Walker Davidson for SPLIT REED
Hunter Farrior was born and raised in Learned, Mississippi, a single stop-sign town. By the way, it is pronounced Learn–Ed. For as long as far back as he is able to remember, Hunter has followed his dad into the turkey woods. A turkey hunting legend in Hunter’s mind, and among turkey hunters in southeast Mississippi, his father taught him the ways of a spring turkey hunter. Through countless mornings of observation, he picked up on what it meant to be a turkey hunter and how to go about being a successful one. Hunter explained, “Me and my two younger brothers got to experience a lot of mornings tagging along with dad; we were learning how to love spring…. All the special things that go with that: the smell of the flowers and warm winds, and gobbling turkeys.”
At five years old, using a Lynch’s Fool Proof box call, Hunter remembers the first time a turkey answered his call, and at seven he was able to tip off a Mississippi longbeard for his first kill in the spring woods.
From there Hunter hunted as much as possible, whenever and wherever he could. When we made it up to Starkville, MS for college, he started hunting public ground and as he put it, “I really got my teeth kicked in. It was tough.” Interestingly enough, it just made his desire even greater and when the next spring rolled around, after much hard work and effort, Hunter was able to connect with a gobbler and it spring boarded his confidence.
In 2017, after working in Louisiana for a little while, Hunter missed his home state and the gobbling turkeys it had to offer, so he moved back home into a trailer with his brother. And somewhere along the way, an idea came about: a brand that represented what so many people love and hold dear about everything that spring turkey hunting has to offer. Pinching pennies and biding his time Hunter felt like he was on to something.
After two long years, it was time to give it a shot. “In the spring of 2019 we launched Spring Legion, it all started with a couple of hats. My best friend Sills lived literally one minute down the road and we worked together on his sod farm every summer. He and I have always gone great together on projects because we really contrast each other. I didn’t have any internet so I was using a hotspot to get these products uploaded. A guy bought a hat, surprisingly, and I that’s when I realized I had no idea how to fill the order. It’s been a big learning curve but it’s been a fun learning curve. It’s very fulfilling to see my goals coming to fruition. I think even if we were selling 5 hats a year, I’d still do just for the message that Spring Legion is sharing.”
Hunter went on to explain, “It’s about respecting the bird and the hunt itself. It’s geared towards working at becoming a better turkey hunter rather than making turkey hunting easier. That’s our main message. There’s always been this reputation around turkey hunters, good and bad, that they’re more secretive and don’t like to teach, and I want to change that. I want to teach people my more traditional way of turkey hunting instead of just using little tools to make turkey hunting easier. It’s been awesome to see the support for Spring Legion so far.”
From the original Instagram where Hunter was selling hats and shirts, and sharing his love for the wild turkey, Spring Legion has now started a podcast. According to Hunter, “The podcast was a result of an Instagram poll so I went and bought a mic and plugged it in and recorded episode one.” Since then the podcast has become extremely popular and it offers a great look into the minds of a southern turkey hunter and his passion for his sport.
“Turkey hunting down here in the south is different than other places. It’s almost religion and a lot of our supporters are from the south because it is just different down here. My dad was a pretty traditional, non-decoy, old-school southern turkey hunter and that’s how I learned how to do it. Spring Legion as a brand is changing, the mission is the same but the route is changing. We’re taking an old-school mindset of providing it any way we can and making it available for as many people as we can,” Hunter disclosed.
Then came probably the most popular item Spring Legion has to offer, The Ballad of a Turkey Hunter.
“I wanted to find a way to bring media to my generation which is why the chapters are short and each one is different and its own story. I wrote it so you can just pick it up and read a chapter and move on. I actually began working on it during quarantine in December and wrote the whole book in 14 days. It uploaded on Amazon at 9 o’clock on a Sunday night, which I thought was a terrible time, but it made the bestseller list… which I was glad about because it got in front of as many eyes as possible. The book is doing really well, and I have got some amazing feedback.”
As turkey hunters can be quite indignant on their preferred methods, Hunter said, “I was pretty nervous about some the stuff because I may have called some people out, but I felt like it needed to be said. I’m just overwhelmingly appreciative of the support of the book and the brand as a whole. Hearing from other people that think as me has just made it worth it.”
As far as the future of Spring Legion goes, Hunter said that they are still just winging it. “The future is just whatever is thrown at us. It really all depends on what the followers and customers want and we will try to do everything we can for that goal. We’re still kinda flying by the seat of our pants. We’re going to try to get some filming done and put together some videos, my brothers are pretty good at video and tech stuff, but I don’t like the idea at all of sacrificing turkeys for the sake of the video, so we’re going to try to ease into that. All of those things are secondary to what was designed to be a way to represent the message of the Spring Legion.”
For more Split Reed written content, check out the archives here!
