John Hoenig - Garden Variety: The American Tomato from Corporate to Heirloom

Copyright 2013 John Higley and JJ Reich

All photos taken by John Higley unless otherwise noted.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-62873-704-2
eISBN: 978-1-62914-042-1

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M any of the columns reproduced in this book would not have been possible without the input of several recognized professionals in the world of turkey hunting. The people involved include friends and acquaintances, some of whom, such as Paul Butski, Ray Eye, Matt Morrett, and Billy Yargus, Ive shared hunting camps with. Others who helped are Alex Rutledge, Eddie Salter, Preston Pittman, Chris Parrish, Mark Coin, and Ronnie Cuz Strickland. Their affiliations are duly noted in the chapters that follow.

Also noted in one chapter is the late Ben Rogers Lee, one of the first turkey hunting gurus and pitchmen. I first met Lee when he came to California on the seminar circuit and later shared an Idaho elk camp with him. To put it mildly, he was a unique individual.

This book is the brainchild of my coauthor, JJ Reich, who brought it to my attention and Jay Cassell, Editorial Director of Skyhorse Publishing. Cassell, an avid turkey hunter, nursed us through the process of putting this work together, andwhat do you knowafter months of sweating over the little things and long hours in front of computer screens, this book is finally a reality.

John Higley

October 31, 2013

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JOHN HIGLEY

D uring my teenage years in California, my only contact with turkey hunting was occasional stories from the East in what were then the big three outdoor magazines: Outdoor Life , Field & Stream , and Sports Afield . In the 1950s and early 1960s, there were no viable populations of wild turkeys in the Golden State, but thanks to the efforts of dedicated biologists with the Department of Fish and Game, that was about to change.

This was a time when game departments across the land were successfully growing the number of wild turkeys in their historic range and introducing them in suitable habitats far and wide where they were never known before. The result of their efforts is the nationwide interest in turkey hunting that we know today and the growth of a hunting industry in which turkeys are the driving force.

John Higley.

In California, the first fall hunting season was held in 1968, and the first spring season was in April 1971. I became aware of turkeys when the late Chuck Graves, a Game Department Biologist involved in the introduction program, invited me to spend the day in a makeshift blind he constructed at a bait site specifically for photography. It was a misty day, so the photos I took are not the best, but I was really close to wild turkeys for the first time. A short time later, Graves invited me to participate in the first spring season, and I eagerly took him up on his offer. The season was only a week long, and it was limited to all or part of just nine counties, but it was indeed a historic event.

As far as I know, I was the only outdoor writer in the field, and I was certainly one of the luckiest hunters. I killed my first tom the first morning and wrote the first turkey hunting story ever from California. Spring Gobbler Gossip appeared in Outdoor Life in April 1972.

I have been writing about turkey hunting ever since, sometimes more than a dozen articles in a year, and I wrote the book Hunting Wild Turkeys In The West in 1990. Ive contributed to several other books and done seminars for sporting goods stores and sports shows for the past twenty-five years.

Happily, I live in prime turkey country. Wild turkeys, lured by the toms that live permanently on my place, have been known to come into my small pasture by the dozen. Long before spring, I head for the hills often to sit in a blind where I watch, listen to, and photograph flocks of turkeys just being turkeys.

I have been fortunate enough to hunt turkeys in a variety of locations across several different states. I am not as widely traveled as some, but I have hunted enough to conclude that turkeys are turkeys wherever they are found, and the things I do at home work everywhere given the right circumstances. The main difference from one place to another lies in the landscape and weather conditions hunters have to deal with. Ive hunted turkeys in South Dakota snow, Nebraska wind, California heat, and most everything in between. I must say, even after forty-two years of hunting turkeys and interacting with them nearly everyday, I still eagerly await the opening of the spring season each year. God willing, Ill be at it for many years to come.

JJ REICH

My dad introduced me to deer hunting when I was 12 years old. However, I never had a chance to shoot a deer in my first five years of hunting. I was always unsuccessful, and I wanted to give up hunting altogether.

Fortunately, I didnt. That next year, I sat in my usual hunting spot. I concentrated hard on staying still while looking and listening for deer. An hour later, I got bored and decided to take a quick break. I opened some beef jerky and took a bite. Suddenly, I heard the sound of leaves crunching. I scanned the woods for movement and saw a blur of brown hair. I looked harder and from the bushes came a big eight-point buck! I was so excited that I gasped for air and started to choke on the piece of jerky. I coughed, and the deer stopped. I raised my shotgun, took aim, and pulled the trigger for a dead-on shot. After that, I was hooked on hunting.

JJ Reich.

I graduated college in the spring of 1997 with a degree in business administration and a minor in speech communication. I was hired by a large information technology consulting firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I worked as a computer programmer, then a programming consultant. During those same years, I was introduced to the great sport of wild turkey hunting. I shot my first gobbler the spring of 2001 in Wisconsin. I have been addicted to turkey hunting ever since.

After working six years as a computer-programming consultant, the information technology industry finally chewed me up and spit me out. So, I turned my sights on becoming an outdoor writer. I quickly found this was a difficult task, but much more enjoyable and rewarding.

In 2003, I was hired by North American Media Group to coordinate and write the Field-Tested and Recommended section of North American Hunter and North American Fisherman magazines. I simultaneously pursued freelance outdoor writing.