I’m gonna have to have a little talk with that Toxey Haas fellow. You know, he’s the one who makes Mossy Oak camo. Way back in the ’80s when he started making camo, one of the first patterns he invented was Bottomland. Since I’m an old Southern turkey hunter who likes to get way back in the swampy areas where the real boss gobblers hang out, I fell in love with the stuff. Whenever I had it on, my own dog couldn’t even find me in my own back yard. So I started using it for all of my serious turkey bustin’ and deer stompin’ back in the thick places.
Then, about the time Bottomland started catchin’ on real good with hunters like me, them Mossy Oak boys who work with Toxey started comin’ up with all kinds of new camo patterns. Somehow, Bottomland got put on the back burner. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is my motto, and surely to goodness there wasn’t anything broke with Bottomland, but the writin’ was on the wall. Because of all them newfangled patterns, I had a sneakin’ suspicion that pretty soon I’d have a hard time finding my beloved camo in any store.’
I knew something had to be done. So I eased into the pantry and borrowed a little of the emergency stash the little woman had hidden away in a pickle jar. Nobody was gonna deny this ol’ swamp stomper of his secret weapon. I bought pants and shirts. I bought heavy jackets and lightweight jackets. I bought fleece and regular cotton. I bought turkey vests and T-shirts. By the time my emergency funds ran out, I had 12 pair of brand-new pants and dozens of shirts and jackets, and all of ’em were sweet Bottomland.
I calculated that if I was careful not to ever wash my pants when they got dirty, and if I didn’t wear ‘’em fishin’ or turtle noodlin’ like I was prone to do, and if I stopped wearing ’em to fancy dress-up places like NASCAR races, why those 12 pair of pants might last me for the next five or six turkey seasons!
Sure enough, after a spell, you couldn’t buy a stitch of Bottomland anywhere. But every time I went to the woods, I was proudly wearin’ a full outfit, and all my huntin’ buddies were right impressed. They’d ask me where I got it and I’d just smile like a big ol’ bull ’gator sunnin’ on a river bank. Of course, some of it got a mite dirty and gamey after a spell, but I wasn’t about to wash that precious cloth and ruin my favorite camo. Nosiree!
But here’s where the real hitch comes in and here’s why I need to talk to big boss Toxey. After my favorite camo got scarce, I decided to take half my stockpile of new britches and save ’em for a rainy day. No matter how wore out and malodorous the first six pair got, I’d keep the others in mint condition and never take ’em out of the closet except in a dire emergency.
Before I knew it, five or six years flew by, but that closest door stayed shut! Those first six pair started lookin’ a bit rough, but they were just gettin’ broke in good. A few had rips and tears and some had their share of ground-in dirt and mud because I have been known to do a fair amount of belly-crawlin’ when I’m tryin’ to close in on a cantankerous ol’ longbeard. And some of ’em were gettin’ a little ripe with the skunk scent I use durin’ deer season, but that’s just normal every-day huntin’.
By and by, a big family weddin’ come along. My wife’s sister was getting’ married for the third time. I really wanted to make the little lady proud so I told her I’d go. Since the only real dress-up jacket I owned was my black biker jacket, and since I knew that my Bottomland camo pants would go real good with black, I decided to break down and sneak into the closet and pull out just one pair of those brand-new, gold-plated britches that I’d been savin’ for just such a crisis. I knew I’d make the little woman mighty proud at that weddin’.
So I grabbed the closest pair and started slippin’ ’em on. Well guess what? Those never worn, goldstar camo pants had flat drawn up to the point that I couldn’t even get ‘em buttoned! That’s right! They must’ve shrunk up at least three sizes while they were hangin’ in the closest all those years. I figured it had to be some kind of mistake, so one by one I got out every single pair and tried ’em on. It was the same story with each pair. And they’d never been washed or put on wet one single time!
Can you believe it? After all the money I spent and after singin’ the praises of Bottomland camo for so long, I discovered that my hero Toxey had deliberately invented a product that would shrink up several sizes while nobody was lookin’ just so his customers would have to go out and buy more! You come to expect tricks like that with used cars and washing machines, but not with your No. 1 hero in the camo business!
The weddin’ was a disaster because l had to go out and rent me a monkey suit. Since my dog had gotten used to seein’ me in Bottomland camo by now, the minute he laid eyes on that pink tuxedo I had on as I was walkin’ out to get in the truck, he come runnin’ up a’snarlin’ and barin’ his teeth. He about tore that suit right off me. Now, the short of it is I’m not only out six pair of brand-new shrunken britches, but I had to pay for that chewed up monkey suit as well! Yes, sir, I really need to have a talk with ol’ Toxey!
This story was excerpted from Duncan Dobie’s popular book, A Thousand Distant Gobbles, Turkey Tales from the Heart. Interestingly, the story was written several years before Mossy Oak decided to reintroduce its enormously popular Bottomland pattern. Now, Bottomland camo is once again one of the most popular patterns in the turkey woods. Autographed copies of Duncan’s 240-page, illustrated hardback can be ordered directly from the Sporting Classics book store. Click Here to Order your copy today!