Ep. 57: Bear Grease [Render] - Outlaws and Undercover Stings

poking around to see what man. I really wanted to clean this place up before we all came, because like, when this death starts looking like this, it's like time to do something. But you know what I got, I got something to say about this where there are no when the stables are clean, that's right, But you need you need a big ox to have a great yeah, and you need a big one every one of these. This is in here because I traveled to Tennessee to meet a special undercover agent and I had to take

this right from the truck. This is in here because when I first started uh using mules like years ago, somebody told me Vicks vapor rub. If you put Vix vapor rub in the nostrils of your mule, that you could put any type of wild game on their back because they couldn't smell it. It turns out sure didn't work for me, but I still have to Vicks vapor rub So I had to take this out of the destroy the other day because the drawer wouldn't shut because

of it. So that's why that's there. That was vapor ses. I don't know why those are there. It's like a bad pawn shop in here, because it's like nothing's organized, like you know what you're go into the pawn shops and you've got kind of rifle through things. That makes me feel like you're getting a deal. Like somebody's passed over this because they didn't want to go through it and you and you pick up things and outside of the case, you know, like the glass case and the pawnshop,

exactly pick it up and exactly. I got to introduce some some international folks that are staying with us for a wedding. What mass pro looks like their mind was blown? Really did you go there with him? I took them there yesterday. They were also surprised that you carried a pocket knife, yes, and they assumed it was a weapon and I was like, absolutely not, this is a tool.

Just a tool. You've got a I got a good pocket knife to you when we were you'all know, I work at a school and I got a call from a parent one time trying to see if they should arrange for us too. There's some pocket knife train that's a little distracting. They to see if they needed to arrange for my son to meet their son off campus for a purchase of a pocket knife, or if I was okay with it if they sold this pocket knife

on campus. The two boys wanted to sell, one being my our son, and I was like, well, hold on just a second. I don't know much about this. Let me get the details. Bear Nucom had had been taking pieces of steel, metal, fingernail clippers, anything he could find. Old story and right, yeah, he's young. I thought this happened like this week. No, no schools out. Uh, this is like a long time ago. And Bear was taken like gathering up any spare piece blades and stuff or

fingernail clippers that was a pretty popular one. And he what did he have? He had a grinder, electric grinder that like a wheel grinder. He was like nine years old and making Yeah. Actually I had to talk to him about ethics inside of business ownership, because I'm pretty sure he's sold a pocket knife that he'd ground out of a saws all blade and wrapped para cord around the handle some kid at school for like twenty bucks. I'm pretty sure that, Yeah, I say, principal of the school.

So I have to write all these parents and say hey, yeah, this is years ago. And I had to write him and say, hey, I'm really sorry about there's apparently like an off market deal going on. We weren't aware of it. We were aware that Bear was making knives. We thought it was a cute thing for him to do at the house. We are not encouraging enterprise at the school. We will refund you your money. How are these transactions happening? Okay,

you're bringing cash to school. Talk to him about it, as I said, I said, Man, I said, don't you think that's pretty high for the what you the amount of time you had making this, and what you've paid to get the raw materials. You know, you kind of got to take into consideration. Your customer, too, likes is pretty pretty pride. He's like, Dad, they mean they're paying it, they'll pay that. And I said, I said, Man, I don't know what to tell you. I'm out of stock. Yeah,

you don't pay for them out of hair. Cut out that that's cut off your head. You pay for the expertise of the man cutty. So was it like, hey, meet me around back and it was the play. Unfortunately, Bear thought I'd be proud of him, and it wasn't. There was a little bit in me that was like,

well that's kind of entrepreneurial, you know. I wasn't a little proud, And I told Clay, I don't really know, Like I clearly have a responsibility as a school administrator to not let there be the cell of weapons and our property. Yeah, well, welcome to the Bear Grease friender man. This is a exciting one we have. I have with me. I have Josh Langbridge, filmmaker to my left wearing a nice believer hat. Yeah it looks good. It looks good. Uh. To his left, my wife Missy Newcombe always good to

be here. To your left, Brent Reeves shout out on the podcast this week, Did I did? I liked that it was good and used accurately. Yeah, I thought it was. It really was. Brent's beards a little trimmer, a little close cropped summer I did yesterday and Bailey walks downstairs, Daddy, your glasses are bigger, same glasses, beard smaller. I had this revelation just a second ago about Brent Reeves. He has a way of making you feel like you're with him when you're just listening to him. I was thinking

about seeing him today, are with him today? But I was like, I had this feeling of like very familiar about this yesterday, no earlier today, anticipating seeing Brent, thinking it didn't feel like it had been two months since i'd seen him. You know what I mean, what do you attribute this to? I don't know, velvet pipes. Oh, it just brings you right into the moment, to these feelings.

Now to bricelet not Isaac Neil Isaac. We now we introduced you back in February as the assistant producer Beargrease. Now we could I think I have the authority to change your title. You could be assistant to the producer Man Isaac. Isaac has a lot of fingerprints all over the bar Grease podcast. Um. Isaac does a whole lot, a whole lot for meataturing for us, but on this

one in particular, and we'll go. I think we'll go into the origins of why h how this came about that we decided to tell the story that we told over the last three episodes. Um, but Isaac was there right in the middle of it, and Isaac was actually the one who said you could do it like this anyway. We'll talk about that later. To your left, Gary newcom Gary, good to see man. Yeah, I'm looking forward to see what Gary has to say about all this. Um oh,

my lands, I look forward to anything. Yeah, me too. Hey, I want to before we dive into deep here, and I really wanted just like straight up talk about the podcast. So last time you guys got weren't involved in the Render because we were in Montana and so we didn't really talk about you know, there were just three of us there. Bear was there, and so we didn't talk about episode two. So I want to get I want to do like a full encompassing, full encompassing conversation, have

one about episode two. We had a really good Render about episode one where we where we we talked, well we can we can come. Can we just say something about the Render crew last time? Because I feel like we always get to evaluate them I'd like to evaluate Clay Nuclam's statements in that podcast. I learned that Clay sent our barely walking Sun. I'm Tod and it's chef, and I in Yeah, just news to me. Your parenting tactics always amazing me. I trust you, and then I

hearn't isn't it? Isn't it? A proverb says training train a child up in the way he should go, and then send him towards the bear. It's something like that, is what were you thinking? Though? I think about how how much I trust there, and I tell people all the time, like we don't have to worry. I try Clay if he says it's okay, it's okay. And then I hear that story and I'm thinking, well it ended up being okay. It was it was just a small bear, and that a small innocuus bear. Yeah, I think about

this here here, take comfort in this. That's the story that you know about. I know, yeah, you shouldn't let that go. Let well where I was going to go though, before we get into our big discussion, you'll see these books right here, the stack of books yesterday, a couple of days ago, I looked across all my bookshelves and was trying to It all started just when I I

saw a book. I saw this book Biophilia. Yeah, this book right here, and I was like, oh man, I hadn't seen that book in a while, and it's got all kind of handwritten notes in it and stuff. And I was like, this book was really influential to me. And I was like, you know what, there was another book that was really influential. And I started looking for Ian Tattersall's Becoming Human and I was like, you know what,

another three books that we're influencing. Anyway, I started, I made a stack of what I think is the most influential books to date. Yes, Josh, where's the Bible? That was gonna be the thing I was gonna say next aside from the Bible here, okay, yeah, would it make you feel better? It would make you feel more comfortable? Yeah? Yeah, Okay, definitely very true story books not written by you know that aren't the Bible are inspired? Okay, but all these books.

So there's Wild Sports, there's Boone by Robert Morgan, there's my father Daniel Boone, which those two books together we're really unique. And as I just always thought that book written by Nathan Boone, was about his father. The interview that he did Nathan Boone did with his dad was really wild. Uh. There's a couple of non history hunting books. This book Atomic Habits. This is like a pop culture like New York Times bestselling self help, quick self help

kind of book that I typically wouldn't read. But man, I think about this book all the time. Atomic Habits. Man, it was really good. Tiny changes. And then Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, which I read in college. Dr David Miller who was on the Barker's podcast one time he had us read that and little did I know

that that book would be influential. And then uh, Boys Adrift, man, goalie, if you have if you have boys, you got to read that book, Boys Adrift, And it talks about five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men. It's a really good book. Um. And then this book right here, the account of Cabeza de Vaca. These guys wash your mouth. That was so so this is the account of the first Europeans that made it in land into North America. So uh, it was Cabeza

dive and Uh. I mean they were the first guys that like went in land, and he describes It's been a while since I've read it, but they described the tribes that they encountered, but they described the topography and the land, and that's This book is a document that tells current biographers of the of of the just what this place looked like in terms of vegetation and stuff. And it's really interesting. You know, I hadn't read this

book in several years. Um, I know, I'm just saying I've kind of forgotten exactly Cabeza de Vaca landed in Florida in fifty Yeah, first guys, pretty wild man. I remember there was a story in here about a man getting killed crossing the river. Oh, I do remember. They came to this raging river. So they had this like regiment of men that they had had animals with them and pigs with them, and like they had to carry

everything they would need to survive. And they came to this raging river and there was this young guy that was like, we can cross here, and everybody else was like, man, I don't think we can. And this dude jumped in the river with his horse and tried to cross this river, and he drowned. He and his horse drowned, and they went and found his body like a mile and a half downstream. Buried the man and ate the horse. Pretty serious.

Um so these two books by beargreas Hero and Alumni Brooks Blevins, The History of the Ozarks The Old Ozark's Part One. Isaac's read it so it really is it? It's so good. Yeah, wherever you live, you ought to know about the history where you live. This one is really one of my favorites. Arkansas, Arkansas by Brooks Abilies and good Old Boys defined the state really incredible, good yep.

And then we're almost done. And then uh, Wild Sports by Frederick Gerstalker and then Against the Grain Richard Manning. This book is uh, kind of controversial, but guess what, So it's Burgher's podcast he forgot too really important. But oh yeah, this one, Dad Took Off Meat Eater by Steve Rinella. I read this years ago, long before I would have known Steve. This was in my list and it was just it's just a kind of a memoir.

It's just like stories from his past. And I remember really being impacted by this book and just kind of the the musings inside of it. And then the last book that was in the stack was this book called The Life of Elijah by A. W. Pink. So Elijah a guy in the in the Bible, wild guy man. I love to lie you because he was he was from he was from a region. Basically, he was like a hillbilly in the Middle East for real, like they

they were. They They're very little known about where he came from, except that the place he came from was like a wild, rural, rugged place. And he in the indication is that like he was like that, you know, the people of the hills reflected the nature of their environment.

They were rough and rugged. Solomon Stern, dwelling in rude villages, subsisting by keeping flocks of sheep, hardened by an open air life, Dressed in a cloak of camel's hair, accustomed to spending most of the time in solitude, Possessed of a sinewy strength which enabled him to endure great physical strain, Elijah would present a market contrast with the town dwellers in the Lowland valleys, and especially he would be distinguished from the pampered courtiers of the Palace because he interacted

with the King's so old. Elijah W. Pink. I don't really know where to start other than to say this series has been the most enjoyable of any podcast series I've ever built. And it's been because I have always been had a deep sense of place inside of my life, like I like being from somewhere that we've kind of just been from there a long time. And so the fact that this is these were not stories that I was reading about in a book, even though I wasn't there,

and I didn't know these men well. I mean on a personal level, I did not know these men. Well. I was just a kid growing up while these guys were kind of in their prime. And I mean I probably haven't seen these men since I was eighteen years old or something, you know, So it's not like I

was close to these guys. What it kind of felt like and and and and and what and I think and I've attributed this to Dad this so many times, but when Dad would so Dad was a banker, and I remember he used to take us all over to sea customers that had killed a big deer or for

whatever reason. We remember multiple times going to people's houses way out in the country and it was just I mean, you probably wouldn't have known that that was impacting, and I probably didn't know it was impacting until later in my life. But you know, you were kind of you enjoyed these rural people and these stories. And then you told me stories about Charlie and Louis Dell and and we we You did take me to a bowshoot out at their house when they had a catfish fry and

a bow shoot in a mule ride one time. Now that was when you were an adulto, not with Louis del Yeah. Yeah, it just so I enjoyed going back to where I'm from and minding out these stories for these guys. So no, and I'm very interested in Like I thought it was great last time when Brent was like, no, I'm not endeared to these guys. Um, that's why I have you here. I don't have you. I don't have you here too. You know, tell me something I want

to hear, um. But I think it would be good to have a discussion about the different components of it, because I think sometimes it's easy to hear one well I don't think this. I know this, and I'm not saying that's the case here, but a lot of times inside of a robust story, people get you can get hung up on one thing and you hear that throughout the whole thing, when maybe that's not even exactly what you're even talking about. Do you understand what I'm saying?

And inside of this series, I tried to make a distinction between two different things. We use the words differently, but poachers and then this outlaw archetype. You know, so there's a there's a difference, Like I don't I'm not endeared to poaching at all. Yeah, I mean, like, that's

that's not what this is about. It was more about why an endearment to an outlaw archetype, which in my opinion is an undeniable thing that's inside of our culture, It doesn't mean that every single person responds to that the same way. So I just want to yeah, so it's like not everybody's Yeah, there might be something inside of someone that really responds to that, and maybe less than something else, but pretty much undeniable that in our culture,

that that is something that's happening. How do we start this? I sent a message to Clay and said Part three was fire fire Fire with a side of fire fire fire and that It's like I felt like I was watching the c s I on on on podcasts, But what a fascinating, fascinating, fascinating story. It always amazes me that that these kind of stories happen and nobody really knows about it. You know, who whatever known about Louis Dale and Charlie Edwards and the game and fish staying

operation that was going on with them. I love that someone reached out to you and said, listen, I got a little insider information for you that that was that was pretty cool. But just to listen to him talk about his interactions with Louis Dale, I mean it was it was clear that that I love the relational aspect of Louis Dale. I mean, even even with someone like that,

he he legitimately just wanted to help this guy. You know, there's a side of I've met guys like Louis Dale, and there's a side of that wants that they want to take you under their wing. And at the same I knew a guy in the construction business that that that kind of took me under his wing when I when I had a construction company, and uh, I knew I didn't want to necessarily be like him, but I

appreciated what he had to offer me. And I think there's a lot of people that that's part of the thing that they appreciated about Louis Delle is his his care and consideration and his his taking people under his wing. I mean, he was he was a he was an essence of provider for the for a lot of people in some way or another. But I thought, I thought this last part of the podcast was really really fascinating

to hear um. I forgot what's the gentleman's name us, Yeah, rust Um talk about his interactions with them, and and also the game and fishes desire to just really they really wanted to catch them red handed with something that just couldn't seem to to do it. Clearly something was going on there that that there were kind of protected

somehow from from that ever happening. Well, it was to me it was so interesting talking to Russ because there was actually another story that was told about a totally different story of them and an undercover guy that Louis Dell took and it we know there was multiple stings

and so I only talked to one guy. So this this you know, happened according to the family, Louis Dell took a guy and he called up a gobbler for the guy before a season, and the guy wouldn't shoot it, and uh, you know, he made in Louis Dell's mind, made an excuse why he wouldn't shoot it, and that all of a sudden was a red flag that this guy, you know, all the different circumstances that surrounded it. And Louis Dell came out of that one confident that he

had entertained an undercover officer. And uh, and then in this situation with Russ, you know, clearly he was tipped off by someone on the inside about it, which was it was reason to believe, but he also came out of it apparently extremely confident that Russ was an undercover agent, because he he told that to Andy just so strongly, just like, yeah, for sure this guy was another coover agent. And the way that I thought about it is you

only get so many strikes at somebody. I mean, it's just like, do they just keep sending the guy from another state. I'm from Kentucky in March, where you only get so many strikes at these guys and pretty soon you just run out of options. And what Russ said though, was so valuable. I felt like when he said, how hard is it to to to not be able to catch a a guy that's got so much land and got and wardens with so many limitations, And basically he said off air, he said, guys like that are almost

impossible to catch. I mean, he just said, he just straight up said, you just almost can't catch these guys, and so you get a couple of couple of shots. You know. The thing that that hit me in a little hesitant to say it because I really respect this Russ and I really feel like he's probably top echelon. I mean, you couldn't have gotten a better guy, So I'm not taken away from his professionalism. But undercover on a Turkish thing, you're probably okay. But undercover in another

situation you get killed. So if you contact me and go, you won't go undercover. I'm gonna go. Who knows about this? You know? If I go, you and I are the only two that know about it. Your wife doesn't know about it. My wife doesn't know about it. So probably because it was a Turkey operation, it was handled a little too loosely, I would say, because that should have

never gotten out. See I have a feeling that that's just the structure of because see they would have to let the game and fish know, they would have to

let other people in enforcement. No, I was thinking about it because what happens if Russ Arthur is out with Louis Dell and get stuffed by the game warden, or if the other one other person he knows something happens to him and he dies and Russ Arthur's out there doing illegal stuff and no one knows but him and this other you know, the like say a person has a heart at that say the other person he knows

has a heart attack. Like if it's you and one other person that knows and that person has a heart attack, this could be a movie. But it is a movie. I mean it's there's a couple of different like where it's an undercover sting. They're trying to keep it tight. Two people know. One guy dies, so the other guy is out, yes, and no one knows it sanction. Oh you didn't think this through, Gary? Did you understand what she just said? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Well I don't buy

any of that. I mean, you know, I can tell you what happens. Yeah, here's our man. That's you. What I wanted to hear, you go to jail. So that's what I did. When you're out with the folks and you're you're playing the game, and I'm using air quotes for game because it's not a game. Yeah, you're literally putting your life on the line for your paycheck, and what happens when you go In my case, it was to tell us what you did because people wouldn't know

is he allowed to do that? Well, I can tell this has all been adjudicated, and it's been real nervous about all the people involved in this post A long time ago. But I was in a in a place in South Arkansas, in a bar. We were in there buying drugs and the local place didn't ye aren't just I can tell you my name. My name was James Jay David Miller. I've got an Arkansas driver's license at home that has its own number and law enforcement. We were in this place that's known to be selling drugs

and that's that's why I was in there. Me and another agent were in there and we were working and then the local police comes in and they they running folks out left and right, and people are getting arrested, and we fell right in there with the rest of them. So and you don't tell anybody, Hey, you don't arrest me. You know, I'm really I'm really a policeman. Now, you don't do that. You just go with the flow, is yeah, and when it's all over with you because they're not

gonna get the right guy anyway. So but that that's that's what happens. That's what you do. And that's that's exactly what Russ would have done the local game warden unless he walked up, you know, and recognized him, like us, what are you doing here? Why don't you know those guys? And out you know it was But but that's that happening to him, somebody, no one and and talking when they shouldn't have talked. Is the very thing that the reason why nobody knew that we were working in that

in that bar, it's because loose lips sink ships. That's that's the old saying, you know, General War two. So you you and I'm not saying I disagreed with him, I'm just saying so you obviously, well even Russ said it. He said the structure of the Forest Service came back

to bite him. Yeah, that's what he said. And he actually went into a lot of detail with me about the structure of the Forest Service today and how it's much different like basically back then there was a lot of room for He went into a lot of detail that was was basically was like most of the stuff

these days is now all self contained. It's kind of operates autonomously without it's all on the need to know basis, and that that's the way that we we did it in the drug culture and the drug enforcement was we would talk. Normally, the prosecutor in the district would be the only person that knew that we were in there working, and it would usually be at the request of them that we were there. Anyway, did Rust say that only four or five people knew though? Didn't he save that

on the podcast? Well, I don't remember how many he said new he said very few. You're like a handful of the way I took it, And he may have said that it wasn't very many. What do you think of the sting operation part? I mean, not not dissect and how they did, but just it was it he called him, yeah, he called him yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and uh had it not been for the person that they gave him the warning, I think they would have

got him even more so. So, I mean he he was caught and and his to his point about uh evading, you know, most counties in Arkansas have two wildlife officers, some of them even back then, only had one, and some counties back then didn't have any. So you have one wildlife officer spread thin, you know, between two counties, and he's got you know, the Edwards guys. They had to look out for Mr Martin. Mr Martin had to look out for everybody. It's a lot easier for them

to do what they did. And because they did not, because he didn't catch him, didn't make him not a good game boarden. One of the I think a really interesting thing to that point is the idea that uh, their their community connections were not happenstance part of this. But it seems like if you keep running back to it, it's like it's not that nobody knew, it's that they're they're standing in the community and people's fondness for them

kept protecting them. If you think about like, there are plenty of poachers to get caught all the time, and they're usually pretty. There's there are scoundrels. You know, they're they're not they're not upstanding citizens or whatever in these other aspects of their lives. But the reason this is so unique is probably the reason that it's so unique. I cannot argue with that, you know what I mean, Like it's it's it's it's not it's not that they were great uh ativating the law in a in a

in a vacuum. It's that these these facets of their life work together too continually pull them out of the fire. And I know, and I when I was thinking about it this last podcast, I was thinking that all that you know, they if they've been one out and killed three turkeys or whatever the limit was back then, and those other twenty thirty or forty or however many it's

supposed to be. If they would have took that many kids out and let them kill their first turkey, how much we wouldn't be having this podcast today, will be talking about some criminal. These guys would be beyond a pedestal, beyond anything we could see, because that that would have that would have endeared me to them. So that that was that was my only my biggest takeaway and like, and I want to reiterate, I'm not saying these guys

are bad people there. They can't. If Gary Newcom thinks of them, then I've got to because I respect him that much. You not so much, but Gary. Yeah, But I mean, I'm just saying that there was a lot of what's the what's theyll saying one one mess up will take away a whole bunch of ada boys, and that just I couldn't be endeared to it. That was

just my take on it. When when I listened to that render after the first episode, I wondered if your experience and law enforcement in some of the conversations we had had helped to inform your understanding of that dog story. Oh yeah, well it's just I can. To me, that was a no brainer. There's there's no way I love that coon dog in my house. My wife would give one of her kidneys in both of mine for it. And I love that dog, but there's no way I would put that dog in front of your lot or

somebody I don't even know. Well, so, like in in my brain, I hear that anecdote and I go, that's a funny anecdote. But I've never been on the receiving like in a legitimate position where like, am I gonna get killed right now? Like? Does this guy really mean that he'll shoot me if I shoot his dog? Takes somebody at your word when it comes to that, So you know, it's a. It's a. It's a. It's really a. To me, it's black and white. Yeah, that's it's not right,

that's wrong. It's the wrong way to look at it. And I will go so far as to I don't want to upset anyone in the room or anybody that's been on this podcast before, but those guys were allly successful doing that because people didn't talk about it or they wouldn't talk about it, and if they had, you know, the way I look at it, in the way the

law looks at it. If you if you witness something, witness them do something wrong, and you don't talk about it and you don't report it, well then you're just as culpable as they are in some form, you know. I just think it was going back to the reason why we did this, because it certainly would be maybe unusual inside the outdoor space to talk about outlaws, poachers

and put any kind of positive light on them. And I'll tell you the reason I did it is because the real world of my like, I wanted to explore this thing that I experienced, which was, wait a minute, we liked these guys, but their notorious turkey outlaws. And then to hear Russ say that this is very common and man, hey all foreshadow, we're probably gonna have us back on because he's got some stories. Man, And and

he did. Y'all think it was wild? What the list of things he pulled out of the air about the type of people that these would be. He he intentionally, he told me, he said, Clay, I did not listen to these podcasts before, he said, I didn't want to be fed any kind of narrative about who these guys were. And so, I mean, these would have been one of you know, I don't know if hundreds, probably not hundreds, but of undercover operations. So like, it's not like these

guys even would have stood out much to him. Probably inside of his career, there has just been some guys that he worked, you know, So it's not like he knew them. He was just involved in their life for about a month. And then for him to say what he said and then at the end him saying like this is a Southern phenomena, which he and you know, there's only so much you can do in a twenty minute conference, Like I talked to russall Arthur for two hours, solid,

NonStop action packed two hours. Y'all heard twenty two minutes of it. And what he said was that this thing is a phenomena of the Southern United States. And it's not that there aren't there's poachers everywhere, so it's not to say that poaching only happens here, but this these deeply entrenched families and they have a lot of similarities to the situation. We're talking about. People that live of

and way back in the in some area. They usually have a very tight geographic area that they're working, they've been there for a long time, a lot of community support um and and I just thought that was so interesting because I was a part of that, Like I was in that community, and so it's like, I want

to talk about this. I think it's interesting that you're saying that as well as if if you combine it with what Daniel talked about inside of inside of that, because if you look at the South, the South has a long history of being the inferior to the North

inside as as a function of its identity. Um, if you look at in even as early as like the eighteen hundreds, you'll see that all of the people, the writers, the intellectuals of the day, the influencers of that day, would talk about the South as like the other and they even had other names for the South. And this is pre Civil War, this is this was like a beginning. So there was a sense of inferiority. And I think that that kind of connects a little bit to what

Daniel was talking about with the outlaw. And even like you you play a clip of The Godfather and there's this there's a but there was a sense of we have to pursue justice on our own because we are on the outs of society. In the instance of the Godfather, you're talking about a family that would be newly migrated to this nation. In the instance of the South, you're talking about people who are separated for all sorts of reasons and perceive themselves as inferior. And if that's a

Southern phenomenon, that that is interesting to me. How it goes along with the that that theoretical belief that your outlaws exist when people don't trust the authority structures in place, and a lot of times you don't trust because you feel on the outskirts of Yeah. So the genesis of like figuring out how to tell this story came on a road trip, right, and you were just sort of talking about this story that you wanted to tell, talking

on the phone with mob buddy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And he was telling for whatever reason that Louisville came up like just naturally on the phone, and then you told me a little bit about the story. And we're saying, like, man, I want to tell this story about how do we get there? We just started kicking around ideas and I was really enamored by the nuance of the story, the idea that like, we we have these people in our lives.

I can think of somebody in a totally different sphere, but like really endeared to them, they're really good to us or whatever, and also have this part of their being that you don't like. And so like in the like um popular site guys today, uh, not just with people but all things, we wanted to distill it down to a binary operation good or bad, black or white. UM, And I thought it would be really interesting to take a look at it from a perspective of like I

just just basically like a peek behind the curtain. I really like these guys, and I really don't like this thing. What's that about? Right? And I think like that the aspect of their personalities, that outlaw aspect that you like, is really interesting and nuanced because in this case it

manifests in a way that is abhorrent, which is poaching. Like, uh, my, my dad brought up I was talking to him about the podcast, and he brought up the irony of doing a podcast series about turkeys and how they're all disappearing and how your kids aren't going to get latched on because the turkeys aren't here, and then following it up with like this podcast about guys who are killing too many turkeys. So um, but in this case, the outlaw

predilection manifests in a very negative way. But um. Talking about Brooks Blevins and the history of the Ozarks, I'm reading the third installment of it that now. And one of the things that he touches on is the s Forest Service erecting watch towers for wildfires. Right, well, one of the main reasons that they did that was to prevent locals from doing controlled burns on their lands, and people continue to do it even after they outlawed it. So they erected these things to watch for it and

basically knock on their neighbors. Well, history has looked back on that and said controlled burns are really good and they actually helped prevent forest fires, and so that outlaw manifestation was right. And so like, what do you do with this thing that like is endearing, but like sometimes it has really negative and bad consequences and sometimes in the course of time it's proven to be correct. You know, what do you do with that? That's an interesting tension

that you just have to kind of sit with. And that's kind of what we were getting that with the conversation with Daniel Route, is that the archetype of the outlaw is very valuable. Yeah, and there's artifacts of it inside of all of our lives. Like, you know, we were joking about our neighbor down here being a tomato plant outlaw because because he does he does stuff a little different than other people, and so it's like and and and it's like, yeah, he's he's he's a bad guy.

He's doing it different, he's pioneering a new way to do it. It's like that is a that is a Western culture thing with where we hat tip to the guy that's outside the systems calls the system out. And so the fact that again, if Louis l and Charlie had just been poachers, I wouldn't be that interested in them. It wasn't it's that, it's that they were outlaws, like

that that was the idea that they had. They they showed that in the way that they just like everything that they did, like they and and and I think there's a nuance thing because, like you said, like so much of what they did, like I don't condone fighting, I don't condone making the legal moon shot. I don't condone all this stuff. I think it's interesting. It's not just that they're outlaws though, right, it's the enigma of

like everybody has so many good things. They paid off the farm, they helped with my medical bills, they whatever, and their outlaws, right, just a straight up outlaw. You know, you can think of instances of people in the wild West where guy just goes from town to town murdering people. That's I don't find that endearing. But like the guy who sees injustice and is willing to trespass the the balunds of the law in order to bring that into alignment is fascinating. The guy who's sort of doing good.

It's in the context of like poaching that you go, So, so are you saying poaching is okay? Is that? Were they doing the right thing there? Right? Yeah? They were not doing the right thing. But and I think that's the whole thing that you said in our initial conversation in the truck, is that it's like Sue, it would be super nuanced. Yeah, so like, yeah, you could go, oh, they made a podcast and they're soft on poaching. If you say that, you're idiot. Go ahead, you just didn't listen.

You didn't go listen to someone else's podcast. Um, it's it's it's it's nuanced, and it's deep and it's and this is this is what I was gonna say a minute ago. There's something inside of it about personal relationship with someone. Because I promise you if this was a story about some guys from Alabama that I didn't know, I wasn't connect to that community, I didn't I would probably just be like what a bunch of thugs. Well, I can I can tell you from firsthand. I didn't

know these guys. So when you talk, I'm like, man, I like these guys. And then when Brent talks, I'm like, man, I don't know about these guys, Like I don't have anything personally invested. But there's something about And again I'm not saying it's right. I'm not what I said on the podcast that it probably makes me a hypocrite. So like on the record, like I realized, but there is something about knowing someone that makes you more compassion and

Russ said it. You know, Russ actually scripted out real well. He said, if you know these people in your community that are generous and compelling people, and you like them like, you don't want to get them in trouble. In these tight knit communities function off of personal relationships. I mean, but before we made this podcast, I didn't think I

could get people to talk. I went to my dad and another friend and I said, would y'all talk about Charlie Louis Dell And basically, I mean without the families permission, I don't think Dad would even open his mouth about any of this. Like but It's like I was like, no, they're okay with this, They said we could do this. They like this. That's the only way that Like I had people that I interviewed, calling the family to make

sure that I was telling the truth. You know, just like like that personal relationship is super meaningful, and it's just interesting how how that that personal connection could make you see something not different because again we're not talking about where the poaching is right or wrong. We're just talking about it. Really it really shows the effect of being that being cared for produces in someone, because I think a large portion of the community there felt cared

for by Louis like and because of that. I mean, think about it in your marriage. If you love your wife, you're gonna overlook things. You know, you're gonna you're gonna overlook things because you love her and you care and and you see the side of her that makes that other thing a moot point. And so I think in people's minds as they felt very cared for and that is just a natural response to that, to that expression to them. Well, also, the community was not reporting these

guys for killing too many turkeys. I don't I would be willing to bet all the people that wouldn't snitch on them for that. If they drove by the house and they were beating the young un out there with a stick, thea called some Well do you think dad, Well, it's it's really too complicated for me. I like um Rest's ability of mouth call, which is what I the rest of this stuff to me. You know, you you can you can tell what you think. You can study this.

We don't really know why we like certain things, but we like entertainment. I like Michael Jordan's he's different, he's special, He's worked hard. Jesse James, you know what I mean. I like to hear the stories entertaining Charlie and Louis. There'll be a nice guys, man. Our whole community has made up a nice guys, but they were a little different. And um you can go anywhere you want and pick one guy out of the community and you probably could make an interesting podcast out of it. You know, you

look at we need to do that. We need to just pick a guy. You probably could you look through history and Kick Carson and you know, Daniel Boone and you know, these guys made a name for themselves, but there was probably a thousand other guys that were really vital to what happened. And you know, but you didn't have somebody, you know, so I don't know. There may have been somebody else down there and made a smashing turkeys more than they were, but they just didn't talk

about Jimmy Martin's what I said. Were Louis and Charlie like the most notorious guys you ever caught. And he just said or chased and he said, oh not really. I mean they weren't they they were they were they were Russ. Russ was just he was just like, oh yeah, Diamond, dozen guys like this. I mean he really said that. You know, I didn't like them because they were Turkey Poacher. Had nothing to do with me liking those guys. I'm telling you I might be different. It had nothing to

do with it. It. It was intriguing, you know, like if if you walked in the bank and you were involved in some criminal activity that everybody in Mina knew about, like the Mina connection deal. Yeah, I mean it was really I mean, you just wanted to sit down and talk to him maybe what happened, you know, I mean, it's just intriguing. But these were just good people that we liked. And every now and then it would come up that they were turkey poachers, you know, and you go, well,

they're good turkey hunters, you know. I mean, you didn't think of it as turkey poaching. You they were good hunters. And and you know, I don't know, it's you know, maybe I'm a little too close to it, but um, I just think about people. I like heroes, man. I like Sergeant York. You know, I enjoy Bonnie and Clyde. I've watched that movie so many times. H Jesse James. I mean, I just like the tough guys. I like to hear stories that happened at the bars in Oklahoma.

Where did you like those stories? I did? And I think, yeah. I mean a buddy of mine walked in one day, pulls a shirt up. I might have told these guys about it, pulled his shirt up. I say, a buddy is acquaintance, how close worried? And he got he said look here one, two, three, four or five, six, seven, seven bullet holes in his chest. I mean, I like this guy, but because of the bullet holes and the

stories that he had, I mean, you know, it's pretty cool. Entertaining, entertaining of of all the things, like I am never gonna tell much of a story on a on this podcast that isn't entertaining, Like that's part of this thing, Like people don't listen to the Burgers podcast because their mama makes them, you know, like you're not going to

do it. Yeah, not anymore. You know. The other thing about the off the list, if they had not been chased by the law so hard, you know, they would have just been There's I can name two or three other guys in that community that killed lots of turkeys. That's kind of what's interesting to me is in all these stories, it's like, wow, this is a lot of resources they kind of drew attention to because they drew

attention to themselves. Yeah. I think so. Probably just flouting convention, flouting though the law, showing up in front of the check station with your three birds unchecked. Yeah, that type of thing. Well, and you can't take out the human component of it, of like Jimmy Martin saying his supervisor wanted to catch these guys. Yeah, they're there there. I mean, humans make decisions. It's not like just the government has you know, drones out that they killed thirty six turkeys.

They will now have an ndercover operator. No. I was like, somebody heard that. I was like, these guys, are you know they deserve this in the community that maybe weren't thrown around as much, probably killing as many. There's something somebody didn't like it, Yeah, or they would have never known about it. Yeah, because they wasn't talking that way in front of Jimmy Martin. So somebody in the community thought what they were doing was no bueno enough that

they talked to somebody about it. It kind of makes them an underdog when they say I'll give an you a stake dinner. Who gets these people like it? It makes you almost root for him. Yeah, I mean I feel like it's a terrible way because America also lives underdog. I mean, at least and I don't think that would

have been stuff that was known. You don't think so, No, I don't know, But I mean, like now listening to the story, it is a It is another thing that endears them, Like, all right, you got the whole force of the law breathing down your neck. Can you do it? Can you pull it out? You know? It's like that when you watch the movies about these guys, and and you find yourself just in your heart, not about louis

Dale and Charlie, but about outlaws rooting for them. Like when there's it's time, you know, the law gets close to him and you're kind of wanting them to Britain, doesn't Gary does you kind of wanted to get away? You want them to your And and of course it's the directing, it's the producing, it's all that. But it's Bunny and Claude. They were murderers and robbers. I ain't seen the movie yet where I was cheering for them to win, not wonder them. I'm always like, go police, amen.

And you know what, I didn't shoot. I've said this before in this podcast. I did not cheer for these guys. You know, if I don't know, you know when you turn on me and it's not gonna doing good. M you nobody already knew. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, how are you gonna cat? You know? You you gotta catch them, so calling the game and fish and going, hey man, these guys killed a couple of little little bird Well, forget it. You ain't gonna catch him on a deal like that. Uh, but you know, they were

just good. They were just good guys. I think most people enjoyed being around and um, they loved the notoriety though, I think, yeah, and that's what Russ called ego, which I thought was good that he did. I mean, just if we're being fair, I mean, you know, and when I went to the family, I told him, I said, I'm gonna tell both sides of this story. So I mean we we gave we gave him a lot of room to to tell the good parts of their story.

And then I really liked that Russ just came in and said, these guys a lot of ego, which his definition of ego was exactly what they all said Louisville did, which was he wanted to be the guy that couldn't be caught. You know, it was a game to them. That equals ego. You know, we all like to be good. It's something known for something. You know, fly fisherman, great teacher. You know, all of us have something that we're a

little better at than other people. Isaac tattoos, leg tattoos, Yeah, into a building or a room, you know, they had you know, yeah, I'm louis Dale, you know, I'm I'm I'm the best hunter in the county. I mean, it was something to be proud of it, except it was illegal what he was doing anyway. Yeah, I mean, so much of what all of us do is motivated by ego, Like, so much of what I do is motivated by ego, And on my best days, I recognize that and try

not to be motivated by that. Did you think about that when you get that cow faced drawn on there? You gotta talk to John the Revelator about that. But like, you know, like we we like to be liked, we like to be known, we like to be like, and and if that is our sole motivator, it can trend towards negativity. But if we recognize it and sort of react to it and say like, hey, maybe that's not totally healthy, Like that's when we're we're thriving as humans. Yeah.

So like when he said that, I was like, it didn't feel like an insult to me. It felt like, yep, I can identify with that. I can identify with sort of getting caught up in uh when when we when we get to drink in our own medicine or whatever, it sends us maybe down a less healthy path. M h. Correct. I still go back to just the idea of you had to know in their mind they felt these this sense of restrictions being put on them by game laws, and I think they had to they had to justify

things in their minds. You know, I think about like bonding Clyde. There's no justifying just murdering people. But when it comes to like game laws and that kind of thing. And I guarantee that if you had confronted them on on violent tendencies, they'd probably say, well, I ain't never done anything to anybody that they didn't didn't do to me. But when it came to poaching, I'm sure they in their mind they thought, well, I'm not hurting anybody, and

I'm actually helping people. And you know, Russ had a whole, a big part of what he talked about, and we may talk about this more at some point, but just about the damage that's done by recreational poaching, and in his mind, it all goes back to the opportunity lost to other people, which is like entirely true. I was saying a minute ago, and um, and so it's easy to say, you know, well, nobody's getting hurt from this

or that. But but if you if you have, if you have a bigger picture of mine, you know, I mean it's like incredibly it is incredibly detrimental taking away and now in a time of great surplus, it's different. It does feel different. I mean like in the time yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and and uh but and what I'm saying is surplus

of wildlife, you know, so like in a time. And I thought it was interesting and I thought it tied back into the other turkey podcasts that most of this went down during a massive blow up of turkeys in this part of the world. And so I mean, like

that coincided. It's kind of interesting when you think about it, because we talked about Will Primos, who built his business and I and we made the connection that his the primost blowing up like it did corresponded with wild turkeys blowing up, and uh, and so this was the same thing. I mean, they were kind of riding a wave. And they weren't the only ones doing it. I mean they were you know, I told you I talked to a guy meat eater that knew some people in in uh,

another state, in Missouri. Last time I was afraid the same Missouri I don't know why. Um, I didn't want to disclose too much. But yeah, anybody's done anything wrong in Missourian. Yeah, that's what I heard. The guys that were killing turkeys for every year of their how old they were killed turkeys up until they were forty, you know, kill that they try to kill as many turkeys in a year as their age and like that. You just couldn't do that today, I mean, job well, but then

how detrimental that that would be. But it corresponded with this surplus of animals, you know. Um, But no, I think deep down the story it was just a it's a good story. And you know what, we've got to believe that. We don't have to believe this. I'm not saying this is something you choose to believe or not. This is just the architecture of human life. It's that we we learned about the present by connecting the stuff

from the past. It's a matter of fact. In uh, this book by Alphelia, the author Edward Edward O Wilson. E O. Wilson is talking about he's trying to He's talking about humans ability to of of memory, historical memory is unprecedented in the animal kingdom, and that's what it is, something that distinctly makes as human as an ability to remember back fifty years to an incident. And by all indications, there's no other animal that has that clear of a memory,

or most animals don't live as long as humans. But he said the subject of greatest immediate interest is long term memory. We are essentially what he said, we are essentially what we remember or can remember at some time in the future. Literally what we're standing on right now. The platform of consciousness that we stand on is what we remember. Like, we don't know what's going to happen a minute from now. We we cannot forecast that very act,

very clearly. And he said people build memory by linking new images and concept two old ones. In its size and the space it feels, the mind expands like a coral reef, adding new branches and cross ties out from the edge of those parts already established and anchored, while

it's central body sets aside and coalesces. Point being, why would we tell a story that obviously we're saying is negative in some ways, but looking at it through any positive lens that we can pull from it, It's like we got to look back at our history to learn what we should do in the future. And and it is my that that's my my biggest hope inside of all this as we talk about coaching and the culture around hunting and protection of wildlife wild resources, is that

this wouldn't happen again. I mean that that we would just say, hey, don't part part of my driving inside of this is where are we driven by things we

don't understand? And if I we're back inside, if that happened today in the community I live in now, I would be like, wait a minute, I'm being in there to a guy that maybe yeah, I shouldn't be or there are you know however it played out and just like not to get caught in something I think, I think it's maybe important, you know, when this gets locked in the vault, nuclear fallout has happened. They dig out this episode to learn how to manage game species and

not poach in the future. To talk about the North American model of wildlife, and that is to say that the game is a collectively owned thing that needs to be managed at a community level so that all people have access and opportunity, as opposed to previous models in which um the aristocracy would fence off their land, manage their game, and get hunt and the proletariat would be able to do nothing. And so the problem with poaching

is to say, no, I know better. I know you're telling me this is what we need for the herd health, but I know better and I'm going to take what I want. So when we distill it down, that's really the problem with poaching. And and that's the rub when you get into people like Charlie and Louisdell who are looking at the turkeys in their area and going like, we've got more than enough. This is not a problem.

I got this like, and if they perceive the game laws as someone fence it off saying you can't, yeah, yeah, absolutely, And that's part of the that's it's not true, but it's part of the problem. Absolutely. The thing is the thing about this the system that we have is it's not necessarily perfect, but it's the best system we've got. I've not seen a better system. Like, yeah, you can't kill as many turkeys as you used to be able to, but this is so that everyone can have an opportunity

to kill a turkey or whatever. Hey, yeah, I've got a question for you. All, if this were made into a movie, who would be the star player, who would be the Tom selle Ach or who would act? Who would be the lead? Okay, I mean who would be the who would be the protagonist? Who would be the main guy, Louis Dale? Louis Dale, I say it would be Russ Oh, okay, that's who I say it would. I mean, I could go either way. But you know, that's what makes this story interesting is the law enforcement

chasing these guys. If you didn't have that, it's not a movie. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, behind the scenes, you know, you're you're sitting it around the desk and you're going, Okay, here's you know, I really want to see Billy Bob Thornton in this movie. You'd be a good chip. I'd like Kevin Costar to play rest. It would be good. Yeah. I could be involved in the casting. WHOA,

That is a bombshell. If you know what every one of your favorite scenes is going to be is when they get caught when they're young and the game warden goes, hey, would you give me a ride back to my truck? And yeah, and then they take off down that skid trail that that brings me back to something I wanted to say about russ earlier. One of the things that

I loved about us. Wait a minute, hold on, I say one more thing, and that's why you're all hypocrites if you didn't like this, because that would be your favorite scene. Go ahead, russ I. One one reason that I loved him on the top level was that it

validated the story. When you go into this, it can be easy to be like, oh, yeah, it's like every all these stories get inflated or whatever over time, because it's a community, Like you want your community to have this thing, and then to go to this guy who hasn't listened to it, who hasn't been there, only spent a month there, and then like basically corroborates it overall.

It corroborates the story worries. But also I feel like what I really liked was that he mitigates the stories in which, like the beginning narrative is like they never got caught, and then as you like pars it out, it's like, well they got caught when they were young, Well there was that one time that they and then he's like, well we had them on a few things. But it just really didn't warrant breaking cover or whatever.

And so all of these things together come together to paint a more organic picture of a human being as opposed to like a Robin Hood style legend or whatever. That was one thing that I really liked about Russ's you know, even Russ's thing about um, he could have caught him, but they didn't. It's like they didn't do it. Yep, they didn't get caught. They still didn't. They didn't get caught. I mean, now in Brent's I understand, yes, they did

get caught, they just didn't get prosecuted. They didn't get prosecuted. You know, they lost, is what you're saying. They didn't win the game. They did not win the game. Um, I don't think that would go down like that today. I think they would, they would prosecute. I don't know the circumstances of that, but the mitigating factors that tell me that the reason they didn't because they we're planning to do it again. They were gonna send somebody else

or yeah, to get something bigger. Yeah. It wasn't like all right, well just forget it, let's go home. No, there was something else happened there and that may have been the first one. It could have been, you know what I mean, because they were there were multiple attempts. But also wouldn't you agree that there would kind of be a shelf life like you can't just like eventually you'd be like, Okay, I wonder what guy is going

to show up this year and once with me? Yeah, And that's hard, man, that is so that is so hard. It's not. It's different than the drug culture. Becausing the drug culture. They're either addicted to the money or they're addicted to the drugs, and one of the others going to get them. It always does. This is a totally different drug, a totally different addiction of being able to sneak back into the house with a turkey before the season or or whatever. So it's that makes it twice

or ten times. It's hard to get somebody doing that because they while they feel the need because it's spring time and turkeys are gobbling, they need to go kill one. It's not going to physically keep them from functioning if they don't because they think the police are getting close.

We've had I had an undercover operation one time where I sent a guy in with a wire and he walked up to the door and knocked on the door, and the guy comes to the door and he calls him by name, and he says, Bob, I know you're working for the police. And Bob, not his real name, pulls a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and you can hear the guy say, but I see you've got that money in your hand, and I'm gonna sell

it to you. And he did, Wow, Uh, I know you're working for the police, but I said, you get that money, so almost sell it to you anyway, and he did and he went to prison. Well, yeah, I mean, I suppose that's another interesting, uh factor that rest brings up is there's no like commercial side to it, Like there's no walking up to these guys and pulling out a hundred dollar bill and saying, kill me a turkey, take me to kill. That makes it also harder. It

has to be off of that personal connection. And we could have a whole podcast just talking to Brand about cover work. That's why, and that's what people are gonna want. They're gonna be why were you all talking about all that sly stuff when you could have talked to Brand about undercover? Tell us your best undercover story brand I can't. Oh you can't. What do you mean? I can't tell you about it? It's happening right now. There's still working

out protective services. Hey didn't surprise you that Russ was able to talk to me. No, it's something that had been adjudicated and he's retired, so I mean it wasn't

owngoing operation. Those guys are you know, passed away? So well, what I what I asked him as I as I said, why would because he got clearance from where he needed to get clearance before he talked to me, and they were like pretty much whatever, And and I was trying to figure out how that would be good for the whole system, for the whole world to know that there are undercover agents out there that are working well because it and what his I'll tell you his response is

he said, Clay, he said, us talking about what happened thirty years ago is irrelevant at today because he said, the tactics that we use back then are not even in the same ballpark. Basically, he said, today you've got to have a digital history. Like if I come to you and say my name is Bill Jones, I'm from Tennessee, I'm a bricklayer. Like you gotta have a Facebook account? You got was not started yesterday. They could go to Google.

They can go to Google. Was a bill fold I had a bill folding and I had receipts in it from a transmission place in my undercover name. I had an arrest record that if like if you had a friend that was in law enforcement and said, hey, man, I met this guy, J David Miller, and he's from wherever I was. Wherever it? I said, I'm not gonna say that wherever this guy is from, this is date

of birth. Will you run him see if he's legit or and he may give that officer or that someone who had access to that information a totally false story. It's somebody but that they trusted and they run a check on it. That check is gonna come up that me Brent Reeves also known as J. David Miller. All this is gonna say is Jay David Miller, dat of

birth addresses on there in my criminal history. I had a fake criminal history on their violence with the police, Uh, resisting a wrist, all that kind of stuff, and that's that was how they did. Yeah, but that's just photo. I've said this before. I've said this before, I'll say it again. I am still not entirely convinced that Brent

Rate is not an undercover agent sent by whoever. I don't even know who to come bust me, because if they make a podcast one day about my life and it turns out he is undercover, go down, It'll be like man, I called him and I played on his ego. And then because Brent called me just out of the blue, I don't even know how I got my phone number. It was like, hey, man, I really like what you're doing. I'd like to come film for you. Really, I'm film for it. That's weird. Uh. And then he was got

that camera, so I'm gonna let you. And then so Brent's been like compiling video footage of me tried, waiting for me to break the law for all these years and just we're still waiting. You think three part series is something it's going to be. Would it be to be a double double agent? Yeah? Like what if Russ Arthur had come in and been like man, Louie Dell, I used to work for the government. I used to

be an undercover agent. That would have been like getting trust you let's go uh revisiting a podcast series from yesteryear. Was Wilson Rawls an undercover agent? Oh? He might have been? Oh, and he just never surfaced and he just went to Oh, I guess I have to as handler done construct a nuclear power plant. Um. Okay, So I feel like we're

we we've given some justice to the series. Uh. I would like to go around like what was the most if you don't if you choose not to have there's some of us that may choose not to have a favorite part because they don't want to have anything to do with this because they're that good at people. Well, I feel some conscious interesting part. So we'll say what was the most interesting story in all the series? Josh,

I think you gotta go with with Russ. I mean just listening to his interactions with Louis Dale and just the covert nature of it. I mean, it's that's Hey, did you like the intro? How I had Andy tell the story and then I had him al who did you like that? I also I also thought what Daniel talked about. I also thought what Daniel talked about was

very interesting. Talk to about what Daniel talking about because very interesting, I you know, in his conversation sation, I thought, you know, people always want some someone to blame to for my law, for my freedoms being taken away and all that kind of stuff, which which always fuels fuels the outlaw nature. So yeah, I thought that was very really interesting. But the whole, the whole part with Russ

listen to that was just cool. Man. I can't wait to for y'all to hear some more arrust the stories. I can't even tell you the punch lines to them, because there there's two of them that are pretty incredible. So Russ go around this way. Okay, Misty wants to go last. What what was your Misty? I'm not ready. H Turkey calls next Russ. Arthur Turkey calling yeah, him called, yeah, that was all this way. I'm really just kidding. I mean,

I like the whole thing. I enjoyed the whole thing. Uh, I'm with Josh on his part validated it made it really special. Um, no one made it special, but uh, I mean just I'm just the whole thing was high quality, you know, I just I enjoyed every bit of it. And uh, you know, Dr Dan's take was interesting. But I think you've created a scenario where you could actually make a movie out of this thing, like you could many lives. This guy right here, probably we need a

movie out of him. Brent will be the guy. They'll make it. They'll have a podcast scene at the end the movie and Brent will be on there and the end of it will just be him just nursing Whalen back down every week. That's what I do every week. And you know, it's just it was just any of those stories surprise you, like, because I would not have known the specifics of the the fighting stories and all that, and I know you're usually kind of intrigued by that

kind of stuff. Yeah, no, I didn't know that stuff. And uh, him getting his rifle when he was in on that sky lift and in Texas putting the ceilings in probably at Walmart. You know, you know that I kind of enjoyed it. I mean, it's entertaining. I don't condone that stuff, but man, I love a good fist fight. I'll I'll walk along ways to see two kids fight. I'm not really not kids, but yeah, that's our nature. I mean, you can say whatever you want, but I mean,

anything unusual, out of the ordinary. We're attracted to it. I thought it was a heavy play of Daniel to bring up Marks, because you can't be like, that's not what he wrote, because then you read Marks and then you're a communist. You can't fact check him. Right, It's true,

always need Daniels a communist a communist. I think the most interesting thing for me was the context of their history moonshining, which I think is important to talk about because on on our side, like moonshining has always been viewed as an illegal or a listit activity. But it started as just a way to get our crop out of the holler, Like how many wagon loads am I

going to have to take this corn out? But if I distill it into whiskey, I can take it out in one load, right, And that evolves into you can't do this anymore, evolves into a circumstance where one of their uncles gets murdered, one of their whatever, we don't

really know. This is not to excuse their behavior, you know, fifty years of poaching turkeys from there, but it helps contextualize it from me that it wasn't just like a group of guys waking up one day going you know what I think I'm gonna go kill all the turkeys. I think that history and like to have the newspaper articles to like to know that this is such a part of the identity of the family, and that that

I think makes makes it so interesting. And I think that's part of why I wanted to tell the story, is that people don't just pop out of the box and act the way they act because they decided to. Most people have a long and robust history that led them to a certain place. And inside of saying that, also say that we have the ability to change that, like we're not muzzled by the narrative of our past. But it's interesting. But but to not be muzzled by

you have to be aware of its driving force. I don't know if it's Brent that said it or somebody else that said it that. Uh, now I have somebody else, somebody else a good friend of mine, uh message me and uh he said, no, I'm not endeared to these guys. He said, I'm endeared to people that have a bad history and wake up and do something different than their forefathers did. It was a great comment, one percent, and like, yep, I mean that's like all we ever talked about on

this podcast is people that do something different. Do you remember when we talked about Clark who whose family they were they were there big into alcohol and he just was like that and we were like, that is good. That's what we're talking about. So, you know, we're not trying to encourage people to be to to be dominated by their past, but to not be dominated by your past. You gotta have you gotta be able to see it and understand it and to see the track. And so

I thought that was really interesting, very interesting. Brent ris like nothing was interesting. That's not true. I thought there was a lot of interesting parts um Rus talking about the operation because I just when he was talking about it, I was seeing it in my head. That's exactly, you know, he was verbatim exactly how it happened. I know the stories.

I spent the better part of the thirty one years living and chasing folks that were, you know, on the other side of the law, so it wasn't as intriguing to me as it was. I'm sure I'll people because any time I get around another person that I've worked with over the past, old war stories always come up, you know, and I've seen a million people like that. A million people. And and I've said it before, you know, the in my career, everywhere I went, I was seeing

more than likely good people on their worst day. And it's I know these guys were good people, and I know that what they were doing was not a mass up there with who we've mentioned by and Clyde and those kind of folks up there. But I've seen a jillion folks make poor decisions, and so it and I say all that to say I wasn't endearing endeared to them in any way. I was intrigued by their story because it's just one of a million that I've heard

that's very similar. And they were authentic people, no doubt about that, and you got to I gotta give them props for that, for being who they were. I think that's been brought up a couple of times, but I do. I also think about, you know, Jimmy Martin's viewpoint on it, and his supervisor, whoever he was, and the things that they were up against, and probably the ridicule that they probably got, you know, behind closed doors or when he got up he walked out of the coffee shop that

you know, they can't they couldn't catch those two guys. Well, if that's all they had to do, they've probably come a lot closer. And that's what I took out of it. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm gonna I think the most interesting part of this is some of the responses we've had heard from people in response to you doing this podcast. And so I feel, as your wife, like I need to summariz us a little bit what we've what we've gained from UH and and help help people claim Nucom is not a poacher.

He does not glorify poaching, he doesn't like poaching. And in fact, I think you're one of the most upright people, I mean really that I've ever met in terms of like ethical right and wrong. You know, very clear rights or wrong. I'm not talking to brit Britain. Brittain knows he you know. I mean, it's been documenting that for a decade, wasting his life first first time, the first

time around. But I think what what you were just trying to understand, like your whole podcast is just trying to answer questions because you yourself felt conflicted, because there's things about these guys that you see as unambiguously wrong and yet you were near to him, and the whole community around you was, and you're just trying to answer

the question why. And part of that answer came through looking at him, not through the lens as poachers, but looking at this dynamic of outlaws and the outlaw archetype and trying to understand why are we culturally drawn to that. Not every culture is drawn to the outlaw architect type. And that's interesting to us. And that's an interesting dynamic, and that Russ pointed it out as a Southern phenomenon. That's interesting to us because we look at a lot

of rural, Southern types of people. I mean, even like the little book you just read about Elijah, I thought how interesting. I mean that that is written by a theologian and he's kind of describing the types of people that that you you find interesting a long long time ago. And and you're just trying to answer those questions. And we're really comfortable living with that, those questions and asking those questions. And we don't by by saying why we're

not we're not shifting our views on morality here. We're not. That's not up for grabs. We're not shifting. No one in this room is we we believe in morality, we believe in right and wrong. We're not glorifying wrong. We're trying to understand why do we cheer for that guy in the movie. Why do we find them endearing in the community. What attributes make this guy in daring but other bad guys not endearing? What makes it interesting? That's all we're trying to do. Just have you been getting

some of that? Like you, you guys are condonedt poaching very little. You know, if you are, they're not listening right right right now. I would say, I would say the vast majority of the commentary I've gotten has been positive, but for sure a few a few people have just outright been like, got it out and you know that's okay. The way I look at it is, if you, I mean, it's the truth. If you if everybody likes what you're doing, you're probably doing something wrong. You know. One thing I've

noticed is that we use that word outlaw. It's a marketing tool. You know, you've cree aided a heading there that people look at it and go and I'm gonna listen to this. We never viewed those guys as outlaws. I mean, you know, they were just people in the community. Socially, it wasn't really socially accepted. But you know, half the guys I knew in that town. I mean, they're gonna shoot a deer out of season. They're gonna shoot an

extra turkey or two. You know. It's just it's not like some major crime like we've just read or seen on TV where a guy d w I is driving down the highway. You know when he gets picked up, Well, he could have killed your kids. You got a neighbor down here that's a drunk and he's you got kids, you know. So it's not like death defying outlaws here. You know, they're uh, they're breaking the loss that they

are outlaws, but it's socially not criticized as bad. I mean, we never just said around to go, man, these are terrible people. We didn't even talk about it. You know, you just knew that they were killing turkeys. It wasn't like, um, they rubbed some levins or you know, shooting up the neighborhood, dealing in drugs. Anyway. Yeah, well, I love telling the story that's not really been told, you know in a

big way. And uh so i'd tell stories I'd tell stories like this every week if we could, you know, I mean not not not breaking the law stories, but stories that are hidden kind of behind the scenes of unique stuff happening, and just like you know, common common little places, you know, And so it was. It was a lot of fun. And I think Andy Brown deserves some form of a word. I mean, if I could have a co host on the Burrigaries podcast, it would

be Andy Brown. He oh my gosh and the uh and the h. He has the most contagious laugh when the story that that I put in there of him telling about the squirrel jumping out onto and it just so happened that the other insurance agent he was with was named Charlie. That story, if you didn't really listen, it could have been confusing. You might have thought the squirrel jumped on Charlie Edwards. The squirrel jumped on Charlie

the insurance agent. I've sat in this chair in this office at night when I was working on that podcast and would just belly laugh out loud and listening to Andy tell that story. But now and he made the podcast. Man, you know, it wasn't necessarily his stories, It was him laughing. Yeah, you know, you just get caught up in the moment.

I did the same thing you're talking about. Oh man, you know what I learned so much by talking to all these different people, like uh yeah, and he's just yeah, he that's just the way he He's always like that. And he's just always uh always. As somebody told me the other day, he's always happy, always laughing, you know. But yeah, Andy Brown, he'll be he'd be my Coast the Burger's podcast. He make a good one. I've had a couple of people come up that I've known for years.

I've actually hunted with a couple of these guys and go, you know, I killed fifteen turkeys four season one time. You know, it's just like you can talk about, yeah, walk in the big restaurant and mena and pull out of water turkey beards and I mean, you know those guys would kill him and go home. You know. In Charlie and Louis hill Man, they're they're entertainers. Man. Yeah, so you did a good job play. I have to say,

well I appreciated. Yeah, Well that's fun. I think I think there's I think as we move more into whatever direction the world's going, these stories like this are are meaningful in some ways. They give us like markers for something and and uh so, yeah, I don't know why, but I like I like these kind of I like a good story. Gary, you got a story about black panthers. Do you know? You guys are not gonna believe this,

but I'm telling you right. I mean, I walked out of the garage the other night and a black panther was in my yard and jumped into the shrubs. And you want to know why. I know it's a black panther. It was young. You know, it was a baby, So you know there's gotta be I mean, I swear I saw it black panther jump in to disrupt, So you know there's got to be kem yoke. There's a breeding population. About five pounds, yeah about probably less, run through the

kiddy door of your neighbor's house. I don't know, but it had the long tail, just like we talked about. It just was young. I thought it was a black panthers. I think I think Gary has taking possession of old great Uncle's steel. Yeah, baby, so I think he's moved the baseline saying not only did they exist, there is a breeding population he needs to have a have a biological conference about the breeding population outline black panthers in

western Arkansas. Pretty soon we're gonna have Thank you so much, guys, everybody really great. Keep the wild place as wild. That's where the pants that's where the poaching takes. Keep the domestic places domesticated because that's where the black panthers are. That's where the poaching takes