Speaker 1: Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
Speaker 1: wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
Speaker 1: conserving both. Big shout out to ONEX Hunt for their
Speaker 1: support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle, and
Speaker 1: if you remember when we last spoke, I said that
Speaker 1: in this episode we would be learning about some life
Speaker 1: altering conservation work. My friends, this is the kind of
Speaker 1: wildlife conservation story that makes me want to stand up
Speaker 1: and start cheering. This is the kind of story that
Speaker 1: you'll want to tell your friends about. And believe me
Speaker 1: when I say, if you have ever had the privilege
Speaker 1: of hunting, hearing, or watching wild turkeys in the springtime,
Speaker 1: which we are quickly approaching, I dare say this story
Speaker 1: and conversation will send shills down your spine and make
Speaker 1: you even more thankful for every turkey you hear, see,
Speaker 1: or take. From here on out, let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's good.
Speaker 1: Come on in, sir, Hey, how are you good morning?
Speaker 1: I'm Lake. Nice to meet you, Lake, Yes, ma'am. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: yes I can. It's early February and I've driven a
Speaker 1: few hours north from my home in central Mississippi to
Speaker 1: meet a man named mister Benny Herring to talk about
Speaker 1: his involvement in one of the greatest wildlife conservation wins
Speaker 1: in the country's history.
Speaker 2: Oh, just now, what what do you need to do?
Speaker 2: You want to just sit down and visit or how
Speaker 2: do you want to do this?
Speaker 1: I was, now, yes I do. Steve said, I need
Speaker 1: to ask you about your turkey room.
Speaker 2: This is my room. Yeah, that's fifty something years.
Speaker 1: Of junk junk.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I have been pretty fortunate. I've been able
Speaker 2: to hunt a lot of places, and yes, been pretty
Speaker 2: well about as blessed as you can be, as far
Speaker 2: as being able to hunt and go with your wife,
Speaker 2: being very supportive and had quite a career. And I've
Speaker 2: just been fortunate. Yeah, I can tell you.
Speaker 1: I followed mister Benny to his office in his house.
Speaker 1: The room is lined all the way around with turkey beards,
Speaker 1: various wildlife and hunting photos of him and his friends
Speaker 1: taken from all around the country and other parts of
Speaker 1: the world. I see pictures of buffalo hunting in Africa,
Speaker 1: wingshooting in Argentina, along with deer, elk and antelope skulls,
Speaker 1: and some of the longest turkey spurs. I have ever
Speaker 1: laid eyes on. It became very clear to me that
Speaker 1: this man has seen and done a lot lot quite
Speaker 1: a collection of beards and spurs, and I've been lucky.
Speaker 2: Of course. I've been hunting turkeys a long time, A
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got some long spurred turkeys.
Speaker 2: Mike, Well, yes, I've got some pretty good ones they
Speaker 2: olly my goodness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thank you for doing this.
Speaker 2: Well, you're welcome. I always try to bene fifty turkeys
Speaker 2: best again, you know, work with them for years, and
Speaker 2: when you're about it, you don't never really quit being one.
Speaker 1: Can you this chair?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Move it, do whatever you need to do. Just
Speaker 2: you know, I'm following your lead. You just the way
Speaker 2: you want to.
Speaker 1: Mister Biddy possesses a rare quality. Truly, that's not blowing smoke.
Speaker 1: The zeal And adoration for wildlife, and particularly the wild turkey,
Speaker 1: was so evident in the first few minutes of meeting
Speaker 1: this man. I was just so excited to set up
Speaker 1: my podcast gear and get this interview under way. I
Speaker 1: knew before the formal conversation even got started that this
Speaker 1: man was going to have some incredible things to share
Speaker 1: with all of us. And believe me, he did.
Speaker 2: I started turkey hunting in nineteen seventy. Okay a Tyler County,
Speaker 2: which is the county just south of Montgomery County, opened
Speaker 2: their turkey season in nineteen seventy and my friend Won
Speaker 2: O'Neill lived in Caraziesco. And he and another fella were
Speaker 2: about the only two turkey hunted in Tyler County. And
Speaker 2: I got invited down there to go turkey hunton. And
Speaker 2: that was in nineteen seventy, the first time I ever
Speaker 2: went turkey hunting in my life.
Speaker 1: Did you had you heard of anyone doing it prior
Speaker 1: to that? Was there anybody around that was turkey hunt not.
Speaker 2: Here in this county. Now One O'Neill of course lived
Speaker 2: at Carazisco. He had turkey hunted some in the southern
Speaker 2: part of the state. And I did not know anybody
Speaker 2: personally that turkey hunting. Now later on, of course, we
Speaker 2: opened aparts from Montgomery County the following year and there
Speaker 2: was about three of us here in the county that
Speaker 2: turkey hunted. Yeah, it was just you know, things were
Speaker 2: different then you could turkey hunt anywhere in the county
Speaker 2: and never see another individual. Uh so about three of
Speaker 2: us and that was about it, and of course it
Speaker 2: changed as time went on.
Speaker 1: I wish there was three turkey hunters in the county
Speaker 1: I live in now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I understand it, I really do.
Speaker 1: There's a few key things we can pull out from
Speaker 1: this first little bit mister Benny has shared with us.
Speaker 1: In that one short story, he made mention of several
Speaker 1: things that demonstrate how different turkey hunting and turkey hunting
Speaker 1: culture was back in nineteen seventy when he started Number one,
Speaker 1: the county he started turkey hunting in opened their season
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy, as in turkey hunting wasn't allowed before then.
Speaker 1: Think back once again to the Fanny Cook episode and
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission being established in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two. One of the first things that commission did
Speaker 1: was start protecting game species that had been grossly over hunted,
Speaker 1: turkey's being one of them. Mister Betty started hunting turkeys
Speaker 1: right at the very beginning of some hunting starting to
Speaker 1: be opened back up in a very limited manner. Number two,
Speaker 1: did you hear him say that he was one of
Speaker 1: three turkey hunters in the entire county and that he
Speaker 1: didn't know of anyone not a soul that turkey hunting
Speaker 1: in the county that he lived in at the time.
Speaker 1: My friends, if that alone does not screen that we
Speaker 1: are talking about an entirely different era. I don't know
Speaker 1: what does These days in Mississippi you can throw a
Speaker 1: rock and hit three turkey hunters. It's a different time.
Speaker 1: But mister Benny was coming up in a crucial part
Speaker 1: of turkey conservation history, and we're gonna fully dive into that,
Speaker 1: but before we do, I want to hear the last
Speaker 1: bit of this story so that we can really appreciate
Speaker 1: how much this man loves wild turkeys.
Speaker 2: That first year was fruitful, and of course after I
Speaker 2: shot that first turkey, it was all over.
Speaker 1: I should see you were able to call a turkey
Speaker 1: in that first year?
Speaker 2: Sure was?
Speaker 1: What was that? Like?
Speaker 2: Unbelievable? You know, nowadays, when you see a turkey approaching
Speaker 2: in full strut and gobbling, you've probably done it a
Speaker 2: good bit and you don't, I reckon, you kind of
Speaker 2: take it for granted. But that first time, now, you
Speaker 2: don't ever recover from that. If you really really love turkey, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to put it. You don't ever
Speaker 1: recover and never recover. Mister Benny Herring loves wild turkeys.
Speaker 1: That much is clear. So now let's get into the
Speaker 1: meat of this conversation and learn about his work as
Speaker 1: a wildlife biologist. How did you get into the biology
Speaker 1: side of it?
Speaker 2: Well, I graduated from Delfas State with a BS and biology,
Speaker 2: and I thought I might want to be a teacher,
Speaker 2: but I soon found out that with a BS you
Speaker 2: could hardly live on what you'd get paid as a teacher.
Speaker 2: And at that time I heard about a wildlife school
Speaker 2: at Mississippi State University, and I went over there and
Speaker 2: applied and was accepted and got my master's degree in
Speaker 2: wildlife in Mississippi State, and immediately went to work for
Speaker 2: the Game and Fish and I spent thirty two years
Speaker 2: there with him, and I had numerous probly that I
Speaker 2: was involved in. I was involved in Morning the project
Speaker 2: where we increased finally got to increase in the bag
Speaker 2: limit UH. And then our turkey biologiest at that time
Speaker 2: was named Champ Clark, and he was killed on one
Speaker 2: of our wildlife managineers when he fell off of a
Speaker 2: tractor and the disk ran over him. And I had
Speaker 2: been working with Champ a good bed at that time,
Speaker 2: and uh, it just somehow another failed my lot to
Speaker 2: start doing the turkeys restoration. And so for the next
Speaker 2: ten years I was heavily involved in that, and we
Speaker 2: trapped turkeys in numerous locations throughout the state.
Speaker 1: As mentioned earlier, this was an important time in wild
Speaker 1: turkey conservation history. You heard mister Benny just make reference
Speaker 1: to trapping turkeys. This was a huge part of the
Speaker 1: restoration process, trapping turkeys and then relocating them to where
Speaker 1: there were none and then allowing them to repopulate. I
Speaker 1: want to ask him more about this, and just the
Speaker 1: heads up, you're going to hear him mention something called
Speaker 1: cannon netting, also sometimes referred to as rocket netting. It's
Speaker 1: a bird capturing technique used to safely catch large numbers
Speaker 1: of birds, and it's carried out by using cannons to
Speaker 1: fire a large net over the top of a group
Speaker 1: of birds. How far along had turkey restoration been going
Speaker 1: on when you got put in that position?
Speaker 2: Of course, the restoration of the turkey and in Mississippi
Speaker 2: and the Southeast really began in the late med the
Speaker 2: late sixties when they realized that cannon netting, which was
Speaker 2: used to trap waterfowl first could also be used to
Speaker 2: trap wile turkeys for restoration, and that's when things begin
Speaker 2: to really take off and improve. Up to then, you know,
Speaker 2: they had been all kind of f it's made of
Speaker 2: raising turkeys and releasing them, and of course it was ineffective, sure,
Speaker 2: but when you took the wild turkeys and put them
Speaker 2: into good habitat, they flourished real quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it started in the late sixties and in the
Speaker 2: in seventies up until the mid eighties. Yeah, it really well.
Speaker 2: In fact, we repopulated the state of Mississippi. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there it did.
Speaker 1: That's why. Well, one you really were in at the
Speaker 1: beginning of it then.
Speaker 2: Right close to the star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's so you know, talking to folks that
Speaker 1: hunt around the southeast. Now, I mean there's counties that
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of turkeys, but I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's any counties that don't have any.
Speaker 2: I think I think I'm correct on this, and that
Speaker 2: in Mississippi all are parts of the county has some
Speaker 2: type of turkey sea.
Speaker 1: And hearing you know, hearing you and other folks talk
Speaker 1: about these times were because there were counties back then
Speaker 1: that didn't have turkeys, correct, none the different world.
Speaker 2: Well see, at that time, of course, it wasn't just
Speaker 2: you go catch turkeys and turn them loose. You had
Speaker 2: to go through a process. You'd have a munch of
Speaker 2: club of joining landowners that would get together and they
Speaker 2: would request from the Game and Fish of a far
Speaker 2: my wildlife to be put on the list to receive
Speaker 2: a release of wild turkeys. And course when we got
Speaker 2: their requests, of biologists went and evaluated the property to
Speaker 2: be considered and back and then you know, we thought, okay,
Speaker 2: if you got ten thousand acres under agreement, you can
Speaker 2: provide good protection and the birds will do well. We
Speaker 2: have since learned that it didn't have to be that large, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: but at that time we did right. And of course
Speaker 2: at that time we didn't think that you could drivive
Speaker 2: in pine plantations. See the turkeys that we were familiar
Speaker 2: with were in good hardwood block September Man.
Speaker 1: That's wild. Yeah, well, I mean, because I mean, just
Speaker 1: thinking about today, it's like not i mean not a
Speaker 1: mismanaged pine plantation, but a pine plantation that's taken care
Speaker 1: of and you know, burned and such a turkey be
Speaker 1: all in there, all in there, But back then they
Speaker 1: all didn't know. That's right, different world. Yeah, absolutely, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, man. I cannot tell you just how much
Speaker 1: I love these old school conservation stories, just thinking about
Speaker 1: those men and women with little more than a love
Speaker 1: for wild things and wild places and determination to figure
Speaker 1: out how to keep that kind of stuff on this landscape.
Speaker 1: Just those tiny little details like not knowing a turkey
Speaker 1: could survive on a pine plantation. Heck, these days, a
Speaker 1: turkey gobblin in the pines goes together like a worm
Speaker 1: on a brim hook. But it does is because these
Speaker 1: wildlife conservationists that came before us picked up the torch
Speaker 1: and they figured it out. So let's learn how they
Speaker 1: figured it out when y'all started canning that and how
Speaker 1: did you figure how did you determine a location? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm having to think that there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of like, how do we even do this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, if like on Friest Point Refuge, you had
Speaker 2: a fairly good population of birds there, so what we
Speaker 2: would do? Wayne Shrider the main one, he was the
Speaker 2: main trapper, and I helped him every all I could
Speaker 2: of course, first thing he would look for was an
Speaker 2: opening or a space big enough that you could fire
Speaker 2: the net in. And it was about sixty B sixty,
Speaker 2: but you could get along one of those roads or
Speaker 2: junction of roads. And what we would do we would
Speaker 2: prebate using wheat most of the time, and we would
Speaker 2: string a bait line, probably a quarter mile each direction
Speaker 2: down that road. And then you go to checking it,
Speaker 2: see what kind of usage you're getting. And then when
Speaker 2: they get at the main location and they're taking it,
Speaker 2: cleaning it up every day, you sit you in it.
Speaker 2: And when they come to feed the next time, you
Speaker 2: catch them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, And what do you so you
Speaker 1: get these turkeys in the net? How do you get
Speaker 1: them and get them into a place where you could
Speaker 1: transport them?
Speaker 2: Okay, what you do prior to catching the turkeys? We
Speaker 2: would buy a bunch of pasteboard boxes and we would
Speaker 2: put them together, tape them together, and we'd cut a
Speaker 2: flap in the bottom of that box that we could
Speaker 2: stick the turkey in and then turn it upside down
Speaker 2: with a flap down on the ground with a turkey
Speaker 2: standing on it, and we would take them all out
Speaker 2: of the net, put them in a box and then
Speaker 2: we would load them in a truck. And most of
Speaker 2: the time we would have people from the area that
Speaker 2: the turkeys were going to station somewhere within two or
Speaker 2: three miles of us, and we would either call them
Speaker 2: to come to us or we'd carry the turkeys to them.
Speaker 2: And we tried to and we didn't ever get it exact,
Speaker 2: but we wanted to have ten hens and five goblers
Speaker 2: per release sight.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we'd have more hens than that, sometimes less. Sometimes
Speaker 2: we'd have more gobless and sometimes less. Sure and then
Speaker 2: they would go and release the birds. And when they
Speaker 2: release them, of course they'd take them out of that
Speaker 2: truck that they were transported in, put them on the ground,
Speaker 2: open all of the flaps, cut the tape at the
Speaker 2: flaps and open them at the same time so all
Speaker 2: the birds could go simultaneous.
Speaker 1: Ah, Yes, they'd be together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then we would do the best we could
Speaker 2: monitor those birds. And under most circum stances it would
Speaker 2: be five years and we would open short seasons. That's
Speaker 2: how fast they would respond to good habitat. Yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, How did you monitor them well?
Speaker 2: Of course, first off, if you consulted with the conservation
Speaker 2: officer in that county, and he had contacts with the
Speaker 2: clubs that had requested and they would keep records and
Speaker 2: tell him when they saw poles and hens here, gobblers here.
Speaker 2: And also we used county mail carriers, the local mail
Speaker 2: carrier that he had a world of information.
Speaker 1: Just seeing them.
Speaker 2: Where did you see turkeys? How many did you see?
Speaker 2: So you've put all of that together, and you assume
Speaker 2: that you've had pretty good reproduction for four to five years,
Speaker 2: and if you did, then you opened a short gobblers
Speaker 2: only season.
Speaker 1: What would the season look like sometimes when you open
Speaker 1: the season up, what would you say?
Speaker 2: Sometime it would be two weekends, sometimes short, fair short? Yeah,
Speaker 2: always started off fair shot. Yeah, and if you know
Speaker 2: you could if you had success and things went well,
Speaker 2: then just like the rest of the state in the
Speaker 2: deer season, turkey season and everything, you gradually increased.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What was the attitudes like if you know, in
Speaker 1: an area where you've done one of these relocations, four
Speaker 1: or five years later, y'all open up a short season
Speaker 1: and folks get to go out and hunt these turkeys
Speaker 1: a little bit. How were they just drilled? Thrilled?
Speaker 2: Thrilled?
Speaker 1: When mister Benny shared this part of the story with me.
Speaker 1: I caught myself trying to get in the headspace of
Speaker 1: one of those county residents that had watched or at
Speaker 1: least known about turkey relocations and then after five years,
Speaker 1: got to experience an actual spring turkey season. They were
Speaker 1: watching wildlife conservation and restoration happen right in front of
Speaker 1: their eyes back then. And seriously, how cool would it
Speaker 1: be to track down one of those mail carriers from
Speaker 1: that time period and talk to them about their job
Speaker 1: as an official turkey observer man. That is just too cool. Seriously,
Speaker 1: if anyone out there has any connection to someone who
Speaker 1: was a mail carrier at that time and help the
Speaker 1: Game Commission back then, please let me know. I would
Speaker 1: love to talk to them. Okay, so we have a
Speaker 1: good idea about the actual process of how they caught
Speaker 1: these turkeys and released them. But I now want to
Speaker 1: move into what I believe is one of the most
Speaker 1: important and also really cool parts of this story, and honestly,
Speaker 1: enrolling the mail carrier's help is a good example of
Speaker 1: the direction we're going now. The Game and Fish Commission
Speaker 1: at the time was one small agency to be able
Speaker 1: to carry out this turkey restoration at the statewide scale
Speaker 1: that they wanted to, they would have to have help.
Speaker 1: Like I've said before, I'm interested in the relationship that
Speaker 1: we as humans have with our wildlife and the impacts
Speaker 1: that we have never ceased to amaze me, and this
Speaker 1: part of the story is worth highlighting.
Speaker 2: Probably the premier place that we trapped turkeys was on
Speaker 2: Friar's Point Refuge, which is in Kahoma County on the
Speaker 2: river between the river and the levee. There's a family
Speaker 2: over there that still own land over there, a name
Speaker 2: of McKees, and mister and mus McKee set up about
Speaker 2: four thousand acres as a refuge for us to trap
Speaker 2: and transplant turkeys on.
Speaker 1: Were these people so they own this land, yeah, and
Speaker 1: they set it aside. They didn't hunt it at all.
Speaker 1: Were they turkey hunters themselves?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: What was their motive for?
Speaker 2: I think that I never met mister McKee, but I
Speaker 2: met Ms McKee later on, and they had such an
Speaker 2: indust in the promotion of wildlife conservation in the state
Speaker 2: of Mississippi. And at that time we called them game
Speaker 2: warders back then, but there was a game warder who's
Speaker 2: a conservation officer now by the name of Wayne Striter
Speaker 2: that lived in Kahoma County, and he was very good
Speaker 2: friends with the McKees. Yeah, and he was instrumental in
Speaker 2: that refuse being set up. And he was also instrumental
Speaker 2: and catching no telling how many turkeysh for restoration in
Speaker 2: the state of Mississippi. Yeah, very few people ever heard
Speaker 2: of Wayne Strid but he that's a name you should remember.
Speaker 2: He was a real good conservation auser. He was a
Speaker 2: better turkey trapper and I got to know him real
Speaker 2: well and spent a lot of time with him trapping
Speaker 2: and releasing turkeys.
Speaker 1: I just think it's I mean, I knew from just
Speaker 1: doing some research. I knew a good bit of the
Speaker 1: trap and for relocation took place somewhere along the river.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. It was some private landowners that
Speaker 1: set it aside for y'all to do that.
Speaker 2: Well, that was the main place. There were other places
Speaker 2: like middle Point Home Club, Catfish Porn hung Club. They
Speaker 2: allowed us to trap turkeys at various times for restoration,
Speaker 2: and other private individuals around Columbia. Mister Bill Walker allowed
Speaker 2: us to trap on his place. And it was just
Speaker 2: a lot of private people that knew that they had
Speaker 2: good turkey populations, and they wanted to see them all
Speaker 2: over the state.
Speaker 1: So really it was a collective effort.
Speaker 2: It was Oh, yes, man.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh it's it's great.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna once again refer back to the Fanny Cook
Speaker 1: episode to a quote that we pulled by out of
Speaker 1: Leopold when he was talking about the wildlife challenges that
Speaker 1: the state of Mississippi was up against. This is what
Speaker 1: he wrote. There's one office to all of these defects,
Speaker 1: a widespread and intense popular interest in game and hunting.
Speaker 1: In this respect, Mississippi excels any other state so far
Speaker 1: surveyed by me. Leephold then goes on to say in
Speaker 1: so many words that leveraging this popularity of hunting by
Speaker 1: using education at agencies was going to be the only
Speaker 1: way to maintain a game supply in the state. And
Speaker 1: we found out back in nineteen thirty two that they
Speaker 1: were seeing very clear lines connecting hunters and conservationists as
Speaker 1: the clear pathway to saving wildlife. Fast forward to the
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. To win the Mississippi
Speaker 1: Game and Fish Commission, individuals like Wayne Strider, Benny Herring,
Speaker 1: and several private landowners such as the McKees who on
Speaker 1: the river property, the hunting clubs such as Catfish Point,
Speaker 1: Bill Walker down in Columbia, and several others that I
Speaker 1: wish I could mention. And we're seeing this play out
Speaker 1: in a real tangible way. If you've listened to this
Speaker 1: podcast long enough, you know that we focus on the
Speaker 1: impacts that we as humans have on wildlife, and we
Speaker 1: all likely know that we can make some real negative impacts.
Speaker 1: But my friends, if you don't remember anything else from
Speaker 1: this episode, remember this. If we turn our efforts for
Speaker 1: wildlife towards the good, the positive impacts that we can
Speaker 1: make on wildlife and wildlife habitat are truly limitless. And
Speaker 1: if you want further proof of that, let's keep listening
Speaker 1: to mister Bennie.
Speaker 2: I never will forget Lafayette County. You know that's where
Speaker 2: Oxford's located.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, the.
Speaker 2: Time we were doing restoration, Lafayette County had tremendous habitat.
Speaker 2: We'll all northeast Mississippi had tremendous habitat, but no Turkish.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, of course, Lafette County has a
Speaker 2: lot of public land in it. To the National Forest,
Speaker 2: and so we will begin to do some release not
Speaker 2: only on national forest but on private land. And Harold
Speaker 2: Aine Prestige was Cornstavation aust Up there at that time,
Speaker 2: and he asked me one day, he said, Benny, you
Speaker 2: think that'll ever mount anything. I said, well, Harold an,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it will. It's been successful in other places,
Speaker 2: and all you got to do is give them a
Speaker 2: little protection. He says. Well, I can do the best
Speaker 2: I can do. He says, but now the hunting clubs
Speaker 2: are the landowners and the ones that's gonna give us
Speaker 2: the real protection. I says. That's exactly right, and that's
Speaker 2: your job to make sure that they understand it that
Speaker 2: they are most important in this protection stage. So in
Speaker 2: about five years he told me, he said, boy, you
Speaker 2: were right this turkeys ever were up here. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it responded that quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, I love the I can't get
Speaker 1: over how cool it was that the landowners and the
Speaker 1: agency working so closely together.
Speaker 2: Well, think of it like this, eighty percent of the
Speaker 2: land Mississippi's private owned. So if we didn't have good
Speaker 2: cooperation with the landowners concerning wildlife, we'd being a mess. Now.
Speaker 2: You can do so much on public land, but when
Speaker 2: you only have twenty percent in public land, that's not
Speaker 2: going to cover the whole state. You've got to involve
Speaker 2: private landowners.
Speaker 1: At what point had you all been doing these restoration
Speaker 1: efforts were did you or other people in the agency
Speaker 1: start to be like, man, this is really gaining some
Speaker 1: momentum statewide.
Speaker 2: Probably probably within probably by seven nineteen seventy seven seventy eight.
Speaker 2: We knew then that we had seen enough success releases
Speaker 2: that it was going to be successful statewide. The habitat
Speaker 2: was there, provided a little bit of protection, and the
Speaker 2: turkeys will take care of the rest of it.
Speaker 1: Imagine how cool it was for all involved when they
Speaker 1: came to the realization that it was gonna work. I mean,
Speaker 1: really think about it. They had been on a mission
Speaker 1: to restore wild turkeys since the nineteen thirties and now
Speaker 1: it's all coming to fruition. What was it like from you,
Speaker 1: just as a turkey hunter as you were doing this
Speaker 1: to start seeing, you know, going out I'm assuming that
Speaker 1: as the years went on, you were going out and
Speaker 1: hearing more turkeys, seeing more turkeys.
Speaker 2: Best failing in the world, you know, it's just amazing.
Speaker 2: Of course, I began to expand my area of hunting,
Speaker 2: sure Tyler County, Carroll County, Montgomery County. We'd go to
Speaker 2: South Mississippi hunting, and we'd go to Georgia, and we'd
Speaker 2: go to New Mexico. And it's a tremendous failing to
Speaker 2: know that you were involved in it in your home state,
Speaker 2: but you also saw the same thing happening in numerous
Speaker 2: other states right all over the United States. You can
Speaker 2: go turkey in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have contact with any of the other
Speaker 1: biologists well the states?
Speaker 2: And yeah, we had, of course at that time. The
Speaker 2: National Wild Turkey Federation was formed seventy one, I believed
Speaker 2: when the first meeting was held, and you went and
Speaker 2: to a conference in every state in the southeast and
Speaker 2: other parts of the country had biologists there, and you
Speaker 2: rolled ideas off of one another, and you got made contacts,
Speaker 2: and then you got well, you know, I believe I
Speaker 2: want to go to hunt the real Grand. So you
Speaker 2: called your buddy that worked for the Texas Parks and
Speaker 2: Wildlife says, I chold like to come out there and
Speaker 2: hunt real grand Can you help me out. Most of
Speaker 2: the time, he'd give you a contact.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, and it just I got you know, I went,
Speaker 2: didn't still go to Florida once a year? Oh de
Speaker 2: Yeah that's great. Yeah, and so I need Florida, Georgia.
Speaker 2: I've killed well, I hadn't been goos are oscolated? You know,
Speaker 2: I've gotten to the age that travel is pretty hard
Speaker 2: to do right now. Look, I've killed I don't know
Speaker 2: how many slams you Yeah, sure, yeah, sure, Florida's Eastern
Speaker 2: real men and the Merriams. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just love how genuinely mister Benny answers these questions.
Speaker 1: It leaves no doubt about how he feels about this subject.
Speaker 1: He also pointed out a very important part of this
Speaker 1: story when he makes mention of the types of turkey
Speaker 1: restoration efforts and results happening all across the country. I
Speaker 1: know that we're highlighting Mississippi here, but that's just because
Speaker 1: I'm close to this story. Similar things were happening all over.
Speaker 1: The conservation history of the wild turkey in the United
Speaker 1: States is one of the best wildlife wins we as
Speaker 1: a hunting and conservation community have to hang our hats on,
Speaker 1: Which brings me to one of our final points with
Speaker 1: mister Benny that we just can't go without talking about.
Speaker 1: We were talking early on about you know, you knew
Speaker 1: of three other turkey hunters in a county. From your
Speaker 1: point of view, how did you see the hunting community change?
Speaker 1: I mean because just from then till now, I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody's a turkey hunter now.
Speaker 2: I did not anticipate such a rapid explosion in the
Speaker 2: turkey hunter numbers. I did not. I don't know why
Speaker 2: I didn't, because it was so good to me and
Speaker 2: the two or three other people that hunted them. If
Speaker 2: it was so good to us, why didn't we think
Speaker 2: it'd be that good to everybody else. But as time grew,
Speaker 2: you know, you begin to see more people, more people going,
Speaker 2: more people here. You'd go to somewhere you'd never seen
Speaker 2: a turkey hunting, there'd be a truck sitting there, and
Speaker 2: it just exploded. Yeah, right along with the turkey population,
Speaker 2: which is really a good thing, even though it may
Speaker 2: be aggravating to us at times. You know, as long
Speaker 2: as you've got people interested in something like turkey hunting,
Speaker 2: they gonna support it and do what it takes to
Speaker 2: make sure they just there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't agree more now, because I know today
Speaker 1: a lot of things. A topic that you hear come
Speaker 1: up today is you know, people talk about overcrowding or
Speaker 1: too many hunters, and I'm like, man, like you said,
Speaker 1: I know it can be frustrating, but yeah, if you
Speaker 1: got hunters, you.
Speaker 2: Got turkeys every time. Every time, they'll support the programs
Speaker 2: to make sure that they're there.
Speaker 1: Look, I know the feeling all too well of a
Speaker 1: hunting spot getting crowded or pulling up to a gate
Speaker 1: and seeing a truck parked where you've never seen one before,
Speaker 1: and I would never deny that that could be frustrating.
Speaker 1: It is, but sometimes it is important for all of
Speaker 1: us to keep things in perspective. I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: mister Benny directly here. As long as you have people
Speaker 1: interested in something like turkey hunting, going to do what
Speaker 1: it takes to make sure that it's there. While turkey's
Speaker 1: are proof of that, the attempt at public land sell
Speaker 1: from last summer is proof of that, and there's a
Speaker 1: whole lot more proof of that in our country. Thankfully.
Speaker 1: I want to round this episode off by getting mister
Speaker 1: Benny to share with us a good old fashioned turkey
Speaker 1: hunting story, one that means something to him, one that
Speaker 1: involves his friend Wendell Neil that introduced him to turkey
Speaker 1: hunting back in nineteen seventy. Originally I told Clay I
Speaker 1: would give him this story to use on a bear
Speaker 1: Grease turkey story episode. But then I like the story
Speaker 1: so much I decided to keep it for Backwards University. Sorry, Clay,
Speaker 1: you've been coppled. That's an inside joke. If you listened
Speaker 1: to the render about the CBS special with Ted Copple,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been fortunate. I've herst it a lot of turkey.
Speaker 1: I can tell.
Speaker 2: That a lot of turkey has been hunting them a
Speaker 2: long time. But of course the first one always stands
Speaker 2: out sure without it, you know, you know that for anybody.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine how the first one is not paramapple.
Speaker 2: But along the way you develop some special ones. Yes,
Speaker 2: and my special one, the most special after my first one,
Speaker 2: was my friend Wendell O'Neill. He's been turkey hunting. It
Speaker 2: killed a lot of turkeys, and he began to have
Speaker 2: health problems and he lost his hearing, and he could
Speaker 2: if he was close enough to a turkey. He could
Speaker 2: hear it, but he could not course it no way.
Speaker 2: So the last turkey that he hearsted, he went with
Speaker 2: me right here in Montgomery County, and we heard the
Speaker 2: turkey gobble and the big black swam. We went off
Speaker 2: of a ridge. He was roosted over a beaver pond.
Speaker 2: We got situated and I pointed and told Wonder where
Speaker 2: the bird was, and he'd been again to call, and
Speaker 2: shortly the bird flew down to him and he killed him. Well,
Speaker 2: that ain't the end of the story. That was as
Speaker 2: good as he gets right there. Yeah, But we picked
Speaker 2: that turkey up, and you know how you do when
Speaker 2: you look at him and admire all of the colors,
Speaker 2: and fan his tail out and look at his wings
Speaker 2: and look at the beard, looked at the spur. He
Speaker 2: picked him up and we started back upon that ridge.
Speaker 2: And when we crested that ridge, he looked down on
Speaker 2: the ground and there was a perfect araw head lived there.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And he picked that air head up. And he course
Speaker 2: had a good friend that was a paleontologist archaeologist, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: and uh, he kid it to him and it was
Speaker 2: what was called a Clovis point, which meant that it
Speaker 2: came close New Mexico said it had been traded amongst
Speaker 2: tribes and he had that made into a necklace. And
Speaker 2: every time I saw him and he had that on,
Speaker 2: it clicked on me that that was about it special
Speaker 2: of turkey hunts. You now, yeah, that's so cool. That
Speaker 2: was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, mister Benny, if you only knew how excited
Speaker 1: Clay Newcombe is going to be when he hears your
Speaker 1: friend picked up a Clovis point after a successful turkey hunt.
Speaker 1: You do you know where that necklace is?
Speaker 2: Now, here's what a still has it.
Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, that's really special.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Some of the I think, man, I mean some of
Speaker 1: the closest friendships I got were formed over a goblin turkey.
Speaker 2: Sure, I understand that completely.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean there's just like experiences that you
Speaker 1: get out there in the spring chase those birds that
Speaker 1: you just.
Speaker 2: You don't get anywhere else. No, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And I just think, man, speaking just I guess personally
Speaker 1: with you, I think about why doing these episodes are
Speaker 1: so important to me, is it's it's easy. I mean
Speaker 1: you talked earlier about you know, if you've seen a
Speaker 1: turkey come in and you've hunted a long time, you
Speaker 1: can start, you know, even if you don't mean to,
Speaker 1: you can start to kind of take it for granted,
Speaker 1: right right. And so I think about the younger generations
Speaker 1: of hunters coming up, even folks my age are a
Speaker 1: little bit older. You know, we have it so good.
Speaker 2: Right now, as good as you.
Speaker 1: We have it so good right now.
Speaker 2: Well, that's pretty easy to take things for granted when
Speaker 2: they're good.
Speaker 1: I know, And it's it's it's just important for me
Speaker 1: to try to tell the story of what happened and
Speaker 1: what the work that you and so many others did
Speaker 1: to put these turkeys on this landscape to where we
Speaker 1: can go enjoy them and make these.
Speaker 2: You know, thanks to me. Realize, I don't know why
Speaker 2: I was lucky enough to fall in that gap where
Speaker 2: I was involved in it, but it you know, I
Speaker 2: couldn't have had a better life.
Speaker 1: Yeah see, you loved what you did.
Speaker 2: Ooh with a passion. Yeah. Wayne's trying to would call
Speaker 2: me and I was living right here and he was
Speaker 2: living at Bringer Laura and call the county and he said, well,
Speaker 2: I got something. I think we ready to catch Benny,
Speaker 2: he says, But now we're gonna have to get there
Speaker 2: pretty early. I said, Wayne, you tell me what time,
Speaker 2: be your wife. It didn't make any difference. That was
Speaker 2: not an.
Speaker 1: Option you wanted to go.
Speaker 2: I was gonna be there. Yeah, And consequently we developed
Speaker 2: a strong friendship because I was as dedicated as Wayne was. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he soon realized it.
Speaker 1: You still you still? I mean you told me you
Speaker 1: still go to Florida every year. I'm assuming you still
Speaker 1: hunt them pretty much a lot around here.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, just most of the time. If the water
Speaker 2: is favorable, I'll go somewhere. Sometimes I hear a turkeys,
Speaker 2: now I want every time. Sure, So if I don't
Speaker 2: have one, I go back to the house and you know,
Speaker 2: if getting the work in the garden, do the yard
Speaker 2: work or whatever. But if the sun comes up the
Speaker 2: next morning, I'm somewhere listening.
Speaker 1: It can't help it. No this spring, whether it's your
Speaker 1: fiftieth turkey season or your first turkey season, my advice
Speaker 1: to you would be this, just be thankful. Thankful for
Speaker 1: the bird, thankful for the habitat that they live in,
Speaker 1: and me personally, every time every time I hear a
Speaker 1: turkey goble this spring, I'm gonna think about the people
Speaker 1: that paved the way for folks like you and me
Speaker 1: to be out there enjoying such an incredible resource. The
Speaker 1: Fanny Cooks of the world, Fox Hayes, Colonel Tom Kelly,
Speaker 1: Wayne Strider, Benny Herring. We owe all of them our gratitude,
Speaker 1: we really do. And keep that in mind going forward
Speaker 1: and think about what you can do to help the
Speaker 1: generations of turkey hunters coming behind you. It's so important.
Speaker 1: I want to thank all of you for listening to
Speaker 1: Backwoods University as well as Bear Grease in this Country Life.
Speaker 1: If you like this episode, share it with someone this
Speaker 1: week that you know is fired up to hear a
Speaker 1: turkey gobble this spring, and stick around because if this
Speaker 1: podcast was a turkey hunt, We're set up about one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty yards from one gobbling on the limb,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like he is covered up in hens.
Speaker 1: We're just getting started. There's a whole lot more on
Speaker 1: the way.