by Caleb Jones
Last weekend, Lindsey and Charlie headed out of town for a dance competition. Max and I had other plans. While they were packing dance shoes and hair spray, we were loading turkey decoys, camouflage and enough shotgun shells to make every gobbler in Audrain County nervous. We headed up to our buddy George’s cabin for a guy’s weekend chasing spring turkeys.
Now, I felt pretty confident going into this hunt. We had blinds, decoys and every kind of turkey call known to man. Both of us were dressed in full camo from nose to toes.
Before daylight, we climbed into the blind and set our decoys on a ridge where every tom turkey in the county should have spotted them. As the sun came up, gobbling echoed from all four directions. I honestly thought Max and I had stumbled into turkey-hunting heaven.
What I didn’t realize was apparently about 60 yards from us there was some kind of wild turkey superhighway.
We saw gobblers all morning long. Spitting, kicking and strutting, putting on a show like they owned the woods. The only problem for us was every single one of them stayed just out of our range.
By lunchtime, I started to worry that Max was ready to fire his hunting guide – me.
Thankfully, I had a backup plan. George’s cabin sits next to one of the best fishing holes this side of the Mississippi. We unloaded our hunting gear, grabbed a couple fishing poles and headed to the pond.
Whatever luck we were missing in the turkey blind showed up in the form of bass. Every other cast had one of us dragging in a fish. Before long, we had forgotten all about turkeys and spent the rest of the day debating who caught the biggest bass.
Truthfully, the weekend turned out even better than we planned.
Electric cooperatives understand that sometimes the best plans still require adjustments. Storms hit, equipment fails and conditions can change quickly. Unlike other utilities, electric cooperatives are locally owned and guided by the members they serve, which means decisions are made with the community in mind.
That local focus drives a commitment to reliability and resilience. That’s why your electric co-op is always working, planning and preparing so that when problems arise, help is already on the way.
Keeping the lights on isn’t about everything going perfectly. It’s about being ready when it doesn’t.
Max never pulled the trigger on a gobbler that weekend. But somewhere between the turkeys and that little farm pond, I realized something important: Sometimes the best memories come from the backup plan.
Caleb Jones is the CEO of Missouri Electric Cooperatives. He is a member of Boone Electric Cooperative. Email him at cjones@amec.coop.