Legend Biography

Born Aug. 20, 1930, in Mobile, Ala., Carl Fox Haas, of West Point, Miss., was instrumental in the re-
establishment of wild turkeys in east central Mississippi, hosting one of the region’s first successfully
transplanted flocks on land under his control in the 1970s. In cooperation with state wildlife officials, strict
management efforts and supervision of the resource helped 10 transplanted hens and two transplanted
jakes flourish into 60 birds in three years’ time, then saw that flock disperse as it continued to expand
throughout the hollows and river bottoms of the state’s prairie region in the years that followed.
“It was very rewarding, to see them thrive like that,” Haas says, “particularly when turkey hunting is a
sport you enjoy so much. You’re there before daylight, and you’re watching the sun come up through the
trees. You hear the woods wake up. I don’t know that you can separate the experience into pieces. It’s all
part of the same thing.”
Haas spent his childhood in southern Alabama, where he called his first turkey to the gun in 1944 using a
mouth call he made himself. He graduated from high school in Mobile in 1947 and enrolled at Mississippi
State College, now Mississippi State University, in the fall of that year. A bout with tuberculosis that
interrupted his studies kept him bed-bound for more than three years. This experience formed a bedrock
of patience, understanding and wisdom that has served him and his family well over the lifetime that has
followed. Recovering from the disease, he earned his degree in animal science in 1956 and went to work
for Bryan Foods, of West Point, as a cattle buyer, an occupation from which he retired in 1990. He began
acquiring land in 1957, first for his own use, then for that of his descendants.
“I’ve always loved to hunt,” Haas says, “and early on I was able to take advantage of places that had
established wildlife populations, but it dawned on me somewhere in mid-life, if I was going to continue to
enjoy it, and my children and grandchildren were going to enjoy it, we needed to try to give back more
than we were taking away.”
Today he and his family continue to plant trees where depleted farmland once stood, reforesting more
than 1,000 acres to date, primarily in hardwood. They manage more than 300 acres of waterfowl habitat,
and they share the bounty with their fellow outdoorsmen.
Mr. Fox and his wife, Evelyn, have three children and nine grandchildren.