As a few days turned into weeks and a few weeks turned into months Jack was happy with a new home and a new job at a local sporting goods shop selling fishing stuff. He knew everything there was to know about fishing. He was the type of man that could catch fish in the hottest of summer and even catch them in a snow storm on the river if he had thought of it. No kids, no wife, and one aunt that stayed back in old Mississippi. The local women that came into the sporting goods store had tried to set him up on a many of dates but he was not interested. The store owners wife even tried to put her 30 year old toothless daughter off on Jack until she had passed out drunk as a skunk. The woman even took a picture of Jack and placed it on one of them fancy dating sites. His profile read this:

Wanted: A good old country girl who has plenty of money, a lot of land, who can cook and clean, and has a 4wd truck with a boat and motor. Send photo of land, and boat and motor!

A local bass tournament was coming up soon and Jack was bound to win it. He knew the area where the event was to take place well and had been fishing it for a few months or so. As anglers piled in on a daily bases to sign up for the $1,000.00 first prize tournament, Jack became a little more worried each day. The one thing he did not know was just how big these tournaments got. He was in for a treat! But he still seem to hold grasp to all the good spots on the water of the Mobile Tensaw-Delta water way. He knew there were some great fish in the waters. He was being sponsored bu the sporting good store that he worked at and didn’t seem to place his mind else where.

As tournament day arrived he was up and at the starting point well before anyone else. Determined to win, and to win big. One sign at the docks read: No cheating at any time during the tournament or else you will be disqualified and there will be NO REFUND! This includes no buying of fish from other anglers, and no dynamite of any kind! Jack did not need to do any of these things to win. He was confident enough he could win on his own ways and follow all rules.

As the day went on, Jack had done caught well over forty fish and only kept what he felt was needed to win. A 5 bass minimum was all he was allowed to bring into the weigh in at the end of the day. His largest weighing in at a whopping 12.5 lbs along with three others closing in at 9.0 lbs each. To Jack he was not worried about losing at this point. He knew he had it won. Weigh in time was coming near and Jack was on his way back in when something went wrong with his boat. He looked down at all the gauges and they seem to be working ok except for one. One gauge that should allow more attention than any other gauge. The Gas Gauge! Jack was in trouble and he had no other gas on board.

Luck was about to come in favor for Jack as he sat there in the middle of the water thinking. A black and red striped bass boat noticed him as it pulled up. In this boat was a tall long legged beautiful woman who also was fishing close by stood up and asked him if everything was ok. He asked the lady if she wouldn’t mind as to tow him back to the weigh in station. She agreed and they were on their way. Jack thought deeply in his mind on the way back to weigh in at how stupid he could be for not bring extra gas. As he neared the weigh in station the lady stuck around and watched as the rest of the event took place rooting Jack on. With no doubt Jack had won the tournament but will we ever know if Jack and the long legged beautiful lady had ever went on a date from that day on.

In a small town located in south central Alabama sets a fish camp just off the banks of the Alabama River. At this fish camp the camp motto is ” Tall Tales, Lies, and swearing allowed. ” You read this on a sign as you enter the front door. The back door of the camp house is missing due to a local getting mad one evening for loosing in a poker game. When the fish are not biting you are usually sitting around the card table at this little camp house.

James Cook was a local and was the president of Lowndes County Fish club. The cost of this club was $250.00 a year and there was a waiting list a mile long. When you were accepted to get into the club you had to take a test of courage and skill in order to be in.

This test was not for the weak at heart. You had to swim a small slough just down the river in snake and possibly gator infested waters. You would also have to stick your arm in a hole in the bank of the river and pull out a cat fish. Or a 50 pound logger head turtle!

The test is always passed with flying colors but keeping the camp clean was always a chore. James and several other club members would great you with a beer in hand usually when you pulled up to the camp. There is never a time when you can’t go without at least bringing some fish back home no matter who you are. Five tons of all kinds of fish were always kept in the deep freezer and this was a must. When the load got low no one was allowed to stay in camp without going out and bringing more fish back in.

No matter how you caught the fish all fish was cleaned and put into freezer bags for storage. The members would catch them with a rod and reel, on a tight line, tree line, well you get the picture. No matter how you caught them they would keep and eat them.

I have been a member of this camp for over 5 years now and something just keeps dragging me back when I say this is going to be my last year. My wife use to gripe and complain but now she too is a member.

It’s almost like we are all one big happy family with smiles on our faces that just want go away. My wife caught a 60 pound blue cat the other day and almost got caught by the game warden for drinking and driving the boat at the same time. That there new game warden has been a pain in all our asses since he first started over a month ago. He got stuck in our camp drive way the other day after a big rain came and hen didn’t even have the nerve to fix his ruts before he left. We all got mad and went to raising hell. I don’t see him coming back no time soon for he has kinda went missing. You can get lost in these here big old swamps of Alabama if you are not watching where you are headed.

They say he was spotted on the river yesterday afternoon broke down in his boat. The darn fellow will learn the hard way I guess. A lot of us learn that way. We take things the wrong way and we get mad at the least little things. We don’t look out for others when we should and then there are times we don’t even watch out for ourselves. This is the way life turns and bends at this fish camp and we are all happy with it and still come out on top.

George Hass is another camp member and he has been bailed out of the county jail more than we can count. The main reason he stays in jail so much is because he is always getting caught fishing without the fishing licenses and he has brought more gators into camp than any other member here.

To bad he is hardly ever around to eat some of this good tasting gator tail. He brought in 6 last week and the largest would have been the new state record if he would have just harvested it legally. To bad it is illegal to catch gators here in Lowndes county.

We have seen some huge one’s over the past two years and the state just want open a season to catch them here. There is a season here in Alabama but just not here. They say that you don’t see a lot of them around but we sure do. The largest ever brought into camp weighed a whopping 900 pounds and was 16 feet long. Longer than any boat that any of us have. Yep! Carl Jones caught him on a trot line a month ago and tied a rope around his head and just dragged behind the boat down the middle of the river. He has more nerve than anyone in camp and he is also the reason that the camp entry test is so hard to most.

So the next time you are around Lowndes county Alabama just take a turn on Cooley swamp dirt road and come on down to our camp and see us. We sure will be glad to meet you for there isn’t a lot of people that come down this way. Remember to watch for our traps along side the dirt road for we are always trying to catch possums and coons.

It was a breeze that one could never forget that made you feel right at home on the water in a boat that would make a rich man cry. My boat included an outboard motor that needed a lot of attention at certain times of the year. My friends would laugh at me for taking the old rugged brown and white boat to the lake or river. I had no choice but to take it. It was all i had and i was happy with it.

I had caught a many fish out of this boat and I even came in third place in a local bass tournament once in the past. I was 1 1/2 pounds from winning the darn thing and ony 1/2 pound behind second but i was still glad to have just placed. I am by far no means the smart guy when it comes to fishing. I just hold my snuff in my right lip side and spit when needed to do so. Yes I have swallowed my snuff on several occasions due to hanging a huge fish and then only to lose him. I have had my fair cases of cussing and raising hell due to this small thing we call luck of catching big fish.

Some damn people can catch large fish and tell you that they only caught small ones when to you and me they would way 10 pounds or more.

Fish that would hang on a wall in a lawyer’s office would have the smile on their mounted faces as to say if they could speak, this crazy ass didn’t even catch me, he bought me for looks from the yard sale down the street. I tell you this crazed story because it is neither true or false but mainly false to me. I will say that there are people out there who think they are the true Bassmaster as Jackie Bushman is to be known as the Buckmaster.

That alone just to figure fishing and hunting out to be the same I will set and laugh at the first person that comes alone and says so. It would be no more than me telling you that I am the bassmaster and the buckmaster myself. Hell I could tell you that I’m the turkey master also and if you believe any of this then you would believe that everything that comes out of my mouth would be true. We all stretch things out to more than they should be mainly because that is what makes a real sportsman a true outdoorsman in more than one way. I do say this because this is what I have seen and heard from others.

So now you have hunter’s or people who call themselves hunter’s .VS. fishermen or people that may call themselves fishermen. I use these words loosely. It is only fair to all who read it. I can say that I don’t give a rats ass about anything but then I would be a lie also. Notice that I never used the term turkey hunter’s except for now in the verses stage of this article. You probably wonder why I haven’t used it till now. It is mainly because a turkey hunter is or has a meaning all to its own.

I will now tell you what I know about this difference of the turkey hunter. A true turkey hunter doesn’t have to see a turkey to say he had a good hunt. He or she just has to hear one and most would tell you it was a great hunt. But the catch of a tall tale in a turkey hunter’s eyes when he or she comes home from a long morning in the spring woods is that if they say that he or she seen one. I would almost hear them in my mind saying these words that the turkey they seen weighed over 20 pounds. It is almost the same with fishermen in this way of the chase or the catch.

It was a beautiful spring morning when I woke to the neighbors rooster crowing outside. The darn thing just wouldn’t shut up at all. All I had my mind set on was that wonderful gobbling bird that sat high in the Alabama southern pine down next to the swamp at old man Bannister’s farm. His farm was well know for producing me some of the largest turkeys I have ever killed in my entire life. And boy was they some big one’s.

I sure am glad I didn’t have to worry about a gobbler smelling me because I had spill my coffee on my cloths twice while driving down the old dirt path that led from the highway to the open field. I just had a gut feeling that this was going to be my morning. Two weeks into the season and still no bird what was happening to me I had no clue. But this morning was set in my mind that it was already good even if I had spill my coffee twice. “ I didn’t care I was still going.”

The first sound was a gobbler yelling out to me from a distance about a hundred yards away. He still was not the one I wanted. I was after the one that would gobble twice before fly-down and then shut his trapper before he made his last flight from treetop to the wet ground below him where I would be sitting thirty yards away. As soon as he hits the ground he will then be allowed to perform me a show of excellence by strutting before a hen decoy which I have placed out at twenty yards to help lure him in to gun range. This will be his last strut and steps.

He gobbles for the first time.

His thundering gobble shook all silence from all around the neighborhood. The sound of true spring is now here and is heard for all to hear. Daybreak has come and I can see him still sitting up high in a southern red oak about forty feet up. He has no hen with him but the hens from seventy-five yards out have already made their fly-down and is headed my way.

I set patiently as he stretches his wings and gobbles once more. He has now reached the ground and he begins to show his dominance as being the one gobbler that will defeat all others who face him head to head. I cluck and make a small soft series of yelps and he looks around to decide where the sound comes from. A hen yelps in the distance but the gobbler has no chance to answer as I pull the trigger on my Remington 870 wing-master and drop him with a load of number 6 shot.

There he flops around on the ground like all other gobblers do after a shot of impact hits them hard. My morning was great as to have harvested such a remarkable animal. The colors of the feathers are a beauty to withhold for a lifetime. It’s a memory that will never leave you once you harvest a turkey for the first time or even your fourth time. Your heart will beat fast for the first turkey as it will do for the second one. If this does not happen then you will never be a turkey hunter. They say once you start you will never quit.

It was a cool morning for someone to be high tailing it through a swamp two hours before sun up. If ma and Chelle wanted to make my perfect set up before daybreak we had to head out early. Getting into the woods well before daylight was our plan. This would be her first ever turkey hunt and I was going to make it one she would never forget. Her first words was I’m cold when we stopped the truck at the fields edge. I told her that things would warm up soon to just be patient with a little time.

As we walked through the wet grass across the field to the tree line she asked me if anything was going to get us. Just as soon as I told her No she swore up and down that something was following us. I told her if something did get after us the only thing she had to worry about was to out run me and we all know that wasn’t about to happen. I wasn’t worried too much do to the fact that if something got after her it would soon let her go do to all the noise she would make.

Chelle could get kidnapped and before the napper would drive 100 yards he would make a U-turn and bring her back. God could she talk up a storm. We finally got to the swamp and had to head east about 200 yards more to a small dry spot under a tall pine. By the time we had the chance to sit down she heard something roughing up in the bushes about ten yards out. She asked whats that? I said you have to be quite if you plan on killing that there turkey.

What turkey?

The one that I roosted yesterday evening for you. He’s 23 pounds with a 15 inch beard and at least 1 1/2 inch spurs on both feet. So just be quite OK.

I’m cold.

Get over it  and be still. There’s the first Owl just listen to that beautiful sound. God’s creation make all that noise and she was right there beside me making noise too. She would never kill this here turkey. As I looked through the tree tops you could see daybreak and what a beautiful sight it was.

There he  go’s his first gobble and boy was it deep. Didn’t seem like he’s that far away either.

Chelle asked what in the hell was that? I told her that it was the gobbler she was going to shoot if she would just be quite. I yelled out an owl sound of my own and that bird just cut me off like there was no tomorrow. 1,2,3 gobbles in a row. What a show he was displaying for us. As I looked at Chelle she had a grin on her face I would never forget. One of them kind that just melts ya heart and makes you smile.

I placed her between my legs and straddled behind her to help her as she made the shot. She had leaned back so the gun would not kick the hell out of her so bad. By then the gobbler had done pitched down and was looking for us. I laid a three note soft yelp out there and shure enough he answered back so sweet.

Chelle said…I see him…he’s coming in slow.

Ok just wait til I say shoot….OK. He’s strutting now get your gun ready and place the bead on his head..When he clears the tree pop him one.

OK…Now on the count of three shoot…OK…1,2 bang she shot before three but rolled that turkey a flip into the next county. The turkey had started flopping and I said get up and go get him. Don’t grab him by the feet Chelle he will spur you and just as soon as that come out of my mouth she had sure enough grabbed him by the feet of course. She let out a yell as she was trying to stand on his head.

Good the turkey was down for good now as we took some photos. Boy she was as beautiful holding that bird as she was on any given Sunday. Beautiful blue eyes just blended in with the scenery of the woods that surrounded her. She was so happy that all she could do was just shake nervously. As I have said on any other occasion thank you God for allowing me to see a bird that look so beautiful.

As we walked back toward the truck Chelle never quit yapping. Gosh he’s heavy, Gosh I’m getting hot.

Hope you enjoyed another Tall Tales story for Hellohunting. Hope you will continue to click back for more soon.

The stars were shining bright and the moon was full. Most of the guys in camp had not seen anything over the last two days. Mike the camp cook said it was cause of the full moon. “Yall know there ain’t no deer gonna move when the moon is full.” As we all sat around the warm fire enjoying some of our favorite drinks under the stars we all could do nothing but wonder what that big buck of Mossy Bottoms looked like.

We had all heard that he had 31 scoring points on that rack he held on his head. This buck was a legend in Mossy Bottoms hunting club. Even though no one had ever really seen him up close and personal and never had a chance to even say they had shot at him. Don’t get me wrong there was always some very good bucks taken each year.

John’s brother Joe who was visiting bout two years ago killed a huge 12 point and his wife came the next week and shot a doe with a bow and went back the same evening and shot a big 8 point out of the same stand. We gave the name aunt Sara to that stand even though Joe’s wife was named Sue. She sure was a heavy woman. Show enough could shoot though.

Opening day of bow season old man Jenkins kill two does out of the old oak stand down by the creek. Sara’s brother’s brother-in-law came three weeks ago and went to the pond stand and got lost and we haven’t seen or heard from him since.

Old man Hart said he seen that there 31 point buck two weeks ago but we all claim he is blind as a bat. His wife Karen has killed the most does since gun season has opened up with a count of 10 and still counting.

My sister-in-law’s brother’s uncle got drunk Friday night and he hasn’t woke up yet. Which no one wants to sleep in the same bunk as him cause he snores. We had another visitor the other day and climbed into one of the big trees over on Holley hill in a climber and couldn’t get down. We all told him to tie the bottom of that stand on or it wouldn’t stay up high with him. So it fell as we thought it would.

The president of the club got sick from the catfish he caught off the creek and had to go home. Boy did he mess up that out house. Well for me I’ve killed two does so far and a nice 9 point today to prove to all the idiots that deer do move on full moon days.  I told them that they have to leave the whiskey jug alone long enough at night so they ca get into a stand early enough to see one. But as far as the 31 point I don’t think he exist on this club.

We’ll end the story now before we get in over our heads and I hope you have enjoyed another one of my “Tall Tales.” So keep checking back cause you may never know when the next “Tall Tales” story will hit the site.

Carl and I had grown up together in the sticks of south central Alabama and we swore that there would never be one person to come between the friendship we had. We hunted, fished, trapped, and even bullfrog hunted together.

Both of us knew that the local bullfrog hunting championship was coming up and we were gonna win this year. We only had one problem and it was girls that stood in our way of winning. See these girls just wasn’t plain girls. They were the biggest tom boy girls this side of the Mason Dixon Line and every time you seen them the tallest one had a chew of red-man in her mouth so big you could barely make out what she said. That’s how she got the nickname big mouth Sally.

Now Sally had a best friend named Alley and god was she something else. See Alley was the local doctors daughter from somewhere way up yonder in the North. When she moved down here to Alabama she didn’t know what to think and became the best of friends with Sally all because their stupid names rhymed. But boy was she hot. Them long legs and all them curves in all the right places just made a boys mouth drop open where he couldn’t shut it.

See me I was the hunter that kept Carl straight and forward. Carl had this crush on Alley ever since she moved down here and I didn’t like it one bit. Heck I was about to lose my best bud. My huntin  partner. Who was gonna help me clean all them there bullfrogs when I caught em. Well over time Sally and Alley became as good as me and Carl at catching these here bullfrogs ya see. That was gonna interfere with the championship ya see and I wanted to win and win bad. We had not won in three dang years and I wasn’t about to get stomped another year by no girls.

So me and Carl came up with a little secret. In the championships you had to hunt together in a group of four. And what ya know we got teamed up with the two most outlawed girls in this here state.But boy was it gonna be fun. That’s when me and Carl come up here with our secret.

Our plan was to cut holes in the sack of Sally’s and we would be ok. See Alley she didn’t like to catch them bullfrogs and she was just along with Sally to hang out and be part of a crowd i guess you could say. She show enough acted like she liked it. But you could tell she didn’t. She was after Carl ya know.

The night of the championship was here and we was ready to go. The only thing you had was a empty corn sack and a flashlight. You would take off to them there wood’s and swamps and hoped that yo didn’t get chased by Ol man Johnson’s cows. Getting down to his pond after dark was never a problem until the cows seen you. Then you had better taken off hauling butt. It was something about that pond and the cows would never go down to it after dark so if you made it to the pond and the gully you was ok.

The night had started off so good and the four of us was catching them bullfrogs left and right. Well three of us anyhow. As the hours passed we had to be checked back in at the check in at no later than midnight. Around eleven o’clock I told everyone that we needed to start heading back but to my surprise Carl and Alley was nowhere to be found.

So as me and Sally looked for them we found them two making out under a big oak tree and boy was the faces on them red when we caught them. All I heard all the way back to check in was from Sally’s mouth ” Alley I can’t believe you made out with that there crazy Carl, you gonna have lip soars for a week.” You could actually hear her this time cause she had swallowed all that tobacco after what she saw.

But this was my year to shine in the bullfrog huntin championship and I was gonna win. After all those hours while Sally thought she had been putting them there frogs in her sack I was walking right behind her picking them up as they crawled through. Made my huntin easy I should say.

Well as for Carl and Alley they started dating and both went to college together and finished. They are now married and have 4 girls and 3 boys. They became well known in our small town as you can see with the most kids. Sally went off to college and became a nurse and came back to work for Alleys dad. Well for me That’s another story.

I hoped you enjoyed another story of the Tall Tales edition of Hello Hunting. Keep visiting for more Tall Tale stories in the future. I hope to bring you more excitement soon from the Tall Tales collection.

It was a cool cloudy evening and the day before Alabama’s opening day of spring turkey season. I had sat down at the dinner table to think out my first morning’s strategy of how I was gonna outsmart a turkey that had been busting my butt wide open for the past two years. This turkey wasn’t just a two year old bird anymore and he had outwitted me the last two seasons.

I had been scouting this one boss gobbler for the last three weeks and the mornings were shaping up just right for a perfect opening day of spring turkey season. As I bowed my head over my little bit of grub that I had sat aside for dinner I asked the good Lord for thanks for letting me have what I had. I had also asked him for a chance at that gobbler, that had been laying the smack down on me for the past two seasons. My prayer went like this. “Dear Lord thank you for this day and bless me the turkey hunters way Amen.”

Maybe I should have asked him to look down on me with a great big smile and hold everyone back while I eat a while. But to my luck there was no one else in camp but me. I just had this gut feeling that the bird of my nightmares would be in my, fryer by lunch the next day. I ate my food and washed up, and double checked everything needed for the next morning. Can you Imagine that I didn’t get the best sleep that night for the insane reason of worrying about that turkey.

I knew what tree he was in and I also knew that he didn’t have the first hen within 500 yards of him. He was a loaner and a smart one at that. He didn’t live to see five years old for being stupid and dumb. I had only made four shots at this turkey in the past two years and had missed him all four times. This season was gonna be different and I could feel it deep down my spine all the way to my toes.

The night had passed and the alarm rang at exactly at 3 am. I had to make sure I was gonna be in the woods one hour before sun up with my gun and box call in hand. As I grabbed my coffee and my coat, I headed out the door and I had my first whiff of clean air. I stood on the front door step and put me a pinch of snuff in my lower lip and climbed into the camp buggy headed to the one spot that was gonna give me that chance to kill that bird dead.

Sun was to rise at 6:16 am and I was under my tree and standing at 5 am. Everything was so calm that you could hear things walking through the woods from a mile away. I placed another pinch of snuff in my lip about 5:45 am and the first sound of gobbling shook me, and nearly blew my hat off my head. That was him OK and he was very close. Almost too close that I know he could have heard my heart pounding in my chest. “thump” “thump” “thump” I didn’t know how much I could take of it so I spit what snuff out that I hadn’t, already swallowed and took a deep breath and bellowed out the perfect owl sound that I had in me.

That darn gobbler double gobbled, and even triple gobbled at me and then went silent. 6:30 am there he go’s again no more than 40 yards from me and still in that big southern pine no more than 20 feet up. If you were to be sitting above him in a stand you could have spit on him and put his eye out. I took one deep breath and he pitched down no more than ten yards from me. As soon as he hit the ground it was too late for “em”.. The trigger was pulled and I had done what I set out to do and that was to kill a bird that was out to take me down for a third year.

Did you know that every time you hear a turkey tale the bird always weighed over 20 lbs and had over 1 inch spurs and he always has a beard that is over 12 inches. Well how bout this one for size. The bird in this story had two beards and both were over 13 inches long, he weighed 26 lbs and sported 2 inch spurs on both feet. Too bad this was my tall tale huh. I wish I could have seen that bird in real life.

So what did ya think? I hoped you enjoyed reading my Tall Tale of “The Gobblers Last Season” as much as I enjoyed making it up for you to read. Remember dreams always come true in Tall Tales. I hope to bring you more stories like this in the Tall Tales section of Hello Hunting. So visit daily and keep clicking.