Ok I'll start this thing. Rainy morning April 9th, 1976, Rattlesnake Ridge, Hairston Bend Hunting Club, Lowndes county, MS'
It started raining on the way to the area that I wanted to hunt that morning, but I had read in a great book by Col. Dave Harbour that turkeys would still gobble in the rain, so I just kept walking. Just as I was about to crest a ridge, He hammered on the roost out in the middle of a clearcut on the other side of the ridge. I slipped up to a log loading clearing, eased behind a treetop on the edge of it and called occasionally on the Lynch's Fool-Proof box call like the instructions with the call told me to. After the rain finally stopped, I watched him sail off the roost and land off to my left. He came out to the road down the way and demanded that the hen that he had been fantasizing about all morning stop everything and get her feathers down there to him. I just kept clucking and lightly yelping because I didn't know what else to do. After about 45 minutes, he and a jake come stomping into the log loading area where I was. I had to carefully put the call down, get my hands on the gun and wait for the right moment to get the gun up. He walked over in front of me at a distance of about 30 yards and faced straight away stretching his neck to try and find that pesky hen. I moved right then, got the bead on him and shot. I went scrambling over slick, wet logs and limbs and stood over him with the gun pointed at him. When the realization finally flooded over me that he was NOT GETTING UP, I stood out there on that crisp Mississippi morning with the bright morning sun breaking through the departing clouds and lost my damned mind, hollering for 5 straight minutes at the top of my lungs! To say that I was hooked right then and there was a complete understatement.
The next most fantastic moment that morning came when I got back to my grandfather's house and caught up with him on his way out to pick strawberries in the garden. I acted dejected as I schlepped up to him. "All right boy, Come tell me your tale of woe." I walked right up to him with my head hanging down, cut my eyes up to him and simply said, "16 pounds, 4 ounces". There was a flash of confusion that came over his face, which gave way to a sudden blast of understanding and surprise. He threw the bucket he was carrying straight up in the air and took off on a dead run back to the front porch, easily beating me there. We hollered and danced around with each other like 2 happy idiots. My grandfather was my hunting mentor, teaching me good ethics, woodsmanship and how to love the outdoor world. I really believe that he was almost as thrilled about this bird as I was. I miss him terribly still to this day.
FullChoke
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