A friend's first

[Cut N Run]

This is a picture of one I called up for a good friend (Me on the left). He'd shot a jake a few years before in the sandhills of N.C. and blew the beard off the bird when he shot.  This was his first longbeard.  It hung up about 65 yards off and gobbled 75 times or so.  No amount of pleading would get him to come closer. Finally, he gave in to some sweet purrs, but managed to stay behind some brush away from the shooter's clear view.  The gobbler turned and went back to where he had been & continued to gobble.  I slipped down into the creekbed and moved 50 yards farther the opposite direction from him to call and the gobbler came back for a 35 yard shot.
 
That was in the days of no glasses and no grey hair for me. That was some Spartan camo I'm wearing from around 1989 or '90. It doesn't seem like that long ago, but I guess it was.
 
Jim

[nhtrkybstr]

Jim,

I would say you did a fine job of working that longbeard for your buddy! That's a fine bird!

I would hope that someday I'll be able to work birds like that. I still rely on planting myself in a strut zone and working the bird to me.

Hunters like yourself, that can work around a bird, and bring them in, have my complete and total respect!

That's woodsmanship!

[Cut N Run]

Thanks for the kind words Mike, but there's a whole lot of luck involved too.  That bird could have just as easily kept going rather than come back to some cutts like he did.  I guessed might work & it did that time.

What I left out of that story was that the shooter jumped up and sprinted to that bird before the sound of the shot had left the air, even though the gobbler couldn't pick his head up & was going through the dying flops, my buddy grabbed him by the legs and the bird reflex spurred the fool out of the palm of his hand...almost to the bone.  There was not really any need in standing on the bird's head, he wasn't going anywhere.  It had to hurt like the devil, & it wasn't too funny at the time, but it makes a great story now when we recall it.

Jim
 

[nhtrkybstr]

OUCH!

[Bobbyparks]

Good job guys and congrats on a fine bird.
 
Sorry to hear about the retalitory spur insert.
 
Have an idea of how that feels

[jedipastorken]

Time heals all wounds right?

Someone ought to start a thread of pics of camo through the years.  For us newbies to the hunting world, I had no idea there was so many choices.  Can you tell the decade by the camo?[;)]

[Cut N Run]

ORIGINAL: jedipastorken

Time heals all wounds right?

Someone ought to start a thread of pics of camo through the years.  For us newbies to the hunting world, I had no idea there was so many choices.  Can you tell the decade by the camo?[;)]

 
You can sort of tell the time period by the camo.  I still have some original trebark from the early 1980s though.  It is faded some, but I use it now & then...especially scouting. I also have some mossy oak treestand coveralls made of early microfleece from when it first came out. It doesn't see the woods much anymore either.
 
My first camo duds were Vietnam-era field jacket & pants. They were much better than nothing. When I was in high school, I painted a brown canvas hunting coat with acrylic paints to look like cat tails and brown lilly pads for duck hunting.  I walked about 60 yards from one of my hunting buddies and he totally lost sight of me. Kinda makes me wish I'd taken the idea and run with it.  Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
 
Jim
 
Jim

[Fan Club]

Jim-
 
I'm fairly certain that is the Advantage Timber pattern in your picture which according to the Realtree site timeline was introduced in 2000. Spartan is a division of Realtree so it may have been released earlier in some areas before it went national. You probably just don't want to admit you got gray hair in the last 9 years. LOL.
 
I like the idea of a Camo thread. I'm sort of a collector of camo patterns and my hunting closet looks like the evolution of modern camo. I have Crumley's TreeBark and Kelly Cooper's Tru-Leaf (defunct). In Realtree patterns, All Purpose Gray & Brown, Advantage Classic, Realtree X-tra Gray & Brown, Timber, Hardwoods, Wetlands and the newer AP & APG. Never been real big on Mossy Oak but have some of that and of course the military Woodlands camo. I've bought a couple items in second hand stores just to have a sample of the pattern. Probably not too many folks that would do that.
 

[Fan Club]

> Can you tell the decade by the camo? <
 
Ken- here's link to the camo timeline on the Realtree site...cool stuff.
 
http://www.realtree.com/camo/timeline.php
 
Not sure, but I think Mossy Oak now has something similar on their web site.
 

[Cut N Run]

I'll have to check with the shooter on the year for that picture.  I know the shooter's britches were also new at the time too, if that tells anything.  I got the Spartan stuff from a sporting goods store where I used to work somewhere around then, so I know I'm close.  2000 is way too late as I was wearing glasses full time by the mid-1990's.
 
Sad as it makes me, grey hair has been a reality for me for the last decade. There is more grey than brown these days.  I don't care what color my hair turns though, as long as it don't turn loose.
 
Jim