Realtree-GON Kidʼs Dream Turkey Hunt

As advertised, the Kids Dream Turkey Hunt provided by Realtree and GON was much more than just a turkey hunt. Thanks to the great folks at Realtree, 12-year-old Brett Garrett had the time of his life.

Saturday, April 17, 1999 was cold. After nearly two weeks of beautiful, warm spring weather, the morning low dropped to 40 following a storm front. Though the day was clear with bluebird skies, 25 mph winds were up an hour after daylight. Hunters could barely hear their own calling over the wind,  much less a gobbler 100 yards off. It certainly wasn’t for lack of an experienced hunting guide — Brett was guided by Bill Jordan himself, founder and president of Realtree. Bill and his staff went all out to show Brett a great time.

The trip began on Friday afternoon, April 16. Brett and his dad Barry, who are from Powder Springs, arrived at the headquarters of Jordan Outdoor Enterprises in Columbus, home of Realtree Outdoors television and video productions and Spartan-Realtree camouflage. Brett and Barry got a personal tour of the headquarters with Bill Jordan and David Blanton, the executive producer of the TV and video productions. Realtree fans know David from the Monster Bucks VI-Volume 2 video, on which David takes a 176 Boone & Crockett 14-pointer, the biggest buck ever harvested while the Realtree cameras were rolling.

The tour started in Bill’s office, where Brett got a look at some new ad designs for the No. 71 NASCAR Realtree race car. Then it was on to one of the camouflage product showrooms, where Bill handed out some Team Realtree caps.

“Who’s your favorite NASCAR driver?” Bill asked Brett, as he selected another cap, a special No. 3 Realtree cap.

“Jeff Gordon!” Brett replied.

“I like Earnhardt,” Barry said, raising his hand.

“We’ll give this one to your dad,” Bill joked.

On to the conference and planning room, where the walls are decorated with shirts, jackets and gear in all the Realtree and Advantage camouflage patterns. Then to the marketing department, a huge room filled with office cubicles and where the walls are lined with more than two dozen mounts of monster whitetail bucks, all taken by Bill with bow or gun. Bill pointed out bucks that had come from Mexico, all over the United States, and Canada. He also pointed out the Georgia bucks he had taken with bow and gun.

The video editing suites were the next stop on the tour. Brett and Barry met Ray Brown, chief video editor, who was working with some home video footage sent in by a Realtree fan. The hunter had filmed two monster bucks locking horns in a brutal fight.

“This will probably become part of the Monster Bucks VII video,” David Blanton said.

Before the tour ended, it was back to David’s office where Brett got a gift package: a new shirt, jacket, pants, gloves, headnet and a turkey-hunting vest in Realtree camouflage.

Next, Bill, Brett, and Barry met up with Realtree pro-staff member Michael Waddell and his wife, Lori, and they were off to get dinner at Country’s restaurant. While live bluegrass pickers played, Bill, Brett and Michael talked hunting, racing and baseball over barbecue ribs.

Dinner on Friday night was barbecue ribs at Countryʼs restaurant in Columbus. Brett and Barry dined with Bill Jordan, Realtree Pro-Staffer Michael Waddell, and Michaelʼs wife Lori. On the far right is Countryʼs manager Bobby Padgett.

Brett — a likeable young man who loves to hunt and says “Sir?” instead of “Huh?” — was already thoroughly impressed and overwhelmed with his reception… and the trip was still far from over.

From the restaurant the crew headed to the Realtree Circle-N Ranch, a 5,000-acre property just across the Chattahoochee River in Lee County, Alabama, where they met Chuck Sikes, the ranch hunting manager (in 2012, Chuck would become Director of the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries). Bill had checked out all of the hunting possibilities, including land in Harris County, Georgia, and concluded that he and Brett would have the best chance of nailing a longbeard on the Alabama property.

By the time Brett and Barry arrived at Circle-N, it was too late to get out and do some bass fishing on the three lakes in front of the lodge, so everyone went inside to the big screen TV and watched a video filmed by the Realtree crew only two days before in Harris County. It was a film of Bill and his 7-year-old son, Tyler, on Tyler’s first turkey hunting trip with his dad. Bill called in three longbeards, who strutted and gobbled for the camera before Bill bagged the biggest one.

Brett and Barry were also impressed with their accommodations: the Circle-N lodge is filled with trophies, from two monster whitetails and a massive elk over the giant fireplace, to mounted gobblers in every corner of the main room. Brett took on his dad in a game of pool, and later took on Bill in a Fooze Ball match. After a round of video highlights from Realtree productions, it was time to turn in and get ready for the morning hunt.

The next morning, Bill and Brett did a pretend “set-up” on the floor of the main room, and Bill went over gun safety, how to get the gun on a gobbler that was in sight, and where to aim. They were joined by Realtree cameraman Chuck Sumner, who would film the hunt, and they piled into Bill’s Tahoe and hit the woods.

As I said before, it was a tough morning’s hunt. Even during the calm of the first hour, not a single gobbler revealed itself. Bill, Brett and Chuck hit several good locations, called and listened, and twice they got responses from hens. By 8:30 they were back at the Circle N lodge to try a new approach. Bill owns a gas-powered golf cart, called a Humm-Bugg, that he had specially designed for his hunting. The cart is amazingly quiet and fast, and the three hunters used it to hunt a large portion of the ranch behind the lodge.

Even though the toms were still silent, Brett especially enjoyed this part of the hunt: he got to drive the cart. Bill walked ahead of the cart to call and listen, then Brett and Chuck would pick him up and they would move on to the next stop. They stalked food plots hoping to find a gobbler sunning, they called along every cart path trying to get something started, but the birds were having no part of it that day.

Meanwhile, back at the lodge, Barry was enjoying himself as much as Brett. His first cast with a spinnerbait produced a chunky bass in the lodge lake. By the time Bill and Brett returned just after 12, Barry had caught 25 largemouths.

At lunchtime, the big pines around the lodge were bending and creaking in the stiff wind.

“It’s just no use trying to call in this wind,” Bill said.

You couldn’t tell by Brett’s attitude that the morning hunt had been anything but a great time. He was grinning from ear-to-ear as he told his dad about hearing hens answer Bill’s cutting, and about driving the cart and listening to Bill and Chuck’s calling. After lunch, when Brett and Barry were beginning to realize that the hunting trip must sadly come to an end, they got the biggest surprise of the weekend.

“This morning was terrible,” Bill said. “I want you to get a turkey, Brett. Can you guys come back two weeks from today?”

Brett and Barry didn’t have to think long to answer that question. So, Brett’s Dream Hunt with Realtree was still not over.

Several weeks later, the Realtree-GON Kid’s Dream Turkey Hunt continued. In the Realtree video series, Bill often talks about his personal commitment to getting kids involved in hunting, and in this case he proved that he is a man of action.

On the first trip, Bill personally guided Brett on private land in Lee County, Ala. It would be tough to find a guide with more experience, but on the second trip, to make things double-tough for the gobblers, Bill brought extra help: Ricky Joe Bishop, Realtree Pro-Staff member and 2-time national champion turkey caller. It was appropriate for the Kid’s Dream Hunt that a “Dream Team” of turkey-hunting experts would be guiding Brett on his hunt.

On May 8, Brett and his dad Barry met Bill and Ricky Joe on a private farm in Meriwether County. Ricky Joe had been scouting the property for days and knew of several different pastures being used by gobblers. Before daylight, the team, including Realtree cameraman Steve Finch, made their way to the edge of a creek bottom along one of the pastures. Ricky Joe opened up with an owl hoot, and a gobbler responded immediately from close by in the creek bottom.

Brett grinned.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that sound on a hunt,” he said.

Bill and Brett set up quickly on the edge of the pasture, and Bill put out his decoy. Ricky Joe went back across the pasture and hid in a different location, so that if necessary he could try to convince the gobbler that even more hens were farther out in the pasture, making it likely that the tom would pass within sight of the decoy.

The bird was fairly cooperative—at first. Still on the roost, the tom answered Bill’s box and slate calls steadily, and continued to gobble at crows and owls as well. By 7:30 a.m., sunlight began to fall on the pasture and the gobbling stopped. Bill and Brett hoped that the bird was on the ground and on its way. Brett got his 12-gauge on his knee and got ready.

It wasn’t long before a white head popped up over a terrace out in the pasture. It was a young gobbler, maybe two years old, with an 8- or 9-inch beard, and following close behind it was a jake. But Bill noted immediately that the turkeys seemed to be more interested in feeding in the early sunlight than getting romantic with the decoy. The tom never strutted, fanned or gobbled while it was in sight. The two turkeys pecked at grass seeds and insects out in the pasture, while Bill purred on his slate to try and draw them closer. Brett watched the gobbler over the barrel of the shotgun and waited.

The gobbler finally approached to a distance of about 45 yards, a long shot. Bill told Brett to hold on and wait for a closer, more certain shot. That shot never presented itself.

Brett got to watch the birds for 15 to 20 minutes, and then two hens appeared in a lower corner of the pasture. When the gobbler caught sight of them, it walked off to join them, and the jake followed.

It had been a close call—Brett confessed that it was his heartbeat that Bill had heard while the turkeys passed by.

“Let’s move on,” Ricky Joe said when the hunters met up again. “We’ve got other birds to check on.”

The next stop was a farmhouse on the other side of the property. Through the rails of a fence in the backyard, Ricky Joe and Bill spotted a gobbler out in another pasture. This one was also feeding with hens.

“We’ll have to circle around the pasture and come up from the woods to get to him,” Ricky Joe said.

But by the time the hunters made the circle and set up, the gobbler had apparently vanished. They called for half an hour with no response, and when they slipped up to the pasture to take a look, there was not a turkey to be seen.

On to other spots. Though most hunters would have called it a day when the first turkeys left the scene, Bill and Ricky Joe were relentless. Their efforts were not in vain: at 12:45 p.m., when everyone’s thoughts were starting to focus on a big, juicy cheeseburger, a gobbler volunteered a response to a passing crow. The hunters were standing on the edge of a small pasture at the time, and the gobbler, less than 75 yards away over a low hill, sent them scrambling to set up. Bill stuck up the decoy while Ricky Joe and Brett hid.

The gobbler began to talk. Both Ricky Joe’s crow calling and Bill’s slate call got answers, and everyone was convinced that Brett was moments away from shooting his first gobbler. Then, as turkeys will do, the gobbler got silent for no apparent reason and never showed itself over the hill.

When it became clear that the gobbler was not on the way, the team circled the pasture quietly, trying in vain to locate the bird. Despite more crow calls and more calling on a box, the bird never gobbled again and was never seen.

Real hunting is never guaranteed, and not even pros get a gobbler every day, but Brett still thought the experience was awesome. He got to see turkeys up close and hear plenty of gobbling. He also got a rare opportunity for a beginning hunter: to watch and listen to the calling and techniques of two nationally-known turkey experts.

By all measures, the Kid’s Dream Hunt was exactly that for Brett, thanks to Bill Jordan and his staff at Realtree. The hunt also accomplished a main goal of Realtree and GON: to put young hunters in the spotlight, and introduce them to the joys of hunting. That’s why you can expect more Kid’s Dream Hunts in the future.

GON would like to thank Bill Jordan and everyone at Realtree for the terrific time they showed Brett and his dad. The Realtree crew is often hunting with famous athletes, country music stars, and race car drivers (they were hunting with Dale Earnhardt the week after Brett’s first trip), and the Realtree staff members are national celebrities in their own right, yet they rolled out the red carpet for two GON subscribers from Powder Springs. That says a lot about the fine people at Jordan Outdoor Enterprises.

We know that this will not be the last Kids Day Dream Hunt that GON offers. It will hopefully be one of many. We also hope it won’t be the last time that we team up with Realtree. Your chance for a great deer hunt, turkey hunt or fishing trip may come next year!

On top of everything else, Brett and his dad were given Realtree caps, and Brett got a complete set of camos, including a turkey vest.