Lessons from the Woods

This past weekend was a bit perplexing for us. Youth turkey season was over, regular turkey season hadn’t yet started, the fishing was getting in gear, and the morels were popping. My son, Coleman, and I were trying to decide what to do – hunt mushrooms or go fishing. I voted for mushrooms but Coleman quickly vetoed that idea – too much work. He wanted to boat around the lake and fish (no walking and no ticks!). Needless to say, we went fishing.

As we boated around the lake in the two-man boat, Coleman sat on my lap as I cast to the shore and reeled. Each time I hooked a fish he grabbed the pole and reeled it in. In between fish he played with the plastic worms in the worm tray of the tackle box. Now, instead of worms, grubs, tubes, etc., each occupying their own slot, I now have plastic potpourri in my tackle box. His grandfather would have held a court marshal if I had done such a thing! Disturbing the organization of dad’s tackle box was tantamount to shooting the TV screen with a bb gun during a St. Louis Cardinals World Series ball game – you better have your escape route planned! As we boated around the perimeter of the lake I started remembering back to some of the great laughs I’ve had in the Great Outdoors. The fun, excitement, lessons and laughs are what make the memories to be told around the campfire for a lifetime.


"Heck no I don't want to hunt mushrooms - too many ticks and chiggers!" Coleman Stephens proudly sporting another Missouri springtime largemouth.

With youth turkey season just over and regular turkey season just beginning I was remembering some gobblers that got away. One such true story was with a good friend and hunting partner, Scott Duncan. Scott and I were hunting together in the mid 1980’s at our farm at Lake Spring. It had been raining for 2 solid days and on the 3rd day of season the sun finally came out. As luck would have it the only turkeys we could find were out in the middle of a 30 acre field that had been disked for a foodplot the prior fall. There were 2 gobblers strutting in circles and several jakes and hens milling around.

After an hour long futile attempt to call the birds from the field we finally decided the split up and search for other birds. As we slipped off our separate ways I was thinking that I had no intention of leaving these gobblers in the field without having a go at them…and apparently, unbeknownst to me, Scott was thinking the same thing. I slipped off in the woods around the field calling occasionally and listening for other turkeys only to hear the strutters from the field answering my every call. Finally I could take it no longer – I was going to attempt an ambush. As I approached the field on all-fours I scanned the ground for any cover. It was so muddy that no one in their right mind would get on their belly and crawl through that muck so I was visualizing my route between the few clumps of grass and bushes tall enough to provide cover for me while on my hands and knees.

On all-fours I slowly made for the first leg of the route through the mud bog. I closed the distance to 150 yards as I arrived at the first clump of grass. The turkeys had not seen me. While keeping an eye on the hens I started on the 2nd leg, cutting the distance to 100 yards while crawling behind a multifloral rose bush. Now things were starting to get dicey because conditions were getting worse - the cover was getting smaller and humidity coming up from the wet ground was miserable. I had just started on the 3rd leg of the route when the commotion broke loose. It happened so fast that, at first, I couldn’t figure out what was happening. First, a hen that I had failed to see busted me from about 40 yards to my left. Just as she started putting the gobblers came out of strut and started running dead away from me.

"Uhh, Dad, there's no such thing as a half credit catch - whoever reels in the fish is the ONLY one who gets to count it!" Coleman Stephens setting dad straight on how to keep score when fishing.

This is where it started getting weird. To my right about 100 yards from me and 75 yards from the turkeys, a giant pile of mud jumped up and started shooting! I was so startled that I almost forgot to shoot myself. After all the commotion and shooting was over the turkeys were all in full retreat over the tree tops and we hadn’t cut a feather. The giant pile of mud started screaming and yelling, “You dumb *#!¢%$!” at the top of his lungs and it seemed to be directed at me! As I stood up I could see what appeared to be a giant mud slug trail from the edge of the woods out into the middle of the field…apparently I had been wrong - there was someone that would belly crawl in the muck! For the previous 30 minutes as he lay face down in the mud Scott had watched me crawl out across the field. He was trying to close the distance to shooting range when I spooked the hen. Now he was setting back on his knees in the mud and all you could see was a giant mud blob with two eyes holding a mud-caked shotgun and shaking his head back and forth in disgusted disbelief. I just started laughing. What a memory and what a lesson! Lesson to self - never think that it is too muddy to belly crawl across a field for a turkey – someone is willing to do it!

As Coleman and I road home in the truck that afternoon I learned another outdoor lesson. I mentioned to him that we had done pretty good fishing. He said, “Uh dad, you didn’t catch a thing. Only the person that reels in the fish gets to count it. Casting and hooking the fish don’t count for anything.” Lesson to self – you can never get one over on a 7 year old fisherman with an attitude. So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly.

Greg Stephens is a 35-year veteran & life-time student of the great outdoors. His column appears weekly in print & online publications. You can email him at gregstephens@one-eyedhillbilly.com. For more columns go to www.one-eyedhillbilly.blogspot.com.