Is it possible to be in heaven while still here on earth?

I think so. Standing along in the middle of the woods I wonder about this. I turned to look and see what just touched me but nothing was there.

Was it the touch of an angel? Did the wings of an angel just brush up against me? The shivers and goosebumps that have just ravaged my body causes me to question.

The peace, joy and freedom I feel while standing here on this ridge with my shotgun strapped to my back is powerful.

Without a doubt this place was designed for my enjoyment. I believe when God made the Ozarks, He made it for guys like me. I believe He slowed down and paid special attention to the details of what He was doing here in the Ozarks.

When He finished the Current River I do not think He said this is good but rather I think He said “Now this place is really good!” I think He said, “Now Rich is going to really like what I have done here.” How could He have done any better?

This place truly is heaven on earth. It doesn’t take much to begin the appreciate the sheer beauty of the Ozarks. Timber as far as you can see. An endless amount of hills and hollers. Streams so clean and clear it makes you wanna just drink right out of it. Beautiful springs by the hundreds just gushing out millions of gallons of life-giving water a day.

Giant Whitetail Bucks and thundering Toms. Walleye as big as your leg and Small-mouth Bass that will tear a new plug up in a morning’s fishing trip. Yes it’s Heaven alright. With one stroke of a paddle a person can be in Turkey Heaven for days.

 

 

 

Oh now it’s not like turkey hunting in Alabama or Mississippi, you’re not promised a bird and more times than not you come home without the bird. And you might even have some competition here in the Ozarks of Arkansas and Missouri because after all, most of the good hunting is on public land. But what a place to learn how to hunt turkey.

We have the prettiest, biggest, loudest and most vocal gobblers a turkey hunter could ever wish for. And who could ask for a more beautiful place to hunt gobblers?

1.6 million acres of the Mark Twain National Forest here in Missouri and even more over the line in Arkansas. But don’t be fooled. The birds in the Ozarks are the hardest gobblers you will ever hunt.

But then the pain in my right knee reminded me of another place that has bout broke me down, the hills of Tennessee.

For years I have been killing turkey two to three weeks before the our season would open in the steep hills of the Volunteer State. Their season opens that much earlier than ours. While all the local hunters were getting ready for turkey season, I was hunting in Tennessee before ours opened limping across the hills of my uncle’s farm.

I was young when my uncle bought his farm in Montgomery County, Tennessee. This was my first opportunity to hunt out of state. At first it was deer hunting only on his farm. There were no wild turkey in that part of Tennessee and hadn’t been for nearly a hundred years but that all changed when the Tennessee Game and Fish worked out a deal with the Missouri Game and Fish Commission.

Because of the trade, now Tennessee has some of the finest turkey hunting in the world.

So as the years passed by and the restocking program became a big success for Tennessee, my uncle’s farm now had turkey on it, now all I had to do was wait for Tennessee to open a turkey season and this long-legged Missouri boy was gonna kill me a Missouri bird in the Tennessee mountains…

Little did I know just how much fun laid ahead.

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My uncle’s farm was big and beautiful and looked a lot like the Ozarks. It was all there, big hay fields on top of round top knobs, deep hollows, caves and springs. The Tennessee ridges that ran on the farm had no rhyme or reason to them, not anything like the ridges here in Current country. Here the ridges are long with big saddles and swags and some are hog backed on top. Here our big ridges were easy to navigate but in Tennessee the ridges just dumb founded me. But I didn’t care, there were just too many turkey to worry about getting turned around.

The first year Tennessee allowed 4 Toms to be harvested and all could be harvested in 1. That first year my gun was the only gun I heard go off. For several years I pretty much had the run of the mill but that was about to change.

There was an old man that went to church with my aunt and uncle and had asked to hunt their property the next spring. I just knew the world was about to end because of having to share with the other guy. Really there was plenty of land for the both of us but the thought of having to share with someone just killed me at the time. I wanted it all to myself, being selfish. So it was, the old timer took the north side of the farm and I the south part. Both places were perfect.

Each year the old timer would kill the biggest and oldest bird on the farm. It would just bug the heck out of me how he did it. I mean, I was a young, long-legged whippersnapper from the Ozarks and this old man was killing the oldest and smartest birds on the farm each year. I now know how he did it. He has something that I didn’t have and that was patience.

One day coming down the hill I seen him standing next to his four-wheeler with the most beautiful bird I had ever seen. Head as big as a baseball bat. Big spurs and a paint brush beard. With tears in his eyes he lifted his head and said “Hillbilly, I’m all tagged out and Lord willing I’ll see you this deer season.”

I did not know it then but that would be the last time I would see the old timer. He passed away that summer sitting in his rocking chair. Often I’ve wondered if he was thinking about the old bird when he passed. Many years have gone by since then. I have killed many birds where the old timer used to sit. I have killed several with my two sons beside me but they never knew the sentimental significance the area had for me.

I used to get up there early enough on a clear morning with the stars still high in the sky and I would lay down in the middle of the big hay field and listen to the whippoorwills and think of the old timer and the lessons I learned, realizing time stops for nothing.

So next time you’re in the deep timber and run across an old timer, yield to him, give him that first shot because one day it just might be you in your last season of life.

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