Ep. 107: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Turkey Hunting Mentors

Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host Brent Reeves. From Cone hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This country life is proudly presented as part of Mediators Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts the airways have to offer. Alright friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you. The Value of a Turkey Hunting Mentor Lots of folks got spring turkey hunting on the mine right now and so do I. This week I'm talking about what I consider to be the most valuable item in anyone's bag of turkey hunting tricks. It ain't a call. It ain't camo. It ain't even a gun or shells. It's a mentor. Someone that can show the new hunter the basics to get started or answer the questions of a seasoned vet who keeps getting the old razzle dazzle put on him by particularly tough nut to crack. There's no more valuable skill than getting the straight dope on knowing what order your ziggin and zaggin needs to be. Someone when to do something and especially when not to can be the difference between crackers and Viennese sausages for supper or a sizzling skillet full of fried wild turkey. Having that knowledge starting out is how we're going to beat the system. Lots of good eating under them feathers but first I'm going to tell you a story. One of my mentors was Mr. Leon Garlic. The same Mr. Leon wound up loving black pepper on his eggs. If that don't ring a bell check out a story I told on the Bear Greece episode number 49. Mr. Leon was a turkey hunter. He could call turkeys with a green briar leaf folded between his lips like a modern day mouth call and he told me a gobbler could hear you thinking and see you change your mind. He was talking about how good they can see and hear and I'm pretty sure he was right. We've added that to the fact that we're attempting to reverse nature by calling a gobbler to the sound of a hen which is bass-acrid to how it works in the wild. The real script is this. Gobblers gobble, a hen hears it, walks to him, they go on a date and next year we get more turkeys in the woods. We're doing the opposite but for clarification at least for Arkansas our turkey season is set to open after the peak breeding cycle and this will maximize the likelihood of increasing the overall population. There's the challenge and the reward for making it happen. Good things ought to be tough. Imagine how boring it would be if every time you call to a gobbledon turkey you can run any animal on a string. Well that may have been a bad example. Every time I go hunting not only do I imagine that I expect it. However it rarely happens. Except for the time I'm fixing to tell you about. Actually this gobbler didn't run in or walk or even take a step. Now if you're thinking I shot him off the roost negative ghost rider that's dirty pool and I wouldn't do it and if you do you ought to be in jail. I was working in the woods back then and coming home close to roosting time one evening I drove by a field on some property that I could hunt and I saw a gobbler strutting with four or five hens about 200 yards away in the edge of the woods. I knew they'd be close to there in the morning because it was almost dark so I called my older brother Tim and I told him about what I'd seen. I told him to go hunt there the next morning because I had to work. Man he was all fired up but the longer I thought about it that night the more I regretted telling him where that turkey was. So I called my boss and I told him that I wasn't feeling good and I wouldn't be at work the next day. He wasn't no dummy. He knew what I was up to and he told me that I could be at work the next morning or I could add a job to the list of things I was going to be hunting that day. I told him that sounded like a plan and I hung up. I didn't care. I was young, single, living on my own and surviving on deer meat and taters. I could always get a job. I had a turkey season and that only lasted a little while. Then I called Tim and uninvited him to shoot my turkey. He was not pleasant and I didn't care. It was pitch black dark when I slipped up the creek on the edge of that field. Once I got even with where I'd seen them turkeys the evening before I barely crawled across an opening and set up against a big pine tree facing into the woods and where I'd figured he'd roosted it and then I waited for daylight. Finally the sky started to lighten up and the red bird started singing and that turkey gobbled on a limb less than a hundred yards away. When that joker started gobbling he didn't stop. Finally, it got light enough that I could see the tree he was in and when I'd catch a glimpse of him every night in when he run his head out the gobble. He stayed on that limb until the sun came up gobbling like it was his job. At that particular time he was the only one between us that had one. I ain't made a peat. My old box call laid in my lap and I finally picked it up and squeaked out three soft guffs that sounded more like a dine wrap stuck in a gum boot than a hen turkey looking for love. I laid that call down and put that belger made all of my knee and waited. As bad as that call sounded to me, old Jasper out there was digging it. He let loose a series of goggles that sounded like he'd gone berserk up one after another. Five or six in a row and then I heard him leave the roost. Flapping his wings and hitting limbs and leaves as he flew toward me it sounded like he was chopping wood. Then I saw him sailing toward me like a jet. I was following him in with that shotgun just like he was a duck coming to the decoys. He hit the ground ten steps in front of me and I beat him a sunlight that looked like he was starting in a show. He looked dead in my eyes and gobbled so loud I could almost feel his breath and I cut that joker a flip. His feet wasn't all the ground long enough to get dirty when I touched off John Moses Brownin's greatest invention. I stopped by Tim's house on the way to work and showed him. He took my picture and I did not quit my job. This story was in reference not so much to calling but to the best tip I'd ever gotten from the greatest turkey hunting mentor I've ever had. Mr. Billy Bryant, Tim's Daddy-in-law. He told me that being where a turkey wanted to be was way better than any call you could ever make and the best calling in the world wouldn't get him to a place he didn't want to go. Now lots of times it ain't what you say. It's how you say it and more importantly where you say it from. That turkey had been right where I was the evening before and could possibly have flown up on the roost from where he lived that morning. I punched him in the mouth and told him out of the woods. Mr. Bryant's mentorship killed that turkey. I just pulled a trick on him. So where are you going to find your Mr. Bryant? Well you can do like I did and win the turkey hunting mentorship lottery by having your older brother marry a girl he literally picked out in the nursery. My brother and his wife were born in the same hospital three days apart and spent one day together. Tim's first day in the nursery and Barbara Jean's last when they were both less than a week old. He said he spied her across the room and that's all it took for him and that choice made us all winners. I got an extra good older sister and a bona fide died in the wool turkey killing Jedi as a coach and her father. He custom made me a box call and a wing bone call and no amount of money could buy. I may be buried with him. Now that probably ain't going to be the easiest way for you to get your mentor so we got to figure out how to get you one. First, we need to identify what we need in one. They have to be willing to share their hard earned knowledge with you. So if possible, you're going to need to throw something in the kitty too. How about a spot with a heads turkeys on it? Turkey hunting spots in the south are guarded like a bank vault. There is no place more sacred to a turkey hunter than the place where the object of his obsessions resides. Public or private. I would feel easier walking up to a stranger and asking him for kidney. It's a medical fact that a human only needs one to live and most folks are born with two and you never know. Someone might actually say yes to a kidney donation but ask to shoot a hunter's goblin turkey. You better keep your head on swivel because somebody is liable to try to slap some sense into you and they should. That's crazy. But it's not impossible. And here's how you do it. Put yourself in that circle. Whether it's at the local sport and good store, a church group, a wild turkey banquet or any gathering where turkey hunting folks might be. Look for the older fellow that everyone makes a point to speak to throughout the gathering. He probably ain't going to be dressed like he just come from hunting unless he actually did. And you won't find the majority of mentors running around in vehicles festooned with outdoor related decals and sporting the latest greatest hunting equipment. There ain't nothing wrong with any of that but a mentor is usually at a stage in their hunting career where they like what they like and they see no reason to change and they have plenty of turkey beers to back up their credentials. These folks might even be looking and waiting for someone interested enough to ask and be glad to pass that knowledge down to them. I ain't there yet so don't send me no DMs. I'm a one man wolf pack. Get your own turkey. Just kidding. Not really. Sharing misery with a friend will lighten the load. Sharing joy multiplies it. Now I don't know where I heard that. I'm pretty sure I made it up. On a blind hog will find an apron every now and then and that one may be mine. But to my point a friend will share his turkey spot and acquaintance not so much. I turkey hunt on some land in another state that is owned by folks that I'm friends with all year long. Not just turkey season. As a matter of fact they're just like my family. Work on associating yourself with people that have land like that. Go well tell them to begin with what your goal is and offer something in return. Sometimes a little d'narrow will make friends of landowners quicker than having to spark them at the local coffee shop. And if private land ain't an option for you get them brogans out on the public ground and start doing some scouting. Everybody owns it and you have just as much right as anyone else to scout and hunt as you see fit. To do it with respect for those who were there first and be as accommodating to them as you would like them to be to you. Now I'm 100% sure I didn't make that one up but I know who did and it's solid advice in just about everything you do. I imagine that. The definition of a mentor is an experienced and trusted advisor. Now that doesn't necessarily say old man but experience doesn't usually come from the real young ones. My good friend Michael Meakes started turkey hunting at my urging when he was in his mid 20s and I'm only 5 years older than him. But I'd started hunting turkeys a long time before that and I served as his mentor. We actually did a lot of learning together and he learned well. Nowadays it wouldn't be advisable to run out in front of him with a turkey suit on. You'll mess around and that jerk will make your head look like it caught on fire and someone beat it out with a golf shoe. He is a turkey killer. So if a Mr. Brian type mentor ain't available slide on down the chain of command to mentor number 2. Someone that's been successful in the turkey woods with similar interest to yours. That was mine and Michael's relationship. We growing up together were friends. We both liked to hunt and we enjoyed hunting together. At the time I called the turkey him for that fool and told him to shoot and he didn't. His version of that story is I told him the turkey was too far and not to shoot. My version is he's an idiot and should have pulled the trigger because I was saying shoot. That turkey is bumping 25 years old now and probably got a family of his own. It's the ones that get away that I can't stop thinking about. I told him to shoot. Anyway that's your second type of mentor. Michael had an advantage because we more or less grown up together. But I met lots of folks with similar skill set to my own. Some even while I was out hunting and then developed a friendship with them wound up hunting together some and learned as much from them as they did for me. But Michael still the only one I ever hunted with that didn't shoot when I told him to. I said shoot plain today but he don't bother me much except when I think about it. Now the third type of mentor can't really be listed as a mentor. He's going to be more like an accomplice because y'all are going to be messing up and learning together and those are the lessons that come easy and leave a scar that you'll remember and not do again. Its success through attrition. You remember when and where you messed up and the next time that situation presents itself you don't do that again. Like when I told Michael shoot and he didn't. Jerry Hostin was a mentor of mine as well. He and my father were great friends and I can never really remember a time when he and his family weren't in my life. We were all close but Jerry and I were the only turkey hunters. Jerry was like a second father and a good turkey hunter. His skill was persistence and patience. That cat has zero quit and could worry a sitting hand off a nest. I've seen him call to turkeys when everyone else would have just hung it up and moved on to greener pastures but not Jerry. It was like he took it personal. There wasn't anything off the table. The old adage of y'all up in three times and laying your call down meant nothing to Jerry Go Wayne Hostin. He added go to his middle name because he said he wanted everybody to know that he was always ready. We were hunting down in the Selena Rubatums one spring and had missed course to turkey goblin and walked way down away from our truck only to find him goblin out of sight and across the river over 200 yards away. He was flat more telling the world he knew how to gobble and was lighting the woods on fire. Only trouble was there was more water than me Jerry Go Wayne or that turkey could drink running between us. Now if you're not familiar with how turkeys operate allow me to give you a brief description. They are dumb as a sack of hammers and I have seen them come to a call only to hang up on barriers they could easily step over or go around. I had one hang up in a cow pasture once that had grass growing it no longer than on a ball field and strut and gobble walking back and forth along a cow trail that he wouldn't step across. An eight inch smooth dirt path that a crawfish could have spread across had kept a grown turkey from walking close enough for me to shoot. I have seen them hang up on small fallen logs in the middle of the woods, a one strand by a wire fence and an endless list of the smallest items that kept them from meeting their maker and incomparable to the struggles that they went through to get to the point where they hung up. They make me crazy. Almost as crazy as Michael did when I told him plainly to shoot and he didn't. So when we get to the edge of the river we are on a high bluff bank and the turkey is on the other side which is a lot lower. We sat down to rest after that long, disappointed walk to a turkey that we didn't have a snow balls chance in the oven to kill him. Remember persisted in the patient Jerry? Well after we called our breath he said call to him. The turkey asked him. And Jerry said pour it on him and mash the gas and don't mind the brakes and pardon it that's just what I did. That turkey lost his mind and his breath and called him. We could hear a hand cutting and cacking him back at us from over there and that fired that dog to help him more. I was wearing a groove and that sleigh as I was using him. Double him up with a mouth crawl at the same time. It sounded like a Tarzan move and saw that wild record going on on both sides of the group. Now from where we were sitting we could see plumb across the river and where that turkey was gobbling. But we couldn't see past the edge of the brush on the bank of the river up into the bottom where he was and where all that commotion was taking place. Jerry was sitting in front of me with a shotgun in his lap just enjoying and listening to the show when all of a sudden I heard wings and watch as that gobber flew across the river straight toward us and lit 50 yards from where we were sitting. To my surprise that turkey hit the ground went into full strut and gobbled like a roaring lion looking right at us. To my greater surprise Jerry quick draw that shotgun out of his lap and missed the turkey I just called across a sleigh and really that was fixing to walk closer. We were both disappointed we didn't get him but we were amazed and grateful we had the opportunity. It wasn't like I told him to shoot and he didn't. Anyway, Jerry bragged about that to everyone all season long about how he'd witnessed the greatest calling feet in the history of watching me call a gobbler across the river. That hunt happened on opening day of the season that year. Jerry and I both tagged out and on the last day Tim and Mr. Bryant had a tag left and were hunting together on a different spot up the river and started calling to a gobbler that eventually walked away from them. While they sat there desperately calling and trying to get that gobbler's attention, Tim amazingly called up 11 turkey polds that had obviously hatched early and they walked up within inches of where they sat calling. There wasn't any cell phones back then but we ran a turkey report grapevine on the landline every evening to see what every one in our circle had done that day. I'd already talked to Tim and Mr. Bryant and got the report on them seeing the baby turkeys when Jerry called me immediately after hearing the same baby turkey story from Tim. And here's how that conversation went. Brent, I don't know how many folks I've told about you calling that turkey across the river but it's been everyone I can make stand still long enough to listen to it since the day it happened. It was the greatest exhibition of turkey calling I've ever seen or heard of until today. Because today I learned that your brother is the greatest turkey caller that will ever walk this earth. He will never be whooped. You may have called one away from a live hen and across the river but he called a dozen out of their shells. If you're new to turkey hunting, find you a mentor. Make the effort and show folks that can show you that you're in with both feet and willing to learn. If you're old and grizzled or just either one, find someone to mentor. Mr. Bryant turned 90 years old on the 29th day of April. We drove two hours to his birthday party. I bet there was close to 100 folks that came in and out of that event sooner. I kept looking around counting the turkey hunters in there. There was a bunch of us in that building. But there was only one like him. Thank you for listening. I appreciate so much the wonderful feedback that we got from all y'all that have taken the time to reach out. If you have a mind too, leave us a review on iTunes. I don't know how it works but when y'all do that, you have to get the word out about our little show to other folks that might like to hear. Until next week, this is Brent Reeve signing off. Y'all be careful. ♪♪♪