With several weeks of reprieve, most of us should now be on the mend! I dare say most of us that spend more than a weekend or two chasing pea brain sized fowl suffer some level of this viral affliction. Like many of you, I can pin point with military GPS precision when, where, and how the infection took hold. On a very cold late deer season hunt in December 1992, I became witness to a flock of gobblers being busted off the roost by incoming deer hunters below the property I was hunting. Hunting at the edge of a very large bowl on a pristine and very quiet morning, at day break, I was blown away by the voracious gobbling that ensued from the break. As it echoed out through the bowl below my position, it was larger than life and in an instant I was infected, mesmerized beyond recovery…
Each season we willing violate most tenets of healthy living with the exception of daily moderate exercise. Caffeine consumption increases dramatically. Nominal six to eight hour sleep reduces to three or four hours on a good night. The consumption of Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream Pies is enough to propel the company to have their best months of sales from March thru May. Damn fool for not buying their stock years ago. I will put it out there that we give fishermen a run for their money in boosting the local economy at the small town diners, bars, and last but not least for the consumption of gas station food.
As a member of the infamous Tenth Legion, I pamper my affliction with no intention of ever being cured of it. As I age, I may slow in my movements, fight the girth that aims to overtake my idea of how long it takes to go from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. Yet, I’ll get there come hell or high water. We are all familiar with the quote by author Tom Kelly that captures the adrenaline, the beating of our hearts so loudly the gobbler should hear it. My experience of that peaks just before the gobbler appears. Once in sight my response is more absolute with checklists of shot mechanics. I fully agree that the day that ceases to happen, I will have concluded my time in the turkey woods. May that be well past my final days.
As our neurosis peaks each spring, and fall I wish each of my brethren in solidarity, and in common ailment a recuperative summer, and that your best scheming and planning come to fruition in your obligations to return to the turkey woods next season.
MJ
© 2021 Mike Joyner- Joyner Outdoor Media
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