Speaker 1: This is the Meeater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast.
Speaker 2: You can't predict any of this.
Speaker 3: The meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 3: Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting
Speaker 3: for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every
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Speaker 3: dot com. F I R S T L I T
Speaker 3: E dot com. Hey y'all, this is Steve and as
Speaker 3: you know, it's Turkey week here at me Eater, which
Speaker 3: means lots of great turkey hunting content and also great
Speaker 3: deals on turkey hunting gear.
Speaker 1: In addition to this special drop of the Meteater podcast,
Speaker 1: where we hear from my buddy turkey hunting partner, longtime colleague,
Speaker 1: the beloved and beautiful Giannis Poutellus, who's going to share
Speaker 1: with you some very memorable and beautiful turkey hunting stories.
Speaker 4: Last spring, I attended my first National Wild Turkey Federation
Speaker 4: Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. I've never heard so many yelps
Speaker 4: in one place. Joking aside, I had a wonderful time
Speaker 4: attending the calling contests, walking the floor, checking out new calls,
Speaker 4: and just enjoying the energy of so many passionate hunters
Speaker 4: gathered in one place. I highly recommend any Turkey nut
Speaker 4: to make the pilgrimage to Nashville next February. I was
Speaker 4: there because I had an idea that we should record
Speaker 4: everyone's stories to be archived for future generation. I feel
Speaker 4: that too often good stories die with the orator, and
Speaker 4: that's a shame. So as an effort to record our
Speaker 4: hunting heritage, Phil Taylor aka Phil the Engineer, and I
Speaker 4: set up a makeshift recording studio and invited folks to
Speaker 4: tell their stories. Thank you to everyone who had the
Speaker 4: courage to come tell me a hunting story. I know
Speaker 4: it's not easy getting in front of a mic and
Speaker 4: reciting your story while Phil listens from the soundboard. In total,
Speaker 4: we recorded nearly forty stories, all of which will be
Speaker 4: available in their raw form on the National Wild Turkey
Speaker 4: Federation website soon, so keep an eye out for that.
Speaker 4: Here are three stories that stood out to us because
Speaker 4: they resonated on so many different levels. They are tales
Speaker 4: of success in the Turkey Woods, sure, but they are
Speaker 4: so much more than that. There are stories of love
Speaker 4: and bonding, stories of relationships and shared experiences. Start out
Speaker 4: with Jeremy Bennett and his son Zeke. I'm a father
Speaker 4: of two daughters, and hunting with them is by far
Speaker 4: the highlights of every spring and fall. Hunting with kids
Speaker 4: gives me the opportunity to pass along, which I love
Speaker 4: so much. The joy I feel when my young'ins have
Speaker 4: success is far beyond any joy I've ever felt standing
Speaker 4: over one of my own kills. Zeke's excitement makes me
Speaker 4: want to grab one of my kids right now and
Speaker 4: go for a walk in the woods.
Speaker 5: My name is Ezekiel oh Coop and Bennette. I'm twelve
Speaker 5: years old. I'm from Vanilla, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: My name's Jeremy Bennett, and I'm forty four years old
Speaker 2: from Vanela, Arkansas. And we're going to talk about a
Speaker 2: turkey hunt that we had together, me and my youngest
Speaker 2: son in Arkansas this year. So I'll start out by
Speaker 2: saying that we wanted for dad to kill a turkey
Speaker 2: because he never gets to shoot right. Yes, I usually
Speaker 2: take the kids and I don't even sometimes have to
Speaker 2: worry about taking a gun, But this is the time
Speaker 2: that he'd already killed a bird this year, so Zeke
Speaker 2: wanted me to shoot one, and that was a big deal.
Speaker 2: He kept saying, I want that, I want you to
Speaker 2: shoot one. So we got set up on the edge
Speaker 2: of a big pasture and he got daylight, and we
Speaker 2: hadn't heard a bird on the roost. We seen some hens,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, right on the edge
Speaker 2: of the pasture, just out of eyesight, I heard something
Speaker 2: and then we saw a hen, a hen come, and
Speaker 2: then we had a tom come, but out of range,
Speaker 2: and they made their way off to the side, and
Speaker 2: my son wanted to go after him. I said, no,
Speaker 2: let's just wait, Let's be patient. We've still got things
Speaker 2: happening around us. Luckily, things started working back from the
Speaker 2: woods back in front of us. A hen was in
Speaker 2: front of us and got real loud, and I think
Speaker 2: she was kind of afraid of our decoy. Maybe well,
Speaker 2: eventually I seen one of the birds coming back in
Speaker 2: the field, saw his beard, and luckily the bird was
Speaker 2: on my side.
Speaker 6: I waited.
Speaker 2: He got behind a tree, and I waited a little
Speaker 2: bit more, and then I finally shot and took the bird.
Speaker 2: And you were afraid that I was going to wait
Speaker 2: too long, and it was gonna get away, weren't you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Because I had my gun up and everything and
Speaker 5: you were just looking at it. I didn't think you've.
Speaker 2: Seen it, But you probably didn't think I was gonna shoot.
Speaker 7: Did you.
Speaker 5: I did not think you're gonna shoot.
Speaker 2: So we harvested that bird, went back to camp, cleaned it,
Speaker 2: ate lunch, and then we went back out that afternoon
Speaker 2: for another hunt. So we set up in the same
Speaker 2: spot and it was hot. Didn't hear nothing, And you
Speaker 2: wanted to go to a different spot. Yeah, And I said,
Speaker 2: if you go to a different spot, we're not coming
Speaker 2: back to this one. So you wanted to go to
Speaker 2: a different spot, and then what happened.
Speaker 5: So we went out of that spot, and then we
Speaker 5: had cross a power line and then we looked up
Speaker 5: on the power line and there was a tom and
Speaker 5: a hen and the tom was shutting. So we made
Speaker 5: a plane and so we were going to go about
Speaker 5: like three miles down that power line, like in the woods,
Speaker 5: and then around. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's a double power line on the property
Speaker 2: and they're spaced out by a couple hundred yards, so
Speaker 2: we knew that we could go all the way around
Speaker 2: and get on another road, drive around and come to
Speaker 2: the uphill side of where this bird had a hen.
Speaker 2: Because I just didn't want to push the bird. I
Speaker 2: didn't want to push the bird. I was afraid. So
Speaker 2: we made a plan, and you doubted me. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: we went all the way around the property and got
Speaker 2: uphill of this bird.
Speaker 5: With a hen, and then I got on the wrong
Speaker 5: ridge that I thought he was on. And then so
Speaker 5: once I realized he wasn't on that ridge, I went
Speaker 5: to the next one.
Speaker 2: And then but you also told me to stay at
Speaker 2: the at the utving I did. You didn't want me
Speaker 2: to go with you.
Speaker 5: I kind of peeked over that ridge. Now I could
Speaker 5: see just a tip of his fan. So I got
Speaker 5: down and started crawing. I traveled about like thirty yards
Speaker 5: and then I popped up and didn't see him, and
Speaker 5: then I didn't realize he was like on a shelf.
Speaker 5: And then I seen the hen walk out on the road,
Speaker 5: and then he like jumped up there, and then he
Speaker 5: started strutting, and then I shot him. You thought I
Speaker 5: just shot at flying bird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I was out of eyesight up the hill
Speaker 2: and I was just hoping he would get close enough.
Speaker 2: But I was expecting him, probably to just scare the bird.
Speaker 2: Being a twelve year old turkey stalker, you never know
Speaker 2: what can happen. So when I heard the shot, then
Speaker 2: I finally peek over and I hear him kind of
Speaker 2: in excitement that.
Speaker 5: He'd got the bird running down to the bird.
Speaker 2: So that was your second turkey in Arkansas this year
Speaker 2: or this pastper Yeah, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 2: Can you tell him real quick about your first turkey
Speaker 2: in Arkansas this past year?
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah. So we're on a public piece of property
Speaker 5: and you had to draw and it was a youth hunt.
Speaker 5: You went out there the day before and scouted and
Speaker 5: you didn't hear anything on the roost. And then you
Speaker 5: went to a spot that we previously hunted and you
Speaker 5: saw two hens across the road. So we went over there,
Speaker 5: we sat down, got everything ready, you called, We didn't
Speaker 5: hear anything. A dog started barking behind us, and then
Speaker 5: right behind us, we just heard a big loud cobble.
Speaker 5: He came out. Our degree was to the right of us,
Speaker 5: and we were on a road, so I was facing
Speaker 5: straight into the road. The turkey was straight behind us,
Speaker 5: and then it walked out about fifteen yards to.
Speaker 2: My left, and then well it was two birds.
Speaker 5: Yeah, two birds, and then they started spitting, drummings, ratting,
Speaker 5: and then the one that came out first started getting
Speaker 5: a little nervous, and then it just ran as fast
Speaker 5: as it could in the woods. And then so I
Speaker 5: raised up my gun because I.
Speaker 2: Was on like a little little shooting stick.
Speaker 5: So I had raised my gun over that as fast
Speaker 5: as I could, and then the turkey started running, so
Speaker 5: I shot it.
Speaker 2: Tell him what we do with the turkey legs? After
Speaker 2: we clean a.
Speaker 5: Bird, So we put them in the instapot and then
Speaker 5: we just.
Speaker 2: Like what mom cooks them in the instapot and then
Speaker 2: we pull all the meat off. And then what do
Speaker 2: we do with it?
Speaker 5: We make turkey salad. So instead chicken salad, we make
Speaker 5: wild turkey salad.
Speaker 2: We put them in insta pot because it's very convenient.
Speaker 5: And then man just like blended up with like ranch.
Speaker 2: Celery, yeah, bacon bits sometimes cheddar cheese yep. So real quick,
Speaker 2: tell them about go back, Tell them about your first turkey,
Speaker 2: real quick. Your first turkey?
Speaker 5: Okay, first turkey. So what we did we went to
Speaker 5: my uncle's.
Speaker 2: Property and then brother's birthday.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he was at like a sleep away camp.
Speaker 5: And then so we heard some birds, so we went
Speaker 5: to where we thought they were going, and then we
Speaker 5: set up and then we started calling to them, and
Speaker 5: then they were just coming right at us.
Speaker 2: But it was you, me and my brother on his property.
Speaker 5: There was probably ten and the turkey in the back
Speaker 5: was strutting, and you were telling me to shoot that one.
Speaker 5: And then I just didn't know because I thought that
Speaker 5: was a shot for four ten. And then so what
Speaker 5: I did is the closest one to me. I just
Speaker 5: saw a little like brown spot, orange chest, and I
Speaker 5: just thought that was a body. So I shot it
Speaker 5: and it was a bird. And then you asked your brother.
Speaker 2: So in Arkansas you can shoot a jake, and so
Speaker 2: these jakes God would like crazy and come right in. Well,
Speaker 2: I was concentrated on my eight year old. My brother
Speaker 2: was to my ride, and so I thought, well, you know,
Speaker 2: if he gets a shot, that's great, and then if
Speaker 2: you know, my brother may be able to get a
Speaker 2: shot as well. So after you shot the birds and
Speaker 2: the birds dispersed, I never heard a shot from my brother,
Speaker 2: and so I looked at him and said, hey, why
Speaker 2: didn't you shoot He said, well, they were all jakes
Speaker 2: and we didn't see his bird fall because everything flew.
Speaker 2: And my brother said, hey, his bird is dead over here.
Speaker 2: It flew right beside me and fell out of the air.
Speaker 6: There.
Speaker 2: That was his first turkey. So you're twelve years old.
Speaker 2: Now you've got three turkeys under your belt. Yep, So
Speaker 2: you're considered an expert in Arkansas, wouldn't you figure?
Speaker 5: Maybe?
Speaker 2: Maybe? Well, you're just as good an next bert as
Speaker 2: your older brother, aren't you. Yeah, because he's killed three turkeys,
Speaker 2: and how many turkeys has he missed?
Speaker 5: Like thirty thirty?
Speaker 2: He's missed a few. So you've killed three turkeys and
Speaker 2: you've missed how many turkeys year round? There you go.
Speaker 4: Next, husband and wife team Trey and Elizabeth Laudner walk
Speaker 4: us through her first turkey hunt. I've been married for
Speaker 4: twenty years and introducing my wife to turkey hunting resultant
Speaker 4: in one of my all time favorite turkey stories. Lots
Speaker 4: of folks told stories about their first turkey. What struck
Speaker 4: me was that those stories were often more about who
Speaker 4: took them on their first turkey hunt rather than the
Speaker 4: hunt itself.
Speaker 8: All right, So I'm Trey Ladner from pastors Mississippi.
Speaker 9: Yes, I'm Elizabeth Ladner.
Speaker 8: So I guess to preface this old story, like I
Speaker 8: grew up my whole life, my family, hunting, just about everything.
Speaker 8: Really well, we started dating pretty much had to tell her,
Speaker 8: you know, hey, this is how my life is, you know,
Speaker 8: just like you know. Well, she was okay, would it?
Speaker 8: And then she started showing interest in it, so she
Speaker 8: wanted to get Well, it got to be Turkey season
Speaker 8: and we'd already been deer hunting, and that was usually
Speaker 8: in the evening. You know, well, she's not a big
Speaker 8: morning person, so not at all.
Speaker 9: I worked nice shift. I'm a nice you nurse, and
Speaker 9: mornings are not my thing.
Speaker 8: So she would go with me every now and then
Speaker 8: and we'd have some actions. She'd get excited, but she
Speaker 8: never really had a lot of interest, you know, could
Speaker 8: never make it happen. And then finally last year, I
Speaker 8: got home from work.
Speaker 9: One no no, no back up.
Speaker 7: Because last season was really whenever, like I don't even know.
Speaker 7: We started reading Tom Kelly's books and we started listening
Speaker 7: to him like on the way We're hunting Poperville mostly,
Speaker 7: and so we started listening to and I'm a big breader,
Speaker 7: I was obsessed with how Tom Kelly was writing, and
Speaker 7: I don't know, it just got me fired up for
Speaker 7: the whole season really, and so we were going and
Speaker 7: going and going for like three weeks almost every single
Speaker 7: day that we were off, and we we were having
Speaker 7: really awesome mornings. We were hearing a lot, We saw
Speaker 7: a couple of jakes, so we never saw a gobbler.
Speaker 7: One morning, I was just like, was so exhausted basically
Speaker 7: from working going every morning. I was like, I'm not
Speaker 7: going this morning. You go, you have fun, you know,
Speaker 7: send me a video listening to the turkeys and all
Speaker 7: the things, you know. But he was like, no, you've
Speaker 7: got to get up, You've got to get up. I'm like, oh, okay, fine.
Speaker 7: So I got in the truck. I was like, I'm
Speaker 7: sleeping the whole way there. We ended up listening to
Speaker 7: a podcast I don't even remember who we listened probably,
Speaker 7: and we got there. We listened to this one spot
Speaker 7: that I was my favorite spot. It was the prettiest spot,
Speaker 7: right on the edge of a food plot. We don't
Speaker 7: normally sit on the edge of food plots mostly we
Speaker 7: normally walk in the bottoms, which is also gorgeous. We
Speaker 7: didn't hear anything, so we like last ditch effort. I
Speaker 7: think it was like what ten nine thirty maybe ten o'clock,
Speaker 7: and we have a spot we call it the buck nest.
Speaker 7: Granted I've never killed a buck there, but it's called
Speaker 7: the buck nest because that's where we get the most
Speaker 7: pictures from.
Speaker 9: And we're sitting there. No, I don't even think we
Speaker 9: were sitting yet. We were walking and he yelps and
Speaker 9: immediately Gobbert.
Speaker 8: Gobbled and learned fifty yards.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and so I can hear his heartbeat above mine,
Speaker 7: and he's like all fired up, and he's telling me
Speaker 7: what to do and basically be quiet, and then we
Speaker 7: finally like walk what.
Speaker 9: Sixty more yards?
Speaker 7: We sit down and he normally like I'll sit on
Speaker 7: a tree and he'll get behind me and call I'm
Speaker 7: not the best caller yet, obviously, but he was gonna
Speaker 7: go do that, and he just couldn't stand it. So
Speaker 7: he sat on the same tree as me and he
Speaker 7: yelled again.
Speaker 9: He saw him, He saw the gobbler.
Speaker 7: Shrut and I was looking and I couldn't never see
Speaker 7: him or whatever, and he was like, can you see him?
Speaker 9: Do you see him?
Speaker 7: And I'm like, no, I don't see him yet, and
Speaker 7: so he stopped, he stopped yelping, and God or just
Speaker 7: kept gobbling probably what about three more times, and finally
Speaker 7: I could see him in the line of sight probably
Speaker 7: what sixty seventy yards away, and Trey was sitting there
Speaker 7: and he's.
Speaker 9: Like, well, can you shoot him? Can you shoot him? Like, well,
Speaker 9: I see him like way far away. I can't shoot
Speaker 9: it at this point.
Speaker 8: She can't judge distance at this point, like thirty yards,
Speaker 8: and I might about to jump out of my skin.
Speaker 7: Like because you could have had a shot the whole time. Well,
Speaker 7: I couldn't because I was literally looking in front of it,
Speaker 7: like out a tree. I'm like, I can't shoot him. Well,
Speaker 7: I'm Christian, I have all prayers all the time, and
Speaker 7: so I'm sitting here talking to God. I'm like, God,
Speaker 7: please please please let me get a shot. Please don't
Speaker 7: let mess it up. Please don't let me, you know,
Speaker 7: harm this animal, and please just let my heart rates
Speaker 7: slow down so I can actually hear and pay attention
Speaker 7: to what I'm doing. Because I was freaking out and
Speaker 7: I'm shaking. I was like, there isn't there's no way
Speaker 7: I'm even would be able to keep the dot on
Speaker 7: the turkey.
Speaker 8: And at this point I'm getting impatient, yeah, laggravated. I'm
Speaker 8: like shooting, you know, shooting, and all of a sudd
Speaker 8: and the gun goes off.
Speaker 7: Well because he well hit the gun went off because
Speaker 7: his head there was literally two trees and it's probably
Speaker 7: what a foot and a half apart in his head.
Speaker 7: The redhead popped right in the middle of it.
Speaker 9: And I shot because I just I don't know it.
Speaker 8: As soon as the gun went off, I just jumped
Speaker 8: up and belined it to the turkeys because it was
Speaker 8: not getting away. I had to grab it.
Speaker 9: He was dead, like a.
Speaker 8: Trail of calls all behind me, you know. And I
Speaker 8: finally grab it and I'm looking around for her and
Speaker 8: I can't find her, and she finally comes walking up.
Speaker 8: She's crying, she's shaking. Yeah, I just hand her a turkey.
Speaker 7: He scared me whenever you ran that fast, because like, hey,
Speaker 7: it's my turkey, sir, don't do that again. And I
Speaker 7: like threw the gun down on an accident, just excited,
Speaker 7: and that made me nervous. So I like finally get
Speaker 7: up there and I'm tears are streaming down my face
Speaker 7: and this man pulls out a phone.
Speaker 8: I actually videoed it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, he videoed it, and I was a nervous wreck.
Speaker 9: I could barely talk. It was. It was just so
Speaker 9: much adrenaline, like I just couldn't. I don't know. It
Speaker 9: was incredibly emotional, actually, I mean, like.
Speaker 7: Thinking about it, I mean I took a whole life
Speaker 7: and it was we worked really freaking hard.
Speaker 9: In that moment, it was all worth it. You know.
Speaker 9: I think every time we get to kill an animal
Speaker 9: is pretty.
Speaker 8: Emotional, and it was at that moment it clicked in
Speaker 8: her brain, Yeah, like this is why you do this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, there was definitely some relief for sure.
Speaker 8: Especially turkeys is kind of like a sickness, Like I
Speaker 8: can go get my butt handed to me every day,
Speaker 8: every day of the season and kill one on the
Speaker 8: last day and it was all worth it to me.
Speaker 7: Well, I think I really needed that too, because that
Speaker 7: day I was not going to go. I was like,
Speaker 7: I'm exhausted, I'm not going to do it, and now
Speaker 7: I will be getting out of the bed.
Speaker 9: It's a little different for deer, but turkeys it's a
Speaker 9: different world.
Speaker 4: This last story resonates because relationships aren't always easy. I'm
Speaker 4: a son a son with a great dad, but not
Speaker 4: a perfect one. No one's the perfect father, certainly not me.
Speaker 4: Father and son relationships can be tenuous, but we tend
Speaker 4: to hear the stories that only celebrate these relationships and
Speaker 4: don't necessarily dig into the times that are fraught. His
Speaker 4: story reminds me that I'm not the only one he's
Speaker 4: trying to better my relationship with my father.
Speaker 10: So my name is Heath Pendergraft and I'm from Exeter, Missouri,
Speaker 10: down in the very far southwest corner of the state.
Speaker 10: I'm forty eight and I've been turkey hunting since i
Speaker 10: was fourteen. So my story is one I like to
Speaker 10: call it my story of redemption with my dad. Growing up,
Speaker 10: my dad and I, I mean, we were fine, but
Speaker 10: we weren't particularly close.
Speaker 6: We were very different.
Speaker 10: I always felt that he was a little bit tough
Speaker 10: on me, and he thought that I was.
Speaker 6: I don't know, just I wasn't. I didn't click with him,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 10: And growing up my dad he deer hunted, coon hunted,
Speaker 10: did all this. He didn't turkey hunt, but he did
Speaker 10: everything else, and I wanted to be a hunter, to
Speaker 10: be like him. So I deer hunted, coon hunted, but
Speaker 10: I wanted turkey hunts. I'd seen a lot of videos
Speaker 10: and read and outdoor magazines about turkey hunting, but yeah,
Speaker 10: he didn't do it.
Speaker 6: So I didn't really have anybody to go.
Speaker 10: With, so I basically had to teach myself. I was
Speaker 10: a very hyper and I guess annoying child, and so
Speaker 10: any of the adults that I did know that that
Speaker 10: turkey hunter would not take me. I would beg him
Speaker 10: and they wouldn't do it because I couldn't set still
Speaker 10: or be quiet.
Speaker 6: So I started teaching myself.
Speaker 10: My Papaul he didn't turkey hunt either, but he loved
Speaker 10: me enough that he wanted to feed my passion, so
Speaker 10: he he bought me a little scratchbox cedar scratchbox turkey
Speaker 10: call from Walmart and bought my first tag. And so
Speaker 10: I had to start by watching videos and listening to
Speaker 10: little seventy eight rpm records of turkey calls teach myself
Speaker 10: how to call.
Speaker 6: So I'd go out there and he would take me.
Speaker 10: My Pauppa would take me to the woods and let
Speaker 10: me hunt for a few hours in the morning because
Speaker 10: I couldn't drive yet, and then I wouldn't get a
Speaker 10: thinking he'd bring me home anyway. Long story short, it
Speaker 10: took me years to get to where I could actually
Speaker 10: call a turkey in for myself and kill it. When
Speaker 10: I did, it was the greatest thing ever Dad being
Speaker 10: not being a turkey hunter. You know, he was proud
Speaker 10: of me for doing that, but it just wasn't didn't
Speaker 10: mean that much to him. Fast forward twenty years later,
Speaker 10: and I talked him into finally going on a turkey
Speaker 10: hunt with me. By then, I had matured a lot,
Speaker 10: I'd grown up, I was married, I had kids, and
Speaker 10: our relationship had gotten much stronger than it had in
Speaker 10: the past. So he finally agreed to go turkey hunt
Speaker 10: with me. So the opening morning of that season he
Speaker 10: was going with me. It stormed like crazy all night long,
Speaker 10: and I was really I was really disheartened because I
Speaker 10: thought I was going to have to cancel the hunt
Speaker 10: because it was just, I mean severe storms, really bad ones,
Speaker 10: heavy rain. But daylight broke, it was still raining and thundering,
Speaker 10: but it wasn't as bad as it was. We decided
Speaker 10: to go out to this farm place that we were
Speaker 10: hunting and listen for turkeys, just see if we can
Speaker 10: get anything going. We got out there. It was probably
Speaker 10: about seven thirty because it had been raining as much.
Speaker 10: We just we slept in and ate breakfast, and we
Speaker 10: got out there about seven thirty. Tried to hear, you know,
Speaker 10: tried to locate some birds, couldn't hear anything. We're standing
Speaker 10: by the truck on this knob on top of this field,
Speaker 10: with this big track of timber down below us. And
Speaker 10: this track of timber was really it was shaped kind
Speaker 10: of like a turkey's foot. It had three big branches
Speaker 10: that came off of it. There was one like central area,
Speaker 10: and then three haulers went off of this this turkey foot.
Speaker 10: And while we're standing there trying to decide what we're
Speaker 10: going to do, this huge peel of thunder sounded. And
Speaker 10: when it did, we heard two gobbles.
Speaker 6: It was the coolest thing.
Speaker 10: And they were they were way over like on the
Speaker 10: second hauler. But we didn't really have an approach to
Speaker 10: get over there. So I told him, I said, there's
Speaker 10: one tree in this field. I said, let's go set
Speaker 10: up at this tree and just see if we can
Speaker 10: kind of get an idea of where they're heading so
Speaker 10: that we can try to get him. And he said, okay,
Speaker 10: So we go down here to this tree, and we
Speaker 10: set up and this tree is probably thirty yards from
Speaker 10: the edge of the timber, and it's the only tree
Speaker 10: in the field. We sit down real quick, we get
Speaker 10: our face masks on, and I started calling and they
Speaker 10: immediately answered us back, both of them. It's like they
Speaker 10: were in stereo. They were just together constantly and we
Speaker 10: could hear him, and they were getting closer as time
Speaker 10: went on. But you know, they were two haulers over.
Speaker 10: I really didn't expect him to come over to where
Speaker 10: we were. Suddenly we seen movement across the first holler.
Speaker 10: They had crossed one of the hallers and were up
Speaker 10: on this ridge, so they were pretty hot. They were
Speaker 10: coming to us, and so I looked over at Dad
Speaker 10: and I said, hey, do you see him? And he
Speaker 10: said yeah, and you could see he was. He was
Speaker 10: getting into it at this point. So it was really
Speaker 10: cool for me to be able to be there with
Speaker 10: him in that month and about that time, behind us,
Speaker 10: kind of where where the three houlers meet, behind us,
Speaker 10: this hen started talking and I say behind us.
Speaker 6: It wasn't directly behind us, it was more to the
Speaker 6: right behind us.
Speaker 10: So she was kind of calling him to her to
Speaker 10: our left, and I was calling him more to us
Speaker 10: to her right, and it kind of became almost like
Speaker 10: a shouting match between me and the hen. I was
Speaker 10: disheartened because I did not think I could call those
Speaker 10: toms away from that hen. And matter of fact, I
Speaker 10: even looked over to Dad one point and I said,
Speaker 10: maybe we should just give it up, because I just
Speaker 10: didn't have the I did not have the confidence at
Speaker 10: that point that I'd be able to pull that off.
Speaker 10: And he said, no, keep at it, we say, He said,
Speaker 10: we're here, we might as well see what we can do.
Speaker 10: So we kept going. It was a solid twenty minutes
Speaker 10: back and forth with that hen, and pretty soon one
Speaker 10: of the toms broke from the top of that ridge
Speaker 10: and came right down that holler, flew over a brush pile,
Speaker 10: which I didn't think was likely at all, and started
Speaker 10: up the ridge.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 10: His buddy when he saw that, he did the same
Speaker 10: thing just shortly thereafter. So my heart's beating a mile
Speaker 10: a minute. I can see him coming, but and I
Speaker 10: can hear him rattle, but I can hear him gobble.
Speaker 10: But it's that rattle on the bottom of their gobble.
Speaker 10: Whenever they got to within, you know, forty yards of us.
Speaker 10: That just really got me excited. I whispered out of
Speaker 10: the corner of my mouth. I said, get your gun up,
Speaker 10: and he already had it up, and he said.
Speaker 6: You get yours, You get yours up, and.
Speaker 10: I realized I didn't have it up, so I got
Speaker 10: it up. We're sitting there together, these two birds break
Speaker 10: out of the timber.
Speaker 6: They come up.
Speaker 10: They're drumming, you know, and it's that really intense drum
Speaker 10: that you can feel down in your chest. I mean,
Speaker 10: they're so close that when they drum, there's just like
Speaker 10: this warm feeling that just comes right down through your chest.
Speaker 6: And it was.
Speaker 10: It was truly surreal in that moment to be there
Speaker 10: with him, of all people, you know, because he had
Speaker 10: never done that before.
Speaker 6: So the birds kind of cut.
Speaker 10: To our our left a little bit, so they're they're
Speaker 10: kind of they're not going to that hen. They're strutting
Speaker 10: for us and looking for the hen that we're supposed
Speaker 10: to be. But they kind of cut to our left
Speaker 10: a little bit and give us a perfect shot at
Speaker 10: about twenty five yards, and I kind of whispered, I said,
Speaker 10: on the kind of three, we're gonna shoot.
Speaker 6: And I didn't even have to count loud.
Speaker 10: We both just counted three silently and shot, and it
Speaker 10: sounded like one shot. Both birds fell over dead, and
Speaker 10: those were those were good birds. I mean they had
Speaker 10: one had a ten inch beard, one had ten and
Speaker 10: a half. They both had one of a quarterant spurs.
Speaker 6: They were nice birds.
Speaker 10: I've killed bigger one since, but I've never killed one
Speaker 10: more memorable. I mean, as soon as those birds fell over,
Speaker 10: we jumped up, we hugged, you know, and I hadn't
Speaker 10: hugged my dad quite a while at that point. It
Speaker 10: was the greatest moment I ever had in the woods.
Speaker 6: And it all goes back to, you know, that.
Speaker 10: That he he didn't do it before, and I couldn't.
Speaker 6: I had to teach myself how to do it.
Speaker 10: I don't know, I guess for me in that moment,
Speaker 10: whenever we both killed our turkeys together him his first,
Speaker 10: and we were right there together, I kind of felt
Speaker 10: like that I had earned his respect, and that was
Speaker 10: the greatest thing in the world to me, still is
Speaker 10: to this day. I mean, I've hunted, I said, I'm
Speaker 10: forty eight years old. I've hunted my whole life. I've
Speaker 10: done a lot of great things in the woods are
Speaker 10: what I think are great and fun things, but nothing
Speaker 10: has ever come close to that.
Speaker 4: If there is a happier ending to a story than
Speaker 4: doubling up on gobblers with your dad, I haven't heard it.
Speaker 4: I hope you all take more time than you should
Speaker 4: to enjoy the Turkey Woods this spring, and that you
Speaker 4: share that time with those you love.