My first turkey, taken with tackle I crafted myself, proved to be my gold medal in life.

The morning light was still dim in western Georgia when I spotted the silhouette of a turkey roosting in a knurly oak tree. The night before, my younger brother Teddy and I had seen several birds fly up to roost, so we had returned before first light the following morning and set up a Primos Double Bull blind and a lone hen decoy with hopes of luring one of the turkeys within bow range.

Shortly after our arrival, the entire flock awoke. One thunderous gobble initiated a chain reaction from the others as several gobblers bellowed behind and to the right of us.

Many turkey hunters have experienced mornings just like this, but this isn't just another story about just another turkey hunt. For me, this hunt was special because my weaponry was literally prehistoric. In my left hand I held a longbow I'd carefully crafted from an Osage orange tree. On the string was an arrow I'd made of river cane, a native plant very similar to bamboo, and fletched with white turkey feathers.

On the tip was a finely serrated, black flint arrowhead I had carefully knapped using a deer antler tine. To complete the arrows, I had secured the fletching and stone point to the shaft with wrappings of deer sinew.

With all the high-tech equipment available to modern hunters, why would anyone choose to go backward in time and use a stone-age weapon? For me, the answer is defined during a moment many years ago that would forever change my entire hunting experience.

While deer hunting in Virginia with my dad, I found my first arrowhead. It was made of quartz, and although it was broken, that one discovery sparked a flood of questions. How did the Native Americans make arrowheads? How did they use them? My childhood curiosity soon turned into full-blown fascination. Just at the time when I would have begun hunting with a rifle, I abruptly reversed direction by delving deep into the past.

Not only did I want to know how primitive hunters made these weapons; I wanted to learn to make them myself.

My first attempts at making arrowheads were very crude, but with practice I learned to make surprisingly sharp, functional points. Making arrowheads led to the making of arrows, and, finally, wooden bows. I followed a natural progression to master related skills and soon was able to make a bow and arrow from materials gathered in nature.

Although these weapons had been putting food in the pot for thousands of years, I had always questioned their effectiveness. How would they perform in a real hunting situation? To answer that question, I had to put them to the test. I wanted to match my skills with animals directly, just as ancient cultures had done. In doing so, I experienced hunting in its purest form, but I also found it incredibly difficult.

Game animals today have been well-schooled during short, intense hunting seasons, and getting within range proved nearly impossible. For six frustrating years, I tried but was never successful -- until the morning of April 21, 2007.

Now, almost 15 years after finding that first quartz arrowhead, I was sitting in a blind with my brother, armed with my own handmade bow and arrow. Nearly surrounded by gobbling birds, we seemingly had set up in the perfect spot. However, as Teddy delivered several raspy clucks from his mouth call, the turkeys remained in the trees, preoccupied with challenging each other.

Then, as the morning light brightened and the turkeys began flying down to forage, they obviously were moving away from us. Calls that had been loud and close eventually became soft and distant. Teddy and I could do nothing but watch as the entire flock -- and our hopes of getting a turkey -- vanished.