Latest / Fist Full of Dirt / FFOD318 : Honoring Our Warriors: The 2026 Veterans Hunt

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FFOD318 : Honoring Our Warriors: The 2026 Veterans Hunt · Fist Full of Dirt

0:03
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Fistful of Dirt, the official podcast of Monte Oak Properties.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Whether you own a small farm, lease land, or just love hanging in your backyard.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: We're all about the outdoor lifestyle and how to get the most from your time in God's great outdoors.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Now here's your host, Ronnie Cuz Strickland.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: You recording?
0:25
unknown: Yeah.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: Here we go, semi-live from the Camo Cave.
0:29
SPEAKER_05: Welcome back.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, glad to be back.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: The uh I I will say this before I even start talking about the wounded veterans, huh?
0:37
SPEAKER_01: I gotta tell you a story.
0:39
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: I just went down and got my haircut at the most nostalgic, most famous barbershop probably on the planet, down at Jamie's, right here on Main Street, West Point.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: I love that place.
0:50
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: One of his big barber chairs has shatter grass in it.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I went down there because uh I needed a haircut.
0:58
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't had my pre-turkey season.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, he was telling me I was talking uh about you know this drastic temp change.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: It went from 77 to 30 something.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, you know, yesterday, he said, my mom lives right there in the same neighborhood, maybe 500 yards down the road.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: He said, I went down there to get her, she's got a ride in lawnmower, still cuts her own grass.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, to service it, check there.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I did we did the same thing.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Your boys helped me with ours yesterday.
1:28
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: They was out there riding them zero turns like they was dirt tracking somewhere.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, Jamie said he went and got down there, and he said it had enough, just enough air in the tires, and he checked the hole in the gas and he cranked it and drove it to his house.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And uh he said I aired the tires up and I pulled it out in the front yard because I was gonna change the oil and clean the spindle.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: But up, you know, above the blades under the deck, it gets all that caked up grass and stuff.
1:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: So he said he put it, it was 70-something degrees, and he said he was out there in short pants, and uh he said yeah, I straddled it because I I picked the mower up and put it on chocks so I could get my hand up in there, and he said I reached to grab a wrench or something of bicep, and a snake fell out of the and ran and crawled over his shorts.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: He said, cuz I don't even know how I got up, but I got up, he said, my feet were underneath them chocks, you know, probably shouldn't have been.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I was like, that that besides your story with the snake coming out while you were mowing the grass.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, welcome to Mississippi.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Holy cow it just gave me the creeps.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: I was like, man, that if they would have found me sitting there with my legs still sprattled dead, I I just don't do snakes, but I was like, what a deal.
2:55
SPEAKER_05: Dang, that's wild.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that crazy?
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, back from Florida, and uh I I will say this, I and I and I don't do it for uh likes and shares and all that, but people love to keep up.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: And I made, I think, maybe 10 or 11 posts the whole time.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: Just keeping pay, I mean, you can't stop.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: First off, there's zero service.
3:18
SPEAKER_03: Right.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: There was one place around that cabin if you stood just right and lifted one foot off the ground and turned your head around backwards, you could get a bar.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't get a lot out all the time.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Usually my stuff went out when we were driving from one ranch to another or going to town, you know, to the grocery store or something.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: But uh first hunt, I got kind of a surprise.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: One of the people, and this happens all the time.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: You've heard me talk about it.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: We had one wheelchair guy coming and he got sick.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: So as a last minute, uh the the uh two of the guys, one was Justin Marsh, and the other was Andrew Jackson.
3:56
SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: I asked him any kin.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: He said no.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: And the other guy was gonna be a wheelchair guy.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: It was just gonna be three, I think three, and Tommy Wine, he was kind of a representative for Patriots for.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: That's who picks these people.
4:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: But the two guys that were coming, uh, Justin and Andrew, I don't know what their deal was.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: I know Justin was he, you know, he'd been in rehab a lot.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: I never ask.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: I I don't if they won't talk about it, fine.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: If they don't, I don't care.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: We're there at a turkey hunt, hang out, and all that.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: But it's a last-minute deal, and I mean the last couple hours, they brought Eric Lee.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: These guys all served together somewhere in Florida, and Eric's in some kind of pool or something, but he was a guy that I hunted last year, so he got to come back as the as the transportation guy.
4:42
SPEAKER_05: I love that.
4:43
SPEAKER_05: That's awesome.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: Last year he learned, I don't know if y'all listened to that podcast.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if I did one, but he got a PhD in turkey hunting because we were just covered in Jake's.
4:55
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: And it was so funny that first morning because Jake Jail.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: We were in Jake Jail and we went over, and he is he's big, I think he's a great outdoor and certainly a great shot, but I just I I always go over and over and over about being still, and you can't make fast moves, and you gotta, you know, just move your head slowly, and uh kept making a big deal about being still.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: And the first morning I called, I thought I heard one way off, and he pointed.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: I waited forever because he wasn't saying much, and the first time I yelled, bam, jakes.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Just surrounded.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Eleven of them, I think.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: So we you know, you know, I let him drift off, waited about 30 minutes.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: We moved about 20 or maybe 50 yards just to change the wherever they were hearing it from back up.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Six jakes this time.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: This and the third time that happened, I got up and just ran at them, shaking my hat, trying to get them to leave.
5:53
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Because a big turkey ain't coming around all right usually.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: And he was looking at me like, what about all that sitting still, being quiet?
6:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm running through the woods, flapping my hat.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I said, let me take him because he had a tough hunt last time.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: It took us three days.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: And uh so I took him.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: The four years in a row we've done that, the Moss Hill Properties Convention is always the same week.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: And for four years in a row, I had to leave that convention because I'm MCing.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: Late.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we get through 8:30, 9 o'clock, and me and Greg Briggs drive all night.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: All nighter south of Lake Okeechobee, and we meet Keith and Bubba at the uh what's the name of it?
6:37
SPEAKER_01: The uh Golden Corral buffet.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a little superstitious.
6:44
SPEAKER_05: So you got to meet there every year now?
6:46
SPEAKER_01: You meet there.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: We yeah, we did.
6:48
SPEAKER_05: That's funny.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And uh every year I get the same thing.
6:51
SPEAKER_05: No way.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: Every the f from the first year we ate there at lunch.
6:56
SPEAKER_05: Let me guess.
6:57
SPEAKER_05: Is it are you getting off the buffet or are you ordering off the menu?
7:00
SPEAKER_01: Off the buffet.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: You don't order into menu.
7:03
SPEAKER_05: You're either getting fried chicken or hamburger steak.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, engraving, and green beans, and that's it.
7:11
SPEAKER_05: That's it.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't eat dessert or anything else.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: So uh this one time it was way more leisurely.
7:17
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: We had the convention the week before the Florida trip, so Greg and I could take our time.
7:22
SPEAKER_05: So much better.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, on this one, five years ago was probably the best hunt I ever had, and it was the same thing.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: We could break it up.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't I said, I'm not gonna even pick you up till lunch.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Give me time to pack that morning and get some honeydews down.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: That's what we did this time.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: But we stopped south of Lake City, between Lake City and Gainesville, at the same place we stopped five years ago and ate at Sonny's Barbecue.
7:50
SPEAKER_05: Sonny's Barbecue.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: And that five years ago was the best hunt I ever had.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: Boom, boom, boom.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was crazy.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: So we did that, and we met at the Golden Corral again with Keith and Bowman.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green green beans.
8:06
SPEAKER_05: Nothing else.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: And went out to the uh to the ranch.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: First ranch we hunt, the same one, this the first ranch we hunt we've had forever.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: And you know it really well.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: It's like I you know, last year I was in Jake jail the whole time.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't wait to get in there.
8:25
SPEAKER_05: Thinking this year.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: They're all two-year-olds.
8:29
SPEAKER_05: This year.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, and Keith's like, well, we we should probably just ride around and look.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'm all for it.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And I said, let's wait till like, I don't know, two o'clock and give it a nice you know, you don't want to be running turkeys because it ain't that many woods.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: This ranch is a big square, it's really big, but the whole inside's just pasture full of cattle.
8:49
SPEAKER_06: Uh-huh.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: One pasture after another with ditches and canals and all that.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I get to my spot and uh I make a pretty good hike through the woods and I don't see anything.
9:01
unknown: Nothing.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: No scratching.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: And I I don't really get discouraged doing that.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: It's different terrain.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the weather's been like.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: Have the leaves been blowing the ground.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: I didn't see anything.
9:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: I was like, ah no worries.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: They're they're there.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we uh we make our Walmart run and this year it was a big run because we're cooking.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh we lost our cook.
9:24
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: So we had to cook.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: I'll get to the food in a minute.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, the Of course you will.
9:31
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Friday, Friday's the day they get there at lunch, the the veterans do.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: So everybody gets up early.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: And this is what I had to deal with.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: This gave me a headache.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about a migraine.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: I left Mississippi on Central Standard Time.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: I knew about what time the turkeys would gobble around here.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: Alright, boom, you get into the eastern time zone, which first morning's no big deal.
9:57
SPEAKER_05: Right.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: You just adjust by an hour.
9:59
SPEAKER_05: An hour.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: And we were and I was there really early.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: And uh then I see a thing on my phone to Spring ahead.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: Daylight savings time.
10:10
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: So now I've I've jumped time zones.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: I gotta set the clock back and it's cloudy.
10:16
SPEAKER_05: You gotta set the clock forward.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Forward.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: See, I'm telling you, it gave me a headache.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I had decided at some point I'm gonna just stay up.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to wait to do it.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even going to bed.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna stay up.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, Friday morning we I get up and we all split up to go to our spots.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Keith and I hunt kind of close together, so I drop him off and I drive his truck on down to my listening zone.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: And he's got a brand new truck, man.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: I just call it a gangster truck.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: It is beautiful.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: It's a great old big three-quarter ton Ford, dark silver, metallic, gray, kind of, and it's just it's just beautiful.
10:53
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: And it's brand new.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: And I dropped him off, and we're in the kind of in the woods on this levee thing.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: And he said, uh, I'll text you.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: I said, okay.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: So I I gotta drive, you know, maybe a mile, three quarters of a mile.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: And I can't it's so foggy I can't see the road.
11:12
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: It's at one point I had the window down with my head out the window.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: And could still tell yeah, I was going like one mile an hour.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: I was like, if I run, and there's ditches on both sides.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: I was like, if I run this thing out, I was scared to death.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't even thinking about the fog affecting the turkeys, but anyway.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: I I have a a big black water tank.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: That uh and it's it's a little group of trees right there, and I can hide the truck, and I finally found it, thank you, Lord.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Got out and all that, and and I I walked away with the uh keys in my pocket.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: So that and this thing made a sound like you were robbing the bank at the Pentagon.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, here we go.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't really it was some kind of alarm.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: You look you know, you taking the keys away.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: You know.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, all that calmed down.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: It's so foggy and then I'm gonna gobble anyway.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: And that fog never lifted till about I guess it was I guess the turkeys were gobbled down there at 6 15 the first morning.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
12:17
SPEAKER_06: Uh-huh.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Never heard one, never heard one, never heard one.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's still foggy.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: I literally can't see 50 or 100 yards.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: So there's no way I'm you know, I didn't really make any racket or anything.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no crows, there's no owls, and I'm like, hey, you've been here before.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: Right.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: It was Jakes everywhere last year, just relax.
12:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, it lifts a little bit, and I thought I'd heard one way down the road to the east.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: So I got in that the gangster truck and eased on down the road a little bit, shut it off.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: Never made that turkey gobble, just listened and listened and listened.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, uh Keith sends me a text, I'm ready.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: It's probably 8 30 by now.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: We got a lot to do because those guys are coming in at lunch.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: And I'm easing back down, and about the time I can see that black plastic big water storage tank, I'm rounding a little bit of a curve, boom, hit the brakes.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that's either a hog, a black hog, or a turkey.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: And I lifted my bynoses as a strutter.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Right there where I was parked, and yes, I yelped there a couple of times while I left.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, man, it's been real foggy.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: He he had to have been right there.
13:32
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: Probably heard the truck or whatever.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: So I backed up and went way around the other way.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: But now I got a spot.
13:40
SPEAKER_05: Now you got a spot.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm cool with it.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: So M R I.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: MRI, I got what I need.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: There's no way that turkey was very far from that spot.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: And I knew those woods like the back of my hand, so I just quit worrying about it.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: And uh, so we go back and uh I gotta give a big shout out to Keith's wife, Tammy, because we're cooking, and she sent a giant thing of spaghetti and some breakfast stuff.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: She'd already cooked it and he had it in his ice chest.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: So the uh the first night I said, look, let's save her food for tomorrow night because we're gonna be hunting and running and gunning, and now you can't hunt on Friday, it doesn't open till the next day.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: So we we went and bought steaks.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a supermarket near there, a public's.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: We don't have one.
14:24
SPEAKER_03: I like those.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm really nice.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Not only do I love it, everybody in there knows me by my name.
14:31
SPEAKER_05: Really?
14:31
SPEAKER_01: I made ten trips up there.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: So we we cook steaks at night and baked potatoes and all that.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: And I could I just quit worrying about turkeys.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I got this.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Everybody, I didn't hear any, I didn't hear any.
14:43
SPEAKER_05: What did you say?
14:44
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say nothing.
14:45
SPEAKER_05: I was wondering.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say a word.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say nothing, nobody.
14:49
SPEAKER_05: If you said you didn't hear anything, that's not a lie.
14:52
SPEAKER_05: You did not hear anything.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Oh, they did ask me, I hear anything.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I said nothing.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say I saw a strutter right by the and technically you were telling the truth.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I didn't being politely evasive and not hear a thing.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: Conveniently absent minded.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we get up and that I've dealt with the time change.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't know how we did.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Greg Briggs had he was more confused than I was.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: His clock went off an hour before mine did.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: And uh I got up and and we had another little cracker house down the road at this farm we're staying in.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: I got me nobody there.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: And I'm an hour and a half before daylight, and we ain't got to drive 20 minutes.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: And I get down there and they they've been up and I said, Bubba, y'all y'all walk down here?
15:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've been up for two hours.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Greg got me up at 3 30 or whatever it was.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we split up and everybody, everybody heads out, and I tell and I let Keith out in his spot, and I take his truck, and it's foggy again.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: I was like, you're gonna keep hearing that word in this podcast.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: But I was like, okay, I did have enough sense.
16:00
SPEAKER_04: Leave the key fob.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did that, and I also marked the road.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: I got me a great old big palmetto limb and put it in the road.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: And uh I did that mid-afternoon.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: I think they went fishing.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: I said, I gotta go mark that spot, and if it's foggy again, I'll know to stop here and don't go on.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: And anyway, I found my palm meadow leaf bush.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Eased down there and perfect place for a blind right by the big black water tank.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a cattle thing there.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: It's not a real big one, but anyway, there's water transferred from there to somewhere anyway.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Found that eased across the ditch, there and a bad drought down there, so there wasn't any water on the right side and got in there set up in like thirty minutes before.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just grinning because it's a little bit cooler.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: I said, That file's gonna live today.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, it didn't.
16:52
SPEAKER_04: Oh.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: And we sat there, I think the turkeys were supposed to gobble.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Now it's the new time at around seven fifteen.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, seven o'clock somewhere.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: And I like I say, I had my Tetris in, and I thought I could hear that turkey I heard the day before way down to the east.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Straight on down the levee road.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: I thought I heard him and I leaned up and asked Eric and said, Yeah, I think I hear one down there too.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And but I'm set up where this one was strutting at 8 15 the next day.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: Not a peep.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Not a peep, not a peep.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: And I waited as long as I could and yelped, you know, and then yelped a little louder, and you know, by I don't know, nine o'clock I'm popping the tube call, nothing.
17:33
unknown: Oh man.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And this turkey way down to the east, I know he's gobbled I don't know, eight times.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Now that's an hour, that ain't exactly burning it up.
17:43
SPEAKER_03: Right.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: We're way away from the truck.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Way away.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Because I and I was like, and I was looking at my own ex and I said, we're about halfway between if we get up and walk back to the truck, that's gonna make the because I want to go to that turkey that I heard eight times.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: Right.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's no need going back and get the truck.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: It's almost as far as the turkey is to the east.
18:05
SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: I said, let's just let's just take off.
18:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: And and he's good, he's in great shape now.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: But uh so we took off walking, and I looked at uh when I finally after all this over with, from the spot we were sitting to where I went to listen for the turkey that gobbled eight times, 1.3 miles.
18:24
unknown: Oh no.
18:25
SPEAKER_05: They only sound so much closer than they actually do.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And we easing down there, and the thing about going down to the east, the property line to the south keeps edging in, edging in, edging in.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: And there's one spot, it's not a hundred yards, and then it goes back away.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, right there where the property lines are closest, is where I wanted to yelp and all that, and right across the Bob Wire fence, which is the property line, and beautiful terrain.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: There's a truck sitting there with a full full strutting decoy in the back.
18:56
unknown: Wow.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, that that was a bust.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: So I said, let's do this.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Instead of walking back down the road, let's get into the woods on the fence line and just ease down through there, and we'll stop every couple hundred yards and sit down.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Because I said, if they're gonna gobble, it'll be later.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: And we did, and we stopped and yelped, nothing, stopped and yelped, nothing.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: We're making this mile, two mile trek back toward the truck.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: And the last place we we stopped was kind of about where we started, but further to the south, deeper into the woods.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: And we were sitting there and it's it stuck got hot now.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: It was hot down there the whole time.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Probably 80 degrees, and I I found a shady spot and I said, look, we're gonna sit here for an hour and then we're going back.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to leave.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't I was getting texts from everybody, hadn't heard, nobody heard a peep.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: I think Bubba thinks he heard one, but you know Bubba, you you see a gorilla flying a kite, he saw a coon eating the Snickers, you can't outdo him.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: But uh anyway, nobody's there there's the airwaves are quiet.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: And you don't want to be the first guy back if you didn't kill anything.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I face him south and I kind of face north in the shade, and I said, Now just keep your eyes peeled.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: We could see pretty good here is uh oak hammock and Spanish moss, and it was shady, and I said, This is pretty good.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: And we sat there and I popped on that tube call a little bit, and I I'd have to lean over and fix the call because it'll scare me if you're going to take a nap.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, uh I guess about forty minutes into this, I was thinking about I was looking at my phone, going, Is there any text messages flying around?
20:40
SPEAKER_01: And I looked down at my phone, scrolling, no, no text message, and I look up two long beards.
20:46
SPEAKER_05: Silent.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: From out on the levee where I was parked, where all this started, and on that levee road, walking right to us.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: Not saying a word.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: They didn't come from the woods, they came from out in that wide open pasture, either from way down on the east end.
21:02
SPEAKER_04: My mom didn't nothing.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: I watched them and I w and I first saw them, because they got a lot of hogs, I thought it was two black hogs.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking, and all of a sudden, one strut.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: And it was like uh three seconds.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: Just and I'm like, oh man.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: And he's facing entirely the other way on the other side of a giant live oak.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: I said, Eric, you gotta get out of that chair.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: And he said, What's going on?
21:32
SPEAKER_01: I said, There's two turkeys walking right at me, and he's sitting in a turkey chair facing the wrong direction.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: I said, You gotta get out of that chair.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: And he said, What do you want me to do?
21:40
SPEAKER_01: I said, Get get out of the chair, quiet as you can.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: He had a big pile metal leak.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: I had hit us a little bit.
21:47
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: And the turkeys are steady coming.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: And I hadn't called in three or four minutes with that two calls.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: That's how good they can pinpoint you.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: So this dude gets out of that chair and lays the gun down.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: I said, just a Lay prone and I can I I can't see him, I can hear him.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: I said, You're gonna have to get on your belly.
22:06
SPEAKER_04: Uh huh.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I can't see that big palmetto bush.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: I said, slide out to the right.
22:11
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping the whole time them turkeys will veer to the right because they're coming straight at me.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: And uh I can hear him just being real quiet.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: He's in the prong position, he's taking his elbows, scooting around to the right.
22:25
SPEAKER_04: With his gun.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: With the gun.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: And finally, for the palmetto leaf I had stuck in there is on the ground, there was a big root coming off that live oak, and that was blocking it.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: And when he got far enough to the right where that root was going back in the ground, oh I see him, I see him, I see him.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh and uh he said, Which one?
22:43
SPEAKER_01: I said, It don't matter, just pick one.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: And uh How close are they by the time he's by the time he sees them, they're probably 40 yards.
22:53
SPEAKER_05: Oh wee.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: And by the time, and he's when he says I see him, they're about 30 yards.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm like craning my neck with one eye trying not to get seen, and uh, I'm about to get a crick.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: He's like, and when he says which one, I said, dude, just pick one.
23:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Boom.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: And he happened to shoot the one I was looking at, which was the one that was strutting by itself.
23:17
SPEAKER_05: Oh goodness.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: All right, here we go.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get it on video.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: I didn't care if I got it on video.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Y'all seen specialist, Eric Lee.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: He was with me last year.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: He kind of helped with transportation.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: He brought the other guys in this time, and I asked, I said, please let me go with Eric.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: He hunted three days last year.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: We had all kinds of stuff go wrong, but he got him a gangster, old school, full fan, inch and a quarter spurred Iceola at about 10 o'clock.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: Didn't say a word, did they?
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Not a peep, not a peep.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Winds howling.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: We're sitting here tootin' on the tube called Biston.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: He was facing one way, I was facing another way, and I saw him come around the bend.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: So specialist Egg Lee, congratulations, my brother.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: And he was so fired up because he got to get in the prone, he was in the prone position, had to sneak around the bush, stay down behind.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: It was ended up being a cool hunt, wasn't it?
24:13
SPEAKER_06: It's a great hunt.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: With the zero goblin.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: And uh, because he, you know, and he we got out.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: I said, let's go, man, let's go look at this thing.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: Because let me tell you something.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: The one that was strutting, yeah, he had one of them beards that you go, oh my gosh.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like flat and it's like it's not thick, it's like a paintbrush going down.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and it's probably 10 inches long.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't wait to get out there.
24:40
unknown: Wow.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: And when he shot it, I stepped it off later, it was like 23 yards with that TSS 20 gauge, blew the beard off.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh hey.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about hit it right where the beard comes out, and there was just a nub of that.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Oh no, you think we can find it?
24:58
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, No, no, you you may find a bristle here and there.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: But he had good spurs on him and all that, and uh he was he was so excited, and he was he he was just a good sport about the beard and everything.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, we got back, nobody had anything except me and Eric.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: And if you ever been a guide when there's other guides in camp, that'll make you unpopular.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: And you can see they they're shaking hands and patting him on the back and all that, but you can you can read their mind like as soon as I'm gonna eat I'm gonna eat something, we're going back.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, when it's I was like, it's 90 degrees, y'all.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: Y'all kill one anyway.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: Nobody else killed one on the first hunt.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't say anything.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Of course, none of these are my brothers.
25:44
SPEAKER_05: Right.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Keith Kelly, Bubba, and Greg Briggs.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: And as the hunt's winding down, they still didn't kill anything the next morning.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: Now I went with Greg with his guy, his name, his buddy's name was Justin Mars.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Foggies all get out.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And Justin missed one.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: So I got a kill and a miss.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Now Greg Briggs gets credit for the miss because he's the guy that I was just kind of there.
26:09
SPEAKER_05: Right.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, nobody kills a turkey on the first hunt.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: We're sitting around, everybody's packing up, we're sitting there talking all this, and they were talking about I was like, look, here and they were talking about, look, it don't matter if you kill, this is the greatest thing.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: This is so much fun.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: We learn so much.
26:25
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Being just being great Americans, you know, and great patriots and being good men.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: And I start in on my well, you know what?
26:34
SPEAKER_01: It we get it.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: But you know, for a guide, it's like a really big deal for you guys to kill when I went into all these stores and stuff, and I'm like, you know, that's how we we're not judging ourselves, but nobody wants it to happen worse than the guide.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Nobody feels worse.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: And I say, now, I personally don't feel like that.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: Crickets, well, them guys were laughing, and nobody anyway, uh we it was a great hunt.
27:06
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27:12
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27:23
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27:36
SPEAKER_01: There's been a few times I can recall when I've been on a burn there and didn't get him.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Couldn't go back the next day or maybe even that next week, but I got a buddy, maybe it's a little bubba.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: I can send him a waypoint on Onex.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: Where the gobbler was, maybe where he was gobbling or where he went.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Something you can hold over his head when you need help.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: Fixing your truck, working on your house project, or maybe you want to know whether crappie or biting.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: Give the gifts of a gobbler, send them a waypoint from Onex.
28:05
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28:15
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28:24
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28:27
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28:34
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28:38
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28:44
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29:03
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29:08
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29:09
SPEAKER_05: We'll see you in seven days.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, now we gotta change locations, going back to the same ranch I went to last year.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: We went over there, there was one morning where we don't have anybody.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Those guys left Sunday.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: The next group's coming in Monday at lunch.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: So Monday morning we can listen.
29:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: So Greg and I, same thing happened on this hunt.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: The fourth guy couldn't make it.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: He was a wheelchair guy, and he was somebody called from urgent care and he was fixing a head to the merchant.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: He was having issues, so there's three.
29:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: So I said, uh, I'll go with Greg.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: And Bubba and Keith know this next ranch better than we do anyway.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: So I said, we'll just go up there to the orange grove.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Y'all heard the story, I hope, about the orange grove last year.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: If not, you need to go back and listen to it.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: So and in the dark, we went up there and Bub and Keith went to the back of the place, and this orange grove has got a little section of woods up there where the turkeys were gobbling last year.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: It was three or four of them in there.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: And it's not a big patch of woods.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: It's shaped just like a triangle.
30:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: And it I'm telling you, it's not ten acres, if that.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: But and what they would do is roost there and then pitch out into the orange grove.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: And they would stay out there all day.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: I know these turkeys well.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: Now that was last year.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: So we get there and uh we park and Greg's there and I'm there and then we're we're put already and sure and I'm I'm I I kinda as I drove by the orange grove, you have to drive by it to get into the gate to go around.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: I was like, man, it was down there all the orange groves, a lot of them are dying.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: They've had these uh pest infestation or mites or something.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: And they're like the one at the first ranch, they were they were in the process of just bulldozing that.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: And I was looking over there at the glare of the lights, going, I think that orange grove's dead.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I didn't know.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: But uh anyway, sure enough we got there and parked and I stayed in the truck.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: Greg got out real early because he he hadn't heard a turkey gobble yet.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm sitting there and no service.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm just kind of got the window cracked a little bit because the mosquitoes down there were world class.
31:23
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden the truck starts shaking like a a bull ran into it.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: And Greg's like, Here one I hear one here.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: He heard one standing out.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: He's shaking the truck, so we get out, and there's two or three of them just they just start going crazy.
31:38
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, that's that's enough.
31:42
SPEAKER_05: That's all I need.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: I said, uh, we're not gonna wait here for them to fly down.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: I know where they're going.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: So we left.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: So our guys come back.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: I said, we'll go to the orange grove this afternoon.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: That's you know, well, I called one out of that orange grove last year, and if they if nothing else, when they fly out, we can watch them roost and this guy'll have a great show.
32:02
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: So that was the plan.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, my hunter, his name was Henry Sawyer, EM3 Navy guy, 20-year Navy guy.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: And he is he's got some issues, I think, on his right side.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: He can't walk much.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: He I mean, he's just it's it's gonna be a challenge.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to do a lot more driving and a lot l you know, he's gonna be cutting and running.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: And he brought his son with him, whose also name was Henry.
32:29
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: So I'm looking and I introduce him, and they're the nicest people.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: And Henry's 20 years old.
32:34
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: Typical teenage kind of, you know, he's got dreadlocks, he's got a couple of earrings, and I'm thinking one of us is a little bit out of our element.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Nicest kid, yes, sir, Mr.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: Cuzz, no sir, Mr.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: Cuzz, can I do this?
32:51
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I came to help.
32:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: He said, and I said, Now I said, Can you can your dad walk a hundred yards?
32:58
SPEAKER_01: He said, I'll carry.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
33:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, This but this is gonna end well.
33:04
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I was fine with hunting the afternoon because I could drive the truck just about to the orange grove, and there's two or three giant live oaks up there with a lot of shade.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: So we drove him right to that.
33:15
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Built, you know, got a blind, got him in them turkey chairs, and he's comfortable, and I got thermocells running and all this.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: So we're good.
33:22
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: And we got there a little bit too early.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: I keep forgetting about that time change.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, we sat there for like three hours.
33:30
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's a long time.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: And 87 degrees, always in the shade.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: Mosquitoes were getting, but anyway, I've been glassing at orange grove and it looks like the moon.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: There ain't no green leaf out there, they ain't an orange.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: And I figured they were out there last year because the orange grove's lush, and there's a lot of bugs, and they're always spraying stuff to kill the bugs.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that's why them turkeys are out there.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I bet you them turkeys ain't out there.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: They either went to our left or across the road, which we ain't far from the county road, and there was another orange grove over there, was an irrigate, and it was pretty.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't expecting much.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: And I'm telling you, I don't know what time it got dark, I'm saying seven o'clock.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: And at ten minutes till seven, we heard a turkey gobble.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Out in the orange grove, and I'm like, surely they ain't out in that again.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: And uh so I called and this turkey answered me, and another one answered, and that was it.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And uh same thing.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: They they when it was time to roost, you could hear a wing flap up in the trees.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: One of them flew right over our head.
34:35
unknown: Wow.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: And landed like fifty yards away.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't but two or three long beards, so and now we gotta drive the truck back up in there to get Henry out of there.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, that spot's blown out.
34:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, luckily Keith and Bubba killed a turkey that morning.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: They on the back side of this property, which I have never been to.
34:54
SPEAKER_05: Right.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: So now they ain't got the molly grubs anymore.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: They done kill one.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's even, everybody's got eight kill apiece.
35:00
SPEAKER_05: So now they might share some information.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I was talking to Keith and I said, the orange grove ain't gonna I said, We blew that spot out.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear any more?
35:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: So he takes me outside.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I think I heard five.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, we can get can we get back in there?
35:18
unknown: Mm-hmm.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: He said, Cuz it's a bad ditch right there, and we're gonna have to walk 150 yards.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: So I went and talked to Henry Jr., who I'm just calling Junior.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: I had to give him a nickname.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: I said, You from this hunt from this point on you junior.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: It's like when Walker brought his twin buddy out there and his name was Walker.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: I said, now you're slim, but anyway.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: And we got on X out and pulled it up, and and Keith said, You need to get to that point right there.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: They kill their turkey at ten o'clock in the morning.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: He said, if we'd have been on this point, because there's a big open meadow there and there's a pond and all, he said, if we'd have been on that point, we'd have killed in ten minutes.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: And we kept measuring and measuring and measuring.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: That's about 160 yards.
36:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: And he said, now the grass is kind of high.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: And I was showing it to Junior.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: He said, I said, we need to get to that point.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, let's get to it.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: And uh I said, We got Greg and Greg's with me and uh Junior's with me.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: And I said, We can get in there.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: I said, Here's the deal, Greg, you're gonna have to carry everything.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: And we'll get on uh we'll get with Henry and get him in there.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: And Keith dropped me a pen, bless his heart, he's the reason we kill these turkeys.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: And we ease in there and uh we I got my light from the phone and Junior's got his light from the phone.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: We've never been in here.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: Grass is a foot high and we're easing in there.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: And uh Craig Briggs, bless his heart, he had a bag with two decoys in it.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: Four chairs.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, I got a tripod with a vise on it.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: He had he had all that stuff.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: He's like a pack mule.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: Didn't make a sound.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: So we get in there and as as as God would have it, when we got to that point, there was a perfect hole up in all these giant palm trees.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: So I said, just y'all just stand here a minute, and I got in there and got my light, and I was quietly as I could started moving everything.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: I got us a dirt circle in there about five or six feet.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: Got him in there, got him in his chair, got Junior right behind him, who has a he's a photographer too, that's what he's his his hobby is.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: Got him in there and I got beside him and uh Greg got behind them and behind another bush so I can see.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: And it's wide open down to my left.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: The pond's out in the middle of this big opening and beautiful woods across about 180 yards over there.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: And uh Keith just slowly backs the truck out.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: So we're in there now, and I was like, Well, I don't know if we made too much racket.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what?
37:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna bring up the F word again.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: It's so foggy you can't see nothing.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: He heard five or si I think he heard five other than the one they killed yesterday the morning before.
38:06
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: Not a peep.
38:08
SPEAKER_05: Had it been foggy the day before?
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Not as bad.
38:12
SPEAKER_05: Not as bad.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: And the fog lifted, but here is the fog's just hanging, hanging.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: I did hear a hen where he said they roosted down there about two hundred yards to my hard left.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: She just when she flew down, nothing.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: Not a gobble.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Now Henry thought he heard one straight in front of us.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: I didn't hear it.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm hearing pretty good now, but uh I didn't hear it.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Didn't pay much attention.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: We sat there and they got everybody's got a a leave.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: We gotta leave.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: We gotta be out of that house by lunch.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: It's probably 10 o'clock.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Still hadn't heard a turkey.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: And uh anyway, I hit the tube call two or three times and way down to the left, a turkey gobble.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: I waited a few minutes and I cut again, he gobbled again.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Never answered again.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: I called to him and mouth calling, all that stuff, nothing.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: We were just kind of sitting there, and I was thinking, I was having this thought, well, I was one for two.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: That ain't too bad.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: I really want Henry wanted to kill one so bad, but and I'm like, I ain't gonna be able to give that speech about hey, I don't feel bad, because I do.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: And uh I just kind of raised my head and look up and I see them two heads coming across that thing from straight out in front of us.
39:26
SPEAKER_04: Again.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: Two big old gobblers.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: Quite ain't set a peep.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: But I've got Keith's decoys.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: He told me, he said, now I didn't see any jakes, and I heard five big turkeys.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: If I was you, I'd put a Jake and a hen out there.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: And for you anti-decoy boys out there, I could care less what you think.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: We're we're trying to get a turkey for this guy who's never killed one.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: And I had and Keith had put the decoys up on one little high spot, and they could see him through that high grass.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: They're making a beeline.
39:59
SPEAKER_04: Nice.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: And uh I threw a little clip up.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: I filmed this thing in 4K for five minutes.
40:05
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: It strut and moved this way, strut and moved this way, and his partner was a little more wary.
40:10
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: He was over side eyeing everything, and he wouldn't strut.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: This one just kept coming, and uh, Henry's got his gun in the vice, and he's down.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: I said, Can you, can you, are you on the decoy?
40:20
SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm I'm good.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, it comes on.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: Nobody ever said a peep, nobody's calling or anything.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: He's just looking at the decoys, and he comes up there and he and I'm thinking he's really close.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: And I done stood it long as I could.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: I filmed it for like five minutes.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: I said, next time he pulls his head up, go it boom, and kill it.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: He just whacked him, ended up being fifty-two steps.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Woo! Take the same go get on a little bit right there, right there.
41:25
SPEAKER_02: Just put it on his neck.
41:35
unknown: Good job.
41:37
unknown: There you go.
41:38
unknown: There you go.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: He just hammered him.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: One of the coolest celebrations ever.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: They they just couldn't believe it.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: It was uh one of the most awesome hunts ever.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: And and again, he was saying, you know, look, y'all been so nice to us, and we've learned so much, and they got moss yolk and they got, you know, handmade knives, they got a box from TSS, Apex Ammo, and all that.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, but that cherry on the top, man, that's what makes this ice cream float.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: It's just it was the cool.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: And then we had class and got back because he wanted to eat his.
42:19
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, so we showed him how to, and Greg took the breast out and, you know, showed him how to do the fan and the beard, and they had a good beard on him and the spurs and all that.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: And Greg was just about to wrap it up, and Henry told me, uh, Greg, I want them legs too.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: So we we got the legs and skinned them and all that.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: And it ended up being one of the one of the coolest hunts I've ever been on.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, they made us earn that, Jim.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: We've been hunting hard for three days.
42:49
SPEAKER_07: Last day magic.
42:50
SPEAKER_07: That's crazy.
42:51
SPEAKER_07: Last day magic.
42:52
SPEAKER_07: Last day luck.
42:54
SPEAKER_07: Did you get a did you get a picture of that?
42:58
SPEAKER_07: I was moved that other way?
43:00
SPEAKER_07: I didn't do it.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: That's your first turkey, right?
43:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my first turkey.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Man.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: Deer, hogs, everything else.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: That's the first turkey.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: That's a big old ICO gangster turkey.
43:12
SPEAKER_07: That's crazy.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: I posted a picture of who I was hunting with, Henry and Henry Jr.
43:17
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: I sent it to you, boy.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: I sent that picture to Phil Ferrar with just the caption that said, There's room for everybody.
43:24
SPEAKER_04: I love that.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he sent it back.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: He said, cuz you live that.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Ninjas.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: Both of them were ninjas.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: Did not move, ask cool questions.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: And before the last thing I saw, Henry said, cuz, come in, let me show you something.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: He was in his, and of course, Junior was driving him.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: He had a straw and he was using it like a wing bone.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm gonna kill every turkey up there by Jacksonville.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how cool was that?
43:55
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: And they're hooked on it and had a good hunt, and I was.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Explained to him and he's like, Why didn't they gobble?
44:02
SPEAKER_01: I said, 'cause they're evil, man.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: They just all look and I hate they didn't have a good hunt where they were just hammering.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: The only good gobbling I heard was the morning wasn't nobody there.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Monday morning.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: But uh man, it was a great hunt.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: And going back to uh the post, I made about ten or eleven posts, and I just people follow that so hard, and I the guys will read comments.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: Some of 'em don't have Facebook.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: I'll say, come here and read them comments.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: And they just went on and on.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: But it was like ten or eleven posts, like seven hundred and seventy thousand views in a couple in three or four days.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: So y y'all the people that comment on that stuff, you got no idea what it means to them.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: It's just it it's just priceless.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: And uh and it's like I you know, we were talking to I was talking to them.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of dead time in the blind when it's you know eighty degrees and the turkeys ain't gobbling.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: I said, you know, there's great people everywhere.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: And uh he he I was talking to Henry and I I c I just I had this long conversation about how cool his son was, how polite and well mannered and high uh and he said, You know, I got five boys, and I went and uh I said, Are they all as polite and well mannered as Junior?
45:19
SPEAKER_01: And he looked me straight in the face.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: He said, You bet they are.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh So it's you know, it's just all about how you raise.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: And uh Junior's fixing the head to uh I think he said JUCO, he's gonna do he he can't decide on biology or wildlife biology or zoology, but he's a great photographer.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: I I put his Facebook parties, he's got a TikTok, and he was so impressed with me.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: The old there wasn't nothing in the camp, but old guys, and he was helping his dad around, and he'd have to help me up out of my chair and all that.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: And I told him, I said, I bet you feel like you've been hanging out up at the villages.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be glad to get around go get around some young people.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: He just laughed, but he's he couldn't believe I did social media and had a TikTok and could airdrop stuff, and he would I'd say, Turn your phone on airdrop, and he would just drop that head and start laughing, man.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: You something.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: And I sent him everything I shot during the whole hunt, and he's posting it, and it's like man, that that that that hunt, not just that hunt, but turkey hunting in general, just brings that kind of stuff out in people.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: It is so special and uh very grateful.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, Mossville lets us do that.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: Patriots4.org.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh General West wasn't there.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: General West is fixing to have double knee replacement surgery.
46:39
SPEAKER_06: Oh, bless him.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how long he's gonna be laid up, but uh it's uh it's like it's like NASCAR and the Daytona 500, you know, the first race of the year.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: That that first ton of the year is kind of my Super Bowl.
46:53
SPEAKER_05: It's real special.
46:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh, to say it's up.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: And uh anyway, God was in charge because I had passed seven Whataburgers going out there and hadn't had one.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: And I told Greg, I said, here's the deal.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna leave here to where we get to Tallahassee at supper time, and we're gonna stop at exit 199.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: And we got there at 5.05.
47:17
SPEAKER_01: And that exit 199 Tallahassee Whataburger has a crispy cream in the same next door, 20 yards away.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: And uh I brought and Greg, that was Greg's stop.
47:31
SPEAKER_01: He when we'd stop there, I'd get the Whataburgers, he'd go over and get Janet.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: It used to be Janet's and Donuts Now for the grandkids.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: So I got a box too and gave them to your boys.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: I I had to smell those things all the way from Tallahassee to West Point.
47:44
SPEAKER_01: It was about to kill me, but what a what a great hunt and uh what a great time.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm telling you, I'm already looking forward to to next year.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: And uh I can't just can't wait.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: It's so much fun to hunt with uh your brothers like that and you can you know flip each other a little shade and nobody gets their feelings hurt and all that.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: Um I did learn a little bit more.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: I told you we had to cook our own this time and the Saturday the second hunt would have been whatever, Monday, Tuesday, whenever, Tuesday night.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: I gotta whenever I gotta take my hunter back, Bubba didn't kill that morning.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm going that afternoon to the orange grove.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: Well we uh the guy that owns the or runs the ranch, he brought steaks and I'm I'm having to text Bubba and Keith directions how to bake potatoes in the oven.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: I told him, I said, Stop.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: I did.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean this was a back and forth.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: I was like, wash the potatoes.
48:44
SPEAKER_03: Stop.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: Wrap them in foil.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: You want to stick pole in them.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: I said, set the oven on bake at four hundred degrees for an hour.
48:53
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: And then turn it down to like two fifty for ten minutes.
48:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: And it was back and forth and back and forth.
49:01
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Bub, I know you've grilled before.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: You can there's charcoal out there and there's I think I can handle the steaks, but it the baked potatoes threw them for loop.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: And I will say this, they nailed it.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: It was delicious.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: But having to cook and uh it it it's it's a little much when you're having to cook.
49:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: It's not a big deal if you're killing turkeys.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: But if you didn't kill the turkey and you gotta go back early and it's like, uh, what are we gonna do for supper?
49:29
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, m made a couple of sausage pies while I was there.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: But the big for me, the big hit for them, and I did it while uh Henry and him was there, I had taco night.
49:39
SPEAKER_03: You did tacos.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: And the way I did and and look, I had to call your mama twice, but I was like, can I cook that stuff like at 11 in the morning and just let it cool down and put it in the fridge?
49:51
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I was getting my directions.
49:53
SPEAKER_05: It's better that way, actually, because it has time to sit.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, we had I had taco, I got them big square taco shells that'll stand up by themselves, and I got burrito, soft burritos, tomatoes, and guacamole, sour craft.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: I had the whole thing laid out, and that was a big hit.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: So we handled the food well.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: So it was uh I don't know what year this is, 15 or 16.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: And Keith's got another one going on where up at uh near Jacksonville.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: They they do lots of these.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: They do.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: Kind of to the the last one for me.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, it was uh I think out of the I think everybody but two on the first hunt got a turybody got a turkey but two of the first guys.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: Which I wasn't guiding by the way, I'm just saying.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: But anyway.
50:39
SPEAKER_06: Just put that out there.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just throwing that out there.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: But I don't know why the Jakes left the first spot, but they weren't around.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: I did see a couple of but it was a big deal.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: And uh the trip home was great and uh I appreciate everybody listening.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: And if you didn't want to recap, that's okay.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't exit I wanted to recap it because not everybody gets Instagram or Facebook or whatever it was, but it was uh it was a fun hunt and uh I came away as I always do, a better person hanging with those people.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: You know that I think I forgot what day we got home.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that Sunday I'd been completely out of touch.
51:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about completely out of touch.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: I didn't watch Fox News, I didn't have anything on the radio.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: It was uh it was just brutally, brutally quiet.
51:27
SPEAKER_05: That's a good thing, I think.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: It is.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: And anyway, I got home the first thing I'm seeing, I I was looking and it was Lobster Gate, Lobster Gate, Lobster Gate.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: And it was about all these people just losing their mind about feeding the soldiers, steak and lobster.
51:45
SPEAKER_01: And my dad was in the service for 20 years, all his brothers were, and I didn't think that was a big deal.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I I put I threw a picture up there and put uh a just a generic picture, and I made a post Sunday morning.
52:00
SPEAKER_01: It says$17 per person to feed our warrior steak and lobster is money well spent.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: You can't go through a drive-thru for less than that.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: There's people up in arms about lobster gate, and they're the same ones wanting to defund the police.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: Funny how military and law enforcement are the very ones who protect their rights to protest and complain.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: Every meal served our military should come with a personalized thank you card.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: If I could afford it, I'd buy all of them a What are once a week and got great kind one guy kind of got sideways about it?
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cuz I got a lot of respect for you, but I disagree on this, blah, blah, blah, when all the all this money wasted and and I and I didn't answer him.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: I said, Hey, you know, I'm I'm always thinking about the boots on the ground person, not politics.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: So uh you just can't say thank you enough.
52:53
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's not a big thank you, but the guys that get to come to that, they feel it.
52:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: Because like I say, there's good people all over the world.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: Especially in the US.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of them listen to this podcast.
53:06
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for that.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: Laureen is cracking the whip.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: We try to stay a little bit ahead.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: So next week uh we and and look, you may have already watched some of this or heard it, but uh I did a deal at the NWTF called The Ten Commandments of Turkey Hunt.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: Tongue in cheek.
53:25
SPEAKER_05: That's really good.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: And I saved all my notes and stories from that.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: She said you're doing that on a podcast.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: And I I don't know if it'll have the same effect with with not, you know, 800 people in the crowd, but we're gonna try it.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: Next week, we're gonna start with the Ten Commandments of Turkey Hunting.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: And uh you might learn a little something, but I can guarantee you you'll probably laugh out loud.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: Don't you think?
53:48
SPEAKER_05: I can't wait.
53:49
SPEAKER_05: I will.
53:50
SPEAKER_01: So I got my marching orders.
53:52
SPEAKER_01: So from me and Laureen up in the Camo Cave from Mossy Oak and Mossy Oak Properties, God bless y'all.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: We do appreciate you.
54:00
SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much.
54:01
SPEAKER_05: We'll see you in seven days.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: Your favorite place.com.