00:00:05 Speaker 1: This turkey is coming. Like no if ans or butts about it. This turkey is coming. 00:00:09 Speaker 2: It was one of those. 00:00:09 Speaker 1: With every gobble he was gaining ground. And I'm sitting there, going, man, any second we're going to be looking at him. And then finally, just like you drawed up in your head, out he appeared in full strut. And then came all the rest of them, and I mean all the rest of them. I do not know how we managed to yelp up that many turkeys with only one turkey goblin the entire time, because we thought we were dealing with a single long beard, but it was not. 00:00:32 Speaker 2: It was a wad long beards, Jake's hens. 00:00:35 Speaker 1: We had every variety, and they were all march in our direction. I'd never seen anything like it. 00:00:41 Speaker 3: Just like clockwork, the rotations of the Earth and the tilting of its access towards the south have once again found the North American continent in the early stages of the most glorious and redemptive time of the year, the spring. Despite the uncertainty in the world of men, natural systems hum along with unfailing consistency, and by our good fortune, many of us live in places where there are wild turkeys. Why everyone in America doesn't hunt a wild turkey, I do not know, but I'm glad that they don't. 00:01:12 Speaker 4: But I'm grateful that I do. 00:01:14 Speaker 3: And I'm truly thankful for every gobbling, spitting and drumming and strutting turkey that I've ever messed around with. Being a turkey hunter is but a small ripple in the global affairs of men, but in our minds it stands like a granite peak, impossible to avoid. You can't go around it or under it, but each spring you've got to go through it. This is our Turkey Stories episode. It's one of my favorites of the year, and we've got a group of turkey storytellers that are as good as I've ever heard. And I really doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one. And I'll leave you with just one hint about the next hour of your life. Whatever you do, don't miss med Palmer's story at the end. It might be the greatest turkey story ever told. 00:02:11 Speaker 4: My name is Clay Nukem, and this. 00:02:13 Speaker 3: Is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land, presented by FHF gear, American made, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. Of all the things that we hunt and celebrate through story, turkey stories are usually the best. The hunts are dynamic, involving moving and sneaking, and ouling and crowing and yelping and listening for the vocalizations or lack thereof, of an old gobbler. The decisions of the turkey hunter are more often than not wrong if the intent is to kill the turkey, and the turkeys are usually right. 00:03:11 Speaker 4: But when the hunter. 00:03:11 Speaker 3: Gets it right and he fools that old tom turkey, the raw elemental chemical dump of excitement with that side of fried wild turkey breast is a scenario without equal. 00:03:23 Speaker 4: But it's time to get onto the stories. 00:03:25 Speaker 3: And our first one is from Mississippi, and the man telling the story his name is Mark Sledge, but in this hunt, Mark is rooting for the turkey. 00:03:36 Speaker 5: My name is Mark Sledge. I live in Ridgeland, Mississippi, and back a few years ago I was a turkey hunting. It was late in the season, and I was just prospecting, you know, walking and calling, and I stopped. I was way on the north side of my property, and I stopped and was getting ready to call, and I heard someone call, and there was no question in my mind it was a person and not a turkey, and a gob berer answer. And so I sat there for a minute and tried to try to decide what I was gonna do. And I said, you know, I bet I know where that guy came in here. So I walked continued north up to my property line. I got to the property line, I was standing there looking at a turkey vest where the guy had taken his vest off when he crossed the ball bar our fence to come on to us. And so I picked up the vest and was standing there trying to decide. You know, when I found the vest, I knew I was gonna get the guy because he was coming back to get the vest. But I was trying to decide where I was gonna wait on him. And there was a big tree about probably fifty yards away, a great, big oak tree, and I'm talking about a huge one. And so I walked over there to sit down next to the tree, and before I got to the tree, he shot. And when he shot, I realized the oak tree was in a straight line, coming right up the ridge from where he had shot. And I knew he's fixing a walk right by me. So I just sat down next to the tree, and I had, you know, I was turkey hunting, so I had cameo gloves and camo face mask, and I put everything on, just laid my gun across my lap and sat there. And sure enough, man, it wasn't forty five seconds I saw him coming through the woods carrying the gobbler. He had gotten the gobbler. I sat there and I didn't move, and I let him get about three feet from me, and I said, boy, ended something, how you look and go from being so good to so bad in such a short period of time. And when I spoke, he like to jumped out of his skin. And I stood up and took my face mask off and pulled off my right glove, stuck my hand out and I said, good morning. My name's Mark Sledge. And he said, hey, how you doing. I said no, I said, this is the point of the conversation where you tell me your name. He said, oh, I'm John Smith. I said, come on, man, you got to do better than that. You're insulting my intelligence. He said, no, no, that's really my name. I said, no, it's not. I said, you need to tell me your real name. No, no, I promise you that's my real name. And I said it is not your real name. I'm not buying that. And I said, well, what do you do. He said, well, I'm in school, community college. And I said you look too old to be in school. I said where do you live. He said, well, I kind of live on the outside of Benonia. I said, so you live around here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, man, you might as well tell me your real name, because I'm going to find out. 00:06:46 Speaker 2: He said no, no, I. 00:06:46 Speaker 5: Swear that's my real name. And I said, well, here you go. I pulled one of my business cards out of my wallet and I gave it to him, and I said, that's got my office phone number on it. Whenever you decide you want to come, tell me your real name and get your turkey vest back, give me a call. You can come down to my office and we'll sit down and talk about it. And I picked up his turkey vest walked off. Of course, I was looking back over my shoulder and make sure it wasn't dropping down on me while I was walking off. But I went back to my camp and immediately rode into ben TONI and it took about one stop to find out who the guy was. And so I identified him and called the neighbor who he had come off of and told him what had gone on. And he said, Mark, don't you worry. He will never set foot on my property again. And I didn't hear from him. That was on a Friday, and I figured, you know, i'd probably hear from next day or to well. On Monday, a woman calls me with the exact last name. I thought, wow, this kind of strange, you know that for a guy to have his wife call me. So I took the call and she identified herself and she said, oh, miss Sledge, you have my husband's turkey vest. I said, I sure do. I said, I'm sitting in my office looking at it. It's on a hat rack in my office, hanging right here now. And she said, is there a handmade turkey call in the pocket? I said, I have no idea. I've never looked to see what's in it. And she said, well, I gave. I gave him my handmade turkey call for our tenth anniversary, and he said it's He said, it's in the pocket of his of his turkey vest, and I just want to make sure it's there. And I said, well, hang on a minute. I went over there and looked and I said, yeah, it's in there, and she said, she said okay, great. I said wait a minute. I said, why are you calling me and he's not calling me. I said, that doesn't really make sense to him. She said, oh. He and his dad and his brother got up early Saturday morning, and when they were leaving, I asked him where his handmade turkey call was and he said, well, I don't have it. And he told me I didn't have it and told me it was in his vest and you had his vest and I said that's right. She said, well, can I come get it? I said absolutely not. I said he needs to come down here and get it when he gets back into town. And she said okay. And I said, let me ask you something. I said, do you have any kids? She said yeah, I have two boys. I said me too. I said how are you boys? And they were a little bitty. Then I want to say they were three and five or something, and I said, think about this. Your husband's come sneaking in there, a poaching on us. And I got two sons and they loved a turkey hunt, so they're out there turkey hunt. They have no idea your husband's into her. And one of them accidentally shoots your husband. I said, my sons have to grow up with the fact that they've killed a man, and your sons are going to grow on without a dad. And she said, oh my gosh, I don't even thought about that. And I twisted the knife a little bit more and I had her pumped up where she was gonna waylame he got home. So sure enough, about the middle of that week, he finally called me and said, uh, missus Sledge, I'd like to go get my turkey best. I said, I'd like to give it to you. I said, come on down here, and uh, and I'll be glad to give it to you. So he came to my office and I made him sit down in there and we had a little chat for a little while, and Uh. At the end of the chat, I gave his vest back. And I've never seen the guy again, and i've certainly never seen him trespass it again. I think I probably made a hotist turkey counter. 00:10:38 Speaker 3: That was a good story, but I was surprised that Mark didn't get the law involved. I kept waiting for the game morning to show up. I wonder if you were I respect a man that's willing to take care of his own business, and I'd say that that was quite merciful, mercy being an admirable human trait. Maybe that guy that killed that turkey is listening right now, Thank you, Mark. But now we're on to the next one, and it's none other than a bear grease legend from western Arkansas, Oh Andy Brown. He could tell a story about an empty black pot and it would be interesting, but when you get him talking about turkeys, it's hard to turn away. Most really good turkey hunters that I know, kind of in my experience, usually have two or three really great stories. Andy seems to have an unlimited supply, and this is a story about the best gobbler that Andy ever saw killed. 00:11:35 Speaker 6: My brother in law used to come up from Hope and Bill he he really liked a turkey hunt because he never got to do any of it. I used to go down and hunt with him and Debbie down there, and they were avid deer hunters. And I used to love to go down there because you'd see more deer in one day down there. Back in the eighties eighty two probably so let's been forty years ago, but it was nothing but soybean fields and cornfields. But anyway, i'd go down there and deer hunt with them. And Bill got to coming up in Turkey hunting with me. And he came up one year and he was always really enthused about it because this is something he had never done. And I took him out on my mountain, did I out west? I always liked out there. When we pulled him out for daylight, got into the low Gap and the same thing happened that day as happened to me and Scott. I sent Bill west and I went east and the man, it was fine one and got out there and not a pe never heard of Turkey. And I told Bill, I said one meet back at the gap at ten o'clock. I walked back into the Low Gap, probably about nine thirty, and the Bill was already there, and I said to Bill, did you hear anything? He said, yeah, I had one all over me this morning. I just couldn't. He just wouldn't come to me, come in above me. He'd went out west and kind of dropped over on the north side, and this turkey come right in on top of him, and it just wouldn't come off to it. And he said, he gobbled good. He said, just all the drumming, I could hear him drumming, and he just he just wouldn't come. And I said, do you think you can take me back out there where he was? And he said, yeah, I think I ain't take you here right where he was. It's he said, he was out there where it kind of drops off. So we walk out there two hundred fifty yards and he goes out there, knobs out and kind of drops off, and he said, I think we were about right here is where I was. Got on the north side, and I just walked up there and just walked up on the south side, and then the called. When I did, he just just broke me off. 00:13:26 Speaker 2: This is it. 00:13:27 Speaker 6: This is ten ten o'clock. You know, of course that's ever turkey Hunter's dream. You know, you get one to answer you at ten o'clock in the morning. And I said, come on, So we we just got over on the south side, and it just went out there and just fell off in kind of a little old Kenyon just kind of straight off got set up, and I called him. When I did, he just broke me off down there. And I looked at it and I said, this, this is not this is an't gonna work. I mean, because I don't know if he's gonna come up with the left of the holler or the right of the holler. I said, let's back up on top. So we got up and walked back up on top of the mountain there, and there's just a big flat and anyway, I really put it in as I got aggressive with him then, and he was just I mean, he was eating it up. Every time I called him, he gobbled. And that's kind of way I always did back in those days, early days. If they wanted to gobble, I wanted to call up, you know. 00:14:19 Speaker 2: And uh. 00:14:20 Speaker 6: Anyway, I tore him up and he come in there and Bill was I had Bill set up where I just knew he was just going to walk up me slap well, said that dude coming up to Bill. He just come right around to the left of me. And there was a little old blackjack thicket there he got right in behind that. He come right up the mountain east of me, full strut and got right in on top about sixty yards and all the goblining he did. Of course I'd shut up then. I hadn't said another word to him, and he gobbled and he gobbled and gobbled and he gobbled, and directly he just turned and he come right back off the mountain like he come. And he got off down there. And when he got behind that blackjack thicket from me, I called him again, and we had a little set in right there, but I knew he wasn't going to come. I mean, once they do that, your chances of calling a turkey back where he'd already been is it's slimmed none. At least it's always been that way from me. So he kind of got over back off on the south side, about fifty yards from me, and I motioned to Bill. I said, Bill, come here, and Bill give me one of them. What are we doing deals? 00:15:27 Speaker 2: You know? 00:15:28 Speaker 5: I said, come on, and he said come on. 00:15:30 Speaker 6: I said come on, And so he comes to me, he said, what are we doing? I said, we are going to move. We just dropped over the north side, and when we got over the north side. I said, Bill, we're going to move on this turkey. We're going to kill this dude, I think. So we just went east. When we talked back over the top of the mountain there, I said, if this turkey answers me, he's a dead turkey. We didn't move seventy five yards, but we got a little higher and got over on the top. I called him, and shit, he is wore me up, you know. I said, he'd better get ready. And it was so funny. I was sitting there and I had my cun across my lap in old Bill. I mean, it's pretty open there. It kind of comes to the prayer makes a little old bitch. And there's a there's a pine tree that's four foot through right there on top, and I look, here, come out on turkey. I mean, he's coming right to us and can be close, I mean fifteen steps. And when he goes behind that tree, Bill moves his gun. And when he comes out, Bill didn't quite wait long enough. He did, but he didn't because he shot about two inches of that tree all. But he blowed that turkey. He just blowed that turkey down. And when that turkey, you know how they are heat. Turkey jumped up and when he took off, of course, I was in really good shape. Then I took off after him, and I run that turkey. I had face mask and gloves and stuff. Strode all down the side of that mountain. But I run him about one hundred yards down the out there, and finally he just stopped and put his head down and went to clucking. I mean, I caught up with him, and anyway, I finished him off. But that turkey was the best turkey I've ever seen. He had thirty four and a half inches of beard on him, He had a ten and a half, a ten, an eight and a six, He had an inch and a quarter spurred, and weighed twenty one and a half pounds. 00:17:25 Speaker 7: He was a you know. 00:17:26 Speaker 6: And people said, well, it's not a very big turkey. The twenty one and a half pound turkey into Washtaw Mountains is a big turkey. But it was the most awesome turkey I ever seen. And I told Bill, I said, Bill, you'll hunt a lifetime and you will never kill a turkey like this. I said, I've hunted these things like I was mad at him for twenty five years, and I've killed I've killed several with two beards, but I ain't never killed a four beard a turkey. 00:17:54 Speaker 3: That's such a good story, and you could learn a lot about turkey hunting from that story. Andy is a rare combination of a man that's as good a turkey hunter as has ever traversed the mountains of western Arkansas. And he's the heck of a communicator too, knowing just when to include details and humor and internal drama. But really it just kind of flows with overt passion, and you really can't teach that or copy that. Every step of the way, you feel like you're right there with him. I've noticed that every region of the country, even down to specific families and hunting groups, have peculiar aspects to their storytelling. I wonder if you've ever picked up on any of. 00:18:34 Speaker 4: Those from Andy. 00:18:36 Speaker 3: My old buddy Steve Ranella did, and after he heard Andy tell his story one time, he said to me, Andy Brown sure has a constant sense of the cardinal directions. I laughed, if you're paying attention, Andy's always saying the bird was coming up from the east, or we went back to the west, or we were looking to the south, where I grew up, which is where Andy lives. Always having a sense of where no is was like the eleventh commandment, thou shalt always know which direction is north. I was never that great at it, but direction is always included in Andy's stories, in the stories of his son Scott and all their hunting crew. I like it, Thank you Andy. The next story is off the Chain. It involves an ATM and a man wearing a dog collar. I first heard this man tell this story as a guest on the Hayden Alabama podcast, and I cackled out loud. 00:19:38 Speaker 4: Like a giggling hen. 00:19:40 Speaker 3: I'd like to introduce you to a very funny but precious man, Mississippi pastor Robin Rischer. You get what I mean when I say precious, like he's a nice guy. 00:19:54 Speaker 8: I'm Robin Ruscher, and I love turkey. I live in Mississippi, but a very short time living in New Orleans, Louisiana. I went to seminary down there, and I was a fish out of water in a big city as the country had come to town, no doubt about that. And I got a chance to go turkey hunting. I got a permission to hunt some land in South Mississippi. I told my wife and to let me go, and she said, yeah, you can go. And naturally, when you get in your wife's car is gonna be on empty every time. That's a law of nature. And the seminary I don't know about now, but thirty years ago it was in the worst neighborhood in America, one of the worst. I bopped out there and got my wife's little car. I was gonna go into it because it got good gas mine and I had a pretty far piece to go, and we were rolling pennies for gas broke and no extra money. But I had almost stuff laying on the front seat of her car. My gun was laying there, My vest with the shells in the pocket was laying there. I come out of seminary in this worst neighborhood in America, and I kind of goosed it a little bit. When I did, my shelves came out of my pocket and I noticed still illegal. I know I wanted so to do this. I just took the shells in the magazines at over age seventy. Now the gun was loaded, but it would not fire until you worked the action one time. And pump shot guns have a very distinctive sound, and it sounds something like if you've ever been on a bad end of that sound, you recognize it. 00:21:48 Speaker 2: Well. 00:21:48 Speaker 8: I had that gun with bullets in the magazine but none in the pipe or none in a barrel. And I had to go get some gas because, like I said, the car was on empty in the worst neighborhood of America, and HTM machines were very different back then. You wanted on us wipe it and they take a car away from him and then access to your counting. There you were, and the criminal knew this. But I one thing about that. I just went there to give me twenty dollars to get some gas. But in this car. And I walked in there, this little HTM. It's about two in the morning, but I was gonna go Turkey on the Mississippi is about three hour drive. And I pulled in there and I saw I saw this guy hiding in the AI at bushes. By the time I saw this selling the bushes there, he he wasn't wearing nothing but a diaper, but he was some kind of ugly. I'm telling you, he the uggliest hell I've ever seen in my life. He was ugly, you g l y he didn't have no alibi. He was ugly. M A, m A, how you think he got that way his mama? The boy was in bad shape. I saw him right after I accessed my account. Now looked in front of me, and there's a guy with a silver studded four inch dog collar on and no shirt, and he was walking towards me. I got my rightness, got pink and purple hair, and they were all closing in at the rapid rate. And they knew what they were doing because they let me access my account. Now, I didn't have but eighty six dollars in there, but that was eighty six of my dollars, and I intended on keeping him. Now, I grabbed the abigail there, my old trusty rusty. I shut that shell in there, and when that thing went out of eight seventy swallowed that copper plated magnum turkey thumping down on walping. Mold Joe low old dog collar heard it. He went to give him a signal. I don't know if he wanted me to blunt, steal or take, but we got all the stigna and. 00:24:03 Speaker 2: I sold bad Uga there. 00:24:05 Speaker 8: He was in the bushes there, and he heard it Old Pump follow that magnum load too, and they just kind of stopped. I got my money. 00:24:15 Speaker 5: I got. 00:24:17 Speaker 8: Out of there and went to the Mississippi and killed turkey that morning too. And the more of the stories is, they made a decision to take my money. I made a commitment to keep it. 00:24:32 Speaker 3: Some of the best turkey hunting stories have little to do with actually killing a gobbler. I'd have been scared too if i'd have heard Old Trusty Rusty swallow that turkey thumping, Dino wopping Mojoe load. And Hey, if you're looking for some good country storytelling, go check out the Hayden, Alabama podcast. 00:24:51 Speaker 4: They're doing some fun stuff. 00:24:54 Speaker 3: Our next story is from none other than Lake Pickle, also from Mississippi, but this story takes place in Old Mexico and it's got a shocking ending. 00:25:05 Speaker 4: Here's Lake. 00:25:07 Speaker 1: So it's spring twenty seventeen and I got the opportunity to travel down south of the border into Mexico Turkey, which is something I'd never been able to do. 00:25:15 Speaker 2: I travel down there with Brad Feris and Troy Ruez. 00:25:18 Speaker 1: I feel the need right now to tell y'all that I was there with those two gentlemen, because when I get to the point in this story where I talk about the actual incident, it is so outrageous and so bizarre that, even though I have video evidence that this happened, I just want everyone to know that there were also two other people there that witness this and can confirm that this story is true. But anyway, we travel down there, we cross the border, drive for several miles. I think we drove for maybe an hour a hour and a half. And anyways, we get to this property that we're hunting. So the next morning we wake up. It's a pretty clear day, and man, did we hear some turkeys, but they were in some flo And if you ever dealt with big flocks of turkeys, they are really fun to watch. They are really fun to listen to. But man, if you aren't where they want to be, they can be a pain to try to call to you. So we spent all morning in turkeys, looking at turkeys, hearing turkeys, but we didn't shoot any turkeys. So we go back to camp, grab a nap, grab some lunch. We're sitting there eating lunch with the landowners, telling them out our morning, telling them what we saw, and he says, Hey, you know, there's a power line, and every time I'm on that power line. 00:26:28 Speaker 2: I see turkeys every time. 00:26:30 Speaker 1: He also mentioned at this same lunch that despite the fact that he was not a turkey hunter, he always wanted a big, pretty gobbler to mount and put in his camp. Remember that that's an important factor of this story. So anyways, we head out to this power line. We get there and we start walking. Our plan is really just to walk until we find something that looks like we gets set up calling every once in a while along the way. If we hear something, we'll sit down. We're just kind of rolling with the punches. We're just kind of easing up this power line. I don't remember who saw it, but we noticed that there was a dead hen turkey just laying kind of right off the just right off the side of that power line. 00:27:05 Speaker 7: We look at it. 00:27:07 Speaker 1: That's kind of odd, but we didn't think much about it and kept walking. And we walked a couple one hundred more yards and there's another dead turkey up under there, just off the side of the power line, in the same spot. Another hen. We're like, huh, something's to that, But again we don't really know and don't make much of it. 00:27:24 Speaker 2: We just keep walking. 00:27:25 Speaker 1: We end up setting up and start calling, and sure enough a turkey answers us. Turkey gobbles at us, and this turkey, unlike the ones we got into this morning, starts quickly closing the distance, and I'm back filming, running the camera. Troy and Brad are up front, and this turkey is coming. Like no if ans or butts about it. This turkey is coming. It was one of those. With every gobble he. 00:27:44 Speaker 2: Was gaining ground. 00:27:45 Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there, going, man, any second, we're gonna be looking at him. And then finally, just like you drawed up in your head, out he appeared in full strut and then came all the rest of them, and I mean all the rest of them. I do not know how we managed to yelp up that many turkeys with only one turkey goblin the entire time, because we thought we were dealing with a single long beard, but it was not. 00:28:06 Speaker 2: It was a wad long beards, Jake's hens. 00:28:10 Speaker 1: We had every variety, and they were all march in our direction. 00:28:13 Speaker 2: I'd never seen anything like it. 00:28:15 Speaker 1: This entire wad of turkeys makes it within twenty steps of Brad Troy. But the problem was is there was not a second, I mean, not a single moment where either of them could have pulled the trigger and only killed one turkey. They were so clumped up together that I mean, if any of them would have shot, they would have killed multiple turkeys, five turkeys even. I mean, it was crazy, and obviously we were not trying to do that. 00:28:39 Speaker 2: And it was in the afternoon. 00:28:41 Speaker 1: They stayed there forever, just standing around, strutting, gobling, yelping, looking, and it starts getting dark, and these turkeys start getting shifty, and all of a sudden, turkeys start flying up. So turkeys start flying and roosting in trees to the left, to the right, behind us, in front of us. One gobbler picks up and flies out of the middle of that power road and lands in a tree almost right over Troy, which is just off the right side of this power line, and that turkey he starts getting kind of shifty up in that tree, and for whatever reason, he decided that limb he had picked was no longer good enough for him, and he picks up and flies and tries to cross that power line I'm assuming to land in a tree on the other side, but we'll never know because he's flying and all of a sudden, Zippi, there was this loud, popping noise, this bright flash of lights and sparks, and that turkey fell out of the sky and thudded on the ground, dead as a rock, right on the other side of that road. He had hit that power line when he tried to fly across the road and. 00:29:41 Speaker 2: It killed him. 00:29:42 Speaker 1: I mean, in all reality, it looked like a giant mosquito hitting a bug zapper, I mean, just zap and lights out. 00:29:48 Speaker 2: That turkey was gone. He did not flop at all. 00:29:51 Speaker 1: I will never forget the look on bradon Troy's faces, which I probably had a pretty dumb founded. 00:29:55 Speaker 2: Look on my face too. 00:29:57 Speaker 1: But we got up, walked into the woods, found that turkey, and I remember all you could smell was burnt feathers. But other than that, the turkey looked to be fine. And if I'm lying, I'm dying. That turkey had four beards and an inch into quarterspurs. So we put him in the back of that buggy and drove him back to camp. Told the landowner what happened, and said, hey, you said you wanted a big, pretty gobbler at a mountain put in your camp. I think we found the perfect one. 00:30:26 Speaker 4: I told you that that was a shocking story. 00:30:28 Speaker 3: Thanks Lake. And by the way they got all that on video, pretty cool. Our next story is another Mississippi turkey hunter. And if you haven't seen a trend in this episode, we got a lot of Mississippi boys and I'm quite certain that Mississippi is the cultural epicenter of turkey hunting. This gentleman's name is David Huffman, but he traveled out well asked to turkey hunt, and I'll be interested to hear what you think of this story. 00:31:07 Speaker 9: My name is David hoff and I'm from the Jackson, Mississippi area. Turkey hunting my entire life. Done a lot of traveling turkey hunting. Without giving too much information on where we were in the state we were in. But there are several Indian reservations across this country that you can hunt on. But when you go to hunt on an Indian reservation, you have to have a native god right. You have to have somebody to walk you around the place and show you where to go, what lands you can go on, what's tribal. 00:31:30 Speaker 7: What's not trivel. 00:31:32 Speaker 2: So we had enlisted the help of a local. 00:31:34 Speaker 9: Guy where we were going, and he was very well recommended in the area. He had been there for a long time, very well respected. So me and three buddies went out as our first time traveling to the state and got there and we you know, we're young, were just fresh out of college, had been traveling around for a while, and you know, we were sitting pretty high on our horses of you know, we were good turkey hunters and we knew what we were doing. 00:31:59 Speaker 7: We were going really didn't need a whole lot of help. 00:32:02 Speaker 9: I come from, you know, a family of my brother in law is a guide. 00:32:08 Speaker 7: He owns an outfit. 00:32:09 Speaker 9: So I understand that the saying don't guide the guide, right, So if a guy tells you to do something, you should probably listen because he knows more than what you know about that area. 00:32:18 Speaker 7: So we get there. 00:32:19 Speaker 9: And I meet the guide first, and we start riding around his truck and he's like, well, do you want to go see some turkeys? 00:32:24 Speaker 7: Like, yeah, absolutely, let's go check some out. 00:32:26 Speaker 9: So he pulled to the top of this hill and he says, Okay, they're going to be down this bottom and he shuts his truck off, and he reaches into center console and he pulls out this old cherry bark box call and he reaches out and he makes the three most god awful yelps you've ever heard in your life, just squawks across it. 00:32:43 Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep, yep, And sure. 00:32:46 Speaker 9: Enough, pull a little they come out of this bottom and walk up this hill, right to the top of the hill, twenty yards from the truck. And I'm thinking, all right, this is going to be pretty easy. You know, this ain't gonna be a whole lot of thought to this. Just listening to this guy and we'll be just fine. So my three buddy they were a day behind me, and they show up and I tell them what happened that afternoon, and said, look, you just need to listen to this guy and help points in the right direction. 00:33:07 Speaker 7: We'll kill our turkeys and we'll get out of here. 00:33:08 Speaker 9: Well, I've got two buddies that are a little bit more headstrong than I am, and so they're big, bad turkey hunters and they don't need anybody to tell them where to go. 00:33:17 Speaker 7: They to be pointing in the right direction. 00:33:18 Speaker 9: So they go off and they always hunt together and me and my other buddy always hunt together when we're on these trips. 00:33:24 Speaker 7: And so first morning, the guide, his name is Ken. 00:33:29 Speaker 9: He tells our body and says, okay, look, I'm going to send you downe to this creek bottom, and when you get down in there, the birds are going to be chirping, owls are going to be hooting. Let everything calm down. You have to let the creek accept you. Very native American thing to say. They're very in tune with the earth, very in tune with everything around him. He said, you have to let the creek accept you before you make a call. He said, do not call until everything has quieted down. You'll know the crick has accepted and then you can start turkey hunting. So he tells them, and I can see that they're just scoffing, like, okay, whatever, we're not going to listen to this. So they go down in there and he takes us to another spot and he tells us the same thing. He says, let the creek accept you. People, wait till everything calms down. Don't make a call until that happens. And so I'm walking down to this creek bottom with my buddy, and I said now, I said, let's let's just, you know, take what he said to Hart and just see what happens. And so sure enough, birds are chirping, owls are hooting whole nine yards. We don't hear a single bird gobble. As soon as everything calms down, I said, okay, they're here, and so I yelp, yep, yelp, yelp, And ten minutes later, turkey flies down, walks right to our gun barrel. 00:34:35 Speaker 7: We shoot him. Simple is like, h there's something to this. 00:34:39 Speaker 9: So we get back to the truck and calling our buddies, and we see them going across a mountain. They're going across his hilltop, probably five hundred yards away, chasing turkeys. And we get back to the truck and said, Ken said, they didn't let the creek accept them, so they should have. 00:34:53 Speaker 7: Killed by now. 00:34:54 Speaker 9: And so we watched them chase turkeys for probably two hours, going across these hills and they get back to the truck and said, these turkeys will not work with us one bit. 00:35:03 Speaker 7: They keep running from us. They're heading the opposite direction. We can't get in front of them. Blah blah blah. 00:35:07 Speaker 9: And Ken said, well, did you call before the creek accepted you, and they said yes. He said, that's why you won't kill a turkey. We'll try again tomorrow. And we backed up in the truck and left. And when we got back to the house, I said, you guys better listen to him. I said, it happened for us in five minutes. Said you better let the crik accept you tomorrow. And they went down in there. The same thing happened. They let the creek accept them. Two turkeys walk in ten minutes later and they shoot them, as simple as that. So that is a story of if you go traveling turkey hunting and you go with somebody that knows the area, you better listen to them. 00:35:39 Speaker 7: They know what they're talking about. 00:35:45 Speaker 4: Let the creek accept you. 00:35:48 Speaker 3: Even if you can't doctrinally accept the animistic element of this, Gud's suggestion, if you're a woodsman, I think you kind of get it. It doesn't always happen, but there comes a point in some hunt when you feel like you're a part of the natural system, not just a visitor. 00:36:05 Speaker 4: That was a good story, David, Thank you. 00:36:13 Speaker 3: Our last story is told by another Mississippian named Med Palmer met as a biologist for the state and best I can tell, he's the greatest turkey hunter who has ever lived, period, or at least that's the way that people that know him talk about him. And he's no stranger to bear grease. If you recall, he lost his son in a tragic accident on the Mississippi River in December of twenty twenty. This story is about Gunner, his son's last turkey hunt and an incredible experience Med had the following year. Here's the greatest turkey hnna that ever lived, Med Palmer. 00:36:58 Speaker 10: My be had Palmer County, Mississippi. The spring of twenty twenty was an unusual year of turkey hunt. It was it was a year that COVID had started and school was out worked They were pretty much telling us to work from home. So basically we could turkey hunt every day. Me and my son gone him and uh. The limit here in Mississippi's three and I limited out about middle to the season, and Gunner, like one turkey limited out. So we had got down to the last day of the season. I had saved that last day for just me and him, you know, did enjoy hunting together and hopefully he get his last bird. And there was a bird he had hunted through the season that had give him bits. I asked him, like for so, where you want to go? He said, I want to try that bird again. So we go in there that morning to get on the bird, and the bird was right on the property line. I actually flew up on the property next to us. We couldn't hunt got with hens, and we just couldn't do nothing with you. I said, well next year, I said, opening day, I said, we'll be back. So we started heading to the house. I told him, I said, I got one more spot. 00:38:05 Speaker 5: I said. 00:38:05 Speaker 10: We've been in there twice this year, but it was it's an ordeal to get in there. 00:38:08 Speaker 7: It's like a three. 00:38:09 Speaker 10: Mile drive on a little fire land to get in there, and then you got to walk by another quarter of a mile to get to where the turkeys are. He said, we've been in there twice. We hadn't heard any birds. And I said, well that partext for spot's got a lot of good nesting. I said, late in the season, those hens come in there and started nesting. I said, the gobblers, you know, they'll follow them, they'll be with them. So we get we start going in there that morning about nine o'clock we drive in there and get out walked and God, I really didn't think we was gonna hear anything. He was standing there kind of with his head lord, which we was wore out. It had been a long season and uh the first year Turkey. God was in the distance about three hundred yards, and he looked at me and started grinting, and I said, come on. So weave in there, got set up and got set up on the birds. And I figured it be maybe one or two hens that late season. Man, when I yep, after we shut up, it was like seven or eight hens cutting up. They started taking him away. Well, they got about one hundred and fifty yards and hung up, and the gobbler hung up the hens I think they was yet and trying to pull him, but he didn't want to leave. So we pooled with him, back and forth, back and forth, probably for another hour or so. Well it was twelve o'clock straight up, because I looked at my phone. All of a sudden he broke and he starts coming. Well, he's coming up a fire lane and we couldn't see him because the road made a bend about thirty yards in front of us, and I yep, and he gobbled right around the bend. I told Gunner, said, you better get your gun up. I come around the curves. Matter of practice, I see it and I could see him coming gun and couldn't seehim at that time. I said, look, just let him come. Let's enjoy the show. He rouns a bend, he comes in there, Gunner shoots him, so he kills him. We took her to death, went down to the wire the last day. You know, he got it done well. What I didn't know was that was Gunner's last turkey hunt that year, December third, twenty twenty. Gun it was an accident on Misissippi River. Actually scout in the turkeys for a veteran to take take a bean duck hunting the next day, and uh and we looked, and you know, to this day, we've never found gun of ours. 00:40:18 Speaker 2: Buddy. 00:40:20 Speaker 10: The next year, I didn't even know if I was gonna turkey hunt or not. I mean, I'd lost my son, I lost my hunting buddy. You know, it's real hard. And the day before the season, I decided I'm on hunt, you know. And actually nobody had called me that year to ask to go turkey hunt, which generally bopening week. I've got the first twenty Days book, and that year nobody had called. Anyway, I beside was gonna go. I was gonna go to the last place where Gunner, me and him hunting that bird that we didn't kill that last day. He was probably the longest walk of my life was that first I am turkey hunt without him. But anyway, got in there, turkey come in, and I killed it. It rocked on that whole season. I had an off season. I don't think I called, but like ten turkeys that was killed. To be honest with you, I had lost my spirit. In the Bible, it talks about somebody losing their spirit. So it rocked on into the next year and I had some really exceptional hunt with some disabled people, but I was still just amling a long turkey hunt. You know, I just didn't have that fire i'd had before. You know, I had lost my way and I don't know how to put it. So finally I decided, I said, I'm gonna go in there in the morning. We're gonna kill his last turkey. Because I couldn't even think about going that next year, right after accident, I said I need to do it, and need to get it over with. You know, that's where I'm going in the morning. I said, it's early in the season. I said, I probably won't hear nothing because they hadn't moved in there. They're not nesting yet. So I get in there that morning. Had to leave real early because, like I said, it's a pretty good ride in there. I get in there and then I walk and I get there probably about ten minutes before gobble time. And he gets about time. Birds starts chirping. So I hoop and low and behold a turkey gobbles. I said, man, he's right in there, close to where Gunner was and it's still, you know, dark. So I get in there, and the turkey gobbled early. So I get in there and get set up by a hundred yard from him, like you want to do. Well, this starts getting light, and all of a sudden, I look around. I said, I am on the very same tree Gunner was on when he shot this turkey. And it starts getting lighter. Of course, you know, it's emotional, you know, because I said, what is the odds a man coming in these woods two years later? A turkey goblin? And where I need to set up is the exact same tree where Gunner was when he killed his last turn. And about that time it dawned on me. I said, when Gunner shot, I said, he pumped the shot Gunn's shooting at twenty gauge eight seventy. I said his shell would be to the right. And I looked over and about a foot from me there laid that shell. It was pine straw when a lead covering half of it, but the yellow part of that twenty gate shell was sticking up, and it really got emotional them. And you know, I'd quit calling because my mind was somewhere else. And that turkey keeps gobbling on his own, like, hey, don't forget about ma'am, I'm stealing this tree, you know. And it gets about time to fly down. You know how they always do. Right before they fly down, they'll be godden to head off and then they'll go quiet for a minute. He had done that. He guy said, he's been a fly down. And by the time I heard him fly, it kind of glanced him through the wood. Well he flew away from me. So why yep, he gobbled in there about one hundred fifty two hundred yard. Well, yet again he's gone to bother, and then all of a sudden, the next time, I yep, he gobbled about seventy five yards over the hill. I said, he's coming. So I get my gun up and I'm still in most you know, all this is going through my head. I said, this ain't been in the hat. I said, I'm not gonna kill a turkey sitting on the very same tree that Gunner killed his last turkey. I see the pan pop up over the hill. He comes right down. He gets about twenty five yards on the side of a ridge, and all of a sudden, you know how the dew in the morning, when the sun comes up, it makes raised to the trees. It's like God put him on stage. All of a sudden, the sun broke out and it was raised, the sun just beaming on it. It was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen in my life. He strutted there for twenty minute till I finally decided, you know, I need to do this. It was going through my mind. I'm not gonna kill him. I'm gonna let him live. And then I said, no, if I don't shoot this turkey, Gunner be so mad at me. And finally, and you know, I yep, made him raise his head and I killed him. But it was being I'm saying, a whole lot of turkeys before in my life, but that turkey by boy. I could literally see every car he had turned different, and I could see a different color. And it happened on the bey same trade that Gunner killed his last. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that the Good Lord and Gunner said I'm okay, And that day I got my fire and my spirit back my turkey hunt now just like I always did, and I needed that to get me back on. 00:45:31 Speaker 3: That may be the greatest turkey story ever told. What a privilege that we get to hear it directly from Med. Thank you for sharing that story so that we can all celebrate Gunner's life. 00:45:52 Speaker 4: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. 00:45:55 Speaker 3: Please share our podcast with a friend this week and be watching for me Eater's Turkey Week, which is coming up where Brent and I'll be facing off in another turkey calling contest. Now, I want you to know that I'll be looking for your vote, but not for any reason other that I'm just a better color than Brent, and I think we all know that and keep watching for First Light's new tree line Turkey Best. Yep, first Light as a new Turkey Best. We've been using them for a couple of years, the prototypes and truly it's a great best. 00:46:34 Speaker 4: Check it out. 00:46:35 Speaker 3: Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.

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