Letters To The Editor: February 2025

Reader Contributed | February 2, 2025

Jase Wiley with an Early County buck he killed with 30 minutes of daylight left on the final day of deer season.

Down To The Wire In Extended Firearm County

Dear GON,

My son, Jase Wiley, 7, brought it down to the final 30 minutes of the extended rifle season in Early County yesterday (Jan. 15) and was finally able to harvest his first deer to bring home.

He has been hunting hard with me since around Thanksgiving. He has let several young bucks go that he had in the crosshairs and said he wanted to let them go to be able to grow some more.

The last few weeks had him getting really anxious that he wasn’t going to get something this season. He never gave up, even in the 25- to 35-degree morning temperatures we have had lately. He stuck with me every time I was able to take him and thankfully an older, mature deer stepped out just in the nick of time to give him the perfect broadside shot with his .350 Legend. The rest is history after that…

Yesterday’s hunt is a hunt that I’ll never forget. I’m very thankful that I was able to be sitting alongside him in the deer stand. He has already told me he is now ready for a gobbler this spring.

Thanks,

Justin Wiley

Remembering Arthur Truelove

Dear GON,

I read your editorial in the December 2024 issue that mentioned Arthur Truelove. Funny enough, my wife’s grandfather was his best friend, JE Jake Poole. We both knew Arthur, and he would join our family for holidays.

JE and Arthur were master woodsmen and hunted Piedmont NWR deer and turkey for decades. They were also grouse hunters in the north Georgia mountains, always on public land. GON did a story on Arthur in December 2019.

These two were also passionate trout fishermen. Arthur’s nickname was “Fat,” and by the time I came into the family, their hunting and fishing days were coming to an end, but I asked them to tell all the old stories. My father-in-law, Delma Simmons, is still alive, and we always hunt one of the turkey quota hunts and primitive-weapon deer hunts at Piedmont. Delma has been hunting Piedmont for 50 years, much of that time with Jake and Arthur.

As good of a deer hunter as Jake and Fat were, their real passion was turkeys. My box call was one of Arthur’s, passed to me from Delma, from Jake, from Arthur.

Arthur was the colorful character, but Jake was the quieter, wiser leader. Too many stories to mention but all of what I know about turkey hunting came from Fat, Jake and Delma.

Chuck Gray