Raymond Bunn of Sylva, North Carolina is, as they say in the western part of the state, \u201cmountain.\u201d He\u2019s self-reliant in the extreme, quick to help another, and deeply at home in the woods. A man of gentle passion, Bunn is a gunsmith with a deep knowledge of firearms; the only man I\u2019m willing to trust with family heirloom shotguns. He\u2019s a man who reads widely, offering references to things he\u2019s read at perfect times in wholly unpretentious ways. He\u2019s also a kind man with whom I deeply enjoy sharing a table, where I am guaranteed to find good food and great stories. But most of all, Raymond Bunn is a hunter, particularly a turkey hunter.<\/p>\n
The mutual friend who introduced us called Bunn \u201cthe woodsiest man I know.\u201d And listening to Bunn tell us about his younger days, when his wife would drop him on a mountain ridge 25 miles away from home so he could \u201chunt [his] way back to the house,\u201d I believed him. <\/p>\n
Accordingly, when Bunn talks about hunting gobblers, I listen closely. (I\u2019ve been trying to figure out turkey hunting for 20 years, and the only thing I am confident about is that the fastest way to learn is from a man like Raymond Bunn.) He is characteristically generous in that pursuit as well, his stories often revolving around the joy of calling in a first tom for someone else. Bunn\u2019s eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiles through a beard gone silver-white over 62 years and 41 turkey seasons. <\/p>\n
With turkey season opening on April 8, Bunn planned to travel from his home in the mountains to the eastern North Carolina hunting camp where he and his friends have gone for decades. I\u2019ve visited them there several times, but this is the first year Raymond planned to take me hunting. That is why I was excited to see a text from him on the night of April 12. I was less excited when I opened it and learned he\u2019d been shot that morning by his longtime hunting partner. <\/p>\n \u201cTrying to work out a hunt for us but this happened,\u201d his text read. \u201cI\u2019m fine. Just be careful out there.\u201d <\/p>\n The accompanying photos brought to mind experiences I had in Iraq: a man lying on hospital sheets stained red, his pale skin rarely exposed to the sun now stippled by black-centered blooms. Like in Iraq, I wanted to know how, and why, it happened. How is often easy enough to explain. Why<\/em> is a question not yet fully answered a month later.<\/p>\n The morning his friend shot him, the two hunters were seated on the edge of a field in a thicket of mixed hardwoods and pine. Bunn says they\u2019d been in the eastern Carolina hunting camp for four days and planned to stay for another few. Both men had already killed a turkey and that morning, Bunn planned to call in a bird for a man with whom he\u2019s killed countless turkeys with. Bunn thought his partner, with more than 65 seasons behind him, appeared a little more tired and slower than usual while walking the half mile to the spot where they\u2019d heard a gobbler the day before.<\/p>\n Around 6:20 that morning, April 12, Bunn helped his friend set up in the woodline, facing him toward a disked-up field. As sitting is uncomfortable for him, the 80-year old man stood behind a large longleaf pine. Bunn moved 20 to 30 yards deeper in the woods and directly\u00a0behind his hunting partner. Knowing they were close to the bird\u2019s roost, Bunn sat quietly until the gobbler made himself known, thundering forth from a nearby limb. Bunn began a series of tree calls he now believes may have confused his friend, though at the time he thought the soft yelps were too quiet for the hearing-impaired hunter to notice.<\/p>\n For 10 minutes the tom gobbled in multiple directions. This is another factor that Bunn believes may have led to his friend\u2019s confusion about where the bird was located and how many toms were present. Perhaps that is why, at 6:30 a.m., Bunn\u2019s hunting partner turned partially away from the bird, putting his back to the field where Bunn expected the turkey to pitch down. He then faced directly toward Bunn, who explains: \u201cWe\u2019d hunted so much together. He doesn\u2019t call. I\u2019ve always set him up and always felt very safe around him not to turn around like he did.\u201d<\/p>\n But for the next nine minutes while the turkey kept gobbling, the man faced away from the field and into the woods, where Bunn was seated. At 6:39 a.m., an increasingly concerned Bunn tried to call his friend on his cell phone to reorient him. There was no answer. The phone at the other end was on vibrate. His friend just kept staring at him.<\/p>\n Bunn had taken off his head net and hat to wave at his friend, and he was calling to him when he saw the Remington 1187 come up. With the muzzle on him, all seemed to be in slow motion. As the turkey kept gobbling, Bunn threw his hat and began shouting at his friend, who was looking through the optic on his shotgun.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it then. He was going to shoot me. I figured I had to just roll over and take it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Bunn rolled to his right, throwing his left arm over his head and neck as copper-plated No. 5 shot shredded his shirt and tore holes in his side.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I came up, I was really screaming and hollering, just burning all over,\u201d Bunn says. \u201cI knew I had to get out. My left arm and side were getting wet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, Bunn\u2019s good nature was evident when we talked about the incident weeks later.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t write down everything I said. It was about every bad word I\u2019ve heard in my life. A whole lot of them. But that got [his] attention. Thank God, he didn\u2019t shoot me again, and thank God, it wasn\u2019t TSS. We probably wouldn\u2019t be talking.\u201d<\/p>\n On the whole, hunting safety seems to be on the rise. Nonetheless, the Carolinas saw at least two hunting fatalities this turkey season\u2014one in Laurens County, South Carolina<\/a>, and another in Perquimans County, North Carolina<\/a>. While those cases, and Bunn\u2019s, are still under investigation, Bunn believes aging and cognition are matters that merit discussion in the hunting community, especially since 38 percent of the participant population is over 55<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Center for Disease Control calls \u201cSubjective Cognitive Decline<\/a>\u201d a public health issue. SCD is \u201cthe self-reported experience of worsening or more frequent confusion or memory loss,\u201d and it is prevalent among more than 22 percent of adults over 45. (It\u2019s not clear if Bunn\u2019s hunting partner has experienced anything like SCD, but Bunn feels strongly that fatigue and confusion played a role in this accident.) But what if we don\u2019t recognize it? Or what if we do but don\u2019t want to admit it to ourselves, much less anyone else? And if we do see signs of SCD, how do we tell a lifelong hunter that it might be time to put the guns away?<\/p>\nA Gobbler and a Gun Blast<\/h2>\n
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Aging Out of the Sport <\/h2>\n
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