What You're about to hear is an episode of the Bear Grease podcast called Confessions of a Former Outlaw. I'm including it here on the Meat Eater podcast feed for a couple different reasons. Reason number one is because it is so damn good and interesting, and also because the man you're going to be hearing from is like no one else on this planet. The second reason I'm including it here is because this episode was given Clay a lot of consternation.
It was giving him fits.
He was scared of doing this show. He was scared of doing the show because he was afraid of people thinking that he was glorifying a poacher or an outlaw, when in fact, you're going to hear a story about redemption and to Clay was nervous about putting a spotlight on this individual you're going to be hearing from. He sent me the episod, so I listened to it, and I told him, Man, there is no way you can can this episode.
Dude.
You have to run with this show. And I believed in it so much I wanted them to put it right here so that as many people as possible.
Could hear it.
So check it out if you like what you're hearing, make sure to subscribe to the Bear Grease podcast feed and enjoy.
I had it explained to me one time by a judge in court, not hunting seems like I'd killed a turkey during the wrong dates and times. He said, why did you do this? I said, Well, where I'm from, when your tomatoes get right, you pick them. When your potatoes get right, you dig them. When your turkeys are right, you go get you on. Yeah. But he said, that's not the way we do it. You have laws that govern when you kill them and when you can. He explained that to me.
I traveled a couple of hours south and slightly west from my home on Wednesday, March twenty sixth, twenty twenty five to meet with a man who I was told might be the most interesting man in Lafleur County, Oklahoma. I hardly knew anything about him, and oddly though I talked to people for a living while I was in my truck, and when I got within about two miles
of his cabin, I started to get nervous. He was described to me as a kind man, loved by those who know him, but with a checkered past and an uncanny expertise in wild turkeys. Why he'd agreed to talk with me. I wasn't sure, and I began to doubt why I had agreed to come. This is real rural America, not the curated version that I sometimes like to talk about. This one has addiction, illegal hunting, in broken relationships. But
I had no idea I'd be impacted so much. This is an unusual bear Grease, dark at times, funny at others, but I was surprised at the arc of redemption. You'll have to forgive me because I'm still sorting out the details, but I'd like to share with you the confessions of this former outlaw. I really doubt that you're going to
want to miss this one. My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear. It's designed to be as rugged as the places we explored.
I had a friend, and people that hunt know when Ben Rogers Lee being Lee World champion caller, hunter good friend being got killed in a vehicle accident. He was at my turkey camp we hunted the first part of season, and he tried to give me to quit and go with him to Alabama. He said, you like this game, You're good at it. I see it in you. I see potential in you. You need to quit what you're doing and go with me. And I, ah, may you
famous and me rich. And I said, no, I can't quit. Well, a god, I got a good job, good family, got cattle. I can't do that.
This is the voice of Johnny Johnston. You've probably never heard of him, but I doubt that you'll forget him. On the walk from the truck to the door of his cabin, I estimated there to be no less than twelve well taken care of hunting dogs scattered within sight, beagles, running walkers, and bird dogs. To Johnny, being called a hillbilly is a term of endearment, and he identifies as one, and by his definition, the highest ranking qualification has nothing to do with hounds or overalls.
But it's not being superficial.
This story is about Johnny's life and we'll learn some foundational stuff that started on this hunt with ben.
Lee, so he left. I stayed, continued to hunt. Hunt was over, and just saying that I was going to go out west in Turkey hunt. And I had a gun and some stuff at Octavia friend of mine's house, and I was supposed to have been there to go out my stuff, and I never showed up. So we came up for me and found me. I'd flipped my geep over, broke my neck, broke my back, cut my left ear off, crushed the foot bungerie, critical condition. Well.
They loaded me in the back of a Bronco and took me to the hospital and my wife was there pretty upset. I don't remember any of it. There was some drinking involved. There is something to that drinking and driving. Because since I've quit drinking fifteen years straight, hundred and nineteen days ago, I had not a ruck.
When people know to the day how long they've been sober, the days prior to that were probably tough. Johnny is from the small town of heaven Or, Oklahoma. He was born in nineteen forty nine. He's seventy five years old. He's been married to the same woman for fifty five years. He's of average height. He has a wiry build with dark eyes that squint tight when he smiles. We're inside of his small white cabin with interior walls of rough san oak turkey beards hanging wads from deer antlers like
clusters of grapes. Every single beard has a tag attached to it. There's no cell service here, but he doesn't on a cell phone or a computer. He never has. Let's get back to the hospital. This wreck sounds really bad.
But I was telling her they would fix me the best they could right then, and they could later come back and fix my ear. And I said, oh, I forgot to tell you. My ear is in the right front pocket of my cameouflage.
You told him that.
I told a doctor that on the gardener going into surgery, and he said, go look at his clothes and see of you who find an ear. And a nurse came running down the hall and said, I've got a are and so to my ear. And he said, well, we'll do the best we can. And I ried up again and said, I it's all I own backwards where I heard them turkeys walking behind me.
That story tips us off to two things. How Central wild turkeys have been in his life and that he is a character. This whole story is about Johnny's life, some of it very personal, but I'm interested in his relationship with the law as it relates to wild turkeys. People's relationship to the law is helpful in understanding our society, not the one we think we have, but the one we actually do have. Johnny is a rare find, willing
to be vulnerable. When a stranger showed up me and asked about some of the darkest times of his life, I think we should start off with that credit to his ledger. In the last three years, no less than half a dozen people have emphatically told me that I needed to come here to Johnny's, including a game warden, but nobody could really articulate why. There's a lot I don't know about Johnny. So I'm going to begin with a question about his friendship to a particularly famous turkey hunter.
You may have heard of him.
Tell me about your relationship with Ben Lee.
He is a super nice guy. Beg man walking, this hooting, this yapp, and this human I overfow. He went from daylight's dark, charged them turkey. He knew turkeys, he knew how to hunt, He had a call company made call. He was just a good, good fellow. I liked him. He just had away with people.
Now, how did you meet him?
Through a friend of mine hunting down there and I told him where they could find some turkeys, and they went there and hunted, and he said, I want to meet this guy told us about this spot where the turkey dore and I tell many. He invited me up there to talk, and we just went hunting and killed a turkey and hit it all. He calmed down and camped with me. Ever spurring after that.
This story isn't about Ben Rogers Lee, but his connection to Johnny is beyond interesting. Ben was from Jackson, Alabama, and has been referred to as the father of modern turkey hunting.
He started his.
Call company, ben Lee Calls in nineteen seventy and made a flurry of instructional tapes, videos, seminars, and won five turkey calling World Championships. He was a Southern style storyteller and was one of the great communicators of American turkey hunting. Here's a clip of Ben Lee.
Sitting out there and he moved. She's laid aqueedge.
You know. He gets up there in the morning at four o'clock, you know, and old Ale well Hell waits him up to Hell Boy, he at his walk.
I mean, he's just ready for everything.
To have my son instructuring. No tapes were a big then turkey hunting was just getting going. Mouth called, we're just coming out my old turkey hunting friends. One that I hunted with used a gold horn and a piece of slate. Now I excited. Could you get on the gold horn? They clucked a couple of times and three soft yeps and put it down, And that was completely reverse way being legal. Honey. He never shut up. He walked calling turkey gobbled. He didn't die in a brush ball.
He'd started to at turkey, calling and walking to it, and he'd get right on him and put some turkey stuff to him. Well, he told me one time, he said, you like this game, but you got to keep in mind, if you hunt these turkeys like they need to be hunting, you won't have no friends, your family be mad at you, you'll probably lose your job. He went on and on about all bad things that can happen to you. I said, well, I can't be that bad. He said, I'm talking about
if you really hunt turkey. Now there's people that turkey hunt and there's people that really hunt them.
I get the feeding.
Johnny is one of those turkey hunters that really hunts them, and that these hanging tagged beards aren't the only turkeys.
This man is killed.
His friendship with Ben Lee is going to lead us right into something critical.
Did you know him personally very well? Like was he married? Did he have a family?
He had been married thirteen times?
Are you serious?
I'm serious, That's what he told me. I didn't know all his wives. I knew shovel, but he said, if you really hunt him, Turkey's right. That's when he said about the family and your job and all that.
He was speaking from experience, from experience, y'all. Was he was? He kind of an outlaw?
Sort of would you say? Was I hate the category people? But yeah, he's kind of like myself.
Interesting, he was kind of like myself, he said, an outlaw. I'd heard this about Johnny and Ben, but I didn't know for sure about Johnny. I kind of put him on the spot, and he was hesitant to categorize his old friend in this way. But Johnny kind of tells stuff the way it is But again, this story isn't about Ben Lee, who passed away in a car accident in nineteen ninety one at the age of forty six.
The story is about Johnny Johnston. And as you may know, I have a lot of respect for people willing to be honest about their past. I've often found people like Johnny to be more honest than people with less visible issues lurking in their past. And I know that people like Johnny are usually cut from a different cloth. In this next question, I cut right to the chase, and you'll hear the nervousness in my.
Voice was with you. Did you.
Did you ever have any did the law ever mean anything to you?
No?
Why wouldn't it because most people it does.
The law itself? Or you mean a turkey law? Yeah, yeah, when turkey's gobbled on hunting them.
Just you just weren't afraid of getting in trouble.
No, never crossed my mom. I had it explained to me one time by a judge in court. Not hunting seems like I had killed a turkey during the wrong dates and times. He said, why did you do do? I said, well, where I'm from, when your tomatoes get right, you pickle when your potatoes get right, you dig them. When your turkey, we'll get you on. Yeah, but he said that's not the way we do it. You have laws that govern when you and kill them and when you can. He explained that to him.
Me, Americans are intrigued by people willing to break the law period.
If you need.
Convincing, just look at the top movies, podcasts, and books we read. Heck, look at the top Bear Grease podcast. But I'm still trying to understand why. I think examinations of extremes help calibrate society in some tribal primitive way, almost like we get the signal for normal by bouncing off the outliers. But there's no debate about it. What's ironic is that we are a society of rule followers.
If our civilization gets smashed by a comment and archaeologists dig it up and start making conclusions about us, they'll find that this country was built on law and order. The vast majority of people who come to a stop sign in the middle of the night, even though they know that no one is watching, they're gonna stop, I mean at least a rolling stop, And in many places of the world they wouldn't at all, even when they
know people are watching. Americans are rule followers, despite the independent, liberty aholic, brash exterior. But the outliers are worth examination, and Johnny was an outlier when it came to wildlife law. We need to know more about his past. Now, let me this is kind of a personal question. But would your parents have raised you to just obey the law?
Oh?
Yeah, just like in general. Yeah, you would have known can't steal or you can't.
Oh. My folks were about the book all the way.
Well, how did you get from that to being willing to break the law?
I don't know, just getting in the world and not really caring, just doing pretty much what I wanted to do. Yeah.
Now, did you ever really get in trouble? Did you ever get caught, like killing the legal turkey?
Yeah? I just didn't ever give it a whole lot of thought when turkeys are goblin, I just went hunt.
Stories like this can make people feel uncomfortable, especially people that love wildlife and conservation and talk about it a lot.
But this is.
Part of the rural America that I grew up around. Turkey laws were often seen as mere suggestions. This next story is about the man who taught Johnny to turkey hunt and the first time they got caught.
I can't talk about turkeys with talking about my old friend, the man that taught me out of turkey hunt superman. Yeah, we've been caught. He lived at Tallahaney, Oklahoma, and I'm calling his name. He's dead and gone now and he's respected by every turkey hunter or that part of the world. Wayne caught turkey killing. This man I've ever met, I have ever known, and I knew that he hunted a law back when I started. I didn't even know him.
I went he was horseman, had a good racehorse, stood a racehorse stallion, and I was kind of a horseman back in the day. And that's how I knew him. I looked him up and got acquainted with him, and I said, here's what I want. I want you to teach me how to turkey hunt. No old board, I want to know it all. Well, he said, next spring, you'll just have to come over here, we'll go. I said, when he said, oh, first of March, had a good time.
If you're a turkey hunter, you'll know that ninety eight percent of American turkey seasons don't open in the first of March. This was an invite to get an illegal early start.
Okay, so first of March I went to day with it and we hunted, and he was little I know about a turkey, That old gentleman taught me. He was slicking a snot on the door knob. He used a wingbone, or a piece of cane, or a briar leaf or a peach leaf later on in the year, or a sleigh called very little, very light. You could be sitting next to him and barely hear him call. But he didn't call to a turkey unless he was seventy yards close. He used the terrain, the lamb cover of darkness to
get to him. He said, there's no such thing as working a turkey. People talked about working a turkey for two hours. He said, that should never happen. If they're right on that turkey, they're having killed in ten minutes. One cluck, two clucks. That's not put your call up. And he showed me some moves pretty slick. He's a good guy, but he didn't pay a lot of attention to season. When the turkey gobbled, he went. We were one day in there behind his place, and two turkeys.
He give me the easy one and he took the hard one further and we met back. We had two turkeys, he said. We was walking back to the jeep and one gobbled off in a little rough candy that in jurors. Give me out turkey. I'm going gee. So I went off down there. Nothing, couldn't do nothing with him. Watered him around a couple of hours. Come back, went to the gee. Well. He said, we've been caught. We may we've been called well, he said, I've been caught. Game
boarders there when I got here, got a ticket. You've got two tickets. Oh, that's the first time we had ever been in any problem, and we hunted all time. Poor.
What did he tell the game boarding that you were down there?
No, he wasn't ever told that. He said, I hurried up and took the ticket because I know you was going to shoot any minute.
This is where the story starts to get complicated.
It was back in the mid seventies.
It would be the start of about thirty years of illegal turkey hunting for Johnny.
My dad used to get on to me a lot or hunting too much.
Really, So your dad, oh yeah, knew that you were illegally hunting.
Oh, yeah, he wouldn't do it.
What would he say to you?
I'd call him and asked for a ride somewhere, let me out and picked me up at a certain time. He knew what I was doing.
What would he say? Do you remember anything specific? Like he was like, Johnny, this is bad. You're gonna get in trouble.
You no better than now.
But he still helped you.
Yeah, he would. He didn't like it, but he would.
Yeah. Has he ever had guns in the woods?
Oh? Man? Yeah, I had a couple of logs up here. I'd put him in and I had a new shotgun I'd very proud of, and I put it in there in the wood raft. He'd just stopped shoot it all up.
So just like in a couple of days.
Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, they just eat on it and eat on it. So I'd get me a big PVC and pipe put it in camp. And another time or two I got a chuckle control burns. They caused you some pugalty. I had a gun back over here and I stay in here in the camper, And I came in that day and took a nap, and I got up you couldn't see for the smoke. I thought, crap, I've got a browning shotgun and a log right in there far, so I'll get it on my four wheeler
and I'll take off up very well. I'll come around and if this people ever were bulldoders and fire lighters, and I'll try to get around, and they're trying to stop. Didn't burn your got out now. I got through them and got to it. Boy, it's pretty smoky and it's getting pretty cloth. And then another time, a funny little deal. I got a chuckle out of hit a turkey and a gun up here on the dead end road, and
I went back up there to get it. Later. Everything good, Everything okay, And there was a bulldozer and a lottle boy sitting there not ten foot from my turkey in that gun. Well, but he run over that gun when I unloaded that odure, but he didn't. He minced it about that for yeah, and they were doing something and we snuck around about the gun turkey and got out of there.
This is some pretty serious outlawn. Illegal turkey hunters often hit guns in the woods where they knew turkeys were close, so they could drive to and from the spot without a gun in the truck, making it almost impossible for
game wardens to pin them down. It might seem unusual for us to be talking about this so openly, but the reason he's so comfortable is that today Johnny doesn't have anything to hide, because when he hit the bottom fifteen years, three hundred and nineteen days ago, everything was laid bare. That story is coming. I'd rather someone tell it to me like it happened than try to sugarcoat it. I think we need to fill in the gaps in Johnny's history, though, I'm interested in his upbringing.
I was born in haven Or, Oklahoma, ordinary people. My dad worked for the railroad. All my family worked for the railroad. I grew up just a normal boy, playing sports, and my dad quail hunted. Uh. I just went crazy about it. I love it. That's what I do, that's my law. And I played sports and rodeoed and was raised on a horse, rode a horse to a ball practice, and rode a horse everywhere I went swimming and everything. And the hunting part of it, I just kind of
figured it out on my own. My dad deer hunted a little bit, and he'd take me, and he gave me a thirty thirty and I just started there hunt and just talking to people and learning how to hunt and doing it and learning from my mistakes. That's a big thing. We can learning our lives by our mistakes. I justliked life. I was raised in church, and I don't know where I went wrong, but I liked the world better. I did thank the hard way, and I made a lot of bad choices. But I'm not that way anymore.
I'm not that way anymore.
He said.
That's actually what all the people that told me about Johnny said.
That's really why I'm here.
I want to learn more about Johnny's life.
One time, my mom made me go to college. When I got out of school, I said, no, I don't go, but here you're going. I had a hard time getting along. I'd be late for class, drinking with a big part of my lot. And they suggested that I take a
samastra off and kind of find myself well. In the process of going to college at Talaquhaw fell in with a band of hippies and I stayed on the Ellinoid's River Bridge and the Freedo and for a samistra and I got quite an education, and when I left there, I went to go on a railroad and for the summer. Then I was gonna go back to school straighten up, and I never happened. I stayed with a railroad and retired there.
Johnny started working for the railroad in nineteen seventy and was a train engineer for decades. But the spring of nineteen seventy five was the first time that he ever turkey hunted. This is when it all started.
It was around seventy five, started having a turkey on and I didn't know anyone that had ever turkey on. I didn't even know what a turkey call was. I knew two older men and my dad told me that they had killed turkeys, they had hunted them. So I went and talked to them and they showed me a few moves on a turkey call. And that April we had a caesar and I got a call off mister Phillips and I went up on the hill. We had a cabin and I'd seen some turkeys there deer hunt.
And I went up on the hill and laying my gun up against a tree and whacked a box and the turkey gobbled and shot me, and I looked and it running right at me, and I dropped my call and shot the turkey and he run off. I was the first encounter I had with a wild turkey, and I was hooked right to him.
Did you get the turkey or to get away from him?
Oh? He got away, but I was walking around the way he went looking for him, and I heard another one goble and I called to him and he came, and I've shot him and got him. So I'm a turkey killer round and I've hunted them ever since, just like they've done something to my mama. I've had the opportunity. I hung with doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. One of my favorite people was the chief of the Cherokee Nation. He's a good god. My mom was part Indian. I'm a
quarter but I like Indians. I've got a good spirit, a good fee for the wood, water and the wind. They like all that stuff. That may be part of why I'm drawn to it. I don't know. I like them. I respect turkeys. I got more respect for a turkey gobbler than a lot of people. I'll promise you.
A statement like this coming from a confessed lawbreaker could certainly ruffle your feathers. But I think what he's really saying is that turkey hunting meant so much to him that he was willing to risk it all to hunt them. But the functionalization of that passion was awry. There are some things in life that seem to be built for temptation, uniquely appealing but forbidden. In a goblin Turkey before season
has been the downfall of many a man. I've never known a woman to be a turkey outlaw, and if you've listened to me enough, you know that I pray that this story in no way glorifies breaking the law, and I don't think john he wants it to either. But like in most things that deal with human nature, they are nuanced, interesting, if examined in detail, and insightful. If you're willing to listen to people talk who have a different life experience than you. There are so many
tidbits of interest in Johnny's story. It's like being confused on a covey rise by how many targets are in front of you. The thing that stands out most to me is Johnny's honesty about a dishonest past. He's not blaming anyone for his decisions, and he's not seeking attention or any kind of.
Glory at all.
I pride his arm to get him to talk to me, and I'm the one that came to him. And if something goes awry in the fact that this story was released, it's Clay Nukeomb that's to blame, not Johnny. Johnny remembered a story from the nineteen eighties that he thinks I need to hear.
I probably need to tell you that story, don them. I had a cabin on Poto Mount and leaped the metal roof and I got up there with a hammer, and every time I was beating that ridge cap down, trying to get a nail in it to pull that ridge cap down. Every time i'd hit that maidle of turkey job. This was a couple of weeks before season. I was gonna hunt there of that seat. But every time I'd hit that, she dire bowl aloft man. Well rain that night, big rain, bad ruin man. There won't
be nobody overwhere, So I just drove around. I know close to where he was from my cabin. But I could get up there with that get wet and walk down that road and I'd be right on it, and I yepped to him and he goble right back. When he come there were three old Oh boy, man, I don't need three. I believe I'm gonna get one. It's a good deal. I done a lot of calling just seeing what I could get by with. I don't close enough kill, I've cut, squawked and castle. Yeah, boy, they
was putting the show on. So I shot one, got it, went back to my truck, discharged to set it over in the back of the truck, and my game more than friend. Randy Fennels cut up behind my truck. You was in a brush paw right there behind my truck. Got you, boy? You sure do? I saidn't lie? I had and run, so I said, you ain't not a bad day yourself? Did you hear all that? Randy?
So?
Oh yeah, I heard it all. That's good as a gift. It's just too early. I'm gonna have to take it. You do well. I don't blame me. You ain't had a bad day. Here's your gun, here's your truck, here's your turkey. Whatelse you need well? He said, I hate to see you taking this hard. I'm job security for you. Do you hear all that goblin this morning. I ain't going nowhere. You making that, Yes, I said, you can make a name for yourself right there. I ain't going nowhere. Well,
I'm gonna take your gun. I said, Well, you can catch me a couple more times before I'll get nervous. And I said get in and started rain again. He had sulky wet. He had sat in the rain, probably the biggest part of the morning, in the dark, because he didn't come in there out of Senior's truck. But I so get in. I'll take you to your truck, he said, after all this, you will give me a ride. I said, well, I'm a good guy. If you knew me, you'd like me. I ain't a bad guy. You make
a name for yourself right here. I hope they promote you and move you to Oklahoma City and get you out of these woods. I hauled him right to his truck. We still talk now.
Okay, when you describe how calm you were today forty years later, as you tell that story, you're like super calm, and I think a lot of times we kind of rewrite stuff in our head. Were you that calm for real?
With that guy? You didn't care no.
He'd tell you the same thing if we were here today.
It tell Okay, So there's these rock climbers, these these free climbers that climb these big granite faces out and out west, and they.
Talk about how those guys are.
Superhuman when it comes to dealing with anxiety, and they they're just able to climb on these rocks where me or you, a normal guy, would be scared to death. Their brain doesn't equate the consequence of falling like a normal person. I still don't understand why you wouldn't be afraid, because it's not like you're rich and could just pay tickets. No big deal. They're going to take your truck, they're going to take your gun, just for what you had
going on in your life. And at that time too, I guess you were were you an alcoholic at that time, So I mean there was a lot of I guess of rough stuff going on.
Yeah.
So it's just it's just like turkey eaton was not something you were worried about.
When I loaded them in the truck, I had a thought that nervous me just a little yeah, right between me and m laying on a seat with a bag of dope, and a deer horn pipe, and I very casually scooted a glove over it. Now, that unnerved me a little bit, But as far as killing a turkey a few days early, now, I didn't bother me at all. Yeah, getting caught didn't bother me. I don't know. Maybe I'll just look at it different.
We're starting to see that his problems with the law were bigger than just turkeys. He could have left out that little detail, but he didn't, and I appreciate that. What's ironic is that today marijuana is legal in most places, but at the time Johnny might have gone to jail for it. But I'd like to examine his statement about
looking at wildlife laws different. That could sound like the typical excuse, But Johnny brings up an interesting point that, if not addressed, could assault the intellectual integrity of our discuss which I am greatly enjoying. My point is nuanced, and it has to do with how different generations view
life laws and ethics. By my observation, some people, emphasis on some raised in rural America that were adults by the nineteen sixties, viewed game laws as mere suggestions, and it was even validated by the legal system of the time, as they simply ticketed people with relatively minimal consequences, making the crime feel not that much different than a speeding ticket. I'm not suggesting that it was ever right to break
the law. The Bible says that men should obey the laws of men, and by doing so, they're ultimately obeying God. And that book was written long before nineteen sixty. But people raise later in the progression of America and conservation, we're more likely to respect and obey wildlife laws. By the nineteen nineties, average hunters were becoming indoctrinated with functional ideas about conservation, and it became much more mainstream to obey the law, to the point that outlawing has fallen
more and more out of style. At least this is what I have witnessed with my own eyes. But you'll have to listen to this and tell me what you think.
Now.
What about today, though, Johnny, Because what I've heard from people, and I feel like what I've heard from you is that you don't break the law anymore on purpose?
No, why not? I'm just a better person than I used to be. I used to just didn't care. I care now I don't go before season that.
What about now, probably with more knowledge of conservation, if everybody killed twenty turkeys a year, that would.
For sure be bad, it'd be wrong.
What about from that angle, from just a conservation angle.
Now, the way our turkeys are number numbers are down, they don't need to be over hunted. Luck that.
But so part of your deal was back in the day we had so many there were so few turkey hunters that you just couldn't figure out why it was wrong.
Right, I just I didn't see that much wrong, isn't it. When I first started hunting over here mid seventies, I'd come over here for two weeks and never see a turkey hunt hunt this whole country, all of it, never even see a hunter, nobody hunting over any.
There was probably full of turkeys.
Any anywhere you stop. It make no difference anywhere you stop. If you're a turkey go.
And so you're sitting here saying the game and Fish tells me I can kill two turkeys. I mean, you're you're gonna kill more than that.
Probably it's a different time.
It was a different time, he said.
And I want to point out that he's literally describing a former time, penalties were different, Turkey populations were higher, Turkey hunter numbers were way lower, and it was more common for his generation and their mentors to take wildlife
laws less. Seriously, all this stuff makes me grateful for the generations of American game wardens that have been the interface of the law in our society as it gradually has shifted from the market hunting mentalities of the eighteen hundreds to the hyper informed conservation mind frames of the average modern hunter. We've still got problems today, but things are getting better. I'm still, though, trying to figure out
Johnny's motivation. I've got a question for him, and I'm going to bring up two familiar names from Bear Greece's past that we did on a series called Genuine Outlaws, which started on episode fifty two. We did this series on the Louisville and Charlie Edwards. It was real clear that they enjoyed getting away from game wardens and that was a part of the fun that they had and it felt like and kind of what the people around them.
And I never interviewed Louidelle and Charlie because they were they had passed away by the time I did this. It was clear that they that was part of the reason that they wanted to kill stuff illegally. Was just kind of the thrill of getting away with it.
Yeah, was that? Do you think that was a part of what you did?
Not? Really, I just liked it. I just liked hunting turkeys and the time to.
Hunt thems win their doll But it was just that simple.
Yeah, that's simple. But no, not not just trying to get away with it. It just I don't know, I just did it. Uh. I didn't baite them or hunt them in the summer and shoot them over water, set around the water hole and trying to kill them. I didn't do that. From you hunt a turkey with a turkey call and a shotgun, you know, I'm gonna hurt the population, you shoe gobbler. That's the way I looked at it. I'm not saying that's right, and if everybody did that it would be bad. But as far as being scared.
Back in those days though, that a ticket might have been just like one hundred and fifty dollars.
Just go pay your ticket, is that right?
Yeah? I got called one time, I got caught I think about two hundred and seventy dollars, and after Turkey season, I made a deal with the DA that I could pick up trash with the inmates from our prison here at Hodgy to pay for the rest of it. And that's what I did.
See you picked up trash.
I paid him a little cash and picked up trash with them in money. Boy, they made me a lot of deals, but I couldn't take any of them either. I said, I'll be in here full time with you, all right. Now, got a couple of months here picking up trash. But that's worth killing the turkey. You can't put a price on killing the turkey.
Really, that's the way you would well look at it.
But as much as I've done it now, I've been chased around.
But do you think they were after you? Oh?
Yeah, yeah No.
Do you think they ever worked you undercover?
I think you what are you.
Pointing out there?
Old bricks? Uh huh. I had a couple of gentlemen show up here, wanted.
To do that, do this brick work?
Yeah, I said, well, yeah, it'd be a good idea of needed one, but don't have it. I said, well, well we're gonna build you one. I didn't think nothing about it, and they start calling my house. I didn't have a phone here. They started calling my house looking for me, and they showed back up and find me in town, and I found that strange. They got nearly through and he said, you don't know what to think about us, do you? I said, well, no, not really,
but I thank you. Probably working for the Waldlife Department, maybe undercover, trying to catch me. That a that's me. All kinds of turkey stuff and deer stuff. How men where they hunters claimed to be? I don't know. I wasn't going to go wanting with them, but they just keep coming back, coming back, coming back, And I finally he said, you don't know what to think about us, do you? I said, well, I think you're undercover, probably
trying to catch me in some kind of violations. And they loaded their stuff up and left, and I hadn't seen them since.
You're pretty certain they were undercover guys.
Yeah, sometimes if you listen, you can hear stuff. If you've got your ears open and your eyes open, you might get a tip from somebody that And I was kind of on the look.
You were just suspicious of these guys. Yeah, yeah, So did you get a tip from somebody else. Yeah, how does that make you feel? I mean, at the time, did that that didn't scare you?
No, it made me feel good that that man thought enough of me to save me a problem. Oh well, No, I wasn't a bit afraid of them. Now, game arden or this people, I'm not afraid of them. Yeah, people say I'm coming. A lot of times I've been hunting with people and game warding drive up and they just go all to pieces. They we ain't done nothing wrong, man ain't gonna bother Ruugh.
Johnny's transparency today is notable. We're going to learn the nitty gritty of why he changed. But first here's a lighter story about an interaction with a game warden that happened during the legal hunting season, And then after this we're gonna get real serious.
There was an old gentleman we know was calling to a turkey, so we just laid in the ditch. We didn't then, won't mess them up. We just lay in our lesson. He had whacked the turkey. Of god, it wasn't coming. We'd played with him quite a bit. He was not a player. He had gobbled. Oh he was fun, And I said, look coming up a road there and they're come to game orders eke and up round. Now we're laying there full calalplode right in the ditch. And he got right in with me and I said, get
somewhere and sat down. He the wild turkeys were hunting here. We can't kill him. You walking up down the road here, what's better to you? And it haddled him, kind of blowed him up or something. He went for a gun, but it lasts down. Boy, you don't need no gun now. We're just have another man called this turkey sat down here with If you're gonna hunt with us, you need to get her early and wear from camiflaude, you ain't got a shotgun all out you want?
Now? Is this before season?
No?
This is a darn see this is during legal season.
Yeah, but yeah, we've had from wardens here.
Johnny has painted a clear picture of his days of outlawing. But the one thing that those half a dozen people did tell me one by one before I met Johnny is that he is different today. He's changed, they said. Even the game wardens suggested this. Throughout this story, you've heard that Johnny used to be an alcoholic. And from one story we learned that he used some drugs. I wanted to know how that started and why he changed, so I asked him.
Well, I just made some bad choices hanging out with the wrong people, and I'd been around wild cat whiskey and homebrew, and I just didn't handle it very well. And then I got over here. After I got my cabin, there was a preacher that coon hunted a lot. He would stop by the saman. I was usually too drunk to talk to him, but I know he was here. Drod raised in church, trained up in church like Ash. But I just let the world get the best of me. But when that preacher started coming here, it kind of
got me to thinking. And I woke up one morning up the creek here. I'd been on a pretty bad drunk and when I woke up that particular morning, I didn't know where I was. How I got there. I didn't know any of them. People didn't know where my truck was. I finally found someone I know and got them to take me to my truck. In fact, i'd
been gone about six months. I come over there hunt and it was after Turkey's evening and I still hadn't been on so I lost about everything, my wife, my family, my friends, my place, cattle tractors, but I didn't care. I woke up one morning up here and I thought, you're in a bad way. I hope for you of Jesus. And by that preacher coming here, I think that kind of rekindled the spirit that had been instilled in me as a kid. And I decided I needed to get right with the Lord and get my life right and
try to get my family back. And so I stopped on top of Horseshoe Mountain one morning, just getting daylight, and I asked the Lord to help me. I'm in a bond, save me, take this addiction from me, give me my wife back. And I drove on to the cabin and I went out everybody's fire pit, and the sun was coming up then, and I saw a transformation in the east with that sun shining through the clouds
like I had never seen before. Had to be a sign from God, a glimpse of heaven, maybe orange purple, blue cloud raised a light shine and drew them pretty amazing. And my life would changed right there to that fire pit. Believe it or not, it was easier than you think. When you get Jesus involved in it. He took when I gave my life to him, he took that addiction from me. Been fifteen years, three hundred and nineteen days, and I'll serve him, I believe, And he took that
from me. I'd been locked up, dried out in jail for public drunk, all kinds of stuff. But when I got Jesus in my life through the Holy Spirit, he took that addiction from I quit smoking, I quit drinking, I quit everything right there to a fire pit. It took a few months, but I had some time. I waited. I got my life back, I got my wife's back,
my family back. Lord blessed me with a good cabin, a new house, and I went from being an alcoholic with a drug addiction to a deacon and an ordained minister. And some people get saved at an early age. I got a preacher. Friend told me he was saved when he was nine years old, never broke any laws. I said, what you get saved from? Yeah, I've done it all. What I hadn't done all, this, hadn't never thought over, didn't want to try it. I've done it all, and
that ain't no secret. But I'm not that way anymore. Jesus has given me a whole new life, a whole new heart, and the whole new mind. Today I've got my wife, but my family bud Yeah about everybody equitment, Yeah, Jesus fixed all that. Better than that's over. But that's incredible. I still like to hunt. He goes with me. He likes mountain.
It's clear that Johnny has been through the ringer, but it sounds like he's got things figured out now. There's more to people than the worst days of their past, and there's more for you than the worst days of your past. The confessions of this former outlaw is really a story of redemption. Thank you, Johnny for sharing the nitty gritty of your story. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast.
Please share this pot podcast with someone that you know that might be struggling, or somebody that just enjoys a genuine story.
Thank you all so much.
Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.
Lot of train whistled sitting right under there. Whistle. I've lost quite a bit of my hearing. Yeah, I used to get here good and of course good, but now I have to have someone go with me because my son in law said, if you hear a turkey John it, don't go to it. Sat down to Stark calling you already to close.
If you can hear it, you're already.
Hear gobble, you're already to close.
That's funny at hip