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Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I’m your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living. I want you to stay a 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 stores to share, cold hunter, hot gumbo. I’ve been doing all manner of things here lately, except killing dugs of any significant number. That’s okay. I’ve been busy just the same and lending my talents as limited as they are the competition cooking, that’s right, I’m a professional chef. That’s a lie and probably not the last one you’ll hear today. Just kidding. Maybe I’m gonna tell you what I mean in a minute, But first I’m going to tell you a story. Today’s story is an important one for all of us to pay close attention to. It’s as timely of a message as I’ve ever put out. It’s a lesson on dealing with the cold at a time when just about everyone around the country is fixing to be dealing with or is dealing with some record setting cold and I mean right now. It’s from Greg Brown, who’s living large and making tracks with his eight year old son Tie up around Chelsea, Oklahoma. Now, this story is from a time many moods ago, long before Tie was even a glimmer in Greg’s eye. So in Greg’s words and my voice, here we go. In twenty eleven, I was a senior in high school. A buddy of mine and I duck hunted a piece of public flooded timber that only had about four open holes. It was a great duck hunting, but as you can imagine, with those few spots available, you had to get there pretty early in the morning to claim a spot. Now, this particular morning, we got there around one am. We set in the truck until the first set of headlights were coming down the road headed to the parking lot of the WMA. Now, when that first set of headlights appeared shortly after we got there, we jumped out of the truck, threw our waiters on, grabbed the decoys and guns, and headed down the gravel top levee that led to the flooded timber. We got down to the narrow clearing in the timber and stepped off the levee into the water. The rest of the walk back to the open hole was all flooded, and that morning it was seventeen degrees and the temperature had just dropped, so there was only a very thin layer of ice on the water. I only had a cheap pair of uninsulated rubber waiters on and we had only made it about one hundred yards into the timber when I kicked a sharp stob on the side of a submerged log, which poked a large hole in my waiters just below the knee. I didn’t want to miss out on a good hunt. I told my buddy, let’s go. I’ll be fine. I’m not going back to the truck, so we kept racing back to our spot before anyone else could get there. We made it to the hole we wanted and began setting down decoys and getting everything ready. We set up by the trees we wanted and waited for sunrise. There was nowhere to get out of the water, and the right leg of my waiters had now filled up to my knee. I was cold before, but after we got set up and stopped, I began to get very cold. I had been wet for over an hour when I started shivering. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably, and we still had a few hours before daylight. I told my buddy I can’t stay out here. I’m going back to the truck, and he offered to go with me. Now, I’ll be fine, there’s no reason for you to miss out on the hunt too. So not only did I separate from my hunting partner, but the only light I had was the light on my iPhone. I grabbed my gun and blind bag and headed for the truck. After standing still at our spot trying to stay for the hunt. My right leg had gotten so stiff from the cold water that I could barely bend my knee, and I had almost a mile walk to get back to the truck. I made it about halfway through the water back to the levee when I tripped on a log. Not being able to bend my right leg, I couldn’t catch myself and I went face first into the water, going completely under. This was the most shocking cold I’d ever felt. It. It completely took my breath away and I thought I was cold before, but now I was literally freezing. I managed to stand back up and was having to drag my leg as I leaped towards the levee. And I went a little further and my phone turned off from getting wet when I fell. Now I had lost my only light and the ability to call for help. I would be navigating by moonlight from here on out. I started getting worried at this point, but I told myself just to stay calm and keep moving forward. Before making it to the levee, I hung my foot two more times and fell. Both times I went completely underwater. I was so cold and really starting to worry now. I finally made it to the levee and stepped out of the water and on the solid ground. The narrow clear cut in the flooded timber that led to the open holes ran east and west, and the levee that led to the truck ran north and south. The truck was parked to the south of me, but when I stepped up on that levee, I wasn’t sure which way to go. I had gotten so cold that hypothermia was affecting my judgment. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and then I started to panic began to pray for help and guidance for me to make the right decision and to get me back to that truck, because I knew I was in trouble. Finally decided to head south, and thank God that was the right decision. The levee was wide enough for a vehicle to drive, and there was a didg on each side, followed by a big trees lininging it all the way back to the parking lot. I walked down that levee, dragging my right legs so stiff now from the cold that I couldn’t bend it at all. The trees began to close in on me. I felt as if they were getting closer and closer to me. I felt like they’d moved within a foot on either side of me, and I started feeling trapped in the moonlight. The road appeared to get longer longer. I began to sense something was following me, and when I turned around to look behind me, I think I heard something run across the road in the other direction. I started seeing shadowy figures dark quickly in front of me, and then hear them behind me once again. It is to say I was in an extreme state of panic. All brought on by the intense, indescribable cold. Walk a little way, and then tell myself, no, you’re going the wrong way. You need to go back, start back a few steps. Then I had to tell myself, you know, south is the right direction, Just just keep moving south. I thought back to the Hunter’s Safety class I too. They taught us about people with hypothermia, how they would hallucinate walk in the wrong direction even when they knew the area they were in very well. So I just kept telling myself, you cannot panic, just keep walking, you can’t stop. After what felt like an eternity, I finally saw the truck and the glow of the moon. It was the most amazing feeling of relief I’ve ever felt. And I got there. I reached in and I started it up. I knew I had to get warm fast, and I began to try to get my waiters off. Anyone who’s ever taken off wet waiters or rubber boots knows you know that can be a pretty big task. Ad what felt like a completely frozen leg and uncontrollable violence shiver into the mix, and it was not an easy task or a very pretty sight. The fight to get my waiters off was so hard that I began to panic again. I thought to myself as I struggled, I made it this close, only to die at the truck door. Now I know I could have just gotten in the truck with the waiters on, but I was not thinking clearly. My ability to reason was all but gone. Finally I got the waiters off and myself in the truck. Now, another thing that I remembered from my hundred safety class was that people with hyper learning it can just fall asleep and never wake up. When I sat down in that driver’s seat of that truck, I reached over and turned the heat and the fan all the way up, and I started feeling very, very sleepy. It was the sleepiest I had ever been. I could not keep my eyes open. I was fighting so hard to stay awake and get the heat going, but it felt as if my arm weighed five hundred pounds as I was reaching for the heater nob. As soon as I got the heater turned on, I passed out. I didn’t wake up for a couple of hours. Now. I give all the credit to God for getting me out of those flooded woods that day, and only he could have kept my mind right enough to push through and make it back. I was in a complete state of panic and almost made the wrong choice several times. On the way out. There was always a moment of clarity where something kept telling me to keep moving forward in the direction I was going, reassuring me that would be okay. Now here’s something else that I’d like to share. My parents have owned and operated a doughnut shop for over thirty years. They go in and start baking around midnight every night. Found out later that on the morning of the hunt, while my parents were busy making donuts, that my dad suddenly stopped went to my mom and told her, we need to pray for Greg’s safety today while he’s hunting. They both stopped what they were doing they prayed for me. And when I heard this, it sent chills down my back, and it was just another confirmation that the Good Lord kept his hand on me that day and guided me back to that truck. My friend made it back to the truck a couple hours after I had woken up with his limit of mallards, and I don’t have any long lasting effects that day, but I do listen to that little voice when it yells loud enough for me to hear it, and I pay attention. Like the time I’d started toward my dear stand after having forgotten my safety harness, the little boy said go back and get it. I listened. A short time later, I was dangling on the end of that harness after our strap broke on my lock on. I hope my story will help someone listen to reason and go back to the truck as soon as they get with or turn around and go get that safety arty, or any other scenario that could turn tragic. I love to hunt as much as anyone, but there is no hunt worth losing your life. And according to Ty Brown’s favorite hunting partner is Pappy Greg, That’s just how that happened. There’s a lesson for all of us in there, Greg, and I appreciate you sharing it with us. Bait a trap with duck Gumbo and I’m caught. Cut me loose and I’ll step right back in there. That’s the effect good Gumbo has on me and just about all the folks I choose to associate myself with, none so more than Michael Padres at the Coon Camp in Augusta, Arkansas, the place we now officially referred to as the cash Bow Hound and Mallard Club sounds cool because it is. It’s the headquarters of a lot of bio Arkansas based duck and coon hunting adventures with my pals, the brothers went more Randal and Wade. Then there’s Brad Clark, Michael Roseman, and occasionally old Clay Bow makes his way down from Walmartville to hunt in the real Arkansas the flat Park. There are a whole host of other regular guests and friends that shuffle through depending on the time of the year, and getting to meet them well, it’s always a pleasure, especially when one of them can cook like South Louisiana’s on Chris Kent. Now. This event featured me, Random, Brad, Wade, and Chris in the addition of a bonus Chris from Tennessee named Chris Perry. He’s a fire marshal by trade and class clown by choice. But we’d all gathered together to do some duck hunting this year and participate in the Mallard Masters Gumboat cook Off. It’s a contest within a larger one day festival called the Mallard Masters Championship. The whole event is supporting community education scholarships while showcasing the area’s rich history of duck hunting and duck cooking. Look it up. It’s a relatively new annual event and it’s growing bigger every year. The ducks hadn’t been cooperating very well, so we switched on the fly to chasing coons and cooking gumbo. I brought whaling in my year old puppy, Jesse. Brad and Randall had Jesse’s brother, Zeke, and for two nights with coon hunting Fellowship and watched our house move through the river bottoms on dry ground that should have had water and ducks on it. That led us to change the old saying of no rain, no ducks to no rain, new coon hunting ground. That’s his progression can be measured with an each worm, while Zeke appears to be not only heading in the right direction, but treeing coons by himself as he goes. I’m proud of what Brad’s done with that youngster, and it gives me hope and inspiration to keep lodding along with Jesse. Michael roseveand has another sister to Zeke and Jesse, and she’s starting to come out of her shell as well, coon ans don’t always make coon dogs be what I’m dealing with here. Who knows hunting dogs develop at a different rate, even those from the same litter. So with my fingers crossed behind my back and a hopeful look toward the heavens, I’m saying a prayer that she’ll start figuring it out soon. She started ranging out further. Michael suggested taking her strictly walking next to the distraction of the side beside. That seems to be working. He said it helped with his dog and helped her pay more attention to what was going on around her. We’ll see if it works for Jess. I do know that I’m going to be hunting her every opportunity. I have this frame because I want her to have the opportunity to do it on her own. Saturday was the big day of the gun boat cooking contest, and we got going in that booth around eight point thirty that morning. The gumboat team was comprised of Chris Randall, Wade brad Me and the other Chris Chris Parry. Randall is a great cook and cooks for us all the time in camp. He was making the rule while Chris Kent did just about everything else. Brad and Wade chopped up the holy trinity of onions, bell peppers, and celery while I drank coffee, visited with folks walking by the booth, and irritated as many children as I could get to stop by to talk to. Most of the things I’m qualified to do now. Chris Perry was the gopher, and he was busy doing everything from plumbing at the camp to bringing things we’ve forgotten to the booth. It was a flurry of active vity, mostly by the headshelf, who was stirring, cutting pot and mixing, tasting, all the while washing the clock and working around the rest of us who were seemingly in his way every time he turned around. There were calling exhibitions and food vendors with kids activities, largs, crafts, and a whole slew of family oriented activities. And for a town of only eighteen hundred, I bet I saw close to a third of that number Saturday. By noon, there was a lot of fun in our booth was a wall of wooden pallets nailed together and decorated with mounted ducks mounted coon. The big boar’s head switch came from the bole behind the cabin, small decoys, and an old wheat bran coon hunt light easily recognized over the silver topped battery box that hung on a belt and a thick black cord that connected the battery with the head light attached to a hard hat. It was a coon hunting standard for many years, and it, along with the ducks and the decoys, represented us and our camp very well. Feeding time came at twelve and that’s when we hollered Suey and started giving out samples. The line for all the gumbo at all the boots was long and slow going. We served it until it was gone, saving a sample, and the contests issued container to turn in to the judges. Now, Chris’s gumbo was the best I’ve ever eate. And I make gumbo at home all the time and I fix it just like I like it, but his was better. And even though at the end of the contest we didn’t win for our gum bow, we did win first place for the best booth. Well. That night we celebrated by hitting the woods with whaling Jesse and Zeke. After we callared up our four legged hunting companions, we made a cast into the woods anticipating tree and hounds at any moment Jesse took office. They was wailing out to about four hundred yards before finding their way back. Whaling opened up on a track after a few minutes, and we all listened to him singing our favorite verse as he tracked down through the bottoms. He followed it up with a course a loud and long series of chops, letting us all know he was convinced that he had a coon tread. As we walked to him, he’s barking, echoing through the timber. We discussed everything from how good he sounded to asking how in the world did Chris’s gun bowl might win first place? Just thinking about it now makes me want another big bowl of it. Anyway, Whaling had a coon tread in the first fork of a big, tall, red oak tree. We got some great pictures of him with a National Wildlife Boundary signed on the tree that the coon was in making use and taking advantage of our public lands. I petted Wailing up and we sent him on his way. Zeke was doing his own thing in another direction, and we all sat on a log in the dark, listening to him barking on the track. Those of us were tracking receivers watching the intricate twists and turns as the mapping device painted a visual picture of what our ears were telling us. Brad’s been hunting night after night all through the late summer and fall, working hard to learn just exactly what Zeke was saying. It takes a while, but repetitive trips from the hound, whose job is to communicate with you by barking, will tell you exactly what they’re saying. To the uninitiated, it sounds like I’m making this up. To those that know its second nature and very real. I heard what I would call a locate bark from z The locate bark comes just before the dog rolls his bark over into a chopper steady bark, indicating that he’s treated waiting for you to get there. And a competition, you can get penalized if the judge thinks you’re waiting too long to declare your dog tree. I jokingly told Brad as if I was a judge, Sir, I’m gonna need to call on that dog. Then. Chris Perry, a guy that’s getting into bear hunting pretty heavy with dogs, He said, he sounds trud to me. And Wade was watching just like I was on his handheld tracker. And if a dog is treated, an icon on the tracker resembling a dog with his front feet on a tree is displayed. Wade said, his collar shows him tree. And I spoke Brad again, with sir, I need to call on that dog. Out of all the words in the English language, Brad chose some intensely colorful metaphors to tell us all to shut up. Once, laughing subsiding, I looked back at my tracker and heard with my ears as Zeke’s barking moved a little further south, not much, but enough to notice the dog’s voice, inflection and rape changed just a bit, and Brad’s said that’s it right there. Well, we walked the three hundred yards or however far it was, to the tree of Zeke trying to push over with his front paws while simultaneously tried to blow the last few leaves out of it with his barkain. Someone then said the magic three words that every coon hundred longs to hear. I got him, and sure enough he did. On a limb way up in that red oak was a big old coon looking right back at us. Now, that was a good job on Zeke’s part, and a better one on Brad’s. He knows that hound, and he called him treated old school without ever looking at his tracker for any clues. Listening to that dog over the last few months, on countless trips mostly just the two of them created a bond that is special and good, one of love, loyalty and trust, the same thing that brings us all together every chance we get good stuff. Thank y’all so much for listening to Clay Lake and yours. Truly, we really appreciate it. Send those stories to me and Reva at my tcl story at the meadeater dot com. And until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Sign it off. Y’all be careful,
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