Talking Turkey

This week's commentary is by 60 Minutes Wednesday Columnist Steve Hartman.

But this year, I decided that if I'm going to eat the bird, I really ought to be willing to shoot the bird.

I'd never been hunting in my life, so I hired a turkey-hunting guide named Preston Stevens to show me how it's done. We started with a pumpkin.

It was really interesting. I normally hate guns and yet, just standing there, lording over that helpless household vegetable, was really quite intoxicating.

Before I knew it, I was craving an NRA membership, and I could almost taste that wild turkey.

Joining us on our hunt was my neighbor, Brad Henry. Brad is an avid turkey hunter, and was the first one to spot the clue:

"See that scratching by that tree? This is the sign we're looking for. This is what we're looking for."

"They were here yesterday. We need some that were here today."

And so on we went. Because turkeys can hear about five times better than people, you need to be very, very quiet. Then once you think you're close, you're supposed to stop and place a turkey love call, set up the sexy mamas, and wait for the party to come to you.

But four hours in the woods, and all we did was kill time.

That's when I decided to take over this hunt. I got a 15-pounder with a pop-up timer. I offered to buy Preston one, too. "I would rather starve than eat that turkey," he said.

But the last laugh in this story would not belong to me, or Preston. You're not going to believe this but when I got home, there were about a dozen turkeys right in my own backyard. They were just standing there, quietly mocking me.

And, to add insult to injury, and I'm not making this up either, the bag broke. I'm now hoping the five-second rule applies to frozen turkey.

And I'm really hoping that, come December, I don't start thinking about my Christmas ham.