A textbook turkey hunt with Andy and Hampden Thomas
- peter19892
- May 8, 2025
- 7 min read
By Ford Walpole
Turkey hunting is hard. Most of the time, everything must go according to plan for a hunt to be successful — birds must be interested, vocal and willing to behave in a manner we think they should. But Nature doesn’t care about our best-laid plans, and indeed, turkey hunting defies the birds’ own nature in that we are asking the gobblers to come to the hens.
Veteran turkey hunter Andy Thomas knows all too well the challenges this rewarding sport presents. As a teenager, he began pursuing gobblers for many years before finally harvesting one. After evolving into an accomplished shotgun hunter, Andy upped his game and began bow-hunting. Eight years would pass before he would take his first bird in this primitive manner.
These days, Thomas primarily devotes his woodsman skills to calling birds for young or inexperienced hunters. During the early days of COVID, he called in the first turkey for his daughter Hampden. The father-daughter duo has been turkey hunting many times since, but that second bird continued to elude her.
“Turkey hunting is difficult,” Hampden explains. “I don’t think a lot of people understand that. Anyone can sit in a covered deer stand and wait for a deer, but it takes a lot of patience and determination to get a turkey. From calling and picking a spot for cover to staying as still as possible while leaning against a tree, there are so many variables that could easily spoil a hunt. But this is also what makes turkey hunting fun. The fact that it is an active challenge makes turkey hunting feel like a sport. I find myself getting the same type of butterflies in my stomach that I did before big volleyball games or surf contests. Those nerves show that you care and love it, which is what my dad reminded me before our last hunt.”
Andy leases a portion of an old Lowcountry plantation in the ACE Basin. “For the past five years, I have seen flocks of turkeys during deer season, but they always disappeared every spring and turned up a mile down the road,” he says. “Throughout deer season, a longbeard traveled solo on the property. About the time you were getting out of the stand, he would “putt” and bust you. He disappeared three weeks before the season, so I named him Houdini.” Another tract Thomas hunts on John’s Island is home to a single turkey, a bearded hen.
Hampden came home from law school to turkey hunt on opening day this year. They heard a gobbler on a neighboring property across a road from their friends’ farm on Wadmalaw but never saw a bird and the hunt proved disappointing. However, on April 16, Houdini appeared on camera in the middle of the day at their ACE Basin lease. Andy quickly sent a text to Hampden: “We are in business!”
“After being unsuccessful on opening day, I thought I probably wouldn’t get one this season,” Hampden recalls. “Unexpectedly, I received a text from my dad while I was at school that he got a photo of a turkey. I was shocked because we hadn’t been seeing turkeys there during the season. Banking on that one photo of the turkey, that Friday, I took the two-hour drive home after my class to go hunting on Saturday morning!”
Andy and Hampden parked outside the gate and walked in with a single green headlamp. “I know turkeys like to roost over water, so I hesitated since this part of the property is dry,” Andy says, “but I had often seen the gobbler on the edge of the woods during deer season, so I hoped he would be in a block of woods in the middle of the property.”
Thomas set up a hen and a gobbler decoy 300 yards from the suspected roost, hoping the turkey would fly down and see the decoys. “We got there 45 minutes before official sunrise,” Andy says. “I use a slate call, but before that, while I think the bird is still in the tree, I like to do a tree yelp with a mouth call and the gobbler answered immediately. The funny part is that my hearing is getting bad, so I had to confirm with Hampden that I had actually heard him. He gobbled 25 times while in the tree. My biggest lesson has been learning to fight the urge to call too often,” he says.
“I told Hampden I wanted to do a fly-down — I had to prepare her so it wouldn’t scare her. A fly-down is an excited yelp. You flap your hat on your hip and on the ground — which mocks a hen flying down from the roost. Twenty seconds later, two coyotes came in running at full speed with their ears up; Hampden saw them at 80 yards, and I picked them up at 50 yards. When they came within 20 yards, I started waving my hands to run them off,” Andy says.
“It was a typical ACE Basin — a low, foggy morning,” Andy says of the hunt. “Hampden nudged me, and she saw him at 12:00 in front of her. I used a slate call and he strutted out and gobbled. Once he knows where you are, you need to shut up. You have done your job. He was between 150 and 175 yards away, but he didn’t want to come closer. He stood up tall — as erect as a turkey can get and didn’t move for 10 minutes; he just kept looking for what seemed like an eternity,” Thomas remembers.
“With encouragement from a couple of very soft yelps and muffled purrs from the diaphragm call, he crossed the road and got a glimpse of our decoys,” Hampden adds. “There was a big oak tree between him and the decoys, and the plan was to raise my gun if he walked behind it. My dad stopped calling and the Tom started puffing up and gearing towards the decoys. “Yes!” I said. He walked behind the oak and I raised my shotgun (the same shotgun I shot my first deer with). I didn’t want to let him get too close, so I told myself to shoot not too long after he re-emerges from behind the oak. I let him take three steps and puff down before I shot,” she says.
“He fell immediately. I put my gun on safety and my dad ran out to make sure he was gone. I jumped up, unloaded the shotgun and we celebrated!” Hampden recalls. “I couldn’t believe we did it! My dad and I hugged, beaming from ear to ear. All the preparation and unsuccessful hunts were worth this moment!”
“It turned out to be a textbook classic situation,” Andy says. “It hasn’t worked like that in a long time — not since when Hampden got her first bird five years ago. It was 7:30 in the morning and we were already talking about getting breakfast at Waffle House! Our good fortune in turkey hunting has been a result of generous friends and landowners who have been willing to share or lease a special piece of Lowcountry woods with us,” he acknowledges.
During the hunt, Hampden’s boyfriend Henry Morgan, "was summoned to a big oak tree 25 yards away and was warned not to move or interfere with the hunt. I put him in old-fashioned, bug-tamer pants and jacket,” Andy laughs. But on the way to take a photograph in front of the plantation house, Henry did get the opportunity to dispatch a wild hog, a boon since the landowner despises nuisance feral pigs.
Hampden Thomas’s outdoors adventures are hardly limited to the turkey woods: She began dove hunting at a young age, harvested her first deer at seven years old and shot her first buck the following year. This past fall, she took her first buck with a bow. She picked up fly-fishing during her time at Clemson and landed her first Lowcountry redfish on the fly this past summer. Hampden and Andy have fly-fished at Yellowstone and traveled to King Ranch in Texas to hunt nilgai. After law school, she hopes to accompany her father on his annual bowhunting trips to Kansas. “The outdoors keeps me relevant to my children — they will come back around to go hunting and fishing; it’s what we all do together,” Andy says.
“I realize that I will be super busy after I graduate law school: studying for the bar exam, searching for a job and eventually working long hours as an attorney,” Hampden admits. Still, she remains focused on continuing to master her outdoor skills: “I plan to move back to Charleston after finishing law school. In my free time, you will find me on a boat or in the woods; it is a part of my life and always has been,” she says.
“I cannot express how lucky I am to have a dad who taught me how to hunt and fish,” Hampden reflects. “Whenever I feel overwhelmed at school, trail cam photos from my dad always put me in a good mood, whether it’s actually a nice deer we have been scouting or just a cool action shot of a squirrel. It’s something we bond over, stress about and look forward to. Hunting has taught me so many life lessons: How to have patience, prepare thoroughly and never give up. I am grateful I have made all these memories with my best friend by my side — my dad!”
Ford Walpole lives and writes on John’s Island and is the author of many articles on the outdoors. He teaches English at James Island Charter High School and the College of Charleston and may be reached at fordwalpole@gmail.com.
