I haven't been to Jackson Point in nine years. The last time ended with me killing a gobbler with an 11-inch beard in the company of a character known as "The Witness."
We haven't heard from The Witness in so long that it's safe to bring him out of the witness protection program. The Witness is Sheffield Nelson, a prominent political figure and philanthropist who served on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission from 2000-07.
After Nelson's term on the commission ended, we began hunting together at Jackson Point, an island between the levees on the Mississippi River. Our initial goal was to bag a black squirrel. They are common at Jackson Point, but they made themselves scarce during hunts that were so rife with miscues and near misses that they became a long-running series.
My first visit was in July 2007 when Nelson and I watched a mature tom turkey stroll through the camp gobbling like it was April. I wouldn't have mentioned it without a witness to attest to the claim, hence the name.
In 2011, while I was recovering from a grueling battle with cancer, Nelson prescribed a healthy dose of turkey hunting to help set me right. I learned a lot hunting with Nelson, an accomplished and knowledgeable turkey hunter. I even managed to kill a few birds. One of the most memorable birds is one that I didn't kill.
Nelson wanted to hunt a spot that was too confined to accommodate a partner, so he directed me to a small field planted in oats and winter wheat. Thick woods surrounded the field, which was accessible only by a narrow maintenance trail.
The spot was ideal. I sat against a big hackberry tree that shielded me from behind. The thicket's curvature also concealed me from the sides. A thin beard of brush between me and the food plot fragmented my silhouette from the front. I placed a decoy about 20 yards in front at an angle so that an approaching gobbler would be less likely to look my direction.
As was my habit in those days, I called too much and called too loud, but on this occasion I attracted an audience. A gobble boomed from the road leading to the food plot. The bird gobbled several more times in response to my calls, and after a few minutes he marched into the food plot with a subordinate gobbler in tow. High-stepping across the furrows, he presented himself to the decoy and unfurled his royal robe.
In Arkansas, a legal gobbler must have a beard longer than 6 inches or a fan containing uniform length feathers, without the telltale "finger" feathers in the middle of a Jake's fan that rise above the others. This gobbler had a tiny little beard that pointed straight out like a pencil.
For about 20 minutes, the tom gobbled and strutted while his subordinate hovered in the background, but the strutter never gave me a direct view of his fan. He retracted his fan when he faced me or turned away.
Multiple times the gobbler turned to leave, and multiple times I called him back, but I could not determine his legality. Finally the bird folded his feathers and headed for the woods one last time. I lowered my gun and watched him walk away. I got the big aforementioned gobbler later that evening.
Nelson and I relived that story and many others as we drove Jackson Point's dusty roads.
"Remember that gobbler we called in to that food plot down that road over there?" Nelson asked.
"The one I missed? I still see him in my dreams. His beard grows a half inch every time he visits," I said, prompting laughter.
We also relived two hunts in floods when we had to boat in to Jackson Point.
The tour ended at the rifle range where we sighted in a couple of muzzleloaders and a pair of Nelson's Weatherby rifles. Nelson and I visited well into the night, reliving hunts and reminiscing about his time on the Game and Fish Commission, a momentous period of which he is very proud.
Leaving Jackson Point the next morning, I took mental snapshots of dirt roads and trails that lead to fond memories. A dark blur at an intersection made me stop.
At the base of an oak tree sat a big black squirrel nibbling on an acorn. It was the same oak tree where I finally got my black squirrel all those years ago.