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By DAVID RAINER, ��������

Even the most lifelong-obsessed turkey hunters will have to be impressed by what Mari Grace Brooks has accomplished in chasing the elusive birds the past 15 years.

The 19-year-old from Ramer, ��������, has two Grand Slams, taking the four subspecies – Eastern, Osceola, Rio and Merriam’s – in the United States, which is quite a feat for any turkey hunter. Even more impressive is she has two Double Grand Slams, where she harvested two of each of those species in one year. One year, she harvested a Royal Slam that added the Gould’s from Mexico.

The crowning achievement of her relatively short career came last year when she added the World Slam to her resume by taking the four U.S. species, the Gould’s and the Ocellated from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Two weeks ago, she added two more Osceolas for a grand total of 101 turkeys harvested so far in her turkey hunting career.

 She inherited her turkey obsession from her dad, Robby Brooks, who was at her side during all of her Slams. Robby held her in his lap when she took her first turkey at age 4 on the family farm south of Montgomery. 

“I was 4 but I was excited,” Mari Grace said. “We videoed it. There’s a clip in there where I’m sitting in my car seat and Dad asked me what are you going to do when you’re sitting there. I said I was going to look with my eyes (moving her eyes from side to side while keeping her head perfectly still).” 

Situated in a blind he had built four years earlier for his wife, Melanie, Robby called a group of gobblers up the hill that morning, and Mari Grace used her single-shot .410 shotgun loaded with Hevi-Shot to take that first bird, which barely flopped after the shot.

“The night before opening morning, we always watch that video,” Robby said.

Robby became obsessed with turkey hunting when he got his driver’s license and was able to drive to the family farm on a regular basis. Melanie joined the turkey hunting crowd when they married. Getting pregnant with a baby girl did not stop Melanie from hitting the turkey woods.

“She killed five turkeys that year,” Robby said. “Mari Grace was born on April 3, and on April Fool’s Day, she killed her fifth turkey.”

One of Mari Grace’s memorable turkeys outside of �������� was a Merriam’s taken in South Dakota. The reason it ranked high on her list is the bird was all black, a melanistic anomaly that occurs in only one in 100,000 birds.

Obviously, the bird that is most difficult to harvest is the Ocellated, which only lives on the Yucatan Peninsula. Hunting those colorful birds is nothing like the other subspecies because you’re hunting in a jungle, and humans can’t reproduce their calls and gobble without using the recordings on an electronic caller. Mari Grace said because hunters face numerous hardships in trying to access the Yucatan birds, taking the Ocellated was the highlight of her turkey hunting career, so far.

The Brooks duo faced everything from a language barrier to thick jungle with giant thorns to 100-plus degree heat to flat tires to not locating any birds until late, late in the excursion. Mari Grace was down to her last opportunity when a server at their outfitter’s compound mentioned that he had some land where they could hunt.

“When we got up the next morning, he went with us to his place, and as we are walking in, we hear a bird gobble,” Mari Grace said. “Me and Dad were like, finally. When they gobble, their necks don’t go out like our birds, their necks go up and down. We thought we saw him in a tree.”

After climbing a steep slope overlooking a jungle valley, one of the guides set up a mounted hen near the hunters as well as a Fox Pro electronic caller. The bird they spotted gobbled until he flew down and then went silent.

“One of the guides started playing gobbles on the Fox Pro and made a few hen sounds, but they don’t sound like our hens; it’s more of whistle,” she said. “They don’t gobble when they’re coming in. All you hear is the sound of them walking in those leaves. I heard it and everybody else heard it. I’m getting really nervous because this is going to be my only opportunity to get the bird I need (for the World Slam). Then it went silent, and they said he could pop up anywhere. It’s thick. I see him and he disappears. Then he popped up in another place, but I didn’t want to shoot. Then it sounds like he’s walking away and the guy plays the gobble sound on the Fox Pro. The turkey turned around and went straight for the decoy. As soon as he crossed this gap, I shot.

“Oh, my goodness, the rush of emotion was crazy. We got big hugs and walked out to look at the bird. He was so pretty, the colors and everything, and he had really good spurs, but it was a really stressful hunt.”

As memorable as the Ocellated hunt was, the Brooks say nothing compares matching wits with the Eastern wild turkey in ��������.

“�������� Easterns are definitely the hardest,” Mari Grace said. “Those are the ones I grew up hunting, and they’re still the hardest. The �������� Easterns are the best in my opinion. You hear one down in the hardwoods, and it’s echoing, it’s just the best sound ever. I think the turkeys in �������� are smarter. I think this goes for anywhere in ��������. Say, if you sit by a tree without anything around you, the �������� turkeys are going to see you. In Wyoming last year, I’m sitting by a tree on a hill, so I’ve got the background of the sky behind me. A hen is walking 20 yards from me, and I’m thinking this would never fly in ��������, like ever. They would see you right off the bat.

“So, I definitely think ��������’s birds are the hardest, but at the same time, it’s so fun to hunt here. Sometimes they outsmart you. If any turkey is going to outsmart you, it’s the �������� Eastern. In ��������, you’ll be calling and they’re coming. Then they’ll skirt around you and come up behind you. You’re wondering why. They’re just smarter. They’ll come around you. They’ll be coming and then stop – stop coming and stop gobbling.”

Although the father-daughter duo has had plenty of luck with �������� birds, there are always a few birds that get named because they are so tough to hunt. One of the birds on their property picked up the nickname Mr. Slick.

“We were going to the same spot where I killed my first bird, and we walked around a pond,” Mari Grace said. “We were walking down the tree line to get to the spot. That was when trail cameras were coming out, and we would see him walking by there every day or every other day. We would get there early, early, and every time we would go, we would hear him and never see him. I know we hunted him at least six times, probably more than that.

“Finally, one morning we were sitting there. I mean, he would show up (on the game camera), but it was right after we left. I told Dad, let’s try going a different way. We took an extra half mile to walk all the way around to come in on the other side. We ended up killing him that morning. What it was, when we were walking down that tree line, there was a spot where he could see us. Every morning we walked that way, he saw us. He would gobble and gobble, fly down and shut up. That day we went the other way, we hear gobble, gobble, gobble. He flies down, gobble, gobble, gobble, and down the hill he comes.”

The only thing that interferes with Mari Grace’s turkey hunting is her schoolwork. She’s currently enrolled in the University of South �������� College of Nursing with plans to practice in the anesthesia field in the future.

“Especially now that I’m in nursing school, it does get in the way,” she said. “I’m not sure how my classes are going to affect my travel this year.”

Mari Grace won’t get to hunt the opening day of ��������’s turkey season this year because of her nursing studies, but Robby is fine with waiting until the weekend to continue their tradition.

He said, “I’m very proud of her hunting success but more proud of her grades throughout school, retaining a 4.0 average in high school and college.”

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