Hunting Success

The hunt had been years and years in the making. Because of growing families and distance, the two of us had yet to be able to walk the turkey woods together. This season was different… Cam Williams and I would at last get to share a springtime tree to lean against.

The pre-dawn air was cool with clear skies on that April 5 morning in Worth County, with the promise of success hovering over us. Fourteen years ago almost to the day, Cam’s father and one of my veterinary mentors passed away unexpectedly. The loss left an understandably enormous hole in Cam’s life, who was then 18 years old and a senior in high school.

Dr. Williams’ death created an emptiness inside of me, too. Not only was he an outstanding veterinarian, but he also was a highly skilled outdoorsman, often sharing his array of expertise with the young and naïve Dr. Curtis that I was.

Shortly before he died, he gave me a camouflage hat, and that has become THE hat that I wear turkey hunting. It’s a way for me to include my former teacher and friend in my hunts.

On this recent hunt in 2025, Cam and I (with my hat from his dad) set out in search of a gobbler on the very land that Dr. Williams taught his only son how to hunt. Cam won’t admit it, but he is unbelievably talented as a hunter and fisherman. Well, he had a great teacher.

As the eastern sky began to lighten, a gobble rocketed through the morning air and sent that expectant shiver up our spines. Game on! However, the gobbler was right on a property line. Knowing this fact, Cam and I set up as close as we comfortably could without crowding the line. The bird seemed a bit interested, answering Cam’s hen call intermittently. But then, as many turkeys do, he flew down from his roost and became silent.

We gave him a good hour but never heard another gobble. Deciding to move locations, we slowly walked along and talked. Cam would periodically point to a tree or a spot in the woods and tell a story of his dad and him years before hunting the same lineage of turkeys that we were stalking that day.

At one spot, Cam got out his box call and let out a series of smooth yelps. A gobbler cut him off! We scrambled to set up, and Cam called another time. The bird answered again, and he was closer. This was a done deal, or so we thought. Unfortunately, the gobbler was in a neighbor’s field, and just as he got to the property line, a truck eased down the field edge, spooking our bird. That’s how turkey hunting often goes, and we couldn’t help but laugh.

We made our way back to the golf cart to drive to another area of the property. As we rounded a slight curve in the golf cart, two turkeys with red heads stepped out into the road. Cam threw his binoculars to his eyes, then put them back down, shaking his head.

“Jakes,” he said.

Instead of running off, the pair of jakes took their time exiting the scene, giving Cam and me a few minutes to sit and talk and admire the beautiful spot around us. The colorful open patch by the woods road was full of an assortment of wildflowers, with a pleasant breeze blowing in our faces. At this point, our talk turned to our faith in Christ. I realized that God had put those jakes there at that moment at that exact spot to catch our attention. It worked!

The rest of the morning was uneventful in terms of hunting, and we never heard another gobble… but the conversation we shared was rich. Almost as an afterthought, Cam said, “Let me drive you down this road and show you a spot we have with some big white oaks. It’s really pretty down there.”

The road led toward the opposite end of the property and dead-ended into a small food plot with huge white oaks on the left. Just beyond the food plot ran the main highway and a small church. Cam and I were talking about how good of a spot that was for deer, when we suddenly saw a thick, white beam in the clover at the far end of the plot, right in line with the church beyond.

Grinning at each other, we drove to the spot of the shed antler and admired it as it lay. The heavy, main-frame 8-point beam had a long brow tine with an almost palmated G2 sporting a kicker point off the back. Cam and I knew the significance of the find. That was the prize of the day; we were never meant to kill a turkey. God led us to the far end of the property, the last point we reached after over four hours of trudging through the woods in search of an ol’ longbeard. I smiled at the thought. It was a lesson in so many ways. God will often reward you in ways that you never see coming, that you never plan. He will point you in the right direction, but you must open your eyes and look for yourself to find what He wants you to see.

If you had asked me the day before how I had hoped our hunt would go, I would have told you that I would want to get on a gobbler at first light, go ahead and set up in the darkness, and get him right off the roost, with a short strutting show before we fired a shot. But God knew what we needed. He used those turkeys to lure us, to keep us in the woods so that we could have more time to talk about things that really matter in life. No, the hunt didn’t go as I had planned… it turned out significantly better.

Our hunt ended at church, literally and symbolically. The hunt wasn’t just a hunt. It was a church service between two believers who had opened their hearts to the Holy Spirit and had gained more than they had ever hoped to receive.

As I think about it all, I can see so clearly why that special morning proved to be one of my most successful hunts… and we didn’t even have a gobbler slung over our shoulders.