Hey, if you're in or around Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and you live for hunting season, you need to swing by the Meat Eater store in Milwaukee. We're stocked wall to wall with the gear we actually use in the field. First light, FHF gear, Phelps game calls, and more. You'll find us at the corners of Brookfield. Whether you're gearing up for the season, dialing in a setup, or just want a talk shop with people who love to hunt, this is your place. That's the Meat Eater Store Milwaukee at the corners of Brookfield. Stop in, get dialed, and get after it. Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. Big shout out to OnX Hunt for their support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. And if you remember, when we last spoke, I said that in this episode, we would be learning about some life-altering conservation work. My friends, this is the kind of wildlife conservation story that makes me want to stand up and start cheering. This is the kind of story that you'll want to tell your friends about. And believe me when I say, if you have ever had the privilege of hunting, hearing, or watching wild turkeys in the springtime, which we are quickly approaching, I dare say this story and conversation will send chills down your spine and make you even more thankful for every turkey you hear, see, or take from here on out. Let's get into it. That's good. Come on in. Sir. Hi. Hey, how are you? That's my wife, Benny. Good morning, I'm Lake. Nice to meet you. What's your name? Lake. Lake. Yes, ma'am. You feel me so, ma'am? Yeah, I am. Okay, see ya. Okay. It's early February, and I've driven a few hours north from my home in central Mississippi to meet a man named Mr. Benny Herring to talk about his involvement in one of the greatest wildlife conservation wins in the country's history. Oh, just now, what do you need to do? You want to just sit down and visit, or how do you want to do this? Yes, I do. Steve said I need to ask you about your turkey room. This is my room. Yeah. That's just 50-something years of junk. Junk? Yeah. Yeah. I have been pretty fortunate. I've been able to hunt a lot of places and just been pretty well about as blessed as you can be as far as being able to hunt and go. My wife's been very supportive and had quite a career. I've just been fortunate, about all I can tell you. I follow Mr. Benny to his office in his house. The room is lined all the way around with turkey beards, various wildlife and hunting photos, of him and his friends taken from all around the country and other parts of the world. I see pictures of buffalo hunting in Africa, wing shooting in Argentina, along with deer, elk, and antelope skulls, and some of the longest turkey spurs I have ever laid eyes on. It became very clear to me that this man has seen and done a lot. Quite a collection of beards and spurs you got. I've been lucky. Of course, I've been hunting turkeys a long time. Long time. Yeah. You got some long spurred turkeys. My goodness. Well, yeah, I've got some pretty good ones. They old. My goodness. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for doing this. Well, you're welcome. I always try to benefit the turkeys the best I can, you know, work with them for years. When you're a biologist, you don't never really quit being one. Can I use this chair? Yeah. Just move it. Do whatever you need to do. like, just, you know, I'm following your lead. You just do it the way you want to do it. Mr. Benny possesses a rare quality, truly. That's not blowing smoke. The zeal and adoration for wildlife, and particularly the wild turkey, was so evident in the first few minutes of meeting this man, I was just so excited to set up my podcast gear and get this interview underway. I knew before the formal conversation even got started that this man was going to have some incredible things to share with all of us. And believe me, he did. I started turkey hunting in 1970. Okay. Attala County, which is the county just south of Montgomery County, opened their turkey season in 1970. And my friend, Wendell Neal, lived in Kosciuszko. And he and another fellow were about the only two that turkey hunted in Attila County, and I got invited down there to go turkey hunting, and that was in 1970. It was the first time I ever went turkey hunting in my life. Had you heard of anyone doing it prior to that? Was there anybody around that was turkey hunting? Not here in this county. Now, Wendell Neal, of course, lived at Coziesco. He had turkey hunted some in the southern part of the state, and I did not know anybody personally that turkey hunted. Now, later on, of course, we opened in parts of Montgomery County the following year, and there was about three of us here in the county that turkey hunted. Wow. Yeah. It was just, you know, things were different then. Yeah. You could turkey hunt anywhere in the county and never see another individual. So about three of us, and that was about it. And, of course, it changed as time went on. I wish there was three turkey hunters in the county I live in now. Yeah, well, I understand that. I really do. There's a few key things we can pull out from this first little bit Mr. Benny has shared with us. In that one short story, he made mention of several things that demonstrate how different turkey hunting and turkey hunting culture was back in 1970 when he started. Number one, the county he started turkey hunting in opened their season in 1970. As in, turkey hunting wasn't allowed before then. Think back once again to the Fannie Cook episode and the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission being established in 1932. One of the first things that commission did was start protecting game species that had been grossly over hunted, turkeys being one of them. Mr. Benny started hunting turkeys right at the very beginning of some hunting starting to be opened back up in a very limited manner. Number two, did you hear him say that he was one of three turkey hunters in the entire county and that he didn't know of anyone, not a soul, that turkey hunted in the county that he lived in at the time? My friends, if that alone does not scream that we are talking about an entirely different era, I don't know what does. These days in Mississippi, you can throw a rock and hit three turkey hunters. It's a different time. But Mr. Benny was coming up in a crucial part of turkey conservation history, and we're going to fully dive into that. But before we do, I want to hear the last bit of this story so that we can really appreciate how much this man loves wild turkeys. That first year was fruitful, and of course, after I shot that first turkey, it was all over. I shook. So you were able to call a turkey in that first year? Sure was. What was that like? Unbelievable. You know, nowadays when you see a turkey approaching and full strutting, gobbling, you've probably done it a good bit, and you don't. I reckon you kind of take it for granted. But that first time, now, you don't ever recover from that if you really, really love turkey hunting. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. You don't ever recover. You never recover. Yeah. Mr. Benny Herring loves wild turkeys. That much is clear. So now, let's get into the meat of this conversation and learn about his work as a wildlife biologist. How did you get into the biology side of it? Well, I graduated from Delta State. with a BS in biology and thought I might want to be a teacher. But I soon found out that with a BS, you could hardly live on what you'd get paid as a teacher. And at that time, I heard about a wildlife school at Mississippi State University. And I went over there and applied and was accepted. and got my master's degree in wildlife in Mississippi State and immediately went to work for the Game and Fish. And I spent 32 years there with them. And I had numerous projects that I was involved in. I was involved in Morning Doe Project where we increased, finally got the increase in the bag limit. And then our turkey biologist at that time was named Champ Clark. And he was killed on one of our wildlife management years when he fell off of a tractor and the dish ran over him. And I had been working with Champ a good bit at that time. And it just somehow or another failed my lot to start doing the turkey restoration. Right. And so for the next 10 years, I was heavily involved in that. And we trapped turkeys in numerous locations throughout the state As mentioned earlier this was an important time in wild turkey conservation history You heard Mr. Benny just make reference to trapping turkeys. This was a huge part of the restoration process. Trapping turkeys and then relocating them to where there were none and then allowing them to repopulate. I want to ask him more about this. And just a heads up, you're going to hear him mention something called cannon netting, also sometimes referred to as rocket netting. It's a bird capturing technique used to safely catch large numbers of birds. And it's carried out by using cannons to fire a large net over the top of a group of birds. How far along had turkey restoration been going on when you got put in that position? Of course, the restoration of the turkey in Mississippi and the southeast really began in the mid to late 60s when they realized that cannon netting, which was used to trap waterfowl first, could also be used to trap wild turkeys for restoration. And that's when things began to really take off and improve. And up to then, you know, there had been all kind of efforts made of raising turkeys and releasing them. And, of course, it was ineffective. Sure. But when you took the wild turkeys and put them into good habitat, they flourished real quick. Yeah. So it started in the late 60s and then in the 70s up into the mid-80s. Yeah. It really, well, in fact, we repopulated the state of Mississippi. Yeah. Yeah. There it is. That's why, well, one, you really were in at the beginning of it then. Right close to the start. Yeah. And it's so, you know, talking to folks that hunt around the southeast now, I mean, there's counties that don't have a lot of turkeys, but I don't know if there's any counties that don't have any. I think I'm correct on this in that in Mississippi, all our parts of the county has some type of turkey season. And hearing you and other folks talk about these times where, because there were counties back then that didn't have turkeys, correct? None. A different world. Well, see, at that time, of course, it wasn't just you go catch turkeys and turn them loose. You had to go through a process. You'd have a bunch of clubs or adjoining landowners that would get together, and they would request from the Game and Fish or the Department of Wildlife to be put on the list to receive a release of wild turkeys. And, of course, when we got their request, a biologist went and evaluated the property to be considered. And back then, you know, we thought, okay, if you got 10,000 acres under agreement, you can provide good protection and the birds will do well. We have since learned that it didn't have to be that large. Okay. Yeah. But at that time, we did. Right. And, of course, at that time, we didn't think that turkeys could survive in pine plantations. See, the turkeys that we were familiar with were in good hardwood blocks of timber. Man. That's wild. Yeah. Well, I mean, just thinking about today, it's like not a mismanaged pine plantation, but a pine plantation that's taken care of and burned and such. Turkey would be all in that. All in there. But back then, y'all didn't know. That's right. Different world. Yeah, absolutely. That is fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I cannot tell you just how much I love these old school conservation stories. just thinking about those men and women with little more than a love for wild things and wild places and determination to figure out how to keep that kind of stuff on this landscape. Just those tiny little details, like not knowing a turkey could survive on a pine plantation. Heck, these days a turkey goblin in the pines goes together like a worm on a brim hook, but the reason it does is because these wildlife conservationists that came before us picked up the torch and they figured it out. So let's learn how they figured it out. When y'all started cannon netting, how did you determine a location? I mean, I'm having to think that there was a little bit of like, how do we even do this? Okay, well, if, like on Friars Point Refuge, you had a fairly good population of birds there. So what we would do, Wayne Schreider, the main one, he was the main trapper, and I helped him all I could. But, of course, the first thing he would look for was an opening or a space big enough that you could fire the net in. And it was about 60 by 60. But you could get along one of those roads or junction of roads. And what we would do, we would pre-bait using wheat most of the time. And we would string a bait line probably a quarter mile each direction down that road. And then you go to checking it, see what kind of usage you're getting. And then when they get at the main location and they're taking it, cleaning it up every day, you set your net. And when they come to feed the next time, you catch them. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So you get the turkeys in the net. How do you get them and get them into a place where you could transport them? Okay, what you do prior to catching the turkeys, we would buy a bunch of pasteboard boxes, and we would put them together, tape them together, and we'd cut a flap in the bottom of that box that we could stick the turkey in and then turn it upside down with a flap down on the ground with the turkey standing on it. And we would take them all out of the net, put them in a box, and then we would load them in a truck. And most of the time, we would have people from the area that the turkeys were going to stationed somewhere within two or three miles of us. And we would either call them to come to us or we'd carry the turkeys to them. And we tried to, and we didn't ever get it exact, but we wanted to have 10 hens and five gobblers per release site. Ah. Sometimes we'd have more hens than that, sometimes less. Sometimes we'd have more garbage and sometimes less. Sure. And then they would go and release the birds. And when they'd release them, of course, they'd take them out of that truck that they were transported in, put them on the ground, open all of the flaps, cut the tape at the flaps. Right. And open them at the same time so all the birds could go simultaneously. Ah, yeah, so they'd be together. Yeah. And then we would do the best we could and monitor those birds. And under most circumstances, it would be five years, and we would open a short season. That's how fast they would respond to good habitat. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Yeah. How did you monitor them? Well, of course, first off, you consulted with a conservation officer in that county. And he had contacts with the clubs that had requested, and they would keep records and tell him when they saw poults and hens here, gobbers here. And also we used county mail carriers, the local mail carrier. He had a world of information. Oh, just seeing them. Where did you see turkeys? How many did you see? So you put all of that together and you assume that you've had pretty good reproduction for four to five years. And if you did, then you opened a short gobblers-only season. What would a season look like sometimes when you open the season up? What would you set it up? Sometimes it would be two weekends, sometimes short. Very short. Always started off very short. yeah and if you know you could if you had success and things went well then just like the rest of the state in the deer season turkey season everything you gradually increased yeah what was the attitudes like if if you know in an area where you you've done one of these relocations four or five years later y'all open up a short season and folks get to go out and hunt these turkeys a little bit how were they just just real thrilled thrilled when mr benny shared this part of the story with me i caught myself trying to get in the headspace of one of those county residents that had watched or at least known about turkey relocations and then after five years got to experience an actual spring turkey season they were watching wildlife conservation and restoration happened right in front of their eyes back then. And seriously, how cool would it be to track down one of those mail carriers from that time period and talk to them about their job as an official turkey observer? Man, that is just too cool. Seriously, if anyone out there has any connection to someone who was a mail carrier at that time and helped the game commission back then, please let me know. I would love to talk to them. Hey, if you're in or around Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and you live for hunting season, you need to swing by the Meat Eater store in Milwaukee. We're stocked wall to wall with the gear we actually use in the field. First light, FHF gear, Phelps game calls, and more. You'll find us at the corners of Brookfield. Whether you're gearing up for the season, dialing in a setup, or just want to talk shop with people who love to hunt, this is your place. That's the Meat Eater Store Milwaukee at the corners of Brookfield. Stop in, get dialed and get after it Okay so we have a good idea about the actual process of how they caught these turkeys and released them but I now want to move into what I believe is one of the most important and also really cool parts of this story. And honestly, enrolling the mail carrier's help is a good example of the direction we're going now. The Game and Fish Commission at the time was one small agency. To be able to carry out this turkey restoration at the statewide scale that they wanted to, they would have to have help. Like I've said before, I'm interested in the relationship that we as humans have with our wildlife, and the impacts that we have never cease to amaze me. And this part of the story is worth highlighting. Probably the premier place that we trapped turkeys was on Friars Point Refuge, which is in Cahoma County. On the river? Between the river in the levee. There's a family over there that still own land over there by the name of McKees. And Mr. and Ms. McKee set up about 4,000 acres as a refuge for us to trap and transplant turkeys on. Were these people, so they owned this land? Yeah. And they set it aside, they didn't hunt it at all? Nope. Were they turkey hunters themselves? I don't think so. What was their motive for wanting to do that? I never met Mr. McKee, but I met Ms. McKee later on. And they had such an interest in the promotion of wildlife conservation in the state of Mississippi. And at that time, we called them game wardens back then, but there was a game warden who's a conservation officer now by the name of Wayne Strider that lived in Cahoma County. and he was very good friends with the McKees. And he was instrumental in that refuge being set up, and he was also instrumental in catching no telling how many turkeys for restoration in the state of Mississippi. Very few people have ever heard of Wayne Strider, but that's a name you should remember. He was a real good conservation officer. He was a better turkey trapper. And I got to know him real well and spent a lot of time with him trapping and releasing turkeys. I just think it's, I mean, I knew from just doing some research, I knew a good bit of the trapping for relocation took place somewhere along the river. I had no idea it was some private landowners that set it aside for y'all to do that. Well, that was the main place. There were other places like Middle Corn Hunting Club, Catfish Corn Hunting Club. They allowed us to trap turkeys at various times for restoration. And other private individuals around Columbia, Mr. Bill Walker, allowed us to trap on his place. And it was just a lot of private people that knew that they had good turkey populations and they wanted to see them all over the state. So really, it was a collective effort. Oh, yes. Man. Yes. I love that. Yeah. Oh, it's great. I'm going to once again refer back to the Fannie Cook episode, to a quote that we pulled by Aldo Leopold when he was talking about the wildlife challenges that the state of Mississippi was up against. This is what he wrote. There's one offset to all of these defects, a widespread and intense popular interest in game and hunting. In this respect, Mississippi excels any other state so far surveyed by me. Leopold then goes on to say in so many words that leveraging this popularity of hunting by using education at agencies was going to be the only way to maintain a game supply in the state. And we found out back in 1932 that they were seeing very clear lines connecting hunters and conservationists as the clear pathway to saving wildlife. Fast forward to the late 1960s and 1970s to win the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission. Individuals like Wayne Strider, Benny Herring, and several private landowners such as the McKees who own the river property, the hunting clubs such as Catfish Point, Bill Walker down in Columbia, and several others that I wish I could mention. And we're seeing this play out in a real tangible way. If you've listened to this podcast long enough, you know that we focus on the impacts that we as humans have on wildlife. And we all likely know that we can make some real negative impacts. But my friends, if you don't remember anything else from this episode, remember this, If we turn our efforts for wildlife towards the good, the positive impacts that we can make on wildlife and wildlife habitat are truly limitless. And if you want further proof of that, let's keep listening to Mr. Benny. I never will forget Lafayette County, you know, that's where Oxford's located. Yes, sir. At the time we were doing restoration, Lafayette County had tremendous habitat. well all northeast mississippi had tremendous habitat but no turkeys but at any rate and of course uh lafayette county has a lot of public land in it too the national forest and uh so we would begin to do some release not only on national forest but on private lands and uh harold dean prestige was a conservation officer up there at that time and uh he asked me one day he said Benny, you think that'll ever amount to anything? I said, well, Harold, I'm pretty sure it will. It's been successful in other places, and all you got to do is give them a little protection. He says, well, I can do the best I can do. He says, but the hunting clubs are the landowners that's the ones that's going to give us the real protection. I says, that's exactly right, and that's your job to make sure that they understand it, that they are most important in this protection stage. So in about five years, he told me, he said, boy, you were right. It's Turkish everywhere up here. So, you know, it responded that quick. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah. I love the, I can't get over how cool it was that the landowners and the agency working so closely together. Well, think of it like this. 80% of the land in Mississippi is private owned. So if we didn't have good cooperation with landowners concerning wildlife, we'd be in a mess. Now, you can do so much on public land, but when you only have 20% in public land, that's not going to cover the whole state. You've got to involve private landowners. At what point had y'all been doing these restoration efforts where did you or other people in the agency start to be like, man, this is really gaining some momentum statewide? Probably within, probably by 7, 1977, 78, we knew then that we had seen enough success releases that it was going to be successful statewide. The habitat was there, provide a little bit of protection, and the turkeys will take care of the rest of it. Imagine how cool it was for all involved when they came to the realization that it was going to work. I mean, really think about it. They had been on a mission to restore wild turkeys since the 1930s, and now it's all coming to fruition. What was it like from you just as a turkey hunter as you were doing this to start seeing, you know, going out? I'm assuming that as the years went on, you were going out and hearing more turkeys, seeing more turkeys. Best feeling in the world. You know, it's just amazing. Of course, I began to expand my area of hunting. You know, Tyler County, Carroll County, Montgomery County. We'd go to South Mississippi hunting, and we'd go to Georgia, and we'd go to New Mexico. and it's a tremendous feeling to know that you were involved in it in your home state, but you also saw the same thing happening in numerous other states. Right. All over the United States, you can go turkey hunting. Yeah. Did you have contact with any of the other biologists from other states? Sure. Yeah. We had, of course, at that time, the National Wild Turkey Federation was formed. In 71, I believe, is when the first meeting was held. and you went to a conference in every state in the southeast and other parts of the country had biologists there and you rolled ideas off of one another and you got made contacts and then you got, well, you know, I believe I want to go to hunt the Rio Grande. So you called your buddy that worked for the Texas Parks and Wildlife I said, I'd sure like to come out there and hunt real friends. Can you help me out? Most of the time, he'd give you a contact. Yeah. So, yeah. And it just, I got, you know, I've hunted Florida. Still go to Florida once a year. Oh, do you? Yeah. That's great. Yeah. And so I hunted Florida, Georgia. I've killed, well, I hadn't been goos or oscillated. You know, I've gotten to the age that travel is pretty hard to do right now. But I've killed, I don't know how many slams, you know. Yeah, sure. Florida, Eastern, Rio Grande, and the Miriams. Yeah. I just love how genuinely Mr. Benny answers these questions. It leaves no doubt about how he feels about this subject. He also pointed out a very important part of this story when he makes mention of the types of turkey restoration efforts and results happening all across the country. I know that we're highlighting Mississippi here, but that's just because I'm close to this story. Similar things were happening all over The conservation history of the wild turkey in the United States is one of the best wildlife wins that we as a hunting and conservation community have to hang our hats on Which brings me to one of our final points with Mr. Benny that we just can't go without talking about. We were talking early on about, you know, you knew of three other turkey hunters in a county. from your point of view how did you see the the hunting community change i mean because just from then till now i mean i feel like everybody's a turkey hunter now i did not anticipate such a rapid explosion in the turkey hunter numbers i did not i don't know why i didn't because if it was so good to me and the two or three other people that hunted them if it was so good to us Why didn't we think it'd be that good to everybody else? But as time grew, you know, you began to see more people, more people going, more people here. You'd go to somewhere you'd never seen a turkey hunting, there'd be a truck sitting there. And it just exploded. Yeah. Right along with the turkey population. Which is really a good thing, even though it may be aggravating to us at times. Yeah. You know, as long as you've got people interested in something like turkey hunting, they're going to support it and do what it takes to make sure that it's there. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Because I know today a lot of things, a topic that you hear come up today is, you know, people talk about overcrowding or too many hunters. And I'm like, man, like you said, I know it can be frustrating, but if you got hunters, you got turkeys. Every time. Every time. They'll support. Yeah. programs to make sure that they're there. Look, I know the feeling all too well of a hunting spot getting crowded or pulling up to a gate and seeing a truck parked where you've never seen one before. And I would never deny that that could be frustrating. It is. But sometimes it is important for all of us to keep things in perspective. I'm going to quote Mr. Benny directly here. As long as you have people interested in something like turkey hunting, they're going to do what it takes to make sure that it's there. Wild turkeys are proof of that. The attempted public land sale from last summer is proof of that. And there's a whole lot more proof of that in our country, thankfully. I want to round this episode off by getting Mr. Benny to share with us a good, old-fashioned turkey hunting story. One that means something to him. One that involves his friend Wendell Neal that introduced him to turkey hunting back in 1970. Originally, I told Clay I had given this story to use on a bear grease turkey story episode but then i liked the story so much i decided to keep it for backwoods university sorry clay you've been coppled that's an inside joke if you listen to the render about the cbs special with ted coppel you you know what i mean well i've been fortunate i've harvested a lot of turkeys i can tell i can i've harvested a lot of turkey been hunting them a long time but of course the first one always stands out. Sure. Without it, you know, you know that. For anybody, I can't imagine how the first one is not paramount. But along the way, you develop some special ones. Yes. And my special one, the most special after my first one, was my friend, Wendell Neal. He'd been turkey hunting. He killed a lot of turkeys. and he began to have health problems and he lost his hearing. And if he was close enough to a turkey, he could hear it, but he could not course it. No way. So the last turkey that he harvested, he went with me right here in Montgomery County and we heard a turkey gobble in the big black swamp. We went off of a ridge. He was roosted over a beaver pond. We got situated, and I pointed and told one of where the bird was, and he began to call, and shortly the bird flew down to him, and he killed him. Well, that ain't the end of the story. That was as good as it gets right there. Oh, yeah. But we picked that turkey up, and you know how you do when you look at him and admire all of the colors and fan his tail out and look at his wings and look at the beard, look at the spur. He picked him up, and we started back up on that ridge, and when we crested that ridge, he looked down on the ground, and there was a perfect airhead there. Wow. And he picked that airhead up, and he, of course, had a good friend that was a paleontologist, archaeologist, I'm sorry. And he created it to him and it was what was called a Clovis point which meant that it came from Clovis, New Mexico. So it had been traded amongst tribes and he had that made into a necklace. And every time I saw him and he had that on it clicked on me that that was about as special a turkey hunts you now. That's cool. Yeah. That's so cool. It was great. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Benny, if you only knew how excited Clay Newcomb is going to be when he hears your friend picked up a Clovis Point after a successful turkey hunt, do you know where that necklace is now? His widow still has it. That's cool. Yeah. That's really special. Yeah. Some of the, I think, man, I mean, some of the closest friendships I got were formed over a goblin turkey. Sure. I understand that completely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's just like experiences that you get out there in the spring chasing those birds that you just. You don't get anywhere else. No. Yeah. You know. And I just think, man, speaking just, I guess, personally with you, I think about why doing these episodes are so important to me is it's easy. I mean, you talked earlier about, you know, if you've seen a turkey come in and you've hunted a long time, you can start, you know, even if you don't mean to, you can start to kind of take it for granted. right right and so i think about the younger generations of hunters coming up even folks my age are a little bit older you know we have it so good right now as good as it gets we have it so good right now well it's pretty easy to take things for granted when they're good i know and it's it's it's just important for me to try to tell the story of what happened and what the work that you and so many others did to put these turkeys on this landscape to where we can go to enjoy them. Yeah. And make these. You know, it makes me realize I don't know why I was lucky enough to fall in that gap where I was involved in it. But, you know, I couldn't have had a better life. Yeah. So you loved what you did. Ooh, with a passion. Yeah. Wayne Strader would call me, and I was living right here. And he was living at Reno-Laura in Oklahoma County. And he said, well, I got something I think we're ready to catch, Benny. He says, but we're going to have to get there pretty early. I said, Wayne, you tell me what time be it you'll have. It didn't make any difference. That was not an option. You wanted to go. I was going to be there. Yeah. And consequently, we developed a strong friendship because I was as dedicated as Wayne was. Yeah. And he soon realized it. You still, I mean, you told me you still go to Florida every year. I'm assuming you still hunt them a lot around here. Oh, yes. Just most of the time, if the weather is favorable, I'll go somewhere. Sometimes I'll hear a turkey. Now, I'm one every time. Sure. So if I don't hear one, I go back to the house and, you know, of getting to work in the garden, do the yard work or whatever. But if the sun comes up the next morning, I'm somewhere listening. You can't help it. No. This spring, whether it's your 50th turkey season or your first turkey season, my advice to you would be this. Just be thankful. Thankful for the bird. Thankful for the habitat that they live in. And me personally, every time, every time I hear a turkey gobble this spring, I'm going to think about the people that paved the way for folks like you and me to be out there enjoying such an incredible resource the Fannie Cooks of the world Fox Hayes, Colonel Tom Kelly, Wayne Strider Benny Herring we owe all of them our gratitude we really do and keep that in mind going forward and think about what you can do to help the generations of turkey hunters coming behind you it's so important I want to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University, as well as Bear Grease and This Country Life. If you liked this episode, share it with someone this week that you know is fired up to hear a turkey gobble this spring. And stick around, because if this podcast was a turkey hunt, we're set up about 120 yards from one gobbling on the limb, but it sounds like he is covered up in hens. We're just getting started. There's a whole lot more on the way. Hey, if you're in or around Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and you live for hunting season, you need to swing by the Meat Eater store in Milwaukee. We're stocked wall to wall with the gear we actually use in the field. First light, FHF gear, Phelps game calls, and more. You'll find us at the corners of Brookfield. Whether you're gearing up for the season, dialing in a setup, or just want to talk shop with people who love to hunt, this is your place. That's the Meat Eater Store Milwaukee at the corners of Brookfield. Stop in, get dialed, and get after it.
