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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Neukleman.
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Speaker 2: This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f h F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that’s designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. So we’ve got we’ve got a few things that we’ve got to do, Dwayne right off the top that I usually always forget to the to the end.
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Speaker 1: But welcome to the Bear Grease Render.
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Speaker 3: We are.
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Speaker 2: There’s a Meat Eater Lie tour that’s coming up, a couple of couple of housekeeping things we got to talk about. First Meat Eater Live Tour coming in December. Tickets go on sale next week. Oh really, Yes, tickets go on sale next week. When do they announce the dates? Do you know you got the insider trading info on that next week, which would be the like the twenty in the twenties of September. Whenever that week is, and uh, We’re going to Birmingham, Nashville, Tennessee. Birmingham, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee, Fayetteville, Arkansas, which Barry Newcomb is going to be one of our guests. And there’s another secret guests that we’re not gonna say who’s going to be there that I promise you you’re going to be. Glad is there and uh Dallas, Texas in Houston, Austin, Austin seven seven cities, seven nights in a row. And if you go to the mediator dot com slash tour, you can sign up for an email that will allow you to get first DIBs at the tickets. That’s the way this works. So you know, at some point they’ll just go and sell to the general public and you can just go and buy them. But if you, if you, if you go to that meat eater, the mediator dot com slash tour, put your email in there, they’ll send you a deal where you can order them before and I really think a lot of these shows are gonna sell out.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
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Speaker 2: So it’s in the Media Live Tour. We’ve we’ve done it several years and it’s really fun. Steve Vanella, y’as who tell us myself, h Randall, Randall and Brent Reeves. Did I say Brent already? In every every place has a special guest and it’s like a variety show. There’s gonna be music, there’s gonna be trivia, We’re gonna give away a bunch of stuff. There’s gonna be storytelling, there’s gonna be audience participation and contests. It’s it’s a hoot. It’s a it’s a hoot. We’ve done it all over the country and it’s a ton of fun. And they’re all different. Everyone’s different. But I’m very, very much so believing that the South is going to come come in the South.
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Speaker 3: And what’s that the South carise Again.
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Speaker 2: I didn’t say that, but the South will dominate the out hooting contests we have. Typically we have an out hooting contest. I haven’t heard that we’re going to do that. So here speculate.
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Speaker 4: Here’s my question for you. What city is going to have the best out hooters?
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Speaker 1: Uh? I think they’re Texas won’t, but all the others will. Where in Tennessee it would be my guess.
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Speaker 2: I’d say I’d say Alabama and Tennessee faible, Arkansas will be just it’ll be at the lower tier of Southern states. Wow, it will Man’s a kick in the shin, but it’s just the truth. I mean, I’m I’m, I’m I’m Arkansas is I mean, we’re like we’re like in this part of Arkansas, like pretty close to not being in the South.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it’s just the truth.
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Speaker 2: As much as I hate to say, and and our Turkey population for the last decade almost a half generation has been so low that I think fathers aren’t teaching their kids how to out hooot.
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Speaker 3: It’s hard. Now.
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Speaker 2: I taught my son how to al hoot ye. So that’s just my prediction. I mean, we’re going to be way better like we last year. We were in like San Diego, Sacramento, Portland, Boise.
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Speaker 4: And I was in I was at the show in in California and.
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Speaker 1: Anaheim Anaheim, California.
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Speaker 4: The al hooting contest was pretty abysmal.
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Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I love those people so much, and and it’s kind of like asking it would kind of be like if somebody, you know, came no offense to the Anaheimers this part of Arkansas and was like, who’s really good at playing soccer?
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Speaker 1: And we were like, well, we don’t.
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Speaker 2: We don’t really play a lot of soccer or you know, my generation and be like, well kick this ball and let’s see how you do. And it’s like, well, we don’t really do that. That’s kind of what it’s like going out there asking them to out, you know, but I would.
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Speaker 3: I would.
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Speaker 2: It’s my prediction that the out that the worst out hooter at those places would probably win in any of those cities out there. But it’s not their fault. It’s not a character it’s not it’s not a character judgment. But so looking forward to the Meat Eater Live Tour, a couple of I’m gonna I can’t wait to introduce my guests.
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Speaker 3: I’m I’m afraid you’re going to point out me and say, give you your best bar now over. I’m over here, shaken. I have done them, and I’ve been at an introduction.
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Speaker 2: Well, okay, we’re gonna get to that. We’re gonna get to your bar nowt Hey, this white Tail Week is coming up at Meat Eater. John When is Meat Eaters White til.
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Speaker 3: We September twenty ninth through October fifth.
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Speaker 2: Great, I want to show you the new Uh look at this man, this is this is really cool. This is a this is the new and improved acorn Grunner from Phelps. I truly believe it’s the best deer call ever made, but it’s made out of oceage. This year, Oh yeah, yeah, So it’s a it’s a it’s a dual call. It’s a buck grunt and a doe bleed in one call inhale exhale. That’s what I asked Jason to make three years ago. First year we made him out of oak, which is the only year we’re ever going to do it.
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Speaker 1: They’d be like they’re like collectors of this year.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, man, and the oak was a little bit unstable. Oh and then we made one out of u uh, it was an acrylic ma crilic. We made one that was a cryllic and I really liked the acrylic one. I mean it’s a lifetime call, but the sound was a little different.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: This this year we went to oceage burnt oceage. So it’s you know, they they burn it and then it’s got just like a matt finish on it. But uh, and so you can that’s slick if you if you blow, I mean you know there’s one side where you blow grunt suck for a bleat. You flip it around and it’s opposite blow for a bleat, suck for a grunt and you know you can adjust the reeds and everything, but.
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Speaker 3: Can you adjust the reason growth?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you just you just take it apart, check that and adjust the reads. And I mean that’s pretty that’s pretty common amongst deer calls there.
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Speaker 4: But would you say that if you don’t have that call, you probably won’t kill a deer this year.
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Speaker 2: No, No, there’s a lot of calls out there. I’m not gonna I’m not even gonna go that low. It’s just it’s just like anything. It’s just like duck hunting. It’s just like turkey calls. I mean, a lot of grunt calls will call in a deer. This is just this is just a cool call. One thing I just know just about that call. Hold that up for a second, is that you can put the lanyard on either side so it dangles so that it’s a predictable when you pick it up.
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Speaker 1: That’s right, That’s that’s that’s the idea.
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Speaker 2: That good point, Josh, is that you you basically we we thought about putting like a word on either side so you would know, but it was just a little complicated.
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Speaker 1: Just you just make the call adjusted the way you want.
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Speaker 2: So if you want your lanyard on like the so when you blow it, blow grunt side, you know. But uh, but I use a dough bleat all the time. Like guys always talk about grunt calls, I’ve called in way more dear with a dough bleed. I personally have just the way that I’m hunting. And I’m also oftentimes in the early season trying to call in a dough to shoot her. And so a buck grunt on October first to a dough is not most likely going to be that appealing to her. But man, you you bleeded a dough out there at fifty sixty yards on October the first around here, fair chance she’s gonna come check you out.
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Speaker 4: I don’t know if you know the but October the first happens to fall during meat eaters White tail Week.
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Speaker 1: Are you sure the burnt o sage looks good on it? Does that look good?
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Speaker 4: It looks really nice?
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Speaker 2: Well, this is a great This is a great time to introduce our guest, Dwayne Hayda from Yaleville, Arkansas.
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Speaker 3: Sir, glad to be here.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s it’s nice to meet you. This is the first time that we’ve met. But you know, you know, my dad.
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Speaker 3: I do. I do from way back in my days of Mina. Okay, do we have this right? Yeah? But the right person and everything? Yeah, yeah, pretty sure. Yeah yeah. I taught school down to Mina down there and loved it and knew of your dad anyways.
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Speaker 1: Okay, and then you’ve met Bear in recent years.
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Speaker 3: Yes, I have. And what an introduction. You’ve got a fine young man there, I tell you, he’s He’s helped me with the boys that I do with my group. And I love seeing youth that are on purpose and and got skills, and you see my pleasure. Man.
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Speaker 2: Well, so give me give me a general introduction of what you do.
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Speaker 3: I know you have.
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Speaker 2: Well, I’m gonna I’m gonna let Josh do that. Josh, how would you introduce Dwayne Hayden and somebody that.
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Speaker 4: Dwayne Hayden is a fly fisherman, an artist, a mentor. I know his son in law, so he’s a great father in law. I mean, just a he’s a renaissance man. He’s an outdoor renaissance traditional archer, traditional archer.
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Speaker 1: I love that traditional archer.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, that’s how I would introduce Dwayne Hayden. Just an incredible artist.
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Speaker 3: We have a.
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Speaker 4: We have a beautiful rainbow trout license plate for the state of Arkansas. He made that that piece of artwork for our and everything.
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Speaker 2: So yeah, so you’re but you live on the White River a couple hours.
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Speaker 3: I actually live closer to the Buffalo River. But my I have a business which is Rivertown Gallery. That’s my art studio, and I have a gallery. It’s open to the public, and that’s in the Mountain Home area near the White River. So but I’m very familiar with the White River and all. But my home is tucked out on what to call Pendleton Ridge, which is down near Rush, Arkansas, kind of going down Highway fourteen South. It’s a thirty five mile drive to town every day, but I love it.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So town for you is Mountain Home.
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Speaker 3: Yellville really Yellville? Yeah, yeah, I’m closer to Yellville, but my business is in Mountain Home. Just because there’s people in Mountain Home, they’re not very fun.
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Speaker 2: So what have you done? What have you done career wise? You’ve told your team short off.
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Speaker 3: I do have a degree in art education from UCA and my first teaching position was in Mina, Arkansas, and I stayed there almost five years. What years were we there, nineteen eighty one to eighty five, I think, or something like that or eighty five anyway, early early ages. Yes, and loved it. That’s a if I didn’t live where I live now, I’d probably live back down there. I love it because it’s so wild and access to the mountains and things that I love. Anyway, but I got I’m you know, I’ve always been in an outdoorsman and angle and fly fishing was something that was just big and my life and loved it. And so I got an opportunity. I was teaching some fly fishing classes for Rich Mountain Community College of all things. And see these guys from Fort Smith were coming down taking the class from me, and they were opening a business up there in Fort Smith. And they kind of dangled a care in front of me and said, how much do you want to teach the rest of your life? You want to do what you really love to do, and gave me an opportunity. And I have a understanding why. She said, I’ll go anywhere that you feel God’s leading me, but to make sure, and so I jumped and took it, and it’s all made a difference, and.
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Speaker 1: So I I what was that business.
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Speaker 3: The business was of actually being a fly fishing guide. I worked in Hebrew Springs, Arkansas. We and then we’d go back and forth between Fort Smith and I do a lot of work with that group there, and then eventually we came on up to the White River and I guided heavily there for years anyway, about thirty two years as a professional fly fishing guide. And but along the way I always did my art. But it was kind of interesting how my guiding was here. My art was just kind of for a few clients and that type of thing. And then as I’ve gotten older and everything, the flyfish guiding business has kind of switched and the art business has really taken off. And that’s just been an amazing blessing for me to be able to make my living with what I love to do. And and my son in law now has really taken over the guiding aspect, and he’s he’s young, and he’s energetic and good at it. So it’s been an amazing couldn’t have scripted it better for what I do anyway, But art and fly fishing, those two things as far as for the income, and you know, but everybody always says you know, the definition of a successful artist is an artist whose spouse has a good job, you know, so thank god my wife was teaching school, and you know, because it’s not easy. I mean, it’s you know there. But I am blessed to I think now, not that I’ve arrived or anything, but least it’s making a good living for me, and I enjoy that. And I feel very blessed to describe your art to us. Well, my art is my passion. So if you know me and the hunting and the fishing and being an ozark’s boy, and that’s you know. I had a professor in college. He said, never waste your time painting what you don’t have a passion for. And that makes a lot of sense because I did a commission painting for somebody the other day and he wanted a duck hunting scene. And I’m like, I’m not duck hunting right now. And you know, now, if you told me in January to do it and everything, I’d probably have my full soul and passion into it. So I paint for me if I like driving up here, I see these beautiful mountains. I got here early. I walking up down West Fork on the White and everything, and just seeing the way the lights playing on the water and watching some small mouths swim around and various things. So I start getting that building concept and inspiration within me, and I can’t rest till I painted out. So those are my best paintings is when it comes from truly me. That’s that’s my artistic voice and my artistic voice. When you come in my gallery, it shouldn’t take you long to figure out who Dwayne Hate is. He likes small mouth bass, he likes the Ozark Mountains. He likes the birds and the beer and the wildlife and things like that. So I paint what I know, because you’re gonna paint best what you know and what you have a passion for. You’re gonna put your soul into that.
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Speaker 2: Would you say the the paintings that I’ve seen of yours, which I’ve certainly not seen all of them, but they’re they’re big, they’re colorful, they’re at least your fish. Yeah, it feels like they’re really zoomed in to. I mean, you know, you might have a foot wide and have a like the whole image be of the fish, not like the fish jumping out of the water with a big landscape.
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Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that’s just a bias of what I’ve seen.
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Speaker 3: And I kind of go through stages. I guess you might say. I’ve got everything from very small paintings to huge murals that I’m doing a lot of now on big buildings show sixty seventy foot twenty foot, you know. So, But as far as my hanging canvas is that type of thing, I’ve got one down at the restaurant in uh Cotter, Arkansas, they commissioned me to do. That’s an underwater scene and so White Basically if you just stuck your head under the water and the White River and looked around the logs and saw big brown kind of holding in his little place and some rainbows, and then we have you know, cutthroat and a few brook trouting that type of thing. So it’s kind of that grand slam of trout species in the White River, and it’s just sort of a little cross section of in the field of water moving and there’s crawdads and sculptings and all that living environment in there. So that’s that’s a But a lot of my paintings are above the water too, you know. I love how the mist rises off the river in the mornings and and just that lone angler out there in his world. I mean, there’s nothing more peaceful than being out there and just the rhythm of casting and searching for fish and in the river and that type of thing. So I’ve I identify with that, So I paint that and then thank god, you know, customers walk through like, wow, that’s connect to you, bet. So that’s that’s that’s what’s going on there. You know.
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Speaker 2: I saw one of your paintings that I connected to immediately was I can’t remember the name of it, was like Ozark Flush or Ozark Quail Hunts, Oh yeah, yeah, and it’s it’s two guys with their backs. You can see their their backs, and there’s a dog pointing and there’s a covey rise. But what stood out to me was with the chimney. There’s an old and that’s a real place stone chimney in the background where the home has rotted away and only the chimney remained. The reason that’s meaningful to me is those are my favorite places out in the National Forest and when you’re on just out in the mountains and you see an old standing chimney and just to stand there and just think who who lived here, the kids that were raised here, Why did they come here, why did they leave? How hard was their life? I mean, it just it’s like this cascade of questions that probably will never be answered. And I Dwayne, before you leave, I’m gonna have to show you. I built a rock chimney on the other side of my house that sets out from my house that acts as an outdoor fire pit, but it stands alone, and it was built to look like an old home place.
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Speaker 3: Essentially.
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Speaker 1: It was just like a hat tip to the to the Ozarks.
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Speaker 3: I’m all about that. I love. Yeah, I know the place and that painting, and it’s amazing to the guy that walked in. You know, I love this when you know, I’ve got hundreds of paintings on the wall in the gallery, but when somebody comes in just like a bird dog going on point, you know. And when that guy looked at that paint just started walking to it, I knew I had him. You know. It was that he connected And I mean he just walked right, took it off the wall and just I mean did he he just like looking at it, just mumbling to himself, walked to the cash right and just yeah, I didn’t need to. The painting sold itself.
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Speaker 1: Now that was the Chimney painting. Yes, yes, with the Do you have reprints with that or.
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Speaker 3: I did not? I don’t, you know. I feel like an original is something I will print some because I know the market and all that. And I’ve got a bear print that I’ve did for the National Bar Festival that they do over in North Carolina. Okay, they add me comings to artists and I painted one, so I put that in print for longevity and more affordable pieces. And I do things, you know, the v RBO business and the White River Lodges is boom. So I’ve got trout paintings you know, all over in them and those are prints, you know. But I feel like when you buy a painting you you want, it’s like buying a homemade bow or something you know you want, you bet you want to.
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Speaker 1: That’s surprising to me. Yeah, I was planning on trying to figure out how to buy a print at.
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Speaker 3: Ozarkbe to get in his will.
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Speaker 1: Now that I’ve said I like it.
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Speaker 2: They’ll jack the price up too late, take that out, get the number of that guy.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. So anyway, but I paint, you know, something has to when it triggers me that painting starts building into me and I just can’t rest till I just I just have to get in the studio and paint.
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Speaker 1: Let me ask you a questions. There’s so so art.
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Speaker 2: Art truly is a gifting in the very truest nature of what we conceive as a human gift, like like a personal capacity that isn’t taught. It’s just like either have it or you don’t. But gifting can be sculpted over time and developed and grown. My question to you as how much have you progressed in your actual skill as a painter? So how much of it is skill that was developed as a craft? I guess is just the natural raw bone God given.
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Speaker 3: I get asked that a lot, and I struggle with that because I’m all about God’s gifts, okay, and and and and obviously he instilled something in my brain, my makeup my uniqueness. That Dwayne is that five year old kid that couldn’t leave a chalkboard alone, had to turn over his Sunday school bulletin and drawl over the back of it, had to if it was a blank piece of paper. You know, I’d never did coloring books I don’t know that I’ve ever colored in a coloring book as a kid, I always had to have a blank piece of paper to create. So there’s something going on here that maybe is a little different from some of the other kids, and that now my mom still has some drawings I did at five or six years old, and for a five or six year old kid, they’re pretty good. Okay. I’m a little better today, Okay, because I have worked hard and I have strong passion, and I have surrounded myself with some other artists that I have fed off of to perfect my craft. Okay, and all of us do that, I think, so to say, Dwayne is a prodigy born walking out and I could paint this if I lived in a cave somewhere and never was exposed to other artists, or so you do. And I’m seeing this right now. You know, the young man that works with me, one of my CTO boys, Zach, an amazing artist. He’s he never knew he could do that, okay, but he’s working with me, and he’s a very quiet young man, but he’s always over my shoulder watching and then one day he just likes starts painting, and I’m like, whoa and it’s good, and then I start encouraging him and so it can be taught. I feel like good drawing, realistic drawing. Okay. Now there’s a lot of things out there called art today that whatever that definition is. But I’m into realism. I live in a real world, and I feel like, if you’re gonna paint a white tailed deer, you had better look like a white tail deer, Okay, So you better know them and you and all those kind of things. Put in the right environment and get the body. And the white tail is different than mule deer, than a black tailed or key deer and all that kind of thing. So if you’re going to paint that, you need to know something about that. But your eye in your hand, okay. And this is what I have taught, because I taught even at ASU and Mountain Home some drawing classes, and I get people come in, especially ladies that were older in life, and they’re like, you know, we used to always wanted to paint bad race, family and all this, or want to draw. So they come and take a class just as a hobby, and my goodness, suddenly it’s just like putting gas to the flame. You know, it’s within them, and I think there’s a lot of people of this and it’s left brain right brain functions. Okay, So if you can teach your hand to record what the I sees, you can develop drawing technique. What you now do is you take your history, your passion, your creativeness and put that in with it and no tell them what you can do so it it can be taught, but you’ve got to put that passion soul into really be an artist that shows his individual You should be able to go in and look at somebody’s sketchbook and immediately tell something about them. And that when you come into my gallery, you’re not going to see wild, weird abstracts and things like that. You’re going to see Dwayne Hay the soul out there for you to walk around in and see what I love, okay, And I just and I paint for myself really and I just hope that enough people come in that can identify the like like that guy did on the quail painting of the chimney. You know, he connected exactly just as you did. And thank goodness, there’s enough people he did. He did, I could, I might could do another one. I don’t know. It’s hard and people ask me, they said, well, just paint me another one. I’m like, that’s like different. Yeah, it’s like you know that beautiful bow with that wood. You know, to duplicate that, would you know? Because it had to be I’ve.
00:24:37
Speaker 2: Got the perfect analogy draining of what it’s like. They say that a memory is actually just a recollection of the prior time you had that thought.
00:24:50
Speaker 3: Wow, do you understand what I’m saying.
00:24:53
Speaker 2: I’m trying to see you see, you see an image, you have an experience, right, the next time you tell that story, you’re actually remembering the real thing.
00:25:04
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:25:05
Speaker 1: But the next time you tell.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: It, you know, there’s there’s some equation where you’re you’re actually just saying what.
00:25:11
Speaker 1: You said before. Okay, do you understand?
00:25:14
Speaker 2: And so by the time you’re an old man, that’s the reason stories get so distorted. Sure, And why you might be talking to your grandpa and he tells you a story that he is adamant happened just this way and it didn’t happen that way at all. It’s because because the story shifted over time. Yeah, I mean for real that That is the genesis of many of the myths and things that have happened is just the fallacy of our ability to recollect. So painting trying to duplicate a painting would be like painting what you remembered of the painting.
00:25:46
Speaker 3: My paintings in the moment, and it’s got to be an original. Yeah, I agree, I understand. I like it good.
00:25:53
Speaker 2: Uh, Joshua Brair, do y’all have any y’all know Dwayne better than me? I mean, there’s plenty that we could talk about. But but uh, now, how what were you doing with Dwayne?
00:26:03
Speaker 3: Bear?
00:26:03
Speaker 2: Just Bear is a grown man now, so he just does stuff, doesn’t even talk to you. He doesn’t even tell me what he’s doing anymore. He just show up and do stuff. What were you doing with Dwayne? I’m trying to think. I think I was over there with Now are you? Are you remembering the actual memory or apparently.
00:26:21
Speaker 3: Memory fish that night?
00:26:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were fishing with Kyle v with the Ozark podcast.
00:26:31
Speaker 2: You met him first, meet fly fishing, I hope spinning and sinning.
00:26:38
Speaker 3: I had a guy.
00:26:38
Speaker 4: I had a guy leave a comment this week on one of the podcasts and he said he said, he said, using a bait caster or a spinning rod is akin to your preacher telling you the gospel using a fly rod is like the Lord Jesus telling you about himself.
00:26:56
Speaker 1: Oh wow, wow, what an analogy.
00:26:59
Speaker 3: You know. If you go back to my I got a fly rub when I was nine years old, Okay, living in Moon County, Arkansas, flyfish Criocket Creek and Bear Creek all the time, and and I didn’t know anybody that fly fish. There’s one old man in our community that had done a little bit, and but he also told me before spinning rods. That’s however, beding in the Ozarks fished. If you go look at those old photos up at Bass Pro Shop and that type of thing, in those old John boats, there are a lot of them fly ridding, you know, and they used to have. There’s some old Ozark lures for fly rods, like the the hill Brandt spinner with a pork rind on the back of a holly grove. That was an Ozark uh, you know, that was very effective. And the water hag Okay.
00:27:50
Speaker 1: That’s supposed to be the other one. You said, was it supposed to be a crawdad?
00:27:54
Speaker 3: No, it’s just a basically like what we use as spinner bait today, you know, it’s just something that made vibration and noise and movement. Okay, you know, they just hit it out of reflex more anything. But down the washtalls, the old timers down there, that’s where I came in. Uh uh, learned what a water hag was, and it was and the old the old float tubers you know down on the Costa to the Mountain Fork River. Yes, uh, they all fished with a water hag, you know, or they’d use live grasshoppers a lot on it. What is a water a water hag is? Basically it was like a foam long bug with rubber bands sticking out the side of it. It’s just basically a top water probably ate it for a big grasshopper or something like that. I’m going to name a mule that water hag. That’s a good that’d be a good water hag. Yeah that was that was and people still still use them anyway. But anyway for me, so for fly fishing, you know, you uh, you know river ran through it and all that, and you know, and I worked in the fly fishing industry and there’s a whole I guess I can say this sort of a yuppie crowd that you know, wanted the image, the orvist image or whatever, and that’s great, not more power to them, and and they’re out there and they’re doing their thing. I came at it totally as an artist, okay, because I remember in fifth grade sitting there looking at film Stream magazine or Outdoor Life it was back then, and seeing these beautiful pictures of these Colorado mountains and everything, catching the beautiful native cutthroats and everything. And so I’d go down to Crooker Creek with a fly rod that I got for my ninth birthday. My parents, like they called an uncle of ours that lived up Michigan, like, what the boy wants a fly rod? What’s a fly rod? You know? And they found one and got it to me. In of course, it came with no instruction. I’d beat the water to a froth in front of the mem behind me and everything. But I was determined to fish that way because as an artist, you know, I’d pick up fox squirrels that I’d shot and my mom’s chickens and wrap feathers and you know, and it was cool to me to make something to go out and trick a fish with it. You know. Now I still fish with crawdads and minnows because I wanted to learn, and I had an older brother and I had to beat him, you know. So there was sort of a handicap, you know, somewhat with fly fishing. But as I got older, the confidence level and the skill levels, and as I got around other wonderful fly fishers, Dave Whitlock came into my life, and my goodness, what a mentor for me with his amazing skills and others, and just never wanting to not learn every time the river, every day, the river teaches you something if you let it, and so I just absorbed everything. But for me, fly fishing was just the art kind of traditional shooting at bow. It’s just smooth, it’s fun, it’s pure. That’s what fly fishing is for me. So I don’t come at it from a status. I coming at it from more of an artist than the satisfaction. Okay, I’ve caught fish every way you can imagine, okay, from noodland to limb lines to snagging whatever, okay, and it’s all fun and it all produces. But there’s nothing as satisfying as catching, at least for me and a lot of people. That’s why they identify with fly fishing. There’s a certain piece about it, but there’s also that satisfaction in coming with tricking a fish with an artificial especially one that you made, and then the rods are just so vibrant, visceral feeling. It is. There’s something spiritual almost about it, and I don’t know, it’s just a it’s a different type of fishing, but you can gain and push your skill level. And I’ve been very lucky my fly fishing has allowed me. I had a business at one time where I was able to travel and put together. I have literally fished in a lot of places all around the world for a lot of different species, saltwater species and some of the famous places in Europe and even place like that. I allowed me to coach the US first youth fly fishing team and I’m a silver medalist, you know, the first silver medalist anyway for the US. Yes, Olympics, Yes, there’s an Olympics. Are fish well, it’s it’s its own Olympics. It’s called the Phipps Mouche fly Fishing World Tournaments anyway that they hold in different countries. The first time that I did this, we were in the country of Wales, and then we went to Ireland and it was amazing. So it’s uh, it’s been now.
00:32:05
Speaker 1: Is that what took you around the world fly fishing?
00:32:07
Speaker 3: Yes, yes it was.
00:32:08
Speaker 1: It was coaching this team.
00:32:10
Speaker 3: That that was part of it, and just working through businesses anyway, as kind of a trip host, I advertise trips and go I can’t afford to go do all that, so you get a group of people that can go, and that’s how you get to go. So it’s been awesome. I’ve been to Christmas Island a couple of times, well almost to Australia. Of fly fish in England and Wales and Ireland and.
00:32:33
Speaker 2: Is there Okay, if you asked me this question as a hunter, I could come up with an answer, even though it wouldn’t be perfect. If you could, if you could tell about one one fish you caught a while anywhere in the world, which one would you tell you? It’s the only story you get for the rest of your life.
00:32:55
Speaker 3: I’ve got two.
00:32:56
Speaker 1: I knew it.
00:32:57
Speaker 3: I knew I was going to do that. And then the reason, okay, one of them. I took some guys to Blize one time and they have a rare uh genetic. It be like a pieball deer or a black squirrel or something like that. That’s pretty rare. They have something that are called a golden bonefish and they figure it’s probably one in five thousand bonefish. And the lodge that I went through, they would give you a free trip if you caught one. And I caught one and it was amazing, okay, and it’s it’s like the normal bonefish, but it’s like you dipped him in a champagne gold orangeish coloration. Wow. Unique to be very unique. But they didn’t give me a free trip because I was hosting that trip, and they said, well, your trips already free the way they could. But I went back again the next year and took some people. But so that was kind of unique.
00:33:46
Speaker 1: And now what country was that?
00:33:48
Speaker 3: That is bleeze.
00:33:50
Speaker 1: Ocean fish?
00:33:51
Speaker 3: Yes, but it’s in shallow water. That is the most hunting of fishing because you are stalking and if you step wrong and you make a wrong step, they’re gone. I mean they’re in shallow water to avoid sharks and they’re feeding with their tails up, so you’re looking for you can walk.
00:34:07
Speaker 1: You would lovetten stock.
00:34:08
Speaker 3: You would love everything’s spotting stock and you’ve got to be a good castor you’ve got to hit about a foot in front of them and usually at some distance. So it’s it’s a skill builder. And when you hook them, it’s about like trying to stop a car out here on the family.
00:34:20
Speaker 4: My sun in law is from Antigua and fishing and Antigua and hooked a couple of them.
00:34:25
Speaker 3: Just couldn’t get them to they break your line.
00:34:28
Speaker 4: They just the I mean they just take off and I mean they’ll pull a boat. You know, they’re about this big, but they’re.
00:34:33
Speaker 3: Built for speed.
00:34:34
Speaker 2: They have a big forktail, bone fish, bonefish.
00:34:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically a melanistic melon, well reverse melanism probably.
00:34:43
Speaker 1: What’s that word, robinistic.
00:34:45
Speaker 3: There’s a word for it anyway, that’s kind of unique when you don’t know when it’s lacks of melanism anyway. The other one is just you know, good old home Buffalo River.
00:34:55
Speaker 2: My biggest small hoping I actually said, I hope his second one is something.
00:35:00
Speaker 3: It’s always going to be. The flip pilot just passed away and Dave Whitlock just passed away not too long ago. Great, you’re talking about the Mount Rushmore fly fishing. These are two chisel faces that will be there, and they were people, especially Dave Whitlock, very dear in my life anyway, And he wrote one time in Fly Fisherman magazine that people asked him that question and the greatest you know. And I don’t want this to sound bragging or whatever, but he said his favorite fishing experience would be the Lower Buffalo River wilderness area with a fly rod and having me paddle that canoe down there with him. Oh wow, that is special. But so I got to do that with my son in law and a dear friend of mine, Ben Levin, who’s a fly fishing guide who guided with me when he was fourteen years old, and he’s from over here in the Mulberry region where he grew up, and great young man. And so we’re together on this float trip and this very first bend in the river down there, and I’ve got to fly that tide and I’ve got it down deep around a boulder, and all of a sudden it gets solid. I come up and I don’t know what’s a good That broad’s just dancing around in the front of the boat around, and I’m like, and all of a sudden, it shoots up right in between our two canoes and this mental picture of this twenty inch golden brown. You know, I tried every way to make him four pounds and he wouldn’t. But these in my mind he’s four. But he’s been a big, big as old fish, you bet. And when I got my hands on that thing, I just shook, like hold a big buck, you know by the horns, because I mean, that was my life right there. And to do that in front of two young men that they always want to catch one like that, and I did it. You know, I was the stud for that day, you know, And I got to look at that and and just to hold that fish and I’m like, man, you’re gonna kill it if you don’t, you know. But but just to look at in the eye and just think everything it took for that small amount to go from fry to you know that biologists tell me that fish was probably a minimum of sixteen years old. You know, they they live long lives. A lot of people don’t understand them. With smallmouth bass, how fragile. I’m really working with the game and fish now, trying to just left with the biologist and everything, because they need to make regulations if we’re going to have big small mouth and numbers. Yeah, we kill them all faster than they can grow, is a simple thing. So we need to we need to be very protective. So I eased him back in, and what a great I mean, my soul just went with that fish as he went down in the rocks, and I just pulled back and said, I’m done. We got a three day trip, I said, you boys, you know how paddle the canoe, and no one else caught one. They caught some seventeen inches, but nobody came close on that whole trip anyway, three day lower buffalo. So that’s that fish will always be etched in my what year was up? It’s been about five years ago, so yeah, fairly recent. Yeah.
00:37:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh that’s a great that’s a great story.
00:37:45
Speaker 3: Yeah. So of all the places I’ve been, I think, you know, they say there’s no place like home. You can’t take the Ozarks out of the boy, you know, And that’s to me. I think we have some of the beautiful, most beautiful and unique fishing. Uh you know you can have. I’ll be anywhere right here in the Ozarks. So give me one last day, I’ll probably you probably stay home. I’ll stay home. It’s pretty good.
00:38:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, Dwayne’s also an incredible fly tire. I’ve got a story. I fished the the uh the Odyssey. So there’s a fly fishing tournament where it’s an all species tournament. The goal is to catch the most number of species. And Dwayne Hayda it makes everyone look like a joke when he competes in this thing. Oh yeah, I heard it, but I fish that. And then for my daughter’s sixteenth birthday, we did a family trip to Hawaii.
00:38:32
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
00:38:33
Speaker 4: And we went to Kawaii and I wanted to do some fly fishing out there, and so I called a guid and I said, I really like to go bone fishing. He said, well, the bone fishing is not real great right now, but we can go small mouthfishing. And I said, small mouth fishing in Kawaii and he’s like sure. So I set it up. My wife and I had to go fly fish.
00:38:52
Speaker 3: Now.
00:38:52
Speaker 4: Mind you, this is like three days after the Odyssey. And we meet the guide, super nice guy. We trek through the jungle. We’re standing in front of this probably one hundred and twenty foot waterfall in this deep pool. Beautiful and uh, he pulls out the flyer on he hands it to me, and he reaches in his fly box and he pulls pulls out a fly and ties it on. I look at it and I said, is that a Hat Creek Crawler? And he goes, yeah, man, this fly is awesome. I said, I just fished with Dwayne Hated three days ago.
00:39:21
Speaker 3: He’s like, are you kidding?
00:39:22
Speaker 1: Would he have bought that from Dwayne or did he?
00:39:26
Speaker 3: It’s a production fly. I sold the rights to that fly several years ago to W I have a I have a royalty pattern out there that they I get a check every so often when they you know, it’s not a whole lot. Yeah.
00:39:38
Speaker 4: So I’m I’m in Kawahi the God’s time on a Hat Creek Crawler and I.
00:39:43
Speaker 1: Just hated a Creek Crawl. That’s a good name.
00:39:45
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know where that fly was first tied? Where the art classroom in Mina High School with Tim Strawther Is that right? It was one of my students. He would come in during his lunch period and I kept a fly tying bench set up in there, and uh, I would use it so art instructional thing, and I’d have boys that come in to eat their lunch and watch me tie lies and I would teach them there, and Tim Strather was one of those young men. But the very first ever creek crawler was designed right there in.
00:40:12
Speaker 1: That Wow and it was it was your design.
00:40:14
Speaker 3: Yes, oh yes, yes.
00:40:15
Speaker 4: I’ve tied a few. I’ve tied a few of myself that looked horrible. I just wish the very someday.
00:40:29
Speaker 3: Fort Smith he ties, Brandon Bells and my son in law probably tied three of the best ones. You know, if you want an artistic one, I mean the making tie you one. It’ll catch a fish, you know. But but there, yeah, they take it to another level.
00:40:43
Speaker 2: Every time I hear the name Keith Reeves, which I’ve never actually met Keith Reeves, but he seems like a wonderful person. Maybe he’ll hear this. I feel bad though, because one time I took a photograph of Bear Nukem when he was just a little boy leading a mule across a stream. We were hunting, and Keith ree is we were kind of Internet buddies, and he goes, hey, where’d you take that? That looks like a good place to fish. I know you’re not a big fisherman, Clay, and I wouldn’t tell you where.
00:41:15
Speaker 3: That’s good sorry, Keith, he would be there tomorrow. Well, no, I know Keith very well and I have to keep some secrets too, or he will he will be there.
00:41:25
Speaker 1: I feel better.
00:41:26
Speaker 2: I mean, I wouldn’t have buy it him fishing there, Like we’ve never fished there one time in my life.
00:41:30
Speaker 1: But I was like, I’m gonna have to keep that one and down load.
00:41:34
Speaker 3: And if anybody understands that and respects that is Keith. He he is a passionate voice. He has become the Ozark smallmouth by US Alliance spokesperson’s. Yeah, he’s got a great kind of where I don’t want to say I’ve burned out because I haven’t. But Keith has the technology, time and all to keep that alive because we have to. Uh, there’s a lot of people. If I can even get on any stump here at all, it would be the fact that smallmouth bass in Ozark and wash it toss streams. That’s like the region from south of Saint Louis all the way down into Oklahoma and down even into the Washtalls. And I know you’ve done BO broadcasts and everything on this, but there are definitely three distinct subspecies of smallmouth bass that we have only in this region that right there is worthy of protection, and we can’t just keep treating them like skillet food. I love to eat fish. People like, oh, you’re one of those. I’m like, no, no, no, no. We were eating gator tail and bass and catfish down in Louisiana last week. Okay. So I love to eat fish, and I’ll eat as you can see in any fish fry. Okay, I’ll belly up to the and I’ll get after it. So that’s not what it is. It’s about the fact if you want to continue to have them in numbers and quantity and size of any kind of sport fish free, you must have some conservation in there. And the way the current regulations are written, we will catch them out and we will kill them off faster than they can grow. They are so slow growing.
00:43:02
Speaker 2: Why wouldn’t the game and fish be like instantly responsive to that.
00:43:06
Speaker 3: It’s a they’re better than they were. Okay. I’ve served on the Smallmouth Bassed Task Force back in the nineties and I helped write the regulations that we now have, which is a two fish fourteen inch minimum in blue ribbon streams, and we put one eighteen inch trophy status on like the lower Buffalo, and I think part of the Washingtall had that and few other streams that will grow trophy size of smallmouth. There’s more of us out there nowadays than there were then doing it. They still had what I think is a very archaic old regulation in the Washtalls you can keep outside the blue ribbon streams four ten inch smallmouth, well ten inch small mouth. I mean once you fillay that you got a fish stick, They’re worth more than that. That fish alive part of the system, a spawner. You know, if you want to fish a stream, if you put a group of guys ahead to you mena fishing crowdad fishing and keeping fish, I’ll guarantee you the damage they can do will take years to replace. It will take years. I just wonder who fish a fished out stream. Okay, I just came from your wonderful hole here in town that probably has had pressure for hundreds of years, and I was so excited to see a few small mouths swimming around there. But I’d love to run through there with some biolog just and get an idea of just what is that fish count in there and what does the population look like. I don’t it’s it had a feel that it’s been pretty heavily used over the years, and the only way it can ever recover, if it will, is through some very serious Smallmouth bass do not respond to riggs as fast as likes largemouth in a lake or in a farm pond or anything. They’re just too slow growing. There’s too many factors against them, like just because they try to spawn.
00:44:52
Speaker 1: A smaller system, it’s colder.
00:44:54
Speaker 3: Probably. They say only one in every three years do we get a successful recruitment of smallmouth or it’s will spawn. And there’s just so many of us out there. The boom of kayaking and fishing, and then the game and fish has opened up accesses on places that you know, and then the advent of all these vrbos, all of them are on a beautiful stretch of Ozark and washed all waters, so everybody comes in and and so there’s no secret places anymore. That place I got there, You want that deer man and release cotton mouths in there too, And okay that helps. Yeah, And that’s where the black panther, that’s the last place he lived.
00:45:36
Speaker 2: Many I am it’s if there was a fish. I was passionate about fishing it would be small mouth. And I mean in the last twenty years, I haven’t.
00:45:46
Speaker 3: Done a lot of them, but I grew up.
00:45:47
Speaker 2: I grew up small mouth fishing, and I have a ton of respect for that fish. And it’s now I’m not deep into that culture, but it’s surprising to me that people would have any trouble just like turning back every s they caught. And I would be like, so for that, because I understand it. I mean, if you just listen, you understand it.
00:46:08
Speaker 3: I take my grandson and my son in law, he is so passionate about smallmouth now and he’s come to live back in this area, and I take him to places that I fish when I was a kid, and we’ll see a few here and there, and I’m like, you don’t realize how crazy good this used to be. You know, fifty sixty hundred fish days, you know, and there and then like the canopy is gone because they’ve gravel minded to death or they’ve overcattled the pastures around it just all kinds of habitat destruction. And there’s a few smallmouth here and there hanging on and they think it’s still pretty good. And I’m like, you have no idea, how good it was and how rapidly it declined, and then I’ve got my grandson and I’m like, what will he ever get to experience? So that’s the passion driving me there. Yeah, and it’s in all types of wild life. You know. We’re consumers of wildlife. We hunt, you know, and every thing, but we’re the best conservation is too. We are because we have the passion for it and we’re I want to see it survive, you know, definitely.
00:47:10
Speaker 1: Well, we need to talk about ISHI for a minute.
00:47:13
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so yeah, on these bear grease renders, we we we typically take a little bit of time to talk about the podcast that just came out. And so last week we came out with this podcast on Ishi. The were titled it The Last Stone Age Man. And this is also where I kind of give a behind the scenes from you know, kind of like this polished podcast. But I want to say that when I first started, very well before I started bar Grease, when I was asked by the company to ride out twenty six mock episodes because we make twenty six bear grease propers a year, right yep, every other week, so twenty six and they said okay, well, if you’re going to do this podcast right out, twenty six things you’re gonna do, and the first five.
00:48:04
Speaker 1: I would say was Ishi.
00:48:06
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:48:07
Speaker 2: I mean, so I’ve known about this story for a long time, yet it took me five years to finally pull the trigger on the story. And part of that was just that there was no rhyme or reason. I just I just always knew that, like at some point I’m going to talk about Ischi at some point. But then it became it was it was more difficult than we anticipated finding experts.
00:48:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really was.
00:48:30
Speaker 3: Now.
00:48:30
Speaker 1: Jeene Hopkins was incredible.
00:48:32
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:48:33
Speaker 2: We typically like to have one or two expert guests, so you kind of get like two angles of the same story from maybe experts in different just different viewpoints coming into it.
00:48:46
Speaker 1: But were you familiar with Ishi?
00:48:49
Speaker 3: I had read the book about him. I knew of him, and we owe everything in archery that we know today pretty much back to that. I think I do know a lot about Ishi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s awesome.
00:49:00
Speaker 1: The well, Josh, what stood out to you?
00:49:03
Speaker 3: Man?
00:49:03
Speaker 4: I think I think listening to Gene talk about because I didn’t I didn’t know much about the history. You know, you told me about issue before, but knowing the history about what what he and the Yahi people endured living in the Mill Creek area, there was just unbelievable. And and and the fact that, you know, just the idea of them being hunted and the way they lived during the concealment, that that blew my mind to think of a guy who lived with three to four other family members, hiding, walking on all fours to look like a bear, jumping from rock to rock, making small fires and living you know. We we we got shows you know, like Alan where people go out and they make it eighty days or one hundred.
00:49:55
Speaker 2: Days, and yeah, and and they’ve got they’ve got ten modern things with them.
00:50:01
Speaker 4: These people were stone age living out there but also concealing themselves. So they were attempting to live as hunters and gatherers but also as prey. And so just that what that had, what that did to his psyche, you know what I mean, the way that they had to live is a pretty unbelievable situation. And uh, yeah, it blew my mind.
00:50:37
Speaker 2: You know what was I didn’t really know that in the in the podcast, but most of the other tribes by that time, well, I mean, this was this would have been the last of tribes that weren’t on reservations or or hadn’t you know, people that had assimilated into kind of just American culture. I was that they weren’t influenced by the technology of just modern American civilization.
00:51:08
Speaker 1: Like they didn’t have steel like now he did have.
00:51:14
Speaker 2: I mean, think about all the Eastern tribes that I mean even back in the sixteen hundreds were using steel points, and it might have been the seventeen hundreds by the time they were doing that. But I mean, like these tribes were quickly inundated with some modern technologies. But the Yahee were far enough west that you know, that development just didn’t get there till the mid nineteenth century. And then they were deep enough in a wild enough place that just people couldn’t get to them, and so they just like stayed hyper isolated. I thought that was the most unique thing, because you know, if they were hiding out, like the more I learned the story and saw how they were just on the cusp of civilization, I mean like Ishi could could could see the trains down the valley, like he he would have run into people. You know, there were times when he was out in the woods and he would have met somebody like those surveyors. And yet still they didn’t have any of the technologies other than Jean said that they were making stone points out of ceramics that they would find right and then and then they were raiding people’s They were raiding people’s cashes and out farms and different things. But they were pretty much just taking food and they they probably had some degree of maybe some clothing or materials that they might have taken, but like like they didn’t take canned foods, which was really interesting, Like they would they would break in somewhere there be walls of canned food, and they wouldn’t take the canned food.
00:52:53
Speaker 1: But uh no, I just thought that was interesting.
00:52:56
Speaker 3: Bear.
00:52:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, I thought I’ve heard of Ishi a lot through like making bows and stone points. He comes up a lot because I think that he brought a lot of like primitive technology into like people’s Like he made stuff that people saw and like now people replicate a lot, Like there’s like a really specific style of arrow that they think came from him that he taught to the people there, and it’s basically like you know, it’s like a two piece arrow and the tip comes off. It’s like you can put like a spear fishing tip on there, you can put a you know, an obsidian point on there. But so I’ve heard a lot about Ischi just through a lot of the stuff like the primitive technology that he brought into the world.
00:53:46
Speaker 1: But I’m with you.
00:53:47
Speaker 5: It was honestly, it was kind of sad because it was just like it kind of brought to reality the actual like actually what the natives experienced whenever they whenever the Europeans came through and wiped them out.
00:54:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:54:04
Speaker 5: I mean, like you always hear about like a mass genocide and you’re like, yeah, that’s terrible, but whenever you actually like look at it down to that specific of a level, like to that all the way down to Ishi, like like he was just like this lone native like it’s it’s it’s really sad.
00:54:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:54:24
Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, I thought it was an interesting, interesting podcast.
00:54:28
Speaker 2: I think that’s a good analysis bare because like, yeah, we’re all like pretty comfortable. I mean just because it’s the history of this country of I mean, there’s no other word. It’s not like a harsh word to use, it’s just the accurate word to use.
00:54:44
Speaker 1: A genocide. I mean, you know.
00:54:46
Speaker 2: That word is thrown around a lot politically sometimes as a thing to like it’s like the worst thing you could say, So I’m not trying to do that, but I mean that’s just what it was.
00:54:56
Speaker 1: And but seeing the human the main.
00:55:01
Speaker 2: Not somebody that got killed that we don’t know, that’s just an abstract idea of a human, but like to actually see the man Ishie And in this next episode, we’re gonna see him even more and you’re gonna like see how he interacted with people in his life for a very short time after he came here because spoiler alert, he only lived a few years after he after he came into uh San Francisco. Well, and it’s a tragic story, but it does. It puts, It puts a human and then and then the really like the wildest part of the whole story, the wildest part of the whole story. And in what this does is it it humanizes the Native Americans. Is that you see that this stone age man who would have fit perfectly in with people tend that years ago. I mean he would have stepped in me and you step into a camp ten thousand years ago in these ozarks. Apparently people have been here for ten twelve thousand years, we would we would be pretty lost, I mean just to functionally he would be able to do that. But he stepped into essentially a modern society with cars, planes had flown in the air, electricity, modern vaccines, and he was a man just like us.
00:56:29
Speaker 1: I mean he was you know.
00:56:31
Speaker 2: I alluded to it in the final moments of the podcast where they said that he was generous and kind and relational, he was very interested in other people.
00:56:44
Speaker 3: He was.
00:56:46
Speaker 2: Everybody commented on just how kind this man was and he wasn’t embittered, which is astonishing.
00:56:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so it just it.
00:57:00
Speaker 2: And that’s what we’ve all we always say, like when you think about anthropology and you think and you look back into these deep stories of human antiquity, it’s hard to imagine one of those guys being a pilot and flying a plane for delta. It’s hard to imagine them coming to your house for dinner and like being your friend. But they could have. They were just like us. Yeah, you know they were, and that’s this like gap that’s hard to spend. And she did that is she tells that story and it’ll be in this second episode it’ll be like more more of that what stood out to you, Dayne, just just in all of it, if you.
00:57:39
Speaker 3: Well, it wasn’t really that long ago. We were talking like nineteen eleven. Okay, my grandmother was born, you know, about that time. So that in my mind, that makes a sou And then what I love is the fact that you know, he archery probably was going to die out. I mean, why would you hunt with a primitive bow and arrow when modern firearms were starting to make their advancement. The scope rifle was starting to come in and higher powered cartridges, and then the bolt action rifle not too long after that and everything, which is a much more efficient way to take out a deer. Okay, but yet he and Saxon and you know, like and that’s why we bowhunt today. You know, I much prefer even though it’s a handicap in some ways. I don’t really think it is if you adapt your techniques and your skills to what the weapon will do. But it brought about this whole rebirth or first time really for I mean, we owe so much to him for what we enjoyed to do today, and that’s amazing to me. And then it connects you. I think that’s what I love about traditional bow hunting. It just takes you raw back to somebody like Ishi and if he could do it, and maybe maybe I can there as well. But I’m gonna I’m gonna try hard, you know. And and uh, because they fed their families that way, they fed, uh, you know, as long as there was game. I mean, when I have read you know, the books that were written on him, and and they said his skills and you know, and you know, we we studied gap shooting and various things. He just instinctively pulled back and knew where they are or went and hit his mark. And and then I think one of the thing that I read was up until then, there wasn’t a whole lot of knowledge of tracking an animal. You know, it’s common today if you strike a deer with a projectile a bow, and you know, it’s it’s seldom going to just drop within sight. You know, you have a responsibility to blood, trailing and tracking. And that was something that was taught according to what I’ve read, you know, and and the waiting period even you know, and things like you know and reading there or you know, what kind of hit was made and those kinds of things. Those are things I think that all go back to somebody who had that incredible knowledge and from his people forever, and and we benefit from that today. You know, we’re we’re carrying on a tradition, you know. And so and I think that’s why there’s somewhat kind of a I’ve never seen more of a revival, I think, Barry, you can probably talk more on this maybe, but these two people wanting to get back into just simple you know, you know, draw back and let it fly, you know, with with skill. And so we owe a lot to this man and his genius, you know. And and and the fact that you know, they when they brought him in, when he came in, they found him in that it was a cattle sale barn type or something ud yeah, yeah, so uh And I guess technically he could be considered a savage, entreated as such, you know, and yet somebody had compassion on him. And and and you know, and you know he didn’t survive. Well, he did, but he didn’t you know, I mean, they weren’t. They weren’t. He was not immune to a lot of our diseases and things. And I think that’s in that what eventually overcame him and there’s too much exposure to things that didn’t they didn’t even travel to England at one time, or am I thinking something different?
01:01:15
Speaker 1: You know, I’m not sure yet.
01:01:17
Speaker 3: Got read that and maybe I’ll pulled off on that.
01:01:20
Speaker 4: That part hasn’t been really okay.
01:01:21
Speaker 3: We don’t know what that was. Kind of celebrated him a little bit. You know, maybe I’m thinking anti Oakley or somebody else, and yeah, I don’t know, but anyway, but anyway, I’m sure he was quite the uh you know, as he was put on display, you know.
01:01:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was, yes, definitely put on Yeah, but yeah, what an anomaly that even showed up. You know, we’ll talk about it more on this next episode. But like just the fact that the fact that he even wandered into town was an anomaly for his tribe, his culture. I mean, there was a lot of fatalism inside of many of those tribes that they observed, and I mean anthropologists, well Krober, this lady that Theodore Krober, who wrote this really great book kind of the seminal book on it. There’s a lot of books on the sheet. I think it’s probably the one to read. She speculated that it was wild that he even came into town, like like the kind of the culture of those people, a lot of times would have been just to kind of curl up and and I mean, that’s that’s.
01:02:24
Speaker 1: A pretty big projection on a culture.
01:02:26
Speaker 2: But for him to come down and to even be to try to get help from these people that his entire life age aged fifty or so, you know, was trying to get help, was a wild thing.
01:02:41
Speaker 1: And then what he gave to us was.
01:02:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, to be just an amazing person to be around. I would have loved anything that, you know, my biggest pet peeve when you know I talked a little bit earlier that you know, I’ve put together a lot of travel trips to some pretty remote areas Christmas Island, and I’ve been few Central Maria fishing situations and stuff where primitive native people as our guides and nothing is more gets on me. Then take clients who think of them as a second class servant guide. These men know there is not a bird that flies a track in the dirt that those guys, they are such far superior to us on fishing and hunting skills. In their they’re they’re wild people, but yet they are so amazing and because they grew up in it, they had to do it, and they’re there to teach you if you’re smart enough to watch them and learn. And I love them. I’ve got great friendships. I keep up with people you know all over and you know they have that wildness in them and that skills that are amazing.
01:03:58
Speaker 2: So what would be interesting to know is how good she would have been in archery compared to everybody else, because he’s just he’s one day to point out of a whole, a whole, a whole tribe of people. Was he just average? Maybe he would Maybe they would be chuckling that she was the one that taught us be like, like he should have seen if you think good he should have seen this guy or if he was, I mean, you know, and per chance maybe. I mean the fact that I think maybe he was like the master of the greatest Yahee archer of all time is probably a stretch. He probably wasn’t. He probably was somewhere in the middle. He probably was just average. So you think about that and how good he was skilled he was at napping, making arrows, making bows, what he did so stuff will never know because the language bearer that we had with him was strong enough that you know, there was a lot they didn’t get into, but they had about four years with him, and uh in those four years were you know, used as documented pretty well for for the time period. But well, Dwayne, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, truly has.
01:05:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, great to be here among brothers.
01:05:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it’s it’s great to finally meet you and to finally talk about fly fishing and finally talk about We’ve ever gotten to trout Grease podcast podcast? Well, Dwayne, Dwayne’s sales pitch on fly fishing was compelling a little more compelling. I think you know what I actually was thinking about that I give these guys a hard time about wanting to talk about fly fishing on here. And it’s it’s a it’s a it’s I’m just I know what it is. It’s a it’s a self protection mechanism because, yeah, because I made a decision when before Bear was born that I couldn’t be a fisherman and hunter and be successful, and so I just cut one off at the head and it was fishing, and so so I have to There may be a time when that changes, but right now I’m still in that mode. But no, I value anybody that’s a master of their craft or just has a PAS. Don’t have to be a master, just have a passion for it, genuine love of it. And it’s not I’m gonna say this one time. Boys, Okay, I’m gonna say it one time. I know fly fishing is really cool. I know, I know get that.
01:06:30
Speaker 1: I know I know that.
01:06:33
Speaker 2: So I’d just like to give you all hard time, So no pleasure, Dwayne, Thank you so much,
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