Adams does it again Bainbridge Post Searchlight
January 28, 2005
Keenan Adams, 11-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Adams of Bainbridge, has become the youngest turkey hunter to complete a World Slam with a bow.
Before completing his most recent feat of taking a World Slam with a bow, Adams successfully converted five other World Slams with a gun.
A World Slam in turkey hunting is harvesting all four species of turkeys found in the United States plus the two found in Mexico and South America.
The World Slam species are the Eastern species, which is found in Georgia, the Eastern United States and some parts of the upper Midwest; the Osceola species, which is found only in the peninsula of Florida, usually south of Gainesville; the Rio Grande species, which lives mostly in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas; and the Merriam species, which can be found in the western United States.
The two Mexican species are the Gould species, which is found in northern Mexico; and the Ocellated bird, which is found only in the Yucatan Peninsula of southern Mexico, Brazil and Guatemala.
One of the birds harvested by Adams in southern Mexico last spring was officially certified as the No. 1 overall Ocellated turkey ever taken in the world with a bow and the No. 2 all time in the world with any weapon.
Adams completed his bow World Slam on a cold Jan. 19 winter morning in North Florida.
With five of the six wild turkey species already harvested, he needed only an eastern bird to complete the World Slam. He reached into his hunting vest and retrieved a B.A. Hen mouth call and reproduced the raspy yelp of an old gobbler.
Repeating this call several times during the next hour paid off. Suddenly a large tom appeared in the clover food plot where Adams and his dad had set up their double-bull blind.
As the bird slowly fed through the clover and disappeared behind a mound of dirt on the edge of the plot, Adams quickly raised his Mathews Mustang bow and came to full draw, placing his 40-yard pin on the base of the gobbler’s neck. The Vital Hunter arrow tipped with a 100-grain muzzy broad head met its mark and the rest was history.
Adams said wild turkeys are in a league of their own with such good eyesight and hearing that you cannot afford to make a mistake when hunting them.
“If you make a mistake, then your chances of harvesting that particular bird are reduced,” Adams said. “It takes more than patience to take a turkey. It takes precision.”