Michael Fleharty hasn’t killed many turkeys, but the Edmond, Okla., hunter made news recently when he shot one of the highest-scoring gobblers of all time.

My first morning of Osceola hunting wasn’t turning out as planned. But considering overnight temperatures in my home state of Wisconsin hovered near zero, I wasn’t complaining.

My first successful fall hunt didn’t include the drama of calling in a turkey after scattering a flock. Heck, in the end, my voice proved more deadly than a few perfectly reproduced hen clucks. No matter. Little perseverance and a lot of dumb luck let me kill one of the biggest gobblers our area had seen in a long time.

In this excerpt from Bird of Courage, a book by Wade Wineman, the author argues that turkey hunters seem to get all the bad luck -- making the good luck stand out. 

All turkey hunters have encountered boss birds of each gender at one time or another. What in nature makes a particular gobbler or hen a 'boss', I'm not sure.

Here is proof that at least some of the fun in turkey hunting has to do with how much gear you take along.

Like many turkey hunters, I used to think carrying a gun into the turkey woods was reserved for spring only. Little did I know that fall turkey hunting has a long and storied past. TV shows and magazines had ingrained "spring only" into my head, so I never actually gave the matter of fall turkey hunting much thought.

Thank you Lord for not letting me catch it at an early age. I suspect that my life would have been much different if I had. Oh, I had lots of excuses as to why I didn't catch it, but most of the time I resolved to myself that I was just too busy in the spring to catch a disease I didn't really need.