Speaker 1: And so I called Papa. He goes, hey, I'm back
Speaker 1: here with Mama. She's fixing the in surgery, and I said,
Speaker 1: I need your help. I'm on a turkey. He's down
Speaker 1: here in the road. I need to know what to do.
Speaker 1: And I can hear Mama on the background. She's fitting,
Speaker 1: you know, she's getting ready to their prepen her and
Speaker 1: she goes, Steve, you need to help him with get
Speaker 1: that turkey. You know, you need to help him get
Speaker 1: that turkey. It's open Mike Night at the Bear Grease
Speaker 1: Home Fire, and I'm giving the stage to some of
Speaker 1: the best turkey hunters. I know. It's mid March. The
Speaker 1: days are getting longer, the sarvice berry blooms are popping,
Speaker 1: and the stories are flowing like clear mountain streams. Turkey
Speaker 1: tales aren't just for entertainment, but they export, in words
Speaker 1: and spirit, a picture of the dedication of a unique
Speaker 1: band of brothers, a tribe of people bonded together by
Speaker 1: a ground nesting gobbling bird. These stories give a glimpse
Speaker 1: into the joys, tribulations, and passions of the American turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: It's an odd thing that a feathered beast would grip
Speaker 1: a heart so tightly it really doesn't even make sense.
Speaker 1: But a goblin spring turkey is as dynamic of a
Speaker 1: combination of audio, sensation, challenging the hunt, and visual imagery
Speaker 1: as there is in the natural world. A strutton gobbler
Speaker 1: rivals in beauty and mystique of breaching humpback well in
Speaker 1: the North Atlantic, a big horn sheep on a mountain crag,
Speaker 1: or even the great scenes of the African savannah teeming
Speaker 1: with migrating herds of ungulates. A goblin turkey is the
Speaker 1: real deal. Add in the backdrop of the spring woods
Speaker 1: metamorphizing into brilliant hues of green, and it's almost unreal.
Speaker 1: On this episode we're celebrating the wild turkey and the hunt.
Speaker 1: We'll hear about a white turkey in Tennessee, a story
Speaker 1: where a hunter caught on fire it's not a joke,
Speaker 1: and a turkey that had the gobbles shout out out
Speaker 1: of him, and will end with a story that might
Speaker 1: bring a tear to your eye. I really doubt that
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to miss this one and one more
Speaker 1: thing before we get going. You can go to the
Speaker 1: meat Eater YouTube channel and check out three videos that
Speaker 1: I made called the Bear Grease Road Show. There is
Speaker 1: a video that we did about Warner Glenn, who we
Speaker 1: also did a podcast about. There's a video about the
Speaker 1: Fulsome Archaeological site and a bear hunt that I did
Speaker 1: with a folsome point. Also something we did on a
Speaker 1: Bear Grease series. And lastly there's a video about plot
Speaker 1: hounds and Appalachia. Go check all that out. Daddy got
Speaker 1: his gun up and the turkey's right there, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he's he smells something smells warm, and
Speaker 1: then he looked down and he sees smoke coming up
Speaker 1: out of his pocket. He said, you might be interested
Speaker 1: to know that pockets not only burned to the outside,
Speaker 1: they burned to the inside too. My name is Clay Nukem,
Speaker 1: and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore
Speaker 1: things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,
Speaker 1: and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live
Speaker 1: their lives close to the land. Presented by f HF Gear,
Speaker 1: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
Speaker 1: I love turkey stories and always have. The telling of
Speaker 1: stories is an important part of the culture where I
Speaker 1: grew up, and maybe it's the same where you came from.
Speaker 1: A good story is like money in the bank. You
Speaker 1: can withdraw it when you need it, and it draws
Speaker 1: interest with time. It gets better the more that it's told.
Speaker 1: Being a good storyteller, to me, isn't about flashy details
Speaker 1: and oratory pizzas. It's about a payoff being delivered to
Speaker 1: the listener, and it can come in a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways. Some great stories I've heard come with a
Speaker 1: monotone delivery and with minimal hand gestures, but the frequency
Speaker 1: omitted by the teller confronted the listener with the display
Speaker 1: of moral character, the execution of wit, or the joy
Speaker 1: trial and tragedy of the sliver of time described. Some
Speaker 1: storytellers carry a contagious passion and their personal investment in
Speaker 1: the story is sensed, and all the very best ones
Speaker 1: have a high degree of that. We all want to
Speaker 1: listen to folks that have a zeal and passion for life,
Speaker 1: someone who can describe with clarity what it feels like
Speaker 1: to look through their eyes. We learn when we see
Speaker 1: what someone else sees. We want to hear someone who's
Speaker 1: willing to tell the truth and authenticity Trump's pizzas. Every
Speaker 1: time we learn how to communicate by listening to other
Speaker 1: people's stories. Communication is everything in the successful execution of
Speaker 1: being a human. If you are looking for a great
Speaker 1: self help area to focus on in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: that would improve every area of your life, increasing your
Speaker 1: communication skills would be hard to talk and it isn't
Speaker 1: just a sequence of words. AI can produce words and sequence,
Speaker 1: but the passion, energy, spirit, and intent behind words give
Speaker 1: it life and meaning. You're about to hear eight different
Speaker 1: stories from turkey chasers from the ages of nineteen to
Speaker 1: eighty one, and before we get going, just be patient.
Speaker 1: Here my brothers stories delivered different kinds of value. Sometimes
Speaker 1: a turkey story describes a tactic, the behavior of turkeys,
Speaker 1: or introduces us to a new skill. The story is
Speaker 1: really functional and it helps us. Sometimes we don't learn much,
Speaker 1: but we're highly entertained. But one of my favorites is
Speaker 1: when a story exposes the broader life of the teller.
Speaker 1: It's usually a small window, but they'll show their cards
Speaker 1: to you if you're paying attention enough for ambling, and
Speaker 1: you boys know I love to do it. I want
Speaker 1: to hear some turkey stories and we're coming in hot
Speaker 1: with this first one with none other than a Bear
Speaker 1: Grease favorite, Andy Brown of Western Arkansas. He's a masterful
Speaker 1: woodsman and turkey hunter, and his passion shines through in
Speaker 1: every story he tells. I know you're gonna enjoy this one.
Speaker 1: You know, I have been fortunate. I have really been
Speaker 1: fortunate in my life to be able to have hunted
Speaker 1: with some really really good turkey hunters. Of course, had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I mean, yeah, we were serious
Speaker 1: about what we did, but I mean we kind of
Speaker 1: like to gig each other and you know, have a
Speaker 1: little fun with each other. But one story, Jim fight,
Speaker 1: and he was a dear friend of mine. He always
Speaker 1: called me Andrew. That's what he always at. Andrew wanted
Speaker 1: to go turkey hid never been before in his life.
Speaker 1: That's back when I was I mean I was really
Speaker 1: eat up with it. And of course where we lived
Speaker 1: at that time was right in the heart and soul
Speaker 1: of it. I mean I could stand on my deck
Speaker 1: any morning from the tenth day of March till May
Speaker 1: one and hear turkey's gobbling from my deck. And what
Speaker 1: was funny about that? I had all those turkeys out
Speaker 1: there and I'd drive twenty miles to go hunt. You know,
Speaker 1: I've had this stupid stuff like that, But but I
Speaker 1: had places I liked to hunt, and guys I'd like
Speaker 1: to hunt with it. But anyway, Jim one to go,
Speaker 1: and he'd never been and he did have some camouflage
Speaker 1: and I think he barred a pair of gloves and
Speaker 1: a face mask. Farm me and he come over one
Speaker 1: morning and I can remember this just like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: He had he had a sweet sixteen browning shot down.
Speaker 1: But he shows up and we go in there north
Speaker 1: of the house and pulled it on the side of
Speaker 1: the main mountain on the north side, and got up
Speaker 1: in there. And that back in those days, that's when
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be a leaf on the side of that mountain.
Speaker 1: It wasn't turned over by turkey scratching. I mean there
Speaker 1: was people would not believe it, that didn't know it,
Speaker 1: that was slacking. We moved out there in eighty four,
Speaker 1: but that mountain it just like you took a tiber
Speaker 1: in there and just till the leaves. But anyway, we
Speaker 1: pulled it there on the mountain where I thought we
Speaker 1: weren't going to be in the chips and of course naturally,
Speaker 1: you know how that goes. You're trying to be the
Speaker 1: big bad turkey hunter and you take somebody's never been
Speaker 1: you get up there and that the turkey's ain't goble.
Speaker 1: But no, there's just mornings that they're over the hump,
Speaker 1: you know, you're on one side of the mountain and
Speaker 1: they're on the other side of the mountain, or some
Speaker 1: mornings they just don't want to gobble. But anyway, we
Speaker 1: hadn't heard a thing, and I told Jim, of course
Speaker 1: I had to go to work. It was before work
Speaker 1: one morning, and I said to Jim, we'll just have
Speaker 1: to done here for day. It's just not working out.
Speaker 1: So we had back off this long leg and down
Speaker 1: at the end of it as an old whale down there.
Speaker 1: And we got to the whale, I heard a turkey
Speaker 1: gobble down in the floor woods kind of northeast of
Speaker 1: it's over, And I said, you hear that, and he said,
Speaker 1: I thought it did. By the time he gobble again.
Speaker 1: And man, is about probably eight thirty that dude putting
Speaker 1: in over, I mean gobbling every breath. And I said,
Speaker 1: come old, let's go. If I said, we're gonna kill
Speaker 1: that dude, I mean, he's just one of them. You
Speaker 1: tell the way he's gobbling, you're gonna kill him. And
Speaker 1: when we got down there where he was at, he
Speaker 1: was an old road. There's a kind of a big
Speaker 1: ridge in there, and there's no old road come off
Speaker 1: the south side of it there, and I got Old Jim.
Speaker 1: We didn't. We didn't stay on the maid road. We
Speaker 1: kind of got off the road. I didn't there wasn't
Speaker 1: really a place you could get and shoot down the road.
Speaker 1: But I knew that turkey's gonna come down that road.
Speaker 1: And so right off the road there was a little
Speaker 1: old kind of a dry branch there in the hump,
Speaker 1: just a little old ridge there, and I got Jim
Speaker 1: out there and he laid down on his belly. Of
Speaker 1: course I put it on that turkey, and he just
Speaker 1: gobbling every breath, and I mean I was, of course,
Speaker 1: I showed down a little bit. I was hammering him,
Speaker 1: you know, and he was Everything was just like you
Speaker 1: wanted it just come just drumming and gobbling. And I
Speaker 1: got behind a little old white oak probably wasn't ten
Speaker 1: inches in diameter, and I knew I didn't have to hide.
Speaker 1: You know, this is gonna be short and sweet. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I look out there, here comes that turkey down the road.
Speaker 1: He's all blowed up. He comes right in there, and
Speaker 1: there's a trail that comes in and Jim's sitting there
Speaker 1: or laying there on his belt, and he's guy's gun
Speaker 1: on that on that turkey. And that turkey just kept
Speaker 1: coming right too. Mean, he got delf done and that
Speaker 1: that little old deal there, and I don't know, Jim
Speaker 1: moved or something, and of course the turkey went to clucking,
Speaker 1: and about the time he went to clucking, he went
Speaker 1: to flying. And I knew then that Jim wasn't going
Speaker 1: to shoot. And so anyway, of course I cut drive
Speaker 1: at him, never cut a feather on him. And uh,
Speaker 1: I said, I has been out of shape, you know,
Speaker 1: because I mean it's it was a sure enough deal.
Speaker 1: I said, Jim, how come you didn't shoot that turkey?
Speaker 1: He said, Andrew, He said, all I could see was
Speaker 1: his head. I said, well, Jim, that's what she's supposed
Speaker 1: to be shoot a but yeah, that's all I can
Speaker 1: see was his head. Oh my goodness, all I could
Speaker 1: see was his head. It's hard not to laugh with
Speaker 1: Andy when he hits the punchline. Of his story. On
Speaker 1: this next one, we're in for another treat because it's
Speaker 1: being told by none other than Bear Grease Hall of
Speaker 1: Famer Roy Clark of East Tennessee. Mister Roy is in
Speaker 1: his mid seventies and he's as good a hound breeder
Speaker 1: and bear hunter as God ever made. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I just made a video about him and
Speaker 1: his plot hounds that just came out on the Meat
Speaker 1: Eater YouTube channel. You should check it out. What a
Speaker 1: lot of people wouldn't know about mister Roy is that
Speaker 1: he's a dang good turkey hunter. He doesn't talk about
Speaker 1: it much, but a few years ago I asked if
Speaker 1: he'd had a good spring, and he told me he'd
Speaker 1: killed five gobblers, three in Tennessee and a couple in
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Here's mister Roy's story of the white turkey.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell about a East Tennessee turkey hunting
Speaker 1: event above home. I heard about this white turkey to
Speaker 1: my brother, and I know the two boys that opposing
Speaker 1: has seen the turkey, and they was out drinking and uh,
Speaker 1: and I know both of them, but I know one
Speaker 1: of them was pretty truthful. So I went and talked
Speaker 1: to him about it, and he told me what they're
Speaker 1: seeing and were they seen it? And so I told
Speaker 1: my son in last got childress about it, and meant
Speaker 1: him went up there to see if we could see
Speaker 1: it or find it. And we went up our one morning,
Speaker 1: poor daylight, and we heard it a goblin, and we
Speaker 1: was close to it, but we worked our way before
Speaker 1: daylight and got close enough to we could see the
Speaker 1: tree is in, and when it got daylight we could
Speaker 1: see it had a lot of white on him and
Speaker 1: hit gobbling on the roost and stuff. And then when
Speaker 1: it finally flew off the roosts, instead of flying down,
Speaker 1: it flew out of there, flew out of sight, and
Speaker 1: we never did cheer it no more. And we wound
Speaker 1: up going back several times, and every time we'd go,
Speaker 1: we'd locate it and we'd get close to it, but
Speaker 1: it would sail out and leave, and then it wouldn't
Speaker 1: gobble after he hit the ground, and we wouldn't never
Speaker 1: know where it went to. We done this slate, and
Speaker 1: we'd done the box, and we'd done mouth calls, we'd
Speaker 1: done everything, and we hunted it for two weeks on
Speaker 1: the etning and said after he'd come in from work,
Speaker 1: and when he was off, we'd go over morning and eating.
Speaker 1: And we went up our one Friday morning and Hit
Speaker 1: was roosting on top of the mountain. We climb up
Speaker 1: that mountain and got under the tree, but like I said,
Speaker 1: every time, he'd just sail out and sail that you
Speaker 1: couldn't see it. So we went back on Saturday morning
Speaker 1: and it was a gobbling up our on top that
Speaker 1: mountain again, and I told Scott, I said, I ain't
Speaker 1: going up our no more. I ain't climbing that mountain
Speaker 1: for it. And he'd sailed an all our said you
Speaker 1: can if you want to, So he decided he isn't
Speaker 1: going up our, and I just stayed down Therefore, well,
Speaker 1: we'd parked at and I walked around the road until
Speaker 1: I got straight down under where it's at, and went
Speaker 1: up in the woods and got me a place where
Speaker 1: I could still see the road, but right undry, and
Speaker 1: the process of hit it get in daylight and hit
Speaker 1: a goblin up hour. I heared his hend and she
Speaker 1: was in a tree just twenty five or thirty foot
Speaker 1: from me, so directly he that Tom sailed out ire
Speaker 1: and I'd tell you it was one hundred foot over
Speaker 1: the top of the trees and over top of my head,
Speaker 1: and it just sailed right on buy me and just
Speaker 1: kept right on going to it went out of sight. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, he's gone again. And I tried
Speaker 1: to call Scott on the walkie talking to tell him
Speaker 1: he's gone, but he didn't answer me. He didn't know
Speaker 1: whether it flew down up what he'd done. He just
Speaker 1: knowed it come out of the tree. And I decided
Speaker 1: I just sit there and wait till that hen see
Speaker 1: what that hen done. So I sat there, and after
Speaker 1: a while she just steezed off of the roofs and
Speaker 1: just barely sailed down toward the road and sailed around
Speaker 1: the road, just like gliding, and ten foot of the
Speaker 1: road and going around the road the way the road lay,
Speaker 1: and went out of my side around the curve. And
Speaker 1: when she did, I got up and got all my
Speaker 1: stuff together and thought i'd might start making my way
Speaker 1: back towards the vehicle. And I got down there, but
Speaker 1: I was gonna watch see if I could see that
Speaker 1: hen anymore. And I was a coming around the road,
Speaker 1: and I walked around the curve and I looked, and
Speaker 1: I seen that sucker strutting out there in the road,
Speaker 1: and I got on a little bit closer there, stayed
Speaker 1: to the side the curve where it couldn't see me,
Speaker 1: and I got just a little bit closer, and I
Speaker 1: could see that Hen was out there, squatted down out
Speaker 1: there in the edge of the grace, and that tom
Speaker 1: was a strutting around her. Well, I just stepped to
Speaker 1: the side there and got all my stuff off and
Speaker 1: got rid and i'd peep around ore where I could
Speaker 1: see him. And when he turned his back, tom In
Speaker 1: was strutting back away from me. I took two steps
Speaker 1: out in the road and he strutted a rounding up
Speaker 1: the side of that Hen, turned and strutted back down
Speaker 1: and started back around towards me. And I let him
Speaker 1: have it and folded him up right there in the road,
Speaker 1: and I went out there, and he was a flopping.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to touch feathers up, and so I
Speaker 1: got it by both back legs and held it up,
Speaker 1: and Scott was a hollering at me on the radio.
Speaker 1: Did I get it? Did I get it? And I
Speaker 1: had to hold the turkey with both backed feed holding it,
Speaker 1: and hit finally quit our drink, and I called Scott
Speaker 1: and told him I had it, and he'd come down there.
Speaker 1: And we've seen turkeys spangled up, and turkeys was white
Speaker 1: on them and stuff all been hens, but this is
Speaker 1: the first time that we ever seen it was colored
Speaker 1: up with white tips on its feathers and white spot
Speaker 1: on both sides of its wings, and actually a purdy turkey.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to have it fixed because I
Speaker 1: knowed that I never could get another one fixed. And
Speaker 1: Mark duff rained up in mine, of buddy of mine.
Speaker 1: He took it and fixed it, and and he mounted
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, and he actually said he was
Speaker 1: a burdish one he ever seen. I think it was,
Speaker 1: And that shorder end of my turkey hunting. I didn't
Speaker 1: think I could ever tap at. So I disorder retarded
Speaker 1: from turkey hunting. That white turkey put mister Roy into retirement.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how I feel about that, but the
Speaker 1: gobblers in East Tennessee are probably better off on account
Speaker 1: of it. Mister Roy is a national treasure. The dear
Speaker 1: friend of mine, I gotta kick out of how he
Speaker 1: said the boys that first saw that white turkey were
Speaker 1: out drinking, but he knew one of them was pretty truthful.
Speaker 1: That's good man. We got the story stacked in here deep.
Speaker 1: Our next story is told by Mississippi native author, former
Speaker 1: old MISSUS football player, and turkey hunter extraordinaire, mister Robert
Speaker 1: hit Neil Junior. He's eighty one years young and this
Speaker 1: is an old story about his dad. He calls the
Speaker 1: Flaming turkey hunter on Woodstock Island. The hunt cabin that
Speaker 1: we had over there, which had been a sharecropper's cabin,
Speaker 1: is probably now a hundred years old, made out of Cyprus.
Speaker 1: And I was standing on the poech of the cabin
Speaker 1: because the weekend was about over. My brother and I
Speaker 1: had killed turkeys, and I was sweeping the poech off
Speaker 1: and Bo was inside packing and cleaning up. And my daddy,
Speaker 1: Big Robert. Big Robert didn't look like John Wayne. John
Speaker 1: Wayne looked like Big Robert. He was about six two
Speaker 1: and a half, big, wide shouldered man, trim waste, you know.
Speaker 1: He was that kind of guy. And he hadn't had
Speaker 1: any luck the whole turkey season. This was the last
Speaker 1: weekend of the season. Bow and I, that's my brother.
Speaker 1: Bow and I had killed seven turkeys between us, and
Speaker 1: so the pressure was really on Daddy. He hadn't even
Speaker 1: gotten a shot, so he was still in the woods hunting,
Speaker 1: and I'm out on the porch sweeping it off. And
Speaker 1: then I hear the jeep coming and he pulls up
Speaker 1: into the yard and he sits there, cuts the chief
Speaker 1: off and he just sits there and you see his
Speaker 1: hands gripping the wheel. And so I put the broom
Speaker 1: against the wall and went down the steps and walked
Speaker 1: over to the jeep. I think he maybe wants me
Speaker 1: to help carry his turkeys in or something like that,
Speaker 1: you know. And got there and no turkeys, and he's
Speaker 1: sitting there and his jaw just working, you know, that
Speaker 1: muscle comes out the jaw bone, just working. And I said,
Speaker 1: is anything wrong? He said, where's boat? I said, he's
Speaker 1: inside sweeping the cabin. You want me to go get
Speaker 1: And he says, now, this story is too good to keep,
Speaker 1: but I've been if i'll tell both of you at
Speaker 1: the same time. And he told me that he'd been
Speaker 1: out there in the woods about ten o'clock, hadn't heard
Speaker 1: of a turkey or seeing a turkey. And Daddy smoke
Speaker 1: about three packs cigarettes today, and he's sitting there on
Speaker 1: a log and he gets his cigarette out and he
Speaker 1: puts in his mouth, and then he puts a cigarette
Speaker 1: package back in the pocket, and he gets the lighter
Speaker 1: out and he lights it, and he's sticking the lighter
Speaker 1: back in his pocket when he looked up and a
Speaker 1: gobbler standing about twenty yards away just stepped out from
Speaker 1: behind a big supersymmetry. And turkeys are real weary birds.
Speaker 1: He knew that you ought not to go breathing big
Speaker 1: clouds of blue smoke at him when they were standing
Speaker 1: there looking at you, And so he just froze right
Speaker 1: there with his hand in his pocket, put the lighter
Speaker 1: back and didn't exhale until the turkey took another step
Speaker 1: or two it got behind a tree, and then he
Speaker 1: exhaled and tongue a cigarette out the corner of his
Speaker 1: mouth and put his hand on his gun. But before
Speaker 1: he could get it up, the turkey stepped out behind
Speaker 1: the tree. And he's walking real slow now looking at him.
Speaker 1: He's been here and call. And when the turkey gets
Speaker 1: behind the next tree, Dad, he got his gun up
Speaker 1: and got ready, and the turkey's right there, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, he's he smells something smells warm, and
Speaker 1: then the left side of his chest starts just horrible pain.
Speaker 1: And he looked down and he sees smoke coming up
Speaker 1: out of his pocket when he had tongued a cigarette
Speaker 1: out to carn of his mouth and then went down
Speaker 1: in his shirt pocket. He said, you might be interested
Speaker 1: to know that pockets not only burned to the outside,
Speaker 1: they burned the inside too. And his chest is brawling,
Speaker 1: and he sees the first flickers of flame coming up
Speaker 1: from the pocket. I've actually still got the jumps through,
Speaker 1: just got a hold in the pocket burnt, and he's waiting,
Speaker 1: he said. He remembered thinking at that time he's a
Speaker 1: dedicated turkey hunting. You know. It's like one of those
Speaker 1: moments when everything happens, and yet afterwards it seemed like
Speaker 1: you actually thought it out, but it all happened in
Speaker 1: a split second, he said. I remembered thinking at that
Speaker 1: time that I could either shoot the turkey or I
Speaker 1: could put myself out. Of course, for dedicated turkey hunting
Speaker 1: and no seasonal. He sat there and let his shirt
Speaker 1: burn and him in it while he waits for the
Speaker 1: turkey to come out from behind the flame tree. And
Speaker 1: the found stepped out behind the tree, and he shoots,
Speaker 1: and he throws the guns down and beats his chest
Speaker 1: and he puts the fire out, and he had missed
Speaker 1: the turkey, and he said the turkey. He didn't even run,
Speaker 1: He just stood there and said, what you know, because
Speaker 1: flaming turkey hunters are very rare in the woods, was spoken.
Speaker 1: They enjoined the popularity that he had back then, and
Speaker 1: so he came on back to the cabin and the
Speaker 1: jumpsuit is still hanging up there. That's just a flaming
Speaker 1: turkey story. That was good man, that was good. I
Speaker 1: wasn't expecting that. I can just envision flames flickering up
Speaker 1: in the corner of mister Neil's eye as he squeezed
Speaker 1: the trigger on that Mississippi Longbeard. I wonder if that's
Speaker 1: ever happened to another turkey hunter before. Our next storyteller
Speaker 1: is exactly sixty two years younger than mister Neil. Koy
Speaker 1: House is nineteen years old, and he lives in western Arkansas.
Speaker 1: I grew up with his mom and dad, and he's
Speaker 1: a great young man for a lot of reasons, one
Speaker 1: of which is that he's a passionate turkey hunter. This
Speaker 1: story is about the first bird he ever killed completely
Speaker 1: on his own, well almost on his own. Here's ky. Well,
Speaker 1: I've been turgy hunting for a while, me and Steve,
Speaker 1: my grandpa. Every you know, everybody knows Steve pretty well.
Speaker 1: If he's turgy hunting, I'm with him nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten. I fell in love with it, and we
Speaker 1: just love to do it together. Well, this particular story
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you about, turgy season had opened and
Speaker 1: I was thinking was that week, so I'd have been fourteen.
Speaker 1: The kind of kicker to the story is so Grandma
Speaker 1: Mama Cathy. She was in the middle of having a
Speaker 1: heartcat put in in the hospital. So Pauba wasn't hunting.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't you know, He couldn't go. So I decided
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna go. We had a private spot
Speaker 1: we called Nelson's. We have some cows over there and stuff.
Speaker 1: So I went back in the cut. I had got
Speaker 1: there late. It was probably I was breaking light and
Speaker 1: again I was fourteen. Wouldn't supposed to be over there,
Speaker 1: you know, driving, but it wasn't far from the house.
Speaker 1: It's just a little truck ride. Well, I got back
Speaker 1: in there and I give out and I just let
Speaker 1: an old food out, you know, and he just right over.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just like it was textbook. So I
Speaker 1: get in there and I get where, you know, I've
Speaker 1: learned watching from Papa. Get above the turkey, get him
Speaker 1: off the roost, you know, call minimum on the roost.
Speaker 1: He'll fly down to you. So I get up there,
Speaker 1: I get above him. He's on the roost. I hoot
Speaker 1: him again. He gobbles. So I get set up. I
Speaker 1: just let out a few yelps, and he cuts me
Speaker 1: off right there. He's probably fifty sixty yards, kind of
Speaker 1: thicker in there, some pine trees. Oh, he gobbled, he gobbled,
Speaker 1: he gobbled, and then all of a sudden, you just
Speaker 1: kind of shut up. Well, i've seen a hen pitch off,
Speaker 1: and she pitched off down an old cut in the
Speaker 1: logging road. I've seen her here one another one and
Speaker 1: here one another one. Well he just I didn't hear him,
Speaker 1: and so I figured he pitched off with them. So
Speaker 1: I just called, and sure enough he's down there in
Speaker 1: that road, and he just gobbled right out and right there.
Speaker 1: So I didn't I didn't know what to do, really,
Speaker 1: I was kind of man. I tried my techniques out
Speaker 1: at first, that I thought was supposed to be right,
Speaker 1: and so I called Papa. He goes, hey, I'm back
Speaker 1: here with Mama. She's fixing the me in surgery. And
Speaker 1: I said, I need your help. I'm on a turkey.
Speaker 1: He's down here in the road. I need to know
Speaker 1: what to do. And I can hear Mama on the background.
Speaker 1: She's fit, you know, she's getting ready there prepping her.
Speaker 1: And she goes, Steve, you need to help him with
Speaker 1: get that turkey. You know, you need to help him
Speaker 1: get that turkey. And so he says, well, you need
Speaker 1: to get around that turkey, figure out where he's going,
Speaker 1: and get around that turkey and get up there above him.
Speaker 1: Cut him off, He said, do maybe little calling, maybe
Speaker 1: if not any at all type deal, just kind of
Speaker 1: let it play out, let him come in. Well, so
Speaker 1: by the time I had got back around I call him,
Speaker 1: that turkey was already heading up the hill. I mean
Speaker 1: he was gobbling. He just gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble gobble.
Speaker 1: So I did what he said. After the first time,
Speaker 1: I maneuvered around, and then once Eliza turkey was going
Speaker 1: up the hill, I call him again immediately and I say, Papa,
Speaker 1: you got him wife to walk me through this. I
Speaker 1: need to know, said, Turkey's already beat me up there,
Speaker 1: so what do? What do I do? He said, you
Speaker 1: need to climb the hill and he said you need
Speaker 1: to get as close as you can. And I said,
Speaker 1: what Paula says, just like a two year old cut?
Speaker 1: I said, it's pretty open. I said, I'm the Turkey's
Speaker 1: gonna see me. He said, well, you need to get
Speaker 1: up that he'll right before it breaks off. And he
Speaker 1: said you need to get in. You need to dig in.
Speaker 1: He said, once you dig in, if he answers you,
Speaker 1: you know he might break free away from them hens.
Speaker 1: He said, you might have sit there till eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1: So I got up there and I dug in and
Speaker 1: I called nothing, not a pete, not nothing. So I
Speaker 1: called Papa a third time. I've been sitting there an hour.
Speaker 1: I ain't heard of Turkey in an hour. He said,
Speaker 1: you gotta do You gotta be patient. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm trying, you know. It was one of those things.
Speaker 1: I was just just learning how turkey hunt on my
Speaker 1: Oh it's my first time. So I was all fired up.
Speaker 1: Didn't want to overcall, didn't want to undercall. He said,
Speaker 1: dig in, he said, just give him a few yelps
Speaker 1: here and there, he said. And if he doesn't answer,
Speaker 1: he said, your last resort is to call the hens.
Speaker 1: See if you can get the hens fired up and
Speaker 1: get them to come. So I sat there, sat there,
Speaker 1: didn't hear nothing. Well, this dove. You know what a
Speaker 1: dove makes a noise at, you know when it flies off?
Speaker 1: What flew off? And he gobbled about fifty yards sixty
Speaker 1: yards over the break. I mean I heard him. Well,
Speaker 1: so I called it and answer me, and I said,
Speaker 1: he's with him. I knew, you know, I knew enough
Speaker 1: about it. I knew he was with hens. So I
Speaker 1: just started, I mean, just going crazy, just pucking and
Speaker 1: purring and just fighting purrs. And I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was given everything I could well about. Not even
Speaker 1: two minutes later, I see this head coming. Here, it comes,
Speaker 1: Here comes another one. Well, here comes some hens. They started,
Speaker 1: you know, feeding off through there real quietly, And so
Speaker 1: I just turned my head and gave him a purr.
Speaker 1: And they here they come, looking well, sure enough, here
Speaker 1: behind an old tree, kind of a dead tree, leaned
Speaker 1: over here, he comes full strut. He come through there.
Speaker 1: And I said oh, it's on. You know, it's one
Speaker 1: of those deals. I was getting fired up. Well, the
Speaker 1: Hens started coming towards where I was at, and he
Speaker 1: was kind of circling off over there. The Hens got
Speaker 1: so close, they were probably ten yards from me, and
Speaker 1: I was in some brush. I was, I mean, I
Speaker 1: couldn't even breathe. I was afraid they were gonna see me.
Speaker 1: I didn't even I had my eyes closed. I had
Speaker 1: one eye closing, one eye looking down to it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just trying not to move. It was one
Speaker 1: of those situations. Well, one hen she kind of threw
Speaker 1: her head up and she just about that time at
Speaker 1: Gobbler threw his head up and kind of look that way.
Speaker 1: He was every bit I guarantee of sixty yards and
Speaker 1: I knew. I said, it's my only chance. So I
Speaker 1: put it right on him and I shot and he
Speaker 1: went to flopping. And so I got on the phone
Speaker 1: and I said, bah bah, I just killed him. I
Speaker 1: guide him, you know, and he's like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's one of those things. I was hooper
Speaker 1: excited as my first turkey. But you know, he walked
Speaker 1: me through it on the phone. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things. It's kind of crazy
Speaker 1: at the same time. But when I got up to
Speaker 1: the turkey, he had a twelve inch beard, not even lying.
Speaker 1: He had about an inch spurs. Still the biggest bird
Speaker 1: I've ever killed, old bird. I mean, he's just one
Speaker 1: of those things. You just you couldn't beat him. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those mornings, fine Crisp morning, you just
Speaker 1: can't top him. So after I got up to the
Speaker 1: turkey and everything, I called Papa back and he had
Speaker 1: told me Grandma had just got out of surgery, and
Speaker 1: she did. She had just got out and she actually,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to talk to her, and so
Speaker 1: I talked to her and she made it through. Everything
Speaker 1: was good. She's still doing great today. I mean she's
Speaker 1: just she's young. She actually young, and you know, she
Speaker 1: just gets around good and everything's good. But she was
Speaker 1: she was beyond thrilled that I was able to get
Speaker 1: that turkey. And she's not a turkey hunter, but she
Speaker 1: was so excited I was able to get that turkey.
Speaker 1: Now that's a good story. And there are two things
Speaker 1: that I thought were funny. I chuckled when he said
Speaker 1: I ain't even lying about the beard being twelve inches long.
Speaker 1: And did you catch that he drove by himself to
Speaker 1: his turkey hunting spot when he was fourteen? That gives
Speaker 1: you a glimpse into the non hunting world of the storyteller.
Speaker 1: And for all the Karen's out there, which I doubt
Speaker 1: there are many listening to bear grease, I know about
Speaker 1: where he was and where he went, and it was
Speaker 1: just a short drive down a lonely country road, and
Speaker 1: in my book, that's some decent parenting, you know what. Really,
Speaker 1: I doubt Juju would have been too happy about that
Speaker 1: either jos my mom, but Karen's and jujus are different.
Speaker 1: Jujus cast their disapproval out of genuine love, and when
Speaker 1: the risk taker completes the task despite their juju's approval,
Speaker 1: it actually adds gravitas to the deed. I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: bat Koy's Mamall wasn't thrilled about him driving by himself
Speaker 1: that morning. But as I understand it, Karen's don't want
Speaker 1: you to do stuff just kind of out of spike,
Speaker 1: kind of like they're the referees of the world. So
Speaker 1: it's okay to be jujus and mamas and I apologize
Speaker 1: to all the sweet, genuine people of the world named
Speaker 1: Karen who've been unjustly trapped in the cultural catchphrase. Juju
Speaker 1: actually has a sister named Karen, my sweet aunt, So sorry,
Speaker 1: Aunt Karen. Anyhow, our next storyteller is gonna make you
Speaker 1: forget the last thirty seconds because he's the antithesis of
Speaker 1: any cultural catchphrase. Hank Bird Die as from Chatham, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: He's a published author and one of the guardians of
Speaker 1: the legacy of Hulk Collyer and kind of like Matthew McConaughey,
Speaker 1: is a Minister of Culture in Texas. He got that
Speaker 1: whole playbook from the way Hank Burdine knows, loves, and
Speaker 1: speaks about Mississippi. You're gonna enjoy this story from Hank.
Speaker 1: I had a big hunting club place family placed down
Speaker 1: middle of the Delta, close to le Roy Percy Park,
Speaker 1: a couple of thousand acres that was in the north
Speaker 1: boundary of Leroy Percy Park and Leroy Purse Pars about
Speaker 1: forty five hundred acres, and then that was attached to
Speaker 1: Yazu Wildlife Refuge about fourteen thousand acres, So we had
Speaker 1: a contiguous wildlife preserve and had a cabin right down there,
Speaker 1: and and I had Turkish, And you got to wed Leader.
Speaker 1: Windows open midnight in my bedroom my cabin, and my
Speaker 1: wife says, Honey, it's cold, clue that window. I said, no,
Speaker 1: baby said, well, why you want to keep that window?
Speaker 1: I said, one readon. Make you snuggled up a little
Speaker 1: closer to me. I said, but I hit him turkeys
Speaker 1: in the morning. That will wag me up my gold
Speaker 1: turkey hunting. Well, I got the way. I knew my Turkish,
Speaker 1: I knew where they were, I knew what gravel they
Speaker 1: were graveling on for the gizzards, and gotten know him
Speaker 1: pretty well. Well. I had a flock. It was easing
Speaker 1: over into the state park. I wasn't full be hunting
Speaker 1: over in there, but I had a big corner that
Speaker 1: went right up in the middle of it. I said,
Speaker 1: I've been here from good turkeys downing Yona. So I
Speaker 1: got up and when got set up and the gun
Speaker 1: I was shooting. My daddy was a goose hunter, had
Speaker 1: a big boat back in nineteen thirty eight and the
Speaker 1: forties after they channel as the river, and he goose
Speaker 1: hunting with them. It's called a Winchester Model twelve heavy duck.
Speaker 1: It was a three inch magnum full choke thirty inch barrel,
Speaker 1: legendary duck gun and goose guns back then. Well, I
Speaker 1: didn't duck hunt with it, but I turkey hunted with it,
Speaker 1: because it was that full choke barrel. It was a
Speaker 1: turkey gett. So I get set up back down at
Speaker 1: that on it that morning, and I'd gotten my blind
Speaker 1: set up, and all of a sudden there was a
Speaker 1: turkey started gobbling. I never had a turkey gobble as
Speaker 1: much in my life as a turkey gobbled on the roof.
Speaker 1: He gobbled coming off the roof. When he hit the ground,
Speaker 1: he had gobbling his head off. A couple more turkeys
Speaker 1: were gobbling out there too, out hooting like a hood out,
Speaker 1: trying to get them going. And all of a sudden
Speaker 1: I looked up, and before I'd even really got settled
Speaker 1: in there good here, that turkey came. He all but
Speaker 1: jumped into blind with me, gobbling his head off, stood
Speaker 1: and cairn on, acting a fool like turkey do in
Speaker 1: the springtime like that, And when I went to throw
Speaker 1: a gun up, he scared him. He jumped up, took off,
Speaker 1: flying I got one shot off at him as he
Speaker 1: flew into the park, and I knew I felt like
Speaker 1: I hit that turkey. I knew I had I could,
Speaker 1: I hadn't been able to. But a gun for a
Speaker 1: tight choke jack, tight choke gun like it. Well, and
Speaker 1: I've sent me bad. I didn't hear him fall, didn't
Speaker 1: hear him flapping. I spent half a day looking for
Speaker 1: that turkey. Never could find him, never could find him.
Speaker 1: I went back to the house dejected, wo out and
Speaker 1: just upset that court out that that was too good
Speaker 1: a turkey to lose. Or next morning, I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go right back where I was. Of course
Speaker 1: there's no birds in there. So I did, and I
Speaker 1: sat down. I hooted one time. Didn't hear a gobble.
Speaker 1: Hooted again, didn't hear nothing. San started coming up. I
Speaker 1: want to yelp in a little bit. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I look up, and he'll come to turkey with about
Speaker 1: a ten and a half. Let means beard. He's struttling,
Speaker 1: he got his feathers, fans out, he doing all this stuff.
Speaker 1: He isn't there, got he ain't said a word, ain't
Speaker 1: said a word. Run right straight up within fifteen yards
Speaker 1: and me I was able to get him a gun
Speaker 1: up right on his head as he still get out
Speaker 1: and he'd be sticking ahead. I low your goblin, but
Speaker 1: he wouldn't say nothing. He well, he just quiet. He
Speaker 1: stuck that head out there, ladtime bloom. I got him
Speaker 1: right in the head, didn't hit him anywhere but in
Speaker 1: the head. Well, I went and at him. I went
Speaker 1: back to the house. My wife came back, well, you
Speaker 1: got your acid. Well yeah, but this ain't the one
Speaker 1: I wanted, I doge. It just just still upsetting. It's
Speaker 1: so bad that I was gonna lose that one from
Speaker 1: the day before. So I started cleaning that turkey head
Speaker 1: shot totally. Nothing in his chest, nothing anywhere. I went
Speaker 1: to cleaning the feathers office back in it will slap
Speaker 1: full of copper coated number four. That's the turkey that
Speaker 1: I had shot at the day before, flying off. But
Speaker 1: it upset him so bad. When he came in the
Speaker 1: next morning, I've been shocked at the gobble out of him.
Speaker 1: He was not going to open his mouth. That was it.
Speaker 1: He was still is hot and ready to trot as
Speaker 1: he could be. But he knew what happened the day
Speaker 1: before when he opened his mouth at esther. That's the
Speaker 1: turkey I shot the gobble out of. And here's a
Speaker 1: final one hat tip to hankberg Die. I like the
Speaker 1: twofold reason he left his window opened during the turkey season.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. Our next story is told by
Speaker 1: none other than the old Ozark Mountain turkey hunter himself,
Speaker 1: Mo Shepherd. They say one of his legs grew slightly
Speaker 1: longer than the other because of all the sidehilling he's done,
Speaker 1: slipping around on these steep limestone hills chasing gobbles. His
Speaker 1: stories always have a turkey hunting lesson embedded inside of him.
Speaker 1: Here's Mo Well. This turkey story starts in late April.
Speaker 1: I was hunting the Ozark Mountains out on public land.
Speaker 1: It started on one morning. I went out a big
Speaker 1: mountain ridge and heard a bird gobble a couple of times.
Speaker 1: I just kept walking out this ridge top, but I
Speaker 1: only heard him gobble two or three times that morning.
Speaker 1: I never heard him anymore. But the whole time I
Speaker 1: was out there that morning, across the creek on the
Speaker 1: other mountain, there was a couple of birds. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they were answered me or if they were
Speaker 1: just goblin. But I heard him several times, but it
Speaker 1: was too far to try to go that morning, so
Speaker 1: I just stayed in there and hunted till midday, walked
Speaker 1: back out, ate me a snack, decided, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go with on the side of the mountain. I knew,
Speaker 1: in fact there was a logging road where they'd logged
Speaker 1: in there the year before I could walk around. So
Speaker 1: I got over the mid afternoon and started walking around
Speaker 1: that road, and i'd stop and call, like I do.
Speaker 1: I do that a lot of eating and when a
Speaker 1: hunt of eating, and I'll just periodically call a little
Speaker 1: bit see if I can get something to answer me.
Speaker 1: And what makes it good for me is even if
Speaker 1: it ain't good that day, you call an area like that,
Speaker 1: if you don't overcalled, who must just like a turkey
Speaker 1: moving his way around the mountain. A lot of times
Speaker 1: I'll go back in there the next day and gobblers
Speaker 1: will be in that area where I've done that call
Speaker 1: in eating them for But then anyway, this day it
Speaker 1: didn't work like that. But once I thought I heard
Speaker 1: a gobbler across the creek on the side where I
Speaker 1: was at that morning. Well, I started making my way
Speaker 1: back around the mountain and started calling a little bit louder,
Speaker 1: see if I get one to gobble on the side
Speaker 1: of that. Well, that bird on the other side of
Speaker 1: the mountain start answering me, and I'd call. Sometimes he'd
Speaker 1: answer and sometimes he wouldn't. Well, I got pretty much
Speaker 1: straight across framing. There was a log landing there where
Speaker 1: they'd logged in there. I thought, let's play a good place,
Speaker 1: just to set here for a little bit and see
Speaker 1: maybe one comes in. And I got set up there
Speaker 1: and this bird answers me across the creek a long
Speaker 1: ways over there, but nothing on the size on. So
Speaker 1: i'd way a little bit. I called a little more,
Speaker 1: and it's getting later. Then it's getting you know, probably
Speaker 1: forty five minutes made any hour before the sun was
Speaker 1: going down. So I got up and made my way
Speaker 1: down the logging road. This little piece something caught mine.
Speaker 1: I looked out in the canyon there, over the creek
Speaker 1: between me and that other mountain, I could see something
Speaker 1: in there, and then I realized it was a turkey flying.
Speaker 1: And then I realized it looked like a big turkey flying.
Speaker 1: And then when it got close it landed in that
Speaker 1: log landing. It was a big old goblin. It was
Speaker 1: the one who had been a goblin at me. I
Speaker 1: just froze. I didn't know what else to do. Well,
Speaker 1: he lands, he just went into strut mode with that
Speaker 1: tail fan out, and he turned that tail fan towards you.
Speaker 1: That's probably one hundred yards from that log landing. When
Speaker 1: he turned that fan, I just dove into the bushes
Speaker 1: there and got hid. And then I do know he
Speaker 1: started gobbling a few times. Well it's getting later, the
Speaker 1: sun's getting closer, being down. I made a few calls,
Speaker 1: and he gobbled and straight out there, but he didn't
Speaker 1: come on in. Well, he got a little bit later.
Speaker 1: He walks to the far end of that log landing
Speaker 1: and sails up in a tree, orright blow it just
Speaker 1: in a big old tree there, a big old pine tree.
Speaker 1: I still remember it. And them that has them big pines,
Speaker 1: got them big old crooked limbs coming down. And he
Speaker 1: just let up one of them limbs there and gobbled
Speaker 1: several times. And I still just stayed put. I wait
Speaker 1: till he got plumb dark. He gobbled several times, so
Speaker 1: I eased my way out there. I thought I've got you, buddy.
Speaker 1: Next morning. This will be real simple. So next morning,
Speaker 1: I got way in their way early, but I knew
Speaker 1: right where I was going. I didn't use a light
Speaker 1: or anything. I made my way in there. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna set up at the end of this log now.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get on then and where he's at,
Speaker 1: because I might break a stick, it might spook him
Speaker 1: ringing if they hear noise. I think they spoke real
Speaker 1: easy and in the darkness like that and won't come
Speaker 1: to wherever they hear the sticks break or whatever. So
Speaker 1: I set up on within gun range of the log landing,
Speaker 1: and I set there a while. And I set there
Speaker 1: a while, and I didn't hear nothing. No gobbles, no nothing.
Speaker 1: It's just barely breaking light. But it was light enough
Speaker 1: that a turkeys should have gobbled if they were going to.
Speaker 1: I thought, maybe he flew out of here. Maybe something
Speaker 1: bust him out of the tree of hoode'll run him
Speaker 1: out of the tree, or a bobcat or whatever you know,
Speaker 1: may run him out of the tree. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make some really this real soft yelps, and
Speaker 1: if he's there, he'll he'll answer this all. I didn't
Speaker 1: even get the second little out in that dude, I
Speaker 1: hear he's wings pop and he sails down that log round.
Speaker 1: It's still so dark, I can't even see him. And
Speaker 1: he starts gobbling. And there I'm setting in a pitch
Speaker 1: dark daily. I mean, it's light, but you can't see
Speaker 1: twenty yards in front of you. And I watch out
Speaker 1: there where he's at. I don't call anymore because I
Speaker 1: don't want even come into me, and it as dark
Speaker 1: as it was, and I sat there and I sat there,
Speaker 1: and he just gobbles and he gobbles and he gobbles.
Speaker 1: He's on the ground. That's why I said. He flew
Speaker 1: down on the ground and it's gobbling, and I guess strutting,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't see him. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I see something moving and it's the white of his
Speaker 1: head where he's strutting, and I can see a little bit.
Speaker 1: Then he go away. He's just he's probably in gun
Speaker 1: range on me, but it's still too dark to shoot.
Speaker 1: And I thought, just stay here. It's just stay here.
Speaker 1: And I thought maybe I should call. No, I don't
Speaker 1: need to call yet because it's still too dark. I
Speaker 1: don't even getting gun range if he's not in there yet. Well,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the white head disappears and I
Speaker 1: don't hear anything, and he don't gobble. I thought he's leaving,
Speaker 1: so I gotta do something other. So I just made
Speaker 1: a few soft calls. When I did, he answered me
Speaker 1: right back. But it's still fairly dark, but he's farther
Speaker 1: out away from him. He's probably out of the log
Speaker 1: landing by the end. And it starts getting light, and
Speaker 1: then I see him. He's plumb out in the road
Speaker 1: to pass the log landing the opposite end of the
Speaker 1: log landing of me. The log land is probably a
Speaker 1: hundred yards across, it may be eighty something like. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta do some sweet talking to him, because he's
Speaker 1: been there strutting and I ain't. So I tried some
Speaker 1: of my stuff and started calling, and finally here he comes.
Speaker 1: He turns and starts coming towards me, and by time
Speaker 1: he gets the middle of that log landing, I can
Speaker 1: see him pretty good. Then it's plenty of light shoot,
Speaker 1: but he's not and what I feel good range he
Speaker 1: just stops there like they do, stops and spins and
Speaker 1: turns fins and turns around and turns around and spins.
Speaker 1: I thought, I need to do anything. No, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be quiet, because I say anything, he's liable to just
Speaker 1: stay where he's at. So I sat there for probably
Speaker 1: five minutes, didn't say a thing. He just drops out
Speaker 1: of strutton it starts walking towards me, gets some good
Speaker 1: gun range, and I raised my old gun I've had
Speaker 1: for forty years I've been turkey hunting with and shoot
Speaker 1: and get him. And he's a big old ma Tera gobbler.
Speaker 1: And it was a really mermorable hunt because I've never
Speaker 1: seen a gobbler fly down when it was that dark
Speaker 1: like that. So, yeah, that was a heck of a hunt.
Speaker 1: That turkey flew all the way across that Halla to
Speaker 1: try to roost near that hen that he heard Colin.
Speaker 1: Little did he know that it was just old mo.
Speaker 1: You can learn a thing or two from that story.
Speaker 1: Our next storyteller is another born and bread Ozarkian, and
Speaker 1: he came by his turkey hunting passion honest. From his house,
Speaker 1: he has a three hundred and sixty degree view with
Speaker 1: some of the prettiest mountains known to man. He's grown
Speaker 1: up in the heart of some great turkey hunting and
Speaker 1: he's a real woodsman and turkey hunter. This story, however,
Speaker 1: takes place in Kansas. Here's Richard Campbell of Newton County, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: All right, so, uh, me and mister Brown, mister David Brown,
Speaker 1: we were out in Kansas hunting. It was probably mid
Speaker 1: April er but we were out there hunting and we're
Speaker 1: driving down the highway. Of course, they got a lot
Speaker 1: of lakes and core land that you can hunt on
Speaker 1: around him lakes and there was a parker on this
Speaker 1: one lake and we pulled in there. There was there
Speaker 1: was three or four big old jake's walking around in
Speaker 1: that park and the lake wasn't he was probably an
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty two hundred yards wide there, and
Speaker 1: there's like either it may have been an island, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they's land across there. So they
Speaker 1: at rolls and they flew across that lake, and David
Speaker 1: asked me. He says, he says, now, just what would
Speaker 1: you do if you shot a turkey and it got
Speaker 1: out in the lake. I said, I ain't going out
Speaker 1: in that lake after a turkey. And that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of hat went on here. Well, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was that day. The next day we were coming
Speaker 1: back up the road we've been hunting, and across the
Speaker 1: road from this same lake there's a big old farm
Speaker 1: land and we looked out there and there's this big
Speaker 1: old gobbler out there strutting around out the middle of
Speaker 1: a field. And Dave says, let's pull off here at
Speaker 1: this ramp. There's a ramp that went down to the
Speaker 1: lake there, and and just see if that old turkey
Speaker 1: of gobble. We got out there and we stopped and
Speaker 1: I called and here, I meant, old turkey jard down there,
Speaker 1: and uh well, we stood around our talking and the
Speaker 1: old turkey just kept gobbling. I called another time too,
Speaker 1: just just fooling around there, and I told them, I said, David,
Speaker 1: I think that turkey is coming. And he says, I'll
Speaker 1: go on up the road. You get down here and
Speaker 1: on this coal land, and it's if you can see
Speaker 1: if you can kill him, se if you can call
Speaker 1: him up. And this was a we's right in the
Speaker 1: side of big he said, a busy highway. And I
Speaker 1: get down the road of the hill out away from
Speaker 1: the highway, and you know, down toward Jet lake, and
Speaker 1: I sitting there calling, and I hear the little turkey
Speaker 1: over our car, so highway government. He's just getting closer
Speaker 1: and closer, and he gobbled here him in and I said, well,
Speaker 1: he's over at that fence hearing him, and he gobbled
Speaker 1: and I looked up and he stand up here in
Speaker 1: the highway and these cars running them down the road,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, so he walks down there, and
Speaker 1: of course you know, he was up to the highway
Speaker 1: and he comes kind of down that off ramp. He
Speaker 1: gets down there and to where I could shoot him,
Speaker 1: but it's, uh, it's real brushy and stuff. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm like to wait, don't leave him, get on down
Speaker 1: here a little bit. And so he just kept getting
Speaker 1: closer and he walks down there, and it's finally I've
Speaker 1: got to shoot or something. I find me a halfway
Speaker 1: open spot and he probably not fifteen yards and I
Speaker 1: shoot and I hit him, but he starts trying to
Speaker 1: fly off, and he tries to fly across the lake. Well,
Speaker 1: he flies out here, probably one hundred yards in the
Speaker 1: lake and lands in the lake. Well, the first thing
Speaker 1: that comes to my mind is, are you gonna go
Speaker 1: out in that lake and get that turkey. David asked
Speaker 1: me that. I thought, well, here I go. Well, little turkey,
Speaker 1: he hit the water and he starts swimming right back
Speaker 1: to me, right back towards where I'm at. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is this is great. I'll let him get over
Speaker 1: here the bank and then I'll shoot him. And I
Speaker 1: just walked down and pick him up and top fall
Speaker 1: this off. I'll just had I think. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I just put one chill in the gun or two,
Speaker 1: but I shot the one. Well, he comes back and
Speaker 1: he hits dirt and I shoot and miss him again
Speaker 1: because he's hits there and he's a run him when
Speaker 1: he hits the dirt, and I am without a shell. Anyways,
Speaker 1: he runs back across the highway, right out through the field.
Speaker 1: I never did team and never did get that turkey.
Speaker 1: Now that that kind of that'd be hard to make up,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it. That wouldn't be hard to make up, Richard?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine calling a turkey across a busy highway?
Speaker 1: When Richard's buddy David tells the story, he says the
Speaker 1: turkey he waited for several cars to pass, looking both
Speaker 1: ways before he crossed and then for the durned thing
Speaker 1: to land in the lake, just like David had thought
Speaker 1: the day before. It is wild and I hate it
Speaker 1: when they get away. But we'll hope that bird made
Speaker 1: it to another spring, and I bet he didn't leave
Speaker 1: that private land again. And before we move on, I
Speaker 1: want y'all to hear Richard's sweet of natural voice calls.
Speaker 1: He's really good. Hit it, Richard, This will be by
Speaker 1: bardowl o clow Yep. That's about as good as it gets.
Speaker 1: And once again my theory on natural voice callers rings true.
Speaker 1: They're usually really good turkey hunters. I want to end
Speaker 1: with a special story from a man that I just
Speaker 1: met named Garvin Gibbons. Like the storytellers before him, he's
Speaker 1: from deep in the ozarks of Arkansas. I think you'll
Speaker 1: hear a humble, somber, yet passionate tone in Garvin's voice.
Speaker 1: He's an extremely accomplished hunter. His wall is full of
Speaker 1: big white tails, and he's killed twenty three elk out
Speaker 1: west with his bow. He elk hunted from nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: four until two thousand and eight. But I've got to
Speaker 1: let you in on something from the start. Since two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, Garvin has been in a wheelchair. Here's
Speaker 1: Garvin's story about his son's first gobbler, which happened before
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. My son's name is Trevor, and
Speaker 1: he was eight years old and I put him in
Speaker 1: for the draw early permit draw, and he drew a tag.
Speaker 1: And so I went over before season and scouted one
Speaker 1: day and knew where a few turkeys were at. So
Speaker 1: we get up and go. We'll drive over that morning
Speaker 1: and we'll go down to one of the cut lanes.
Speaker 1: They are kind of like a firebreak there, and we
Speaker 1: hear a turkey and anyway, we get get set up,
Speaker 1: and the turkey comes right off the limb and he
Speaker 1: comes up and he gets probably maybe thirty thirty five yards,
Speaker 1: and I can see the turkey really good, and traffic
Speaker 1: can just get bits and pieces of him. And finally
Speaker 1: the old turkey gets nervous and walks off. But after
Speaker 1: I kind of survey what's going on here. I always
Speaker 1: set him right between my legs, you know, so I
Speaker 1: can communicate with him, and if we need to turn,
Speaker 1: we can kind of twist together, and that way I
Speaker 1: can just lean up by his head and kind of
Speaker 1: coach him you know, he's not over to my side
Speaker 1: and stuff. But what I got to realize is I'm
Speaker 1: setting up higher than an eight year old, and I
Speaker 1: can see things that he can't. So he didn't get
Speaker 1: a real good look at it. And it walked off.
Speaker 1: And anyway, we go on and a little bit, we
Speaker 1: hear some more and we set up and uh, I
Speaker 1: call it three jakes and I had him right up
Speaker 1: and he's laugh and stuff, but you know, this is
Speaker 1: his first rodeo. And anyway, I kept him up there
Speaker 1: for probably five minutes, and they was they kind of
Speaker 1: got nervous going back and forth and and he never
Speaker 1: would shoot. And so when they finally walked off, I
Speaker 1: told him, I said, uh, son, you know, if you
Speaker 1: get it on his head, just pull the trigger, not
Speaker 1: all the times. Everything's gonna be perfectly still. And uh,
Speaker 1: he was kind of down in his mouth. And we
Speaker 1: went on and it was getting up kind of end
Speaker 1: of the day and I struck a turkey and its
Speaker 1: across a big hollow, and uh, and we we set
Speaker 1: up on him and I put a decoy out and uh,
Speaker 1: it dropped off real steep in the hollow and the
Speaker 1: turkey was just on the other side, and he was
Speaker 1: answering me good. And finally there was a turkey kind
Speaker 1: of to a ride and kind of behind us, and
Speaker 1: that turkey really got goblin well. And um, so this
Speaker 1: turkey kind of got quiet, and uh and the turkey
Speaker 1: behind us kind of got goblin a lot better than
Speaker 1: I could tell he was coming toward us. So we
Speaker 1: got up and we moved probably twenty or twenty five yards,
Speaker 1: and um and as we were walking, this turkey gobbled
Speaker 1: that was across from us, and I asked Trev. I said,
Speaker 1: where was he at? And uh, the turkey was coming
Speaker 1: to us all the time. And he got down low
Speaker 1: in the hollow there and uh, so we sat down,
Speaker 1: and in just a minute he gobbled again, and I
Speaker 1: could tell he was just right under the break from us.
Speaker 1: And we sat there a minute and I called, and
Speaker 1: turkey didn't gobble no more. But in a little bit
Speaker 1: I seen him coming strutting up. When he come up,
Speaker 1: he's seen the decoy and he comes up and and uh,
Speaker 1: he never breaks out a strutt and he walks right
Speaker 1: up to the decoy, and he might have been twenty
Speaker 1: five yards from us. Anyway, I got Trev on him
Speaker 1: and and he straight around the decoy a couple of times,
Speaker 1: and finally the turkey got just right and he had
Speaker 1: a good beat on him, and he shot and he
Speaker 1: killed him. And that was a pretty special day for me.
Speaker 1: You know, my son being eight years old and he
Speaker 1: got his first turkey. I think he weighed twenty two pound,
Speaker 1: had like a ten inch beard. That was a special day.
Speaker 1: I asked Garvin if he'd be willing to tell us
Speaker 1: what happened when he got hurt. He agreed. Here's his story.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, we had a really a
Speaker 1: bad ice storm. There was trees broke down all in
Speaker 1: my yard and stuff and anyway I had. I had
Speaker 1: a feeder up out at the guy's house. I worked
Speaker 1: with him, and I had some tree stands up and
Speaker 1: I wasn't hunting, but I thought, well, I'll just go
Speaker 1: out there and take that stuff down. And I got
Speaker 1: out there and it was a cold, snowy day and
Speaker 1: there was snow on the ground, probably four inches of snow.
Speaker 1: And I walked up and I thought, well, I can
Speaker 1: get this tree stand down, but I didn't take my belt,
Speaker 1: and uh, when I walked up the tree, I was
Speaker 1: kind of hesitant but I thought, well, I've done this forever,
Speaker 1: you know. I thought, I can just snake up the
Speaker 1: tree here and walk up my climbing steps and take
Speaker 1: the stand down. But I had had a lock on
Speaker 1: the chain. It was a lock on standing. I got
Speaker 1: up there, and it was cold, and I had on
Speaker 1: some gloves, and I'd been in that stand, uh, probably
Speaker 1: a half a dozen times that fall. And there was
Speaker 1: a limb that come out from the side of the
Speaker 1: tree there, and and I got up on the standing
Speaker 1: on the steps, and I had a hold of stand,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, if I can just pull up
Speaker 1: just a little bit on this limb here, I can
Speaker 1: throw my leg over and and set on top of
Speaker 1: this big limb and and just unlocked my stand and
Speaker 1: get my rope and let it down and just step
Speaker 1: back over on the step and and come down the tree.
Speaker 1: But when I was pulling up, I'm not sure exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. But I don't know if the limb was frozen.
Speaker 1: I don't think the limb was dead. But it broke
Speaker 1: with me. And I had so much pressure and I
Speaker 1: was a hold of the stand. But it all happened
Speaker 1: so fast. I pulled loose from the stand, and I
Speaker 1: had enough awareness to try to kick out from the
Speaker 1: tree because I didn't want to want little steps to
Speaker 1: catch me on the way down, you know. So when
Speaker 1: I woke up, I guess it knocked me out. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it did. I was just tingling all over and
Speaker 1: I reached behind me and there was a little cedar
Speaker 1: tree and I got to hold it, but I tried
Speaker 1: to move but I couldn't and um, and I had
Speaker 1: fallen about twenty feet. The first thing I thought of
Speaker 1: was was I left my cell phone in my truck.
Speaker 1: I remember pulling it out of my cover oz and
Speaker 1: I was dressed pretty well, and thank goodness. And so
Speaker 1: when I left that morning my friend's house, I told him,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm just gonna be on a little bit
Speaker 1: and i'll be back. So after I looked at my
Speaker 1: watch and it was about ten twenty five. Then you
Speaker 1: wonder or you go to lay here and freeze to
Speaker 1: death before anybody comes. And I knew I was hurt bad,
Speaker 1: and uh I'd lay there almost two hours and I
Speaker 1: heard I heard Dwight on his tractor coming around, and
Speaker 1: I thought were good, And uh I heard him come
Speaker 1: come back, and I heard the tractor stop, and then
Speaker 1: about ten or fifteen minutes I could hear him coming.
Speaker 1: He had two little fist rat terrier fast mixed dogs
Speaker 1: and they went with me that morning and they stayed
Speaker 1: right with me the whole the whole time. Anyway, Dwhite
Speaker 1: came and I told him I was really cold, and
Speaker 1: I told him to go get me some blankets and
Speaker 1: try to try to get me some help. And a
Speaker 1: little bit the amalyst came and Dwight in the meantime
Speaker 1: it brought me some blankets and covered me up, and
Speaker 1: he never tried to move me or anything. And they
Speaker 1: finally came and and got me and worked on me
Speaker 1: and packed me out. And I didn't know it, but
Speaker 1: I had a compound fracture in my leg. Anyway, they
Speaker 1: got me in and started to the hospital and I
Speaker 1: flatlined three times. I remember the amulets stopping, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on. So anyway, they got
Speaker 1: me in to the hospital in Harrison and then checked
Speaker 1: me out and then took me on the springfield and
Speaker 1: ended up. It paralyzed me from the right above the
Speaker 1: waist down and I had surgery and then I went
Speaker 1: on to Craig Hospital out in Colorado, and I stayed
Speaker 1: one hundred and three days in the hospital in my
Speaker 1: rehab and stuff bef where I got to come home
Speaker 1: and yeah, a rock hit me in the in the spine.
Speaker 1: It busted my vertebrae and bruised my spinal cord enough
Speaker 1: that it paralyzed me. Yeah, I just you know, I
Speaker 1: just thank God for being with me, and you know,
Speaker 1: give me a second chance in life, because um, I
Speaker 1: should I should have died. Being truthful with you, I
Speaker 1: was real hypothermic. And I remember I remember laying there
Speaker 1: and praying for God to help me. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to I didn't want to leave my wife
Speaker 1: and in kids, you know. And that's what I was
Speaker 1: really thinking about at the time. After I got to
Speaker 1: come home and stuff, and uh I had to I
Speaker 1: got home in June, and anyway, season come up, and
Speaker 1: uh it was a whole new, whole new learning experience.
Speaker 1: You know. I had to, UH had to figure some
Speaker 1: things out. So I got me, I got me a
Speaker 1: couple of pop up blinds, and uh, I deer hunted
Speaker 1: that fall and stuff, and and I was lucky I
Speaker 1: got to kill a deer and and uh but anyway,
Speaker 1: UH come spring, I was, I was stronger, and and
Speaker 1: uh tried turkey hunting, and uh, you know, now I
Speaker 1: can't get up and go to the turkeys like I
Speaker 1: used to could. But I've got a few places that
Speaker 1: I can go and and and get my blind and
Speaker 1: I mainly hunt around hedge of fields and some some
Speaker 1: of down blogging roads and some some of the timber
Speaker 1: I can get to. But you know, around some of
Speaker 1: the fields and where I can drive my truck or
Speaker 1: my side beside in and throw the blind up and
Speaker 1: and just rolling there and my wheelchair and stuff. But
Speaker 1: I've seen where patients really come into effect since I'm hurt,
Speaker 1: you know, because I figured out a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of birds that I've walked off and left, you know,
Speaker 1: and now that now that I can't move, I've sat
Speaker 1: there and I heard a lot of turkeys in turkeys
Speaker 1: come to you, you know, and I've been, I've been.
Speaker 1: I've killed a lot of turkeys now since um I
Speaker 1: got hurt that I wouldn't have killed before because I
Speaker 1: just wouldn't have given them enough time to come in,
Speaker 1: you know. So I've learned that patience is really a
Speaker 1: good thing. On killing a turkey Garvin is a fighter
Speaker 1: who's not let the tough hand he's been dealt beat
Speaker 1: him down. He's continued to passionately hunt. He's killed a
Speaker 1: lot of turkeys, and even says he's killed bigger whitetails
Speaker 1: since his accident. Patience is a powerful thing. I'm proud
Speaker 1: to know Garvin and to have been able to set
Speaker 1: across the table from him as he told me his story.
Speaker 1: I'd say he's a real hero. What happened to him
Speaker 1: could have happened to any one of us who've spent
Speaker 1: our lives dangling from trees, chasing whitetails and bears. Garvin's
Speaker 1: chosen to take the glass half full approach and be
Speaker 1: thankful that he's alive. I'd say that's an honorable thing.
Speaker 1: He was forty nine years old when this accident happened
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. All these storytellers, some I've
Speaker 1: known my whole life, and others I've recently met, carried
Speaker 1: the DNA of the American turkey hunter, which is characterized
Speaker 1: by a peculiar passion in debtiction to this magnificent giant
Speaker 1: goblin bird which roams our woods and fields. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful that the generations before us fought to save turkeys
Speaker 1: and their habitat. Despite some regions seeing downfalls in numbers,
Speaker 1: we've still got an incredible resource at our fingertips. I
Speaker 1: think it's important to stay active in the organizations dedicated
Speaker 1: to turkey conservation, like the National Wild Turkey Federation and
Speaker 1: the new group Turkeys for Tomorrow, and I know there
Speaker 1: are many other groups helping wild turkeys long live the
Speaker 1: wild turkey, his habitat, and the hunt. I can't thank you,
Speaker 1: guys and gals enough for listening to Bear Greece. Please
Speaker 1: leave us a review on iTunes and share our podcast
Speaker 1: with the best intentioned but worst turkey hunter you know
Speaker 1: this week. We'll see you next week on the Render