“Turkey hunters are merely play actors and the Turkey Woods their stage.”
This is the simple message behind the title, “Deadly Imposter” Every turkey hunter assumes dozens of different roles during their life as a turkey chaser. Love-sick hen, challenging gobbler, young poult, crow, owl, and on and on. The more realistic you perform your role the more successful you should become.
The game call maker behind Deadly Imposter Game Calls is New England wild turkey restoration pioneer, Stu Bristol of Lyman, Maine. As a Vermont Game Warden in the late 1960’s Stu helped fellow Game Warden Arnold Magoon release the original 31 wild turkeys live trapped in New York by wildlife biologist, Bill Drake.
Stu became one of the earliest members of The National Wild Turkey Federation, joining in 1974 and became a Life Member in 1984. Over the yeas he has helped organize a number of local and state chapters.
For more than 50 years he travelled New England hosting restoration and hunting seminars. He has published over 500 regional and national articles on wild turkey restoration and hunting and is the author of four books, his latest “Building Turkey Calls and Owl Hooters.”
In 2019, Stu was inducted into the New England Turkey Hunting Hall of Fame.
Stu learned his callmaking craft while hunting with some of the best-known turkey hunters and callmakers including Ben Rogers Lee, Dick Kirby, Niles Oesterle, Neil Cost and Bart Jacob. His “new England” model slate over glass turkey call has been a favorite since 1983 and is currently selling well on deadlyimpostergamecalls.com.
Stu Bristol was also a charter member of Trout, Unlimited, joining in 1963 and building the Vermont chapter. As an outdoor writer since 1968 Stu has penned over 5,000 newspaper and magazine columns published in Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, Field and Stream and more than two dozen other outdoor publications. He has been featured on ESPN Outdoors in shows such as FlyFish America and been a guest on many more outdoor radio and television episodes.
He spent the past dozen years as a staff photographer/videographer for Paul Fullers “Bird Dogs Afield,” travelling throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Stu has been a member of the New England Outdoor Writers Association, serving as President and currently as a Director Emeritus.
Stu Bristol was born in 1945, the youngest member of a family of 17 in southern Vermont. Hunting and fishing has been his way of life.