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Grantland Rice Story The 55-xx-xx ep37 Turkey Hunting
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Grantland Rice Story The 55-xx-xx ep37 Turkey Hunting
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This is Jimmy Powers and happy to be coming your way with another Grantland Rice story. Hi there, this is Jimmy Powers. As a hunter and fisherman, a lad named Davy Crockett started a vogue that has grown bigger and bigger in America. For this reason, and because newspapers like Circulation fishing and hunting columns have become an important addition to any sports page of a big metropolitan daily, well, Grantland Rice knew his share of hunting and fishing as a native Tennessean Davy Crockett state, too. Granny knew something about rifles, lines and lures. But let's listen to him tell it. And so, with a warm salute to the young and heart spirit of Grant Rice, I take up his narrative from the tumult and the shouting and read in first person. I believe that next to golf, a game I've been able to play and follow for nearly a half century, hunting takes second place in my affections for the outdoors. This despite the fact that every place I hunted I established as a sanctuary. There always seemed to be more birds there when I left than when I came. Golf, hunting, yes, and fishing carry about all the entertainment or fun that one can take along the road. Fishing off East Hampton and Montauk was fine sport. I roamed the seas in that vicinity in the boats of Buddy Arndt and Fritz Ryan. Our favorite target was bluefish, a game hard fighting fish ranging from 2 to 10 pounds. I went for swordfish several times, but only had one good break under the direction of the late Dr. John Erdman, the surgeon. We got two that day. By harpooning 350 and 450 pounders, a swordfish was ordinarily much too strong and big to monkey with in any direction by harpoon or or by rod and line. Of course, as a pure fisherman, I am something less than Isaac Walton. As a rule, I'm perfectly willing to allow all the game fish of creation, from rainbows to the giant tarpon, to go their own finny way without any hook of mine gaffing their jaws. One summer a good many years ago, I fished in Canada with a group including Max Foster, then famous as one of the Saturday Evening Post's stable of top authors. We had fished the Maramichi river for salmon, caught few, and on the return trip stopped over at Montreal. One of the Montreal papers sent a young writer around to interview Foster. Max was out answering the phone. I told the boy to come up and I posed as Foster. When he asked about fishing, I replied it was pretty good, but that we had had a difficult time getting enough worms. Foster, naturally, would never have been so plebeian and as to use worms for bait. I also talked about poles instead of rods, rubber boots instead of waders, and so on. When the interview appeared in the paper, as attributed to him, Max wanted to kill me. Hunting with me always had to be divided three ways. Quail, duck and wild turkey. Quail shooting is the most dependable diet, but when it comes to the big thrill, the wild turkey takes over. I have followed this Great Bird from 16 to 25 pounders in many states from Maryland to Georgia. Also In December of 1950, Red Smith and I hunted the gobbler on the King Ranch of Bob Claiberg, where Maxie Hirsch was our guide. The King Ranch turkeys seem to arrive in droves or herds like bleacher fans at the World Series and push you aside to drink out of the swimming pool. For me, however, the gobbler's most fascinating habitat was at Bob Woodruff's place at Itchaway, Georgia. This is a spot of some 50,000 or more acres, thick with quail, dove and turkey. Down there I used to ride the only living bird dog, mule Edna Ferber, who in one day's hunt pointed two quail coveys. Aside from that King Ranch breed, the turkey is the most elusive of all birds, also the hardest to see. I've had them light on a pine or oak 20ft away and then lost them completely. Due to their blending markings of black, gray, gold, crimson and green, they become invisible phantoms. A wild gobbler can hear you breaking a match 400 yards away. He has a remarkable sight and can fly or run like a thief. On this particular hunt at Itchaway, my guide, Roy Carter, and I had hidden in a deep swamp near a turkey feeding ground. We were there at 3:30am in the pitch dark and 15 minutes later it began to pour. The only noise you could hear was the far off dismal calling of the morning dove. We waited two hours or more for dawn, hardly breathing. It was around 6 when the turkeys came in. My target glided into perhaps 20 yards from me. I blasted neck high at him. He went up in the air like a rodeo bronc. Then with a great thrashing, he was gone. I floundered in to catch sight of his tail feathers disappearing behind another clump. I dived. It was like jumping into a thrashing machine. He all but beat me to death with his wings. At this point it was either the turkey or me. I used my shotgun stock like a bat. Finally, as I came out of there dragging my prize by his well rung neck, I felt like Dempsey after he had finished off Furpo. I must add that Carter was a valuable second in this particular struggle. The bird, a 22 pounder, mounted strides rampant today over the fireplace in Woodruff's hunting lodge. Bagging your bird this way seemed hard work. I was looking for an easier way. Once I was riding with Carter along a red clay road which always seemed more like home to me than any city street. Suddenly we saw five or six big turkeys in a group. There's one strange thing about a wild turkey, said Roy. If he sees you standing or walking, he's off like a shot. But he won't get up and fly. If he sees you in a car, let's try to land one from the car. This may not have been quite ethical, but at the moment it seemed a good idea. We started for the birds through a pine woods. They ran like a set of man of wars. Those woods were full of pine stumps, big pine limbs, heavy rocks and every obstacle known to the roughest course. We were Traveling at about 40 miles an hour and barely gaining on the turkeys. As I'd get set to shoot through the car window, my head would hit the top of the roof or I'd be crushed against the floor. Twice when we drew alongside, I was thrown against the front seat and half stunned. I finally knocked a turkey over and Ray rounded him up. But I was a wreck for a week. Both shoulders were bent, I had knots all over my head, my. My shins were badly skinned and I had a sprained wrist. I finally decided there was no easy way to find or kill a wild turkey. They are as different from the tame variety as a tiger is from an angora cat. Bob Woodruff is an ideal host where an invitation to the nation's leaders always carries an appeal. I recall one morning before daybreak I came out the front door and starting on a turkey hunt, a huge form rose up in the darkness and started my way. I didn't feel any too happy until he sat down before me and extended his right paw in welcome. It happened to be a Labrador retriever, king sized. He had the old woodruff spirit. The rural life of Georgia can be magnificent and varied. In addition to Itchaway, I have often dropped in to see an old friend, Casen Callaway at Hamilton in the central western part of the state. Son of the late Fuller E. Callaway Sr. Who organized the now sprawling Callaway Mills Cason after running the textile side of the family interest for years, has more recently devoted his energies to farming his vast acreage near Hamilton. He set out to prove on a vast scale farm that cotton wasn't all that Georgia could raise. And he proved it both with cattle as well as foodstuffs. More than 5,000 tame turkeys and over 10,000 mallards are full citizens. Then he threw in one of the most attractive golf courses I've seen, plus a few covered barges or boats for his lake that is swarming with fish. Then he invited the public to come in and enjoy it. Casen and Virginia, his very good looking wife, think nothing of having 400 or 500 guests on stated occasions. It was in December 1950 that Red Smith and I hunted the wild gobbler on the King Ranch in South Texas, in ancestral home of Assault and Stymie and the spawning ground for the King Ranch thoroughbreds. With Bob Claiberg at the helm and his trainer Maxie Hirsch in charge, the King Ranch turkeys seem to arrive in droves. These birds indulge in traffic jams of 40,000 birds in one flock. But the rules down there were different. You had to use a.22 caliber rifle and shoot only at the head. As I wasn't any too good with a shotgun at 10 paces, this put a definite kink into my act. I might add that this wrinkle didn't help establish Red Smith as a pioneer gunman either. However, Red did land a big brood of a gobbler by creasing him across the sacroiliac. This particular safari seemed to have most everything that Hemingway ever found in Africa, except a couple of plane crashes. At the end, Red was concentrating on armadillos and peccaries. Wild pigs with the toughest hide, the fiercest snout and the meanest disposition imaginable. We hunted those dead end porkers from a hunting car. The first time we got close enough to shoot. Hirsch, a comedian when he's not gunning for a steak race, invited me to shoot. I bracketed the porker. However, when I found that a peccary invariably charges back at you, I had no further interest in him. We also encountered a swarm of deer, all beauties. One great whitetail with a tremendous rack of horns invited me to shoot him. I raised my gun, but couldn't squeeze the trigger. They called me a sissy. It's not exactly that, I said. It's just that I never shoot a deer until he pulls a knife on me first. Well, that's it for today. Now this is Jimmy Powers transcribed, saying so long. Until next time.
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