Ep. 440: Turkey Stories - Bears, Bows, and a Pot Belly Pig

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, it's Clay Newcomb here from Bear Grease. And I want to tell you about my new 12 and 26 film presented by Moultrie and Onyx. These are 12 of Mediator's biggest and baddest hunts from the last year that are going to be released through 2026. These are long form episodes or what I call films. So you're going to get more of what you love. My film will take us into the deep and cold rugged country of Southwest Utah on a lion hunt with hounds where we traveled over 80 miles and five days on mules, but the best part I'm hunting with the legendary lion hunting family, the meekums, but also one of the country's top mule men, Ty Evans. This is about mules and lions. This is the kind of place where winter hangs on tight and every track in the snow tells a story. If you've ever wondered what it's like to pursue a mountain line in big country on muleback, then this is the episode for you. Check it out now on the Mediator YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. That bird was right there 20 yards from me up that hill. It was just one of those moments where I just paused and went, man, what are the gods? Thank you, Lord. What an amazing story. This episode of Turkey Stories is full of surprises. Probably a good title for this one would have been April Fools, but some surprises are good and some are bad. We've got stories from Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas and Texas with some new voices and some old ones, but they're chock full of goblins, strutting, laughing, some fear, some grunting and maybe even a tear. These stories tell themselves. So I doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. And hey, be sure to check out the Phelps three pack of prime cuts Turkey diaphragm calls. These calls were designed by myself, Stephen Rinella and Jason Phelps. I really like them. My name is Clay Newcomb, 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 brought to you by Tacovas boots. I'm a cowboy boot man and I've been wearing Tacovas for years. They're the most comfortable boot I've ever put on. Good boots for good times. Yeah. We're coming off the limb and full strut on this episode. And we got a good one right off the top. You may remember our American logger series with the Vellines family. Episodes for 20 and for 24. Well, our first story is from Cody Vellines. And I told you back then that these guys were good hunters and they didn't get this way by accident. These boys have been hunting since they were born. And Cody's got a story from when he was 15 years old and it involves an uninvited guest, actually three. Keep your eyes and ears peeled on this one. You want me to introduce myself? I'm Cody Vellines from Newton County, Arkansas. This is one of two times in all of my hunting that I can remember that I did everything right. And still it was like Mother Nature was like, you're going home with an empty sack. And the other one is a deer story, but this is a turkey story. And I was 15 and I came home from school one day. Dad wasn't home yet. He was at work still. That's how my mom was. I'm going to go out the road here. I almost said about here at Turkey. He's getting pretty late in the evening, but I went ahead and went. Go about the road, went off in this pretty rough place. But anyway, I struck a turkey. And I know it's getting late, but anyway, I dive off in there. I go after it. I get to work in this turkey and I kind of think there's more than one. Just by the way he's acting. I wasn't sure, but I'm working this turkey and he's coming. He ain't coming very fast, but he's coming to me. Well, I start to realize that it's going to get dark on me before I get this turkey killed. So sure enough, it starts getting dark and he got close enough. I roasted it. There was three turkeys flew up. So I'm thinking he's either got a couple of hands with him or Jake or something. I knew there was something up. Just by the way he was acting, but I got him. Roosted. I know what tree I know right where this sucker is at for the next morning. So I go home and I told dad, I said, I got one. I got one Roosted. I said, I know right where this sucker is at. He said, so I don't guess you're going to school in the morning. I said, no, I'm going to go kill that. So the next morning I get up early. When I get out there to the forks of the road, there's a neighbor that used to live out the road here. His truck is sitting at this parking spot. Well, I know from where he's parked, he's probably going to be on the other side of the canyon from me where there's turkeys Roosted. But I don't think a whole lot about it. So I use off in there in the dark and I get set up on this turkey. And I mean, this is public land and there's some people around here that can kill some turkeys. You don't want that turkey goblin much on the limb. So I don't hoot. I don't do anything. I mean, I know right where he's at. I ease in there and I'm just going to call it in. Goblin and then I mean, I'm in, I'm in a driver's seat. Well, this other guy's on the other side of the canyon from me. He starts hooting. This old turkey finally got one. And he starts making crow calls. He's even, he squalls like a peacock at one time. He made the office record I've ever heard in my life. Well, come find out. It's what I think by sitting there listening to him. It's a big turkey and two jigs. And I ain't said nothing. But that old boy's over. He's hooting. He's crow calling. These turkeys go to having a fit. I'm in there goblin like crazy. Well, I'm just sitting. Well, it gets about time, I think, and I make a little call. No turkey gobbles. I just sat there. The old turkey flies down. He gets the ground. He come my direction. I mean, I had, I had set up on him pretty, pretty nice because I had all I think about it. I was just up on the side of the hill up out of the canyon coming off from the top. The other side of that finger that ran off was kind of an open hillside. I could see over there. Pretty good. Well, that old turkey pitched down. He pitched over just dang near to where I could see him in that open spot. Anyway, he I heard him pitch down. He gobbled when he hit the ground. And I mean, he's just. I'm gonna see him in just a little bit. He's going to be way over there, but I'll be able to see. And then he's got to come around. When he comes up over that finger, you know, he's dead. So Turkey hits the ground. Hey, God, was he's come my direction. And I'm sitting there watching and over there on that in that open spot. I see black spot. And then I see another black spot. And I see another black spot. There they are. Old long beard, two jakes. They're coming. Well, they come through that opening and they go in behind that finger. And I got the safety off. I mean, this is a done deal. This Turkey's dead. He's don't know yet. And I'm waiting and I'm waiting. No more gobbling, but I mean, that wasn't uncommon. And I mean, I'm just, he's fixing to pop up over the home. Well, when he pops up over that home, he ain't a long beard. He ain't even a he. It's old Sal Bar. When she came up over the hump, she was 35 yards or, you know, shotgun Turkey range. And I thought, oh my, because I done seen three black spots. I know there's two more. And I got a pretty good idea of what they probably are. She comes over that hump like she knows where I'm sitting. Like I end up back in my mind. I think I've just called this bear up and she comes over that hump and she comes over the line straight to me. And when she gets out there, 15, 20 steps, she kind of pulls up the hill and she comes right beside of me and she goes behind me. I can't see her. I can hear, but I can't see her. Well, those cubs are probably, I don't know, 40 pounders. They're pretty little. They had gotten behind her, you know, I don't know how far they was behind her. 25 or 30 yards. They were kind of playing around, whatever. Well, she, when she goes behind me, they come around and they come right in front of me. So I'm between them. I mean, I'm right between them and I've heard, you know, I'm a kid. I'm 15 years old. I had heard my whole life. Don't get between a sal and her cubs. And here I am. Smack between a sal and two cubs. And I didn't, that ain't what I had in mind when I left the house that morning. It wasn't very long. I mean, honestly, probably wasn't a minute that I was actually directly between them, but she's making these little rackets at them. So I can finally hear her to where she's getting around over here. So I finally get my, the nerve up enough. I turn to where I can see her out of the corner of my, she's right there. I mean, she is right behind me. I got close. Like me to you. Not too close. So I'm flat in my butt with my gun up, you know, and I like I could jump up and run if I wanted to. And they finally, the cubs kind of come along below me and they come right up through there. And she's just waiting on them the whole time I can hear her. I know she could smell me. There's no way that bear don't smell me, but she never did. I mean, you could hear like, you know, wind and whatever, but she never did do anything aggressive. I mean, they would got back together and when they went out of sight, I went to the truck to take him out. It was over. It's calling for Turkey hunters to call in coyotes and bobcats. As a matter of fact, on our last episode, Claude Strother called in a bobcat that whacked him in the face. And in recent years, I've heard of guys calling in bears or, you know, calling a turkey and a bear comes in and some of them have been genuinely convincing to me that the bear was actually coming to investigate the hen call. But in this story, it really had a hundred percent clear if it was a coincidence or if the bear was coming to the call. But in my research on the American black bear for my book, that's going to be released in spring of 27. We talk about how bears have been proven to be the most curious mammal on the North American continent and that curiosity has caused them to be successful and usually produces food. So I'll let you be the judge. But here's what Cody thought. It was like she knew where I was sitting. It was like I called her up. It was just like I called that bear up. And like I said, I hadn't called a whole lot to this turkey. You know, I called maybe two times when I think he was on the roost and I call him loud. I probably called three times, but she came straight to me. Coincidence, whatever it was, I don't know. But not only did she come straight to me, she came straight through the middle of those turkeys. Like she scared those turkeys off. I know she did. It was drama for a 15 year old kid. I'm going to say that's probably quite possibly the first bear I ever seen on the hoof. That was a good story for the surprise ending. Now, next story is a good one too. It's a bow hunt from Nebraska told by Dr. Adam McCall and his buddy Mark Yacht. Y'all may remember what my buddy Lake Pickle always says is don't bring a bow to a gun fight. Actually, Lake never said that, but he talks about how he doesn't like to bow hunt turkeys. But these guys put on a clinic on how to do it. Hey, I'm Mark Yacht from Fayetteville, Arkansas. I'm Adam McCall, also from Fayetteville, Arkansas. Happened to be Clay's doctor. So we go turkey hunting every year. We've been three years to Nebraska. We met this fella and invited us to come up and hunt. He's got about four or 500 acres of just solid northeast Nebraska land. And I mean, every time we've been, we've seen turkeys on turkeys on turkeys. So we show up on Thursday afternoon, 70 degrees, beautiful turkeys everywhere. We don't have really enough time to hunt. And so we go scout for birds, roost about 60 birds, I'd say. And so we get up that next morning and the temperature would probably drop 50 degrees. I mean, it was 26 degrees outside, cold. And we didn't hear a gop. We heard like three gops, but we knew they'd come off that mountainside. So we sat there all day just waiting. And so finally I said, Mark, I think that we we're going to have to be hunters instead of sitters. And he's kind of looked at me. He's like, there's zero chance you're going to kill a turkey with a bow and arrow outside of a blind. And I said, well, we're not going to kill one inside of a blind if we don't see it. So that next morning, you know, I hear four or five new birds gobbling. So I went and sat down there for a little bit and didn't see anything. It's like once they left the roost, they didn't make a sound. And so I thought, well, I'm just going to be patient. You know, I've heard many times like if you think it's time to leave, you wait another hour because that bird's coming. Well, they weren't coming. As I got up and left and I just started walking. And at the same time, I'm walking up the hill that morning and I decided to sit at the top of this hill. I'm downwind and uphill from where you'd heard these birds the night before. So I hear them first thing. I can even hear the hens clucking with the wind and everything. And I'm like, great. They're pretty far away. I'm looking on on X and deciding it's probably about 500 yards away or so. But I'm going to go sit in this blind. I'm going to call to them a little bit, get them to answer. And I'm going to go sit down and, you know, the dreams of flocks of turkeys coming through, you know, we're jumping through my head. And after about an hour of hearing nothing after that, you know, Adam's words kept ringing through my head of, are we going to be hunters? Are we going to be sitters? And it was the last morning and I'm like, you know what? It's a beautiful day. I'm getting out of this blind with my bow. And I'm going to start going after those birds I heard this morning. Luckily, it's been an hour, but I go back to the same spot I listened and I still hear them down there where they were roosted. So I start kind of slowly trying to make a move on them while Adam's over there running around the ridges on the other side of the property. Look, I was chasing a bobcat. I saw a bobcat and I thought this bobcat knows something that I don't. So when I say chasing, I saw him go a direction. I thought, well, that's a direction I need to go in. And this is horrible hunting advice for anybody who's listening. Adam and Mark split up and spend the morning chasing faint gobbles. But later in the morning, they end up working the same birds kind of from different angles. And Adam actually sees the gobbler. He's been here in all morning, but he's kind of out of position. He's caught off guard and the gobbler walks past him with no shot. But Mark and Adam finally see each other. What Adam didn't know was I was watching the same gobbler 50 yards because he was coming toward my call. And I didn't know Adam had gotten down to where I was. And so he's over there. And then I see this bird kind of strut a little bit and then turn back and go where he had come from. And I'm like, what the heck? So I call Adam and then I see him answer his phone and stand up. And I'm like, oh, you're right there. So we put the phone down. And what I didn't tell you is on the way over through that half mile walk, I had started shedding gear because it was hot and I got my backpack and my stool and I put them in a random spot through that half mile hike in a valley. And I marked that spot on on it, so I can go get my stuff later. And now I'm up with Adam and we're deciding we got to put a move on these birds. So I'm like, hey, we're on one side of this ridge. They're on the other in these woods. They're going to go up toward that field. Let's run around this side of the ravine and get up there in that field and set up and try to catch them where they come. And so we did. We did the classic kind of run and get out of breath and he jumps in a bush. So let me get behind you because they're clearly staying with their flock. Maybe they'll get close enough for you to shoot, but I'll call from behind you. So I start calling. They gobble once or twice, but they're just strutting for their hens and coming and checking us out a little bit through those woods. And they just won't get any closer and they won't come up in that field. We still can't really see them. We can just hear them clucking out in those woods. And he's got himself up in this brush pile where he's got an amazing shot out to the field, but nothing back into the woods. So I hear them start moving back into the woods. So unbeknownst to him, I stopped calling for him as a good friend. And I start rushing to where I think I can cut them off in the woods. And I get halfway to where I think I need to get behind a log jam. And I start seeing a head over the side of the ridge and I dropped to my belly and my knees with my bow in my hand. I'm sitting there going, this is how turkeys don't get killed. Where you're not behind a tree, you're with a bow. First of all, so we've already decreased our odds by 95 percent. Just by holding that weapon and not a gun. And that's what season it is in Nebraska, by the way. So that's why we were doing that. And I'm just like, oh, no. And these two toms start strutting where I can barely see them from the ground. And the hens stayed behind this big log jam where they couldn't see me. So I get to a point where I can kind of see them strutting. But I realize Adam's like 10 yards from them. Why is he not shooting? So I had these two toms. I mean, they're at seven yards at one point. I can see my reflection in this gobbler's eye. And so this is after I had to turn around in this. Like it's like this Chinese elm tree. You got these big low hanging branches. They're thick. And so I was in, I was in, had my release clipped in. And so when I was turning, I was trying to kind of draw at the same time. Well, I accidentally released my arrow into the tree. And I was like, well, it's over now. There's zero chance. And so, but I gave a little gave a little yelp and a little cluck. And, man, all of a sudden I see two birds just pop. I mean, there's seven yards, six yards, and I get drawn. And I'm like, this is going to happen. But they never come forward for me to get a shot. And the only thing I'm thinking is I'm not going to take a dumb shot and ruin this entire hunt. Because if I do, I will hear about it for seven and a half hours. Yeah, that's true. So I'm sitting over there watching these birds strut. And I'm, I don't have my rangefinder with me because I dropped it with my gear. I wouldn't have been able to move to use it anyway. So I'm going, look, I think that tree, it's almost like old school pre-rangefinder days. You're like, I still have this skill, I think, in my head mark. You can do this. So this tree looks 20. They're about 10 past that. I'm going to use my 30 yard pen. So I draw and I decide I'm going to take a shot when they move in between some of the brush. And one of them does, and as soon as I shoot, he struts sideways and it goes right behind him, my arrow. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So I stand up assuming that they're going to run off. Well, when I stand up, luckily he was strutted the other way. So his fan blocked him from me. And I'm like, oh, shoot, I'm going to get another shot. So I knock another arrow, except I don't knock it because it's got mud in the knock. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So he struts around one more time with that. You know, when they put their fan back and they cover their head, you've got your moment. So I drop that arrow, grab another one, and draw and take my 30 yard shot. And I hear it just, bam, hit him. And I hear it hit cavity. And I'm like, man, this is awesome. I wonder if Adam saw that and all this stuff because I know where he's at. So I go running up to Adam. And I'm like, hey, that bird just pitched off after I shot him. I hate that. I don't love that. It's not what we're looking for. But maybe that was a quick pitch and he's right down here. So Adam comes out of the bushes trying to figure out why the heck what happened. And we got to figure out, we got to go start looking for this bird. Because the other ones can kind of ease down the hill at this point. It's a tough go at it. So if you can use a gun, you might just do that. But so we start looking for this turkey. And we're grid searching these couple of little dips. And at this point, we've walked over 100 yards in grid search up and down the hill. And I'm, yeah, I'm just getting sick. I mean, nobody likes wounding an animal and not finding it, all of that. So we're looking. And at this point, I'm like, Adam, go make a move on those birds. Go try to find them again. They're still, they weren't too skittish. I'm going to keep looking for this turkey and I'm just getting depressed. So I pull up on X and I'm like, I'm going to find my way back to that gear that I dropped. By the way, which is 450 yards away in the opposite direction that the turkey pitched off to. And here's the climax of the story. Adam goes off to try to find those birds and I depressingly walk back to try to get my gear. And I come over this big hilltop looking down in this valley of these woods and I kid you not to get up to my backpack. A random spot 450 yards away from the direction that bird went opposite direction. And I hear, I hear something moving in the leaves, 20 yards away from me. That bird was right there, 20 yards from me up that hill. It was just one of those moments where I just paused and went, man, what are the odds? Thank you, Lord. What an amazing story and that we got a chance to harvest that bird clean eventually at the end and be able to get him. That is wild that you found that gobbler right back at your pack over 400 yards to opposite direction that the bird flew. Shout out to on X because I think all of us have left a pin where we dropped some gear. I love it. It was a great story. Love the camaraderie and the excitement of that one. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this man. I'm telling you, I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from SIG, a shotgun from Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2027 Rio Grande turkey hunt in the Texas hill country for you and two of your buddies or family members brought to you by Bird Dog. And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps game calls, FHF gear in the meat eater store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Let's head over to the First Light contest page at First Light.com. Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13, 2026. So you got all day that day, but it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble. But our next story is from, you guessed it, Andy Brown in Arkansas. Yep. Oh, Andy. And he had just told me a story about his family member, Bill Decker. We played that story actually on the 2025 episode and he kind of had a tack on story. And I wanted to play that one. So this is another story about his family member, Bill. Here's Andy. One more story with Bill. Same, same kind of same play, same mountain. And we had to went in there and we heard a turkey north, way north. And I told Bill, I said, come on, we're going to go down. And we did. We fell off the main mountain and goes down there and it makes a divide and ties on to a kind of a high ridge in there that runs off west. And that turkey, when we got there, that turkey was straight across, across the next canyon over on what we call, well, there's a name for the ridge that we use, but that turkey was on that ridge. And I said, and he was gobbling good. I mean, this is, you know, this is eight o'clock in the morning. I mean, he's gobbling good. So we get in there and we get set up and I called that turkey and shoot, he just just immediately just broke me off straight across from me. Well, quiet game. Five minutes. I called him again when I did. He's already off the mountain. He's already come down. He's right, he's right down below us. Still, still in the bottom, but he's below us. I said to Bill, I said, that turkey's coming. I called him again. He just, he just broke me off again. And so I just kind of shut up and in a minute, I could hear him drumming back in those days, I could hear it. I think I could hear a turkey drum 150 yards. I mean, on a still morning, I mean, I could hear him a long way. So something I can't hear him more. I can't hear him drum. But anyway, I could hear that turkey drumming and I could tell he was coming up to our right and Bill's right in front of me about from here to, well, let's just say 15 foot in front of me right there. Thank you. He's coming up here, but I could tell he's going to come up to the right right there. And I said, Bill, and no bills intense. I'm cause that turkey, he's drumming and he's goblin and, and, and, and I said, Bill, right here in Bill, he'd look over his shoulder at me and I say, I say, right here, he'd go right here. He was, he was coarsening coming straight up and hauled the drumming. I said, Bill, I said, Bill, that turkey is right here coming up to your right. And he'd shake his head. No, at me. You know, he's got that gun. I mean, he's, he's got her pointed north right here and that turkey's coming up the east right there. And of course, I had my gun laid across my lap and I just kind of laid down like that. And all of a sudden Clay, there he is. I mean, he comes up, he comes up right there. You know, I mean, he's not, he's not 10 yards from Bill. They're just straight across from each other. And you can see old Bill. Yeah, he had that good pointed north. And anyway, that, that turkey comes up there and I'm thinking he's not getting away because I'm going to kill him if he, if he, if he, I mean, he's got too close. But I wasn't going to shoot him for the world if Bill could kill him. And I'm, but I'm thinking Bill's busted. Doesn't mean he's just built right there. And about that time, that turkey just, he just turns and he just starts right off, right off the mountain, going at an angle right in front of Bill. And about that time, old Bill, he just raised up and just kills that turkey at about 10 yards right in front of anybody. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking, this guy, God has blessed him today. So I can do it because this stuff don't happen, you know, but Bill's a great guy. I'm even a great guy. That was a good one, Andy. But our next storyteller is an absolute wild card. We was gonna have some tears coming when the gobbler dies. Yadis Pouteles, the Latvian Eagle, has a story hot off the press from deep in the heart of Texas and involves a recent hunt with a new friend and the twists and turns might make your car sick. Here goes nothing. All right. So this is like a bottom of the ninth two minutes left in the fourth quarter. Does that make sense to you? You know what that means? You have enough sports. Yeah. Well, and then two minutes left in the fourth quarter, that could be basketball or football. Anyways, Clay said he really liked it, which is something that I actually don't like about his storytelling is when he tells you ahead of time what's going to happen or what you should like about something that he's about to tell you. I prefer just to have the story laid out and then I make that decision. You never know at meat eater when you're about to get roasted. Come from the east or the west or from above or below and it'll sneak up on you like a bear. But Yadis, roasting doesn't mean that you can roost them. See how I flipped that old saying from the turkey hunters. Here's Yadis. All right. So this is like a bottom of the ninth two minutes left in the fourth quarter type of story. Jesse Griffiths, the chef owner of Diedouay in Austin, Texas, and I donated a hunt to the National Wall of Turkey Federation's hunt and hook sweepstakes. It was a three day hunt for two people in southern Texas in mid-March. The winner of the hunt, Holly, killed her bird on the second morning. So that just left her husband, Zendal, to get a bird. He and I hunted together the rest of the second day. No luck. The third day we went to a spot where a giant big plane kind of next down to like what we'd call a pinch point. And every day somebody had seen turkeys and strutting toms traveling through there and he's like, Yadis, the way I like to hunt, I like to like sit in a spot and just let him come by me. I'm like, man, that is a perfectly fine tactic for me. Like let's go do it. We sit there from dark until 1pm and we get like 10 hens that go by us. And like, don't hear gobbles, don't see gobbles, nothing. That afternoon we find some strutters in a field. We chase them around trying to sneak up to them. No luck. So technically the hunt's over because we only had three days, but the fourth morning is the next day. And I don't, they drove, I don't have to be at the airport until one. So I'm like, Zendall, let's go do it. We'll just get a couple hours in, make one more swing for the fences. We'll see what happens. I'm like, as long as we quit by nine, like I can get back to the ranch, take a shower and get to the airport on time. So he and I go out and we think we have got the plan. Like we're in the nexus of where all the birds have been goblin every day prior to that. And if we start there, we're going to have at least a place to start. Daylight's been about seven AM sunrise with seven 30 by seven 45. We haven't heard a gobble. Like, my gosh, how did this happen? Like the birds just had moved out of the area. So I'm like, all right, Zendall, let's start walking. So we walk a little ways and finally we hear some birds, but they're on the neighboring property. So I'm like, well, let's at least get down there and listen to them. And I know they're going to come on to our property because we had water. So like, let's get between them and the water, you know, maybe it'll happen. So we do that. We set down the birds are goblin, goblin, goblin on the other side of the fence, but 30 minutes goes by. They're not moving any closer. So I'm like, okay, we got to, we got to keep pushing. We got to make something happen here. So we're in a piece of woods. It's like a triangle and we're at a point of it. So it's only 50 yards wider. So. So I tell Zendall, I'm going to go peak out the other direction onto this giant big, they call it the plan grande, which I believe just means like great plane. And I'm going to peak out there and see what's going on. I do that. I see two strutters with like 15 hens, a couple hundred yards out, run back to Zendall. I'm like, there's birds out there. Let's make a move at this point, like any tactic goes. And so I've left the decoys behind, but I do have a turkey fan with me. I'm thinking just get close and at least I can show the fan to these strutters. And we get the, the reaction we want. One, maybe both of them come running towards us. So we make a move, get to a couple hundred yards of them. And as we're near the edge of the tree line, I notice another guy over strutting off to our right, about a hundred yards on our tree line to my left. 50 yards is a pack of 15 hens or so. Maybe a Jake in there too. Can't be any better. I mean, it's like where you want to be. The sun's at our back. It's passing a nice long shadow out into the, to the opening. We creep right up to the edge, get Zendall set up, flash the, the fan, make a few calls, gobbler looks over, sees us and immediately just turns 90 and starts marching towards us. I'm like, oh yeah, baby. Like I'm looking around like we need a nice tree to take this picture of Zendall and his dead turkey here in a minute. The bird makes it to like 50 yards and puts the brakes on. Best second figure he had gotten his butt kicked recently. That's why he wasn't with those hands. That's why he wasn't with that other flock and the other two strutters. He's by himself and he makes it to 15. He's like, eh, I don't need to get any closer. Like I'm a little worried about the situation. So we're sitting there talking it over and I'm like, Zendall, you know, he's shooting TSS, he's got a nice shotgun, red dot scope on it. I'm like 50 yards, very makeable shot. Turkey's not like moving or running. He's just, you know, kind of sitting there eyeballing us. I'm like, I'm going to yell. You shoot him. We discussed it. He's like, got it. I make a couple of yelps. Turkey cranes his neck up. Zendall, not a single feather on that turkey is hard. And he just goes scampering off like nothing happened. There was no time for a second shot. So I'm like, yeah, that's a bummer, you know, but. What are you going to do? You know, Zendall's beside himself, just sick to his stomach. Like I would be too, if that happened to me, you know, I'd already killed a bird. So I'm like, you know, stinker, we're just going to have to go through three out of four Zendall's how it goes. But we've got two other strutters and those other hands only 300 yards away from us. They had made it to the waterhole and now turned around and we're coming back across this great big giant field. So I'm like, look, man, like it's probably eight 30 at this point. I'm like, let's make one more move. Like we have a little bit of time left. Let's just make a loop through the woods and we'll try to cut them off. And hopefully they'll come right to us. So we do that and we get to a spot where we're on a nice little rise. It's pretty flat country, but we've got a nice little rise underneath this big, beautiful live oak tree with beautiful shade. And that time of day, it's getting hot in South Texas, right? So these turkeys are looking for a shady spot where they can stop and basically loaf, do some dusting and just chill. I'm thinking this is the spot we sit down. I can see these birds coming towards us. They're probably at like 150 yards. And as we settle in, I hear three other hands like clucking behind me. That's again, you're like, we're like in the middle of birds. Like this is perfect. What else do you want? Right. So here they come. Here they come. The hands from behind us come out and go past us. And the birds that are coming towards us with the strutters in the group, they meet at literally the first giant mesquite tree that's out in front of us, like out in the meadow and literally decide to hole up there and start loafing. Couple of the hands jump up onto the limbs. Like they're just like chilling. They're not going to come any closer for quite some time. I've like shown the fan, the goblers saw the fan. I've called no reaction, nothing, nothing, nothing. So again, like nine o'clock is like knocking on our door now. Zendall's even like, you need to, we need to leave soon because you got to catch your flight. You know, you can't be late. I'm like, I know, but let's try something else. Like we still have a nice long shadow. The sun's not that high and the shadow line goes out maybe 10 yards in front of us. And there's literally the smallest mesquite tree on the entire ranch is out there. And it's like a shrub. It's like five feet tall, maybe six, 30 inches wide, like not a lot of cover. But again, we're down to minutes to the hunt. We're just going to try it all. So I said, leave everything behind. I'm going to hold this fan out in front of us, which we're only doing because we're on a private ranch and we're absolutely a hundred percent sure that no one else is out there hunting in our vicinity, but we're going to scoot behind this fan and then try to get to this next little piece of cover. So now we're at maybe 60 yards. And I'm showing the fan. I'm calling nothing, nothing, nothing like they just will not pay any attention to me. The strutters have actually kind of moved around the backside of this mesquite to us. I can see hands in there, but nothing's going on. And Zendall again is like, dude, we have to stand up and just walk out of here. I say, you're right. Like we're out of time. But I said, you know, I think if I leave by 11, I'll make it to the airport by noon. Like we can probably go to like 930, you know, we can push it a little bit. Like, let me just try to throw the kitchen sink at him. By which I mean, I'm going to give him every call I know how to make from a diaphragm. So I just start getting after him, yelping, clocking, cutting, fighting peres, love making peres, everything I know. It sounds like I. Like if you did this to some, if you met a turkey hunter at the National Wild Turkey Federation and you're like, hey, check out my calling. And you did that to him. They would look at you and go, you're calling sucks. But it's like all I had left. I'm just like going to give it all to him. Well, a couple rounds of that. And one of the hands sort of like, I can see her. She sort of like cocks her head and looks up at me. I'm like, okay, someone, I got someone's attention. I keep doing a little bit more. And all of a sudden there's two hands doing it. And those two have taken like a few steps towards me. And now I'm like getting confident. I'm getting very dry mouth because South Texas nine o'clock in the morning. I don't have any water on me and I'm just calling my brains out. But here they come. There's two hands, then there's three, then there's four. And they're kind of all doing that when they're coming at you, kind of like in a little bit of a mob and they're like, something's going on about there. We need to know what it is. We want to investigate what is it? They're kind of craning their necks and looking. Now, obviously there's two full grown men trying to hide behind really nothing and then one turkey fam. They come, they get to the closest hands probably gets to five yards, maybe three yards. The goblers still haven't really left their little shady spot under the neath the mesquite, which is at 60. Finally, they are like, okay, we're going to follow the hands. So they break. Here they come. They get to 25 yards. So I said, look, just let me know when you're going to shoot. Cause I need to plug my ear. He's like, all right, I'm ready. So I plug my ear. I'm holding the fan the other hand. First gobler just folds. Now, usually when you shoot at one and there's two of them sitting there, the other one will just sort of like flap his wings once or twice. Twice and he hops up 10, 15 feet in the air, kind of lands and will run off with everybody else. This bird, if you can imagine if you're sitting next under like a power line, like you got not like a high, high line, but just like a regular old power line, you know, a T post. This bird jumped so high that it could easily like roosted on like where you normally see an eagle's nest, you know, on a power pole gives me enough time. Cause my shotgun is laying in my lap. So I unplug my ear, drop the fan, pick up my shotgun, put it on my knee. And when that turkey lands, he falls over too. We're so excited. We just hooting and hooting holler and we high five. And I'm like, all right, Zendal, you pick up the birds and get all the gear. I dropped my vest. I said, I'm going to go run and get the truck. I had three quarters of a mile to go to go get the vehicle. So I just run up there, grab it, turn around, come back, load up Zendal, two turkeys, vests, seats, guns. And we just high tail at 20 minutes back to the ranch house. I plead for Jesse to clean my bird. He does. I jump in the shower, throw everything into a duffle and take off to the airport. And made it back to Bozeman, Montana by 11 PM. That was a good story, Yannis, multiple lows and the surprising double at the end. Man, I thought the story was over and then you killed one. I thought, actually thought it was going to be a dead hunt and it was just going to be our buddy missing a couple of times. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this man. I'm telling you, I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from SIG, a shotgun from Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring, 2027 Rio Grande turkey hunt in Texas Hill Country for you and two of your buddies or family members brought to you by Bird Dog. And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps Game Calls, FHF gear in the Me Eater store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at FirstLight.com. Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13th, two thousand and twenty six. So you got all day that day, but it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble. Let's jump straight into our next story with no foreshadowing. So I'm going to tell you the next story. Yep. This is Clay. And in response to Yanis saying that I foreshadowed too much, I'm not going to give you much information at all. This may not even be a turkey story. But me and my friend Lake Pickle were invited to hunt with our other buddy Justin House in Northern Arkansas on opening day of the Arkansas season in 2025. We hunted a bird early that morning, couldn't get on him, but had heard a bird a half a mile away all morning that eventually about nine o'clock, we decided to go after. We go over there, crow call and the bird responds, but he is a long, long ways away across a big canyon from us. I'd say that it's one of these birds that low likelihood that he's going to come to you and we really can't go to him. But we call pretty hard at him. Lake does, Lake's a great caller and the bird responds. Well, five minutes later we hear him and he's closer. Five minutes later we hear him and he's way off in the bottom of the canyon. We think he's going to get hung up, but he keeps coming. When he starts coming up the other side, we get tucked into a big brush pile. I'm about five feet behind Lake Pickle and Justin House is back deeper in the woods, kind of completely out of pocket. The bird keeps coming and Justin has told us that we can't shoot on the other side of this fence. The bird has to cross a fence before we can shoot him. Well, this bird's coming and directly there he is. And he's on the other side of a five strand bob wire fence at about 60 yards. And Lake starts to soft call. We start to scratch in the leaves and this bird just stands there and looks and he won't cross this fence. And, and we can't really figure out why, but he starts to move down the fence away from us and we think, well, he just has a place that he wants to cross. And sure enough, that seems to be right. He goes about 50, 60 yards down the fence, crosses under the bob wire fence and starts to hook around and we think, well, he's going to come in now. He just wanted to come in from this direction. We're watching this gobbler out in the field now, probably 75 yards in front of us, no fence between us and it's getting serious. But this turkey is acting funny. It's just throwing its head up and just looking won't move, won't move, won't strut, won't gobble. Something has happened from him being hot before so hot that he was just barreling in and Lake's looking down the barrel of his gun. I'm right behind him. And all of a sudden from my, my left side, which is the field side, it's real bright over there. I see something out of my peripheral vision and I immediately think there is a strutting gobbler like six yards from us that has come in to the left of us. The pit just forms in my stomach. It almost scares me just like somebody walking up behind you. It was that surprising. And I see this black blob strutting gobbler just moving just at a pace of one just in full strut. And I mean, he is on top of us. He is, he has five yards from Lake. Something's about to happen. And this Turkey is out there 75 yards and he is just staring and you know, kind of makes sense. Well, this gobbler didn't want to come in because there's another gobbler coming behind us. Well, I cut my eyes to the left. And what I thought was a strutting gobbler is not a strutting gobbler at all. It is a pig. And what I didn't foreshadow to you is that on the house farm about a year and a half ago, a pot belly pig showed up and it has lived on their farm. They've not fed it. They don't know where it came from. And it is fat as a hog. It's belly almost drags the ground. They've just tolerated this pig. Well, we saw the pig that morning when we were walking from the first gobbler to the second gobbler and he never even lifted his head to look at us. And we go on over at least a quarter mile from where we'd seen the pig. And I am fully convinced that that pig winded us and came into us because the wind is hitting us right in the face. And I believe that that gobbler was red hot and he came to the fence, wanted to cross, but he saw that pig way down the field slowly working his way towards us. And that's what turned him. You just never know what's going to ruin your hunt. Well, we just can't believe it. You know, all the things that could spook a hunt, you know, a bobcat, a coyote, another hunter, a four wheeler, a cow, just all the things that could have happened. We weren't expecting the pig to blow this hunt. Well, we run the pig off, you know, and we're just like, Justin, why do you have a pig on your farm? And we decide to make a big loop and go after this bird. It's mid-morning. We think he's, but he's, he's by himself. We make a big loop, get about 300 yards in front of where we think this turkey's going and to make a long story short, we softly call and we hear a hen that cuts us off and we start calling this hen real aggressively. This hen comes right in, comes on past us and Lake, Lake says, man, that gobbler's got to be here and Lake just plays the patient's card. This turkey never gobbles and he just sits there and sure enough, that gobbler pops his head up over the hill probably 10 minutes after that hen passed us and moved on. Most people I think would have, would have moved on themselves and Lake Pickle kills that gobbler about an hour after that pig winded us and came in and blew our hunt. So the moral of the story is you never know who the villain's going to be on your turkey hunt, but be suspicious of everything. I never in a thousand years would have thought that dad gum pig was going to run our hunt, but our next story is straight out of one of the country's best turkey hunting states, Missouri. I give a lot of credit to Mississippi for having great turkey hunters, but Missouri has some incredible turkey hunters. This story is from dairy farmer Brian Patton in Southwest Missouri. And this story we call the first and last turkey and it's good. I had mentioned to a lot of people that I wish my wife turkey hunted, you know, and be careful what you wish for. Because she's turned into quite the turkey killer. I'd got her some calls over the years, you know, and their cousin had made a few calls and Cameron had left one up there at our house and it's a box call. And it really is nice. And I walked into the house one day and, of course, it was during turkey season. And these boys had left turkey calls all over the bar, you know, and lo and behold, I'll be dogged. She had that call and she was the yapping on that call. And I'm like, that sounds pretty good. She said, well, listen, you guys all the time, this ain't that big a deal. I'm like, oh, really? Are you going to go try to kill one now? Well, if you'd put me out there, I might do it since you can hunt in the afternoon. And she's afternoon deer hunter, too, you know. And so I said, well, I said, your dad has really been wanting to go. And my father in law, he had got to be quite a turkey killer himself. Not never was much of a call guy, but all he loved to go and he liked to get out there and he'd killed a pile of turkeys. And I said, won't you take your dad? It'd be good for both of you. She's like, I don't know if I can do it. I said, you sounded great. I said, just do do like you was doing. Decadence is more important than a lot of the other things. And I said, you don't have to call as much as Tanner and Cameron. Just call some. And I said, I'll put you in a good spot. I said, I've been seeing these old goblers come through there in the evening quite a bit going back to their roost. And so I had him a blind set up. And I mean, one of these turkeys was a whopper. I mean, he had a beard on him. And my father in law likes those big bearded turkeys. He always has. He's got COPD and he couldn't walk very far. And so I got him down there. I said, now when we go, when I call you, we got to go. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're going to go with me. No, I'm going to put Tina in the blind with you. And there was some silence. He said, OK. And so anyhow, we got him down there. I set up a decoy for him. And I told Tina, she's watched some of our videos that we'd done before. And she she knew what to do, but she'd never been the one to do it. And she was getting to experience that and me actually seeing her and seeing that enthusiasm and seeing that passion start to build. It meant a lot to me. And so anyhow, she said, I started making a few calls when daddy would tell me to. And nothing was happening. And then all of a sudden I made one and one gobbled. And she said, she said, I looked out the blind. And there was like three or four of them. And here they come. And she said, daddy, get your gun up, get ready. Here they come. And so I had one of those. We call him old rattler. He's took some collateral damage over the years. He when you pick him up, you can hear some shot bouncing around in him. And I'd set him up out there just about 18 yards. And I told her, I said, now, your dad has been known to say that's close enough. And I have witnessed that not to be accurate a few times. So I said, if he's at rattler and a little past, he's OK. But I said, if he's on out there, 10 yards or so past rattler, you need to put the brakes on him. She said, I'll try. And so these three come in there and they was roughing up old rattler. And she said, don't shoot, don't shoot. He said, I'm waiting on that one. He'd already picked out that big one and he was coming in the end. And so as he got up there, she said, them others is just like Moses part in the Red Sea whenever he come in there all full stretch. She said, them things just spread out. And he said, she said, he just kind of done a dance around that. He wasn't he. She said he wasn't even he was about half sidling decoy. And she said, he just half posed there and daddy shot. And she said, he just hit the ground. And then he started flopping. And she was so excited. And it really spoke to me. That's probably the last Turkey. That my father-in-law will pull the trigger on unless there's a miracle because he's in he's in hospice care right now. But to see her get to experience the joy that I had experienced all those years, you know, and it finally did like come on. There's a lot of things in life that we go through that it's just a matter of timing. You know, that was that's one of the greatest turkeys that I have ever had in my hands. That Turkey had six beards. He was a twenty five pound Turkey. This is a Turkey unlike any that I had ever killed. And it's the first Turkey that my wife had ever called in. And it's probably the last Turkey that my father-in-law will ever pull the trigger on. But it was that that was a great Turkey. I can't thank you enough for listening and supporting Bear Grease. We really work hard to bring you the best stories that we we can conjure up, that we can find. And it means a lot, all the support, all the listening, all the following us on Instagram and Facebook. And I mean, the main thing that you guys do for us, though, is you represent the American sportsmen with honor, integrity in the field, with your families, with people all over the country. And I hope in some way these stories in this podcast build that culture that continues to allow it to thrive in the coming years. Thank you for listening to Bear Grease, Brent's this country life, Lake's Backwoods University. We're putting our heart and soul into this. We thank you. Did I say that already? Thank you. These episodes are some of my favorite. And if you've got a great story that you think would be good for us to hear next year, be sure to email us at Bear Grease at themediter.com. And as always, keep the wild places wild, because that's where the bears live. Hunting demands, preparation, persistence and gear that will not quit on you. That is why I wear first light. This isn't about height. It's about no compromise gear built to perform, built to last, whether it's their industry leading merino wool, keeping me comfortable through the cold and the hot or their durable outerwear shrugging off the elements. First light is built to help you go farther and stay longer designed by hunters, for hunters with a deep commitment to conservation and land access. No shortcuts, no excuses. Just gear you can count on. Head to firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.