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

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

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

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Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you

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Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as

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Speaker 1: part of Meat Eater's podcast network, bringing you the best

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

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Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I

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Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two the teacher the

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Speaker 1: value of a turkey hunting mentor. Lots of folks got

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Speaker 1: spring turkey hunting on the mine right now, and so

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Speaker 1: do I. This week, I'm talking about what I consider

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Speaker 1: to be the most valuable item in anyone's bag of

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Speaker 1: turkey hunting tricks. It ain't a call, it ain't camo,

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Speaker 1: it ain't even a gun or shells. It's a mentor

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Speaker 1: someone that can show the new hunter the basics to

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Speaker 1: get started, or answer the questions of a seasoned vet

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Speaker 1: who keeps getting the old razzle dazzle put on him

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Speaker 1: by a particularly tough nut to crack. There's no more

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Speaker 1: valuable skill than getting the straight dope on knowing what

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Speaker 1: order yours zigging and zagging needs to be. Knowing when

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Speaker 1: to do something and especially when not to can be

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Speaker 1: the difference between crackers and buy any sausages for supper

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Speaker 1: or a sizzling skillet full of pride wild turn Having

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Speaker 1: that knowledge starting out is how we're going to beat

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Speaker 1: the system. Lots of good eating uneer them feathers. But first,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you a story. One of my

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Speaker 1: mentors was mister Leon Garlic, the same mister Leon wound

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Speaker 1: up loving black pepper on his eggs. If that don't

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Speaker 1: ring a bell, check out a story I told on

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Speaker 1: The Bear Grease episode number forty nine. Mister Leon was

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Speaker 1: a turkey. He could call turkeys with a green briar

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Speaker 1: leaf folded between his lips like a modern day mouthcall.

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Speaker 1: And he told me a gobbler could hear you thinking

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Speaker 1: and see you change your mind. Now he was talking

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Speaker 1: about how good they can see it here, and I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty sure he was right. Add that to the fact

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Speaker 1: that we're attempting to reverse nature by calling a gobbler

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Speaker 1: to the sound of a hen, which is vast acrids

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Speaker 1: how it works in the wild. The real script is

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Speaker 1: this gobbler's gobble a hen here's it walks to him,

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Speaker 1: they go on a date, and next year we get

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Speaker 1: more turkeys than the woods. We're doing the opposite. But

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Speaker 1: for clarification, at least for Arkansas, our turkey season is

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Speaker 1: set to open after the peak breeding cycle, and this

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Speaker 1: will maximize the likelihood of increasing the overall population. There's

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Speaker 1: the challenge and the reward for making it happen. Good

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Speaker 1: things are to be tough. Imagine how boring it would

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Speaker 1: be if every time you call to a goblin turkey

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Speaker 1: came running in on string. Well, that that may have

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Speaker 1: been a bad example. Every time I go hunt, not

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Speaker 1: only do I imagine that I expected. However, it rarely happens,

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Speaker 1: except for the time I'm fixing to tell you about. Actually,

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Speaker 1: this gobbler didn't run in, or walk or even take

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Speaker 1: a step. Now, if you're thinking I shot him off

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Speaker 1: the roost negative ghostwrider, that's dirty pool and I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: do it. And if you do, you ought to be

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Speaker 1: in jail. I was working in the woods back then

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Speaker 1: and coming home close to roosting time. One evening I

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Speaker 1: drovel by a field on some property that I could hunt,

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Speaker 1: and I saw a gobbler strutting with four or five

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Speaker 1: hens about two hundred yards away in the edge of

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Speaker 1: the woods. I knew they'd be close to there in

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Speaker 1: the morning because it was almost dark. So I called

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Speaker 1: my older brother Tim and I told him about what

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Speaker 1: I had seen. I told him to go hunt there

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Speaker 1: the next morning because I had to work. Man, he

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Speaker 1: was all fired up. But the longer I thought about

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Speaker 1: it that night, the more I regretted telling him where

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Speaker 1: that turkey was. So I called my boss and I

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Speaker 1: told him that I wasn't feeling good and I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be at work the next day. Now he wasn't no dummy.

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Speaker 1: He knew what I was up to, and he told

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Speaker 1: me that I could be at work the next morning,

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Speaker 1: or I could add a job to the list of

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Speaker 1: things I was going to be hunting that day. I

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Speaker 1: told him that sounded like a plan, and I hung up.

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Speaker 1: I didn't care. I was young, single, living on my

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Speaker 1: own and surviving on deer meeting taters. I could always

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Speaker 1: get a job, but turkey season. Man, that only lasted

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Speaker 1: a little while. Then I called to him and uninvited

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Speaker 1: him to shoot my turkey. He was not pleasant, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't care. It was pitch black dark when I

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Speaker 1: slipped up the creek on the edge of that field.

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Speaker 1: Once I got even with where I'd seen them turkeys

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Speaker 1: the evening before, I belly crawled across an opening and

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Speaker 1: set up against a big pine tree facing into the

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Speaker 1: woods and where I'd figured he'd roosted. And then I

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Speaker 1: waited for daylight. Finally the sky started to lighten up,

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Speaker 1: and the redbirds started singing, and that turkey gobbled on

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Speaker 1: a limb less than one hundred yards away. And when

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Speaker 1: that joker started gobbling, he didn't stop. Finally it got

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Speaker 1: light enough that I could see the tree he was in,

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Speaker 1: and when I'd catch a glimpse of him every now

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Speaker 1: and then when he run his head out to gobble,

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Speaker 1: he stayed on that limb till the sun came up,

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Speaker 1: gobling like it was his job. And at that particular time,

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Speaker 1: he was the only one between us that had one.

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Speaker 1: I ain't made a peep. My old box call laid

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Speaker 1: in my lap, and I finally picked it up and

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Speaker 1: squeaked out three soft yeps that sounded more like a

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Speaker 1: dying rabbit stuck in a gum boot than a hen

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Speaker 1: turkey looking for love. I laid that call down and

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Speaker 1: put that Belgium made Autu five on my knee and waited.

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Speaker 1: Now as bad as that call sounded to me, old

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Speaker 1: Jasper out there was digging it. He let loose a

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Speaker 1: serious at gobbles. It sounded like he'd gone berserk up,

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Speaker 1: one after another, five or six in a row. And

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Speaker 1: then I heard him leave the roofs clapping his wings

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Speaker 1: and hitting limbs and leaves as he flew toward me.

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Speaker 1: It sounded like he was chopping wood. Then I saw

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Speaker 1: him sailing towards me like a jet. I was following

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Speaker 1: him in with that shotgun, just like he was a

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Speaker 1: duck coming to the decoys. He hit the ground ten

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Speaker 1: steps in front of me in a beam of sunlight

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Speaker 1: that looked like he was starting in the show. He

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Speaker 1: looked dead in my eyes and gobbled so loud I

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Speaker 1: could almost feel his breath, and I cut that joker

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Speaker 1: of flip. His feed wasn't through the ground long enough

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Speaker 1: to get dirty. When I touched off John Moses brown

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Speaker 1: In's greatest invention. I stopped by Tim's house on the

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Speaker 1: way to work and showed him. He took my picture

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Speaker 1: and I didn't have to quit my job. This story

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Speaker 1: was in the reference not so much to calling, but

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Speaker 1: to the best tip I'd ever gotten from the greatest

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Speaker 1: turkey hunting mentor I've ever had, mister Billy bryn Him's

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Speaker 1: dad in law. He told me that being where a

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Speaker 1: turkey wanted to be was way better than any call

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Speaker 1: you could ever make, and the best calling in the

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Speaker 1: world wouldn't get him to a place he didn't want

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Speaker 1: to go. Now, lots of times it ain't what you say,

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Speaker 1: it's how you say it, and more importantly, where you

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Speaker 1: say it from. That turkey had been right where I

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Speaker 1: was the evening before, and could possibly have flown up

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Speaker 1: on the roost from where he lived that morning. I

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Speaker 1: punched him in the mouth and told him out of

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Speaker 1: the wood. Mister Bryan's mentorship killed that turkey. I just

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Speaker 1: pulled a trick to him. So where are you going

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Speaker 1: to find your mister Bryant. Well, you can do like

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Speaker 1: I did, and when the turkey hunting mentorship lottery by

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Speaker 1: having your older brother marry a girl he literally picked

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Speaker 1: out in the nursery. My brother and his wife were

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Speaker 1: born in the same hospital three days apart, and spent

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Speaker 1: one day together. Tim's first day in the nursery and

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Speaker 1: Barber Jean's last when they were both less than a

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Speaker 1: week old. He said he spied her across the room

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Speaker 1: and that's all it took for him, and that choice

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Speaker 1: made us all winners. I got an extra good older

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Speaker 1: sister and a bona fide died in the wool turkey

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Speaker 1: killing Jedi as a coach and her father. He custom

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Speaker 1: made me a box call and a wing bone call,

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Speaker 1: and no amount of money could buy I may be

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Speaker 1: buried with them. Now. That probably ain't gonna be the

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Speaker 1: easiest way for you to get your mentor, so we

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Speaker 1: got to figure out how to get you one. First.

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Speaker 1: We need to identify what we need in one. They

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Speaker 1: have to be willing to share their hard earned knowledge

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Speaker 1: with you, So, if possible, you're gonna need to throw

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Speaker 1: something in a kitty too. How about a spot with

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Speaker 1: the hass turkeys on it. Turkey hunting spots in the

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Speaker 1: South are guarded like a bank vault. There is no

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Speaker 1: place or sacred to a turkey hunter than the place

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Speaker 1: where the object of his obsessions resides, public or private.

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Speaker 1: I would feel easier walking up to a stranger and

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Speaker 1: asking him for a kidney. It's a medical fact that

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Speaker 1: a human only needs one to live, and most folks

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Speaker 1: are born with two. And you never know, someone might

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Speaker 1: actually say yes to a kidney donation but ask to

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Speaker 1: shoot a hunter's gobblin turkey. You better keep your head

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Speaker 1: on a swivel because somebody is liable to try to

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Speaker 1: slap some sense into you, and they should. That's crazy,

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Speaker 1: but it's not impossible, and here's how you do it.

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Speaker 1: Put yourself in that circle. Whether it's at the local

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Speaker 1: sporting goods store, a church group, a wild turkey banquet,

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Speaker 1: or any gathering where turkey hunting folks might be, look

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Speaker 1: for the older fellow that everyone makes a point to

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Speaker 1: speak to throughout the gathering. He probably ain't going to

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Speaker 1: be dressed like he just come from hunting unless he

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Speaker 1: actually did. And you won't find the majority of mentors

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Speaker 1: running around in vehicles festooned with outdoor related decals and

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Speaker 1: sporting the latest greatest hunting equipment. There ain't nothing wrong

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Speaker 1: with any of that, but a mentor is usually at

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Speaker 1: a stage in their hunting career where they like what

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Speaker 1: they like and they see no reason to change, and

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Speaker 1: they have plenty of turkey beers to back up their credentials.

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Speaker 1: These folks might even be looking and waiting for someone

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Speaker 1: interested enough to ask and be glad to pass that

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Speaker 1: knowledge down to them. Now I ain't there yet, so

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Speaker 1: don't send me no dms. I'm a one man wolf pack.

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Speaker 1: Get your own turkey. Just kidding, not really. Sharing misery

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Speaker 1: with a friend will lighten the load, share and joy

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Speaker 1: multiplies it. Now, I don't know where I heard that.

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I made it up. Even a blind

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Speaker 1: hog of find an acre and every now and then,

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Speaker 1: and that one may be mine. But to my point,

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Speaker 1: a friend will share his turkey spot and acquaintance, not

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Speaker 1: so much. I turkey hunt on some land in another

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Speaker 1: state that is owned by folks that I'm friends with

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Speaker 1: all year long, not just turkey season. As a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact, they're just like my family. Work on associating

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Speaker 1: yourself with people that have land like that full well,

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Speaker 1: telling them to begin with what your goal is and

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Speaker 1: offer something in return. Sometimes a little de Niro will

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Speaker 1: make friends of landowners quicker than having to spark them

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Speaker 1: at the local coffee shop. And if private land ain't

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Speaker 1: an option for you, get them brogans out on the

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Speaker 1: public ground and start doing some scouting. Everybody owns it,

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Speaker 1: and you have just as much right as anyone else

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Speaker 1: to scout and hunt as you see fit, but do

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Speaker 1: it with respect for those who were there first, and

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Speaker 1: be as accommodating to them as you would like them

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Speaker 1: to be to you. Now, I'm a hundred percent sun

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Speaker 1: sure I didn't make that one up, but I know

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Speaker 1: who did, and it's solid advice and just about everything

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Speaker 1: you do. I imagine that the definition of a mentor

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Speaker 1: is an experienced and trusted advisor. Now that doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: say old man, but experience doesn't usually come from the

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Speaker 1: real young ones. My good friend Michael Meeks started turkey

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Speaker 1: hunting at my urging when he was in his mid twenties,

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Speaker 1: and I'm only five years older than him, but I'd

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Speaker 1: started hunting turkeys a long time before that, and I

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Speaker 1: served as his mentor. We actually did a lot of

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Speaker 1: learning together, and he learned well. Nowadays, it wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: advisable to run out in front of him with a

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Speaker 1: turkey suit on. You'll mess around and that joker will

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Speaker 1: make your head look like it caught on fire and

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Speaker 1: someone beat it out with a golf shoe. He is

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Speaker 1: a turkey killer. So if a mister Brian type mentor

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Speaker 1: ain't available, slide on down the chain of command to

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Speaker 1: mentor number two one that's been successful in the Turkey

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Speaker 1: woods with similar interest to yours. That was mine and

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Speaker 1: Michael's relationship. We've grown up together, we're friends. We both

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Speaker 1: liked to hunt, and we enjoyed hunting together, except the

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Speaker 1: time I called a turkey in for that fool and

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Speaker 1: told him to shoot and he didn't. Now, his version

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Speaker 1: of that story is I told him the turkey was

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Speaker 1: too far and not to shoot. My version is he's

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Speaker 1: an idiot and should have pulled the trigger because I

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Speaker 1: was saying shoot. That turkey's bumping twenty five years old

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Speaker 1: now probably got a family of his own. It's the

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Speaker 1: ones that get away that I can't stop thinking about.

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Speaker 1: I told him to shoot. Anyway, that's your second type

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Speaker 1: of mentor. Now, Michael had an advantage because we'd more

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Speaker 1: or less grown up together. But I've met lots of

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Speaker 1: folks with similar skill set to my own, some even

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Speaker 1: while I was out hunting, and then developed a friendship

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Speaker 1: with them. Wound up hunting together some and learned as

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Speaker 1: much from them as they did for me. But Michael

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Speaker 1: still the only one I ever hunted with. It didn't

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Speaker 1: shoot when I told him to. I said, shoot, plain

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Speaker 1: as day. But it don't bother me much except when

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Speaker 1: I think about it now. The third type of mentor

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Speaker 1: can't really be listed as a mentor. He's going to

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Speaker 1: be more like an accomplice because y'all are going to

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Speaker 1: be messing up and learning together, and those are the

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Speaker 1: lessons that come easy and leave a scar that you'll

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Speaker 1: remember and not do again. It's success through attrition. You

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Speaker 1: remember when and where you messed up, and the next

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Speaker 1: time that situation presents itself, you don't do that again.

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Speaker 1: Like when I told Michael shoot and he didn't. Jerry

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Speaker 1: Huston was a mentor of mine as well. He and

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Speaker 1: my father were great friends, and I can really never

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Speaker 1: remember a time when he and his family weren't in

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Speaker 1: my life. We were all close, but Jerry and I

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Speaker 1: were the only turkey hunters. Jerry was like a second

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Speaker 1: father and a good turkey hunter. His skill was persistence

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Speaker 1: and patience. That cat has zero quit and could worry

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Speaker 1: a sitting hen off a nest. I've seen him call

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Speaker 1: the turkeys when everyone else would have just hung it.

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Speaker 1: Up and moved on to greener pastures. But not Jerry.

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Speaker 1: It was like he took it personal. There wasn't anything

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Speaker 1: off the table. The old adage of yelping three times

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Speaker 1: and laying your call down meant nothing to Jerry Goldwayne Houston.

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Speaker 1: He added Go to his middle name because he said

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Speaker 1: he wanted everybody to know that he was always ready.

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Speaker 1: We were hunting down in the Seleiner Roy Bottoms one

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Speaker 1: spring and had missed course to Turkey Goblin and walked

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Speaker 1: way down away from our truck, only to find him

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Speaker 1: gobbling out of sight and across the river over two

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Speaker 1: hundred yards away. He was flat more, telling the world

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Speaker 1: he knew how to gobble and was lighting the woods

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Speaker 1: on fire. Only trouble was there was more water than me,

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Speaker 1: Jerry Goldwayne, or that Turkey could drink running between us. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with how Turkey's off raid, allow

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Speaker 1: me to give you a brief description. They are dumb

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Speaker 1: as a sack of hammers, and I have seen them

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Speaker 1: come to a call only to hang up on barriers

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Speaker 1: they could easily step over or go around. I had

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Speaker 1: one hang up in a cow pasture once that had

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Speaker 1: grass growing it no longer than on a ball field,

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Speaker 1: and strut and gobble walking back and forth along a

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Speaker 1: cow trail that he wouldn't step across. An eight inch

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Speaker 1: smooth dirt path that a crawfish could have sprint across,

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Speaker 1: had kept a grown turkey from walking close enough for

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Speaker 1: me to shoot. I have seen them hang up on

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Speaker 1: small fallen logs in the middle of the woods of

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Speaker 1: one strand barboire fence, and an endless list of the

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Speaker 1: smallest items that kept them from meeting their maker, And

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Speaker 1: incomparable to the struggles that they went through to get

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Speaker 1: to the point where they hung up, they make me crazy,

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Speaker 1: almost as crazy as Michael did when I told him

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Speaker 1: plainly to shoot and he didn't. So when we get

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Speaker 1: to the edge of the river, we're on a high

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Speaker 1: bluff bank and the turkey is on the other side,

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Speaker 1: which is a lot lower. We sat down to rest

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Speaker 1: after that long disappointment walk to a turkey that we

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Speaker 1: didn't have a snowballs chance in the oven to kill him. Remember,

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Speaker 1: persisted in patient Jerry. Well after we caught our breath,

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Speaker 1: he said, caught in The turkey answered, and Jerry said

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Speaker 1: pour it on him and mashed the gas and don't

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Speaker 1: mind the brakes and pardon, that's just what I did.

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Speaker 1: That turkey lost his mind and his breath and goblin.

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Speaker 1: We could hear a hen cutting and cacting them back

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Speaker 1: at us from over there, and that fired that God

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Speaker 1: threw up the demore. I was wearing a groove, and

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Speaker 1: that slight as I was using and doubling up with

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Speaker 1: a mouth crawled. At the same time, it sounded like

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Speaker 1: a tarzan me was all that wild rector going on

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Speaker 1: on both sides of the group. Now, from where we

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Speaker 1: were sitting, we could see plumb across the river and

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Speaker 1: where that turkey was goblin, but we couldn't see past

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Speaker 1: the edge of the brush on the bank of the

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Speaker 1: river up into the bottom where he was and where

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Speaker 1: all that commotion was taking place. Jerry was sitting in

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Speaker 1: front of me with a shotgun in his lap, just

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Speaker 1: enjoying and listening to the show. When all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden I heard wings and watched as that gobler flew

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Speaker 1: across the river, straight toward us, and lit fifty yards

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Speaker 1: from where we were sitting. To my surprise, that turkey

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Speaker 1: hit the ground, went into full strut, and gobbled like

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Speaker 1: a roaring lion. Looking right at us. To my greater surprise,

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Speaker 1: Jerry quick drawed that shotgun out of his lap and

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Speaker 1: missed the turkey I just called across the saline road

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Speaker 1: that was fixing the walk closer. We were both disappointed

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Speaker 1: we didn't get him, but we were amazed and grateful

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Speaker 1: we had the opportunity. It wasn't like I told him

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Speaker 1: to shoot and he didn't. Anyway, Jerry bragged about that

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Speaker 1: that everyone all season long about how he'd witnessed the

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Speaker 1: greatest calling feet in the history of watching me call

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Speaker 1: a gobbler across the river now that hunted. On an

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Speaker 1: opening day of the season that year, Jerry and I

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Speaker 1: both tagged out, and on the last day, Tim and

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Speaker 1: mister Bryan had a tag left and were hunting together

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Speaker 1: on a different spot up the river. It started calling

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Speaker 1: to a gobbler that eventually walked away from them. While

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Speaker 1: they sat there desperately calling and trying to get that

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Speaker 1: gobbler's attention, Tim amazingly called up eleven turkey polts that

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Speaker 1: had obviously hatched early, and they walked up within inches

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Speaker 1: of where they sat calling. There wasn't any cell phones

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Speaker 1: back then, but we ran a turkey report grapevine on

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Speaker 1: the landline every evening to see what everyone in our

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Speaker 1: circle had done that day. I'd already talked to Tim

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Speaker 1: and mister Bryant and got the report on them seeing

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Speaker 1: the baby turkeys when Jerry called me immediately after hearing

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Speaker 1: the same baby turkey story from Tim. And here's how

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Speaker 1: that conversation went. Brent, I don't know how many folks

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Speaker 1: I've told about you calling that turkey across the river,

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Speaker 1: but it's been everyone I can make stand still long

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Speaker 1: enough to listen to it since the day it happened.

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Speaker 1: It was the greatest exhibition of turkey calling I've ever

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Speaker 1: seen or heard of until today. Because today I learned

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Speaker 1: that your brother is the greatest turkey caller that will

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Speaker 1: ever walk this earth. He will never be whooked. You

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Speaker 1: may have called one away from a live hen and

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Speaker 1: across the river, but he called a dozen out of

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Speaker 1: the shelves. If you're new to turkey hunting, find you

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Speaker 1: a mentor make the effort and show folks that can

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Speaker 1: show you that you're in with both feet and willing

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Speaker 1: to learn. If you're old and grizzled, are just either one,

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Speaker 1: find someone to mentor mister Bryant turned ninety years old

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Speaker 1: on the twenty ninth day of April. We drove two

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Speaker 1: hours to his birthday party. I bet there was close

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Speaker 1: to one hundred folks that came in and out of

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Speaker 1: that event center. I kept looking around counting the Turkey

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Speaker 1: hunters in there. There was a bunch of us in

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Speaker 1: that building, but there was only one like him. Thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I appreciate so much the wonderful feedback

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Speaker 1: that we got from all y'all that have taken the

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Speaker 1: time to reach out. If you have a mind too,

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Speaker 1: leave us a review on iTunes. I don't know how

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Speaker 1: it works, but when y'all do that, and you have

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Speaker 1: to get the word out about our little show to

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Speaker 1: other folks that might like to hear. Until next week,

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Speaker 1: this is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful