Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two to teach you.
Speaker 1: If she can hit a cow, she can hit a turkey.
Speaker 1: The good fortune continues as we navigate through Turkey season
Speaker 1: with friends and family and the show me State. I
Speaker 1: had two amazing hunts back to back that I promised
Speaker 1: to tell you about last week. There were two firsts
Speaker 1: and they were fifteen hours apart. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you all about both of them, but first I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you a story. We've got another listener submitted
Speaker 1: story that I'm going to tell you this week and
Speaker 1: imperfectly fits the message of our second helping hunts coming together.
Speaker 1: It was sent in by This Country Life listener Jordan
Speaker 1: Crawford from Winnsboro, South Carolina. This is one prime example
Speaker 1: of a plan coming together, staying focused when you think
Speaker 1: maybe it didn't without further ado and Jordan Crawford's words
Speaker 1: and my voice here it is a few springs back.
Speaker 1: The season started off pretty strong. I doubled up with
Speaker 1: my brother for the first time. You're in the first week,
Speaker 1: But after that nothing. The woods were quiet except for
Speaker 1: a case gobble followed by complete silence and no interest
Speaker 1: in checking out my best imitation of a hen cutting
Speaker 1: and yepping. A few weeks of bouncing around on different properties,
Speaker 1: walking and calling had produced zero Just exercise. Now, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, anytime you get to spend time hunting
Speaker 1: America's greatest game bird, you should be appreciating it. The
Speaker 1: weeks of silence and turkeys have absolutely no interest in
Speaker 1: playing the game can wear on a man's mind. It
Speaker 1: was the last day of our season in the part
Speaker 1: of our state, and as I said at work, waiting
Speaker 1: for quitting time, all I could think about was squeezing
Speaker 1: in one last hunt. I waited my options, and I
Speaker 1: decided to hunt my ant's property. I figured there might
Speaker 1: be a long beard hanging around her cow pasture that
Speaker 1: would give me one last opportunity. I left working. I
Speaker 1: pulled into my ant's driveway when just a few precious
Speaker 1: hours of the season left, I got ready. I grabbed
Speaker 1: a shotgun and headed for the logging road that looped
Speaker 1: all the way around the property. It ended at the
Speaker 1: bob wire fence in the far corner of the cow pasture.
Speaker 1: I walked the road, stopping to call occasion and listening
Speaker 1: for any gobbler that was willing to reveal his location.
Speaker 1: The silence was broken only by songbirds and a few
Speaker 1: crows that were having an altercation with a red tailed hawk. Now,
Speaker 1: with a little over an hour left of season, I
Speaker 1: finally made it to the fence where I could peek
Speaker 1: into that pasture and see if there were any turkeys
Speaker 1: that were spending their afternoon out there before heading to roost.
Speaker 1: A long hen caught my eye working her way down
Speaker 1: the fence line about two hundred yards on the other
Speaker 1: side of the pasture. While I washed her feet down
Speaker 1: that fence row, a half dozen more hens popped out
Speaker 1: from behind a knole, following right behind the lead hen.
Speaker 1: A few seconds later, three red heads popped up over
Speaker 1: the knoll, and three gobblers fell in line right behind
Speaker 1: the hens. Out of nowhere. The three long beards started
Speaker 1: fighting and it was hard to tell who was getting
Speaker 1: the better of who. It was an all out brawl.
Speaker 1: As I watched the fight unfold, I noticed the lead
Speaker 1: hen was headed towards a group of cedar trees that
Speaker 1: was three hundred yards down the fence line, a spot
Speaker 1: that I thought would be perfect set up to fill
Speaker 1: one of the two tags I had left in my pocket.
Speaker 1: So I did my best impression of Forest Gump and
Speaker 1: I made a big loop through the woods to get
Speaker 1: around to the cedars. And running through the woods was
Speaker 1: about as graceful as you can imagine a man running
Speaker 1: through the woods toting a shotgun it was unloaded, and
Speaker 1: wearing a turkey vest full of calls, extra gloves, face
Speaker 1: mask and shells. I made it to the cluster of
Speaker 1: ceedars undetected and tucked into one of them, just looking
Speaker 1: down that fence line in the direction that I had
Speaker 1: seen that flock of turkeys. After taking a few minutes
Speaker 1: to catch my breath, I let out a few soft
Speaker 1: yelps silence. After twenty minutes of quiet time and no
Speaker 1: sightings of anything, time was my enemy now, with precious
Speaker 1: minutes ticking off the clock, I grabbed my slate column
Speaker 1: let out a series of fighting perrs, hoping those gobblers
Speaker 1: were still in the mood to duke it out. Five
Speaker 1: minutes later, I think I hear the base from someone's
Speaker 1: car speakers. Now was only one hundred yards from the
Speaker 1: main road, and that wouldn't have been uncommon to hear.
Speaker 1: Then I thought, wait a minute, I don't hear a
Speaker 1: car coming down the road. Hold on, that's a gobbler drumming,
Speaker 1: and it's directly behind me. I slowly turned my head
Speaker 1: and I picked through the limbs of that cedar tree
Speaker 1: to see a gobbling full strut at twenty yards. Time
Speaker 1: was slipping away in the season, and I only had
Speaker 1: one option. If I was planning on walking back to
Speaker 1: the truck with a bird, throw it over my shoulder.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to turn around, pop out from behind
Speaker 1: this tree, and hope he doesn't take off before giving
Speaker 1: me a good shot. Now, when I did it, he
Speaker 1: must have been just as surprised as I was. When
Speaker 1: I first laid my eyes on him. Right behind me,
Speaker 1: he broke strut and stuck his head straight up in
Speaker 1: the air. You couldn't ask for a better shot boom.
Speaker 1: To my complete and utter dismay, he took off like
Speaker 1: a fighter jet, up and over the big white oaks
Speaker 1: in the direction of the creek. He cleared those big
Speaker 1: trees without any hesitation and disappeared. How did I miss
Speaker 1: that turkey? There's no way. Everything felt right. The beat
Speaker 1: of my shotgun was right at the base of his
Speaker 1: neck when I pulled the trigger. I took a few
Speaker 1: moments to collect my thoughts, and I walked over to
Speaker 1: where he was standing when I shot. Well, there's the
Speaker 1: waden of a few small black feathers laying on the ground.
Speaker 1: That those should have come from his neck. I started
Speaker 1: walking in the direction he flew, still believing I hadn't
Speaker 1: missed ISAI exacted the side of the hardwood ridge. Nothing.
Speaker 1: I dropped down into the bottom and I started walking
Speaker 1: the creek. As I made my way around a big
Speaker 1: pine tree on the bank near a bend in the creek.
Speaker 1: There he was laying in the middle graveyard dead man.
Speaker 1: I was over joyed to find that bird and to
Speaker 1: be able to wrap my tag around his leg on
Speaker 1: the right back of the house. I couldn't help but
Speaker 1: think what if I hadn't taken the time to study
Speaker 1: the ground where he was standing. What if I hadn't
Speaker 1: looked for him after he flew like he did that
Speaker 1: when I thought he hadn't been touched, he would layd
Speaker 1: in that creek and been cold food. And that's no
Speaker 1: way for the King of Spring to make his trip
Speaker 1: to the Turkey woods in the sky anyway. More of
Speaker 1: the story. You think you've mortally wounded turkey, put in
Speaker 1: the effort to make sure he got away cleanly. I
Speaker 1: know we expect him to just flop when we pull
Speaker 1: the trigger, at least show some kind of sign of
Speaker 1: being hit. That wasn't the case this time. Nothing really
Speaker 1: surprises me when it comes to these birds, but that
Speaker 1: one flying off like he did after being shot in
Speaker 1: the head, only to make his final approach and land
Speaker 1: in a creek. Honestly, it blew my mind. And according
Speaker 1: to Jordan Crawford of Winnsboro, South Carolina, that's just how
Speaker 1: that happened. My first week in Missouri turkey hunting this
Speaker 1: year was like no other I'd had in that area.
Speaker 1: I hunt a lot of field turkeys there, and everyone
Speaker 1: that's turkey hunted knows that they can be some of
Speaker 1: the toughest nuts to crack. They can set out in
Speaker 1: the middle of the bald open strutton and gobblet in
Speaker 1: relatives safely from hunter's arms with anything less than a
Speaker 1: sniper rifle or cannon. Now Missouri has yet to allow
Speaker 1: those two platforms for the legal take of Meliagres Galipavo silvestris,
Speaker 1: the scientific name assigned to the object of my obsession
Speaker 1: by old Carolus Lenius of Sweden way back in seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, some two hundred and twenty seven years before
Speaker 1: I would send my first one to the promised land.
Speaker 1: Nice job, Caroless, but Turkey is way easier to spell anyway.
Speaker 1: I left off last week, when Isaac Neil and I
Speaker 1: were walking back to the side by side, I told
Speaker 1: twenty three pounds of feathered goodness after giving him the
Speaker 1: old one too, before the sun had a chance to
Speaker 1: get much higher than the fence posts that surrounded the
Speaker 1: pasture where I just throw punched him. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what that was in store for me over the
Speaker 1: next twenty four hours, and had I known, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to sleep that night. I'd actually planned
Speaker 1: on takeing a nap that afternoon at Toby and Mary's house.
Speaker 1: I've told you about them before, but if you're new
Speaker 1: to this country life, I've been going to their house
Speaker 1: for many moons now, chasing turkeys and visiting with them
Speaker 1: and their family and friends, who've all become just like mine.
Speaker 1: A turkey hunting is really just an excuse to go
Speaker 1: see them, and I was taking their youngest daughter, Emily
Speaker 1: the next morning on her first turkey hunt. Emily has
Speaker 1: grown now, but a few episodes ago I told you
Speaker 1: about when she was about six or seven, along with
Speaker 1: her older sister Peyton, they were quite a dynamic duo
Speaker 1: of innocence and beauty. Emily was the one that gave
Speaker 1: her pet cow tea bone a rock to the head
Speaker 1: after she sweetly called it over to the fence. I
Speaker 1: was hoping to give her the same opportunity bright and
Speaker 1: early the next day with one of the other turkeys
Speaker 1: i'd heard that morning. Then my friend Quentin called me
Speaker 1: and he said, I'm going hunting this afternoon if you
Speaker 1: want to go with me with the only thing better
Speaker 1: than a nap in the afternoon after you filled your
Speaker 1: allotted turkey tag during the first week of the season,
Speaker 1: It's helping someone else feel theirs. I'm in the truck
Speaker 1: and on the way. This year was the first time
Speaker 1: in my experience where you could hunt in the afternoon
Speaker 1: in Missouri. Now, I'm not sure whose idea that was,
Speaker 1: but here's to you, mister. Let's hunt Missouri turkeys in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. Man Quentin had heard several that morning and
Speaker 1: even called one in for his wife Chelsea to shoot.
Speaker 1: We were paddling into new waters being able to hunt
Speaker 1: in the afternoon. I was betting on it not being
Speaker 1: a disappointment. I should have doubled down. We were hunting
Speaker 1: his family farm, and he knew it well and knew
Speaker 1: where the turkey's like to move throughout the day, so
Speaker 1: when we walked into the area, he suggested we start.
Speaker 1: I was a little surprised when we called and got
Speaker 1: no response. We thought better of moving any further and
Speaker 1: decided to stay put. It was the first day and
Speaker 1: there was no reason to bump the turkeys out of
Speaker 1: that area of us spooking them. Besides, even if they
Speaker 1: didn't come into where we'd set up, we should be
Speaker 1: able to roost one for him to hunt the next morning. Well,
Speaker 1: I goid it. Emily now we'd been cracking out calls
Speaker 1: every fifteen or twenty minutes since we sat down, and
Speaker 1: after an hour and a half we heard a faint
Speaker 1: gobble to the northwest, bingo, we're in business now. Patients
Speaker 1: and time were on our side once again. We each
Speaker 1: fought the urge to call very often, and when we did,
Speaker 1: we didn't do a whole lot of excited calling or caculing,
Speaker 1: mostly just yep's loud enough to let him know that
Speaker 1: where we were and we were inviting him to come
Speaker 1: join the party. About twenty minutes into the game, and
Speaker 1: with him ever so slowly said and then closer, another
Speaker 1: one fired off to the southwards. How fortunate we were
Speaker 1: set up in some cedar trees at the top of
Speaker 1: a ridge line that had a pasture to the east
Speaker 1: behind us and woods to the west in front of
Speaker 1: us where the turkeys were now. Had there been more
Speaker 1: leaves on the trees and bushes, we'd probably gotten up
Speaker 1: and moved a little closer, cutting the distance and splitting
Speaker 1: the difference between them. If they didn't have hens with them,
Speaker 1: they should come on in. If they ran into some
Speaker 1: between where they were now and where we sat now,
Speaker 1: that might shut them up and we might not even
Speaker 1: hear another peep. That would be the only motivation to
Speaker 1: get closer. But the leaves were still a week away
Speaker 1: from putting out to any consequence, and you could see
Speaker 1: forever down through the woods. Moving closer was a gamble
Speaker 1: we couldn't afford to take. So we waited and we listened,
Speaker 1: and for the next forty five minutes we were treated
Speaker 1: to a lot of afternoon goblin while they moved ever
Speaker 1: so slowly closer to where we sat up. Then, when
Speaker 1: I thought they'd never get here, they were. They got
Speaker 1: together at about sixty yards, one of them strutting and
Speaker 1: the other one walking right behind him. As they approached
Speaker 1: the two decoys that we'd set out in front of us,
Speaker 1: a hen and a three quarter strutting jake, we're at
Speaker 1: twenty yards. Inn't exactly the wrong spot. I set them up,
Speaker 1: thinking the turkey's approaching would be at a at a
Speaker 1: bigger angle. But they came out riding the open and
Speaker 1: were walking straight toward us, with the decoys directly in between. Now,
Speaker 1: why is this not ideal, you asked, Well, you turkey
Speaker 1: hunters know it gives them more of an opportunity to
Speaker 1: look past the decoys and see us than if they'd
Speaker 1: had their attention been focused off to one side or
Speaker 1: the other. The strutter was on his way to start
Speaker 1: slinging hands at that jake when the dude that was
Speaker 1: following him smelled a rat and started to make tracks
Speaker 1: out of that quicker than he'd made them in. The
Speaker 1: strutter forgot. I all about wanted to beat up my
Speaker 1: decoy and was doing his dead level best to get
Speaker 1: back from whence he came When Quentin sent him a
Speaker 1: load of lead shot at twenty yards. It was a
Speaker 1: swing and a miss. Both turkeys flew at the sound
Speaker 1: of the shot and lit at about fifty This time
Speaker 1: he was right on the nogging And I just watched
Speaker 1: my friend shoot a gobbler on Missouri's inaugural afternoon season opener.
Speaker 1: Nice job, Boom boom, What a perfect day. Now counted
Speaker 1: my turkey that I told you about last week. That
Speaker 1: was two setups on two hunts on the same day,
Speaker 1: with two turkeys getting smashed. We walked out and I
Speaker 1: headed back to Toby's. I hadn't been there long. One
Speaker 1: old Quentin boom Boom sent me a text of his
Speaker 1: dad sitting behind a big turkey. Apparently he'd got home
Speaker 1: and heard one gobble behind his house not long after
Speaker 1: he got there, and he called his dad. Dad dad
Speaker 1: came over and they called it in My gosh, would
Speaker 1: this carnage ever end? The next morning, I was back
Speaker 1: at my old stomping grounds with Emily in toe, and
Speaker 1: we were standing where I stood the morning before I
Speaker 1: described in last week's episode. I owled and rite at
Speaker 1: gobling time. I got an answer on the ridge to
Speaker 1: the west of where we stood, about three hundred yards away.
Speaker 1: I picked out a tree for Emily. We listened to
Speaker 1: that turket gobble for quite a while. Fly down time came.
Speaker 1: I gave him a few tree yips and he answered immediately.
Speaker 1: I beat on my chest imitating wings flying down on
Speaker 1: the ground, and he answered that too. Then for the
Speaker 1: next twenty minutes after he hit the ground, he answered
Speaker 1: me every time I called to him. I didn't call much,
Speaker 1: just enough to keep up with him and to make
Speaker 1: sure he was interested. I had the decoys straight out
Speaker 1: west in front of Emily at the edge of the
Speaker 1: foo food plot. The gobbler would enter from the north
Speaker 1: and walk south to where we'd set up. My plan
Speaker 1: was to have him at stabbing distance, solely focused on
Speaker 1: the Jake decoy when Emily got the green light to shoot,
Speaker 1: And he must have read the script, because that's just
Speaker 1: what happened. It was turkey planning and execution to perfection.
Speaker 1: Emily drilled her first turkey on her first turkey hunt,
Speaker 1: and I had the honor of calling it in for
Speaker 1: and witnessing it all. That's a special moment for folks
Speaker 1: like us, the people who value the creatures that lure
Speaker 1: us each spring into nature. We all share that, regardless
Speaker 1: of how you pronounce the word acre. When she was little,
Speaker 1: she made me watch her do cartwheels across the living
Speaker 1: room floor until I got dizzy. She sat beside me
Speaker 1: on the couch, forcing me to watch the worst kids
Speaker 1: movie ever made. Don't believe it's the worst, check out
Speaker 1: Little Heroes three. It's so bad. Made me want to
Speaker 1: go to the dentist just to be somewhere away from
Speaker 1: the TV it was playing on. But Emily liked it,
Speaker 1: and to her it was special and she wanted to
Speaker 1: share it with me, And that's all the matter. Now
Speaker 1: she's all grown up and she picked me again to
Speaker 1: share something special. Her first turny don't tell her that
Speaker 1: if she wanted me to, I watched that dumb old
Speaker 1: movie with her all over again. That's gonna buy do
Speaker 1: it for me this week. I'm so thankful for all
Speaker 1: of you that have shared your stories with us, and man,
Speaker 1: do we have a lot of them to go through.
Speaker 1: Just know that we read them, and when and if
Speaker 1: we find the spot they fit, I'll share them on here.
Speaker 1: If you don't hear me read yours, just know that
Speaker 1: we appreciate your efforts in sending them in and hopefully
Speaker 1: it will eventually have a place to put. Y'all keep
Speaker 1: them coming. I haven't read a dud yet. Stories are
Speaker 1: just like biscuits. They're all good, some are just better.
Speaker 1: Now until next week, This is Brent Reeves signing off.
Speaker 1: Y'all be careful.