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Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves

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Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.

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Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share

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Speaker 1: my experiences and life lessons. This Country Life is presented

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Speaker 1: by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you

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Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,

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Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some

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Speaker 1: stories to share, flying deer and counting turkeys. Turkey season

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Speaker 1: is getting craked up just about everywhere over the next

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Speaker 1: few weeks, and your old uncle Brent has got turkeys

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Speaker 1: on the brain. I got a good story from nineteen

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Speaker 1: years ago that involves my son, perseverance and a question

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Speaker 1: that's still unanswered. I'm gonna tell it and let you decide.

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Speaker 1: But first I'm going to tell you this story. This

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Speaker 1: story comes from This Country Life listener David Jackson. David

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Speaker 1: lives in Lead Hill, Arkansas, which is in Boone County

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Speaker 1: and close enough to Missouri to hit the show Me

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Speaker 1: State with the twenty two. I myself have chased turkeys

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Speaker 1: near Leadhill many moons ago, picking a few of the

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Speaker 1: ripe ones and toting them home to the flat land.

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Speaker 1: But David has offered the following for your approval. So

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Speaker 1: in David's words and my voice, here we go. It

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Speaker 1: was open in the morning a turkey season spring two

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Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. My dad had recently passed away, leaving

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Speaker 1: my sister made the family's hunt farm east of Hardy, Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: For several years, my Dad, my sons, and I had

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Speaker 1: enjoyed hunting and camping there. Lots of memories were made.

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Speaker 1: As you can imagine, my brother in law had never

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Speaker 1: gotten a turkey, so I decided that this would be

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Speaker 1: the perfect time to introduce him to our farm and

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Speaker 1: hopefully both of us would be successful. But Dad and

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Speaker 1: I had taken deer, turkey and squirrel over there for

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Speaker 1: years from that farm, but the turkey population was superior

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Speaker 1: to that of the deer. They were everywhere back in

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Speaker 1: the day. This cool Chris morning turned out to be

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Speaker 1: exactly what we had hoped for. Clear skies do on

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Speaker 1: the ground, hot coffee in the thermost, and most importantly,

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Speaker 1: knowledge of where the turkey is normally roosted. At least

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Speaker 1: we thought we knew. The property north of Ireland was

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Speaker 1: known for noise, late nights and more noise. This must

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Speaker 1: have been the reason for the unexpected relocatetion of what

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Speaker 1: we called our predictable turkey roost, causing them to move

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Speaker 1: on the adjacent ridge on our southern border. I sent

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Speaker 1: my brother in law to the normal roosting ridge while

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Speaker 1: I chose to huddle up on the ground on the

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Speaker 1: edge of an ATV trail near the northwest corner of

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Speaker 1: our land. I just knew my hunting partner was at

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Speaker 1: the perfect spot. I'd seen them flying down many mornings

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Speaker 1: near this location. What we expected to happen that morning

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Speaker 1: did not happen, not even close daylight broke in a

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Speaker 1: few minutes past when I heard goblin to the south.

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Speaker 1: I had never heard a sound from my brother in

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Speaker 1: law's location, so I decided to just stay planted and

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Speaker 1: wait a few more minutes. What I didn't know was

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Speaker 1: that my brother in law also heard the gobbles too,

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Speaker 1: and he decided to leave his spot and head to

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Speaker 1: the south ridge as fast as he could go. Now,

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Speaker 1: have you ever hunted on a ridge? Sounds sometimes seemed

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Speaker 1: closer than they really are. His thought was the turkey

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Speaker 1: was close, but in reality it was much further. Ir

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Speaker 1: ATV trails allowed us to walk between various deer stands

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Speaker 1: on the property with ease. You could cover lots of

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Speaker 1: ground quickly and quietly. My brother in law made it

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Speaker 1: out to the trail just fine, but apparently had made

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Speaker 1: quite a bit of noise going through the woods from

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Speaker 1: that ridge he was on to the trail. What neither

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Speaker 1: of us knew was that there were several deer bedded

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Speaker 1: on that ridge right between us. I was thinking of

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Speaker 1: gathering up my stuff and heading south to that ridge

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Speaker 1: before they flew down and I heard the noise. Now,

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Speaker 1: I've heard deer running through the woods hundreds of times,

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Speaker 1: but from a deer stand. This was my first time

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Speaker 1: to ever hear him running from a seated position next

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Speaker 1: to a main trail in the dark. He had apparently

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Speaker 1: busted the deer from their bed, causing them to run

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Speaker 1: for their deer lives, and it was fight or flight,

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Speaker 1: and they chose the ladder. Fortunately for me, Most of

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Speaker 1: the deer ran just to the right, but one deer

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Speaker 1: one deer did not. I'm guessing it was a doe,

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Speaker 1: but I really couldn't say. It was pretty dark. All

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Speaker 1: I know is that that deer was big, But I mean,

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Speaker 1: running right down the trail right in my direction. This

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Speaker 1: dear didn't know I was on the ground in his path,

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Speaker 1: and I suspected at the last second it must have

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Speaker 1: thrown huh a new stuff on the ground. Well, that

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Speaker 1: stump was me and it jumped over my head. And

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Speaker 1: the last second was one of its back legs grazing

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Speaker 1: my left knee cap as it flew over me. But

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Speaker 1: it felt like someone took a baseball bat and swung

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Speaker 1: it at my leg. That that really just happened and

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Speaker 1: my injured? Is my knee? Okay? Are there any more

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Speaker 1: ore coming down that trail? Questions galower flashed through my mind,

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Speaker 1: but thankfully only that one made contact. Now I had

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Speaker 1: no clue that my brother in law had moved and

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Speaker 1: jumped his deer, and neither did he. I also didn't

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Speaker 1: know he decided to circle around and head to the

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Speaker 1: same ridge I was going to as well. We had

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Speaker 1: both heard the goblin on the south ridge and both

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Speaker 1: decided to head that way, coming in from opposite directions.

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Speaker 1: Even with the deer collision, I managed to get there

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Speaker 1: before he did, which turned out to be a blessing

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Speaker 1: and a curse. My path was pretty much straight up

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Speaker 1: the ridge while his was over and around and then

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Speaker 1: up quickly in position. A short time later, I saw

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Speaker 1: the tom's head and beard and ranged just twenty yards away,

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Speaker 1: and I let him have a three and a half

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Speaker 1: Winchester number five. That was the blessing. My brother in

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Speaker 1: law hadn't made it there yet. It was still down

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Speaker 1: the hill on the other side and was out of

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Speaker 1: range of my shot. That was also a blessing. The

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Speaker 1: curse was that I would have preferred him to be

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Speaker 1: the one to get that bird. It would have been

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Speaker 1: his first. He came running and asked me, did you shoot? Ah? Yep,

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Speaker 1: it was me. We were both shocked to see one another,

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Speaker 1: him thinking I was far away to the north of me,

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Speaker 1: thinking he was still up there where I had left him.

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Speaker 1: While hunter and gun safety were drilled into our heads

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Speaker 1: from childhood, this is case and point that you could

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Speaker 1: never be too careful. We celebrated and enjoyed fresh fried

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Speaker 1: turkey over the next couple of days. I supported the

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Speaker 1: sowordine for a week and wished that dear jump could

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Speaker 1: have been documented on video tape. Backed several turkeys since

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Speaker 1: that Chris Spring morning, but none have been more painful.

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Speaker 1: Safe hunting out there and watch out for those knee

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Speaker 1: knocking high flying deer. Well. David Jackson of Leadhill, Arkansas,

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Speaker 1: thanks for sharing your story and the reminder for the

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Speaker 1: rest of us to make a plan, have contingencies, and

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Speaker 1: communicate above all else. But according to David Jackson, that's

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Speaker 1: just how that happened. My son Hunter had been rambling

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Speaker 1: around on the planet for eight years and one month,

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Speaker 1: and it just smashed his first long beard a fortnight before.

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Speaker 1: It was an Arkansas opening morning double that had two

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Speaker 1: turkeys flopping after three shots from his twenty gauge pump.

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Speaker 1: He fired once and me sending two more after he

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Speaker 1: patiently handed me his age seventy, the last of which

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Speaker 1: hit its mark. It would be the fuse that burned

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Speaker 1: bright for several years until, for one reason or another,

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Speaker 1: his interest led him elsewhere. But that season we learned

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Speaker 1: a lot, both of us, me teaching him everything I

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Speaker 1: knew about chasing turkeys and he teaching me too that

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Speaker 1: to borrow Steve Vanilla's freeze, a fresh set of eyes

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Speaker 1: does find more beans. For our last tags, we were

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Speaker 1: hunting a farm in southeast Darkansas that had little to

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Speaker 1: no pressure and a good population of turkeys. We'd seen

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Speaker 1: one in particular that had a harem of hens that

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Speaker 1: frequented a section of timber and open fields. He roosted

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Speaker 1: along the edge of a big open pasture almost eighty

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Speaker 1: acres worth of prime manicured cowfu. The only irregularity was

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Speaker 1: a point of wood that pushed out into the fields

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Speaker 1: about sixty yards. Also, there was a spring seep that

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Speaker 1: acted as a natural watering hole and shade for cows

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Speaker 1: in the summertime. Was also where that turkey roosted. Nearly

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Speaker 1: every day, would pitch out into the middle of that pasture,

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Speaker 1: and the hens followed suit, usually joined by several jakes

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Speaker 1: who lingered around the edges, a flock of seven hens

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Speaker 1: that that gobbler pushed around the pasture like a cow

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Speaker 1: dog moves cattle, always keeping the tight rein on the

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Speaker 1: seven hens. I played every trick I knew on that turkey,

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Speaker 1: who would answer at nearly every call I threw at him,

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Speaker 1: only to strut in circles as he herded the ladies

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Speaker 1: around and around the open landscape. I called at the hens,

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Speaker 1: but he wouldn't let them leave. I called the jakes

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Speaker 1: up so many times I started being able to recognize

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Speaker 1: the differences in them. We'd become some paticos from our

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Speaker 1: many visits, all within sight and earshot of that old

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Speaker 1: boss Gobbler who paid attention to their ventures but never

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Speaker 1: tried to join their escapades. Now he was satisfied with

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Speaker 1: courting that gaggle of hens up and down the middle

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Speaker 1: of that pasture. Even though he was ruthless and heavy

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Speaker 1: handed about any of them straying off, he was unbothered

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Speaker 1: with the adding number eight to his hair. It was

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Speaker 1: like he knew his limitations, and apparently seven was it.

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Speaker 1: I tried a combination of calls and decoys and tactics

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Speaker 1: with him, diaphragms, box calls, slates, snuff box calls. Snuff

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Speaker 1: Tobacco used to come in small ten canadas, about the

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Speaker 1: size of a half dollar in circumference and three to

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Speaker 1: four inches long. Old timers would make them out of

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Speaker 1: an empty can. You cut half the lid off, replaced

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Speaker 1: that portion with latex held in place with a rubber band,

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Speaker 1: with a narrow gap between the latex and the ten Now,

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Speaker 1: with the bottom of the can removed and a little practice,

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Speaker 1: you can make some show enough turkey record that I've

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Speaker 1: seen make some old tough turkeys come in like you

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Speaker 1: had them on a string, But not this hickory nut.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't playing around with anything but the safety of

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Speaker 1: the middle of that pasture and those seven hens. Eventually

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Speaker 1: they walk off and disappear in the woods around the field.

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Speaker 1: Edges were so open from cattle use that there was

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Speaker 1: zero chance of moving on him. After he passed us up,

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Speaker 1: we just had to sit and watch him walk away.

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Speaker 1: Other turkeys would gobble, but it had gotten personal. No

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Speaker 1: other turkey would do. It had to be this one.

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Speaker 1: And that wasn't just for me. That was all Hunter.

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Speaker 1: He was on a mission to show this gobbler who

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Speaker 1: the real boss was. Whenever we employed the decoy, we'd

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Speaker 1: get there way before daylight and set up, only to

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Speaker 1: have him approach up to a certain distance from us,

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Speaker 1: and the decoy always out of comfortable range of Hunter's

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Speaker 1: shotgun and his ability to shoot it. This was his turkey,

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Speaker 1: and even though I might I might have smashed him

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Speaker 1: on a couple of occasions with my shotgun, I chose

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Speaker 1: not to even try. I was just as hypnotized by

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Speaker 1: wanting Hunter to succeed as he was, maybe even more so,

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Speaker 1: and we approached it every day like we were engaged

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Speaker 1: in battle. We had long given up the decoy the

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Speaker 1: last times we'd used it. The gobbler had gotten kind

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Speaker 1: of spooked, and I don't blame him. It was made

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Speaker 1: from foam, The paint had almost all chipped off of it,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't that much of a true representation of

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Speaker 1: a hen turkey anyway. As a matter of fact, it

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Speaker 1: was ugly. It was only in my vest because I

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Speaker 1: had forgotten to take it out. It weighed nothing, it

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Speaker 1: favored nothing, but it folded up and stayed unnoticed in

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Speaker 1: the game bag. More accurate description would be that it

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Speaker 1: looked as much like a wild hen turkey as a

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Speaker 1: Hearsey's chocolate bunny looks like a wild rabbit. On day

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Speaker 1: number five of hunting this gobbler, we were once again

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Speaker 1: standing on the south edge of this big pasture, facing

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Speaker 1: the north way before daylight. A quarter of the property

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Speaker 1: laid to our left or our west from where we stood.

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Speaker 1: The other three quarters, obviously were to the east and

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Speaker 1: our right, and we were present on the west side

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Speaker 1: of that point of woods that stuck out in the pasture,

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Speaker 1: the one with the seeping spring. I told you about

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Speaker 1: this morning. The turkey gobbled on the south side of

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Speaker 1: the pasture, just like always, but he was further to

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Speaker 1: the right or the east, towards that end, further away

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Speaker 1: than normal, placing that point of woods between him and us.

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Speaker 1: So picture it in your mind. We were standing on

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Speaker 1: the edge of a cow pasture, twenty acres of open

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Speaker 1: pasture to our left and to our right was sixty

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Speaker 1: acres except for that point of woods that stuck out

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Speaker 1: in the field on the same side we were, and

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Speaker 1: the gobbler was roosted on the other side. We never

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Speaker 1: tried to get closer, and we never made a peek.

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Speaker 1: To tell you the truth, I was all out of ideas.

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Speaker 1: I heard him when he flew off the roofs, and

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Speaker 1: I split second later I saw him fly out into

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Speaker 1: the middle of that pasture in the early dawn. A

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Speaker 1: few moments later, the hens followed, and I heard Hunter

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Speaker 1: counting in a wisp one two, three, four, five, six, Dad,

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Speaker 1: six hens. Yeah, I see him hundred. I've been seeing

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Speaker 1: them for a week, No, sir, we've been seeing seven hens.

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Speaker 1: What was right? There had been seven with him, and

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Speaker 1: we waited for number seven to fly off throost counting

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Speaker 1: and recounting all the hens that he was ushering around

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Speaker 1: in that field like a bull elk does cows. I

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Speaker 1: wonder what happened to him, I told him I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe she was already sitting on the nest. But if

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Speaker 1: there was ever a chance for this hideous decoy virus

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Speaker 1: to work, it was right now. It was my last play.

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Speaker 1: He could see the wheels turning in my knogging, and

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Speaker 1: I grabbed him by the arm and we sunk deeper

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Speaker 1: in the edge of the woods, and Duck walked to

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Speaker 1: where that point of wood stuck out in the field.

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Speaker 1: From there, we got down on our bell, all up

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Speaker 1: the edge of that point to the opposite side, away

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Speaker 1: from those turkeys, both of us sopping wet from the

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Speaker 1: mud and morning dew. After crawling forty yards, I struck

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Speaker 1: that hen decoy up and keeping a big red over

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Speaker 1: between us and the turkeys. I crawled over to it

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Speaker 1: on the west side of that point, and sliding up

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Speaker 1: next to it, we sat down, facing the absolute opposite

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Speaker 1: direction from where they were. We couldn't even see them

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Speaker 1: when we got settled in, but round and round he strugged,

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Speaker 1: pushing those hens around as they fed more or less

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Speaker 1: in our direction, but on a course that would once

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Speaker 1: again keep him well out of range. Hunter sat on

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Speaker 1: my right and shotgun oriented toward that decoy in his back,

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Speaker 1: to the goblin and yeppling that was taking place right

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Speaker 1: behind his shoulder out in that field. Not turning around

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Speaker 1: was like trying not to watch a fishing partner's court.

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Speaker 1: Was all I could do to keep still, to not

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Speaker 1: roll over, and try to peek around the back of

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Speaker 1: that tree to see where they were. They hadn't made

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Speaker 1: a sound in what seemed like forever now, and there

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Speaker 1: was absolutely nothing between us and them but that big

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Speaker 1: red oak, no underbrush, nothing. We were as hid as

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Speaker 1: the terrain would allow, which was only good until the

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Speaker 1: turkeys got past that point of land and would then

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Speaker 1: be able to see us sitting against the base of

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Speaker 1: that tree, plain as day. Our only hope was that

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Speaker 1: raggedy decoy I had jobbed in the ground out in

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Speaker 1: front of us, on a sweet gum limb I'd cut

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Speaker 1: a week ago, and hopefully it would keep their attention.

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Speaker 1: The stake that came with it was lost to who

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Speaker 1: knows where, but that gum limb was a fitting substitute accessory.

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Speaker 1: That looked abouite as much like a turkey leg as

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Speaker 1: that decoy did a turkey. But we were all in

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Speaker 1: that peg legged out cast from the island of misfit

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Speaker 1: towards was our obi wan Kenobi. It was our only hope.

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Speaker 1: I looked down at Hunter and he was rock solid,

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Speaker 1: his shotgun propped up on his knee and aiming down

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Speaker 1: the barrel toward that decoy. I had to give it

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Speaker 1: to him. The little man was mission focused in front

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Speaker 1: side oriented. You good, buddy, Yes, sir, do you see him?

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Speaker 1: I looked up out toward the middle of that field,

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Speaker 1: and I did see them there. They were loosely taking

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Speaker 1: the same path they'd taken every morning before, rolling westward

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Speaker 1: down the middle of that pasture, with that gobbler taking

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Speaker 1: inventory every step of the way. He strutted around each hend,

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Speaker 1: turned his fan toward whichever one he was closest to,

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Speaker 1: as if she was the only gal in town. Bud,

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Speaker 1: they're out there right now. We'll be able to see

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Speaker 1: him in a second. We're still only six hens with him. Dad,

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Speaker 1: I'm looking number seven, and when he sees her, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be all over him. He was. He was

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Speaker 1: as confident as anything got seeing me not so much.

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Speaker 1: I gave it one in a million. Nothing else had worked,

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Speaker 1: and now I was betting on a turkey's math skills

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Speaker 1: to lure him within shotgun range of my eight year old,

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Speaker 1: and doing so, he'd had to be close enough to

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Speaker 1: see what no living entity should confuse with a live

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Speaker 1: wild Eastern Turkey hen, the same one that he'd been

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Speaker 1: leary of approaching two different times this week. Cut your

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Speaker 1: eyes over, Eddy, Now you ought to be able to

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Speaker 1: see him by now. They were moving at a slow

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Speaker 1: but steady pace, and the hens were feeding along with him,

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Speaker 1: right on their heels, strutting the whole way one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty yards from us. I glanced down at Hunter.

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Speaker 1: I washed him close to me, make sure he was breathing.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't moving an inch. I felt good about that.

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Speaker 1: I looked over stairs at that deco and lost what

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Speaker 1: little bit of confidence I'd built up over the past

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Speaker 1: few moments. The turkey gobbled and broke me from my

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Speaker 1: sneering gaze at that unreasonable facsimile of a hen Turkey.

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Speaker 1: I had not bought another one. I looked over and

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Speaker 1: he was looking in our direction. He gobbled again. And

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Speaker 1: came out of his trut, facing our direction, but looking

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Speaker 1: straight at that decoy. He didn't move, and after a

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Speaker 1: few seconds all the hens were looking too, and I

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Speaker 1: figured at any moment this was going to be the

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Speaker 1: repeat of every other interaction. Then, after what seemed like forever,

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Speaker 1: the hens went back to feeding, He went back to strut,

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Speaker 1: and all of them slowly fit toward our direction. Wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, were they actually doing this, son? Can you

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Speaker 1: see them? Yes, sir, they were covering those one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty yards at a snail's pacing. With every step

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Speaker 1: they made towards that decoy, I thought it would be

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Speaker 1: the last. The hunter never flinched. E been sitting that

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Speaker 1: way without moving from more than twenty minutes and was eight.

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Speaker 1: I was forty and about to lose my mind. The

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Speaker 1: ground was rock hard at the base of that tree,

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Speaker 1: with all the years of cows patting down that dirt.

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Speaker 1: On the thing between my behind in China was two

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Speaker 1: square feet of Arkansas and a butterbean sized piece of

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Speaker 1: flint I'd miss sweeping away when we sat down. That

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00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,159
Speaker 1: seemed to be growing in both volume and sharpness with

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Speaker 1: each tick of the clock. I stared back at the decoys,

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Speaker 1: who were now starting to pick up the pace as

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Speaker 1: they came closer, and one by one they passed in

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Speaker 1: front of me and Hunter and either walked up to

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Speaker 1: or just behind that one legged raggedy decoy that was

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Speaker 1: twenty yards in front of us. They never gave us

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Speaker 1: a second look, feeding right on past her. Then the

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Speaker 1: gobblers strolled in and took his spot next to that

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Speaker 1: foam Jezebel fan, fully spread wings, dragging the ground and

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Speaker 1: drumming like it was his job. Hunter waited until he

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Speaker 1: stepped right in front of where his gun barrel was pointed.

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Speaker 1: Without moving an inch, he popped the safety office shot

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Speaker 1: that joker square in the left ear right then. Now,

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Speaker 1: from that day forward, that old raggedy decoy was known

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Speaker 1: as Number seven. No idea on what became of her.

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Speaker 1: We moved a few times since then, and she was

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Speaker 1: on our way out the day she lured Hunters Second

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Speaker 1: Turkey into its doom. The real question is King Turkey's count.

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Speaker 1: I have no clue, but it makes me wonder. I

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Speaker 1: appreciate so much all of you who's been the biggest

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Speaker 1: part of this country life. It's not possible without you,

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Speaker 1: and I encourage you to keep sitting in those stories

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Speaker 1: to my tcl story at the meadeater dot com. We

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Speaker 1: love sharing them with you. Thanks for listening to me

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Speaker 1: and Clay Bow here on the Bear Grease Channel. We've

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Speaker 1: got a lot of new stuff coming soon that I'm

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Speaker 1: really excited about and I know you're going to enjoy.

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Speaker 1: Knew this country life merch is coming in the next

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Speaker 1: few months. Folks are working hard to get it here

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Speaker 1: just as soon as possible. See y'all hang in there

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Speaker 1: until next week. This is Brent Reives signing off. Y'all

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Speaker 1: be careful