Ok,

After the morning hunt, Tom and John Brown go back to the hotel to take a nap, while Mali and I start smoking some ribs... Figured the man has been out of Bama long enough he had to have some home food...For those of you that don't know, Tom is living in Bethesda Maryland near his Daughter... When John Brown was asked him as he was leaving South Carolina if he was ready to go hunting, his replay was "H*ll yea, I'm sick of all this GD metal and concrete you need to F'n hurry up!" Classic....

Everyone shows up around supper time, Tom's Daughter and Grandson show up as well... I was shocked to learn that his Daughter is only in her lower 40s and his Grandson is only 13!! I was expecting the grandson to be my age (53) and daughter to be at least 70!! We all had a great dinner and I was able to get a great photo session for Tukey Country Magazine with everyone and especially Tom's favorite "Ross" Mali's Wild Turkey hen... Tom was amazed over this turkey.

Mali is in the Land Management business and last year he was mowing fields and ran over a Turkey nest. After 4 days of the eggs sitting there exposed he decided he needed to do something about it.On Mother's Day last year he drove out to rescue the eggs of the 12 only 4 were not busted. He ordered an incubator and it was delivered 3 days later... So these eggs were basically left unattended for 7 days... He figured they have no chance of surviving. about a week after being in the box, he did the light test and found only 2 of the 4 had living embryos and the 2 began to hatch on Fathers day... The first bird never made it out the shell and when Ross started to hatch Mali made sure she got out of the egg... So just like "My life as a Turkey" Mali imprinted this hen as her mother...

What amazed Tom the most about Ross is she is friendly to everyone! Not just Mali, he said he has met numerous people that have raised wild turkeys for the egg but their imprint was 1 on 1 and never did the birds ever trust anyone other than the "momma"

Anyway back to the hunt...

Everyone really wanted Tom to kill a bird. So instead of trying to hunt the edge of naked woods with 6 people and a camera, we decided to break up. I would take Tom's daughter and his grandson, (whom never shot a shotgun before) out and John Brown and Mali would take Tom and hunt a bird I roosted...

I managed to call up a Super Jake for Tom's grandson and he killed him at 20 steps, while their hunt was a disaster for the start when they pushed a bird off the roost sneaking into the woods... Tom didn't care one bit, he was too excited for his grandson and I have to say, I shed a tear knowing I helped pass the torch from the Legend to his Grandson...