Every spring the Cypress Bayou Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation gathers for a banquet, and this year is no different from the past as the chapter will meet at 6 p.m. Friday at Arkansas State University-Beebe for the dinner and an auction.

“We’ve been having one for as long as we have had a chapter,” said Tonya Tucker, the chapter’s treasurer. “Our chapter was established in 2000, and we’ve had one each year.”

The National Wild Turkey Federation has more than 500,000 members around the world, and its mission is like other hunting organizations - support scientific wildlife management on public, private and corporate lands as well as wild-turkey hunting.

The federation estimates that the country has nearly three million turkey hunters, and the population of the wild bird has increased from 1.3 million in 1973, when the organization was founded, to nearly seven million turkeys now.

The evening will start in Beebe with a social hour at 6 p.m., and then dinner - catfish, not turkey, is on the menu - will follow at 7 p.m. The night will also have two auctions.

“A silent auction will get us going,” Tucker said. “It will have about 15 items; when that ends, we’ll eat dinner and then have a live auction with around 35 or 40 things.”

Tucker said items to be bid range from framed art to a moose antler table.

“We have about 20 people in the chapter here,” she said. “I’m not sure how many members there are around the state, but pretty much every county has achapter. Just about every place has turkey hunters, and if they have turkey hunters, they will have a chapter.”

The banquet isn’t limited to members of the chapter, though.

“We have people from all over come over,” Tucker said. “We usually have anywhere from 75 to 85 people. We have people come in from some of the different chapters, and then you have spouses and kids.”

Tucker herself is a turkey hunter, sort of.

“I just go for the enjoyment,” she said. “They probably don’t trust me with a gun, but I enjoy going to just go. My husband is a big turkey hunter, and it is exciting when you hear that turkey gobble. When that happens, it gets kind of crazy.”

Tucker said that turkey hunting is different from other kinds of hunting, like deer.

“You basically just pick out a spot and hope to goodness that a deer comes by,” she said. “With turkeys, you have these different types of calls, and when that turkey gobbles, you have to figure out where the bird is and either go to it or see if it will come to you.”

Turkey hunting is usually done in pairs as “one person does the calling while the other has the shotgun,” Tucker said. “I’ve been on hunts where we had as many as four that go out at once. They usually aren’t that large, but we’ve hunted in groups like that.”

Ticket prices for the banquet range from $45 for a single to $70 for a couple. Children’s tickets, or Jakes in turkey talk, are $10. Sponsorships and corporate tables are also available. For more information, call (501) 882-8261.

- jpeppas @arkansasonline.com

This article was published Thursday, March 13, 2008.

Three Rivers, Pages 55 on 03/13/2008

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