Old Mountain Hunter: Ora Lee Provence

of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of North American wilderness to better We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. Who will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet Chasing Battery. This is a very special episode of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast that I doubt that I will ever be able to replicate with another guest. I had the opportunity to sit down with

or Lee Province of Crawford County, Arkansas. Or is ninety one years old. His name is or A Lee Province, but he goes by Oor. I got to sit down with Ori. I've known or for about ten years or so, and I was introduced to him because of the legend that he was in the region that he deer hunts because of some deer that he killed back in the nineteen sixties, and so I went and did a story for a regional Arkansas hunting magazine about our province and the two big bucks that he killed in nineteen sixty

five on public land in the rugged Ozark Mountains. Ori is a unique man today because of the life that he's lived. Or He was born in nineteen seven back in the same Holla that he now he's deal lives in, and basically he's lived off the land his whole life, from logging to chicken farming to growing tomatoes. Ori has has managed to never have to get a job in town except for a short time in nineteen fifty four.

Ori is an old school human and I really have just a special place in my heart for guys like him. I think growing up in Arkansas, I don't I don't know if it was my dad or if it was I believe it was a combination of things. But my dad definitely had a lot of respect for these old mountain men, and so I just had a respect for for these caliber of men, and so I went and just had a conversation with Ori that you're going to enjoy. I think the context will help you understand or the Ozarks.

Anthropologists say we're culturally and geographically isolated until the nineteen seventies when infrastructure and technology really reached this rugged part of Arkansas. Those aren't mountains, are an uplifted plateau that basically cover an area that's probably I don't know how many square miles it is, but probably a hundred miles north and south by probably three hundred miles east and west.

And the infrastructure, the highway infrastructure of the Ozarks was there were no interstates, there was no major commerce in the region, and basically it was a culturally and geographically isolated region and still is to some degree today. And Oriy they got electricity in nineteen forty eight, he told me that's not on the podcast. They didn't get telephones back in there until the nineteen seventies, and to this day, they still don't even have rural water where he lives.

They live off way else. And for the for the amount of wilderness that we have in Arkansas, he lives back about as far as you can get for Arkansas. He lives back in some of the most rugged, steep, bluffy, rocky, roughest places that we have and uh ore, he still lives back in there with his wife, and you're gonna enjoy this conversation with my friend or a lead province. As a side note, we never specified how big these

deer were that already killed. We talked about him, and you'll see pictures of them on the posts about this podcast. But the first deer that already killed scored a hundred and sixty inches. I scored that deer myself. The second deer has double drop times and scored a hundred and eighty six gross inches. So for the Ozarks, those are incredible. Dear, if they were killed today in the nineteen five deer like that in this region of the country, we're basically

unheard of. Guys, I'm gonna do you a favor, and you can do me a favorite. Check out a subscription to Bear Hunting Magazine at our website bear dash Hunting dot com and use the promo code b h M five. That's b h M five for five dollars off a new subscription on checkout what Oh you may have? Hey, Yeah, how are you doing? Oh? I'm doing fire? Yes, good to see you, ye see you. This is my youngest son, Shepherd. I don't think he's ever been over here before. I

haven't seen him before. Anyone, Come around and have a seat here. How are you all doing? Good? Excuse the floor. I was in the middle of vacuum and but I ain't not got it done, so don't worry about the house. Oh this is great, This is great. Hey, that's your chair, I know right here in mine unrolled. Listen. Well, do you know what a podcast is? A podcast? So what I wanted to do today is just recorded podcast, which

all the podcast is is. It's a it's just a it's like a radio show, but it's on the internet and it's not live. So everything we do, I mean, it'll I'll put it up later after I edited and stuff. Have you ever heard of a podcast? Mis Mary? My brother has talked about so he's quite a radio man. He's gonna talk about stuff like that. Yeah, we don't have what you use it? Well, it's people listen to

it on their phones. Now. I I just wanted to kind of get a general kind of life story of you and kind of living out here in the Ozarks and uh. And also I wanted to talk to you about those big bucks that you killed back in I guess nineteen. But but kind of to hear too about some of your earliest memories of hunting and how hunting culture of this region, you know, kind of how you

grew up hunting and what you grew up doing. But but I'll ask you kind of some specific questions, So KNYA kind of lead you in then we'll just have a conversation. But now go ahead and tell me when when you were born, and kind of just about your childhood you were you were talking to me about how your dad had chores set out for all the kids and what you had to do. So when were you

born and what was what was your childhood like? Well, I was born June tenth, nineteen twenty seven, and uh, I grew up when we moved from the mountain down to across the Holliday Ere where I live and uh twenty nine and then we I went to school two weeks at went free. Now where where you were born? Right here close somewhere. I was borned upon the mountain here about a mile and a half. Okay, more, I'm at So you weren't born in the hospital, No, no, no,

they weren't. One of us eleven children born in the hospital and so, so you were born up here and then then uh we moved down here in twenty nine. Then we moved back to the mountain. I went to school down you're win free two weeks and we come went back to old home place. That was my mother's, uh dad's place. He homes did it from the United States government. M and I still got the deed. Is that right? Now? What year did he homestead it? I can't recall right off, but would have been in the

mid eighteen hundreds, probably it was eighteen Honors sometime. Now, were your grandparents alive? Were they a part of your life as you were a kid? No, okay, just my grandmother's all yeah, you know, part of to me when I think about you know, here it is twenty nineteen. You were born in nineteen twenty seven. So how old are you are you? Does that make you ninety one? I'm ninety one. I'll be ninety two in June. Okay.

So if you think of, you know, thinking of someone that lived in the eighteen hundreds seems so long ago, but you knew people that were born in the eighteen hundreds, I mean the mid eighteen I mean, like your grandparents would have been born in the I don't know. I think I'm not too sure, but I believe my grandmother's born night eighteen and uh uh is the thirty or something or something? Huh, So she was born and maybe even in the eighteen out she died nineteen thirty five

and now she's eight one. Once she died, okay, okay, yeah, so probably the eighteen fifties. Yeah. Wow. So you think about the the changes in lifestyle and technology from when your grandmother, a woman that you knew in two now, I mean, it's just it's incredible. I mean even the lifespan. I mean, there's no humans that have really in the history of humanity that really have experienced that kind of development and technology, you know, incredible. But yeah, so how

many brothers and sisters did you have? I had five brothers and five sisters, eleven kids and the oldest died but tea would that would have made toil three and younger and me? Okay, so you you were you were towards the end there. Yeah, And now you told me your dad had chores set out for you guys that you had to do. Tell me about that. Well, uh, when I was at all like boy, I was nine

years old or something like. I'd always get up more than bidle farther and uh had it a going and uh and I went and fed the team and uh, mules, mules and hornessed him. Yeah, and uh come back. And nineteen thirty six, I was nine years old. Nineteen thirty six, we got our first radio, first radio, first radio. And I listened to the the old ridden Cardial family and and uh be on one row and Charlie Monro There's together then yeah, and uh some of them old Sanger's way

back there. Yeah, a bunch of them. That was a big deal listening to those old radio programs. They was good. They was good. Yeah, I like to listen out of them. Yet. Yeah, now what did what were you? What was your dad using the team of mules for well, he we worked in tam races, made her worked in timber, We worked in tambarin, farmed a little, we had separate tan cows. Yeah, so he was he was hauling logs off the mountain with these mules. Oh yeah, right, skinning them and everything.

I'll be done. So you grew up doing that. That's why they've done all about it, just a better except later years by going chickens. Yeah, so they why did they use mules rather than horses for doing that? Do you know? Well there's more sure footage. Yeah, and I don't know, but of course they use horses too, right, but mostly meals. Yeah. So so your dad was a logger, I mean back in these mountains right here? Yeah, maken a cross tie hire and a cross ties. Yeah, I'll

be done. Now where was the mill? Was it down where it is now? Down the other side here? Okay, So load up the cross ties on a wagon or load up the just raw logs on a wagon, take them down to the mill. They've done the saw logs that way, and they saw them fellas and spokes and all that stuff. You know that. Of course that there was a wagon wheels, you know, and a lot of them they sold the Springfield Wagon Company. Yeah, yeah, I'll be done. Now. When did y'all start getting more modern

uh log and equipment? Like you were a logger most of your life? Well that is up and six in the nineteen sixties you started using mechanized equipment for the hall and logs. Really, you know, I'll be darning. So you were using mules and horses and everything until the nineteen Yeah, what kind of saws did you use? Like the two man cross cross cut sauce. Do you have any of that old stuff still laying around? Do you really?

I've got one. Really, I'd like to see those. So what were your Well, give me, give me just a little like kind of a bigger glimpse of your life. So born nineteen seven, Dad was a logger, and you grew up just you stepped right into the family business and just log right with him. And uh, and then so you did that until when and what other kind

of occupations did you have? Had died in forty four but okay and forty one while the World War two broke out, and uh, my brothers, three of them waiting service, and uh, I was oldest one left at home. Okay, I took him my mother and uh my nephew and uh two sisters and her brother brother. Mm hmm. Yeah. So you were just just a few years too young to be drafted into the war. I was. I was when my dad daughter sixteen, okay, and uh, when I become eighteen to day, I was eighteen. A day after

I was eighteen. My birthday come on Sunday that year on Monday, I registered and I went down in past examination eight Devin July. I got my calls for examination, went down passed and they day have augas got my call service, and uh, ministers out here. And I had a big tomato crop out about ten acres tomatoes, and uh, I mean the family there, we had to have something to live on. And uh but anyway, why there's a minister out there. He said, this boy they had to

take care of his mother and these children. And so he wrote, Uh I got deferred until two locked over the fifteenth and uh another words of the cropper was over then. Uh, I've still got my one eight classification. But the war was over that time. Oh wow, so you just barely missed it. So what year would that

have been? Nineteen forty four? Well, let's see, it been uh seven, I believe he was okay, okay, forty that would have been somewhere he's older and forty six the war was, So you would have gone if the war would have oh yeah, yeah, the lords and I went to school with him. There's in there. They went in Germany. Yeah, I'll be done. Wow. So so what it? So you logged up until how old were you well you grew to you grew tomatoes, you did some farming, you had

some cattle. Well I couldn't worked in Timor. That was the main line up to him years and years later. Yeah. But anyway, I went and uh man, my brother we uh that he never did have to go to war. And so but he went him went and cut timor and logged it. I hold it up, I hold it on a wagon. Yeah, and uh he scared did out and I won't halted and dumped it off with the mail mhm. And that was I forgott to have one year.

That was in the late forties. Anyway. Now, the Great Depression, you were just a kid during the Great These hills weren't really I mean, they were affected by the Great Depression, but people were already poor. I mean there wasn't much you could do to somebody that was just living off the land basically when it comes to economic stress. Is that right, right? Yeah, we lived off the land. Yeah.

And nineteen thirty six that was dry here, you know, okay, and uh we had a smiter crop and we haul water and set them out and they got up and just the blooming and everything turned off dry. We never got a tomater and nineteen thirty six and that was hard to take. Yeah, I remember that way too. Yeah yeah, but we we worked in a tamar and uh you know they paper back then they finally got where they brought out food stamps and thanks, but we never got any.

My dad just wouldn't have nothing to do. But that just by principle, he didn't need any help. We we made it. We made it without it. We worked and tamor made it. Yeah. What would have been a normal meal for your family back then when you were a kid had plenty teet? Yeah, I had plenty teet. Yeah, we had anything. Yeah, as you raised hogs and can vegetables, had had a garden. I know you still have a garden, don't you. Well yeah or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

we we made it fine, well done. Yeah. I had about dirty swarms of bees back during the world while you couldn't get sugar because every food is all racing. You couldn't buy nothing. Everybody's out of sugar. And I had bees and we got to you could get I permit to feed the bees, you know, because it used the honey somewhere another end. Guns. Yeah, I don't know this why but that's what I heard it. An, So you were selling honey. Well I didn't sell it, but

we eat it. Okay, you just had it. Yeah, we had it, and we got penny of sugar to feed the bees, and so we didn't have to run out of shar A lot of people never had no sugar, flour or anything. They couldn't give this so much. Huh you come buy you come buy a trump tar or nothing, not a pair of shoes hardly? Wow? Yeah? So now what year did you get married? Forty nine? Okay, okay, now what's the What was the story I remember with miss Mary? She was from the town. She was from

in town? Is that right? And so she she didn't understand what it was like to be married to a country boy like you? Is that right? Tell me this story about when do you remember I remember writing it about you? Uh, that you went deer hunting? You told her you were when y'all were eighteen? I guess do you remember that? Ye tell me that story? Well, I went to when dare saying open, why I always go deer hunting? You know? I left her out of picked

trouted when it not it? But after I killed a deer while when I got my dear, why I called her and so that's kind of the way that one. But but she was she wont you wondered why he never called you? Is that right? A week so you thought maybe something was up, but he was just hunting. Yeah, i'd walk twenty today. Wow, hunting on blows, hot blows and roughest places it was. So tell me now, I want to start talking to you about hunting. What are your earliest memories of hunting? I mean, did you hunt

when you were a little kid? Did your dad? Then? Uh? I'd rather like during the war, you know, Wow, they wasn't no money much cross ties and selling and thirty and thirty five cents apiece and uh you just couldn't make much. And the timber so that when the seasoned open, while we'd go hunting, we didn't make more hunting catching possums and combs. We'd even skinner skunk anything that we could get, selling the hides, selling nights. Oh so you had tree dogs yeah right, yeah? Yeah. What kind of

dogs did you have? Do you remember? Well, there's hounds yeah yeah. Yeah. So so you were making money selling hides back during that time, making more than you could make at the sawmill, right, I'll be darn. You know. I've actually mentioned that on this podcast before, because we've got we've got coon dogs and and part of the reason the coon dog is so culturally iconic is because of back there was a time when you could make more money with it if you had a good hound,

than you could at a day's work. I mean, yeah, yeah, I'll be darn. So you did that as a kid. Went. Now, there weren't many deer though, back when you were a kid at all. None at all, No, not hardly every you never I never seen a deer u till I was oh sixteen, okay, I never saw a deer the last sixteen. And no bears, No, I didn't. Back in those days. There weren't many bears around. Well, there's a few around earlier than my time. Yeah, yeah, but I would. I got my license. I think I still got my

head about my first less Is that right? You still got it? I did. I've got one of the early ones. Yeah. What year would it have been? Nineteen sixteen? No, yeah, nineteen sixteen, okay, yeah now that yeah, yeah, I mean forties be uh forty yeah sixteen, that have been forty three. Okay, you were sixteen years old forty nineteen forty three. Okay, that makes sense. So you started when did you kill your first deer? Do you remember where I was seventeen when it came my first time? Okay, so in the

forties and then you started. So how would you describe these mountains? Mr? Ory? There's people listening to this that have never been to Arkansas. They've never even they might even think Arkansas is a flat place. How would you describe these mountains? Well, they're they're rough, yeah, yeah, but they're beautiful. Yeah. And I've never been nowhere else. Yeah, um for Western Savannas, uh Shamrock, Texas and uh F

South there's been a down around war in Arkansas. And four North svnors Kansas City, Okay, yeah, yeah, that's four East, a little rock. Yeah yeah, well I told them matter Well, yeah, you know I would describe these mountains to somebody that's not been here is they're real bluffy, and I want to hear about the way that you hunted deer. But a lot of limestone, big limestone bluffs and rocky outcroppings.

I mean, even driving here to your house today, we stopped at a waterfall down here on the corner and took a picture of a big waterfall coming off one of these bluffs. And and um, you know oak forest. Not many pines around here? Uh well not right through right here, right south. I was sure there is. There's more pines. Since you've been alive, have these mountains looked about like this or can you recall a time when they were? I mean, you know, like the vegetation, I

mean not the same the same. So you're coming. They're more fields and there's not as many people lives in here, and now agay used to be right yeah, there used to be a lot of homesteads in this National forest. Yeah, I mean you're you're touching National forest here, aren't you. Yeah, you're property here yeah yeah yeah on the north side, and I am now this place right here, was this homestate steadied by some of your family? No, I bought

this from a fellow of Shawnee, Oklahoma. So you bought this, but your family homesteaded up on the mountain right yeah. Okay, So you killed your first year when you were seventeen in the mid forties, and then how did it tell? Described to me kind of how you learned how you started hunting these deer. Well, I just it was since I was just a little boy, nine years old when or nine years old. We lived up here on the mountain and it's about two mile to where I ain't lived.

And years she raised my dad and my on and two uncles and she raised him. But her husband died nineteen and uh but anyway, why we we my dad took care of her, and so ever Sunday night, why I'd come down. It's about it's about two miles a little down to her and spend the night with her, nine years old, and uh, I'd go back to the mountain in the next morning, and then Monday morning I had to go to Bedford School, which i'd be welcome better than six miles and uh but anyway, I've done

that for four years because I was thirteens. She died in nineteen forty level the mayor nineteen forty remember it, well, yeah, yeah, and so you did you learn to hunt during that time, because that was what I had asked us, like, how

are you my dad? My dad had send me down when one of my brothers was fourteen, Why he brought him in twenty two and you twenty to Sam shot twenty two in anyway, while uh we all used it and uh but anyway, I just a little boy, and they'd send me down down here to check things down here, and and they let me take a gun with me hunt all the way. I'd go down there and I'd kill a squirrel and I was just what his oldest boy. Yeah, I had a gun women kill squirrel. Yeah. Yeah. And

then you started deer hunting, hunting these bluffs. You know the story that I wrote about you and what they're blows there was ever worth just about. Yeah. They had a game refuge over here, thed and uh it stayed. We had to hunt around him, but he couldn't hunt there. They were trying to reintroduce deer in the forties, so they brought in some deer. Oh yeah, yeah, they brought them in it. And there's getting more the kind of

scattered out than the openings season on it. Yeah. Yeah, but you, uh so, I remember the story that I wrote about you years ago. Uh I called it the Bluff Hunter titled at that because you used to like to stay on the top of these bluffs and you can kind of look down and see these flats. Yeah, and that's where these deer would be. But if you were up on the bluff, you'd kind of be hid from him, is that right, right? They can't smell you. You

You love them and they don't. Yeah, And so that way you can get a I've killed several land down Okay. So you would just creep along the top of the bluff and you'd see them bedded. Yeah, right, I'll be done. I remember you used to throw rocks off a bluff too. Sometimes sometimes you'd wake them up if you couldn't see why you told something down our kind of make it no water. They're wondering what it was and maybe didn't

move where he could see him, if there's any there. Yeah, yeah, Hey guys, we want to take a short intermission here at the middle of the podcast. And if you remember, Mr Ry said that a nineteen thirty six his family got their first radio that he loved listening to the original Carter Family music and Bill Monroe's music. We're gonna take a minute. We're gonna listen to Cotton E Joe by Bill Monroe. This is for you, Mr Or I didn't been made forty years ago, if I hadn't been

knocking cotton age. Where did you come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from? Cottonightjo? Where did you come from? Where did you go? How did you come from? Cottonight? Same a grandmam? Did you know? Chicken in the red bedspreads? Not do? Where did you come from? Where did you go? How did you come from? A cottonyge? Where did you come from? Where did you go? How did you come from? Cotton je? Corns? Don't feeling us your string ball? Play a little tune called cotton Night do?

Where did you come from? Where did you go? Hight? Did you come from cotton night to? Where did you come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from? Cotton? Mind? You don't you remember? Don't you know? Daddy work a man? Go? Co mind you? Where did you come from? Where did you go? Why you come from Cotnight? Do? Where did you come from? Where do you need to go? Do you come from? To do? Even if you don't like

bluegrass music, surely you enjoyed that in this context. Hey, we're gonna jump back into the episode and Mr. Or He's gonna tell us about the big bucks that he killed in nineteen sixty. In nineteen sixty, Uh, you killed two just big old deer, tremendous deer, non typical deer. Um. Do you recall the exact scenario of how you killed those deer? Ye? Tell us that story. Well, I was man, my boy, he was fourteen years old, and we went

across Hurrican Creek. Who we're here, and across on uh towards rattlesnake, gup and down the point and got down on the in the point. I left him on top the hill and I said, I've gone down there with them pines at olm blows arette and stethon jump up something. And I was going to climbing over a bluff and I scared four deer out of a bed down blow me. You know, he run off, and so why does thee's

on down the bluff? And uh cut down and went on down and found their beds where right threw by it went on doubt about sixty five hunter about ninety yards the other side of it, and Uh, I hear the racket behind me, and I looked around and I saw this point bucker coming. All I could see is this. You could kill one without I think a spiker. He just need horns. I could see them horns and I saw he had enough horns his legal shoot, so I couldn't see nothing but this a spot between two trees.

So I shot him in the flanks, and I thought, well, I cripped him, and uh, so I shot him, and he come right through by me and brought about. I think it's ninety three yards and if day drive over from me, I'll be doing What do you think when you walked up to him and started counting those points? Yeah, yeah, but I I can't. I just left him ron wait and got my boy and we went and is it this boy that's out here? Yep, that's low knife for you right now? Right? Okay, yeah, he's fourteen years old. Now,

how did you get him out of there? I know about where. We drug him to the creek, on down the creek and tuck him up the creek because we can't take him up back up the bluff where I'd come from nowhere to him her car, her rig was setting on top the mountain, so UH had to go back up her and get it. But anyway, I went and we tuck him around the creek and tuck him up the creek and we run on to some harness earned the boy that. Uh, he had a boltswagon and we put he took us back to raids and hauled

it up to where we could get it. And then you killed another one. You killed another big one. Now was it a few years later? When when did you kill that? Two weeks later? Two weeks later, two weeks later, I'll be during the same area. No, No, it was about north here here's up Frog Creek. And that was just an incredible season. Yeah, yeah, they're both in season. Well I'd said it was just an incredible year for you. I've never seen nothing like it. So what about this second, dear?

How did that that happen? Well? I was the checking a man's cattle and uh up the creek here. He's from magol like Texas, and I was taking care of his cattle up her and I went up here, and of course you dar saying, you know, I had my gun women and uh so he had a big pond builder and I just I don't remember. I was just water is doing anyway. This deer was just helping to take it there above that running out through there, huh, and I saw them big horns. I started shooting. O shot.

I think he's nine times whatever it takes and the last shot of shot he fell right backwards. He's running fasts. I'll be he's eighteen points. Yeah wow yeah. Um let me see here, I've got I've got some specific questions here. Um. Well, I remember you telling me about some bear stories. Uh, not necessarily hunting the bears, but when you were walking

up the road. Uh, I was we go we go to Sunday school all time, and and uh I had a bypass and ninety one that ninety one and uh but anyway, I supposed to walk a hunting fourteen steps a minute, and so but we'd come back from Sunday school. I'd get out of mill above my house here and started walking to the house. She'd come on. She'd have my dinner ready when I got here. So anyway, I was coming down the road. I looked down the road in front of me. I saw something there. I thought

was one of my cows. And uh, so I just kept walking and looking for another one. He called ahead and some more and uh, I looked up again while I saw his buyer. Well, I stopped in. I didn't know what to do. I just had that bypass, and uh and I couldn't claim my tree if I wanted to. Of course it wouldn't have anything, Adam. But anyway, I told her, I, did you get out of here? He just down on the road and he wouldn't move, and uh, hollerd holler. That didn't work with him. About fifteen minutes

and he want to do a thing. He just stood there and I didn't know what to do. But the thought of what wed olds on. He uh used to come out here and sang it bidful here or a gold church, and he told one put him up a tree. He said, act as brave as you can. So I just sat, well, I'll just see what I can do. I just made four fire steps towards him, and when he did, he just turned his head around like he's going to have to move. Then he's straightened back up.

I thought, well, what'll do now? So so you kind of bluff charged buff Yeah, and it didn't work. It didn't work that time, but I'll work with him again. Holliday at him and everything else. And he wouldn't move, and so I started again. I said, you get out of here, and so I did that. Well, he went around and I thought he went up to holler, but uh, give him a little time to get up the hollar.

I hears something making noise. Branches up is in June, branches up and running and making noise, and and he went up out on the side. And so that's all I know. I thought he went on up the hollar. Yeah, but times a way he's going down the road, and watch it for him. I looked, it's about time I got even with him. He's satting on about twenty steps on me. He just went off the road and just sat there. They're smacking his mouth at me. Oh, he was popping his teeth at you. And he was a

big He was like you talked about that, isn't it. Yeah, he had a big, big, big bear, big bear. Yeah, I believe you to wait six found I thought he would. Yeah, he probably did. May have been a little big, but I thought he would. He was a big one. Now do you remember so the story of Arkansas black bears that we did, we had, I mean, we had black bear forever and then in the you know, they said between by nineteen four and this is just a I

think kind of an arbitrary date. By nineteen forty, there were no bears left over in this part of Arkansas. That's what they said. And then they started bringing them back in between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty four, they traded bass and wild turkey with some states up north and Canadian province. And we're bringing bears back in here and and turn them loose. Um, do you remember was there any talk of that? Or I mean, do you remember? I don't remember much about it back then?

You know what I don't When did you start seeing bears? Because I mean you're in some big time bear country, I mean, like for Arkansas, like this is as about as good a bear country as there is. Well, I never I never seen no bar around through here until oh see who's building Short Lake for that? Now? What are you how to fit for? Okay? And fit for what we saw? One? He's going to work four day lighting one run across the road. I play back to first.

Is that right? So nineteen fifty four you saw a bear? Yeah, we'll see. That would have either had to have been one of the bears they turned loose, because that's when they started the reintroduction, was in nineteen fifty four, or it could have been. And see, here's the deal that I keep going back to, is that I believe that there were still bears over in this part of the world. They said they were extra pated. That means that they were like just a region of this they were extinct

out of this region. Um because my, my, my, my, my, my wife's grandfather he lived down in the Washingtalls, down around Mina and in the nineteen thirties he killed a bear with a rock. What he was, he was just a boy. He's walking down the road and saw just a little bear cub. I mean, it wasn't much more than a bear cub. Saw a bear cub run across the road and it he chased up a tree, and you know, he's just probably a twelve year old kid, started chunking rocks at it and ended up killing this bear.

And he was petrified that he had broken the law, you know. And but there weren't supposed to be any bears in that part of the world in the nineteen thirties and so anyway, but supposedly there weren't any. But so you saw your first one. I'll be darn You remember dates really well, don't you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can remember. But in the neighborhood. Yeah, oh, that's good for ninety one. That's real good. Hang here too, Yeah, and well you're doing good, then I'll be darn. I

got a troubled old hip. Troubled hip, yeah, from climbing all those bluffs. I guess too many steps, too many steps. So so you saw a bear in fifty four, and then would you say that bear activity has increased around here over the years it has since that time? Yeah, slow, but it's in great. We didn't have any back in York around Rhyme that year until last six seven, right yere, Okay, I've never I've never seen any back in the year.

And you're you're what you're describing is I mean, you're kind of like in I mean you've got cleared land and kind of farm country here and uh and so you probably wouldn't see bears in your day to day activity, but they've been close to you for a lot longer than that about in the mountains. They've been around, no doubt. But yeah, you know you didn't you didn't see they had never bothered you much. I mean you never really had trouble with him. Maybe a few over the years.

The slash fall, they was two stayed right here quite a bit out here that different one song him right here in my field, okay, okay. And I saw him out here one day. I was on my four wether and and I was talking to I've been sitting there and talking to him about fifteen minutes. And and uh, I'd ask him he saw him here much out around him and he lit her father went out of the mountain. He said, well, not all that many, but we see some cases, you know. Yeah. And I said, well, what

about bar? And he said, well, it's ain't no bar yet right anyway, Well, he's just sitting there, was sitting our talk. He's at right us two right now, right down right close to us. I'll be down every way, about two hundred pounds of piece. Wow. We were just talking before we started recording that. The state record Arkansas bear came from not far from right here. You know, Chad's bear. I mean there's some there's some big bears

back in here, old bears. Oh yeah, yeah, there's one had a young deer out uh on the neighbors up here seen it. Uh, he's had it in his mouth. Is that like a fawn? Dear? I'll be darn you. Hear about black bear predation on fawns, but rarely do you actually see it. I've never seen count of tubs and thy my boy, he went up here to check on my cows and there's one up art eating out of one of them tubs. Oh really yeah, yeah, they'll they like that stuff. Yeah, yeah, uh, they're they're just

in New Zealand. Yeah, yeah they are. When was when did you last hunt? Like when you has it been a few years since you've hunted? Aug? What a two year ago? Two years ago? My last hunt was? I didn't hunt anyway, I killed too deer. Okay, you got some for the pot? Huh right? Yeah? Probably right here close? Yeah yeah, put it on this or not. Well, hey, there's nothing wrong with killing the deer close to your house there, Yeah, but I don't know where from? Where's that? Well?

That's good. It wasn't on the road, right right, it wasn't on the road. Yeah, I'll tell you about it. Practice. Well, you gotta get you gotta get some meat. You gotta get some meat, well, handy, why why not? Yeah? And Ms Mary do you do you like cooking deer meat? Yeah? Let me can. I I'd like to talk to you for a minute on on this microphone. Do you have some? Let me, uh, let me get you set up? Is that okay? Yeah? Let me see here? Yeah, I just put that on. You should be able to hear just fine,

there we go, there you go. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Good? Yeah? Okay? So, so you you like cooking dear meat. I love deer meat and I love cooking it because we love dear meat. Yeah, but now raw, I mean, like deer roast. It does have a smell if when you're roasting it, you know, but I learned that you could put green peppers or onions something else with it, and when somebody walks in, they'll smell that smell the pepper cooking, and it kind

of camouflage. Is this because that's the deer is cooked. They don't have that. We never have had a dead They had a real wild taste. I mean, we like, we like it, you know. Ye what's your favorite way to cook dear meat? Well? I prefer a steak myself, and he likes the hamburg. Of course, I'm getting more to hamburg. Of course. You can make chili, meat loaf. There's so many things you can make with ground maat that you can't do with steak, but I like steak too.

How you cook your steak? I always beat it to make it real, and then I dip it in flour and then an egg and milk, egg with milk mixed in it, and then back in the flour. Okay, double battery, and then fry it until it's crisp. And you know that. And if it's a young deer, you can cook it in about five minutes on each side. But you have to really watch it because if it's it's not tender, it's the toughest stuff. It'll be tough. I have cooked roasts before and it'd be too tevidents I can't eat it.

I just turned and put it back in my pressure cooker and cook it a little longer and then it would get because I like meat to just might say fall off the bone, and if it does, then it's tender. How thick do you cut your steaks? He cut We always cut her on well. We have had some dress that out, but he usually because his own steak, and I don't like it cooked cut about not more than really a quarter of an inch thick, which isn't very thick.

But I like it because I want it tender, and I get more steak if you cutting a lot of people like them ananch sick or something like that. But I don't. I don't because it's too tough. But I beat it anyway because it makes it more tender. And then and of course, if you take a piece of meat, when you beat it, it makes it get a little bigger. And you'd even take a chicken breast and do that. His daughter told me that secret. You take a chicken breast and beat it, and they'll make it a lot bigger,

and it's thinner and it'll cook quicker. And so I, if I've got time, I like to do that to chicken breast, anything that you have, you beat it. It will tenderize it. Now have you do you ever cook in the other kind of wild game? Yeah? I have kicked some bear meat before, and that is really wild tasting. Okay, you weren't too impressed with the bear meat, huh, And no, I didn't care. And I'll tell you this because my

brother he did. He didn't know it. But if they come up here, and he had a son that loved uh, hog meat, and I fried hog meat. He had begged me. He said ain't Mary please cook me and his daddy to get onto him his mama too. I said that's fine. I'd rather cook quary likes I'd cook. One day there was coming, so I cooked some deer steak. I put it on one end of the platter, and I'll cook some of this hog meat of what do you call this?

The shoulder meat is fried meat. He loved it. I cooked a lot of that, and I cooked some bear meat and put down here. And of course they didn't know they had bear. And you know what, they cleaned up first of all the bear, the bear, and they still he took this day. Don't know that he ate bear meat. He wouldn't believe me if I told him today. This wasn't too long back. They killed a bear and

her son in law barbecued it. And I don't have to say that you wouldn't know it was bear meat if you wasn't told it was bared eat because with that barbecue sauce on it, it changed the taste entirely. And we all stopped by after church one Sunday night and had sandwiches out of that barbecued bear meat, and it was good. It was good, and we uh every Christmas.

My family, my mother's family, my dad's family, we get together and we had a I had a one of my cousins would take a deer and he had cooked just a young deer and put it on it like a smoker and smoked the whole thing and bring that to our dinner. It was good meat smoked. I wish I had a smoker, but I probably burned it up

trying to smoke it. But it would be good. I mean, smoked meat is really good, and dear meat would be really good smoke if you, you know, knew the technique you know for doing it, and a lot of people make stear jerky out of it, you know. But I may if he ever kills another one, I may try just a little bit. I've got to want them dehydrators. Yeah. Now, did you have a big garden, miss Mary? Were you

the gardener? Remember last time I was here? You probably don't remember it, but you you were cooking sweet corn and you sent me home with a cooked here a sweet corn me and my daughter. I remember that you had it in foil. You're cooking it somehow. But do you do you have a garden out here? Usually? Yeah? Okay, so you raise, you raise some corn, and we put it well. In fact, we practically done the whole patch.

And one day because he didn't always ready, and he went down there and said, I tell you this was Saturday, wasn't it. And I said, you can't be telling me. He said, well, it's ready, he said, I'm afraid it won't keep till monday. I said, well, we'll just have to stay up tonight and get it. Yeah, stay, you know, cooked out. So we cooked it out and I lined it out on my table to cool and left it out all night with under fans for it to cool out.

And I got up rill or the next morning and wrapped it all up in tin foils so we could put it away. So if you cook it and then freeze it and tinfoil, I cook it for five minutes. When it gets to a boil, I let my water get to a ball and put the corn in. And when it's boiling real good, I time it for five minutes. I take it out, put it, run it through just tap water to kind of chill it. And then I put it in ice water and leave it till the

kind of chills down. Then I put it out to drain, and then I just stack it out on the table and let it lay until it gets cold enough that I know it's not you know, the cab, but because it'll be cold out here. But if you're not careful, the cab but still be hot and that will spoil. So you have to. So that's the reason I put I put it on fans what we used to when I had a coffee table in here. I put a

sheet on the coffee table. We'll turn the air conditioner on him, put the corner all on the table here, and he'd cool out just fine. And then you so then you'd freeze it and then you'd pulled out of the freezer and just heat it up. Yeah, I'll just take it out and put it back and just like corn on the cob. Yeah, okay, so you didn't even have to you have to cook it. He just kind of had to heat it up. Had some last night

for supper. I'll be darn our grandson and our son both if he comes in if he's not hungry, if you were not mention corn, because he said, if I'm not hungry, I can eat corn, and he'll don't get him a roast in here. If they don't name corn because I don't need it. But you want to have a roast in here. But everybody lives and we has a boy here. One time my daughter tell him said, can you eat corn on the cob? Yeah? She got an argument with him. She said, no, you can't eat

corn car I know I can. I'll have Mama to cook something. You're gonna show me you eat corn on the cob. He ate that corn? She said, you didn't eat that corn on the cob. I did do it. She said, you did not. You ate the corn off that call. And oh he got so mad because he saw she had him over a barrel, but he could eat corn on the cob. I'm gonna remember that one, Miss Mary. Do you have any good stories about Mr Ory in his hunting or anything that he hadn't that

he hadn't said? Well, I remember not to embarrass him. I remember one time we had two of the grandchildren here and I got up early because he gets up early if he goes hunting. And I got up early and got him off hunting. And it wasn't in fact, I don't think we did. We hadn't even got up yet. Had he come in. He said, y'all's gotta get ready. You've got to go help me. And I said, oh no, he's got a deer. And so we took the four wheeler, took the two grandkids, and down in the holler we went.

He just wanted us to find it, see it. And we got down there, and then we had to load that on the fore wheel, and those grandkids had a blast. They got to have Grandpa bring him in a deer. And then we brought that deer up here, and I remembered that was a really exciting time. And then we had another grandson up here. He'd want to appear to check his cows, and luckily he found a deer. So he come home and said, y'all's gonna go help me.

Well I knew immediately what he had done. So we took this little feller up there and we went up in the woods. He wanted him to find that he's kind of pointing it to me where it was at. He wanted to see if he could find it. He kept telling him, said ethan, look around, said that dear's daughter be here somewhere. Of course, he knew all the time where it was. And you ought to saw that little Feller halping us drag that out. He was thought

he was really doing something. We put him in front and me and him was behind kind of dragging it. But he really was helping get that deer out here. That's a lot of fun. Ms Ma, how how old are you? Do you mind me asking you that I'm seventy approaching Eightier will be next month. His daughter and I have the same birthday, and my daughter, I'm twenty years old older than his daughter. I'm thirty years older

than my daughter and my grandson. It's got married this year, and we're expecting our first great grand baby from my daughter's family this month, about the twenty nights, so I'm just count today's down. So I'm really excited about that. That'll make us nine great grandchildren, nine great grandchildren. Okay, um, okay. We talked about your big bucks. We talked about your bear story. We talked about growing up in the Ozarks, talked about your first introductions to hunting. Um. You told

me about a little bit about your childhood. What would you say, what are your most I mean, you you've really never you've never known much than the life that you've lived out here, and and the reason that I'm here is because I don't think you probably didn't realize how unique it is the way that you have lived in today's world. I mean, just like like you said, there's thank you. Like you said, people don't live out

here anymore. There used to be more people that lived out here, and and most people end up migrating into the city. What made you want to stay out here and just keep the lifestyle that you have lived? Never didn't go nowhere else? And one thing, I took care of my mother here for twenty four years. Okay, so she was up here. She was here with me twenty years, and her home was right up here. She's raised and

she never hardly been nowhere else. Yeah. Yeah, So you just you just never had a reason to leave, no reason to leave, no reason to leave. I made living here and no plans to leave now. No, No, you does your boy that's right? Does your boy? Uh live out here? Close? He lived Winslow, Okay, he lived. He's a Patrin church out here a bit. Okay, he's pastor of the church. Can you can you think of any other unique stories about your life that you'd like to share? Well?

Oh yeah, man, my brother was hunting one night, don't treat and we went u up there, and he's tread up under rock. We wouldn't build up a far and smoked the coon out called in and here's dog wasn't there, So we wondered where he was at. He then would show up and so were about thirty or four minutes. Why we're here embarking well on the top of the mountain, and so we went up earned and uh so we got We went up ear there's two coons up a tree,

and uh so we got both of them. Come back old he'll come back down there and with come the way he always step. And he looked down there. He said, there's a light down yonder. I said, I wonder who in the world that is. And I don't know what they're up to. So he he said, he said, you stay right here and keep these coons and things. Said, I'm going down there and see and throw you wait down putty clothes. And I heard him talking, and he he said, if you don't tell who you are, then

they would answer. You know, so if you don't tell who you are, I want to shoot your light out. So correctly he took and he's shot in the water. Is it right there. I'll be daring. I thought that was one. So he was, he would seeing the reflection of his own light, no stars shining in it, the stars shining down and man in the light. And hey that's some that's some old school coon right there. Yeah. Somebody won't tell you who they are, you're gonna shoot

their lot out. Yeah, you know, I guess back in those days, I mean, you just didn't see people. I mean it was probably really odd that you felt like you hardly you wouldn't write, like I said you, I want to think about sitting this board down. There's hotter here now. Are like they are? People like they are? No way, yeah, way, no, Wow, that's a that's a unique story. Yeah. Yeah, you want to talk about child of being out now you better keep you eye on

them all the time. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're doing a way with him across the border. Never ye hundred job. Yeah, we don't hear about it a lot, but they are. Yeah. That was a good story, miss Mary. Can you think of can you think of any other unique stories just about your old life? Not even about hunting? Well after a quick growing after quit sult melon, wow, I started growing chickens and I grow chicken for forty three years.

It's right here. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yeah. I've never moved off right here, stayed right here, yeah, forty three years. Forty three years. I want you to I'd like to see your old mule harnesses before I leave today. Well, I got I got one horns up here. All I got left? Yeah, some of it. I don't remember his twick right in the operational the operation of the deer in the hay field. Oh yeah, yeah, mowing hay in a cutter. Little deer's foot off and uh, I'll called

her to come and get it. No dipped, you know, they never make it with a leg off right this baby that words, we're right now, we're were raising okay. Yeah, So you had a pet deer for I had to two or three pet dear. Yeah, I had three d at different times. Yeah. Yeah, I had a buck capping mirror about eleven years. M hm hm. How did you get very big? They get big horns, big horns. Yeah, oh that's neat. You know, we had a pet deer too.

Just just like three years ago it became illegal in Arkansas to have captive wild caught deer, but for years. It was totally fine. Yeah, and I had we had three different deer that we raised that the kids, I mean their childhood is has memories of them having those deer that we raised, and that was really neat. But well, hey, we've been talking for an hour. That's good. That's about how long I wanted to talk with you. But my it's thank you for letting me come out here. We

are you welcome. It's gonna be. I can tell you a lot of stories. Well, don't hold them back if you got one. But now, I there's not a lot of people that that are still around that grew up and live the way that you did. And and uh I knew you were a good hunter. Most shepherd is the one that introduced me two years ago. And and uh I knew you were a good hunter and loved hunting.

And that's that's what this podcast is about, is you know, we're this is a hunting podcast, and and uh so I always like to go here stories of of the way things used to work. And um, it's always really interesting, you know because today today we have more bare, more dear, more wildlife than we've had and recorded history really and

it's pretty amazing. Because it's twenty nineteen. The modern world is exploding and population growth and and wild places are shrinking, you know, as people move out and they're just making more room for more people. You know, there's less and less wild places. And uh that's what to me is so unique about the Ozarks is that we've got all this national forest which will forever be in public hands and not be or we at least we hope will not be changed from just its native state like it

is right now. And uh, anyway, it's it's pretty neat that wildlife conservation has come as far as it has, you know, even talking to you from the nineteen thirties and forties, when there weren't dear, there weren't bear, there weren't wild turkeys. I mean, it was like that was kind of like a wildlife desert if you look at it in a just like it as a chunk of time. That was a tough time to be it, I mean for wildlife, tough time. And then now there's heck, there's deer.

I'm surprised we didn't see a deer in your yard and we pulled up. I mean there's a lot of game around. Oh yeah, uh way, back Yonder. I don't know. Well, it's back in already thirties outsider before that, Uh, they had they had deer here. Okay, so there were some you know, they were some here because I'm here. I heard my mother talked about her her sister's husband killing deer. Okay, way back yon her and by too. Okay. Yeah, but there wasn't buy like. They wasn't as man like thor now.

But they were. There's a few run across. Yeah, of course. Now they just lived on a little spots your and Yonder. Now. When I went to school a bit for here, they was the seven children. M Now it's consolidating, moved out. Oh wow, so there were eighty seven kids back in there. Yeah, it was cool. There's probably not five kids that live back here now, is there? Maybe more than that? They don't even run the bus out here any more? Right, Wow,

people just don't live here anymore, do they. Well, there's something live out there. They quit raising children. Yeah, no families, Yeah, everybody back then they had a good big families. Yeah, but there's now you're you're closest, like where do you do You're shopping? You're you go into Fayetteville and west Fork, Yeah, February, West Fork and mountain Burg. So you're about thirty forty minutes? How far drive here to west Fork about forty minutes?

About forty minutes. Of course they got a dollar tour now win't low. Yeah, you can't get a few things there, huh. And that Mount Mountain burk down you're two. Yeah, of course, my children they always school mountain bird when win school mountinburd No bananas a mountain bird. No. Well, hey, thanks so much for having us out here, and I'll just

close down the podcast. Closing comment. Do you have a closing comment you want to say to all these hunters that are listening to this, Mr ry Well, I like like to see a hunter that is honest and won't pilate the law. Mum, I bye bye, put it close. I don't. I won't hardly ever kill a no dear, yeah, because that's the population bur heard right right, don't. I just don't do that, I know. I I don't hunt on Sunday, Okay, I never. I just don't never hunt a day in my life on Sunday. Yep. I was

taught against you. Thanks for listening to the Bear Honeting Magazine podcast and keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live. Yeah, we'll try to do that with the bar. I don't like to get around too close to me. I never killed one, and keep them thin down that never shot it one. Let me tell you this and for you he closed up. I was running here putting out a night trade. I got forty ex back around heil here and uh are working gott.

I just got through putting a ton of nitrade out and scattering behind a tractor a seed sore, and uh I was shaking the last three sacks out to pouring up spreader. And uh I looked down the lord side of the field and I saw a big semitaw something down there. I thought it was one of my neighbors, bulls semitall bull yeah, And I got looking at it now, Oh it ain't either. And I got looking. There's a bar, a big old simthal barer. And I'll believe you the

way six fifty or seven on the planter. While he was a monster, and he stood away up this ceiling here he was a bagon, but he sat there or stander, you take that, Paul. I gotta wash and eating that hop clover. I didn't know what to do that. Yeah, yeah, but they do that. I'll be darn, but I was sartain about forty yards of him. He big one, big red colored cinnamon bear. Yeah, yeah, has ninety nine he want I guess it would now he won't have wolves. Yeah, I'll be darn, but he he was a bagon. I

don't know anybody ever killed him or not. I just don't know. They live about thirty years, you know. Yeah older. Yeah, they can live a long time, a lot longer than a deer. Yeah. I sure appreciate you coming down and talk to him in my pleasure. Maybe somebody will get a kick out of old free boys. I think they will, Yeah, I think they. Sweet check gree coming for to carry me home, Sweet low sweet check free, coming for to carry me home. He looked over Jordan, and what did

I see coming for to carry me home? Then to angel coming after me, coming for to carry me home, Sweet low sweet checky hot, coming for to carry me home, Sweet low sweet check, coming for to carry me home. If if you get there before I do, coming for to carry me home. Cheer lo my friends so coming into coming for to carry me home, Sweet sweet each Cheria coming for to carry me home. Sweet low sweet checkery, coming for to carry me home, sweet low, sweet check

free A coming for to carry me home. Oh yeah,