Seasons Turn to Generations

I first hit the turkey woods in the mid- 1980s, trudging along in too-big boots and mismatched camo, trying to keep pace with my dad. H.R. Jones could work a bird like nobody’s business — even back then, when turkey populations in the Southeast were just beginning to swing in the right direction but were nowhere near the healthy numbers we appreciate today.

I connected with my first bird at the tender age of 14, a gobbler he called straight off the roost. His gobbles echoed like thunder through the fog before daylight, sending shivers through my whole body. That bird hit the ground, running straight for Daddy’s call, materializing in full strut right out of the mist like a ghost.

I was trembling so hard, Daddy was sure that bird would see me, but the No. 5 shot from that old Remington 870 Wingmaster peppered him in the head and neck just above a 10-inch beard.

My dad carried a photo of me and that bird in his wallet until the day he died. That he carried that picture — not high school graduation, college or my wedding day — speaks volumes about his priorities. Turkey hunting sat very near the top of that list.

Chasing turkeys was an obsession, and nothing could keep that man out of the woods when turkey season rolled around. In 2003, he suffered a catastrophic injury to his left ankle after taking a hard tumble from a ladder. The landing shattered the bones in his ankle. It would eventually take more than a half-dozen surgeries over several years and three titanium rods for him to finally be able to walk, although with a serious pronounced limp. The first spring after his injury, when the ankle still couldn’t bear weight, Daddy wrapped his crutches in camo tape, pulled wool sock over an injured foot still too swollen to fit in a hunting boot, and hobbled into the woods to hunt turkeys. Despite his maimed ankle, he still managed to fill his tags that season.

Life seeped through the cracks, and I drifted away from serious turkey hunting in my 30s. Work, kids and bills dominated my time and sucked up my energy, so one by one, my children took my place, following their grandfather through the turkey woods each spring. It was my younger son, Silas, who really caught turkey fever.

He started turkey hunting with my dad when he was barely big enough to hold a shotgun.

On many a youth day, Daddy would position Silas between his knees so that he could coach him through the shot. Shortly after that first youth day hunt with Silas, Daddy handed my son his first turkey call, a simple double reed that he trimmed down to fit in a mouth still full of baby teeth.

Eight-year-old Silas once promised that if my dad ever got to where he couldn’t make it into the woods, he would find a way to get him turkey hunting. “I’ll carry you if I have to,” he insisted.

My father suffered a heart attack on the last day of the deer season in 2017. There were no flowers at his funeral. Instead of flowers, we asked his friends and family to donate to the National Wild Turkey Federation.

We planned to spread half of Daddy’s ashes near his favorite fishing spot in the Chesapeake Bay and the other half in his favorite hunting spot in the Virginia mountains. But first, 18-year-old Silas made good on the promise he made a decade earlier.

Before dawn on the opening day of the spring season, Silas tucked Daddy’s ashes into his grandfather’s turkey vest, drove my dad’s beat-up pickup truck to the woods, and carried him out for one last turkey hunt. He set up against a pine tree and positioned the little black box containing Daddy’s ashes between his knees, the same spot Silas sat on all those youth day turkey hunts. Then he placed a double reed call in his mouth and talked to those predawn gobblers with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Two days later, Silas connected with a nice bird, working his magic with that same double reed and his grandfather’s well-worn 12-gauge. He stuffed the bird in the back of Daddy’s tattered old turkey vest and carried him out of the woods to his grandfather’s truck.

These days, I sometimes get the privilege of following my son through the turkey woods, struggling to keep up with the long strides that so resemble my father’s. Daddy’s been gone for over seven years now. Some days, usually during turkey season, the grief still bubbles up and spills over. I still miss him like crazy, but new springs exist. Hunting with Silas makes me miss him a tiny bit less.

Like his grandfather, Silas is turkey-obsessed. You can’t pull him out of the spring woods. It’s possible he was born into this obsession, and that there is a rare gene passed down like his blue eyes and crooked smile, two other things he inherited from Daddy. It’s more probable that it was handed down to him like that first mouth call and threadbare turkey vest. Either way, it’s a passion that has turned seasons into generations. It is an honor to have witnessed it.

Before dawn on the opening day of the spring season, Silas tucked Daddy’s ashes into his grandfather’s turkey vest, drove my dad’s beat-up pickup truck to the woods, and carried him out for one last turkey hunt.