Some of My most memorable over 45+ years

[cwb04]

I really enjoyed reading those stories.  You definitely have a knack for story telling.  Great reads for sure.  Thanks for taking the time to put your stories our.
Gets me fired up for March - can't wait.   

[eggshell]

Maybe I can think up a couple others.

[Lcmacd 58]

Awesome memories.... its a gift you have put them out here to share with us

[eggshell]

A hole in one

This season took place sometime between 2006 and 2009. The three musketeers (myself and my two best friends) made their annual trip to Kentucky to get a few days of hunting before our Ohio season opened. Opening morning saw two birds hit the dirt for my buddies but I struck out. I had a bird torment me all morning only to move off with hens. I decided I would go back and see if he would try and gather a harem that evening. About 5:00 PM I heard the soft calling of a hen and then another. They seemed to be heading my way, so I sat tight and waited. Sure enough here came four hens with Mr. Long beard in tow. A couple soft calls and they drifted my way. Of course their boyfriend followed. Soon they led him into range and his party with the girls ended right there. We were all pretty pumped and had visions of tagging out in a day or two. That did not happen. We headed home to hunt with plans to return for other other tags. This area of Kentucky is only two hours from home.

Three weeks go by and we have not found the time to return, because the birds have been stubbornly uncooperative at home. I am tagged out but my buddies are not. Finally with two days left in Kentucky season one of them agrees to go back with me. We hunt with no luck until 9:30 and come back to the truck. A local friend who is tagged out calls to see how we done and I inform him poorly. He tells me he has heard a bird up the road that starts gobbling around 10:00 every morning. So we jump in the truck and head that way. I stop at a pull off and get out and owl hoot and bingo he gobbles. We park and head that way, but we have to find a riffle to wade the river. After that we head up the ridge and decide to split and see which way he wants to go. I strike him first and I can see Joe down in the valley giving me a thumbs up and a go get him sign. I move to the bench and set up with the bird on a higher bench above a small cliff. I do not like this set up but it is this or nothing. I set up within shot range of the cliff edge. After about 30 minutes of dueling I hear spittin and drumming above and get ready. I see a head, a fan and then a whole gobbler peering down off the cliff edge, but more to my right. I know he's still in range but not my ideal range. It's shoot or eat tag soup. I have to bend around and shoot up hill but I get the move made. The gun cracks and I see tom roll over backwards and internally say yes sir. Then I hear wings beating and I see him lift off the cliff sailing right across in front of me. The old grouse hunter instincts kick in and I swing through and shoot. He folds like a blanket in the wind and crashes with a thud. He falls out of sight over the hill and I am quickly on my way to recover my prize. Once in the area I see absolutely no sign of the bird and I begin to feel ill. I seen him fold and I heard the thud, surely he is dead. Joe yells from behind and below, and I yell back come help me find him. He says I heard a crash, didn't you get him? I said I thought so, he folded up completely. We looked and there was not even a sign of where the gobbler fell. I was getting more ill all the time. Suddenly I heard a thumbing sound and as I looked towards it, a foot rose up out of a stump at about 20 yards. I walked over and pulled my gobbler out of that hollow stump like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. I grinned and looked at Joe and smugly said, beat that, a hole in one. We both laughed and agreed we would never believe a story like this if it wasn't our own. You think your good at corn hole, try turkey stumping. I assure you this is a true story. 

[GobbleNut]

    Good stuff, Dana!   

[Kygobblergetter]

I'm glad I came back to read this one. Great story!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[eggshell]

10:00 oclock, 11:00 oclock  and high noon at the Ridge top

This story find us back in Kentucky for an opening day. We are pumped as prescouting has told us this valley has a bunch of birds. Daylight of opening day has us sitting waiting for that first glorious gobble. Right on cue it floats across the morning air. He's around the hillside ahead of us more than we anticipated, but we have the high ground. It doesn't take us long and we're set up. I position my buddy to be in first shot position, as it's his turn. This bird read the classic hunt stories told around many campfires and gobbles like crazy and hops off the roost ready for love. He struts his way right up to the bench and stands for execution. The only bad part of this hunt so far his he flops down a very steep hillside for 200 yards and makes for a harder than desired recovery.

Proud of that effort we back off and head towards a place we call the rock and saddle. It always hold birds. As we approach we hear a bird and then decide it's multiple birds. It going to be a hard set up as they have the high ground and a clear open woods to see us coming. We play the game with this group for a couple hours and decide we're destined to loose. We retreat to the truck and stash the bird we have and head up a fire road to a ridge across the valley. I decide to go up the face and about half way we begin to question my sanity. It is steep and tough going. We hit a low point of the ridge just below the main ridgeline and I throw a cut and a gobble drifts back from somewhere ahead. We decide it's far enough we need to move up to the ridgeline. As we reach the highest point that bird gobbles and he is not near as far as we thought or has already come our way. I rush to a tree and sit down and my buddy hunches down behind  and just over my right shoulder. I never noticed I was sitting down in a depression. I wait and let things calm and I make a soft call and I'm about blown off the mountain. I can not see anything that resembles a Gobbler. My buddy whispers in my ear, "I see them, take him". I still can't see a bird. I whisper back , "where are they?" He says about 25 - 30 yards out and now I'm frustrated and whisper back harshly, "Where!". He whispers look at 10:00 oclock, then he says, "11:00 oclock and still I see nothing. Finally he whispers, "12 oclock high noon, shoot that damn bird, he 15 yards". At that point I get my first look at him as a head pops up right in front of me. I need practically no adjustment and a short quick move of the gun barrel and I squeeze off my shot. Down goes old longbeard. We get up and high five and my buddy is beside himself as he was almost in a panic that I wasn't going to get a shot off before we were busted. He had maybe 4-6 inches of elevation over me, but it was enough he got to see them coming all the way. If I had not had a spotter I doubt I would have killed that bird. I learned to look where I sit that day.

Next up "Sunshine Love"

[eggshell]

Sunshine Love Mood

One of my buddies and I met up for this hunt in an area we both had found success in and liked to hunt. I had one tag left from all my tags and he had been struggling to fill his last tag. We were kind of in the same boat, but he had only bagged one gobbler and was getting frustrated. I insisted he be the gun on our first set up when a bird opened up on a point above us. We set up in a saddle we knew birds liked to come into. This bird was hot right off the roost and being late season it took some coaxing to get him coming, but the two of us calling back and forth seemed to stir him up. I guess he was tempted by two available girls this late in season. Soon he gobbled right in front of us and we knew the game was in the last minutes and it was first and goal to go. It was a foggy morning and rain was coming, so we wanted to dust this bird and get out dry. Soon I could see him picking his way through the woods. He went behind a stump mound and my buddy raised his gun and was ready when the gobbler popped out at 20 yards. Soon as old Sh*t head cleared the dirt mound I heard my buddies safety click off, but so did old sh*t head. I never in my life saw a bird spook and get out of dodge as fast as that old long Beard. My buddy never even got off a shot. TO add insult he landed in a tree 100 yards out and sat there putting. I think my buddy called him an unsavory name and may have flipped him the middle finger as we stood up disappointed.

So off we took in quest of another gobbler. Then the rain came and we pulled out the rain gear. I suggested we head around the bench and then cut up through a mountain gap into an area some call the low gap. That strategy did not turn out well as we found ourselves in a mass of blow-downs. Finally we made our way down into the low gap and the rain just came harder. We are tired and soaking wet and my buddy just looks at me with a form of disdain, if he ever was tempted to harm me this was probably the time. So we decide it's time to head back to the truck, but that is also a 2 mile hike. I'm just thankful it's all around a bench and not hard walking. We work slowly and still offer a call here and there. About half way to the truck the rain suddenly stops and soon the sun is shining bright. I stop in my tracks and say, "listen". My buddy stops and ask, "listen to what, I don't hear anything".  I say, "didn't you hear that old gobbler shake the water out of his feathers and say, I am ready for some love?. He mumbles something about hunting with an idiot and we move on. About two hundred yards later a thunderous gobble explodes from across the valley. I immediately turn and retort, "see I told you". I call and the hillside explodes. We are instantly on our way across this valley but it is steep down and steeper going up, but thundering gobbles keep us going. Soon we are just below the bench lip and realize we can not go further without spooking birds. So we plant our feet in brace against trees and I make a soft yelp. The reply cut off my yelp and two or three thundering gobbles followed. The next gobble was just out of site above us but over the bench lip. We shoulder our guns ready for a fan and head to appear and know we will have to shoot quick. I see movement but it's a hen and then another and they are giving us a cussing and coming hard. This is bad news. Yup they break the lip and are right on top of us. The first one spots me and instantly putts and flies up into a tree, while the other flies off across the valley. This is one of those mornings I am taking no prisoners and throwing out the rules. I exclaim to my buddy, "lets go". and I jump up and am in full on Calvary charge  mode. I make the 20 yards to the bench lip fast and when I go over the lip I find myself in the middle of 6 long-beards strutting. They all look at me dumbfounded and begin to run off, but one stops and looks back at 30 yards and he quickly pays a big price for that stupidity. Another stops off to my left at 40 yards and I yell shoot him Al, but Al doesn't respond. The bird runs off and flies. Then I see Al plodding up the bank well behind me. His first comment was, " I didn't know you meant "charge the damn birds", I though you were sneaking up. He sees my flopping bird and says, "at least you got one. I tag my bird and we take a break on a log. Soon a bird opens up and we set up on him, but an hour of coaxing ensues and he will not come. We are both wet and tired and agree to take our spoils and go home. Al went back later and got his final bird. So if your ever hunting one of those wet miserable days and suddenly the sun shines, remember, that just means it's time for some sunshine love.

[TRG3]

I'd used all of my persuasion calls on these two gobblers that were hung up about 100 yards away. It was nearing noon and the close of that day's legal hunting in Illinois. While just sitting there trying to figure out what else I could do, a hen responded to my calling. She was behind me and would answer my yelps, etc. Wanting to get her fired up and possibly bring in a gobbler that might be with her, I began aggressively returning her calls. This went on for 5-10 minutes when I looked up and saw the two gobbler that had been hung up come running to my decoys. I dropped one with a load of #5s. In a few minutes, I heard "I see you got one!" coming from an unseen buddy, the source of the hen calling to which I'd been responding. I didn't know it was him yelping and he didn't know it was me calling. Between the two of us, we had portrayed a scene that the two hung up gobblers had interpreted as real and rushed in to investigate.  Sometimes you are the windshield...and sometimes you are the bug!

[eggshell]

From Snot nosed kid to an Outdoorsman

I haven't added to this thread in a while, and I thought it was about time to write again. A post in our team thread got me to thinking. Zobo asked about how we looked 40-50 years ago. I posted a couple pictures then my mind started reflecting on my progression and maturation as an outdoorsman and turkey hunter over my 70 years.

As a young boy my love of everything wild, wet and elusive sprouted. I know no other reason I am this way then a God made me this way from birth. If it swam, crawled, run or flew I was after it. My dad helped foster this love of a great and wonderful world of hunting with trips squirrel and rabbit hunting. We were sharecroppers and what is popularly called homesteaders today. Hunting was as much subsistence as recreation to a poor farm family. We were industrious but were unfortunate to live in a river flood plain. In the late 50s and 1960s soil erosion and conservation were only in their infancy and this led to massive flooding. Way to many years we watched crops and livestock wash away down the river. That is what made us poor, losing so much and having to bear the burden financially in a time when there was no Federal aid, no FEMA and no disaster relief. just friends, family and neighbors. So, I learned to hunt and fish and put meat in the freezer and the better I was at it the better we ate. If dad gave me six shells, he expected six squirrels or rabbits. He'd tolerate and occasionally lost shell, but it better not become a habit. I have to confess that bag limits and season did not dictate when we hunted as much as the meat stocks in the freezer. Sure, we reared farm animals and butchered but the wild game was free when livestock was sold for money. We ate so dad-blame many chickens and eggs I refrained from eating them much of my adult life. If you're wondering why I would share all these details in a forum of sportsmen and recreational hunters. These were the years that laid the framework for my woodsmanship and skills. BY the time I was in my teens we had recovered from disasters and flood control dams had halted the floods. So we finally had a real income and hunting became more sport than subsistence. It didn't matter I was hard core by then. I was developing a reputation as a stone-cold killer. Doing it right wasn't always on the agenda.

By the time I was a junior in high school I began to get a taste of conservation and sportsmanship. We had always respected wildlife and even practiced conservation techniques, but our hunting had just basic controls. Two key things happened that really molded my future. First "city hunters" started showing up at the farm to hunt rabbits, quail, pheasants and ruffed grouse (deer and turkeys were just mythical creatures in those days). These guys had dogs that run rabbits and pointed birds, and they were as concerned as much about the hunt as the kill. These guys were just different, I wasn't even sure it was a good thing. What they soon discovered is the farm kid knew where the game was and they started taking me along. I was a sad sight in my old farm clothes and single shot 20 gauge shotgun. I am sure some of them chuckled when I got in their truck, but at the end of the day they thought a little differently when they found out this darn kid could shoot that old 20 ga pretty well. These guys would hunt different, and I learned you flushed a bird for a sporting shot and when you killed your limit you were done. They talked about conservation, and they gave me magazines. They became mentors without even knowing it. The second greatest move came when this "rich dude" bought 1,000 acres next to our farms just to make his own private wildlife area. He engaged my dad to farm and hired me to plant trees, food plots and trap and release quail. This was cool. I knew I wanted to have a career in wildlife management, and he helped me work to that by earning college money. This hunting thing had become so much more then what I could kill. This man showed up one day with a Remington model 17 pump shotgun to give me. He said. "son it's time to set that old 20 ga aside". Man I was big time now. He brought in experts in the wildlife fields also. I remember meeting Gordon Gullion , You grouse hunters know that name, I bet.

One day an old grouse hunter picked me up and we hit the hills after grouse. Turkey had been stocked on the adjoining state forest, and we'd see them from time to time on the farm. That day we saw a small flock and Homer, my grouse hunting buddy, asked if I ever thought about hunting them. He had tried it that spring and said it was a ton of fun. I learned you had to apply for a permit and the state would award 500 permits statewide, but they were free and you could name a buddy to hunt. I learned they had never even awarded all the tags. Season was 3 days long and one bird could be killed. I had no clue as to how to hunt them. An old sage in town that was known as a poacher had hunted them in Virginia and I asked him how they had done it. He took me out a couple times and demonstrated calling to birds and gave me a Roads snuff box call. I was set. I submitted my tag application and included the "rich guy" as my buddy. This was 1971. On opening morning, we were on the ridge top of the family farm and weren't even in camo, but a big ole gobble came ringing up the hillside. We set up as we had read about and I tried my best to pull the striker properly across that box lip, but it sounded like a tortured woodpecker instead of a hen turkey. Luckily this gobbler was a pervert and had a thing for tortured woodpeckers. Here he came, and when he first showed himself, he never gobbled or strutted, and we couldn't see a beard. We sat there and openly discussed if it was a gobbler and should we shoot it, I know hilarious. Well, that ended badly as he soon took off and our season never found another chance. Now I had to learn more about this, and I attended some state turkey hunting seminars. The next couple years were more learning and frustration. My rich buddy signed up and went to a turkey hunting school run by a guy named Ben Rogers Lee. He was now a certified turkey hunter, but my blood stock was in country boy killing. By now I was graduating high school, and I was accepted into college to study wildlife management. While there I went to the sate turkey research center for a seminar and met a guy named Lew McClure who won a national turkey calling contest with this funny looking thing, he stuck in his mouth called a diaphragm call. I had to learn to do this, and I befriended Lew. I ended up selling his calls for a while. I soon became the guy in my circle with these new calls. My path was now set before me. The first bird I killed was a jake from a bunch of six, but it was a monster of a bird to me. By the time the eighties came along I was now in a career with our state wildlife agency and somewhere I had metamorphosed from a killer farm boy to a sportsman.

I still always pursued my game and fish with a passion, but as a sportsman. As an adult I could afford more toys and opportunities. I also had the opportunity to rub shoulders with some big names in our sports. My skills matured as I did. When I think back to that scrawny farm kid that killed whatever moved and never had a clue about a future of conservation and true sportsmanship it seems surreal. Little could I believe the blessings my sport would bring in relationships and experiences. I have traveled the country and hunted and fished. I have seen the diverse world we live in and I have come to know the greatest community of people God ever created. That greenhorn that didn't even know to shoot a gobbler right in front of him would be in awe of a scrap book so full of pictures that it won't even close. I have been blessed to kill some truly trophy class birds, but many of those trophies were not spectacular birds, but the spectacular story that went with them. If I had any regrets, it would be that period in my life where I actually valued turkey hunting too much and was at times a jerk if I didn't fill my tag, or I missed birthdays and family time just to chase a dumb arse bird. Age seems to bring tempering and some wisdom, and I did finally learn that as great as this sport is, it should never replace faith, family and career. A funny thing happened in my journey. I found out that keeping it in perspective actually made it more fun. Now I am an old man, and my quest are a lot simpler, a good hunt is as great as a dead bird and a good friend of more value.     


   

[GobbleNut]

Good stuff, Dana! Our paths to where we are as turkey hunters, sportsmen, and conservationists is eerily similar, as is our age. Lots of good memories happening along the way.   

[YoungGobbler]

Eggshell, I have to take a break from reading your stories to thank you for them... I have been reading your stories for a few weeks by now and wow... What a delight! Your stories are amazing to read... I am still on page one, i keep this page open on my phone and whenever I have time I read a story of two... Hope I can keep read them all! Thanks a lot, I'm glad somebody brought this tread up.

[onegunhunter]

WOW......Loved readin' these!

[eggshell]

thx and your all welcome

[TrackeySauresRex]

"From Snot nosed kid to an Outdoorsman"


Thank you again Sir. Keep it coming