Turkey hunting fond memories, non-turkey experiences too

[eggshell]

Since we've hit a dead period I thought I'd start a thread that hopefully doesn't lead into some form of debate or differing opinions, but is just fun.

Post stories of the hunt, good or bad. I'm talking about the things that you didn't expect, but have stuck in your memory. It might be some character you met, it might be a very significant hunt, or it might be a simple event that made your day.

Here's an example. On a rainy Day I slept in because it was pouring. About 8:00 it let up and I decided to walk a ridge and see if I could strike a gobbler. About halfway down the ridge I walk into a small elm thicket and notice a big yellow morel. The next hour I crawled around on my knees picking morels. I stuffed my game bag and everything else I could and ended up with over 7 pounds of deliciousness. My wife even made the statement that it was better than bringing home a turkey....I'm not sure of that.  On another hunt I passed by some morels and headed to a gobbler. I killed the gobbler and returned to the mushroom patch. I called my buddies to help and by the end of the day we had picked over 25 pounds of morels and had a gobbler in the bag. This is the biggest single mushroom find of my life.

[Bill]

I lay awake at night dreaming about finding a morel patch so voluminous that I need "help" picking them.


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[Happy]

About two weeks ago, I was on vacation. The wife asked if I would run out and get some milk. I did that and almost brought a 20 some year old blond in shorts and a bikini top back as well. I had just bought milk and was just sitting in my truck buckling my seat belt when she opened the passenger door and bailed in. I explained that my wife probably wouldn't be too happy if I showed up with her. It's hard being this good-looking.

[Paulmyr]

About two weeks ago, I was on vacation. The wife asked if I would run out and get some milk. I did that and almost brought a 20 some year old blond in shorts and a bikini top back as well. I had just bought milk and was just sitting in my truck buckling my seat belt when she opened the passenger door and bailed in. I explained that my wife probably wouldn't be too happy if I showed up with her. It's hard being this good-looking.

I bet the gals at the strip club think your sexy too!!!!     

[WV Flopper]

 Your age, experience and maturity no doubt saved you from a very expensive situation. Good job Happy!

I am probably not near as old, experienced or closely as mature. Hey, it's only money!

[Greg Massey]

I would have spilled my MILK ... Happy ..... Your so lucky .....

[Happy]

It was hilarious. As soon as I said that, she looked at me, and the look of embarrassment was priceless. The fellow in the truck beside me was losing it laughing. I rolled down my window and apologized, telling him I honestly wasn't trying to steal his girlfriend, but as good-looking as I was, it would be hard to blame her. He replied that it was actually his sister, and I was welcome to keep her as long as I didn't bring her back. . He also mentioned that he was telling the whole family as soon as he got back. It was pretty funny. Could have been an expensive gallon of milk, though.

[WV Flopper]

 I have had some awesome experiences in the turkey woods. Some on my own, some with friends, and son. I will share one of my son.

We were hunting youth season in VA about 6 years ago. He was to the point it was getting hard to get him to do anything. He was addicted to video games! So I asked if he was going to participate in the hunt, bought him a license and I got the hunt scheduled with him, LOL.

I rolled him out of bed "No one would have had to roll me out at this age" and away we went. Got to our spot and started the hike in. Luckily it's a short hike.

We arrive at our listening spot and we sat down. Awesome spot and turkeys are usually there roosted so sat down to keep him from walking around. A bird starts twitting, goose, Gobbler sounds off. The Toms gobbled for 10 minutes or so and the boy says "I gotta poop". Seriously ....open woods, Toms at 100 yards roosted and he has to poop!

He gets up slides around the big oak tree and does his business, gets seated back down and the birds are still gobbling. Ok I think we are in business.

It's getting about time to start talking when the woods light up with hens, Jake's and of course the Toms. It's pretty loud turkey talk at this point.

I jump in the game and am just another voice to be heard. Turkeys start flying down and assembling about 125 yards out in the open woods. At this point I am calling pretty hard and everything else has quieted down a little. I can see 3 Toms, 6 Jake's and a slew of hens.

They start leaving perpendicular to the South of us. Toms being the last of the birds in the line. About the time they are almost out of sight I see one of the Toms stop and stare in our direction. I light him up with the loudest, nastiest talk I could muster. He turned and started our way, the other two Toms followed, the Jake's, then the hens. Must have been 25 turkeys on this string.

The turkeys are all bearing to the sewer right of way, about 50 yards out they slightly turn heading directly towards us. Immediately I am in the boys ear telling him to swing the gun to the right slowly. He is frozen! I keep telling him repeatedly " move the gun" he is froze.

These three Toms are at 35 yards and strutting in these open woods walking right to us. The gun pointed way to the left! At 30 yards one of the turkeys buggered. I calmly spoke in a normal voice and told my son, "Now or never, move the gun". Once the shooting started it was chaos. When the smoke cleared and empty hauls stopped raining down No turkeys were flopping.

I looked over at the frozen boy and said " Ain't quit like a video game is it boy."

We have had some great hunts together, I wish he would go more.

[Tail Feathers]

I've been blessed to have some incredible hunts and meet some remarkable people in my turkey travels.  But my favorite memory may well be my youngest grandson's first tom.  The bird gobbled and we worked him for quite a while, even having a passing pickup booger us up for a few minutes.
When the bird broke and was coming in, I could hear my 11 year old grandson's breaths get kind of ragged.  The tom gobbled about 20 yards away, just before he walked into sight.  I hear the boy whisper to himself "Oh my God!" and he began to tremble a bit.  The bird stepped out and the shot was true and the pure excitement from that boy was priceless.

[Tom007]

Here's a non-turkey experience I will share, in fact it is the best, most memorable, and life changing experience for me. April 4th, 1977 (my 17th birthday) I got my drivers license. My best friend on my Hockey team called me to ask if I could pick him and his girl friend up and drive them on a date to dinner. They both were 16, and did not yet drive. I picked up my friend, and we drove to his girl friends house. We picked her and her friend Karen up and started out. Karen sat in the front seat with me. There was an immediate attraction. The date went well, my friend and his girl lasted about a month, me and Karen are married and have been together for 46 years. We are high school sweethearts, married since 1985. She's my best friend, and life-long companion. I am blessed to share my life with her, that 1977 date is one I'll never forget......

[Greg Massey]

Some of my fond memories were hunting out of Alton Missouri and camping for days and week at a time with some awesome hunting buddies. We camped off the Eleven Point River and hunted the Irish Wilderness. These were the days you could stand in one SPOT and walk a small circle trying to decide which gobbler to go after. You could hear a gobbler in every direction. We all still get together in our old age and talk about all the good times we had while camping and hunting gobblers. During the day one of the guys left the tent unzipped and we didn't think a lot about it our than zipping it back up later in the day, that night after we all got in the tent for bed, and everything got quite one of the guys hear a funny noise best his sleeping bag, we all jump up and got out of that tent to find a big snake had got into that tent during the day.. Thank goodness NO one was bitten. Lesson learned we never left the tent unzipped again while camping... OMG ... What memories did we make during those awesome early times in our life of chasing gobblers...

[eggshell]

One year my buddy and I made our annual out -of-state turkey trip and parked at one of our usual spots and went different directions. I was about a half hour early returning to the truck to find a full camp set up around my truck. I didn't know whether to be mad or go in armed and ready. One look told me this was no group to mess with. Think hells angels here and any other ruthless group you can imagine. So I slip in an open up my truck with all my radar senses working overtime. Then I hear a gruff voice say, "Hey man you get a turkey". I turn around to to see your typical biker dude enforcer type asking me and I politely said, "not today". A cheerful reply came back, "man that's a bitch, do you want some chicken al-fredo; my old lady makes the best you'll ever eat". I wanted to say no, but instead said ok. So I sat down in a camp chair and he dilivers me a gourmet dish of al-fredo and fresh bread. I visit and they inform me this is their annual camping spot for a month. They are both engineers or some professional job, I don't remember. He apologizes for setting up around me and assures me they'll move stuff to let me out. My buddy shows up and they feed him. we stay until dark and I tell them we'll move on in the morning so not to wake them and he says, Hell, tell me what time and we'll have breakfast ready". We insist that's not necessary, but he insist he'll be pissed if we don't. So we have breakfast the next morning. We take off hunting and he informs me if I kill a turkey they're cooking it for supper. That's exactly what happened, too. So we spent the next three days hunting and visiting and they guarded our gate. Not one soul parked at that gate and hunted that part of the forest but us. We did buy them some pizzas and beverages. When we left we were informed they'd see us next spring and this relationship went on for about three years. We never did have anyone venture into that spot to hunt. I will say this bunch looked the part, but were not what they appeared to be. It worked for us as everyone else was afraid of them.

[guesswho]

Wow.  Starting as a kid turkey hunting with my parents in 1965, I have many many fond memories.   I could talk or type for days as memories come flowing back.    I won't bore y'all with the details so I'll just hit some topics.  Gator tail and swamp cabbage for breakfast lunch and supper, wild hogs running through the camp one night, aggressive Wild Brahma's everywhere , swimming in the Kissimmee River in sight of gators, F4 fighter jets not much more than tree top high, live bombs and flares, using old abandoned army tanks as a hunting blinds which were used as targets for practice runs, hearing airboats all hours of the day and night, eating frog legs and a number of other critters and varmits, exploring old wood camps  that people used at one time, wood ducks flushing in the swamps before daylight(cause a kid to add water to the already ample supply), watching an old battery grainy b&w tv at night or listening to am radio, fearless water moccasins, huge black indigo's, diamondbacks that would stretch across a two track, if you got tired of chasing turkeys in live oak hammocks you could ride a mile or two and hunt them in cypress swamps, trails that required swamp buggy's.   And to top it all off, there was no N"WTF" and there were a lot more turkeys than hunters by far.

[arkrem870]

I remember our old cabin in the ozarks as a kid. Wood stove for heat and an early April opener. Eating cheap ribeyes on the grill. Modified choke and #4 lead.  Later had a cutting edge comp n choke.   Papa sitting in the pile of limbs/stick ground blind in the corner of the field while I would run and gun. Hearing 8-10 gobblers from the front porch. Picking the one to go shoot. Very few turkey hunters around. None of the neighbors hunted. I hunted everyone's ground.   Times have changed

[WV Flopper]

 Crap, at 50 I thought I was old. It's a wonder some of you guys have the dexterity left to type in your fingers.

Thank you guys for sharing! Awesome stuff. Great post.