happy birthday daddy

[spurrs and racks]

if he were still with me today he would be 96.

I think of him everyday, but in the spring when I hear turkeys gobble it brings back all the memories.

"The first turkey that ever came to me on the ground did it along time ago. I sat there with my hands shaking and my breath short and my heart hammering so hard I could not understand why he could not hear it. The last turkey that came to me last spring had exactly the same effect, and the day that this does not happen is the day that I quit.

The last one that ever does come to me will call forth the same emotion that the second one did.

I will sit there waiting, gun up and heart thundering, and say to myself what I have said on every single occasion since the second one.

I am glad I lived to see it one more time"

Col. Tom Kelly

Teach your children how to turkey hunt. And I don't mean sitting in a blind on a food plot, or hunting over bait, or fanning turkeys, or shooting them out of a truck, Or shooting them off the roost.

Teach him how to walk in the woods, how to get among turkeys, teach him how to call, teach him how to show a great game bird the respect he deserves.

Teach them how to set up on a love sick spring gobbler and call him to the gun.

I would give anything to hunt with my dad one more time.

s&r

 

[Rabun]

God bless! Even though my Dad was not much of a hunter and really didn't pass along many skills to me, what he did do is introduce me to the world of nature. He was a Syracuse forestry grad and loved the outdoors. I think he liked to hunt and fish not so much to harvest anything ( I only ever recall one deer he shot), but it gave him an excuse to get in the woods. I still visit many spots he took me to in the CNF...most of which have not changed all that much. I always feel his presence in the forest. Thanks Dad! Miss you