By Jay Pinsky, Editor, The Hunting Wire
I've hunted, for better or more often worse, since I was a teenager in the 1980's. Back then, I stomped around the pine-tree heavy woods of south-central North Carolina with my bow, a Martin Lynx Magnum, a Stevens 16-gauge pump shotgun, and after a summer of mowing lawns, my first deer rifle, a Mossberg 1500 chambered in the all-world 7mm Remington Magnum.
As a boy, I chased deer, rabbits, squirrels, dove, and on one occasion, I had a bear chase me in Bladen County, N.C. My fondest memory as a boy was sitting with my trusty dog, Rufus, a stubborn, beef-jerky-loving beagle who was as good at hunting as I was. We never killed anything together except bags of, you guessed it, beef jerky, along with a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lots of time. But, man, were we terrible at hunting. We spooked more deer than Casper. I never cared that we couldn't hunt that well, and you know what, I don't think he did either. He was my best friend growing up, and the time we spent together in the woods was priceless. My father never hunted with me. Aside from the dedicated mentorship of my now passed youth pastor, Danny Towe, all of my knowledge for and about hunting came from reading magazines and listening to some old-timers tell some tall tales at the barbershop. Looking back, I realize Danny took me hunting to teach me how to become a man, and like Rufus, he cared more about our journey than killing.
Now, some 47 years later, I've gotten a little (but not much) better at hunting. Of course, when I head to the woods, it isn't with the sole intent of killing anything. But, like some of you, I'm betting, hunting, and more specifically, my quiet time in the woods has become my mental and emotional sanctuary. I'll confess now, I've had more than one "shooter" buck walk right in front of me, and all I did was smile, nod, and thank God for the fact I got to see him. I don't know if that makes me more of a hunter or less these days.
One of the animals I haven't spent much time watching is the wild turkey. A few years ago, I started learning about wild turkeys. On occasion, I've tried hunting them, but frankly, I'd never say I tried until this year. In 2021, I tried, and I failed time and time again. I'm pretty sure the first human to cuss did so after he spooked a roosted Tom. The addicting thing about turkey hunting is that I succeeded a little more but not quite enough to win each time I failed. After a few weeks of noble but fruitless attempts at taking my first gobbler on my own here in Virginia, I finally got to hunt with some experts in Maryland and Delaware thanks to NOMAD Outdoors. There I met up with NOMAD's turkey hunting legend Mike Tussey, one of their marketing guys, Bobby Lader, and my guide, Tyler Collins. Boy, what a difference mentors make. Over the next three days, I'd kill my first, second, and third turkeys in less combined time than it took me to drive from my northern Virginia home, through D.C. traffic, to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where we did most of our hunting. There were 100 reasons why I was successful this time around, and 99 of them had little to nothing to do with me. The lion's share of the credit for my success belongs to my guide. He invested hundreds of hours in scouting, building relationships with local landowners, studying wild turkey behavior, learning how to coach new hunters and his parents, who purposely raised a young man who outwardly cared more about my success than his own. Still, I will and do lay claim to that one last reason, and it's a good one – I listened to my guide.
You see, one of the best things about knowing that I'm no expert is that it empowers me to listen to those amongst us who are. So, from the moment I arrived in turkey camp, I did three things well. I accepted that my guide was right, I listened to my guide, and I never tried to tell the guide how to guide. I could do that because I have always seen myself as an ageless rookie, and the best part about being a rookie at anything is beginner's luck.
