I have not posted a story in a while. I guess a heart attack and 3 stints gets you to thinking about old stuff, old hunts, and old style calls etc. I was asked to write a story on another site and this one came to mind. Sorry for rambling on with it.
Anyway, thanks Bill for the wood and putting a bug in my ear. You brought back some great memories. It has been fun.
An Old Friend is Headed to Nashville
A little less than a year ago, I had a friend tell me, “You ought to develop a Turpin style One Sider.” On the Nashville entry form for this years calls, I waited until the last day and faxed in my entries for this year. 2 short boxes, a one sider and a long box/short box combination in the hunting box categories. I had some nice wood for a couple of my Stribling style short boxes, and some nice matching wood for a combination. I have never entered a long box or a one sider, but I had made long Stribling style boxes that would qualify for the long box category, and all I had to do was put a handle on one. I had never made a “One Sider”.
For the last year, I have thought about that Turpin Style One Sider. I had decided in my mind that I wanted a certain sound in a one sider. So, when I got the day off from the State of Mississippi on MLK or Robert E. Lee day, I went out my store room shop at 6:00 AM. I worked for the next 6 hours on my one sider Nashville entry. I had designed this box in my mind for the last 10 months. I made it to almost the same cavity size of Mr. Jack’s old original Turpin short box. It had the french curve of my Stribling style boxes. At the end of the 6 hours after roughing it out, I sanded the lip and chalked the box up. I sent out a four note series. ---- You can call it luck, or you can call it fate, but that One Sider had the exact tone and rasp of an old friend that I ran into twenty or so years ago.
I was guest of a good friend and hunting his land in Tunica Co. Ms. North of the Slash. With the water up a good bit on the mighty Mississippi, we had boated in to a main ridge at daylight. My friend went south and I went north. That morning I had hunted the lower end of Earnhartsville on Earnharsville Slough. The birds had pitched to my friends side of the slough, so I hunted the south end to no avail that morning. Meeting at the boat at noon, we unpacked and ate lunch. We usually hunted all day back then, not wanting to miss a single minute of available turkey season.
After lunch he went back South and I walked a short distance from the boat north up Earnhartsville. I had not walked from the boat a 100 yards and had started to angle Northeast to the Old River when I spotted an ostrich of a gobbler. He spotted me about the same time and he headed northeast towards Old River with a group of hens. I decided to back out and head up to the chair road that was about another half a mile up Earnhartsville, and go down it towards Old River. I would get a “Rounder” and hope they showed up later.
I hit the old plastic white Wal Mart chair hanging from a tree in the road, marking the chair road, and walked down it a ways stopping about 80 yards from where the road dropped down into Old River. I could see the water was up to the drop off there. I blinded up on the road and settled in. I laid “Sweetness” (my old Stribling style box) beside my right leg and Mr. Jack Ellis’s original Tom Turpin short box on the side of my left leg. I called off and on for quite a while with Sweetness. Getting up early, a good lunch, and the early afternoon sun coming through the heavy canopy found me drifting off for long time.
When I woke up, it had to be an hour later. I regained my senses, and pick up Mr. Jack’s Old Turpin box that I used for a number of years after his stroke. I went straight to the left side and hit a four note series of medium raspy yelps. I was cut by an old hen with identical tone yelps but a louder and more excited series than mine. I immediately dialed up to her volume and sent it back to her. She answered again in the same manner ---- but this time the old boy with her sent a booming gobble back also. To make a long story short, I did not hear old mama hen any more, but after jake gobbling to the gobbler and hitting some excited cutts on Mr. Jack’s box, he worked into 8 steps from me at full strut. At that point, “I reduced him to possession” as Nash Buckingham used to say.
I thank the Lord for etching in my memory the sound of that Old Hen. Sometimes I think back on that hunt and my mind never fails to remember the exact tone and rasp of that old hen. I Thank Mr. Jack for loaning my that old Turpin box for 13 years and the memories and hunts that I had with it.
So if you make it to Nashville this year, I hope you will have the pleasure of looking up an old friend of mine. I hope she brings a smile to your face and reminds you of a friend that you and I ran into once.
