Ep. 912: Clay’s Ozark Bear Camp | 12 in '26

Summary

---

The MeatEater Podcast – Ep. 912: Clay’s Ozark Bear Camp | “12 in '26”

Date: August 4, 2026
Host: Clay Newcomb & Josh Landbridge
Theme: Behind the scenes of the Ozark Bear Camp film and rich discussions on bear hunting, Ozark heritage, bear biology, and outdoor culture

---

Episode Overview

This episode serves as a companion to MeatEater’s newest film “Ozark Bear Camp” from the “12 in '26” series. Host Clay Newcomb, joined by producer and friend Josh Landbridge, offers listeners a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, stories from bear camp, deep dives into Ozark traditions, and answers to viewer questions about bear hunting, conservation, and wild food. It’s both a celebration of regional heritage and a direct exploration of the realities of modern bear hunting.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sorghum & Ozark Heritage

[01:45–17:31]

• The film opens with a look at traditional sorghum molasses-making, featuring Willard Valines – an Ozark legend whose family has carried on the practice for generations.
• Clay discusses how documenting this process goes beyond nostalgia: “By Willard holding that seed and planting it in the ground and knowing that his ancestors… grew that seed. I think it just connects you to the past and to the heritage of the region.” (Clay, 14:19)
• The significance of preserving tradition: homemade sorghum evokes “a connection to a family legacy,” not just in process, but in flavor and meaning.
• Memorable moment: Clay describes eating sorghum on biscuits as a kid, emphasizing how rare and cherished sweets used to be (11:16).

2. Bear Camp Community & Notable Guests

[17:49–27:50]

• The Ozark bear camp is characterized as much by camaraderie as by hunting: “Bear camp is always full of people and that's something that I love.” (Clay, 18:50)
• This year’s camp was unique: new hunters (Lake Pickle, Jordan Blissett) joined in, and CBS’s Ted Koppel visited for a segment on CBS Sunday Morning.
• Ted Koppel’s presence: “He singled out almost everyone in our camp and had fairly in-depth conversations… just really neat.” (Josh, 26:13)
• Notable quote about the uniqueness of Ted Koppel’s visit: “...85 years old, a very spry 85.” (Clay, 23:58)

3. Bear Biology, Baiting, and Management

[28:19–45:52]

• Insight on baiting bears: It’s not a guarantee of a successful hunt and requires immense effort. Baiting is an essential management tool—especially in regions where other methods would fail:
  “Wherever there is a season that allows it… spot and stalk would be inadequate to harvest the number of bears that needed to be taken.” (Clay, 40:18)
• Discussion on bear diets, calorie intake during hyperphagia, and habitat requirements for black bears:
  “A bear… can eat 20,000 calories a day in the fall.” (Clay, 17:49)
• Geographic and ecological notes: black bears’ current and historical ranges exceed most North American large mammals, except the wolf.
• On bear population in Arkansas: constraints are habitat and cultural tolerance, not biology; “...all the research indicates that baiting bears does not habituate them to anthropomorphic foods.” (Clay, 33:44)
• Regarding historical bear decline: habitat loss from logging outweighed the impact of market hunting (46:29).

4. Bear Hunting, Ethics, and the Hunt’s Outcome

[54:30–66:18]

• The emotional arc of missing or wounding game is discussed in detail: Lake, a new hunter, hits a bear too high and the group spends hours searching, only to conclude the bear will survive.
• Candid coverage: “We've always at MeatEater just kind of showed things the way it happened.” (Clay, 58:09)
• Shot placement challenges: “...a black bear. It's almost like you are shooting at an inflated black trash bag.” (Clay, 58:51)
• Ethics: Lake chose not to continue hunting after drawing blood, though it wasn’t legally required—a decision Clay respects (63:13).
• Bowhunting advice: Aim further back than you would on a whitetail (65:00–66:08).

5. Bear Grease: Rendering & Cultural Meaning

[66:30–77:13]

• Clay demonstrates how to render bear fat, discussing tips (grinding yields more oil, temperature control).
• Practical uses: cooking, skincare, leather conditioning; “I've got bear grease on my face right now.” (Clay, 71:49)
• Historic significance: bear grease was a valuable commodity, compared by early chroniclers to olive oil and butter (74:08).
• Black bears are endemic to North America; Europe historically used brown bear fat.
• “In the mid-1700s, 14% of the exports coming out of New Orleans was American black bear grease going to Europe.” (Clay, 75:39)

6. Reflection: The Broader Meaning of Hunting

[77:16–END]

• Despite no bear harvest, Clay reflects on hunting’s value in tradition, family, and connection to place:
  “It's not just about harvesting an animal, but it's, it's a lifestyle, a regional lifestyle.” (Clay, 78:55)
• Clay emphasizes humility and the privilege of sharing these stories:
  “We're not the best. We just love it. I do think I love it as much as anybody.” (Clay, 80:15)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is a celebration of heritage and a connection to a family legacy.” (Clay, 15:54)
• “YouTube video of making sorghum got 30.5 million views… queued me in that this is something that the world needs to see in more detail.” (Clay, 06:32)
• On Ted Koppel at camp: “He singled out almost everyone… and had fairly in-depth conversations.” (Josh, 26:13)
• “When we bait a bear, we are playing a very significant role inside of bear management to keep the bear population stable.” (Clay, 41:43)
• “A bear is just built to consume calories… an eating machine is what they are.” (Clay, 36:51)
• “We've always at MeatEater just kind of showed things the way it happened, you know.” (Clay, 58:09)
• “I had an incredibly hollow feeling that I knew nothing about this animal... And that just set me on a track.” (Clay, 51:21)
• “They have what they call bear grease stored in gourds, which is like olive oil and butter.” (Clay quoting Elva, 74:08)

---

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:45 – Opening: Sorghum making & Ozark heritage
• 06:32 – Viral impact of documenting traditional practices
• 17:49 – Bear camp prep, hyperphagia, and community
• 20:25 – Story behind Ted Koppel’s visit
• 28:19 – Effort & ethics of bear baiting; management discussion
• 36:42 – Bears as omnivores; population stability
• 54:30 – Lake’s close call & honest depiction of the hunt
• 66:30 – Rendering bear grease; historical context and uses
• 78:55 – Reflection on the meaning of hunting and culture

---

Flow & Tone

The episode is warm, reflective, and conversational yet informative. Clay and Josh balance technical know-how with regional storytelling and a deep respect for tradition, science, and ethical hunting. The tone is authentic, at times humorous (joking about “mustache icons,” ribbing one another), but always rooted in a love for learning and community.

---

Summary prepared for listeners who want an in-depth, story-rich, instructional, and grounded view into Ozark bear camp, bear hunting ethics, biocultural history, and the enduring power of the outdoors to connect families, regions, and traditions.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Clay Newcomb]

I love my phone but not my carrier.

[Podcast Host]

What do I do? Well, there are 250 reasons to join T Mobile.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Like what?

[Podcast Host]

You can keep your phone and your

[Clay Newcomb]

number and T Mobile helps pay it

[Podcast Host]

off up to $800 per line.

[Clay Newcomb]

So I wouldn't have to buy a new phone?

[Josh Landbridge]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Plus your plan price stays the same for 5 years on experience plans. Nice. Find your reason@t mobile.com

[Clay Newcomb]

via virtual prepaid

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

guard card typically takes 15 days after

[Clay Newcomb]

rebate submission price guarantee on TalkText and

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

5G data exclusions like taxes and fees apply.

[Podcast Host]

This episode sponsored by She's Birdie. You know that little wave of relief when someone texts made it home safe? That's exactly the feeling She's Birdie was designed for. The Birdie disc is a clip on personal safety light and alarm made for everyday moments where visibility and attention matter most. Night walks, early morning runs, parking garages, college campuses, dog walks, travel. It features bright flashing LED light modes, a built in flashlight and a 130 decibel siren that can quickly draw attention if something feels wrong. And because it's lightweight, rechargeable, TSA friendly and easy to clip onto jackets, bags, strollers, bikes or keychains, it actually fits into real life without being bulky or complicated. More than 4 million people already trust Shesebirdy for added peace of mind for the people you care most about daughter, partner, friend, student or parent. This is one of those simple things that can make a real difference. Go to she'sbirdie.com again that's she'sbirdie.com.

[Clay Newcomb]

I'm in the Ozarks today and tomorrow is the opening day of the Arkansas bear season. It's like a holiday to me. We're going to be competing against the white oak acorns to kill these bears. But the day before season today we're going to be making molasses with my friend Willard the Lyons. Hey everybody, my name's Clay Newcomb and what you just watched was the intro to our newest film called Ozark Bear Camp with Clay Dukemy. It's the latest in Meat Eaters 12 and 26 series brought to you by Moultrie and Onyx. And that little intro kind of warms my heart. I, I, I, I love the landscape shots. Willard Valines is kind of a legend around here and it was a good film. So on on what we're doing right here is our companion series podcast where we're going to go behind the scenes, answer viewer questions and talk to you about A bunch of stuff that we weren't able to talk about in the episode. And in this film we head to my Arkansas bear camp with my family, friends and a bunch of other people and. Well, I guess everybody's family and friends. There were no non outlaws or in laws. There's a few people that came that just like completely, you know, are not my friends. That's not true. But, but we're going to talk about that on this podcast. I'm joined today by my producer, hero, mustache icon, fly fishing sage and best friend a guy could ever ask for. Josh Landbridge, Spillmaker.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

You.

[Josh Landbridge]

Very kind of you to write that.

[Clay Newcomb]

Wow, that was.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah, that was touching.

[Clay Newcomb]

So appreciate that. Great to have you here.

[Josh Landbridge]

Speaking of warm and heart.

[Clay Newcomb]

Hey, you were at. You were with me on this film.

[Josh Landbridge]

I was, yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

You showed up a couple of times in the film.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yep.

[Clay Newcomb]

So. Well, let's.

[Josh Landbridge]

We're excited, man. This, the, the. This film has tons of bear hunting in it. You know, it's, it's kind of a iconic region.

[Clay Newcomb]

A lot of bear hunting.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah, exactly.

[Clay Newcomb]

Not. So, not a lot of bear skinning or.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah, but the, you know, this, this region where we're hunting is kind of iconic for bear grease especially. You know, this would be kind of your home. You know, the Ozarks and the Ouachitas are kind of where you've cut your teeth hunting. And so without further ado, we want to just dive right in. Like I said, there's lots of bear hunting in this film, but the film starts with a thing that happens to coincide with bear season and that's the harvest of the sorghum.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, this was really cool for me because the previous year was the first time that I would have made sorghum with Willard villains and the whole.

[Josh Landbridge]

Before you get into it, let's actually watch a clip. We're gonna watch about a one, about a one minute clip about the sorghum making.

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, my dad made molasses when I was a kid, so that's been about 70 some years ago. And then the villains, when they came into this valley, brought with them sorghum seed. And some of that same seed is the seed that you grow today, right? Yeah, it's been handed down from generation to generation that Mr. Doyle is putting in there and squeezing all that liquid out.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Then you got to boil it down till it goes in from the lysack. The history is pretty remarkable. And in modern times, the timing of the sorghum harvest has coincided with bear season. When you're boiling something down like this really, you're just removing the water and just concentrating the sugar. I mean, that's really all it is. So. With the molasses making finishing up, it's time to get down to brass tacks. We're hunting bears in less than 24 hours, and we're gonna take today's skimmings to sweeten up my bait side.

[Josh Landbridge]

There you go. Just, just a little clip. Just a little clip from the sorghum making with Willard.

[Clay Newcomb]

It was pretty cool. The, the year before was the first year that I'd ever made sorghum with Willardville lines. And it was, it was right before bear season. And so I wanted to, I'll tell you exactly what happened is the year before I was there with him, just a scene, just like what you saw. And I made a little video on my phone.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yep, I remember.

[Clay Newcomb]

And I put that video on my Instagram and really didn't think that much about it. It was just a cool video showing the mule, Grasshopper, you know, you know, turning the mill. It showed the whole process and less than a minute. And that video got 30 million views on Instagram.

[Josh Landbridge]

30 million.

[Clay Newcomb]

30.5 million views on Instagram. And I, I, it just kind of queued me in that this is something that the world needs to see in more detail. This is a 30 second, maybe minute long clip. And so that's when I talked to Willard and said, hey, going to bear hunt next year over here. Why? And we're going to have a crew here. Why don't we, why don't we film the full sequence of you making molasses? And I mean, it was no sweat off his back. It's like we're going to be doing it anyway. It was a little bit of coordination with when to harvest the sorghum.

[Josh Landbridge]

Is that the, is that like the optimal time?

[Clay Newcomb]

So. Yes, they always harvest it in September and early October.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

So you couldn't, you wouldn't have done it too much earlier, but, but here, anyway, mid to late September to early

[Josh Landbridge]

October, you know, it seems like in the harvest and production of the sorghum with the Valiant variant, like, not a lot has changed. What, Is there anything that has changed since they started doing that a couple generations back?

[Clay Newcomb]

I mean, the way obviously they weren't

[Josh Landbridge]

lifting it with a track.

[Clay Newcomb]

So if you go to the store and buy a jar of sorghum molasses, most likely that was made in a, in a modern mill. You know, they weren't using a mule to turn it. It was an electric mill somehow that you know?

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Presses down the. The canes and makes the juice. The way that they're doing it is identical to the way it would have been done 100 years ago. Because that. That mill that he has, the press is. Has been in his family for many years. They actually have one of the other brothers. So what's cool about the lines? Willard Blinds is one of 10 children.

[Josh Landbridge]

And how old is Willard?

[Clay Newcomb]

Willard? 78.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

And don't get me talking about where he's at, but I want to say he's somewhere in the middle.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

So he. He has some brothers that were older.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And one of the brothers has the original mill that his father had. Had used the. The sorghum press. Am I saying the right word for that?

[Josh Landbridge]

I think mill seems right.

[Clay Newcomb]

So. But. But that might be a classic.

[Josh Landbridge]

Might be a press mill. Seems like it would be grinding, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

So, yeah, the way they're doing it is. Is just the same, but it's really pretty simple. You know, when you. The first time I was there, I was like, man, this is a complicated process with a lot of stages. You just press the canes, get the. Get the juice out, and then you just heat it and remove the water. Like, there's no recipe.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right?

[Clay Newcomb]

There's no. There's not. Like, well, at this moment, you have to do this. However, that makes it sound simple. When that fire is burning, Willard and those guys are watching it like a hawk because you can ruin it.

[Josh Landbridge]

It seems like the critical things would be, like, timing of when it's done, you know, keeping it moving and making sure that fire doesn't get too hot or too low.

[Clay Newcomb]

Exactly. And they can tell you the taste difference in where sorghum is grown, even in their county. Like, Willard will be like, now, this cane came from here, and it tastes a little bit sweeter than the cane that came from up on the mountain.

[Josh Landbridge]

So is this something that happens regionally? Like, are there other families in that area that are.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, I'd say there's quite a few that. Not quite a few. There are others that make sorghum just this same way. Not a lot.

[Josh Landbridge]

I wonder if they have, like, a sorghum off, like, whoever makes the best sorghum.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, it would be. Contest. A highly, highly contested.

[Josh Landbridge]

I wouldn't want to judge it. I wouldn't want to judge it.

[Clay Newcomb]

Judge it. Yes. But if you haven't had sorghum, it's an interesting product. It's. It's sweet. You could use it like syrup. Yeah, but it's. It's kind of got. It's got a very unique taste that if you didn't grow up with it, you might be like, you know, it might kind of catch you off guard.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

I grew up eating sorghumalass. As my grandfather, he treated it like it was like, we got to go out and have ice cream. I mean, it was like, hey, you want some sorghum? You know, I mean, like, it was really something special. And what he would do is he would pour. He would take a butter knife and pour it out of the jar, and he could very strategically. You know, it drips. It's like thicker than syrup, Right.

[Josh Landbridge]

It's more like honey.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, it's like. It's like a. Like a thinner honey. And so when it's poured out, if you just tip the jar back up, it gets all over the side of the jar. And so at just the right time, when you're tipping it back up, you zoom the knife across and keep the jar clean. And you'd have a little dollop about as big as a silver dollar, about a, you know, less than a quarter inch high. Then he would take a piece of butter, a square of butter, and put it in there and mash it up with the sorghum and put that on biscuits. That's what he did. And it was making me hungry, man. Back in the day, before the commercialization of sugar and candy and how much access that the everyday American has to sugar, which is bizarre. And you should be very concerned with how much sugar you eat. I mean, wildly bizarre that of the people watching this video, I mean, what are the statistics of how much sugar the average American eats? I mean, it's like. Like 50 pounds of sugar or something

[Josh Landbridge]

a year at least. And if you drink sodas.

[Clay Newcomb]

Insane. You should be very, very. Which camera. You should be very concerned about this. But back in the day, to have sorghum, which was sweet, was like a treat.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

It's interesting this open had sugar in your everyday.

[Josh Landbridge]

In your everyday consumption.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's right. And it's kind of interesting because when I would do this same thing with my kids, hey, you want some sorghum? I mean, I'm ashamed to say that it. They were kind of. Kind of unimpressed, you know?

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

But kids these days. Kids, these. Now, my kids don't eat that much sugar. Bear nuke them now. Bare newcomb. Bare Newcomb is like almost sugar free.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

And he's also like a lean, mean.

[Josh Landbridge]

He's also like 2% body fat.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. So no, that kind of Stuff is really special to me to be able to document it. And what is most special, and this is what you get behind the scenes, is I wanted to do that for Willard and his family.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Because Willard's. His family's been doing this and I mean, all they would have would just be some cell phone videos in modern times and then some just, you know, a handful of photographs from years ago. And so it was pretty cool to have the meat eater crew there to document it so well. And, you know, it's about a 10 minute clip, so it's not like it was exhaustive.

[Josh Landbridge]

So, you know, a couple of questions first. You know, that same seed's been passed down for the. Through the generations. Why does that matter? Clay?

[Clay Newcomb]

Good sorghum.

[Josh Landbridge]

Good sorghum.

[Clay Newcomb]

No, it's just. I think it's just a connection to the past. Like the. The human life is deceptive. It feels like people from the 1800s, your third and fourth great grandfathers, were a long ways away, but they really weren't.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And, you know, by Willard holding that seed and planting it in the ground and knowing that his ancestors, you know, you could track it back and grew that seed. I think it just connects you to the past and to the. Just the heritage of the region. And it's just unique. I mean, there's nothing that I have that I could touch that. I mean, my great grandfather's shotgun, which I've got over there, like, very little. And, you know, when you think about history, which I talk a lot about history.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And you might think that I was hyper nostalgic in the way that I think about even my life, and I'm not sure that I am, because the past is interesting. There's a lot of the past that we should forget and even reject and move past in our own personal lives and even in our family's history. Like, but it's. But the knowledge of some of this stuff is powerful. That's more a statement of, like, general understanding of, like, why the history? Because I think there's probably a. Can be a unhealthy attachment to the past.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

And this is not that. This is a celebration of heritage and a connection to a family legacy. And over in this part of the world, in Newton county and kind of the central Ozarks, the name Valines, there are hundreds of villains because the guys that brought that sorghum seed, I want to say Willard told me that Abraham Valines had 18 children.

[Josh Landbridge]

Wow.

[Clay Newcomb]

And they're all still over there. And they're a wonderful family, a Lot of, I know a lot of vines over there.

[Josh Landbridge]

One last question, and it's kind of a philosophical question would be, oh, another one. What does Willard represent about the Ozarks that you wanted the viewers to appreciate by starting. I mean, you started this film off with that. What is it about him that you want people to see?

[Clay Newcomb]

He's just, there are people that are. He just has such a connection to the Ozark. He's just a real deal Ozarkian. Like he's not trying to be anything, he just is what he is.

[Josh Landbridge]

He didn't put those overalls and hat on because he was going to be on film.

[Clay Newcomb]

He may have just a little. But, but, but he wears those all the time. I mean, you know, there's actually part of history in all these places that we, we reflect back to our past and are influenced by me wearing these overalls right here. I mean, it's like, yeah, it's a, it's a hat tip to the past and I think people still do that today.

[Josh Landbridge]

Sure.

[Clay Newcomb]

But, but Willard's the real deal. He's a, he's a mule man, he's a hunter. He's just a well respected guy over there.

[Josh Landbridge]

Love it.

[Clay Newcomb]

They.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah, yeah, great guy. Okay, let's, we got another, another clip here. Let's go ahead and watch it.

[Clay Newcomb]

Bears right now are going into what they call hyperphagia, which is a physiological state of incredible increase in metab. So a bear about fell off 5 to 8,000 calories a day in the fall. They can eat 20,000 calories a day. So when you're baiting, you're capitalizing on a natural process inside of a bear. We're using pop tarts, corn, sorghum, molasses, skimmings. We got in a little later than we wanted. So it was a quick drop of the molasses over the bait. We filled up the bait barrels. The last thing we want to do is spook bears the night before the hunt. Everybody's here for the season opener and we're having a big time. Much of my hunting is primarily solo, but our bear camp is always full of people and that's something that I love. I always got to give like a state of the union. The state of the Bear Union. I have pretty good news. Like I would say that the bear, the bear situation is average to slightly below average.

[Josh Landbridge]

So tell us, tell us a little bit about, you know, you typically have a bear camp every year. Tell us what made this bear camp different than, than bear camps in the past?

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, it was fun to have Lake Pickle, Jordan Blissett there. They they were both new bear hunters, had never bear hunted before. So it was cool to get to introduce them to it. We were actually in a new spot that I hadn't hunted before. We were in we were in a new spot and disclosed new spot. And my buddy Justin House was there. James Lawrence.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yep.

[Clay Newcomb]

Came up. Who's in bear grease icon. Yep. Yes. And there was another interesting guest at our bear camp this year. Ted Koppel was there, as in the, as in the real Ted couple that interviewed Richard Nixon.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Ted Koppel.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

You actually see Ted Copple in the last clip of the film sitting by our fire. He's he's wearing all black and he's kind of sitting in the back and we're playing music and it's the lights are on and you, you actually can see Ted Copple.

[Josh Landbridge]

So he had come to do a.

[Clay Newcomb]

So yeah, what you wouldn't have known from watching the film is that CBS Good morning Sunday Morning Sunday. But CBS Sunday MORNING came to our bear camp and were there for basically two of the five days. There were people there, I guess there were people there for parts of three of five days. They came in on the evening. Ted was there all day one of the days, but the guys were still there the next day for portion of the day, if I recall.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

And they did a spot on CBS Sunday morning. And so Ted interviewed many of us. We rendered bear fat, aside from what you saw. We rendered bear fat for CBS Sunday morning. And he just hung out with us.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

We have a blast every summer. Fishing, swimming, camping out, shooting bows, sitting around the fire. Last weekend, we were floating a creek and then doing some metal detecting, and we found what I believe to be a very old horseshoe. It's all the best. And if you're looking for the perfect companion to your summer adventures, try the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. From its beginnings in the foothills of Tennessee, invented by two brothers back in 1948, Mountain Dew has been a constant. And they've got proud American roots. It's an American original of citrusy goodness. You can celebrate summer and America's 250th birthday with mountain Dew. Whether you're at the grill on the beach or right in your living room, sipping on a Mountain Dew is a great way to start a damn good time. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew, an American original, tasting great since 48. Look for mountain Dew in stores near you@mountain Dew.com. that's Mountain Dew.com. good Lord. They're finally here. At long last, after fighting and yelling and fighting some more, Clay Newcomb and First Light have done it. They have built a pair of work bibs together. Not just any work bibs. We're talking the bear grease bibs from Clay. Now, I've watched Clay work long enough to know that he wasn't going to put his name on a pair of hunting pants pretending to be work bibs. And boy, he did not. These are Clay's invention for things like breaking mules, rendering grease, kneeling in the dirt. I'm going to use them all the time. Trapping, working, fixing stuff. It doesn't matter. If you want good, durable, comfortable bibs, these are your bibs made from tough stretch duck cotton. They got briar proof chaps that run from cuff to thigh. They got pockets damn near everywhere. Again, comfortable and durable. Put them on, you don't need to worry about having anything go bad. If it wasn't so hot right now outside, I'd be wearing them right now. But you can bet your ass I got them in my truck and they are up at the meat eater store right now. At themateaterstore.com DQ presents the Blizzard Double

[Podcast Host]

flip deal for a limited time. When you buy one Blizzard treat, you get a second for just 99 cents. That's two Blizzards, two spoons, two flavors and two flips. So don't miss out on the Blizzard double flip deal available only for a limited time and happening now at dq. Because the only thing better than a Blizzard treatment is a second Blizzard treat for just 99 cents. It's a deal to flip for the Blizzard double flip deal. Get it in the app. Participation may vary.

[Josh Landbridge]

I have to say that compared to some of the bear camps of the past, which have been awesome, this one was a little bougier too. We had a pretty nice place.

[Clay Newcomb]

We stayed in a really nice cabin. We did that was unusual, get spoiled there. We kind of had to do that because we had so many people there and because we had Ted Koppel and his crew coming. And so we on the Bear Grease podcast spoke about when Ted Koppel came. He was, he was a, he's 85, 85 years old, a very spry 85 younger and you don't wreck anybody. I would say 35 and older would know who Ted couple was. Was one of the most famous, well known faces in America for probably 25 years as a, as a broadcast anchor for CBS.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

So yeah, back in the day, kids there were when there was just television. That's you had television and books and radio. Yeah, that's all you had. No cell phones. People watch television at night.

[Josh Landbridge]

Ted Koppel was a household name.

[Clay Newcomb]

And there were. There would have been like three or four major networks, and the anchors for the nightly news on those stations were as famous as the president. And so Ted Koppel was one of those guys.

[Josh Landbridge]

He was on Nightline for years.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yes, many years. And he was a delightful man.

[Josh Landbridge]

He was. It honestly surprised me how endearing he was. I mean, just like personable, humble.

[Clay Newcomb]

Sat with us and just talked. He singled out almost everyone in our camp and had fairly in depth conversations, personal conversations. When I realized what he was doing was Justin House, who can just kind of be a fly on the wall at times, was there. And there was a little bit of a lull. We're in a big group. This is after he'd been there for hours, and he looked at Justin and he said, justin, tell me what you do.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

And it was clear that he was trying to connect with everybody there. And, you know, one time I came around the corner and he and Brent were sitting over in a chair, just chatting away. No telling what Brent was telling him.

[Josh Landbridge]

When you guys were out hunting one afternoon, he sat down with. With your mom and dad and Misty and I, and I think just the four of us and just for hour and a half and just let us ask him questions about his career and his family and. Yeah, yeah. Just really neat.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

What is it about bear camp that. That means so much to you?

[Clay Newcomb]

So most of my hunting. I said it in there. Most. Most of my hunting is solo. Like, most of my hunting, I wake up here at my house and, you know, go deer hunting or go bear hunting, and maybe somebody comes with me.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

But, you know, I'm driving there and hunting for a day or two and coming back other times, I'm leaving on the bigger hunts. To me, my hunting and probably most people's hunting can be segregated into two things. Your local hunting. But then you're. If you trap, if you're so fortunate to get to travel to hunt. And many people do make one big trip. Hunting trip somewhere.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

You know, you travel. So when I travel, I'm usually with people, but it's not home and it's not with family. Bear camp is very communal, very focused on the camp, very. We're not. Honestly, we're not hunting that hard in terms of hunting. The work that goes into it is more than I do for anything else that I do. And that's. That's hard to describe for Some people, I mean, it just, you know, the work that goes into baiting bears is the most work that I do.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Like when I go to Alaska next month, I'm just gonna, like, show up and I've never been there. And all of my energy will be dedicated during the time I'm there. And then I leave. You know, this, this takes a whole bunch of effort to get there.

[Josh Landbridge]

I mean, for, for a month ahead of time.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yes. And. And so when we're there, though, we're typically just hunting the evenings, maybe a little bit in the morning. So we're spending a lot of time at camp, a lot of time with people. And that's fun to me, man.

[Josh Landbridge]

We had a great time just having food and in the evenings people would show up. And one night there were guys there playing some fantastic music. It was your birthday. We celebrated that. We had a great time. I've got a couple questions here from some Instagram. From Instagram. First question is from Isaac Reynolds. Isaac underscore Reynolds, 34. If you're out there, what's your recommended draw weight for bear and what's your favorite bear bait to use?

[Clay Newcomb]

You can use archery equipment on a black bear that you would use on a whitetail deer.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

That. They're, they're really, they're really. I wouldn't do anything different between my whitetail setup and my bear setup.

[Josh Landbridge]

Broadheads as well.

[Clay Newcomb]

Now that I, I would do different. I, I typically, I go back and forth between expandables with. With whitetails.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

I'd say 75 of the time I'm using some expandable head for whitetails. They're thinner skinned, thinner boned. They're, they're. You're more likely, I feel like with a whitetail to get a compromised hit because of the way they can react to a shot and, and drop and move. And so I want a big cut in diameter. When I'm bear hunting, I prioritize an entry and exit hole. So I want the, the arrow that is going to penetrate the most.

[Josh Landbridge]

You use fixed blade. Do you fix cut on impact?

[Clay Newcomb]

I would, I, I would not. You wouldn't have to use a, a cut on impact necessarily. But I like to use a fixed blade broadhead for black bear. Now. Yeah, we, I mean, we could go into all the stuff about shot placement, and I'm sure that will come up later today. Later.

[Josh Landbridge]

Well, we'll talk about shot placement.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

On a bear.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, yeah. Forgot about that.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah. So favorite bear bait?

[Clay Newcomb]

Favorite bear bait is going to be carbohydrate. For here. Now, what is interesting about black bears is that they have such a wide geographic distribution, which black bears have the currently of the large mammals on this continent, have the largest geographic distribution of them all.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Historically, wolves would have had a wider geographic distribution than the black bear.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay, Think about this, Josh. This is going back to bear bait and why bears prefer different foods in different places. But the wolf essentially would have historically ranged from north of the Arctic Circle all the way down into old Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

[Josh Landbridge]

Wow.

[Clay Newcomb]

I mean, like, without a gap in there, there would have been different subspecies of wolves, you know, based on the biology and all this, but the wolf would have would have done that. The black bear would do the exact same thing. Except black bears historically were not in the great prairie regions of America. A black bear has to have trees to survive. And so there would have been pockets in the Great Plains where black bears wouldn't have been. They would have been in the riparian zones, but wolves would have been in those areas. And then the treeless areas of the southwestern desert and the Great Plains were the only places that there were not black bears. So imagine black bears range north of the Arctic Circle as well.

[Josh Landbridge]

Wow.

[Clay Newcomb]

Probably not as. Not as high as wolves, though.

[Josh Landbridge]

Sure.

[Clay Newcomb]

And the furthest south southerly documented black bears have been around Mexico City, which is deep into Mexico. And so. But are there, are there wolves today in Arkansas and in Oklahoma and in Kansas? No, they're not. So historic range, the wolf had the biggest today, the black bear does, because the black bear now exists in basically 65% of its. Of its historic range in many regions. A hundred percent of its historic range, if that makes sense.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Like in Canada and Alaska, the black bears in the hundred percent of its historic range.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay, so how does that tie to bear bait?

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay, thank you. Bears prefer different things in different places.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

So for instance, in the spring in Canada, these outfitters are using oats with oil on it. I'm convinced that if you put oats with oil on bare bait in this part of the world, you would have not great results. And we can only hunt in a fall here.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

But my favorite bear bait, I would say would be pastries, donuts, Pop tarts and bread and grease. That seems to be when we're baiting them. And I want to emphasize for anybody that has not been around bear baiting, there's a ton of research about baiting black bears, and we cover it in my book that's coming out in February.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

American bear, I mean, Excited about it. We cover it all. But I can just summarize for you to say that all the research indicates that baiting bears does not habituate them to anthropomorphic foods. Anthropogenic foods. Like, they're not going to come raid your house because they're being baited, you know, a half a mile away, basically. It's not detrimental.

[Josh Landbridge]

Still have a preference for.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, they all natural. Always going to have a preference for natural foods. Yeah, they just do. They would rather eat a white oak acorn. So things that make a bear fat. But up in Canada, they would use like oil and oats.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay. One of the questions I had when I watched it is you mentioned that during hyperphagia, when they're trying to put on weight, that a Bear will eat 20,000 calories in a day in nature, what are they eating that they're able to get 20,000 calories in a day?

[Clay Newcomb]

In the fall, hard mast has incredible caloric content.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

And so, like a white oak acorn has 5 to 7 calories per acorn.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And imagine I tell a story in the book of once when I actually watched, and the only reason I knew the timestamp was because I videoed it, but I watched a bear eat white oak acorns for 18 minutes straight without lifting its head.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Wow.

[Clay Newcomb]

And just estimating that that bear was chomping one white oak acorn every five seconds, which probably would be about as fast as it would.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

It. It would have consumed, like, 1800 calories.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay. In 18 minutes.

[Clay Newcomb]

It may not have been that precise. 18 and 18 makes me think my numbers are wrong. But it consumed an enormous, like, over a thousand calories in that 18 minutes. And it's like, how many times could it do that in a day?

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right?

[Clay Newcomb]

20,000. It fairly easily could.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

So, yeah, they're just cramming on the calories.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

And they. But they. But what's so cool about these bears is that they have to. Because our bears here are typically up and on their feet for 10 to 9, 10 months a year, but in the highest portion of their range, way up in the north. Boy, I don't want to spill too much about the book. The coolest fact in the book. The coolest fact in the whole book is the longest documented denning that we've ever seen a bear stay in a den. Like a collared bear, Right. They knew when it went in, they knew when it came out. And let me just say, it was an unbelievable amount of time.

[Josh Landbridge]

And when they're there, they're not eating, they're not drinking, they're not defecating.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's right.

[Josh Landbridge]

Urinating.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's right.

[Josh Landbridge]

That is unbelievable.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. And that's, yes, it is, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an absolutely fascinating process. But that connects back to them eating. Having to eat 20,000 calories a day or being able to in the fall is that they're trying to make a year's living in six to nine months. So they've got to pack it all in. And that's, and, and a bear is just built to consume calories. I mean it just has big intestines, big stomach, the ability, you know, a mouth that just, can just consume food and, and process it quickly. I mean like every, they're just, they're just an eating machine is what they are. And the coolest thing about bears is they're omnivores. And whatever's happening ecologically on planet earth, it is favoring omnivores, it is favoring generalists. Specialists are often the things that are struggling and that's why that we see the black bear thriving.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Every researched population of bears is stable or increasing right now.

[Josh Landbridge]

Wow, that's awesome. One more, one more viewer question. The simple one. Do you have a favorite fresh kill camp meal? And that's from Mac Fink, Biner 07.11.

[Clay Newcomb]

You know, I think I don't, I don't have a fancy answer but just a. To cook a back strap over a fire, some seasoning on it. Yeah. Or just to just fry it. Pan fried. Battered and pan fried. This is the way to go.

[Josh Landbridge]

All right, well we've got another clip here.

[Clay Newcomb]

Man. I'm, I'm excited for you.

[Josh Landbridge]

I'm, I'm just eager, man. I'm ready to get up there. I'm ready to see a bear from a stand. That's just going to be something new for me.

[Clay Newcomb]

Dr. Pickle. We're starting our hunt in the early afternoon. Bears are crepuscular, so they move at dawn and dusk. But these baited bears move a lot at night. So we opt to go and start hunting in mid afternoon when the bears aren't there and just set up and wait for the last hour of daylight. Maybe Lake's anticipation of seeing bears had something to do with it. But he actually doesn't have to sit long until he actually sees a bear, Another bear coming from the right. Lake has some truly big bears that are coming into this bait. We know they're coming in and we also Know that these aren't them. So today they get a pass. But in this kind of hunt, your options can change by the day and even by the hour.

[Josh Landbridge]

So you've kind of addressed a lot of the baiting issues. I feel like the film does a good job showing just how difficult it is to bait. I mean, the work that goes into it. But just because you bait doesn't mean it's a sure thing. So there's dissenters. Is there anything that you haven't covered that you feel like you want to communicate about baiting? You know, there's always the comments. You know, this is cheating. This isn't fair.

[Clay Newcomb]

You know, I would. I would say that somebody that would say that, well, I would say to them, let's look at the bigger picture of bear management. Wherever there is a season that allows it to be legal to hunt bears over bait or use hounds, the other methods of hunting, which basically would be spot and stalk, would be inadequate to harvest the number of bears that needed to be taken out of that system. Let me give you an example. Arkansas currently has about 6,000 bears in the state, which is not. Is really not that many. So many other places, like, don't come here to hunt. It's not that great.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right?

[Clay Newcomb]

Georgia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Tennessee. All these places have more. More bears than us.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

Right?

[Clay Newcomb]

But in 20 years, Arkansas have. Has Arkansas hunters have legally harvested over 10,000 bears. Okay. I talked to a biologist. We did the math together. And if there was no hunting since the year 2000, there would be between 20 and 30,000 bears in the state. Like, like with the reproduction, like, counting how many were taken out.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And basically the carrying capacity of the state and the habitat that we have is, you know, is probably. We're reaching it. They're actually trying to, like, keep the population just stable.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And there's many factors that go into that. There's actual habitat constraints. And 6,000. I kind of get bummed when I hear that number because that at one time they believed this state had 50,000 bears in it. And to say we have 6,000 and I celebrate that today is kind of like, wow, that doesn't sound that great. But the truth is that this place is full of houses and roads and shopping malls and Bermuda grass fields that are no longer bear habitat that at one time were every square inch of basically. I mean, I'm just using Arkansas as an example, but you could extrapolate this out. Every direction. Every square inch of the state used to be bear habitat and would have been used by bears in some way. Okay. And so today, habit, actual habitat is a limitation. But then number two and even more important and most important, the reason that we couldn't have 30,000 bears in the state is the cultural tolerance, which is how many, how many bears will a culture tolerate, how often, how comfortable are you going to be with bears sleeping under your house? And in California and in New Jersey and a lot of these places, the cultural tolerance and the amount of bears there is in this big conflict. That's a lot about what my book is about, right. And I do think I would have a high tolerance for more bears. But also last year in this state, two people were killed by bears, right? I mean wild this year there's been more black bear human fatalities. It's on the rise. I mean it absolutely is on the rise. So to answer your question about baiting is that when we bait a bear, we are playing a very significant role inside of bear management to keep the bear population stable. And you couldn't do it any other way. You send out spot and stock hunters, they will not be able to harvest the same bears. And so you become a pawn inside of a system. And when you, when you bait a bear, it's less about like clay one on one and outsmarting a bear. It's more about I want to pick the specific bear I want to take and I'm going to eat this bear. Render as fat, tan is hide. I'm going to use this animal to the highest degree and I'm going to be selective about the animal that I take based upon the opportunity that I have, which varies from year to year. My, my judgment of what bear that I would take changes by the day. With a whitetail deer I might have in my mind what I'm gonna take and what I'm not. Like maybe I'm gonna take a doe, maybe I'm gonna take a 115 inch plus buck with a bear depending upon how much meat I need. If I need some grease, I, I might take the oldest, best male that I really got a shot of taking, which might be a three year old male. Does that make sense?

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Clay Newcomb]

Other years, on really good years, which the, it varies dramatically. Some years bears a very responsive debate and you can be highly selective. And I've taken some multiple 500 plus pound just monster, beautiful stomper bears that

[Josh Landbridge]

you might not have had an opportunity oh to harvest had it not been for bear.

[Clay Newcomb]

There was no chance we were going to kill any of those bears though we had them on camera in the middle of the night, sporadically. And so like Lake sitting there thinking he's going to shoot a 500 pound bear. I mean, by the time we actually got him in the stand, it was pretty much like, hey, that's not going to happen.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

That bear is long gone. He's on some White Oak Ridge devouring 18. He's just eating thousands of calories non stop.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yep.

[Clay Newcomb]

He doesn't want to be here. He's not here. And so that really doesn't answer the question, but bait and bears is, is critical for bear management.

[Josh Landbridge]

You mentioned the 50,000 bears. At one time there was 50,000 bears in Arkansas. That would have been at a time when populations in Arkansas were very small. And the, one of the main things that, that took that population way down was market hunting. Correct.

[Clay Newcomb]

Would that be more so landscape level logging than even market hunting?

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Logging and the loss of habitat had way. Had vastly more impact on black bear than market hunting.

[Josh Landbridge]

Wow. Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yep.

[Josh Landbridge]

Interesting.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay, well you would learn, you'll learn all this in American Bear coming out in February of 2027.

[Josh Landbridge]

I'll be first in line. All right, here's another clip.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

A bear is such a reclusive animal. They're an animal. The shadows.

[Josh Landbridge]

More biology here, folks.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

It's black.

[Clay Newcomb]

Made fun of me for that.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

Fur is for camouflage and it shows you where they want to live. The real reason that a bear is black is that the early ancestors of black bears, like deep, deep history, developed in the tropics. And there's a thing called Glogger's rule, which Glogger's rule means if an animal the closer they are to the equator, oftentimes furred mammals are darker because it reduces the potential for them to get like fungal infections. So modern geneticists have found that the ancestral color of the black bear, Ursus americanus, American black bear is black. So they can tell by DNA that a long time ago bears were black and color faded. Bears by genetics, they can tell developed in the Southwest U.S. about 9,000 years ago.

[Clay Newcomb]

So I never thought that was going to make the cut.

[Josh Landbridge]

And I cut a bunch out.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, yeah. It went on and on and on.

[Josh Landbridge]

When did you first become interested in bear. You know, you're writing this book. When did you first become interested in bear biology beyond just hunting bears?

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, when I, when I killed my first bear in 2001, that is what catalyzed me to, to really start studying about bears. And I, I was in college at the time and went back to the U of A and University of Arkansas and went up into the library and started looking for bear books and found at the time, what was all the research, academic research that had ever been done on our populations of bears? And it wasn't that many things. I mean, it was like, you know, probably less than. Less than 5, like, thesis projects that people had done and research that people had done. And I read it all. I read every word of it and just was fascinated by it and didn't really have a conclusion of why I was interested or it didn't. It didn't really. It wasn't like I was thinking, oh, I'm going to talk about this one day. I was just interested in it. So taking that first bear was. Well, I tell the story. I've told it many times. Maybe I haven't told it on the podcast before, but it's definitely in the

[Josh Landbridge]

book is if you guys haven't picked up on it. Clay wrote a book that's coming out in February.

[Clay Newcomb]

Start saving your pennies. When I. When I kill this bear, I walk up to it. My dad's with me, and this Was what year? 2001. October 1, 2001. At the crack of dawn, I shot this bear on the first day it was ever legal to hunt over bait. So I claim. And no one has disputed me in 20 years, so I'm no longer taking disputes because it's so long ago. If you think you shot one before me, you probably just don't remember. I say that I killed the first legal bear in the state of Arkansas over. Over bait. Now, I know people that killed him illegally before that.

[Josh Landbridge]

Have you turned them in?

[Clay Newcomb]

No, they're. Many of them are no longer with us, but. So it's a joke, but I actually think it's. It might be pretty close to true.

[Josh Landbridge]

If not.

[Clay Newcomb]

It was barely shooting light when a bear. When I watched a bear glide, it was so dim, Josh, that I couldn't really see the bear's legs. I couldn't quite make out his legs. It just looked like a floating black blob coming up from down the mountain. And he came right in, and I was just like, there he is.

[Josh Landbridge]

Do you have game pictures of him?

[Clay Newcomb]

No, we didn't have game cameras. The game cameras didn't really come out until later.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

2001. No.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

We were. But we had. I mean, we just knew there were bears there because they were. They're eating our bait. Oh, it was the most. One of the most exciting things in my life was that year when it became legal to bait bears, we started Baiting bears. And they started showing up, and we would go out there and we would occasionally see a bear, and it was just so exciting. And then I shoot this bear, and when I walk up to it, I have. I was 21 years old, and I had an incredibly hollow feeling that I knew nothing about this animal. And it was just this majestic, awesome animal. And, you know, I deer hunted and turkey hunted and small game hunted up until this point. And, you know, I knew what deer ate, where they lived, when they bred. I knew how to call a turkey. I knew about these animals. And so when I took one, there was a sense of connection to this thing. When I killed this bear, I realized I didn't know a thing about it. And this was a incredible animal. And honestly, many people of the generation before mine, and even my generation at the time viewed a bear as just kind of like a big raccoon, you know, just kind of like, yeah, shoot all of them, you know, and, man, when I walked up to it, that is not the sense that I had at all. It was just like, wow, yeah, this. What a beast. I cannot believe it was a good bear, too. I mean, it was. It was a nice bear. And, and that just set me on a. On a track to kind of.

[Josh Landbridge]

I remember when you got the rug back and I was like, wow. Like, it was one of the coolest things that I've ever, ever seen.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

Recto R E K T O J M 63 has a question of, of the many bears you've harvested, which one of them stand out in high quality flavor? Flavor? Can you tell the difference from bears that you've killed in different regions?

[Clay Newcomb]

No, I wish I could. And maybe somebody that paid more attention to their palate could. I will say that there's a lot of press about how bears in southeast Alaska taste fishy. And man, I've just. I've eaten two and I have not found them to.

[Josh Landbridge]

Really.

[Clay Newcomb]

I have. I have not. Bear. Bear. Newcomb killed one on the shore of the Alaskan coast this year that was eating muscles when he. When he, when he shot it. And I can't tell the difference between that bear and one here in Arkansas.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

But I think it probably maybe was luck of the draw because it's kind of indisputable that some of these bears that are eating a lot of fish and. And ocean type food, you know, have a kind of a fishy taste. But in the two that I have had, I have not. I have not had that.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay, well, we've got another clip Here. This one's a little bit longer. When Lake has his first interaction with shooting a bear.

[Clay Newcomb]

Based on the pictures, there are about 10 different bears that have been coming to this bait. A lot of them look the same. Two bears showed up on the first day that Lake saw that he chose to pass.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

Kind of want to shoot that back one.

[Clay Newcomb]

I think we got him, buddy.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

I just got word that Lake shot a bear. I don't really know anything about it.

[Clay Newcomb]

Lake gives the bear an hour before climbing down to assess the situation.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

That's my arrow.

[Clay Newcomb]

He finds his arrow, which clearly passed through the bear, but it hardly has any blood at all on it, which is not a good sign. And there's hardly any blood on the ground. The whole gang comes down from their stands to help look for Lake's bear. When there's barely a blood trail like this, it takes the whole camp. Luckily, we've got some guys with some experience. If we're gonna find this bear, these are the guys I'd want helping me. All right, we got blood right here, guys. Bear coming in.

[Josh Landbridge]

Clutch.

[Clay Newcomb]

This is the hair. Not much. And there is not much blood. And it's that dark red. Not great blood.

[Josh Landbridge]

What are you seeing? I can't hardly see where it's hitting the bear. I can see it blowing out the

[Clay Newcomb]

other side and then leaves. Does look a little high, don't it? I think I shot him too high.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah, I don't want to admit that, but I think that's what happened, man.

[Clay Newcomb]

It's easy to do. It's a bummer. I hate it for you, man. The truth of it is, that bear is gonna live and he's gonna be fine.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Good Lord, they're finally here. At long last, after fighting and yelling and fighting some more, Clay Newcomb and First Light have done it. They have built a pair of work bibs together. Not just any work bibs. We're talking the bear grease bibs from Clay. Now, I've watched Clay work long enough to know that he wasn't going to put his name on a pair of hunting pants pretending to be work bibs. And, boy, he did not. These are Clay's invention for things like breaking mules, rendering grease, kneeling in the dirt. I'm going to use them all the time. Trapping, working, fixing stuff. It doesn't matter. If you want good, durable, comfortable bibs, these are your bibs. Made from tough stretch duck cotton. They got briar proof chaps that run from cuff to thigh. They got pockets damn near everywhere. Again, comfortable and durable. Put them on you don't need to worry about having anything go bad. If it wasn't so hot right now outside, I'd be wearing them right now. But you can bet your ass I got them in my truck and they are up at the meat eater store right [e-mail]

[Josh Landbridge]

so we kind of see the arc of emotion of Lake from his first shot. You know, feels pretty good about it. And then all of a sudden it comes to the realization that the shot placement was not, not optimal. Why was it important to leave that whole sequence in the, in the film?

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, we've, we've always at meter just kind of showed things the way it happened, you know. And so yeah, it was a, as you could see, I mean it wasn't a compromise situation when Lake shot, I mean the bear was broadside probably 19 yards, I mean, which is a chip shot and he just hit a little high and in it, it, boy, that there, there really is an, a big hollow spot high on those bears and

[Josh Landbridge]

that bears are difficult because they've got so much fur. It's hard to see what's.

[Clay Newcomb]

I always say that a short haired, light colored animal like a white tailed deer, you can see the contour of its body and see where the shoulder comes up. You can see where the neck comes down, the shoulder bulges. You can see where the rib cage ends. A lot of times, you know, you see the, you can, you could really see and you can really aim where you want to on a black bear. It's almost like you are shooting at an inflated black trash bag. And so, and when you draw back and you're looking through a peep, oftentimes all you see is black. Especially if it's close.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Several bears that I've shot close, I've drawn back and all you see in your peep sight is black. And now lake being at 19 yards would have, would have had more aperture than that. But I mean he just said hi. He did. And you know, the film doesn't show the extent to which we went to look for that bear.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right. There were comments of well, you should look for it longer. You guys looked for that bear for hours and hours and hours.

[Clay Newcomb]

We did. We exhausted our efforts and used all the data points that we had. And I mean I will, I am fully confident that bear is still alive today. And I mean you would collect because

[Josh Landbridge]

it didn't hit anything vital.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's right. It just was high, passed through the back straps. I mean we could, we could see that. And, and you Know, lakes in an elevated stand. And you know, it's, it's kind of dumb to try to justify to the world that we did what we should have done, but.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

I mean, I grew up. My dad, Gary Believer Newcomb, was he. He was absolutely the biggest stickler I've ever been around in my life for. Given the fullest extent towards tracking an animal that you made any contact with with an arrow, you know, and so that's, that's been built deep inside of me for a long time. And those, those periphery hits on an animal, if you hit one too high or too low, like that animal is not going to die. Now if the shot had been far back, like if he had hit that shot, that bear far back and hit it in the guts.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Totally different story.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Because that bear, that's a mortal wound. That bear is going to die. And it's a completely different scenario. But we knew based upon the blood on the arrow, you know, we knew that there, there was not a chance of finding this animal. But we did exhaust. We spent. Yeah. We got back to camp way after midnight.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

And I mean, with multiple people. What. What if our. To. To help those people? What if our whole film was just us tracking the bear and it was a six hour film?

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

No, I mean, of course we show this like condensed version.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And it's a bummer. And you know, I hated it for Lake and I hate Ted Koppel was there.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

That was probably the, the most difficult part of it is, you know, when, when the America is watching, you're hoping that as a hunter you're going to put your best foot forward.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And we did in that just.

[Josh Landbridge]

And Lake wasn't being careless or a bad shot. It was just, I mean. Yeah. It just happened.

[Clay Newcomb]

Just happened. It could have, could have happened to me just as easy as it happened to him. And, and so we had to go talk with Ted Koppel about this.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

He didn't seem that worked up about it.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah. Like, like just felt sick about it because y' all had to come back to film with Ted Koppel here after he's been looking for this. This bear.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

And then it was the only thing on his mind while we're trying to do the interview.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

And then he went back out looking for it even more. So.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yep.

[Josh Landbridge]

Lake chose not to continue hunting.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yep.

[Josh Landbridge]

After he drew blood. What do you think about that decision?

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, I think it's a great decision. In some places that's the legal requirement, but not here, not most places. It's not. There's probably just a few places in the country where if you draw blood, you legally have to. Not your tag. So he, he kind of, he chose to do that and I thought it was a good move.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah. We talked about this a little bit on the last. On the last companion podcast when you were in Alaska hunting bears. But what are some of the pros and cons of hunting with a bow? And what can a hunter do to mitigate the opportunity to have a failed harvest?

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, shooting a bear is. They're a difficult animal, really. Well, I take that back. A well placed arrow is very efficient in taking that. People that are used to shooting white tailed deer can have trouble shooting a bear.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay. The structure of a bear is not different than a white tailed deer. And you aim low on a white. These are all the bullet points. I always say when you're shooting a whitetail deer with a bow, you aim low because that animal is going to react to the sound of the shot and duck. A bear is not a prey animal. He does not have the same flight response as a prey animal like a whitetail deer. They're not going to jump the string, so you don't need to aim low. One of one time I took a veteran whitetail hunter out, a guy that had killed 300 whitetails with a bow, and he, he shot a bear right through the brisket that we, that we didn't find. And it was because he was aiming low and tight, anticipating the bear dropping into there.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

So don't do that. And then the other thing that's slightly uncomfortable for whitetail hunters about bears is that you need to aim further back. Like you need to aim probably 4 to 6 inches back from the shoulder. And it's because, Josh, if we had a picture of a whitetail deer and a bear, a white tailed deer's legs are further back on its body compared to where its neck and brisket come down. Okay. Like imagine the head of a bear, right? And there's just his neck and then there's his shoulder.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

His front legs are up further.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Does that make sense?

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

A white tailed deer is back and you can actually see his chest stick out like this. And so it's not that their anatomy is different. I mean, in a wild way, all mammals are about the same. Heart, lungs, intestines, liver. All this stuff is the same. But the positioning of the legs on a bear is further forward. So it means you have to aim further back from the leg. That makes sense.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah, yeah, it does.

[Clay Newcomb]

So middle of the middle is what some people have said. I go not quite middle of the middle, almost middle of the middle, but then back a little bit towards the shoulder.

[Josh Landbridge]

Oh, back even further than that?

[Clay Newcomb]

No, no, back.

[Josh Landbridge]

I see back. Going back toward the head, towards the shoulder. Okay, excellent. Okay, we've got another clip here.

[Clay Newcomb]

Man, that's some beautiful bear grease or bear fat right there.

[Josh Landbridge]

Here we go.

[Clay Newcomb]

Were a little optimistic. Even I would say this was a.

[Josh Landbridge]

Well, let's go back here. I think it started a little late. There we go.

[Clay Newcomb]

I would say my predictions were a little optimistic. Even I would say this was below average. But we had somebody give us some bear fat. This is fresh bear fat. And we're render it down. I'm gonna put about a quarter inch of water in there so that when it hits the pan, it doesn't scald and burn. But we're just gonna put it right in that water.

[Josh Landbridge]

Good looking bear fat it is in there.

[Clay Newcomb]

Look at that oil like, boy, you want it to be that like light colored. See how that's like the color like chicken broth? Yeah, that's what you want it to stay the whole time. We're almost done. I mean you can see these like little pieces, like they're almost rendered down like as much as they're gonna render down. Gotcha. With our bare fat rendered, we're ready to, to put it in the jars. The lower and slower you cook it, the lighter the oil will be. My preference is to cook around 225 degrees for 45 minutes until it's the color of chicken broth.

[Josh Landbridge]

All right, well, why that's great. I think a great way to end the film with rendering the bear grease. Why has rendering bear grease become something that you're so passionate about?

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, let me address a little more functional question first.

[Josh Landbridge]

Is that. Okay, Absolutely.

[Clay Newcomb]

The best case scenario when you're, when you're rendering barefat is to grind it.

[Josh Landbridge]

So we have a question From Kevin Klein, 1851. I've got a question about rendering barefat. Would grinding the fat prior to rendering yield more oil? And does it. Does cutting or does cutting it in small cubes?

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, so. So in the field like that, you can cut it up into, into cubes just like we did. And the smaller the cubes, the better. And you can render down and you get a pretty good yield. You, you probably get 80, 20, like 80% oil, 20% solid cracklings.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And, and that's a decent yield. You will get probably close to 90% yield when you grind it.

[Josh Landbridge]

So what you find grind.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

Ideal.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. Yeah. And what you would do is you would. You would. You would get your bare fat, the chunks of it cold or even put it in a freezer and just like almost get it frozen and. And then cube it up and then put it in a grinder and then render that. And you know, there is no. It's kind of like making sorghum. You're just heating the fat. Like there's no recipe.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And you can.

[Josh Landbridge]

The water that you put in there just evaporates out.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's right. That's just. That's just to keep it from burning and scalding at first. It's just something that we do. Just put a little water down there. But you can render bear fat with any heat source. You know, I've. I've done it in a fry daddy. I've done it over fire and cast iron like a Dutch oven. Done it in a jet boil. I've done it in these like, turkey cookers with propane. I've done it on the, on a electric stove with just a, like a saucepan.

[Josh Landbridge]

And you're using like medium heat.

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, so that's, that's the only variable inside the whole process. You could just barely turn it up, you know, to 180 and let it cook down for longer periods of time.

[Josh Landbridge]

Theoretically, you could do it in a crock pot.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, yeah, people do. That's what that was. My next on my list was a crock pot. There's people that really love cooking it in a crock pot. What you can do, and it doesn't completely ruin it, but it's not ideal, is that you can burn it, like, if it gets to like 300 degrees, it's going to be dark. And it's not unusable. It's. It's still usable, but it does have a stronger odor. And it's. It just kind of has a little bit of a burnt taste. But much of the barrel oil that I have rendered has had a little bit of a burnt taste because it's easy for it to. To get too hot.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

And so low and slow. The 225 for 45 minutes is just a generalization, probably. I say that because it's just easy to cite those numbers. Probably it would be more like 210, 215 for a little under an hour would probably be ideal, but you just don't ever want it to get like, really dark and really hot.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

So

[Josh Landbridge]

what are some of your favorite modern uses for bear grease?

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, I'VE got, I've got bear grease on my face right now.

[Josh Landbridge]

Oh, really?

[Clay Newcomb]

I've, I've, for, for several years have been putting bear grease on my face. After, after we had bear grease chemically analyzed by one of the top lipid labs in the country that we report in our book, what we find. But what we found made me want to put it on my face every day.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

So. But we cook with it. Frying with it is the best thing that I do.

[Josh Landbridge]

I mean, you use it to, to oil your saddles.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

You use it.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, you can use it, I mean, to soften leather. But the, the, to me, the premium use is for pan frying pan, either fish or meat. We. You can use barrel oil and substitution for anything that calls for oil. So any cake recipe, any biscuit recipe that calls for Crisco or oil, you can substitute in barrel pie crust. And if you cook it too long, it can have a burnt flavor. If you cook it just right, it really doesn't have a flavor. You can make bare oil chocolate chip cookies that just. It's like, it's like using shortening. Basically before these processed oils and shortening, animal fat oils were used for all this stuff. And so historically. Oh, man. I could go on and on, but the first time the word bear grease shows up in the literature, in the record of America was in 1541, July 5th. Hernando de Soto, his scribe, a guy named Elva, wrote when they encountered Native Americans in East Tennessee, he writes, they have what they call bear grease stored in gourds, which is like olive oil and butter. And that's the way he described it. Like olive oil and butter. And what we found when we did the chemical analysis of black bear fat was that it actually is very similar to olive oil and chemical composition.

[Josh Landbridge]

That's really. Would they not have been doing this, like, in Europe and Bavaria and that kind of thing?

[Clay Newcomb]

Black bears are only in North America.

[Josh Landbridge]

Oh, really?

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Josh Landbridge]

I don't think I realized that. What bears do they have in Europe?

[Clay Newcomb]

Ursus americanus, baby.

[Josh Landbridge]

I guess they're Ursus americanus now.

[Clay Newcomb]

They, they would have been rendering Asiatic black bear fat in, in Asia and in the places. But, but Ursus americanus is the only. I mean, it's only here. It's endemic to North America and only on the North American continent.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

An Asiatic black bear is. Looks similar to a black bear, but they're just not completely different species.

[Josh Landbridge]

Well, I'm gonna have to read the book.

[Clay Newcomb]

Black bears are actually genetically more kin to grizzly bears. And polar bears than Asiatic black bears.

[Josh Landbridge]

Fascinating.

[Clay Newcomb]

Isn't that wild?

[Josh Landbridge]

It is wild, yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Absolutely wild. But the black bear was the premium bear on planet Earth for fat because of their diet. So in Europe, they would have had some bear fat, but it would have been brown bear fat.

[Josh Landbridge]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

And so when these Europeans came over here and in the Roanoke colonies, some of the first correspondence that they had with England, I mean, like the first guys that came over and set up a colony, and they were doing it to make money to like, export stuff back to Britain. Bear grease was in their list of stuff that, hey, there's some pretty wild bear grease over here. Different than anything that we have that became a commodity.

[Josh Landbridge]

Good stuff.

[Clay Newcomb]

In the mid-1700s, 14 of the exports coming out of New Orleans was American black bear grease going to Europe. 14%. Wow. All the exports out of New Orleans was black bear fat, Much of it stored in skin hides in what they called a deer of oil. When. Oh, wait till you read the book. When they kill the deer. There's this historical accounts of when these guys would kill a deer and they would describe what would happen, what native Americans would do. If you killed a bear, you immediately went and tried to kill a deer.

[Additional Commentator/Expert]

Oh.

[Clay Newcomb]

And you would skin it and tube skin it and basically tie off the legs and the neck. The neck would be the spout of this bag, this deerskin bag, and you would completely fill it with oil and then seal it off. And that would be what you called a deer of oil.

[Josh Landbridge]

A deer of oil.

[Clay Newcomb]

Some of the first travel riders that ever came to the Ozarks described. He described what he thought was bizarre, but a deer of oil hanging on someone's house that he walked. He was like. They had a. I mean, he described that. So wild, wild history of bear grease in this country. Bizarre and wild history. And we documented it in a really thorough fashion.

[Josh Landbridge]

So no bears killed.

[Clay Newcomb]

No bears were killed.

[Josh Landbridge]

The quoted very difficult. The baits go cold. But still, this film was, like, satisfying. In your opinion, can you have a successful hunt without harvesting an animal?

[Clay Newcomb]

No, it's all. Did you write these questions? Wait, did my hero, producer, mustache icon?

[Josh Landbridge]

I don't know who wrote that.

[Clay Newcomb]

Best friend a guy could ever have Josh, filmmaker write that.

[Josh Landbridge]

I don't know who wrote that question. I don't know who wrote that.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, it's like. I mean, I guess that kind of question. Clickbait, Social media question of the ages.

[Josh Landbridge]

You know, what does a successful hunt

[Clay Newcomb]

look like to you then when you kill something? No, you know, I'm kidding. You Know, you just, you're just not always gonna kill. Now, were we disappointed? Massively. Was I surprised? Yes. Was I pretty confident we were gonna get a bear? Yes, I was. And we did have an opportunity.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

You know, and I passed a bear that was legal to have killed.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

I only saw one bear in five days. That first afternoon had about 100 pound boar come in. I mean, technically that would have been a legal animal to take.

[Josh Landbridge]

Brent was hunting on some property that he had secured and he, his arrow deflected on a little tiny branch.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. Brent actually had a pretty nice bore come in the first day that he missed.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

And we didn't, you know, just limitations of making a film. We, we didn't have a cameraman with Brent, which we should have. We should have, we should have learned that. Always have a cameraman with Brent.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right. If someone has, who's, who's never hunted, watches this film, what do you want to be their takeaway?

[Clay Newcomb]

Just to see the, the history, the culture, the, the bigger picture of hunting. It's, it's not just about harvesting an animal, but it's, it's a lifestyle, a regional lifestyle.

[Josh Landbridge]

Great.

[Clay Newcomb]

So thank you so much for joining us on this companion podcast of Meat Eaters 12 and 26 film. If you haven't seen our Arkansas Bear Camp film, go to the Meat Eater YouTube channel and check it out. You can leave your questions and comments there. Hey, it's not lost on us that all of you watch this content and it's really great. It's the, one of the, one of the joys inside of my life is to be able to make content. And man, I, I recognize what a privilege it is to get to document this stuff because I know so many of these people out there are doing stuff cooler, better, faster, stronger and more compelling than what we're doing. I mean, that's the truth. I think there's a, inside of society. There's sometimes this idea that the guys that are on TV are the best.

[Josh Landbridge]

Right.

[Clay Newcomb]

We are not. Does that, is that relevant? To me, it's relevant. I'm just, I just want to say thank you. And so many of you are. The people that I look up to and, and are, are teach me so much about hunting. I mean, we're, we're not the best. We just love it. I, I do think, I do think I love it as much as anybody.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Not the best.

[Josh Landbridge]

Absolutely.

[Clay Newcomb]

So it's a, it's a privilege to just document it.

[Josh Landbridge]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

You know, so thanks everybody. Guys watching, really appreciate it.

[Podcast Host]

This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.