When I was 16 or 17 years old, if we found a turkey track on a tank road, we brushed it out with a pine limb so no one would know there was a bird around. If you heard five or six birds in a season and killed one, you had done something.

Turkey populations went ballistic in the mid '80s. Back then people still did
the old "yelp three times and shut up." I was one of the first around here to cutt and cackle, and the birds just ran me over. Now there's so much pressure on these birds that if you yelp loud, they go the other way.

Turkeys aren't smart but they have the ability to learn what danger is
and pass that trait along. That's the mama turkey's job. You go somewhere the turkeys have never been hunted, and they're easy. Go someplace where they've been hunted for 10 years, it's harder. Go somewhere they've been hunted for 20 years, it's harder still.

Perry, Greene, and Forrest Counties, in Mississippi, right here where
I'm sitting, have the toughest turkeys in the country. They have heard everything and been hunted by some good hunters and some outlaws, too.

When in doubt, do less, not more. I mix in other woods sounds with my
­calling―maybe a squirrel barking or a crow cawing. I try to paint a scene in Mother Nature, as if a turkey walked past a squirrel, or a crow dive-bombed a gobbler in a field.

The turkey that stands in one spot and gobbles his fool head off, he's
trying to get you to come to him. Shut up and wait him out.

I see a lot more with my ears than I do with my eyes. Squirrels,
chipmunks, blue jays will all tell you that a turkey is moving in your direction.

I worked as a hairstylist in my 20s and early 30s. I had eight or 10
customers who were joggers. They brought me logs of where they saw turkeys, when, and whose land the birds were on. Those ladies never had to pay for a haircut.

I've been shot twice, enough to bleed. I was notorious for gobbling as
a last resort to challenge a gobbler. Now I tell people, don't gobble on public land.

The longest I ever sat on a bird was from before sunup to 4:15 in the
afternoon. The old-timers used to say that if a turkey cuts your calling first thing in the morning, sometime during the day he'll be back. I made one tree call and one fly-down cackle, and the turkey answered. Around 4 o'clock a squirrel barked and I knew the turkey was back. I scratched leaves and clucked once. That's the only calling I did all day. That turkey gobbled twice, once in the morning and once right before I shot him.

When I go someplace new, I find the UPS men and the rural postal
carriers. You can learn 10 times more, 10 times faster, by talking to them than you can from a topo map…as long as they're not turkey hunters.

I started in calling contests at 16 and won the Mississippi State Open
­calling championship the first time I ­entered it.

A caller is technically better than a turkey. That's what judges want
to hear. I practiced an hour a day, minimum, and two or more hours a
day the month before a competition. I recorded myself outside, inside, and in different kinds of rooms to see how they changed my sound. I listened to live turkeys in the woods in the off-season and also to domestic turkeys whenever I could.

I've been on David Letterman's show three times. I've done Regis and
Kelly, Jay Leno, the Comedy Channel, and others. On a lot of the shows they won't let you wear camouflage or say that you hunt, but on Letterman the rules are different. You can actually say you kill turkeys.

I try to take as many women hunting as I can. I have four daughters,
and they all learned to hunt.

When I think of turkey hunting, the first hunt I remember was one
spring in Monticello, Miss. The bird flew down into a field of red-top clover, and as he came to me, the sun poked through a hole in the trees like God was shining a spotlight on the bird. In that red-top clover, the turkey looked like it was on fire. It was so beautiful I forgot to shoot, but I'll never forget it.

Open your eyes, open your heart. I've met great people and seen great
country while turkey hunting. Take it all in because you never know when we're going to leave this earth.