Perhaps you could compare it to the time that Michael Jordan was cut from his junior varsity basketball team.
When Shelburne’s Joe Judd was just learning to use turkey calls back in the late 1970s, early 1980s, he recalled the times he would make the trip to Sam’s Outdoor Outfitters in Brattleboro, which was the closest place around to buy calls. Judd recalls walking over the display of calls and trying one, then putting it down and sheepishly walking over to the coats where he pretended to be browsing.
“I was so embarassed,” Judd said. “There was just no one to show us back in those days. I would ask the clerks to demonstrate but no one knew how.”
I recently learned that the newest Recorder columnist (see his “On the Ridge” hunting column once or twice a month on Thursday’s sports page) was also a newly inducted member into the New England Turkey Hunting Hall of Fame, a far cry from those modest beginnings in a sport that didn’t even exist in the state until 1980. Judd first encountered a turkey while scouring the woods of Shelburne for deer back in 1976.
“I was hunting deer in south Shelburne and saw this big bird walking up the hill,” Judd said.
Little did he know at the time, but the next 40 years of his life would become tightly intertwined with that big bird and many others as he built his Hall of Fame career.
When Judd moved to Shelburne in the 1970s, there was no turkey hunting in the state of Massachusetts. According to Judd, in the 1950s, wildlife experts tried to reintroduce wild turkeys into the state. Turkeys were caught in the south (where they were still prevelant) and released into the Quabbin. Unfortunately, the males either didn’t survive the first winter or became sterile and the population never took off. With the state focusing on repopulating the deer herd in the state back at that time, no major efforts were undertaken again until the 1970s when Jim Cardoza began a trap and transfer project where wild turkeys were moved from the growing population in the state of New York.
From 1973 until 1980, the population continued to grow in the state without a hunting season. In 1980, the state opened the first hunting season, releasing 68 permits. By that time, Judd was navigating his way into the sport, seeing it as a way to prolong a hunting season that had previously ended in February.
“I loved hunting. When I started hearing about turkey hunting and that you could do it in the spring, I was interested,” Judd said. “Hunting used to end in February with rabbit and hare season. At that stage of my life, it was like, ‘Man, you can hunt something in the spring time.’”
Because the sport was just beginning in Massachusetts (early on you couldn’t hunt any turkeys east of the Connecticut River), Judd said he cut his teeth in the sport in the Mettowwee Valley between Wells, Vt. and Manchester, Vt. He would hang around Bart Jacob’s store in Pawlet, Vt., and eventually attended his first seminar on the sport in Rutland, Vt., where he purchased a cassette tape featuring Ben Rodgers Lee, a famous turkey caller from the south.
“I listened to that cassette tape on how do do those calls,” Judd recalled. “I would listen to those calls for hours and hours and hours and one morning I finally met a turkey that was dumber than me.”
Judd said his first turkey came one morning when he was trying to call one in and suddenly heard rustling 15 to 20 yards in front of him. Suddenly, the thing flew right out in front of where he was sitting.
“I was so shocked. I still to this day don’t know how I got that turkey,” he said.
Since then, Judd has fallen in love with the sport. He became proficient in calling, but later hung around guys who were better callers than him, which helped him continue to perfect his craft using several wild turkey calls such as box calls, mouth calls, slate calls and tube calls. He said it’s important to learn several varieties of calls because on any given day a turkey might respond to one over the other.
It’s the call of the turkey that makes the sport so appealing to Judd. While he said bow hunting for deer may remain his greatest passion, he “would be hard-pressed to never turkey hunt again.” He said that while shooting the turkey may be the end-game, he said that the greatest feeling for him is when you are able to call a bird in. In fact, nowadays he no longer shoots “jakes” or young male turkeys, opting only to shoot mature birds.
“Winning is when you call that bird into you,” he explained. “It’s something to be able to communicate with a bird and call that bird into you. There’s the hunting aspect, but you don’t have to shoot if you don’t want to harvest that particular bird.”
By 1989, he was so good at the craft that he was approached by several companies to sign on as a pro member. He wound up signing with Quaker Boy, a popular company that was in its infancy when Judd was signed by owner Dick Kirby. The company was stationed in Orchard Park, N.Y., just outside Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Buffalo Bills.
Over the past 30 years Judd has led hunters on expeditions throughout the country. He has hunted in 15 states, and worked with some big name individuals. In the early 90s, he took Bills’ quarterback Jim Kelly out several times to hunt turkey, going to Missouri where they are prevelant. He has hunted with a prince from Qatar, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, other elected officials, as well as everyday people. He has done an Ocean Spray Cranberry commercial, and worked with the cast of the movie “Daddy’s Home 2” on a turkey hunting scene.
“The thing is that when I started, I never knew it would become a disease to me,” Judd said. “My family was so patient with me during those years. For me, it just became a passion I never thought would go where it did, but that’s because Dick Kirby and Quaker Boy gave me a chance.”
Judd continues to work with Quaker Boy. He runs seminars and represents the company at shows such as this weekend’s Springfield Sportsman Show at the Big E. He will be on hand for all three days of the show. He has done over 275 seminars in 30 years, and has served as the Master of Ceremonies for nearly 100 sanctioned turkey-calling contests throughout New England and elsewhere.
Earlier this month he was at the New England Turkey Hunting Hall of Fame dinner, speaking about Ellie Horwitz, who Judd nominated for the Hall of Fame. After introducing and speaking about Horwitz, Judd returned to his seat, expecting the event to wrap up. At that point, someone went to the mic and surprised Judd by announcing one final member of the fifth class in the history of the Hall.
“I was moved to tears. I was shocked. It was a complete surprise,” he said.
One more surprise in a long line of them since that day when Judd called in his very first turkey.
Jason Butynski is a Greenfield native and Recorder Sports Editor. His email address is jbutynski@recorder.com.