00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Will's turkey for today and my turkey for tomorrow. I got a couple recent stories from this turkey season. Both were successful in different ways. It is truly my favorite time of the year, and I can't wait to tell you all about it. So get easy, let's get started. I hope you all like turkey stories because we're still telling them. Ain't gonna be telling them for a few more episodes. This first one is from Wilton Tim Reeves Junior. We call him Will or Wilbur, but he is my nephew and my brother Tim's youngest son. Along with being his namesake and a reasonable fact simile of his father as well. Will and his wife Rachel lived near the bustling metropolis of New Edinburgh, Arkansas, and have each called Cleveland County home since their birth. They've unleashed three youngins of their own amongst the populace in the world is a better place because of it. But this story is about Will's first turkey of the twenty sixth season. So in Wilver's words, in my voice, here we go. The first turkey I heard, Gobbin was three days into the sea, and I called him up, but you wouldn't do what I needed, and I spooked him when I tried to move. Three days after that, I pulled up to my normal listening spot on the four hundred acres that I can hunt. Billy Bryant being my grandpa, we called him Papa, and my dad Tim reeves. I've been taught a lot about what to do and what not to do. Trying to work a gobblin this morning turned into something neither of them ever taught me how to deal with. I was ware I needed to be one hundred yards from my jeep, waiting on daylight when an owl hooted and a gobbler responded. About two hundred and fifty yards away, in a patch of timber that had been a select cut, a couple of years ago. Now the main skid trails were still open, but between them it's thick with briers and brush. I eased in as close as I could get, but it was it was getting too light to risk moving out and sitting up a decoy, so I just sat on the edge of a skid tree. When it was light enough to start calling, I picked up my box that Papa made me, and I gave him three soft yelps before I finished that. Last year, three gobblers answered. Two of them were way closer than that one I first set up on. Every time I clucked, they lit it up again. One of them even double gobbled. Last year, I called in two long beards together and I killed one without being seen, so I was fired up at the chance to do it with three. I heard him fly down and I figured they were coming straight to me. One was drumming in the road about one hundred yards east and I purdon. I clucked and they answered again, but they weren't getting any closer, so I shut up. Papa always told me two things. He said, will you called too much? And if a gobbler answers you most time, he'll come back and check that spot. Sooner or later. And after about five minutes I heard something three feet by me. I cut my eyes over and there was a gobbler in full strut looking for the hen and he couldn't find. I couldn't move, and I didn't move anything but my eyes. He eased over the hill west of me, and as soon as he was out of sight, I got on my knees and I faced that way and I cut hard on my mouthcall. All three answered again, about one hundred yards away, with a jungle of brush between us. Then all three of them clucked at once. That blew out there in a panic. I never saw what spoke to him. Maybe a cold or a bobcat, I don't know. But two flew east and one flew up into a pine tree, and I watched him strut on a limb about seventy five yards away, beard just to swing in and wondering if Papa's old age seven he could reach that far. But I decided to wait him out and see what happened. I cut and yeped in the two I couldn't see back down toward me. Then when they hit the ground, the gobbler I was watching flew down to them, and I called hard, and they answered, and then they went quiet. When I clucked again, I could tell they were still together, but now about two hundred yards east in the road behind my deer stand. Papa always told me not to move much when turkeys are close, but these birds weren't budgeting. I decided to loop around and slip into one of my deer stands shooting lanes to get on the other side of them and see what I could see. I tied up my box call and I tucked it in the back of my vest and eased out onto the road. I clucked once on my mouth called to see where they were, and they answered, and they were in the same spot. Well, I cut the distance and I made it to where I could see them. When I peeked out around the bush about one hundred yards away, all three were strutting in the road. I had to do something fast, so I just dropped to my knees and I realized I couldn't get to Papa's calling town. But I had another call in the front pouch in my vest that my oldest son Thomas, had given me for Father's Day. I yeeped on it while I was peeking down the trail. I saw the closest gobbler break and run in my direction, the other two in hot pursuit trying to catch it. I just set that call down. I shouldered Papa's shotgun, I clicked his safety off, and I waited. I watched as the first one came in the range and pulled the trick. I boom. He hit the ground like he'd been poured out of a bucket, and I ran to him, and standing there with my foot on his neck and holding Papa's gun and having used a call that he made me man, I cried like a baby for about five minutes. Papa left this world on April the second. I know he had a great reunion with Ma'ama all and my uncle Joe. And it's not unusual for me to get emotional about killing the turkey, but this one, this one, it's different. Sitting here writing this up and I'm crying again. I'm not sad he's not with us anymore, because I know he's in a better placement. I miss him all the same, and I've never known a greater Christian example, and he was a turkey killer. Most folks will never get close to match it. After the hunt. I was talking to my brother in law and he told me your papa was looking down on your smiling big boy, and I told him I'm sure he was, but I bet he was also telling my uncle Joe. I've been telling that boy for years. He calls too much. And according to Will Reeves, who just happens to be one of my most favorite human type people, that's just how that happened, Wilbur. I've been telling these folks about your grandpa for the last several episodes. Lessons about patience, instances of integrity from just my experiences within you, son, for another example of it. Thank you for letting me share one of your stories. I love you, buddy. Well, if you listen last week, you know we squeaked out a wind in the bottom of the ninth and had a turkey just more or less give himself up by walking headlong into gun range from literally out of nowhere. It makes for better television. As they say in the business, to cut it down to the wire. And what they're talking about is the story arc, and the story arc is the extended chronological structure of a narrative mapping the rise and fall of emotion, tension, character development and plot events from beginning to end. It acts as a framework to move a story from initial stability, through the conflict and the climax to a new resolution span an individual scenes, chapters, or an entire series. Well you know what. That sounds really cool and artistic, but it sucks. The struggle was real because I'd already missed the Turkey and the time to move on to the next project was getting close. At hand, I wasn't thinking about art, but up until the moment I pulled the trigger on that Alabama gobbler, I was wishing I could have filled my tag on the first morning the heck with the story arc, check the killing box, and then have plenty of time to shoot the rest of the story before leaving reed Bargaineer's land. Instead, it played out in real time, full of tension and real drama, which was great and they're right, it will make for better television and the story arc is complete, well that portion of it anyway. We set our goodbyes and read headed to the airport with cameraman Dave Gardner and his plunder. I headed for the small community of Midway, Alabama, an hour and a half to the east to meet up with my friend David McDaniels where he was going to fill a hunt with my new friend Reed Duval. Reed is the CFO for Turkeys for Tomorrow, a nonprofit dedicated to funding research for the betterment of the wild turkey. Red had secured us a place to state permission to hunt on some well managed turkey land and introduced us to one of the landowners we'd be hunting with. The afternoon we got there, Barry Kirklan met us at the cabin. Reid had described Barry as a turkey whisperer. That's a pretty lofty nickname for a fellow. I would come to learn that that moniker was more than appropriate. Miss Ellen and Miss Jenny fixed our supper that night and all the meals that followed like they were trying to kill me. The food was so good I got mad when I got full, as good as grocers as I've ever managed. The stuff in my nugget on cooking that made you feel it home, true Southern ladies that cooked and fussed over you like your grandma. They're part of the regular staff to take care of the hunters who stay at Racetrack Farms, A relatively new bird Hunt Concern, owned by Roger Treywick and his son Rock. Now, if the bird hunting is anything close to the victials those ladies are cranking out of that kitchen, folks would be hard pressed to find a more suitable place to spend some time behind a pair of point dogs. Four point fifteen came early the next morning, and when the alarm sucker pushed me in my ear hole, I woke up and I realized I hadn't moved an inch since I laid down. I was working on over a week of early mornings and late nights, and such is the struggle for a serial turkey hunter. But I was as ready as I'd been a whole week. The day before, We've witnessed a turkey hunting miracle. When that roaman, gnome of a gobbler over in Ford Deposit chose poorly and followed his nose on a path straight into my deep frieze, I felt that my luck was changing. I was hunting again with two dudes named Red and David, after hunting for a week with Reed and Dave, probably even lesser odds of doing that, with each of them holding the title of hosting cameraman just as the other ones had. I had two and a half days to get it done before I had to go home, and that should be just about right, because that's just about how long it took me to fill that tag and iron. Half west to where I was currently drinking my coffee, we drove down to Barry's place, geared up, and walked the dirt road to where we were going to listen. We stood next to an old family grave that was protected by a wrought iron fence just big enough to keep folks from stepping on a couple's final resting place that, judging from the condition of the tombstone, had been there for a while. I wish I had thought and checked the dates, But as the light grew bright enough to see, we heard of this dunk gobbler that required us to start making tracks in that direction. That day, I looked at everything but a turkey. We just couldn't seem to get close enough to one to even get something going. I'll tell you what I did see, though, Quail, Bob white quail in every direction. It was a heartwarming symphony of nostalgia and reverence of a time when I could hear the same whistle on our farm when I was a child up until my early twenties. A sound that I had not taken for granted at any period during that time, but a sound I thought I'd never not hear until I didn't. So many factors that led to the quails de mines in Southeast Arkansas that if I started naming them, I'd lose focus on the story I'm trying to tell you. The good news is Barry the turkey whisper, or Kirkling, the Treywicks, and a great community of adjacent landowners all over that part of Alabama are all working hard to manage their lands with controlled burns and planting native grasses and creating ideal habitat for quail that get This is also conducive to improving those spaces for turkeys. They go hand in hand. I met so many people whose singular mission for their properties wasn't to kill quail or turkeys. That was secondary here, or even further down the list behind keeping those critters and all the others that benefited from their work on that piece of Alabama in perpetuity. The next day we hit another piece of property suggested by one of Barry's friends. We couldn't find a turkey with a search one. We could hear them, but they were just too far to go. After mid morning, we loaded up and Berry said, I know where we're going. A convoy two trucks, Barry and I and the lead and David Reed riding dragon. We zigged and zagged across Bullock County. As we made our way to the next spot. Barry was busy telling me about his life and his family, his work, his faith, his service to others, not in a boastful manner, just in passing conversation. I picked up the service to others part of all on my own. I seemed to find myself in a company of people like that more and more lately, And while I feel beyond blessed to be there, I'm not exactly sure how I got so lucky. Well, we parked on the side of the county road, well out of traffic, and started walking behind Barry as he led us at a brisk but silid pace through controlled burns that were vibrant with the green grass of spring, and slipped down mold access trails between nesting cover and managed mosaic patches of thicker vegetation that provided necessary cover for quail and turkey and their posts to move about the land escape relatively safe from birds of prey. All along our route through the woods from the previous spot and now here, Barry would call, occasionally trying to strike a turkey, trying to get one to answer. That dude can call as good as anyone I've ever heard with anything. He can do more tricks with a mouth call than a monkey can. And an acre of grapevines, and finally we got close enough for one to hear it. We paused near the edge of the stand of pines that had been burned just before entering a hardwood bottom that held a shallow drain. When Barry's calling reached down into a gobbler's belly and pulled out a gobble that caught us all by surprise and couldn't have been more than two hundred and fifty yards away. Those reactions are always the same, a look of focused panic on everybody's faces, and quiet resolved to find a suitable spot to sit, Barry whispered, we need to find a spot to sit. They may be coming to us. And then the thirty to forty five seconds that ticked away as we looked for a spot to hide four people among the stand the charred pines no bigger than my forearm, Barry said, y'all listen. He then called again, and the response was immediate and alarmingly closer. The gobblers, Yes, gobblers, because we could hear several gobbling together were coming, and they were coming fast. I took the point, with David behind me a few yards with the camera, and Reid was further back on my right, and Barry was even further but directly behind me. He started soft calling with purrs and clucks, and in a few moments I could distinctly hear the drumming of a gobbler straight out in front of me, but out of sight in the hardwoods that lined that drain, the place we'd originally tried to make it to before the gobblers answered Barry's initial calls. I heard it several times, and then a gobble revealed that they were drifting to our left, moving around the small crest of a hill that sloped up from the hard wood drain into that pine plantation where we sat. They were moving to come around behind us, and this was nold bueno and made us scramble to reposition ourselves. I moved round the tree and face the spot where David had just vacated, and he grabbed a spot next to Reed behind me. Barry, I guess, became invisible, grabbed a puff of wind, and materialized once more on the edge of the hardwood drain we'd been facing, but now had our backs. There was again, and this time it was just over the crest of that little hill. I focused down between the barrels, past the beat of my four to ten double, trying to conjure a glimpse of anything black that wasn't charred bark out of that patch of pines. My eyes darted back and forth without blinking, scarring every inch of space between those trees for movement or any resemblance of a turkey. And then just like that, the drummond was gone, and so were they. We sat there for an appropriate amount of time waiting for them the gobble again, and when they did, they were a long waist from where we were setting. They just simply moved on without any of us seeing so much as a feather. A big lunch prepared by Miss Ellen Miss Jenny, and a nap and an afternoon hunt rounded out our day, we called up ahead that hopped a log within a few yards of where we sat, while quail whistled constantly in the fields above us. There's something beyond poetic about the gentleman's game bird. And while the gobble of an Eastern while turkey, is more of a command than a sound, the polite whistle of a Bob White is courteous and respectful. It evokes memories of old dogs and sent a saddle, leather and gun hold, the sound of fitting the icon of the Southern family farm. The next morning, David and I had it to ourselves. Work commitments required Barry and Reed to be elsewhere, so they were gracious enough to drop me a couple of pins on all acts to check out before we packed up and headed home. As daylight started glowing orange in the east, we were standing on a small rise next to a huge lob lolly pine. I can't count the times I've been in the spot, not this particular spot, but in this circumstance. Wide awake, listenings of the woods come alive as the stars start to fade, the heart full of wonder on what's about to happen? Am I going to be treated to only the beautiful springtime southern sunrise, a treat so many that live here are oblivious to. Or will the bonus of a goblin turkey be added to that symphony of sounds that grows with intensity with each tick of the clock. I start seeing the land more clearly as it becomes visible in the waning darkness. The silhouettes I thought were close saplings morphing into a larger tree line, steal a brisk walk away, and planned in my head how to approach different directions. Should a turkey gobble early and give his location away, I looked all around me fourth place to see it. Should one surprise us by gobbling close. I was writing the formula with each decision I would make for this hunt, and we would only know once it was over if my math was going to be correct. He was less than three hundred yards trying north when he shook the woods into activity. David and I slipped over to a patch of hardwood, and he sat against a big red oak, while I moved forward of it about eight feet and settled in against another one. That turkey was gobbling often, And when fly down time came, I very conservatively clucked and cut a few times, imitating a hen flying down. He answered immediately and pitched off the limb. For the next three hours we did the dance. I'd call and he'd dancer about eighty percent of the time, but never getting closer than one hundred yards. I could see him at one point with my bios bigger than life and strutting at the edge of the power line. I'd called and he turned his fan toward me, but he never came any closer. He eventually drifted off to wherever silent turkeys go on hunts like that. In my mind, I imagine it looks like a hospital waiting room in labor and delivery from the nineteen fifties, coffee machines and ash trays and cigarettes, smoking chairs lighting the wall, and gobblers talking to each other, smoking while some read the paper and others paste back and forth, and a few napping where they sat. And we stayed there in that spot until we absolutely had to load up and leave. And when we did that stuck a fork in my Alabama turkey season for twenty twenty six. I learned something several things, actually, and it ended on a positive. Anytime I was trailing whaling when I first got him. Regardless of the circumstance, I tried to find a positive action to end on. Maybe it was just him coming to me when I called or or loaded him up in the dog box on the first command. Anything that I could stop the lesson on that was good, that would carry over into the next one by ending on a good note. I may not have killed the turkey with my new friends Bury and Red, but there's the positive right there. Two new friends, two new friends who I think about when I think about the meals that we shared, the experiences we shared. I shared love of all things wild, including turkeys and Bob White quail, all of us realizing how much better both of those things are when you share the burdens of working for them. The thank yous won't come from a social media person. They'll come every spring when you hear turkey is gone, quail whist it the invitation to come back next year you hear them again with them. Well that was the gravy on the biscuit. Good stuff for the folks listening. Did y'all know that you can now watch this podcast on meet Either's YouTube podcast channel. Well you can. We've got several of them on there. Now, while the footage you see isn't a play by play of what I'm talking about, you can see the folks or places that I'm usually talking about. And it's a work in progress and we've got some new ideas coming along as well, and I hope you'll check it out and let us know what you think. Thanks for listening to all of us here on the Old Baggaries channel. And until next week when we get to put our boots on the next of a couple old nikky pete gobblers. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful