To be honest, I thought that the chapter entitled “Mr. Fox’s Last Turkey” had been written three years ago when, at the age of 91 and accompanied by his son and grandsons, Fox Haas shot the longbeard that marked the completion of 75 successful turkey seasons in a row.

 

I can’t tell you exactly how many turkeys that I’ve killed in my 30 years of turkey hunting without consulting my journal and photo album.  However I know this, 75 consecutive years with a turkey is impressive, and so is taking a turkey at the age of 91.

 

When the now viral Instagram post appeared on my feed last week showing Mr. Fox, now 94, once again surrounded by his family and smiling with a trophy longbeard, I couldn’t help but smile as well.

 

As I thought about his accomplishment, a lyric from John Prine’s song “Hello in There” came to mind: “You know that old trees just grow stronger….”

 

After talking with his grandson Daniel this week, I can’t think of a more fitting way to describe both Mr. Fox’s legacy and the legacy of the family that is Mossy Oak.

 

Daniel explained that his grandad’s turkey in 2022 felt like a miracle.  Mr. Fox has dealt with lifelong health issues after being bedridden with tuberculosis for three years as a young man.

 

By the end of the 2020 season, the family had begun to think that perhaps Mr. Fox had completed his last turkey hunt.  It was an emotional time for the Haas family as their patriarch’s mobility had begun to be impacted, first requiring the use of a cane and then a walker.

 

However, as it turns out, the desire to hunt turkeys can be a powerful motivator.

 

“It’s crazy that it was five years ago,” Haas said, adding, “how lucky we’ve been to get all this extra time with him.”

 

Two springs later, in 2022, Daniel says that they once again felt like it was down to a last chance opportunity.

 

“It felt like the end.  We knew that he could do it.  We knew that he could kill a turkey,” said Haas.

 

At that point, Mr. Fox could still sit with his back to a tree, hold a shotgun, and make the shot if the opportunity presented itself.  The family set about trying to make “one last turkey” a reality, and that’s just what they did.

 

Going into the 2023 season, with his mobility now to a point that precluded the possibility of setting up on a turkey in the woods, Daniel says that no one in the family really thought that turkey hunting would be an option for the elder Haas, no one, that is, but Daniel’s brother Neill.

 

During that season, they were able to use a golf cart to get Mr. Fox into the woods and, although they were unsuccessful in getting him a bird, they did get close to a gobbling longbeard.

 

Daniel credits Neill, who he says can be a “little more bullheaded,” with spearheading the effort to get Mr. Fox another turkey.  In the 2024 season they were also unsuccessful, but they realized what was possible with the cart.

 

Last Thursday, Daniel got the call from Neill that served as the impetus for their successful hunt.

 

“Everybody wants to feel bad for Papaw and thinks that he can’t get out anymore, but I know he can do it.  If we go over there and get him fired up, I know he can do it,” Neill said.

 

By this point, Neill had also perfected his golf cart blind construction methods, so the two felt confident that if their grandad was feeling up to it, getting another turkey could become a reality.

 

That evening Neill brushed in the golf cart in the spot near “Fox’s Corner” where Mr. Fox had killed his last bird and checked the 28-gauge shotgun that he had set up for his papaw’s hunt.  Everything was ready.

 

After Neill’s talk with him about hunting the next day, Mr. Fox was, to use Daniel’s words, “fired up.”  “Having something to look forward to had him in better spirits than he had been in a month,” said Haas, adding, “It’s the best medicine on planet Earth.”

 

The plan was that Neill would wait in the woods with the buggy and Daniel, his father Toxey, and his brother-in-law Vandy would pick Mr. Fox up at 5:15 a.m.  When they arrived, they found the elder Haas sitting in his wheelchair waiting, clad head to toe in Mossy Oak Bottomland.

 

His nurse told them that Mr. Fox had been so excited about the hunt that he was unable to sleep and had gotten up at 2 a.m. to get ready.

 

Rendezvousing with Neill, the group headed in and began getting Mr. Fox into position.  However, they quickly realized that they had forgotten one key element—turkey decoys.

 

Since they normally don’t hunt with decoys, it was an honest mistake.  However, Mr. Fox’s limited mobility makes having decoys more of a necessity.  Daniel drew the short straw and ran the 2.5-mile roundtrip to the truck to retrieve the two hen decoys they were planning to use.

 

Haas said that minutes before he arrived back at the blind, a turkey had gobbled on the opposite end of the field they were hunting.  Fortunately, the turkeys were still out of sight and Neill was able to place the decoys and settle in for the hunt.

 

Within 20 minutes, two longbeards came strutting into range following three hens.  From their position hidden in the trees behind the cart, the brothers heard the gun click twice as Mr. Fox attempted the shot.  Unfortunately, in their rush to set up, the breech on the new gun had not closed completely; however, the veteran hunter’s third attempt was successful.

 

In the surreal moments that followed, Daniel and Neill ran out to retrieve the gobbler and brought it back to place it in the lap of their papaw.  Fox was one happy hunter, a hunter who at 94 has seen more turkey seasons than most and who also played an integral part in bringing the wild turkey back from the brink of extinction here in Mississippi.

 

“After the season opened,” Daniel said emotionally, “Papaw said to everyone that came to visit him, ‘I just want to look down the gun barrel one more time.’”

 

Thanks to the efforts of the turkey hunters that he helped create, Mr. Fox was able to do just that.