The article about my hunt with former Army Staff Sgt. and Medal of Honor recipient Clinton Romesha is out today in the digital edition of the National Wild Turkey Federation's Turkey Country magazine (excerpt and link below). Romesha received the Medal of Honor for his valor in combat during the fight for Combat Outpost Keating, Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan on Oct. 3, 2009.
He is a great guy and we had success in tough conditions. You can see a video from the hunt and a video of Clint, or "Ro" as many call him, explaining the excellent knife he designed as part of the Case/Winkler Knives "American Hero Series" here.
Although I have many fan/beard mounts, I have never had a turkey mounted life-size. I've shot bigger toms, but this bird is at the taxidermist. Ro graciously gave me the beard off his bird and I'm adding it to the mount along with an inscription that the mount contains the beards of both birds we took that afternoon.
Thanks for checking in!
Sitting in a large, freshly plowed Indiana farm field, his camouflaged body tucked behind a partial blind next to an overgrown rock pile, Clinton Romesha gave himself constant, quiet reminders to remain cool.
Yes, it was a warm and windy afternoon, but the type of “cool” Romesha, a former Army staff sergeant, sought was of the “Here they are. Be still. Be calm. Be patient.”
The trio of wild gobblers slowly approached over his right shoulder, advancing on our position from a totally opposite direction than expected. When they rounded the large rock pile we had tucked up against, the turkeys would quickly see our small, single-person blinds and gain a tactical advantage.
Sure enough, the three long beards popped into view, just 15-20 yards from Romesha, and briefly halted their advance as they sized up the situation.
“Once I saw them close, the blood pressure and heart rate picked up a bit. I told myself, ‘Don’t move.’ But then they started drifting away and you could tell by their body language something wasn’t quite right,” Romesha said. “They didn’t beat feet, but you could see by their posture that game time was about over.”
For the rest of the article, click here to go to Turkey Country magazine.
The video below has some scenes from the hunt. We used a Mossberg 535 with a red dot sight. Romesha used Federal's new TSS ammo and I used Winchester Long Beard XR.
If you haven't read his book "Red Platoon, A True Story of American Valor," you should really order a copy. Led by Romesha and a few other brave men, an outpost that was largely indefensible was held during a fierce battle against a much larger force.
In this video below, Romesha explains the knives in the American Hero Series. His "Hambone" knife is a sturdy product, and all of the knives are of the type and quality that they're destined to become family heirlooms.
