President Jimmy Carter, Turkey Hunter

At 92 years old, former President Jimmy Carter took his biggest turkey ever—a 24 1/2-pound gobbler—with Bill and Tyler Jordan at Realtree Farms. (Photo by Realtree)

Bill and Tyler Jordan are no strangers to hosting famous people for turkey hunts at Realtree Farms in Georgia. They’ve called in birds for pro athletes, NASCAR drivers, country music artists, and other celebrities over the years, but one guest and one hunt in particular stands out among the rest.

It was a beautiful spring morning in 2017, and they’d heard a gobbler sound off in the distant hardwoods. Tyler and the guest set up against a tree 20 yards from the wood line, and Bill found a spot behind them to settle in and start calling. Bill made a few soft yelps, but nothing happened at first. Thirty minutes passed and then 45. Tyler began to worry about the guest’s comfort. He was, after all, 92 years old.

But movement caught their eye, and Tyler spotted the gobbler strutting in the hardwoods about 40 yards away. The tom had slipped in silently and caught the whole party off guard. The situation wasn’t looking good, and the hunter wasn’t in a good position for a shot. Tyler whispered to him, and the old man rose to his knees to where he could clearly see the bird. He took aim and fired, and the tom flopped to the ground. It was a big one, too — a whopping 24 ½ pounds — the hunter’s biggest turkey ever.

The man, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, was all smiles.

The 39th president was known for a deep commitment to public service, but those closer to him also knew he was an avid outdoorsman, conservationist, and an obsessive turkey hunter who took more than 60 gobblers throughout his lifetime. He killed nine of those birds while hunting with Bill and Tyler at Realtree Farms.

A FRIENDSHIP FORMED

Although Carter lived approximately an hour and a half from Bill in Plains, Georgia, the two men had never crossed paths until the day of their first shared turkey hunt. That event began coming together back in 2014 when a Secret Service agent called the Realtree office and said that President Carter knew about Realtree Camouflage and the Jordans, and that he wanted to hunt with them. Both Bill and Tyler were thrilled about the prospect of hunting with the former president, even if they didn’t quite know what to expect. They set the date for the hunt.

Bill and Carter became close friends during their years of turkey hunting together.

“Back then, I was coaching both my son and daughter’s softball teams, and I was running late to meet President Carter in camp after my daughter’s game,” Bill says. “I pulled up to our lodge, and before I could even get out of the car, President Carter walked up with a big smile on his face and told me it was a pleasure to meet me. I apologized for being late and told him about the game. He assured me that the game was more important. I could tell by his demeanor that he was genuine and kind. Our bond was instant.”

Tyler, who was in his early 20s when he started hunting with Carter, says he was very fond of the former president and admired his down-to-earth personality and kind heart.

“We’ve been lucky to meet a lot of cool people and take them hunting on the farm,” Tyler says. “President Carter acted just as normal as anyone. He was as kind and thoughtful as people said he was. He felt like a family member to me…like a grandfather. He was a small-town guy at heart, and if you know his story, you know he was also a true humanitarian.”

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Following that first hunt, Carter became a much-loved friend and hunting companion who visited the farm every spring. “Over the years, we developed a deep friendship,” Bill says. “We could talk about anything. Nothing was off limits. We talked about hunting, fishing and our families. We even talked politics. It didn’t matter that we didn’t always agree. Our conversations were always honest and civil. We truly cared for and trusted each other.”

CARTER’S EARLY YEARS

James Earl Carter Jr. was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, a small town where he was raised during the Great Depression. His home had neither running water or electricity during his early childhood. Carter’s father was a peanut farmer and his mother was a nurse. He developed a strong sense of responsibility and moral values from their influence and his Southern Baptist faith. Carter graduated as the valedictorian of his high school and eventually attended the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1946. He married Rosalynn Smith and together they had three sons and a daughter. After his father's death in 1953, Carter returned to Plains to take over the family peanut business.

Tyler displays the last bird Carter took at Realtree Farms, when he was 96 years old.

Carter entered politics in the early 1960s, serving in the Georgia State Senate before becoming governor of Georgia in 1971. His integrity and outsider status helped fuel his rise on the national stage. In 1976, Carter ran for president, narrowly defeating incumbent Gerald Ford to become the 39th president of the United States.

During his presidency from 1977 to 1981, Carter focused on human rights, energy reform, and government efficiency. He brokered the historic Camp David Accords, leading to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. However, his term was challenged by high inflation, an energy crisis, and the Iran hostage crisis, all of which significantly hurt his popularity. He lost his bid for a second term to Ronald Reagan.

Though his time in office had mixed reviews, Carter is widely praised for his post-presidency humanitarian work. After Carter’s presidential term ended, he and Rosalynn founded The Carter Center with the mission to promote human rights and alleviate suffering around the world. The Carters also led the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project for Habitat for Humanity for more than 30 years. The couple worked alongside more than 108,100 volunteers at building, renovating, and repairing more than 4,447 homes in 14 countries.

Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development,” according to a press release from the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

A CONSERVATION LEGACY

Carter’s efforts also expanded to conservation and environmental issues. Like the Jordans, Carter had grown up as an outdoorsman and had a strong connection to the land. Hunting, and particularly turkey hunting, was a cherished pastime that he continued throughout his life. He saw it as a way to connect with nature, unwind from the pressures of political life, and bond with friends and family.

Carter, who enjoyed building box calls, fixed one of Bill’s broken box calls and signed it for him.

Carter loved the outdoors and recognized the need to balance wildlife conservation with recreational hunting. He used his positions in office to push programs that prioritized good stewardship of natural resources. As a Georgia State Senator, he founded The Georgia Conservancy in 1967, which protected numerous state sites such as Sweetwater Creek State Park, Panola Mountain State Park, Ossabaw Island, and The Okefenokee Swamp.

In 1972, as governor, he helped create the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. In 1973, he vetoed the construction of a dam on the Flint River at Sprewell Bluff. To this day, the Flint River remains unimpeded in its flow for over 200 miles, and it is only one of 40 such rivers in the U.S. able to make that claim. In 1975, Carter established the Georgia Heritage Land Trust to purchase and preserve unique lands.

During his presidency, he expanded federal lands to establish and protect 10 new wilderness areas through the Endangered Wilderness Act. He also created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other national park units, and he implemented policies to address environmental issues like toxic waste and energy conservation. Many of Carter’s conservation accomplishments are documented on the National Park Service website.

Carter also wrote 32 books that cover a variety of topics including some about the outdoors. His books Sharing Good Times and An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections are about his love of hunting and fishing and the significant impact the outdoors have had on his life. In 2016, he was inducted into the Georgia Outdoor Writer’s Hunting and Fishing Hall of Fame just a year after beating stage 4 melanoma.

SECRET SERVICE AT REALTREE FARMS

Bill says that even though they immediately hit it off with the humble former president, there were still reminders that he was a very important person, including the ever-present Secret Service agents.

Carter took nine birds during his hunts at Realtree Farms over a span of five years.

“Since he was a former president, the Secret Service were always with him to protect him, even when he turkey hunted with me,” Bill says. “There were six Secret Service members and they would check everything out to ensure President Carter’s safety. They took their job seriously. When he’d stay the night on our farm, the six agents would stay as well. They’d work shifts and two of them would stay up throughout the night to keep an eye on things. They were always on guard. They’d even back the vehicles into the parking spots at our farm in case they had to leave in a rush. That’s just how the Secret Service works.”

Of course, six secret service agents, plus President Carter, Tyler, and Bill, equates to a bunch of people to hide from a wary gobbler. Bill says that during their first hunt, President Carter insisted that the agents remain back at the lodge and not go with them into the woods. They eventually relented and handed Bill a radio, saying, “We can find you anywhere if you have any issues. Just punch the code and we will come to you.”

A REAL TURKEY HUNTER

“You can tell a lot about a person from the way they hunt,” Bill says. “President Carter was a very active and involved hunter, even at his advanced age. He had superb woodsmanship skills and insisted on doing everything for himself.”

Tyler adds that Carter was a dogged hunter who would spend hours pursuing birds.

“He’d hunt all morning, come back to the lodge for a quick lunch and go back out again and hunt throughout the afternoon, which is pretty amazing when you consider his age at the time,” Tyler says with a laugh. “During our hunts together, I learned that he also had a lot of patience. Some guests I take for their first time don’t want to sit anywhere very long. But President Carter would hunt for hours and hours without complaint.”

Carter was very serious about his hunting and he expected the same out of everyone else around him. Tyler says the former president was always aware of what everyone was doing — and not doing — during the hunt.

Tyler says he became so close to Carter that he thought of him like a grandfather.

“If our facemasks were up, but our gloves were off, he’d tell us to get our gloves on,” Tyler says. “If he was out there hunting with us, he’d make sure we stayed up to par with him too and that we were taking the hunt as seriously as he was.”

Even though Carter took more than 60 wild turkeys throughout his life, each bird was a big deal to him. “We don’t usually weigh our turkeys,” Tyler says, “but President Carter weighed all of his. He also carefully measured their beards and spurs, and knew those measurements down to the eighth inch.”

And despite being in his early 90s when he began hunting with the Jordans, Carter was remarkably fit and spry. Tyler says he had no problem crawling some distance on his hands and knees to sit down at the edge of a field or against a tree. And he was extremely independent, and often wouldn’t let anyone help him, including Bill himself. “If I was sitting close to him and we’d get up to move hunting locations, he wouldn’t let me help him,” Bill says. “He wouldn’t even let me pick up his gun to help him. He wanted to do it all himself.”

A SIGNED PORTRAIT

Carter became a painter in his later years, and he painted a portrait of a gobbler that he signed and gifted to the Jordans. He also documented in writing each hunt with Tyler and Bill and gifted those letters to them. His friendship with the Jordans also extended outside of hunting. In fact, he invited the entire Jordan family to attend Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains where he’d taught the class since 1981 after leaving the White House and returning home.

The Jordans were invited to sit in a roped-off section toward the front of the church.

“President Carter started the lesson by asking the congregation, ‘How many of you hunt? Has anyone heard of Realtree Camo? We have my good friends Bill and family as our guests,’” Bill says. “He told the congregation how he enjoyed turkey hunting with us and talked about our shared love of the outdoors. He gave us a shout out. His wife, Rosalynn, later told me, ‘I can’t begin to tell you how much fun Jimmy has had hunting with you. Thank you.’ I, of course, told her it was our pleasure and that we’ve had so much fun being able to hunt with him.”

Carter painted and signed this turkey portrait as a way to say “thanks” to Bill for his hospitality and friendship.

Carter, Tyler, and Bill continued to hunt together, but Tyler says they had quite a scare in the spring of 2019 while they were waiting at the lodge for Carter to join them for a turkey hunt. “As we were waiting for him to arrive, the Secret Service called and said that he’d fallen and was on the way to the hospital.” Tyler says. They learned that Carter had broken his hip and wouldn’t be able to hunt the rest of the season. But the determined hunter wasn’t about to let his injury crush his spirit and he made plans from the hospital to hunt with Bill and Tyler the following season. He kept to his plans and hunted Realtree Farms for two more seasons, although his ability to get around was limited. Carter’s final hunt with the Jordans was in 2021, when he was 96 years old.

In July that year, Bill says he and Tyler attended the Carters’ 75th wedding anniversary. A year and a half later, on November 19, 2023, Rosalynn passed away at the age of 96, after being diagnosed with dementia earlier that year.

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After surviving a series of hospital stays, Carter entered hospice care in February 2023 at his home in Plains. He turned 100 on October 1, 2024, making him the longest-lived president in U.S. history. He passed away on December 29, just a little over a year after Rosalynn’s death.

“I was deer hunting less than 50 yards from where he’d shot that big 24 ½-pound turkey when I got a news notification that he’d passed,” Tyler says. “It was the first time I’d ever deer hunted in that spot. Even though I expected it to be coming because of his poor health, I was pretty emotional. It was the last hour of daylight, and I sat there and reflected on him, our hunts together and how meaningful they were.”

Bill says Tyler texted him when he found out about Carter’s passing. “We texted back and forth and responded to each other’s thoughts and memories,” Bill says. “We were truly heartbroken. We’d lost a good friend.”

Carter, Tyler and Bill bonded over a shared love of turkey hunting and a passion for the outdoors.

Carter's funeral was held Jan. 9 in Washington, D.C., and then President Joe Biden declared it a National Day of Mourning. Later that day, family and invited guests attended a private memorial service at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. Bill and Tyler attended that and said it was surreal to be back at the church where they had been invited to attend his Sunday school class years earlier as honored guests.

“The service was very emotional,” Bill says. “Inside the church, they had monitors showing the arrival of the casket. U.S. Navy pilots executed a ‘missing man formation’ overhead in his honor and members of the U.S. military carried his flag-draped casket into the church. It was one of the most moving moments of my life.”

Following the service, Carter was laid to rest alongside Rosalynn in his beloved hometown of Plains.

Although Jimmy Carter had travelled the world during his years of public service, he never forgot his small-town roots and he always held on to his love of the outdoors and turkey hunting. Most of all, he’ll be remembered for living out the lessons he taught in Sunday school at that modest Baptist church in his rural home town.

At the conclusion of each lesson, he’d issue a challenge for all in attendance to do one good thing for one other person. Carter suggested that through one simple gesture of kindness, together we can change the world. And that’s exactly what he did.

His legacy is not only defined by the high offices he held in U.S. government, but by the quiet, steady example he set through a life of compassion, humility, and service. Whether he was on the world stage advocating for peace and equality, teaching Sunday school in his home town church, walking the Georgia woods in search of wild turkeys, or sharing stories with friends in hunt camp, Carter found purpose in both grand quests and simple moments. His call to do just one good thing for another person continues on as a powerful reminder that greatness is often found in simple acts.

“President Carter’s small gestures of kindness made a huge impact on my life and my desire to be a good person,” Tyler says. “Thanks to him, I’ll never underestimate the power of an act of kindness.”