“With a Little Help from Our Friends”

By: Braden Arp

“What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ear, and I’ll sing you a song. I will try not to sing out of key.” No matter what genre you prefer, those lyrics are relevant to most everyone at one point or another. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we just need a little help, and what better place to find that help than from a friend?

Opening day of turkey season is a coveted tradition for some and the end of weeks of compulsion and anxiety for others. Be it what it may, it was here and there was no denying that.

Let me take a minute and give a bit of background information of our club president, Mark. Three years ago, Mark was involved in an ATV accident that left him banged up and out of commission for some time. As it was, the wounds healed and he was back in the game on our 2300 acre lease.

A year passed and things were back to normal, as normal gets for an avid outdoorsman I suppose. I can still remember someone standing to the surrounding crowd at an early season Friday night football game, which is about as close as it gets to an opening day. “Mark has been in another accident. He was hit head on by a car load of teenagers.” Assuming the worst we waited for more news. Later that evening, the word came that Mark and all the teens had made it through the accident but had left Mark with two broken legs. One of the teens was left in intensive care where she later pulled through. I assure you, and so will Mark, that there are far worse things that could have happened that night than two broken legs.

Mark was out of commission yet again, but this time, with a long and painful road to recovery. Several months passed and another doctor visit produced more news that lengthened his stay away from the field. “I have to have another surgery in February. The doctors said the pins in my legs were coming loose and have to be repaired,” he told me.

So with Mark in recovery, turkey season came just as it does with the changing of the seasons in the Deep South. On the other side of the spectrum, sits his good friend Jeff, who is from Ohio and has never turkey hunted before. With Mark being an experienced turkey hunter, and Jeff willing to learn, they made quite a pair. Mark could barely manage an upright position for a minute or so, let alone walk through the woods. The two found a ground blind that sits on the edge of a green food plot that they could drive up to. Jeff helped Mark into the blind, went and parked the truck out of sight, and came back and settled in to the blind. It wasn’t pretty, but they were hunting!

Daylight came and immediately the action picked up. Eight hens flew down in the food plot and thirteen jakes proceeded to accompany them. Jakes were yelping and jakes were attempting to gobble, and Mark and Jeff had decided that a jake would be suitable for the situation. Jeff fired first, and then Mark. Jeff had taken his first turkey and Mark had announced to all in hearing distance of his Remington shotgun that he was indeed back in the game. Elated to say the least, Jeff went and collected the two birds and hauled them back to the truck.

As he was making his way back to the truck to load the birds, another tom sounded off in the distance. Without hesitation, Jeff hurried back to the blind where he found Mark engaged in an in depth conversation with the gobbler. A few minutes passed, and the tom showed himself on top of the hill out in the clearing of the power lines. “The bird done it all,” Mark later said. “He strutted and gobbled, and when he made it to the food plot, he drummed his way into range.” Jeff fired a second round and downed a nice mature ten inch plus gobbler.

Success is easy to define for some, and harder for others I suppose. For some, it’s been a long time coming and hard road to get there, one that would have been impossible to travel without a little help from a friend.