Back last August, I felt compelled to write a Ninety-Niner’s look at Deer Hunting.

A Ninety-Niner Speaks Out About Deer Hunting

In case you are wondering, a Ninety-Niner is a fellow who goes the full 99 weeks on federally-mandated unemployment compensation and then falls off the back end, still without a job. Back then, at the end of the summer, the term was just coming into usage and I though it interesting that I had become an unwitting and unwilling part of American culture. I was too young to be a Flower Child.  I was too old to be a Generation X-er.   I came in on the tail-end of the Baby Boom, so those guys always seemed like somebody else.  This was my first chance to belong to something.  I can go to the home in peace, knowing I can brag that I was a Ninety-Niner.

Since August , I have gone back to work. I am no longer officially a Ninety-Niner, so I guess that makes me a Ninety-Niner alum. Meanwhile, the piece has continued to be read by folks and it stands as nearly the most popular thing I’ve ever written.  I don’t know if it is because it has become a literary icon of our time,  just because folks look for ” Ninety-Niner” as a keyword.

The home budget is still really tight. We’re still digging out from close to 3 years of forced austerity. Since I wrote the original piece back last August, we have had major car repairs on both cars and it will be a long time before the house really gets back in shape.

Which brings me to my point: how is this all affecting my turkey hunting? For the years I was on the dole, it really improved things. I got out more, I scouted more, I hunted more. I was still able to do a decent job search right from turkey camp. Of course the search was quite a bit easier, because I did not have any real prospects at the time.   However, after the unemployment ended last June, I started wondering how long I was going be able to pay for tags.

The fact of the matter is this is going to be the worst of recent years for my turkey hunting. I am back at work, but not as a full-time employee. I am going to take a week of unpaid leave to go out and hunt, but that is only because this will be the last chance I have to take off for . . . who knows. Mind you, I’m not complaining. I got hired in my old profession, albeit a couple rungs down the ladder. I’m making better than half of my old pay. The current averages are much dimmer: 50+ year olds are being told they may never work again in their field. I may actually end up with benefits.

Where I am being hit hardest is time and disposable income. As I said, there are a lot of things ahead of that next deer rifle or that next turkey gun. Inflation is setting in, so what used to be an impulse buy is now a serious decision. What used to be a quick trip over to the next county at $2.50 a gallon gas is now something we think twice about. No turkey shows. No driving up to Bass Pro just to hang out.

In the piece on deer hunting, I talked about a loss of participation in the sport and speculated that marginal hunters would probably just start sitting out the season. I do not know how that jives with what I just heard, but it seems Kentucky’s hunter participation is off by about 10% over the past 10 years. With deer hunting, it is easy to blame antler hype and video games and that sort of thing. I think with turkey hunting the fact of the matter is that it is just a hard sport. It is much easier to throw in the towel and go watch baseball on TV.  In my part of Kentucky, the deer are climbing up your leg, begging to be shot.  Turkey are still keeping it cool.  They still take a little effort to hunt and the siren sound of the Barcalounger is strong and sweet.

One thing that I think will help the sport in this downturn is to make every effort we can to stop hyping the high-consumption sort of consumerism that we all seem to get wrapped up in when we get to talking about turkeys. You don’t NEED all that stuff to hunt turkeys and it is very discouraging to be told you NEED something when you plain flat don’t have the scratch.  This sport is not about the latest calls, the latest fashion in camo, or the tightest pattern.

I started out hunting turkeys before it had become popular. You did not have a special turkey hunting department in the sporting goods store. In fact, you kind of had to dig around to find things like calls, and if you went to the counter looking for a good turkey load, you would probably get a box of pheasant loads and a warning to kill them in close. In some ways, it might have made things better considering the present circumstances.

Back in those days, any shotgun would kill a turkey. You did not need a 3.5 ” 12 GA with Mossy Oak Bottomland camo finish. If the choke was too open, you just made sure you did a better job of calling them in. The loads? Any old #4 to #6 high brass would do. Lead? Lead. You did not have to think too hard at what you were going to shoot a gobbler with. You had a few calls. Some might have been homemade. Some might have been handed down. You worked with what you had. Just getting a call was a challenge. I found some in the back of a duck hunting catalog, but my first came from meeting Dick Kirby of Quaker Boy giving a demonstration.  I do a fair job with just my own voice.  Old military surplus camo worked just fine back then, and it still does now– the more old and faded the better. Vests? Back then you wrapped your box call in a bread bag and put it in whatever you had. I had a little haversack I got from the surplus store. It worked fine.

I do not consider myself a Luddite, and old timers at Turkey and Turkey Hunting will tell you I have been a tireless basher of Old-School snobbery. If you feel like going out with $1,000 worth of kit, that’s fine. The point here is to say it is not necessary; you don’t have to. If you are skipping lunch to afford a license and tags this year, don’t feel you have to be flinging Hevi-Shot at the birds. Old high-brass #4’S will do just fine. If you see gas creeping up to $4 a gallon, think about going to the fabric store and buying a couple yards of camo and making a poncho. That new set of camo duds can wait. Spray paint an old trap gun and have at it.

To my Ninety-Niner Brothers

The point is: Go. Granted, your wife probably is not going to understand. The turkeys are certainly not going to care one way or the other. The sport itself is not going to live or die based on your choice. This is about you. It does not have to be three states over. You don’t need a guide. Go find a spot and go out.

Why go? Get out and watch that first sunrise with gobblers and hens making a fuss on the roost and then ask me the question again. I needed a little perspective to get me through the past few years. I needed to know sometimes why I was doing all this. Home and family can be distant ideas sometimes, but watching the sun come up on a frosty morning can sometimes get your head on straight. When you pull in the drive at home, with or without a bird, you will understand why you went.

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