Depressed turkey hunter

[saverx]

My season is over. I tagged out which is good, but It's 365 days till next season. I've been turkey hunting for many years and I go through this every year. I don't know how I'm going to make it this time. This forum is helping so guys still hunting keep posting your stories. It's funny the older I get I learn that I get tired or bored with some activities that used to bring me joy. Turkey hunting, however is not on that list. I love it today as much or more than I did when I was young.

[Greg Massey]

My season is over. I tagged out which is good, but It's 365 days till next season. I've been turkey hunting for many years and I go through this every year. I don't know how I'm going to make it this time. This forum is helping so guys still hunting keep posting your stories. It's funny the older I get I learn that I get tired or bored with some activities that used to bring me joy. Turkey hunting, however is not on that list. I love it today as much or more than I did when I was young.

I'm not tag out yet...but i feel your pain...agree

[1iagobblergetter]

My thoughts exactly even though my son and I still have this year's 4th season to look forward to. Interests in different things have come and they have gone through the years,but my passion for turkey hunting seems to get even stronger every year even after around 20 of them.

[mgm1955]

Congrats on a great season!!

[Cottonmouth]

I tagged out the weekend before my week vacation this year. That week was too windy to crappie fish. Talk about a miserable week. Almost made me want to crawl back into a UPS truck. Almost.

[Gooserbat]

Killed my last bird 3rd day of Season.  Been working most every day since.  Planning on going out of state next week and a mid-late May trip Nebraska with Dr. Blackburn.

[TRG3]

The 5th and final spring turkey season comes in on Thursday of this week for Southern Illinois and extends through May 4th. Then it's a three month wait (deer stand repairs, food plots, etc.) until the August 1st opening of tree squirrel season. Then it's the October 1st opener of whitetail bow season followed by the first Saturday in November which opens the cotton tail rabbit season which extends until mid-February. After that it's six weeks of predator hunting while waiting until spring turkey season opens again in early April. My hunting calendar is full!

[LaLongbeard]

I feel the same way after the season ends. I cope by hunting other states or when that's not an option I go to my hunting areas and hunt without a gun. I've called up lots of gobblers weeks after the season is over.No chance of ruining your hunting spots,let's you here them gobble a few more times also gives you an idea of how many survived for next year. Best practice there is.When that's over or it gets too hot I read every book I can find on Turkey hunting.

[turkaholic]

It is so true! " ain't nothin else to give me this thrill" wise words from one of Walt Gabbard's turkey hunting tunes. I start my 5 week season on Thursday. My blood is boiling. Can't sleep past 4 am. Been doing this for over 30 years and I'm still a young boy at it. No other obsession comes close to this one. I get very low at the end of the season, just knowing it will come to an end is debilitating.

[flintlockgirl]

Get involved with coyote hunting, keeps you busy and will be possibly helping your local turkey population, killing to birds with one stone, no pun intended.

[ncwoodsman]

I  tagged out as well in NC in a couple of days so I feel your pain. Find a buddy who hasn't taken there birds and tag along with them if possible. It can be just as fun and exciting and you aren't focused on shooting so much so you get to enjoy the show and the beautiful woods God created a few more days.

[TauntoHawk]

Our season in the North East are just starting, its painful to sit in the cold and read about you guys killing birds all March and April but I guess it comes back around when its 95 and your season is over and ours is just starting... jealous of the guys that get to travel enough to make turkey season last 3 months

[tha bugman]

The Boss Hen is as excited as I see her all year the day after my last day, but she seems to really enjoy smacking her lips on those fried nuggets to complain too much!  Whether tagged out or not last day always tolls that another year has past.  I got to see it one more time.  Lessons learned and memories made.

I happened to visit the grave of my dear turkey hunting mentor last Sunday afternoon.  I never did attend the burial portion of the services over a year ago and this would be my first time there.  A quiet country church sat lazily empty outside the cemetery gate, still standing as a testament of faith to a congregation gone long ago.   As I searched for his marker in this lonely piece of ground, I passed by those who once pioneered and settled the area many years before and thought what it must have been like for them then.

It was so serene and quiet as I approached the grave.  My first impression was that this was the perfect place for his rest, as it overlooks a beautiful hardwood bottom. I said out loud "Well I bet you can even hear one from here my friend." I smiled but at the same time, this plot reminded me that everything has an end, even more so than just the last annual day of turkey season, but life itself.  I thought back to all the times listening to hunting tales under the oak trees of his home, his catalog seemingly endless.  He so wise a woodsman and me the bumbling fool. For this man, turkey hunting was like breathing itself, a necessity, a compulsion, an obsession, but now the lifetime of sunrises and sunsets he carried in his mind, of his days afield with success and failure would now lay so solemnly still in this place.

My little poults were with me, I saw them there, climbing over the tombstones meaning no disrespect, because to them death seems so foreign now. I tried to express to them how much he meant to me, how I longed to hear just one more story.  Of how he had made with his own hands the very crib that they had slept as wee ones, but every word seemed so mute and fall to the ground with such heavy thumps that I stopped, my heart pounding with hurt.  They would never know him.  They would never understand the relationship that I shared with him, of how our lives had intermingled if only for a brief time.  Even this moment held together by such delicate a thread, would pass and carry us like a stream to the unknown destinies of tomorrow, gone in an instant, just like my much respected elder. I closed my eyes, exhaled then took in the beautiful smell of the nearby wood and as a parting goodbye hooted, yelped, and gobbled over his mortal remains.  Taking my children by their little hands we walked quietly away together in peace. 

[R AJ]

Talk about depressed, how about no turkey, poor outlook to next year and did not even see a gobbler this year !

Oh well, til then, I guess it will just be 

[Swampchickin234]

The Boss Hen is as excited as I see her all year the day after my last day, but she seems to really enjoy smacking her lips on those fried nuggets to complain too much!  Whether tagged out or not last day always tolls that another year has past.  I got to see it one more time.  Lessons learned and memories made.

I happened to visit the grave of my dear turkey hunting mentor last Sunday afternoon.  I never did attend the burial portion of the services over a year ago and this would be my first time there.  A quiet country church sat lazily empty outside the cemetery gate, still standing as a testament of faith to a congregation gone long ago.   As I searched for his marker in this lonely piece of ground, I passed by those who once pioneered and settled the area many years before and thought what it must have been like for them then.

It was so serene and quiet as I approached the grave.  My first impression was that this was the perfect place for his rest, as it overlooks a beautiful hardwood bottom. I said out loud "Well I bet you can even hear one from here my friend." I smiled but at the same time, this plot reminded me that everything has an end, even more so than just the last annual day of turkey season, but life itself.  I thought back to all the times listening to hunting tales under the oak trees of his home, his catalog seemingly endless.  He so wise a woodsman and me the bumbling fool. For this man, turkey hunting was like breathing itself, a necessity, a compulsion, an obsession, but now the lifetime of sunrises and sunsets he carried in his mind, of his days afield with success and failure would now lay so solemnly still in this place.

My little poults were with me, I saw them there, climbing over the tombstones meaning no disrespect, because to them death seems so foreign now. I tried to express to them how much he meant to me, how I longed to hear just one more story.  Of how he had made with his own hands the very crib that they had slept as wee ones, but every word seemed so mute and fall to the ground with such heavy thumps that I stopped, my heart pounding with hurt.  They would never know him.  They would never understand the relationship that I shared with him, of how our lives had intermingled if only for a brief time.  Even this moment held together by such delicate a thread, would pass and carry us like a stream to the unknown destinies of tomorrow, gone in an instant, just like my much respected elder. I closed my eyes, exhaled then took in the beautiful smell of the nearby wood and as a parting goodbye hooted, yelped, and gobbled over his mortal remains.  Taking my children by their little hands we walked quietly away together in peace.

That reminded me so much of my grandpa and the total culture of the Deep South turkey hunters. I never met the man you speak of I am sure, but I understand, and would more than likely be a friend of him had i known him . There are friends. There are family. And there are turkey hunting friends and family. They are not all created equal. You cannot explain it, you cannot say anything, as it is a quiet understanding of the necessity to act upon the pursuing of this magnificent bird. God bless brother, and a very good read. 


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