For the Mills family of Warren, a quest to take a wild turkey in every state evolved from a pastime to a mission to honor a departed son.
In 1991, Melvin Mills, his wife Pat and son Lamont embarked on what Melvin calls the "Family Slam," the ultimate turkey hunting accomplishment. The Grand Slam is killing all four North American wild turkey sub-species in one year. The World Slam is a Grand Slam plus the Gould's and oscellated sub-species. The Family Slam is to kill a wild turkey in the 49 states that have turkeys. Alaska does not have wild turkeys, but Mills has killed them in Canada.
The quest started as a joyous family bonding exercise, but it became something different in 2000, when Lamont was killed in a two-vehicle automobile accident at age 19.
"It was August 9, 2000," said Melvin, a logging contractor. "Lamont had finished his first year in forestry school and he was in my service truck driving to college. I was driving behind him. A guy hit him head-on. I got the fire put out, but I couldn't get him out. I held him as he died."
Melvin said he wanted to give up the turkey odyssey, but a lawyer friend talked him out of it.
"He told me that Lamont would want us to keep going, and he was right," Mills said. "He loved to hunt twice as much as I do. I carried him out there when he was two or three years old and called up big old gobbler for him to see before the season started. He wasn't worried about Donald Duck or Disney World or any of that from then on. The last two or three turkeys he killed, he killed with a bow."
Miss Pat still hunts flatland turkeys, Mills said, but she has grown weary of walking hilly and mountainous areas.
"My wife has killed more turkeys than most men have," Mills said. "She's so aggravated right now. She called up four different gobblers in Alabama the other day, but she couldn't get a shot."
Miss Pat has the patience to sit statue still all day. Melvin said he doesn't have that kind of nerve.
"I'll be still when I think one is coming," he said, laughing, "so she mostly hunts by herself."
Melvin was alone recently when he notched State 48 in Nevada. It took nearly 10 years to obtain that tag because, he said, the Nevada Department of Wildlife rules for non-resident turkey hunting are too complex to comprehend without expert help.
"The biggest thing is talking to the right person," Mills said. "Up there they have it set up in counties and zones, and they only issue a few non-resident tags here and there. It isn't like our Game and Fish where you can actually call and talk to somebody."
A hunter must first get a list of ranchers that have turkeys on their land, Mills explained. He must then contact a rancher and get written permission to hunt on an official form. Only when you have permission do you buy a hunting license and send the license number and form to the Nevada Wildlife Department, which then issues a permit.
Once Mills finally reached a person that could explain it all to him, the rest was easy. He killed a bird in the snow on his first day.
All that's left now is West Virginia, another mountainous state that Mills said should be easier than Nevada.
The easiest of all, Mills said, was Hawaii.
"I hunted Hawaii before anybody did," Mills said. "I met a guy in Missouri who knew a guy in Hawaii that moved to the Big Island {Hawaii}. He had a bed and breakfast, and he was frustrated because he couldn't kill a turkey. We took a chance and flew over there."
Mills hunted near the Mauna Kea volcano.
"That's a strange place," Mills said. "There are so many turkeys over there. It gets daylight, and turkeys just gobble, gobble gobble. And then it rains, and the sun comes back out and they start gobbling again. And it goes on like that until about 2 o'clock. "
In Delaware, Mills killed an ancient, double-banded gobbler, an even bigger trophy than a double-banded mallard.
In Florida, he killed a double-banded gobbler that also wore a tracking collar. He also killed a collared bird in Texas.
"The collar still worked on that Texas bird," Mills said. "I had no sooner called it in when they {Texas Parks and Wildlife Department employees} were coming up the driveway."
Rhode Island was the hardest hunt. That state isn't much larger in area than our own Union County, and there's so little public land that turkeys mostly live in neighborhoods. It doesn't help that many Rhode Islanders are antagonistic to hunters.
"You go into a restaurant with camouflage on, and yeah, you've got trouble," Mills said. "We had two different occasions when we went in restaurants."
One confrontation involved a staccato-voiced woman who was a perfect foil to the sorghum-voiced Mills and his homespun wit.
"I explained to her why she has so many turkeys in her yard and about the National Wild Turkey Federation," Mills said. "I about had her talked into buying a membership."
Mills has a gift for turning a negative situation into a positive. Lamont's death and the turkey quest opened opportunities to talk about Christian discipleship.
"I carry pictures everywhere I go," Mills said. "I have pictures of the truck he was killed in. I put that truck in my yard for several years and witnessed to people in front of it until my wife couldn't stand it anymore, and I had to move it out, but a lot of people got led to the Lord in front of that truck."
And now, the quest is almost finished. Mills said it will be bittersweet to bag the last bird.
"You don't ever get over losing your kid, and with every hunt, you've always got the pain of wishing he was there," Mills said. "That was our vacation time. The bitter part for me is I have to relive it every time, but it's sweet because I get to see a lot of people spending time with their kids."
The best part, Mills said, has been the friendships he's made sharing his faith and his love of hunting.
Sports on 04/08/2018