I could see them spinning full struck, and as I raised up and went to shoot them, turkeys is boom and everything got dark.
We've got eight Turkey storytellers stacked like Cordwood on our final Turkey Stories episode of twenty twenty four.
They hail from.
Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The Southeastern Conference in Collegiate Sports has an interesting tagline stating it just means more down here. There are passionate and incredible turkey hunters all over this great country. But I've got to say that SEC tagline fits turkey hunting like a three piece custom suit.
It sure means a lot down here.
On this episode, we've got three wheeler rex people getting shot, folks flying around in jets, a turkey walking with a forked stick, and even a voodoo gobbler lead out.
That you're gonna want to miss this one.
And Hey, I'll be on the Meat Eater Live Tour starting in April twenty third, going all the way through May fifth. Me and Steve Vanella, Yannis cal all the guys. We're gonna be hitting Mesa, Arizona, San Diego, Anaheim, and Sacramento, California. Salt Lake City, Utah, Boise, Idaho, Missoula, Montana, Spokane, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Tacoma, Washington. You can buy tickets for those shows now. I hope to see you there. And at some point we're gonna come to the South.
So stand by, and I've got my gun like this right here, and I go to leaning in about that time I just stumped over.
My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their.
Lives close to the land.
Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. Just this last week, I was in Mississippi turkey hunting with my friend Lake Pickle. We were within here in distance of four gobblers at daylight, one of them during near in field goal range.
As a clasp of pine limb in the windless, cold.
Twilight, they gobbled good on the roost, but as the dark forest became like a dimly lit room and gradually brightened to the point of being able to discern between tree species, They quit almost as if they talked it over the evening before. When their dinosaur toes hit the ground, they went silent, tight beaked, despite the pleading yelp marks that Lake was leaving on their feathers. At nine am, we left and we went to a new property and made a big loop, yelping from time to time in
the mid morning, all the while listening. Most of the hope for our morning was gone until at ten forty five we heard the arrogant gobble of a tom following the sharp staccato of a pilated woodpecker. We closed the distance with no more than seventy five quick footsteps when Lake's posture changed and he stuck out his chest and from deep within erupted the most beautiful, spine tingling, four note barred owl hoot I've ever heard made. I did not know if a barred owl had landed on his shoulder,
or if on the inside he was one. But after the trill of the final note, a gobble erupted so close it shook our souls, and we melted to the ground like may apples in June. Within seconds, we heard drumming and soon I saw his shiny black chest feathers and his red head moving towards us. I resolve melted like wax as Lake whispered shuit. But what he couldn't see is that some limbs, briers, and grass stood between
us with like separated lovers. He was closing the distance after having a near mental breakdown, rotating my shotgun a full forty five degrees, I squeezed the trigger as he walked away after tucking his wing, and the woods erupted in.
Flailing wing beats.
Lake Pickle is not a small man, but he outran me to that turkey and snatched him off the pine straw like he was recovering a fumble. We'd done it in all my outdoor pursuit suits. The feeling of calling in killing a spring gobbler is indescribable. And that's why this week we're celebrating the wild turkey. We're gonna come in hot with our first storyteller. You may have heard of him. They call him yacht Yawk, but his name is David Ellis and he's from West Point, Mississippi.
This is about a.
Wild hunt that he had in Missouri with his good buddy po Daddy. Pay attention because this story takes some quick twists and turns.
Here's yat yacht.
So the most I don't know if people say it was scary, the most war out, but me and my buddy went up to Missouri. I'd have been up here about three times trying to kill him in that national forest. And uh, I always wanted to be this guy named Eddie Salter. You know, Eddie Salter was the guy that you watched on TV. You saw him on the Saturday mornings and he had that call sign when he killed a turkey and he went over and got picked it up.
He goes, you know, and that embedded in my head, you know, all of all these years, and I was like, I said, I want to meet Eddie Salter one day. And so anyway, me and my buddy PO Daddy, we caught his name's Paul, nicknames PO Daddy. And he wasn't poor. He's just really cheap.
You know.
We we get a hotel with one bed to save ten dollars, you know. So we went up there and I'd have been up there about three times trying to kill them. The mountains I call them mountains to me. You know, they steep hills. Finally I ended up with a guy that had four thousand acres one block of lamb and through a friend of a friend, he said, just come on, I'm loaded with turkeys. Well the first day, man, we got in there, and them hills was just as bad as over at them. But they had plenty of birds.
You would mess up or a bird leave you over here. He'd hammer over here when you just go to another one, you know. We finally one day we just split up, like, man, you got birds over here. I got birds over here. But them mountains was just wearing us out, them hills and valleys. And they call them ridge runners for a reason. They just run up down the ridge were trying to run over them.
You know, we ain't.
We wasn't smart enough to figure it out, you you know. So about three days of more thunderstorms, them more ridges was wearing me down. I mean one ridge took us five stops to get to the top hug one day. And so the last day I told po Dad, I said, you know what I'm done with this. I said, I'm going back to what I used to do and know how I know how to kill turkeys, because you know how This is when you hunt with somebody. You just play it differently. You don't move like maybe you should
because you got two people. You don't call like maybe you should, or not call like you shouldn't. You just play it different. And I told them, I said this last day, I said, I'm tired of these thunderstorms. I'm tired of these hills. I said, when them turkeys hit the ground to day, I said, I ain't gonna have these boots on, had to running shoes. I'm gonna be like you, same boat. I said, when it's go times, go time.
I said.
When they hit the ridge running, they gonna run down it. I said, I'm gonna be on the other side. I said, I'm gonna pop up. And I said I'm gonna bust him. I said, We're going home. He said, we'll go get them some So right at daylight, themb old ile started getting to going. I said, all right, Poe Daddy, I said, you just stay right here. I said, I'll be back in just to see. They just kept on as it
got more and more daylight. At that time, they hit the side of that ridge and I hit the other side of that ridge, and I was running down there with that shotgun, and they were just hammering all the way. They knew whe they was going, and I knew where they was going, and all they need to do was pop on the other side of the ridge. And as I run and run and run. As I got to the edge of that ridge, they pitched up in flu.
They ain't pitched up in flu the whole time, They've been walking all week, and today they pitched up in flu. And I knew the ridge we was on because we had stopped five times the day before. And that thing, I said, you know what, I ain't giving up. I shot down in that valley and I started coming all the way up, and they were still hammering on the next ridge, and it just kept driving me, driving me, and I pulled myself to the top and I got up. I could feel the sweat just running off of him.
I was hot, I had a pull over on, I got a hood I'm always wearing a hoodie. I was sweating, and they were just over there, just hammering, running away. I got on the other side of that ridge and I took off, and as I got closer, I could see them spinning full struck, and I seen an old pine top in that song on was just brown. So
I slid up under that pine top. I knew I was gonna be about forty yards and as I raised up and went to shoot them turkeys, it was boom and everything got dark, and I knew I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't think I did, but I felt blinded. I felt the pain. I could feel the sweat, and it's a little bit of blood just run down to my lip.
I could taste it.
I have a lot of nose bleed, so I knew what the blood tasted like. And as I sat there, thinking, Lord, am I dead? Did I die? And about that time I heard out and I took my face mask and the pine straws all stubble in my face, and I pulled it down and I looked and I said, that said it is softer. Edi Sautera doesn't shot me in the face. So I laid there and as that guy walked over there and he picked up both turkeys. And I don't think you could shoot two turkeys in the
state of missis Missouri at the time, but he did. Now, this wasn't Eddy Softer, but that was in my mind and enabled it. All I heard was the HOODI and as I laid there, I was thinking, was I trustpassing? Was I not trustpassing? And as a guy took his turkeys off, he picked him up by the heads where I'm from, picked him up by the feet, throw the movers shoulder, and as he walked off down through the valley, I got up and wiped the sweat and rest the blood off my face and I leamped back down there
till my buddy Poe Daddy. It took a little bit, and as I got up there my buddy Poe Dad, he said, he looked at me, and well, did you get him? I said, no, I got shot. That's what I got. You ain't say nothing to him, say something to him. I didn't know if I was actually trespassing time, but all I could think of was if I am truspassing, not only did I get shot, I may have to pay a thousand dollars for I wanted Finn to get shot. I am paying a thousand dollars. I said, we're going home, son.
But in the end, I was not trustpassing, and I hadn't crossed no fences. But in my mind I never thought that he was truspassing, so we called. You know, I just thought i'd automatically obviously got so zoned in on a turkey that I just lost why I was anyway, we called landowner and come to find out, we find out who actually killed him, and they took the you know,
denr took care of it. But he was a fellow that lived next door to that four thousand acres that nobody ever turkey hunted, and verywell could have been you know, I could have lost my life. A lot of things could have happened. God did not know he shot me. So he's probably thirty or forty year yards on the other side of those turkeys, and he shot both of them. Between the two turkeys and the tree top. Saved me from probably losing my eyes.
Sigh.
I had about eight good stings in the face, you know, where the blood was coming out. So if it would have been for him killing both turkeys and that tree top, they didn't tell how many I would have took.
Wow, that was incredibly scary, and David tells it so funny it's hard not to chuckle. But the actual trespasser did not know at the time that he'd shot David, who had permission to be there David did.
David never heard what.
Happened to the illegal turkey hunter. That's a wild story, and thank god it wasn't more serious for David. I bet that was a long ride back to Mississippi with no gobbler in the truck. David has a podcast and a YouTube channel titled in his signature yacht brand. And I've told you before, these Mississippi turkey hunters are just made different. Our next storyteller is also made different. It's none other than my friend Andy Brown from Western Arkansas.
He needs no introduction. He's a Bear Grease regular.
I'd never heard this story, but it involves a coat and tie and a major mishap at the moment of truth.
Here's Andy.
Anyway, Wayne, One time he calls me and I had just went to work with the place I work at now, and this was in nineteen ninety. He calls me, he said, we'll tell me getting off and I said, I'll be off at five o'clock. He said, you want to go try to roost a turkey and I said, sure, I'll go with you. And I'll never forget this. I had a pair of black slacks on white shirt with a black tie William. He made us wear ties from Labor Day to Memorial Day, so we always had to wear
a tie. So that's that was our tire, you know. Of course I was decked out, you know. And so we drive out the board camp and we go in there to a spot and cross the creek and pull them ountain there. And he had a four wheel drive Chevrolet pickup that took us thousands of miles tark getting. But anyway, we pull in there and he said, do you want my jacket, camouflage jacket. He said, why don't you take that sixteen gage? He had another shotgun too.
I said, wait, ain't gonna need that. I said, I'm just going to walk out here east where I could hear good. He said, well, I'll go west out here, and I said, I'm gonna gout here east. So I go out there, and of course by getting down there after five o'clock the sun's starting to go down then. But I had those slacks on and I didn't want to sit down on the ground and those slacks. And I looked and there was a little piece of plyboard. I guess a storm had blowed in there, about sixteen
inches wide. And I took that plyboard, and I just set it down by a tree there and sit down on it. I did wear his camouflage jacket, but I didn't take the gun. So I had black pants, white shirt, camouflage jacket. The black I didn't have it button. I just sitting there, and you know, so I sit there and sit there, and of course you know, if you're gobbler turkeys lots of times will not gobble till you think it's too late to gobble. And that's when day
of gobble. It's it's after the twilight everything, when you think that it's they're not going to do it. But anyway, I was sitting there and it's starting to get dark. All of a sudden I heard him coming, and I knew, there's there's no doubt when I know you've heard this, But when a gobbler turkey is on a mission, it sounds just like a person walking. It's just crunch, crunch, And I could hear him coming from a long ways. It was dry, and I look, here come my big grascal,
right right to me. And he just walks up there at about twenty steps of me. He just walks up the mountain there, right up on top about thirty yards from me, flies up a tree right on top and there I sat. So I had to wait till it got completely dark. So when I drug back into the truck and said where you in, I said, well, I told you about the story, I said, but man, in the morning, I said, we gonna get this dude, because he's gonna go back just exactly like he come in there.
You know, he's put his hens to bed. And I said, he's gonna go back the other way. So the next morning, we get up extremely early. We go in park, we go around the south side of the mountain, hit an old road, get over on the north side. We're gonna we're gonna get set up, you know. And so we walk a little ways, and walk a litle ways, and we look at it and I said, this don't I said,
let's go a little further. So we we go a little further and we get out there and and I'm out there, got my pocket knife and I'm cutting I'm cutting limbs, building the blinds, you know, and get in where we can hide, you know. And I get all that fixed and I sit out there way he's right there with it. It starts a little bit. I mean, we could have tuck a nap, it was so early. But anyway, it starts getting daylight, and I look out
there and I thought, what is that right up? I can see something light covered and I look out there and there's that piece of plyboard where I mean, we are setting under that turkey, you know, And I thought, oh, no, about that time he gobbles just blows her hats off right there. And when we did, he just pitches off on the south side of the mountain. He didn't pitch back off the way he'd come in and went right east there he went gobbling, and he went right back
around there to what we call Bible gap. Anyway, I told man, I said, come on, let's let's go try to kill that dude. We go back around, we come into the gap, and the time we get into the gap, he's kind of off on the south side off that on. It's pretty opening there. He's down there with some hens. Anyway, we got in there and got stashed and I put in on him and he went to goblin. I mean that he was doing it. And I looked off down there and here he come. Now he just here, he came,
just kept it coming, kept it coming. And I could have killed him at thirty yards right in front of me, but he was getting to my left and just right there there was a game trail come up a lake, and I don't know why I didn't shoot him down there, but anyway, I'm just gonna let him keep it coming. You know, he'd come right on up he hit that
game trail. This is the way it works. There was one another one in big bull pines there and all he's got to do when he walked in behind that pine tree, I just moved my gun to the left of it. I had to. I was facing this way, but I had to turn my gun and there's nothing. It's just like this this floor here on both sides. There's not even a huckleberry bush. I mean, he's in behind the tree at fifteen yards. All he's got to do is just and he just walks right in. You know,
he's in a walk in about that. When he gets behind that tree, it just stops. It's called patience. The guy should have. You should have a little patience because there's really no way this turkey can get away hardly, you know. But I'm kind of you know, my body is this way and I've got my gun like this right here, and I go to leaning to see if I get, you know, leaning over like that. And about that time I just tumped over. I just stumped over, and that old turkey running his head up there. Of
course I'm laying on the ground like cat. And but the problem was I shot him too low, I mean, and I chup up and I run to get him. In course, he got his legs under me and got his wings on him, and he flew right out through a little old notch in the mountain. And as far as I know, he's still going.
Now, that was a good story, Andy, and I figure that turkey is still flying. A fella could take a few notes on how to kill a turkey from Andy Brown, but also on how to tell a turkey story. The perfect story is just the right mix of details, humor, passion, and know how. Thanks Andy. Our next storyteller hails from the Smoky Mountains of southern Appalachia and Green County, Tennessee. His name is Clifford Loying. The first turkey you ever killed in the nineteen seventies was the first turkey ever
checked in Green County. He calls this the story worry a big Red, a big red, and hain't a turkey.
Clifford Lowing, I live here basically all my life, except in the military for a while, and work construction for a couple of years out west around Colorado and around. I'll tell you one about the big Red. My nephew had got a big red handas three wheeler. I rode it around my house or in the yard a time
or two, so all I ever wrote it. And I was working construction at the time, worked at Dold of Jarvis up for I was working for Seeing's email right, working construction and talking to a boy and he said, you've been turkey hunting rode it lately?
And I said no, I said, hadn't been up here in years.
He said, we've been trying to kill one up told me where he was at and I said, that's the area where I kill my first turkey. He said, we can't call him in, said he would get to Goblin and what they was doing. If he wouldn't come to they try to get closer, and he just go away from him and they'd following.
Then we're smart toms. They'll take you round and round, you know.
So I would work and got off early at evening, I called my brother because I didn't have a four wheel drive to get back in there at the time. And I called him. I said, this, my boy, Brendan's big red you go pancreck Turkey Hunty. He said, yeah, come and get it, So I said, evening hunt. So I reloaded up in the back of the truck, took it over and dampt it out and started up in there. There's a little road that runs up the back bottom
of the mountain there. It's kind of steep getting up to it, and like I said, I didn't know much about that big grid. So I started up there, and like riding a motorcycle in the mountains, if it starts rearing up, what do you do? You throw your feet down. I learned the hard way you don't throw your feet down on one of big rids. Of cause when I got stopped, the wheels was about in behind my knees there, and like I said, didn't have no referse on it. And I'm sitting there on that steep bank. I said,
I'm in trouble here. Couldn't get off of it. I finally got it killed, couldn't get it pushed forward enough and finally got it.
Took me about five minutes. I said, I'm in trouble here if nobody's over here. Finally got it off of me, old on it flipped over.
It didn't flip over it, but it run up my back legs the wheels when it reared up, I throw my legs down and the rear tars is right there and they come up in my back of my legs and had it had me pinned. Oh wow, And I'm sitting on that steep hill pinned with my leg yeah. My knees were on the ground, almost on the ground. Yeah, And I'm pinned where. I can't keep dothing about it.
And I worked there for a walk. Finally got out of it, luckily, and I eased on up that road and I had my shotgun didn't have back in them days. I just had a rope tied to it and opened my shoulder. Eased up through there. And there's a place or two there was a limb hanging. I'd have to get around that. And I got up there and feel where i'd kill my first turkey. Stopped, got off of it and walked around there for the wall, looking for sign. And it's probably about the air before dark. So I
got call out. I used mouth call. I got it down in a cackle, real loud. Over on the next ridge, I said, well, so I got across this hollow and I don't want to get this done all before dark or not. I stood. I couldn't stand it no longer. I took off, got over and eased up there and found a pretty place to sit down and had a little level flat in it, and went up the ridge.
I called and gobbled right up on the ridge above me.
He just he gobbled every time I call, he gobbled up here, and then he come back down here. I said, he's not coming down, and it's getting on down. And I'd like the tape, said old Rob Keck said, if you got one to hang up, just turn your head and call time to and spit it out and just don't call them more.
So I did, and he gobbled. Well.
I just sat there seemed like forever, and I seen a black spot moving on the ridge above me. He'd stop and start turning around and around, strutting. I guess that's the best hunt I ever had. He'd take a few more feet, gobble, turn around and around. I wouldn't I've done my calls. Laying on the ground, I just sat there and watched him and watched him. It seemed like I took forever for that bird to get to me.
And I let him get about fifteen twenty yards. He just go around around circle, drum spitting, drum gobble.
I was tore all the pieces. I don't say.
I kept send my shotgun shake, you know, I said, I'm finally have to shoot him. So I shot him, got him, got back to the three wheeler. It was almost dark, I mean, it was getting on down there. So I tied him on the three wheeler and tied my shotgun back across my shoulder and took off down through there, and it was getting pretty black. But then and I didn't remember the tree hanging across the trail,
and my shotgun hooked it. The next thing I knowed, I was eating the ground and the three wheelers going down through the woods with my turkey. So I survived that one, got it and got on out there. That's more careful getting on out of there after that, Just as the last time I rode Big Red to the mountains.
That was a good story, Clifford.
It's a wonder any outdoorsman survived the nineteen eighties, as much of the backwoods travel was done on Honda Big Red three wheelers. From the very beginning, they were known as widow makers and death traps. Gary Believer Nukomb never had a Big Red, but he had a Kawasaki one ten three wheeler, which was just as dangerous, just not as iconic of a machine. That actually bought me a little two stroke Yamaha try Zinger three wheeler when I
was four years old. I still remember tumping that thing over a time or two and once hitting a barbed wire fence. It's a wonder any of us are still alive. If turkey's had three legs, they'd be easy to kill. You could just tip them over on an incline. Our next story is probably going to surprise you. The mode of transportation isn't a three wheeler, an old four by four pickup, or a mule. It's rather a jet. This
is Slade Johnson of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He's a very serious turkey hunter with a very unique forty five hours of turkey hunting to tell us about. And you're gonna need to know that a turkey hunting grand Slam is killing the four subspecies of turkeys in the United States, an osceola only in Florida, an Eastern turkey in the eastern deciduous forest, a Merriam in the western US, and the Rio Grande in the Southwest.
Here's slave.
I grew up turkey hunting. That was, like I said, that was my passion, passed down my grandfather and dad since before I could walk. It's my favorite thing to do out of all the turkey and I try not to miss a day of turkey hunting in the spring. But out of all the turkey hunt I've done, probably the most, my favorite trip was I guess it was three years ago.
Now.
One of the investors in my company's Big Outdoorsman. He's a pilot, and we were he likes to just do challenging, crazy things, and so we had found out that we were just curious, like, hey, what wonder what the quickest time anybody's ever completed the Grand Slam, And so we looked it up and it was actually a friend of ours was one of the guys that did it, and they'd done it in forty six hour, Somewhere between forty six and forty seven hours.
And we're like, oh, we can beat that, or.
Thinking we could at least, you know, And so we're starting to put this big strategy together of like all right, let's uh, let's make this a fundraiser for the NWTF. Let's let's use you know, swap trips with guys through trips for trade.
John would fly his plane.
He's a pilot, like I said, so that would make things a lot more efficient to get to each of the birds. And but our goal was we're going to do this in under thirty six hours, and so we were thinking, you know, that'd be really two full days of daylight of hunting. And then we found out that the guys had done it before started to claw on the first gun shot, so then the story you see
that that made a difference. So we decided, all right, as soon as we harvest the first bird, the clock starts, when we harvest the last, when it stops, we'll see if we can break this forty six hour world record. So anyways, we started in Alabama, thought that was going to be a layup because that's his personal farm cover up and birds very low pressure.
And it took us till like.
Nine thirty in the morning, to get it done at that farm, which we were like, oh man, this is killing our time. We really thought we needed to kill off the lamb this morning, so we killed that bird. We'd run over to the plane take off, landing near Orlando in Florida, we hop in a rental car. There we drive to this farm, which is a trip for trade gal on a swap and no pressure on this farm too, hoping that we could get it done, and those birds again thought it was going to be a
lay up and they whooped us. We got all the way down to the last probably I guess it was probably the last five minutes of shooting light, and we're like, it's done. We're not gonna be able to do this if we don't harvest this bird this evening, And like an answered prayer, these two longbeards come out, not answering calls, not gobbling, they just come walking out into the field and John was able to get it done there.
So we're high five and we're all fired up.
So again back to the airport, we fly overnight to Kansas. Buddy Casey's there a credible turkey hunter. He had got permission on a farm for us to hunt a rio there in Kansas and had roosted them, which so many people involved with this it was incredible to see. And so that morning, right there, they're set up on this tree. They know where he's roosted, about to get you know, daybreaks about to happen, and they look over and two
guys are poaching coming in from the road. Somebody dropped them off and they're walking in between under the trees the turkeys are roosted in.
So they're at this dilemma.
Too of like do we stop the poachers and confront them do we just like hope they don't screw it up this hunt because we're on the clock.
We want to screw up the hunt.
It's now or never.
This only birds we've got on this farm. And so they were like, we'll worry with them after hopefully they keep walking. So we don't even know where they ended up going. But the birds woke up answered, you know, God went on the limb, pitched right down. Just picture perfect hunt. So now we're on cloud nine. We're you know, this is daybreak of the second day in Kansas, you know, six fifteen, whatever the time he is, we're we've already
killed the rio. So back to the plane. We're in South Dakota by like eleven, and so we land in the bad lands. Shaan's up there are awesome, dude. They got a big Indian reservation property that we could hunt. And by the time we land and walk in there, he's like, I saw a group of verds in this field. You know, we should be on them within an hour. So we had our first set up there in South Dakota.
The clock was at twenty seven hours in and so that would have obviously been an incredible just time for doing that the challenge, but then.
They just gave us the runner around. We had.
We hunted all day, we had six different opportunities on birds, we had missus, we had ran out of you know, lost shells, just everything you can imagine, just thinking we could not get it done on the Miriam.
And so we're getting down to the.
End of the day and we realize this is we're not gonna be able to do it.
So we're defeated. We are like whooke.
We're sitting at dinner that night just like heads in our hands, you know, just like Collie, we put all this effort into trying to do this, and we didn't do it, and we're doing the math and we're like, wait, since we didn't kill till nine to fifteen in Alabama, that gives us thirty minutes of daylight to still be under the world record the next day. But we had a rainstorm coming in, so we're like, there's a little hope,
but like it's probably not going to happen. And so sure enough, the rainstorm ended that morning right before daybreak, and it was the most perfect timet. We're sitting up setting up on the edge of this field. I bet you there was twenty plus long Beer's goblin in the trees around us, like just pure big group. Miriam fat and bird pitches down. I'm calling on this one and John's up in front of me to shoot, and he
just we can't get him to break the distance. He's just strutting out in the field at the distance and we're like counting the seconds.
We need you to come over here.
Anyways, Finally he broke and came in close enough to get the shot. John made a great shot. We picked him up and we ended up harvest Needburg. When we stopped the time, it was I think forty five hours in fifty two minutes.
So we had eight minutes left uspare to like.
For the world record, so that was That's probably one of the most meaningful hunts I've had.
You know, it was a lot of people involved.
You got to see every subspecies of turkeys in the US, so that was a lot of fun. And then ultimately the as I Mentioneder of the fundraiser side, I think there was like twenty five or twenty six thousand dollars worth of money of people donating that we're watching this this live on Instagram and everything donating money to be in the raffle that we were able to donate to NWTF.
I wasn't expecting a jet when Slade started telling me this story. That's pretty wild. I'll be impressed when somebody makes a turkey slam only using a Honda Big Red three wheeler as their mode of transportation. Slade runs a business called Trips for Trade where they connect people looking to trade hunts with other people across the country. It's a pretty neat business. Our next storyteller is my friend
Dale Craig from Western Arkansas. Dale told one of the best deer stories ever told on this podcast about calling in a buck with a rolling apple do you all remember that one. He's a veteran woodsman and a mountain hunter. Here's Dale with a short story about a gobbler putting the voodoo on him and his buddy Travis.
One thing, men, Travis got into one time side he's going to work the turkeys over, you know, kill us one. And we've been all over the country. It was right just two or three days for the season was over with, and uh, I pull up here to the house. I hear this turkey goblin over here just east of my house. He's right at dark. I called Travis up. I said hey, I said, I just roosted a turkey. He said where at? I said right here, I'm right standing right here in
the yard. And I said it's over east of the house. And we'd been we'd been all over the mountains everywhere trying to get We had neither one of us to kill the turkey.
And he said, well, how do.
We get in there to it?
You know?
And I told him where we was going to go the next morning. So we met up way for daylight, parked and the neighbors have met him. We slipped off up there on the edge of that ridge and it starting to get light. Called for all this turkey just gobbled and just set in, just tearing the woods up. And I told Travis, I said, we need to get you know, get up here and get get set up. I said, that turkey's you'll come in just a little bit. So we eased on up on the ridge. He got
up there and we got set up. Travis. He had called, he called for.
A little bit, and that turkey just gobble.
Gobble, gobble.
I tried with my call, just kept a gobble right right there in that same place. So we decided he had some hens with him, so we kept We just start easing that way, being real quiet, and every once in a lot of turkey gobble. So we got set up again. We called that dude just gobble gobble, gobble right there in that same place.
Wouldn't come, wouldn't come.
We sit there and listened to that thing forever, and I mean every time you called, he just cut you off. We decided he was gonna sneak off down there and try to put the ambush on him. You know. We got slipping off down there and slipping on down the ridge air and got off the side of it, and then I heard a rooster crow. We looked at one another, and then we decided that turkey was in a pen down there.
I didn't know that house was back in there.
I hadn't been back in that country in years. I used to coon on all in there.
This old gobler.
We slipped them down there a week. See that old gobler. You could see him down there in that pin.
You could hit that.
Call that dude, disc gobble, gobble gobble. He's in that pen banes with a bunch of chickens. But that I didn't even know that house, that house had been when it was built or anyway, we was gonna ambush that old turkey, and he kind of put the voodoo on us.
The old pen turkey story.
Any bona fide turkey hunter should have sniffed that one out after Dale's opening the line. But I walked into it like an ox to slaughter, or like a nineteen eighties middle class man walking into a Honda dealership and buying a big red. What got me was that it was by Dale's house, and I knew that he would have known what was going on near his own land. I didn't see the turkey coming anyway. Good story, tell our next story is from the mountains of East Tennessee,
told by a man named Kevin Laws. He's a humble fellow with a string of turkey spurs durned there long enough to wrap around a volkswagon.
Here's Kevin.
When I started out turkey uning, It's probably been about about twenty five years ago, I guess, because I always kept bagels and coon dogs and bear dogs, and I used to didn't like nothing if he didn't have a dog involved in it. I mean, that's all I've ever done is bear hunted and rabbit hunted and con hunting. I wasn't interested in no turkey. I finally decided there that I would give it a try. In the first year,
I didn't kill no turkey. And then me and my brother went together and he killed a big gobbler earlier that morning, and there was another one with it and hit run past me, and I killed it and it had two beards. That was my first turkey that I'd ever killed. After that, I just got the hunting and learning as a wind. But there's a lot better turkey hunters than I am around here. I mean, there's some
good turkey hunters in this part of the country. I remember one time I had been up in the mountains and I had this turkey up and I got the calling on it, and I mean he was doing some goblin, and my brother was.
With me that day.
I finally got him called in and when he come in, he come around kindly behind me, and my brother was on this other side over here, and so I just kind of eased around with my shotgun there and got me a good beat on him. And when I shot he left out, I missed him. I mean, he was gone, son, I missed him. That was about I don't know how long I've been hunting, but I still haven't been hunting
a long time. Then, and we waited two or three days and went back and we called him there again, and we got him to goblin and he come in and then he left back out, went way down through the hall of there. Must have been seemed like a half a mile. I don't know if it was or not, but.
It was pretty good peace.
And I thought, well, he's gone, I mean, you know. And this was of evening, and I told my brother, I said this, give him one more call and see what happens. And so I let out a big cackle or I had a mouth call.
I let out a big cackle.
Man he gobbled down in there and and a few minutes he come on. He was still gobbling. My brother said, he's coming, He's coming. So I just sat there and waited for him. And he came up here and jumped up on a big lagger and stood like he was pretty brave, you know whatever. So I blowed him off the lagger and he was I was pretty good, pretty good hunt right there. And then it wasn't. But a few days later it was getting closer to the end
of season, I guess, and uh. We went back to the mountains again there, and my brother was with me again there too, And I liked hunting mountains because sometimes you can call and they may be there in ten or fifteen minutes, and then sometimes it may be two hours. And I got a burn. We called and I was one gobbled about three ridges over, and we called a
few more times. My brother's sitting out here on the left side of me, and I was watching for the turkey come up through here, and I mean it wasn't.
It wasn't.
I'd say it was less than ten minutes, and I mean he was over like three ridges, and man, he was there and all of a sudden, I hear my brother shoot, you know, and and he's killed a turkey. But it was I mean him some fun hunt tracked there. I like him.
Those were good stories, Kevin. I like those kind of hunts too. Our next storyteller is also from East Tennessee, near Greenville. His name is Chris Hopson, and he's gonna tell us about chasing one the hard way with a bow with no blind and no decoys and no hand the big red.
Well, my name is Chris Hobson. I'm from Greenville, Tennessee. I guess I got started briefly turkey hunting back when I was a kid, when there was hardly any turkeys around, you know, But that was just the early stages, and didn't get really involved big with it until probably in the late eighties, you know, early nineties, of course, when I was a kid. I mean, you've very rarely ever seen a turkey, you know, and he's like seeing a bobcat,
you know, you're just really surprised to see one. I've had some really good times in the Turkey woods and some good success, and there's a lot better turkey hunters than I am. I don't really believe in luck, but I've I've been fortunate enough to you know, kill my share of turkeys. But this one is a I don't know. It's right around where I live, at a home. I had decided I was just going to dedicate half the
season to bow hunting turkeys. There was a particular gobbler hanging around there around the house, and I picked the wrong one to bow hunt after I'd got to chasing him. So because he we live on a farm there and he would get out in a big pasture field was probably it was probably fifteen acres and every morning I'd be down there and I'd know exactly where he was roosted and.
Try to set up.
And when I said I was dedicating half the season to bow hunt, I meant with no ground blind or anything. I just put a gilly suit on and wanted to hunt it, you know, just out of the woods and try to blend in. Wasn't usually decoys, and which is
a very it's very hard to do well. This particular turkey, I picked the wrong one to bow hunt because he would come out in the when he would come off the roost, he would go right in the middle of the pasture field and he would stand there for hours, just hours, just going back and forth, back and forth, just strutting.
You know.
He'd have a couple of hands with him, but he was just he was very stubborn.
And it took me.
I probably hunted that turkey for a week and a half, just I got really close a few times. But you know, bow hunting is it's a game of yards and feet most of the time. He finally made a mistake. I got up one morning for daylight and he was he
was roosted in a different spot that morning. He flew out in the edge of the pasture field that morning, and then he skirred around some of the other fields there, and I would just back off and you know, go back behind the ridge, you know, get behind him and where he could see me, try to sit up in front of him.
You know.
I tried all different types of cows, you know, diaphragms, and wouldn't use any decoys. That's pretty hard to do, especially if you got one stubborn like that. There was a little pond there, and he went towards the little pond and I got there was some little blow down trees down there and I got in behind that those trees and I just set I had caught him crossing. There was a bottom there, and he was coming down
that bottom sometimes. And you know, late morning, I got set up over there on one of those blown down tree and a a cedar tree or something there, and I just you know, skirted it up behind it and he come. I probably shot him at twelve thirteen yards. I had to draw before he got there, you know, and I had to you know, I had to wait. Of course, I had a low pound of bowl because it don't take a whole lot of pounds to kill.
A turkey with a bow.
But made a really good shot on him. And and you know, I tell a lot of people I liked to bow hunt them. But there's just something about a shotgun.
You know.
It's it's because there's some you know, a turkey's vitals are so small, you know, when you're bow hunting turkey, I mean it's you know, you've got to be precise on your shot placement. And I just hit everything just lined up that day to you know, for it to happen. You know, I just I'm just a bow hunter at heart. I just loved to bow hunt. But I like a shotgun hunt them too, you know, I just I don't.
I don't bow hunt them a whole lot now, but because I'm just taking my nephew and my daughter a lot now, it's you know, there's a lot of those hunts that stands out that's really special to me with my daughter and my nephew. I have to give them credit. They they hung in there pretty good and killed some pretty tough turkeys too.
Chasing the turkey with a bow without a blind or decoys is as difficult a turkey hunt as there is period. I've just started to notice that some turkey hunters are giving people a hard time for killing turkeys out of blinds. I didn't realize we were doing that, like giving people a hard time about this. It's no doubt easier when you're in a blind, and I don't really have a dog in the fight. I've never killed a turkey out of a blind, But it's interesting that we're ribbing people
about a method to take anyway. Just an observation. Good job, Chris, thank you for the story. Our next story is being told in the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum in Leland, Mississippi. Bill Baird is from Indianola and is a long, long time turkey man. I'm just gonna let these two stories that he's about to tell us unfold on their own without much foreshadowing. But I figured the first story should be called Before Could Stick.
My name is Bill Baird. I'm from Indianola, Mississippi. I guess if I remember the first turkey jun I went on. My father, I was about twelve years old, had a sixteen gage browning, and I think the first time that we went, he set me off by myself and I missed a turkey, and then we went on that afternoon.
To kill one.
So that kind of got me started. Kids nowadays start hunting when they're five, six, seven years old, but most of the older men back in those days, we needed to be about twelve years old to be able to handle a gun to where we could hunt. So that's I guess that's when I started turkey hunting. Well, you know, I enjoy all hunting, but I don't know. There's something
about a turkey. When you fool with a turkey in the fall, you see them and they're really dumb, you know, they just they'll stand there and look at you on side of the road. But when you start hunting a bigger old turkey, a four or five three or four five year old turkey, he's been through several seasons and he's wised up. When you get an old turkey and you trick him, you've really done. So you know you
said something about that earlier, about a favorite hunt. There's so many of them that I can remember with one particular time that actually, Roy and a friend of ours from Mineonola went to Illinois. We'd go to Illinois every year, have been doing it for years and hunt with the family up there.
But we could kill two turkeys.
And I killed one one day and one the next day, probably two of my best turkeys. And the first one kind of it wasn't mountainous, but it was heels pretty high, and the turkeys would kind of roost right off the top of the ridges, and I heard one goblin got up there that morning. There was a fence, and the fence was a line, so I couldn't go on the other side of the fence where the turkey was on the other side of the fence. So I'd call and he'd got and I'd wait, I'd wait and i'd call,
and he'd gobbled. Finally I just figured out, you know, I'm gonna just be silent and make him come look for me. Well, I see him coming through the woods and he's limpid, and he just walking along, limping like this. He kind of got one wing down. I says, I'm wrong with that turkey. Well, he got up to the fence, and right when he got to the fence, I saw
him kind of bend down and do something. And he came up on the other side of the fence and he looked up real tall, and he kept walking on towards me, big old beard, old turkey, but he was messed up in one foot. We finally got close enough and I spoke to him, good morning. Shot him, went over there and got him. And under his right wing he had a forked stick that he was walking along using that stick as a crutch. I don't know what I ever did with a stick. I should have kept it, I.
Guess, Wait a minute, mister Bill, what okay?
But he was a big old turkey, and he did have a gimpt up foot. Now that I told that story, and believing or not, how many folks will believe it? For a little bit I almost got you there, but he was one of the bigger ones. And the next morning we went to another ridge. My friend and I from any I went to another ridge and the first time I messed up my knee. We were walking along and I stepped over a log and I tripped and
I fell. The turkey was gobbling and he was down in the bottom, and my friend said, would you just stay here, I'm gonna go on and I'll shoot the turkey. I said, no, no, it's my turn. So we kept going, keep going, and I'm hobbling along. Finally we'd get up there and we peep over a ridge down there. We see the goblet down there with two hens and he's just struck. He won't gobbled, he's just struck with those
two hens, and the hens were dust. We sit down, get ready, and we called and I called, and he'd look up every now and then he'd gobbled. The more we called, we got a turkey coming from behind us, and he came up there and my friend ed, said, well, let me shoot this, and I said no, and I had to literally put my foot on his gun. I said, no,
we're gonna kill this turkey down here. He's bigger, so he was kept trying to slide his gun out, and he was messing with me, and I'd called, and finally this old gobler came behind us and he started gobling just right at us. Well, the old boog turkey down there, you know, it got him wise, So here he comes. Anyway, he runs up the hill. Long story short, I shoot him and my butt and my knee is hurt, so
I can't run. And my buddy runs down there and puts his foot on his head and he says, you, lucky sucker, this is the biggest one you'll ever kill. And it probably was. I think I don't remember what he weighed, but he had an inchy fifteen sixteenth spurs. Those two particular hunts that I went on day back to back, Like said, I'll always remember that, and I always kind of tell that story at the beginning to kind of get off on a good wreck.
You know that.
When I first met mister Bill, he didn't strike me as a comedian, so the forkstick caught me off guard for a bit. Then when he had to put his foot on his buddy's gun so he wouldn't shoot the smaller turkey so they could get the big one. I then realized I was dealing with a man of rare prowess and wit. Hat tip to mister Bill great stories. Our final storyteller, the one wrapping this thing up, is
once again, my friend Russ Arthur from Cleveland, Tennessee. He told the story on the last episode of Finding the Journals of his father. On the day of his father's funeral, on the first page he opened up to he found the story his father had written about Russ's first turkey hunt when he was just a boy. It was a great story. Well, here's another one about Russ's father.
We had a special bond with a turkey hunting in one which when he did pass, I realized that I had something really special and a lot of friends, some of which you've met today. That's reminded me through those hard times how lucky I was to have that level of a bond with a father and it was it was truly special. And you know, I know I've got a grandson now. Took him when his first turkey hunt last year he was seven, carried a little four ten and he sat there and I've never been so proud.
Of my life. We didn't give a turkey.
But we had a hand come in and she was looking for us, and she looked for us for fifteen minutes. I mean she was painting and popping and looking and just raising all kind of cuss to try to find us. And he never blinked, never moved, and as soon as she walked off, he took his head in that office as puppy. I wished I could have shot it, and I thought, you know, hopefully I can pass some of this down that got passed down to me. But he
and I shared a special bond. There was a having to understand the mountains, and you understand them, and sometimes you can.
Get really remote in this area.
And I was about probably five miles from the closest road.
It was only up in the day.
It's a pretty day, and I was more or less just hiking, scouting and joined the day and I heard a turkey gob. I got my map out, make sure where it was at. You drop off the wrong drainage, you can get in a bad way. Figured out where it was at side, held around across the creek, across another creek. Pull up on the ridge and I looked and I saw this slow rowing little flat and I said, if I can make it to that flat, I believe
that turkey will come to that flat. It was a little saddle on both sides, and it appeared to be a springhead. Now, I've never been there, been all over that place, but never been to this actual place, no trail on, no road, and I saw a huge hickory tree. If I can make it to that hickory tree, I can kill a turkey. So I eased around through there and caught up the turkey and killed it and just were really tickled, couldn't wait to get out and tell dad.
Of course, this isn't for cell phones.
I come out, and I was living fairly close then and working for the forest service then, and I called him soon as I got home. I said, you're never gonna believe where I killed the turkey.
And he said where?
And I described it to him, and I said, the funny thing about it is, I said, we're going to have to go back in there.
He said why.
I said, Well, I got so excited that I've got this habit. If I'm going to be hunting in the back country, and I got a turkey and working, and I've got a sling on my gun. I'll take it off. I don't want that extra movement in that gun. So I had taken my old leather sling off and I rolled it up and put it next that tree and covered it up. I said, I left my slink. I got so excited. I come out of there and walked all the way out of there, and I got halfway
out before I realized I left my sling. So I'm gonna have to go back in there next day.
I had to work.
The next day, I come home from work, and when I come home from work, there on my back door was a turkey feather and all it said was call me, oh man, my sling was there. So I called Dad and I said, what's going on? He said, you'll never believe this, but he said, it's such a pretty day.
He said.
I thought, I go back in there, try to find your sling.
And he said.
I kind of went in a different way, and about eleven o'clock I heard a turkey and I coursed it and I got my map out and I pulled up there and I saw this saddle, and I thought if I could get to that hickory tree, and he walked and he sat down right at the same tree and killed that turkey the very next day. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
That truly is an incredible story. Jim and Russ's knowledge of the land and how to communicate before we had a ax pins on our phone is pretty wild. Great story, Russ.
Thank you.
I hope you've enjoyed these stories, and I know that I sure enjoyed meeting all these folks face to face. We've really got something to celebrate in the wild. Turkey be safe this year, best of luck in the Turkey woods, and I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. I'll see all you Western folks on the live tour soon, and I really hope to convince these Meteator boys to come to the.
South sometime soon. I hope you have a great Turkey season.