Turkey Hunting Hats

Turkey hunters have a language of their own, and these hats borrow it. Bowhunting.com's guide to turkey talk opens by saying hunters are good at generating a vernacular all their own, and Bass Pro's glossary lists thunder chicken, hammerhead, boss tom and Mr. Waddles as slang for an old, mature gobbler. The hashtag #BTD stands for Big Tom Down. The humor runs on losing. "Roosted ain't roasted" is a common saying among hunters who find where a bird sleeps, because roosting a turkey does not guarantee success the following morning. "Henned up" is the other classic: a gobbler that answers the call and is then drawn away by a live hen, which Mississippi Sportsman calls probably the excuse heard most. One National Wild Turkey Federation writer described a morning as a chess match that the tom won against his pea-brained opponent. These turkey hunting hats cover the badges (TURKEY HUNTER, LONGBEARD), the slang (THUNDER CHICKEN, BOSS GOBBLER, BIG TOM DOWN) and the confessions of a hunter beaten by a bird. NWTF material says more than 2 million turkey hunters head into the spring woods across 49 states, many of them up around 4 a.m. THUNDER CHICKEN and ROOSTED AIN'T ROASTED each get a second colorway. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat, for anyone who has lost an argument to a bird.