Published: April 03, 2008 11:36 pm            

The passing of a turkey hunting legend

A pioneer in the world of turkey hunters has died. Earl Mickel, of Beach Lake, Pennsylvania, died last July 12 after a lengthy battle with cancer. The inimitable gentleman made a hunt with Jack Dudley and me in Kemper County. It is hard to realize it was eight years ago this week, but there it is, written in his handwriting in the book he gave me. “To Otha, Warmest regards, good hunting, shoot no jakes! Earl Mickel 3-24-2000.”

The book is his second on turkey callmakers. The man traveled the back roads of this country searching and finding hundreds of men who fashion callers for talking with wild turkeys. The impact of his first book on the turkey hunting fraternity led him to publish a second book. Both books are biographical vignettes of custom caller makers throughout the land, more than 200 in all, with several Mississippians included, some from our local area.

Shortly before he died, Mikel reached a goal that perhaps no one ever attempted and likely no one else ever will. He killed a gobbler in every state in the country that has a wild turkey season, 49 states in all (Alaska has no turkey season), and he took each bird with a caller made in that state. No one but a dedicated caller collector would even attempt such a feat and it would appear that his record will live on indefinitely in turkey hunting lore.



Bad turkey



On the day of our Kemper County hunt, we talked of gobblers we had encountered as turkey hunters do. I was bemoaning the many defeats at the hands of a certain gobbler that I had been hunting for three years. I noted that I believed he could not be called nor fooled in any way. I had crawled into his roost area before daylight, approaching from different and difficult directions and done all the things hunters do to fool such gobblers that we call “bad” turkeys.

Mikel immediately told me to gobble to him, and Jack Dudley agreed. You see, what they were thinking was that this bird had to be old or I couldn’t have been working him three years. At some point in a dominant bird’s later life, a younger bird will sense his diminished fighting ability and challenge him for his position of ruling the local hens and thus the flock.

When the young challenger moves in and gobbles in the monarch’s territory, it infuriates the old bird and he is likely to rush in for a fight with a sense of desperation. The hunter who can impersonate the interloper sometimes can cause the old bird to temporarily lose his discipline and come in for a fight.

This is a great strategy for bad turkeys. It may not work this year or the next, but eventually he will be replaced by a younger gobbler and that is when he is vulnerable. In my case, another hunter pulled this very trick on my old bird and killed him before I got the chance. That’s the way it goes sometimes and such are the experiences that build turkey hunting traditions. (For safety reasons, using a gobbling call is not recommended in woods where other hunters could be around.)



Unique quest



Like no other man, Mikel searched out hundreds of caller makers from every state, met and interviewed them and spent nights in their homes and turkey camps. These men included many who just made a few callers and were not even recognized beyond their local county or town. Then he wrote wonderful information about them in his books; their preferences in callers and guns and loads. He wrote about their other hobbies and other aspects of their lives. What an interesting journey this must have been for the man.

Any of us who write will affirm that every single person has a story. And regardless of what life has dealt them, their stories are interesting. I envy Mikel’s experiences.

His status as a caller collector is probably unequaled. He collected callers everywhere he went, finally owning more than 100 Neil Cost callers crafted by the craftsman from Greenwood, South Carolina widely accepted as our generation’s finest caller maker, and through his writings and other promotional works he publicized and helped establish the value of callers to collectors. He solidified the reality that caller making was an important art form.

Mikel’s collection grew to proportions that saw him add two rooms to his house in which to store the callers. Before he died he turned his callers over to a friend, Bill Jones III, who is also a collector. The collection is worth millions. Jones intends to keep the collection intact.

(Note: Earl Mikel’s first book is entitled “Callmakers Past and Present.” It is out of print and copies in good condition brought more than $1,000 even before his death. His second book is “Turkey Callmakers Past and Present: the Rest of the Best,” published in 1999 and now also out of print and worth as much as 10 times its original cost. His last book, “Longbeards, Callmakers and Memories,” may be his best writing yet.)

        

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