If I were the NewGuy at Turkey Camp Part 4

. . . and having said all that, let me do a complete about-face.

Do you want to know what made me a successful turkey hunter? It came down to exactly one principle: Become your own expert.

I have been giving you an introduction to turkey hunting as best as I can. It is the culmination of 40 seasons. I never claim to be an expert turkey hunter– not even a particularly good one. I am an expert in being a beginning turkey hunter. I never really was much of a turkey hunter until I purposely took off the big honkin’ vest I was carrying, went down to just a few calls, and struck out on my own. At the same time, I deliberately stopped listening to the sound advice all the great turkey hunters had given me through tapes, and books, and magazine articles. I decided to figure turkeys out for myself– my turkeys on my property, and for the first few seasons, most of what I did was listening and watching. Surprisingly, that exercise produced far more gobblers in the bag than I had ever managed while I was trying to follow my mentors.

What I came up with was quite a bit different in a lot of ways than what a bunch of guys had written. None of those experts had ever hunted my property, and all of them had learned turkey hunting somewhere besides northern eastern Kentucky. I am not saying they were wrong. However, until I threw the books away, I could never wrap my head around what I was really seeing. I became an expert on my 200-acre patch of heaven.

That is what I would tell The New Guy. We can get you on a gobbler; we can give you the basic mechanics. Beyond that, you are going to be on your own. You will have to rid yourself of all the experts around you and become one yourself.

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