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 My wife felt that while I was talking about the Grand Slam, I should talk about the Eastern Bronze. I don’t think about this bird the way I do the others because I can be out of bed and in some of the best Eastern turkey woods in 15 minutes.
Over the years, I’ve hunted Eastern turkeys in several states. I grew up in Arkansas which is a great turkey state and have lived in both North and South Carolina for many years now. Both are great turkey states, but South Carolina beats them all. In the area of SC where I live, we can take up to five gobblers with a spring season only. I personally take three or four gobblers per season, time permitting. I also take a few friends hunting and call in birds for them. Most of the land I hunt is private, but I do hunt some public property.
I told my wife, Kathy, when I wrote this that there was not any one hunt that stood out among all my Eastern bird hunts. But there is one turkey hunt I remember where I didn’t take the bird, my friend Steve did, and it was his first.
We had been to his deer hunting club in Edgefield, SC to hunt for two days. It was about mid-season and the weather had been real bad, rainy and cold. It cleared about noon the second day and we were on an old logging road. I looked over into some open pine woods and saw two long beards about 100 yards away. We both got down and moved about 150 yards ahead of the birds. I set Steve down and told him to make sure to let the turkeys get close enough to have a good killing shot. I also told him that if both birds came in, once he shot I would try to take the other bird. I moved to his left and began to call.
Both birds cut off my call and they were coming. I clucked and purred a bit and laid the call down. No sooner done and I saw both birds in full strut about 40 yards out. One bird hung-up and the other walked out to about 20 yards to my left. I stayed on that turkey till he walked off, and as my luck would have it, that’s when Steve took his shot.
Steve took his first bird at about 30 yards, a good 19-pounder with nice spurs and a 10-inch beard. Its great to see someone take their first bird and Steve loved it!
We went back to Spartanburg, SC (where we are from) a short time later and made plans to hunt together on my property the very next day.
Now Steve and I work together for the County Sheriff’s Office; in fact, we both went through the Police Academy together, even though I worked for another SC department back then. At the time this hunt took place, Steve was working with our Narcotics Division and I was in Uniform Patrol after serving several years in Narcotics myself. My off-time was set, but narcs are always subject to being called in, and that turned out to be the case this time, which screwed up our plans to hunt the next day. Steve called that night to say they had an early morning search warrant to do and he wouldn’t be able to hunt.
I went the next morning anyway, and took a nice bird. When I got back home, the phone was ringing with the message that Steve had been shot while serving the search warrant! He was shot three times, the first shot was in the middle of his chest! Thankfully, he was wearing his Kevlar vest which saved his life. The other two shots hit him in the arm and hand. Steve is okay now but has the scars to remind him of his close call. It makes me think of several things: spending time with your family and friends. And enjoy each turkey hunt.
Russell Lynch
Mall Pro-Staff
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