MERIDIAN —    Tee Foy killed his first gobbler at nine years of age and called his first bird to the gun one week later. The avid hunter called up his first bird for someone else at the age of 12, and made his first successful guide trip at 19. From then on he had a passion for calling birds for other people and has been very successful at that. According to Foy one thing sets the best turkey hunters apart from any other thing and that is patience. Sure, you have to know the basics and have experience, but after that, calling and patience are the keys to harvesting the battle worn and call shy gobblers.

    Foy carried nine-year-old Holt Irving on his first turkey hunt a few years ago and called a bird to 10 steps. Irving shot the gobbler only 10 minutes after Foy began his magic.  From that moment on Foy wanted to guide other hunters and kids in particular.

    “I get twenty times the pleasure of taking a kid hunting,” said Foy. “I’ve been in a wheelchair for 10 years now and I’ve got to get to a place I can call and I learned real quick that I can’t move on them. And that takes patience times twenty.”

    “I’ve learned over the years that if you sit there and call in an area that has turkeys, a bird is going to come by that tree before the day is over, it’s 100% true!”

    “Chris Peusch and I went on a hunt last year and a bird gobbled 400 to 500 yards off and I told him that this was going to be an 11:00 kill,” said Foy. “We set up before daylight and it took a lot of patience with a little clucking, purring and yelps along the way.” The gobbler was still interested and had made it to within 200 yards at 10:00. “Thirty minutes later he came in and Chris shot him a little after 11:00,” Foy said. Most folks would have been long gone by then, but Foy knows a thing or two about calling birds and a little thing called patience!

    An untimely accident left Foy paralyzed at the age of 25 and led to “The Challenge”. “I had my accident in February and honestly thought I’d never hunt again,” said Foy. “I was given a challenge and found myself hunting with my cousin Dendy Blankenship on April Fool’s day. We located a gobbler and I did some cutting, and excited calls and got him stirred up. I handed her a gobble tube to shake and looked up and 3 gobblers were running right towards us and she killed a big one,” he concluded. Foy had answered the challenge with a resounding affirmative by doing what he knows best, successfully calling turkeys!

    Foy continued hunting from that moment on and eventually founded S.H.A.R.E. (Safe Hunting Adventures and Recreational Exploring) for kids about a year and a half ago. “I wanted to give disabled kids a chance to experience the outdoors including hunting and fishing so we started an organization to give them that chance while including kids that are able bodied,” Foy said. The idea is to give those kids a chance to succeed in the outdoors and life, while also getting them involved in the mainstream with other children that are able bodied and to have fun in the process.

    “The main thing is that I’m in this wheel chair and I get to see what they need,” said Foy. “And we’ll pair them up with kids that are able bodied and take them hunting and fishing.” Last year we had about six fishing rodeos and some other outdoor events including trapping. And this has been a great year for deer hunting with several kids taking deer. Dylan Thomas was one of the children that got a deer while hunting with us. All of our stands are handicapped accessible and children with cancer and other disabilities have been participating also.”

    If you’d like more information about S.H.A.R.E. and upcoming events contact Tee Foy at coachteevf@gmail.com, or via telephone at 601-859-4427 or check them out on Facebook.



Contact  Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or e-mail him at mikegiles18@comcast.net.