This week on Bear Grease, your host Clay Newcomb, brings you this second part in our series on Plott Hounds and how they’ve been interwoven into the lives of the Appalachian people. Developed in isolation deep in the Great Smoky Mountains, the Plott breed was tailor made for the rugged landscape, its people, its bears. The folks who’ve dedicated big blocks of their life to this bear hound are called Plott Men and Women. If you cut them they bleed brindle and in the very niche hound world, some rise to the top as Plott Royalty - and one such man is the late Berry Tarlton of Greenville, Tennessee. His life will give us a much bigger vista than just dogs, but a rare, authentic peak into Appalachia, its culture, its people, and ways. It will be told to us both first person through an archival interview of Berry and also through the collective voices of his grandson and great-grandson, Tracey and Ben Jones. Berry started the Houston Valley strain of Plotts, he’s in the Plott Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Bear Hunters Hall of fame. He was also a legendary lawman who took up a badge and gun in the name of family honor and spent decades chasing down and busting moonshiners in East Tennessee. The stories are as wild as these mountains themselves including car bombing, shoot outs, and being bushwhacked with a Tommy gun. You’re about to see that Plott Hounds are just part of the plot. We really doubt you’re going to want to miss this one…
Connect with Clay and MeatEater
Clay on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube
Shop Bear Grease Merch
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ep. 202: Turkey Stories - Shot in the Face and Three-Wheelers (Part 2)
Ep. 201: This Country Life - Working with My Dad
Ep. 200: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - New Saddle and Owl Hootin’
Ep. 199: This Country Life - Mississippi River Expedition
Ep. 198: Turkey Stories - Spring's Noble Decree (Part 1)
Ep. 197: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - The Black Bear Bonanza
Ep. 196: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Live from the Black Bear Bonanza
Ep. 195: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Turkey Season Therapy
Ep. 194: American Wilderness - Unmanaged Land (Part 3)
Ep. 193: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Fishing with Nets
Ep. 192: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Homo Americanis & a Missouri Game Warden
Ep. 191: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Hunting and Fishing Food
Ep. 190: American Wilderness - Rock and Ice (Part 2)
Ep. 189: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Coon Hide and Seek and the UKC
Ep. 188: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Luke McFadden & American Wilderness
Ep. 187: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Things Lost and Found
Ep. 186: American Wilderness (Part 1)
Ep. 185: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Oh, Canada
Ep. 184: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Final Donnie Baker Discussion
Ep. 183: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Hunting Heritage
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The MeatEater Podcast
Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective
Cal’s Week in Review
Stuff You Should Know
Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know