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Last year, author Thomas Pero decided to write a book on the few hunters who successfully harvested a gobbler in all 49 states where wild turkeys are found.
To capture their stories, however, Pero had to go on a quest himself.
The National Wild Turkey Federation recognizes those hunters who have bagged a gobbler in 49 states, a task called the Super Slam. So far, 12 hunters have accomplished the feat, and Pero wanted to speak with them all.
Face to face.
“I realized I had a daunting task,” said Pero, who owns a publishing company called Wild River Press.
Pero resides in Washington and the hunters he had to interview, which included Tony Hudak of Noxen, hailed from Texas to Pennsylvania. He thought about interviewing a few over the phone and visiting the others, but that wouldn’t cut it.
“To do it justice and bring out the story, I had to see them all. I had to sit down with them,” Pero said.
So, in June 2016, Pero bought a handful of plane tickets and flew all over the country for two weeks, getting to know some of the top turkey hunters in the country for the first volume of his book, “Turkey Men”.
Pero made stops in Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Indiana, landing at airports, driving rental cars and exploring the countryside where the turkey hunters called home.
“It was a marathon effort,” Pero said. “I’m glad I did it.”
In the middle of June, Pero arrived in Pennsylvania and drove to Noxen to meet Hudak, who had completed the Super Slam months earlier when he bagged a gobbler in Hawaii.
Hudak recalls the day that Pero called him, seeking his interest to be interviewed for the book.
“I was surprised and wasn’t sure at first,” Hudak said. “I never expected it. But I decided to do it because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime honor to be included in a book like this, detailing every aspect of what it took to achieve the Super Slam.”
Hudak didn’t intentionally set out to accomplish the Super Slam until 2009. At that point, the lifelong turkey hunter had bagged a gobbler in 26 states and his wife, Janine, encouraged him to keep going for all 49.
When Hudak completed his quest in 2016, he became the fifth hunter recognized by the NWTF to achieve the Super Slam.
The task wasn’t easy.
The hunts involved hours of planning, thousands of miles on the road and plenty of nights sleeping in his truck. Some states didn’t give up turkeys that easy and required a few return trips before Hudak was finally able to connect with a gobbler.
And last June, Hudak was eager to share his experiences with Pero.
Despite being bonded as the select few to achieve the Super Slam, Pero said he was surprised at how different the 12 hunters actually are and how willing they were to share their stories.
Pero spent hours talking with each hunter and came away with an enormous amount of material and photos. To edit it down would take away from the character of each hunter and diminish their stories, he said.
And that’s why Pero decided to write two volumes of “Turkey Men”, putting the stories of six hunters in each.
“What’s in the book is what they told me. Each one has his own motivation for this quest,” Pero said. “One connecting characteristic is their obsession. At some point they all went into overdrive to do this.
“There wasn’t much that was going to stop them.”
During his visit to Noxen, Pero spent hours at Hudak’s kitchen table covering every aspect of not only the Super Slam quest, but of Hudak’s life as a hunter as well.
All 12 hunters are unique, Pero said, but what made Hudak different was his “every man approach” toward turkey hunting.
“Tony was brought up in the Pennsylvania mountains and hunts those very same places where his dad and uncles taught him to hunt,” Pero said. “It’s authentic.”
Hudak is also the only hunter out of the 12 who had ever been a turkey guide. Pero said that experience was an eye-opener for Hudak on human nature.
Pero also said Hudak is the only one of the group to enthusiastically embrace fall turkey hunting. Hudak hunts just as hard in the fall, especially with his turkey dog, Benny.
“All the others are exclusively spring gobbler hunting,” he said. “I assumed they all were, but Tony said if he had to choose he’d pick fall hunting.”
After all 12 interviews were complete, Pero spent the next three months transcribing, editing and writing. Volume 1 of “Turkey Men” was released earlier this year and Volume 2 will be out shortly.
Pero admitted he isn’t a die-hard turkey hunter, his favorite outdoor pursuits are fly fishing and bird hunting, but he feels like an expert after getting to know the nation’s top gobbler hunters.
A group of 12 who accomplished something so unique who are forever bonded.
“What surprised me the most about all of them was how ordinary and down to earth they are,” Pero said. “They’re people of average means who go out and do this amazing feat – the Super Slam. That probably impressed me the most.”
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