Editor’s Note: One of the reasons I enjoy turkey hunting so much is because every turkey hunt is so different perhaps due to the location, the person I’m hunting with, the particular bird I’m trying to take or my learning something new that I’ve never expected to learn. I’ve also realized through my almost 60 years of turkey hunting that I don’t have to harvest a gobbler to have a successful, memorable turkey hunt.

After three years, I’d just completed writing and photographing the most in-depth turkey book I’d ever written, “Outdoors Life Complete Turkey Hunting Book.” I had interviewed some of the best turkey hunters in the world at that time and hunted and learned from some of the best turkey hunters anywhere at that time. I was feeling great about my ability to call and shoot turkeys. In the years since, though, I learned that no matter how good I thought I was as a turkey hunter, at sometime during most seasons, still one or two gobblers would teach me I wasn’t nearly as good as I thought I was. If I was lucky, that jolt of reality would come when I was hunting by myself – with no one to witness a gobbler showing me that I didn’t understand as much about turkeys as I thought I did.

This particular hunt was my first time to hunt with Brad Harris, who at that time was the PR Director for Lohman’s Turkey Calls and since has become a great friend and one of my favorite people in the world with whom to chase turkeys. We were hunting in Brad’s home state of Missouri where turkeys were screaming from every mountaintop.

When we heard a turkey gobble at daylight, I sat out in front of Brad, who also was camouflaged, about 20 yards behind me. Brad started calling. In no time at all, four longbeards came walking through a hardwood bottom. The biggest gobbler – the strutter – was the last bird in this bachelor group. Now of course after just writing “Outdoor Life’s Complete Turkey Hunting Book” nothing would do but for me to shoot the strutter. The other three turkeys, all longbeards in the group, walked past me at about 25 yards, but the strutter was behind them about 5 or 10 yards. I got low on my gun, making sure my cheek was against the stock, aimed for the wattles on the turkey’s neck, squeezed the trigger and watched the big gobbler fly off.

I searched for every excuse I could think of to explain why I’d missed that turkey. When Brad said, “I can’t believe you missed that turkey.” “I can’t either,” I fired back. “It must have been the gun, the shells or the turkey must have ducked when I shot.” Being the gentleman he was, Brad told me, “Don’t worry, we’ll find another one.”

Sure enough about two hours later Brad called a gobbler up the side of a hill where we were sitting. The trail the gobbler was coming up was just below a little hill. So, I waited until I could see the gobbler’s head and beard, got my head down tight on the stock, made sure I was looking right down at the barrel on the bead of my shotgun, squeezed the trigger and watched that gobbler fly off. I was really feeling worse than bad. Never before had I ever missed two turkeys in one day. When Harris came down to meet up with me, I told him, “I can’t believe that! What are we going to do now?” Harris frowned, and I’ll never forget his words, “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to lay down, take a nap and try and forget all this crap.”

I felt lower than a snake’s belly. I had planned to impress Harris with my turkey-hunting skills, particularly since he knew I’d just written “Outdoor Life’s Complete Turkey Hunting Book.” However, I’d demonstrated that I was probably the worst shot in the world. Finally, with about an hour left before we had to quit hunting, we found one more gobbling bird.

Harris took a stand to the left of me behind a big oak tree, and I sat facing the direction from where we expected the turkey to come. Sure enough within only a few minutes, the gobbler  appeared. I pushed the safety off my shotgun and got ready to take the shot. But I was so rattled and upset after missing two turkeys earlier in the morning, I let that tom walk past me and straight toward Harris. I planned to tell Harris that I never saw the gobbler, but then for some reason, the turkey turned around and started coming right back down the trail he was walking to go to Harris. In my mind I prayed, “Dear God, please let me kill this turkey. I’ll put more money in the offering plate next Sunday when it comes past me than I ever have before, and I’ll try and be a better man, more humble and forgiving than I’ve ever been – if you’ll just let me kill this turkey.” I aimed at the bird, and much to my surprise when I squeezed the trigger, that ole longbeard went down like I’d hit him with a ton of bricks. The weight that left my shoulders felt like all the sins of the world had been forgiven.

What I Learned from This Hunt:

* Some gobblers will burst your bubble, humble you down to the soles of your feet and remind  you that you’re not nearly as good a turkey hunter and caller as you think you are.

* You should never give up on a turkey hunt, even if you have the worst morning of your life. Don’t give up until the last minute you can hunt, because you still have a chance for redemption.

* You may seem to be one of the worst turkey hunters in the world to your hunting partner, but he often will become a lifelong friend like Brad Harris has.  

To learn more about turkey hunting, check out John E. Phillips’s book, “Turkey Hunting Tactics,” at http://amzn.to/WkbUE9, and available in Kindle, print and Audible versions.

Tomorrow: Learn about the Invention of the Turkey Scope