At 4:30 am last Tuesday my watch alarm went off with a feeble series of beeps. I rolled groggily out of bed. God, I hate spring turkey hunting. It comes right after the switch to Daylight Savings Time, so 4:30 feels like 3:30. Hunting alone means no one will care if you don't show up. The temptation to stay in bed was great, especially with a warm, soft, sexy wife there. Besides, I'd been skunked the last two years running. I was thinking once again of giving up the sport. What's the point of killing yourself for nothing?I didn't even take the time to make coffee. If I fell asleep against a tree, so be it. I washed my face, decked myself out in camo, gobbled a breakfast of sorts, and headed out to the turkey woods under a bright full moon. I had an idea of where the turkeys would be, since I had been there the day before on the season opener. The gobbler had pretty much ignored my calls then, as gobblers usually do, but I was naturally hoping that this day would be different.
I didn't have to hoot like an owl to locate the birds because the racoons were on a real terror. If I hadn't been armed with the largest shotgun that the law allows, I might have been afraid. Sounding more like mountain lions than 'coons, their horrific barks induced a shock gobble, and I located the bird in almost the same place as before. I decided to set up down in the bottom where he had landed when he came off the roost on the previous day. I found a good-sized tree to sit by, but couldn't decide whether I should try to get closer or not. I let out an owl hoot to try to locate him a bit more precisely, but got no response. I decided to move a little closer.
I hadn't taken five steps when I heard, then saw, two turkeys flush from a nearby tree. Dang! I had blown it. I might as well go home and get some sleep. But I had heard a gobble when the birds flushed. I figured a turkey probably can't fly and gobble at the same time, so I decided to stay because the tom was likely to still be there.
I backed up to my original tree, set out three decoys behind me, unfurled my new teepee blind, and sat back against the tree, but didn't fall asleep. As it grew lighter, I could see the gobbler strutting on the branch. I watched him from then on. It was a good sign. If he was relaxed enough to strut, then he hadn't seen me. He gobbled occasionally as sunrise approached, but not much. Finally, he flew down. As I had predicted, he flew off to my right and away--where I've seen them go in past years, and the direction the hens had gone.
I didn't call until he hit the ground. I gave a series of yelps with a diaphragm call, and got no response. So I picked up my wooden boat paddle call and struck another yelping bout. This time he gobbled back at me. Promising, but I thought I needed to be more aggressive, especially if he had met up with his hens already. Just the day before, world famous ornithologist Tom Dunstan, who occupies the office next to mine, had suggested the "dueling hens" call. I cut a wicked cackle with the mouth call and stroked out a yelping series on the paddle box. The turkey gobbled before I finished the calls. I paused for a minute and repeated the double call. It worked again, and at least he wasn't moving away. I repeated the cycle two or three times before I could tell he was coming toward me.
Because he was off to my right, I turned my body 90 degrees in that direction and pulled a wing of the blind in front of me. The turkey appeared out of the brush about 50 yards away, then went into full strut.
Luckily, he moved behind a large tree, which allowed me to raise my gun into position. He broke strut and looked suspicious for a bit. He could have been eyeing me or the decoys. He went back into strut, peeked in and out between the trees while coming in closer, and gobbled once or twice. By this time I had so much adrenaline in my blood that my heart was pounding in my ears and my body was beginning to shake. What's worse, my shaking was causing the blind to shake. I thought if he got much closer he'd spook for sure, so when he went back into strut and walked between the trees straight toward me I put the bead shakily on his neck and let him have it. It was still maybe a 40-yard shot, but I had a lot of faith in the big Browning.
At the roar of the 10 gauge he went down flopping. I ran over and let out a "YES!" at maximal volume. I guess I had a lot of pent up emotion. It's been three years since I killed a spring turkey, and that had been a mere jake. This was a mature tom, a real gobbler. He weighed 22 pounds even, had a 9.5-inch beard, sported 9/16ths-inch spurs, and was probably two years old.
The fellow managing the turkey check station caught me off guard when he asked how long I'd been hunting turkeys. I figured it was about 10 years, and I only had two birds to show for them (although fall seasons have provided several more birds). For four of those years I didn't hunt turkeys, which makes my average one spring turkey per three years of active hunting. Perhaps with experience my average will increase. Or perhaps just one experience like this year's makes it all worthwhile.
Copyright 2001 Joseph R. CoelhoAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.