Written by Jessi Cole, Photography by Michael Martin
The Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp is a program and endeavor put together by Mossy Oak to raise money for wild turkey conservation. The team chooses the artwork for each year's stamp carefully; so far, the artwork has come from either important paintings in Mossy Oak or the Haas's family's history or from well-loved artist friends of the brand.
David (Buzz) Nichols is the artist behind the 2026 Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp painting, “Watchful Eye.” The sun-drenched hen and poults colored pencil drawing is a nod to the future generations of wild turkeys, as well as the future generations of turkey hunters and conservationists alike. It's the first departure from a gobbler on the stamp, and everyone believed it was time to feature the generations of birds for which the stamp's earnings is going to protect.
When sketching towards a final version of "Watchful Eye," Nichols envisioned a hen and her young poults coming up and out of a clearing into an old road bed or washout in the edge of the woods. He could see it in his mind. He says, “The day Daniel [Haas] asked me to do the artwork, I sat down with my kids’ magic markers and some printer paper just to start sketching out some ideas. There wasn’t any real agenda. I just sat down and started drawing.”
Artist David Nichols sits to sketch out a new drawing at his table.
Daniel and Nichols had become friendly on Instagram through Nichols’ social media account, @_longbird_, an account he created to encourage the type of respect and passion for the pursuit of hunting that he knows and grew up with. He wanted to share his experiences and thoughts towards the wild and towards turkey hunting.
“I saw a lot of people being influenced or persuaded by people I didn’t feel were the best representatives of hunting from the way I grew up. If I could change even one young person’s mind or outlook on hunting, then it would be worth it,” he says.
On his social media, he shares stories of hunts, stories of family, of friends, and of his inspirations and heroes in the outdoor space. Most recently, he's been proud to share stories of his young sons' turkey hunts and recollect impactful moments in the woods with his own father, in the mountains and valleys of East Tennessee and North Georgia.
One of his most recent captions reads, “We are to continue the legacy laid out long before us and to preserve the dirt covered blueprint for the next generation of Turkey Hunters and Conservationists to follow....Conservationists do not wish to serve for ourselves or only for the ones we hold close. It’s so much bigger than that. We wish to serve for the ones we will never know.”
And as like-minded and like-hearted people tend to do, Daniel and David and a small group of passionate turkey hunters found each other. The turkey hunting crowd and industry seems to grow every day, but community can be always be found among those championing a cause; in this case, the cause is respect. Respect for the wild turkey, respect for conservation, and respect for the generations that will come after us.
Nichols says being part of the 2026 Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp was a no-brainer, though finding the time for his artwork can be difficult with his three young children and growing business. Though he draws in some capacity nearly every day, he jokes that it mostly amounts to a turkey running across a notebook at work.
“Anything I can do to contribute to the conservation of wild turkeys—I feel like that’s an honor and not something that I could pass up,” he says.
The hen and poults were a subject he hadn’t explored before. He laughs and says that he can draw a gobbler “blindfolded,” so a hen and poults were a fun test of his talents. He says, “A hen with the next generation surrounding her is symbolic of what we’re trying to achieve with the next generations. It jumped out to me as meaning a lot more than just a hen and poults.”
Sketchwork and the final version of "Watchful Eye."
The detailed colored pencil drawing is also a departure from the previous stamps of oil and acrylic paintings. The fine detail on "Watchful Eye" is an incredible testament to the beauty of colored pencil artwork and the talent that lays behind each purposeful line and feathering. It's a talent that Nichols has been honing since he was a child, always watching nature with a particularly keen eye and trying to capture it with a pencil and paper.
Mossy Oak is honored to have David Nichols as the featured artist for the 2026 Mossy Oak Wild Turkey Stamp, and the sun-drenched hen and poults stamp is one that will certainly stand-out in the collection.
The new stamp is available for purchase now; all proceeds go directly towards wild turkey conservation efforts.
