I finished up quite quickly in Florida and had a little cockiness behind me as I headed to Memphis. Once I landed there, I drove to Pontotoc, Mississippi. I chose the Eastern for my next bird. After all the fast and great success in Florida, the Eastern, my home state bird, I thought would be no problem. After all I have hunted the Eastern for many years and it is the subspecies I cut my teeth on, so to speak. The flights were messed up from the beginning and that should have been the sign that I was not big enough for the ego I had developed. God has a way of keeping me in check, when I act up. When I ignore Him, things go from bad to worse for me.

As in this case. I started hunting with Richard (Mississippi) Stafford, the very next day. He had told me that it would be a rough go, because the weather had slowed the natural cycle for the bird way down. I thought, ah, we will be done by noon. Well, seven days and two states later, the Eastern bird had put me in my place and had humbled me, beyond belief. My native bird and it was going to make me wait to try and get him back in Michigan. I spent the seven days with Richard going from Mississippi to Alabama and back. I even called upon Norman Sneed of Mossy Oak, who was so gracious to let me drive over, thirty miles away and take a stab at it with him. Our luck was not the same in Mississippi as it was in Florida. We could get the birds in to about eighty yards and that was it. The hens were a real pain, in my, you know what. The only thing I managed to called in was a cottonmouth snake, in Alabama. I came very close to getting a real taste of the South. A cottonmouth is the nastiest smelling creature on the planet, by the way. We gave it a good hard try, but time ran out and I had to leave and head to Texas. The season was opening and I needed to get the Rio out of the way quickly to make up for all the time I wasted chasing the Mississippi Eastern.

Still not learning the lesson God was trying to teach, I arrived in Texas with the attitude that Rios are everywhere in this state, this shouldn't take long. What can I say, I am a slow learner. If Mississippi hadn't taught me anything, Texas did. From day one, birds where everywhere. They flew down out of the trees, landed, and came across the fields like little soldiers going to battle. I had so many to choose from, the problem was picking one. No hitting one. That's right, I have no shame, so I will admit that I missed more times that I can count. The Texas countryside is littered with my arrows. After messing up on several birds, my guide Allen, plain gave up on me. I do think, that he believed I was hopeless. The cockiness was slowly wearing off, like a faded tan and what was remaining was totally erased when the flooding started. When they say it’s flooding down in Texas, it is! I could not get to the birds at all, not without drowning in the process, so they relocated me to higher ground a few hours away. The only problem was that now I had maybe five birds to choose from in the whole area.

Friends that I had worked with in Michigan ran a hunting operation in Tilden, Texas. I chased the Toms around here for a while and even got to shoot a javelina along the way. In addition, two rattlesnakes both over five feet long. One, I had to shoot in the head with my bow, since he was a little closer than was comfortable for me. It had a different terrain in Tilden than I am use to. A more desert feel to it. It made for a rougher hunt. On the last day there I had an opportunity to shoot at a nice Tom, but thought it was too far and decided against it. Looking back, I should have took the shot. The flooding had stopped and once again I had found myself hunting South Texas with Allen and Rueben. I was sure at this point they had no patience left for me, but took me out hunting anyway.

Finally on the day before I had to leave for the Jungle, I got a good shot on my Rio. I shot him through the hips as Bill Zearing, had taught me. He ran, but couldn't fly and finally after two and a half weeks, I had a second turkey to add to my slam. This went way slower than the arrogant Susan had thought. I was supposed to be able to do it in one month. God's lesson was finally sinking in. It wasn't going to be as easy as it started out to be. If I didn't take a good look at the whole goal, I would definitely mess it up and fail. I was relieved that I had number two bird down and I was a little worried about going into the jungle and meeting up with the unknown. Since the only place I was going to find my next bird was in this place, Central America is where I headed too.