Trophy Turkey

This article was first published May 21, 2026, at fieldethos.com.

My dad was my hero. He was a man of faith, a man of principle and integrity. He was gentle and generous and gregarious. A great man, all the way around. Except when it came to turkey hunting. When it came to turkey hunting, my dad was kind of a jerk. 

That may well have been because my dad wasn’t a very good turkey hunter. Despite chasing the fool birds most every spring, he never killed one. To be fair, the turkey numbers where we lived were low, but there were plenty of other hunters killing birds when we weren’t even seeing any and it made my dad bitter. A man has little choice but to learn to hate the things in life that he’s no good at.

It wasn’t until I left home that I started killing turkeys, myself. An old pro showed me the ropes and after a few years, I finally got the hang of it. Thank God for overeager jakes and two year old toms. Those birds taught me how to set up for a gobbler on the roost. I learned from them when to make a move on a henned up tom and when to wait him out. I figured out when to call at a bird and more importantly, when to shut up. 

Thinking I could change dad’s luck, I scouted hard one spring and had a handful of turkeys about as patterned as turkeys can be. I called my dad and invited him to come up and hunt with me. I would never guarantee a shot on a bird – I had been hunting too long for that – but I told my dad that I thought I could put him on one. To my surprise, he declined my invitation. I didn’t even ask him why. I already knew. He did tell me to call and keep him posted.

Opening Day, I did just that. I called dad to let him know that I had passed on a jake. So launched a lecture the likes of which I hadn’t been on the receiving end of since I was a teenager. Dad’s stern rebuke ended with the statement, spoken flatly and with more than a hint of disgust, “Son, don’t pass up a shot on a jake. There’s no such thing as a trophy turkey.”

A week later, I called my dad after a morning hunt to tell him that I had shot a tom. I expected him to be excited for me, to press me for the details of the hunt, just like he did during deer season. Instead, when I told him that I’d taken a bird, he said, and I quote, “Okay.” They say that hurt people hurt people. I don’t know that that axiom had ever been applied to turkey hunting, but it certainly held true with my dad.

Between my kids’ graduations and my daughter’s wedding and my father’s funeral, the last few springs were so busy that I’d hardly had the chance to chase longbeards, but I was determined to get on one this spring. I drove down to southwest Oklahoma where the population numbers are higher and hunted with an old friend on some of his family land. I didn’t have high expectations going into the hunt. I just hoped to hear one gobble. The first afternoon, though, four red faced jakes strutted into our setup, running their mouths. I wasn’t going to shoot a jake, I really wasn’t, but then I heard my dad’s admonition ringing in my ears. “Son, don’t pass up a shot on a jake. There’s no such thing as a trophy turkey.”

I smiled to myself and flicked off my safety.