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Case: Old turkey hunters shouldn’t get sore about new challenges

Staff file photo by Robin Rudd / Turkey hunters know that tipping off just one bird to their presence can lead to any in the area making a swift exit, which is why having the wisdom and patience to be still and quiet is so valuable in the early spring woods. Staff file photo by Robin Rudd / Turkey hunters know that tipping off just one bird to their presence can lead to any in the area making a swift exit, which is why having the wisdom and patience to be still and quiet is so valuable in the early spring woods.

By Larry Case March 9, 2025 4 min read

The minute I moved in a painful attempt to get up, I knew it was a big mistake. I was trying to rise from my seat at the base of big white oak tree, and everything seemed to hurt. Adding insult to injury, a loud alarm “Phutt!” sounded from my left (my off side, of course), and I knew the jig was up.

For those who don’t know, “Phutt!” is the sound a wild turkey makes when he or she spots danger. It’s an alarm call to other turkeys and usually precedes them vacating the area very quickly.

Glancing to my left, a large, big-bearded, long-spurred gobbler and I stared at each other for about 1.3 seconds. After that, the turkey did his best Road Runner impersonation, then took flight to the next county, or at least the next zip code. He was gone, gone, gone.

Meanwhile, I had not moved from my awkward hand-and-knees position. It took me only the rest of the morning to get up.

As I write this to you, it is Thursday morning, and that means it’s time to get out a column for the coming week. (I can hear the various editors in various cities laughing or groaning because me submitting “Guns & Cornbread” to them often comes much later.) As I was staring somewhat blankly into the clouds of my third or fifth cup of coffee, the same thought kept coming up.

We are all getting older. (I don’t know how, but this even includes me.)

Now I know some of you think that is leaning to the Captain Obvious side, but for many of us, it is something we try not to think about. It’s as if aging — and all the things that come with it (of what I have seen so far, not much of it is good) — is something best ignored, and maybe it will just go away (I am definitely in the group that takes that approach).

So we try this, but a sore back, bad shoulders and knees, and all the other goodies of going past 40 (way past 40) will not let us forget.

Contributed photo / Patience is one of the most important virtues of turkey hunting, along with making sure you can get back up from your seated position at the base of a tree, writes “Guns & Cornbread” columnist Larry Case.

Turkey hunting can be a strenuous endeavor. It often involves lots of walking on some not-so-friendly terrain (like almost everywhere I hunt). It can, at times, call for a mad dash for cover to get hidden so a sharp-eyed turkey does not spot you. The ritual, as mentioned before, of setting up at the base of a tree to call to a gobbler is sometimes repeated multiple times in a morning.

For some odd reason, this seems to be getting harder to do.

Part of this equation is dealing with your fellow hunters who are younger and in better shape than you. Because youth is wasted on the young, they are totally oblivious to the various aches, pains and infirmities you are dealing with. In the turkey woods, the younger hunter tends to rise quickly, and walk away fast, doing all of this with an air of snobbish superiority. Not only do they not have a clue what the older hunter is experiencing, they think it will never affect them.

I know they think this way because at one time this is exactly how I felt. Guess I am paying for it now.

Getting older is something we all have to deal with, though, including us turkey hunters, and there is no reason you can’t be successful in the spring woods if you have seen a few years.

Try to be positive about it; think of the advantages you have over the young bucks. You have years of experience dealing with crazy turkeys, which is more of an advantage than the vigor of youth. Time and time again, I have heard it stated that the biggest tool a turkey hunter can use is patience. When less experienced hunters may want to go charging off when an old gobbler goes silent, the older, wiser hunter may say: “Let’s just sit here for a while and see what happens.”

This calmness and patience is often what cooks the turkey’s goose.

If this happens for you this year, just smile, congratulate the young hunter, and then enjoy the day.

Don’t tell him you didn’t get up and move because it hurt too much.

“Guns & Cornbread” is written by Larry Case, who lives in Fayette County, W.Va. You can write to him at larryocase3@gmail.com.