00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This Country Life is presented by Case Knives from the Store More Studio on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Pabst Buck, and our bear camp. Archery and some primitive firearm seasons are in full swing right now. It is one of my most favorite times of the year. I'm excited to get the hunting season started, and I know a lot of y'all are too. We're chasing bears and deer with sticks this week. So join me at the fire. We got a lot to talk about. Let's get started. Michael Herman, a Keystone State inhabitant and resident truck driver, sent in the story we're going to hear this week. Michael didn't include a lot of context other than saying chasing critters in the wilds of Pennsylvania came a little late in life to him. He was a teenager when the hunting bug got a hold of him. Well, seeing how Michael's introduction of his story to me was short and sweet, so is the setup from me to you. So in Michael's words, in my voice, here's the story of Pap's Buck. Before we get started on Pap's Buck, there's a little backstory to cover. Growing up, I was a late bloomer to hunting and fishing. My Pap and his cousins were the ones that jump-started all of it. Going to camp and hunting our family farm, starting at age 14, seeing deer taken, processed on the stove, and sometimes All of that in one day was common. Years later, after many of my own deer taken and my first gobbler, we set up a two-week trip to go on my very first out-of-state hunt. Going after big old longbeards with my pap and uncle in Southern Iowa. Four days in, I managed to get a nice 11-inch longbeard. And after finishing out that trip and heading back to Pennsylvania, I reflected on everything the story is. The land, the friends, and the family. I had no idea this would be the last hunting trip I would take with him. A few short months later, cancer would take him from us. And after he passed away, I stopped hunting and fishing almost altogether. Fast forward six years to 2024. My brother-in-law talked me back into hitting the woods of Pennsylvania. So I packed up a Rubbermaid to the brim full of Pabst's hand-me-down gear and headed off to a patch of farmland for my very first archery season. I was sporting his old Hoyt Fast Flight compound bow that was just as old as me, some Easton 2114 arrows that he fletched, and running broadheads that aren't even made anymore. Seeing deer closer than I had ever seen before and Unfortunately, none were taken that season, but I was hooked. Coming into the 2025 season, I had that bow tuned up. I had some fresh arrows fletched and ready to roll. I was set with a goal in mind to take my first archery whitetail. After coming up short midway through the season after a miss on a nice eight-pointed, it looked like it might not happen this season either. Then, The last Saturday of the statewide season came. I woke up a little later than I wanted. I opened up Onyx to check my hunting spot. It was a perfect morning, no wind, and just above freezing. That was all I needed to know, and off I went. Climbing into the tree just before legal shooting hours, I was ready for a good hunt. After about an hour of sitting, I pulled out a grunt tube and some doe estrus spray, and I let them rip. A few minutes later, I heard leaves crunching to my left, and I sneaked a peek around my tree, hoping for a buck just to have a front row seat to some squirrels under a big oak. Then all of a sudden, I hear more leaves to my right, thinking it's more squirrels coming to join the commotion. But to my surprise, I see the body of a deer moving through the brush about 50 yards away. Not knowing what size or if it was a buck I was looking at, I got my release hooked up and ready, just in case. When I saw the head come up through the brush, I could make out antlers, but I couldn't get a count. Thinking it's probably the same big split four-point I've seen all season. I sat still to see where he was going. As he started quartering towards me, his head came up, and that's when I saw the brow tines. With that, I was sold on a nice six-point for my first archery buck. He finally got to the split in the game trail that was going to make or break this whole hunt. One takes him into some brush giving me no shot and the other would take him into a clearing I had religiously ranged at 20 yards. He took the right split and headed right for the opening. That walk took him behind a tree and I took the chance to draw and set my sights on the opening and I waited. And when he stepped in that clearing, I did the old meh. And he stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly applying pressure on the trigger, I let the arrow fly. And for a flight that only lasted a split second, it felt like hours until it hit its mark. Standing in my stand, I was shaking like a leaf. My first archery buck and first buck with my pap's bow went 40 yards and dropped. Walking up to this buck, I was in such disbelief on the turn that my morning had taken. The weather was perfect, but being the last weekend of the statewide archery, it had me worn out. Taking this buck, using so much of the gear that was handed down to me, with all the stories that equipment could tell and the stories I've only been told from my pap, I couldn't be more thankful for the harvest. I know Pat watched over me that day and I have that trophy on the wall and the meat in the freezer and a story to share. A fun side note sealing the name of Pat's Buck was just a few days later I was packing for a weekend rifle bear hunt. I needed an extra duffel bag so I unloaded another hand-me-down bag of my Paps and in that bag I found a little leather shaving bag. I dumped it out to load up my own stuff. I found a small manila envelope. Inside was a crisp $ 100 bill. The next day I got a call from the butcher shop. My caped buck and meat were ready to pick up. The total charge came out to an even $ 100. Just a little icing on the cake for my pal. And according to Michael Herman, the truck driving Pennsylvanian, That's just how that happened. Well, Michael, I'd say your pap is still looking out for you. The reverence you hold for his legacy, for not only the items you inherited, but also in you paying homage to your heritage and those that came before you. Now that's something we can all pass down. Bear hunting is a relatively new activity for me. I killed my first Western big game animal with a bow, a six by six elk on September the 26th of 2010. Now, if I'd had a baby the same day I killed that elk, he or she would have been old enough to start school before I ever took a poke at an Arkansas black bear six years and three days later. Not sure how I settled upon that analogy, but you get the picture. And I apologize for it if there's anything like what I'm seeing. Right now, the picture of me skinning an elk while having a baby in the Rocky Mountains, or anywhere else for that matter, is so all-consuming that I can't really concentrate on where I was going with this when it all started. But, being a glutton for punishment, I'll continue it this way. Arkansas' modern-day black bear season started in 1980. The same year we beat the Russians to take the gold home in Olympic hockey. Not to be confused with when we let Canada have their silver medal a few months ago. Now, Brent, stop talking about when we beat our friends to the north in their national pastime. That'd be like them beating us in the World Series. Yeah, like that ever happened. Well, Toronto won twice in a row, buddy. In 1992 and 1993, Mr. Smarty Pants. Bro, there was only one guy on that 92 team from Canada and zero on the team in 93. So does that really count? I'm not kidding, Brent. Stop it. Canada has nine gold medals in Olympic hockey and four silver medals. That's something to be very proud of. No, wait. They have five silver medals. They got the fifth one last February. Bear season, 2026, has been one of the toughest I've ever been through. The heat has been excruciating. And since I live over three hours from where I hunt, I spend a lot of time staring at the world through the windshield of my truck, traveling to fill bait barrels and hanging cameras. I had a great encounter with a big boar last year at a friend's place near the Buffalo River. I'd driven back and forth all last year checking baits and had some good bears as regular customers of my bear buffet. All I had to do was keep the bait barrel stocked full of goodies and climb a tree on opening day. Then it was a simple act of jobbing a hole in him when he came in to grab a belly full of groceries at less than 20 yards. Well, for those that remember from last year's bear hunting episode, My target bear was standing at 12 yards when I sent an error toward him traveling faster than 300 feet a second that bumped a limb in between us, traveling zero. The resultant physics of which caused my error to reroute itself, stabbing Mother Earth only inches from where that bear stood, much to the surprise of both of us. One of us which jumped three feet off the ground straight up and ran away while the other of us felt like jumping 15 feet straight down and yard darting himself into terra firma right beside my arrow. That was it. That was my only shot at a bear in 2025. I had my opportunity and I had not taken full advantage of it by not properly clearing all of the potential obstacles from the shooting lanes. I would not make that same mistake again. Starting this August, exactly one day after legal baiting time began, which is one month prior to the season opening, I loaded my can-am into barrels and bait and headed north for a three-hour drive to my friend's land in the Ozarks. A miserably hot afternoon of cleaning shooting lanes with limbs and setting up barrels and Shoveling bait on two different locations in 105 degree heat was rough. I made that trip twice and only had a small bear coming to the baits that were over a mile apart. I was a detective for quite a long time, but it didn't take any of those learned skills to realize I didn't have the bears using their property like they had the year before. Who knows why, but With little to no pressure in that area from anyone over the past 12 months, the bears seemed they just drifted away from my spot. Or were they accessing bait on another property? I don't know. Regardless, I was scheduled to film this hunt for meat eater and I had invited a friend to come along as well. I'd gone all in on that being my spot to hunt and now there were no bears coming in. I had a bunch of folks counting on looking at bears when the season opened three weeks from now. Clay and I were talking one afternoon, and he suggested checking with another mutual friend of ours, and that's when I rang up Jeremy Allen. Jeremy's a lifelong Arkansan, has been raised in the mountains, and is as country as cornbread. I actually met him through his significant other, Andy Carlton, or as I have called her for quite some time, the bear bait lady. Andy runs the farmer's co-op in Elkins. And if she fed people like she feeds bears, we'd all be sitting in the doctor's office with Wilford Brimley. Years of data collected from hunting bears, baiting bears, and dealing in bear bait has allowed them to hone the craft into a literal science. They're as good as anyone I've ever seen when it comes to what bait works and when and how to do it. So after reaching out, they invited me to bring my Arkansas Bear Camp 26 production a couple hours away from my original spot. A few days later, I landed there with a renewed vigor of what the earliest bear season opener would bring. Wildlife biologist Spencer Daniels, the bear program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, made a proposal that was passed unanimously by the commission to open our bear season earlier than it had ever been allowed. Data suggested that getting ahead of the acre mass drop in the middle of September would would make the harvest more predictable and baiting more reliable. My belief is that in doing so, the patient hunter would have a better opportunity to take an older, more mature bear. This move had all our hearts full of hope as September approached. It seemed in years past that you could time the white oaks dropping acorns to a day or so before the opening day of the season and You Arkansas bear hunters know what I'm talking about, and for those unfamiliar, you need to know that a black bear in Arkansas will climb over a pile of bait to eat one acre. They know what's best for them and what they're genetically coded to eat, and all the donuts in Arkansas ain't going to change that. That bait, while supplying needed calories for the approaching winter, is really nothing more than a filler until the bane of the bear baiter Starts falling. So off I went to meet up with my new host and get the barrels going where I would be hunting. Much to my delight, they were already started and there were some big bears feeding regularly. Now my goal every year is to shoot a bear bigger than the previous year. And since I shot a limb last year, I was having to go back a few Arkansas seasons for my reference point. My goal was 300 pounds or better. I invited my friend John Pantuso to hunt with me this year. John lives in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and he'd hosted me earlier this year on a turkey hunt in Pennsylvania this spring. It was a week of fun and adventure, and he'd introduced me to so many of his family and friends that it was hard to know where to draw the line between relatives and relations. Turns out there were no lines. John looks at folks like I do. If you're a friend, you're my family. and ours was about to get a lot bigger. Jeremy and Andy introduced me to Cody and Brittany Shackford. They all go to church together, and they're passionate hog hunters, with Brittany being the most diehard of the three. I promise you, the last place you want to be standing in a hog suit is in the range of Brittany. She'll send a pork chop factory to glory before Wren can make a mess of your windshield. My favorite duo, Only recently added to my roster of kin are their daughters, Gracie and Cameron. You never know what you get in these days with young'uns, and I see some that's so absorbed into phones and tablet screens that you hardly ever see their faces. Not these two. I've been home now for over a week, and I miss all those folks I previously mentioned, but I think I miss those children the most. Their manners were impeccable, and their natural curiosity had me, John, and cameraman Dave Gardner and Drew Stecklein answering a barrage of questions any time we were together with them. Also, one of them taught me some new math that she'd been working on at school, so I've got that going for me. Kind of. Over the next two weeks, I'd make several trips back and forth to the co-op and to the Bay Barrels. I wore a blister on my thumb, refreshing the Moultrie app on my phone, watching bears at both places I'd intended for John and I to hunt. There were some young bears, and there were some good bears on the camera. There were also some absolute giants. Biggest bears I'd ever seen in one spot. I was excited to share what I saw taking place in daylight on my cameras with John. If they would just hang in there for two more weeks... we could have the opportunity to shoot some huge old Arkansas bears. It was the perfect storm for bear season. Hot weather. Bears really hit the baits when it's hot for some reason. And don't ask me why, because I don't know why they do it, but they do. And it was dry. And we had natural water sources close to both bait sites. Both areas were very secluded and far away from any disturbances and surrounded by unfractured thickets and wilderness. All the things that bears light. We were setting on goal. And the anticipation of what could happen had the whole wad of us in a constantly updating group text thread that never ended. Judging pictures, checking accounts, lists, and the general excitement and buzz of the coming season had us all a little frayed with anxiety by the time it came to meet at the Mountain Cabin. There, we would start the production of the Arkansas Bear Camp 26 film, starring all the folks I've mentioned since I started struggling through this narrative a few minutes ago. And here, a full seven days from now, is where we're going to put a cork back in this bottle. Brent, why do you do this? Why do you get to the good part and leave these folks hanging before you even climb in the tree to see a bear? Well, it ain't on purpose, I promise. I only know one way to tell the story, and the timer is getting close to buzzing. Y'all know I love you. And to tell the story right, I have to tell it all. I give you my word, we're going to put a cap in this next week, and you ain't going to want to miss it. So, until next week, when we finish the Arkansas Black Bear season, this is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful. Thank you.