Turkeys are a fun hunt. It's interactive, with calling back and forth, moving, chasing, decoys and what-not. For a guy that grew up watching feeders waiting on deer to show up, the active nature of a turkey hunt is really a 180. I've really only started chasing turkeys here in the last five years, with a buddy that had all the enthusiasm you need, but not a lot of practical hunting experience. I feel like the combination of enthusiasm and inexperience is a force that just distills funny stories.

Our first foray after wild turkeys took place in the Davy Crockett Nat'l Forest. I'm pretty sure there arn't any turkeys there. There might be, but we can't prove it. We camped out for a four-day weekend, hiked our feet raw, called our throats hoarse, and never saw a feather. Never saw a track, never heard a call. We came home with several ticks each, three wild pigs apiece, and five gallon-sized ziplock bags full of catfish fillets. From a turkey-hunting perspective, the weekend was a flop, but it's still one of the best hunting trips I've ever been on.

Last year, for the spring season, we got access to my uncle's pasture in the hill country, on the north side of Lake Travis, and had a great hunt. I got out there a day early, sat listening to a literal cacophony of calls early in the morning, and ended up putting a heart-pounding chase on a nice Tom, with success! The next morning we got into our location and were waiting a few minutes to begin calling, and an awesome tom walked right between us. We had woods behind us, an old field in front of us, and a really trophy tom just wandered through at shotgun barrel length. My buddy was primary shooter, and he got flustered because this was literally the first wild turkey he'd ever laid eyes on, and the tom ended up getting away. He never even took a shot.

The next morning, seconds after we began calling, a pair of coyotes charged in, thinking we were an easy turkey meal. I threw up my shotgun to blast the coyote on my side, when my buddy waved me off, making the point that if we shot the coyotes, our turkey hunt was shot for the morning. He had a point, so we waved our arms and threw rocks instead. My parents were hosting us for the weekend, and upon re-telling the story, my Dad exasperatedly pointed out that the coyotes were hunting turkeys too, and that in no uncertain terms, if we didn't shoot any more coyotes we saw, we weren't welcome any more. My folks run livestock, so coyotes are a bit of a hot button. I'm pretty sure that was the last thing my Dad really "got on to me" about before he passed last August. The real cap on this story was from my grandma, on a speaker-phone conversation with my mom, upon hearing that we saw coyotes, hollered out "did they get 'em?!?"

Who else has got funny turkey-hunting story?

Was in the blind with my little 5 year old nephew. We were watching deer all morning waiting for a specific spike. This spike had huge long spikes so we call him Bevo. He was 6 years old and a thophey in my book. Nephew was all kinds of excited at first light but he started getting bored as it got later and he fell sound asleep. A huge flock of turkeys moved in and were 15 yards from the blind feeding. Finally Bevo walks by. It was so hard to kill this buck. He just wouldn't pattern. I was so happy to get to see him. He was staging in some scrub oak and cedar just about to step into bow range when my little nephew wakes up. I guess he forgot we were hunting when he saw all the turkeys. He yelled hey loook chickens...the birds scattered and so did Bevo. That story always comes up whenever we hunt. Great times

I have introduced several people to spring turkey hunting, but one sticks out. I took this guy once he had a lease that had a few turkeys on it, I told him I would go with him and call and show him a few things. He shows up to go hunt one early morning, I ask about his gun and shells. He pulls out an old 20ga pump and some steel shot. I said hold on, went back in grabbed my 12 ga turkey gun and a handful of 3.5 turkey loads. We got to his lease, before sunrise and heard nothing. I had never been there before this morning and wandered if there were any turkeys there. I said well let's just run and gun and see what happens. Couple hours into it, finally heard a faint little gobble. So I called and he answered a little closer, so I started going through the lessons with him on what should happen and what he needed to do and more importantly what not to do. Finally bird shows up, just a Jake but he said I don't care, I want him. So he eased the gun up, bam, flop! I said you got him, he didn't reply. As I look over, all I see is blood on his face. Oh crap, I said the 3.5 done busted his nose, luckily it wasn't broke. I forgot to tell him that 12ga with xtra full and 3.5 might be a little more than that old 20. I can't help it I still laugh about that.

My wife's God rest her soul 2nd turkey hunt began as normal. I set up to intercept the birds after flydown and after they had been to the feeder. They always walked this one cattle path out to a big field to strut and carry on like turkeys do. We were set up well with a brush blind in front and backed up against a big mesquite tree. I sat behind her to call and film the hunt. We can hear the turkeys flydown and go to the feeder, and as soon as I called, I got a response, so I told her to be ready. Next thing I know, she's trying to backpedal up the trunk of that mesquite tree, and not making any headway. I'm trying to get her still when I look over her shoulder and there between her legs was a blue racer crawling across the ground. It scared her so bad she peed herself, She finally managed to stand up, spooking the turkeys, the snake , and knocking over the camera to boot. She was madder than a wet hen..she thought I had done it on purpose. She didn't hunt the rest of the year.