Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay.
A while as I share my stories and the country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast.
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All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you when it all comes together. Seldom to things work out just the way you want them to, and having them continue to stack up at every turn is almost unheard of, at least in my case. Opening a week at Turkey Season in Missouri twenty twenty four would prove to be one of those rare occasions. I'm going to tell you all about it, but first I'm going to tell you a story I asked, and boy
did y'all answer. My partner in crime, Mariva Hanson, who edits and publishes this podcast every week, and I have gotten a great response from folks telling their own stories to be considered for sharing here. I'm going to tell one today, just so y'all know I wasn't kidnaped about doing it also before we get started. Congratulations to Mike Davidson up there in Connersville, Indiana, who was getting a
case Mini Trapper pocket knife from my personal collection. Mike was the first person to submit the Google Maps photo of me and Tim in Kansas back in twenty fourteen that I challenged folks to find in last week's podcast. Now, Mike had just enough time to listen to it after it was published, before he found the picture and sent in the screenshot. When I had the idea and started looking at myself, it took me forty five minutes to find it.
Well.
I called Mike on the phone and I told him he'd won, and I gave him the option to have a brand new steal in the box case knife or one that I toted. Mike surprised me when he laughed and said, I've probably got one hundred case knives here in my collection. I want one that you've carried. Well, that's pretty cool. And what's even better, Mike's trading me one of his that he's carried. I can tell you one thing. The one that Mike sends me ain't going nowhere.
That's mine. Forever. What a blessing this job is.
Now. This story comes.
From Jake Miller up in north central Ohio. Thanks to Jake for sending this in. In Jake's words and my voice here it is. For as long as I can remember, I have always had a need to be outdoors doing something, hunting, fishing, working. I one hundred percent oh that to one man, my grandfather, Richard S. Miller, also known as Shotgun. If you bring that name up around my area in Ohio, most likely someone will know who you're talking about. My grandpa was
an avid deer and turkey hunter. He also enjoyed hunting morels in the spring and jensen in the fall. He loved to fish too, and from the time I was old enough and responsible enough to tope my own shotgun, an old single barrel twenty gage at the age of nine, he was right there with me. He was there with me for my first deer, my first turkey, my first squirrel, first morell, even when I caught my first fish.
He was there.
To say that man was my best friend would be an understatement. During the late winter of my sophomore year of high school, he became very sick. Hospital stage the whole nine yards, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared we were going to lose him. I'd being in his eighties, it scared me. I spent as much time with him as my grandma as I could, and as winter turned into spring, he pulled.
Out of it. He was too tough to let that take him. Now.
I tell him he better be ready to go by late April for the start of turkey season. He was still unsure if he's being good enough help to get out. Starting in early April, I took over his role of scouting for turkeys. I'd go listen before school or on the weekends. I'd give him a daily report on what I'd heard and seen, and he would always ask me, did you get a couple tied.
Up for us?
Were early spring rolled into late April start of the season. I went down to their house to check on my grandpa, see if Grandma needed anything done around the house, And when I walked through the door, I saw him sitting at the kitchen table getting this shotgun ready to go for opening day. I can't begin to explain how happy I was that he'd be going out after we'd been so unsure that he was going to be up for it.
We e's got our different spots with plenty of time left before daylight on opening day, and it was a picture perfect spring morning in the woods, and before long we had three gobblers fired off all around us. After twenty minutes of goblin, like their lives depended on it, I could tell that at least two tims had flown down over by him. Fifteen minutes later, I heard the
sound of his old Baretta twelve gage boom. I jumped up and ran as fast as I could, and there he was, the man himself, standing on.
The head of one of those long bear.
From the smile he had that morning, I can tell he was happy to be out there too, and I hope I always remember that hunt. We got to hunt a couple more seasons together after that spring morning. My Grandpa passed away in July twenty twelve, and I missed him every day. Spring turkey hunting and the Ohio gun deer season still doesn't seem right without him. I wish I had a little more time, Like you mentioned in
the episode two O seven, The Gift of Time. That was just one of many stories I have of him.
And I together.
I'd have to say it's the one that I think about around the opening day.
A turkey season every year.
He's sitting at the base of an old white oak tree writing this. Now, I haven't heard a turkey gobbled this morning, so I might as well go look for some mushroom. Well north central ohioan Jack Miller, grandson of mister Richard Shotgun Miller. I appreciate you sharing that wonderful story with me and allowing me to share it everyone else. We're going to do these from time to time, so if you send one in, just hang on.
Maybe we'll use yours when the time is right.
But according to Jake Miller, that's just how that happened, when it all comes together. Just last week, I went to my second favorite place to turkey hunt. They showed me state of Missouri. Now my most favorite place to chase him is in the saline river bottoms of my ancestral home in Cleveland County, Arkansas, a county founded eight years following the end of the War between the States.
It was originally named Dorsey County after Stephen W. Dorsey, a Vermont born carpetbag in United States senator that represented Arkansas during the period of reconstruction. Now, Dorset was a Mustang officer, having risen from the rank of private to colonel during the tumultuous time of America's greatest struggle. Following the war, he was a successful businessman, working for and eventually becoming president of a tool manufacturing company in Ohio.
He was soon afterward dame president of the Arkansas Railway Company and relocated to the natural state, taking up residents in eastern Arkansas along the Mississippi River in Helena. Then, in eighteen seventy three, he was elected to the United States Senate, and shortly thereafter a county named in his honor was formed. My family had been there for decades prior to Dorsey's arrival. In as far as I know, a joker never made a track in the county that
was named after him. So how did Dorsey County become Cleveland County? Apparently? Senator Dorsey and some of his pals were indicted and charged with defrauding the Post Office out of four hundred and twelve thousand dollars, which is the equivalent of over eleven million today.
Now.
He was eventually found not guilty, but the tarnish to his reputation was more than the good folks of the day could bear. So twelve years later they renamed the county Cleveland in honor of the newly elected President Grover Cleveland in eighteen eighty five. What's that little bit of history of trivia got to do with turkey hunting in Missouri. I'll tell you not one thing. I just thought it was cool and wanted to share. The dude got canceled
before canceling was cool. Anyway, last week I was in my old stomping grounds of central Missouri on the eve of what would be my most successful two days of turkey hunting anywhere, if we're measuring the totality of the hunt like producing video content for you folks to see later on and calling up turkeys for my friends. Now, I'm the first one to say, and have said it here recently, that success is measured in a lot of ways,
and y'all know that already. But I'm trying to avoid the Internet police who'd have me arrested for saying I had two great days of hunting because I had three hunts in a row where I watched the turkey get smashed. It was already successful because of where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing. That's the biscuit. The turkeys were just the gravy. Now, with that said, I was about to witness enough gravy to float a
john boat. I stood on my friend Toby's back porch after suppering unsuccessfully tried to see or hear a turkey going to roost. I've been coming up here for more years than I care to remember. It didn't really matter that I didn't see or hear anything. I knew where I was going. The next morning, and thirty minutes before daylight, I was standing where I had stood a jillion times before, waiting on gobbling time and preparing myself to second guess every move I was going to make over the next
couple of hours, just like always. I'll admit that I do not lack self confidence. That has ever been a weakness. But turkey hunting is such a dynamic activity at times that the slightest air in one way or the other can have you scratching your noggin on what you did wrong this time to not kill a turkey again.
Then there are hunts like this one.
My good friend and workmate Isaac Neil was with me filming this hunt. It wasn't even close to gobling time, or so I thought, as I stood there, drinking my gas station coffee in the dark and whispering to Isaac that I thought we'd hear the first gobble of the season in this direction. While I was talking, I saw the whites of Isaac's eyes grow big. At the same time, I heard what I thought was a dog in the distance. I said, was that a turkey? Isaac said yes, it was.
I asked him if he was sure, and he told me yep. And it was right in the direction of where I expected to hear one, but not nearly that early. I figured it wouldn't be for a few more minutes. For confirmation, I owed bound two turkeys gone, one right where Isaac had pointed, and another one to the left, but a lot closer. Now he had a juvenile sound, and I was confident that one was a jake. We opted for the grown turkey, but held fast to our listening spot. I knew where both of those turkeys were
from hunting that ground for so many years. I had the advantage of the knowledge of the terrain and how the turkeys in that place used the landscape, but that's only an advantage that goes so far roosted ain't roasted, And knowing where a turkey is in relation to shooting him is about as easy as knowing where the moon is the flying up there to walking around on it. It's better than not hearing one, but it really only confirms his existence. Time would tell on how it all
played out, Leo Toldstoy. The Russian novelists who penned Warren Peace wrote the two greatest warriors are patience in time. The context in which he used it was referencing how to maneuver your army against that of your enemy, or so the experts say. I think that dude was a turkey hunter because of all the items a hunter has at his disposal, those two things will kill one before cat can look it's behind. I knew the lay of the land, I knew exactly where those turkeys were, and
I didn't get in any hurry. I wasn't going to set up on that jake, so I acted like he wasn't even there as I slipped past where he was roosted, and formulating my plan in my head how I was going to get set up on that our turkey as we slipped slowly toward the edge of the field. I was going to use to make getting to him faster, quieter and going through the woods. Here's where I knowing the ground and not getting in a hurry paid off.
I know the turkeys sometimes roosed around the edge or close to the edge of that field, so before I ran any of them off by jumping the gun heading toward that initial turkey we heard, I ailed again. Now bam bam too gabbled in the east, which was right down the right side of that field we were fixing the step into. They were less than two hundred yards. The initial turkey we heard that morning was twice that
far to the west. We had chosen wisely by not rushing toward the first one, and back in the day when I heard one, it was make a bee line straight to him as quick as you could and get set up before he had time to fly down or someone else had time to get set up on it. In the days before least and where I grew up, Timber Company Land might as well have been public wildlife management area. Ground hunting was really the only thing that folks had DIBs on turkey is, for the most part
where anybody's game. But this wasn't back in the day. This was right now, and right now. I'd waited and been patient, and instead of hurriedly trying to cover three hundred yards crossing the creek and finding a spot to get myself and Isaac set up on turkey number one, we tiptoed twenty five yards and sat down under a big cedar tree that I had sat under and killed a turkey a few years ago, and listen to Turkey's
number three and four. My first thought was to go a little further east, just a little further to the right, down the edge of that field. It was getting light enough to see now, and I was eyeball on a gum tree about thirty more yards closer to the corner of that field where I'd seen turkeys walk into that into that field many times before. Something told me I'd gone far enough, so the old killing cedar tree would have to do alan before walking into that field was
correct decision numero uno. Sitting down under that seater and not going any further would be solidified as correct decision number two. When multiple hens started yeping directly behind that gum tree that almost moved down to before deciding that I'd gone far enough. I have no doubt I would have scared him off the rooster, and who knows what would have happened had that been the case. It may have had no effect on the gobblers, but it could have. Regardless,
we didn't go too far and they didn't spook. The gobblers answered my tree yups just like they did the actual hens. And the only decision I'd made that day up to that point that was suspect was not bringing my jake decoy. I brought only the hen, and had I not brought the hen, I may not have gotten the opportunity that I was about to get now. I set her up twenty five yards north of us, which was straight out in front of me to the northeast to my right. Isaac took up the spot over my
left shoulder. We were hid good. Fly down time came and five or six hens sailed into that field and started feeding our way. They were fifty yards away and slowly moving the northwest. The gobblers were on the ground now and hadn't entered the field, but with every gobble they were getting closer and closer. I yeped on a glass pot call, and they both answered me from the
edge of the field. We were tucked inside the edge of the woods, so neither of us could see the gobblers when they entered, but I knew they were getting closer by the sound of the drumming that was getting louder. I could hear it plain as day. Eventually I caught a glimpse of them through the BlackBerry briars on the edge of the field. As they they made their way
towards where we sat. One of them was in full strut and the other one was a half step behind, trying to trying to look like he didn't care what was going on. The second one tried to go into strut a couple of times, but it looked like you.
Thought better of it.
I assumed they had already worked it out between them as to which one was running the show. The live hens were directly in front of me now in the middle of the field, about eighty yards away, and the gobblers, while still moving painfully slow, had begun to veer off to the north, just kind of splitting the difference between our decoy that Dave Swift had worked so hard on to make look real, and the live hens that were paying zero attention to a couple eligible bachelors that had
rolled into the mix. Now here's where I second guessed my decision not to bring the jake decoy, and the reason I immediately thought it was a mistake. The jake I heard that was the second turkey that morning hadn't made a peep since the two birds of the East started telling folks how the cows at the cabbage. Now there wasn't a jake among any of the hens out in front of me. And while turkeys probably don't have the power of reason, they do know that there is safety
in numbers. A half a dozen walking, talking, feeding girl turkeys are more enticing than one lone hen decoy.
Regardless of how good she looks.
Now, had I brought my jake decoy and placed him near that hen, I felt confident that Strutter would have come in hot looking to issue that youngster a headache while adding one more hen to his beavy of beauties. So when I could see that they had started getting further away with each baby step they took, I yelped with my mouth call, causing that Strutter to run his head out in Gobble, and before he got to the letter Ean Gobble, I sent him a jaw full and
that was the end of that. Now I know that second gobbler, who was well out of my shotgun pattern, had to be wondering what had just happened. Isaac, and I didn't move a muscle. I didn't want to spook or any the other turkeys out of that field. But I got to laughing to myself watching that gobbler. I imagine him looking at that dead turkey, thinking about the
month of butt woven's he'd been getting from him. Now they'd come into this target rich environment, and he wasn't letting him show off for any of the women folk, making him walk a step behind and making him be quiet. I imagine he was thinking, I wish this strutton bully would drop dead.
Then boom he did.
What an empiring moment it must have been for it. I'm sick of Frank. I wish he'd died. Thank Frank's dead. I bet he was like that gum. I gotta be careful with this.
Anyway.
They all eventually walked off, except for Frank. Of course, none of them any wiser as to what had happened. Now we'd see that dude again in less than twenty four hours. But like I sometimes say, that's a story for another day, like next week, next Friday, I'm going to tell you about the rest of that day and the morning of the next one. It was an awesome twenty four hours with some really good folks. I'm finishing up part one at a hotel in South Haven, and Mississippi.
My daughter Bailey and her competition dance team from Priscilla's School of Dance are cutting a rug over in West Memphis. We got to get ready for the final struggle this afternoon. My granddaughter Piper had a great showing today at her four age cooking contest, and we'll be heading to the district event next Looks like lots of my folks had it all coming together for him this week. I hope y'all did too. I know I've seen a lot of
grinning faces with turkeys from all over the country. I will have already rolled back north towards Missouri in an attempt to fill my other turkey tag. And who knows, maybe by the time you hear this, I'll have another paragraph or two to add the next week's offering. Man it's good when it all comes together. Now, don't forget. You can submit a story for me to tell on here, and if you do, be sure to include the who, what, when, where and why and send it to my TCL story
at the medeater dot com. Now, thank you so much for listening and until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off.
Y'all be careful,