This is the Meeater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast.
You can't predict any of this.
The meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I T E dot com. Hey y'all, this is Steve and as you know, it's Turkey week here at me Eater, which means lots of great turkey hunting content and also great deals on turkey hunting gear.
In addition to this special drop of the Meteater podcast, where we hear from my buddy turkey hunting partner, longtime colleague, the beloved and beautiful Giannis Poutellus, who's going to share with you some very memorable and beautiful turkey hunting stories.
Last spring, I attended my first National Wild Turkey Federation Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. I've never heard so many yelps in one place. Joking aside, I had a wonderful time attending the calling contests, walking the floor, checking out new calls, and just enjoying the energy of so many passionate hunters gathered in one place. I highly recommend any Turkey nut to make the pilgrimage to Nashville next February. I was there because I had an idea that we should record
everyone's stories to be archived for future generation. I feel that too often good stories die with the orator, and that's a shame. So as an effort to record our hunting heritage, Phil Taylor aka Phil the Engineer, and I set up a makeshift recording studio and invited folks to tell their stories. Thank you to everyone who had the courage to come tell me a hunting story. I know it's not easy getting in front of a mic and
reciting your story while Phil listens from the soundboard. In total, we recorded nearly forty stories, all of which will be available in their raw form on the National Wild Turkey Federation website soon, so keep an eye out for that. Here are three stories that stood out to us because they resonated on so many different levels. They are tales of success in the Turkey Woods, sure, but they are so much more than that. There are stories of love
and bonding, stories of relationships and shared experiences. Start out with Jeremy Bennett and his son Zeke. I'm a father of two daughters, and hunting with them is by far the highlights of every spring and fall. Hunting with kids gives me the opportunity to pass along, which I love so much. The joy I feel when my young'ins have success is far beyond any joy I've ever felt standing
over one of my own kills. Zeke's excitement makes me want to grab one of my kids right now and go for a walk in the woods.
My name is Ezekiel oh Coop and Bennette. I'm twelve years old. I'm from Vanilla, Arkansas.
My name's Jeremy Bennett, and I'm forty four years old from Vanela, Arkansas. And we're going to talk about a turkey hunt that we had together, me and my youngest son in Arkansas this year. So I'll start out by saying that we wanted for dad to kill a turkey
because he never gets to shoot right. Yes, I usually take the kids and I don't even sometimes have to worry about taking a gun, But this is the time that he'd already killed a bird this year, so Zeke wanted me to shoot one, and that was a big deal. He kept saying, I want that, I want you to shoot one. So we got set up on the edge of a big pasture and he got daylight, and we
hadn't heard a bird on the roost. We seen some hens, and then all of a sudden, right on the edge of the pasture, just out of eyesight, I heard something and then we saw a hen, a hen come, and then we had a tom come, but out of range, and they made their way off to the side, and my son wanted to go after him. I said, no, let's just wait, Let's be patient. We've still got things happening around us. Luckily, things started working back from the
woods back in front of us. A hen was in front of us and got real loud, and I think she was kind of afraid of our decoy. Maybe well, eventually I seen one of the birds coming back in the field, saw his beard, and luckily the bird was on my side.
I waited.
He got behind a tree, and I waited a little bit more, and then I finally shot and took the bird. And you were afraid that I was going to wait too long, and it was gonna get away, weren't you.
Yeah, Because I had my gun up and everything and you were just looking at it. I didn't think you've.
Seen it, But you probably didn't think I was gonna shoot.
Did you.
I did not think you're gonna shoot.
So we harvested that bird, went back to camp, cleaned it, ate lunch, and then we went back out that afternoon for another hunt. So we set up in the same spot and it was hot. Didn't hear nothing, And you wanted to go to a different spot. Yeah, And I said, if you go to a different spot, we're not coming back to this one. So you wanted to go to a different spot, and then what happened.
So we went out of that spot, and then we had cross a power line and then we looked up on the power line and there was a tom and a hen and the tom was shutting. So we made a plane and so we were going to go about like three miles down that power line, like in the woods, and then around. Yeah.
Yeah, So there's a double power line on the property and they're spaced out by a couple hundred yards, so we knew that we could go all the way around and get on another road, drive around and come to the uphill side of where this bird had a hen. Because I just didn't want to push the bird. I didn't want to push the bird. I was afraid. So we made a plan, and you doubted me. Yeah, So we went all the way around the property and got uphill of this bird.
With a hen, and then I got on the wrong ridge that I thought he was on. And then so once I realized he wasn't on that ridge, I went to the next one.
And then but you also told me to stay at the at the utving I did. You didn't want me to go with you.
I kind of peeked over that ridge. Now I could see just a tip of his fan. So I got down and started crawing. I traveled about like thirty yards and then I popped up and didn't see him, and then I didn't realize he was like on a shelf. And then I seen the hen walk out on the road, and then he like jumped up there, and then he started strutting, and then I shot him. You thought I just shot at flying bird.
Yeah, because I was out of eyesight up the hill and I was just hoping he would get close enough. But I was expecting him, probably to just scare the bird. Being a twelve year old turkey stalker, you never know what can happen. So when I heard the shot, then I finally peek over and I hear him kind of in excitement that.
He'd got the bird running down to the bird.
So that was your second turkey in Arkansas this year or this pastper Yeah, twenty twenty two.
Yep.
Can you tell him real quick about your first turkey in Arkansas this past year?
Oh? Yeah. So we're on a public piece of property and you had to draw and it was a youth hunt. You went out there the day before and scouted and you didn't hear anything on the roost. And then you went to a spot that we previously hunted and you saw two hens across the road. So we went over there, we sat down, got everything ready, you called, We didn't hear anything. A dog started barking behind us, and then right behind us, we just heard a big loud cobble.
He came out. Our degree was to the right of us, and we were on a road, so I was facing straight into the road. The turkey was straight behind us, and then it walked out about fifteen yards to.
My left, and then well it was two birds.
Yeah, two birds, and then they started spitting, drummings, ratting, and then the one that came out first started getting a little nervous, and then it just ran as fast as it could in the woods. And then so I raised up my gun because I.
Was on like a little little shooting stick.
So I had raised my gun over that as fast as I could, and then the turkey started running, so I shot it.
Tell him what we do with the turkey legs? After we clean a.
Bird, So we put them in the instapot and then we just.
Like what mom cooks them in the instapot and then we pull all the meat off. And then what do we do with it?
We make turkey salad. So instead chicken salad, we make wild turkey salad.
We put them in insta pot because it's very convenient.
And then man just like blended up with like ranch.
Celery, yeah, bacon bits sometimes cheddar cheese yep. So real quick, tell them about go back, Tell them about your first turkey, real quick. Your first turkey?
Okay, first turkey. So what we did we went to my uncle's.
Property and then brother's birthday.
Yeah, and he was at like a sleep away camp. And then so we heard some birds, so we went to where we thought they were going, and then we set up and then we started calling to them, and then they were just coming right at us.
But it was you, me and my brother on his property.
There was probably ten and the turkey in the back was strutting, and you were telling me to shoot that one. And then I just didn't know because I thought that was a shot for four ten. And then so what I did is the closest one to me. I just saw a little like brown spot, orange chest, and I just thought that was a body. So I shot it and it was a bird. And then you asked your brother.
So in Arkansas you can shoot a jake, and so these jakes God would like crazy and come right in. Well, I was concentrated on my eight year old. My brother was to my ride, and so I thought, well, you know, if he gets a shot, that's great, and then if you know, my brother may be able to get a
shot as well. So after you shot the birds and the birds dispersed, I never heard a shot from my brother, and so I looked at him and said, hey, why didn't you shoot He said, well, they were all jakes and we didn't see his bird fall because everything flew. And my brother said, hey, his bird is dead over here. It flew right beside me and fell out of the air.
There.
That was his first turkey. So you're twelve years old. Now you've got three turkeys under your belt. Yep, So you're considered an expert in Arkansas, wouldn't you figure?
Maybe?
Maybe? Well, you're just as good an next bert as your older brother, aren't you. Yeah, because he's killed three turkeys, and how many turkeys has he missed?
Like thirty thirty?
He's missed a few. So you've killed three turkeys and you've missed how many turkeys year round? There you go.
Next, husband and wife team Trey and Elizabeth Laudner walk us through her first turkey hunt. I've been married for twenty years and introducing my wife to turkey hunting resultant in one of my all time favorite turkey stories. Lots of folks told stories about their first turkey. What struck me was that those stories were often more about who took them on their first turkey hunt rather than the hunt itself.
All right, So I'm Trey Ladner from pastors Mississippi.
Yes, I'm Elizabeth Ladner.
So I guess to preface this old story, like I grew up my whole life, my family, hunting, just about everything. Really well, we started dating pretty much had to tell her, you know, hey, this is how my life is, you know, just like you know. Well, she was okay, would it? And then she started showing interest in it, so she wanted to get Well, it got to be Turkey season and we'd already been deer hunting, and that was usually
in the evening. You know, well, she's not a big morning person, so not at all.
I worked nice shift. I'm a nice you nurse, and mornings are not my thing.
So she would go with me every now and then and we'd have some actions. She'd get excited, but she never really had a lot of interest, you know, could never make it happen. And then finally last year, I got home from work.
One no no, no back up.
Because last season was really whenever, like I don't even know. We started reading Tom Kelly's books and we started listening to him like on the way We're hunting Poperville mostly, and so we started listening to and I'm a big breader, I was obsessed with how Tom Kelly was writing, and I don't know, it just got me fired up for the whole season really, and so we were going and going and going for like three weeks almost every single day that we were off, and we we were having
really awesome mornings. We were hearing a lot, We saw a couple of jakes, so we never saw a gobbler. One morning, I was just like, was so exhausted basically from working going every morning. I was like, I'm not going this morning. You go, you have fun, you know, send me a video listening to the turkeys and all the things, you know. But he was like, no, you've got to get up, You've got to get up. I'm like, oh, okay, fine. So I got in the truck. I was like, I'm
sleeping the whole way there. We ended up listening to a podcast I don't even remember who we listened probably, and we got there. We listened to this one spot that I was my favorite spot. It was the prettiest spot, right on the edge of a food plot. We don't normally sit on the edge of food plots mostly we normally walk in the bottoms, which is also gorgeous. We
didn't hear anything, so we like last ditch effort. I think it was like what ten nine thirty maybe ten o'clock, and we have a spot we call it the buck nest. Granted I've never killed a buck there, but it's called the buck nest because that's where we get the most pictures from.
And we're sitting there. No, I don't even think we were sitting yet. We were walking and he yelps and immediately Gobbert.
Gobbled and learned fifty yards.
Yeah, and so I can hear his heartbeat above mine, and he's like all fired up, and he's telling me what to do and basically be quiet, and then we finally like walk what.
Sixty more yards?
We sit down and he normally like I'll sit on a tree and he'll get behind me and call I'm not the best caller yet, obviously, but he was gonna go do that, and he just couldn't stand it. So he sat on the same tree as me and he yelled again.
He saw him, He saw the gobbler.
Shrut and I was looking and I couldn't never see him or whatever, and he was like, can you see him?
Do you see him?
And I'm like, no, I don't see him yet, and so he stopped, he stopped yelping, and God or just kept gobbling probably what about three more times, and finally I could see him in the line of sight probably what sixty seventy yards away, and Trey was sitting there and he's.
Like, well, can you shoot him? Can you shoot him? Like, well, I see him like way far away. I can't shoot it at this point.
She can't judge distance at this point, like thirty yards, and I might about to jump out of my skin.
Like because you could have had a shot the whole time. Well, I couldn't because I was literally looking in front of it, like out a tree. I'm like, I can't shoot him. Well, I'm Christian, I have all prayers all the time, and so I'm sitting here talking to God. I'm like, God, please please please let me get a shot. Please don't let mess it up. Please don't let me, you know, harm this animal, and please just let my heart rates slow down so I can actually hear and pay attention
to what I'm doing. Because I was freaking out and I'm shaking. I was like, there isn't there's no way I'm even would be able to keep the dot on the turkey.
And at this point I'm getting impatient, yeah, laggravated. I'm like shooting, you know, shooting, and all of a sudd and the gun goes off.
Well because he well hit the gun went off because his head there was literally two trees and it's probably what a foot and a half apart in his head. The redhead popped right in the middle of it.
And I shot because I just I don't know it.
As soon as the gun went off, I just jumped up and belined it to the turkeys because it was not getting away. I had to grab it.
He was dead, like a.
Trail of calls all behind me, you know. And I finally grab it and I'm looking around for her and I can't find her, and she finally comes walking up. She's crying, she's shaking. Yeah, I just hand her a turkey.
He scared me whenever you ran that fast, because like, hey, it's my turkey, sir, don't do that again. And I like threw the gun down on an accident, just excited, and that made me nervous. So I like finally get up there and I'm tears are streaming down my face and this man pulls out a phone.
I actually videoed it.
Yeah, he videoed it, and I was a nervous wreck. I could barely talk. It was. It was just so much adrenaline, like I just couldn't. I don't know. It was incredibly emotional, actually, I mean, like.
Thinking about it, I mean I took a whole life and it was we worked really freaking hard.
In that moment, it was all worth it. You know. I think every time we get to kill an animal is pretty.
Emotional, and it was at that moment it clicked in her brain, Yeah, like this is why you do this.
Yeah, there was definitely some relief for sure.
Especially turkeys is kind of like a sickness, Like I can go get my butt handed to me every day, every day of the season and kill one on the last day and it was all worth it to me.
Well, I think I really needed that too, because that day I was not going to go. I was like, I'm exhausted, I'm not going to do it, and now I will be getting out of the bed.
It's a little different for deer, but turkeys it's a different world.
This last story resonates because relationships aren't always easy. I'm a son a son with a great dad, but not a perfect one. No one's the perfect father, certainly not me. Father and son relationships can be tenuous, but we tend to hear the stories that only celebrate these relationships and don't necessarily dig into the times that are fraught. His story reminds me that I'm not the only one he's trying to better my relationship with my father.
So my name is Heath Pendergraft and I'm from Exeter, Missouri, down in the very far southwest corner of the state. I'm forty eight and I've been turkey hunting since i was fourteen. So my story is one I like to call it my story of redemption with my dad. Growing up, my dad and I, I mean, we were fine, but we weren't particularly close.
We were very different.
I always felt that he was a little bit tough on me, and he thought that I was.
I don't know, just I wasn't. I didn't click with him, you know.
And growing up my dad he deer hunted, coon hunted, did all this. He didn't turkey hunt, but he did everything else, and I wanted to be a hunter, to be like him. So I deer hunted, coon hunted, but I wanted turkey hunts. I'd seen a lot of videos and read and outdoor magazines about turkey hunting, but yeah, he didn't do it.
So I didn't really have anybody to go.
With, so I basically had to teach myself. I was a very hyper and I guess annoying child, and so any of the adults that I did know that that turkey hunter would not take me. I would beg him and they wouldn't do it because I couldn't set still or be quiet.
So I started teaching myself.
My Papaul he didn't turkey hunt either, but he loved me enough that he wanted to feed my passion, so he he bought me a little scratchbox cedar scratchbox turkey call from Walmart and bought my first tag. And so I had to start by watching videos and listening to little seventy eight rpm records of turkey calls teach myself how to call.
So I'd go out there and he would take me.
My Pauppa would take me to the woods and let me hunt for a few hours in the morning because I couldn't drive yet, and then I wouldn't get a thinking he'd bring me home anyway. Long story short, it took me years to get to where I could actually call a turkey in for myself and kill it. When I did, it was the greatest thing ever Dad being not being a turkey hunter. You know, he was proud of me for doing that, but it just wasn't didn't
mean that much to him. Fast forward twenty years later, and I talked him into finally going on a turkey hunt with me. By then, I had matured a lot, I'd grown up, I was married, I had kids, and our relationship had gotten much stronger than it had in the past. So he finally agreed to go turkey hunt with me. So the opening morning of that season he
was going with me. It stormed like crazy all night long, and I was really I was really disheartened because I thought I was going to have to cancel the hunt because it was just, I mean severe storms, really bad ones, heavy rain. But daylight broke, it was still raining and thundering, but it wasn't as bad as it was. We decided to go out to this farm place that we were hunting and listen for turkeys, just see if we can
get anything going. We got out there. It was probably about seven thirty because it had been raining as much. We just we slept in and ate breakfast, and we got out there about seven thirty. Tried to hear, you know, tried to locate some birds, couldn't hear anything. We're standing by the truck on this knob on top of this field, with this big track of timber down below us. And this track of timber was really it was shaped kind of like a turkey's foot. It had three big branches
that came off of it. There was one like central area, and then three haulers went off of this this turkey foot. And while we're standing there trying to decide what we're going to do, this huge peel of thunder sounded. And when it did, we heard two gobbles.
It was the coolest thing.
And they were they were way over like on the second hauler. But we didn't really have an approach to get over there. So I told him, I said, there's one tree in this field. I said, let's go set up at this tree and just see if we can kind of get an idea of where they're heading so that we can try to get him. And he said, okay, So we go down here to this tree, and we set up and this tree is probably thirty yards from the edge of the timber, and it's the only tree
in the field. We sit down real quick, we get our face masks on, and I started calling and they immediately answered us back, both of them. It's like they were in stereo. They were just together constantly and we could hear him, and they were getting closer as time went on. But you know, they were two haulers over. I really didn't expect him to come over to where we were. Suddenly we seen movement across the first holler. They had crossed one of the hallers and were up
on this ridge, so they were pretty hot. They were coming to us, and so I looked over at Dad and I said, hey, do you see him? And he said yeah, and you could see he was. He was getting into it at this point. So it was really cool for me to be able to be there with him in that month and about that time, behind us, kind of where where the three houlers meet, behind us, this hen started talking and I say behind us.
It wasn't directly behind us, it was more to the right behind us.
So she was kind of calling him to her to our left, and I was calling him more to us to her right, and it kind of became almost like a shouting match between me and the hen. I was disheartened because I did not think I could call those toms away from that hen. And matter of fact, I even looked over to Dad one point and I said, maybe we should just give it up, because I just didn't have the I did not have the confidence at that point that I'd be able to pull that off.
And he said, no, keep at it, we say, He said, we're here, we might as well see what we can do. So we kept going. It was a solid twenty minutes back and forth with that hen, and pretty soon one of the toms broke from the top of that ridge and came right down that holler, flew over a brush pile, which I didn't think was likely at all, and started up the ridge.
Well.
His buddy when he saw that, he did the same thing just shortly thereafter. So my heart's beating a mile a minute. I can see him coming, but and I can hear him rattle, but I can hear him gobble. But it's that rattle on the bottom of their gobble. Whenever they got to within, you know, forty yards of us. That just really got me excited. I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. I said, get your gun up, and he already had it up, and he said.
You get yours, You get yours up, and.
I realized I didn't have it up, so I got it up. We're sitting there together, these two birds break out of the timber.
They come up.
They're drumming, you know, and it's that really intense drum that you can feel down in your chest. I mean, they're so close that when they drum, there's just like this warm feeling that just comes right down through your chest.
And it was.
It was truly surreal in that moment to be there with him, of all people, you know, because he had never done that before.
So the birds kind of cut.
To our our left a little bit, so they're they're kind of they're not going to that hen. They're strutting for us and looking for the hen that we're supposed to be. But they kind of cut to our left a little bit and give us a perfect shot at about twenty five yards, and I kind of whispered, I said, on the kind of three, we're gonna shoot.
And I didn't even have to count loud.
We both just counted three silently and shot, and it sounded like one shot. Both birds fell over dead, and those were those were good birds. I mean they had one had a ten inch beard, one had ten and a half. They both had one of a quarterant spurs.
They were nice birds.
I've killed bigger one since, but I've never killed one more memorable. I mean, as soon as those birds fell over, we jumped up, we hugged, you know, and I hadn't hugged my dad quite a while at that point. It was the greatest moment I ever had in the woods.
And it all goes back to, you know, that.
That he he didn't do it before, and I couldn't.
I had to teach myself how to do it.
I don't know, I guess for me in that moment, whenever we both killed our turkeys together him his first, and we were right there together, I kind of felt like that I had earned his respect, and that was the greatest thing in the world to me, still is to this day. I mean, I've hunted, I said, I'm forty eight years old. I've hunted my whole life. I've done a lot of great things in the woods are what I think are great and fun things, but nothing has ever come close to that.
If there is a happier ending to a story than doubling up on gobblers with your dad, I haven't heard it. I hope you all take more time than you should to enjoy the Turkey Woods this spring, and that you share that time with those you love.