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Speaker 1: My best turkey hunting stories don't always feature the best calling,

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Speaker 1: or the ideal set up, or even the desired outcome.

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Speaker 1: They include moments like getting superpowers from electric shock. Okay,

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Speaker 1: maybe that isn't all true, but this is my story,

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Speaker 1: and I believe I'll tell it how I want to.

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Speaker 2: There must be DNA in humans coded to anticipate the spring,

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Speaker 2: and it feels like some might even have DNA wired

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Speaker 2: for telling turkey stories. The Northern Hemisphere's South Stepping Waltz

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Speaker 2: is a celebration to many types of folks, but to

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Speaker 2: none more than the hunter of the wild turkey. The

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Speaker 2: most noble spring indicator of the wild things that audibly

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Speaker 2: speak is the gobble of the wild turkey, which, by

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Speaker 2: all measurable variables able to be assessed by humans, it's

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Speaker 2: become vividly apparent this gobble is of higher rank than

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Speaker 2: of all nature's claraty of trumpets.

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Speaker 3: But then again, maybe the turkey hunters are biased.

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Speaker 2: This is episode one of the Bear Grease Turkey story series.

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Speaker 2: We've gathered six storytellers from Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Georgia.

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Speaker 2: We've got a best selling novelist, a TikTok celebrity, an

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Speaker 2: undercover wildlife agent, a museum curator, a Mississippi gas company man,

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Speaker 2: and a ninety two year old Appalachian mountain hunter. Turkey

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Speaker 2: story is just hit different in March, and I really

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Speaker 2: doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one.

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Speaker 4: I don't know what it is about that bird that

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Speaker 4: really sticks out in my mind. I guess it's more

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Speaker 4: the friendship than the bird. It's a testament to that

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Speaker 4: good medicine that is spending time in the outdoors.

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Speaker 2: My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear

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Speaker 2: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

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Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll.

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Speaker 3: Tell the story.

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Speaker 2: Of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

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Speaker 2: Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and

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Speaker 2: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the

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Speaker 2: places we explore. The story of the wild turkey in

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Speaker 2: North America is one of ups and downs, some of

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Speaker 2: it natural, some of it man induced. The time of

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Speaker 2: your birth often determines your outlook on the bird as

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Speaker 2: a resource, and it's the people that use them that

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Speaker 2: have historically valued them. The Most Native Americans use their meat, bones,

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Speaker 2: and feathers in practical ways, but also sacred the birds.

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Speaker 2: Early Europeans found the place stacked with an estimated ten

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Speaker 2: million turkeys and used them as a plentiful, life saving

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Speaker 2: food source, but market hunting the eighteen hundreds would almost

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Speaker 2: extirpate them, wiping them from ecological memory, their numbers dwindling

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Speaker 2: down to thirty thousand birds contined wide by the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 2: but the modern conservation movement has helped restore them to

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Speaker 2: around seven million birds today, and they've even been introduced

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Speaker 2: into areas in the Western US they never inhabited pre

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Speaker 2: European settlement.

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Speaker 3: Modern turkey numbers.

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Speaker 2: In the East peaked in the late nineteen nineties and

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Speaker 2: early two thousands, right when I was growing up.

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Speaker 3: However, in the last.

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Speaker 2: Twenty years, turkey numbers have declined in many areas in

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Speaker 2: the eastern United States, none more than in my home

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Speaker 2: state of Arkansas. If there's one thing I've learned from

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Speaker 2: my grandfather, Lewin Nukom, who spent the last thirty five

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Speaker 2: years of his life lamenting the loss of the bob

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Speaker 2: white quail, it's that it's not wise to put your

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Speaker 2: hope and passion into a ground nesting bird. But for

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Speaker 2: some of us it's a little too late. We love turkeys.

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Speaker 2: Most of the wildlife stories in our times are positive,

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Speaker 2: but of late we've been in the valley of what

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Speaker 2: we hope is a cycle. Turkey numbers are on the

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Speaker 2: decline in many areas, but I think it's producing the

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Speaker 2: generation of people that truly value the wild. Turkey scarcity,

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Speaker 2: or even perceived scarcity, is producing appreciation and action for

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Speaker 2: turkey and turkey habitat, maybe more than ever.

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Speaker 3: Let's get to the stories.

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Speaker 2: Our first storyteller is from Leland, Mississippi, and we're sitting

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Speaker 2: in the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. Billy Johnson is as

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Speaker 2: Mississippi as a cypress and muddy water.

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Speaker 3: This story is about a bird he named the blue.

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Speaker 2: Yodler, but you'll see it's really about a man iconic

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Speaker 2: in Billy's life, a riverman.

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Speaker 5: I'm Billy Johnson and I'm the director of the Missippi

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Speaker 5: Wildlife Heritage Museum in Leyland, Mississippi. I started hunting on

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Speaker 5: a place in the Mississippi River that's on the Arkansas

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Speaker 5: side of the river, and there was an old black

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Speaker 5: man that had lived on born on the island, lived

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Speaker 5: on the island. His name was Clay Matthews, and he

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Speaker 5: had a single shot twelve gage shotgun with about a

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Speaker 5: thirty inch barrel. And he believed that when the hen

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Speaker 5: got ready to do business with the gobbler, that she

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Speaker 5: wasn't gonna yelp but four times. And you know most

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Speaker 5: of the time people calling or up five times. You know,

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Speaker 5: that would be the secret. But anyway, you know, when

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Speaker 5: I was a little kid, you know, he'd tell me

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Speaker 5: about you know, when you deer hunting, you want to

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Speaker 5: get behind a tree and look around it. When you're

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Speaker 5: turkey hunt you got to get a tree wider than

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Speaker 5: you are and you sit sit face, you know, facing the.

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Speaker 6: Turkey and all.

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Speaker 5: So anyway, as the years went by, I mean I

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Speaker 5: turkey hunted a good bit, but I got to where.

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Speaker 6: I liked the crappie finish a lot better.

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Speaker 5: One year, we got thirteen inches of rain in three days,

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Speaker 5: and the lake came up six or seven feet and run.

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Speaker 6: The crappery fishing.

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Speaker 5: It's a lot of little places up in the hills

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Speaker 5: of Mississippi that used to have a store in a

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Speaker 5: post office and maybe at one point of school, and

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Speaker 5: it just got got down to where there the towns

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Speaker 5: just went away. And usually what would happen, what happened

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Speaker 5: to start with is wherever it was a spring looked,

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Speaker 5: where it was water in the hills, you know, it

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Speaker 5: would it would, it would be little towns would spring up.

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Speaker 5: And then his farming became more capital intensive and less

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Speaker 5: labor intensive, they just you know, shrunk back down. And

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Speaker 5: one of those places that we hunt up in Holmes County, Mississippi,

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Speaker 5: it's a place where they had planted all the cotton

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Speaker 5: fields and pines, and it was some tall hardwood ridges

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Speaker 5: behind behind the pines. There was a big gobbler that

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Speaker 5: would that would would gobble on one.

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Speaker 6: Of those big hardwood ridges, and he uh.

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Speaker 5: He'd get real excited and almost like he was yodling

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Speaker 5: in the middle of the goblins. And so I nicknamed

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Speaker 5: him the Blue Yodler. But you couldn't call. If you

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Speaker 5: tried to call to him, he wouldn't come. I hunted

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Speaker 5: the turkey twenty one days, and it was like I

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Speaker 5: stepped into a different world from a crappee fishing point

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Speaker 5: of view to the turkey hunting. And I would have

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Speaker 5: to try to guess which way the turkey was gonna

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Speaker 5: go that morning and not call, and a big storm

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Speaker 5: came up. One morning he gobbled two hundred and sixty

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Speaker 5: seven times, and finally it was just a day loge

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Speaker 5: I'm talking about. When I started walking out of the woods,

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Speaker 5: my boots got full of water, and you know this,

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Speaker 5: and that I just didn't know how, you know, when

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Speaker 5: you got a three hundred and sixty degree area in

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Speaker 5: the woods and you trying to figure out which way

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Speaker 5: that turkey's gonna walk that next morning. Finally I lucked

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Speaker 5: up and he hooked up with another gobbler, and uh,

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Speaker 5: they hadn't gobbled that morning, and so I started calling

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Speaker 5: and the other goblin was answering and made a complete

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Speaker 5: circle around me, and I mean, I didn't have that

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Speaker 5: good place to hide, and as they would gobble from

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Speaker 5: a little bit farther round, I'd had to kind of

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Speaker 5: try to ease around, ease around, And I finally saw

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Speaker 5: the gobler.

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Speaker 6: Coming and killed it.

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Speaker 5: And it was the big gobbler that I'd been hunting,

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Speaker 5: you know, for twenty one days.

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Speaker 6: And for the.

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Speaker 5: Rest of that day until when I went to sleep,

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Speaker 5: I was just on top of the world. And I

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Speaker 5: woke up the next morning time to go turkey hunting,

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Speaker 5: And about ten minutes after I woke up, it hit

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Speaker 5: me that I didn't have that turkey to hunt anymore.

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Speaker 6: And it was just like a.

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Speaker 5: Complete loss of what to do about how to try

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Speaker 5: to kill the turkey. Finally killing the turkey and your

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Speaker 5: old cloud nine. And the next morning you realize that

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Speaker 5: it's over, and it just just complete, you know, I

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Speaker 5: don't know if it's disappointment, but just just sad that

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Speaker 5: that it's ended.

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Speaker 6: You know, when a.

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Speaker 5: Deer or a turkey here are a big bass that

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Speaker 5: you lose, or whatever takes your mind over, completely takes

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Speaker 5: your mind over, and you know all of your thoughts

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Speaker 5: are about that, you know where you you're thinking about

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Speaker 5: it when you're awake and dreaming about it when you're sleeping,

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Speaker 5: and you know, that's the way I was with with

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Speaker 5: that turkey. I think about that, that that old that

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Speaker 5: old black man Clay Matthews a lot. He was the

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Speaker 5: last of those lamp lighters. They had floating lamps, caroseen

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Speaker 5: lamps that marked the channel and the river. He would

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Speaker 5: row out there and fill the lamps up with Caroseene

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Speaker 5: and you know this and that, and then it's another

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Speaker 5: guy living on another island south there, north of there.

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Speaker 5: They would have those those little areas. But I often

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Speaker 5: think about how simple his life was. You know, he

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Speaker 5: had a he had a garden by his house and

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Speaker 5: had tin around the bottom and you know, fenced in

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Speaker 5: where the deer, you know, couldn't get in there. And

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Speaker 5: he raised hogs and chickens, and he hunted, you know,

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Speaker 5: he hunted squirrels and the turkeys, and you know, his

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Speaker 5: wife fished, and I mean they lived off of what

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Speaker 5: the river and the island afforded. There he would always

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Speaker 5: kill a couple of big gobblers the last week or

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Speaker 5: two of the season, which would be like from the

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Speaker 5: twentieth of April for the first of night. He knew

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Speaker 5: where some mulberry trees were, and those turkeys would come

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Speaker 5: once the mulberries got right, and he knew just to

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Speaker 5: set up in there around those trees, and he knew

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Speaker 5: turkey hunting inside out, and he was self talked. One

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Speaker 5: of my prize possessions. We opened this wildlife museum in Leyland.

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Speaker 5: A guy that used to hunt with us on that

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Speaker 5: island came in with a paper bag. He said, here,

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Speaker 5: I've had this long enough. And it was Clay Matthew's

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Speaker 5: turkey call box call, and whoever made that call had

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Speaker 5: put it together instead of gluing it together, he'd used

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Speaker 5: those little cobbler tacks like somebody working on in the

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Speaker 5: shoe shop used. So, I mean, it's no telling where

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Speaker 5: he got it or whatever. But but after Clay died,

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Speaker 5: you know, he went in his house and found that

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Speaker 5: found that old turkey call.

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Speaker 6: So he died in the.

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Speaker 5: Late seventies, so I mean he lived on that island,

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Speaker 5: you know, his whole life. It was a whiskey maker,

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Speaker 5: real famous bootlegger up there named named Perry Martin, and

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Speaker 5: Clay made whiskey for Perry Martin and uh, and it

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Speaker 5: was just kind of the way of life on the river,

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Speaker 5: I know, Clay. Clay told me that before they had

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Speaker 5: outboard motors, that the three most important things on the

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Speaker 5: river was flower, tobacco, and whiskey. And then once they

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Speaker 5: had got to use an outboard motors in gasoline, so

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Speaker 5: that was the foremost important things. But we had a

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Speaker 5: drug store and we sold garden seeds and plants and stuff,

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Speaker 5: and my daddy would fly up there in the spring

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Speaker 5: the turkey hunt, and he would bring clay like cabbage

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Speaker 5: plants and sweet potato plants, and enough seeds.

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Speaker 6: You know, for his garden and stuff.

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Speaker 5: So between his chickens and his hogs, and caught what

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Speaker 5: he shot, what his wife caught.

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Speaker 6: You know, they ate what they had. They used to

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Speaker 6: have what they called blue.

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Speaker 5: Logs, and they were like cypress. Mostly the river would

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Speaker 5: change and the current would change and those things would

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Speaker 5: shoot up. He would tie them up on the bank.

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Speaker 5: All of the rivermen that collected those logs for the

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Speaker 5: lumber companies had their own knot. Other words, if the

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Speaker 5: timber buyer came up there, he could look at the

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Speaker 5: knot hold them together and know who they belonged to.

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Speaker 5: That was something that Clay Clay did for money. And

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Speaker 5: the other thing he trapped bobcats and uh, you know

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Speaker 5: when spring came and he had all his hides, he

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Speaker 5: had put him on his back and he would take

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Speaker 5: his boat go across that white river cut off walk

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Speaker 5: across Big Island, and somewhere out in the middle of

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Speaker 5: Big Island.

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Speaker 6: Was a huge hollow tree.

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Speaker 5: He had cooking utensils and stuff in that tree in

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Speaker 5: a lantern, you know, care thing, and he'd spend the

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Speaker 5: night there, and then he had walked to the other

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Speaker 5: side of Big Island, and a friend of his had

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Speaker 5: take him across, and he would go to Arkansas City

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Speaker 5: and sell his furs.

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Speaker 6: And come back. Clay was a man of nature.

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Speaker 5: In other words, he would go out in the fall

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Speaker 5: and according to high high off the ground the hornets

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Speaker 5: nests were, he would predict whether it was going to

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Speaker 5: be a coal winner or warm winner or whatever. The

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Speaker 5: higher they were up in the tree, the colder the

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Speaker 5: winter was gonna be. If they were low, it was

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Speaker 5: gonna be a warm winner. And in those days, I

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Speaker 5: mean we had a we had a fill turkey season.

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Speaker 5: But before they started having that fall turkey season. All

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Speaker 5: of the guys in my dad's generation were big squirrel hunters,

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Speaker 5: and they a lot of them.

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Speaker 6: They hunted with twenty two rifles.

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Speaker 5: And Clay could clean squirrels like you wouldn't believe how

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Speaker 5: fast he could clean them, and wouldn't be a hair on,

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Speaker 5: but he would. He would rub his hands over those

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Speaker 5: those squirrel hides in a corner.

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Speaker 6: To ever, how much how thick the hair.

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Speaker 5: Was, he could predict what the winter winter was gonna

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Speaker 5: be whether it was gonna be cold or not.

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Speaker 6: So I mean he learned what he knew from nature itself,

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Speaker 6: you know.

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Speaker 5: And you think, in this day and time, with all

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Speaker 5: this instant this communication and all this stuff, how rich

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Speaker 5: a life he had.

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Speaker 6: People like Clay.

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Speaker 5: Matthews were living in a world that was rapidly changing.

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Speaker 6: It didn't change for him, but the rest of the

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Speaker 6: world around it.

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Speaker 5: In this world we live in now, with the Internet

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Speaker 5: and Instagram and Twitter and emails and text and all that,

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Speaker 5: it makes me wonder what life ever get.

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Speaker 6: To be like it was with him living on those isles.

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Speaker 2: It's clear that when Billy thinks about turkey hunting, it's

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Speaker 2: filtered through the life of Clay Matthews. The story of

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Speaker 2: the Blue Yodler had nothing to do with the man

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Speaker 2: on the surface. That is, it happened long after Clay

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Speaker 2: had passed away, But still Billy can't talk about him

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Speaker 2: without talking about Clay.

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Speaker 3: What an incredible life he lived.

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Speaker 2: And Billy did a good job of describing how an

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Speaker 2: individual animal at times can overtake you. As frustrating as

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Speaker 2: it can be, the older I get I realize how

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Speaker 2: unique those times are.

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Speaker 3: It makes me grateful.

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Speaker 2: If you're near Leland, Mississippi, you're gonna want to stop

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Speaker 2: by the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. It's truly an incredible

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Speaker 2: place that will impress you.

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Speaker 3: Tell them that I sent you.

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Speaker 2: I wish every state had one of these, and I

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Speaker 2: wish every state had a Billy Johnson too. He's done

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Speaker 2: an incredible job. Our next storyteller is named Jack Hall.

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Speaker 2: He's from Tennessee. If there ever was a living turkey

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Speaker 2: hunting legend, it's him. And it's not because he had

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Speaker 2: a TV show, wrote a book, or got a turkey slam.

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Speaker 2: In some ways, it's a shame to even introduce you

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Speaker 2: to him in this way. I asked the man to

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Speaker 2: tell me one of his favorite turkey stories. He really

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Speaker 2: deserves more. Jack is ninety two years old. I met

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Speaker 2: him through my friend Russ Arthur, who will hear from

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Speaker 2: At the end. Russ says that Jack was one of

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Speaker 2: the original true mountain turkey hunters in East Tennessee. Jack

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Speaker 2: ran Hall Chevrolet in Cleveland, Tennessee. He had the resources

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Speaker 2: to travel and hunt in easier places, but he never did.

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Speaker 2: He loved the mountains. Here's Jack with some history and

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Speaker 2: a funny story.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, Well I'm Jack Hall and I live in Cleveland, Tennessee,

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Speaker 7: and I was born in thirty one.

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Speaker 6: I'm ninety two.

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Speaker 7: I started hunting the mountains when I was about ten

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Speaker 7: years old when we moved here. My dad was a

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Speaker 7: big hunter and fishermen. But when he hunted, we didn't

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Speaker 7: have turkeys here, but he was shown. When I started

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Speaker 7: hunting the mountains, it was squirrel hunting. That's all we did.

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Speaker 7: We didn't have a turkey season back there. We'd run

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Speaker 7: those ridges, squirrel hunted. What I think of that day,

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Speaker 7: I think, why did we do that? But uh, but

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Speaker 7: we loved being into the mountains.

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Speaker 6: Then.

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Speaker 7: I suppose when I was twenty five, thirty years old,

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Speaker 7: we started turkey hunting. Oh for many years, they only

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Speaker 7: had like a two day hunt maybe three times a year,

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Speaker 7: and that's all. That's all the turkey hunting did. I

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Speaker 7: used to hunt a lot with a fred about it

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Speaker 7: worked at Bowl Water and his name was Clyde Steiner.

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Speaker 7: And uh, one time I decided I'd get one on him.

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Speaker 7: I was all the time trying to pull one on him.

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Speaker 7: Be he said his family said he was gullible because

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Speaker 7: I was all the time getting something. But uh, but anyway,

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Speaker 7: I walked in this place and he was going to

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Speaker 7: pick me up later, you know. I told him give

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Speaker 7: me about two or three hours and come down and

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Speaker 7: pick me up. So I walked a good ways about

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Speaker 7: two miles in, and uh, what I'd done is I

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Speaker 7: had a friend about it had a bunch of eb us,

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Speaker 7: and I asked him he'd give you a couple of

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Speaker 7: evu eggs, and I bought him from me and I

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00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:35,080
Speaker 7: got a gas mask, and uh, I put those m

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Speaker 7: u eggs in and packed newspapers a ready and everything

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Speaker 7: through an open shoulder and uh, and I built a

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Speaker 7: desk about that big around and I put these two

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Speaker 7: inbu exit. Before I put the exit, I said it

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Speaker 7: that they could call turkeys for about an hour, you know.

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Speaker 7: So it looked like the desk was hued, you know.

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Speaker 7: And then I put those two eggs in. And when

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Speaker 7: I went out, he I med eve. He said, you

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Speaker 7: do the good. I said no, but you would not

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Speaker 7: believe what I failed. And he said, what do you find?

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Speaker 7: He said, I found a nest back there. I don't

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Speaker 7: know what it is. I said that it must have

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Speaker 7: been a dinosaur egged there's two of them, innut it.

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Speaker 7: And he kept questioning me about that. He said, I

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Speaker 7: don't want to see them. I said, it's about a

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Speaker 7: mile or two back in there. He said, I don't care.

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Speaker 7: Let's go. I want to see it. So we took off,

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Speaker 7: walked and walked and all its uphill all the way

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Speaker 7: to it. And when we got there, you'd have to

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Speaker 7: you'd have to dore him to appreciate it, because he's fuddy. Anyway,

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Speaker 7: he looked at that legs. Soon as he walked up,

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Speaker 7: he said, what in the name of God?

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Speaker 6: And I started.

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Speaker 8: I said, I don't door.

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Speaker 6: I've never seen anything like it.

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Speaker 7: He's and I got down there and had a stick

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Speaker 7: and I said, he said, don't move that thinking he said,

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Speaker 7: I don't believe it's a legg He said, I believe

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Speaker 7: it's a bomb. Somebody believe there was are bombs. I said, well,

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Speaker 7: I don't believe her bomb. Anyway, I had more fun

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Speaker 7: with him about to do it at it. We took

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Speaker 7: him back to town and he had a workshop. We

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Speaker 7: took him out there and he kept saying, don't touch

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Speaker 7: those things, and I cared him. He said, I still

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Speaker 7: believe her bomb. I said, give me a drill. That

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Speaker 7: he fussed about that and I drilled it. He saw

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Speaker 7: it was an ad and that I got to think

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Speaker 7: him later, I better tell him better. That he was

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Speaker 7: older than me. Thought he'd lively have a heart attack.

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Speaker 7: So I called him and told him. But that's what

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Speaker 7: his his family told him. I heard of all the

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Speaker 7: telephone that that he said. I can't believe you always

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Speaker 7: believe him. Yeah, I told him I was afraid he'd

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Speaker 7: have hearts. That well. I could tell a lot of

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Speaker 7: stories about killing turkeys, but I thought i'd.

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Speaker 6: Tell what about but he just knew they were bobs.

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Speaker 7: You know. I still would love to turkey out in

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Speaker 7: the mountains, but but uh, legs just won't let me

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Speaker 7: do it any boy. It's been about three years ago,

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Speaker 7: and I have no idea how many of you, but

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Speaker 7: I'd always killed one or two a year, you know,

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Speaker 7: but that's all you could kill, you know. I've never

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Speaker 7: traveled much and done in turkey out and just just oh.

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Speaker 2: Good, Jack Hall, What an incredible guy, and what a

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Speaker 2: sense of humor the old em you ag trick. And

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Speaker 2: I hadn't even told you that Jack is an expert

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Speaker 2: ballroom dancer too. Well, I hate to turn the table

395
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 2: too quickly and disorient you. But our next storyteller is

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Speaker 2: about six point five decades younger than Jack. Macy Watkins

397
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Speaker 2: is from Gordon, Georgia. She's an artist, a hunter, and

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Speaker 2: a fly fisherman. I think you'll enjoy her story about

399
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Speaker 2: gaining superpowers from a hunt. And yep, Macy is our

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Speaker 2: resident turkey hunting TikToker.

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Speaker 1: I'm doing to the mut My name's Macy Watkins, and

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00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 1: my best turkey hunting stories don't always feature the best calling,

403
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 1: or the ideal set up, or even the desired outcome,

404
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: but yet they are plagued with adversity, bloopers and such.

405
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 1: They're always colorful, never dull, and sometimes victorious. They include

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Speaker 1: moments like getting superpowers from electric shot. Okay, maybe that

407
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: isn't all true, but this is my story I believe,

408
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 1: I'll tell it how. I want to more on that later.

409
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:08,959
Speaker 1: So I had a pretty rough season in Tennessee. Was bounding,

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Speaker 1: determined to kill a bird there, entered a tournament that

411
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:14,719
Speaker 1: just did some other hunting in Tennessee and just came

412
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Speaker 1: up with no luck. Hunted multiple locations just came up

413
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,479
Speaker 1: shorts like it wasn't meant to be until the divine

414
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: appointment of I met Slade and we got to turkey

415
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: hunt and doubled up and that was our first date.

416
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Speaker 1: So that was the beginning. Finally got one in Tennessee.

417
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: So after that, now I went back to Georgia. Slade

418
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,439
Speaker 1: and calls and says, let's go back to Tennessee. I

419
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 1: have somewhere we can hunt. So I said, all right,

420
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: I'm spontaneous, so I just I picked up went back

421
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: to Alabama and we drove back up to Tennessee, hunting

422
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 1: with our friend Tyler Sanders. So us three deep in

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Speaker 1: the woods. Slade kills his bird very quickly. So but

424
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:01,239
Speaker 1: my luck or lack of luck, actually, you know, it

425
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: wasn't that easy moving forward. The opportunities to kill did

426
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: not come easy. Hunted another day, had the opportunity to

427
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: kill some if they would have just taken a few

428
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,159
Speaker 1: more steps, which I'm sure a lot of turkey hunters

429
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: have those similar stories. But we were right on a line,

430
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: probably had them ten feet in front of us, and

431
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: Slade said, hold off, we gotta do it by the book.

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Speaker 1: And I'm a person of integrity too. I enjoyed doing

433
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Speaker 1: things the right way. If you're gonna do something, it's

434
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: worth doing right. So we did not shoot those turkeys.

435
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: Probably could have shot a few, Yeah, So we held off.

436
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: So another day passed, did not get Macie her bird.

437
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: We said we could hunt the next morning. Then we

438
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 1: had some heavy rain coming in, so we went out

439
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: and we just we were kind of running and gunning,

440
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 1: and we parked. The truck started calling. We immediately heard

441
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:00,360
Speaker 1: one fire back and I was like, oh, snap, that's

442
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: not that far away. And then we call again and

443
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 1: this turkey was coming in hot and bothered. He was

444
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: fired up. We were like, dang, that's closer. So the

445
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 1: time was ticking. We were on a clock, us versus

446
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:17,959
Speaker 1: the bird. Who's gonna get there first? And it was

447
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: absolutely my last chance. Yeah, So it was probably mid morning.

448
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: We had hunted other spots that morning. We actually saw

449
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: this patch of cedar trees outside of the woodline. I

450
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: don't even think we actually had time to make it

451
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 1: into the woods, because that's how fast everything was happening.

452
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: Everything that happened from here on out is the funny part.

453
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: So there was a fence, and you know, the guys

454
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 1: are a little taller than me, so they easily got

455
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: over it, and they wanted to like me to step

456
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,679
Speaker 1: in their hands and get over the fence, but I

457
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: was like, no, no, that's too hard. I'm just jumping.

458
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 1: It's not even that high. Anyways. Well, I backed up,

459
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: I got a running start, and I ate my words,

460
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: but after that, I also ate dirt that I tripped

461
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: over the fence. But like I said, there's clumsiness and

462
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 1: adversity plagues all with my turkey hunts. I'm a very

463
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: clumsy person. And one thing I always say that it's

464
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: not a turkey hunt for me until I saw until

465
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 1: I busted. Doesn't matter how short or long a turkey

466
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: hunt is, I'm usually gonna fall just because I don't know.

467
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 1: Maybe that's my trademark. But the fence caught my rubber

468
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 1: light boot. I almost made it. It's just this much

469
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: that got me and I hit the ground and the

470
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: guys just start laughing at me. I'm like, y'all, shut up,

471
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: we got a bird.

472
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 5: To go kill.

473
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: Quit messing around. They were just laughing. I'm like, we're

474
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: we were on the clock. Quit laughing.

475
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 5: Come on.

476
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: And we finally got her composure, and when we ran

477
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 1: over to the patch of cedar trees. I mean it

478
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: didn't take long after that. We only had a minute

479
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: or two once we got set up. Then we just

480
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: finished the deal of the bird came in and just

481
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: if I had one word to describe how that turkey

482
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: looked was haggard. He was just road hard and put

483
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 1: up wet, and actually he was wet because it had

484
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: started raining pretty good at that point. And that's really

485
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: when I become one with the turkey, because at that point,

486
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: after three days of hunting hard and coming up short,

487
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: so tired and getting rained on and my hopes were down,

488
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: became one with the turkey because I was also road

489
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: hard and put up wet. So he came in. I

490
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: guess he was like, so where's this hen I was

491
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: here and and just oblivious to us. They're hiding. And

492
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: now I pulled the trigger and got it done. We

493
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: had some high fives, and when I say I absolutely

494
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: dirt rolled him, I did. We were on a decline,

495
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: so made a successful shot, rolled down the hill a

496
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: little bit, and we were pretty high. It was awesome turkey.

497
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: So when I kill a turkey, I usually just can't

498
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: believe it. I'm surprised and excited every time, I mean,

499
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: mouth opens just I usually laugh out of just pure happiness.

500
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: There's just such joy in it, especially when there's so

501
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: much adversity, so many things that might go wrong, coming

502
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: up short in Tennessee with all my hunts there, it

503
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: just makes the moment sweeter.

504
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 3: Lots of high fives, hugs.

505
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: Picking people up, yelling at the same time. I'd say,

506
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: so Macy finally got her bird. It's an amazing moment.

507
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: And then we headed out of the woods having my

508
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: bird over my shoulder. But what stood in the way

509
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: of getting back to the truck was that dang fence

510
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 1: and the guys got over it. And this is a

511
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: fence that we had permission to hot, by the way,

512
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: I just want to point that out. So I got

513
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: to the fence, I'm like, well, that fence ain't hot.

514
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: I already touched it when I fell over it. But

515
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: I made one step over it with my turkey, and

516
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: I'll be dan if it didn't shock me. And I

517
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: screamed so loud, and Slade was in the truck laughing

518
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: so hard. Tyler, who was trying to help me over,

519
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: was laughing. And you know, like when people laugh at you,

520
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: but that you're there laughing a little harder than you're laughing,

521
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: So I.

522
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 8: Was a little embarrassed.

523
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: But anyways, I really feel like that day I gained superpowers,

524
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: some kind of turkey hunting superpowers from my electric voltage

525
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: that I got shocked with. And the thing is, that's

526
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: not a lie, because that was my last bird of

527
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: the season last year. So time will tell. If you

528
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: see me out there on the Dagone killing spree just

529
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: having a record year this year, you'll know Macy's got

530
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 1: something that the rest of us don't have. And that's

531
00:31:56,280 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: because I gained superpowers that day. This story ends in

532
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: a trout stream in North Carolina. So later that week

533
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: I went back home, and I love trout fishing. That's

534
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: my mother passion turkey hunting, trout fishing, or what I

535
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: was put on earth to do. I tied a bunch

536
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: of flies that week, and I took a bunch of

537
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: feathers from my turkey and tied some pheasant tail niphs,

538
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: which I affectionately called my turkey tail niphs. We do

539
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: a bunch of euro niphing in North Georgia and the streams,

540
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: And if you look at my page, you'll see that

541
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: I catch the occasional giant trout because I do have

542
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: access to a few trophy streams, but my passion is

543
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: going way up in the mountains, way past cell service

544
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: and catching wild rainbows, brook trout with your native to

545
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: our area and brown trout. So I almost got my

546
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: Cherokee slam. That's where I was fishing in Cherokee, North Carolina,

547
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 1: not far from my house. I caught every fish that

548
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: day on flies that I had tied with my Tennessee bird,

549
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: which is just all encompassing full so moment, I feel

550
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: like turkey hunting makes me a well rounded outdoorsman, but

551
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: also a resourceful and more appreciative angler.

552
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 2: Thank you, miss Macye for the story, and we'll see

553
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 2: if those big talking superpower predictions come true. It's go

554
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,479
Speaker 2: time and showtime in the spring woods.

555
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 3: Right now. I'll be paying attention and I'll be rooting

556
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 3: for you.

557
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 2: Be prepared to be disoriented even yet again as we

558
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 2: move across the state line to the great state of

559
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 2: North Carolina to our next storyteller, David Joy is as

560
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 2: country as cornbread. And if you lined up ten people

561
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 2: and we're asked to guess which one was an award

562
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 2: winning novelist who just got off a European book tour.

563
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,479
Speaker 2: I bet you wouldn't pick him, but you'd be wrong.

564
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 2: If you didn't, you might have didicted that he was

565
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 2: a ridge running Southern Appalachian turkey hunter by the length

566
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 2: of his legs. He's a tall fella and a bona

567
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 2: fide turkey hunter. Here's David's story and it involves a

568
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 2: man getting shot.

569
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 4: So I guess one of the things that I like

570
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 4: most about turkey hunting is that you have the potential

571
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 4: to develop like a partnership with another person that you're

572
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 4: hunting with. And in some ways that differs from other

573
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 4: pursuits in the outdoors. So, you know, especially like whitetail

574
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 4: hunting or something where you're you know, spending a lot

575
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,400
Speaker 4: of time in a tree by yourself. With turkey hunting,

576
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 4: if you can find the right partner, it serves as

577
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 4: a tremendous advantage. And I've been very fortunate to develop

578
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:51,320
Speaker 4: a relationship with with just an incredible sportsman who's probably

579
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 4: about twenty five years my senior, but just a hell

580
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,240
Speaker 4: of a turkey hunter. I mean, it's killed hundreds of turkeys,

581
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,399
Speaker 4: and you know, through the years I've had. I've had

582
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 4: the chance to hunt with him a lot, and he

583
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 4: and how I have kind of developed a relationship where

584
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 4: he knows what I'm going to do and I know

585
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 4: what he's going to do, and because of that, we

586
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 4: have the opportunity to kill a lot of birds that

587
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 4: we probably couldn't have killed by ourselves. And so really

588
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 4: that's become one of the things that I look forward

589
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 4: to most every Turkey season, is just spending time in

590
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 4: the woods with him, because I know one day I'm

591
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 4: not going to have that. So, you know, jumped to

592
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 4: last year. This was real early in the season because

593
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 4: I was hunting in South Carolina, just over the line,

594
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 4: and I was up on a mountain. I was hunting

595
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 4: by myself, and I had been on this bird multiple

596
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 4: days and it had woked me every day, and it

597
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 4: kind of played out the same way this morning. And

598
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 4: I sent this buddy of mine a text message, you know,

599
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 4: telling him what had happened, and he texted back, I've

600
00:35:55,320 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 4: been shot. And I immediately thought he was joking, you know,

601
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 4: I thought he was just making it up, and you know,

602
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 4: I sent something back and he said he said he

603
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 4: was at the hospital and that he was he was

604
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 4: going to be fine, but that he had been shot.

605
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 4: And where I was on the mountain, it was kind

606
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 4: of an odd spot because typically you don't have service

607
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 4: in the mountains, but I had very good service there,

608
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 4: and so my immediate thought was, Okay, he's safe. But

609
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:27,799
Speaker 4: I knew he was at the far eastern end of

610
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:31,240
Speaker 4: North Carolina, and we live in the mountains of North Carolina.

611
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 4: So my immediate thought was his wife, And it was like,

612
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:35,759
Speaker 4: how is his wife going to get down there to

613
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 4: the hospital? But so eventually she she reached out and

614
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 4: said she was fine, she was headed that way, and

615
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 4: and that was that. Uh So, so what wound up

616
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 4: happening was was that another hunter shot this buddy of

617
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 4: mine thinking that he was a turkey, and he had

618
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 4: just enough time to kind of roll on his side

619
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 4: so that he took the majority of the shot into

620
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 4: his ribs, his shoulder. He was shot with long beard

621
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:08,359
Speaker 4: copper plated number fives, and somehow or another, you know,

622
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 4: just by the grace of God, it none of it

623
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 4: got him in the head. And thank god they were shooting,

624
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:17,359
Speaker 4: you know, copper plated lead instead of tungsten, because because

625
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 4: I think it would have been a different story. I

626
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 4: think he'd be dead. So he immediately, you know, is

627
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,799
Speaker 4: at the hospital. They're working to get the shot out

628
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 4: of him. They put him on antibiotics. He comes home

629
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 4: pretty much that next day, but within a week there

630
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 4: was a secondary infection that started that luckily another doctor

631
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 4: caught and you know, they wind up working on him

632
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 4: and get him healed. But you know, that doctor told

633
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 4: him that if he hadn't taken care of that secondary infection,

634
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 4: it would have killed him. It would have traveled to

635
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 4: his brain that had killed him. So all of this

636
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 4: is going on, and turkey hunting is kind of out

637
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 4: the window, you know, And and I'm devastated for him,

638
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 4: but I'm thankful that he's alive. And so my turkey

639
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 4: season last year was real funny, you know. But I

640
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 4: decided I was gonna hunt with an old Winchester Model

641
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 4: twelve because that's what he always hunted with. So I

642
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 4: hunted all season with an old Nickel still nineteen twenty

643
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 4: eight Winchester Model twelve twenty gage. So time goes on

644
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,759
Speaker 4: and through the month of April, and I'm you know,

645
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 4: men are not wanting to share their feelings, so it

646
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 4: was always hard to try and you know, feel him

647
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 4: out on where he was mentally. And so I spent

648
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 4: a lot of time talking to his wife, and she

649
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 4: kept saying he needs to get back in the woods,

650
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 4: and I thought she was right. But at the same time,

651
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 4: that's not one of them things you can pressure somebody

652
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 4: to do, you know. I mean, he had just been

653
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 4: shot and thank god, you know, didn't die. But you know,

654
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 4: that's an incredibly traumatic experience that was obviously going to

655
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:59,320
Speaker 4: linger pretty heavy. And so it was this delicate balance

656
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 4: and act of not wanting to push him but also

657
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 4: knowing that where he needed to be was in the

658
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 4: Turkey woods. And so we started having those conversations and

659
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 4: I just kept telling him, you know that if it

660
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 4: made him more comfortable, I wouldn't carry a gun. You know,

661
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 4: We'll just go in the woods together. And you know,

662
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 4: he didn't really want to do that, and you know,

663
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 4: I'd almost giving up on asking him, and out of

664
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 4: the blue, he sends me this message one evening and

665
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 4: he said, I've got a bird pinned down and I said, well,

666
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:35,959
Speaker 4: let's go chase him. He said, you know, he said,

667
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 4: we'll meet me at the house the next morning, and

668
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 4: so I did and we rode out through the mountains.

669
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 4: It was first day we hunted, you know, together last season.

670
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 4: We head out this ridge, you know, to try and

671
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 4: hear if this bird is roosted where he thinks it'll be.

672
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 4: And we get out there, and sure enough, that bird

673
00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 4: starts hammering across the valley before daylight, and you know,

674
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 4: I know that it's on. I know, you know, Raymond's

675
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 4: got him pinned down, and I know for a fact

676
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:07,720
Speaker 4: he's going to know the landscape and know the moves

677
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 4: we need to make to get on him. So it's super,

678
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 4: super steep, and we just drop off the side of

679
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 4: this mountain through a bunch of laurels and rodeo and

680
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 4: get down into the bottom along this field, and the

681
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,399
Speaker 4: birds are roosted at the bottom of that field, and

682
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 4: we kind of make a plan on what we're going

683
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 4: to do. And right about the time that I was

684
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 4: going to go sit at my tree, I could just

685
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 4: since that he was really nervous. It was something I'd

686
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 4: never experienced with him before, because he knows how safe

687
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 4: I am with guns. He's been around with me with

688
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 4: guns all the time.

689
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 6: You know.

690
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:45,799
Speaker 4: I always tell him that when the gun's loaded, I

691
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 4: tell him when it's unloaded, and he just started asking

692
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 4: a lot of questions about the gun, and so I

693
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 4: told him, I said, Raymond, I said, I'm gona unload

694
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 4: my gun. I said, I'm not going to touch it.

695
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:58,439
Speaker 4: I said, I'm gonna get behind you, and I said,

696
00:40:58,440 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 4: I'm not going to touch it.

697
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:01,240
Speaker 6: I just wanted him to hunt.

698
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 4: So we start calling to this bird and they pitch

699
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 4: out into that field, and they had a bunch of

700
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 4: hens with them, and for the most part, we spent

701
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 4: the morning, you know, calling to Noah Vail, trying to

702
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 4: call a bird that had everything he wanted. And so,

703
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 4: you know, we spent the morning calling at him, and

704
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 4: every once in a while he'd answer, but never made

705
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 4: a move up there towards just just stayed in the

706
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 4: bottom of that field. And about mid morning, probably around ten,

707
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 4: those hens started to leave the field to go to nest.

708
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 4: When they did that, Tom started following them, and I

709
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 4: had already made a move further away from Raymond. My

710
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:44,359
Speaker 4: plan was to try and pull those birds up to us,

711
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 4: and that that field made a real hard like a

712
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 4: hard right dog leg back up above us, and so

713
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 4: my plan was to try and make it sound like

714
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 4: there had been birds that moved up that field that

715
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 4: they couldn't see. And so I was up there and

716
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 4: I was calling and they were still answering me. And

717
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 4: it was late season. So I started gobbling on a

718
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 4: box call, and every time i'd gobble on that box call,

719
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,359
Speaker 4: they'd answer me. But so those birds are working up

720
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 4: the field, and as turkeys you know, always do, they

721
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 4: did not cooperate. They went the opposite direction and they

722
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 4: went up the left hand side, and that gobbler just

723
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 4: just kept on, you know, gobbling with his hens up

724
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 4: up through the woods. And I thought, well, this is over.

725
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 4: And about that time I seen a turkey pop up

726
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 4: over the hill in that field, and he was on

727
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 4: the right hand side, and he was coming in silent.

728
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 4: I think he was probably a subordinate bird, you know,

729
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 4: that had broken off from them others, but was coming

730
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 4: to check out all that noise he'd been listening to

731
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,760
Speaker 4: all morning. And so he pops up and he starts

732
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 4: walking through that field. I mean, just gorgeous. The sun's

733
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 4: just hitting him perfect, and I'm watching him work up

734
00:42:56,920 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 4: through that field and I think any minute he's gonna

735
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,320
Speaker 4: get in front of Raymond, and you know, and Raymond's

736
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 4: gonna smoke him. And it gets to the point where

737
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 4: I'm convinced that he's past him. And all I'm thinking is,

738
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 4: you've let that bird get past you because you want

739
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 4: me to kill it, because that's something he would do.

740
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 4: That's just him.

741
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:18,959
Speaker 6: Uh.

742
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 4: He's always like he's always thinking of others before he's

743
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 4: thinking of himself. So I'm thinking, you idiot, man, You've

744
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,359
Speaker 4: let this bird get by you, and now we've got

745
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:30,279
Speaker 4: to hope it gets all the way up here to me.

746
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 4: And right about the time that that that thought is

747
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 4: settling in my mind, I don't hear Raymond, but I

748
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 4: know he must have called because that bird threw his

749
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 4: head up and he just walloped him out there in

750
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 4: that field. And I don't know what it is about

751
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 4: that bird that really sticks out in my mind. I

752
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 4: guess it's it's more the friendship than the bird. And

753
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 4: I think it's it's just a testament to, you know,

754
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 4: what the outdoors and what the sporting life means to

755
00:43:58,320 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 4: people who can't live.

756
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 6: With out it.

757
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 4: You know, it's a testament to that good medicine that

758
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 4: is spending time in the outdoors.

759
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 2: That was a good story. David and a serious one.

760
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 2: I think you should write a novel about a man

761
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 2: getting shot by a stranger in the backwall turkey hunting,

762
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 2: and the shooter escapes on.

763
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 3: A crooked hoofed mule.

764
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 2: Years later, the shot turkey hunter unknowingly saves the life

765
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 2: of the mule trapped in swirling Mississippi River Eddie. The

766
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 2: steed presumably belonged to the mysterious shooter. We don't know

767
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:40,240
Speaker 2: who he is, and the beast has a unique brand

768
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 2: on his left haunch BP three.

769
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, the mule dies three days later.

770
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 2: And I mean, it's a long story and David would

771
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 2: do such a better job telling it. But it's kind

772
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 2: of a plot twist and weird. But the shooter was

773
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,439
Speaker 2: actually the man's brother, and they didn't know about each

774
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 2: other because of the father's double life, and their father,

775
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 2: a turkey hunter, had accidentally told them both about the

776
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 2: same ridged a turkey hunt on where they faithfully met

777
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 2: on the morning of the shooting.

778
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 3: Oh my, at the drama, And the.

779
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 2: Mysterious brand stood for black panther three because three generations

780
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,239
Speaker 2: of those Hillbillies believe they'd seen a black mountain lion.

781
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:26,319
Speaker 2: Like I said, David, would tell it better anyway. In

782
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 2: all seriousness, the thought of getting shot turkey hunting is

783
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 2: a nightmare. And if you don't know much about turkey hunting,

784
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 2: it's a unique hunt because we roam around in the

785
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 2: woods making the calls of a turkey without any hunter

786
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:43,880
Speaker 2: orange on. Because turkeys can see color, most firearms hunting

787
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 2: requires people to wear hunter's orange to be visible. Hunting

788
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 2: accidents are rare but possible. But honestly, to me, the

789
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 2: other version of the nightmare is being the one who

790
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 2: made the mistake and shot someone. I think about that

791
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 2: more than getting shot. Be careful out there, folks. We're

792
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 2: now going to go back to Leland, Mississippi, to the

793
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 2: Wildlife Heritage Museum to meet our next storyteller who is

794
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 2: from the Delta. His name is Roy Stubbs, and he

795
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 2: worked for the gas company. Roy is in his eighties

796
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 2: and it's clear that he has a unique appreciation for

797
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 2: the wild turkey. I was so glad to be able

798
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:33,720
Speaker 2: to capture his story in a little bit about his history.

799
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 6: My name's Roy Stubbs.

800
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 9: I lived in the Mississippi Delta and that was the

801
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 9: place to be if you had the opportunity to hunt turkeys,

802
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 9: especially along the Missippi Roup. My desire for turkey hunting

803
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 9: started at early age when a friend of ours and

804
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 9: the town I lived in but aught Misissippi with keller

805
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 9: turkey and bring it by when if we'd have our

806
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 9: little Wednesday morning at school, and he would bring his

807
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 9: turkey in and lay it down and talk about the turkey,

808
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:12,280
Speaker 9: and then he'd take a leave off of a tree

809
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 9: of some kind and use that as its call. And

810
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 9: so it kind of stayed with me, and so I

811
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 9: fast forward then several years and I had the opportunity

812
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 9: to become a member of a honting club along the

813
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 9: mist every rubber and there was lots of turkeys, lots

814
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 9: of turkeys, and the timeframe were talking about it's a

815
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 9: late nineteen sixties, so it'd been around those turkeys for

816
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 9: the first time in the woods. I just had this

817
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:48,800
Speaker 9: desire building. But it hunting turkeys just so much different

818
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 9: than the hunting anything else. You just have to have

819
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:54,840
Speaker 9: a lot of knowledge. So I had a friend of

820
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 9: mine there was a barber in a small town near me,

821
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 9: and I used to go and set any and talk

822
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:05,240
Speaker 9: with him. He made his own malcohols and he taught

823
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 9: me a lot about calling turkeys. He taught me how

824
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 9: to make a malcohol even and I hammered out a

825
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 9: piece of aluminum and some rubber and I made my

826
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 9: first first turkey I killed in nineteen sixty seven. I

827
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 9: called it up with my mouth call.

828
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,280
Speaker 6: Later on I developed the weight.

829
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 9: That used my natural voice, and I used it most

830
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 9: of all time until I got too old too. Turkey

831
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:42,399
Speaker 9: hunters have a bond all across the country. That's it's

832
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 9: just a part of hunters and camaraderie, the love we

833
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 9: all have for each other and for the sport itself.

834
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 9: The turkey is a magnificent bird and it's not to

835
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:58,879
Speaker 9: be taken lightly that when you could kill, to thank

836
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 9: the Lord for naming you have this opportunity and his creation.

837
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 9: So in nineteen eighty four, had I lived in Greenville, Mississippi,

838
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 9: which is right on Misssippi River. My club I hunted

839
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,560
Speaker 9: on with just a few minutes north of town, and

840
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 9: so started the season off and had a turkey that

841
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,720
Speaker 9: has caught my attention right away. The main line Levy,

842
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 9: if you've never been there. This runs from Memphis to Vicksburg.

843
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 9: There's dikes on it we call dikes that are running

844
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 9: and they're there for to control the water flow as

845
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 9: it flows on toward the Gulf and so on. These

846
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 9: we traveled on these dikes. There our road on top

847
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 9: of them, and you can drive down for you woods

848
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 9: and most of them, a lot of them go all

849
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 9: the way to the bank of the Mississippi. So we

850
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 9: ride down them in Stoton, call and the turkey answer.

851
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 6: We get to they get a hunt on.

852
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:06,560
Speaker 9: So this particularly year started off with this turkey. And

853
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 9: I noticed the first few times I went, I'd drive

854
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:10,320
Speaker 9: down there.

855
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 6: He would cop them.

856
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 9: So I said, okay, I know where you are, I

857
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 9: know how to give you. Well that that started my

858
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:23,719
Speaker 9: season long turkey honk. So I would go out and

859
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 9: call that turkey in he would gobble, and so we

860
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 9: would get in. I'd move, he'd move, and literally literally

861
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 9: I would go every day and want that turkey. With

862
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 9: my job there I had that time. I'd get all

863
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 9: my men working and I'd sneak off and get my truck,

864
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 9: drive up there and call and he'd answer me and

865
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 9: I'd go hunting. So we did this day in and

866
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 9: day out. It's the weather permitted and sun Sundays off

867
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,960
Speaker 9: mostly well, we came down it's gonna be the last day,

868
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 9: last day of trucky season. Well, unfortunately, on the last

869
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 9: day of trucky season, my wife had us a social

870
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:17,320
Speaker 9: event to go to. Well, I thought I had a train,

871
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,439
Speaker 9: but she slept a scept through on men. So I'm

872
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 9: thinking about my turkey. I got one last chance, one

873
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 9: last chance to get him. And so I had many

874
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 9: encounters through the year. I'm crawling up on snakes. I

875
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 9: had deer walk up to me check and see what

876
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 9: I'm doing. I mean, coons follow some of armidellas because

877
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 9: I did a lot of belly crawling that food that year,

878
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 9: trying to crawl up on this turkey. He was a

879
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 9: smart he's smart smart, and he.

880
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 6: Was really fun to hunt.

881
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:58,400
Speaker 9: And it was just calling experience and learning experience that

882
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:02,320
Speaker 9: I'll never forget. So the last days and so I

883
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:06,359
Speaker 9: get there bout the middle afternoon and I start my hunt.

884
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:07,200
Speaker 3: I got a plane.

885
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 6: I know what.

886
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 9: I know what he's done the last few times I

887
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 9: haunt him. So I've come in a different direction, changed

888
00:52:14,040 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 9: everything up, got a different call. But I was gonna

889
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 9: have to do my crawling, so I eased up and

890
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 9: kept going going, and he's kept coming a little bit.

891
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,960
Speaker 9: Finally I had him in range. I guess one of

892
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 9: my disadvantages was I was laying down and it's hard

893
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 9: to chew the gun hold it up. Besides the turkey

894
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:39,280
Speaker 9: ahead and anyway, I got it all set, got all ready,

895
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 9: got my gun up, and just looking at that turkey,

896
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,879
Speaker 9: just the magnificence of him, and I already sometimes think

897
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 9: the Good Lord has a hand and who we are

898
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 9: and what we do, and he also has control over

899
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 9: what happens in the woods so many times with us,

900
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:03,520
Speaker 9: and I'd rather blame the Lord, I think sometimes than

901
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:06,719
Speaker 9: blame myselfthing not being able to make it, you know,

902
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 9: make the kill or whatever. So very carefully I had

903
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 9: got my gun up and got my head down on it.

904
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:18,800
Speaker 9: I thought, just right, which is difficult to do laying

905
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 9: down and not can't move.

906
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 6: You can't move.

907
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:25,760
Speaker 9: So I get everything just right. I pulled the trigger,

908
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 9: and the turkey had expression on his face. So he

909
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 9: just lifted up and flew right over the top of me,

910
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:40,200
Speaker 9: about five feet over my head, and he said goodbye

911
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:42,120
Speaker 9: for the day, for the season.

912
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 6: And I got up.

913
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 9: And I said tip my head to him, and I said,

914
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 9: thank you, thank you for a break. Season, and I

915
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:53,359
Speaker 9: think that Turkey today, if he's in Turkey Heaven, I know.

916
00:53:56,320 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 2: What a classic gentleman overflowing with appreciation for just getting

917
00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:04,280
Speaker 2: to chase one and who knew there was a Turkey Heaven?

918
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:08,799
Speaker 2: These boys from Mississippi are just made different. And I'm

919
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 2: extending a genuine Bear Grease hat tip to mister Roy Stuves.

920
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 2: Our final storyteller is Russ Arthur from Cleveland, Tennessee. If

921
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 2: Russ's name sounds familiar, it's because he was on our

922
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:33,439
Speaker 2: genuine Outlaw series of Bear Grease episodes fifty two through

923
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 2: fifty six a couple years ago. Russ was the undercover

924
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 2: agent who hunted with Louisdale Edwards in western Arkansas in

925
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties. Louisdale said Russ was the best turkey

926
00:54:45,680 --> 00:54:49,280
Speaker 2: caller he'd ever heard. Russ is one of those guys

927
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 2: who has a story much bigger than a single turkey story,

928
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 2: and it was an honor to sit with him and

929
00:54:56,040 --> 00:54:59,720
Speaker 2: hear this one about his late father, Jim Arthur.

930
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 8: Well, my name is Russ Arthur. I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee,

931
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:11,160
Speaker 8: in a community called Hickson, Tennessee, right outside of Chattanooga.

932
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:14,839
Speaker 8: I was blessed to have a father who was a

933
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 8: passionate outdoorsman. My dad killed his first turkey in nineteen

934
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:22,680
Speaker 8: sixty one. Of course, I was only two years old

935
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 8: at that time, so I don't remember that. But he

936
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:30,799
Speaker 8: would always hunt on this management area where there was

937
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 8: only the season. Back then in the sixties, there was

938
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:37,280
Speaker 8: only one or two days a week that you could hunt.

939
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,240
Speaker 8: There were very limited counties in the state of Tennessee

940
00:55:40,239 --> 00:55:43,759
Speaker 8: that had turkeys. He would always come home and talk

941
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 8: about his adventures. The hunts were normally Friday, Saturday, Sunday,

942
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:50,760
Speaker 8: and he would always go up on a Thursday in camp.

943
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:53,720
Speaker 8: He had an old station wagon fifty something mile station

944
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:57,000
Speaker 8: wagon and he would go up and camp out of it,

945
00:55:57,280 --> 00:55:59,360
Speaker 8: and he would normally hunt on Friday and Saturday and

946
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 8: come home Saturday, even for church on Sunday. As a kid,

947
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 8: growing up seven eight nine year old kid, I could

948
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,160
Speaker 8: not wait to hear the stories.

949
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 6: And it was later in.

950
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:13,919
Speaker 8: Life that I figured out that my dad had done

951
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 8: a very noble thing, and that is he took the

952
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:20,880
Speaker 8: curiosity of a kid and turned it into a passion.

953
00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 8: Because he would give me just enough information about what

954
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:27,839
Speaker 8: he was doing where it was at, and I had

955
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:32,120
Speaker 8: this this mystical place in my mind that I wasn't

956
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:36,399
Speaker 8: old enough to go to yet. And he didn't drag

957
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 8: me along as a six year old or a seven

958
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 8: year old or an eight year old. He waited till

959
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 8: I got old enough that I could I could handle

960
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:47,840
Speaker 8: a single barrel, and he started taking me. So I

961
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 8: had this passion to my dad. And one of my

962
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 8: favorite turkey hunting stories will have to go back to.

963
00:56:54,200 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 8: And this is if I get emotional, I'm sorry. Well,

964
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 8: he had an old call and he called it sweet Thing,

965
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 8: and it was and I've got that call with me today.

966
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:10,360
Speaker 8: He bought it for I think it was three dollars

967
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,359
Speaker 8: from a gentleman by the name of Earl Dishram. As

968
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:17,120
Speaker 8: a ten, eleven, twelve thirteen year old kid, I had

969
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 8: heard all these names, the Earl Dishram, the Bobby Card,

970
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:25,080
Speaker 8: the Jack Hawks, the Charlie Elliotts, the Jen Denton, the

971
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 8: Dan Layman's, the Glenn Honeycutts. These were all people's names

972
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 8: that were these true turkey hunters. And I was kind

973
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:36,320
Speaker 8: of like a little kid that was hearing about a gunfighter.

974
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 8: You know, these were legends you know, when I first

975
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:42,440
Speaker 8: started getting to come and stay at camp, I wouldn't

976
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 8: meet all these guys. And we had a place in

977
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:49,040
Speaker 8: the mountains that he had taken me to the year before,

978
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 8: and we'd heard a few turkeys. And I was thirteen

979
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 8: this particular year, and I was carrying a single barrel

980
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:59,320
Speaker 8: twenty ga and he said, sign, I'm gonna take you

981
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,120
Speaker 8: on this ridge. And there was an old trail. He

982
00:58:02,200 --> 00:58:05,280
Speaker 8: called it the Indian Trail, and it was just a

983
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 8: hunter trail, nothing that's marked on a map. And he

984
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 8: took me up there when I was thirteen, and he

985
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 8: set me in a gap and he said, you stay here.

986
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 8: I'm going to go on out the Indian Trail. And

987
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 8: after about two hours, if you hadn't heard anything, come

988
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:23,640
Speaker 8: on out the trail. I will either be on the

989
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 8: trail or I'll put a rock in the middle of

990
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 8: the trail and draw you an era with a rock

991
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 8: telling you which direction I went, and you wait right there. Well,

992
00:58:32,640 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 8: that was our way of communicating. So I'll admit I'm thirteen.

993
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 8: I'm sitting there. I cannot wait for it to get daylight.

994
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 8: And I thought it would never get daylight. And I

995
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 8: never heard anything now I'm going to have to back

996
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 8: up again. The only call that he bought me what

997
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 8: was called a lynch jet turkey call. I still got

998
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:54,760
Speaker 8: it today. In my opinion, it was a terrible call.

999
00:58:55,400 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 8: It was a very small slate calls insect in wood

1000
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 8: and had a burnt wooden peg and it was good

1001
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 8: for a cluck or a pr but that was about it.

1002
00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:07,600
Speaker 8: So an hour after daylight, I couldn't stand it. I

1003
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 8: needed to go find Daddy. I was ready for some action.

1004
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:13,800
Speaker 8: So I ease out the trail and I get, oh,

1005
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 8: probably three or four hundred yards from where I had left,

1006
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 8: and I hear a turkey just hammering, and I mean,

1007
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 8: it's just hammering its hat off, and I think I

1008
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 8: can call that turkey up. You know, I've sat with

1009
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:26,400
Speaker 8: my dad and I watched this last year. I can

1010
00:59:26,520 --> 00:59:29,760
Speaker 8: do this. And I set down on that call, and

1011
00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:41,000
Speaker 8: it was terrible. And that turkey gobble and and it gobbled,

1012
00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 8: and I just kept doing it, and it gobbled every time,

1013
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:47,640
Speaker 8: and then it started going away. Next thing I know,

1014
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 8: I heard something coming up through there. It was my

1015
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 8: dad and he was he was frustrated I'd run that

1016
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 8: turkey off of him.

1017
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:54,080
Speaker 6: He had it.

1018
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 8: He was getting ready to shake hands with it.

1019
00:59:56,400 --> 00:59:56,840
Speaker 6: He came.

1020
00:59:57,000 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 8: He came right straight from where that turkey was gobbling,

1021
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:01,919
Speaker 8: and all he said was, he said, son, He said,

1022
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 8: we need to work on your calling, you know. But

1023
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 8: I've got to tell this story if you think that

1024
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 8: there's not a higher being. Ten years ago tomorrow, my

1025
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 8: dad passed on February tenth, twenty fourteen. Well, we were

1026
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:27,560
Speaker 8: getting ready to bury him, and he had left in

1027
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:31,400
Speaker 8: his workshop. He was very meticulous. There was a wooden

1028
01:00:31,440 --> 01:00:36,000
Speaker 8: box full of notepads. They were all the same making model.

1029
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 8: And I reached in. I said, I've never seen this before.

1030
01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 8: And I did not know that my dad had kept

1031
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:46,880
Speaker 8: a diary. And the literally the day we were burying

1032
01:00:46,880 --> 01:00:49,560
Speaker 8: my dad, I found this in his workshop and it

1033
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,560
Speaker 8: was as if he had set that out for us

1034
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:57,280
Speaker 8: to find. I reached in and I pulled out and

1035
01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 8: I said, what is this? And I opened it up

1036
01:01:00,320 --> 01:01:03,400
Speaker 8: and it was a journal. And when I opened that up,

1037
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 8: it turned till April twelfth, nineteen seventy two, and I

1038
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:12,480
Speaker 8: got to read about what he thought about that morning

1039
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:19,280
Speaker 8: when he left me in that gap. I closed it up,

1040
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 8: I put it back, and I'm not read anymore since.

1041
01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:27,680
Speaker 8: So one of these days I'm going to take that

1042
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:32,000
Speaker 8: and go the mountains and go the cabin and read it.

1043
01:01:32,040 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 8: But it was pretty amazing that the very day that

1044
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 8: he left me for the first time in the mountains,

1045
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:43,120
Speaker 8: that I pulled one of the seventy two books out

1046
01:01:44,080 --> 01:01:45,120
Speaker 8: and turned that date.

1047
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:47,919
Speaker 6: So what did he say?

1048
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 8: It was just talking about how proud he was, and

1049
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 8: I didn't be Honestly, I didn't read it all. But

1050
01:01:56,200 --> 01:01:59,600
Speaker 8: when I recognized where it was at, what we had,

1051
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:02,200
Speaker 8: what he was writing about, it would just overwhelmed me.

1052
01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:06,240
Speaker 8: I closed it up. Well, But anyway, that was a

1053
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 8: great man, what.

1054
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 2: An incredible story in man. Jim Arthur was the first

1055
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 2: chapter president of the Chattanooga National Wild Turkey Federation Chapter,

1056
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:36,439
Speaker 2: and in two thousand and three he was inducted into

1057
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:40,400
Speaker 2: the Tennessee Turkey Hunters Hall of Fame. Russ said there

1058
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 2: was a time when the state was trapping turkeys out

1059
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 2: of areas where Jim hunted, and many people were mad

1060
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 2: about it. But around the campfire, Jim would advocate to

1061
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:53,760
Speaker 2: his peers that this was a short term sacrifice for

1062
01:02:53,840 --> 01:02:58,280
Speaker 2: a long term game. He was influential as a grassroots

1063
01:02:58,320 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 2: spokesman for the Wild Turkey relocation, which ended up being

1064
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:07,439
Speaker 2: the salvation of the wild turkeys. I truly love these

1065
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 2: Turkey Stories episodes, and, like mister Roy Stubbs said, turkey

1066
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:17,640
Speaker 2: hunters share a unique bond around the unique bird. I

1067
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:20,560
Speaker 2: can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. We've

1068
01:03:20,600 --> 01:03:24,800
Speaker 2: got another Turkey Stories episode coming up. We put our

1069
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:28,520
Speaker 2: heart and soul into these episodes documenting the stories of

1070
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 2: our collective history. Be sure to check out Brenton E's

1071
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:35,800
Speaker 2: Mississippi River Expedition film on the Meat Eater YouTube channel,

1072
01:03:36,400 --> 01:03:38,919
Speaker 2: and if you're out west, check out the Meat Eater

1073
01:03:39,320 --> 01:03:43,200
Speaker 2: Live tour schedule. I'm gonna be there at every show.