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Hunter honored
Alone in the pre-dawn hours, Dickie Corbin had the world to himself.
It was the challenge of the sport he enjoyed. Quietly waiting in wooded areas for the animal to show.
Dickie thrived on the anticipation of one sound.
Gobble.
Searching, calling, he laid in waiting for the capture.
He got it.
"He was a master,” said his son, Wayne. “I mean, he knew.”
Long after he had reached his two bird limit for the season, a law no longer in effect, Dickie still pursued the turkey so he could better understand their nature.
"He would set the clock for four or four-thirty in the morning," his wife, Dorothy, said. "But he would wake up before it went off."
The early hours of a hunter’s schedule never bothered him. "He had a lot of excess energy that a lot of people didn't," she said.
Corbin began hunting as a child. He learned first by squaring off against squirrels. He eventually tackled larger animals: deer, bear, bobcat, and his preferred choice, the turkey.
"It was what he lived for," Dorothy said. "It was like it was in his genes."
Dickie Corbin died March 16, 2007 at the age of 68. But his family continues the tradition that Dickie loved so much.
Talking turkey
Dickie Corbin was a spring hunter, explained his son Wayne Corbin, because the turkeys are easier to call during their mating months of April and May. Wayne learned all about turkeys from his dad.
Dickie explained the process to Wayne: Once the hen has mated with the gobbler, she disappears. The gobbler, or male turkey, would then set out to find her.
Gobblers are easier to hunt during these months because they are vulnerable on the quest to find their mates.
Dickie was a master at attracting the birds with his turkey-callers. On their search for the hen, the gobbler would hear Dickie’s call.
When he called, they came to him.
Wayne Corbin said that he failed to inherit his father’s love of turkey hunting. But when he joined his father on the field he witnessed his father's mastery.
Dickie insisted that his son could produce a turkey before 8 a.m. Wayne, who was skeptical that morning, tells the story.
After setting up a watch post, daybreak came and Dickie pulled out “his bag of tricks.”
Playing callers for the hoot owl and the crow, he woke up the woods.
Several minutes later, Wayne said they heard the gobble of the late-rising turkey.
"He told me to sit down, and he got behind me, and two gobblers come up the ridge," he remembered. That's when Wayne Corbin scored his one and only turkey with his father.
Dickie was proud, but more importantly, he had his son check his watch. It read 7:45 a.m.
"What time did I tell you we'd be out of the woods?" Wayne remembers his father chuckling as he tipped his hat.
Wayne said his father knew turkeys like the back of his hand. "To be out in the woods and to know the nature of the bird, it’s hard,” Wayne said. “You gotta know the calls and know how they react."
Dickie handmade several types of turkey callers: a mouth caller, diaphragm, box caller, and a slate caller, which he successfully used to call in his prey.
Dickie was once the second -place title holder at the Virginia State Turkey calling championship in the late 1970s. He regularly practiced the tone of his calls in the basement.
If it dealt with the outdoors, Wayne said, his dad could do it.
Kirk Gordon, a fellow member of the National Turkey Federation, described Dickie as a shed hunter, who gathered buck antlers after they had been shed.
Wayne recalled his dad wielding a wing bone caller off the bone of their Thanksgiving dinner. He did the same to turtle shell skeletons.
Dickie was skilled at archery, using a bow and arrow to spear carp, some of which weighed up to 30 pounds, Wayne said.
Corbin hunted on local private property, mainly in Fauquier County. Dorothy said her husband covered a wide expanse of land, and she’s had to renew as many as 15 different hunting permits for him.
He often went hunting with his granddaughter, Ashley, and his grandson, Justin.
Dickie had an appreciation for the wildlife that gave him his sense of well-being.
"He was very humane about what he did," Dorothy said.
When winters were hard and vegetation and berries were difficult to come by, Corbin would set out spreaders for feeding the turkeys.
His dedication to the animal species and the hunting sport are not forgotten.
"I always think of him this time of year,” said Kirk Gordon.
"When I go out here and look at these mountains, I see him,” said Wayne Corbin. "His first love was my mom; his hunting was his passion.”
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