I can remember when I started going to the woods with my Dad when I was about 4 or 5. They didn't even make camo for kids and hardly had any for adults. He used to tie die stuff to make camo or use Army surplus. I can remember during the fall when we would scatter turkeys, we would sit down by a big tree and he would cover my legs up with leaves to hide my jeans. He taught me to set up in a place where a turkey had to be within 30 yards before you were even able to see him. He shot an old Ithaca 37 featherlight shotgun 30 inch full with 2 3/4 handloads lead shells and would kill turkeys just as dead as a door nail. Sure they would flop a little sometimes but that is part of it. They made diaphram turkey calls with lead washers inside them. There were not lots of turkey call manufacturers. Daddy used an old lynch box that he bought out of the trunk of M.L. Lynch's car that eventually became a casualty of a flopping turkey. He told me he paid less than $10 for the thing(a lot of money back then) and talked to Mr. Lynch for a long time and never thought of asking for an autograph. Mr. Lynch used to hunt all around where we live in Alabama. He used homemade wingbones and snuff box callers. It is amazing to see how far we have came with all the "stuff" we have. I am new to this forum but have to say I am pretty impressed with the admin's vigilant work at trying to uphold ethical hunting practices. I love the 40 yard shot rule when posting. I can not stand to hear people talk about shooting turkeys way out there. I don't care what kind of gun or choke or shell you use. I have shot them 5 feet off the end of the barrel and I have missed them at just about any distance you can imagine using just about every kind of shell you can think of. I just hope that we do not get caught up in all the technology and forget that the name of the game is to call them in close and kill them clean. I had a kid tell me the other day that he had bought a new shotgun with a $140.00 choke and that he put 10 pellets in a turkey head target at 80 yards. I ask him if he was shooting down through the woods in bad light on a cold morning? He looked puzzled and said, "well no". Exactly guy. If you shoot at them past 40 yards regardless of the shells, you are going to shoot up turkeys that you could always come back and hunt another day. I just want to give a good job shout out to the administrators for sticking to the rules and to all the hunters that still like to call them in close.
