Ep. 112: Bear Grease [Render] - Three or Four Dogs ’til You’re Dead

My name is Clay Nuckleman.

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 HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render.

But I have been waiting for.

I want to start off with this right here, this book David Crockett, Lying of the West by Michael Wallace. In my opinion, from the books that I've read, which I've not read all the Crockett biographies, there are just almost uncountable biographies on Crockett for going way back to the eighteen hundreds. But this one is a really good one. It's really in depth, but it also is in the common man's vernacular from a guy who really was passionate about Crockett and is just a reputable historian.

And so.

Basically Michael Wallace. I was waiting on Michael Wallace to be one of the guests on the podcast, and and we've corresponded a lot, and it was not his fault that he couldn't. He wanted to, but he was unable to be on the podcast, but he kept thinking that he might, and so literally for a year, I delayed, and I have emailed him at least once every three months for a year and a half and he's been very, very nice, but has not been able to do it. And so finally I just had to pull the trigger.

On Crockett in his book.

His book.

I'm pretty sure it's called Lions.

Of the West.

Is that one called this one's called David Crockett the Lion. Yeah, so his book Lions of the West. I'm gonna have to fact check it. Well, somebody looked that up. It it it goes through all these different historical characters, and uh, it goes through Boone and Crockett and Kit Carson and all these guys and so. But Robert Morgan was incredible. And then our Scott Williams I just found out about him just recently went over to Tennessee interviewed him.

So long waited, long waited.

So I'm I'm pleased to have a very strong group of people here today. We're gonna we're gonna switch it up to my right, Michael Roseman sun Spotlights. You've been on here twice, an'ge Michael twice before? Yes, twice before, Michael. Michael owns sunspot Lights, the coon Lights. They always see me and Brent wearing heerd buy in the media store.

I hear you're a Crockett expert.

Like I told you, Brent thinks I'm a Crockett expert because I know more than he does. But that doesn't take much.

You know, I had suspicions that you would be a Crockett guy.

Why.

I don't know, man, it's the way you look in that coonskin hat. Oh yeah, we haven't told everyone. We're all wearing legitimate Ozark Mountain Dog Tree coonskin hats.

So everyone of the one size fits all.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was a little disagreement on that.

Yeah, yeah, yours. Yours is on your.

Head though barely.

Yeah, but you really look like a Crockett expert with that hat on.

I bet no.

So were you what year were you born?

Seventy six?

Seventy six, Okay, so you're not You're you're just a few years older than me. Did you watch Crockett growing up, like the like the Disney shows.

Yeah, I've seen some, the most of it those from reading in the last ten years.

Oh really, Okay, So it wasn't like you had the lunch boxes, guitars and the knives.

You know.

I got on eBay and uh, there's a lot of really nice David Davy Crockett pocket knives, like legitimate vintage pocket knives you could buy for like five bucks that really are from that time.

I mean, you can tell they're just kind of junk. But I almost taught a couple.

But and I probably will restart the market for that with this podcast.

Yeah, I have I have legitimate plans to revitalize the American raccoon fur trade.

Now, I was gonna say it, be honest. Is this just an attempt to get the raccoon numbers down a little bit? This whole podcast just to get people to wear coonskin?

To wear the coonskin caps?

Man?

Did you say who made these.

Early josher Josh Lambridge Spilmmaker made these hats for us. Yeah, so I've introduced Michael Roseman to his right, my good friend Jay Webb Jonathan Webster. Yeah so Jonathan.

Did did Ben? Did you recognize Jonathan's voice? Of course you did? Yeah, mao myself. I didn't want to.

With me. You may be on the next man.

I didn't want to embarrass the people by telling their names. No, Jonathan Webster was the second.

I was the third person ambushed by Clay Nucomb with a recorder asking if I knew anything about Davy Crockett, And every thought in my head, which was not many, left me in that very moment. But I literally could not have told you a single thing. It was amazing how much I was just like, I don't know anything about David Crockett, So it was perfect. Yeah, I was your target audience.

But now you did tell me afterwards that you confused him.

Yeah, you thought, who'd you think he was? Daniel Boone? That's what I totally You know. Who I wouldn't have used is Michael Roseman.

Crockett was a martyr, he was a bear hunter.

He was at the audition, he was at there Alimo.

He formed American identity on manhood and self made man. I would have been like, get out of here.

I totally confused him, and I was.

And when I even said like he's a man's man, I was thinking of that song for about Daniel Boone being a big man.

Confusing him.

At that time, I was confusing him all over.

Well, but your your thing.

I played right into what I was trying to say, and you saying that he was a man's man. I brought the question did David Crockett inform Americans about manhood?

And he absolutely did?

You know.

In Wallace's book, he talked about how he used his bear hunting identity to bolster this hyper masculine identity.

Yeah, and uh, I love it. Let's go. Yeah, you know, so now the French? Were you actually speaking French?

I mean a little bit.

I took French in high school, right up to the point where I was about to be able to speak it, and then I dropped.

So what did you say?

I said, I'm sorry, I don't know.

I could say cheese omelet in French? Go ahead, go ahead, omelet do from mom.

I'm guessing that's a little Dexter's laboratory from back in the day.

Man, I don't know what that is, all right.

Why do you know that?

Because I heard Steve Martin say it on a comedy.

Say that again, Brenton? What it is?

Omelet do fromage?

What does that mean?

Cheese omelet, cheese omelin.

We've gone international now we're sophisticated.

Yeah, that that was perfect to h to your right, Ben Lagron.

Ben.

Ben's been stepping in here recently quite a bit old history teacher. Balance families on Instagram, Balance birth couple. I'm balanced birth couple on Instagram.

Yes, speaking of which, the first time I was on here, The first time I was on here, there was a bear grease fan that had listened to us just to share the handle. And he was like this young guy probably you know, early twenties and passionate hunter, not married, no kids, and he was so excited that I was on bear grease. He started promoting, you know, if anybody out there's pregnant, check this guy.

That's funny, he was. He was getting pumped. That's good, that's good. Did you ever teach Crockett Ben.

Yeah, especially with the Alamo?

Oh really, yeah, that's always kind of mentioned just in American history.

Yeah, in American history.

And you know when you came up to me like you did, jawb Ask, I fumbled around it.

I get that all the time as a history teacher.

People think, because you're a history teacher, you know everything about every historical topic. I do know a substantial amount, but you can't be an expert on every topic ever, and so you always get stumped with stuff like that, and especially older people will they'll stuff studies something really in depth. Did you read such and such and such, and you just kind of nod your head, and you know, they think you're an expert because you're a history teacher.

In your head and your hat.

Yeah, you know, I find that a lot of these guys that I want to interview, maybe that have even written a book, will well. For instance, the Dacompsas series, the Peter Cosens, who's an incredible author, a very legitimate historical author. When I first approached him about being on the Tacomps series, he kind of was like, wow, man, it's been it's been a couple of years since I

And that's why you were able to say, well, you're guessing on the wrong guy. A man's man.

But most people like like the Spillmakers did pretty good. So I interviewed Josh and Christie Spillmaker, who Josh is on here a lot, and they hit they hit King of the Wild Frontier, the Alamo Coonskin hat, Walt Disney song.

And that's basically his whole life.

That, yeah, And that's that's a pretty good that's a pretty good, pretty good, robustal tidbit of information there. But when you start talking about the more specifics of how he actually influenced American culture and identity, then that's where I wouldn't have been able to answer that really, you know, until I had studied it. But that's when it really gets interesting, because what people remember is the high points, but like underneath the surface, the undercurrent is all these

Hat, man, I look good at anything, Okay.

So I asked Brent before he listened to the podcast, and he told me he was telling the truth and this, and I said, make me recording of what you know about David Crockett.

That's what he said, Let's see what do I know about David Crockett. He was from Tennessee. He was a bear hunter. He was elected to Congress. He was good friends with Uncle Jed from Beverly Hill Billies. He looked exactly like Daniel Boone and he got at Alamo. Some say he rose death, some say others. And I don't think those folks are allowed in Texas. And that's about it.

That's pretty good, pretty hit. You hit the high points there.

Somebody argued with me that he didn't look just exactly like Daniel, but.

He did as far as I knew as a kid.

Parker. So I did ask my wife about if she knew anything about David. She's in Texas. Yeah, she said she remembered that he they taught that he wrote the Declaration of Independence and he was the first man to walk on the moon. Well I did, but I said, she said that he was very prominent in Texas history. Big deal.

Well, see, I asked the guys from the Element who the Element guys, uh, Casey Smith and Tyler.

Johns, And they didn't.

They're big Texas guys, but East Texas guys, and they didn't. They were just like a I mean, they didn't have like any big cultural hanging point on Crockett.

So but so was that funny?

Well, I can just see that I can't see them studying near as hard in school as my wife did. I was like, now, those boys are smart. I ain't saying they're not, but I would say that their minds were a little more on hunting and fishing than it was what was going on with that true story.

Hey, this is a good reason to bring up their buck Truck series on the Meteor channel. So so the Element they had their own YouTube channel for years and their own company. They now are inside of the meat eater world, and so they made.

A series called the buck Truck, which is where they.

Drove around the country hundred quite a bit of public land, some private land, and white tail hunted and I think six or seven different states last year.

And so they put.

Up their the They have been putting up their videos every every Tuesday, and we're four or five in probably by the.

Time this comes out.

But it's it's unique because it's a it's a way different style video than typically what the media audience would be used to.

Their longer forms.

Some of them are like forty five minutes long, and usually Metior stuff is a lot shorter than that.

And yeah, they're a lot of fun. I really like that.

They're genuine guys. And it's man, that is that's just how it happens if you've traveled anywhere and done any kind of hunting. I mean, you know, that's just exactly what's going on.

Yeah, and it's it's a little bit more of the like rough cut YouTube style travel vlog feel as opposed I mean, it's well produced, but as opposed to, you know, some cinematic thing, even though it's good.

So anyway, those guys, yeah, they're from Texas. They don't know a thing about crocking.

But I did have some people. We're gonna get in. Trust me, We're gonna get into the stuff on the Alamo. Trust me, boys, it's gonna it's gonna get good. So, Michael, did you see my video I put on Instagram yesterday.

Which one catching the coon?

Oh no, he showed it. Yeah, yeah, I've seen it.

I tagged him in it. That's good, that's good. I tag sun Spotlights.

But when I I caught that coon by hand on the ground, Oh yeah, yeah at the farm?

Yeah you did, I said it in the video.

I mean, I've been around coons my whole life, and I would have never I would have never thought you could catch one by hand.

Off. Caught a bunch of them. We used to train puppies like that. I ride up and down the road. Seehim in the road, ditch, run them down, You give them a little boot. They'll turn around to fight you, and you can catch them by the tail and then you hold them out the window of the truck when you're going where you're going to where you're lose.

That works, that'll do it. That works.

No, I saw Michael catch one. I think we've talked about this on the render before, but I saw Michael jump out of the side by side run down a coon in a field. And yeah, there's a trick to it. You bump them with your foot while they're running. So I mean, you gotta be semi coordinated to make that happen. The coon turns, he'll stop when you do that, spin around, and then you grab him by the tail and they can't reach around and bite their rear.

Ind Okay, yeah they can, they can.

Yeah.

You gotta kind of keep them in a spinning motion.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Spin them a little bit, keep them occupied.

Kind of like you're holding a big snapping turtle kind of yeah, well, hey, anything else we should talk about before we start talking about. We've kind of just jumped right in the crocket, which is good.

I have several things I can always talk about. I've actually had a question I've been dying to ask Brent for a very long time.

Can I ask it?

Yeah? Yeah, just just phrase it up, just be like, yeah.

Okay, well it's pretty arbitrary, so you can cut this out. I have been dying to know the functional benefit of overalls versus just other good, durable paint work pants. I've been one to ask Brent that ever since we've been on the podcast.

Okay, I think it's more style, style, okay, as well as function. If you listen to this Country Life, I talk about all the stuff that I carry in my pockets, and I heard that.

I heard that one and I thought, I don't know if I could quite carry all that stuff is effective, Like two pockets and my hiking cargo.

All that stuff I would either have to carry, I'd either have to wear overalls or a backpack or purse, and overalls was socially more acceptable where I.

Grew up, is that all you got that's as deep as the philosophy goes.

I can make something up real quick.

Well, let me talk. And you think you wear overalls too well, I think the answer primarily was that wrong.

Was my answer wrong?

It wasn't wrong, it just was it didn't have as much function and philosophy as I expected.

It was missing a certain what do you think? I feel.

The biggest reason is so he doesn't wind up like that guy that we've seen on the way up here who seriously needed a belt.

That's the biggest What I was going to say was that a pair of overalls, it takes that the the pressure off your waist and it puts it on your shoulders. And so when you wear pants and when you wear a belt, you're constantly pulling your pants up, tightening your belt, and it just like there's this pressure around your waist. When you wear a pair of overalls, it's like you're

At the hip.

And and you can, you know, if you're if you're kind of feeling informal, you're around family and friends, you run them too down. You get a little more.

Airflow too much. That's hard, that's hot a lot.

Yeah, two downs a lot because but but if you're a little bit more of a little bit more formal gathering, Brent's gonna be running one button.

If we went.

To, say the steakhouse, he'd probably run two up.

Doubtful. Doubtful, but possible. But I just they're comfortable and I've grown. I've been wearing them since I was a little kid. I got pictures of me and I was, you know, three years old wearing overalls and it wasn't just wasn't then oshkoshes or whatever youngins were. It was regular overalls. And I've been I wore them in high school all the way, I've been wearing them forever.

It Also what I like about him is, uh, when you're working, And I don't wear them as casually as Brent does, but I wear them when I work and used to wear them a lot when I landscaped, it's just this frontal protection, this one piece, Like you know, when you're really working a lot, stuff gets down in your pants, you know, I mean just like wood chips or grass or whatever, you know, and overalls kind of keep that from happening.

You're selling me, I might have to try.

Y'all need a Brent Reeves line overall marketed as the shower roob of the outdoors.

Brent needs a pair of overalls with a flip up coonskin hat the back.

Yeah, yeah, like a hoodie.

Yeah, that's a good question. Any other questions for brand or anyone else?

Pyramids, pyramids, pyramid schemes. How can I get in? And he's gonna have in this overall business?

So I had a lot of a lot of interest in the mule trainer that Banjo's at.

I had a lot of people right.

And then, from multiple well from more than one state, trying to trying to get hooked up with my mule trainer.

What do you think?

I told him, none your business.

I gave him his number, but only after I was really convinced that guy was serious.

Do you get a referral commission?

I wish I wish maybe we'll see I guess now Banjo's got a couple more a couple more weeks at the trainer there.

Well, I mean I just took him over there. No, no, it's it's a pretty good trip over there.

Banjo's the one you thought was going to kill you.

Yeah, yeah, hence the need for the trainer. Yeah.

Yeah. But when I brought up Banjo, I had a guy say, what happened to Hoot? So Hoot was the dog?

Was the young plot hound that I had that I was training that I hunted the fair bed last fall. Brent hunted him some, Michael hunted with her a little bit, and uh and somebody said, we heard about Banjo? What happened to Hoot? And I think this is a great time to tell the world that, like like Crockett brought in to helped usher into American identity, that you get what you get by merit.

Who didn't make now who's alive? We didn't like take me?

No, I felt like I gave I gave a Hoot a good chance. I left her with a guy that hunted a man used to I would have never done this, but I'm traveling and I had a guy hunter for me for about forty five days, and he hunted probably twelve or fifteen times up here in the mountains. I sent her down with Brent. How long did y'all have her? Michael and Brent.

Month? About a month? Over a month?

No, yeah, only hunted her like three times.

Yeah, No, you said, how long did we have her?

We had it a little over a month.

Okay, But y'all didn't hunt her that much?

No, No, because of water and yeah, we were floodshed, so that was going on.

And and and then I hunted her quite a bit, and she just she just never she didn't She didn't hunt hard enough for me. She was almost two years old and just wasn't making it happen. And so I considered buying a dog from Michael. But and it was a good one.

Just you'll have Rocker, yeah night.

No, it's not for sale, No, not unless you want him. Yeah. Yeah, he's been hunting last night.

So if it gets out that I was hunting a walker, my my career is over. Because you guess you got to do the plotthounds, right, I mean I don't have to.

I'm going to give you a piece of advice, the same piece of advice that I gave Brent about dogs, I get a dog that I like every between six to eight years. This is so said six to eight. About every six to eight years, I find one to replace what I'm currently hunting. So in the meantime, we try a lot of puppies, a lot of young dogs, and we go through them and they get home somewhere else because they're just not going to make for what I want, just like what happened with you with who.

Yeah, I mean I got a few.

More, Brent, one or two.

True story.

I mean that when you start counting in fives and tens, it goes by pretty quick.

Yeah, it makes sense to invest in. Yeah, it started.

Okay now here here's what you got to talk me down from and I'm open to people from outside the coon hunting community chiming in Ben and Jonathan, which both of y'all have coon hunting with me.

Yeah, you've a coonhu with me, hadn't you been?

Yes?

And and technically I was a coon dog owner as a child.

Yeah, black and tent.

It didn't work out at the whole nother long story.

So here's my problem is that I it's hard for me to to take a dog from somebody else that just bought. I mean, because it's almost and now I'll make a case against it, and then I'll probably go and maybe do it.

But it's almost like.

Do it feel like cheating?

Yeah?

Yeah, because you didn't. You didn't You didn't raise a dog, you didn't train it and.

Find that right one.

Yeah, I've been through these stages where you're at YEP. I used to if I didn't raise it, I didn't want it. I went through a phase where if it wasn't out of my dogs that I owned, that I didn't carry anything about it. And I'm to the point now that if it'll do what I wanted to do, I don't have but four or five left, so I need to get what I can get.

Yeah, how many in your experience, Michael, how many? What's like the percentage of like good coon dogs that you try out that actually work out? Is it like ten percent or less or fifty percent or less actually turn out to be good.

He's not trying out just the average run of the mill dog. I mean, Michael is like a very very serious coon.

Now, there's a difference in a dog that will running tree a coon and a coon dog. Okay, that's the first. So as far as dogs, it will tree coons maybe, I mean, just you can turn it loose hunted enough, it'll tree a coon. Maybe fifty percent, Okay, the kind that I'm looking for one percent?

One percent. Yeah, here's the difference. Because what he ain't saying that I know to be a fact is he's got a dog right now and any dog that he's ever had that I've hunted with. And when that when he says, this dog is started and going good and you know, maybe not finished yet, but a dog that he can turn loose and it will leave there in a cloud of dust and trail and tree a coon in ten minutes. When we get when we get to the tree, look at the coon. He turns them loose

I am a little picky.

He ain't. He's a lot pick Clay. Would you have that same level of pickiness because if he.

Undred dogs, Yeah, I mean, Michael and I would be a different I mean, I'm just not as a serious I mean, Michael's business in his life has been dedicated to coon hunting. I am a recreational coon hunter.

I love a good dog, and I appreciate a good dog when I'm with one, and I feel like I've owned one good dog and uh and I so I would be happy with less than what Michael would probably, but I have been trying so. My dog, Fern died in December.

She was eight years old. Died a little prematurely.

I think I probably had a couple more winners with her, and she died a little prematurely. And I've been trying to replace her with dogs from the line that she was out of for about five years and couldn't quite make it happen. Though Michael I may have made him. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a mistake, but I gave Straight Cdio out in New Mexico a dog that I had started on Coon that was doing good, and.

I just kind of thought.

We hunted was straight out there, and I just thought she would do good for him. And I was feeling generous, and I wanted to see how one of my dogs would do on lions out there in the west, and so I told straight if he'd drive Darkansas and get her, I'd give him to him. I think she was eleven months old. So he literally drove straight from New Mexico here, got the dog, turned around, drove straight back and is hunting Opie to this.

Day and doing good.

Yeah, he says, she's a real lying dog. She probably would have been a dog that I had been happy with if i'd have kept her and hunted her and whatnot. But I've been through at least four or five dogs that didn't work out right.

But even Rocker. You liked Rocker. He did good. The first night we cut him loose, he treated three just bam, bam bam. I looked at Clay and I said, now, look, he is not this good. That's what I told him. I said, I know, he looks like I'm telling you. He is not this good and and he showed more kind of he he messed up in the next few nights. But he is a really nice dog. But he's still not what I would hunt even at that.

Yeah, well, I'm I'm in the market for a dog. I just gotta have a dog by this winter, you know. And and I do have a coon dog. I got Jed right right back out there, and Jed on a good night would go trick coon for us. But he's he's not a coon dog. He was sure a coon dog when he was with Fern though.

Yeah, a lot of them are like that.

Yeah, yeah, So all right, David Crockett, Jonathan what so you we know where you start and after what most stood out to you in this episode one? And man, hey, there are three more episodes gonna I'll go ahead and tell you we've never done a four part series on anybody. We've always done, We've done, We've been successful at running these three part series.

This one's gonna be for Are you.

Gonna pace it after what Robert Morgan said, the bear hunter the politician?

Are you gonna pay after.

That's cool?

Yeah?

Yeah, man, him as a bear hunter was was pretty impressive, Like I kind of get why people back east would have been impressed just hearing that segment that you read from his autobiography. I mean, not only did the man survive like three instances in like a weekend that would have been like life defining for me, but he did even though various clips that you said, he just had a way of talking that I don't I don't know.

Is that?

What?

What is you?

What do you guys think about that from like a conservation standpoint? Now, obviously it's totally different two hundred years ago, but would that have been.

Ago.

Those guys are the reason we have game laws today. I mean, the market hunting era of the US was a wanton a wanton.

Waste of wild life.

I mean, that's probably the wrong way to describe it. It was an excessive, unsustainable use of wildlife, and so the pendulum swung. The pendulum when when those guys first got here was that this is an inexhaustible resource that will never go away, so we can do whatever we want, no rules and regulations. They were market hunting these bears. Crockett was making money. He was incentivized financially to go and kill as many bears as he could, along with

So absolutely.

But but the way I like to think about it is that the wanton disregard of the sustainability of the thing produced the most robust wildlife management system in the history of mankind, so.

Absolutely fascinating, fascinating man.

Yeah.

And and it's those stories about Boone and Crockett that have have fueled and I'm gonna call it sport hunting, even though I don't like that term. Those stories, those guys, those archetypes, those icons have fueled the American sport hunting culture because we all want to be like those guys.

I mean we do. I mean, like, I.

Just love hearing these stories about crocatt And and you know, we go out and kill a couple of bears a year maybe, and it's like incredible until we eat the meat and render the fat. And these guys were killing hundreds a year and it's just just wild.

Do you like bear meat better than deer meat?

Absolutely?

Me too.

I do not, but I do like it, but I don't like it.

You have never if you I fed bear meat last night to a family that's not from here and not introduced it all to wild game, and every one of the kids ate it and loved it. Bear meat doesn't have a wild taste. You can screw it up. And I don't know how people do. They probably leave a bear.

And I didn't have wild taste at all. Well, I just liked the texture and the taste of deer meat better, really, But I've ate deer meat all my life, so that may have something to do with it. But I was wondering, you know, so they they seem to like bear meat better than deer meat. Do you think they liked bear hunting better than deer hunting because of the dogs.

And it's just like today.

I mean, there's one of people that, I mean, they were market hunting for deer as well and making big money off of selling the skins. I'm sure it would be there would be people that didn't like bear hunting with hounds back then because of the work and taking care of the dogs, all the same reasons that somebody might like not like hound hunting today, just for the technicalities of the sport. They might like deer hunting better,

Yeah, I mean, so he was a big dealer.

How commonplace that was back then, of keeping antlers as trophies and stuff like that, Yeah.

It certainly wasn't as common as is today. I mean, like pretty much any buck we killed today, keeping the horns. I think those guys kept horns if they were in a place where they could get them back to their house easily, or a spectacular set of horns like Gershtocker when he was in Arkansas would have killed an incredible amount of deer in seven years and one time once or twice in his book he talked about the side of a buck. Now he didn't have the boonecrack and measurement.

You know. Now we have these technical ways that we describe antlers.

But I'm amazed though too, even today, like lou Delle and Charlie, we did this genuine Outlaws series on Loudale and Charlie. Both these guys are passed away, these guys from Arkansas. I asked Stony their sons. I said, do you have any of the horns from the bucks your dad and uncles killed? And he looked at me. It was just like now, And I said really and he said, well, there's one they had mounted. And I said, what about all the other deer and he said, oh, they gave

These deer up here on your wall, why do you have them? I mean in your thought process? What do you keep antlers for?

I mean, I would I'm a I'm a product of the modern white tail hunting world. I mean, to me, a white tail antler is a thing of extreme beauty, and it's like a unique art form of nature. That is, each one is unique. There's not another one like it. I think they the size of a buck represents oftentimes the maturity of that animal, the difficulty to kill that animal.

But I think it's art man.

They're just memories for me. Now we're human beings. Are there were memory collectors that after this moment, all we had of the previous moment was memories, and those are memory reminders. That's what they are for me. I can look up there and I can say, I remember that day, I remember what happened. I remember other than that, they don't hold a place for me, but they are memory reminders of what.

Let me ask you this, mister coon hunter. If you got a mounted coon in your house.

I do, and it was bought at Bastpro.

What do you mean you couldn't buy a real coon?

Mountn't anything about a coon. I could never. I could treat possums. I don't care. It's all about the dog.

Did you see my stop tree possums?

Yeah?

And not care.

Yeah, if there were no coons.

Possum Look up above your head, you see that coon? Yeah? That coon?

Okay, when I killed that coon, I've got a mounted coon right up there, Michael, When I killed that coon, I we had been hunting hard for five years and shooting every coon that we treat and when we killed it, I told my son, I said, that is the biggest coon I have seen in this five year block, like without a doubt. I'd only remembered one I felt like was bigger that we killed ten years ago. When I was hunting with another guy, I went to my neighbor's

This is I mean, you don't even need to see it, just like it's a mountain coon.

Yeah, twenty pounds.

Twenty pounds, okay, biggest coon in five years, fourteen fourteen, that's the one that's it, that's him.

Oh man, yeah, I would say like around fifteen, yeah, fifteen.

Twenty two, eighty bob.

One dollar.

I thought you, I thought you were going to speak French. That coon weighed eighteen and a half pounds. Eighteen and a half pounds, wow. And most of them are weighing, you know in.

The twelve twelve, bigger one, fourteen fifteen big yeah, oh yeah.

The biggest one I ever killed was the second coon we ever killed. He was thirty pounds in Arkansas in the Delta. Yeah, and that's huge for down there too. I mean a ten to fifteen pound coon to a great big coon down there. He was just abnormally large. It was second coon we ever treat.

Hey.

Maybe this is I don't know, it's been a long time since I thought about Opie.

You know what dog struck that coon?

Opie? Opie did?

She sure did.

That was the first time I thought she might have some potential because I turned her out by herself and she went up in this hollow and struck a coon and she was working at and I tell she couldn't quite figure it out. So I turned fern loose right behind her or you know, like ten minutes later, and they went in there and treated it. So she she was young though, but they treat that coon.

Yeah. Yeah.

Another question about coming back to David Crockett. Yes, do you think he was an exceptional bear hunter or do you think that it was like do you think that he was a bear hunter just like other bear hunters would have been at that time, and there was something about his personality that made him really stand.

Out, like his self promotion or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, I think he was. I think he was a top end bear hunter. Like I don't think there were many guys that were better than him. I don't think he would have been like the best in the country at that time. I mean he he was good. He was just known. Huh, you know, he was just known.

Something about that story where he said his friend when he went to go get him back, and he said that he wouldn't have chased that bear in there. I didn't know if that meant he was just taking more risks and just kind.

Of yeah, kind of a wild man.

That was a good catch because it was hard to catch what he was saying. But yeah, he was saying, man, I wouldn't even gone after that bear like you did.

I'm not.

I think he was really good, but I think there were other guys that were just as good that you just didn't care about.

Didn't the way he was bear hunting with dog though, I mean how good a bear hunter he was most but depending on how good his dogs were too, and they were treeancons, he wasn't still hunting them.

He may have seen those guys though.

Back then without GPS callers, it was an athletic event. Ohh for sure, you have to stay with the dogs and be with them, be within here in distance, going to these dogs late at night, spending the night out.

In the wood.

I mean it was like a trying to triathlon trying to knee kap a bear when you get right next to him. And that was that was.

A pretty good descriptor in the dark feeling the bear being bade by me.

And Michael was listening to it again on the way up here today and I said, well, when he was talking about he fell down and started his behind, I said, well he started on the right end.

Yeah.

Now, obviously he was in the the earthquake area. What was he calling the hurricane?

Oh, that is a good question, and I don't have a great answer. I had a guy text me today and said, what is a hurricane?

I'm going to assume it was tornado damage?

That's what I said, really, yeah, I think, yeah, Do you have any any more?

I mean, no, no, that I just assumed that obviously there wasn't a hurricane in Tennessee. Yeah, And I don't know what they called them back then, but it would have probably been tornado damage, which would have been great for bear because it would have been exposed to the sun, it would have had berries, it would have had.

Yep, that's exactly what I said, because just think about the Eastern deciduous forests being just this one big blanket pretty much of a big forest. And like I know for a fact, the Hurricane Creek drainage that's within about that's in the Ozarks, one of them, Yep, that Gersh Darker talked about. He said that they called it the hurricane because of a hurricane that came through and went through the valley, and they called them hurricanes.

It was a tornado.

And then that would create essentially like a clear cut, right,

Ben. What stood out to you off the top of your well, A coupleskin hats.

It's compty, I like a couple of things. Number one, when you're talking about memories, I was immediately transported to one of the oldest things I kept from childhood, which was my coonskin cat that I got at disney World.

Really five years old.

Yeah, five years old, so early nineties, and.

So that trip.

I don't remember a ton about that trip, except for it's a small world because of its possessive power over the human mind, being terrified of the haunted mansion and getting that coonskin cat, and I remember my dad buying it and handing it to me and be like, that's a Davy Crockett hat, and as a youngster being like crowned in this superpower. But I didn't know much about him,

It wasn't like everybody had a whole lot to choose from.

Yeah, exactly, And you know, bear hunting is an exciting those are exciting stories because of some of the danger involved and stuff. But anyway, the question in my mind is like why do we why why does he impress himselves so much on us? And my conclusion is that it's because he was introducing our childhood, and anything introduced in your childhood imprints on you differently than as an adult. Like if somebody came to me now and told me about the same guy that I never heard of, it's

But uh yeah, last.

One on the coon hat minus one.

I got behind him on the JFK. That what goes around Dallas the Interstate Park really and it was I remember the license place that catch twenty two. I thought, that's kind of weird. As with Drow. I was riding my brother. I was driving by and to hit he was a Mercedes and his winds rolled down and there was in with Smith like that was just wow, that's crazy. I should I should have asked you did you ever get that?

Yeah, it's a funny letter because back as a kid, I thought when you really like something, you always use the word love. So the whole letters me saying I love you, man, I love you.

I love you.

Didn't Yeah, yeah, exactly so. But anyway, that was what I was thinking about.

I was like, because I was introduced to this figure as a young kid, it's like such a.

Well, that's who Disney targeted in the nineteen fifties. They didn't target the dads. They targeted the kids and sold them a bunch of stuff brilliantly like we we America came back from World War Two and had all this ability to produce trinkets, and people had extra money, and there was all this manufacturing and plastic and all this stuff, and it it it created this merchandising frenzy over Crockett,

And I remember the Crockett song vividly.

I mean, I could have told you all the high points of Davy Crockett and that he was like a bad to the bone dude and a hunter coonskin hat.

Just liked him.

Like when I see when I see fest Parker's picture wearing buckskins and carrying a long rifle, it just I just like it, like I just I mean, I would have even pre researching him. It's just like ingrained in us. And that's that's what's so interesting to me. It's like, why does my brother was the one who sang the Davy ballat of Davy Crockett, Zach nukelemb Oh, it was Zach.

And it's like, Zach's not a big hunter.

He did kill a nice buck last year, two years ago, but you know, like why does Zach neuclemb Remember the Davy Crockett song. I mean, how many how many songs from nineteenth the nineteen fifties could he just sing with a with a single cue of one.

Word Crockett, go Davy even Crockt. Probably not many. So it's like how why It is kind of a mystery.

It's your childhood swear you're at Devenamilenny, how you grab a hold of things.

But I think it's more complex than that though, be I mean, that's definitely major component, But I also think it's because there's something to grab on too that goes back to this American identity of when we were first America. And I mean, even if you're patriotic, you're not patriotic. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm just saying the fact that he was. He did something to the culture that was big. And what we're going to learn in episode two is that Crockett influenced a bunch of people.

It was really you know, I didn't see it was reruns when I was a kid. I was born in sixty six. So when did that Walt Disney Stuffy five? Yeah, okay, so it was there were reruns that when Walked Wide World of Disney or whatever it was. It it came on Sunday evenings, and we was always wanting, oh, man, I hope it's David Crockett. Hope it's Daniel Boom.

You mean, you couldn't fast forward and record actually had to be there, you had to be there.

On NBC on Channel four. But when when that would come on, it was immediately we were engaged in it because he was doing stuff that we knew about. You know, we could watch Escape from Which Mountain or all the other stories and movies that you know, Herpie and Doctor, the Professor, the Nutty Professor or whatever, and he's making tennis shoes that you can jump over and shoot a basket,

So what was your favorite part? What stood out to you, Brent.

In this part or in this this edition, I guess episode the part where knowing I didn't know here that he wrote his own book, I didn't know that. So and I've I actually ordered it from Amazon and I'll be yep, that's the one, and I'm.

Titled David Crockett not Day Yeah David.

So I'm anxious to read that and out of all the stuff, you know, I've been familiar with in my whole life since I was six or seven, you know, and remember that kind of stuff. And I'm I'm today years old, actually Wednesday when that came out that I learned that he wrote his own autobiography. Yeah, so I'm.

Not feeling like Michael. I'm gonna be coming back to you in just a second to ask you what was your favorite part or what you learned. I think I think the Crockett autobiography in a way did him disservice. And I think you'll see it if you read it when I first read it.

Don't.

Yeah, I will, I will taint. I will put my thoughts on top of you. But that's kind of what we do on this podcast.

You can want to try to step out, just try to anything he puts towards me anyway.

No, Crockett, this was a political rebuttal. This was a political rebuttal. He was he was being we're gonna learn all this in episode three about his political career. But basically they thought he was the only guy that could beat Andrew Jackson. And so this this group, this political group, the Whigs, were trying to recording him for presidential run, which was wild, like it would it would be almost

Yeah, And those two were enemies also Jackson. Jackson and for sure. Yeah, they didn't like each other at all, hadn't liked each other from way back.

Yep, yep.

And so this book is not If I was his editor, I would have been like, hey, dude, we got to cut all the last fortune, you know, you would have about half of it's really about his life and the other half is kind of political retribution in a way, kind of talking about and so he's it's in some ways it's incredible that we have this book because we actually get to hear the voice of Crockett through his words, which we didn't have for Boone.

Did I talk about that?

So that was one of the things that was kind of mysterious about Boone is we never heard his actual voice. There was a chapter that was supposedly written by him in his voice in Philson's book, but it wasn't Boone at all. Like Philson wrote it in Boone's voice.

Yeah, because his son said that wasn't the words of his father.

Yeah, that's right, that's right, And this is Fox Show the words of David Crockett. And so like when he tells bear hunting stories, when he talks about his childhood and he talks, he does talk a lot about very

So anyway, I got.

To remember the time it was, consider everything that was the time that it was in. You know, the way we think now about things is far different from what they thought about stuff. Yeah, so I think he gets a pass on that, on a lot of that. Yeah yeah, because of the world he was in.

You could see how it would eat at you too as a person in politics, not ever getting to feel like the whole truth's out your side of it, and then you pass events that that happened.

You want to get your beef out. You know, it ain't like now when everything you ever have ever said can come out. I mean that, dude, what a very minute percentage of his thoughts and ideas were probably got out.

Yeah, yet we got whipped whipped my wit and wildcats out of them.

So, but him speaking about politics in that book was something that had to have driven him quite a bit there in the last part of his life, because politics is what ended him up at the Alamo. I mean, losing those elections is why he'd still been in Tennessee or in Congress or something. So that that's a huge part of his life that he wants to set the record straight on.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, it's hard.

It's hard to blame him for it because they they had written multiple fake autobiographies, which at the time there was nothing.

People could do.

People people would I mean, there was no retribution and there was no way to know it was gonna happen, or they didn't even know who wrote them.

Like it was just like David Crockett.

I thought it was funny that when the guy you talked Tom trying to remember his name.

Scott Williams, Yeah, our Scott Williams.

When he said he got interested in that name, image and likeness stuff, and I thought, wow, you know that was the thing even back then.

Yeah, well, and that that was a it's a it's it's kind of splitting hairs a little bit because when we talked about Boone, we talked about how Boone was an American archetype and he was one of the first folk heroes of America and Boone rose to global fame in his lifetime. Crockett did the same thing. But there's some hair splitting difference in what happened with him Boone.

Is that is that Stevenella's beef with Crockett, that he was interfa with his own old jack about Crockett.

He's going to after he listens to this.

Yeah, no, no, that that it was the celebrity status.

He doesn't And it's the same thing that I am working through with Crockett, like I'm really trying to understand it, because Boone didn't become famous until mid fifties, and Boone did stuff to try to capitalize on that fame to some degree, but he was already but but he just wasn't in control of it as much. And Boone dies

Down the road.

Yeah.

And that was Daniel Boone Crockett. So you know, I would say Boone was more of an archetype folk hero, not so much a celebrity. Crockett knew of his fame, interacted with his fame, tried to capitalize on his fame, which I don't blame him for. I mean, it's like that's what people do.

Uh.

And he he did stuff like write books, and then what busted him for Ranella is the Line of the West play that was a Broadway play that was in Europe as well. I mean, this is like major and this is major American stuff too, because this is one of the first major American theatric theatrical productions that went global, and it's called Line of the West. Key character is Nimrod Wildfire, who is one Davy Crockett.

Crockett's alive.

Crockett's like in his thirties and and everybody knows Nimrod Wildfire's Crockett and uh in Crockett, they invite him to New York.

To go to the play. That's what gets Steve.

Is he went because he went.

He went, He went to the play.

And when Nimrod Wildfire walked out onto the stage Broadway production of New York Nimrod Wildfire, the actor stops, takes off his coonskin hat and tips his hat to Crockett, who's sitting in the balcony.

And what does our boy Crockett do? He stands up and waves to the crowd, just like reeves what it does.

Absolutely, So this is my question. If Stevid hunted his entire life, no one really knew who he was, somebody heard a little something about him, and he found out in New York there was a play about him. You think he wouldn't have went and seen him.

I mean, yeah, I'll ask him. Yeah, No, it's it's so in a SoundBite you would you could say Crockett was like vain compared to and we'll hear other stuff. But I'm telling you I think I I I.

Think it's apples and oranges different times. Yep. Yeah, I mean there's a little overlap, but it was after you know what I was thinking. There was a huge difference between I mean when Daniel Boone was in his thirties and when David.

And and I'm not picking on Steve Vanella in this in this segment, but what would Crockett have today if he were here? What what would he do? He'd have a television show, He'd be on Instagram, I mean just like me, I mean, you.

Know, just like me. And he'd be looking for a good dog. But he only had one walker dog.

Michael, Oh, that's it. He would.

Did you pick up on that in in the in the bear hunting story when they were in the in the cracks.

I didn't hear anything about a walker dog.

Well, and he didn't say walker see you boys, you gotta turn on your listening ears. He said that it was at night, and he said there was one white dog. See I mean if there was one white one, that means the rest of them were dark. Ye, So that it had to be a walker you know, some type of walker dog they like to bob their tails.

Some kind of English foxhound more than likely.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it wouldn't have been a straight up walker because it really probably wouldn't even hardly made by then.

Walker's no, well, I mean they come mid nineteenth century.

The actual straight up.

Yeah, actual treeing walker b Yeah right.

Crockett said, And we're gonna learn about this on the next episode. I don't know why I'm telling you now, but they like to bob the tails of their bear dogs.

Makes sense, Yeah, especially hunting in the hurricane. Yeah, because are gonna whip its pieces.

Yeah, we didn't have a squirrel dog. The tail wasn't.

Bob Yeah, it's really just aesthetics.

Well, it gives it's a little less to grab a hole to by bear. Also, that's true.

Yeah, but today you won't find houndsman bobbing tails out west. They do sometimes because their tails are him cactus and stuff.

I've seen a lot of beagles with bob tail. Oh really Yeah, because they beat him to death and the briars.

Yeah yeah, Michael, what stood out to you?

I wanted to see him slide down that honey locus. That's what I wanted.

Ohio.

Yeah, yeah, he might make the Ohio. He's not gonna make it down that honey locus without a scratch. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I don't guess what I've read. There hadn't been a whole lot about the bear hunting stuff. Most of what you read covers his childhood and then on into that. It calls him a hunter, but it doesn't really go into depths on the bear hunting stuff. I thought it was pretty neat about him being in those hirk or the earthquake cracks. Yeah, yeah, that was

Yeah, you know.

So although he did, was the play before or after the politics? It was before, wasn't it?

No, Because the politics are what made him known. Okay, the play was in the eighteen thirties and he got into politics in the early eighteen twenties. So politics is what took him to the national stage. I mean that it's the only reason he would have had even a voice

Said, I was so choked up, I thought I was going to cry.

And he said, and all I know to do was start telling them a hunt It's basically told them a hunting story. Yeah, And the people loved it, like they they thought the other guy was a dork.

And Crockett was like, oh, I see how this works.

And so he just got up in front of people and talked about hunting, made fun of his opposition, was self deprecating, stole their speech, stole yep, stole their speech.

Really, he was just ye.

Before the guy went on stage, he gave his speech, gave the other guy's speech.

Man, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh we're going to get into all that later.

Oh. I did want to say one thing about you though, deciduous forced.

Yeah.

Never in the history of He'll billy has there ever been one say that? So every time you say it, it takes your credibility down just a little bit. What do you mean, I mean, they just don't say it? Did you say the woods Man hard?

I say deciduous on this podcast?

You did?

Yeah, yeah you did.

And when you said.

Yeah, deciduous one of my favorite words.

Never in the history of He'll billy them, has there ever been one say that. I just wanted to warn you.

Okay, Well, that's that's good to know.

Good.

I know you like your He'll billy crid So he's faking it.

I figured I said it wrong. Every time I do a podcast, Missy's like Clay, you said that, totally skipping words that I don't know, putting a new word. No, this has been a fun, fun series.

We've got got three more Boom podcast. I don't even know who this guy. I don't even know who this guy is. Yeah, Wallace biography is.

Really good. It's it's my favorite. R Scott Williams is really good too. He takes a little bit his angle is a little more narrow, which is unique in that he was really interested in Crockett's celebrity status because R. Scott Williams super neat guy, incredible guy. He he is the lead man at the Discovery Park Museum in Union City, Tennessee.

Which is an incredible place.

Union City, Tennessee's is a little it's small town, like ten thousand people and they have a world class natural History American museum in that town. That there was some rich guy that lived in that town that had an enormous amount of money and he said, I want to build a museum here, and it's totally worth it if you're in that part of the world to go there by yourself or take your kids. They got a big they got a big Crocket section. But our Scott Williams really really cool guy.

So his book is good.

Too, I know they I know there's literally saying about not judging a book by its cover, but it's got a pretty cool color.

Go Crocket wearing a pair of cool shades, looking pretty sporty.

America's first celebrity.

Hey, I got a question here. Everybody in here that had a coonskin cap growing up, raise their hands. You didn't have one.

That's a good question.

There's five of us in here, and only two of us did. I would assumed you and Michael would have had one. Growing up. You were just trying to put me on the as I was. I was going to I thought it was going to be a four to one for sure. Though, yeah I did too.

I may have had one. I don't want to lie and say I did. It wasn't prominent.

Well, you're the only grown up that I know that has any right now. But as a kid, I was just wondering, and it was. It was. It was because that well you just said it.

Because it's now, Ben, your hat would have had probably a real tail, but a fake precisely.

Yeah, what about yours, Brent?

Yeah, it was wherever. I mean. It came with a flint lock rifle on the flint lock pistol.

I was in Missouri last year and I saw a double coontail hat for the same price as a single coontail. I'm serious. The gas station in central Missouri. Walk in there and there's rack full of Daniel Boone. They market quite a bit with Boone on the coonskin.

Hats these days, so interesting.

Usually it's Daniel Boone. But there was a rack of Daniel Boone coonskin caps and their their foe like they're a faux fur on top, but they actually are real coontails because the coontail and the actual fur market is not valuable, like when they're they are making fur garments out of coon hides and so, but they don't use the tail. They just use the prime parts of the hide today and so the tails they sell to make kids hats, but they use faux fur. Anyway, there was

Two. Wow.

It would have been a really unique experiment to send a kid in there and say pick out which coonskin hat want the one with the two tails with the one tail. Thank you guys for coming up here today. Really appreciate it.

Good looking forward to the next three episodes.

Yeah, life changing, It's gonna be good. Gonna be good. Maybe one day we'll sell these hats on the metator dot com.

Wow, Just get some more, Just get some more.

I got a freezer full of coon hides out there.

Can he make one a little bigger?

Maybe for you special justiflgainness. All right, guys, this is an awesome take care