Ep. 107: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Turkey Hunting Mentors

value of a turkey hunting mentor. Lots of folks got spring turkey hunting on the mine right now, and so do I. This week, I'm talking about what I consider to be the most valuable item in anyone's bag of turkey hunting tricks. It ain't a call, it ain't camo, it ain't even a gun or shells. It's a mentor someone that can show the new hunter the basics to get started, or answer the questions of a seasoned vet who keeps getting the old razzle dazzle put on him

by a particularly tough nut to crack. There's no more valuable skill than getting the straight dope on knowing what order yours zigging and zagging needs to be. Knowing when to do something and especially when not to can be the difference between crackers and buy any sausages for supper or a sizzling skillet full of pride wild turn Having that knowledge starting out is how we're going to beat the system. Lots of good eating uneer them feathers. But first,

I'm going to tell you a story. One of my mentors was mister Leon Garlic, the same mister Leon wound up loving black pepper on his eggs. If that don't ring a bell, check out a story I told on The Bear Grease episode number forty nine. Mister Leon was a turkey. He could call turkeys with a green briar leaf folded between his lips like a modern day mouthcall. And he told me a gobbler could hear you thinking

and see you change your mind. Now he was talking about how good they can see it here, and I'm pretty sure he was right. Add that to the fact that we're attempting to reverse nature by calling a gobbler to the sound of a hen, which is vast acrids how it works in the wild. The real script is this gobbler's gobble a hen here's it walks to him, they go on a date, and next year we get

more turkeys than the woods. We're doing the opposite. But for clarification, at least for Arkansas, our turkey season is set to open after the peak breeding cycle, and this will maximize the likelihood of increasing the overall population. There's the challenge and the reward for making it happen. Good things are to be tough. Imagine how boring it would be if every time you call to a goblin turkey came running in on string. Well, that that may have been a bad example. Every time I go hunt, not

only do I imagine that I expected. However, it rarely happens, except for the time I'm fixing to tell you about. Actually, this gobbler didn't run in, or walk or even take a step. Now, if you're thinking I shot him off the roost negative ghostwrider, that's dirty pool and I wouldn't do it. And if you do, you ought to be in jail. I was working in the woods back then

and coming home close to roosting time. One evening I drovel by a field on some property that I could hunt, and I saw a gobbler strutting with four or five hens about two hundred yards away in the edge of the woods. I knew they'd be close to there in the morning because it was almost dark. So I called my older brother Tim and I told him about what I had seen. I told him to go hunt there the next morning because I had to work. Man, he

was all fired up. But the longer I thought about it that night, the more I regretted telling him where that turkey was. So I called my boss and I told him that I wasn't feeling good and I wouldn't be at work the next day. Now he wasn't no dummy. He knew what I was up to, and he told me that I could be at work the next morning, or I could add a job to the list of things I was going to be hunting that day. I told him that sounded like a plan, and I hung up.

I didn't care. I was young, single, living on my own and surviving on deer meeting taters. I could always get a job, but turkey season. Man, that only lasted a little while. Then I called to him and uninvited him to shoot my turkey. He was not pleasant, and I didn't care. It was pitch black dark when I slipped up the creek on the edge of that field.

Once I got even with where I'd seen them turkeys the evening before, I belly crawled across an opening and set up against a big pine tree facing into the woods and where I'd figured he'd roosted. And then I waited for daylight. Finally the sky started to lighten up, and the redbirds started singing, and that turkey gobbled on a limb less than one hundred yards away. And when

that joker started gobbling, he didn't stop. Finally it got light enough that I could see the tree he was in, and when I'd catch a glimpse of him every now and then when he run his head out to gobble, he stayed on that limb till the sun came up, gobling like it was his job. And at that particular time, he was the only one between us that had one.

I ain't made a peep. My old box call laid in my lap, and I finally picked it up and squeaked out three soft yeps that sounded more like a dying rabbit stuck in a gum boot than a hen turkey looking for love. I laid that call down and put that Belgium made Autu five on my knee and waited. Now as bad as that call sounded to me, old Jasper out there was digging it. He let loose a serious at gobbles. It sounded like he'd gone berserk up,

one after another, five or six in a row. And then I heard him leave the roofs clapping his wings and hitting limbs and leaves as he flew toward me. It sounded like he was chopping wood. Then I saw him sailing towards me like a jet. I was following him in with that shotgun, just like he was a duck coming to the decoys. He hit the ground ten steps in front of me in a beam of sunlight

that looked like he was starting in the show. He looked dead in my eyes and gobbled so loud I could almost feel his breath, and I cut that joker of flip. His feed wasn't through the ground long enough to get dirty. When I touched off John Moses brown In's greatest invention. I stopped by Tim's house on the way to work and showed him. He took my picture

and I didn't have to quit my job. This story was in the reference not so much to calling, but to the best tip I'd ever gotten from the greatest turkey hunting mentor I've ever had, mister Billy bryn Him's dad in law. He told me that being where a turkey wanted to be was way better than any call you could ever make, and the best calling in the world wouldn't get him to a place he didn't want to go. Now, lots of times it ain't what you say, it's how you say it, and more importantly, where you

say it from. That turkey had been right where I was the evening before, and could possibly have flown up on the roost from where he lived that morning. I punched him in the mouth and told him out of the wood. Mister Bryan's mentorship killed that turkey. I just pulled a trick to him. So where are you going to find your mister Bryant. Well, you can do like I did, and when the turkey hunting mentorship lottery by having your older brother marry a girl he literally picked

out in the nursery. My brother and his wife were born in the same hospital three days apart, and spent one day together. Tim's first day in the nursery and Barber Jean's last when they were both less than a week old. He said he spied her across the room and that's all it took for him, and that choice made us all winners. I got an extra good older sister and a bona fide died in the wool turkey

killing Jedi as a coach and her father. He custom made me a box call and a wing bone call, and no amount of money could buy I may be buried with them. Now. That probably ain't gonna be the easiest way for you to get your mentor, so we got to figure out how to get you one. First. We need to identify what we need in one. They have to be willing to share their hard earned knowledge with you, So, if possible, you're gonna need to throw something in a kitty too. How about a spot with

the hass turkeys on it. Turkey hunting spots in the South are guarded like a bank vault. There is no place or sacred to a turkey hunter than the place where the object of his obsessions resides, public or private. I would feel easier walking up to a stranger and asking him for a kidney. It's a medical fact that a human only needs one to live, and most folks are born with two. And you never know, someone might actually say yes to a kidney donation but ask to

shoot a hunter's gobblin turkey. You better keep your head on a swivel because somebody is liable to try to slap some sense into you, and they should. That's crazy, but it's not impossible, and here's how you do it. Put yourself in that circle. Whether it's at the local sporting goods store, a church group, a wild turkey banquet, or any gathering where turkey hunting folks might be, look for the older fellow that everyone makes a point to

speak to throughout the gathering. He probably ain't going to be dressed like he just come from hunting unless he actually did. And you won't find the majority of mentors running around in vehicles festooned with outdoor related decals and

sporting the latest greatest hunting equipment. There ain't nothing wrong with any of that, but a mentor is usually at a stage in their hunting career where they like what they like and they see no reason to change, and they have plenty of turkey beers to back up their credentials. These folks might even be looking and waiting for someone interested enough to ask and be glad to pass that knowledge down to them. Now I ain't there yet, so don't send me no dms. I'm a one man wolf pack.

Get your own turkey. Just kidding, not really. Sharing misery with a friend will lighten the load, share and joy multiplies it. Now, I don't know where I heard that. I'm pretty sure I made it up. Even a blind hog of find an acre and every now and then, and that one may be mine. But to my point, a friend will share his turkey spot and acquaintance, not so much. I turkey hunt on some land in another state that is owned by folks that I'm friends with

all year long, not just turkey season. As a matter of fact, they're just like my family. Work on associating yourself with people that have land like that full well, telling them to begin with what your goal is and offer something in return. Sometimes a little de Niro will make friends of landowners quicker than having to spark them at the local coffee shop. And if private land ain't an option for you, get them brogans out on the

public ground and start doing some scouting. Everybody owns it, and you have just as much right as anyone else to scout and hunt as you see fit, but do it with respect for those who were there first, and be as accommodating to them as you would like them to be to you. Now, I'm a hundred percent sun sure I didn't make that one up, but I know who did, and it's solid advice and just about everything you do. I imagine that the definition of a mentor

is an experienced and trusted advisor. Now that doesn't necessarily say old man, but experience doesn't usually come from the real young ones. My good friend Michael Meeks started turkey hunting at my urging when he was in his mid twenties, and I'm only five years older than him, but I'd started hunting turkeys a long time before that, and I served as his mentor. We actually did a lot of learning together, and he learned well. Nowadays, it wouldn't be advisable to run out in front of him with a

turkey suit on. You'll mess around and that joker will make your head look like it caught on fire and someone beat it out with a golf shoe. He is a turkey killer. So if a mister Brian type mentor ain't available, slide on down the chain of command to mentor number two one that's been successful in the Turkey woods with similar interest to yours. That was mine and

Michael's relationship. We've grown up together, we're friends. We both liked to hunt, and we enjoyed hunting together, except the time I called a turkey in for that fool and told him to shoot and he didn't. Now, his version of that story is I told him the turkey was too far and not to shoot. My version is he's an idiot and should have pulled the trigger because I was saying shoot. That turkey's bumping twenty five years old

now probably got a family of his own. It's the ones that get away that I can't stop thinking about. I told him to shoot. Anyway, that's your second type of mentor. Now, Michael had an advantage because we'd more or less grown up together. But I've met lots of folks with similar skill set to my own, some even while I was out hunting, and then developed a friendship with them. Wound up hunting together some and learned as much from them as they did for me. But Michael

still the only one I ever hunted with. It didn't shoot when I told him to. I said, shoot, plain as day. But it don't bother me much except when I think about it now. The third type of mentor can't really be listed as a mentor. He's going to be more like an accomplice because y'all are going to be messing up and learning together, and those are the lessons that come easy and leave a scar that you'll

remember and not do again. It's success through attrition. You remember when and where you messed up, and the next time that situation presents itself, you don't do that again. Like when I told Michael shoot and he didn't. Jerry Huston was a mentor of mine as well. He and my father were great friends, and I can really never remember a time when he and his family weren't in my life. We were all close, but Jerry and I were the only turkey hunters. Jerry was like a second

father and a good turkey hunter. His skill was persistence and patience. That cat has zero quit and could worry a sitting hen off a nest. I've seen him call the turkeys when everyone else would have just hung it. Up and moved on to greener pastures. But not Jerry. It was like he took it personal. There wasn't anything off the table. The old adage of yelping three times and laying your call down meant nothing to Jerry Goldwayne Houston.

He added Go to his middle name because he said he wanted everybody to know that he was always ready. We were hunting down in the Seleiner Roy Bottoms one spring and had missed course to Turkey Goblin and walked way down away from our truck, only to find him gobbling out of sight and across the river over two hundred yards away. He was flat more, telling the world he knew how to gobble and was lighting the woods on fire. Only trouble was there was more water than me,

Jerry Goldwayne, or that Turkey could drink running between us. Now, if you're not familiar with how Turkey's off raid, allow me to give you a brief description. They are dumb as a sack of hammers, and I have seen them come to a call only to hang up on barriers they could easily step over or go around. I had one hang up in a cow pasture once that had grass growing it no longer than on a ball field, and strut and gobble walking back and forth along a

cow trail that he wouldn't step across. An eight inch smooth dirt path that a crawfish could have sprint across, had kept a grown turkey from walking close enough for

me to shoot. I have seen them hang up on small fallen logs in the middle of the woods of one strand barboire fence, and an endless list of the smallest items that kept them from meeting their maker, And incomparable to the struggles that they went through to get to the point where they hung up, they make me crazy, almost as crazy as Michael did when I told him plainly to shoot and he didn't. So when we get to the edge of the river, we're on a high bluff bank and the turkey is on the other side,

which is a lot lower. We sat down to rest after that long disappointment walk to a turkey that we didn't have a snowballs chance in the oven to kill him. Remember, persisted in patient Jerry. Well after we caught our breath, he said, caught in The turkey answered, and Jerry said pour it on him and mashed the gas and don't mind the brakes and pardon, that's just what I did. That turkey lost his mind and his breath and goblin.

We could hear a hen cutting and cacting them back at us from over there, and that fired that God threw up the demore. I was wearing a groove, and that slight as I was using and doubling up with a mouth crawled. At the same time, it sounded like a tarzan me was all that wild rector going on

on both sides of the group. Now, from where we were sitting, we could see plumb across the river and where that turkey was goblin, but we couldn't see past the edge of the brush on the bank of the river up into the bottom where he was and where all that commotion was taking place. Jerry was sitting in front of me with a shotgun in his lap, just

enjoying and listening to the show. When all of a sudden I heard wings and watched as that gobler flew across the river, straight toward us, and lit fifty yards from where we were sitting. To my surprise, that turkey hit the ground, went into full strut, and gobbled like a roaring lion. Looking right at us. To my greater surprise, Jerry quick drawed that shotgun out of his lap and missed the turkey I just called across the saline road

that was fixing the walk closer. We were both disappointed we didn't get him, but we were amazed and grateful we had the opportunity. It wasn't like I told him to shoot and he didn't. Anyway, Jerry bragged about that that everyone all season long about how he'd witnessed the greatest calling feet in the history of watching me call

a gobbler across the river now that hunted. On an opening day of the season that year, Jerry and I both tagged out, and on the last day, Tim and mister Bryan had a tag left and were hunting together on a different spot up the river. It started calling to a gobbler that eventually walked away from them. While they sat there desperately calling and trying to get that gobbler's attention, Tim amazingly called up eleven turkey polts that had obviously hatched early, and they walked up within inches

of where they sat calling. There wasn't any cell phones back then, but we ran a turkey report grapevine on the landline every evening to see what everyone in our circle had done that day. I'd already talked to Tim and mister Bryant and got the report on them seeing the baby turkeys when Jerry called me immediately after hearing the same baby turkey story from Tim. And here's how

that conversation went. Brent, I don't know how many folks I've told about you calling that turkey across the river, but it's been everyone I can make stand still long enough to listen to it since the day it happened. It was the greatest exhibition of turkey calling I've ever seen or heard of until today. Because today I learned that your brother is the greatest turkey caller that will

ever walk this earth. He will never be whooked. You may have called one away from a live hen and across the river, but he called a dozen out of the shelves. If you're new to turkey hunting, find you a mentor make the effort and show folks that can show you that you're in with both feet and willing to learn. If you're old and grizzled, are just either one, find someone to mentor mister Bryant turned ninety years old on the twenty ninth day of April. We drove two

hours to his birthday party. I bet there was close to one hundred folks that came in and out of that event center. I kept looking around counting the Turkey hunters in there. There was a bunch of us in that building, but there was only one like him. Thank you for listening. I appreciate so much the wonderful feedback that we got from all y'all that have taken the time to reach out. If you have a mind too,

leave us a review on iTunes. I don't know how it works, but when y'all do that, and you have to get the word out about our little show to other folks that might like to hear. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful