On a cool, clear spring morning many years ago I heard my first longbeard. The sound of it was faint and at first I doubted what I'd heard. I strained my ears in the direction of the sound as the gray light sifted through the trees along the narrow branch. A few moments passed without a repeat of the sound so I pulled out a box call and scratched out three tentative yelps. The tom gobbled back fro
m the hardwoods along the edge of a flowing well. It's hard to describe what I felt in that moment. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Talk about kick starting your heart! That gobble struck me like flint on steel and set me on fire with a kind of wild joy. The only thing that existed in that moment was the bird and me and the ground we occupied. After having set up and him answering my call I waited for as long as I could stand. I put the gun in my lap and picked up the box call at the same instant the gobbler stepped into the opening my barrel had been pointing at just a moment before. My education had begun with a painful lesson. Lucky for me, I struck another bird later that morning. I settled back against a young pine and held onto my gun like it was the last thing keeping me from pitching off a steep bank into a gator hole. Soon after I was wrapping my first tag around the leg of a beautiful two-year old gobbler. That's how it all began and all these years later the sound of gobbling toms still lights my fire. In 2010 my love for turkey hunting and calling in longbeards led me to start making mouth calls for myself and a few hunting buddies. By the time the year 2011 rolled around Strut Buster had formed and ever since I've been making custom turkey mouth calls for die hard turkey hunters in the Lowcountry and beyond. It's been a joy and a privilege to hear all the stories of how Strut Buster calls have been used to fool many a wary ol' tom. And it has always been my hope that they would enhance the hunter's experience of the turkey woods...
God bless,
Geoff Burden