What Does Killing A Turkey Mean To You?

[mountainhunter1]

I think that Eggshell and Happy said it well enough for me as well. It used to be all about killing - but the good Lord has done surgery on me as well. These days, it is just being able to play the game with a turkey. If they are gobbling and doing their thing, I have already won regardless of actually pulling the trigger or not. Just to engage them is meaning enough most days now.

I find great satisfaction is calling a bird for someone else to harvest. These days, often far more meaning than if I shot the bird myself. But I have also found great meaning in more recent years by letting a number of birds walk off the ridge as I put the safety back on and watched them leave. A couple that really stand out - I called the biggest bird I have ever seen in the wild into range three years ago (after a nearly 4 hour chess match) and just could not pull the trigger and let him go. On another hunt, I called a big bird after a long morning duel to 4-5 feet of my gun and also did not kill him. I say this to say one thing, I have learned to find greater meaning at times in the ones that I did not kill or that maybe just outfoxed me and got away without my help. Some of those mean more to me than the many that I did bring back to the truck. 

[Zobo]

It means less and less each year, free time to spent in the woods means more and more

[3bailey3]

A old guy but it still means a lot to me, never know if I will kill another one! I still love to eat them and just found a half in the freeze and had a new recipe and it was the best I ever had. Please let me got one more!

[Gooserbat]

It's the finalization of the excitement but it's not the end of the hunt.  That's the table fare and congrats around a rusty tailgate.  I've shot my share and I intend, Good Lord willing to shoot more, but it's about taking a deep breath and spending time with friends, family and disconnecting from the rat race.

[Davyalabama]

Those out just killing to post something on the internet: Facebook, youtube, etc.  I know you read what these folks are saying, but "hear" them.  Hear what it means to take a turkey fairly, to call them to the gun, to have a chess match with an animal.  I realize the word "fairly" means something different to a lot of people, but just think about what is a fair match, not just, "I killed one!!!!!!!!!"    Hear, even when they aren't saying it, the hours put in scouting, locating, sitting with mosquitos biting, "nothing happening" but it could in the next instant, the respect given to this bird.

Notice, not many that have posted, are all about just killing, turkey hunting is more than that, I promise you.  You want to just kill something, there are plenty of coons, possums, coyotes, hogs, in some places deer, ducks, geese, etc. 

To me, turkeys are a challenge, it's me vs him in a no holds barred match, it's a fair match (no tents, no blinds, no decoys --- I have bought them, found they aren't worth the hassle nor the way I was brought up hunting (I need to sell them and get them out of the attic), no TSS 100 yard shells - I do shoot #4's for full penetration ---

I will not say it for all that have posted, but for me ----- young and stupid vs older, wiser and not trying to prove how great I am.  Now, I can say this for only me:  I've learned that every hunt is a blessing, every time I get to go scout, spend time out there, and if He blesses me with a bird, I know it came from Him, not my greatness.

[bbcoach]

Just a little icing on the cake!  As I age, 68 now, I enjoy the chase, the interaction and the woodsmanship, WAY more than carrying a bird home.  We are fortunate to have 2 tags in our State.  When and if I fill that first tag, I really find myself go into THROTTLE DOWN mode and TRULY enjoy the TRUE essence of this sport.  Matching wits, analyzing my calling, being stealthy, learning from what works and doesn't work and TRULY ENJOYING God's gift.  For me, the EXCITEMENT and ENJOYMENT of turkey hunting is in EVERYTHING leading up to punching that tag.  I have NOTHING to prove to myself but the SHEAR ENJOYMENT of this GREAT sport we all LOVE! 

[shaman]

It took me nearly 20 years to kill my first turkey.  It took me 5 years just to see one strutting.  There weren't many turkeys around me. I used to have to drive 5 counties over.  I'd get one half-day per year.  It was more like a religious pilgrimage than anything else.  For more than 40 years Easter and Turkey Hunting have kind of merged in my head.

Fast forward 40 years.  I'm laying in an ICU, being told for three days not to move.  I've got a blot clot in my leg that will kill me if it cuts loose. A chunk of it has already broken off, and knocked me clean out. Luckily, it knocked loose and blew out and my heart started again.  They dissolve it with anti-coags and the doc comes in on the third afternoon and tells me I can go home.  I have to inject myself with an anti-coag twice daily, but I'm okay. 

My first question: "Can I go turkey hunting?"

I had to explain exactly what I was doing in detail, but the doc said he saw no problem.  Two days later, I'm out on the KY Opener.

The next week, the test results started coming back.  Those clots were from cancer. I had a knot of it sitting on top of my kidney.  I went in, signed the papers for chemo, and left for turkey camp.  I nailed my gob the next day.  It took me 2 hours to drag him back in the 1/2 mile to the cabin.  I was too debilitated to go more than 10 yards at a stretch. I didnt know what the future held, but I was making sure I got to hunt.

If you ask my family, they'll tell you that turkey hunting and deer hunting were the only thing that kept me living.  From my viewpoint, I'll tell you that focusing on hunting was the best way I found for dealing with it all.  This year, I'm going to be 4 years past the chemo.  I still treat every trip out like it could be my last.

They say I had miracle turnaround. They say God stepped in. From my view, I can't tell if it was God or just my own cussedness.  I was too sick to tell, but I surmise it was all one in the same thing.  I probably had Jesus sitting with me in the blind, and boosting me up the ladder into my stand, but couldn't see.  All I know is I'm glad I'm still hunting.

[bbcoach]

It took me nearly 20 years to kill my first turkey.  It took me 5 years just to see one strutting.  There weren't many turkeys around me. I used to have to drive 5 counties over.  I'd get one half-day per year.  It was more like a religious pilgrimage than anything else.  For more than 40 years Easter and Turkey Hunting have kind of merged in my head.

Fast forward 40 years.  I'm laying in an ICU, being told for three days not to move.  I've got a blot clot in my leg that will kill me if it cuts loose. A chunk of it has already broken off, and knocked me clean out. Luckily, it knocked loose and blew out and my heart started again.  They dissolve it with anti-coags and the doc comes in on the third afternoon and tells me I can go home.  I have to inject myself with an anti-coag twice daily, but I'm okay. 

My first question: "Can I go turkey hunting?"

I had to explain exactly what I was doing in detail, but the doc said he saw no problem.  Two days later, I'm out on the KY Opener.

The next week, the test results started coming back.  Those clots were from cancer. I had a knot of it sitting on top of my kidney.  I went in, signed the papers for chemo, and left for turkey camp.  I nailed my gob the next day.  It took me 2 hours to drag him back in the 1/2 mile to the cabin.  I was too debilitated to go more than 10 yards at a stretch. I didnt know what the future held, but I was making sure I got to hunt.

If you ask my family, they'll tell you that turkey hunting and deer hunting were the only thing that kept me living.  From my viewpoint, I'll tell you that focusing on hunting was the best way I found for dealing with it all.  This year, I'm going to be 4 years past the chemo.  I still treat every trip out like it could be my last.

They say I had miracle turnaround. They say God stepped in. From my view, I can't tell if it was God or just my own cussedness.  I was too sick to tell, but I surmise it was all one in the same thing.  I probably had Jesus sitting with me in the blind, and boosting me up the ladder into my stand, but couldn't see.  All I know is I'm glad I'm still hunting.

AMEN BROTHER!!!  So many more things in life MORE IMPORTANT than punching a tag!

[Gooserbat]

Not what it used to.  Yeah when I hunt I'm all about it but just being there and taking part is more fun than killing anymore
  I was just pondering this last night and I realized I enjoy hunting with people more than solo now days. 

[Bottomland OG]

What a question! I thought about this for a while before I started this post, because what killing a Gobbler means to me now is so vastly different then it did in the beginning and middle. Killing turkeys has been a journey that journals me as a man, husband, father, friend, sportsman and lover of God's great gifts. Pursuit of a stupid bird has took me across this great country to see things I would most likely not seen if not for a bird. It has brought me great joy, pride, love, near death, anguish, heart ache, jubilation, satisfaction, acceptance, stature and face to face with God. Is killing a bird hard to do, Not at all, because the killing is simple. Aim true and put approximately two pounds of pressure on a trigger and in an instant a noble creature lies flopping his last breath away. In those following moments I have experienced the thrill of victory and agony of defeat ( credit wide world of Sports ). When I was a young man it meant a quest to conquer a great foe and earn a validation for both me and among my peers. It was a character building quest of a lifetime. Sadly it soon just made me a character. My life was defined on my reputation as a turkey killer and pride grew within me like a cancer. Come spring you didn't want to live with me until I could gloat over my trophy. I had forgotten how to hunt and sold my soul to killing. Oh I was good at killing, in my own mind if not others, but plenty where feeding my cancer. The worst thing someone could say to me me was, "why haven't you killed your bird yet, what's wrong". sadly my family paid for my pride as a killer of dumb arse birds. For many years I missed my first daughters birthdays traveling to kill turkeys. My warped mind said, just buy a nice gift and bring home to her, but what she rally longed for was daddy to have a piece of her birthday cake with her, but a bird was between me and her. I killed them by the dozens, but they all turned to sh!t in the end. As I matured and slowed up in life I started to realize so much of what drove me was really worthless. I had joys, successes and tragedies. One fateful day a very dear turkey hunting buddy breathed his last breath in my arms as I tried desperately to breath life back into him with CPR. Life meant nothing if all it done was left this great emptiness in my soul. For years I thought killing a stupid bird could help fill it, but in reality only one thing can fill that hole in a man's soul, God. I opened my heart to Jesus and he filled it. what does this have to do with killing a gobbler, everything. I now saw it as a cancer and as the idol in my life. As I grew in faith I grew in my hunting. I saw a wonderful creation and the hunt became as valuable as the kill. I could now miss a day hunting if my family needed me more, but they always made sure I could go. Funny how those who paid a price for my absence loved me enough to still open theirs lives so I could hunt. Why because in spite of the idiot that showed up every spring they loved me. Now I still go hard to get to that moment I put two pounds of pressure on a trigger, but After I do, I say a prayer over my friend that gave me so much and I smooth out his feathers and I listen to the eulogy that the woods is singing on his behalf. I admire the wildflowers and I relish looking out over a valley below and hearing that ole bird announcing his presence to a world that is missing something without a thundering gobble. I quietly take my game home now and utilize him as table fare. I will share a picture with close friends and a story, but if your not very close you will never know I killed another bird. What does killing a gobbler me to me after 54 years in this game, very little, but the hunt means a lifetime of the worst of me to the best of me and I would not want to live a life without these noble beast, well sometimes I call them demons. I hunt until I'm tired and the fun is waning and I go home. when I am engaged and dueling an old gobbler  i just wanna hear him gobble and we'll sing each other a song. If he steps inside my circle I will still take his life, but in that same moment I am a bit sad that the show is over. 

Thank you for sharing this. This is myself almost to the T.

[Davyalabama]

Yeah, the 70's and into the 80's, we didn't have a lot of birds, either.  That's where I learned to sit for a long time.  If, if you heard one, you stayed with that bird until you killed him.  That if was a big thing back then.  Gobble every now and then,   maybe a few clucks    even fewer yelps     used a cackle only if I hen started that stuff first --- talk about learning woodsmanship.   

I remember in High School, my dad and I had an agreement, if I heard one gobble before school, I could stay until I killed him, if I didn't have a test.  If I didn't hear one, I had to go to school.  I never, not once, broke that agreement.  I was even allowed to use a vehicle before I had a driver's license, just to hunt turkeys ---- of course doing errands and driving for my uncle for work/logging.     

All of that would be frowned upon, now.

[paboxcall]

30 years ago, spring and fall turkey seasons were all I thought about, and I mean that near literally. Anyone who knew me three decades ago would conclude turkeys and me were synonymous.

I was in a race to figure this all out, get a tag on a reclused mountain bird. Learn the history, have those turkey camp experiences, meet the old school turkey chasers, determined to hunt these turkeys on my terms.

There's a (somewhat) mis-generalization about volunteer firefighters...when the blue light turns on, the brain turns off.

But that's how my brain was for the first 25 years...the bird would gobble, or we'd break the fall flock, and my brain would scramble. I can't comprehend how many mistakes I made, and still make today, things I should have done differently all become so crystal clear in the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. I still enjoy being among the turkeys.

I recently lost my turkey chasing buddy couple years back. After 30 years of hunting together...today its not the same for me. Perhaps that will shift in time, maybe it won't. I will still be out there long before the whippoorwills start, and waiting for the first gobble of the morning. But I know this for certain; pulling a trigger doesn't determine the amount of my joy experiencing the spring or fall woods being immersed in turkeys.

Recently I've taken a young guy out, having those gobble in your face experiences. I guess when we tally it all up in the end, watching him experience the ups and downs, execute a strategy, make mistakes, see him jump at a gobble much closer than expected...I feel like I'm watching myself do it all for the first time three decades ago.

That's about as good as it gets.

[callmakerman]

I'll keep this simple and to the point, I hope. Back in the day it meant everything and I was damn proud when I did. Fast forward thirty years and it's different. I still enjoy killing a gobbler, but the journey and the chess match I get to play hunting these birds means so much more. I also really enjoy hunting the fine calls I've been able to pick up from so of the best call makers in the country. I the end a clean shot is great and well received and if for some reason it just doesn't happen, I still give thanks for the ability to be out there enjoying hunting this awesome game bird.