The hunting community is mourning today after renowned turkey hunter Fox Haas passed away at his home in southeast Mississippi. Haas, 95, was the father of Mossy Oak founder Toxey Haas and a pioneer of wild turkey conservation in the late 1970s—a time when hunters were bringing the famous game birds back from the brink of extinction.
Born in Mobile, Alabama in 1930, Haas was an obsessive hunter from boyhood on. "He'd ride 20 or 30 miles on his bike just to go out and hunt," son Toxey told an interviewer in 2023. "When he was older, he was always thought of as the great woodsman of his hunting club, even though there were some other great hunters and woodsman in the bunch. I always took pride in that."
According to family, Haas killed his first turkey in 1944 at the age of 14 and went on to kill one every year for 75 years, minus two years when he was bed-ridden and nearly died from tuberculosis. After he recovered, he became a member of the Choctaw Bluff Hunting Club in southern Alabama, where he rubbed shoulders with some of the earliest pioneers in turkey hunting and wild turkey conservation.
In 1977, Haas encouraged friends at the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to reintroduce turkeys to an area near his home in West Point, Mississippi. Those turkeys thrived so well, Toxey Haas said, that MDWFP began using the birds as seed stock to establish populations in northern Mississippi, where the species was still struggling.
Haas passed his love of hunting and conservation on to son Toxey and encouraged him when he decided to start the camouflage brand that would become Mossy Oak. When he retired from his day job, Haas began working with Mossy Oak full time. In 2023, the brand released a limited-edition turkey vest in his honor—the Mr. Fox Vest—and the line quickly sold out. The fifth vest that the company produced was auctioned off during that year's NWTF Convention in Nashville, Tennessee and brought more than $30,000 for wild turkey conservation, Mossy Oak reports.
"It is with heavy hearts that we share that our beloved Mr. Fox has flown up to his heavenly roost," Mossy Oak shared in an Instagram post over the weekend, honoring the company patriarch. "While we continue to find the words to honor his incredible life and legacy, for now, we remember the words of Mr. Fox: 'I believe it’s important to take care of the things we love ... the good that men do will live long after they’re gone.'”
