On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, host Clay Newcomb brings together one last group of turkey stories for the season told by some of the best story tellers. Stories from custom turkey call makers Don and Sarah Clark, internet sensation Trent Ellis, “the greatest turkey hunter in the world” Med Palmer, story-teller-in-residence Andy Brown, Brother Robin Risher, up-and-coming outdoorsman Bear Newcomb, and newcomer to Bear Grease Johnny Johnston.
If you have comments on the show, send us a note to beargrease@themeateater.com
Connect with Clay and MeatEater
Clay on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips
I'll get out of the truck and I'll just, you know, with my mouth right before I do my first hoot. I take that breath in, and that sweet heat pineapple deer sausage last night that I ate hits me because it's mixed with two cups of coffee, Prime coffee, with that creamer sitting over there, that coffee make creamer. And I'm thinking, oh, dear God, this is bad. And I don't want to run in these woods because they may be a bird, you know, roasted. And I got in there. I got in there kind of late because it's already blue in the sky, you know, like these birds should be got about that time.
This is our second turkey hunting episode of the twenty twenty five spring. And there's something that I hadn't told you. It's that we saved some of the best turkey stories for last. Say you might, as a person top the greatest turkey story ever told hat tip into Med Palmer's last story on the last episode, and say I to you, listen and find out for being bit by a turkey, to chunk in a pine knot at a fox, to using the panther scream to kill a big gobbler to a man wearing only his underwear and a cameo jacket to shoot a gobbler. His stories are full of surprises, and some of them are even downright embarrassing, but they are guaranteed to get you fired up for Turkey season. You guys know how this works. We've got eight people telling us their best stories. This is one of my favorite times of the year, and I really doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one.
Well.
At my time, I start leaning over, a stick goes through my underwear and gets hung up in it, and now I can't move and I can't and now he throws his head up.
He sees me.
So I just leaned over, riped my underwear when I did, and he jumps up when he does, I should killing.
My name is Klay Nukem and this 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 places we explore. The best thing about a good turkey story is that you just never know which direction that it's going to go, and these stories are going to surprise you. It continues to amaze me how many varied and sundry things can go wrong from the time a turkey starts come when he's in gun range, and how many varied in sundry things have to go perfectly right. Our first storyteller is new to bear grease, but it is a true veteran of the spring.
This is an old time turkey hunt.
Don and Sarah Clark, and they're gonna tell us how the name Clarkett came about.
My name is Don Clark. I'm from Sheridan, Arkansas.
You know Sarah and I make box calls and have a lot of people ask us, how did yell come up with the name Clarkett custom calls.
Well, Clarkett is a name.
That was given to us by some of several of our friends here. There were turkey hunters, but back in the day, we didn't have a lot of turkeys. This is back in the early seventies. There wasn't a lot of turkeys around. So if you heard a turkey, you better get on him. And because if other people found it, you know how that goes, they gonna be in there. They're gonna kill it too. But our general rule was, you know, you hunted him for three days. If you didn't kill him, you got on the phone. You get on the phone at night. We would call cousins, we call uncles, we call sister in law's brother in laws, whatever, and we're gonna go down there, and somebody would go in or try to go under the night before and roost that turkey. Whether he would be more likely the game plan guy and my brother James, he loved to call the turkey, but he we had a turkey that our good friend Willim McGarty had been hunting for a few days and hadn't killed him.
So he called us. He said, we we need if.
Y'all would come help us, come help me kill this turkey. So, like I said, the phone line lit up at night. We got everybody all planned up. We met up the next morning at that little church here where Willard had been here in a turkey. He was giving everybody, you go here, you stay on the west side, you stay on just to go about two hundred yards mountaine. We're gonna we're gonna get there and we're gonna surround this turkey when he gets off the roofs.
Because you couldn't call him, that's what he said, you can't call him, he gonna leave.
So James Erwin was gonna be the call man, which he always got to be the call man. This year was Sarah's first turkey hunt. I think her and Becky both got to go that morning, and we had cousins there, uncles, so we had our little plans there and going down the roads. Well, I don't know a lot of you guys or maybe like me, but a lot of times when you get to the woods in the morning, something will hits you and all of a sudden you have to go to the restroom. Well I had my pretty young wife with me that morning. Anyhow, I told her, I said, you stay right here on this road and I'm going to slip right out there and take care of the business and I'll be back. Well, I go out there, start to take care of my business. Well, I just took my foot and brooked about three times there, just cleaning me out a little spot and set the squat. So whenever I squatted, just about the time I got squatted. I'd laying my gun on a stump right there in front of me, about three or four yards. I heard a racket. Now I looked, hear that turkey come running just as hard as he could run. He run right up her to me and stopped, like, oh my god. Well, I'm sating there with my pants all undone, and so so I thought, if I can just ease up her, just reach over and get that gun real easy, maybe I can kill it. So I started that little process. About the time I almost had my gun that turkey wanted to putting, he jumped up in the air and he went to fly.
Looked like a beep fifty two bomber leaving here. And just about that time.
He flew right over the top of her. And she now when she had just started turkey, this was her first turkey hunt. She blowed a hole through that turkey's breast that you would not believe. But anyhow, I went running to her, still holding my grabbing my pants up, running to her, got there, got there looking at the turkey, and boil with high five and hugging and kissing the pair.
And I don't like a bunch of the kids.
You could have stuck a beer can through that turkey's breast where she had shot the whole loaded went through there. The turkey had a seven inch period and eleven inch period and that that was her first turkey to every kill, well, everybody show with the turkey. Of course, back then, whenever you killed one, you showed everybody you want to share, and you drove around everybody got to hear the story. What people would say, well, did you clark it or did you call it up? So the Clerket name come from all the clerks calling to get together surrounding a turkey and killing it, which we did that several times, but we'd rather call it up and kill it just outright. But you know, back then turkey was a delicacy and the clerks were known to kill turkeys.
Now that's a good story and really a testament to the effectiveness of scratching in the leaves and making the most of every opportunity, and sometimes opportunity comes when you least expect it. This isn't the only wing shot turkey that you're going to hear about today, and later we're going to hear from Don's wife, Sarah, And it's not hard to see that these people have dedicated a big chunk of their life to the wild turkey. Our next storyteller is a handful. I can't say that I know him real well, but I know two things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Number one, he's a handful, and number two, he lives in the cultural cradle of American turkey hunting, Magnolia State in Mississippi.
His name is.
Trent Ellis and he's pretty much an internet comedian. This story is about a public land gobbler, and all I can say is hide the kids, hide your wives. This one shows some serious dedication and might make a pale skinned person blush.
And it's oddly connected to Dawn's story. You'll get why. And if you don't know him already, meet Trent else.
My name's Trent Us, and I'm gonna tell y'all about a story of my last public bird that I killed here, okay, here in Mississippi. So every morning I like to get up deer in turkey season, obviously, because you got to get in there way before daylight. And I'll come in here and I'll turn the coffee pot on, and I love to get, you know, from here to the woods. I like to drink, you know, the port and thermous and I'll probably drink a cup and a have to two cups of coffee. So I step out of the truck that morning, and I'll get out of the truck and I just, you know, with my mouth right before I do my first hoot, I take that breath in, and that sweet heat pineapple deer sausage last night that I ate hits me because it's mixed with two cups of coffee, Prime coffee, with that creamer sitting over there. That coffee make creamer. And I'm thinking, oh, dear God.
This is bad.
And I don't want to run in these woods because they may be a bird, you know, roosted. And I got in there. I got in there kind of late because it's already blue in the sky, you know, like he's birds to be God about that time. Well, see what I did learn is one guy will really don't change nothing for me. But when you hear three of them, that stomach ache starts to lessen. Okay, it starts to go away. Because I'm talking about that son of a gun. He started going over to my left. I know there's two birds. I'm pretty sure there's one double goblin. He's hot. So I make the decision to hop in that old six seven comings, fire that loud diesel up, and move another one hundred and fifty yards instead of walking like a smart person. Okay, and you know when you have to go walking is kind of a that's a question mark, you know what I'm saying. So I get in that truck and I go up about one hundred and fifty yards and I swing off the road and I part and from the time that I left that place to the time that I got to the second place, I'm prairie dogging, buddy. Let me tell you it's hurt. I had a buddy in the Marine Corps said you ain't got to go bad enough until you can feel it. And feet, and my feet were throbbing, you hear what I'm telling you, Like they were. It was just pulsating, all right. So I made a decision. I'm like, I gotta handle this first, for I get in here after these birds, and I get out of the truck and I shut my door real quiet and everything, and I'm going across and I got my pants, you know, halfway down and everything, and I don't have a true. I mean, I can't go into the woods because these birds are I think they're eighty yards from me. I'm like, I don't sell. They don't see the truck. So I grab on the front of my truck and I go to squat and that's some gun double gobbles like one hundred yards away, and it's just like it's just like it just went right back up. And I was like, oh crap.
Now.
So I made a decision at that point that I'm gonna kill this bird. And to make a long story short, what I learned was I'm willing to crack my pants to kill a bird. Okay, because that's exactly what happened, all right. I'm not gonna go into all the details and get real, you know, but I ended up shooting that bird at sixty steps that day. I won't never forget. I had gone through a lot of crap that morning to get to this bird. Well, he was walking the edge of that slew and he popped up on that little rise right there to where I could see him. Well, where I was hunting, it was just wide open bottom, so he could see a long way and he could see whatever's calling right there. Ain't there no more, and uh, he come up there, and when he turned, I had that old twelve gage stoger. Well I shot, and uh to make a crappy situation turn crappier. I knew I hit him because as soon as he and he turned and I thought he was going the other way, I shot and that song and flew up. I nearly beat the wad to him, all right. As soon as I shot, I got up and went to run, and I made about ten steps and I tripped on a route and my gun went flying. Nearly made it all the way to the bird, and I ate about four inches of Mississippi mud.
Right in my mouth.
Okay, by this time, he literally he flew up and he flew back down and landed, and I got within two steps of it, So I said, you know what it's worth ten dollars. I threw that twelve gay stoger up, and I shot that song gun two steps away, right in the head and folded right there. That was the literally the best crappiest day I'd ever had in a turkey bud's.
I told you that he was a handful.
You can unplug your kids and your wives ears now and next time Trent, why don't you keep stuff like that to yourself? I mean, this is going public, like people are gonna listen to this. Just kidding, Trent, that was funny, funny. You should follow Trent on social media. He puts out a ton of funny and oddly clean content that I often laugh out loud to. I appreciate it when people are funny that aren't vulgar. That's really hard to do, and Trent does that. Cheers to Trent Ellis. Our next story is told by a man named Johnny Johnston from the mountains of eastern Oklahoma. He's a handful two, but in a different kind of way. And I don't know how to say this without it sounded like I'm trying to flatter the man. But he's as hill billy as anyone I've ever met, and I mean that in the most honorable and noble way. Johnny is a turkey hunter's turkey hunter, and he's got two stories that he's gonna tell us. The first one involves some bloodshed. It's his blood though. This is Johnny Johnston.
I did some guiding. I got it for being laid quite a bit when he was down here hunting and for another man that was very military, and he wanted me to take his judge turkey hunk. So I agreed. He said, now you have to be on your best behavior. This is a big time judge. He likes to hunt, but he don't joke around. I said, oh, I'll be all bun perfect spring Day got out of the truck. Turkeys were already goblin here in four or five different turkeys gobble. So we went to him like a biteen south and we got in there and God perfect where he needed to be, had him out where he could shoot. And I was doing a calling kind of watching and start calling, and three or four gobblers got together and they were coming right down our gun burrow and to my ride of turkey goble about a half a goble, not a full gobble. People say, oh it's a jay. I don't go for that, because jakeskin gobble. This like a big turkey, and big turkeys if they're gobbling, the lord be gobbled out. And they just do about a half a gobble. I didn't pay attention to it, though I was watching the ward coming.
He killed one.
I was gonna try to pick me one now, and I saw something and I cut my eyes, and probably the biggest turkey I've ever seen it, a huge, big gobley walking to my right clothes and I forgot I out of Guiden. I just rolled out and give him one, and turkeys went everywhere, and the turky he went down the mountain. I didn't get a good shot on him because they had running time. I shot, and I was running after him in that steep country and where it dropped off is about a ten foot draw, and I was running fast like a drunk, and all fat bank all went landed in the rocks and really messed my ankle up. Why laying there wondering where my turkey was, I heard him kind of making a breathing noise, and I crawled up and he was up partly under a big white rock, and I got him out and carried him back up there where the judge was, and I said, look here, jud and I had this turkey by the neck and I had him right up in my face talking to it. I said, this is Judge Lendra. He's a turkey man. He's never seen a Eastern turkey, just like you. He's a real grand god. But I've read your book. And that turkey went through my hand and bit me right on the end of the node. It palked, I'm talking bit me and built a big blood blister on the end of my node, and I bit him on the top of the head. I started chewing on his head and asking him how he liked be bit and that judge that says, oh my, my my, I've never even heard of anything like this, but less seen something like it. And from that day on, that judge and I were close friends. We did a lot of turkey hunt together. I've never seen a real grand turkey, but he introduced me to him the next week.
Now tell me why you bet this turkey?
Just to reflet He bet me, so I beat him back.
See, I lie, really, you weren't trying to be funny. It just just oh, I just beat him, just bid him. He beat me, and I beat him back.
Now, you said that turkey was big.
Weigh twenty three pounds, that's big for Eastern turkey, and spurring, but had full hooks. Turkey hunters no called the limb hanger four or five year old or spurs will hook and you just hang them by their spurs on the limb had two beards almost twelve inches. Both of them look like a turkey hunters call up paint brush, big thick, two individual beards.
What year do you think that would have been?
Probably nineteen eighty. Pretty cool turkey. And I want to add a little bit to this. That judge was an excellent box call caller. Best don't believe I'll be heard, but he said, let me show you a trick on how to brain this turkey and bleeding. I've never seen thathing. I've never heard of it, and a lot of people haven't. But every turkey I kill a brain and bleed from that day forward, to hang them upside down and go up their mouth, kind of like cutting the deer's road on each side of their lower bill. Mihuld cut and then stick your knife right through their brain straight up.
I thought that was pretty nat Now he hung.
Them to let them bleed, bleed out just so like the meat would be better.
Right. He said, that makes the mere that they plucked their turkeys. They don't skin them. He said that might major of pluff. I don't know. I ain't ever pluffed one. I skimming, but that is pretty interesting.
I've never heard anybody say that. They were coming to me like a biting.
Sal Yeah, that's that's serious. That's serious, advanced Gord.
If I hadn't foreshadowed the turkey bite in the intro, I doubt you would have seen it coming. When's the last time you heard of somebody getting bit by turkey? I don't think I've ever heard of it. If you can't tell, Johnny's a character. And how about bleeding the turkey, that's new to me. I appreciated that tip. The second story is short, and it's about his dear friend who he didn't even call his first name. He just calls him wild man.
Eat a superhuman good man. And another little wild man's story. We was over and country a little bit east and there's a new road and a bunch of big clay roots where they'd punched that road in and into that pine timber cut off them humongous clay roots, and the road might a sharp curve, and the turkeys were in that road, I'm sure of. I said, why men, get where you shoot that road? And I started calling and instead of turkeys ain't supposed to come down real steep hill. You've heard all that. The turkey can go anywhere he wants to go. He's very mobile wings good leg. This was straight off him. Two gobblers slid off that steep bank. I watched them. They didn't come the road. And that's the way he has set up to shoe. He was in a jail. But when I realized it's coming off that bank of a too late to tailor and they he was leaned up against the clay root and the gobbler was on the other side of that clay root. That close, priest, don't lank from him. Now the how is he ever gonna kill that turkey? But it's gonna run. He gainst you. I'm gonna make him fly. I didn't have time to explain all this the wallman and I screamed like a panther one I had turkey with up. Boom he shot straight up and boom he dropped. Yeah, I run what I rug got the turkey. Will Man's laying against the clay road holding his chail. Hey, he said, don't ever do that to me again. Almost have a heart attack.
So you scared him when you yelled.
I scared him when I screamed.
That's a good story.
That's good. That's the kind of turkey stories all I tell you.
That's a good stuff.
You You've told me two stories where you wanted a turkey to fly.
There's times bending on where you're hunting brush briar. If he flies, you can kill him. If he runs, you can't catch him. Our turkey will fly, the Rios, the mariam they'll mostly run, but Eastern.
Is very mobile to there.
It go up and you will go straight up.
If you listen. Old Johnny'll teach you some stuff.
And it goes without saying that a turkey hunter's first option obviously isn't to shoot a flying turkey. But I guarant dog toe you that if you talk to any old school turkey hunter that's killed twice as many turkeys as he's lived years on this earth, he's probably wingshot one before, and you might as well have a strategy for when it's the only option that you've got. Thank you, mister Johnny, and hat tipped a wild man. We'll probably be hearing more from Johnny in the months to come. There's more to this story than what you've heard here. Our next story is told by Andy Brown of Western Arkansas. He needs no introduction and has become a fixture on our turkey episodes. This is a short story with lots of twists and turns.
One morning we went out here great and me and a friend of mine, Dennis Ferguson. I don't know if you ever did us. Me and Dennis went out there one morning and I was in great shape. I mean I could get around as good as anybody in the woods. But anyway, we parked, we went back across the pavement and we went we went north, back up the mountain. There it started up a long leg and Dennis, we're trying to get to the top of the mount and Dennis, he just takes off and he just flat. This just leaves me and I said, well, I ain't I mean it's early. I said, I ain't got to kill myself to get the top of the mountain. I'll get up there. But I just stopped and leaned up against a tree about three forces a way to the top, and I was just sitting there, kind of catching my breath, and all of a sudden, just right there a turkey gobbled and Clay that turkey he was gobbling so low. I don't know that you could have heard him at the road. It just, I mean just really low. When he did, I just slid down there by that tree with my back to it, facing up hill. That turkey gobbled undoubtedly one hundred and fifty times before daylight. Of course wouldn't I wouldn't call him. I mean he was too close to call. I mean, he wasn't sixty yards from me there. I couldn't see him, but I mean he was just right there in the head of a little o haller. And so he kept a gobbling, kept a gobbling, and all of a sudden I could hear something behind me coming up that leg, just like me and Dennis had walked in. Snip snap, snip snap, snip snap. And I look over my shoulder and here comes a gray fox. He's coming to that turkey, and I kind of waved my arm at him like that, and he just kind of looked at me and just stood there. Now, turkey just gobble go. I wound up having to get a pine limb and throw at that gray fox to run him off. Well, I get him run off, he starts getting light. Turkey he pitches out just right there, and when he did, I called him. He gobbled right back at me, and I just got my gun on him. I mean, he's just right there. Drummings, just blowing my just blowing my ears off. I mean he's close enough. I hear him. I hear him suck wins is he's drumming, and I've got my gun right here, and all of a sudden, I looked right there in their years. I don't know how he got there, but he did. I mean a big one.
I mean that I had a rope on it.
And he's he's not thirty yards from me, but I can't I can't move. I mean, he's and so he kind of gets around out of my sight there, and I called him in all the goblin. He gobbled and gobble gobbled, but he was steady going up the mountain away from him. Well, I knew I wasn't gonna call him back. So he got out there and got the kind of head of a big holler. I just pulled that leg and went all the way to the top. And when you got up on top of it, that mountain on the north side of it, it's not twenty five yards across. You just it's almost like you step on one side, step over on the other, you know. But there's a there's a little old brushy gap up there and I walked up into that gap, and when I got up in the gap, got my breath, I called, and he gobbled right out on.
The knob just just east.
Of me, right there, and I slip out there, and there's never forget this. There was a cedar tree and I just walked up in that cedar tree and got kind of stash there, and I called a turkey gobble, real big ground. And I look out there and it's still early, but I can see a redhead. I can just see it out there, you know, And I said, that's good enough. Right there, I just raised up through that cedar tree and pulled the trigger. And what I did is a turkey fluent went south off the mountain there, and that one was flopping. And of course I'm patting myself on the shoulder. And I walked out there and I'd killed a big old jake. Didn't even kill the big god right, killed a big old jake. Because I was really disappointed that now.
I don't know if I'm ever gonna run you out of.
It.
Takes a lot of things going right to kill a long bearded gobbler. And just to clarify, back in the day, killing a jake was legal in Arkansas, so beard checking wasn't a necessity like it is today because you can't choose Jase today. But that was a good story, Andy, We appreciate it. But now we're in for a real treat because our next story is told by none other than Med Palmer from Capia County, Mississippi. And if you just heard the way that people that know Med talked about him, you think he was ten feet tall and his daddy was a gobbler turkey and his mama was a red fox. But in this story, we'll see that Med is just a mortal turkey hunter, not superhuman, and he puts on and takes off his pants just like the rest of us.
My name's may Had Palmer on Papya County, Mississippi. We started traveling turkey hunting several years ago, going to other states, you know, and joined Pretty Country and we've been going out west for a couple of years. And it was me and my brother, my nephew. So we get back same place my nephew and my brother had tagged down. It was almost the same scenario. Was a year before we was going down to the last day we were gonna leave. That day and I had to pay on my tag, and we had.
Tried a couple of spots. We got on a bird.
He got henned up and I told him, I said, let's go back down to that spot where my gun's naw. I said, I bet that bird's still there. And they started laughing and my brother said, look, I didn't tag down. I'm not climbing that mountain again like I did last year. My nephew said, I'm with you. Said if he gobbles, I'll go with you. So we get there and I yep, and a hen yep, and I said, I said he's there. And they were sitting in the truck. I told my nephew said, come here.
He said, what is it.
I said, A hen, just yep. I said that God was there. He said you here, and I said, oh, he's with that hen now Yet again he didn't God. I told him he's got a slate. It's just you know, some calls just had that tongue on Turkey's love. I said, get your slate and call I said, cut on, and he cut that turkey gob My brother went, oh my god. He said, I'm gonna have to go with you. It was the same place that that turkey was last year. So up the mountain we go, and it's freezing cold, and I get on top of a peak on that mountain and it's a steep drop off down to the river bottoms where the turkeys in this big bottom. But it's got I don't know if it's button whillers or what those bushes are, but they don't look they high till you get in them. And as I opened pockets out there with that turkey was flying down getting in my open pockets with the hens is what he's doing. So we get on tope of the mountain. I yep, the turkey gobb but I said, well, he's still on the roof. I said, we got time to get to that bottom, and so we start going. We get up to the next peak, which is probably three hundred yards. I reached from my snuff can. It's not in my pocket. I had lost my call. I've had that snuf can. I made it when I was eleven years old. I said, we got to find that call. They said, what I said, I don't lost my call. I said, you're joking.
I said no.
So we walked back and trail ourselves through that grass. We'd walked in. You could to the deck, grass were dead. Get to where I'd call where I knew I had it. We ain't found it, and I was just sick. I said, oh my Lord, I said, went one lost this kind, I said, I have called every turkey I ever called my life.
With this call.
We start coming back. Me and my nephew are walking side by side. My brother gets tired and he sits on a rock and then he whistles. I turned around. It was under his feet when he sat down on rock. I could have hugged his neck when he anyway, so we get the call. I yep, the turkey's donet flown down by now after all this ordeal. So he God was more to our right in that bottom, I said, I said, he's swinging around that bottom. Well, we went down the mountain, got in a swag across the little ditch, and when I come up, they grabbed me. Said there he is right there, and I said, I don't see it. Well I could see him because I was lower than that. The God was about thirty yards had done come up on a little noe right there, come upside of that mountain. Well, I didn't realize what that call weather could do to little batteries. When I throwed up, I barely could see the bead on that God. Well, I shoot a turkey roll. Well, I didn't have but two shells in my gun. I don't know why I didn't put three that day, but I didn't. Well, he takes off my pump and now the dot's completely gone, so I'm having to shoot the thing like I do.
Dub at him, and my.
Nephew said, shoot him again. I said, I'm out of shell. So he takes off running. Well, the turkey's flopping going upside of the mount. Well, I take off well around the bend and they get to the peak of the mountain and my nephew's gaining on the turkey and it's opening up. There's a big, huge drop off and it goes across this big bottom which is probably three hundred yards, and then there's the river, and the river it's rolling and it's probably two hundred and fifty yards across at least that. When he gets right to the ledge, my nephew dives at the turkey and almost caught it by the tail. And that turkey lunges makes one lunch. He don't flout, but he sails off the top of that mountain and he's selling across. He goes across at bottom several hundred yards, goes across that river several hundred yards. Me and my nephew just stand there and I'm sick. He's probably twenty five or thirty yards off the ground, and all of a sudden, he folds like you a shot dub. He just folds up and drops for dead. My nephew looked at me, he said that he just fall I said, lock a rock. I said, give me your binoclears. I wouldn't take my office spot. I get his binoclears and I look through there and he just laying there, wings spread out, head flop down, graveyard dead. And we had washed him from I said, we need to watch him. And I gotta get a good pinpoint because I don't know how in the world I'm gonna get over and get to him. I said, I got a dead turkey. I got to get to him. I can't leave him there. And I told my nephew, I said, I wish we had that air mak well. I was take an air mattress. I said, I wish we had that air mattress. From the motel. He said it's in the truck. So we decided, well, that's what gonna do. I said, I'm gonna use that air mattress. We got to find a paddle so weed them all around, and we found a little ottle piece of wood. It was probably about three inches wide and it was broke off the top. I said, it's almost like a boat paddle. That's good enough. I said, it won't be much, but that don't get me across. I said, y'all toke the air mattress down there. I'm gonna go on and start taking clothes off because I'm gonna have to.
You know, it was shallow.
I'm gonna have to push this thing through that shallow to get out there. So they got it down there. So I'm in my underwear, I got a jacket on with my boots in the back, and I start pushing this big old thing across and the wind blowing like crazy, and it's trying to blow this thing and anyway. I finally get to where it gets up above my knees. I said, I got to get on this thing now. And I could see the channel.
It was dark.
I said, there's the channel, and this things rolling. So I jump up on there. And when I do, when I tell you, I took off. I said, I'm gonna be at the Mississippi River and a couple of hours away out I start paddling with that little stick and the wind blowing. Well, it started shooting me to the bank. It worked out great. So I got over there, got out of it. Now I'm in my underwear. I ain't got no pants. And then it dawned on me. I said, what is this gonna look like if ILL come up on another hunter me in my underwear? I said, well, it is what it is. You know. I got to go try to get this turkey. So I had marked me a big tree behind what the turkey was. So I got about forty yards in that tree. I said, all right, that turkey's gonna be right out here to the left. And I got about thirty yards where that turkey supposed to be. And he jumps up, and he jumped up like a rocket, like wasn't nothing wrong, and he takes off. Well, I shoot him and roll it, and then he cuts and goes in the woods and he flops down in the middle of it with his head and I said, all right, I gotta get this tree between me and him because he can't run again, because I'm gonna lose it.
And I start crawling.
Well about the time I crawled up there, I got probably about fifteen yards from him. I was gonna lean out behind that tree, shoot him in head, finish him off. Well, it was some limbs there. Well, all by time I start leaning over, a stick goes through my underwear and gets hung up in it. And now I can't move and I can't and now he throws his head up.
He sees me.
So I just leaned over, riped my underwear when I did, and he jumps up. When he does, I shoot him and kill him. So anyway, a turkey hunter do what it takes.
I reckon.
That's probably one of the most unusual hunts I ever had in my life.
That's a good story mad and shows the links that the turkey hunter will go to get his bird. Our next story is told by a turkey hunting author. She's written a book. Her name is Sarah Clark. This is Don Clark's wife from the first story, the one who shot that gobbler out of the air when her husband was scratching a big circle in the leaves. You know, she wrote this book called Clarkett True Turkey Tales, and this is one of her favorite stories.
I'd like to introduce you to Miss Sarah Clark.
This is Sarah Clark, and I'm from Sheridan, Arkansas, and I'm gonna tell you a story that happened. I'll probably about twenty ten. I'd been hunting a long time with my husband. He taught me all the tricks to turkey hunting. In fact, i'd gotten to where I understood where I needed to go, how I needed to handle a turkey, and just kind of got kind of arrogant, I guess about it. But anyway, I started hunting on my own a lot, and my sister in law came to me one time talking about how she would love to hunt. She never hunted turkey, and so we decided to make a hunt and we went.
We were We hunted a.
Lot and washing tall mountains. I knew all the crooks and grannies, I knew where the roads end.
You know.
We just hunted it so much that I became I knew where I was going. Anyways, she didn't so and she didn't call, and I did. So we partnered up as a team and I got to where We went a lot times together. We had our little rituals that we did. She took care of the organizing and I did the guiding. But she had made sure we had toilet paper, we had something to snack on if it was a long day anyway, So we decided to go early one morning and before daylight we got there. Instead of staying at the truck, which she wanted to do, I said, let's just go down a little ways and go down that curve and get the truck out of our site. So we eased down that road. Of course I was in the lead, and we got right to a curve and got out of sight and said, as we just got around that curve, all of a sudden, gosh, we looked at each other and both said a dirty word. And then we decided she was just shaking her head, and I said, well, let's just let's stay here right here. It's okay. There's probably more than one. And about that time, fly fly, fright flop, another big old turkey flu. We could hear it going through the up high in the woods. So I said, look, I know what we can do. We can drive around and get on the other side and we'll get we can get in there close to him. Well, we got around there to the place where I thought, and I said, it's not that far, and so here we go. And we had to cross three different little branches, and on that third one, she looked at me like, good lord, how much further we have to go? And I said, just a little bit further, So here we go. When we got to a place and I got my little uh, well, my mouth called and nothing, nothing answered. I said, we get let's go a little bit further, and I got out my little slate, a little sweet slate call and did a pretty loud call, and the turkey just answered real quick, and he's at the top of that mountain on the left. Well, so we quickly made our plan, and I said, let's get over here on the right hand side and pretty close to the road and maybe we can call it down. So we got a founder tree that we could sit at, and she's we've got our partner. Thing is that we find a tree and we'd say that's twelve o'clock. So if one of us sees the turkey and the other one doesn't, we can say kid's coming in at nine o'clock, were coming in at three o'clock, and that helps us to figure out where we are. I, since I've already killed several turkeys, she had not killed the one yet, and so I put her face in the road and I got over to her side parallel with my legs parallel to the road and anyway. So the turkey was steadily gobbling. It was steadily coming to us. It's coming down the hill the mountain, and I said, now, please let it come. It's got all ways to come. I said, just keep letting it come, Just keep letting it come. Will it come on? And it was getting close to the creek, and about that time, on my right eye, I saw a whitehead coming. I said, wait a minute, ladies, wait a minute, there's another one coming. It's a big old gobbler coming down the same mountain, but coming at angling a different way. I said, maybe we can double and so and I said, you you still got your eye on that turkey.
He said, yeah, I got I can see it.
And she had that gun aimed at that circuit. She said, well, let's crossing the creek. And finally I was able to start seeing her turkey, and it started crossing the creek and then here come mine. I said, now, wait, wait, let it get across the creek. So it crossed the creek and it was working on up in there, and finally mine got to the creek and she said, galls shoot now, and I said, wait, let mine get across the creek, because I knew it would be a long shot for me too. And mine got to where I could. I thought, okay, I can shoot now. I said, are you are able to shoot? And she said yeah yeah, And I said I'll count to three. So I said, on the count of three, shoot and so I said one, two, boom. She shot, and then I boom, and then she shot again, boom, and hers took flight. What happened, and of course we both took off running. She knew that to get into her turkey. I took off run and got to my turkey and put my foot on its head, and she was over there and she had body slammed that turkey on the second shot she hit it, and she was laying on that turkey. I mean all her whole body was covering that turkey. Anyway, the woods, you just if the turkey hunter had been around there, there's no way they would have kept on nothing because it was like the cry of the Tara doc though.
We were just.
Hollering and screaming and laughing and couldn't. And we told that story to each other ten times before we left the woods. But we both got our turkeys. We doubled and that was our first turkey. So it was a great day.
What a privilege it was to hear that story. For miss Sarah. It's really hard to pull off a double and those two did it in style. Thanks for sharing the story, and don't forget about her book Clarket True Turkey Tales by Sarah Clark. Our next story is told by a young man. He's nineteen years old, and by means of the fate of his birth date and the state that he lives in, he's never really experienced any glory days of turkey hunting. His father took him turkey hunting every year since he was six years old, but honestly, they didn't get on a lot of birds around their home. Though he's killed a few, this lack of birds hasn't altered though his trajectory of being well on his way to becoming a dinoh Woppin' turkey thumping good turkey hunter. This young man's name is Bear John Newcomb, and I'm the boy's father. But on this high pressured public land turkey hunt, Bear John sure didn't need any.
Help from me.
So I'm bar Nukembe And this is a story that happened the last So I was hunting a big section of public ground.
There was a lot of pressure, a lot of people.
But I'd found some turkeys down on the bottom of this big holler, and the first three days I was, I was on their tails. I was I got close a couple of times, and I had them kind of honed in. I knew right where they were and what they would do every day after they'd come off the roost.
But I kept running into people.
I'd be chasing a turkey and then I'd run into another person or someone would come in from the other side. So there was just a lot of pressure, and they just were getting less and less responsive to calling. So the fourth day of season comes around and I'd just been, you know, living out in the woods at this point, and there was a road that led down this mountain and it led right to this corner. It was like the mountain made a corner and you could you could hear off both sides of it, and the left side was just full of people because there were roads all on the left side, but the right side was just a big block of woods. And if they gobble on the left side, I was going to be competing with a bunch of people. But if it was the right side, it was just gonna be being the turkey.
Sure enough.
About fifteen minutes before daylight, right as the sun started to glow over the mountains, I looked over at the top of the Haller and you could see two headlamps about five hundred yards apart. You know, they were moving, kind of shuffling down the mountain getting to their listening spots. And then I looked across the valley and I could see another light over there. There were three people all in this kind of same area, and then me, So there were four people in this area, all hunting the same turkeys. Right at first light, a gobbler fired off right down at the bottom of the Haller, and that was just like the gun going off at a track meet.
It was like you could just feel people like just.
Shuffling down the mountain trying to get to this bird, but I kind of knew what he was gonna do. I'd been on this bird before, and it seemed like all three mornings that I hunted him, he would go up the mountain about three hundred yards and he would meet up with another guy. You know, whenever he was on the roost, it was just him, but once he got up the mountain, there'd be two gobblers. And so as soon as he gobbled, you know, you could just I decided to skip the roost and just go straight to where I thought he was going to go. And so I run down this haller. I mean, I'm just like booking it, and you get down to the bottom and there's these big bluffs and there's one spot you could cross. You know, I'd been running up and down this haller all week, so I knew right where to cross. And sure enough, I get about where I thought he was going to go, and I just hear a gobbler up there, And as I get closer, it gets louder, and I could tell he was with that other gobbler.
There were two of.
Them, So I kind of crept into a reasonable distance and then kind of surveyed the situation to see what the best plane of action would be. And they were up on this bench right above me. I was one bench below him, and I thought, okay, I could go down that bench and then get up on their bench and be even with him, try and call him in.
But I don't know.
So, you know, this was right where the other people were, and I didn't know, you know, if they were going.
To respond to the call or not.
And so I kind of creep in a little closer and I look up on the bench that they're on and there's a big rock about the size of my Ford Ranger just right on the edge of that bench, and they sounded like they were just right on the other side of it. They were flapping their wings and gobbling at each other. They'd just like be gobbling right on top of each other. And I thought, well, I could just slip up to that rock and they won't see me. And so I started to creep up the mountain real slow. I jack to shelling. I get right to that rock, and you could just hear them. I mean, they were. It was as close as I've ever been to a goblin turkey. I mean they were just like right there. And I kind of creep around the corner of this rock, and real slowly I look around and I see a flock of turkeys. There's a couple of hens there, and there's these two gobblers. And I real quickly, you know, jerk my head back, and you know, I get my gun up and get ready. And about the time I put my gun up, I see a turkey's head just walk right out in front of it. I mean he could have been five yards. And I look and he was a long beard and he was the first one that stepped out. And about the time that I saw him, he saw me, and he turned to start running, and I just put the bead right at the base of his neck and folded him. But I was just as excited as could be. I remember facetiming my dad and showing him the turkey. And this was, you know, four days of hunting the same bird. So I was pumped. But it kind of goes to show, you know, when you're hunting pressured land, you don't always have to just call him right in. Sometimes you can sneak up to the rock and bushwhack him.
And anyway got him.
That was some woodsmanship bear and just being smart.
That was good.
He did what you had to do to kill a bird that was likely pretty much uncallable. We're gonna close with the turkey story combined with a mini sermon by Pastor Robin Rischer of Mississippi. The setting is the country church. The windows open at the peak of the sprint.
My name is Robin Rischer, my pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Mississippi.
I pastored several of them.
I was pastored.
Stronghold Baptist Church down in Capaya County and had a pretty good turkey turkey population around that church. One Easter morning we had a sunrise service, a legitimate sunrin nine at seven o'clock business and eat donuts. But it was dark when we started preaching, and when we quit singing and preaching, it was daylight. We had a sunrise service, and just as old sun was easing up over that graveyard, he did kind of hard looking to us that Jesus is alive. He heard me.
I made like I didn't hear.
There's some rennicks who here in the bag. And if he got your grubbing, they got to walling around back there. They' want to go. I said, I'm gonna try him again. I said, he's alive, I said God, And for the rest of the time we sing and preach and pray and worship the Lord God. All money that turkey gobbel and nobody ever killed him.
I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Please leave us a review on iTunes and text this episode to a buddy that needs some turkey inspiration to sprink. Be careful out there, Fully identify your target before you pull the trigger. Honor the ancient turkey hunter's code of not moving in on another man's hunting the area or on a bird that he's calling to. Good luck to you the spring. Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.
Mm hmm