The Spring Legion Podcast
Welcome to a year-round discussion on the wild turkey and those who hunt them. Hosted by Hunter Farrior, founder of Spring Legion and author of Ballad of a Turkey Hunter, the weekly podcast is geared for all outdoor communities and dives deeper than the usual tactics and calling tips. Holding true to the brand, topics are built upon respecting the heritage and challenges of hunting, with a never-ending appreciation for all that the spring season provides. Enjoy insight from special guests like Dave Owens of Pinhoti Project, Cuz Strickland of Mossy Oak, our friends at NWTF and Muscadine Bloodline, and so many more widely known for their impact in the turkey hunting community, as well as the deer, duck, and waterfowl realm, who exhibit the obsession of which only a real turkey hunter may truly understand. Thanks for listening.
The Spring Legion Podcast
George Mayfield: The Art of Turkey Hunting - Setups, Calling, Silence and Patience
Together, we unpack the art of turkey hunting, from the subtleties of understanding turkey behavior and mating rituals to the evolutionary dance that hunters must perform to match wits with these clever birds. The stories we exchange aren't just tales from the woods; they encapsulate the deep respect and camaraderie that come with this venerable tradition.
Our conversation steers through the patience-testing, heart-racing moments that every turkey hunter knows all too well. Remember your first time holding your breath as you waited for the perfect shot? Relive that anticipation with us as we recount tales of strategy and stealth, like a chess game played in Alabama's verdant forests. We laugh about the missed opportunities and marvel at the persistence required in this game of cat and mouse. Plus, we touch on the unspoken bond among hunters, those who understand the thrill of the chase and the sweet victory when patience and precision finally pay off.
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Alright, we're back for another round of Mr George Mayfield and our buddy Blake Dahl over in Livingston, alabama, part two of a two part series where I got to go over there and sit down in one of the cooler turkey hunting offices I've ever seen in my life. It was a cool experience. We got a couple videos I'm going to have on our social media stuff for you all to see some things he might have been referencing in our part one episode. We hope you enjoyed it and if you did, we hope you left a review or a rating or something of that nature shared it to social told friends something along them lines.
Speaker 2:We're going to dive in a part two real quick and it's just as good as part one, Don't you worry. Got some more stories, more theories and tactics and philosophical kind of tidbits in there. So going to remind y'all one time real quick, right before we hop on in that. The new wisdom series, camouflage bottom land suit. We got the ultra light moisture wick and shirt and button down shirt that is in the four way stretch active pants they are. They're set to arrive Thursday. If you pre-ordered them at the exclusive pre-order event at NWTF convention, they should be shipping out Friday morning. And if you didn't get to catch them there at the pre-sale, they will be online at SprintLegioncom beginning Friday March 8th. So listen to this after March 8th at everysprintlegioncom, check them out, grab your set and with that we're going to dive into part two with Mr George Mayfield.
Speaker 2:But I mean, I don't like I said I gone broke If you weren't for the two years you mentioned earlier I think it was before we press record and mentioned, you know, kind of the the display in of Turkey's and this biology of it and this a point that is so easy to to understand. It's not as easy to comprehend but it's hard to put into words and again around it is difficult to grasp something so complicated and simplified down into. You know, the stage, like you mentioned, and I mean just the point of the point of spring, was kind of how they playing out and being a lot of folks and I've been one of them, I'll be guilty of it, and I remember the day I realized I'm in the wrong spot, I'm in too good of a spot.
Speaker 2:Get back a little bit. Let him have the. You know the stage, as you mentioned just elaborate on that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Sure, you know the we all, everybody that hunts, I mean they be from the very beginning. You're learning and start recognizing these things. You might like you may never verbalize it or have a name for it, but you understand it in the stage is a concept. I mean, a Turkey has evolved to its competitive situation for God, back in the day. I don't know if you've ever read some of the, the original literature by Bertram, bertram and his travels across the southeast. You know, I mean before Europeans, ever before there wasn't America, I mean I'm talking about, you know, an explorer days.
Speaker 1:Europeans first spent time over here trying to figure out what this, you know, this land was all about. Well, they, they talked about, or Bertram wrote about how in the spring, that it was almost like deafening the goblin in certain places, well, everywhere, but in certain places the goblin was so intense and lasted so long in the morning and you couldn't hear, and I've heard a few times in Texas. I mean, relative to what I have experienced it was kind of like that. I'm sure it wasn't like what Bertram experienced, but in those situations it's competitive and I think you know and I'm just going to throw this up. People bat it back at me if they want to. I don't know. I admit that up front.
Speaker 1:But if you ever wondered about shot goblin, why are they gobbled? A door slamming or a crow, or you know, he ain't mad at no crow, it's just a noise that stimulates them to gobble. Well, I think that has something to do with their evolution in groups. I mean, turkeys are more successful in groups, they're social animals and they evolve with that and but when it comes to reproducing, it's competitive and the one that gobbles the most in the hardest and displays, you know, for where the hands can choose, prefers his display or whatever.
Speaker 1:Who knows what women thinking, but I'm old school, but ultimately in turkeys the female chooses who she's going to squat for, ok, and so he's out there doing his thing, showing out. Well, when he's got all these colors on his head, I mean like a communion, change his colors. I'm. How beautiful is a strut in Turkey? I mean it's gorgeous, you know, the sun hits it just so. And the iridescence, I mean now it's like a neon sign. Well, I didn't press me, it has impressed me. Well, the hen, for whatever she's looking for, of course she's attracted or not attracted, and you know, that the the gobbler to be effective, has to be seen.
Speaker 1:And for him to be seen he's got to get in a place where he can be seen. You know he's not in a bar to get in a ditch. He's over there on the rise that we were, you know, a prominence high ground I always call it the high ground and where he can see. But, more importantly, at that time he's to be seen. You see, and I mean that's why actors act on a stage. They're bigger than life. Yeah, you know, you get up on, you know, everybody looking up at him. Well, same with the Turkey. So he's up there doing his thing and trying to compete and trying to ward off other, you know, outdo the other males and all Well the hit it's.
Speaker 1:It's natural for us as hunters, as predators, to be attracted to the stage. In other words, we can kind of tell where that is. That's pretty cool. I saw a turkey up there the other day. Well, and and I did it for years, didn't know what I was doing wrong, but when I would choose a place to sit, damn, if I wouldn't sit right in the middle of the stage, mm, hmm, I mean, it was hell. I could see. You know I'd open, yeah, but suddenly in Turkey, see, I was up there, you know, I mean I mean they used to come up to my calling because they were curious what that was.
Speaker 1:But I mean you know, but they would think it's not natural for a hen to assume the stage and go to raise and came. Hens don't do that. I don't know when I learned to shut up and be quiet and listen to more than I called. Oh, a hen's looking for a goblin, he's over there gobbling on his stage or wherever he's going from the pasture edge or something like that. Oh, she's going to. She's pecking and scratching along and going to. I've seen some run to. You know, right after fly down there, break into a run, but it's on. Koy Hinn come by and I've seen it, I witnessed it and.
Speaker 1:I've been close enough to hear it and it's not a lot said on the Hens part. I mean that's probably not more than a three to five note. Yep it most in this medium low level volume.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:That's it and she's. That's what happened on that hunt with Mason. I told him exactly what was going to happen. I said then we had it happen. A hen came and flew the slew. I heard the wing big flew the slew and I know I'm jumping around here, but this is an experience that that we talked about earlier and came through there looking for that goblin and she probably called three times and one time was a white, it was, and then one time it was, and she went right through and he wasn't there when she came through looking for it.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what she was doing, and had he not already run up on me, you know, and I didn't have a gun, but I mean, had he not done that, he would have been there, probably, or in within ear shot of her, and they would have hooked up right there somewhere around that spot.
Speaker 3:We were out.
Speaker 1:We. My friend Mason was wanting to hunt, so but that's about it. Why, why don't they raise can? I've heard them fly down and they, you know they're yipping. Well, it's different when they're all grouped together and the hens are competitive too and there's a pack order among the hens and one out tries to get the other one in there. They're not looking to breed a goblin. Why would they want to raise hell and where other hens could hear they got. That's competition for her. They're gonna go through where they know these goblers to be and they're gonna be kind of quite about it, subtle about it yeah.
Speaker 3:They might be moving fast, but as they're going, they're looking and then they'll. That's right, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it, and so that's how they hook up with those goblers, and the goblers might not say a word, they might just start drumming, you know, and they hook up, but I mean yeah. I know. So there's so much going on and you just have to when you that patience thing we were talking about. What patience is is a firm belief in yourself that you know what the hell's going on.
Speaker 3:You're just gonna have a positive outcome, no matter how long you're there for.
Speaker 1:Exactly You're gonna sit there until it does. That's what patience is. If you don't know, you can't sit there.
Speaker 3:It's sort of like you can but you won't. You won't.
Speaker 2:No, you won't do it.
Speaker 1:You will get up and go looking for one or try to make one gobble. I mean I've done it, but that's not how you kill them. Not, it's really not. I mean you can get on some, you got a bunch of two-year-olds and you can do it a lot, but if you, you know, I mean it's not how I kill them.
Speaker 2:I'll put it that way.
Speaker 1:That's what I should. You can kill a turkey anyway.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, we would go and we would start whenever I was in high school and we'd started a spot that one in particular, turkey on top of the gas line that morning. That was when I learned more lessons that morning than I could have ever learned. But we would start in a spot and if you had never been hunting with him especially at his experience now then it would drive you crazy because you would maybe take two or three steps in an hour and you sit I'm not kidding you and hey.
Speaker 1:Well, I got tired.
Speaker 3:Two steps, Well it wasn't that he knew the turkey was there and he was just waiting on him to make a move. And you know that in itself that morning we set up. We got in there. You had heard the turkey gobble. I was sitting down at the bottom, you were at the top, I knew he was there, yeah.
Speaker 3:He had been there and I had been hunting this turkey and I had been struggling. I had hit him from three or four different areas and he was like well, what about that? He told me an approach that I was like. You know. I've never thought about that. So we tried it that morning and then we finally got in there where he was, which really wasn't that far from the truck.
Speaker 1:It took a while to get in there, right? I mean, if we charged over there, I wouldn't have had the confidence to believe he was still in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In other words, if you just marsup on the pine hill open in there, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was where he was, I mean he lived up there and if we didn't get in there, right, stay low. Keeping the shadows Went around the backside of the field. You know, I mean if we hadn't done it right he'd never come, Not at all. And I can't do that. I can't go busting up in there and without being convinced that I unscrewed it up for every guy there and for every set of words. But when we got to where we wanted to be, up on top of that piney ridge, real pretty open in there and see everything you need to see- the back of the hill was about 15 yards, I guess 20.
Speaker 1:Got up there where we had a y'all. When you sit to Turkey here's something I totally know and believe in you always try to put something between you and where you think he's going to come.
Speaker 2:Some barrier.
Speaker 1:Because if you don't, what's going to happen? He's gonna stand out there and look and say, hmm, you get picture when is that?
Speaker 2:I don't know if you could call or you don't think, well, there's a him, but I don't say, or I mean, you want him to.
Speaker 1:when you see that Turkey, you want to be in gun, Not standing out there at 80 yards looking for you. You know 90% of the people when they get kind of further along with their turkey hunt and that's where they mess up. You've got to sit in the right place to kill him. You might call him up, but you won't kill him. That's what he's ill tell me. Unless you, when you learn to see it right to a Turkey, you'll kill him. But if you don't, you might call him up, but you ain't gonna kill him.
Speaker 3:He'll be out there 70 or I know. That morning we wrapped up around there and we got to the top of the hill and by the time we got there it was 11 o'clock.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3:We started it, they like by the time we got there. It may have been 200 yards, but we got there, it was a pretty good way yeah. I mean it was. It was a good as it's further than I'm sitting here making it seem like, but it wasn't that far.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean you could have gotten there in 10 minutes walking straight, yeah.
Speaker 3:And we got up there and we got to the edge of the hill and then we're sitting there, we're listening to. Turkey had not gobbled all morning long. We gobbled about twice on the limb and we got up there top of the hill. Obviously, I'm almost bored at this point.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he thinks I'm crazy.
Speaker 3:It's okay, we're sitting there and we walk up there and he's like you hear that. He said there's a turkey scratching down there at the bottom of that hill, and you could just hear it. I mean it almost like the rustle of a squirrel, I mean it was just. It was noise, though, and it was dang sure something making the noise.
Speaker 1:So I like to hear it.
Speaker 3:And that's where the turkey had gone, was down in there.
Speaker 1:So he hadn't gone anywhere. He's one gobbled Nowhere.
Speaker 3:I mean he ain't gone anywhere in that amount of time. And we got there and we sat down and Mr George scratched in the leaves and made very couple. I mean just a couple of very subtle turkey sounds, because there wasn't any turkey sounds going on in the woods, so he was quiet. And we sat there, I guess an hour went by and we were, we were ready, you know, to at first first, and then we got to conversatin.
Speaker 3:And next thing, I know we're both on our elbows laying over on the side of the tree. Lo and behold, you know, at the worst time possible, the turkey. We hear something and I look over. I said, oh God, there he is, looking just like that at me I mean by the time he got up there he'd seen us and he turned around and wheeled and obviously I shoot down through the bush.
Speaker 2:At the turkey didn't cut a feather.
Speaker 3:And he just kind of looked at me and he was like I'm not going to say what he said.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what I said, but I probably wasn't nice about that, but I mean that was a screw up, I'll put it that way.
Speaker 3:And he he just said well. I felt like shooting at him was probably so, but I had gotten there and that's what he just kind of looked at me. He shook his head. He said well, did you hear a spurs clanking together?
Speaker 2:I don't make it better and that that was one turkey.
Speaker 3:That was one turkey and I know for a fact that I never killed. I don't know if anybody ever killed it.
Speaker 1:And I promise you that I never looked at that turkey's feet. Okay, but based on how that turkey responded that morning and based on all the all the information that I'd gotten, I was going to help a turkey.
Speaker 3:It was.
Speaker 1:And I'll never know for sure, neither will you, but we did call him up.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I think Blake got over another hump that morning with how effective that is. They don't wear a Rolex. The smart ones, the ones that are learned, they ain't no hurry, and and you can't be either. I mean, if you are, then you're going to end up back at the truck without one, a lot more than somebody that is willing to take his time and let the turkey be the turkey and do what he's going to do.
Speaker 2:The whole turkey's.
Speaker 1:Just don't get in the hurry to do that. Now there's a new. I alluded to this earlier and I'm going to go. Well, we'll jump into this thing. You know I've gotten about where, if I don't know a turkey, I mean.
Speaker 1:I don't misunderstand me, and I just I want to hunt a turkey. I know I had my choice. I take one that way than a, rather than a hundred the other way. Just shoot them when they run up there. But all there's just something about the experience and having a relationship with another turkey over time and get beat makes it so sweet when you kill one like that and it's a, it's a, it's a slot, a sad gladness relief kind of. But it's not all high five and rolling and straw when you kill one that you know so good, I promise you.
Speaker 2:Was it oddly quiet? For the first time in a long time, it feels like.
Speaker 1:It's, it's like. What am I going to?
Speaker 2:do more. Right, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't kill my my friend, but he damn sure wasn't my enemy, but I did hate him. But I loved hearing him.
Speaker 2:No, no, no no no, no.
Speaker 1:And so you know, as a turkey owner, you you got so many mixed emotions, you know that it's tied up in this bird and with I tell you what it is. It's. It's not near as much fun when you don't have one. I didn't have one last year. I know I've said it more than once, but I enjoyed my turkey season, but it wasn't like it was before that turkey in there on that mannequin, that's. That's. That was him, the one that I hunted about six years you know.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's a grown turkey.
Speaker 1:You know but all.
Speaker 3:He didn't have the one last year, and that was, I know, gotta be the first, first year, and this will be 20 years now. Me and Mr George have been hunting turkeys that he did not specifically have a turkey that he was trying to kill, and that's the that's the gods on his truth. He always had one. He either had it named or he knew where it was you know, whatever, but still not well.
Speaker 1:He knew the turkey and I don't, like you know, having them named. I mean, that's a good example of of having a relationship with a turkey, but I don't. It's almost gotten to be like with the deer hunters and stuff, having them all named.
Speaker 2:It's almost cheap and some.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:They can come up with some better names. Yeah, I'm telling you. You know I don't want to do the like that because it's nothing cheap about them.
Speaker 3:You went down there and you killed that turkey and I had talked to you on the phone that morning after it happened and I had come in there and I saw you. But you sat down there on the ditch in the silence and you would.
Speaker 1:Oh, I did, I did.
Speaker 3:And I think you were kind of getting to. You know the point.
Speaker 1:After that, you've killed him and now you have to sit here and think about, well, how much, how much time you know, or how well you know, it takes years to have a relationship with turkeys, you know, I mean, and it's a series of events that you can't, you know you can't make it all happen. It just either happens or it doesn't. And that particular turkey, you know, I told you some of the story, or maybe all of it, but there was three goblers as two or three year olds and I called them up and it's a property line involved in it and that's really what kept the turkey alive as long as it was on it.
Speaker 1:He had enough sense to pack up and move off.
Speaker 2:But after.
Speaker 1:I killed the first one. It was three of them run up there you know, run up and put in the road right there and I dusted one, you know and they all hopped around and put it and finally flew off, you know, and scared, you know.
Speaker 1:And the next year, I think, I took somebody in there and there was two of them gobbling right there and this place, that area of this place, it didn't load with turkeys and it should be, but it never has been. There's always like three or four in there, and that's it. And my buddy killed one, yipped them up and there was two of them standing right there and, boom, you know, another one went, you know, oh yeah, he took off. Well, you'd think the turkey would learn. And I took Tracy in there and we went in there in black, dark and we were right on the property line and the turkey was roosted within 80 yards of us. He was drumming in the tree for like and I did a fly down with my wing and all that and Turkey flew down in the road and run up there and my buddy, tracy, shot him down with this 10 gauge and I mean I didn't have good and he, I mean I took Buster back in in my dog and we looked for half a day for this turkey.
Speaker 1:It was pretty good turkey, you know. It was three, probably five year old turkey at the time, you know four, five year old figure to add some pretty good hooks and I wanted to get Tracy gone, actually Get the turkey here. You go See you next year, you know kind of thing, be honest with you, you know. So I could go hunting but we looked and looked and looked for this turkey and Buster never did find him. Buster, I'm finding a turkey now and I'm a lab, chocolate lab, so next year when I was listening in there I didn't hear a turkey Right where they were, but I did hear a turkey back toward railroad track, way off down in there.
Speaker 1:Never heard a turkey down in there before that fall and it turned out to be him, mm. Hmm, he got a lot.
Speaker 2:And I mean he just didn't, and anyway he would.
Speaker 1:What I did have was he ends especially early in the season and he would venture his way back from that railroad track up in there pretty tight and but he never committed and he never come over there across the line or anywhere near that line. Really, Say it about, there's a Hickory Ridge out through there. That, yeah, I mean you could. It was obvious. You see a good spot and that's where he would stay and he would gobble when he felt like gobbling. But he he'd come up in there and those pines of pine plantation that I had and but the hens loved it, They'd tend it.
Speaker 1:You know, 18, 20 year old, then pines, just perfect nesting habitat and they stayed up in there and it rocked on and we played cat and mouse around it up and down that property line. And it was just one morning that I was on the other side of the place almost and I heard a turkey gobble back that way in us and it's for me to hear him where he was. He had to be on me and I said that's him. Yeah, he won.
Speaker 1:That's, that's my turkey Mm hmm, and it was toward the end of season, just four went to Missouri. And sure enough, then we was him and I thought I heard I had a golf cart and I went a part way, but I didn't dare ride that golf cart down up in there I got and I can't walk that fast anymore. But I mean I'm kind of crippled.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I used on in there and I had to cross a big old open lane along that edge over there and when I was approaching it I saw a hand out there and I just got a glimpse of a hand and I said, hmm, he's probably with that or been with that in Because I knew he was out there on me at one point when I heard him gobble, and so I stayed a long time, longer than I probably should have, oh you know, without crossing, and finally I just said to help with it, I'm going to have to cross this to get where I want to get.
Speaker 1:You don't have any chance to get up in there and call this turkey up and I might bump him in it. I didn't like we were talking about before. I did not want to go in there without complete confidence that I'd gotten in there without being seen. That's very important to me. I mean, you screw it up before you ever start, right, yeah. And then when you do that and you, you, it's like showing your hands at the poker table. It's like do I have a winning hand when you start yipping?
Speaker 2:and he puts it together and you'll never call him up. She laughs.
Speaker 1:Open is just. I mean, they look, if you don't believe that, you better If you think they can't remember what you sound like. How the hell do they know a hand If they can't recognize forces? How does how does the gobbler make the other gobbler stay away with? Just got them. They recognize other turkeys and their voices are unique. Don't ever doubt that. I know it to be true, and if you, and if you don't believe it and if you and if you, if you give, if you give him a look at your hand.
Speaker 3:You know, you will never kill him. Yeah, not that way.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say not that way Not with that, with a rubber or slate or whatever you're using. Don't do that, and I've. I have learned the hard way is when I'm doing with a turkey like that. I don't use my alcohol and and because Maybe I'm not good enough but I've called up a bunch of them with a myocall but I think they can imprint they can hear that better than they a slate. I can trick them with a slate. I can trick most all my old turkeys.
Speaker 2:I mean kill with a slate.
Speaker 1:And that's just way, that's where.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:Most, but anyway I got across that opening and I stood there a long time. Blake had gone crazy.
Speaker 2:It's like, chase, you're getting mad at me. I'll stand there for 10 minutes waiting on a cloud to cover it for you.
Speaker 1:You've seen the old buck do it. Oh yeah, he might turn his head a little bit. You know he'll stand there for to your eyes what? Mm, hmm, you wouldn't do. You wouldn't have gone crazy now, but probably back then I would have gone crazy.
Speaker 2:Maybe you would I mean as a shadow on an eye. I ain't walking through and I'll stand there until the front pushes through. If I got to what you got to, do I mean to satisfy myself?
Speaker 1:I, you know I mean hell. They was going to be over there. I had to make a move and went on across and the pine plantation is hard to find a unique spot. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean it really is For Alice's before to perfect identical pine. I mean it's like.
Speaker 1:I don't like this. I sit down twice. But hey, it's hiped up, trees planted on the hip, still is wet. That's a wet place and I didn't. I wasn't satisfied, so I went on up, went on up, just kept pressing, but I knew I had been enough time that. I knew you weren't going to stay over there on my side, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I knew which way, and one time I was when I was headed that way, I thought I heard him gobble and it sounded to me like and when you think you heard one, you probably did. Yeah 95 percent and it sounded like he gobbled away from.
Speaker 1:That was the only clue I had and I went with it and took a chance and kept moving up, kept moving up and I got about 100 yards, 140 yards from the line, and I was running parrot with parallel to the rows and the pine trees and it hadn't been that long before, maybe three or four years, when they did that select cut, so you had to open the lane and then two lanes of trees and and there was a green field out there that corner.
Speaker 1:And you know I Thought, yeah, that's that damn green field. Ain't no way in hell he's gonna come right through these woods, if he comes at all.
Speaker 1:But I couldn't tear myself away from sitting at least within gun range that green field but I sit in the woods off the far corner, gun range to the corner in the part of the field, but mostly those alleys I had down through there toward where I heard him last gobble. I thought I did and I Don't do this very often but I covered up, I Got the limbs and straw and I'm sitting up on a hip on a pine tree about that be I would change it and.
Speaker 1:But I pulled all this stuff up around me and and I hid, I got some limbs and Kind of laid them up on me and I covered, put pine straw for me and I got into a kill position Long before. I didn't sit there with my gun in my lap, I promise you.
Speaker 1:You know, and for I ever said a word and I got my slate out and I don't remember exactly what I said, but he wasn't much, it was just like I'm over here, hey, I'm over here, that's about it. And I got in the gun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, waiting mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, I ain't kidding, I'm in the gun here with like this. I'm sitting there with my gun on my knee pointing straight down that alley and I'm Cutting my eyes from right to left. I turn my head, I am. I know who I'm with.
Speaker 3:You can feel his presence, so you know.
Speaker 1:I knew he was there. I knew he was there. I Mean I really did. I don't know how to explain that without sounding like bullshit, but I Trusted he was there and I sat there and I sat there and I sat there. Man, I got my ass wet. I mean that water's soaking up mosquitoes, god of mighty, and it was cloudy, kind of darkest anyway. Oh, that's what they go. I couldn't believe my hands were shaking, man. I couldn't, I didn't know what to say.
Speaker 2:What do you say that I didn't?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, honest, I mean my hands were shaking, I don't know if I could get up. Daddy might not, but I mean I Didn't know what to say and in my, in that state, I didn't do anything. So I didn't, I didn't do anything except I Like I really start staring down. I mean, he got straight out from me, right where I said he was gonna come and I mean, you know, I see 67 yards and then pine straight down that alley and I sat there, and I sat there.
Speaker 1:And I'm nothing, and I am starting to wander with my eyes. Mm-hmm, now you can believe this part or not. The first thing I knew they told me that turkey was within gun range was a put.
Speaker 1:Like hitting the animal with ball peeing hammer, mm-hmm, great, ran up my spine. He saw me all Hidden, all covered up. No kidding, he saw me was mossy Okinaw and I was. I Was hidden. Yeah, I swear I was hidden best I could hide. I mean I didn't crawl, you know. I mean he had come down the edge of that field.
Speaker 1:I never saw him move. The picket fence didn't work. I saw no movement and he was standing in the corner Looking and it was thick as hell right there. I could see his head. I cut my eyes. Think, lori, if I'd have moved anything, he would have flown. All right, he was. He had looked in there and he saw me 40 yards from that corner and putted Now I'm talking about, I'm in, honest to God, what no clock it was and I'm in the gun looking this way and it's about a I don't know about 30, 40 to 30 degree angle from where my guns pointed and where he is.
Speaker 1:He turned and started going dead away, had no shot and he stepped. He feed a step. The other way I Would have never killed him. He stepped one step to the left, shot him in the back of head about 45 yards. Hmm, just that quick I, I did do that right, but how had Turkey saw me under those conditions? I mean, I don't know, I'll never know, but don't ever think that. Don't ever think they can't pick you out, because that's probably the most effort I ever put in to hide from one and he just walked up there and put it up.
Speaker 1:And I mean you know if that doesn't if I don't reach inside of you and just tell you how deficient you are in so many different ways, then you just won't ever know they have the advantage. If there's not all of them. Some of them are just like us Just dumb as dirt, don't know. No better, can't do right, if they try. I mean I've had them standing at the truck before- you know I mean, you know, just dumb, but just one. And that is when you go there and you have those kind of experiences with Turkey's, you have climbed the mountain.
Speaker 3:How many years? I don't think you mentioned how many years it was between the time Tracy shot to Turkey the three or four year old Turkey to the time that you harvested to Turkey.
Speaker 1:I want to say it was like five or plus five. Five or six years, five or six years and the reason I know it was that Turkey and I gotta tell this, I don't like cleaning turkeys- I mean people say what they want to. Mm-hmm, I got where. I just don't like doing it. And it doesn't have anything to do with the smell of the blood or anything like that. It's almost I don't know. It's like it's almost disrespectful now to take.
Speaker 3:Rip them all apart.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I mean I don't know how to explain that I end up putting them in the freezer. I don't need another truck in the mountain, you know I mean, but I don't still like doing it. But when I did get around to cleaning this Turkey, sure enough, and I wasn't really I'd kind of forgotten about that part. But Tracy shot him down with the shells. I gave him and a 10 gauge and it was copper plated forward back in the day and that's what the Turkey had in the left side of his leg.
Speaker 3:Some copper plated number fours.
Speaker 1:I mean it was within where Tracy shot the Turkey was in the mouth of that road going down to that green field which wasn't a hundred yards from where I killed the Turkey and it wasn't probably another 150 yards where both of his brothers were killed.
Speaker 1:So I mean that's a long story but that's enough the epitome of what Turkey hunting has evolved to mean to me. It don't get better. Now I've had some hunts that were completely different, but they were every bit as satisfying and interesting. Dan Grenan and I had one that was his. I've never been able to write about it. It was so good. Everything I've written about it didn't do it justice.
Speaker 1:It's one of the few hunts I've never successfully written about, but a man that owns as much land as Dan Grenan. When he stood up I didn't have a gun that day, but when he stood up from that hunt he staggered around and didn't know which way the truck was, and I didn't either. That's a true.
Speaker 2:So that's how you saw.
Speaker 1:That's how involved we were in that hunt. Yeah, we were. I mean, it was like I was in, I was messed up. Now that's the truth. Now, Dan will tell you, you bank with.
Speaker 3:I'm going to ask him about that morning. I will.
Speaker 1:That was the damnedest hunt I've ever been on, I believe, and and I was with somebody I didn't have a gun, but it was- I'll never forget that experience and I'll just tell you briefly about what transpired that morning.
Speaker 1:I called one of those turkeys up for Alex and and I knew it was old Turkey when I did it, but I put him up there and he boogered it. Turkey did that. Paris go right on the break. I sent him up there to the break. I could hear the truck coming up to him. I tried to whisper to him, but you hear me in any way. He's pointed this way Turkey popped his head up over here in Turkey.
Speaker 1:I was off a flu and you know when I tricked his ass I gave him up Boy, he come on up at him too, but he was gobbling like 10 o'clock in the morning still on the roof. This is old Turkey. And there was another Turkey back toward the county road over there. That always teased everybody who's strutting behind this antebellum home that nobody lived in anymore and everybody's seen him. People were, yeah, I don't worry about people poaching around in there. Then you know it's just not like that.
Speaker 1:But anyway, dan, that was one I had tried to call that Turkey. One morning he decided to gobble and hushed him with a mile call. That son of a gun went. He went silent on me and dammed with me and I was trying to guide, you know, went down finally to Turkey Gobbles. You know we'd been trying to get on him. He didn't gobble regular, he was old Turkey too, been strutting behind that house for years and I put my best springtime Me up on his knee and never said another word. Dan, I think exactly what I said, but Dan probably remembers and I shut him up. But those two turkeys they lived about half a mile apart and the book old power line went through there and that was kind of the dividing line, yeah, and they met up behind that old house one morning, late in the season and I was in the middle.
Speaker 1:in the middle, honestly it was two maniacs that had, just they had lost it. And it was like wow, wow, and they were just, I mean, I don't how long Dan, oh, really, the shoot he'd. He'd face us while he'd face that way. I mean but anyway, I won't let him tell you this story, and then I'll tell you my version, but I'll ask him tomorrow when I go up.
Speaker 3:Well, do, do.
Speaker 1:I guarantee you won't miss a chance to tell it. But you know I've been blessed and I know we don't have forever to talk about all this and we'll talk again but I've been blessed to have more or less grown up doing something I never dreamed I'd get to do. I learned about a bird that I didn't know nothing about. You know, we were talking earlier about how you, when you start you as a young man, you got all these physical abilities and but you're running a little short on wisdom and knowledge.
Speaker 1:I don't care how many years you went to college, you still don't know about the wild turkey, take your sick to his ass and sit to a thousand of them and but At some point in time you peek out physically and you you kind of breeds that same level intellectually, you understand enough about him, you know about equals to your physical ability, and then you get a point of dimension returns on the physical side. You might keep learning, but you can't get there fast enough.
Speaker 1:Close enough to learn like you used to. So you're learning doesn't stop, but it doesn't really accelerate the rate of increase in that rate and you might even miss a few more. But physically you're going downhill and it is an exponential decrease in capability. It's not a arithmetic, it's exponential. As you decline physically, you know you don't really increase. On the other side, and right about that point, when you're really maxed out, when you're really maxed out, you're going to be all you're going to be. It lasts three or four or five years. Maybe you start having these feelings like, well, you want to, you want to share it with somebody. Yeah, you know you want to. You want to. Hey, boy, you want to go hunting in the morning, you know, and you're talking about somebody that might have killed one or two. You know, you want to share it. You want to start passing it on. You want to somebody. But you're not just anybody. You want somebody that's got that burn, got that desire, that need to. I want to.
Speaker 1:And when you find them then it's like better than hunting.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, well, whenever you take that kind of person or you go well for me Sean, daily he's my guy you know, and he is. He's not far from the same age as us, but whenever I met him he was a teenager and I was at Mississippi State. It's just a good story, talking about passing it on. He had never killed, but just a few turkeys, and we had a really good hunt, and it just. We've been hunting together ever since the day that we met.
Speaker 3:And now it's really. You know. It's turned into a great friendship, but better yet. We learned from each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We talk about the turkeys, that we hunt in different areas and what's going on, and he's become really, really good at it and I didn't ever understand all of that. You know the passing on side of things. He pressed that super hard you know, and how important it was which he had, you know. Obviously he had a mentor, the greatest to him, you know, and probably to a lot of people, but yeah, the king, the king, the king.
Speaker 1:I didn't name him that, the community named him that, and they named him some other things too. But I tell you what? There wasn't anybody in that area that rivaled him, and no, never. And he was the king, and I was blessed to have been accepted. The only other person that he mentored besides his son, little bean, was his son-in-law, johnny, and Johnny turkey hunts, but he never really got into it. Like you know, we did, little bean. He's still a good friend and always been, and he doesn't. He's not as mad at him as the daddy was, but he's a damn good turkey hunter. So, but having that relationship with Ben Ezel was really.
Speaker 1:Without that I don't think I would have ever pursued or achieved a level in the sport that I did. I mean, he's the one that took me out of state first. He showed me that, hey boy, season's open for a long time after it's just down in Alabama.
Speaker 1:And he was the one that vouched for me to judge all those contests and World Child, I don't know. I ended up in judging 10 or 12 World Championships, you know, and all that. So, but Ben was the one that spoke for me and got me in. He's the one that took me to Missouri up there, you know, mr Bill. So that's when old Stevie Stokes and you know press all those guys for there. Everybody that was in the industry back then was there.
Speaker 3:That turkey camp.
Speaker 1:And I ended up being asked to run the whole dang camp. So, and I did, for about 20 years I was, took my guides up there and ran the camp.
Speaker 1:So so John Shipp, shockey, all those guys, and it was a good time, walter Parrot, he was winning, then I mean, it was a took Preston up there. I forget what he said, but it was funny, you know. Anyway, I have been blessed and I, you know, any way I can help anybody. That's why I do this. My nature is just kind of hold up, you know, be quiet and shut up and sit down, listen for a turkey to gobble. But I think it's my responsibility to partake in this and you know, I support Blake, you know 100% he's.
Speaker 1:he's got it going on now.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:I mean you do, he's, he's hell. Now, if you want your turkey kill, you, call him up. If you don't, don't say a word.
Speaker 3:Well, the only way that I know that he truly accepted me, was taking me up there to that Missouri camp and been up there several times. Yeah, you got the guy, some of Mr Bill's clients and had success.
Speaker 1:Ran the table Ran the table. You run the table. It's pretty good. We had going, you got it going on and that's how I got the job there. You know doing that in my day and Blake, I mean, if you invite people, mr Bill never charged a dime for anybody to hunt up there, but he had 10,000 acres of the best turkey hunting I ever experienced in my life. And people CEO of Bristol Myers, people like that you know we're up there and I'm yeah, I mean real.
Speaker 1:You know heavy hitters, world's largest dairy conglomerate, you know CEO of that Serious business, and when they entrust their clients or their partners or whatever, with you for a morning, they would really like for you to be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so those that could do it. You know it doesn't take long for them to rise to the top. And I mean, you know you can be the best turkey hunter in the world. If you don't have no turkeys, how are you going to prove it?
Speaker 3:Hard to do.
Speaker 1:But Mr Bill had the turkeys, mm-hmm, and that gave me a platform from which to operate from, and again, I was blessed to have met them, and I'm still. You know, I'm one of the old guys now. I preferred being opi, but now, hell, I'm oatmeal.
Speaker 3:I don't want to. I am, but I'm old.
Speaker 1:Still up there every year, though, but I know now I go and I got to carry Mr Bill's grandson, his son think about that, you know and kill him with turkey and that kind of stuff. So all the my mentors have all passed that were up there, the ones that you know that I don't know how to. I'll never be able to pay those folks back for all they gave me, but I'm trying, it's my time and I'm going to be up there. Every year I go up there for the people now more than the turkeys, and they got plenty of turkeys.
Speaker 2:But it's not the turkeys that make me want to be there yeah.
Speaker 1:You know and but it's great.
Speaker 3:The camp house is awesome and a liquor cell phone service. The only phone you can talk from. There is an old spin phone. Oh yeah, you got to get up there and get on it, if you got to talk to your wife.
Speaker 1:So we have some good time sitting on the bed in there talking oh man, I mean, it's just the color you can feel you can feel the history inside that building.
Speaker 3:I mean it's insane.
Speaker 1:I've got pictures of some of his first days when he well, it wasn't his first days, but it was at the beginning when everybody wore World War II camo and painted their face.
Speaker 2:Turkey's right Nice old Mm hmm. I got pictures of that.
Speaker 1:I'm long before Mosseo 86 and Mosseo and before crumbly and tree bark and all that stuff. I'm no more you know stuff that the 60s, early 60s, so, and they were, they had a camp. That was what was going on then, Right after the Missouri first opened its season and they had turkey up there. And it's been going on ever since. And I'm going to tell you now, I've been around this country a lot, not like some maybe, but a lot and you think about it.
Speaker 1:I mean how many turkey camps that are legitimate camps or multiple turkey hunters go and share information, and I mean there's not many turkey camps no. You know turkey hunters are like a bunch of damn coyotes. They don't. You know. They might pack up a little while, but that's at the party. You know that'd be a hot hot dough. But that one daybreak say, oh, it's a separate. Yeah, one howlin' over here, one you know, or howlin' or whatever you want to call it. But turkey hunters naturally don't get together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, they might have a friend or do.
Speaker 1:But that's it. And but this is an honest to God camp, like a deer camp, where people get together every day and the same people come and they, they share information and try to. You know you can kill one.
Speaker 2:You know we try to get you one you know that kind of stuff and I don't. You don't see that.
Speaker 1:That's one in Kaboo, missouri, the honeycuts, mr Bill Honeycutt and his grandson Drew, and I'm a fine people. I'll be there as long as they let me and you know I'm blessed to be there, sure.
Speaker 2:Well, we gonna start running out of battery here soon.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I got another battery somewhere. When you're gonna do around find it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm about to run out of juice myself.
Speaker 2:I think, I think I know for a fact the folks who've lived with this got a lot from it and you've, in fact, passed a lot on and this is gonna be very appreciated and I'm sure the folks who were listening to it a lot of you that are agreeing with it, or they they jot it down and they've got a mindset now they might not have had at the beginning.
Speaker 2:You know, and, if nothing more, a deeper appreciation and you know just some, a different mindset towards some of the stuff that they've probably heard me ramble about a little bit, and I mean, I get it from folks like that. You know, it's just, it gets passed down. It's not a, it's not a YouTube video on this. Necessarily you gotta sit down and you gotta learn. You gotta get a who's messed up and come back. Someone who is much better than me had the same problem. He fixed it. How did he fix?
Speaker 1:you know something like that.
Speaker 2:So but undoubtedly a lot of value and very humble and very appreciative for you, to the, the, the hospitality for me to just come up in here with a rig and plug it up and be able to capture some of it.
Speaker 1:It means a whole lot. You don't have to come back. There's a lot more where that came from? Absolutely, we sure will.
Speaker 2:But Mr George Blake definitely appreciate you all helping on him. And and yep for our listeners. We appreciate you all listening to the Sprinnellage podcast. We'll see y'all some other time.
Speaker 1:All right, honey. Thanks for coming, yes sir.
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