![Ep. 204: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Slate and Glass with Nathaniel Maddux - podcast episode cover](https://assets.metacast.app/images/episode/artwork/sx3hXhpY)
My name is Clay Nukelem and 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 made 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. This is going to be a good one. This is gonna
be a good one. It's been a while. I'll tell you who I got around me here, Gary believer in nukemb It's been a while since you've been here. Good to have you back.
Yeah, I thought I was fired.
Check.
We thought maybe you were too, But it turns out you weren't.
Well. I told Bart, I said, you know, your daddy's really desperate when he when he causes mena guy up.
Yeah, no, good, Good to have you back.
I still got you still got your your retinas or did you burn them out in the in the clips?
Say hey, I'm fine, man. I couldn't see good before and I still can't. Yeah.
So yesterday was a mina where dad lives was in the path of totality. So we went down there. Pretty incredible experience. We'll talk about that. I'm gonna I'm gonna skip over my two mystery guests. Bear John Newcom is here. Good to see you, Bear, good to be here. You ready to you ready for Turkey season?
I know you are been doing a lot of scouting. Yep, So hopefully we can make it happen this year. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Got Josh Lambridge Spillmaker here to my left. I'm here, see Josh. Josh and I were wearing the same hat. We didn't coordinate, but we got the same first light hat on. It's a good looking hat.
It is a good looking hat.
I want to make a hat like this with a bear grease patch.
I'd wear the heck of that.
Our guests, though, I've got Luke Naylor. Why don't you introduce your position, Luke with the arkansassion.
I'd be happy to do that. Yeah, I'm the Wildlife Management Division Chief of the Arkansas Game.
Management Division Chief chief, and so you you oversee for the Arkansas game and fish all the different like the all the turkey projects, bear projects, deer projects, duck projects. You're all those biologists and people's correct oversight.
Yes, we've got real simply, we're divided up. We've got about fourteen I think what we call program coordinators, which what what I used to be is a waterfowl program coordinator or bear program coordinator. Turkey, all those theologists type positions we've got, and then also all our wildlife management area staff. So we've got seven different wildlife management regions and several different staff out there doing doing w may work. Yeah, along with a whole lot of other things.
You were the you were theterfile biologist for sixteen years.
Sixteen years.
Yeah. Yeah, it's almost two years now since taking the switch over here to the to an office jockey, I guess an administrative role.
So we get you out of any meetings today.
Uh yeah, I got to cut one short. But let's let's make sure our boss didn't hear about that.
Is very important public outreach.
It is very important, and it's talking turkeys. So I'm passionate about that.
Man, I want I want to talk some turkeys. We need to introduce our our mystery mystery guest. Luke's been here before. Nathaniel Maddox from Lebanon, Missouri. Not Lebanon, Lebanon you'd be tempted if you were just driving through Missouri to.
Say, looking for a case knife.
Where's Lebanon, Missouri? Lebanon?
So how we spot a newcomer? They said, Lebanon?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nathaniel is from Lebanon, Missouri. Yep, and uh, tell us what you do man?
Yeah.
So I'm a filmmaker, own a company called Slatan Glass, a production company, and we we've been established in my hometown of Lebanon, Missouri since twenty fourteen. Moved back there after starting the company in Seattle, and uh ended up back on the family.
Farm, Slaton Glass. So there's a there's a's a that's a turkey hunting. Those are turkey hunting words.
Yeah, and their production words as well, like really glass for lenses and a slate is the little you know?
Actually?
Well is it?
Was?
It meant for turkeys though?
Both?
Oh it's a double on.
Yeah, it's one of those artsy Seattle things. Have you really been from Missouri, you'd have called it turkey video work.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
But slat and glass double meaning.
I like it.
So you uh, you've been in full time video production for ten years with your own company.
Since Actually I had a company before that. I started in twenty ten that I sold to a guy in Seattle. So since twenty ten, fourteen years okay, yeah.
So I gotta get this on the table, Nathan. The reason I know Nathaniel, we have a mutual friend in Isaac Neil. But the main reason that your name has popped up in my world the last ten days is that you your company. You made the film The Colonel and the Fox for Massy Oak, which came out April.
Fourth, yeah, last week.
Yeah, and that film kyleie Man. When I saw the trailer for it, I was with I was in Mississippi turkey hunting. I saw the little two minute trailer and I was just like, that is going to win. I really, I mean, I was like, that film is gonna be good. I can tell just from the quality of the trailer, but also the content. So Dad, So, Gary the Believer has not seen this film. The film is about Toxi is the one who started Massy Oak. His father, Fox Hayes is how old is mister Fox.
He's born in nineteen thirty, so do some quick math.
Midninet he's like ninety three, ninety four, ninety two. He was so. The film is a documentary about his life, but also the documentary of a man named Tom, Colonel Tom Kelly, who they call the poet Laureate of turkey hunting. He wrote a book in the nineteen seventies called The Tenth Legion, which is an incredible turkey hunting book that
kind of shaped turkey hunting culture. And these two guys are still alive, and they'd never met, and but the story is about them, but it's really about their lives and the restoration of the wild turkey and their influence on the restoration. I probably should have let Nathaniel.
Yeah, he probably might have.
Daniel was my guest. He drove down here and he never spoke. I just I just looked at him.
And talked about over here, mouthing to you.
I've known Nathaniel for like eight minutes. Let me tell you about this guy. I mean, you know, he's he is from Seattle. He's got his uh, what kind of shoes are these?
These are PF flyers?
See, okay, this is the first is the first. Now bars got some interesting shoes too, though that Gary made a few comments about these ever the kind of blue shoes. But no, it was cool so I could talk about Nathaniel uh tell us about the film.
Yeah. So, uh, really, it's been an overwhelming past week, so try to fair start.
I've been working with Mosoke for for a while and they it's a company that's been important to me since I was a kid, because my parents got a satellite dish in nineteen ninety five and the first thing I got introduced to was tn N Outdoors and so on Sunday afternoons, there was all of a sudden these hunting shows, and Hunting the Country was one that I gravitated to and watched all the time. So I grew up watching these guys turkey hunt. They taught me how to turkey hunt.
I live on a cattle farm in Missouri and there's turkeys all around me, but I don't know how to kill them, and my parents don't know how to kill them or hunt them, and so those guys taught me how to do it, you know. And so I have a stack of VHS tapes that I actually recorded. You know, you hit the play and the record button at the same time. Absolutely, and uh, all these years later.
Wait a minute, was that a technology hack?
You just there? You go? Yeah, what do you mean you recorded them off of the TV.
You know, you run the TV and the VHO and recorded.
Statue to limitations.
Right, yeah, there you go.
Uh So all these years later, you know, I'm I've been working with the n WTF since twenty sixteen, uh, doing a lot of the content for them because turkeys have always been a very very important part of my life.
Turkey hunting has.
Would you say, turkey hunt is the main thing you're interested in out in the outdoors?
Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, Okay, that's it. I mean slate in glass, Yeah yeah, And I mean I love some bow hunting and do a lot of different things, but turkey hunting is just, for whatever reason, has grabbed a hold of me, you know, since I was a kid. So over the years I've gotten to know Toxi and Daniel and Neil and everybody at Mosioake and done a couple of commercials, thirty second commercial spots for new products
and things. And they had come to me and said, hey, we got you know, pop Off Fox and mister Tom Kelly at camp together and there's a couple guys that grab some footage, but we're not sure how to didn't film that part.
I did not know. So they came.
Daniel and Neil came to me like maybe a year ago, and they said, we've kind of got this collection of footage.
The camp was one of them.
We've had a couple of other interviews with Tom Kelly's daughter and a couple other people, and asked if I would kind of take on the you know, responsibility of figuring out how to make a story that honored both of these guys. And started going through that footage, and then I got really deep into the weeds with putting together this big storyboard and I'm like, man, maybe it can be a thirty minute film, but it feels like
there's a lot here. And so I started, me and my guy started doing more interviews and really decided, you know, yes, this is a story about these two guys that are that have been turkey hunting since the nineteen forties and not too many people can say that, but a lot has happened since the nineteen forties and America as a whole in our culture, and so how did not only this idea that these turkeys were almost gone when they started, and now we've got, you know, this beautiful thing called
turkey hunting in the population that all of us get to enjoy. They came through that, but they also came through World War two and Vietnam and all these other things. And so my goal kind of became, how do we tell the story of the wild Turkey through the eyes of these two guys who are still hunting now, but also through the eyes of America, you know, like our culture and how it's shifted and changed over the years. And it ended up becoming an hour and twenty minutes instead of thirty minutes.
And man, what you did there by by connecting the restoration of this this turkey to people is really powerful. And I mean, I think that's a key component to just all all of our endeavors as hunters. To show a non hunting public, which is becoming increasingly important in the sustainability of what we do, is that the non hunting public understands and it is empathetic towards us and sees the real value that we bring in so many ways.
And man, anybody would watch that film and just be like, wow, I kind of get it, you know, because you just see these guys who just dedicated their lives to turkey hunting, but then you also see the human effort involved in the restoration of the wild turkey, and specifically these two
guys in different ways. I mean, like Tom Kelly was more influential at a cultural level in writing this book that put words and put put some Yeah, just he he helped build a turkey hunting culture through this powerful work of literature, and then through mister Fox, who is more hands on in some ways of getting turkeys brought back in and released in the Mississippi. But you just
see their lives and dad in the film. They it's like a documentary in a way about America, Like they show World War Two and Colonel Tom Kelly was in World War Two, and the shows I don't know, how did you? Is that a good description of it?
I think so.
I mean I feel like in my head, we're all very unique people, are you know? We all love the turkey hunt, but that's not all of us, right, Like, it's not the whole of who I am as not just a turkey hunter. And I wanted that this film to show that, and I think that sort of connects people who maybe not turkey hunters to understand a little bit.
And we had a really cool screening down in Mississippi and everybody from ostri Oak was there and it was really fun and they were like, Hey, you need to do one in Lebanon and I'm going, Man, we've got like the Rich seven Theater.
I hope it's still standing kind of thing.
And so we had a premiere last week and two hundred people there or something, and a lot of them came out because they were our friends and family, and but it was it was cool to me so many people who know that I'm obsessed with turkey hunting, but they're just kind of like.
Oh, that's just what this guy does.
He always has coming into coming up to me and being like I get it now, like it makes sense. And a couple of people who I never thought would ever want to hunt were like, I think I'm gonna I might want to try this. To me, that felt like a success. You know, people in my community who
were going, I get it, you know. And so if we could create a piece of content that makes someone who doesn't hunt or doesn't understand hunting have a little glimpse into what we're passionate about, then I feel like we've done something cool.
Have you made feature link films like that?
Before, not that long.
No, how long did you work on this?
That's a good question. So I was thinking about that on the drive up, like how many hours went into this? I started really really focusing on it hard early December, and I think I finished finished at the end of February.
Oh for a while, So this isn't like that. I thought it was like a I thought you were going to say, since twenty two.
Yeah, well we were doing We were doing archiving and research work probably since June through December. And then when I finally got what I felt was all the pieces of the puzzle, started putting it together, and it was
my wife will a test that. There are a lot of nights when the kids went to bed and I ran back over to the studio until one or two in the morning because I have other clients too, But I wanted to put everything I could into this project because for me, it's like turkey hunting is the most special thing that I know of when it comes to relationships with people. You know that in my faith. Obviously my faith is first, but but turkey hunting is this
way that I build relationships, that I maintain relationships. I spend time with people I love and so I knew this was my opportunity to really like sort of put that into a story, and I wanted to pour everything I could into it.
So what did y'all think about the film? Josh?
I thought it was fantastic. Man.
I I really appreciated getting to see because I didn't know all the history of the reintroduction of the turkey. So I love being able to see all that old footage and you know, you get you get the impression of you know, you think about market hunting and then you think about hunting.
In the in the.
Around the turn of the century, even into the fifties, that was you know, you just went out and you hunted, you know what I mean, you hunted anything you could. To watch these guys with such a commitment to bring it back in the work and I mean even even looking at the turkeys that they were releasing, they look so scrat you know what I mean. But it's produced
this thriving population. Obviously population decline in some areas, but we still have we have this, We actually have a turkey population thanks to these guys.
Yeah, even in the woe the current woes of the Southeast and specifically here in Arkansas. We still got it pretty durned good. I mean yeah, compared to what they had. I mean yeah, we're all all, you know, bummed out about our turkeys here in Arkansas, but that gum, we still got it exponentially better than what they had in the sixties, forties, fifties, you know, big time dad. How aware were when did you kill your first turkey? The eighties?
No, I think the late seventies.
Yeah, there was a polaroid picture you and a guy holding a turkey that I remember being your first turkey.
Yeah, it could have been early eighties.
How aware were you of the restoration efforts going on?
Not not too much.
It's just kind of like there's turkeys and people are hut.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I took a interest in it, and you know, learned how to call. You know, when you were a little guy. I was always going around the house calling. Yeah.
So you know that this relates to bear.
Louke.
How old are your kids?
Almost sixteen and thirteen?
Do they do they do? Some hunting daughters?
Now she's decided she's an angler, now okay, yeah, send Josh a picture of that little dry Run Creek trout not long ago. So she got hooked on flyfish and last something in Colorado where I learned at flyfish. My son kind of comes and goes on it. We've done some dove hunts, a few duck hunts, and we'll go turkey outing this year. A couple of times. He's not tore up with it, like like Bear seems to be at this point. But but he's did a little there's a spark there.
Okay, okay, well here this is the reason I asked you. That is when I was a kid, baron ukem, Britos are ready. The It was like I was like in military school to learn how to call turkeys. I remember you were just like, you got to learn how to call turkey. This is the PhD in hunting, and uh. I remember I was so proud of myself because one time I was working for buck Titsworth a construction project and I saw a turkey and the guy I was
working for backyard, I was sixteen. I saw a strutting turkey like down the hill I'm working, and I had a mouth diaphragm call and I walked around the house and got on the other side and that turkey strutted in and I came home and told Dad about it, and he was like, let me hear you call. And he was like, Dad, that's okay. I remember you being like, I don't know if that'd work on a real wild turkey call. And I was like, Dad, I called him up. I mean, he was a backyard turkey, was a real
wild turkey. It was a wild turkey, but it was in his backyard. But point being, Bar needs to work on his turkey call. And I'm gonna bring in the Gary Newcomb critique and be like, buddy, you gotta get on the way.
You're about to run through the gauntlet, my friend.
I mean, he's called kill turkeys. But but man, when you're down in Mississippi, an eleven year old kid in Mississippi can out call grown men in most states. And so Bear, we've got a lot of work to do.
Yeah, I remember.
I hope all that made sense. I probably none of that may have made sense. It made perfect sense in my head.
Well from my perspective, I could call in a bird, but I wasn't that great of a caller. And I taught Clay what little I knew, and uh, within a week he could call better than I could. I mean, he had a natural ability to do it. It might not be.
Now I'm the best caller meat eater for sure.
Yeah yeah, proving anyway you had you had you had a knack forward.
Well, when I go to Mississippi, I don't even call when I'm around all those guys in Mississippi, Lake Pickle, Jordan Blissed, Keith polk Uh. I hunted with Brad Ferris the other day, and there I've just shut up. I don't even I.
Don't even call the presence of greatness.
They can hoot and gobble and yep. I mean it's crazy listening to them.
And that, and that kind of comes back to his uh, his his film. Yeah uh, I I've decided that. And as much as I you know, I'm prone to be very biased towards the state of Arkansas. I believe that Mississippi is the cultural epicenter of turkey hunting. I believe that from I mean, just everybody in Mississippi. Luke has written a book about turkey hunting. Hey, if you lived in Mississippi, you'd be like, Hey, Clay, Merry Christmas, here's a book I wrote about turkey hunting.
Well, one of my best memories ended up living in California, met a Mississippi boy and we're friends to this day. And he introduced me to the old Pro Turkey Hunter book to read every every season. Once I got to know him, and we turkey hunted together a lot out there in the coast range and the foothills and such out and out there, and and he I got. That was my first introduction to the It was remote from Mississippi, but it was a Mississippi boy born and raised he
I got. I understood, maybe not fully like like you have now, but I got a pretty good taste of what it's like to be alo in his mouth. Didn't do much al hooton no bard owls out there when we were hunk, but we'd do it anyway, because I mean, the turkey's child. But whatever. But I'm not gonna say that he would win the al hoot contest. But I'm not going to integrate him by saying, like like you've done with bears turkey calling here, say that he couldn't pull it off.
See dad now is talking good about my turkey hunting. All I remember as a kid was it like it was.
No good, like never measure.
Yeah, Uh, well, the what is the Are we in the middle of turkey biologist in Arkansas? Right now? We don't have a turkey biologist.
We have one starting Monday, which whenever this comes out opening day, Yes, I heard.
If he doesn't call in that day and say I'm busy, I'm not him.
You know. I had a guy call me a friend and I still to this day. He's kind of a prankster. And he called me up Sunday night, the seventh and he said, man, I'm gett all my stuff laid out to go turkey hunting. I let him go on for about five minutes. He'll he'll listen to this and he I said, man, you can Are you like, are you just trying to get a game warding?
Come find you tomorrow morning?
He said, what do you mean so adult Turkey season starts the fifteenth, not the eighth. Oh, I say, well, I'm glad. I'm glad I talked to you and I still do this moment. Don't know if he was just pulling my leg, I really don't know, but but yeah, our new guy starts, uh March fifteenth, March fifteenth, April fifteenth. He's coming out, he's finishing his PhD. At North Carolina State Study studying turkeys up in Appalachia. So he'll be green, but he's coming in and we're ready to have him
hit the ground running and keep things going. That Jeremy got rolling here for a while, got got a pretty good stable place here with our turkey management program right now. We've had some support to kind of keep things stable, keep our turkey regulations kind of kind of set here for a while. You know, he alluded to it a little bit ago, where it's a good place to be that we definitely are not at a point where anybody's worried about losing the opportunity to hunt turkeys anytime in
the near future. We're not going to lose turkey populations again like we did back you know, nearly one hundred years ago, eighty years ago now. But we are definitely in a place, as we all know that we're in a decline. It's it's uh, maybe at the bottom of it, I don't know for sure, but but it's definitely gotten rougher for everybody, for turkeys and for turkey hunters. Uh, but it is. The good news is it's still still a lot of opportunity out There's still a lot of turkeys.
It's just not quite as a slam dune boy. Late late nineties, I myself taught turkey hunter to nobody in my family turkey under and uh, you know, wanted to just got passionate about it when I was early teens and taught myself out of turkey. I probably watched some of the videos you were talking about, same deal, prim most true stuff. I don't know when that was started coming out, but the same audio stuff also from Mississippi. And it's hard, it's hard to say now that boy,
we kind of learned when it was easy. I think we're honest if we're honest with ourselves. I think we did kind of learn when it was easy. Late nineties, early two thousands, Boy, it was you know, when I was going to undergrad at to Kansas State. Boy, we'd go out and duck hunt, duck hunt in the winter and it was flocks of two hundred plus birds every every creek bottom, you know. And that's just not the
way it is anymore. Probably for Aunusts probably won't come back to be in that, but we're still going to have turkeys.
What can you lay out like simply the what is the turkey. Is there a way to verbalize the turkey management plan in Arkansas? And I mean, can you do that?
Yeah, I mean we're we're always focused on habitat first, right, trying to continue that's a long term.
And that's working with Forest Service. And so in Arkansas there there's we have quite a bit of national forest which Game and Fish works with Forest Service on some of that land or all of it.
A lot of it.
We have state owned land like Arkansas Game and Fish WM as.
Correct, which a lot of that's in the Delta, which is less less it definitely has turkeys, but less so than the western part of the state, which is the hill country. Most of that, most of the public land there is national forest land. We got some awesome large wildlife management areas and the ozarks and the Washingtaws as well.
They not that good though.
Uh well, yeah, don't don't come No, don't.
I mean, I'm not come here.
But I won't name any names at all because that's I know better than that. But you know, people still find places to find turkeys on public land. And yeah, it's a long term issue to keep managing habitat.
So managing habitat YEP would be burning. I know there's a lot of places where you're you're they're planting food plots. I mean like specifically for I mean for wildlife. But but but turkeys too. What what would be habitat work that that gaming fish is managing.
Yeah, so long term, we're trying to push habitat toward desired forest conditions. Desire conditions, So this kind of terminology we use and habitat management where we have, Okay, here's what we think this habitat should be. And e can debate that for months, but well, let's just take a
look at it. And early a lot of times go back to the GLO records, what is that General Land Office or whatever, the early records when first settlement, when people go to survey trees and they'd go take every section, they'd assess it. And those records are out there and available, and they're really really fascinating to look through, and if you were to summarize it real quickly, it'd say, there's just way too many trees, which is funny when you're
talking about turkeys. But there's like the whole Boston Mountains you drive through up in northwest Arkansas. I mean, that's a second growth forest that was the Washington Records talk about folks driving covered wagons with never having to dodge any trees. Right, you take a wagon train through it. It was so open, wow, so much grass cover. So most of our forests are two dents, would support fewer
numbers of species. So we're talking about all kinds of critters, not just the ones we like to hunt, but but all sorts of different wildlife use this diverse forest ecosystem that had lots of uh forb and grass and shrub understory with you know, over story, pine and oak depending on what slope you were on, and generally just a lot fewer trees and a lot more fire.
So the fire do, y'all. So I see quite a bit of fire. I've seen quite a bit of burns going on this spring in National Forest. Are y'all asking them to do that? Or is that Forest Service that's wanting to do that for timber management?
Forest Service, I'm not going to speak for them, but a lot of what they do throughout the country is fuel reduction fires. So that just it's just they have an objective to reduce fuel loading.
So it's just kind of it just kind of happens to be that that's good for turkeys too.
It can, and it's it's maximized when there's some sort of forest management practice done in in cooperation with the fires. You cut trees, you know, thin out, thin things out, let some grasses grow up, then develop a burn regiment. After that, then you kind of you kind of reset that forest to back to a more diverse better You might say that's a judgment call, but but a little
better system for lots of critters. Just burning without thinning has has reduced benefit because it doesn't have the same sunlight on the ground. The sunlight means diversity, and the sunlight helps regenerate stuff that may have been shaded out by an eighty year old oak tree that everybody thinks is a virgin forest. Maybe right, nobody's ever been here, human beings never touched its place as well. You know, most of the records of the Boston Mountains in northwest
Arkansas was prairie. I mean it was it was. There's a What's p Ridge National Military Park up here is a good representation of what things probably work looked like in the Civil War era. Wide grasslands, open spaces, and most of what was cut over and now just sh it out by too many trees. But that and just trying to maintain now.
That that prong one would be habitat. Habitat, it's always habit you there, it's always what would be what would be other things like season season dates.
Yeah, you try to work on that and and try to maintain some stable you know, we've had what most folks would probably consider later turkey seasons here recently in Arkansas, but some stability in that so we can start to understand the impacts of different things, whether it's whether it's wet springs, right, we know we had a bunch of them in the last ten years that we know aren't good for ground nesting birds.
Yep.
But it's hard to tease that out if season structures are changing a little bit. So and you're starting to see more states at least talk about and try to implement later season to start right, More people are going toward that now because we're and we're doing some neat stuff that we can hopefully talk about, you know, twelve to eighteen months from now, about gobbling chronology, looking at
auto autonum us recording units ARUs. You hang them up in a tree and they just record sound and then you can go in some algorithm finds out he has a turkey gobble and you can go check it. So we're gonna have unbiased data on gobling chronology across the state.
Can you send me some pins.
I probably won't do that, Josh, but I'll make sure to screen the data before we write a report on it. Now, that's going to help us understand gobling chronology because you're really talking about almost on purpose, trying to hit the second peak of gobling for birds, like let birds get through that first peak. It's frustrating as a turkey hunter sometimes.
When they're doing their breed, you hear them doing it.
They're left building, they're hearing building that whole kind of stuff. Boy, they're noisy. They can be really susceptible to calling at times, other times not at all. Of course we all know turkeys, but that that's kind of by design, is to make sure all that stuff gets done. Then we start going out and removing removing mails from the population.
So habitat, season, structure, is there anything else.
And we just keep like the monitoring work to try to keep making sure we have contemporary information on what's going on with turkeys. So you know, we've done gobling chronology work over the years. It's funny with a lot of things we've done with like dove call counts. There's been quail and pheasant call counts all across the country for years. It's kind of funny to watch those trends over the years and a bunch of old men going out and doing these surveys. It's funny those industries drop
over time. Well, guys can't hear anymore. So you kind of like we say, we say biased, but I don't mean like somebody purposely doing something right. This isn't somebody faking data. This is just a reality when you have a human observer.
If you sent me out there, I would report that all the turkeys were to the left. I would be like, I don't know what happened. They were all over while if Officer Luke, the turkeys were always to the left, no matter where I was standing.
Yeah. Now we have the technology to remove the human element from it. Yeah, yeah, and so, but we haven't done a real goblin chronology work for I mean almost twenty years now, where we systematically had people go out and run routes with different levels of hunting pressure with different habitat type, different ecoregions. So now we're working on
this with these ARUs. A lot of states are doing this now because it's a really cool way to figure out, Okay, what is the actual breeding krinology if you think Goblin chronology means great breeding chronology, Like, what is it really across the country, Because we've all got our own stories we can tell, but this should be really cool for a lot of states across the country to have this information the next several years.
Wow, So the new guy starts Monday, right when John Calipari starts for the Arkansas Razorback.
Yeah, yeah, that'll well, yeah, I'm not sure which one will give me the most press time, will tell?
Right?
I was, Okay, I had a little scenario in my head when I knew that you were going to be here, Luke and uh so, for those who aren't paying attention to college basketball, John Calipari from Kentucky is now gonna come be the Arkansas Razor Back head basketball coach. And
there was a lot of press about that. There's a lot of mixed feelings in the state about it, and I thought, wouldn't it be something if it was just as big a deal about who the new Arkansas turkey biologist was gonna be in the equivalent of bringing in
John Calipari though for the game and fish. And if y'all had a marketing team doing this, you could have could have created this environment like if you'd have brought in like Craig Harper or or the Turkey doc like Chamberlain, and it'd be like WHOA Chamberlain's leaving Georgia and coming to Arkansas, and like people be mad and people would be fired up.
It would have been a lot of posts about that. Yeah, probably gonna have fewer about our about our new Turkey biologists. I had to guess.
Yeah, well, but it was a fun little game in my head.
Well a few minutes. Good luck with Caliborn. They couldn't get Kansas State's coach. That's my.
Name is you're gonna make me say it.
He's got a last name that's hard to pronounce, David Miskicky. He's gonna he's gonna get mad at me. It's it's got a lot of confidents, So David Muskike.
At some point, yeah, well, uh, you're getting ready for Missouri Turkey opener, Nathaniel, Yeah, next Monday, same as Arkansas, it is.
Yeah, it's typically fifty in alignment. Yeah, we've already had a really good turkey y'all having.
Pretty good y'all have pretty good numbers of birds where you're.
It's been a lot better this year. I've seen so many jakes, which has been a huge deal. And I've got my family farm where I live. I've been hunting turkey's there forever, so I have a pretty good idea of how the population is doing, at least in La Clee County, and it's been really nice to see this year. And we had a good youth season. My son got a bird in one of his buddies and just this weekend, yeah, just this weekend really and then got well good this weekend.
Oh it was great. Yeah, it was a really really good weekend.
And then before that, my son and I went to Florida and got he got his Grand Slam.
So oh, oh really it's a big deal. He's he's nine, and.
Uh, he's been on the road a bunch with me turkey hunting over the last few years.
So that was a cool, cool moment.
Did you do any turkey hunting when you're out in the Northwest.
A little bit. Yeah.
Man, as soon as turkey season hit when I lived there, I was ready to get on the plane and be in the Ozarks though, you know so because I love being here in Kansas and just kind of our little spot. But we go to Wyoming every year, which is my favorite.
Oh really Turkey out and Wyoming.
Yeah, Miriams. We have a spot there. Then we go and it's close to South Dakota, but uh, I look forward to that. We usually do Florida and Wyoming and then wherever else I have to go for work stuff.
Yea, Luke, are you hunting anywhere out of state this year?
Yeah, we'll go to uh we'd kind of make a loop through Missouri, Kansas and a bread Okay, yep, yeah, I've been doing that for long. I mean going on fifteen years. Oh, Kansas side of stuff, and I went. I had some work trips that worked out very conveniently several years ago for Nebraska. Then took a little break in that and then uh uh yeah, so go back, go back to Missouri. We'll we'll kind of make a whole make a whole circuit, go there, hunt for a few days. Go up to Kansas, Nebraska for a few
days drive back. If we want to spend a couple more days in Missouri, we will.
We get to hunt all yeah.
Oh yeah, well yep, by playing a hunt a little bit next week.
You and.
Good question. I will never answer that question. I joke with a lot of people are like he was like yeah, I was like, yeah, that's not what.
I thought.
We had an understanding. Yeah, no, no, like to living people know where our turkey hunt and one of them will go on that trip with me. So uh, that's how we treat turkey hunting spots, right. So yeah, but yeah I public Land in Arkansas, let's just put it that way. Yeah, public Land in Arkansas.
And then after Turkey season, Luke's getting on the boat and we're going to go fly fishing.
We'll go fly fishing. Yeah yeah, I'm ready for that. Yeah.
So the Turkey Stories episodes that we do truly some of my favorite episodes to put together. Mainly just going and meeting. I meant I meet, I meet face to face with almost all these people. Occasionally, if I run into somebody that's uh that has professional equipment and lives along lay as the way they felt they record their story. But ninety eight percent of the stories I've ever had, I'm setting across from somebody in there telling me stories.
And uh, there's a lot kind of like looking behind the curtain and kind of like we did with his film, like you may hear a four minute story on the episode. I was there with that guy for an hour and a half, you know, like talking about turkeys, and you kind of just have to like whittle it down. But uh, this was the second episode, Uh which which did did one story stand out to you? Nathaniel?
I mean, as soon as you start talking about that Honda big red three wheeler took you had.
A picture of a big red of Tom Kelly on a big red.
That Uh man, that was nostalgic. I was like we all had those when we were kids, you know. Yeah, Yeah, that story to me was awesome. Just uh, well he got shot and then he didn't even tell the guy.
Did you? Would you have known to David Ellis before I know who he is? Yeah yeah, Mississippi boy.
Yeah, Yeah, it's a different it's a different way of life down there for turkey hunting Misissippi.
Yeah.
Yeah, Now I thought that story was really and he's a great storyteller, so.
Oh man, yeah, he's a pro. I mean, like he actually goes around and does like public speaking, so like he's told that particular story a lot of times, you know. But it was that was while when he first told it to me, I actually had to here's here's behind the veil. He told the story, and it was unclear to me at first whether he was trespassing or not. And I was like, wait a minute, this guy just told me the story about trespassing, Like I can't use this, and I and I and I said, wait a minute,
were you trespassing? And he was like, no, I wasn't trespassing, and he went back and I and I actually edited out my question, took his explanation of not trespassing, dropped it in to like the climax of the story, and you'd never know it. For an editing nerd, it was like, oh, that's good. How the sausage just made it yeah for real because I didn't want it to. I didn't want people to question what had happened. But but it was real clear in the story, right like he he crossed
this big ravine went up, there was bushwhacking. These turkeys. He wasn't even calling them because it was last day, and he was just like, man, I gotta kill a turkey, get shot in the face. Yeah, it's wild. It's a scary story. Yeah, scary story, Luke, which which story do you like? Well?
I always enjoy listening to Andy. Yeah, tell I can tell a story like really really well, one thing maybe going back to last year's you did turkey stories last year too, right, yeah? Yeah, one thing I've noticed about all of them and nobody. I don't know if I've ever heard anybody tell a story about a small turkey.
Yeah, it's always big old gobbler.
Everyone.
Every one of them was a big old gobbler, every single turkey story told. But I always enjoyed just listening to him talk. I always used typically learn a new word.
Yeah, which word? Which word was it?
What did he say?
Tumped?
I was trying to figure how that spelled to you, m apostrophe d.
I had multiple people bring that up. It's true, though, did that blip on your radar when he said tumped, like that would be an unusual word.
I've heard him talk so much I think, yeah, I didn't.
It never even crossed my mind. That that was an unusual word, and I had many people say they'd never heard tumped over. But man, I tell you what Andy I said it on the podcast. But Andy is number Well, you could be a great storyteller and not be that competent in hunting. That's one possibility, which is fun I mean that's great. You could also be very competent in hunting and not be a great communicator. You could also be a good storyteller, competent, but not funny. Andy has
like all of it. Andy, I'd put Andy Brown up against any turkey hunter in the country. I mean, for real, his home turf for and everybody is you know, Andy's one of these guys. He's not like hunted all across the country. I mean, he's just dedicated.
To you're saying skill wise, just for for.
If you were to say, yeah, for where he where he hunts, you just couldn't be much better. Yeah, I mean, do you just send out a hundred guys and say bring back turkey. I mean there's people that are as good, but like, he's just good. But then he's just a just a very good story too. And his dang laugh, I mean he laughs at himself. Oh, gosh, yeah, Andy, what a guy? What a guy? Okay, I keep going back to Andy's house in saying, Andy, we're gonna have to do it again Turkey story, and He's like, cleve
about run out of him. I go to his house, I heard three new stories I've never heard and actually held him back. Any one of those stories would have been as good or better than any story that I put on there. I mean, it could have just been Andy's story time. So I saved him for next year. I told her. I was like, I'm just gonna put one on and then next year I've got two in the hopper that are incredible stories. So anyway, oh Andy, Yeah, he's he's a lot of fun. But Dad, which one
stood out to you? Well?
Well, what impressed me was they were all so good. The first one I thought, well, this is gonna be the best. Then the second one, you know, so all the way through. But Russ's author. I really loved how how that came together. I mean, it's unbelievable. In fact, it's it is unbelievable. But I've heard you talk about him so much. I mean it happened. Yeah, And then I finally decided that the Yacht yacht in Poe Daddy, I forget the story anybody that has those nicknames. I mean,
these are the coolest guys I've ever heard. I mean they got the lingo, and I mean when when when yat Yacht gets to talking, it's like he's in a road race. You know, after this, you can't even want to keep up with it. I had to replay it three or four times, and I go, man, I was going to try to repeat it in here, But it was just amazing storyteller. When you say he's a pro, he probably wouldn't know it unless somebody told you. But when you really think about what he's saying, how clear
it was, how entertaining. It was an amazing guy. And they have names like how many people do y'all know they have goofy names like that. I mean, yeah, yeah, and y'all y'ah daddy And they call Poe Daddy because you know, he's too cheap, he said, he said, po Daddy ain't poor, he's just cheap.
Like we saved ten dollars and get a hotel with one bed.
So I guess po Daddy was my favorite. Yeah.
Uh, David Ellis has to be at the top end of natural voice mouth callers like his gobble, just him being able to Oh, I mean, there's probably people that are better, but not much better. I mean, I guarantee you he'd be at the top end of with his alhoot. I actually put a video on the TikTok that got like one point two million views and it was me just standing there saying, David Gobble, alhoot, do your you know, yelp and just he just he can just do it.
I love it when that's impressive.
Sound effects added a lot to the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the Russ Arthur story. You you mentioned it, but all re rehash it. That was an incredible That was an incredible story. And Russ oh man, there's never been a string on the earth. And Russ Arthur, I mean, I love the guy. I mean, and he such history. He's the one that told the story about his father passing away. He was his dad. I think was about his dad passed away. I think in twenty fourteen, same
year lew And Newcomb passed away. And his dad was just a significant player in National Wild Turkey Federation over in East Tennessee and was one of these guys kind of like Fox and Tom Kelly. You know, like I mentioned it, but you could have missed it. Russ Arthur said in the sixties, when they were trapping turkeys out of East Tennessee because East Tennessee had some turkeys where they hunted and that's the reason they had such a
hunting culture there. They were trapping their turkeys and taking them away. And Russ said his dad would set around campfires and evangelize to those guys like, hey, this is good, because all the guys were like, they're taking our turkeys just like we do today.
Oh. I picked up on that for sure. As a folk you know, somebody who's in the wildlife management field and always need really strong advocates like that helping us out, but not but not part of the crowd. You know, you'd like, we need those advocates. And I I picked up on that right off, that that's the kind of guy we like to have that understands the bigger picture.
Well just I mean, and a lot of people had sight back then obviously that because they were doing it, but it was controversial. They didn't know if it was gonna work. That's what Nathaniel's film talked about because they started catching all these turkeys across the country, and I think they did. Did y'all say that there were two hundred and fifty thousand turkeys relocated. Yeah, between like the forties to the sixties. Yeah, their seventies.
There was the hurdles in there too, and in trying to figure out how to not break federal laws by you know, transporting wildlife across state lines. And I think at one point they decided to get somebody that had an airplane that they could somehow get around it by flying them from place to place in the back of this guy's private plane. So there were all these different methods until they could work out with the federal government how to do that legally.
Oh wow.
But there it was just a bunch of honestly rednecks who loved the wild turkey that were like, let's figure out how to do this. Let's take this technology and make it work. Yeah, pretty cool, boy.
That just reminded me of Yaleville, Arkansas.
Oh wow.
Yeah, the turkey Colin Top.
Yeah, so I grew up in Yellville and back in the day.
You say that as if we should know something about Yellville.
Well, it's it's home of the Turkey Trot. The Turkey Trot is the annual festival in Yellville and they had the wild turkey calling content, but not only that year, in years past and even after it was outlawed, they would drop turkeys from airplanes in the middle of town and people would chase these turkeys down. You know, the festival is in is in October, and people would chase these turkeys down and take them home and raise them for Thanksgiving. And I mean turkeys can fly from five
thousand feet. Maybe not so much they sort of plummet at an angle, but man.
It was a zoo back.
I never did it, but we you know, we'd go down to the festival and we'd see the plane. And after they outlawed it, they would tape over over the end numbers on the side of the airplane so they wouldn't get busted, and they would drop turkeys. Yeah, and you see these turkeys and just run through town trying to get one of these turkeys.
Yeah.
We looked at doing a story about it because we thought it was a cool cultural thing. But then we learned about the survival rate of the turkeys.
It was not wrong y'all wanted to do a film about it.
I thought it would be cool, like a little history story. Yeah.
Someone brought it to my attention about Yellville and we we dug into it and they're like, hey, most of them died when they hit the ground.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like how you described that as I've never heard free falling out of an airplane described as plummet at an angle.
That's that's kind of what they do.
They It's a good description.
And then they tumbled over.
Yeah, then they tumped over, tump tumped over.
Hey, what about Russ?
Well, okay, guarded all that to say to talk about Russ. Russ was the undercover agent. Yeah, that worked Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards back in the eighties in Meana, Arkansas. Yeah, that's how I know Russ. And uh so they sent a real turkey hunter in to infiltrate with the real turkey hunters of these guys, you know. But I started all that to tell the story. So Russ told Russ was the guy in the first episode that Turd told about finding the journal of his father and opened one
of the journals up the first day. Well, yeah, and so this story to me, in its own way, was equally as impressive that you know, way back in this and it was a wilderness of federal wilderness, no roads, no GPS. They literally carried paper maps with them when they went back in there. Everywhere they went, they carried
paper maps. And you know, just the way he told it, you know, he's like, I heard this turkey, and I got up my map and there's a little leg and went to the leg and thought, if I can get to that hickory tree, I can kill that turkey. Gets to the hickory tree, takes his sling off, kills the turkey, tells his dad where it's at, just over the phone, just tells his dad. But they're miles back in there, not a place they know. And the next day his dad goes in there and kills one the same hickory tree,
but not on purpose. You know, phenomenal story.
He came in from a different direction. Yeah, if you remember, Yeah, he didn't follow his right foot steps.
Right, if I can just get to that tree.
Yeah, just get to that hickory tree. Yeah, it was astonishing.
Yeah, those guys used the word bonded. He said, my dad and I were bonded. You know, they really like operate as one. So it's kind of phenomenal. Deel.
So when I saw the film, we had a guy on the first Turkey Stories episode like two weeks ago named Jack Hall, who's ninety two. That's a still turkey hunting. It reminded me of Fox Hayes and Tom Kelly, just that bracket. I mean, I don't know. I wonder how many active turkey hunters there still are that are in their nineties in the country. I had to be less than fifty.
Can't be that man.
I actually heard about another guy in Arkansas. Somebody reached out to me when they heard Jack Hall. They said, there's a there's an old guy. I can't remember where he was from. I'm supposed to go talk to him sometime, but he was in his mid nineties, still in like good health. Turkey huns, so there's a few around.
But when I was listening to those stories, it made me think about, you know, you've got these guys from all over the Southeast, and they all have a different dialect, a different accent. You think some people are like, oh, a Southern accent is Southern accent, But you could start to see oh yeah, yeah, and like mister Fox and Colonel Kelly, they have a real distinct Florida Panhandle kind
of accent. And it just made me think about and wonder how much longer we have of that because most of us don't speak like our granddaddies, do you know? I think probably TV and all this cultural stuff that comes to us every day ruins that, right, because those men grew up and they learned to talk from the people that.
Are isolated, right, primarily other than probably some television radio, right.
But small pockets with different dialects and different accents, and like, man, there's a time ticking on that.
Yeah.
Tom Kelly has an amazing like it's a foreign even being from the South. It's a it's a bud buds. How does he say bird? Can you say it? Nathaniel Boyd?
It sounds like fall horn leghorn?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's really It's really cool.
Though.
Did you do the voiceover?
I did? Well, you did.
It was going to be a scratch voiceover and then we just left it so oh for real, Yeah we didn't.
We never settled on it was very soon. It was a very soothing thanks. It fit well with the film.
Well, we kept looking for somebody, and everybody tries to sound like a home deep poke commercial, you know, and really, yeah, it's like speech if I and had Snoop dog snoop to it, and we never found anybody and we just decided to stick with it.
That would have been good.
Bear.
Which ones do that to you? Well, definitely the US working.
On your calls you want to call, I'm happy to help.
Definitely the Russ Arthur one was pretty wild, just that they can go back in there in the same tree killed two turkeys. But also the David Ellis one, there's a lot about that story that was like it was crazy like that that the trash passer shot two turkeys with one shot. That was pretty wild that I didn't realize that like that would happen. And I was unclear did he ever, like did the trash passer ever know that he shot him? No, So like that guy's still large and has no clue.
Yeah, that and I didn't get I didn't go much past just what David told me, but I asked him, I said, did they did the game and fish like go get this guy? And basically nothing ever came of it, Like they didn't even Maybe it's because they didn't have anything, and David just went back to Mississippi and called the landowner. Like David didn't like try to press he did. It just wasn't worth it to him. He was just trying to get back home to Mississippi, probably to go back
to work, you know. So he just told the landowner, Hey, there's a dude trespassing, and I got eight pellets in my face. We're headed back to Mississippi and I don't So it wasn't like the guy got a ticket, I don't think, because they probably would have had to. I don't know, it just would have been a bigger deal.
But yeah, I wonder what distance chef to be from a twelve games blast to just catch a little bit to make you mad.
I'd actually like to find out, he said. He said the pellets did not actually like penetrate, and he said he just had little blood spots on his face wicked up, like the bullets weren't in his face. Because I asked him, I was like, how many pellets did you get? Did they stick in your and he said it just I mean imagine like getting hit with gravel.
Just like you know, like a red rider to the face.
Yeah, it was wild. So how did like, how did his vision go dark? Did it just like?
Oh?
I think he hittic.
I think he just.
I think he just uh probably flinched. Yeah yeah, I mean.
I mean if you heard last pointed at you like that, you probably just yea you you definitely flinch up, you know.
Yeah, that's the way I took that.
How would a game warden react to a guy, you know, he shoots one time at one bird, he kills two. I mean he didn't kill.
I might have seen it happen.
Yeah, yeah, I know, a real real life case that I might bring up. I doubt. I mean, what do you do? I mean, you can't help it. You just see a bird and all of a sudden you go while there was two birds there.
Yeah. Not not being a game boarden, but working with a bunch of the years just honestly is the best policy man. The sooner you can just call somebody and say, here's what happened, I think you got a lot better a lot better chance and things coming out in your favorites better to better to just own up to it. I actually worked Kansas had a Yeah, Governor's one shot turkey hunt. For years. It was this event held.
Out that sounds like a good place for two turkeys to get killed one shot shot.
Exactly, it's a great place. And I was, I was anyway, long story, I got a college scholarship through this thing. This wildlife artist anyhow was guiding another another different wildlife artist to go out on the hunt. And we worked all day on these birds and and finally they came in and he he took a shot and you know, two went down, Like, well, that's not exactly what they
mean by a one shot turkey hunt. And you've got you know, it's he had one tag whatever, And there there was a game warden on site for that event. We just kind of it was a unique situation, of course, I mean the Governor's hunt, but but you know, walked right in and just talked to him and said, hey, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna salvage tag this one.
And he only had one tag.
He had one tag.
So the way for people who might not know, a lot of states have a two bird limit, but one bird per day. So I mean, technically it's it's illegal. And you you write, you're you know, you gotta.
Tell me what that means. Lucas salvage.
If you wanted to, if you felt inclined to pick up a roadkill and take it home and process it, I believe one of our game wardens could write you a salvage tag for that. Don't quit.
One of them will listen to this, and so the guy got to keep both birds.
Call one of them, well, I think one of them. They in that case, I think they just probably donated as somebody else who was helping with the hunts. I said, hey, here you go. But it's not now it wasn't just kind of in limbo and illegally. They're just an unclaimed bird laying around at this event, right, It's like, no, it had this is this is a tag bird. We've
claimed that. Yep, here's what happened. There's a report on it, like this is what happened in this situation, and we've we've all it's been claimed one way or another.
Yeah, that's an honest mistake that happened.
Sometimes one of our game wardens Missouri did it and wrote himself a ticket and uh yeah it was in the newspaper.
It just happens, you know. Long enough, one of them is gonna have a head.
But there's also wrong.
There's also times where people know that they can just report it and they I don't know. I've seen that happen a few times.
My son.
I've trained him pretty good on making sure those birds aren't too close. And we were on our trip to Florida and there was seven birds that came to this giant group. Wow, And I'm like, are you ready? And he's like, too close together, Dad, And I'm like to wait, it is. But I think it's really important because you get in the water of seven and you could take out a big bunch of turkeys with one load.
You know, you almost have to ride a ticket if you see a guy with two turkeys. I mean, I mean I could. I could understand it really because you you know, you start letting people go and anyway can get out of hand.
Josh, which story was your favorite? You hadn't gone yet.
Know and we've talked about most of them.
But I love you can't pick y'all, y'all or Russ Arthur.
I love listening to Andy Brown.
I mean the whole tumped over thing and as soon as he said it, you know that whole motion of tumping over. Get it, you get it? Yeah, And so I just I love listening to him. He does such a great job with the whole build up of everything. You know, he's describing this bird behind the tree, and you know, you can just see this mental picture of exactly what's going on, and you got them, you know, you picture him with the gun leaning over and just over.
So that I think that was the one that I really enjoyed the most.
It was funny when he said, uh, I mean, anytime you're telling the story and just something unusual happens, like he was. He was like, we had to wear a suit and tie to work that day, and so I went out and I was in my in my black slacks, white shirt, tie tie, and then you know, just the details of I saw a little piece of plyboard out there to sit on it. And then the other time he laughed was when he said when he said the next morning when they went in on that turkey, and
that turkey apparently had flown up. Uh ye, well, I mean like within thirty yards sitting on that plyboard. And he it took me a time or two listen to it, but he said he looked over and he saw the plyboard and he was actually on the side of the Turkey. Oh do you see what I'm saying, Because if he'd been to thirty yards on the other side of the plyboard, he'd been about sixty yards in Turkey. I think they were like on the yard Turkey like he said that
Turkey was riding above us. Yeah. Yeah, Oh that was funny. That was funny. Yeah, I'd have to say the three wheeler one was was was fun and yeah, two three wheeler res at one time. That makes me want to do a film Nathaniel of Turkey hunting off big red three wheelers. Yeah, how cool would that be?
I love it.
What if we had, like we're gonna give away a great film ideal, but uh, what if you had all your turkey hitting buddies, like five of you on big red three wheelers.
I love it.
I mean someone could win a raffle of a big red three at the end. I saw one on Facebook marketplace a while back and it was cherry.
Yeah.
I know a guy who runs one co worker and friend still got it, still go duck hutting he loads up the Is it a joker?
Is he? Is it like a real that's all he's got.
So that's what he didn't know.
It's cool because my cousin, my cousin, Sean Marriott, he has one. And Sean is just like a cool guy. He's got like cool four runners and and just kind of like fixes up stuff. And he had one when he was a kid. Am I right caught and Sean had my first cousin.
Yeah, it really is an adult I think.
And and so he bought one. Is like a throwback, you know, like cool to have an old Yeah, Honda big Red, your buddy. He is trying to be cool.
Not no, I don't know, he knows how, you know. He now, this is just the one his dad bought way back when he grew up in Mississippi too, and they had the Big Red. And we're to go duck hutting. It's just him and me and want to ride down a rice levee. He said, well, I got the I got the three wheeler. I said, what do you have a three wheeler? Yeah? He was dead serious, and he
loads the thing up. He's got the tires, you know, kind of like those flotation kind of balloon like grip and and uh, it's a it's a quite a difference from today's you know, souped up lifted U TV with the big naisey tires.
Like I can't even play in that game. I mean when people dad plays in the eighth the high end uh U t V, U t V market. I'm I'm kind of a mule man. But uh you had a now you had a Kawasaki one ten I mentioned on the podcast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was lot of fun, man. And I always had a and that I always thought everybody was like me until I got a little older where I just love to jump and run and three you know, two wheel of three wheeler, and I'd go to deer camp and I think we'll like, let's go fast, let's write these things. And these guys are like, well, what's wrong with you? But he jeff Nis had a big red and I take my little Kawasaki down there and
he'd outrun me. And then I got a two hundred yamahall next year when that he could still outrun me and the big yeah yeah wow. And so the next year I found a Warrior fifty warriors.
Yeah, so I he I remember a turkey. There's a picture of you with a turkey laid across that old that first Yamaha three fifty Warrior that you had. Didn't you bend to a shotgun barrel backing that thing into a tree?
You did? That was ben Yeah, remembories getting foggy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh boy.
I love those things and still do you know I still it's still one of my major hobbies.
Hey, did y'all? I mean, the render is a time for me to uh like kind of reflect on the crash of building a podcast.
Yeah.
Uh, didn't y'all think it was funny when I said, uh, uh, Misty would be like, they don't just stop when I said, uh, it was like a middle aged man in the nineteen eighties walking into a Honda dealership to buy a big red Do you remember when I said that? Y'all don't remember that.
I remember that.
It was funny.
It wasn't it funny?
Yeah?
Funny?
Sure, Yeah, I was saying I was saying.
I was saying, Uh, I can't even remember what I was saying, but it was funny.
I go back and listen to it, folks.
Yeah, yeah, I was saying, Uh, someone got suckered into something like a middle aged man in nineteen ages walking into a Honda dealership. To buy Grid a middle middle class man, you had to be middle class down one.
Of those you're talking about Turkey coming in maybe maybe so?
Maybe so?
Was the big Grid a pull start?
Oh yeah, just a.
Pull start with I think so.
I don't really the one tens. I think we're all pull start.
Yeah, I've watched that one be pull starts in the last couple of years. Yeah. The fires right up and it purrs. Yeah, it sounds great, it's amazing.
Wow, Wow, they're pretty cool.
Wow seven minutes.
Little well Nathaniel. Where can people watch your film?
It's on MASSI Oak's YouTube channel. It's been up for a few days.
How many many views have got? Plus?
Two hundred round two hundred thousand? Yeah, two views? Is that?
Yeah? I watched it like four times, so that's like like two percent of the views. Or for me, if you have two hundred views, what was the goal of the film? Like when when you were commissioned to make this, where they like, we're going to be happy if this many people watch it.
I don't think. I don't think we had any kind of thing in you know, viewership in mind. Everything that that I've been able to do for Maso has been less about moving a needle or numbers and more about really like solidifying the legacy that they have, you know, and the story of who they want to be and who they are. So we just wanted to tell the story of those two men. And I think even talks and said you.
Had a number in your head. Well I caught him.
I caught him.
I don't know.
I mean, I feel like you got to be pretty happy with that. Very I mean, because it's just started, if.
That's the question.
Yeah, very happy with the numbers. Yeah, I mean it's try. Hunting is a niche market. It's like a community, a small community of people. So we're thinking, you know, if most of the people within that community love it, have see it, get to respond to it.
Then that would be a big win. And I think, yeah, it's gone beyond that.
So I you know, we make a lot of films that Meat Eater, and so I'm aside from just loving hunting and telling stories and all these things, I kind of geek out about YouTube stuff, stuff I don't really talk about because it's not that interesting unless you're in the locker room. And now I've got nothingiel here. Fellow video man no, when I heard when I first saw it, I knew it was gonna be incredible. I wasn't sure how. I mean, I'm not gonna say I didn't think it
was gonna do good. But it's just hard to there's so many variables, Like you put that film on a small YouTube channel, and if it's the best film in the world, it still doesn't do good because it doesn't have a huge YouTube audience that it's feeding it out too. Yeah. Also, you know there's always this thing about a shorter film versus a longer film. You know, is it intimidating for somebody to start off watching the hour and twenty minute So I was kind of thinking, I wonder how it's
gonna do. And I was rooting for it big time by watching it and telling people about it. I thought it was a big win that after a week it's got two hundred thousand years.
It's it's a it's a huge win.
And for me, my work is always slower paced and sort of in our social media climate right now, that is not attractive and a certain way to really.
So when you were making the film, you you felt like you were kind of bucking the trend of like well just fast paced.
Oh yeah, I'll put I'll put work into a five or ten minute piece that I feel really good about. And sometimes a brand is like, let's do it in thirty seconds because TikTok has got a quick you know, you got to get to people quick. And I'm like, dang it, I wanted this to land with people in an emotional way. We can't do that in thirty seconds. And so my work is always longer form and moving
at a slower pace. And so but I just felt after we got done with this, and so did everybody at Mosioak, that there's a place in the in this community for something like that. And that's kind of proved that that's that's true.
So yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool cool if.
You uh, I was a little bit fascinated with that mister fox uh turkey vests.
Yeah, yeah, that was going for how much should it go for? Thirty one thousand?
So I they were numbered. I got on eBay to see what it would take for one to acquire one, and there anywhere from two thousand to five thousand dollars.
Yeah, we got to go to the guy that's selling that and.
Just we're coming after you.
I mean you don't get that best and sell it?
Do you?
Am I wrong?
Shouldn't?
How many were there?
One nine and eighty six because nineteen eighty six was the year that I say.
So, yeah, yeah, that was a excuse me, that was a cool little little piece. They made a they made a turkey vest honoring Fox Hayes and and just sold out of them.
Like yeah, they thought they were going to just you know, have an inventory to sell, and there was people camped out the night before to get them, and they went. They auctioned one off at NWTF, right yeah, and it went for thirty one thousand dollars and all the rest of them just were gone.
It was the number five vest. That's why one of the reasons why I went for so much, because it was all the top. Twenty of them were given to close family and stuff, but the number five was was reserved for the Grand National auction.
Hey, Barry, go get my turkey vest right there. I want to show you all this.
This is a this is a.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is FHF. This is FHF Gears New h Turkey. It's a Turkey belt. So it's just a it's a belt and you can molly on all your different attachments. So it's got a pouch with all my uh you know, calls and shells and gloves and different stuff, but it's got it's it's on suspenders. And then I'm getting a little backpack attachment, just a small backpack attacked. But it's just like ultra lighting to turkey vests.
Turkey Hunder's a big into turkey vests. I got my little uh my little slate call Paluch right there in front. But that's like uh minim minimalist turkey vest. Dad, what do you think?
I like it?
It's there you go run.
Out, have the bird gobbling, and you won't have your little striker. Yeah. I like that.
That that Yeah. Well, Luke, closing thoughts, what do you want to tell us about the game and fish?
Tell us everything that we need to know about gaming, fish and tent everything.
Thank you for your support. Uh now, yeah, I mean
I think turkeys are in a state of flux. We all know that as turkey hunters, and I think it's just as a turkey hunter myself and in a wildlife biologist, it's kind of we're all just gonna have to work through this together, like we're in a new reality, I think, And so I just I just think it's a time for everybody to kind of work together on and realize that the new normal is different maybe when a bunch of us started out turkey hunting in and but it
it could still mean it's good, it can still mean it's sustainable for a really really long time. And and so we're just gonna have to keep pushing through to if there's things we can solve, we'll work on solving them together.
Right on, right on. Well, good to see everybody. Thank Nathaniel, thanks for coming, Luke, thanks for coming. Thank you all the regulars, thanks for coming. You know, my dad should probably get an award. He drives further and more often, Brent when Brent's here, Brent drives about actually a little bit further, and yeah, you'd get second place, Yeah you get second place. But no great conversation, guys, And yeah, check out the Colonel and the Fox on YouTube Masi Oaks YouTube channel, and.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
We'll see you next time.
M