Give a buddy a compliment and he just punches you in the face.

Started tagging along early on. Dad let me carry a gun for turkey at 12. Shot 1st bird that year and most years after though baseball limited my hunting in highschool. Our season only allowed 1 bird a week over a 2 week season. So better hope weather was good on Sunday. After the first year I mostly hunted alone or took a friend. My dad figured he took me for several training years and helped me with my 1st, so I was on my own. Luckily we had lots of birds so I could screw up and still have more opportunities.

What a lot of people do not know about North40R is just how hard it works for them. He and I have been friends for years. He eat, sleeps and breathes all things turkey!

I have seen firsthand how hard he works for them. Also told some people the other day he should go to Nashville and enter the calling competition because the man can flat put run a Turkey call.

I was 38 back in 98. Killed my 1st on my 1st hunt. Granted it was a Jake. The hunt lasted all of 15 minutes. I was fortunate to have a great place to hunt with no pressure. I killed a ton of birds the first 10 years. The last 10 is a different story though.

I guess I'm the old man of the bunch. I just killed my first one this week at 49.y.o.. I've been at it casually for the last three years and it's, yet, another way I can get
out into God's creation.

Congratulations

I started kinda late, in my late 30s. I picked it up pretty quick. We leased some property on the Pike/Coffee line in peanut country. That place and all around was covered up in turkeys, deer not so much. Those peanut farmers hated deer and killed every one they could to save damage on their peanut fields, but loved their turkeys

My father carried us dove hunting from the time I could walk, but he didn't deer or turkey hunt. I pretty much read everything I could about both, started turkey hunting when I got 16 and a way to get to the woods. Pretty much self taught on my own, lots of steep learning curves included. Killed my first gobbler when I was 16 in Sumpter Co, have killed at least one every year since then. Honed skills on Hollins Mgt Area, then Wilcox Co birds with David Gaston and other turkey killers there. Been killing em for 50+ years.

My dad,missed several before I killed my first one in 1989,I was 9 years old,Called up my first one by myself at 13 and been hard at it ever since.

I started turkey hunting 3 years ago at 32 years old. First year I only heard them, last year I was in the game twice on public land and missed one, this year we shall see.

I can remember sitting between my dads legs and watching a few hunts. When I was 10 it was finally my turn to tote a gun. I killed my first bird that year and it was a good one(1 1/4 spurs & double beard). I believe it was the last year you couldn’t use decoys in Alabama too. The hunt is on video too. I’ll see if I can’t get it uploaded to YouTube. I am 26 now, and I’ve always been ate up with it. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from some of the best. I enjoy hunting anything out there because it helps pass the time until the spring. I videoed my wife kill her second bird on opening day, and today I killed my third of the season. I make it a point to learn something new or take something from every day that I get to go chase these birds. I sat on the banks of the Chattahootchee this morning after an awesome hardwoods hunt just feeling blessed. It was social distancing at its finest. I’m going to tote the camera in the morning hoping to put one in my dads lap.

Bout 30 years ago lumber salesman ask if I'd like to go. Still hold that against him.

When I was in my early 20s I just got a hankerin to try it. My 3rd cousin is Jerry gardner of heart of Dixie game calls. I would go hang out at his shop and just listen to him and the other guys that hung around. Jerry was kind enough to give me a couple calls to get me started and off I went. Turkey hunted for 4 season's and we lost the Chelsea game preserve so I bought a boat and started fishing. Didn't Turkey hunt for 10 years and started back last year.

I think I started at 14 or 15. My dad didn't turkey hunt at all so I had to learn on my own using trial and error and some of the Drurys vhs tapes on calling. First call I ever got is one that I talked dad into buying for me at the buckmasters expo. It was a MAAD Super Aluminator and it's still riding around in my vest today. First turkey I ever killed was a bearded hen that I belly crawled on and mistook for a gobbler when I was 15. A year after that I finally got one one hot off the limb and called him to me across the pasture. I thought I was going to just fall apart before he got close enough for me to shoot him. But he finally did and I let him have it with my uncles high gloss 870 wingmaster with a poly choke and 2 3/4" shells. I've been like a freaking crackhead for it ever since. I've learned a lot in the 14 yrs that I've been chasing them but I'll never even get close to knowing it all.

Y'all meet my two sweethearts, pumpkin (RTH) and cupcake (Clark8907)! Lol!

Thanks for the compliments guys!

Jansen you've been around a weekend or two when we were taking it easy brother. I wouldn't hesitate to say that RTH and I have walked hundreds of miles together.

I was 7/8 when my mom took me to the turkey show in Bham...saw Ben Lee's son there who my mom grew up with his sister and he gave me a diaphragm and a Ben Lee cassette tape. Literally listened to that tape and another and learned to call and hunt on my own all thanks to my dad (who wasn't a turkey hunter) who took me to the camp to hunt.

I was 10-11, took me several years to kill one because I kept messing up. Once I figured it out, I found out I still don't have it figured out. These birds keep teaching me something new, it's been 45 years or so now.

Yea...I have heard plenty of stories though. Haven't been there firsthand but a couple of times though.