Just wondering how you got started turkey hunting.
Can't remember exactly what got me interested in it, but in my mid 20's I decided I was going to give it a shot. I had a Mossy 500 with a 26" barrel, with the old military woodland pattern and the stock turkey choke. The forums weren't around then and I didn't know anyone that turkey hunted, so I bought a Lohmans Pump Yelper :TooFunny: , a vest from Wal Mart, and the cheapest 2 3/4 inch turkey shells I could find. Loaded up the Mossy and went out.
Took a co worker with me to the WMA. I remember I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, did know how to call, and obviously didn't know about pattering my shotgun. We went out with that pump Yelper and hammered on it for all it was worth.
We ended up having a couple of birds gobbling that weekend but never saw them. After a while we both took a nap in the woods and then said to heck with this, turkey hunting sucks. Threw the Yelper in the trash, sold the vest at a yard sale, and sold the shotgun.
Didn't go turkey hunting again until I was in my 30's and couldn't believe what I had been missing all those years.
My uncle introduced me.
My uncle would come take me 2-3 times every year from age of 9 until he passed away when I was 17. But I wish I would have payed closer attention to what he was doing and asking more questions. Once he was gone is when i started missing going. So one morning I went by myself had them gobbling like crazy and never closed the deal, I was TV hunting i guess you could say. I wanted to see how many times i could make them gobble,I bet I heard 200 gobbles that morning. So I had to learn how to hunt and it was tough, hunting some of the toughest birds in the state of Alabama. Or should I say some of the most pressured in Alabama. I went until I was 19 until I killed the first bird I killed by myself. I didn't get real serious about it until around 25.
My dad has always been a hardcore deer hunter but was only a casual turkey hunter. I was always interested in hunting growing up and when I was of age to legally hunt, I asked him if we could turkey hunt. That fall I got my first hunting license and killed my first bird, a hen. Since then it has been an addiction for me. Me being so interested in it is what got my dad more into it. He had hunted them but we basically learned together. This was 15 years ago when I was 12 and we still hunt together 99% of the time, deer and turkey.
I heard a friend talking about turkey hunting and it sounded like fun!!! I went to wally world bought a DVD to see what it was all about and after I watched the first hunt I was like..."I GOTTA DO THIS!!!"....that was ten years ago & I'm STILL hooked!!! :funnyturkey: :fud: :OGani: :funnyturkey:
I grew up on a farm in Missouri and always saw turkeys. Had a couple neighbors and a cousin that hunted them a little bit. Went out for the first time in 1997 with an Iver Johnson 12 gauge with a fixed full, broken bead and whatever high brass shells dad had. Only call we had was an old Latham box. I had no idea what I was doing, but we did have a few tame turkeys at home so I kind knew what to sound like. Had one bird gobble at me, but I never saw him. That got my interest started.
The next year I had managed to learn how to use a mouth call, an HS raspy old hen, and bought an 835 from a neighbor. I managed to call in an overzealous 2 year old to range and I have been hooked (obsessed, really) ever since.
I started when I was 16. A great friend of mine took me for the first time he shot a gobbler that morning and I killed one that afternoon. I was hook from then on. I can never repay old Clint for taking me in and teaching me all that he did. Same dude got me into bowhunting at about the same time.
I grew up in the 60's in a small Alabama town with one cafe. My father was the game warden in the town and he often went to the cafe for coffee, sometimes taking me with him. Everyone in the town deer hunted but only a few turkey hunted. The turkey hunters seemed to be the "gentleman" hunters compared to all the deer hunters. They would often sit with my father at the cafe and obviously turkey hunting was the major discussion. I sat and listened to so many turkey tales and strategy ideas before I ever started that I had a good idea of how to turkey hunt before I ever tried it. My father was not a hunter by that time in his life but had been earlier in his life. He taught me to small game hunt, woodsmanship, and gun safety. But at the age of 15 I started deer hunting on my grandparents land by myself. Once I started driving I joined a deer hunting club and often watched turkeys while on deer stand. So a few years later I just decided to take a shotgun and my fathers Birmingham Lynch boxes and head to the woods one spring morning. I actually called a silent tom that first morning but I was so surprised when he showed up that I wasn't ready and he left as fast as he came. Three days later I killed my first longbeard and the addiction set in.
When I was a kid I never saw turkeys in the timber, so my dad or Grandpaw never hunted them. When I was in my mid twenties I started seein turkeys when I was fishin in the cricks and when out deer huntin. After a few years of seein em around I decided to get a tag and give it a whirl. A lot of trial and error.... Mostly error, and now I got the bug.
Not a really good story, but basically saw a few deer hunting and thought it would be fun. Went hunting and saw one fanned out and said to myself I want one of those on my wall. Hooked to this day.
Started turkey chasing at the age of 60. I was a deer-hunting addict until I was about 50, and then just kind of lost my enthusiasm as the crowds got thicker and the slob types seemed to move into the majority. I got really tired of the campsite trashing, sign-shooting and beer-can tossing pigs. The last straw was when I accompanied the State police on a decoy operation and out of the first ten vehicles that passed the decoys, 9 of them stopped and fired even though it was fully dark and at least an hour before legal shooting time. I just didn't want to be identified with that kind of behavior any more.
Looking for an alternative, my hunting partner and I turned to spring turkey. It sounded so simple... In our last deer camp before we started turkey hunting literally every day for a week we had a flock of 20 to 30 turkeys IN CAMP every morning wandering between us and the fire, pecking between the tents. How hard could turkey hunting be, right?
The only hitch is that we are both extremely sensitive to poison oak - a western cousin of poison ivy - that grows rampant in the underbrush on the west side of Oregon's Cascade Mountains. Unfortunately, Oregon's densest turkey populations are in the heavy poison oak country, so I've had to do my gobbler-chasing out in the high desert and juniper country where the itchy brush doesn't grow.
A slight problem is that in that arid part of Oregon the census is not birds-per-square mile, but square-miles-per-bird. The only flock we have EVER seen was the gang in our deer camp that one year. However, I think we are slowly dialing it in. In five years of 1 3 or 4-day trip per year, we have heard gobbles 3 times. That's as close as we have come to bagging feathers. I had to lay off for two years due to a heart attack followed by some really heavy surgeries, but on our last trip I called a in a hen that literally squatted at my partner's boot; AND the next day we heard a tom!
I can't describe how much fun it was, working that hen until my partner could have rapped it on the head with his barrel. As it turned out, the turkey was apparently brain-damaged since even when we stood up she just clucked and started following us like a dog. We separated by a couple of hundred yards and started working our way a mile back to camp, and this daft hen would follow me for a couple of hundred yards, then run down the hill to him for a while, then back to me, clucking her head off...we were in hysterics. At camp she hung about 50 feet away from the tents for a couple of hours before fading into the sagebrush. All of this was at least 8 miles from the nearest house, so we can't figure out what was with this bird - maybe she had never seen a person before.
After that incident, I was hooked for life. I retired at the end of 2013 and this year expect to make several turkey trips, mostly solo because my partner isn't sufficiently stable to get into the field any more. I will be taking a new guy with me on at least one trip, though.
The heart attack, followed by peritonitis surgery, followed by cancer surgery, changed my outlook on life a bit. There is another thread on the forum about your best turkey trip ever. Mine will be my next one, and the one after that, and the one after that........and who knows, maybe someday I'll even bag a bird!
I started turkey hunting back in the 80's. I used left over 3 inch #4 lead shells from duck hunting in a 30 inch fixed full choke Rem Wingmaster Magnum.
I got a Ben Lee tape and listened to what a turkey call sounded like. And then taught myself how to hunt them. Back then I had to hunt Land Between the Lakes in KY since that was the only place that had a turkey population big enough to hunt in KY. I killed my first turkey the very first morning I hunted. And thought "this is easy". I went 3 more years before I killed my next one. Been after them ever since.
I started back in the mid 80's as a teenager mainly to fill in the void when I wasnt deer hunting.Had a friend whose dad and uncle were turkey killin machines(and still are)and he had gotten big into it.He even became friends with Ray Eye via mail and telephone.I thought it would be neat to try so I got some camo,a ML Lynch world champion box call and a single reed quaker boy diaphram.Used my dads winchester Model 12 20 gauge with fixed modified choke and hi-brass #4s(because 4s is what REAL turkey hunters used ;) )Killed my first bird on my 16th birthday,stayed with it into my early twenties,really got heavy into deer hunting,then that became what it is,and id say in my late 20s/early 30s I got really addicted and cant get enough yet today.My only regret is I wasted those 5-8 years worrying about deer hunting year round instead of chasing gobblers.
Started in the early 1980's in Missouri with my dad. Kept hunting them all the way out to California....
mudhen
I basically just got started b/c I had another reason to be in the woods vs being in school.... I watched VCR tapes and hunting shows to see how my calling should sound and bought a Quakerboy Glass/slate call (which is still today my favorite call). Off to the woods I went. The weather is beautiful and so is the nature itself this time of the year. I just fell in love with it especially after a gobbler slipped in on me one day unseen & silent & let out a gobble from about 10 yards behind me (I couldn't see him due to being rested against a huge oak) which about made me crap my pants and the hair on my neck stand right up. No better sound in the timber. I was hooked....
A good friend took me turkey hunting in my mid twenties. Ever since that first day I became a addict. To this day it is my favorite hunt I've ever had. Now my best friend, and a well accomplished turkey hunter and caller, has taught me so much and made me the turkey hunter I am today.
I got started when I was teenager deer hunting. In Tx there's a fall turkey season and I used to get so board waiting on bucks to wonder by that I decided to hunt turkey one day. I liked it so much that I decided I'd try it in the spring....the rest is history :z-guntootsmiley:
I don't really remember exactly how I got in the turkey hunting, but I'm glad I did! I started hunting them in the spring of 1992 I believe. And I do remember that all my friends and their families, heck we were all big Deer hunters, a lot of them still are. But I wanted to be different I want something no one else hunted and so I read about spring turkey hunting, and what really did it was a show (I don't recall which one) on TNN (The Nashville network) and thought I got this! I remember the first call I bought was an old Lynch world champion box call then I bought an HS strut push button yelper. Back in those days where I live in south-central Indiana we didn't have near the turkey that we have now.I had to be driven or stay at my uncles to hunt. And there weren't a lot of turkeys around my uncles but that's where I remembered seeing turkeys at when I was young squirrel hunting and deer hunting so that's where I started first. Never even heard a gobble out there that year! The next year I've learned that from talking to guys that the Hoosier national Forest had birds in it and that was just a little bit west of my uncles farm. So I would get dropped off at the road and I would wander around in those hills with two friction calls that I barely knew how to use, a compass so I could find my way back out and no stinking idea what the hell I was doing! But this was the year I got bit because I remember the first cool crisp morning that I stood on a Ridgetop and stroke the paddle of that box call And a Gobbler responded and I've been stricken ever since! It wasn't until 95 until I got my first bird, a 22lb 9" bearded 2yr old.
Dad got me started, God rest his good soul. The late Dick Kirby was influential. Hunted with him several times in Western OK.
Gman
I got started in college (about 30 years ago) and hunted turkey in an area I hunted quail. I had no idea what I was doing , didn't even know anyone that hunted turkeys. So I did what I knew....I stalked them. Would locate birds, then use deep creeks to stalk up within shotgun range , slip up the bank and was fortunate enough to harvest a big gobbler.
After that I didn't hunt them again until the mid nineties when we had some move into farmland my family owns. I still didn't know what I was doing and mostly just callled badly and chased them around unsuccessfully.
I moved to another part of the state where there were more turkeys in 2007 and my boss took me out a couple of times...one of those times I called in a tom by myself and harvested him....my boss filmed it. I was hooked from that point on! Obsessed is a better word. Now I own five turkey guns and a big toolbox full of chokes.
My dad and uncle started taking my when I was 7 to an old alfalfa field by our house back then and I was lucky enough to harvest quite a few big toms with them in that field and I have been hooked ever since. I still usually go as much as I can with my dad or uncle, or even taking my younger cousin out. I just love being out there with family when the birds are all fired up.
One of my good friends in high school took me. Didn't learn much from him lol but he's the one who took me first and we still hunt together at least once a spring.
Field and Stream magazine got me started with an article I read. I think they were hunting Westerveldt Lodge. Joined NWTF when they starter. Membership was 5 bucks.Hunted my first time in 1979 .Didn't know nothing. Carried an H&R single 10 ga. and a Lohman box call.Seen one gobbler the same time he seen me and it was all over.Took a few years for me to get serious. Worked with Harold Knights brother Charles and another fella ,Charlie T. They took me under their wing and I've been hooked ever since.
I was deer hunting in TarHollow National Forest In Ohio back in 2000 and had a big flock of birds roosting on a ridge across from me every evening and got the bright idea to buy a fall turkey tag and after thousands of dollars later I'm addicted.
Had hunted all my life in SE Alabama on my Dad's farm, mostly squirrel & dove when I was a kid, using a 20g Franchi gun my Dad had. In my late teens & 20's, I really didn't hunt that much ('cause of school & work), but I jumped back into hunting deer & turkey in 1999, after talking to my brother about it over Thanksgiving or Christmas break (can't remember now).
My brother had been deer hunting all his life, and had started turkey hunting a few years before our chat, and his stories were TOO WILD to resist not trying it myself! Pretty much went "blindly" on his advice, hopped in the car, bought my Mossberg 835 Ulti-Mag @ Wal-Mart & along with a box of Federal #4's (my brother "guaranteed" it work with the stock choke tube in the 835), and started hunting 'em anywhere & everywhere I could. Never patterned that gun or anything; just pretty much "winged it". Watched a few DVD's here & there; the "usual" thing, ya know. Eventually bagged my first "silent tom" with my cousin in 2001 in Alabama, and REALLY got the fever then! :) Was living in Texas, and hunted Fort Hood with a fellow NWTF member I met online, and learned a LOT about hunting Rio's from him.
So now, this is my 15th season chasing these crazy birds, and ironically - my brother & I have *never* bagged a bird when we've hunted together yet! Have been on a BUNCH of birds over the years, but for this or that reason, we've never sealed the deal "together"; obviously, yet again, we're hoping to change that this season! He now has a 3 year old son, and we're hoping to get him out in the field soon, too; raising up the NEXT GENERATION of turkey & deer hunters! :)
Dumb luck really found a great place to hunt and figured it was simple to shoot a turkey 15 yrs ago...boy how I was wrong....took me till my 2nd yr to kill 1 and have been hooked litterly ever since!!!
I've always loved hunting. Grew up around it with my uncle's but I really believe was born with hunting in my blood. Carried a bb gun around everywhere once I was out of diapers and shot birds. When I was 11 my 1 uncle was a very successful Turkey hunter before then and at the time told me; boy if you ever go you will be ruined. Opening day after about 2 hours I called one in and man was he right lol. Turkeys at one time would tare me up so bad so that I would get tunnel vision. Missed a few that way :-[
I had been hunting all my life but just whitetails and upland birds with my father. After college a close friend of mine introduced me to waterfowl hunting and I quickly became possessed.
Once I became a freakish waterfowl hunter, I wanted to be hunting as much as possible, and with the withdrawal that came from waterfowl season ending, the only natural thing to do to get my fix was to start worrying about turkeys. Bought the Primos Mastering the Art DVD and began practicing my calling from February through April.
Meanwhile, being that I can't shut my big trap about hunting, I said to a friend "I'm going turkey hunting this spring." His reply was, "You should turkey hunt on my family's land up north, there are turkeys all over."
First time I went up there I did no homework, no scouting, no nothing. Hiked up the logging road and started waiting for the light to come. Just as the morning began to get blue, a boss gobbler started hammering in a tree about 50 yards away. I thought I was about to have a heart attack. I heard him come down and gobble on the ground once so loud my right ear started ringing. Heard some leaves moving behind me, so I turned around to look, and there he was in all his glory. BUSTED and off he went.
Hooked for life and I hope to die an old happy man sitting against a tree in the spring turkey woods.
Waterfowl season just ended and I only got to use my new shotgun on just a few hunts. Heard of some turkeys in my state, it's not too popular, so I'm giving it a shot. Keep me off the couch for another month.
I fully blame bamagtrdude for my obsession. I started hunting deer and small game when I was maybe 14 (I'm 28 now), on a family farm in Hardeman Co, TN. Never really had any desire at the time to turkey hunt (which is a real shame b/c that land was/is absolutely covered in turkeys). fast forward 14yrs later to last spring. bamagtrdude works with me and sits about 5ft away from me, he was talking about turkey hunting one day and something *clicked* in my head and suddenly I wanted to go. he graciously invited me along to "show me the ropes" so to speak. we went out the first morning and got to the top of a ridge, which nearly killed me since I'm out of shape, and did some light calling. got a few gobbles and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. got in position on the edge of a logging road. the bird was around a bend in the road but could tell he was working his way toward us. at some point a hen cut him off and he locked up. Never actually got to lay eyes on him, but just hearing him gobble and hearing him working closer and closer to us was the most exciting thing I've ever experienced, hunting-wise.
went a few more times last season but the stars never aligned and I never did bag a bird....hopefully, that changes in a few weeks!
I was lost in the woods as an infant and found by a hen and her brood, she accepted me as one of her own. Boy did she screw up! I spent my first five years of my life living as a turkey and knew no difference. I did realize I had to struggle a lot more than my brothers and sisters when it was fly-up time. Fly down was a $*%@& too. Then one day we were feeding and a loud noise went off and we were all covered with a big net. They threw everyone else in a box and hauled them off. They gave me to a man and woman claiming to be my parents. After that they raised me and introduced me to the world of turkey hunting. Been hunting ever since. That was 1965. And to this day when I kill a turkey I wonder if it is soimehow related to me.
Most of that story is true, but parts may have been enhanced for entertainment purposes.
I copied this from the home page of my website. It pretty much sums it all up.
"I was seven years old the first time I went turkey hunting with Dad. It was in Pushmataha WMA in Southeastern Oklahoma. I can still remember the big pines and how Dad explained that "they like to gobble at a hoot owl". I remember watching in the half light as he put an old PS Olt owl hooter to his lips and blew the ol' familiar question. "Who cooks for you, who cooks for us too?" Then somewhere in the distance a turkey gobbled, and then another. Right then and there a seven year old boy became a turkey hunter."
I might add a big "Thanks Dad"
Went a few times with my brother-in-law & his buddies back in the 80s, but it was more of an excuse to drink & go trout fishing in the afternoon than anything else.
Fast-forward 20 years later, and I bought some land for deer hunting, that just happened to have some birds as well. I decided to get serious and learn how to kill them, and the rest is all history. Think about turkeys a lot mor ethan deer these days... :funnyturkey:
Dad never hunted, only went w/me once for squirrel. But, I was always out after something and after I jumped a gobbler in Ky at close quarters and later found that the state had stocked a few a month earlier in "undisclosed locations" I knew I had to know more.
I started reading up and searching them out and as luck would have it I arrowed a hen on the opening day of Ky's first fall season a few years after they stocked them.
Dad had a place down in south central Ky and told me he had heard gobblers behind the house, so that spring I was there w/my bud and I ended up killing a jake on opening day a few min before the 12pm quitting time, what a rush.
Never looked back but have since switched over to archery and traditional black powder just to add a little "extra". WOW what a good time it is!
Good luck and take some pics this spring!
Wess
Quote from: GomerPyle on February 28, 2014, 10:53:38 AM
I fully blame bamagtrdude for my obsession.
Happy to *oblige*! :)
My Dad taught me to duck hunt. From there, I became a self-taught small game hunter, then a self-taught deer hunter. I just love hunting and being in the woods. So I heard about spring turkey season, and decided to give it a whirl. Also self-taught, which led to a very frustrating first couple of seasons. Then I went out the third season with friends, and lucked into a jake. The fourth season I took my first mature gobbler, who came in hard, strutting and gobbling. :icon_thumright: Oh yeah, to say I was hooked after that was an understatement!!! :drool:
I grew up staring at my old mans turkey mount. Just fascinated by it. I told my self that someday I was gonna hunt turkeys. I grew up running barefoot thru the woods, swamps and rivers that encompassed my house. Learned woodsman ship on my own in those formative years. And the first year I hunted I killed a strutter because of my woodsman ship~ no calling, decoys or scouting, just used what I knew. Since then I've killed them more ways than I can count.
They stocked our lease in the early 90's. The lease allowed turkey hunting in 2000. I thought it sounded like fun after seeing it on TV. I bought a DVD and a couple of calls and went at it based on that. I had some early success and got hooked real fast!
Back in the day (mid 60's) Arizona had what was the big 10 (now the big 13) which is 10 big game animals turkey being one of them I had the goal of getting all of the big 10 in the state. After getting drawn for spring turkey I went on my first turkey hunt, I was lucky enough to bag a turkey and I have been hooked from that day.
I got interested in turkey hunting from reading magazine articles and watching some hunting videos. There wasn't a spring season in eastern Washington until 1990. I killed my first bird, a jake, in 1992. I really had no clue what I was doing, but I saw the jake walking along the edge of an alfalfa and got way out in front of him and he walked right into my lap. I was excited to shoot my first turkey, but I wouldn't say I was hooked yet. The next spring I was hunting by myself and I was using a Quaker Boy old boss hen mouth call. I let out a series of yelps and a bird gobbled. He ended up closing the distance fairly quickly and triple gobbled at one point and it felt like the ground shook. There ended up being a thick patch of brush between him and me and I never even saw that bird. However, after that hunt I was hooked on turkey hunting. I love to hunt ducks/geese, but there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about turkey hunting!
i got started in to turkey hunting when i was 10ys old know one in my family turkey hunted and i wanted to so i got the books and the videos and a couple mouth calls and went to practacing i learned real quick they werent easy to kill like the videos made it out to be but that challenge was what had me hooked
Began going with my dad at an early age in the spring and fall, and watched him kill a few. He got me a single shot H&R 20 gauge at the age of 9. That fall while squirrel hunting one evening we busted a flock of turkeys up just before dark. The next morning I killed a young hen as the turkeys looked to reassemble. I killed a jake later that fall. That was nearly 28 years ago.
At the age of 11, my dad took my older brother and I to Missouri for a week long hunting & camping trip. I got to skip a week of school which was awesome of course. I still remember being amazed at all the gobbling turkeys. Finally, it worked out one morning. We had 3 turkeys gobbling that went quiet, and like it was yesterday I can hear them coming to us through the leaves. They crossed a dry creek bed and I was able to kill a jake. Needless to say I have been hooked ever since.
I enjoy fall and spring hunting, and my dad taking us on that trip created an interest in traveling and hunting new spots, which we have continued to do.
Wanted to for years, but was too busy in the Spring coaching little league and working. Went out in the Fall on my own, but didn't really enjoy it that much the few days I had to hunt. Then I met an old time call maker, we became friends, and with no more little league he took me hunting Turkeys, and taught me the basics. He was from the old school of calling less was better. I did kill my biggest Turkey ever in Iowa using one of his calls, which was cool.
My dad took me when I was 8 yrs old. The gobblers tore up the woods that day and I was hooked ever since....and its grown into an almost unmanageable addiction and passion. My dad is no longer able to hunt do to his health but he's the one that got me started and showed me everything he knew and got me well on my way!
God Bless
When I moved to Middle TN I joined a deer lease and kept seeing turkeys in the fall when deer hunting. I mentioned the turkeys to my Mom and she bought me a triple tom talker for my birthday that year. I went out one time that spring, but it was a hot day and no birds were gobbling. The next year I decided to try it again and this time birds were gobbling all over the lease. I could hear one answering my calling, but I thought he was a lot farther off than he really was. I moved closer and got busted. After about 8AM, all of the gobbling died down and I thought it was over for the morning. I went back to the camping area of the lease and started pitching my tent. A crow flew over, cawed, and I heard the loudest gobble I had heard at that point in my life! I grabbed my call, face mask, and gun out of my truck, yelped a couple of times, heard the bird gobble again, and it was on! I'm sure my truck 50 yards behind me didn't help any, and the bird hung up about 45 yards out. I could see him strutting and gobbling and got to watch the show for 20 minutes. I didn't get him, but I got a nice tom the next year and have been hooked on turkey hunting ever since.
I have to mention that watching hunting videos gave me some false impressions about turkey hunting, mainly running and gunning and having a tom come in gobbling every time. It doesn't happen that way very often in real life. The best advice I ever got regarding turkey hunting came from an older friend that I used to work with. He told me to treat it more like deer hunting, listen to how much calling the turkeys do and imitate them, and stay put for a couple of hours after the birds fly down. Many times the tom will come in silently and less calling is better once they fly down. I listened to him, and my success rate went way up.
I started in 2008 and really learned on my own. I wanted something to keep me occupied in the Spring, but I didn't realize what an addiction it would turn into when I started. The first gobbler that ever answered me back is what sold the deal. It was awesome and I still get a thrill when one hammers out back to me.
I have always been in the outdoors fishing and hunting. I am fascinated by trying to kill and figure out big mature deer. well I am friends with a lot of friends of turkey hunters and great ones at that. well I have been into baseball like crazy pretty much played year round and spring is big time for baseball so I didn't get to hunt turkeys big time. well finally I got to go and loved it didn't understand it didn't know anything at all about it. I started reading and going and learning loads every time I went. well luckily I have a great friend that is a great turkey hunter. and he started taking me and I learned even more. I was bit by the bug and have been sense I was 12. I would go hunting in the morning play baseball then go hunting again. I will and always will say, there is abosutely in my world that is better then killing a mature deer and finally everything coming together. but the hunt itself turkey hunting has it going on. i couldn't imagine my life without turkey hunting in it. it would be a huge void in my life.
I started going with my Dad in 1969. He loved turkey hunting just like I do today. All we had was old Army Surplus camo. My Mom sewed extra pockets inside our hunting coats to carry calls and water in a pint whiskey bottle. We had no facemasks and only wore gloves when the weather was cold.
I killed my first gobbler with Daddy's Model 37 Ithaca pump. 2 3/4 inch magnum shells. One thing I do remember is not everyone was clearcutting woods to plant pine trees. That is the biggest thing I miss. Except for my Daddy.