00:00:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both dig shout out to onex Hunt for their support of this podcast. I’m your host, Lake Pickle, And on today’s episode, we’re gonna hear from a turkey hunter who’s been around since some of the original turkey conservation works started. We’re gonna go on a turkey hunt, and then we’re gonna sit down in the magical spring Woods with one of the individuals who championed the new Mississippi Turkey stamp. This episode has action from start to finish, So y’all settle in.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: It’s time to get into it.
00:00:50
Speaker 3: Are you, sir?
00:00:53
Speaker 4: Oh, I can’t complain. I’m doing just fine.
00:01:00
Speaker 2: Blake Nickles, Jamie Quick good to make you, sir, good to meet you, Thanks for having me.
00:01:07
Speaker 1: I just pulled into the driveway of a man named mister Jamie Quick. And if that name or the voice attached to it happens to sound familiar, you may have heard mister Jamie tell a story on one of the recent Turkey Story Bear Grease episodes. Believe me, he’s got more stories than just that one.
00:01:22
Speaker 3: This mean you’ve got the shop before we go in the house.
00:01:25
Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
00:01:30
Speaker 1: I followed mister Jamie into his shop, where he shows me a glass case filled with turkey spurs and stacks of old Turkey pictures.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: The old school kind of pictures, the ones that you had to drop a roll of film off at the local records and wait for it to be developed.
00:01:44
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know, I sense your picture, Yes, sir, that’s that’s that’s the collection. That’s my dys James W.
00:01:57
Speaker 4: Frother the first and she h, what year would this have been? And you remember, I.
00:02:03
Speaker 3: Don’t remember when she she probably can.
00:02:06
Speaker 4: Always says I’m back there man.
00:02:08
Speaker 1: Ten inch Beard ninety eight, nineteen ninety eight eight.
00:02:13
Speaker 3: Her, Well, we used to take pictures like this. I was mad about writing the day told them. Oh yeah, and one of the the big spurs is up there.
00:02:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, the one he’s sitting me in a picture of. That’s a great spurre turkey.
00:02:30
Speaker 3: That’s alf a little bit years just nineteen eighties. Mighty good.
00:02:40
Speaker 1: Like I said, mister Jamie has plenty of Turkey knowledge and stories to share with us, and I think it’s time we dove in.
00:02:47
Speaker 4: What year did you start.
00:02:48
Speaker 3: Turkey on in the Sprague of nineteen eighties.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Okay, was there Did you have any knowledge Did you know of anyone turkey hunting and around you or in the community prior to that.
00:02:59
Speaker 3: Yes. The fellow that got me started, he’s from here, he was raised here, but he worked for the Sole Conservation Agency, all right. He was stationed at Forest, Mississippi. He got into big turkey hunt and at Forest well, he got transferred back to Covnan County and there was a few turkeys scattered here there and yonder, but he didn’t have anybody to talk turkey with. So he got another fellow to go with him, and he got hunting, wanted somebody else, so he got me to go with him. And that’s how I got started. I called him one day and told him, I said, look, I want to go with you in the morning. He said, well, I’ll have to check with this other fellow because said he’s got one roosted. I said, I’m gonna go try to get him. So he called him, and the other fellow, which is just a next door neighbor, said oh, yeah, it’s found for him to go. Says let him go, which I didn’t care of. Going or anything. I just went with them. Well, we checked out that morning. We went over on Leaf River. Leaf River was out of its banks and it was coming a hurricane that morning, wind blowing nine into nothing. But we heard a turkey and I got hooked from that first morning.
00:04:24
Speaker 1: Now, any turkey hunter can relate with this. There’s just something about the sound of a gobbling longbeard that gets under your skin.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: And stays there.
00:04:31
Speaker 1: I want to ask mister Jamie about some of what it was like turkey hunting back then.
00:04:36
Speaker 2: Were there a lot of turkey hunters around.
00:04:38
Speaker 3: Well, I tell you the first year and the second year, I see, I delivered fuel for business. I was a petroleum jobber out of business in Collins. I delivered to all these farmers. Well, he was worked for the sole conservation army of a department. All the farmers were coming into him office. So we began to ask questions. County turkeys on your place? Yeah, yeah, anybody hunt. Now, ain’t nobody hunt? But do you care if somebody you plumb welcome? We hunted the first two years. We hunted from the north end of the county to the south end, from the east side to the west side. We run into three different hunters, all sizes of ourself. That whole year.
00:05:32
Speaker 2: That sounds like a different world compared to today.
00:05:34
Speaker 3: It was a different world. But then every year after that we had good hatches. Turkeys were multiplying both more and more and more and more got into it.
00:05:50
Speaker 1: As a listen to mister Jamie tells stories from turkey hunting back in the eighties, the ease and getting permission to hunt, the lack of other turkey hunters in the area. I can’t help but think about how closely this mirrors many of the stories that we heard from mister Benny Hearing, which shouldn’t really seem all that surprising. Although they are in different parts of the state, both of their early turkey hunting years happened around the same time. I just find that time frame so fascinating, the history of turkeys.
00:06:17
Speaker 3: But now, the first few years that we hunted, I say, the first four or five years, if you heard a turkey gobble, you d you’ve done something. Yeah, they just were not that many turkeys. Of course, we didn’t have the turkey hunters.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: Either, right right, So what so you that you kind of started in a unique spot then, so when you started, when there weren’t that many, and then you saw it, saw it, saw it explode, and then you kind of saw it kind of level out to where it’s at now.
00:06:52
Speaker 3: Well, Uh, it hit its peak? Is true?
00:06:58
Speaker 2: You participated in the Spring Turkey Star for a long time.
00:07:01
Speaker 3: Ever since it comes started every year.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: And when did it start?
00:07:07
Speaker 3: I don’t remember. I don’t remember, but I just happened to get on the mailing list. Yeah, I mean there was nothing that I did. They just sent me a survey.
00:07:16
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker 3: But whatever year they started, I’ve had one every year.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they the first year it started, you were on the mailing list. What did they have you do the first year? The same thing they have you doing now.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: Just today, the same same booklet when you started hunting? How many gobbles did you hear? Just how many do you harvest this year? And you run up on any hens that were nesting or see anything that will see it. It’s just questions that they asked, want to know, And you still do it to this year. I still do it even though I can’t Even though I can’t hear the gobbles like I used to, I still fell out the survey. What I do is you to hear?
00:08:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, The Spring Gobbler Survey was initiated in nineteen ninety five by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. It’s a voluntary program used to gain long term data on wild turkey activity and populations, and it really leaned on the hunters for being the citizen scientist, so to speak. Mister Jamie would have been fifteen years into his turkey hunting career when it started, and he’s been doing it every spring ever since, which I think is just too cool. We’re about to wrap up with mister Jamie, but before we do, there’s one really cool part of his story that just can’t be left out.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: You made mention to me when we spoke on the phone before this. You’re talking about your grandson. You said something along the lines of I can’t remember exactly how you worded it, but said something about it. You’re teaching him how to hunt him right or hunt them.
00:08:50
Speaker 3: Old school, old schedule.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: What do you mean by that?
00:08:57
Speaker 3: You just you hear that turkey, You go to him, set up and call him to you. No no bait, no nothing. Yes, it’s just you and him.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: That’s the way you like to do it.
00:09:12
Speaker 3: That’s the way I like to do it, and the lynch box’s then earned the cabinet. I carried it with me, and I couldn’t tell you when you don’t.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: So you’re not. Let me make sure you’re not using calls?
00:09:27
Speaker 3: Oh yes, what are you using? I carry it with me three hundred and sixty five days a year.
00:09:35
Speaker 4: Oh you’re calling with your voice?
00:09:37
Speaker 3: Call him in my mouth?
00:09:38
Speaker 2: That’s all you use?
00:09:39
Speaker 3: That’s all I use? Really, if I can’t, if I get a hold of one, did you give me a lot of trouble? And I did? I can’t call. I might take the box, but I I can’t remember the last time I did carry Really, if he’s gonna call him back, he’ll come to me. But they don’t all come, of course they don’t. They don’t all come.
00:10:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, if they all came, I don’t think it’d be as if no, it wouldn’t get you as much. Sure, Yeah, yeah, how did you figure that out? The whole column with you voice? How’d you figure out you could do that?
00:10:16
Speaker 3: I just got trying it on my own, and my buddy and I we joined the Okatoba Hunting Club. One year they had turkeys between Collins and Mount Olive Okatoma swamp. It was full of turkeys, so we joined the club to have more space to hunt, and we went up there one morning. He went to one turkey and I went to a turkey. Well, his finally just left him, and I’m up to swamp calling one. He is god with his head off every time I called to him. Well, when my buddy got back to the truck, he could hear me. It was and it was supposed it was misty rain that morning, I left my box and the pickup because I didn’t want it to get wet, and I didn’t tell him. Well, he slept up on me, got behind me and just set there and listen. He wanted to be listened to me called he listed turkey gobble. I didn’t get to turkey because he had hints with him. We got back to the truck. He helped me to see that my box on the dash of the pickup. He said, what are you calling that turkey with? I said, I was calling him with my mouth. He said, well, you take that box and stick it under the truck wheel and run over it. You don’t need it. And I’ve been been calling him with my mouth ever since.
00:11:49
Speaker 2: Let me just throw this one out there.
00:11:51
Speaker 1: Me personally, I’m glad they make turkey calls because if I had to rely on my natural voice like mister Jamie does, I don’t think I would ever kill a turkey.
00:11:59
Speaker 2: It’s an impressive skill.
00:12:01
Speaker 1: To formally wrap things up with mister Jamie, I want him to share his thoughts on the current state of turkeys as well as the future of turkey out right now.
00:12:11
Speaker 3: They’re making a good callback now. We last year we had the best hatch local to hear that we’ve had in years. I called, have you ever met Adam Butler? Oh?
00:12:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, he’s a good friend.
00:12:26
Speaker 3: I called Adham and told him one day. I said, Adam, we were fortunate here to County County and he says, well, I’m glad you called me. He says, I’m getting calls from Jeff Davis County, Lawrence County, Simpson County, Smith County, big hatches.
00:12:44
Speaker 1: Thank you for the time and for the stories, mister Jamie. It sure was a pleasure, and I always love hearing the turkey numbers are doing good in an area. It was also rather perfect that he mentioned Adam Butler right there at the end. You see, if y’all remember I said at the beginning of this episode that we would be going turkey hunting and sitting in the woods having a conversation with one of the individuals who championed the new turkey stamp in Mississippi. And that individual just happens to be Adam Butler. So heck, what are we waiting for? Let’s go turkey hunt.
00:13:22
Speaker 2: It all started with a text exchange.
00:13:25
Speaker 1: The next thing I know, I’m meeting my good friend Adam at four am to rendezvous before heading deep into.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: The Turkey woods.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: It was so dark when we started the trek from our trucks into the woods that the stars in the sky were the only thing that gave us some sense of direction. We reached our preferred listening spot and plenty of time, and we sat there in the dark, making small talk in a whisper tone, as many turkey hunters do, when out of nowhere the woods erupted with a gobble not two hundred yards away.
00:13:50
Speaker 2: He was early.
00:13:52
Speaker 1: We weren’t expecting to hear a turkey for another fifteen minutes or so, but hey, no one ever gets mad about an early gobble. We slipped down about sixty yard to make our first set up. The turkeys were in a small hardwood drain surrounded by pines. I was going to drop behind Adam and hope to pull one of the gobblers just to the edge of the pines so.
00:14:09
Speaker 2: That he could get a shot.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: As we waited for fly down, the turkeys were getting really cranked up. One gobbler soon turned into multiple, and then the hens joined in on the chorus. It was quite the springtime commotion, the kind that made you just feel thankful that you were there to hear it. When the gobblers hit the ground, we started calling, and although they did cut significant distance, they never got quite close enough to give Adam a shot, and eventually they faded back down into the drain. Adam and I backed out and formed another game plan. It sounded like the turkeys were wanting to head due north up the drain towards a fresh cutover. We thought if we made a big loop and got in the drain with them, we might have a chance, but we were going to have to move quick. We started walking that direction, dodging briers and hearing fat gobbles as we went on. When we made it to the end of the drain, where we were trying to get to our pace slowed had and heard them gobble in a while, and we wanted to be cautious and not blow anything out. Thankfully, when we were about fifty yards away, we heard them gobble, still two hundred yards or so away from us.
00:15:10
Speaker 2: Perfect.
00:15:12
Speaker 1: We eased into the edge of the drain and made a setup. I was sitting roughly thirty yards behind Adam.
00:15:17
Speaker 4: And we commenced calling.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: They answered, and for a minute or two we thought they were gaining quick ground. That initial excitement faded when they hung up at about one hundred and seventy yards. However, both of us felt confident that we were in.
00:15:30
Speaker 2: A good location. We continued to call intermittently and they would answer us just about every time. It had likely been about twenty minutes when I saw Adam gopher his binos strutter. He said, right on the edge of the drain, still about one hundred and seventy yards good. I thought, hopefully they’ll work this way. We sat there for a few more minutes, calling every so often, thinking it would still be a while before we had any real action. Spoiler alert, we were wrong.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: It had been somewhere between five and ten minutes in Adam spotted the strutter with his binos, and I happened to catch a black blob of feathers.
00:16:04
Speaker 2: Move between two trees.
00:16:06
Speaker 1: I focused in on that area when all of a sudden, I saw the fan of a long bearded gobbler pop up from the green grass headed our direction.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: He was eighty yards and closing.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: Now one important thing to note. When we made this set up, Adam did say, I want to sit on the other side of that drain, because I think that’s where they’ll come. But I don’t think I can get there without spooking anything.
00:16:29
Speaker 2: And let me tell you something. He was right about both. There was no way he could have gotten there. But now that gobbler was eighty yards and closing, and he was on the other side of the drain.
00:16:39
Speaker 1: If he kept coming, he would be in range. But finding a hole to shoot through that would be tricky. I watched the gobbler go from eighty to sixty, from sixty to forty, his bright red head beaming the whole way. Forty turned into thirty, and I was looking back and forth from the turkey to Adam to see when or if he was going to shoot the further. The turkey walked down the drain closer to being dead even with us, the smaller the shot opportunity.
00:17:05
Speaker 2: Was going to be.
00:17:06
Speaker 1: He was steady walking, and I just kept waiting for a gun to go off.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: I didn’t know it at the time, but Adam never had a good shot. And now the turkey had walked past us behind a huge wall of cover with no more opportunity to shoot. My head was reeling.
00:17:21
Speaker 1: This turkey is still under thirty yards away, but he has no shot.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: I did the only thing I knew to do, which was a hell Mary at best.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: I slid my hand up to my mouth and cupped it on the left side and yelped as softly as I could, aiming the sounds of my calls back to the right in a feudal attempt that the gobbler would turn around and come back. I could see through the thick vegetation that he had stopped walking when I yelped, so I did it again. To my absolute dismay, not only did that turkey turn around, but he also hopped to our side of the drain and walked to about twenty five yards and wigan.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: Adam let him have it. As you could.
00:17:58
Speaker 1: Imagine, there was some high fives and celebrating could be had. I mean, a picture perfect spring day in the woods, right, How could it get any better? Well, I’ll tell you how it can get better. As I’ve told you all before, I love wild turkeys and I love turkey hunting. I love hearing from guys like mister Jamie Quick that saw the rise of turkeys and turkey hunting culture in my home state of Mississippi, and I especially love hearing about his involvement in the Spring Gobbler Survey. Anytime that hunters can get to be on the front lines of conservation, man, it just makes me flat out happy.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: And that’s what we’re here to talk about right now.
00:18:40
Speaker 1: Right after this hunt took place, and I really do mean right after this hunt took place, Adam and I found some trees to sit by, some shade to hide under, and a place to lay that gobbler down.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: Where we could both look an Admira and we had a conversation about one of the newest forms of turkey conservation, the turkey sound. This is that conversation. You could probably tell just from the background noise that we’re sitting outside right now and we’re reflecting on what was a pretty amazing spring morning.
00:19:12
Speaker 5: I would say it was amazing hard not to call it amazing. About as good as it could get.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: Today is March twenty seventh. Where are we two weeks into regular season or close to it?
00:19:27
Speaker 4: Right?
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Two weeks tomorrow tomorrow it’ll be two weeks of regular season open. Let me ask you something because I’m curious if you feel the same way. And I feel like this would apply to a lot of people. For me, like everyone, you know, a lot of folks travel to Turkey on these days, and that’s something that I do enjoy doing. And not even talking about Mississippi specifically. I’m talking about Mississippi right now because it’s yours in my home state. To have a morning like we got to have this morning at home.
00:20:00
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
00:20:01
Speaker 5: It doesn’t get any better now, it doesn’t. And I’m a little bit of an odd ball. I do travel to Turkey hunt, but not a ton, not as much as a lot of people. I mean, I think I’ve killed turkeys and you know, maybe like eight states, which is not a lot in this day and time, but I get after them here. Yeah, and uh, part of the part of the reason I probably don’t put as much emphasis on traveling, uh is for me, turkeys and other places don’t just match, don’t match what it means to me back home to Yeah, and I’m blessed enough to hunt a lot of the same places that I’ve hunted all my life, and it just it’s really special to me to think about hunting turkeys that you know, we’re the descendants great, great, great great offspring of the turkeys that made me fall in love with it.
00:20:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, nearly four decades ago now the same too.
00:21:00
Speaker 2: It’s so like in this on this show, we’ve kind of done like a we’ve had a look back at like the earliest turkey restoration efforts and talking to mister Benny hearing incredible story.
00:21:13
Speaker 4: Yeah he’s awesome, my hero, so awesome.
00:21:16
Speaker 2: But what I was trying to what I was hoping to do with this one is kind of we looked back and now looking present. You know, it’s not like a I don’t think conservation is ever a journey where you go, look, guys, we made it.
00:21:29
Speaker 4: We can stop now, you know what I mean?
00:21:31
Speaker 2: Like there’s always like more to do and kind of wrapping all this up into the main of what we’re going with here is you know, talking to mister Benny, knowing some of the history of turkey restoration here in the turkey population, and then the just the such a rich turkey hunting culture here in this state. And then fast forward to that, like you were saying, hunting turkeys that you know pretty much state wide now, I mean, is that and then focusing in on some of the current conservation efforts that are going on, particularly in Mississippi, and the newest one that’s gathered a lot of attention for good reason is the turkey stamp, which I know you had a lot.
00:22:16
Speaker 4: To do with.
00:22:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, I’m just really blessed that that was able to you know, kind of come about during my tenure here, you know, working as a wildlife biologist and turkey coordinator and now deputy director of the Wildlife Bureau. And I listened to your episode with mister Benny and just you know, it’s really humbling to be part of that lineage of people working for the resource and all. And yeah, the turkey stamps really really big. I mean, there’s other states that have that, and not many, but there’s other states with turkey stamps. But when you think about you know, the best analogies looking at the duck stamp, which you know, the federal duck stamps nearly one hundred years old, and this year is the fiftieth anniversary of duck stamp in Mississippi. So we have the turkey stamp coming on the fiftieth anniversary of our state waterfowl stamp.
00:23:08
Speaker 4: So that’s that’s really cool.
00:23:10
Speaker 5: And when you think about just the amount of funding that’s been raised all of those decades with duck stamp dollars and all the places that those moneies go and the things that they do, and you know, now having a similar sort of conservation vehicle for turkeys. Man, we’re it’s it’s a good time to good time to be a lover of the bird.
00:23:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was something for It was exciting for me when I heard that. It was like, I’m trying to remember how it all went down, but I remember hearing that. I think the first time I heard about it, it wasn’t a sure thing that we were going to have one. There was just like rumors here and there of like, hey, we might get a turkey stamp, and there was I had all these questions like what does that mean, what’s it going to do? How’s it going to operate? Like is it optional? Is it something everyone has to get? Like, how’s it going to work?
00:24:05
Speaker 4: To where this is?
00:24:06
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the first spring season where it’s it’s in place. Yeah, and correct, I’m you had to turn to legally turkeyun the Mississippi you must have a turkey stamp.
00:24:17
Speaker 4: Correct for most people.
00:24:19
Speaker 5: There are a few categories of individuals that are exempt, like if you’re under sixteen or over sixty five or right a lifetime license.
00:24:27
Speaker 4: But but for most people, yeah, you’ve got to have it. Now to turkey hunt.
00:24:31
Speaker 2: So talk to me about what the f I mean it sounds you know, you hear turkey stamp and it’s going to benefit the bird.
00:24:38
Speaker 4: You’re like, awesome, talk to me about how that works.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: Like everyone, you know, if if you’re most people and you have to buy a turkey stamp, someone buys a turkey stamp resident or non resident, where is that?
00:24:51
Speaker 4: How is that going to benefit turkeys? Right?
00:24:53
Speaker 5: So the turkey stamp came about through legislation, in our legislation. Sure, and want to give you know, real well, real big props to the chairman of our House and Senate Wildlife Committee, So Ben super who’s the chairman on the Senate side, wrote the bill, and Bill Kincaid, who’s the chairman on the House side, you know, stewarded its passage through that chamber. So they both of those gentlemen, you know, were real instrumental. So because it was a legislative effort came about through a bill. That bill stipulates what the money can be used for. Uh, it doesn’t just go to the general fund or anything like that. It has to be used on practices that benefit turkeys, adding to public publicly available turkey hunting opportunities, funding science to to you know, look at what’s going on with turkeys or what you know, why they may or may not be doing well. So the the law itself is what you lays out what the money can and can’t be used for. So from that point forward, you know, we kind of have the framework of how we can use the funds, and you know, going forward it’ll be you know in coming upon us with the Department Wilde Fisheries and partner organizations to put those dollars on the ground in a way that’s meaningful. We started that process already this year. So, just like anything with spending money, you know, you kind of got to know what your budget is before you can decide what you’re buying, right, Yeah, And so going into this, you know, we didn’t we didn’t know exactly how much money the Stamp’s going to generate long term, because one of the problems that we’ve had here in Mississippi is we don’t have we don’t have a way of accurately knowing exactly how many people are turkey hunting. We have estimates, and that was one of the things that the stamp itself was helping to solve is if you’re managing a resource, it’s kind of important to know how many people are coming in, how many people are hunting these things, And until you know that number, it’s hard to predict exactly you know, what the revenue is going to be. So after this season is over, this twenty twenty sixth season, we’ll have a better sense of.
00:27:10
Speaker 4: What level of funding we’re dealing.
00:27:12
Speaker 5: With and we’ll be able to start budgeting accordingly from there. We did want to at least, you know, plan a flag in the ground though with this initial round, because you know, people have been buying the stamp because it is licensed to turkey hunt.
00:27:25
Speaker 2: There’s one displayed proudly. If you look in my truck right now, I have it in my in my visor.
00:27:32
Speaker 4: I saw that this morning while we were waiting on daylight. Proud of it. Yeah, on daylight.
00:27:36
Speaker 2: And then I got one from my wife Lacey. It’s it’s magnitude to the front of refrigerator.
00:27:40
Speaker 4: There you go, there you go.
00:27:41
Speaker 5: But we did at our most recent meeting of the Commission of Wilie Fishing Parks last or no this week, this week, a.
00:27:50
Speaker 4: Couple of days ago. Hyah, you lose track of times run together this time of year.
00:27:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, when you get on Turkey time, you lose track of things. But yeah, so we actually present ended a slate of projects to spend some of those dollars.
00:28:05
Speaker 3: Uh.
00:28:05
Speaker 5: Caleb Hinton, who’s now our Turkey program coordinator, Caleb’s a great guy and you know, just like you and I, he’s he’s crazy about turkeys and going to do a really great job for us uh in that role going forward.
00:28:18
Speaker 3: Uh.
00:28:18
Speaker 5: He presented our first slate of projects, all w a focused ultimately you know, we want the dollars to follow the bird on public private land.
00:28:29
Speaker 4: Research wherever, uh, wherever we need to go.
00:28:31
Speaker 5: To make sure we’re conserving conserving turkeys for the future, but for this first slate of projects, it’s for a lot of reasons, we tend we wanted to focus on wm as. So Caleb Uh, he stood before the Commission and you can go back and see that should be available on YouTube. Uh and you know, pose forth the first ever slate of projects we’re going to spend turkey stamp dollars on. And it was really cool because Caleb Uh his first time presenting to the Commission. He’s new in that in that role as the Turkey Pregnant Coordinator, and he pointed out that he killed his first turkey twenty five years ago this year on one of the WA’s that he’s now proposing turkey stamp funding.
00:29:17
Speaker 4: Oh that is cool.
00:29:18
Speaker 5: So I just thought that was was really cool kind of tying it all together.
00:29:21
Speaker 6: This is my first time here a streaking y’all. So this is a little bit about me. I’m a Wild Turkey Program coordinator. Now I’ve been in that role officially since August. I’m from southeast Mississippi, Perry County to be specific, and I’m a lifelong outdoorsman and extremely passionate turkey hunter. So I’m so privileged, thankful to be in.
00:29:41
Speaker 4: This role and excited to get it going.
00:29:43
Speaker 6: And I was thinking on the way up here, it’s so cool to me, exactly twenty five years ago this year, I killed my very first turkey on one of these w mays.
00:29:52
Speaker 4: We’re listened here for a project.
00:29:54
Speaker 6: So I’m just it’s something that’s really near to do to my heart.
00:29:57
Speaker 2: That’s way cool, And it’s cool for you know, even even for me, who’s like I’ve been pumped about this stamp ever since I knew it was coming. It’s it’s good to be able to highlight that, just to show like, hey, this is what these funds are gonna do. And like I said, I’m sure they’ll go through a plethora of different things that will benefit of turkey. But I do have a I have a you know, special place in my heart for places like WMA’s and national forests and these publicly accessible hunting areas that are just so like you can’t put enough value on them. And so no, that really is awesome to hear that.
00:30:32
Speaker 5: We’re blessed he in Mississippi, We’ve got some pretty good public pretty honey man.
00:30:37
Speaker 2: I feel like, I mean, this year you’ve got the Turkey stamp, you got that, the dollars to night going to some projects that you just talked about. I feel like there’s just a lot going on, and which I am biased, right because I live here, but like I feel like there’s a lot going on with turkeys and in Mississippi right now as far as like things that will benefit.
00:30:57
Speaker 4: The bird, right.
00:30:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, So obviously the stamp and it, you know, the funding it will bring for the work that can be conducted there. And then I’m sure you saw recently the National Wild Turkey Federation in Mississippi State University announced the establishment of an endow chair in wild Turkey Research.
00:31:17
Speaker 4: Did see that at the end of at the convention this year.
00:31:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, And hou’sed that a Mississippi State up there. So this will be the second one. Doctor Mike Chamberlain’s in the first one at University of Georgia, so this will be a second one. And MSU is going to be expanding faculty to hire somebody that will be doing turkey research here in state and I’m sure elsewhere as well. I mean, you know a lot of those research but the positions they are going to work in more than one place. But we’re going to have a lot of focus uh here in Mississippi through Mississippi State University.
00:31:50
Speaker 4: So yeah, we got a lot going on. It’s it’s just to me, it’s a good time.
00:31:53
Speaker 5: I mean, if you look at turkey restoration and sort of the history and and I know you talked to mister Benny Herring, and you know, turkeys did really really well here for a long long time, and then you know, kind of I think a lot of people just sort of took for granted it was always going to be that way. And then, you know, ten or fifteen years ago, when we started seeing some troubling signs around turkey reproduction and populations and harvests and stuff like that, I think it it opened a lot of folks’s eyes that, hey, we we don’t need to take this bird for granted, and we need to make sure we’re doing the things to ensure that our great grandkids are going to have turkeys to hunt. And I think a lot of the stuff that we’re talking about, turkey stamp, you know, the game check system we’ve got here in place now, the endow chair at Missippi State, you know, just a real focus on a lot of the stuff I mean talking about convention that partner wildlife Fisheries and parks here and our partner organizations have a program to help private landowners burn called Fire on the Ford Reward. Yeah, a convention we’ve yeah, we’ve we’ve crossed a one hundred thousand acre impacted threshold.
00:33:09
Speaker 4: That’s crazy here in Mississippi.
00:33:11
Speaker 5: And so you know that’s not a you know, quote turkey specific program, but burning’s gonna help turkeys.
00:33:15
Speaker 2: Burning is yeah, Burning and turkeys go together like Southern Baptists and eating Mexican food after church on Sunday.
00:33:22
Speaker 4: I mean they just go together. Yeah. Uh no, I say that. I’ve never heard that going on to that one. That’s good, right, it’s free. Yeah, So no, I’m excited.
00:33:33
Speaker 5: It’s a great time, great time to be uh somebody who cares about the bird and be optimistic about the future.
00:33:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially here in Mississippi.
00:33:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker 2: And that’s the thing, man, from from everything that you said, Like when I going back to I’m going to keep referring to the mister Benny episode because it was just so awesome. But he even talked about back then, he was like those restoration efforts would have never happened if you didn’t have a private landowners and a hunting community that cared about wildlife and turkeys.
00:34:06
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you fast.
00:34:07
Speaker 2: Forward to this today, like the situation is a little bit different. The circumstances have changed, but the principle of that, in my mind stays the same.
00:34:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:34:17
Speaker 2: It’s like when when I heard that, like when it was like, all right, one hundred percent, Mississippi is going to have a turkey stamp. In my mind, I was like, this is going to be great, And I had no doubt that the turkey out in community here would get behind it because I was like, man, I know how turkey hunters feel about this bird and how they feel about keeping it around, and they’re going to be for this.
00:34:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker 5: I’ve always felt like, you know, hunters, hunters are obviously the best conservationists and and real true hunters don’t have a problem stepping up when when they need to. And I get it. I mean I know, not everybody, not everybody. Everybody hates giving it, you know, your money over to the government. But in this case, you know, we had public polling that showed almost eighty percent of turkey hunters that we surveyed were in favor of it. If they knew that we’re really the money could only be spent on the bird. And and like I said, that the passage through the legislature that that is the case.
00:35:13
Speaker 4: So just a lot of support.
00:35:16
Speaker 5: I hope, you know, I hope see the end ever grow. I’d love to see other states adopt it, you know, like I said, I mean there are a few already.
00:35:23
Speaker 4: You know, Louisiana has one.
00:35:24
Speaker 2: South Carolina, Arkansas, I have one still.
00:35:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, there is still voluntary, I believe Florida, and you know, in our part of the world, Florida is one that has done really great things with their stamp funds over the years. So you know, most every states has a waterfowl stamp.
00:35:40
Speaker 4: So that was going to be a future where we’re where we’re the same way with the turkey. Stay you got out ahead of me. That was going to be my question. I was curious.
00:35:47
Speaker 2: I was like, man, let’s say that this just crushes it for turkeys in Mississippi, which I know you and I had a bunch of whole other.
00:35:53
Speaker 4: People hope that it does. I think that it will.
00:35:56
Speaker 2: But let’s just say it just knocks out the park and it’s great and we’re able to do all this great stuff for a wild turkey’s Mississippi. Do you think it’s realistic that other states could see it and be like, hey, this is a good idea.
00:36:07
Speaker 4: See how well it worked for that, I hope.
00:36:09
Speaker 2: So.
00:36:09
Speaker 5: I know there’s there are some other states in the southeast that are that are talking about it, you know. And again, it’s always tough, you know, when you’re talking about legislation that’s got.
00:36:19
Speaker 4: To be signed into law and all that.
00:36:20
Speaker 5: It’s always tough, you know, those those shepherding that stuff through the policy sure discussions and so but I’d love to see it, I really do, man.
00:36:32
Speaker 4: I think it’s great. I think it’s great. Final question. Final question.
00:36:38
Speaker 2: When that turkey was strutting at you this morning and like the fleeting minutes before you shot it, what was going through your head?
00:36:45
Speaker 5: Well, what was going through my head was what I had. I had whispered over to you that we were on the wrong side of the ditch. After we sat down, I thought we need to be on the other side of.
00:36:57
Speaker 4: That ditch right there. But it was a little too late. Yeah, he couldn’t do it.
00:37:02
Speaker 5: It was too open and they were too close, and I was afraid he was going to go that side of the ditch, and he did. But luckily you gave that a little bit at the end that turned him right back. I wasn’t even going to bring that up, but you brought it up for me. I had to give Hi that old comeback call. Yeah, yeah, oh oh you lunch or something on that one.
00:37:19
Speaker 2: Look when that turkey did hook around and come right back towards us, I told Adam afterwards, I said, I was as surprised as you were. Yeah, that was great. You can’t beat a spring morning like that.
00:37:33
Speaker 4: No, and you don’t get many like we just had.
00:37:35
Speaker 2: For sure, clear skies, Turkey’s giblin one coming in acting right.
00:37:40
Speaker 4: It just doesn’t get any better. Yep.
00:37:42
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I’m going to bring this up one more time because I think it’s a crucial part of this episode. Just know that for the entire interview with Adam, he and I were sitting against two trees and the spring woods with a turkey. He was pretty great.
00:38:04
Speaker 1: I want to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University as well as Bear Grease in this country life.
00:38:10
Speaker 4: It means a whole heck of a lot to all of us.
00:38:12
Speaker 1: If you liked this episode, share it with a friend this week that loves spring turkeys as much as we do, and stick around because if this podcast was a turkey hunt, well we’ve got one gobbling, but I’m pretty sure he’s covered up in hence, we’re just getting started.
00:38:25
Speaker 4: We’ll see y’all next time.
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