting folks in new cars up and over there in Yakamall for many moons, and a little over nine years ago, the Groslies were blessed with little Annie, who acquired the nickname Hoot on the day the stork dropped her off. I’m gonna let her daddy tell you the rest of that, So when Tyler’s words in my voice, here we go. Hoot is my daughter Annie. She’s eight years old. She was given the nickname Hoot on the day she was born because of the adorable little hooting snores that she made while she was sleeping. She has been raised in the woods, and I’ve carried her in a backpack on pheasant and quail hunts, fishing, backpacking, overnight shooting bowls in the yard, and literally a hundred miles one summer when I signed up for the back Country Hunters and Anglers Hiked to Hunt Challenge. She has been my constant companion, my little outdoor sidekick. I’m semi ashamed of how many packs of raben she’s eating that I cooked in a jet.
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Speaker 1: Ball on the trail or the tailgate of my truck.
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Speaker 2: I’m not gonna say she throws a fit when I leave for a multi day hunt, but I’ll say she sure does count about.
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Speaker 1: It for there. So she has been itching.
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Speaker 2: To go with my hunting stories and tales of camp and helping me cut and wrap me have always given her a case of the foemos. So I decided this year that eight years old was old enough for her hunter safety course, and we signed her up for Washington’s online Hunter’s Education in January. She worked her little tailoff, getting through the course one piece at a time, thirteen different segments and tests a bit too much for kids.
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Speaker 1: If you ask me.
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Speaker 2: But by mid March we were ready to get her into a firearm field test, and luckily, a friend of a friend is an instructor and he had us out.
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Speaker 1: To his home in Issue to test.
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Speaker 2: Two weeks before the start of youth Turkey season, we went to the local game office to get who her very first official big game license. I wish I would have thought to take a picture of her walking out with a satisfied grin on her face.
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Speaker 1: Holding the tag and her license.
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Speaker 2: And now on the way home, I asked her my only burning question, WoT do you want to hunt?
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Speaker 1: Easy?
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Speaker 2: Out of the trailer in the place with lots of turkeys, Or do you want to pack in and sleep on the ground and hunt turkeys that if we bump them they’ll run off and we may not see them again for a day or two. She said, Dad, I want to hunt them hard like you do. That’s my girl. The spot I had picked out is about three miles from the truck, big rolling sage brush covered hills and rock escarpments, with a tiny little trickle of a creek in the bottom, and the only trees for at least a mile and a half in all directions. My lab puppy and I met face to face with a lion on a fresh deer kill while I was scouted in the area a week before her season. Now I shared that story with Hoot, which made her a tiny bit nervous about our plan to hike in and camp. Luckily for her, it rained like the dickens the day we headed out, my tent being floorless, we opted to sleep in the truck and head out in the dark, and we hiked and sat, called, and hiked and sat and called some more. Not a peep, not even a glimpse of a bird just under eight miles underfoot. That day was nothing but some elk ivories off of carcass and memories, and so it went for the next three days. I think who was beginning to doubt that wild turkeys existed and I didn’t have the ability to produce one, and frankly, so was I. I let her take the first three days off you seasoned off from school, and I think she was glad to go back. We had another two day hunt plan the coming weekend, and Buddy, I was panicked. I was digging around on on ax and calling the game department, friends and asking anyone I could find for permission to hunt their property. I felt like if I couldn’t get a gobbler in front of or at least get her to hear gobble, I’d lose her on future hunts forever. I had to get her a bird, and it was getting time to hit the easy button for her then lightning it. Uncle Jerry, good old uncle Jerry, not really my uncle, but one of my dad’s childhood friends. He’s got a tiny piece of property right in the middle of prime turkey territory.
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Speaker 1: I called him up, Why yes, you can take Annie down to hunt a turkey?
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Speaker 2: Fast forward two days later and I’m waking Hoot up at four am. We walk out into the dark and I owl right from the trailer.
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Speaker 1: Nothing walk a two mile loop.
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Speaker 2: Up and down the hills, creeping through the trees. Again, not a people hoots. Turkey enthusiasm meter had taken a noseedie from ten to about a four. Her little boots are dragging a little more with the weight of defeat. I’m internally away and options jump in the truck. Should we drive forty minutes and get into the trees in another spot and set.
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Speaker 1: Up the decoys, hope for the best. I just I don’t know. Then I look down at my little.
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Speaker 2: Trooper and I can see the weirdness in her eyes, and she’s getting that too much fun on the ferris wheel. Look. Anyone that has taken the kid fishing and I produced a fish in fifteen minutes knows what I’m talking about.
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Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 2: She hadn’t complained once in all our days out. She’s even held my hand while we walked and thanked me for taking her and including her. I just don’t know how much more she could take. I really have no ideas left. My own hopes were burning low. So I decided that maybe it’s best to save her legs for the next day and stake out a spot in the oak grove, set up the decoys, do some blind calling, and wait the morning until breakfast. We picked a spot in front of a cluster of scrub oaks, a pretty good view, and I set up my little blind I crawled out fifteen yards and set up the decoys. Crawling back to who we started to get her settled behind her four ten on my lap, and we were rustling around a bit when she stops me, Dad, did you hear that? I’m deaf in my right ear? And I say, no, what you hear? I think I heard a gobble? She whispered back. Now I have my doubts. I ask which way, and she points out across the flat to the east, exactly where I would not want Tom to come from uphill to us and across the road to boot Lord.
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Speaker 1: Please don’t let him be there. Well, I gave a couple of soft clucks on my red and.
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Speaker 2: Gobble far off. My heart does a backflip in my chest. She turns up and looks at me from my lap. I can’t put the words to the gleam in the spark I saw in her eye. I could not pin for to Tom’s gobbles because the sound was bouncing all around off the little knobs and heels. And finally he shows himself and came in from the west, right in front of us, one hundred yards away and all henned up. And he slow played us for over an hour, and I slow played him right back, soft clucks and purrs and scratching in the leaves. He strutted, he spit, and he drunk the whole show over, over stepping an inch in our direction at a time. The whole time, I could feel Hoot’s excitement. She was wrapped into his every move, smoothly following him with the barrel of her gun and vibrating in my lap with anticipation. And then finally he made up his mind to come in. I whispered to Hoop that the green light to take the shot was when he hit the end of a down log twenty.
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Speaker 1: Five yards away. He never made it there.
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Speaker 2: Thirty He cut to our left and started this whole show again over by the tree line, fifty yards out, bobbing in and out of trees, never giving her a clear shot. Finally I got him to turn back our way, and he hit a clear spot and I said take him. And I could feel the pounding of her little heart against my chest, and she hesitated a little longer than my over anxious self could handle.
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Speaker 1: Take him hoop and we’re gonna lose him.
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Speaker 2: Boom that tom commenced to flop and she jumped off my lap. I stood up and I grabbed her in a huge hug, tears welling up in my eyes, and we both ran to the down turkey. No need to stand on his neck. The TSS had done its job. My wife heard the shooting and the shouting and called from the camp, and we signaled where we were, and she made her way over to join us, and he kneeled down next to her turkey and place to hand on him and stroked his feathers. My wife and I stood quietly and we just let her take it all in. Finally, I knelt down beside her and we all held hands and thanked God for the hunt and the turkey for his bravery and his life. We carried him back to the blind. We took some great photos and we high five and we hugd some more. Who is very proud of that turkey. It’s beard is two inches longer than my personal best at ten and three quarters. She’s proud to have provided food for our family and to help cook the schnitzel that she loves. I look back on that hunt finally, and I think about the relief and elation of that moment, of the shot.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: In the first gobble.
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Speaker 2: Mostly, though, I think about who, her drive, and her effort and her pluck she put nearly fourteen miles under her little boots, that for that moment, she suffered cold and silent, fruitless days rain, early mornings and late nights, walking off steep rock faces in the dark, and braving a pitch black ridgeline that she knew held the line just a week before, weeks and hours in front of the screen studying what the state requires her to be a license hunter.
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Speaker 1: I’m very proud to have been able to give that hunt to and.
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Speaker 2: I’m more proud of her sense of accomplishment, the confidence she earned in those days that she will carry with her throughout her life, Her will to keep going even when it was awful, her desire to work hard, to stick it out and fight for those things I know are the real trophies that she claimed on that oak flat, And when I look at her smile and the pictures of that day, I can see them all. Well, Tyler grossliff yaking my Washington, you ain’t the only fellow that’s proud of her. As a matter of fact, there’s two down here in our south that have been smiling since we first read that story.
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Speaker 1: And that’s me and Old Whale. Thank you for sending it in.
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Speaker 2: We’ve got Skip Bushy to thank for this one. Skip’s making tracks all over Buckfield, Maine. Buckfield the town almost two thousand folks. He was settled in seventeen seventy six by a fur trapper named Benjamin Spalton. Doubtful old Benjamin would have had any idea that two hundred and fifty years later, last Tuesday, March the third, that the town office would be closed for the installation of some much.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: Needed new windows.
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Speaker 2: They made up fourth oh, I stayed open until nine pm on March the fifth. I learned that from their website. Nice job Buckfield. Anyway, I got some friends up in Maine, like Andrew McLean, and I’m on the market and I’m adding to that list as we go along, like Skip and his crew, this is a good one, and then Skip’s words in my voice, here we go. Years ago, my son Ryan and I were lucky enough to get drawn for a fall moose hunt in our.
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Speaker 1: Home state of Maine.
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Speaker 2: Out of the twenty wildlife Management districts, we were both chosen for Zone five. Ryan’s permit was for a bull in late September, while my permit was for a cow in the early November. Hitting the moose lottery is a life event. It is months of anticipation, preparation, scouting and making memories, and a lot of research and talking with friends familiar with the zone. We reserved lodging with the local bear hunting guide.
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Speaker 1: The camp was.
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Speaker 2: Perfect for our needs. Bunk houses were modished but everything we needed. The main lodge is where we shared a kitchen, dining and living room facilities, and we were surprised to find there was only one other moose hunting party that would be sharing the camp with us. We had a small group, just my son, my wife, my mother in law who was doing the camp cooking, and also had a friend join us for a couple of days. The other hunting party consisted of a teenage girl, Amanda and her dad, and a grandpa and an uncle filling out their crew. The season started Monday morning with unseasonably warm temperatures. We hunted in the north woods of Maine from the crack of dawn to dark. No moose sightings by either hunting party on the first day, but hopes were still high as we shared our stories of the day with the other family over dinner. The weather continued to test our patients. As temperatures hit eighty degrees. The moose were hunkered down and not moving. As days go by, the thought of the long ride home with an empty truck bed starts to weigh on your mind, and by Thursday morning, you could cut the tension with a knife.
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Speaker 1: As we traveled the.
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Speaker 2: Dirt roads and glass cuttings and called from the perimeter of swamps, it was late morning when we heard the faint grunt.
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Speaker 1: Of a responding bull. As the bull approached, we caught.
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Speaker 2: A glimpse of his massive anters as he worked his way through twelve foot high fir trees, grunting every step. The bull turned about one hundred yards from where he would have presented us with a shot, and all we could do was watch as he circled down wind in the cover of the planted trees, never showing.
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Speaker 1: Us his body.
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Speaker 2: He proceeded a couple hundred yards down wind and then stepped out into the road. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see him. Ironically, the point he decided to show off his massive body was six feet from where we had parked the truck and where my wife had decided to stay and read a book. Elane admired the Northwoods giant. She assumed we had no idea that he had responded to our calling. Now hindsight, it would have been handy to have two way radios, but we didn’t, so.
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Speaker 1: My wife rode a window down while the moose washed.
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Speaker 2: Unscared of her actions, she then screamed to the top of.
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Speaker 1: Her lungs, skip moose.
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Speaker 2: We had decided to stay put in hope that he would make his way down the road in search of the cow that had been serenating.
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Speaker 1: Him for the last thirty minutes.
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Speaker 2: My wife’s clear communication, still echoing from the surrounding mountains, had.
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Speaker 1: The bull frozen just feet from the truck.
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Speaker 2: I’ll never forget the look in my son’s eyes as he asked, now, what.
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Speaker 1: I wish I could go back and react differently.
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Speaker 2: But at the time I felt our only option was to go to the edge of the road and see what was going on, as we could not see the truck or the moose from where we were sitting. What we saw was burned into my memory. One hundred and fifty yards up the road. It was a very nice, fifty inch plus moose standing behind my truck, but looking toward us over the hood, his eyes huge and staring. My wife in the back seat, winded down camera in hands, eyes as huge as the bulls, pointing at the moose like we couldn’t see that, the humongous animal tipping his antlers at us. Now, if I could go back, I ought to have become a moose and challenge the moose to come to us. But we were shocked at what was happening and tried slowly walking up the road. We watched as the big bull turned and walked out of our lives. I think we both knew that that was most likely the only chance we were going to have that week. It was a very quiet ride back to camp that Thursday evening, two days left to hunt. Would we have another chance to close the deal? What can you say to a fifteen year old that has been dreaming of this hunt for four months. By Thursday, the anticipation and excitement had turned into anxiety and depression. I wondered to myself how he would share the story that night with the other hunting party. I didn’t think that they could get much worse for him until we pulled into the camp to find truck headlights lighting up the biggest bull moose any of us had ever seen, a massive, sixty inch ract, mesmerizing all of us. The sixteen year old girl we had shared dinners and stories with had put the smack down on the north Woods monster. After congratulating Amanda and her family and wishing them well as they packed up and pulled out of camp, we quietly made our way to the lodge for a quick dinner. It was on the dining table where my son found a letter left for him from the guide Amanda’s dad had hired to do some scouting for him. He left detailed locations of his plan for the last two days of the hunt.
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Speaker 1: He was already gone, but his.
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Speaker 2: Letter to my son was heartfelt and sincere, wishing him good luck in getting his first moose. I was extremely proud of my son as he kept a positive attitude Over the next two days. He was the first to be out of bed packing for the day. Had never ever thought about giving up. We never saw another moose that week. Six weeks later we were back in the same bunk house. We were all alone at the camp. The first morning of the cow moose hunt, Ryan shot a beautiful north Woods buck. Didn’t see a moose that Monday, but we had a nice buck hanging on the game pole. The next morning, Ryan was able to harvest a very nice six hundred pound cow moose redemption to some point. Over the next several years, Ryan and Amanda, the girl who killed the huge moose, kept in contact. It would send each other their hunting successes, and I’m pretty sure my son was still looking for redemption. He was fortunate to connect with many nice bucks, but inevitably that young lady Amanda would usually send them back similar trophies. I look back on that hunting season with many, many fond memories, meeting a great group of people and spending time in the north Woods, and watching my son harvest a deer and a moose two days in a row. And most importantly, I had a glimpse into the man that my son would be positive, determined and a never quit attitude. That season provided me with my second favorite hunt that I ever had. That on, a second only to a hunt I had in twenty twenty four, I was lucky enough to be present on my seven year old grandson’s first deer hunt. Jackson harvested a nice white tail while I sat behind him into blind my son sitting by his side, and we were overlooking the food plot my son and his wife had planted the first year they bought this one hundred acres of prime hunting land. I’m so thankful Ryan’s wife gave up her seat to me so I could be there to see Jackson’s first hunt. Now I’ll take this opportunity to publicly thank her for her thoughtfulness.
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Speaker 1: Amanda, Thank you that moose hunt from over a.
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Speaker 2: Decade and a half ago has provided so much more than meat and fond memories, produced a marriage, two sons, and Jackson and his little brother Kay, a happy existence where hunting remains an important way of life. It is for that sixty inch bullet now hangs in Ryan in Amanda’s living room in the house they built on that one hundred acre hunting paradise, and according to Skip Bushy of Buckfille, Maine, that’s.
00:23:13
Speaker 1: Just how that happened.
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Speaker 2: Well, Skip, why you didn’t send this story in for Valentine’s Day is an absolute mystery to me, my friend, A good night nurse, What a story. Ryan, Amanda may have got the monster moved sixteen years ago.
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Speaker 1: But you’ve got the better end of this.
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Speaker 2: Steel pal Two families joined together, initially through the love of the outdoors and finally through the love.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: Of each other.
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Speaker 2: Good folks up there in Maine, girls are killing it this week and everything. I appreciate you so much for listening, especially the folks in the three sixty six Civil Engineer Squadron. Explosive orders to supoke little unit out of Mountain Home Air Force Base and Idaho and wherever they happen to be deployed all over the globe until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off.
00:24:12
Speaker 1: Y’all be careful
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