On the day he turned 80 years old, Hugh Vogel found himself crouched in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Shotgun in hand, he waited.

With the vegetation too thick to even walk through, his Mayan guide had hacked a makeshift blind for them with a machete. As the sun was setting, the guide began making the high pitched calls of an ocellated wild turkey, a species that only exists in this remote part of the world.

Vogel peered through the leafy foliage at a nearby opening in the dense jungle. Before too long a peacock-feathered turkey appeared, strutting before him.

He fired true, and the Casper resident's 80th birthday party that night featured an exotic main course of fried ocellated turkey. Vogel is one bird away from fulfilling his dream of the World Slam of Turkey Hunting - bagging all five subspecies of North American wild turkeys plus the one species of the Yucatan, the brightly feathered ocellated turkey.

Soon Vogel will travel to northern Mexico in an effort to complete his World Slam when he'll go after the rare Gould's turkey.

Vogel has been fascinated by wild turkeys since his first hunt for them in Wyoming in 1992. That same year he co-founded the first Wyoming chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation.

"I've been doing it every year since then. I love it. I quit big game hunting. It's too damn strenuous," he said.

The chapter he co-founded has grown into the third largest fundraising chapter in the country out of some 2,300 chapters. Vogel and the group have been helping the Wyoming Game and Fish Department over two decades to increase turkey populations around the state and improve the birds' habitat.

"When we first started there were very few birds," he said. Now Merriam's subspecies of wild turkey numbers in the thousands in Wyoming, plus several Rio Grande turkeys.

The Federation's Big Horn Chapter of Casper awarded Vogel the guided ocellated turkey hunt in Mexico as a gift for his 16 years of conservation work.

He began his quest for the World Slam a few years ago and he's having each bird mounted.

"I just think they're a very beautiful bird - every species," he said as the cell phone on his hip rang with a loud turkey gobble.

Vogel is father to three daughters and grandfather to seven. At age 80, he still works selling drilling equipment for a Casper company. He also grows hundreds of roses in his garden and hunts every turkey season. He's not the type to sit back and watch life go by. There's too much to do and too many good people to meet, he said.

"What would I do if I retired, go home and look out the window? I just love to meet people. I love working with people."

And he loves wild turkeys. The thrill of watching a tom turkey strut in the springtime is what keeps him hooked on the sport - and hooked on cable TV outdoors channels.

"I even watch turkeys on TV - all the time."

Wild turkeys are wary birds with keen eyesight and hearing, which makes them a challenge to hunt, he said.

"People say the turkey is a dumb animal but they are not. They are smart birds."

Vogel grew up in Iowa and moved to Wyoming at the age of 18 seeking relief from his chronic asthma. He's lived here ever since.

"I couldn't live out there. It's too humid. Wyoming's been really good to me. If you're a sportsman this sure is a great place to be, and if you love wildlife."

His quest for the World Slam began in Wyoming with the Merriam's turkey - the most common wild turkey of the state - which he bagged on a ranch near Newcastle. Then he traveled to Oklahoma for his Rio Grande turkey, to Florida for his Osceola, and then Missouri for his eastern turkey.

After shooting two ocellated turkeys in Mexico last month, the turkey man of Casper has only one more bird to go for the World Slam. He'll soon travel to Mexico near the Arizona border for his Gould's turkey. He's hoping to have all six turkey mounts on display at the Wyoming Hunting and Fishing Heritage Expo in Casper in September.

So of the six types of wild turkeys in the world, which one is his favorite?

"Our Merriam's," he said quickly of Wyoming's wild turkey. But then he thought of that strutting peacock-like turkey of Mexico he bagged last month on his 80th birthday and changed his mind. "But now it's the ocellated. It's the color, its brilliant iridescent colors. They're small birds but they are so pretty. "

"They were good eating too."

Any worries that he'll come back from Mexico empty-handed without a Gould's turkey?

"I'll get him," he said, smiling wryly.

With his track record for bagging the elusive wild turkey, you can't help but agree.

Yeah, he'll get him. No problem.

Baggin' a World Slam

There are only two species of wild turkey in the world: the North American wild turkey, and its five distinct subspecies, and the ocellated turkey of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The biggest feat in turkey hunting is completing the World Slam, bagging each of the world's six types of wild turkeys.

The National Wild Turkey Federation keeps a database of hunters who have achieved the World Slam and other turkey hunting records. Other recognized "slams" of turkey hunting are the Grand Slam - bagging an eastern, Rio Grande, Merriam's and Osceola - and the Royal Slam - getting the same four subspecies plus the Gould's turkey.

There are only two species of wild turkey in the world: the North American wild turkey, and its five distinct subspecies, and the ocellated turkey of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The biggest feat in turkey hunting is completing the World Slam, bagging each of the world's six types of wild turkeys.

The National Wild Turkey Federation keeps a database of hunters who have achieved the World Slam and other turkey hunting records. Other recognized "slams" of turkey hunting are the Grand Slam - bagging an eastern, Rio Grande, Merriam's and Osceola - and the Royal Slam - getting the same four subspecies plus the Gould's turkey.

Here are the six types of birds that comprise the World Slam of Turkey Hunting:

Ocellated turkey

The ocellated turkey is called pavo or pavo ocelado in Mexico, and its Mayan Indian name is ucutz il chican. Very little is known about its population and habitat requirements. It exists only in a 50,000 square mile area on the Yucatan Peninsula, including the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatan, and parts of southern Tabasco and northeastern Chiapas.

It's easily distinguished from its North American cousin by its size and color. It's much smaller, more brightly colored and its tail feather spots are similar to a peacock's. A male ocellated turkey doesn't gobble nor have a beard like North American male turkeys.

Merriam's turkey

The Merriam's subspecies is the most common in Wyoming. It lives mostly in ponderosa pine forests and mountainous regions of the western United States. It has a black appearance with blue, purple and bronze reflections, and whitish tail feathers.

An estimated 344,460 Merriam's occupy the bird's historic range in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, as wells as Wyoming and other states where it is an introduced species.

Rio Grande turkey

The Rio Grande is native to the Great Plains with its historic range stretching from West Texas into northeastern Mexico. It's been transplanted to the Big Horn Basin and other parts of Wyoming. There are more than 1.2 million of them in the United States and Mexico.

It's a long-legged, copper-colored bird that's found at up to 6,000 feet in elevation usually near streams and scrub oak forests.

Eastern turkey

The eastern is the most abundant and hunted subspecies of the five North American turkey subspecies. An estimated 5.1 to 5.3 million of them inhabit roughly the eastern half of the country, plus a few western states.

The bronze-colored bird is among the biggest subspecies of wild turkey. Adults can be as tall as 4 feet and weigh more than 20 pounds.

Osceola turkey

Found only on the peninsula of Florida, the Osceola was named in 1890 for the famous Seminole chief.

It's smaller than the eastern turkey with darker feathers that show iridescent green and red hues. About 80,000 to 100,000 of them inhabit the state of Florida.

Gould's turkey

The least known wild turkey of North American is the rare Gould's. Only 650 to 800 are found in portions of Arizona and New Mexico, but it is abundant in the mountains of northern Mexico.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Forest Service, the Centro Ecologico de Sonora, the National Wild Turkey Federation and other agencies are working to reintroduce a stronger Gould's population into Arizona and eventually other states where suitable habitat exists.

The Gould's resembles the Merriam's turkey except for the white tips on its tail feathers and the copper and greenish reflections of its lower back and rump feathers. ]]->