Dave Beck

It’s turkey hunting eve for me and I’m getting my gear ready in the hopes that the weather forecast is wrong. It’s supposed to rain, and not just a little, but a lot.  Given the timing my first hunt may not be completed in time for the press run; however, I do have a turkey hunting story for you today.   

On a guess, this is my 30th anniversary of my first turkey hunt. It all started in Vernon County, which is 120 miles straight down the Mississippi River. Take a left at that point and you will literally step on the land that was the childhood home of your all-time favorite Pierce County Journal outdoor writer which is also ground zero for where the modern-day turkey planting took place. It took a few years for the turkey flock to grow and spread out but eventually they began to flourish and more areas of the state were opened up to turkey hunting.  

My youngest brother Garret, who was 12 years old at the time, was the first in our family to draw a tag and harvest a couple of birds. He was also the first in our family to find out what happens when you accidentally shoot two birds with one shot but that’s a story for another day.

My very first hunt was memorable for a lot of reasons, one being it was my first hunt and another was because six inches of snow fell during the night making it look more like Christmas morning than a day to start turkey hunting. It was a big wet flake kind of snowstorm that made the river bluffs pretty slippery.  

How slippery was it?  

Well, it was so slippery that when I was working my way up the side of a bluff to get in closer to some birds I slipped in the snow and my feet and my head switched places quicker than I could say “oh shoot,” or something like that. Two significant injuries resulted from that unfortunate fall. The lesser injury was to my pride because I couldn’t believe that I had made such a rookie mistake. The other injury was a little more serious in that while I was cartwheeling backwards, the barrel of my shotgun slammed against my front tooth and broke it in half. 

So my turkey hunting anniversary wasn’t triggered while I was gathering my gear and getting ready for this year’s hunt. The memories all came flooding back while I was recently reclining in a dentist’s chair. The monofilament fishing line chip in my tooth has finally been repaired.

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